Not So Privileged Anymore

I am privileged.

 I am a white, straight, older, Jewish woman. I grew up in a liberal New England town. I went to a private school that was practically a poster for diversity.

 

I didn’t know that; it was just life. My life. A privileged one.

When I was a kid I used to get annoyed when my dad, (whose WWII Army service interrupted his college career at UVA, Charlottesville), would talk with pride about the success of this or that Jewish person. If a football player, or a Senator was Jewish it was a Very. Big. Deal.

I didn’t understand.

Who cared if someone was Jewish or not? It wasn’t important in my world. My friends were black, white, Christian, Muslim, straight and gay. All that mattered was that they were good, fun and smart. Mostly smart.

That’s all I thought anyone cared about.

I was wrong.

The first time I was called a kike, I literally did not know what it meant.  I had to ask a friend. She blushed when she told me. “It’s a dirty word,” she whispered.

By the time an athlete I worshiped and knew,  used the word, I understood. I was also devastated – she wasn’t referring to me, she didn’t even know I was Jewish. But that she had the word in her vocabulary, and used it, gutted me.

Still, I just filed the information and moved on.

I went to work in the music industry, where being Jewish was commonplace and really no one cared. Or if they did, they kept it to themselves.

At that time it was far more traumatic being female than Jewish. Decades before #metoo,  women who wanted to keep their jobs kept their mouths shut and heads down. We just grimaced at the radio promotion guys’  jokes.  Which weren’t funny at all.

But that was the way it was.

I am actively liberal. I’ve worked hard on rallies for choice. I march. And, most important, I vote. In. Every. Single. Election.

I raise a stink when black men are mowed down for existing, and LGBTQ, Muslim and others have their rights threatened. 

I never thought I was one of them.

That’s privilege.

When anti-Semitism started coming out of the shadows in Europe, I felt sick, but figured I’d vote my conscience with my wallet and never go to those places. I could live without traveling to France, Italy and Spain. I don’t shop at Chik- fil-a, Wal-Mart or Hobby Lobby. I thought that was enough.

It's not.

Shortly after a Jewish Center near me was shot up by an anti-Semite with an assault rifle was the first time I attended High Holy Day services with TSA-style metal detectors and armed guards at the door. It was disturbing but I felt safe. The horror of that attack  had to be the result of a single lunatic. That wasn’t MY America.

I was wrong.

Charlottesville woke me up.  The President of the United States proclaimed that there were “good people on both sides.” But one side were Nazis and the other peaceful protesters.

I finally got angry. How dare he try and take my country, away?  He’s the fucking President. He’s supposed to represent ALL of us.

He doesn’t. 

Between the dog whistles and not-so-very-coded language Trump repeatedly makes it clear that he and his followers believe the country belongs to them and only to them. He speaks to his base, and they are the basest: white supremacists.

I love this country, it’s been good to me and my family and we’ve been good to it. I want the US to be the best it can be. And make no mistake, it can always get better. Everything and everyone can always improve.

Apparently the United States no longer loves me. For the first time in my life, I feel unsafe here.

In supermarkets (Krogers), legal demonstrations (Huntington Beach) and yes, places of worship (Sutherland Springs, Pittsburgh) people who aren’t white Christians are under attack.

The perpetrators are not the bogeymen that our current government portrays and brays about. These 

fanatics are not militant Islamists, or some vague turban-wearing strangers.

These very real terrorists are familiar. They are angry, Fox News, Breitbart and Daily Stormer believing, white men. They carry legally obtained weapons of war, AK-45s. And they are killing people who they feel are taking something from them.

I’ve read and paid attention to history. So I am afraid the time is coming that there will be a Kristallnacht somewhere in this country. I am afraid of the day when angry white men board a bus and demand to know who is Jewish or Muslim and then kill them.

Maybe this is hyperbole. Maybe I’m being hysterical in reaction to the ever–increasing daily insanity of the current administration and its effort to dismantle the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But maybe not.

Maybe this is EXACTLY how Hitler came to power.

I don’t know.

But I do know, I don’t feel so privileged anymore.

It's Not A Pet, It's A Horse. And Other Lies

 Many, many, many years ago, when I was about 12 and lucky get my first horse, my father sat me down and sternly said, “This is, a horse, not a pet.”

I adored my Dad, but he didn’t know me at all. Actually he did, he and knew I wasn’t listening.

Fast forward to six years ago.

I was the proud owner of three horses. One was

Murphy and Dezi

ridable. The other two, Murphy and Dezi had one job:  they had to look glad to see me when I visited them weekly at their retirement farm. And brought 25 pounds of carrots.They handled this brilliantly. They would whinny and saunter up to me. It was enough.

I'd bought Murphy when he was 12 to be my show horse. Before he transitioned into a show hunter, he’d had a failed career in racing. At 18 he developed neurological issues that made him unsafe to ride, so I retired him.

Finding a place to park old horses isn’t as easy as it appears. The first place I found for Murphy was a disaster. The field was big, but the weeds were sparse and contrary to what was promised, the horses weren’t fed supplementary hay. Every time I drove away Murphy would  follow my car, running and screaming after me.  He lost almost 200 pounds in four months there. This was 13 years ago, and I’m still furious.

The next farm, however, was horse heaven. Big pastures. Shade trees. Food. And care.  Great care.

I eventually paid to build a three-sided shed for him to escape the elements, but it was worth every penny. Murphy made the transition into retirement with gusto. He was paired with an old mare, and they were a darling old couple.

I bought Dezi (who I showed as Babaloo) when Lucy had her first serious injury and was sidelined for almost a year. He was an old warrior- a European jumper who had been there and done that. I didn’t really know how old he was, but a German clinician saw his breeder’s brand and told me that style had been obsolete for about two decades. Draw your own conclusions.

I knew when I bought Dezi that he wasn’t going to be my riding horse for long; the vet had predicted a maximum of two years.  I rode him for three, and then he joined Murphy in the field. The old mare was long gone and while Dezi didn’t take to retirement with Murphy’s enthusiasm, he adjusted. Dezi became the field boss.

My equine herd is why, when I was forced to move from my (paid off) home in North Hollywood, I looked for horse property. I wanted, no, needed a place to keep my Boys where I could enjoy them daily, instead a few hours on the weekend.

With a little help from my friends, I found almost ¾ an acre (in Los Angeles, this IS horse property) in the western San Fernando Valley. It had a seven stall barn and an arena. I turned two of the stalls into in-and-outs with the arena as a paddock. (The other stalls are for hay and shavings storage. NOT horses.)

There was also a cute little house. I barely looked at it; this place was bought for the Boys and dogs.

They loved it. Retirement AND they got to see me all the time!  And most of the time, I was feeding them. Or giving them snacks. Jackpot!

Dezi was the king of the field. And the yard

.

No matter how much time you spend with your horses, when they are boarded, you don’t really know them. I had no idea how wily Dezi was. With a touch of sneaky. Almost immediately he learned how to breach every gate.

That first year, I’d wake up in the morning and regularly find the Boys waiting on my back porch.  Pissed that breakfast was late.

I invested in  chains and double end snaps for all the gates and teamed them with solar powered hot wire fences. That mostly worked to keep the Boys safely inside the paddock. But Dezi never stopped trying. If gates were left unchained, he was out.

By the time Murphy died, Christmas two years ago, Lucy had joined the Boys. But even my incredibly bossy mare, was no match for Dezi. He ruled the paddock with an iron hoof. He checked every pile of hay before deciding which one he’d eat. If he was napping, the others stood guard. Where he walked, they followed.

Dezi loved people and was very sweet. He’d follow me around the paddock when I was mucking the barn, just to hang out. (Or maybe to ]ensure I was doing a good job.) He loved being scratched and adored babies. When people brought infants to see him, he would carefully lean in and sniff them gently.

This summer was rough on Dez. It was brutally hot. There was a week that it reached 118 degrees. In an effort to keep the gang cool, I bought an industrial standing fan in addition to their stall fans.

They loved it. All three (Talen, my most recent retired show horse joined the herd last spring) would line up in front of it, their manes and tails blowing in the wind. They looked like an equine shampoo commercial.

Talen, a relative youngster at 13, barged in and took control.  Dezi didn’t give up easily; he always sported a nip or cut, but it wasn’t serious and Talen had bite marks as well. They figured it out.

Maybe because of the heat, or the competition, this summer Dezi suddenly got old. 

As recently as last spring he was a fat, shiny boy. But now no matter how much food I stuffed into him, his backbone, hips and ribs jutted out. But he still seemed pretty happy.

Three mornings ago when I went to feed breakfast Dezi was hobbling. He was unable to walk without considering each and every step. I poured pain meds into him and locked him in a stall, which made him miserable and didn’t ease his pain

.

It was time. He and I have been together for more than eleven years. He was my pet for eight years. 

It wasn’t enough.