Yes, you can.

[Just got back from voting, possibly the most fun I've had voting in my life. Everyone was upbeat and excited. My downstairs neighbor was running the information booth, with his ARMY sweatshirt on. And I had an interesting conversation with a young writer who is moving next month with her Muslim boyfriend to Istanbul. All of us, including my ear doctor who I'd visted with first, are gung-ho Obama. And excited to vote. It took about 35 minutes, and the auditorium was packed with long wandering lines, longest I've seen in my life, but no one seemed to mind. We were just happy to finally get to vote.]

"Yes, you can."

I used to hate that phrase. The feature bit of more than one pop song, most notably the Frank Sinatra ditty, "you can move that rubber tree plant." But the phrase has come up again these last few days in unexpected ways.

Last week, a dear friend of my mother's died. I'll call her Joan. She was 86 years of age, and died of a brain aneruyism. About fourteen years ago, around 1990 or thereabouts, after my parents had moved to Australia, leaving me - a wet behind the ears twenty-two year old to fend for myself in Johnson County, Kansas ( a suburb of Kansas City) - Joan befriended me. I was a bit lost. Having had three jobs in a row that lead nowhere, and all my friends and family with the exception of my Grandmother - living far far away. Wales had moved to Boston. My kidbro was in school up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And the others? Texas. And well also Boston, or Colorado. I felt like a failure. As if I couldn't do anything. Which was odd, since I'd done very well in school. But when we graduated, it was 1989, the start of a long recession which lasted until well into 1996. No one could find jobs, not without great connections. Being an English Major with a minor in cultural anthropology did not get me very far. The short stories I wrote were summarily rejected from every place I'd sent them to.
I was working as a clerk at a Tennis Club (I hate tennis), after being laid-off at a major phone company, fired from a secretarial position at a woman's business association, and working for a small but failing chain book store in a strip mall. I saw no way out.

Joan told me that I needed to stop saying the word "can't". I said it way too much back then.
I can't leave Kansas City. I can't do math. I can't pass the tests to get into a good school.
I can't get a book published. I can't do this. Joan didn't believe in the word "can't". She believed that we choose what we want to do and if we want it bad enough, we can make anything happen. And reminded me that I'd done that in the past and could do it again.

This past Sunday, my mother told me over the phone, that Joan used to tell her that I said can't too much. Mom said, you've managed to change that. In so many ways. The job you are doing now. Going to Law School. Going to Turkey. Moving to NYC.

Last night, a close friend used the same phrase, "I can't change my life", "I can't do this." And I found myself echoing Joan's words. Joan was an ordinary woman. She had suffered through a difficult marriage for twenty years, found the love of her life latter in life, around the age of 50. Her daughter from her first marriage, whom she adored, was diagnosed bi-polar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. This motivated Joan to go back to school at the age of 50 and get a PH.d in Psychiatry. She became a counselor and volunteered on numerous boards around the Kansas City area. When I was so lost, Joan sent me to one of her friends, a career counselor, who encouraged me to research occupations that interested me, this eventually lead me to volunteer work with Legal Aid and The Domestic Violence Coalition, and finally law school.

Joan had two phrases she used a lot: "Yes, you can" or "Yes, I can" and "You have the right to say no". She believed strongly that you should not say yes to everything.

Joan was not my best friend, or even a close one, and she was in my life a relatively short period of time (the last time I saw or spoke to her was probably sometime in 1995), but she had a great effect on me. Today, I thought of her again when I saw a video on my flist with the words echoed over and over, Yes, We Can. We can change the way things are. We can make the world a better place. We just have to want to badly enough.

While I was standing in line waiting to vote this morning, the gal ahead of me told me that historically, it wasn't so easy to vote. Our ancestors had to fight for it. The government didn't want you to vote, didn't help you, and often you would be beaten up or shot on the way to the polls. But people did it, anyway. They voted. Can't didn't enter into their vocabulary.

So today, I voted. I not only voted. I can say with pride that I voted twice this year, once in the primary, and once now, for a candidate that I respect and admire.

Go Obama. Go.

[I think I'll reward myself with a movie around 1:15pm, haven't seen one in quite a while.]

The Secret Life of Bees.

Went to see The Secret Lives of Bees after voting. Cost me only $8.50, which is pretty good considering the current price is $11.50-$12. I remember when it was $8.50 and a maitenee was $5.50. It was only two years ago, in 2006.

The Secret Lives of Bees is based on the book of the same name, which I have not read so have no clue how closely it follows the book. It's one of the many books that my mother has read and felt the need to tell me the entire plot of, to the extent that I sort of feel like I've read it and am not inclined to read it myself. She did this to me with The Time Traveler's Wife. But it was far too long ago, for to me remember.

The film stars Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, and Queen Latifa - who are all excellent.
It's not quite what I expected and in two specific scenes, reinforces the historic importance of what happened today.

The first: In the film, Rosalie, played by Jennifer Hudson, is taking care of Lily (Dakota Fanning) while picking peaches with Lily's father at the orchard where they both work. On her birthday, Rosalie takes Lily to town, Rosalie wants to register to vote. It is 1965 and the story takes place in rural South Carolina. On her way to vote, Rosalie is stopped by a bunch of white men, who proceed to beat her up. When the police arrive, Rosalie is arrested and put in jail for voting.

The second: Lily has become friendly with a black boy, named Zacharey. Lily is white (in case you live under a rock and don't know who Dakota Fanning is). They go to the movies and sit together in the "colored" section. A bunch of white men come in with bats and take Zacharey off to teach him a lesson.

As I watched this, I was aware of several things: 1) I was sitting in a theater surrounded by blacks, the only white in the audience. 2) I voted today for an African American who had a white mother and a black father for President of the US, while standing in line with women and blacks.

This film showed how far we've come in a relatively short period of time. I cried tears of pride during the film. Proud of my country and proud of how far we've come.

The film itself is flawed. The ending is a bit too neat, and the climax doesn't quite track - I had difficulty believing the characters would react in quite the matter they did, it felt contrived. But the acting and direction works throughout. Also it has quiet moments, explaining how honey is removed from beehives amongst them. These moments could be perceived by some as slow, but I felt they moved pretty quickly.

I recommend The Secret Life of Bees. While it is not a brilliant film, it is an enjoyable and moving one. What I like to call a happy film, that leaves you with a warm feeling at the end.

[Not the best written film review, but in my defense, I'm somewhat preoccupied - watching the news at the same time. Off at 7pm to have drinks with Wales at our local bar, Abilene, to watch the results with other people.]

(no subject)

The news channels are blithely predicting Obama won, but I won't believe it until McCain concedes. Yes, I remember 2000 all too well.