Category: Picking My Battles

The Big Guy had volunteered to pickup a package of our favorite British sausage from the deli in nearby Shushan, NY for dinner.

Even if I hadn’t had to work late, I would have given the go ahead for the purchase.  It’s $8.95 per pound, and stew makings which would be cheaper, but our deli favorite was made with a secret ingredient that only a few other foods contain.

Eight-year-old Thing2 came into my study as soon as the clock struck five and announced he was STARVING.  This is a nightly ritual, but STARVING can mean different things on different nights.

If, for example, we are serving a home made spaghetti sauce over organic, non-GMO pasta, Thing2’s appetite will disappear until dessert.  Other nights, meat and potatoes nights for example, Thing2 will lick the plate clean through 2 servings and then ask for dessert.  Fourteen-year-old Thing1’s appetite isn’t quite as schizophrenic, it just goes to greater extremes. Cheese shrivels his normally monstrous appetite. Certain casseroles cause us to apply for a second mortgage to cover the cost of dinner and a commitment hearing for whichever parent claims they are still sane at the end of dinner.

Every once in a great while,  there are the miracle dinners.  There are the meals, like our favorite British sausage with mashed potatoes, that vanish as soon as the steam clears the top of the potato pot.  These are the nights there are no arguments, no tears (from kids or parents), and no leftovers.

I think the secret ingredient in the deli sausage is sanity, which, apparently you can buy for $8.95 a pound.

I have no illusions about my own courage. I have none.

But today I have the unmitigated gall to say, “Je suis Charlie” not because I’ve discovered a well of courage that would let me post something truly provocative (if I had the abilty to do so).  I say it in solidarity with and support of the great artists and writers who do make us stop and stare and gasp in disgust in dismay.  I say it because to stop those who would take out a magazine staff for the crime of making a cartoon, we all need to say it.

We all need to say, “This is not the world we want.”

I let fear of failure or fear of inadequacy govern too much of my life.  But these are fears I manufacture, and I will be damned if any voices outside my head tell me what I can and can’t create.  I say Je Suis Charlie because I believe in a world where the only limitations on our thoughts and speech are the ones created by ourselves -not by some nameless masked maniac who thinks they have a sole monopoly on virtue or truth.

I don’t know if I’d have the courage to die for that belief, but reading more about the fears the editors and authors of Charlie Hedbo had to face every day just to go to work, I am willing to work to find the fortitude to live up to it.

#jesuischarlie