Hmmmmm....

Well, that was eloquent, wasn't it?

You see, I'm feeling a bit hmmmm-ish these days.

I'm not entirely sure where the hmmmm-s come from.  Or, more accurately, I'm not entirely sure from where within a myriad of sources my hmmms-s are coming.  I've been thinking a lot about civility these days.  It may be because the folks at the Demie Diva's school are about head, heart, hands - and one of the central issues facing our country these days deals with head and heart.

I wasn't going to talk politics.  Not surprisingly, I'm a total liberal.  Good grief, I have a kid with an expensive medical condition, I'm from a state that still mourns Humphrey and Wellstone, and I support "rights" and "taxes" of all sorts.  I had the best preventative care of my life when I lived in the UK, land of the NHS.

But, I've noticed, in this season of political muckraking, soup kitchen photo ops, invocation of God in a Chief Justice's race, and so on, that we quit being nice to each other a long time ago.

I'm not sure when it happened, to be honest.  When did please and thank you actually go away?  When did lack of concern for our fellow human beings become the norm?  When did the ability to get off our butts and solve problems for ourselves cease?  Was it when we started blaming people who weren't as advantaged through no fault of their own for circumstances beyond their control?  Was it when we expected instant fixes to all our problems without an understanding of the GENERATIONS of work that went into getting us instant information?

Why am I thinking deep thoughts right now?  I've been thinking about the Demie Diva's birth mother.  I have no idea where this is coming from - but she is haunting my thoughts.   It may be because the Demie Diva is commanding her birth story right now.  We have to tell it every night at bedtime.  And, every night, the Demie Diva adds the things that are important to her to the "and A. wanted her baby to have things she knew she couldn't give her, like..."litany.  The list has gone from a swingset, a piano, and a doggy named Diva Chien to a table, a hula hoop, books, princesses, a bed, and so on.  It's an hysterical rendering of the things that are important to my daughter.

It's also a sad commentary on the things that I take for granted as "normal" for a little girl to have.  I buy on sale.  I buy on the cheap.  But I don't buy "cheap".  Nor do the Diva Grandparents.  And yet, in a different life, most of those things would be the Dollar Store versions.  No one would help the Demie Diva find her idiosyncratic way.  No one would pull her up short when she's being a tyrant because something has hurt her little heart, and she's lashing out.

You see, the Demie Diva's birthmother is having seizures again.  Seizures that, I'm sure, are due to head trauma that was inflicted on her by the Demie Diva's birthfather.  She needs surgery - but I'm not sure it'll happen.  She needed to be somewhere other than the resource room when she was in school - but it didn't happen because of socioeconomics and psycho-ed needs that weren't met.

And I'm back to the beginning.  When did we quit looking out for each other?  When did the programs that are supposed to help those who need help to help themselves fail them?  When did it become okay to trash those who are different than oneself for no cause other than because they're different?

I don't know.  I think, perhaps, we've always deluded ourselves this way.  But, with the presence of evangelical politicians, the voice of Fred Phelps and his flunkies, the hatred and antipathy toward our fellow man that has been nascent forever has emerged in full vitriol.

Maybe, just maybe, the generation that had "cocktail parties" had it right.  It's a little hard to hate those with whom you share food and drink.  Shame that we have so much loathing in our differences that we are unable to commune.