"Che" Guevara and "Massu" Iverson

I'm staring out the window at a May Day blizzard. The ground is a ice disaster mine field. The snowmachines are running strong and fast. My parka is in constant use along with my Sorel Boots. Winter is the ruler here, spring is a puny pathetic after thought.

(Parts of this blog post have been removed, as the should have been, and my deepest apologies to anyone who was hurt by my remarks, they were immature and in frustration and should never have been voiced in this public forum)

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN AMERICA. I keep wondering why I am all the way out here. I think I found the answer. I had to come out here to see this. I had to come out to this island so that I could witness a metaphor and a microcosm of American education. Everything that happens here is concentrated. All the problems, all the challenges, they are identical to everywhere else, the only difference is that there is no hiding it in a class of 33. It is right here, in my face one student to one teacher.

There is a scene (excuse me if I'm using this again) in the movie Motorcycle Diaries movie where a young Ernesto "Che" Guevara is standing at the airport watching his friend fly back to a comfortable life after they just spent time traveling the length and breadth of south America on a motorcycle witnessing on a local individual level the civil and human injustices imposed on people by their governments and as the camera pans back to the once naive and boyish Ernesto Guevara you can see the anger and action in his eyes, I interpreted that as the moment he turned into "Che" the militant, no holds barred activist.

I feel like that moment right now. I feel this burning anger growing in me. Not hatred or evil or amorality, but compassion, understanding and responsibility. I feel like I am morphing into something that can no longer stand for this. I feel like I am becoming an activist. I feel like I am becoming "Massuucikili" or "The One Who Goes Up." Maybe that means more than I thought. Its all been leading to this, its all been building, and everything that has ever happened to me, is continuing to happen and will happen in the future continues to reveal my purpose here on earth.

So now I think about home. Not only am I "Che" right now standing on my tiny dying Eskimo Island in the Bering Sea looking around this mosaic of crumbling stilted tin government housing burning with rage as "Massu" I am also longing for the comfort and ease and familiarity of my home where love and family and joy seem to lie in my heart as white middle class "Kale" from Washington. I am both simultaneously. So much of me wants to adorn camouflage fatigues, put on black face paint and go full force into a life of staunch activism, and so much of me wants to be home in the arms of those I love soaking up the simple pleasures of an even simpler life. The only difference is that look in Che's eyes. I know that I can go back, but that scene and the look in his eyes tells you that there is no decision, he'd seen too much and there was no turning back. That is what I am worried about. If I keep going around this land of the last human beings witnessing these atrocities of the mind then eventually I will no longer be able to go back.

In other words, summer is coming at a very peculiar time in my life. It comes at a time that tells me I need to go back to Washington. I need to see that way again. I need that perspective. I need that love. I need to know if I can go back. And dear holy mother of all creation what if I can't?

What if I forget this feeling? Its painful dammit, but at least I feel something, I feel alive and it is the fire that has changed everything.

So today I am not Radiating Warmth, I can't, there is too much fuel, today I am RADIATING FIRE.