5 things about 2010 to keep in mind for 2011

1. Who put the diss in dystopia?

From codifying racial profiling laws to proposals to nullify the 14th amendment; from characterizing the DREAM Act as opening the door to ravening hordes to criminalizing all people of a given ethnicity or identity, this year was marked by the type of shameless xenophobia that seems a precursor to the establishment of a radically dystopian society.

To my horror, the dystopian novel I started writing a number of years ago is no longer so imaginative or far-fetched -- especially when it comes to our legislated treatment of “the other.”

But there’s this to carry into 2011: the architects of SB1070 in Arizona and copycat legislation in other states (including Rep. Metcalfe here in Pa.); the DREAM Act naysayers; those who propose to gut the 14th Amendment because they don’t like the color, class ethnicity and documentation status of those giving birth these days on U.S. soil … they only stay in office and retain power over the lives and well-being of our brothers and sisters if we let them.

So let’s not let them.

2. Party like it's 1984

2010 has been a banner year for what George Orwell termed doublespeak. Less than a month ago I was the recipient of a press release that claimed that museums were only for elitists and called for defunding them in the name of social justice.

Say what?

Guess only those who can afford to own a Fra Angelico or an Egyptian sarcophagus should get to ever see one. Guess us working class blokes don’t deserve access to art and history and cultural patrimony and education. Yup, that’s the definition of social justice. In some parallel universe.

I wish the doublespeak of the release were an isolated instance. But how many talk radio and TV commentators and legislators do you remember having twisted meaning that way in the past year? And how many times?

Even if you don’t want to think of it as doublespeak, think of it as savaged language. In the immigration debate alone, reform -- a word meaning the reorganization and improvement of something -- has been twisted into amnesty -- a pardon for a political crimes. Undocumented -- describing the state of being without documents, written information or reference -- is now illegal -- which doesn’t mean lawbreaker (the way many politicos use it) but forbidden by law.

There’s no way to stop the cynical and intentional degradation of meaning except to refuse to engage in it. The Society of Professional Journalists recently resolved to swap undocumented for illegal when referring to human beings -- and kudos to them for doing so, even if it took them f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Now, if we can convince the Associated Press to follow their lead in 2011.

And speaking of press….

3. No country for old men

2010 brought us rulings impacting net neutrality; a firestorm about information uncovered and released by Wikileaks -- along with allegations about governmental suppression and about the organization’s founder; and ongoing self-censorship by news media and other organizations averse to confrontation.

Sheesh.

When I was growing up in a Guatemala that permitted no story published except “the official story;” where genocide resulted from an exaggerated sense of threatened national security; where a cardinal was assassinated for fear of the reports of governmental malfeasance the Church was set to release, I looked on reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and executive editors like Ben Bradlee, as my heroes. A free press afforded, I thought, a measure of protection against oppression.

Alas, just as I’ve become more cowardly as I’ve aged (earlier blog post and not getting into it again) so has the press.

I’ve always liked the following biblical passage for its neat turn of phrase: “[Y]our sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” The last number of years, but particularly this past year, the “old men” of the press have been too caught up in nightmares of decline and demise of the traditional media to recognize how they’ve (we’ve) abandoned the real dreams -- of providing access and information to a wide swath of people; of exposing and holding governments and individuals accountable for their words and actions; of providing a place where, sometimes, voiceless would be heard.

A free press, without fear of overstatement, is one of the best tools for preventing repression and safeguarding civil liberties any society has. Unless, of course, it decides to eviscerate itself by caving to censorship and the trump card all governments eventually play -- national security.

With the twitter reporting and citizen journalism of June 2009 in Iran -- during the demonstrations that temporarily made an Iranian daughter, Neda Soltan, world renowned -- I held hope for the equalizing and globally unprecedented access to information offered by new media. The “prophesy” of our sons and daughters. Unoppressable information, if you will. And in many ways web-based media has started to live up to that. But the vision is only half-formed and will soon, it seems, be restricted according to economic advantage. Those who can pay for “the front page” will have it.

In the discourse about access, about the economy and politics of information, I fervently hope that in 2011 our “old men” start remembering the vision that undergirds a free press, and that our “sons and daughters” spend some time dreaming for it a future that isn’t determined by the highest bidder.

4. I'm talking to the man in mirror

I think God probably has a pretty terrific (in several meanings of the word) sense of humor and a most exacting sense of justice. So I have this completely undoctrinal belief that when we each come to our final judgment, God’s going to wear the face of the person(s) we were least able to see Him in during our life.

Sometimes I entertain myself by thinking what that face will be for public figures with big mouths and a demonizing bent. (Like, “OMG, He’s an ‘illegal!’” Or, “What the flip … God’s a ‘terror baby!’”)

But then I remember that for me -- if I die before midnight tonight, anyway -- God’s going to be wearing the face of that minister from Fla. who threatened, in the name of some perverse version of Christianity, to burn the Q’uran on 9/11. Or maybe it’ll be “Speak English” cheesesteak maven and anti-immigration Philly boy, Joey Vento. Or any of a number of public figures who don’t evince a bit of shame in working to make life harder for the poorer or the browner or the most vulnerable members of our human family.

2011 will no doubt bring other candidates to picture in this challenge. And I’m going to have to find my way through my disdain and my sense of righteous indignation to recognize Him in their features. Honestly, I don’t know that I’ll ever be successful at it. But that’s okay, I’ll keep trying anyway.

Because I kinda think that’s the point of faith.

5. Miracles happen

The Chilean miners get rescued,

Spain wins the World Cup.

My short stories get published.

They all seemed, at some point, absolutely impossible. (Someday I'll blog about this year's hard disc crash that ate my novel and all my poems and short stories -- including the ones that were published in 2010 and the ones slated, so far, for 2011).

Don’t despair. Keep breathing. Keep advocating (or agitating). Keep running (and kicking). Keep creating (or praying, or both at once).

Trust in the kindness of people, even those you don't know. Trust that, for some inexplicable reason, people will cheer you on, and go out of their way for you, or just hang on to what you need so when you need it, there it is.

Call it by whatever name you want, just give it thanks for the way the ups always (no matter how long it takes) follow the downs.

Because, hey, sometimes the wonderfully improbable just up and happens.

See you in 2011.

Life is a carnival

As we race toward the end of the year, we're racing also toward the end of the decade.

What were you doing when the calendar rolled over to 2000? How much has your life changed in the ensuing 10 years? (I'm really asking, by the way.)

I rang in the year 2000 with my husband, daughter, parents and Wally Reinhardt, a good family friend, on beaches of the Mexican Riviera - dancing on the sand to live music and watching a "torito" of fireworks burn the first few minutes of the 21st century away. There seemed nothing, nothing at all, that would make a better beginning.

A week or so later, my family would troop to Mexico City for my daughter's belated baptism and the subsequent party - notable for its food and the canary who picked my daughter's fortune from a basket. "You will be happy," my daughter's fortune read. "And although destiny has made you pretty, do not be conceited. Work to keep a noble heart." We were all happy. I remember it on our faces. And around the table, some very noble hearts.

My husband, daughter and I returned from Mexico to our snowy cabin in the woods outside of Hamilton, N.Y. It was - and still is - the little corner of the world best loved by my heart. Coy-dogs and wild turkeys and deer were our closest neighbors. We awaited the yearly crop morel mushrooms, gem-studded puffballs, mayapples and trout lilies on the ground; the crayfish, little jeweled frogs and brown trout in the stream; and the tiny hummingbird nests hidden halfway to the sky.

We settled back into our routines, the day-to-day lives that now, in retrospect, stand as the best of times. Then, little more than a month into 2000, my mother died.

It was the opening salvo of a decade that when it comes to an end on Dec. 31, will have included more sorrows than joys, more destruction than creation, more heartache than heart's ease.

I miscarried a child. And then another and another. We moved away from our beloved woods. My father got sick, suffered, died. Friends I thought I'd never lose, I did. My husband was unemployed for half the decade. We went from poor but solvent to poor and insolvent and worried about just making it from week to week. Depression, PTSD-like effects of childhood sexual abuse, health concerns, surgeries. It seems like the litany of darkness might go on until the end of time.

And yet.

My brothers both married in this decade, as did one of my brothers in law. I have six nieces and nephews now - all amazing little beings as distinct from one another as the leaves I see changing outside the window today. My daughter has grown from an amazing 5-year-old to an amazing 15-year-old and guess what? She's survived my parenting just fine. My husband is employed at a job he loves. Friends I never thought to seek have made their way into my life. I've discovered social media in this decade, and rediscovered every kind of writing I ever loved and had set aside - from journalism to poetry.I also rediscovered the peculiar joy of seeing my words paid, and in print.

Rediscovery has, in fact, been the hallmark of this decade for me.

The social justice activism I set aside after college has re-emerged in advocacy for immigrants. The religion I also wholly set aside is now part of my everyday life. The assimilated Latina gave way to something just a little different - a woman in community. A mucha honra.

I don't think my ups and downs are unique to my decade. We need only look at the highs and lows of the economy; the ways both the best of the American Dream and the worst have taken center stage in our collective lives; the ways we have lived, in Dickens' words, the best and worst of times.

Not too many months ago my family attended the carnival at St. Joe's Parish in Downingtown. Yes, the ferris wheel photo at the top of this post is from that outing. I have always been an adrenaline junkie - no person in news business can be otherwise - and have done my share of facing down fears. Scared of snakes? Then, let me drape myself in them while on a trip to Thailand. Scared of heights? Let me jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet with nothing but a thin tissue of nylon to stop my fall. And still, at the parish carnival, I refused to go on the ferris wheel.(My husband went on it with my daughter.) I had to be coerced, in fact, to go on a horrid pirate ship ride that pitched me forward and backward, with my eyes firmly shut. I'm told the child in the seat in front of me laughed through the whole ride. So, the question is, has this decade birthed fear in me?

The answer is undeniably, yes.

And yet.

I was working on my novel a few days ago (I'll post some other time about how this decade also swallowed whole my last novel). One of the characters is like I was before the calendar page turned in 2000 - seemingly fearless. She climbs as high as she can to get close as she can to the stars. Her explanation? The stars cast their light on us without regard for whether we deserve the illumination or not. Without regard for our fears, or our small, brave stands. Without regard for whether we have become what we imagined, oh say, a decade ago.

This decade has also birthed a sort of awareness of the significant synchronicities in life. The way, if you want (and I do), God sheds light on us. The way, for example, as I'm writing this, my eyes fall on the words of one of columnists in our Catholic newspaper this week:

You know the number of the stars and call each of them by name.

It is a line from the psalms intoned in Morning Prayer - the Divine Office prayed across the globe, every day. I like the rest of the psalm, too. The way it speaks, the way it illuminates the step that bridges closure and beginning:

Heal hearts that are broken, gather together those who have been scattered....

No canary could pick a better wish for a new decade than this. No person could pray for better.