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Author Topic: I want to hear about a win.  (Read 6048 times)

Valentine

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I want to hear about a win.
« on: August 07, 2014, 03:27:25 am »
This is sort of like a prayer, I guess.  I've had people pray for me, or send energy, and not felt anything, and I had an idea this might be a little more solid kind of praying.

I am tired.  Bone-tired when I look at the work that needs doing in the world and in my life.  I'm maybe losing my apartment, my graduate school is collapsing in on itself and potentially leaving me having to start my master's degree all over with another six figures of debt and no more medical fund, I see wonderful brilliant people in my life languishing and begging for medicine for their children while mediocre and even terrible people shoot on ahead.  I see justice movements sidetracked by founder's syndrome and institutional dysfunction and ego tripping and people getting just enough of a sniff of safety that they abandon everyone else to go party and the whole thing comes apart.  I keep seeing people who do terrible evil just slip through the fingers of any consequences.  The icecaps are melting, the sky is coming apart, and a majority of the world doesn't think I'm a human being worthy of dignity and survival.  

I have had to come face-to-face with the fact that all I wanted to do with my life is serve but that I live in a world that doesn't want to let me--doesn't want to let me make a living at it, doesn't want to let me at the tools and resources I need to save so much of what needs saving.  I never wanted to be rich or famous--I just wanted to make life kinder and braver and safer for people in trouble.  I'm coming to terms with the fact that there is not a safe place for me to go in this world, and no organization that can be trusted to treat me right or protect me unless I build it from the ground up, and that my career is going to be an ugly fight for every inch, for all the years I have left, and I am young yet and that thought is just exhausting.  It feels like realizing I'm in an abusive relationship again except this time there's no divorce available.

I know we're supposed to focus on the fact that theoretically the arc of history is long, and all that, but I look at the way humans are treating humans in the news right now, and the way we're treating the planet, and the speed and scale of climate change and the numbers of the devastation not even to come, and it all just feels hopeless and pointless sometimes.  I just get tired and overwhelmed.

So what I want, as a prayer, is:

Please, tell me about somewhere that it's going right.  I know the news is biased toward disaster, and all.  I want to hear about people struggling for justice and winning.  I want to hear about the hungry getting fed.  I want to hear about good people beating an unjust eviction, immoral laws getting overturned, a poisoned river getting cleaned, a species thought forever gone reappearing, a beloved lost thing unexpectedly found.  I want to hear about love going right and the sick getting better and people surrounded by corruption choosing to do the right thing anyway.  True stories.  Maybe your stories, if you have them.  Cute kitty pictures and motivational music and my therapist aren't cutting it because the enormity of the bad just crushes in.
I like and respect a lot of you.  I'd like to know good things are happening to you and yours, sometimes.  I'd like to make a prayer for this world build brick by brick out of our victories.

Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.
"Let be be finale of seem." - Wallace Stevens, "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"
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missgraceless

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2014, 07:55:12 am »
Quote from: Valentine;155030
Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.

 


This is Boss. He's a Husky/Malamute mix my boyfriend and I found wandering on a busy road on our way to a Jeep meet/show in Derby. His rabies tag was from North Bumblefuck (AKA Windsor or Winstead, I don't remember), CT, about an hour from where we found him. It was something like 6 or 7pm the vet clinic on his tag was closed when I tried to call them.

So we took him home for the night, and went to a vet that was a client of my boyfriend's dad (an account). Turns out, he'd been adopted out to a guy in Derby, who had no idea what he got himself into. Boss had jumped the 6 foot fence bordering the guy's tiny backyard, and that's when we found him. So we got him back to the guy, until Boss did the same thing again.

The guy ended up taking him back to the clinic we brought him to, where he was adopted by a family in PA with 10 acres of wooded and open land, entirely fenced 8 feet up and 6 feet into the ground. They run a rescue for mostly large dogs and wolf-hybrids (who are illegal to own in CT). A few weeks later we got a video from the rescue of Boss romping around in a pile of leaves the size of an SUV.

We only had him for a single night, but he was the best damn dog we'd ever met. He was only a year old, the vet guessed, and already close to 90 pounds. This was late last summer, and we still miss him.



And this is Coco (right) and Chanel (left). We adopted them from Memphis after a rescue pulled them out of a high-kill shelter the day before they were to be put down. They're both puppy mill rescues, and we know that Chanel was bred quite a bit. We're not sure if Coco was bred, but still.

Coco is a Schauzer/Yorkie mix, and Chanel's an Affenpinscher. When we adopted them, Chanel had an eye injury that got infected, so they couldn't "ship" her up to us. They said they can send one, but not the other.

So my mom and I looked at each other and said "road trip?" We left on Friday night, drove straight through into Saturday, got there in the afternoon, stayed Saturday night at a pet-friendly hotel, and left Sunday around noon to get back home on Monday morning. Of course mom's GPS took us the most ass-backwards way, going through Ohio to get to Tennessee, rather than a straight shot. It took us about 20 hours each way, and we did this in a matter of 3 days.

This was also last summer, about a week before we found Boss. Turns out Boss was great with little dogs (mine) but not bigger dogs (my boyfriend's).

It's not much in terms of a "win," but we saved a couple lives and the well-being/sanity of another.
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RandallS

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2014, 07:56:47 am »
Quote from: Valentine;155030
Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.

I'll join you in this prayer. I know there are battles being won out there. But they seldom make the news so we rarely hear of them.

Side Note: Lyricfox is heavily involved in animal rescue work (dogs and cats mainly) and major progress in hard to see in that there are still many, many animals without homes, being killed at shelters, etc. Looking at the big picture makes one want to cry. However, almost every day Lyric helps several dags and cats get to rescue groups or find a home with a family. Small victories, but they help prevent giving up because major victories are few and far between.
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missgraceless

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2014, 08:02:52 am »
Quote from: RandallS;155043
I'll join you in this prayer. I know there are battles being won out there. But they seldom make the news so we rarely hear of them.

Side Note: Lyricfox is heavily involved in animal rescue work (dogs and cats mainly) and major progress in hard to see in that there are still many, many animals without homes, being killed at shelters, etc. Looking at the big picture makes one want to cry. However, almost every day Lyric helps several dags and cats get to rescue groups or find a home with a family. Small victories, but they help prevent giving up because major victories are few and far between.

 
Thank the gods for people like Lyric. Whenever those ASPCA commercials come on I have to change the channel.
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HeartShadow

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2014, 08:40:46 am »
Quote from: Valentine;155030


 
My son is about to start fourth grade.  He's doing wonderfully with his meds, and is able to be full-time in a classroom with almost no assistance whatsoever.  He even WANTS to go back to school.  He's turning NINE in less than a week now.

Given how his school career started, I didn't think we'd ever get to the point that I can send him off without a worry.  (or at least no more worries than any mom!)

Aster Breo

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2014, 11:04:34 am »
Quote from: Valentine;155030

Just a few months ago, I was terrified that I might lose my daughter.  She was eyeball deep in a major depression and physically hurting herself very badly.  We did everything we could to get her help, but the meds and therapy didn't seem to be doing anything at all.  Then she changed psychiatrists. The new one suggested a completely different diagnosis, with a different treatment.  Two months later, she's a different person.  The depression is under control and she hasn't hurt herself in over a month and says she rarely feels the compulsion to anymore. She's even working again.

I'm so grateful to everyone in this community who prayed for her, sent energies, lit candles, and offered their shoulders for me to cry on.  I know the love of people who are unlikely to ever even meet my daughter helped to save her life.

If that's not a win, I don't know what is.  ;-)

On the animal rescue front:  For what it's worth, we're trying to do our part.  We currently have 18 indoor cats, all of whom were rescues or strays or the offspring of rescues or strays who were pregnant when they came to us.  And there's a family of 7 more cats who live in and around our porch.  We feed them and make sure they have a heated shelter in the winter, and we worked with a local TNR group to get them spayed/neutered and vaccinated.

I hope that helps a little.  :-)
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Redfaery

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2014, 11:40:08 am »
Quote from: Valentine;155030
Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.

 
Can I tell you about my own kittehs? I adopted them both from the animal shelter in my home county, which is basically a rural area. While it doesn't go in for casual cruelty like some, it still doesn't have enough resources to properly care for the very high number of animals left with it. Needless to say, the kill rate is astronomical. They also use gas chambers, and I can't really blame them, sadly. While it's cruel, I couldn't imagine having to bring someone in to hold down and inject a healthy cat or dog, especially since they'd be doing so often.

But anyway, I adopted these two tiny little torties after my old cat finally passed on. And they immediately got sick with upper respiratory infections. The larger one's eyes became infected and swelled up after she had an allergic reaction to the ointment she was prescribed. Then the smaller one...well, her respiratory infection turned into pneumonia.

I took her to a veterinary hospital, where she stayed for several days in an oxygen chamber with an IV drip and a feeding tube. She came very close to death. The bill came out to $2800. My mom paid it without question. I love my mom. I FUCKING LOVE HER.

And little Sinni made it. Here she is. She's the cutest fucking cat in the whole world.
Sinni Buns by Redfaery1987, on Flickr
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missgraceless

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2014, 12:09:02 pm »
Quote from: redfaery;155063
can i tell you about my own kittehs? I adopted them both from the animal shelter in my home county, which is basically a rural area. While it doesn't go in for casual cruelty like some, it still doesn't have enough resources to properly care for the very high number of animals left with it. Needless to say, the kill rate is astronomical. They also use gas chambers, and i can't really blame them, sadly. While it's cruel, i couldn't imagine having to bring someone in to hold down and inject a healthy cat or dog, especially since they'd be doing so often.

But anyway, i adopted these two tiny little torties after my old cat finally passed on. And they immediately got sick with upper respiratory infections. The larger one's eyes became infected and swelled up after she had an allergic reaction to the ointment she was prescribed. Then the smaller one...well, her respiratory infection turned into pneumonia.

I took her to a veterinary hospital, where she stayed for several days in an oxygen chamber with an iv drip and a feeding tube. She came very close to death. The bill came out to $2800. My mom paid it without question. I love my mom. I fucking love her.

And little sinni made it. Here she is. She's the cutest fucking cat in the whole world.
sinni buns by redfaery1987, on flickr

 
ohmygod she's adorable.
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Altair

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #8 on: August 07, 2014, 12:59:31 pm »
Quote from: Valentine;155030

Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.


A thrice-given prayer, because I believe in the power of threes:

The first is big-picture...a win that brings together birds, environmentalists, farmers, and ordinary folks doing their bit for science:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/science/paying-farmers-to-welcome-birds.html?_r=0

The seond is local, at a very dark time. Three days after 9/11, Manhattan was still on lockdown; all the office buildings were closed, and everyone was cooped up in their apartments, unable to do much of anything and glued to the local all-news cable channel, NY1. About mid-morning, the news announcer said that the triage center that had been set up on the west side of town needed ice and clothes. 'Finally!' I thought, 'something I can do.'

I grabbed a box, threw in some clean T-shirts, bought out all the ice from the supermarket, and waited for the crosstown bus (I live on the opposite side of town, on the east side). Another guy walked up to the bus stop, also with a box; he'd just heard the same report. We got on the bus, and as it made its way slowly across town, more and more people got on, carrying things for the center; and as we neared the west side, I looked out the bus windows, and there was a river of people, a human tide that had sprung out of nowhere from that one news report, all flowing from east to west, of every age and ethnicity and description, carrying boxes and bags and shopping carts full of the stuff the center needed and more. It was overwhelming. I have never loved my city more than at that moment.

The third is personal. I was riding the subway, and this young black guy across the way was eyeing me curiously. Suddenly he sat next to me.
"Are you Chris Cooper?"
"Uh...yeah..."
"I don't know if you remember, but you tutored me in reading when I was young, and I just wanted to say thank you. You really helped my reading a lot."

My jaw hit the floor.

I was looking into the face of this grown man and suddenly recognize Malcolm, one of the at-risk kids I'd tutored years ago as part of a volunteer program, back in my Marvel Comics days; I had used a combo of comics and youth lit but was never sure how much had gotten through to him. Now he's a graphic designer making his living here in NYC.

That one just about made my year.

Hope is out there, and good things happen. Don't despair!
The first song sets the wheel in motion / The second is a song of love / The third song tells of Her devotion / The fourth cries joy from the sky above
The fifth song binds our fate to silence / and bids us live each moment well / The sixth unleashes rage and violence / The seventh song has truth to tell
The last song echoes through the ages / to ask its question all night long / And close the circle on these pages / These, the metamythos songs

carillion

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #9 on: August 07, 2014, 01:43:28 pm »
Quote from: Valentine;155030


Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.

 


This: Because where ever I've been in the world, when I needed help,someone gave it :

http://globalnews.ca/news/1493861/watch-commuters-in-australia-push-train-carriage-to-free-trapped-man/

Sarah

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #10 on: August 07, 2014, 01:51:57 pm »
Quote from: Valentine;155030

Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.

 
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Redfaery

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #11 on: August 07, 2014, 02:02:28 pm »
Quote from: missgraceless;155064
ohmygod she's adorable.


For even more of an uplifting image, think of this tiny rescue kitten who probably spent the first month of her life in a cage at a rural shelter surrounded by other abandoned animals who wouldn't make it....now she's being carted around like a doll by my 2 year old niece. My fucking adorable two year old niece. Little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes who looks JUST LIKE HER MOM. The other cats run away as soon as this kid approaches, but Sinni LOVES HER. Tiny cute cat + tiny cute kid. *heartsplosion*

And yes, my parents are making sure that Emmy isn't hurting her. She just hasn't got the whole "support the back legs" thing down yet. But...Sinni doesn't really care? I swear, she just loves it when people fuss over her.
KARMA: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

missgraceless

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #12 on: August 07, 2014, 02:24:18 pm »
Quote from: Redfaery;155072
For even more of an uplifting image, think of this tiny rescue kitten who probably spent the first month of her life in a cage at a rural shelter surrounded by other abandoned animals who wouldn't make it....now she's being carted around like a doll by my 2 year old niece. My fucking adorable two year old niece. Little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes who looks JUST LIKE HER MOM. The other cats run away as soon as this kid approaches, but Sinni LOVES HER. Tiny cute cat + tiny cute kid. *heartsplosion*

And yes, my parents are making sure that Emmy isn't hurting her. She just hasn't got the whole "support the back legs" thing down yet. But...Sinni doesn't really care? I swear, she just loves it when people fuss over her.

 
That's how my former* neighbor's grandkids are with Coco. They have a little Lhasa mix named Bella that became best friends with Coco when they both escaped and had a mini tour of the neighborhood. Now whenever Coco gets loose she goes right next door to Bella's, and we'll sometimes have impromptu playdates.

The youngest of them is only a year or 2 and tries to pick Coco up the same way, not supporting the back legs. Unfortunately she's a wriggly little shit and doesn't stay still unless you hold her on her back like a baby. Then she'll stay there all damn day.

*I say former because I moved away. My mom is still there with the girls, and my neighbor Theresa is still next door with her madhouse of a Puerto Rican family.
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veggiewolf

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #13 on: August 07, 2014, 03:50:04 pm »
Quote from: Valentine;155030
...
So what I want, as a prayer, is:

Please, tell me about somewhere that it's going right.  I know the news is biased toward disaster, and all.  I want to hear about people struggling for justice and winning.  I want to hear about the hungry getting fed.  I want to hear about good people beating an unjust eviction, immoral laws getting overturned, a poisoned river getting cleaned, a species thought forever gone reappearing, a beloved lost thing unexpectedly found.  I want to hear about love going right and the sick getting better and people surrounded by corruption choosing to do the right thing anyway.  True stories.  Maybe your stories, if you have them.  Cute kitty pictures and motivational music and my therapist aren't cutting it because the enormity of the bad just crushes in.
I like and respect a lot of you.  I'd like to know good things are happening to you and yours, sometimes.  I'd like to make a prayer for this world build brick by brick out of our victories.

Tell me about a win, please.  Maybe we can light a little torch here to come back to on the rough days.

 
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veggiewolf

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Re: I want to hear about a win.
« Reply #14 on: August 07, 2014, 03:52:04 pm »
Fluid Morality - my spiritual blog
Eating Monsters - my mental health blog

"Religion does not define a deity- it defines the human approach and interpretation of deity." - Juni
"I hate magical thinking in my magic." - Darkhawk
"...a baseball club; a soccer unkindness; a hockey murder; a football team..." - Cecil, Welcome to Night Vale

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