I’m always moved by the music of the Decemberists
It’s so beautiful and gruesome. One blogger writes, “They write ye olde precious indie music, reveling in aggressive usage of literary devices and folksy interpretations of encyclopedia entries, and their twee performances overflow with corny vaudevillian banter, to the delight of their insufferable teacher's-pet following”
We’ll get back to this in a minute. For now, we go to White Center. Here are our food bank homies:
These days I’m listening to stories told by people who were born in other lands.
(Digression and note of clarification: Other lands means "not the U.S." U.S.emigrants from outside of the Pac NW coast don’t qualify. Yes I know the left coast, the south and the midwest are so very different than western Washington, but when I hear a privileged white person talking about emigrating within the U.S. I get a little cranky. We're Americans; just deal with it. And don’t feel guilty about it, that doesn’t work, I’m not promoting wallowing in white guilt. I just ask that you (we/me) stop whining about the "pain" of making the cultural shift within/between regions of the U.S.)
I’ve heard some amazing stories from my White Center friends. Stories of:
- Crouching in a river holding your three little kids around you because Pol Pot’s soldiers are in your house. One of those kids will die before you get out of the refugee camp. Your husband was already executed. You are 19 years old.
- Fleeing Sarajevo in the night with the clothes you’re wearing: leaving your life’s savings in the bank, and leaving your (grown) son in the hospital where he recovers from having his foot shot off by a sniper.
- Watching your parents run a numbers game, trying to keep one step ahead of the bigger mafia so they can send you to school.
- Your mother putting poison in the family dinner for her, you, and your six siblings to ingest because she couldn't take the American (we call it the "Vietnam") War and its toll anymore. (She stopped short, btw, before everyone ate it. She threw the food away and the family went hungry that night. But they lived, she lived, through the desperation.)
- Successfully operating a profitable import/export business throughout the Khmer Rouge regime only to be crushed by the Viet Cong. So you leave everything behind and give birth on the way to a refugee camp. (Maybe I’ll cover some Latina, Iraqi and Somalian tales in a later post.)
Those stories are intense, and they mean so much to me. To my friends I say, thank you for the honor of including me in your telling.
My story, like that of so many white people, is lost. Or, more accurately, I only have this one story (and I’m sick of it), so I'm trying to patch together all these random stories about "me" and figure how they are mine.
My ancestors fled their Welsh homeland when Christians were killing Druids in the 12th (?) century and it was obvious that they were next. Within a few generations they were identifying as English. In the states they hacked, slashed, burned and murdered their way west, that’s how long we’ve been here. First conquering Missouri, and eventually kicking ass in the Rockies and landing in Idaho.
My stories are myths, and I have to stitch them together. And I’ve got a long way to go.
Now, I don’t have kids so this might be where I get into trouble but here goes: as a parent what stories do you want your kid to carry? What happens when your kids are all about Acuras and Abercrummy and Finch? Do you want your kids to know about the night in the river or digging food out of the garbage? Or do you want to shield your kids from the pain, because you don’t want them to pity or disdain you? What do you teach your kids about the bonds of ancestry?
(For the record: yes, my mother also got our food out of the garbage can for a time in the 70’s, and the only, tired story I have is, “My name is Sarah and I’m an alcoholic…”)
Since I’m not a parent I’ve got to try to understand so I listen to these stories. Here's the one the Decemberists (white, U.S. born people) tell that I like:
Sons and Daughters by the Decemberists
When we arrive
Sons & daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now
These currents pull us 'cross the border
Steady your boats
Arms to shoulder
'till tides will pull
our hull aground
Making this cold harbour now home
Take up your arm
Sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We'll leave our tracks untraceable now
When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now
(We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now)
When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
(Sons and daughters)
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon
(We'll make our homes on the water)
We'll make our homes on the water
(When we build our walls of aluminum)
(We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon)
Here all the bonds they fade away (x20)
Today's vocabulary:
buồn sad
bài hát song(s)
câu chuyện story
du lịch travel
nguy hiểm danger
con trai và con gái sons and daughters
bảo vệ protect
còn sống survive/alive
thích ứng adapt, accomodate
chất độc poison
sông river
thoát khỏi escape
chiến tranh war
