I went to see "The House I Live In" last night and it was really great and moving.  Music was good, too.  I was offput by the framing narrative of the Black housekeeper the rich white boy just loooooooved, but facts are facts, and it appears that the white boy loves the Black housekeeper and he became a filmmaker. Get over it, liberal honky.  

It appears that many people know that the War on Drugs and the prison system are institutionalized machines of destruction for the people we hate and fear.  This makes me love people who care and then sad that all that caring does what, exactly?  I have worked for DCFS and the Juvenile Justice system and have seen the good intentions of clueless people slice up hearts and families.  Everyone just moving along, sick feeling in our stomachs, either confused at why everything is working so poorly or confused that no one seems better or grateful for all our help. 

My mother is threatening to kill herself as she awaits trial for the illegal thing she did while on lots and lots and lots of legal drugs.  I thought the film would focus on the law enforcement and the racism and the things I already know and talk about all the time, which it did, but it also talked about addiction. That it exists.  That it hurts those who just want soothing.  And the stories in the movie made me think of the hurt people that hurt the people that hurt me, and the compassion is feels like too much.  This doesn't happen often, but I'm in it now, skinless and so sad for all the sadness.  My mother, her father, his mother.  My mother's boyfriend, his aversion to white rice, his Vietnam trauma and near death from drinking.  His father, who "died in a gutter--literally, he died in a gutter."

The night before my sister made me watch "Looper" and sobbed with me as her husband and our cousin stared at us.  We cried for the cycles of abuse and loss and for all the little boys with no motherlove.  We cried for ourselves, too, of course.  We did not get a great deal of motherlove but what we got we miss, terribly.  I've always known that I had love to give in a world that needs love.  I am grateful for that knowledge--the one thing I know. I have signed up for every job and cause that is supposed to transmit this love to the world and, of course, this makes sense: sometimes it feels useless and puny.  Sometimes I feel punished and drained and hypocritical. 

I'll take care of myself--I'll hang out with some kids tomorrow, go see my therapist.  Signed up for an art class. I'll forgive myself for eating too much ("if only we were the type of people who work out when they're sad," says sister) and for not being in love and for having not yet adopted the little Black boy I feel destined to adopt.  Forgive everybody.  We are trying so hard.