PTSD (All Over Again) / Alex and Toggle

Listen

We're all in this together.

We can send love and encouragement as well as experience, strength and hope, to the newest generation affected by American wars, represented in part by Alex and Toggle in Doonesbury in the last several days.

HERE COMES THE SUN / HOMEWARD BOUND

Listen.

Yesterday's sunlight at Scudder Pond.

"WHEN YOU LEARN A SONG, YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND FOR LIFE"

Listen.

80 degrees in the dappled light.

"SOMETHING GOOD THIS WAY COMES"

Grasshopper jump in the road
Grasshopper jump in the road
Kids they're all running home
The kids
They're all running home

'Cause they know
Something good this way comes
Yeah
Something good this way comes

(from "Something Good This Way Comes," by Jacob Dylan)

The interview is from 2008.

VOICE THAT FINDS ITS WAY

FOR MY YOUNG FRIENDS WHO ARE AFRAID
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot - air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.
- William Stafford

Many thanks to Whiskey River for this poem.

("Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brothers" painted by am in gouache and watercolor just before the First Gulf War)

THUNDERSTORM

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
(Walt Whitman)

On action alone be thy interest, never on its fruits.
(Bhagavad Gita)

And listen to this.

A RITUAL FOR CHANGING TIDES

Goodbye Sadness

Hello Happiness, wherever you are,
I hope you hear my song.
(Yoko Ono)

AIEE! / IN THE LIGHT OF DAY

He loved me. I loved him. He punched me in the face during a nightmare after he returned from Vietnam in 1971. He was never the same after that night. He could never trust himself not to hurt me. He didn't get help until the last months of his life in 2008. Gary Trudeau is telling our story and the story of countless couples throughout the history of war. I'm shaken but grateful to see this in the light of day.

I woke up early in the morning of July 19 after a nightmare that had its source in 1971. I'm not going to elaborate on the nightmare, but a thought I had at the end of the nightmare was:

"We ALL need help. We are not getting it."

The nightmare had turned thoughtful. On the other side of fear was insight and love and community.

I still need to ask for help as I go on with my life, knowing that I am not alone and never was.

What Gary Trudeau is inadvertently bringing to light is that although there is help for veterans, girlfriends of troubled veterans may not find the help they need or even know that they need help, too.