Closet Dixie Chick~ R. Brabham

I couldn't understand why I couldn't write today. I had a few stories floating around in my brain, but when I sat at the computer...blinking cursor. Hoping for inspiration, I grabbed the leash to take Snowy for a stroll on this crisp pre-fall morning. I came back inside, sat in front of the computer...crickets. And then it happened, a cool breeze wafted in through the open patio door. I looked out and up to the swaying treetops and cloudless blue skies. And then I remembered. I looked down at my date calendar, September the 11th. The weather was eerily like the morning of the tragedy in New York City when the terrorist flew their planes into the World Trade Center, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon killing nearly 3000 people. It almost feels sacrilegious to write about anything but the tragedy or at least memorialize it today. While sitting back and thinking of that morning, little tidbits of recent inconsequential moments start to append. The beautiful scarf I saw with the label made in Vietnam this week, Anne Franks diary and a Dixie Chicks CD. I realize as a nation and part of the human race. We forgive. As I touched this beautiful hand-woven scarf and saw the label ~Made in Vietnam~ I had goose bumps crawl up my arm. I recalled the documentaries and movies of the bloody battles and maimed bodies the Vietnam war left behind. A war indecisive in years, documented by most to span 20 years. Yet in 2010 we were trading with Vietnam to the tune of $376 million a year. According to Economy in Crisis, The United States was the second largest importer of Vietnamese shrimp in the world in 2010. Let's see, then there was Japan and Pearl Harbor. According to Wikipedia Japan-United States-relations, The United States has been Japan's largest economic partner, taking 31.5 percent of its exports, supplying 22.3 percent of its imports, and accounting for 45.9 percent of its direct investment abroad in 1990. Today, although US participation in the war in Afghanistan is over, we still have infantry and national guardsmen fighting Taliban forces and trying to stabilize the country. July 22, 2012 KABUL, Afghanistan -- This year's pullout of 23,000 American troops from Afghanistan is at the halfway mark, U.S. Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces, said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/afghanistan-war-pullout-american-soldiers_n_1692992.html Yet at the same time on the same soil, their brothers in arms are refabricating the infrastructure of Afghanistan by re-building schools, providing drinking water and medical assisting. http://www.army.mil/article/38726/civil-affairs-soldiers-prepare-for-afghan-mission/ The healing has already begun. The greed and lust for power of a few doesn't necessitate hating a whole nation. I thought of the beautiful words written in the diary of holocaust victim Anne Frank “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” And it has already started. Then, there's this CD. I sifted through a box looking for a lost business logo. What's this? The Dixie Chicks. I packed their CD away when I tired of the mud slinging and controversy that ensued after Dixie Chick's (Natalie Maines) controversial statements about our US president on foreign soil and feuds with Toby Keith on opinions and positions on the war in Iraq. I realize now that it had less to do about what their opinions were and more to do with the fact than I just wanted to begin healing without the bickering. If I had owned a Toby Keith CD at that time, I would have done the same with his. I buy music for music's sake not for the personal lifestyle and opinion of the artist. My music collection would be quite sparse, especially considering that the list of wayward , outspoken opinionated musicians goes way back. I pop the ~Chicks~ Cd into the player. Those gals were incredible. I see a neighbor strolling past the patio near the pond and fight the urge to turn the volume down. I realize we have come along way and then again..not. There's a stigma attatched to the CD that time will have to erase. But darn they were good. I guess this makes me a closet Chick.