God it's gorgeous out today.

I got myself mighty worked up last week because I kept confronting these weak spots of mine--I read some racist gobbledeegook in Vanity Fair (I ain't opening that trashy mag ever again), that fella at work got me all hopped up over an article that most people have sense enough to see through, some woman I like said something nasty about Mexicans and all told it made me want to rip my skin right off. I didn't want to be a part of anybody's insecurities or hidden agendas or ignorance--I didn't want anybody to ever look at me again and think, oh she's a white girl I can say this shit to her. I'm getting over it. I see that I have weak spots--areas that need some samurai building, areas where I tend to be more reactionary than I like. I just start to get a little paranoid, like the whole world really is secretly racist and I'm just completely naive. There is nothing I find more offensive and more of a personal turn-off than that shit, by god. But it's equally stupid, old girl, to turn your back to the world and hate everybody when confronted by the mess and the mass of prejudice and ignorance.

Something from Martin Luther King:

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick to love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate. I've seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I've seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love.

Here's something else: I've been all tied in knots about money these last couple of days--there's never enough, is there. It's surely a problem when I get to thinking like this, like money has anything to do with value, anything to do with who I am or what I need. Wealth ain't got piss to do with money. I want to live in a world with no currency, a world in which we work because there is work to be done.

And again, Martin Luther King, in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community. He wrote a lot of right on things about this problem of people getting wealth confused with money. This is a bit from a speech on the same subject (that book is out of print, of course, and I can't find my copy):

I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about where do we go from here, that we honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, Who owns the oil? You begin to ask the question, Who owns the iron ore? You begin to ask the question, Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water? These are questions that must be asked.

Now, don't think that you have me in a bind today. I'm not talking about communism.

What I'm saying to you this morning is that communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

The world is a gorgeous shaky place. I sure don't want to go down as a someone who turned her back to it, as someone discouraged or cynical. I love my friends, I love dogs and cats and birds and carrots and hedgehogs and all the teeming life on this overcrowded planet, I love families, I love the sun shining, I love having enough to eat and I love hot coffee and I love tangerines and I love the lake in the morning light and I love not knowing what's going to come next.