Mouthwatering Sight: Meyers Deli in Chicago!

Now that's a deli! This is Meyers Deli at Lincoln near Lawrence in Chicago. Recently it changed hands, making it a Polish deli instead of a German one. The cheese and pork roumalade is out of this world! And the Gypsy ham and Gypsy salami - oh, the salami - oh the salami...

Schizophrenia and Phoenix

Thank you for returning to Dash on Deadline. I have not posted for a while because I have been adjusting. In August I moved to the Phoenix, Arizona area from a small town in Wisconsin. Life here, in addition to the politics, is different.

There are many people in this area but little community feel, something I miss. The manner of speaking is attractive, though: it is more gentle, and the speed of conversation is slower. People take breaths between their sentences, not at all like in Washington, D.C., where I lived and worked for five years. There, individuals in their 50s as well as those in their 20s speak at the speed of light to show youth. I did a survey once and that's what it revealed.

About my friend in Austin, he moved inside in November and seems to have found a place to live that does not provoke his temper. An upstairs neighbor makes noise at 3 a.m. when coming home from work. That's my friend's biggest complaint.

What is more apparent to me than ever is my friend's mental age. At 56, he write rants to his 80-something parents like the kind I stopped writing in early high school. Today he copied me on one he sent to his parents yesterday. Seeing the voice and the anger and the resentment and a lot of other things I spent many difficult hours, days and years coming to terms with brought up a now-dim remembered feeling related to actions long-ago forgiven.

Those challenges and the way I passed through those rites of passage, learning to forgive myself and everyone else, have made me calm. I am no longer the storm. I am at peace with myself.

I have come to Rudyard Kipling's definition of a man, as described in his poem, "If," which was always a favorite. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."

My friend in Austin continues to blame his parents for all things large and small. His parents can never be good enough.
I wrote back to him and said, "There is no quick fix. One day you will be an orphan. On that day life will be different than it is today. Sit in candlelight for a bit."

I am learning from my friend's schizophrenia. It is helping me take notice and stock of myself. It is making me a better person.
Mayo Clinic defines schizophrenia as "a mental disorder that makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses, and to behave normally in social situations."

Perhaps I landed in Arizona to learn how that definition might apply to the "group think" process as well as an individual. There are both real and imagined shootings reported here, for instance, alongside public officials smiling while talking about mass killings.

Funny How We Change

Hi, all. This is an update posting.

My friend in Austin continues to live in the bushes near a river. Recent rains raised the water level, increased the mosquitos and helped maggots prosper. For years he has worn long dirty blond dreadlocks, which now are ratty. One morning in early summer he awoke to his horror: maggots all over his head. And yes, he does have fleas.

He has been bathing at a nearby mental health relief center, which he did before getting on a train North to Waupaca, Wisconsin for his niece's wedding in August. The train was late getting into Chicago, causing him to miss his connection. Amtrak put him up in a luscious hotel in a hip neighborhood near the downtown station. My friend is from Chicago as am I. It doesn't look like it did the last time he was there - maybe 30 years ago. That's when the upscale neighborhood where he stayed overnight was skid row.

He did find his way to the wedding despite a few other obstacles, such as missing the bus twice. My friend is coming up on his 56th birthday in November. Most of his friends have died. From natural causes, such as heart attacks, mostly. I knew them, too, over the years. One was my sister's first date.

A couple of days indoors and sleeping on a bed, well, I suppose one wouldn't sleep all that well for the change in location. I know I don't sleep well with the windows closed. Somehow the flow of air and energy from outside lulls me to sleep. Although I grew up in a high-rise in Chicago, and was able to sleep outside some nights, awaking naturally to the sunrise, I can no longer sleep outside there for the deafening traffic rolling along the outer drive. I remember when it wasn't deafening. I was accustomed to it then. Now I am accustomed to bird song and deafening bug sounds, like from cicadas and crickets. I love falling alseep to that, despite the volume.

Funny how we change.

Summer Solstice

Photo by Debra A. Schwartz

If you care for someone, give them always a safe place to cry and never a reason to need it. - Anonymous

Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing as gentle as real strength. - Saint Francis De Sales

Arizona Censors History Curriculum

At Yad Vashem, I met a woman from Germany with a bus load of tourists from there. I remember her astonishment at learning six million Jews were killed in WWII. The holocaust really was real, she said in shock. I remember her body stunned and her eyes disillusioned as she said, "They didn't teach us about this in school!"

She was 40. In my 22-year-old-mind, it confirmed everything I ever learned at home about anti-Semitism and tolerance and acceptance. I live in a small town in Wisconsin. Most cheeseheads are German. The beer and sausages are worth a drive, as is the scenery. It's a beautiful state with friendly people. That said, it is horrifying to see a blot in their history manifest in the United States of America.

A new Arizona law removes intercultural awareness from history curricula. This could really unify the country! But for the better? Of course it depends on who you talk to. This sort of blind-eye tactic worked in Germany, producing generations of people ashamed of themselves trying to save face with future generations by censoring the history curricula in its schools. Now it has happened here for the first time in a long time.

Letters to the editor published by the Wisconsin State Journal dominantly favor the Arizona immigration law. However, the state's most comprehensive newspaper hasn't reported that Arizona also passed HB 2281, which censors history.

HB 2281 prohibits Arizona school districts from teaching Latino-centered curricula, though statistics show students enrolled in ethnic studies courses do better in school. (See: http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/201005120004) The Los Angeles Times reported that school districts not complying with the new law "could have as much as 10% of their state funds withheld each month. Districts have the right to appeal the mandate, which goes into effect Dec. 31." [Los Angeles Times, 5/12/10]

The horrible thing is that in so many ways what Arizona is doing is soooo American. When people get afraid, they blame other people for their fears. Fears are just illusions that prevent connection to peace and love.

Stand against injustice. Speak up, even if you are not Latino.

In WWII Germany, Protestant Pastor and activist Reverend Martin Niemöller's most famous words note that he did not stand up for unionists, socialists or Jews; and when the authorities came for him there was no one left to speak up for him.

The Reverend had personally welcomed the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933. In that year his autobiography, From U-boat to Pulpit, had been published. The story of how this submarine commander in the First World War had become a prominent Protestant pastor was singled out for special praise in the Nazi press and became a best seller. To Pastor Niemoeller, as to many a Protestant clergyman, the fourteen years of the Republic had been, as he said, "years of darkness" and at the close of his autobiography he added a note of satisfaction that the Nazi revolution had finally triumphed and that it had brought about the "national revival" for which he himself had fought so long — for a time in the free corps, from which so many Nazi leaders had come. (Quoted from: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller)

According to the site, "He was soon to experience a terrible disillusionment. ... By the beginning of 1934...Niemoeller had become the guiding spirit of the minority resistance in both the 'Confessional Church' and the Pastor's Emergency League. ...After delivering a rebellious sermons in Dahlem...transcripts of his tapped telephone conversations were presented to Hitler. In a bellow, Hitler ordered Niemöller to be put in a concentration camp and, since he had proven himself to be incorrigible, kept there for life."

Follow the good reverend's lead. Listen to him. Listen with an open mind and positive attitude. Appreciate diversity. It fosters creativity, and inspires an open mind.

Arriving Unbidden

This morning I opened the book, "Chocolate for a Woman's Soul," by Kay Allenbaugh intending to donate it to a local women's shelter. Why did I buy this book? I opened it wondering, and the book reminded me. It said:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
- Anais Nin

"Having your way is a lot easier when you have more than one way." - Jennifer James

"When you hold back on life, life  holds back on you." 
- Mary Manin Morrissey

Reaching beyond, having the courage to move on; coming to crossroads; and going with my passion. Dreaming, paddling upstream, the magic of anger, an influential lunch date, shut up and dance, and someday. All titles of chapters and essays in this book of magic.

I have a lunch date today.

Attitude of Gratitude

It's Wednesday and this is Bird Week in Debbieland. Earlier this week I received a robin, which sat in my lap catching its breath when released into my care by Harris, a woodland Maine coon I rescued a few years ago. Rarely does he kill anything he catches, and rarely has he caught a bird in the five years we have been together. That's his companion, Madre's, job.

I stroked the robin on its head and wings until it calmed, and sat with it under the desk snuggled into a nest-like spot while I worked. Checking on it about half an hour later, it flew! And I knew it was safe to set it free. It let me capture it again, and together we walked outside in the warm spring air and around the corner beyond Harris and Madre's territory. Before disappearing into the bush, it hopped, turned around, and thanked me. From that red-breasted beauty, gratitude spread from the inside out.

Yesterday a friend had a hummingbird land on him. Just sitting in a chaise lounge out back talking with a friend beside him under the moon, the tiny colorful wonder lighted and stilled the humans for a moment. In "hummingbird-speak," that could mean a few things: among them, courage, health, balance and the truth of beauty.  More about hummingbirds as animal totems may be found at http://hummingbirdworld.com/h/totem.htm.

Robins as a totem, it turns out, will stimulate new growth in all areas of one's life. Which is exactly where I'm at right now. A short description of robin's totem role may be found at http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/robin.htm.

These are miracles. Without this wildness, what can we know? I once read there can be no great mental achievement without accompanying spiritual development. That statement was made by Nona during a channel I was reading about. The concept of spiritual development varies so widely. So many still think of it as religious study. As the robin and the humming bird show, spiritual development has little to do with religion and everything to do with faith and gratitude.

Today I received a sparrow from Harris. It is so unusual for him to catch a bird that I am paying attention. According to http://linsdomain.com/totems/pages/sparrow.htm, the sparrow reminds us to sing out our own song of dignity and self-worth. It shows us that even a common little bird can triumph. I've been feeling that way lately.

Harris' way of communicating with me this week is a gift I think may be related to his new lightness of being. A couple of months ago he went on the Hills weight loss diet. He lost about 1.5 pounds, and has been lighter on his feet, jumping while playing instead of rolling over on his back. He loves the crunchies, and his long fur has become extra fluffy. I have been thinking about trying the diet myself.