NEW ESSAY COLLECTION: LEGS GET LED ASTRAY by Chloe Caldwell

Note to readers: The essay that follows here appeared in MyStoryLives in September 2008 under the title "Waking Up in New York City." At that time, I sent out an accompanying email to readers saying, "I think one day this will be a whole book." Well, indeed, Chloe Caldwell -- a young and very promising writer who lives in Hudson, New York -- is now publishing her first book, an essay collection called LEGS GET LED ASTRAY. The book is due out in April; pre-orders are available through her website. CONGRATULATIONS CHLOE!!!!!

By Chloe Caldwell

The ominous 6/6/6 fell on a Tuesday, the day my older brother Trev decided to throw a party in its honor.

I arrived after everyone else. I’d been applying for jobs around Williamsburg. Everyone in my apartment but me was a Strand employee. The Strand being the bookstore of course.

Eugene was identifiable from my Mom’s tattoo description. I saw him smoking cigarettes with some guys on the fire escape. He looked approachable in his red plaid shirt and large silver belt buckle that read “ART,” so I climbed out the window to join him.

“Eugene, right? I’m Chloe, Trevor’s sister,” I said. He was straight away warm and kept making noises of affirmation while I spoke about how I’d just moved in from upstate and was looking for a job.

“Mm hm, Mm hm,” he repeated and repeated while I spoke. I thought it was a bit strange that his eyes were twitching and his head continued to nod and bob. This guy is super friendly, I thought to myself.

Trevor and my mom had both neglected to let me know that Eugene had a harsh case of Tourette’s syndrome. Months later I learned that he’d been doing a shit ton of cocaine that night, amplifying his ticks all the more. I was twenty. Just assumed he’d been agreeing with everything I said.

From the fire escape,
I peered into the bathroom window and caught a colorful eyeful of Jack sitting on the toilet. He was wearing a psychedelic silk shirt that accented his rich scarlet hair. Freshly dyed. A girl was standing over him and I could tell from their motions they were arguing. When they came out, Jack crawled onto the fire escape in a hyper way.

“Heeeyyyyy Chloeee! When did you get here? Hey, how do you get your hair so curly like that?” he asked, tousling my hair and getting comfortable beside me.

Eugene and Jack broke down to me how The Strand operates. “They put the intellectuals like us in the decrepit basement. It’s like we’re overly smart and below good-looking, so they hide us down there,” Eugene said.

“Yeah, and everyone wants to fuck the Art Floor Girls,” Jack offered bluntly. “Anyone left gets put on the main floor—the generics,” he shrugged. I didn’t bring up that he’d pinned me for an Art Floor Girl, but it was on my mind.

Jack and I sat shoulder to shoulder on the fire escape in the black June night for a while. We passed his Tropicana bottle back and forth, taking turns swigging the vodka and cranberry juice. It was so acidic, each swallow sitting fiery in my stomach.

“I love your dangerous dark eyes.”

“My eyes are light green,” I corrected him.

Pause.

“They’re dark to me. You’re dark to me,” he countered.

I was flattered.

The three-in-the-morning party peak hit, and then when five a.m neared, the festivities began to die. People started to head for the door, mumbling about work the next day or catching the train. I was fixing myself another drink when I heard Jack say, “Whose shoes are these?” I looked over my shoulder and he was near the shoe rack, fondling one of my black flats.

“Probably Chloe’s?” Trev shrugged.

“Figures. Fucking poser,” Jack snapped.

I froze with my arm halfway in the freezer. Earlier in the night he’d been pleasant. I was uncertain if this was friendly banter, or if he just thought I was a huge fraud. He intimidated the hell out of me.

Eugene, Jack, Trev and I sat on the wooden floor in the unlit living room, still and drinking steadily. Jack sang his notorious song about working at The Strand. He crooned quirky lyrics while strumming dramatic and minor chords on Trevor’s guitar.

Everyone knew all of the words and sang along:

Art Floor Girls, do you wanna discuss art?
We can laugh and sound smart, and fall in love.
Art floor girls, do you wanna discuss Goya?
Or does my greasy hair annoy ya?
Art Floor Girls.
I work in the basement—well what can you do…
But Art Floor Girls, Goddamn I can make it for YOUUUU!

My brother and Eugene had already left for The Strand when I woke up hung over in the morning. Jack had the day off and was asleep on the futon. I was still jobless.

I felt anxious, a bit afraid to be alone with Jack. I toyed around the bright white kitchen, pouring quarter full beer bottles down the drain and wiping the table down with a sponge. I picked up a Marlboro red pack off the table. Shook it. No cigs.

Trashed it.

I got bored after a while and went onto the fire escape to marinate in summer, which seemed to have arrived overnight. The crown of my head ached from last night’s liquor, and the unforgiving sunrays didn’t help, but it was just my fifth morning waking up in New York City—I was still so high on my new environment that everything felt good.

Jack rose a bit later and climbed out next to me while saying, “Morning, Little Sister.” His hard eyes were softer today. He handed me a cigarette and I noticed his nails bitten to the quick. It’s rare for me to see someone else’s nails chewed down as much as mine. His were close.

“Your hands look like mine,” I told him.

“I’m aware,” he said, reaching to light the Marlboro dangling from my mouth. He watched me inhale and exhale for a moment. “You try to make smoking look too broken in. Poser,” he nudged me and cracked a smile. I felt more comfortable with him now, sharing the nail biting neurosis.

The heat eventually pushed us back inside. Jack had misplaced his drugs at the party. He dug around for them for twenty minutes while I watched from the kitchen table.

“That’s like one hundred dollars worth of dope down the drain,” he stated, irritated.

“What do you keep it in?” I finally thought to ask him. I didn’t know his covert drug compartments yet, like I’d known those of my past drug cronies.

“An old Marlboro red cigarette pack.”

“Oh. Oops.”

I walked over to the trashcan and rummaged through to retrieve the Marlboro pack that I didn’t know had been holding a tiny bag of heroin. He smiled, his eyes mischievous. “You’re a con artist,” he smirked at me. I started arguing that I hadn’t done it on purpose and he interrupted: “Just like me,” he said, smug. “Just like me.”

Chloe Caldwell's non-fiction has been published in The Sun Magazine, Chronogram, The Rumpus, and Mr. Beller's Neighborhood. She is the curator of the Hudson River Loft Reading Series and lives in Hudson, New York.

Green All Over

By Joshua Prescott

I awoke in a green field and it was late, certainly past my bed time. I rose up on my elbows to check my surroundings and none of, but all of it, felt familiar. I could make out the orange-yellow lights that bled a luminescent halo around the bowl of University Stadium. My head felt murky.

I turned my head and there was a girl. She wore a long multi-colored cotton dress, and I don’t know why, but I knew the waistband of it would be stretchy. Alongside of her was a boy. His clothing was of the autumn variety, but I felt not the slightest chill. They both were about four years older than I, that much was obvious, and it was also obvious that they were old tricksters on their way out, where I was still emerald green under my collar. It felt exciting to be next to them, for them to recognize me as one of their own—the sort of acceptance rarely afforded a fledgling.

She knew what to do, and we all rose to our feet following her example. I brushed the dirt I had collected from off my khaki pants, and we all broke out into a furious run. She was much too fast for me to keep up with, so I jumped on her back and she piggybacked me, leading us to, the top of a long slide, high over the earth. It was the sort of slide, painted orange, with a giant eight-wide rolling descent that one finds at a true county fair. I could smell the elephant ears, the pizza, the corn dogs, and hear the commotion of a bustling event below us.

There was a certain level of anxiety in trusting the slide to deliver me back to Earth safely, but I trusted her, and I trusted him, and together as only oblivious hell-raising youths can, we threw the fear of death from our hearts and plunged towards our destiny. Moving at reckless speeds inconceivable to the observer, we raced and raced with no recognizable design for the future. The slide changed, becoming an infinite vision of red plaid stretching further than any imagination had ever gone before, leading into a bursting yellow sun.

We returned back to our room just as swiftly as we sped down the metamorphosing slide. It was small, but quaint, the sort of room meant for boarding. The old man was there, displaying his lavender pointed hat and robe sitting Indian-styled on the floor. He was wise, and well wise enough that we were up to no good. Suddenly the fear of expulsion jerked on the thin pericardium tissue of my heart. He wanted me to sit down with him and I did. The other two were sitting on the bed, giggling and holding a conversation.

I knew they wouldn’t be punished, they were old tricksters, and old tricksters were free to roam as they please. The old man accused me of drinking, and after a second of thought, I remember taking a nip from the trickster’s flasks. I was guilty and he saw my through my fear as clearly as the bluest waters on a calm day on the Floridian panhandle. He smiled through a great long white beard revealing teeth that had seen their whitest days already pass. He was handling a glass beaker, filling it from a giant aquarium which glowed with an iridescent green that gave it a quality of vaporizing magic. He handed it to me and told me to drink. I examined the beaker carefully— white vapors rose from the bubbling green fluid.

Drink, he told me, and I did. The liquid was sweet and pleasant but tingled, like absinthe transfused with water. The vapors tickled my mouth and the tickle continued into my nose, my senses came alive.

I trusted the old man, I know I trusted him, but I was shocked when I looked again into the emptied flask and found a brightly-colored green frog with orange stripes racing down its webbed fingers. Said frog was trapped and fruitlessly attempting to escape by thrusting his small slimy amphibian body up against the unbreakable glass.

My two friends joined us in the center of the floor and took swigs from their own flasks. We sat in a circle, and the old man unveiled his message to me: “You are a fledgling, and you have much work to do before you can unveil your wings.”

He placed a bony, lecherous hand on my thigh, now embarrassingly exposed, and I attempted to roll away. I told him no. He pushed on. I told him no again, but was afraid of upsetting him. I kicked at him.

He only laughed and smiled through his old scraggly beard. I felt the other world calling me again. I knew that when I left I would miss my new friends. I knew even though I distrusted the old wizard, I would miss him too. His wisdom was invaluable. I then died in that world only to return to the former.

Writer Joshua Michael Prescott is a product of an American military family. He writes fiction at a desk in the quaint small town of Scotia, New York. He writes: “Welcome to my world as I see it.”

"FLAMENCO," an award-winning poem by Jan Marin Tramantano

By Jan Marin Tramantano

the dancer is poised to begin.

her back rigid, arms in position,
hands, wrists ready for muñecas, feet
anchored, she waits to begin
her footwork slowly

each tap, tap, tap, tap
gentle, distinct, one
speaking to the next,
building cadence, compás
growing insistent, growing
louder, a quickening heartbeat
finding its pace

I am deep within you,
I dare you to find me,
I dare you to feel my rhythm
she whispers

her kindling smolders,
rising up within her
almost ready
to set her ablaze

her arms dance, castanets
clap, hands and feet click
punta to heel, in a
synchronized fury

ella sabe quién es,
she knows who she is
an enigmatic smile
crosses her radiant face

she is no longer tame.

Jan Marin Tramontano is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Floating Islands and Woman Sitting in a Cafe and Other Poems of Paris. A third, Paternal Nocturne, (Finishing Line Press) will be released in late January. She also wrote a memoir about her father, I Am a Fortunate Man. Her debut novel, Standing on the Corner of Lost and Found, was published in September 2011. Her poetry, stories, book reviews, and interviews appear in numerous literary journals, magazines and newspapers. She belongs to the International Women's Writers Guild, served on the board and as program chair of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild and is a member of Poets House and the American Academy of Poets. The poem "Flamenco" won third place in San Francisco's annual Dancing Poetry contest a few years ago.

NOTE: Virtuoso guitarist Maria Zemantauski will be giving a free performance from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 11th at the Hudson-Chatham Winery. Check it out!!

The Journey We Take Together -- Part Eleven

NOTE TO READERS: Those who have been following Sandy Prisant's on-going series, "The Journey We Take Alone," and his wife Susan's series, "The Journey We Take Together," know that Sandy has been struggling for many months with a life-threatening kidney ailment. He is now awaiting a heart and kidney transplant. Words really can't capture the enormity of the pain and suffering he has endured in the last few months. But his wife, Susan, who is an extraordinarily strong support to him in this struggle, offers a glimpse into what he's facing in the transplant in the following post. I know I speak for many readers when I say that we are with you in this struggle, Sandy and Susan; we wish you strength and courage in this ordeal, and our thoughts and prayers are with you! If only we could all magically be in Florida to lend a hand when you need us there! CR

By Susan Prisant

Yesterday it became real. I was choking just listening to an hour of horrifying instructions over the phone. You want to scream out: “Stop. No. I’ve changed my mind.”

But how can I? My husband will die.

The heart transplant coordinator is telling us every unpleasant detail to come, now that he has been formally added to the National Register for a double transplant. Things that you really did not want to know about.

There will be a comatose donor, nearly brain dead, and a family in agony. No goodbyes. No more life to share with them.

How will we face stealing a life that is no more, so my husband may live? Maybe.

While our minds can’t help but wander to these ethical, life-and-death issues for a split second, the heart coordinator continues on through her list. And what she tells us:

The phone will likely ring in the middle of the night, waking us from a deep sleep as we begin the final phase of this latest medical odyssey. Frightened for our lives together, there’s not time to think. We absolutely must get to the hospital within four hours.

We’ve never been big believers in telephones. We’re notorious for just letting calls go to voicemail. Our argument was unassailable—we never ever missed an offer of a million dollars, an authentic call from Elvis or a Presidential appointment because we didn’t pick up the phone.

But not anymore. If we miss that one precious call for a donor that matches, that could be the ballgame. The difference between life and…

So we’ve now got to be packed and ready. And we must jump to answer every call.

Now she’s saying “so the first surgery will last ten to fourteen hours.” (10 to 14 hours??) And I’m immediately thinking: Oh my God…what will I do, waiting to hear?

But she’s still talking. When the surgery is over, she says, Mrs. Prisant you will see your husband connected to ventilators, monitors and more.

I’ve seen all this before with Sandy—twice now, but this time I will have to wait all alone. There are no more lifelong doctor friends around and no family. So there’ll be no one putting their arms around me; no one offering kisses and hugs.

And then, within 36 hours, the next agony will begin—the second surgery. The kidney transplant. That should take about nine hours more.

The coordinator is still reading all the rules and instructions. Not cold, but very business-like. Is she slightly detached? After all there are dozens of candidates who get this far and need to know these rules even though some will never get that transplant.

And every few minutes I can’t listen anymore. We’ve lived with this illness for over four decades, but none of it felt as daunting as this—after eight months of evaluation, we’re now facing hospital testing and blood draws almost every other day for weeks or maybe months after surgery.

This phone call is now becoming suffocating. Our throats are dry as we listen and grunt acknowledgment of each instruction.

And then, “Mrs. Prisant you have to get your own accommodations for the two weeks or more while Mr. Prisant will be in hospital. And then three days a week he will have to come back for checkups. You will be responsible for room, board, meals parking, etc. (She forgot about the cost of kenneling the dogs and other incidentals.) You stop listening to her for a second as your internal calculator starts throwing up big numbers. Very big numbers.

Having been through these near-death experiences before, you might think I wouldn’t find this overwhelming. But it’s almost a year now since Sandy has been so sick. And all those months since we started the grueling transplant evaluation.

*******
It tells you all you need to know about the saga we are enduing to learn that on the very night, December 28, 2011, that we got the very good news -- my husband formally went on the National Transplant Register – we also had very bad news: he was ordered back into the hospital for kidney failure problems.

Hope and heartache. Hand in hand.

And that left me in a hotel room nearby. The next morning this very charming lady in the hotel café asked if she could share my table. Her husband was also in the hospital. It’s easier to talk with a stranger when they’re sharing similar pain. But Karen’s situation was different. Her husband had already been on life support and just died. Our pain was one. We held each other, no longer strangers. Two women sharing a moment of peace.

And then Karen stopped her story in mid-stream and made an astonishing offer. She learned slightly forward and said to me:

“Can I offer you my husband’s kidney?”

Writer Susan Prisant lives with her husband Sandy, and their two dogs, Dolce and Vita, in Florida. To read more of their writing projects, simply type their names into the Search function on MyStoryLives.

The Movie Screen in Your Mind

NOTE: The following was the second meditation exercise I led in the Happiness class this semester. (The first exercise was "Warm Up: Writing in a Sunny Waterfall." For many students, this was their first exposure to meditation. After the class, the teaching assistant for the course -- a college senior who has had considerable experience meditating -- sent me the email that follows the exercise.

Try this: close your eyes and slowly take in a long slow breath.

Release the breath from your nose, letting the air make a little puffing noise, quietly so only you can hear it.

Do it again. Slowly.

And when you release the air, let go of all the stress you're holding in your body.

Let your neck and shoulders go limp.

Let your head hang forward.

Let your jaw go slack.

Let your back soften.

Let the muscles soften in both arms.

Both legs.

Your feet.

Breathe in again. And again, let the air out with a quiet little puff. Think about your entire body going limp.

All the stress draining onto the floor and disappearing.

Keeping your eyes closed, now imagine a screen, a white screen, in the space right above your nose.

It's a screen like those you see in a movie theatre, or the one right here in the classroom.

This is your own private little movie screen. See it there in your mind right above your eyes, stretching to fill your forehead?

Stare at it for a moment. Let it stay white. Steady your inner gaze right on that screen.

Now shift your attention back to your breath.

Breathe in, normally. And then let the breath out, with a tiny puff. Feel the air coming out of your nose.

Maybe it feels warm. Maybe it feels cool. Maybe it wants to be a color.

Golden like the sun. Light blue like the sky. Pink and orange like a sunset.

Or white like the fluffy clouds and your movie screen.

Just let your breath be whatever it wants to be.

Try this for a few minutes.

Soon, something will pop up onto your movie screen.

A thought. A story of something you did. Something that's bothering you. A person you're angry at. Something you have to do. Somewhere you have to go. Somebody you miss dearly.

See it there on the movie screen.

And very slowly, breathe in. And when you release your breath with that little puff, imagine your breath magically wipes the movie screen clean.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Puff. The screen is clean.

The screen is clean.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Maybe you want to count your breaths.

Breathe in. Puff out. One.

Breathe in. Puff out. Two.

Breathe in. Puff out. Three,

Breathe in. Puff out. Four.

Keep going.

Maybe there is another movie there.

There will be.

More and more and more movies.

And every time one more movie appears. One more thought. One more person. One more story. One more troubling idea.

See it there on the screen.

And then, puff it away with your breath.

Feel the breath.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In. Out.

And now, continue. As long as you can.

See the movie.

Let the breath puff the movie screen

absolutely

clean.

Email from Lori Walker, TA for the Happiness class:

"Hello Professor!

I just wanted to send you an e-mail and let you know that I really liked the "white screen" meditation that we did in class today :-). I could understand what some of the people in class were saying about how it was difficult to keep a "clear" mind after a while, but personally I enjoyed that. I found it easier to bring to my attention things that were on my mind and project them onto the screen and then dismiss them. It actually reminded me of that book by Deepak Chopra ("The Shadow Effect"), where he talks about bringing your emotions to your awareness and sitting with them as if they were a child and then letting them go. The visualization of the blank screen made it easier to bring those feelings into my awareness and then let them go. Perhaps towards the later part of the class, we should try that exercise again and see if any of the students like it any more?"

FLAMENCO HEATS THINGS UP AT THE HUDSON-CHATHAM WINERY

By Dominique De Vito

OK, so it hasn’t been a particularly frigid or snowy winter (hooray!), but it’s still cold and gloomy outside. If you're in the mood to shake off the winter blues and feel some heat, then you’ll want to join us at the Hudson-Chatham Winery on Saturday, February 11th for a Heat in the Cold Super Celebration!

The winery is thrilled to be hosting internationally-renowned flamenco guitarist Maria Zemantauski for the afternoon. Many of you have heard Maria play at our legendary Sangria Festival in August. Maria’s back for this special event, joining Huffington Post blogger and local author Claudia Ricci for a book signing of Seeing Red.

Claudia’s book (she borrowed the title "Seeing Red" from a CD by Zemantauski, who's been her guitar teacher for many years) is a page-turner about a woman who travels half-way around the world in search of true love, only to find it in the magic of her own flamenco dancing. You’ll be transported by the words and the music – and a tasting of the winery’s award-winning wines! – inside our cozy tasting room.

For additional heat, we’ll have some yummy nibbles featuring Larry's Southwestern Sauces, R&G’s amazing Maple Chipotle chevre cheese, and a special wine cocktail. Bring some friends and make an afternoon of it at the Hudson-Chatham Winery. You may come in cold, but you'll go home hot and smiling too!

Winery hours are 12 noon to 5 pm.

Maria will be playing between 12:30 and 3:30, and Claudia will be signing books from 12:30 on. There is no admission fee. The winery
is located at 1900 State Rte. 66 in Ghent, NY. For more information, visit www.hudson-chathamwinery.com, or call 518-392-WINE. Hope to see you at the winery really soon!

TULUM -- A new novel by David Seth Michaels

By David Seth Michaels

Sunday. October 14. 4 pm. In this country, a day off for everyone. For me, it’s like any other day. First, a small tequilita from the freezer. And then, my book, my plastic chair under the flowering tree, and a cold bottle of beer with a piece of lime in it. A perfect day for the yard. A perfect day to read. A perfect day to be a lizard.

To no one’s particular surprise, when the bottle is empty, I find that I cannot keep my eyes open, the book becomes heavy in my arms and it sinks through the warm humidity into my lap. My eyes close slowly. The beautiful siesta I invited gently sneaks up on me. Initially I can still hear the birds, the soft clacking sound from the cocos, the hum of the town. These fade gently, and then a dream.

An elephant has escaped from its handlers and has run down the beach to escape the intense heat and to frolic in the ocean. It floats in the surf, blowing sea water through its trunk onto its back, enjoying the surf. On the shore, its handlers grow impatient for it to return. They yell at it, “Come bank, Sweetness, come back!” Sweetness, if that is truly her name, ignores them. She wallows in the cool water, she swims around in circles, she sprays sea water with her trunk.

“Sweetness,” they shout. “Come back.”

Evidently, she’ s not yet ready to return to land, to heat, to servitude, and to them. She ignores their shouts and continues her bath. The handlers become more impatient. And angry. One of them shouts at her and in frustration throws a coconut toward her. Sweetness apparently doesn’t care for this. At all. She trumpets loudly and swims slowly down the beach, farther away. The handlers run down the beach after her, kicking up sand.

Some of the sand hits me. It wakes me up. I expect to see the wide beach and the handlers and the escaped elephant basking defiantly in the turquoise water, but when I carefully prop open my right eye, there’s no ocean and no elephant. I’m in my yard.

And there are two sweaty people, people I don’t know, standing there, standing in my yard, near my chair. I reluctantly get both eyes open. I look at them. I know very well why they’re standing there.

“Excuse me,” the bearded one says in English. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if you could help us.”

I consider saying that I don’t speak English. This would have its benefits, but it will probably prolong their unwanted visit. They will pantomime to me. We will play charades. I consider telling them directly, please leave my yard. Instead, knowing this directness will seem unnecessarily unkind in a country where seeming politesse is so important, I say, “Yes?”

“We’re looking for someone,” he begins. “We’re looking for the curandero. And we wonder if you know where we could find him? If you’d tell us where we can find him.”

I knew it. Same as always. How many times, I wonder, am I going to have this conversation? How many people are going to show up with this very same question?

The question, I think, deserves a consistent answer. So I tell them my usual lie. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are looking for.

Perhaps some of my neighbors could be of assistance to you, but I don’t know who that is.”

“Oh,” they both sigh. Crestfallen, they mumble gracias and wander off into the heat and humidity to continue their search for the curandero.

I return to the elephant. There are only Dream Elephants in this part of Quintana Roo. I have no idea what they are doing here. Or where they come from. Or why.

Writer David Seth Michaels, an attorney in Columbia County, New York, is the author of two novels, "Dream Antilles," and his new book, "Tulum," from which this excerpt is taken. "Tulum" is for sale at local bookstores by order, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. ebooks at BN and Amazn. He keeps a terrific blog at www. DreamAntilles.blogspot.com.

Will the Health Care Act Survive?

By Richard Kirsch

I woke up New Year’s morning with a nervous stomach. It was finally 2012, the year that I’d been talking about casually since people started asking me, “will the Affordable Care Act survive?” As I wrote in the epilogue to my new book, Fighting for Our Health: The Epic Battle to Make Health Care a Right in the United States, health reform has to jump two big hurdles in 2012 to survive. The first is the Supreme Court ruling on its constitutionality, with three days of oral arguments in March now just a few weeks away. The second, of course, is the election for President.

On the campaign trail in Iowa, Rick Santorum baldly revealed why the right is so intent on killing the promise of good health care for all: Santorum said it would make people “dependent” on the government. As I write in my book: “The right understands that if the Affordable Care Act is implemented, it will create a bond between the American people and government, just as Social Security and Medicare have done. The last thing that the corporate and ideological right want is for a new health care pillar to be added to the foundations of government social insurance.”

The battle over the Affordable Care Act needs to be understood in its historic context. While the legislation that passed was certainly compromised from an ideal law, it will for the first time – when its key measures are implemented in 2014 –establish a government responsibility to make decent health care affordable to almost everyone. Following a century of failure, during which the United States emerged as the only developed nation to guarantee health care, the passage of the ACA needs to be understood as a remarkable accomplishment.

That history weighed over the battle that began in 2008, when I helped found Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a coalition that as health care historian Paul Starr told me, was the first time that there was a major grassroots, field campaign to pass reform. Fighting for Our Health is the story of that campaign, starting from its early roots in 2003, when Yale professor Jacob Hacker and I separately developed a new policy approach, the public option. We each envisioned the public option as a way to bridge the gap between those who championed single-payer government health insurance and reforms based on expanding private health coverage. As I write: “It is impossible to overstate how important the idea of the public option was to creating the powerful unified coalition that became HCAN.”

In 2008, many of the largest multi-issue progressive organizations came together under a common set of principles to form HCAN. During the next two years, HCAN ran a $48 million coalition, grassroots and media campaign, with field partners organizing pressure on members of Congress and actions aimed at the health insurance industry in 44 states. Our strategy included turning Congressional supporters into champions, like Washington State’s Patty Murray, who met 11-year old Marcelas Owens at a rally of 5,000 in Seattle in May, 2009. That meeting with Owens, whose mother had died because she didn’t have health insurance, led Marcelas to the U.S. Senate, to become a target of Glenn Beck and finally to stand next to President Obama, wearing matching powder-blue ties, when he signed the ACA.

The story of how Marcelas Owens ended up at the White House is one of many that I tell in Fighting for Our Health, each aimed at capturing the drama and illuminating the strategy that drove us to victory. I describe:

How we organized small businesses in the districts of conservative Democrats, taking them on Main Street tours.

The biggest story missed by the press, how we beat the tea party attacks by turning out more people than they did at

Democratic town halls and rallies from mid-August through Labor Day in 2009.

How we thanked House Democrats who voted for the bill and spanked Democrats who voted against it in 2009, a key strategy in getting a majority of House members to vote for the final legislation in 2010.

The campaign we ran on TV and in the streets to get the message out, “If the insurance companies win, you lose.”

The tension with the White House, which tried to stop HCAN from defending a strong bill.

At the end of the day though, we were all on the same side, celebrating passage of legislation that – if it survives 2012 – will make affordable health care a right in the United States. To see that promise fulfilled, we’ll need the President, Congressional Democrats and activists to make it clear why the Affordable Care Act will be a huge step forward in creating a country that works for the 99%. We’ll need to remind the public that once the ACA is implemented in 2014, it will mean that losing your job, retiring early, or starting a small business won’t result in losing access to affordable health coverage. It won’t mean you could go medically bankrupt.

The ACA became law because of the passion of activists and Democratic elected officials for creating a more just America. We defeated the Republican part, the tea party, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the health insurance industry. In 2012, we need to do it again.

Activist Richard Kirsch led the progressive campaign Health Care for America Now, which helped to get the nation's Affordable Care Act passed. His new book, Fighting for Our Health, tells a fascinating tale about how the progressive coalition worked with groups all across the nation to pass the bill.

WARM UP: Writing in a Sunny Waterfall

NOTE TO READERS: Something quite amazing happened in my happiness class yesterday. I decided to try something new; like so many of my best ideas, the exercise came to me while I was meditating in the morning before class. When the students arrived, I asked them to freewrite for a few minutes, as I usually do, so that they could vent their thoughts and clear their minds before class started. Then I asked them to close their eyes, and I led them in this exercise I called "Writing in a Sunny Waterfall."

Before I started reading the words out loud, I was worried that it wouldn't work. I was afraid that when I finished, the students would say, "why did you make us do this boring thing?"

Something quite different happened.

When I finished reading, and looked up, each and every student in the class was sitting there in perfect stillness. There wasn't a sound in the room. Not a single student opened his or her eyes for almost 25 minutes. I was shocked. I kept looking at my watch thinking, should I just let them sit there? I did. I was astonished at the power of these simple words to relax a group of young people.

Finally I decided it was time to bring them back to the classroom. When I did, several of the students said they felt refreshed. One young woman said that she had never been able to meditate before, but that this exercise had helped her sink into a deep meditative state. I asked the students to write about what they felt. After a discussion, we decided as a class that we would try this exercise again. My husband thinks I should record the words and include them on the Happiness class blogsite. Maybe I will, so that other people can try it if they want to relax in a sunny waterfall.

Suddenly, we are all sitting in the sun, below a gigantic waterfall.

The water showers each of us in the most blissfully perfect temperature,

warm

warm

warm

water.

You look up and see the tiny little prisms of color in the water droplets as the sun passes through them.

You just close your eyes and sit there, letting the gloriously warm water fall on your head....

feeling it slip down your forehead...

over your eyelids...

onto your eyelashes...

your nose...

your lips...

your chin...

the back of your neck...

your shoulders....

down your arms and legs...

your hands and fingers and toes.

You just sit there, letting the water flow down, carrying away all of your stress.

You don't have to go anywhere.

You don't have to do anything.

You just sit there and

go limp.

The water pools at your feet and disappears.

You feel so relaxed that you smile.

If you were to look up, you would see the water sparkling in the sun.

You can feel the water,

the warmth of it, the sun's rays gently hitting the top of your head,

You just let the water drain every bit of stress away.

You just sit there in your own perfect waterfall, and all around you are the most beautiful flowers and trees.

You stare at the most beautiful flowers and trees. You

would swear that you were

in some sort of Paradise.

When you're ready,

write about what it looks and feels like

to sit there.

HOT OFF THE PRESS: FIGHTING FOR OUR HEALTH

Note to Readers: Health care advocate Richard Kirsch's book, FIGHTING FOR OUR HEALTH is not out officially until February 1st, but the blogs are already abuzz with some of what he's written. It turns out that one of President Obama's key aides, Jim Messina (Former Deputy Chief of Staff, he's now running the Prez' re-election campaign) tried to get Kirsch fired in 2009, because he feared that Kirsch was pushing too hard from the left for health care reform. It's a fascinating tale, and it's just one chapter in the book. TALKING POINTS MEMO RAN THIS AS A BANNER HEADLINE YESTERDAY:

Key Reform Ally Dishes On ‘Weak-Kneed’ White House Health Care Push

"In an encyclopedic new book that sheds fresh light on the defining fight of President Obama’s first term, one of the administration’s key health care reform allies recalls a thin-skinned, “weak-kneed” White House, strategically unwilling and temperamentally unable to face criticism from progressive reformers, whose toughest tactics were reserved for its natural allies.

Many of the revelations will be unsurprising to those who followed the year-long fight over health care reform closely. But they serve as a thorough reminder of the administration’s uneven strategy during the debate, including its horsetrading with private industry, and private dealing with supporters on the left — particularly those, like the author, who fought a bruising fight for a public health insurance option and lost.

The book is Fighting For Our Health, by Richard Kirsch, who directed the advocacy group Health Care for America Now during the push for reform. HCAN is a well financed umbrella group backed by scores of liberal groups, unions, and other reformers — making Kirsch a close witness to the entire saga. He confirms that the White House treated the public option like a bargaining chip with powerful industry players, and believes that when his group became most critical of the bill mid-way through the fight, that top White House aides sought to have him canned.

“The White House had negotiated a number of deals with the health industry, designed to win their support for reform, including agreeing to oppose a robust public option, which would have the greatest clout to control how much providers got paid,” writes Kirsch, largely confirming what has become an open secret in Washington.

Kirsch’s book is replete with similar stories."

TO READ THE REST OF TALKING POINTS MEMO'S POST, GO TO THE TPM SITE. Other blogs quickly followed suit, among them The Hill and FireDogLake. Kirsch's book is available for pre-order in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com at FIGHTING FOR OUR HEALTH.