So after two afternoons of rental cars, two days of airplanes, and a packed day of looking at a house, we’re home. And boy — home seldom looked so ambivalent…

Glad to be here? Absolutely — the sheets are clean, animals are ecstatic we’re back, and I can cook! I immediately went out for the ‘necessities’ we need to replenish. You know: bread (oops!), milk (got that), coffee beans, and strawberries for strawberry shortcake tomorrow. When in turmoil? Cook. Because afterwards you get to eat it!

I have a love-hate relationship w/ my home state. It is — as the meme shows — redder than red. And I’m about as blue dog as you get. Equity and social justice are as important to me as anything I can come up with. Whereas in this state? Oklahoma is far more about ‘free’ enterprise than equity.

Have you seen this cartoon explaining equity vs. equality? Sure — you can give each girl one stool of the same size; that’s equality. But the girls are of different heights: for them all to be able to see over the fence, they need their individual heights (needs) addressed. THAT is equity — levelling the playing field.

That isn’t a priority in Oklahoma, I’m sorry to say. I’m even sorrier to note that it’s  not much of a priority anywhere else, either. It’s grown out of fashion, I guess. We want kids to test the same, despite poverty, violence, learning disabilities, malnutrition & illness. We want different cultures to be ‘melted’ into one pot (a metaphor I can’t stand). Me? I want a quilt top, w/colourful pieces of different sizes, fabrics, textures, weaves. I want it backed w/ something beautiful — here the metaphor can be stretched to make this American history, told truthfully. It shouldn’t (I can’t stress this enough) be religion. Or even language, initially.

This is an unpopular metaphorical platform almost everywhere these days. But I still believe in its appropriateness for America, and every one of our United States. And maybe in a new place, I can remember how many people do believe this. My hope is that a move will, as reflection is wont to do, remind me how much I love about my home state, as well. How beautiful it is the spiral dance of scissortails, the clouds of April dogwood. How kind & generous the people here can be. And that somehow, we’ll realise the possibilities that great Oklahomans like Will Rogers & Woody Guthrie saw in us.

In the meantime? I’m just home from the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I have to tell you: they’re awesome! And full of such unknown promise! 😉