The Gift of Light....

Light, light, light. A glorious gift. No need to ask where the gift comes from. It is more than enough just to enjoy it. Bask in its warmth. Marvel at its colors. Breathe in its magic spectrum....

On Learning and Life and Time....

Oh my God! Bam! It hits me. Along with all the other crises I am facing, (some real, some exacerbated, some imagined, some too bleak to even accept are real), just now I realize that I'm distraught because there is still so much I want to learn and I am surely past the half-way point in my life and I can't delude myself into thinking that magically opportunities for study will appear....My time is taken up with trying to maintain the systems -- taking care of kids, paying rent, buying food, etc. --to have time for the luxury of systematic learning.

This morning, in my half-asleep/half-awake state, I had a clear vision that I should take a class in linguistics or communication. Lately I have been involved in many discussions about problems surrounding our little world, emanating out from Berkeley, and what seems to be at the very root of solving those problems is that large word -- and larger concept -- "communication." But I digress.

The point for me right at this moment is that I have to face the fact that there are multitudes of things I will not be able to study. I will run out of time, and energy, and functioning brain cells, (I'm already out of money), for such pursuits. This morning, before I had this epiphany -- that time is dwindling -- I told my kids about my dream/thought and joked that maybe I'd return to school for another degree...a masters in communication or linguistics....

This afternoon, as I'm working my way through pronunciation of my daily Hebrew word (delivered free of charge to my in-box), and I again face the fact that reading one Hebrew word a day is not going to make me fluent -- boom -- it hits me! There is a whole list of things I am going to have to give up on. Reality dictates that I will not be able to effectuate these goals before my life comes to a stop.

In a mild panic, I unconsciously begin a mental list: learn Hebrew, re-establish my near-fluency in Spanish, learn the difficult process of making dye transfer prints, write and publish the growing number of books I've started (which is a list, with sub-lists in itself), trek in Nepal, take classes in a (huge) variety of topics, start a foundation that gives sabbaticals to mothers, grow crops in my tiny concrete yard, work on Jewish/Muslim relations, make documentary movies (another list...)....And this is only the beginning.

I think of people I know who are satisfied to live their lives along their already established paths. Who have no curiosity or desire to learn anything new. My innate sense, I must in candor admit, is disdain but maybe instead I should be envious....Living like that would make things easier....Maybe part of growing older and more mature is accepting these facts....

Passing....

Time. Or more precisely, the passing of time. It seems to be a topic I write about frequently, (either blatantly or in more subtle forms)....This morning I can think of nothing I want to write about more than the death of a woman I never met...a woman I always thought I would meet, planned to meet in the future....
My aunt lives on the East Coast; I am in the West. Actually, she is my aunt by former marriage. When I divorced, we kept up our relationship. Even deepened it. She told me that she described our relationship to her friends as, "When they divorced, we took custody of Karen." I like that. My aunt is one of my favorite people on Earth. She is smart, straightforward, funny, kind, stylish, wise. Definitely someone you want to know; an excellent role model. Her best friend, I always imagined, must be like her. They'd been friends many years, I think from when they were pregnant or when their kids were young. It had been a long time....
Like my aunt, her best friend lived on the East Coast. Our visits never coincided but we always asked about each other. A couple months ago when I visited my aunt and uncle with my new "Prime Mate," whom they hadn't yet met, my aunt's friend called the first night to make sure he was a-okay. And I frequently asked my aunt about her friend. I recall when her husband passed away. I recall when she started dating. We traded lots of news...but we never met....I always meant to plan a trip so we could finally meet, but somehow I just never made it happen.
My aunt's friend took ill. Seriously, rapidly ill and the last couple of weeks brought steady decline. When I'd heard that her condition was bad, it hit me hard. I felt for her, for her three grown children. For my aunt, and my uncle, and their son. At first I thought their pain was the only reason I was sad. And then it dawned on me -- I felt that awful cloud which so often shadows our lives...the procrastination which hangs over us, until taking action is no long an option. Until it is too late to do the thing we had wanted to do.
Maybe this morning's email -- one phrase confirming a life is gone, confirming opportunities no longer viable -- will serve to remind me to do now what is meaningful....

Detroit...in Photos....

I want Detroit to be on my mind more than it is, truthfully. I'm too busy, I guess, taking care of the decay and failing systems in my own backyard (literally) to remember to check in on this symbol of the rest of the country....I don't need symbols 'cuz I got the real thing....

But something about the gray skies this morning reminds me to check out Detroit via online Time Magazine. I find a short photo essay by Sean Hemmerle, entitled "The Remains of Detroit." My brain begins to wake up as I click past greenish-gray lit photographs of Michigan Central Station. I insert myself into the photographer's shoes -- mine would be getting wet and dirty from rain and detritus abandoned on the floor of the once crowded station, as I lose myself in the glorious light slanting in where the windows and roof used to be.

What are our values, I can't help but wondering, that we abandon people and buildings and other lovely ideals in favor of money in the pockets of a few who made these decisions? The beautiful train station, designed by the same architects as New York's Grand Central Station, opened in 1913, has been devoid of passengers since 1988. A gorgeous theater, with no less magnificent a name than "The Michigan Theater," built in 1926, now has a few cars parked under its ornate ceilings. Acres and acres of manufacturing space now host a few ratty mattresses under broken windows. And too, there are the neighborhoods, with houses missing and untended yards, looking more like abandoned fields than city blocks. (....If I bought a house there, I could fill the yard with summer crops....)

Anyway, I guess I don't need to make any more value statements....The photographs speak well enough on their own....
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html

Lemon blossoms and dog piss....

I am stretched out, eyes closed, on my chaise. My laundry floats and breathes on the line...in and out, up and down, gently swaying in the afternoon breeze. I give in and close my eyes....A thirty page to do list waits for me; no matter how hard I try to ditch it, that list waits patiently like the puppy my Standard Poodle is not anymore....

The other night I dreamed I needed to drive forward twenty feet, pull across a narrow lane into a parking lot. It was my van, dents and old, dusty raindrops and all. The engine started but when I tried to put it into a forward gear, it would only go into reverse. I tried and tried and then I gave in and raced out, driving backwards, onto a busy, four-lane road, which turned into a freeway, which turned into a one-way highway...further and further from my parking spot. I didn't know how to get back there.

This morning I wake with the commitment to make more time -- to steal the time if need be -- for my family, friends, photographs, and anything else which fills my soul instead of robbing it. So this morning, in between working, I also call my stepmother and my aunt, email a couple of friends, and even sort a few photographs....That's how I came to be reclining, in the hot October sun, in my yard.

I'm out there with my eyes closed, seeing nothing but orange behind my lids. I'm drifting in and out of my yard...and suddenly I'm aware of a sweet and lovely smell which is enveloping me, gently carrying me away....Oh, it's so good....I drift around with it for a bit....I realize, ah ha, it is the sweet smell of the sun hitting the lemon blossoms on my little Meyer lemon tree. My eyes stay closed and I am in my yard and I am also floating past my childhood, acres of orange groves and sweet citrus blooming into the night....It's so sweet and good....I don't move. I want it to last forever. And then, without warning, I smell the strong scent of dog urine. I can almost feel it in my nostrils, the acrid stench. It is unmistakable.

At first, I'm confused. My brain fights to regain the sweet citrus magic....Where is it? Did I imagine it? Can I bring it back? I almost laugh when the simple truth hits me: the wind has shifted and now, instead of smelling my delicate lemon blossoms, I'm smelling evidence of my dog's business, lifted by the sun, off the concrete....And I realize once again, it's all a matter of perspective....Just a simple matter of where you're standing and which way the wind is blowing....

Detroit Dreams

One of these days I'm going to forecast my trends instead of just spouting them to friends and relatives....Actually, I have some sort of dim memory that was supposed to be a major inspiration for this blog...but then, life got in the way....Well, never to late to hop on the train -- unless it's already left the station....

Quite a while back (months? a couple years?) I read an article in Harper's about Detroit. About how certain people were planting vegetables and other crops in the yards of abandoned houses and vacant lots within the city limits of Detroit. I loved that article. I showed it to those aforementioned family members and loved ones. Told them this I wanted to do too....I was fascinated....A beautiful notion: making things grow where otherwise there was only waste and blight....

More recently I read another article (Harper's? Time? New York Times?) about another "certain people" (the same people? do they know each other? working in concert?) who were buying houses cheap. Like for a coupla thousand dollars -- as in just over a couple hundred dollars -- and were fixing them up, green and nice, and selling them cheap to other like minded people. I think most of these people were artists and they were all moving close to each other. Forming a sort of urban, cold weather commune. And again, I showed the article to my loved ones. Threatened to buy a house there, as my own 'hood is completely unaffordable. Naturally no one thought I was serious. "Detroit?!" they asked. My kids knew I wouldn't leave good ol' Cali while they're still here...but still...it was mighty tempting. Even if I couldn't do it, it seemed like a great idea and I hoped others would jump on the bandwagon....

Then today I pick up the Oct. 5 Time magazine and find the cover article is all about Detroit. The editor's page is entitled "Assignment Detroit." Time has bought a house there -- and from the photo, a sweet looking home -- and the magazine will host various events throughout the year while they check on the health of Detroit. As they rightly surmise Detroit is a mirror of the nation...or as Mr. John Huey says, "we believe that Detroit right now is a great American story...."

I'm jazzed.
Let's keep a watch on poor, beleaguered Detroit. I'm rooting for it -- even if that means I won't be able to buy an affordable house there because the property values take a gigantic leap....
Look back to my blog and to time.com/detroit to see what's happening....My next fantasy is that Time magazine will invite me to their "D-Shack" for the benefit of my West Coast observations and ideas....It's always good to keep dreaming...so go to it Detroit!

Dad....Still Here....

Weeks have gone by, danced away, lazed away, drained away...gone, just the same, and I have not added anything to this blog of mine, which looks like it is becoming a yearly thing, certainly not daily....
I've thought about it....Opened the page. Left it sitting on my desktop. Had a vague idea of what I might say....But the page sat blank and unused.
This morning, it seems obvious, after I send an email to my brother and sisters. Everything looks clear. And it is okay....My mind has been preoccupied...and, actually, that's a lovely thing....

The email:
Dears,
I must admit, it is a lovely morning (especially because we had thick night fog, which is burning off, and keeping the heat wave reasonable). I sit here working on a transcript; it is boring but I am busy, engaged.
What I must admit, is that when my mind looks to what is there, in the back, in the front, in the parts I cover up with work, I am thinking of Dad....
It has been like this for me since Sunday -- well, probably actually for five weeks...well, probably actually, for the last several months!
I miss his presence on earth terribly.
I am not reconciled with the fact that he actually is gone.
I have had a few brief minutes here and there to reflect on what a tough year and a half it was....His initial throat problem (when I knew intuitively it was cancer and it was bad...), radiation, surgery, steady decline, though all the while, hoping that what the doctors assured was true....And all the while, Dad the same as always -- though, actually, changing in some subtle and some overt ways -- Dad, the same, not making it any easier to be close to him....
And anyway, the sun now is coming in the window where I work, and maybe it is Dad....Like he told me a few weeks before he died: he will be like Orion in the sky, I can't see him (without the aid of a very powerful telescope -- and, of course, he knew the exact magnification necessary), but he is there just the same....
So...I'm crying now but will try to dry my tears and return to work.
my love and good thoughts to you all,
KSJH

Endings....

Summer is, I guess, officially over...though the season doesn't expire for a few more weeks....Two of my children started high school yesterday -- my daughter, my baby, took that leap towards adulthood with a smile and her usual centered attitude. My middle child, who grew into an even taller, guitar playing, stringbean over the summer, is now a high school junior. My oldest returns to college next week...no longer a freshman....

The other day I came home to find my two boys reclining in the yard, books on their laps, oblivious to anything except the world created by the words their eyes were devouring...ah...such is summer reading....Ignoring dishes in the sink, phone calls to be returned, bills to be paid, I plopped down between them, no book, but I closed my eyes and my thoughts wandered....What had happened to summer? Where had it gone? Down what hole had the days drained? Summer started with a bang and a wake up call when I returned from an exhausting visit with my boyfriend's family to find that my house had been the locus for a frat party populated by fifteen and sixteen year olds. I arrived home from the airport -- tired and grumpy and glad to be home -- and couldn't cross the living room without my feet sticking to the old wood floor. Every step restricted by beer residue (and God knows what else). Two rooms had more than traces of three-day old, teenage, vomit....All in all, it wasn't a very relaxing way to ease into summer.

Two and a half months have somehow passed, thankfully with no more shocking parties. There haven't really been any lazy days either....The beginning of July brought my dad's 80th birthday, complete with a giant party and a reunion of out-of-town friends and relatives. My dad attended, though to me he seemed propped up solely for the festivities. By the end of the month, his doctor told him he had only two weeks to live. The cancer which everyone had assured him was gone, was certainly not gone and instead was ravaging his already weakened body....My mind played over all these events which had comprised my summer....

In the yard with my boys, as the sun warmed my cheeks and my closed eyelids, the only sound coming from the windchimes and my boys turning pages (because I've trained myself to tune out the afternoon traffic), my mind meandered over the summer days....A school ending party, children reading, children taking giant -- sometimes dangerous and inappropriate -- steps, my father leaving us forever, more family gatherings, hikes and swims at ten thousand feet, and then, school starting up again. I realized that immutable truth: life ebbs and flows, some things end, some things begin, but always, while we live, there is change. There is sadness and sweetness, a tangy mix for us to savor....

Summer....

Summer....I'm an adult...what is summer to me anyway? It's not like I get a summer vacation. Not like I look forward to a break from school work. Not like I'm going to camp....Except for the fact that my alarm can go off an hour later than usual, not much else seems different.

My kids are all home for the summer. My oldest, back after his first year at college. My middle, not working, like he did last summer. My youngest, anticipating high school. It's not like they need me around. I'm not arranging any play dates or dropping them at any nifty day camps. (Eight years ago I enrolled them all in Shakespeare camp. They were totally game. My daughter, several years under the minimum age, held her own. An impressed counselor, on summer break from the drama program at Yale, told her she should become a costume designer. Something about that camp really seemed like summer....Shakespeare performed by children in a WPA park, with its small outdoor theater....In my fantasies, it seems the quintessential summer experience....)

This summer I meant to help each of the kids get a job. Months ago, in vain attempt to plan ahead for success, I told them all, "You need to get a job this summer...." We did a little brainstorming -- but I guess that's all we did....A friend asked today about the kids and I told her the kids wanted to work this summer. She emailed back: "This summer" -- it IS this summer....Ooops, she's right: this summer is full upon us....I might have to give up on the idea that they'll earn money and/or be productive before school starts up again in the fall.

Trying to broaden the scope beyond mere, practical capitalism, I've also talked to each of them, individually, about accomplishing anything at all this summer. (I even gave an example, "Is there anything you want to do this summer? Not only working...but also...like if you wanted to set a goal to get outside for at least a half hour each day....") In my daughter-of-a-Marine kind of way, I didn't want the months to evaporate without some goal set and effectuated....

As for me, I thought that I'd work every minute before they get out of bed. And I have tried a bit of work here and there. But I am finding that my work is sandwiched in between making them breakfast -- peaches from the farmer's market are an irresistible centerpiece for them to eat and me to offer -- washing dishes, taking them on errands...and...well, talking to them....

Trying to stick to my plan, keep up my work ethic, I found myself leaving their smiling and relaxed company to steal upstairs, to stare determinedly into my computer screen, to escape the sound of their music, to be just out of reach of their voices....And then...it dawned on me: This IS summer.

It happened while I was in my room working. My sunny yard beckoned outside my window. I took a break just so that I could go outside. I found myself, (to escape the pull of my computer), cleaning up dog poop and spraying off the side yard (yes, using precious water in the process). Anything to stay outside, in the summer weather. And when I finished my task, I gave in to irresistible temptation and lowered my now heavy body onto the chaise lounge and closed my eyes for five minutes. My oldest son wandered out and we talked about his adjustment from college life to returning home for the summer. We examined the tomatoes growing in the barrel and tried to out-guess each other as to when they'll ripen. Later my sixteen year old asked if friends could stop by and he entertained two boys in his room, strumming on the guitar and playing Scrabble on the computer. When his friends departed, he actually asked for my suggestions for a five letter word, starting with the letter "i." At bedtime, my daughter asked, (thinking that I'd decline for certain), if I wanted to play cards. We played a couple of games of rummy, on a deck we'd gotten years ago on the ferry up to Victoria....When we grew sleepy, we planned to play more games tomorrow....

I think I get it now: This IS summer....This is the time my kids are here. Relaxed. Talkative. Not needing anything too desperately. Just existing in the warm sun and cool breezes of our summer....

So that's it....I have tried to teach my children something about goal setting and accomplishment and in very understated fashion, they have taught me something about relaxing and letting go. It took me three days to write this short piece. First there were the vague thoughts, coming slowly into focus. The realization that it is so difficult to get something done when gravity is pulling one onto the chaise lounge....Next came the interrupted attempts to turn on my computer and formulate words....And I think I'll have to omit the last step -- no time to read over what I've written, because my daughter asked me to wake her at 10:00 and I'm already thirty minutes behind schedule....

Enjoy your summer days.....

On Laughing...and Hot Dogs...and Life....

Sometimes it is good just to laugh....Well, actually, I think it is often good to give it up, stop all attempts at being serious, and just laugh....(Even though this can bring trouble as I do tend to laugh at things no one else finds funny and I'm sure there have been times that people have looked and wondered what in the heck is wrong with me...but those are stories for another day.)

This morning I am thinking about my aging, VERY aging, (if chronological measures are not used), parents and though I've been consciously awake for hours, I have not yet laughed. (Instead I have thought about imminent death and woke with the headache that I've had all night...but that too is a story for another time....) I open the Times online and seeing a startling photo of the tail piece from the downed French plane, all red, white, and blue on the open ocean, I do not feel like laughing.

A few articles in, I unexpectedly choose one from yesterday title "This Land -- Ambassador Hot Dog." This might seem a strange choice as I have disliked hot dogs my entire life. (When I was a teen and my parents left my also teenage sister in charge while they took a "tour of Europe," I was given the choice of eating a half a hot dog in exchange for a certain brownie...but that also is a story for another day....)

This morning I read the following and can't help but laugh out loud:

"Twenty years later, in 1959, a hot dog again figured in American foreign relations when Nikita Khrushchev, the unpredictable leader of the Soviet Union, toured the United States. At one point he stopped at a packing plant in Des Moines, where he ate his first hot dog — although at least one account says his first bite had to wait until security agents waved a Geiger counter over the dog. A mere cold war formality.

The hot dog, it seems, figures in American diplomacy only when absolutely needed. In 1999, for example, President Bill Clinton gathered at a table with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to eat hot dogs. Kosher, of course."

Yes, it is so nice to enjoy an unexpected laugh while reading the morning paper....

Of Power and Abuses....

After dropping my son at his carpool this morning, I heard on NPR about Jacqui Smith, British Home Secretary, who had previously stated she would not quit over reports that she had purchased porn for her husband with public funds. I'm not an Anglophile and I think that one's taste in porn -- including, whether, what, and with whom -- is a private matter. However, hearing this brief news piece got my attention. It is not just the porn purchase...in fact, I find other expenditures of public money on private matters equally as shocking....Dog food and toothbrushes? Moat cleaning?

Jacqui Smith, like (perhaps) John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and so many others suffer from some kind of affliction that shocks me. Whatever they do in their private lives is not my business. What I do find shocking is the use of public money for such follies. Have all these people lost their minds? Where is their sense of good judgment? Do "these people" (and by that I suppose I mean people in the public eye) come to believe that they are above the usual rules and mores which apply to the rest of us? That good sense and decent decisions do not have to be a part of their lives?

It would be easy to say that I'm just naive, that throughout the ages, across the political spectrum, there are examples of people who "do this." Newspapers and history books are replete with references to flagrant use of public money on private desires. That fact does not dim my ire. Hmm, what comes to mind is the aphorism I heard growing up: If so-and-so played on the freeway, would that make it right? The answer, of course, is that acceptance of stupid behavior doesn't make it the right course to follow.

And that, I suppose, is what bothers me about these stories: these people are stupid and arrogant...and they are the ones we choose to put in positions of power....

A quick lament on the fact that life gets so complicated we don't find the time to write a few words, to stick our noses in a good book, to dig our fingers into the warm earth, to tread our toes in the shallow waves as the water washes in and out just above the soft sand....

If anyone is taking the time to do that...I admire you and will strive to emulate your behavior....I am, I'm afraid, failing miserably at that...and instead stop only briefly to look out my office window at the occasional green hummingbird...and it's been much too long since I've stretched out in my yard, with a book or the watering hose....

Sadly...on Guns Again....

Guns and more guns. Last Wednesday I came in from a good run and opened my email. Still hot and sweaty and filled with endorphins. There in bold, unopened, was an email from Wesleyan entitled "Security Alert" and it was my first notice of the shooting of Johanna Justin-Jinich, though it didn't name her at first. Subsequent email notices followed. First the campus was shut down while they hunted for the killer. Then the doors were re-opened. Shortly after, another email warned that the police had recommended closing the campus again -- which isn't actually accurate since the campus, by deliberate design, is very open. The email said the kids were to stay inside their locked dorms.

I went to sleep with a bad headache and in a nervous state. It wasn't only the beautiful Ms. Justin-Jinich that concerned me....

First thing the next morning, another email warned that the killer's journal targeted Jews. Apparently he wanted to 'make Wesleyan the next Jewish Columbine.' Apparently the day before he had just walked into the campus bookstore, Czech-made gun in hand, and shot his victim dead. Execution style.

This weekend I read an issue of "The Economist." There was a short review of a book written about the Virginia Tech killings. The author, a teacher who had met with the killer a couple years before and who had great concerns over his mental health, posited that in the end, there may be nothing we can do. This violence is not actually predictable.

Yesterday I read the first reports about the soldier in Iraq who shot and killed five of his comrades. The article noted that this type of thing has happened before.

I have to wonder: do we have to accept so much violence? Would it make a difference if we worked to slow the rising tide of aggression and violent mental health? What if guns were not so available and accepted?

I don't know the answers...but I have to wonder....

Elizabeth Edwards and Responsibility

I love "having a blog" -- I can write away about anything that strikes my fancy....Rant, adoration, admiration, awe....No one tells me to stop writing....

So...this morning I'm reading about Elizabeth Edwards...Mrs. John Edwards...and her new book, which is not surprisingly about "resilience." Apparently she taped an episode with Oprah Winfrey. Without even knowing Ms. Edwards, I have a modicum of respect for her based on the publicly acknowledged facts that she has had a spouse in politics and thus has to deal with the public eye even though she personally gets nothing from it, that she has had to battle with breast cancer, and that she has had to live through her husband's affair....Now, it is that last fact that makes me write.

She is quoted in today's NYT's as saying: “I tried to get him to explain...but he did not know himself why he had allowed it to happen.”

Do I really need to spell out why this quote raises my ire?? Okay...I will. I can understand that she wanted explanations. I can understand that he didn't know of any. But I cannot accept the part about "allowing it to happen." Hello? "Allowing something to happen" implies passivity. As far as I know, having a sexual and emotional affair involves complicity, activity, but not passivity....

Affairs happen. Unfortunately that is a fact. Falls under the category of "shit happens." Sometimes it just does. I have never had an affair myself (thank God) but I have known well people who have. And I think that all of them would like to fall back on that passivity, that notion of "Oh, how did I allow this to happen?" But where is the responsibility in that??

It is a shame to see someone in the public eye, that would be Mrs. John Edwards, perpetuating this notion that there is no responsibility by the involved loved one....This is a place, I think, where we need to get real with our emotions, where we need to get raw and down and dirty and shine the bright light...not give someone a place to hide....

Mrs. Edwards is also asked, by Oprah, if she loves her husband and she does not answer in the affirmative. Indeed, I'm sure her emotions are a bundle of conflicts and there are few easy answers. If Mr. and Mrs. John Edwards -- together and as individuals -- want to get past this, I think they need to face up to facts...and then move on....Good luck to them!

100 days plus....

Okay, I gotta go back to Obama again...to President Barack Obama. I've been thinking a lot over this last week and I decided that, actually, even if President Obama did nothing else -- which is a big and improbable if -- he's already done a lot....

Today's New York Times has this: "In just over 100 days, Mr. Obama’s presidency seems to have done much to alter the greater American public’s perception of race relations. And perhaps, in some cases, even the reality." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/politics/03race.html?th&emc=th

Earlier in the week I read an editorial by Roger Cohen, (yes...the NYT again...), which pondered: "It’s strange then that a U.S. president who speaks good English, far better than his predecessor, seems able to communicate with...[the] world. This may even be Barack Obama’s biggest achievement in his first 100 days."

I'm sure a Google search -- or hell, even live conversations with real people! -- would reveal many other gifts that we can attribute to the very young Obama Presidency...but language and race relations are near and dear to my heart so I'm going to stop there and go back to my breakfast....

...Everywhere I read and more importantly, feel, that what our new President has done is to give us hope....We're still in a mess of trouble...but our hope persists....

Resourcefulness....

This morning I still find myself fantaszing about Maui....Although today the weather brings a strange chilly wind instead of the sun's warming rays....And actually, instead of dreaming about Maui, I'm stuck on wondering where do "middle class" people go when they're out of work and out of a home?

I think for a moment of whether I would be tough enough to "live in" a shelter...or beneath a freeway underpass. Thankfully I recall that when economic times were better, I paid off my van and so actually own it. I think: I could live in my van. I'd only have to find places to park it and finding running water would be good too....Okay...I'm feeling more secure now....Oh...and I also have a small tent.

Phew! Nothing to worry about here....

Growing in the sunshine....

I learn a lot from the things growing around me. (Mostly that would be my kids and the things in my yard.) This afternoon I'm in the yard -- trying to keep my back to the sun as my face is sunburned from a really nice bike ride along the Bay in Emeryville and through Berkeley -- watering in the afternoon breeze.

One thing I learn (although in truth, I already knew this but conveniently let myself forget, over and over) is that when I water the lavender, the spikes are actually green rather than dry-stick-brown and purple flowers grow on the ends. Oh...water something and it will grow....While I'm watering, I spray off the overgrown frissee. Recalling that I meant to see about "pruning" it earlier in the week -- except I couldn't find any advice about how to "prune" lettuce and so I left it.

I'm using the hose on a few nesting spit bugs or aphids, (realizing that although I loathe death and destruction, I do not hesitate long before picking off the impossibly bright green bugs and squishing them onto the pavement), and I notice something purple. The lettuce, on its way to going to seed I suppose, is about the let lovely purple flowers open along its top. Good thing I didn't cut those stalks down earlier in the week.

If I'd snipped the frissee, I never would have been witness to the purple flowers....What's my lesson? Water things and they grow? Give a little attention and life happens? Let something go, take another direction than the one I'd intended, and I might be surprised with something lovely?....

It's all good....

Daydreams of Maui....

I migrate out to my yard...escaping the drudgery of some volunteer work I am slogging through...and sit comfortably in "my chair" -- a small pillow behind my back, my feet up on another chair. A reasonable stand-in for a chaise lounge....

The sun is warm and gorgeous on my face and I close my eyes. My sneakers and pink socks are the first to go, freeing my toes to the reach of the sun and gentle breeze. Oh, that feels good....Next is my sweater, tossed onto an adjacent chair. Oh...even better. My body and mind begin to relax and meld and float on the tinkling music from my windchimes. The jeans are next. And then I'm gone..Body here...head in Maui....

(I don't think anything else needs to be said....)

Guns

Last night I watched the movie "Milk." (Quite a well done film: good acting, nicely written script, well edited...and of course, the story....) Obviously the end of the movie gun violence was no surprise; like most of us, I recalled the main points of the story. But what did surprise me was its reminder to me of an incredulity I have held since I was a teenager.

After the movie I said to BZ, "I have a stupid question....Why is it that we still allow guns to be so available in this country?" His answer did not make me feel stupid but it didn't elucidate the issue either. He responded with things I've heard before....'American tradition...the Second Amendment'....Stuff like that....

I still don't understand....I never have. I have vague recollections of debating this issue, both formally and informally, in high school and college and law school. It always seemed to me that it was like religion: people believed what they wanted to believe, what their faith led them to believe, and were not about to be swayed by someone else's facts.

I get this. But I still have the same questions: How can it make sense for guns to be so readily available? How is it that a seemingly small minority of "gun owners" can make policy for the rest of us? Especially when that policy is killing us in what seems to be shockingly large numbers....And in the random, senseless killing of people who had no relation at all to the violence other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time....And even if they were "related" (think of domestic violence or gang deaths, etc.), there is something jarring -- and dare I say, "unfair" -- about the thought of it....A burning piece of metal piercing your flesh and then death....

Actually, I discover this morning, it is not a simple matter to find out how large the numbers are. Like most people over the age of nine, when I want to know a fact, I hop on Google. What my searches reveal is not too helpful. One of my first hits is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) mortality charts. First of all, apparently the most recent data is from 2005 (that's already four years old!) and after plugging in the variables (which were required fields), I'm not exactly sure what number it was spitting out. As far as I can tell, the CDC data shows 12,352 gun deaths in the United States in 2005.

I return to Google. I find a promising looking link to Harvard. An article from 2000 mentioned a pilot study to track gun deaths. But the trail peters out early in the decade and the Harvard site itself doesn't contain links to articles past 2003....Where is this information? I can't help but wonder....Is its paucity related to the whole reason we don't have any meaningful gun control to being with? (Are there some hidden agendas?....)

Anyway, it is perhaps something to think about next time there is a gun death....Four cops in Oakland, someone on television, God forbid...someone we know....Maybe after we're done thinking about health care and the economy and relationships between people and the health and well being of our loved ones, we can think about guns in this nation....Or maybe we should think about it at the same time...because actually it's all related....

(If you're interested, check out: http://www.marinij.com/ci_12126366?source=most_viewed OR http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/nviss/index.htm OR try your own Google search....)

Passover....

In anticipation of Passover, brought up by the cards and wishes I am receiving, I begin to examine what this holiday means to me. I say "begin" because it is only in between the dog and kids and work that my thoughts swirl and eddy and begin to pool....

And that represents one of the very basic things that Passover means to me. Freedom to think. Even sandwiched between competing interests, I am fortunate in that I do possess the great freedom of thinking. I use that gift to think about other freedoms. Some of them given to me by our Constitution; some by my children and loved ones. Basically, (limited only by my children and the Homeland Security Act), I have the freedom to say whatever crosses my mind....

And one thing that always crosses my mind, is economic freedom. I think of the way it has been so easy for people to maybe heretofore take for granted their own economic power. Or maybe didn't take it for granted, but didn't exactly appreciate it either. And now, maybe those things are changing. Maybe freedom also means the power to think in new ways....

I have to acknowledge, that even in my interesting economic state, I have more than many. I am not on the street....And that, of course, makes me think of the homeless man I often see a mile from my home. Last week I saw him, (near his usual spot), sitting on an overturned bucket, reading the New York Times. I had only the change from a dollar in my pocket and when I gave it to him, I apologized that it couldn't be more. "No worries," he told me, his face a warm smile of sincerity. "The important thing," he continued, "is that you opened your heart." And then we got into a long discussion about how the world is a better place when people open their hearts. He -- this man, whose name I don't know, this man I know only as the 'sweet guy asking for change' -- reminded me to keep my heart open. Even when times are tough. Indeed, when times are toughest. That's when it really counts.

And that too is a freedom. One I don't want to take for granted....

Oh, and I don't want to take for granted the freedom, which we still have in our country, to practice our religion...because this is not a Christian nation or a Muslim nation or a Jewish nation...but a nation for all...including (as our President mentioned in his Inauguration speech) the 'non-believers'....So, no matter what your religion, go out an enjoy your freedoms this week....

The Whole Day Through....

What about those days we don't want to write anything? Or say anything? Maybe one day it would be nice just to set a spell, in my little concrete yard. Especially lately, with the freesias overflowing their pots, their scent enveloping the atmosphere. Sweet but not too sweet. The sun warming my cheeks and the breeze carrying a hint of cool. Wouldn't it be nice to just sit? No responsibilities. No mouths to feed, no dog poop to pick up, no one calling on the phones....

This morning as soon as I opened my bedroom shade, the City glowed yellow in the rising morning sun. I took it in-- the tall buildings yellow and black and emerging -- and maybe that was my moment today of quiet....Or maybe I'll steal another one later, when the sun is on its way down and the clouds that I don't even know are there -- those gauze-like bits of connected moisture -- begin to show themselves, to light up, their own special pink-yellow color that is reserved for clouds at sunset....Yeah, maybe that's it...I'll look forward to sitting quiet in my backyard chair in about twelve hours...and until then, lots of other moments in the spaces....

empathy, judgment, morning...dogs....

Early this morning I took BZ to BART when the sun had not even begun to think of rising and the dark night air lingered cold and still. As we turned into the parking lot, (a turn I have made countless times, dropping boys off, picking boys up), a black and brown dog made its unsure way in front of us. A cross between a basset hound and a German Shepard, low to the ground like a basset but with a triangular face, colored like a shepard.

"It's been hit," I blurted out. It wavered across the parking lot, dragging its back end. "Oh shit!" and it hit me harder than it might have had I been more awake. It hit me hard because although I'd already been up for thirty minutes, it was the sight of this dog, in need of help, that was actually the first stimulus to cross my brain. "Do you want to help it?" BZ asked me, (though I think we both knew the answer). "Yes," I more moaned than spoke. (Really I wanted to go back to my warm bed....) He got his suitcase and walked toward the station.

I parked my car and followed. I went up to the BART kiosk where the station agent was reading her morning paper; I explained about the dog. "Well, there's nothing I can do," she said and BZ disappeared without another word into the station. I returned to the parking lot. There came the dog, lumbering along, dragging its back legs. I spoke to a woman arriving for her train; I complained that the station agent didn't care. I approached the dog. I turned around and the BART agent was there -- I knew I had been wrong about her, too quick to judge....Then we were a team. "Look, it has a collar but no tags."

The dog had a friendly and sad face, like a hound. I thought for a moment of reaching in to make sure there were no id tags. But then I had to remember that last year a neighbor's dog bit me. And it was only after being on kibbutz in December, with all those marvelous, wandering, friendly dogs, that I finally lost my fear of being bitten again. The agent and I mulled over what to do. We agreed tacitly that if she called animal control, the dog might not make it out. Anywhere. She thought she recalled seeing the dog, walking with its owner, from north of the station, where it seemed to be headed now. I asked the agent if it would be stupid for me to help the dog cross the street. The night still surrounded us darkly. A few cars were rushing past, starting their morning commute.

I took some dog biscuits from my car (left over from some outing with my own dog) and walked to catch up with the dog, to become a doggy crossing guard. We got half way across the street. A car approached, then stopped. For a moment I thought that I might be stupid, kidnapped and stuffed into some bad man's car. It turned out he was kind. Rolled down his window to hear the story. Stopped to tell me to be careful.

The dog wandered down the middle of the street, next to the median. And then it stopped. In the middle. I tried to coax it across. It looked at me and its eyes said, "No way. I can't lift my butt over that median." And it just stopped, on the dark pavement. I thought of picking it up and carrying it across but I knew my back couldn't do it. And besides, it might actually bite me.

So I gave him some biscuits and left him there. Almost contemplating tears. Hoping for the best.

I walked back across the dark and empty parking lot. The station agent came out, animated. "I found the owner. It's some drunk who is using the bathroom." She was angry and disdain dripped from her voice. Just then, the man stumbled out, "Hey, where's my dog?" We told him, we directed him, we implored him to hurry. But he was either unaware or didn't care and he made his way slowly, meandering in the right direction.

I had to give it up at that point. A man and a dog in need overwhelmed my resources and all I could do was hope for the best....

The station agent and I thanked each other and went on our way in the dark morning....

All is so good in my world....

Well...I just had my run. Two weeks to the day since the last knee-crushing run. Did it today. To hell with those expensive pool fees....Today it was just me and my running shoes and the warm, early spring air caressing my wrists and shoulders and neck. And spring trees and flowers scenting the air, ready to welcome spring in two days.

I ran past the large, old fashioned side yard that I often admire. Vegetables and daffodils and trees, always looking like they've come directly out of the 1950s. And never a person to show me who tends this garden. But this morning, this fine spring morning, a woman entered the side of the yard as I sprinted by. She stood tentatively with a large, bright green bucket. To water the crops, no doubt. A woman with gray hair, veined legs visible from the knees down under her bright pink robe. She started a smile and I waved without reservation. She waved back, smiling and happy.
I'm still smiling from my run -- the scented spring air, my neighbors, the endorphins coursing merrily through my body...but now I'd better go stretch my legs to preserve my ability to run again soon....

the daily grind....

I’ve hardly written my unemployment thoughts over the last few weeks. I haven’t had time. I’ve been busy trying to create new ways for me to earn money. I’ve been working very hard. Every day. I still haven’t earned anything…but I haven’t given up yet and every day I get up and ‘go to work.’

I have thought a lot about my unemployment. And now, everyone else’s. Months ago, I sent an email to several friends and family members, trying to get them to acknowledge that we were in hard economic times. That it wasn’t ‘just me’ – being lazy, stupid, not trying hard enough. My brother had sent me a brief article about the shrinking legal market in California. I sent my loved ones the article with my own message noting that these were difficult economic times, just as I’d been trying to tell them for months. Since I lost my job, most people acted like I had done something wrong to have gotten laid off. That I was continuing to do something wrong by not finding a replacement job lickety split. I knew it wasn’t me – I make enough errors, which I generally freely admit. But this wasn’t one of them. Still, I had to swallow the condemnation that came my way. So I sent that article, hoping for some acknowledgement and empathy. I didn’t hear from my friends or my parents or aunts or uncles or boyfriend. The only one who emailed me was my disabled sister, who gave me a pep talk….

And now, now times have changed. Everyone knows we’re in a bad economic state. It has become almost hip to know someone who has been brutally affected by the economy. (Still most people I know have managed to retain their jobs and their empathy is something like the empathy they feel for orphaned children in Darfur…better than nothing, but in the end, rather hollow.) Yesterday I called the Berkeley City Club to see if there might be some way I could use their pool. My knees have totally gone bad and I’m trying not to run. As I was working, (diligently trying to find ways of earning that elusive dollar), I could see people running by out my window and I ached to join them. It was then I called the pool. The young man who answered the phone was very sweet but also emphatic, “No. The only way you can swim here is if you are a member or if you know someone who is.” (I seriously contemplated sending a mass email to my local address book to see if anyone has a membership….) “Okay,” I told him, “I’m unemployed and have three kids, so this isn’t really an option, but if it were, how much does it cost to join?” The answer was way above any budget that I might have with my non-existent salary. “Oh well,” I said, “maybe one day I’ll earn enough to come swim there….” This receptionist at the Berkeley City Club responded, “I’m sorry about your unemployment,” (and his voice sounded like he was sorry), “but did you see the news earlier this week? Maybe some of that will help you.” I thanked him, sincerely, and hung up. Last year, that conversation would not have happened, but now, now people are hip to the fact that good, hardworking people are unemployed and it might not be their fault….

Even Amid the Concrete....

Ah...a new and beautiful morning. I start my day (though I've already been up for hours) when I step into my little concrete yard to put on my socks in the glow of morning sun. Its warmth feels good on my body (which is still aching a bit from yesterday's run, which I probably shouldn't have taken because my body was hurting before the run...oh...aging...). I don't remain seated long, drawn with unconscious desire to my growing things.

First, to my lemon tree, another lemon almost ready to be picked. To fall gently into my hand. And almost thirty others in various stages of hard green growth. Then I admire the mint surrounding my prodigious little tree. All of this growing in a barrel...amazing....Next I check the lettuces, growing in several pots, happy from the week of rain and from this morning's sun.

It is then I notice the sweet peas, unstoppable, like Jack's bean stock, growing and tangling on the old baker's rack. For now, their only color comes from the violas which they encompass -- purple and yellow and white. Vibrant in their joy.

All of this life flows into me and suddenly I feel ready to jump into my work...though I now notice I've been distracted, again, by all those growing things....

Having faith

Today is a rambling sort of day....Why? Because I get to make the rules here....

Item number one: I happily watched and listened to President Obama last night. And that, I realized towards the end of his address, is something new -- both that I gave an hour of my crowded evening to our president and that I was happy while doing so. Amazing....I think that as Americans, we are becoming happy and proud again. We're also scared (are we going to pull out of this economic disaster? are we going to war again? etc.) but we're beginning to have faith. Really. I feel it. And isn't that what faith is all about?....

Item number two: A related post script to number one. It made me feel personally proud of my thirteen year old daughter to see her sitting and listening to the whole speech -- even telling a phone caller that she'd have to call back because she was watching the president....

Unrelated item number three: Today is the funeral for an old friend of the family's. And though he was old in every sense of the word, and I guess his time had just come, I still have to comment that a sparkle has left the earth. And I think of other bright lights who have gone, many seemingly before their time, and though I rebel against accepting these realities, I cannot deny that just as water vapor rises up and then rains down out of some distant cloud in some other place, so too some people die and others are born and cycles and symmetry do exist....

Maybe it all gets back to...faith....

Economic Troubles Keep Coming

My brother always says, "You can either make lemon aid or you can suck on the lemon."
These days, we're lucky if we have the lemon....

In and around my neighborhood, restaurants and businesses are falling prey to the economic realities of the world. It is shocking and depressing. Scary. In the last few months, one corner has seen Starbucks close (okay, I admit, I wasn't one hundred percent sad when it did), and upstairs, gone too is a Berkeley stalwart restaurant that everyone had been to at least once, and just yesterday, at that same intersection, Elephant Pharmacy closed its doors....

Elephant's website has this message: "It is with a heavy heart that we post this notice: Elephant Pharm has closed indefinitely. As a small business, we’ve been hurt by the terrible turn the economy has taken and the tightening of the credit market. It’s been a very special six years since we started this drugstore revolution, and we certainly couldn’t have made it as far as we did without you—our customers. We hope that you will continue your pursuit of a good, long life, well lived."

If that isn't a tear-jerker, I don't know what is....Last night when my daughter heard the news, (big news in our house, as I've been a booster of this store since it opened, with its alternative healing and its commitment to the local community), she said, with a stricken look, "Let's move to Canada." Not much better, we had to tell her. "Mexico, then," she said. "There too," we said. It's a slippery slope all over the world....

How then, lemon aid or lemon bars instead of puckering on a sour lemon? I don't have any good answers; I don't know how we get a foothold and don't succumb to the slippery slope...but I do know that answers or not, we can't give up....Giving up is not an option.

Patriotic Leanings....

Have you noticed how cool it now feels to be PATRIOTIC?!

I confess that in and around Berkeley, it used to be that the only people with American flags fluttering in their yards were...Republicans....And the flags were faded and nothing about the scene looked happy. (And the truth is, there were only one or two in a twenty mile radius....)

NOW I see houses and businesses with tons of bright, new flags -- American flags! -- and life size Obama cardboard cutouts. And my thirteen year old daughter spontaneously painted her nails on Inauguration Day.

In Berkeley it is once again cool to be patriotic....I think that is pretty cool.

Go out and enjoy your country and be proud of it....

Celebrate....

A wonderful way to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., a wonderful way to honor Barack and Michelle Obama, a wonderful way to honor your country:
Log on to the USA Service website and find something to do that will help someone...tikkun olam....

No matter if you're very busy and don't have much time, no matter if you're broke and don't have much money, no matter if you help people every day and think that's enough, make tomorrow, this Monday January 19, 2009, different. Step out of yourself just a little bit and find one little (or big, for heaven's sake) thing you can do that will make a difference in someone's life....
Let's all join together as a country, as one nation, let's show the world and each other that on this day AND from this day forward, we can work together....Tomorrow, let our numbers speak loudly and clearly....

Let's show each other we can do it!

As far as I can see it, there is no excuse....Just do it....
http://usaservice.org/content/home/

Today's Question....

So today I have a burning question....Well, I should probably say "this morning" because later I will probably have more questions without answers.....

I want to know how many people make health care decisions, basic health care decisions (like whether to call the doctor, make an appointment, undergo a procedure, take medicine, etc.) based primarily on financial concerns.

And I want to know the breakdown. Basically, are members of Congress making health care choices based on finances?

Are the majority of people in this country, (this otherwise developed nation), forgoing basic health care because they can't afford it?

That's what I want to know....That's it....