Muscio - Rose: love in violent times

Copyright 2010 by Inga Muscio

A Seven Stories Press First Edition

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Muscio, Inga.
Rose : love in violent times / Inga Muscio. Seven Stories Press 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-60980-144-1
1. ViolenceSocial aspects. 2. Love. I. Title.
HM1116.M87 2010
179.7dc22

2010039366

v3.1

This is dedicated to my brother, Nick.
Your love lives on.

And also to Misty Tenderlove,
for protecting my solitude.

Its such a good feeling to know youre alive.
Its such a happy feeling: Youre growing inside.
And when you wake up ready to say,
I think Ill make a snappy new day.

FRED ROGERS

T he other day I was outside my home, tearing up pieces of bread for the neighborhood crows.

You know, a regular ol anyday afternoon.

An elderly woman Id never seen before approached me at quite a clip.

What are you doing? she asked.

It was one of those annoying questions where the answer is unimportant, for the question is, in fact, an opening salvo for some other item on the agenda.

I am feeding the birds, I responded, awaiting with bated breath the news of her actual concern.

Oh, well, the crows are going to eat it, you know.

Yes, the crows are highly intelligent, and they know I come out around this time every day to feed them.

You feed the crows? Why ever would you feed the crows?

Because theyre members of the community. I feed the other birds closer to my house, where the crows arent comfortable landing.

I hate the crows, she said with rattlesnake venom. They land on my golf cart and get into my lunch. They even open packages of my food! I cant understand why youd feed them!

I gave the crows a silent shout-out and wondered if they figured out how to unlatch her cooler.

Well, were different then. If you bring extra food for the crows when you golf, perhaps they will stay out of your lunch. You can get day-old bread at very reasonable prices from any bakery outlet store.

The idea visibly repulsed her. Humph! No one on the golf course would appreciate that, she said and marched off in a huff.

I hollered after her, The crows would appreciate it!

Most folks would probably not consider this a violent encounter. And yet, the lady intruded upon my quiet bread-breaking meditation and trampled on a moment of my life.

I have learned to pay attention to the way such interactions make me feel. This one left me feeling shitty, like the pall that falls over a party when an obnoxious drunk shows up. Her hatred of the crows resonated into the little world we shared. I felt it very strongly, as was her intention.

According to the Oxford American Dictionary, violence is:

behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something

strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force: the violence of her own feelings

the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force

This definition does a good job of defining certain, well-touted aspects of violence, but it does not define violence.

According to this definition, former BP CEO Tony Hayward did not commit violence when he calmly admitted that he didnt prepare for a drill-baby-drill disaster and instead complained, Id like my life back. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, the influential right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation does not commit violence when it proclaims that sex crimes against children are too harshly punished.

If we were to understand, truly understand, violence and the (often sacred) place it has in the world, and then took that historical imperative into the present and observed how we perpetuate violence as a matter of course in our daily lives, if we learned to see the violence surrounding us, then maybe we could learn to love.

And I mean truly love.

It is difficult to love when you live in a culture of violence.

We live in a culture of violence.

Almost all of our violence is rooted in religion and war.

Many people are raised to believe in religion and war.

I was raised to believe in dictionaries, the ocean, and my mothers rosesin the sanctity and power of life and words.

Lotsa people believe in life and words, but none of them command power in the halls of commerce, in the government, or the militarythat is, the folks featured in the present power dynamic that destroys life.

Its a long shot, but perhaps if we can change ourselves, we can change the present power dynamic.

Here in the US, when, exactly, did/will slavery and the genocide of indians end? How about the occupations of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?

Or the many ecocides taking place so men can make money?

Where do you think acts of great violence go once theyve occurred? Do they fall off the planet, never to be seen or heard from again?

Violence does not exist in a vacuumit has concentric properties. Like screams into the Grand Canyon, acts of violence echo back so many times it is impossible to discern the precise point at which they end.

Repercussions of all of this great violence live on in our everyday lives.

I know people adore taking solace in thinking that we are at the mercy of things much bigger and meaner than usamorphous monsters and conspiracies that destroy the world, rape children, snuff jobs, foreclose homes, cause drug problems, and make life generally stressful, if not unbearable.

We are, however, unwilling to hold ourselves accountable for any of this.

Make no mistakemost forces of violence are bigger than any individual. Yet, they also live in our most intimate lives, inform our own choices and relationships. If we want to have a better world, we cannot shy away from these complexities.

Two short decades ago in the US, children did not fear going outside to play.

Playing outside all hours of the day and night was normal when I was a kid. There were at least twenty-five kids who played big outside games together on our block. Different blocks had different kid packs. Wed play for six hours straight on some summer nights, and the only reason a parent showed up was to tell somebody it was time for dinner or to get on home. Often it wasnt even a parent, but a deeply peeved teenage sibling who had