DIRTY LAUNDRY

When I'm hit with bad news, I can turn myself inside out like a sock -- not hear it, not feel it -- throw the sock in the laundry and let it be washed.

Here's Jenny Sanford, about her husband, the Governor's affair with the Argentinean woman.


Quietly by herself, this grown-up, elegant woman has God -- her strong belief in Him -- and her self-esteem.

I don't have a strong religion; my self-esteem is based on observation and integration, wise words I picked up from a book by Bertrand Russell I read a long, long, long time ago -- so long ago, that all that's left is the habit, not a conscious philosophy.

I'm sad for Elizabeth Edwards, needing to write her book and letting it be published, because it turned her, as well as John Edwards, into a fake loving couple, who were playing parts in order for him to win the nomination. What's frightening about their lies, and how well they played their parts, is how it keeps me from trusting my instincts. (I loved them as a couple.)

Jenny Sanford lives in another world. Her religion is a wall, and I can't climb over it, and feel or care very much about the Sanfords, although I admire her honesty. (I'm hoping he'll move to Argentina and disappear from politics.)

Jackie Kennedy, a/k/a Jackie O. seemed to be a participant in another "loving couple" fraud (huger and even more disturbing than the Edwards). But Stop, L0ok Listen, I've said to myself, just as if I were seeing the STOP signs at a railroad crossing.

Who JFK was, and why he needed the sexual gratification he needed, is beyond my understanding. Why she went along with it has been told in books I've read, and I've concluded it was part of the "bargain," the "deal," the commitment Jackie made when she married him, made children with him, and learned who and what he was, and why.

I don't think the truth that comes out about their marriage is "dirty laundry." It's ordinary plain stuff that needed laundering to keep it wearable, fresh enough for them to wear in the world they lived in.

What about my laundry -- dirty, clean, or wearable? There are many things about myself that are private and personal, that I don't want or need to share.

"Me, myself, and I" was a phrase I learned. And what I observed and integrated became instinctive knowledge as I grew up -- and that knowledge sure does include what I've learned about sex and love, and what's right and wrong.

Stand back before you slam on an opinion of right and wrong. Jenny Sanford knows what's right and what's wrong because of God, and her self-esteem.

I know it, because I'm a very human human, who sees in others and myself, the need -- the passion/instinct/power of survival. I see it when I watch fish in the fish tank, pets on their leashes on the street, remember pets I've known -- see it hugely affirmed as I watch animals, and sea creatures surviving in their worlds, so marvelously filmed in documentaries.

I've seen how a baby learns to survive, and then the child, and the grown-up. As grown-ups, men and women do what they do, in order to survive. When the life force isn't powerful enough in you, you find it, learn it, grab on, or ... well ... you can lose everything.

Fidelity, infidelity, affairs -- in love and out of love -- you do what you do, and your partner does what your partner does, to survive.

Think on that. Go for a walk down that road before you throw out the person you once admired. Apply that to what we know about the Kennedy family, all of them, and Martin Luther King, the Clintons, and yes, John Edwards and Governor Sanford. And whomever else you have on your list.

Judge? Or launder? Maybe a little of both. But don't get stuck with judging -- it works against zesty good surviving.