Erin Ruffin’s Weblog

You stay.
You stay because here you don’t have to explain yourself.
You stay because your hands have stopped shaking and maybe this has something to do with it.
And because you’re not afraid anymore
and you can’t remember if you’ve ever been able to say that (and mean it).
You stay because you want to.
And because you have to.
But mostly because it’s right.
And you’re sure of it.
And though you won’t admit it, you’re not actually sure of many things.
But that is life and love
and the questions we ask
and the races we run.

So my pen hits the page tonight

about the dances we dance
and the songs we’ve sung
and the layers
and layers
and all these conundrums
the times in a whirlwind you stand absolutely still
and you don’t know why but peace overcomes
your fears
and your insecurities.
And you can stop with the questions and just
know.
Like we’ve been told.
Be still and know.
Like we’ve tried to do.
Just be still.
Know.
And
keep
moving
forward.
Because the sun is always warm
and even in deep blacks
and navy blues
the dawn will come.
So scatter your doubts,
you’ve only just a few.
Because the dawn will bring
something warm
something true.
And so
you stay.

Life Goal #37: Design a typeface.
I have it all in my head.
I think it’s a good one.

And I like this one:

I love to think of typeface designers with oversized, thick-framed glasses pouring over pieces of lined notebook paper covered in scribbley alphabets, meticulously analyzing the curves of the “s” and the dot of the “i”. How romantic.

Another one of my favorites is Baskerville. It was designed in Birmingham, England in 1757 by John Baskerville himself. His typeface has been called “simple and quietly refined” and “an excellent choice to convey dignity and tradition.”
I like that.
It was controversal at the time because other typeface designers, threatened by his perfect line stroke and thickness, said it was “harsh on the eyes.”
A controversal font designer.
I wish font designers today could still make headlines for being controversal.

02/17/08
Fight the Flu not the Fever

Last night on the subway a woman, thin as a rail, rode across from me with her two little boys. The word “with” assumes they were together but it looked more like she was going where she was going and they tried to keep up (if for no other reason than because they just should be with their mom). Their eyes were sad and wide like they were looking out for something they would need to dodge. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes were wild, her body was so thin and fidgety I found it hard to take my eyes off of her. She cursed at her two, quiet, little boys for no apparent reason, making the tension in the air so thick you could grab it with your hand. Her knee frantically bounced up and down until the momentum started raising her entire foot off the floor. Her arm resting on that leg flew up and down with it and her eyes darted around the train car, mouth opening and closing, yelling at her boys and slapping their hands away from the pole they were trying to hold on to or yanking the youngest one back down into the seat when he tried to look out the window.
She was totally out of her mind, either on drugs at that moment or on her way to get some, which would calm her nerves and darting eyes.
I watched the youngest boy watch his mom’s inability to keep her twitching under control. He watched with his young eyes the spastic movements of her leg and her slapping hand towards his barely older brother. And I saw that now their eyes poured out loneliness and fear and confusion, but they would eventually fill with hurt, and rejection, and anger and God forbid will be the ones down the road in the newspapers for crimes they commit with friends that grew up in similar situations and if I see it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to blame them. Their future doesn’t hold out many other options for them. If our environment conditions us to think and act in certain ways, they surely won’t grow up believing they could get into a good university and become a businessman or an architect. They probably see drugs on their kitchen table more often than a home-cooked meal.
I wonder where their father is and if he even knows they exist.
These boys made me take a step back from the reports of gang violence on the news and look at how early we could potentially cut in and stop it. As much as I’m aware the guys that make the headlines for robbery or assault know right from wrong and shouldn’t do what they do, I’m not sure they are actually the problem. In this light, they appear to be more of a weed that grows above ground, rooted in family degeneration, neglect, poverty and lack of opportunities. Cutting down the product is temporary but attacking the condition or event that creates it is where real change will happen. We live in a society that demands instant gratification. Throw him in jail. Capital punishment. It’s loud and instant and works for the time being, but only places another layer of scotch-tape over a problem that needs to be completely torn, completely destroyed then meticulously and thoughtfully built back up again.
I don’t understand why the issue of abortion is such a divisive issue. In my eyes the question of abortion isn’t the issue at all. The problem lies in the fact that we have 15-year-old kids so desperate for attention and affection that they turn to sleeping with each other; they get pregnant, run to a clinic, and everyone is up in arms. The people fighting over whether abortion should be legal or illegal have already missed the boat. When a 15-year-old girl walks into an abortion clinic with a baby inside of her, the ship has already sailed and we are standing back on the shore fighting with each other. We need to jump back in time and address the fact that something (or lack of something) has caused her to turn to sex. We need to find what she’s missing before she tries to fill it with something that never can.
This road takes patience, which we don’t have a lot of.
It takes strategy and planning which is grueling.
But another layer of scotch-tape or another coat of paint will only mask a problem until the next time it shows its face.

“After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten-point plan. They are also rooted in societal indifference and individual callousness–the desire among those at the top of the social ladder to maintain their wealth and status whatever the cost, as well as the despair and self-destructiveness among those at the bottom of the social ladder.
Solving these problems will require changes in government policy; it will also require changes in hearts and minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers’ lobby. But I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels that someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there’s a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair. I believe in vigorous enforcement of our nondiscrimination laws; I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation’s CEOs could bring quicker results than a battalion of lawyers….”
-Barack Obama

One of the stories I’ve been working on for a while is inspired by and based on the love story of my grandparents.

My grandma, Maureen, grew up relatively wealthy in a little town called Andrew, Iowa. She was a beauty queen known throughout her town and all of the surrounding counties.

My grandpa grew up in a rural, broken farming family outside of Iowa City, Iowa. He was confident, witty, and handsome.

They went on a blind date and a few weeks later my grandpa left for Army Air Corps Pilot Training in Texas. Their relationship was founded on letters and postcards they wrote back and forth.

My grandpa, trained for only a few weeks as a pilot, flew his plane named “Miss Maureen” back to Iowa to ask if she would marry him. She said yes, he put a ring on her finger, and left for Europe to fight in the war. He always joked that he did it to prevent my grandma from becoming an old maid (which we all know would never have happened). A couple years before he died he told me the real story…he was afraid someone else would snatch her up as he flew a plane over Europe trying to wipe out the Nazis. “She was mine and that was that,” he told me.

I think my grandpa is one of the reasons I always root for the underdog.

This is one of the first letters he wrote my grandma (and the rest of his family) when he got to his base in England.

May 24, 1944
Dear Folks,
Here I am! Way over in England! It’s sure a long way from home and quite a lot different, too! They drive on the wrong side of the road, use hedges and rocks for fences, and we use shillings, crowns, and pounds for money. But it is awfully pretty over here. There’re so many trees, shrubbery, and the buildings are either brick or stone, usually having wide, low windows. The buildings themselves seem quiet and proud as if they were dreaming of days gone by.
It was such a beautiful, peaceful Sunday here today it seemed impossible for there to be such a war as is so near. An occasional plane of ours flying over and the complete black out at night is all that you see. It’s so black outside at night I’m about afraid to step out for fear of getting lost!…
I just got through washing out some things. Guess I’ll tell my grandchildren I fought the war washing out socks and underwear!
Our food isn’t too wonderful. There’s not much to do for excitement but we didn’t come over here for fun. But I’m O.K.!!
Write!!

Love,
Bill