Asombrado

Asombrado is a word in spanish that means amazed.   I often feel amazed, almost overwhelmed at the fullness of life energy in children .   Just today one of my patients came in, a girl of 9, spirited and comfortable in herself, direct with me, full of plans--truly something beautiful to see.  It reminded me of  a book I read years ago called The Girl Within, and the notion was this: that girls are especially free and full of ideals around 9-12 year old--and when women face difficulties in their adult years, they draw on the strengths of this period to carry on.   Ever since I read this book, I've have a special appreciation for girls of this age--girls who are free to feel their strengths, before they get hit with becoming sexualized and concerned with looks.

Oakland General Strike

   I went to Downtown Oakland before work on November 4th.  It was the day of the general strike, and the sight of all the people clamoring for the human rights brought tears to my eyes.  People have awakened and are connecting with their anger and feeling their strength.  The big media, despite themselves, seem to be giving a lot of attention, because deep down, they, too, know that something is deeply wrong.

   I'm going to quote the some stanzas of a poem written by Langston Hughes:

 Let America be America Again:

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he is free.

(America was never free to me).

***

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--And finding only the same old plan

Of dog eat dog, of might crush the weak.  

***

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--
The land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--
The poor man's, Indian's, Negro's ME--
who made America,
Whose seet and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From theose who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

and yet I swear this oath--

America will be!
An ever-living seed,
Its dream
Lies deep in the heart of me.

We the people, must redeem
Our land, the mines, the plants, the rivers,
the mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again.