Amou a Haiti

I am sitting in my quiet house, late at night, sipping rum on ice with a bit of lime. I complain about winter a lot, but the fact is that in southern New Mexico, there isn't actually much to complain about (if you can deal with a brutally hot, dry, six-month-long summer, anyway). We don't have "weather events" here. We barely have weather as the word is understood in four-season climates. We certainly don't have earthquakes.

But, like Andi, my mind is on Haiti and its recent, horribly devastating earthquake. She's right to point out that writers can't turn their imaginations off. It's a blessing, and sometimes it's a curse, a lot like excessive amounts of empathy. So I'm thinking of Haiti, and I feel sick.

I got online a little while ago and donated to a national animal charity that is coordinating with an international one to do what they can for the suffering animals and humans in Haiti. It wasn't a big donation, but it was what I could do at the moment. As with any of my regular donations, I know that some people wonder why I choose to donate to animals when so many people suffer. The answer is, I believe in compassion for all living beings (okay, most of them, anyway, most days). More people donate to other humans, though, so I focus my giving on animals. I hope that I can make even a small difference -- today, tomorrow, over the course of my life.

Ironically, I had dinner tonight with a friend who had been out of town for several weeks. Kerry is a wonderful person in many ways, not the least of which is her very generous personality. She's more involved in charitable work than I will ever be. So it seemed kind of...weird...that we were celebrating a get-together when a whole nation is suffering.

We did what we could. We spared a moment to think of the people of Haiti. We researched the most efficient charities so that we could help financially. Then we made a fabulous meal focused on African and African-American themes -- spicy collard greens soup served over rice; baked sweet potato; and a bananas au rhum dessert that I found under the Haiti section of an ancient international cookbook. We sat with my boyfriend and shared the delicious food.

I debated whether I would write about that dinner, because there is something distasteful about describing a meal when fellow creatures are trying to simply survive. But people are always suffering, and I wouldn't be any use to anyone if I drowned in that wonderful-awful emotion, empathy.

So I did what I could. I donated. I remembered to appreciate my own life, both the things that I have earned and those that I have received simply by accident (country of birth, parents, genetics, whatever). I tried to pay tribute in my own small way.


Oh, and Pat Robertson? You can fuck off and die, you ignorant, half-witted, abominable, pathetic waste of oxygen. Die, motherfucker.