Apart

The word for today is APART. This word interests me because putting a space in it makes such a difference. APART means separate, distinct, isolated, independent. The words "a part" usually mean "a part of" something bigger, a part of a whole, a part of a community or family.

Earlier today I felt APART. I was planning yet another MoveOn political event and I wasn't getting the support I wanted. One of our council members left for a rafting trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon; another is visiting family in the Phillipines; another needed to leave with her husband to pick up her daughter from college in Washington, D.C. It seemed as though everyone, APART from me, needed to be somewhere else, not at our event.

I wished that I could be somewhere else, that I did not have to lead our council's meeting with a congressional staffer. I wanted to close the door to my APARTment and be APART from the world. Of course, I did not do that. I showed up, I helped the other council members who showed up feel a part of a movement. I did my part.

Because of the way MoveOn works, I often do not know who will be at our meetings. Two men attended who are with the American Muslim Task Force. One of the gentleman has lived in this country for over thirty years and yet he, and other people from his native Pakistan, are treated as though they are apart from the rest of us, different, not to be trusted. Although MoveOn is not a "civil rights" advocacy group, I listened to his complaints about the lack of change in the Obama administration's treatment of detainees and alleged terrorists. I tried to think of other organizations that would be more helpful.

Somehow our conversation turned to the former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. "Ramsey Clark is my role model," said the gentleman. "I love that man. He came with me to visit a detainee being held in jail in Virginia." "I love him too," I responded. The gentleman and I were both holding our hands over our hearts. "When I was a little girl I received an autographed photograph of him. I still have it."

Some people set themselves APART because they are exemplars of truth, justice, and integrity, regardless. To me that is what Ramsey Clark stands for. His photograph has personal meaning to me because I almost met him when my family took a trip to Washington D.C. during the Johnson administration to visit my father's law school roommate, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.

APART from his time in law school and the army, my father, who turns eighty this Sunday (and who is my hero when it comes to integrity), has lived his entire life in what is known as the NY metropolitan area. I have to admit that he has a pretty good perspective on things, despite living so far APART from the rest of the country.

I often think of his time at the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville. It was the early 1950s. He was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, NY who got on a train and found himself in the midst of an institution designed by Thomas Jefferson (yet another man who had many parts to his life). After law school my father had difficulty finding a job. Even with a degree from UVa., he was still a Jew, the well-heeled NY law firms found reason to hold him apart. Eventually, he became a corporate tax attorney and spent his career as an executive for a large railroad and a retail giant. He done good.

My father was held APART, kept out, because of his religion, and maybe for other cultural reasons. But he was and is smart as hell. For reasons I never understood, throughout his entire life he held himself APART, from organized religion, from civic, cultural, and political groups. He has always been a very independent man.

I keep looking for the balance between the space in the word. Often I'm APART; yet I yearn to be "a part of." I want to feel together with something, someone, with myself.

In honor of togetherness I offer this adorable but hokey song from my '70s adolescence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEWU25aN67U&feature=PlayList&p=91541ADE5F0B295A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=39