I. According to the Mayan calendar the end of the world is 2012. That is the year that my daughter will be graduating from MIT with a degree in chemical engineering, ready to save the world. Will she be too late?
II. My English friend who just voted for her first American president wears a crystal bracelet specially made for her by her Wells Fargo Japanese American banker. The banker personally chose and strung each crystal with special thoughtfulness about its qualities, stating that if it should break than its work has been done. My friend rejoices not only for the line of credit that she was given to keep her visual effect film studio going but also for this personal act of kindness, the relationship with a banker who really took the time to think about her qualities.
III.There is teenager I know in a high school class for severely handicapped students. He has no hearing and no speech. He spends his day in a wheelchair, but smiles at everyone he sees. Last week his Spanish-speaking father sat unsmiling through a meeting with the specialists and the teacher who serve him and then with tears in his eyes reported that they will be returning to Mexico next week. There is nothing more for them here. Father can get no more work as a day laborer. There is no unemployment check for day laborers, no stimulus package that is aimed to save the immigrant who came seeking a better life for their handicapped children.
IV My husband’s green card holding Iranian ex colleague, one of the hardest working project managers, was laid off last month. He uses a metaphor when talking about the lay off business. He calls it an imprecise science, even as in war and precision bombing, there are always unintended losses. The cost of laying off workers can be high when it comes with severance and then starting over finding some one else who can do the job of the person who just left. He also uses the metaphor of the Gestapo when referring to the layoffs. It goes like this:
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent. I was not a communist.
When they locked up the socialists I remained silent;I was not a socialist.
When they came for the trade unioinists I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews I remained silent; I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.
V.I feel sad. So sad I break my vow and stop writing every day. I think about the experience of massive global depression. There is sadness everywhere I look. Isolation everywhere. Being displaced everywhere. What is left untouched? I cannot write
VI. I watch two plays in one weekend where the actors are so close I can almost feel them breathing on me. Sometimes they look right at me. I feel uncomfortable, as vulnerable as they are. Sometimes I close my eyes. I do not want them to look at me, but they are looking. They know I am there watching them, and I know that I must watch so they can act. I think about how their work is a gift because it makes me feel alive again.
One actor plays Raskolonikov from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment condensed to a 90-minute play about conscience, something that technology seems to have removed from us. Another murder happens at the Fruitvale Bart station while we were at watching the play. Murderers go unprosecuted all the time in Oakland. So many murderers walk the streets but still watch their backs. Now I think about the other criminals: the bankers who gambled away our futures. How they needed us, all of us denizens of the American middle class, all the citizens of the world economy, to make this possible. Do any of then experience guilt for our losses? Obama says he will hire more prosecutors to go after them but can any thing really bring them to repentance for their actions? How easy it is for them to walk away. Still there is Jon Stewart and the Daily Show.
Another actor plays Thom Paine on a stage with nothing, about nothing. Rambling on, losing track of a thought in the middle of a sentence, frightening us even more with the intensity of his emotion.Did Will Eno purposely name this character after Thomas Paine, father of the Age of Reason?
VII. On December 19, 1776 Thomas Paine writes
'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country.
Is he talking to us right now?
THESE are the times that try men's souls…. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy.
I love the man that can smile in trouble that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
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