The Butterfly Effect

The Alternate Reality of Africa: Amani needs a 4x4

2012-02-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

"How's it going with the African?" (Overheard at Groundwork coffee shop, Hollywood.)

The African. On my bus ride to Groundwork, I was truck by the alternate reality happening in Congo, that I had recently been living in during our Action Kivu trip to see the work Amani has been doing via his Congolese organization, ABFEK. Here in Los Angeles, I ride the relatively clean and efficient Metro bus that arrives on time if not a minute early. I wear boots, jeans and a light sweater and scarf on a late January day, the air as crisp as a Southern California winter allows, the sky bright blue and cloud-free. Around the world and not so far in my recent past, women in eastern Congo stand on crowded streets, the heavy, humid, hot air filled with dust from the dirt road and exhaust from the cars and trucks that narrowly miss their sandal-clad feet. They wear long skirts in bright colors and beautifully busy patterns, carry fruit, water or a basket on their heads, waiting for overcrowded buses that have no schedule to run on, squeezing into the seats with neighbors and strangers, thighs and arms brushing as the bus bumps over the pot-holes that fill the width and length of the roads. When it's muddy during the rainy season, the buses slip-slide through the sludge, getting stuck in the ruts, skidding sideways and putting passengers' lives in jeopardy. This is their reality, and it's how Amani and his program assistants get around Bukavu, and to and from the surrounding villages. Without a 4x4, if the roads are rain-washed, plans are canceled and work comes to a grinding halt.

Take a look at one of our many rides, lovingly nicknamed a "Congo massage," through Bukavu, on the road to the hospital, out to the even rougher roads on our way to Mumosho. Amani narrates:

"If you're stuck, you can't do your work."

How are my two realities so disparate? Many tell me that I've given up convenience by giving up a car, but in reality, almost everything about life in Los Angeles is convenient, by comparison. We can't fix the roads in Congo, but we can try to help Amani navigate them with more ease, and safety. He needs a vehicle. A 4x4, to safely transport him to and from the many projects he oversees via ABFEK. To visit and check in on the progress of the Bukavu Sewing Workshop to the Mumosho one, to the various schools where he sends children to receive a basic education, to the shared farm or the animal husbandry project. A used 4x4 can be purchased for around 20 to 30,000 U.S. dollars. If you know of anyone with connections in Tanzania or Rwanda, or a generous benefactor, please let us know! Unlike a sports utility vehicle driven on the paved highways of Los Angeles, a 4x4 is required equipment in Congo.

Amani holds on during the drive from Mumosho to Bukavu.

Baby on board - a mom handed me her son while she climbed into the bus.

Women walk the road from Mumosho to Bukavu, to sell their goods in the city.

Action Kivu's Visit to Congo: Ernata's Story

2012-01-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

Just pretend that we’re not here, said the two American Muzungus (white people). As the women of the Mumosho Sewing Workshop huddled around the two instructors, we hovered over them with cameras, trying to find the right light in the small, dark room, lit only by two windows. The workshop was at capacity with peddle-powered Singer sewing machines, tables for ironing with a heavy iron filled with hot coals, and over 25 women, a couple who carry quiet, wide-eyed babies.

One woman, Ernata, had a hard time looking away from the camera, her smile wide and friendly and frequent. A bright red-orange scarf added color to her simple white tee-shirt, and like every other woman in the workshop, a measuring tape hung from her neck. Amani, who started this sewing program in his home village of Mumosho in 2009, explained the importance of the women sharing their stories with us, so that people in the U.S. and around the world could connect to them, individually, and feel a sense of sharing life and building this community through their support of the sewing workshop.

Ernata volunteered to be the first to talk with us, meeting us behind the building where ABFEK rents the room for the center. Sitting on a simple wooden stool, ignoring the crows of a rooster and the questioning looks and giggles of a few neighborhood kids, she eyed the camera with confidence, and looked directly at us as she answered the questions Amani translated for her.

Read Ernata's story at Action Kivu.

Happy 2012: A Bus Ride from Hell

2012-01-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

They say 2012 will be the end of the world, as we know it. I’ve been hopeful it means a change of consciousness, a shift in awareness that we’re all connected on this planet, so we’ll start to act in accordance. The first day of 2012 was a Sunday, and it felt like it might be the end of my world. Period.

Our second day in Bukavu, Congo, our Saturday trip to the village of Mumosho, a mere 25 kilometers away, had been canceled after a rainy night had wreaked havoc on the dirt roads. Sunday morning, Cate and I woke early to the sound of rain, and wondered if Amani’s plans to celebrate the new year with the kids of Mumosho would be foiled by weather once more.

Amani met us outside the gate of the Swedish Mission compound, standing next to a compact, four-door taxi that, under the caked-on mud and sprays of dust and grime, appeared to have once been white. The rain had stopped, but Amani informed us the roads were a mess, and since this car could not make the hilly drive to Mumosho, we would travel to meet another driver on the other side of one of the connecting roads.

We slowly bumped, skidded and slid our way through the city streets of Bukavu, Amani joking that we could fish in the lake-sized puddles that were the color of Willy Wonka’s river of chocolate. The ruts in the road are made worse each rainy day as heavy truck, bus and car wheels dig deeper in them. We watched locals on foot carefully stepping their way through the deep mud, mothers and older siblings holding small children by their arms to keep them upright. We drove by, spraying mud and puddle juice on them all. One kid caught sight of our white (“muzungu”) faces in the back of the cab, and shocked, cried out “Muzungus in a dirty car!” which is now our Congolese theme song, sung to tune of “Fat guy in a little coat.”

Shortly after we stopped, our cab unable to drive any further, we saw the station wagon hired to drive us to Mumosho equally mired in the mud. Amani told us we’d have to walk the length of this road that now looked like a swamp, to find another ride. He looked at me and asked if I’d be okay, what with my balance issues. Holding onto our backpacks as a few people were begging for money, we started walking, setting one foot carefully in the sludge before raising the other. Pausing too long, the mud suctioned your shoe, throwing you off balance. We crossed what could loosely be defined as a bridge, a few boards built over a deep ravine, slippery and crowded with people. On the other side, our ride was waiting. A local bus, these vans cram nearly 20 people into the narrow seats, the leg-room calculated for Congo, where, at just 5 feet tall, Amani is not considered short.

Putting her bulky camera bag on her lap, Cate scooted close to the window, and I angled my back toward the door, wedging my knees toward Cate. Soon, the bus filled with passengers, who did not care about my comfort, forcing me to sit straight ahead, my knees jammed in the metal seat in front of me.

To describe the entire 2 hour trip would be as painful to read as it was to endure. On a good, dry day, in a rented car of 4x4, the rutted road to Mumosho has been called a “Congo massage.” After two nights of steady rain, it was an amusement park ride from hell. We ascended the hilly, narrow road, the driver veering to each side to avoid the largest holes. Each time the tires lost traction, I gripped Cate’s arm. To one side of our van was a deep ditch, to the other, a cliff.

I don’t know if prayers change physical events already set in motion, but staring at a cliff inches away, my panicked mind hoped they did. I considered saying a Hail Mary, but I’m so WASPy, all I could remember was the Whoopi Goldberg song from “Sister Act.” “Hail Mary.” “Hail sisters, what’s up?”

Still bumping over, in and out of deep holes, the skidding and sliding became the constant, which was great, as it gave me time to consider death. And the likely lack of control over my death, or this van, for that matter. My attempts to embrace and accept what I couldn’t control were interrupted by my seatmate, the Grim Reaper’s PR guy, who kept jostling my arm to point out only those sick or dead, being transported by hand-held cots down the wet road to the hospital, or the grave.

My mantra was that the driver didn’t want to die either, right? At that moment, he turned a bend and spun a full 90 degrees, the van nose at the edge of the cliff. While I stopped breathing, about five kids with shovels full of dry-ish dirt from the hillside appeared, slip-sliding toward us to dump the red earth under our wheels, giving us the traction to right the van. As it slowly turned road-wise again and the back wheels spun, threatening another cliff-view, the men in the van cheered “Congo! Congo!” and Cate joined them with a raised fist, the hand I wasn’t gripping.

That bend being the worst of the ride, we simply spun around and got stuck in a village, men pushing on all sides so we wouldn’t plow into the roadside shops or that old man walking with his cane.

We arrived in Mumosho, unable to feel our feet or hands, numb from the long ride and a claw-like grip on the seat ahead of us. The rest of our time, we shelled out the money for a 4x4 and driver, vowing never to do that again, and not to tell our worried mothers until safely on paved ground.

Happy 2012 to Congo. May your year be filled with hope, change, and asphalt.

Que sera, sera? What Will These Kids Be?

2012-01-14T21:38:00.000-08:00

Monday, Cate, Amani, Gunilla, Willy and I once again traveled the rutted road to Mumosho. After days without rain, the dust from passing trucks blew in our windows. Dust in the teeth beats slick, mud-washed roads any day.

We drove to Orebu Elementary, where, through your support of Action Kivu, Amani's local non-profit ABFEK sponsors 23 students who could otherwise not afford to pay the $4/month for school fees. As we walked into the principal's office, the sound of sing-song repetition of French and Swahili lessons emerged from each window, a single rectangular hole in the mud brick wall per classroom, providing a bit of light.

The kids sit shoulder-to-shoulder on rows of short wooden benches, their knees for desks, a simple blackboard the only teaching tool. The school uniform is a bright, cobalt blue skirt for the girls and shorts for the boys, their white shirts ranging from button downs to tee-shirts, all yellowed with age and dirt, frayed and torn. Almost every child sports a pair of rubbery plastic sandals in a variety of neon colors that are dulled by dust.

In the fourth grade class, we were introduced to Shukura, a 10-year-old girl sponsored by ABFEK / Action Kivu, who is at the top of her class. In fact, all girls had taken the top three spots of the fourth grade, the other two sponsored by Kids4CongoKids. Sponsoring kids, especially girls, whose families cannot afford the 4$/month school fees, makes a marked difference in a community where poor families often choose to educate sons over daughters.

Shukura tells us shyly that she wants to be a teacher when she graduates. Most of the children in the schools we visited plan to be doctors or teachers, two of the only professions they see in their villages. Zawadi, however, whose name means "gift," wants to be an agronomist. The land here is wildly rich, but despite the beans, bananas, corn and cassava growing like weeds, many of the children are malnourished. Zawadi is in the second grade at APSED, a sort of charter school formed by neighborhood parents who wanted to ensure war orphans and poverty stricken kids receive an education. ABFEK / Action Kivu sponsors 19 kids there. With so many children at the school, and only three small, dirt-floored classrooms, the kids only go a half day, so the other classes can meet the second half.

We waited to meet 11 of the sponsored kids in the principal's office, a few chairs and two desks filling the room, posters of basic anatomy and a hand-printed list of the school's objectives decorated the mud-brown walls. The first girl, around eight years old, walked in and confidently shook our hands with a clear "Bonjour! ça va?" An extremely serious boy wearing a torn shirt with a brick red collar somberly shook both Cate and my hands, then solemnly gave Amani a fist-bump.

The principal explained that the kids at APSED school come from particularly bad situations, and that it is his job to encourage them. Many live with extended family or host families, having lost parents in the conflict. He singled out one little girl, showing how her right ankle and leg curved unnaturally out, making it difficult for her to walk and play. She was scared speechless by the cameras and the muzungus (white people), her lips moving, but making no sound. The serious boy, Bisimwa, volunteered to take her place, putting her out of her misery. Without cracking even the smallest smile, he told us how he likes science and nature, and plans to be a teacher. He lives with his dad, after his mother died.

Ashuza stepped into frame, wearing an over-sized tee-shirt that nearly covered his blue shorts. He balanced easily on his right foot, his left foot twisted inward at a right angle. The principal explained that he was born with the defect, another reminder how few medical treatments are available or affordable here. Ashuza loves to read, and wants to be a doctor. They took the gifts of crayons and candy (snack-sized snickers, m&ms and twix) with a whispered "merci," and carefully put the chocolate in their pockets, to savor later.

The song "Que Sera, Sera" kept playing in my head. "When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, what will I be?" Is it really whatever will be, will be? I went through so many answers to the question of what I wanted to do, usually based on whatever book I was reading at the time. A ballerina! A lawyer! An archeologist!

These children in eastern Congo have experienced only uncertainty, and seem to have a hard time envisioning a bright future. In response to Amani's question, "What is wrong with Congo," the kids at Burembo Elementary answered:

Hunger
Killings
People robbed going to and from mining areas
Rape against women should stop
Theft
Teachers should be paid

When you were 6 or 10 or 12, did you even think about what was wrong in your country? How would you have answered the question? How can we create change so the next generation of Congolese kids answers differently?

Practicing reading and speaking French.

To help, visit ActionKivu.org. Minus nominal banking fees, 100% goes directly to programs on the ground. We're working to expand the education assistance to include secondary school fees, which are $6/month, so that kids can continue through grade 12, and graduate with a degree that will help them find work in an office, or as an elementary school teacher. Speaking to women in the sewing projects who were forced to drop out of elementary or secondary school, they're grateful for a chance to learn a skill, terrified that they might have to prostitute themselves to feed their family. Education makes a HUGE difference, and these kids are grateful for your support.

Muzungus with Money, The Orchid Hotel and Dancing with City of Joy

2012-01-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

Wednesday and Thursday were quiet days for Cate and I, a sort of weekend, as Amani was en route to and from Kigali, Rwanda, for his U.S. Visa interview with the embassy there. He passed the “why wouldn’t you just stay in the U.S. question with flying colors, and after hearing about his work and his reasons to return to the Congo, the woman told him “You deserve a visa.” (Save the date! We’ll be co-hosting a benefit / art-opening the evening of Saturday, March 10, in Los Angeles.)

Thursday, Gunilla suggested we visit the house where she’s staying with other Swedes, who work at Panzi hospital (a now world-renowned hospital started by Dr. Denis Mukwege, where they treat women who have suffered sexual violence, and fix fistulas caused by rape and obstructed pregnancies). Gunilla’s house, in a heavily NGO and muzungu populated area, overlooks Lake Kivu. On another warm, muggy day, a light breeze was blowing off the water, a small canoe was being rowed out by two fisherman, and there was a hammock, surrounded by banana trees.

We continued our day of relaxation at the Orchid Hotel, where the muzungus with money stay in Bukavu. The shoreline of the lake is dotted with Mediterranean style homes climbing the hillside, a slightly rundown remnant from colonial times. While Gunilla took a swim in the lake, we watched the fisherman row out a second time, and this time we could hear their song highlighted with long, slow whistles. Amani told us they sing many different songs for luck fishing, calling the fish into the nets. Gunilla watches this from her backyard, and says it’s especially beautiful at night, lit by lanterns on the boats. It was gorgeous, the singing, the lapping of lake waves, the tropical flowers. The peace was almost ridiculous in its juxtaposition to the chaos of honking horns, ruined roads, and poverty-stricken people just a few minute’s walk away. But it was also a reminder, away from the dust and dirt and overcrowded road lined with shanties, that beauty of all kinds exists in eastern Congo.

We ate a very late lunch / early dinner at Coco Lodge, a small hotel and restaurant owned and operated by Christine, the woman who is the director of Eve Ensler’s City of Joy here in Bukavu. The sign outside the restaurant noted it was a part of the Slow Food movement, which I’d only started paying attention to a few years ago after learning about it from the book In Praise of Slow. Sure enough, the menu highlighted items that were locally sourced and cooked according to the slow food guidelines. Though when we met Christine the next day at City of Joy, she admitted that everything in Congo is locally sourced.

City of Joy is a part of Eve Ensler’s V-Day, and opened last year to begin its first 6 month program, housing and rehabilitating women and girls who are victims of sexual violence. Many of the participants are from the nearby Panzi hospital, but Christine explained that they serve women from all over eastern Congo, and that Heal Africa hospital has done very well selecting women who fit a leadership profile. After being healed of the physical trauma resulting from rape, the women move into City of Joy’s housing, to form community and learn skills, from English and computers to agriculture and women’s rights. They are encouraged to take back the power of their story by telling it and opening up to others.
Gunilla had visited once before to train a group of women in Trauma Tapping Therapy, and we joined her for a follow-up visit Friday morning. As is usual, a mid-morning departure became an early afternoon arrival with the rains from the previous night ruining the roads, and a stuck truck just outside the area stopping us for almost half an hour. We pulled off the road at the city’s dirt-brown soccer field, and bumped along a make-shift dirt road between a shanty-town of brown tents pitched in the mud, laundry lines strung between them, kids playing and waving as we passed.

Since Unicef is still working on their part, the physical construction of the campus, we met the women for the tapping training (TTT) in a large canvas Unicef tent. As we entered, 30 women started singing and dancing to the beat of a drum one was playing, their bare feet pounding and slapping the tent floor. We joined in the dance, and one leader danced up to each of us, correcting our rhythm by example, her smile filling most of her face. Joy indeed.

After sitting down in a circle of chairs, Gunilla asked the women about their experience with TTT since she’d first taught them. A woman named Jane took center stage, young and exuding energy, everyone laughed just to be in her presence and cheered her on. Despite her great smile, she described her trouble sleeping, that she has nightmares that the man who raped her is trying to rape her again. I woke up afraid, then realized I was at City of Joy and alone, she said. She was worried and sad, but then remembered the TTT training, and thought she’d try. Standing in the middle of the circle, Jane demonstrated through elaborate charades how she tapped each energy point and, dramatically, how she fell asleep. She explained that she woke up feeling peaceful, and would like to learn more.

To honor each woman who spoke, everyone did a group clap. Together, 3 staccato claps, followed by everyone throwing out their arms, palms out, towards the speaker, sending them blessings. The person receiving joins in the clapping, but accepts the group blessing by crossing her arms over her chest. Then, another three claps in unison, and the group all accept the woman’s blessing with arms hugging their chests, as she throws her arms out, palms toward the group.

After a few more people sharing about how the TTT is helping them heal, one of City of Joy’s leaders started another song, and then we wrapped up with more body exercises and a massage train lesson. Christine had explained earlier that one of the trainings there is massage, to heal through positive, healthy touching. She told us how one woman didn’t feel she could be touched by a muzungu (Christine is half Belgian and half Congolese) because she didn’t feel worthy of being touched. Another woman shared her original skepticism about the TTT technique, but allowed her friend to practice it on her, as she had almost constant insomnia. She told the group how, if you sat next to her, she appears normal. But she keeps everything inside. After her friend did the therapy, she felt like everything *whoosh* went out of her, demonstrating with a flowing hand motion.

After a late lunch of banana, papaya, pineapple, hard-boiled eggs and white bread rolls “for the muzungus,” Cate, Gunilla and I returned to the tent for a dance lesson. The first graduation ceremony will be held on January 28th, with Ensler and many others in attendance, and a group of the graduates are going to perform a West African dance. Linda, one of the interns working at City of Joy and studying social work in Kigali, was our dance instructor, while her friend and fellow intern was the DJ, playing the song over and over again as we stumbled through the moves. If you buy us a glass of wine or invite us to your wedding, Cate and I will find the song and perform it for you.

Next, Linda started demonstrating the electric slide, and I was all – I’ve GOT this one DOWN. Which meant I had to join her in the demonstration, fulfilling one dream of being a dance instructor. A few of the girls recognized the moves as being similar to their local dance, so they took over the lesson, and we followed in some groove and some jump kicks that evolved into a train, which led to a dance circle.

Sweaty, laughing, we left the tent and cross the grass back to the main building. It felt like summer camp, leading me to ask Christine about the post-graduation step, the women returning to the villages. Villages where the sexual attacks had occurred. Are they prepared for the stigma, that horrifyingly follows the victim, not the perpetrator, of sexual violence? Are they worried about another attack?

Christine said those are issues they’re addressing, in the courses and through individual social workers, and a healthy budget allotted to follow-up and instigating income-generating jobs for the women. She pointed to one woman who had lost all her family, and literally only has the clothes on her back. It’s the first group to graduate, so there are a lot of questions to be answered. Nothing about the Congo is black & white.

Cate & Rebecca in Congo: Cat Fight, More from Mumosho, Women Bearing the Burden, and the Healing Touch

2012-01-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 4th — We woke to sunshine two days in a row, further drying out the roads and apparently fixing our wifi woes - though we're in an internet cafe now to have the best service. Amani is on his way to Kigali for his visa interview with the U.S. Embassy. We're planning on his visit to the U.S. in late February, so he might act as a representative of Congo for two days of advocacy in D.C. with Jewish World Watch, and we can introduce him to everyone at a fundraiser in March.

We're not on our own, though, as we've become fast friends with Gunilla, the Swedish woman working here and in Rwanda, teaching techniques for trauma healing. We'll be visiting with her, and perhaps going to an organization that houses and rehabilitates former child soldiers. We're also hoping she invites us to her house, as she has a fabulous view of Lake Kivu. It's good to have a couple of days to relax a bit and let the body, mind and soul process all we've seen and heard already.

Yesterday morning, Cate and I untangled ourselves from our respective mosquito nets after a restless night listening to what we could only identify as a cat vs. .... wildebeest? fight (we were too freaked out by whatever it was that sounded BIG to check), just outside our window. A little sleepy, we're always grateful for the woman who cooks our breakfast at the Swedish Mission, downed some egg whites and mango, and headed out jump in the truck with our team, Amani, his ABFEK assistant Willy, and Gunilla. Tuesday looked to be laundry day; as we drove the mountain road, clothing and fabrics laid out to dry on both hillsides of the valley that divides Congo and Rwanda created a patchwork of bright color against the green vegetation.

As we waited at a roadblock on the road to Mumosho for Amani to pay our $5 toll, supposedly collected to fix this horrible road, despite the lack of evidence of any work crews, Gunilla pointed out the inequality of men and women here, seen in a couple walking past our truck. The man strolled with ease, his empty arms swinging by his side, his head bare to the sun, while the woman bore the burden of a heavy bag of goods hanging from her forehead. Thought we do see young men and boys struggling to push heavy-laden carts of wood up the rutted road, or a man balancing over 30 loaves of bread on a board atop his head, the majority of people we see are women, hunched under back-breaking loads of branches, bags, and jerrycans of water.

At the entrance to Mumosho, we dropped off Willy at the Peace Market with blue paint, paintbrushes and a slip of paper spelling out the words for the sign to thank and honor Robin Wright for her donation to build the latrines that make using the market possible. Amani, Gunilla, Cate and I continued on to the church and school, to meet the women for the second day of trauma tapping therapy.

All 16 participants from the day before had returned, and were waiting for us, even though we were an hour late. Once again, African time proving the value of patience. Once we'd settled in the small room, Gunilla thanked them for returning and opened the day asking if anyone had tried the tapping therapy the night before. A third of the class raised their hands, surprising Gunilla, who said it usually takes longer for people to soak it in and feel comfortable offering the therapy to others.

A woman named Mapenda volunteered to share her experience. She visited her neighbor, and told her about the training she had leared. "I told her about trauma, and how I'd felt very well in my mind when we were practicing the therapy," Mapenda explained, "and my neighbor said she has several problems, and was interested in the treatment." At the beginning, she said, the woman and her husband were laughing, thinking the tapping was a game, but after the first time, the woman asked Mapenda to repeat the treatment. When she was finished, her neighbor asked if she, too, could join the training sessions, but Mapenda explained that when they had completed the training, they would share it with everyone.

As the other women shared their stories from the night before, a common theme arose. Almost each person treated asked to join the training, and stressed the importance of sharing it with others, from a young miner who had been abducted by the FDLR soldiers, and escaped from them with nothing, and since had not been sleeping at night, to a poor widow who couldn't sleep from stress and worry after her only crops had been ruined by erosion.

The women in the training were engaged and eager to share their stories, asking practical questions that showed they were already envisioning how to use the training, anticipating problems or questions that might arise from their neighbors. Once again, they separated into pairs, to practice the tapping therapy on each other, and it was lovely to see women caring for each other, carefully touching their fingers to a forehead, holding hands and breathing together.

Gunilla told Amani that it is obvious the women are trusted in their community, and they know the suffering that is there. It is also clear, she told him, that they trust you. There's something about this community and the work you've been doing here. You have been constant, and they know the work will continue."

The day ended with an exercise, the woman standing in a circle, following Gunilla through a series of stretches, self-massage and relaxation techniques. As Gunilla bent into a half-squat, her knees and feet close together as she swayed in a circle, the women joined her with a song, this move was part of a dance they know well.

Before heading to the Peace Market, we stopped by the Mumosho sewing center to meet the women, and so Amani could introduce us and the importance of the women and girls sharing their lives through photos, video and story, to continue to raise awareness for their needs and to find support for the program. Amani explained that there are 26 students this year, though there are many more women who want to join. They sorted through the applicants, choosing the most vulnerable women, women left alone and with nothing after their husbands divorced them (women have no rights to income or land here), or young single mothers, who were nursing their babies while the others worked on the pedal-powered machines in the dark room, the only light coming in from a window.

Promising to return next week, we continued on to the Peace Market, where Willy was supervising the creation of the latrine sign. When I'd seen the blue paint, I'd assumed it would be a hand-painted sign on wood, and was surprised to see two craftsmen, chiseling the words in perfect Helvetica font into a sign of concrete. We left before the letters were finished, and will see the completed project next week, when Amani symbolically hands over the keys to the latrine to the Market Management Team, giving them full ownership of the Peace Market.

Sending love and thanks from the people of Bukavu and Mumosho - their gratitude is overwhelming - thank you all for your support of the people here! Learn more at ActionKivu.org.

Growing up Bookish: What I learned from Harriet, Claudia, Mary and more

2011-12-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

“What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.” — Anne Lamott

I'm helping my mother clean out her attics, an emotional process as she prepares to move out of her house of over 20 years, clearing out years of memories, selling antiques that won't fit into her new, down-sized life, and giving away books. So. Many. Books.

We found a reading report from my second grade teacher, the beloved Nan Stewart, in which she had written that she didn't worry about assigning me reading for the summer break, as "Rebecca loves to read." Both my parents are story-tellers, and raised us as readers. Saturdays and summer days were spent on the floor at the Eugene public library, surrounded by stacks and the smell of books. I remember my mom's reasoning about why I shouldn't read Sweet Valley High books: not because they were trashy or taught poor morals for a pre-teen girl, but that they weren't well-written.

Cleaning out the attic, opening boxes and boxes of storybooks and novels, covers tattered from reading over and over again, my mom remembered how I revered books as a little girl, how I'd barely crack the covers so as not to break the spine, how upset I got if my sister borrowed one and dogeared a page to save her place. I moved on from that quickly, and now my love of favorite books shows in how dogeared and scribbled upon they are.

Looking at my childhood collection, story is how I learned to understand the world. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg) introduced me to adventure and investigation, Dancing Shoes and Ballet Shoes (Noel Streatfield) still makes me wish I hadn't quit ballet class and had grown into a dancer, albeit a tall dancer. Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh) inspired me to take notes on life all around me, that everything and everyone has a story, and to find connections in the unexpected. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett), its battered, broken spine falling open to page 130, reminding me, in our "we live in public" lives of Facebook, Twitter and blogging, how lovely it is to discover and keep a secret, and perhaps share it with just one or two trusted friends.

"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be spoiled — everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't—don't—don't—don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered with almost a sob in her throat, "but if you make them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see—you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves—if there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy—if there was—and we could find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind us, an dno one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and pretended that—that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it all come alive—"

"...If the garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don't you see? Oh, don't you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?"

— The Secret Garden

“I am simply a ‘book drunkard.’ Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.” — L.M. Montgomery

Read more quotes from writers on the love of reading at Flavorpill.

World Toilet Day: Peace Market Latrines Under Construction!

2011-11-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

Latrine at the Peace Market, prior to construction.

What? You didn't know that November 19th is World Toilet Day? I didn't either, until I read Amnesty International's post about "giving a crap for human rights," and immediately thought of Robin Wright and Amani Matabaro. Neither one who approved my using his/her name in conjunction with "crap," but both have given time and money toward making sure the women, men and children who use the Peace Market have a safe and sanitary place to ... well, poop.

It's an unsavory subject, but one that is critical to health and human rights. I never thought I'd be so passionate about the toilet, but lately I can't forget the fact that 2.6 billion people don't have access to basic sanitation. Next time you flush, consider that open defecation leads to outbreaks of cholera, which is a horrifying threat to the lives of children, especially in eastern Congo, where 1 in 4 children who die before their fifth birthday in lose their lives to something entirely preventable – cholera and acute diarrhea.

Check out our Action Kivu blog to learn how important these latrines are, from the people who manage the Peace Market.


Latrines under construction

Cate and I are excited to visit the Peace Market in person later this month to see the completed project, and share more stories with you!

In the meantime, you can support human rights on World Toilet Day by supporting the Water for the World Act. Take ACTION and sign Amnesty International's petition today!

Six Feet Under: Pay Attention

2011-11-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

Everybody dies. Until you really face the truth of your own mortality, you can't really start to live. ~ Alan Ball, Creator, Six Feet Under.

As Claire embarks on a journey and says her goodbyes, she takes a photo of her family. Nate whispers over her shoulder: "You can't take a picture of this, it's already gone."

If you haven't watched the series from season 1, episode 1, stop NOW, go to Netflix and start watching. Forewarned about the power of the finale. I watched it alone, so as not to scare my roommate. Through my sobbing and Sia, all I could think was "It goes SO fast." Be present, and pay attention.

Bus Riding Revelation: Suffering and Chick-Fil-A

2011-10-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

I often avoid eye contact, waiting for the bus on Sunset. Avoid direct, conversation-starting contact with the too-crazy street folk, from the un-medicated schizophrenics to the tourists from Topeka who see stars everywhere they look. Time passes and the bus is minute-by-minute later than its ETA, and I suddenly awake to the fact that I'm sick of waiting, sick of smelling Chick-Fil-A and unable to gauge the time it would take to order and run back across the street to my stop, all the while stuffing guilty, anti-gay marriage waffle fries in my mouth. The driver of the 8:08 obviously has it in for me, ruining my night.

And in that moment, surrounded by the greasy air of the chicken joint and the silt of car exhaust, I wake up, and remembered what I'd read that morning. What I had had the time to read, precisely because I take the sometimes-a-few-minutes-late-because-of-traffic bus. "Love and suffering are a part of most human lives. Without doubt, they are the primary spiritual teachers more than any Bible, church, minister, sacrament, or theologian," writes Richard Rohr in The Naked Now. He continues about love ... and notes that "When you are inside of great love and great suffering, you have a much stronger possibility of surrendering your ego controls and opening up to the whole field of life."

You may not see waiting for a late bus as "great suffering," but when you can't. reach. the. waffle. fries, believe me, IT IS. Rohr backs me up: "Suffering opens you in a different way. Here, things happen against your will — which is what makes it suffering. And over time, you can learn to give up your defended state, again because you have no choice. The situation is what it is," [no bus, no waffle fries] "although we will invariably go through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining," [paying the homeless guy to go buy my fries for an extra dollar and direct eye contact] "resignation, and (hopefully) on to acceptance. ... You can see why we must have a proper attitude toward suffering, because many things every day leave us out of control — even if just a long stoplight."

"Suffering... can lead you in either of two directions: It can make you very bitter and close you down, or it can make you wise, compassionate, and utterly open, either because your heart has been softened, or perhaps because suffering makes you feel like you have nothing more to lose."

Thankfully, this moment of suffering shook me out of my dark night of the ego and reminded me, especially as the bus pulled up, that I am thankful. For a cheap ride home, for the money saved on gas and my lighter carbon footprint that will go to a 4$ bottle of Trader Joe's wine (I'm particularly loving Green Fin California 2010 Red Table Wine, made with organic grapes) and for the people I have the chance to help and talk to and things I get to see by riding public transportation. I directed a lovely couple from Brazil where to get off for the Whiskey a Go-Go, only mis-directing them by one stop, I watched a baker in her white coat carefully disembark the train car bearing a beautiful white cake decorated with elegant, thin silver candles, and a women transporting boxes and bags of floral arrangements and roses in fall colors.

"Nondual thinking is a way of seeing that refuses to eliminate the negative, the problematic, the threatening parts of everything. ... [It] clarifies and sharpens your rational mind and increases your ability to see truthfully because your biases and fears are out of the way." (Rohr)

Pretty much sums up taking public transportation.

(Quotes from "The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See" by Richard Rohr, pp 122-125, 131. )

Tuesday: the homeless and the harpist

2011-10-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

Every day, for my current casting job, I read or hear stories of people on the verge — the verge of losing a home, losing a job, fear of losing their friends and family if they become homeless or have to move out of state for work. Though I'm collecting these stories for a good cause, so families might receive expert advice and become part of an online community in which strangers become neighbors and take up the social responsibility of caring for each other, it still wears on my soul.

So this morning, walking up to begin another day of disseminating distressing stories, I stopped to make sure a woman curled on the sidewalk was okay. A man was leaning over her, and as I approached he assured me the other man, sitting in his car at the curb, had called the paramedics. She was perched on that ledge, he told me, and then just fell over. The woman, dressed in dirty, street-stained clothes, was homeless and off her meds, though had obviously just been self-medicating with something. The man who had called 9-1-1 pulled away, and my new friend and I stood near the woman, reassuring her that the paramedics were on their way. She cradled herself, mumbling jibberish and crying, and I felt tears well up in my eyes.

It pushed me over my emotional edge. Too much — too much suffering, helplessness, self-medicating. But what also made me want to sob was seeing two strangers stop their day to help a woman who had likely done this to herself. I heard no words of judgment, just sympathy.

After another day of stories of foreclosure and loss of health insurance, I heard the sound of a harpist. Had I been in a terrible train accident? Was this heaven? It was Hollywood & Highland, and exiting the Metro, I heard Philip King playing to a small crowd waiting for the red line.

The moment of music and the harpist's gorgeous smile reminded me of the small beautiful things in life and, feeling a little more connected to them, I walked down to Sunset where I boarded my bus with a man with no hands, who carted about an old computer tower between his two stubs just above where his wrists should have been. His dirty dreadlocks covered his face as he bent forward to eat out of a take-out container of food he'd just scavenged from a fast-food joint near the bus stop. He, too, was off necessary meds, and muttered the whole drive west, as other passengers ignored him, looked away from his dirty arms that ended abruptly, exited the bus as if he wasn't there.

The last two passengers heading west, we rode the bus the rest of the way as he muttered unintelligible streams of consciousness and I read Richard Rohr's words about being fully present, how the kingdom of God is not the fuzzy future where harps are played by angels with long, beautiful dark hair, but a state of consciousness of being in the NOW. Looking at the empty bus and the homeless, crazy man, I wondered if he were a veteran, and if this was really the kingdom of God.

"The kingdom of God is the naked now — the world without human kingdoms, ethnic communities, national boundaries, or social identifications. That is about as subversive and universalist as you can get. But don't think about that too much; it will surely change your politics and your pocketbook."

Rohr continues to write about prayer as "resonance." "All you can really do in the spiritual life is get tuned to receive the always present message. ... Prayer is not an attempt to change God's mind about us or about events. ... It is primarily about changing our mind so that things like infinity, mystery and forgiveness can resound within us." (Richard Rohr, The Naked Now - Learning to See as the Mystics See)

Occupy L.A. - Talking About a Revolution

2011-10-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

Pete's 77 years old, just diagnosed with emphysema. He hasn't smoked for eight years, but the 50 prior to that is what did him in. It's a shame too, since as a activist, he goes to all the rallies and volunteers at various Los Angeles non-profits. His energy only about 30% what it once was, with all the meds he's on, he was still at the protest to "Occupy L.A.," smiling with toothless happiness as he sat next to me at City Hall, talking about revolution.

Some one with a camera asked me, do I think this will change anything, he told me, taking a swig from his bottle of water and surveying the crowd of post-march people who had taken over the lawns and sidewalks of L.A.'s City Hall. He paused and we both listened to the sound of a band playing, drums being beat, kids giggling and playing games, an occasional chant rising up.

Even if nothing changes, said Pete, we had a good time, right? We came, we met people, we listened to music and we talked. I nodded. But, Pete continued, I believe it is already changing. From the middle east to New York to here, a spark has been ignited, and it only takes a spark to fan that flame.

Photos include "Old and Still Idealistic" Donna with her daughter, the "Greed Kills / End Wars" guy pausing for a protest hotdog, "I Won't Believe Corporations are People until Texas Executes One," ladies with feather headdresses (I don't know what it is, but I like it), my friends in marching mode Sean & Robby, and the 99 to represent the rest of us, the 99% whose voices should count, whose votes should make a difference.

Someone with a camera talked to me too. A man who identified himself as being with NBC's Nightly News asked me why I was there, and the first thing that came to mind, the most basic, simple response was, "I had to show up. To make my voice heard. It's time."

But, as Sean coined the word, I'm a bit of a slacktivist. After marching in the sun, I bailed at 1:30, just when the day's activities were getting going. If you want to head down to City Hall, there's live music at 4pm, an open forum for the occupiers at 4:30, dinner delivered from Food Not Bombs at 5:30, a general assembly at 7:30, and at 9:30, the evening event begins. Power to the people!

Thanks to Eric, who reminded me of Tracy Chapman's lyrics: "Talkin' Bout A Revolution"

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know they're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

Poor people are gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people are gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

Don't you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run
Oh I said you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run

Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talking about a revolution
Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talking about a revolution oh no
Talking about a revolution oh no

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

And finally the tables are starting to turn
Talking about a revolution
Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talking about a revolution oh no
Talking about a revolution oh no
Talking about a revolution oh no

Reuniting with the Secret Self: Lessons from Yoga (and Spock)

2011-09-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

"Yoga" is usually translated "union," but, Steven reminded us at YogaGlo last night, it's more a reunion, reuniting with something that is always there. He asked us to think of it like our breath. Breathing is always there, whether we are conscious of it or not, but we reunite with that presence when we remember to be conscious of our breath. And, bringing our hands together in the prayer position at our heart center, we reunite light and dark, male and female, our conscious and unconscious selves.

It brought to mind the idea of searching for your other half, an idea that conceptual artist Leonard Nimoy (a.k.a. Spock) explored in his photography exhibit Secret Selves. "According to Greek mythology, humans were once four legged and four armed. When they became too arrogant and powerful Zeus split them in two. Since then mankind is in constant search for our other half in order to feel complete." (R. Michelson Galleries)

Sitting in the overflow room of a packed event at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, we watched a short film that went behind the scenes of Nimoy's shoot. We watched him set up shop in Northhampton, Mass, where he invited everyday people to arrive wearing something (or often, nothing) that gave a glimpse into a part of their life that may not be evident to all, even to oneself. A secret self.

Many were whimsical and lovely, such as Paul, a writer whose "inner self is a classical violinist, though I am not classical and I don’t play an instrument," or a man who wanted to retire as a mad scientist and brought along a bag of his crazy creations.

James — Newspaper Arts Editor
I plan to retire into a career as a mad scientist. I believe it is only madness of purpose that will serve me well.

Many were poignant and empowering. Hands in prayer position at the heart, bringing together light and dark.

Dawn — former Junior League President
I was physically, emotionally and psychologically abused…I was outed by my husband…
I am a fighter — been stripped bare but I keep on swinging.

Hands in prayer position at the heart, bringing together male and female.

"I like being a girl…no one knows I am a woman, let alone a lesbian. My beard is natural, there is no imbalance." ~ Aimee

Aimee talked to Nimoy about how a beard is a cultural indicator, defining one's sexuality. Most women pluck unwanted hair, and her beard is completely natural, she said, she doesn't have a hormonal imbalance. Because she's overweight, most people don't notice her double Ds. She doesn't interact much with people at work, she usually gets jobs "in the back," washing dishes, so they assume she's a man.

"We're not here to judge, we're here to learn and observe," Nimoy explained when he discussed his process. Another great lesson of yoga practice and most great spiritual teachers.

What is your secret self? my friend asked me as we left. I'm still not sure. I don't know how I would have arrived to meet with Nimoy, what I would wear, what I would reveal. Maybe I'm afraid of the dark, what / who might be lurking there. But in yoga (union), as I sit and come back to awareness of body and breath, reuniting with what IS, joining my hands to symbolize bringing together the yin and the yang, I feel a little more centered, and more open to whatever that secret self might be.

(Photos from R. Michelson Galleries - see more from the series here.)

Everyone Poops: Take Action to Solve the World's Toilet Crisis

2011-09-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

The john, the loo, the WC, the great white throne — for as many loving nicknames with which we've labeled the toilet, we likely take ours for granted. Yet, in this day and age of technology and TOTO toilets with heated seats, built-in bidets and push-button sounds to drown out the noise of nature, more than 2.6 billion people, approximately 40% of the world's population, don't have access to the most basic toilet.

This isn't just a problem for tourist boards trying to turn travelers' gaze from locals pooping in ponds, streams and rivers, this is life and death. "As a result (of open defecation), more than 2 million people — including 1.5 million children — die from complications of chronic diarrhea." (World's Toilet Crisis, Vanguard)

It isn't a sexy subject or one for the dinner table, but as the children's book teaches us, "Everyone Poops." But not everyone has access to or the education to understand the dire importance of a clean latrine. That's why it's crucial that we raise funds to build a latrine in the DRC this month.

This isn't just any latrine. This would fill a gaping, 30 foot hole that was dug in eastern Congo, dug to build the Peace Market, a dream of Amani Mataboro's to provide a place of commerce and community near the border, where Congolese and Rwandans could come together and work alongside each other towards peace and a stronger, healthier economy.

The latrine will serve this area of 26 villages and up to 42,000 people. It also benefits villages from the Walungu territory, as well as some communities on the Rwandan side of the Ruzizi river. With $4,500 USD, the latrine can be up and running, and, if we raise $9,000, it can be built as an environmentally sustainable resource of renewable energy - methane biogas.

"The market is the best site for a sanitary latrine, since it is a focal point for the local economy. Without action, it could become the breeding ground for a cholera epidemic, but now it will be a success case for demonstrating healthy practices," says Amani Mataboro, Executive Director of Action Kivu's partner, Action pour le Bien- être de la Femme et de l'Enfant au Kivu (ABFEK).

"There is an urgency to this action. Because of climate change, we are seeing signs of the rainy season starting sooner than ever before. If we do not act now, people will die, starting with children and the elderly. If we work together, we can prevent these deaths and build a healthier community."

1 in 4 children who die before their fifth birthday in Eastern Congo die of something entirely preventable: cholera and acute diarrhea. Help us change that with a donation to a clean latrine and health education today. Learn more here.

To learn more about the World's Toilet Crisis, watch the Vanguard video. Absolutely disgusting at times (I made the mistake of watching right before breakfast), it's also informative and inspirational, as you watch communities take control of their health and well-being.

(Photos: Everyone Poops, Amazon.com, latrine being dug at the Peace Market, newly built Peace Market, Opening Day Celebration)

Enraged & Engaged: Does Anybody Hear Me?

2011-09-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

Enraged and engaged. That's how I woke up yesterday morning. A bit exhausted after weeping off and on for five hours watching the Democracy Now coverage of the Troy Davis vigil outside the prison. But despite a night of tossing and turning, a sense of urgency woke me before my alarm. Puffy-eyed, enraged and engaged.

A born peace-keeper / people-pleaser, I've recently been able to accept my own anger. My therapist told me to, and I want to make her happy. But she also taught me that anger is only healthy as a motivating factor that leads towards positive change. So as not to become the angry-girl, I signed the Amnesty International petition "Not in My Name," voicing my continued support to partner with them to abolish the death penalty. I woke up ready to engage, and armed with Amnesty's guidance, I e-mailed their representatives from the state of California to learn what I can do to act on my outrage. Who's with me?

Here's what we can do in California; e-mail YOUR state rep to find out how to act locally, or move here! We can hang out, get fro-yo and go door-to-door together, getting autographs to put the issue on the ballot.

From Amnesty International, USA: In California, we are working now on repealing the death penalty in 2012. California has the largest death row in the country, with over 700 people. We can really make a difference and push for abolition in our state. To those of you who want to do more, there are many ways.

You can learn more about the SAFE CALIFORNIA campaign here.

You can VOLUNTEER for the SAFE CALIFORNIA campaign here.

You can learn more about Amnesty's Death Penalty Abolition work here.

Finally, this year's Western Regional Conference for Amnesty will be in Los Angeles from November 4th to 6th. We will have workshops on the death penalty and a variety of human rights issues. It's also a great was to connect with others involved in the cause. If you live in LA and are an Amnesty member it's only $25, if you're a student it's $15.

They also have a great fact sheet that will give you some talking points and includes some gems such as:

In 2008, 93% of all known executions took place in five countries China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA.
The death penalty is racially biased. Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants (77%) have been executed for killing white victims, even though AfricanAmericans make up about half of all homicide victims.
The death penalty claims innocent lives. Since 1973, 138 people have been released from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful conviction. In this same time period, more than 1,000 people have been executed.
The death penalty is not a deterrent. FBI data shows that all 14 states without capital punishment in 2008 had homicide rates at or below the national rate.

As I processed my emotions from the night Troy Davis was killed, a lot of my outrage stemmed from a feeling of helplessness, not being heard. It felt like millions of people were surrounding the grounds that housed the death chamber, their pleas and screams to save someone's life not heard through some sound-proof barrier of bureaucracy. It reflects one instant that makes up the whole of living in a democracy but feeling that elected leaders are not listening, that I don't have a voice here. I'm exhausted from screaming into the wind, from preaching to the choirs of like-minded friends at dinner parties and BBQs. I'm hoping this action, partnering with Amnesty and others fighting the death penalty in California, being very specific about educating voters, will finally break through that sound barrier and allow our voices to be heard.

I am Troy Davis

2011-09-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

I started watching the Democracy Now! live feed from the Georgia prison at 3pm / 6pm EST, too late to contact the parole board, the local judge or the governor's office to voice my opposition one. last. time. 1 hour before they killed Troy Davis, and all the government offices were closed for the day. How could office hours be a part of state-sanctioned homicide? How can something like this be so neat and tidy with hours of operation, how could so many agencies ignore millions of people asking for a stay of execution, individual cries for justice and life from around the country and the globe?

Then, already in tears as the 7 o'clock deadline approached and passed, I took a breath hearing a cry of relief from the crowd, and then waited in confusion as the reporters tried to clarify what seemed to be a stay of execution. I called out to my roommate to come watch. I felt such relief, but also that OF COURSE they would grant a stay, they couldn't kill someone for a case that had so much doubt involved in it, where seven of the nine eye-witnesses recanted, where there was no physical evidence, where one juror stated that if she'd known then what she knows now, she would never have given a guilty verdict, and Troy Davis would not be on death row. As someone stated later to Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, "Troy Davis doesn't need to prove he is innocent, the state of Georgia needs to prove he is guilty."

Oh right — innocent until proven guilty — the basis of our judicial system. But after watching so much Law & Order and being programmed by our social system, how often do we really operate on that high moral ground? Rarely, which is why a justice system that embraces the death penalty is flawed. It is run by humans, with preconceptions, prejudice and emotion. There is too much room for error, but there is NO room repairing that error after the lethal injection has been given.

My brain / soul / heart relief that of course a stay was going to happen, as it was the only rational response, was quickly ridiculed as idealistic when the crowd was informed that there was simply a reprieve, not a stay. Davis would be allowed to breathe, his heart to beat, while the Supreme Court of the United States reviewed his final appeal. So the torture continued, as Troy and his family waited hours for the decision to come down, one sentence from the Supreme Court that said they had denied the stay.

How could I hope for rational thought when part of the state-sponsored killing is a suicide watch, to make sure the prisoner doesn't end his own life, ensuring the state gets to play god. When part of the process is a general physical, to make sure the prisoner is healthy enough to kill. Healthy enough. To kill.

Sadly, I'm not surprised, many of my friends commented on Facebook.

I was surprised. Surprised to confirm that I really am an idealist / optimist, and believed that rational thought and the fear of killing a potentially innocent man would win the day. That the pride and ego of the state wouldn't be so large as to ignore the pleas of the people. But, as Troy Davis himself shared in his statements, "This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country."

I needed this wake-up call. To the broken system that plays into our race and class problems, to the need to fight for reform, for reconciliation, forgiveness and real justice. I am Troy Davis. Our government killed him, but his spirit must live on in us as we put an end to this grotesque, inhuman act. Visit Amnesty International to sign a pledge to abolish the death penalty, that you do not want anyone killed in your name. And then learn how to take action, to contact and partner with organizations in your area who are fighting for the lives of others.

(from 1DeadlyNation)


(From road2justice)

(From ThinkProgress.org)

City of Angels: Riding the Bus with Hollywood Jesus

2011-09-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

Driving with my best friend, we waited to turn left to let a man run past us to catch the bus, his black cape flapping about his thigh-high boots. I LOVE that these are your people, she said, as we turned and watched him safely board the bus. Your bus people.

Last night was a beauty of a bus-ride, if like me, you're looking forward to the crazy. Waiting in Hollywood at Sunset and Vine, I stood near the curb, my eye on the traffic, near the bus sign but a few feet from the covered bus bench, giving space to the homeless man sleeping there. A few minutes later, he awoke, walked outside the lean-to, looked at me a few times, turned his back on me and proceeded to piss on the corner of the bus stand, his urine streaming down the sidewalk to the gutter.

My first thought? Well, where else is this guy gonna pee? Not like any of the bars on the block are going to let him use their restroom. My second thought? The Japanese TOTALLY know what they're doing when they remove their shoes before entering a room. You never know what you're walking on, but I can tell you, in L.A., it ain't sunshine.

Fully roused from relieving himself, he walked back behind the bus partition, and started hollering, ranting and raving at passersby, drivers, and the world in general.

It was getting closer to midnight, and our bus was late. A blonde Russian girl in her 20s arrived, asked me how long I'd been waiting, and staked out a spot further from the stop. A safe distance. An older woman with a peaceful, round, expressionless face said something about traffic being bad on a Saturday night.

The man's rant died down for a minute, and there was just the sound of tires turning and engines revving as people gunned through the yellow lights, hurriedly turned left on reds, and generally obeyed the laws of the land. Suddenly the man stepped out from the covered bench, a white sheet tied around his neck flowing over a bulky backpack, and looked me straight in the eye.

You think I don't have a car? he asked me. Of course I got a car, first thing I got, so my girlfriend wouldn't stand alone at a bus stop, getting hit on by strangers. Don't want her taking a taxi, either. I've got guns, he nodded toward the building at our backs, indicating his cache was kept in the newly-abandoned ghost-town of the Border's Bookstore behind us. AK-47s, 9mm, ... he proceeded with a laundry list of firearms, pretty much everything but a musket.

I wasn't sure my best move. If I walked away, would he follow, angry? If I ignored him, would be come closer, forcing me to look at him, to really see him?

What is it like, to be so out of control, so beyond the boundaries of civilized society, yet completely unseen? I don't know if, off his meds as he obviously was, he ever thought about that, but I all I could wonder was how invisible he must feel, people constantly averting their gaze, putting greater space between them and his odor, his rants, his very being.

I seemed to have found the right balance, making eye contact briefly, every few sentences, standing my ground. His rant at an end, he paused, looked me in the eye, and asked in a small voice, But I'm a good boy, aren't I?

He sounded like a child, confused, and it crushed me a little to realize he is someone's son. I wonder what his story is, and who might still know it.

Our bus having finally arrived, I sat by myself near the front, and watched as another woman, either drunk or off her meds (or both), poked at the 20-something guy in front of her. Poked him squarely and repeatedly between his shoulder blades, asking him his name, why he was wearing a blue t-shirt, and if he would wear the red one next time. Every time someone walked on the bus, she called out to them, asking their name, and was ignored. What was her story? Whose daughter is she? Does she realize she's not really seen?

At the same stop that the guy and his friend decided to disembark from the crazy-train, lo and behold, Hollywood Jesus joined the ride.

He stepped on board and from his robe, pulled out his bus pass? exact change? (I curse the British guys blocking my view with their camera phones). Hollywood Jesus took a seat, his white robes and golden-brown locks flowing in the breeze that came in through the window above him. He blessed us with his presence for just two stops down Sunset, then, giving a warm goodbye to the driver, exited and crossed against traffic.

I'd heard of him, but had yet to share a Metro line with him. It makes me wonder, though, what his story is. If he's off his meds. But knowing that he too, is someone's son, and he too, probably just wants to be seen.

(Photo: Hollywood Jesus riding the bus via Oh My ... What a Shame.)

Remembering 9.11 - panic attacks, ocean prayers, anthrax scares & art

2011-09-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

How did I end up in flimsy latex gloves and an allergy mask, opening Mel Gibson's mail in search for signs of anthrax? It never rang more true, that old assistant's mantra. They don't pay me enough for this.

Two weeks earlier, after waking and watching the footage of the twin towers from the West coast, I went on auto-pilot. I don't remember the drive from Burbank to Hollywood, whether the roads were clear of traffic, or what I said to the guard on my way into the offices at Paramount. I do remember turning on the copier, measuring water and grinding beans and the smell of the coffee brewing. Numb and uncertain, having never experienced anything like that in my 25 years in the U.S., I wondered if I was supposed to sit down at my desk? Start reading scripts like it was any other day?

Those of us who came to work that Tuesday were sent home. The impact of 9/11 didn't hit me fully for days, overwhelmed but unable to look away from the repeated footage of the planes crashing into the towers, the frightened people on the streets covered in ash. There was a general sense of shock, having no coping tools for such an attack and loss of life. It felt personal, and I felt helpless.

A few days later, having made the coffee, turned on the copier, and settled in with a script, the futility of that routine hit me, and I had a panic attack, managing to make it to my car to call my dad while I gasped for air. I steered in the direction of Hollywood Presbyterian, where my friend had told me they were holding a prayer service, and after that, drove up Highway 1 to a secluded, rocky beach, nature being more of a church to me. It was a place to turn away from the overwhelming images and conflicting messages about who to blame, to find space and place to be quiet.

I don't know if I realized I was mourning at the time, though 10 years later, we can see so much more of what was made visible when those towers were attacked.

Looking at a journal entry from September 2001, I had written about feeling suddenly thrust into the reality of a new war, learning about small countries that border Afghanistan. At work we were in the middle of script development, production, and an anthrax scare, so I was opening the office's mail in latex gloves and an allergy mask. Hardly worth the sad salary of an assistant, and not enough to protect me from a real threat, but then neither were the hastily erected barricades surrounding Paramount. Did anyone know what to do anymore?

My world both contracting and expanding through the news coverage, I wasn't sure of my role any longer. Pursuing careers in the arts and the entertainment industry, a friend asked, "In the midst of this, are art and humor still valid?"

And especially then, greeting actors and filmmakers with my plastic gloves and anthrax mask, I had to answer yes. Now more than ever.

(Share your story, find links, videos more 9/11 recollections, remembrances and find links to videos and stories at The AFD Project.)

Breathing in The Naked Now (of 9.11)

2011-09-09T13:00:00.001-07:00

With the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 falling on a Sunday, I groaned to think about the mash-up of church and state that might be happening all across the nation and world this weekend. I happened to pick up a book recommended by both my friends Jaysen and Anne (Lamott that is, melding in reference the real, Jaysen, and the literary dream-friend). Opening The Naked Now to chapter two, I read about the unspeakability of the Jewish revelation of the name of God. "For those speaking Hebrew," Richard Rohr writes, it [Yahweh] was the Sacred Tetragrammaton YHVH. ...

"This unspeakability has long been recognized, but now we know it goes even deeper: formally the word was not spoken at all but breathed! Many are convinced that its correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound of inhalation and exhalation."

Hmm. Reminds me of my growing understanding of yoga and the sound of OM.

Rohr continues, "The one thing we do every moment of our lives is therefore to speak the name of God. This makes it our first and our last word as we enter and leave the world.

"...I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian, or Jewish way of breathing. There is no American, African, or Asian way of breathing. There is no rich or poor way of breathing. The playing field is utterly leveled. The air of the earth is one and and the same air, and this divine wind 'blows where it will' (John 3:8) — which appears to be everywhere. No one and no religion can control this spirit."

So on this weekend of remembrance of all that went wrong, all the retaliation on all sides, and the acts of love that are never small, I pray that we remember we breathe the same air, the same YHVH, that we are literally in this together.

"Just keep breathing consciously in this way and you will know that you are connected to humanity from cavemen to cosmonauts, to the entire animal world, and even to the trees and the plants. And we are now told that the atoms we breathe are physically the same as the stardust from the original Big Bang. Oneness is no longer merely a vague mystical notion, but a scientific fact."

~Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
(Bolding mine)

day 83: when the cold wind blows youre gone, originally uploaded by kaylakern.

Hooray! It's September!

2011-08-31T23:38:00.001-07:00

Autumn Wood, originally uploaded by bryangarnett1 (Busy at the moment).

Unabashedly, I love fall the most. Summer is too much like a teenager, demanding time spent at parties, sweating and glistening in the sun, worried it will all end too soon. Autumn, the fall comes, and I can breathe. Unfortunately, not necessarily so in Los Angeles, as this is when the fire season starts. But the idea is there, the season of sweaters and boots and tromping through leaves. Shorter days that lead to more lamp-light and book-reading and lingering over long dinners with wine. It invites contemplation more than its sister of sunny summer, and September always reminds me that it's here.

The Great Black Heron

Since I stroll in the woods more often
than on this frequented path, it's usually
trees I observe; but among fellow humans
what I like best is to see an old woman
fishing alone at the end of a jetty,
hours on end, plainly content.
The Russians mushroom-hunting after a rain trail after themselves a world of red sarafans,
nightingales, samovars, stoves to sleep on
(though without doubt those are not
what they can remember). Vietnamese families fishing or simply sitting as close as they can
to the water, make me recall that lake in Hanoi
in the amber light, our first, jet-lagged evening,
peace in the war we had come to witness.
This woman engaged in her pleasure evokes
an entire culture, tenacious field-flower
growing itself among the rows of cotton
in red-earth country, under the feet
of mules and masters. I see her
a barefoot child by a muddy river
learning her skill with the pole. What battles
has she survived, what labors?
She's gathered up all the time in the world
--nothing else--and waits for scanty trophies,
complete in herself as a heron.

- by Denise Levertov

Life Lessons from Mary the (Slow) Banker

2011-08-28T16:53:00.001-07:00

Maybe not everybody should get to live their dream of being a bank teller, I thought, watching Mary.

Mary finally gave up on what I can only assume is a "control, alt, delete" function to re-start her machines so that I could swipe my debit card, and instead slowly typed my bank account and ID into her computer. I watched every, single, slow, deliberate keystroke, worried that my paycheck might not actually be entered into the correct account. I couldn't hear more than half of her mumbled words, as apparently the microphone in her booth didn't work either. While describing in detail every move she was making, she paused and looked at my hand, then looked up into my eyes to tell me what a pretty ring I was wearing. Thank you, Mary, I said, looking at her name-tag that said, Service Starts with Me: Mary.

I was in a rush, trying to make it to work on time, and had driven out of my way to the bank with a parking lot. To make life easier.

She continued to gaze at my ring. How much did you pay for it, she asked? Slow AND tacky, I thought, while smiling and saying, hmm... I don't remember exactly. 20 or 25 dollars? Oh, no, said Mary, now just gripping my receipt tightly in her hand while staring at my ring. I think that's agate, she said. That must me more than 20 dollars. I don't know, I said, wondering if my hand would fit under the plexi-glass to grab my receipt and parking ticket so I could make a run for it. And silver! she exclaimed.

I'd have to use the hand without the ring, so she couldn't grab hold of it to inspect it further.

I got a good deal, I said brightly, wondering how much the parking attendant would charge if I left without my validated ticket. Well, said Mary. Looking down at her own rings, she realized she was still in possession of my receipt, and proceeded to search her desk area for a little tube, that she slowly aligned with the top of my receipt, and pushing down firmly and carefully, added a smiley face to the top of my bank record. She smiled up at me, and then, with a slightly trembling hand, signed her name above the smiley stamp.

Pushing that and the parking ticket through the opening at the bottom of the window, she held her fingers on them a bit, as I tugged at them, the lower half of my body already angled toward my escape. Thank you for coming today! Mary said, barely legible through the think glass. There's coffee and candy for you...

THANK YOU MARY. I'm fine, I just have to get to work. She released my receipts, and I was gone, breezing past the free candy bowl and coffee area.

I was a few minutes late to work, and when I told my Mary story to a colleague, she said she often avoids going to Mary's teller window if she's in a rush. I can just picture it, a whole line of regulars ignoring the lighted arrow telling them to step right up to bank with Mary.

Thinking back on it, I realize Mary may have been teaching me a lesson. Not the one I immediately thought of (how not everyone is meant to be an astronaut or bank teller), but how I can respond in a situation that is not working out to please me. All Mary wanted to do was connect, to compliment me on the steal of a pretty ring I'd found, to wish me a happy day filled with smiley-faces, free hard candy and coffee. And all I could think of was my schedule, how, since I was not technically punching a clock, I felt Mary was infringing on MY time.

"'Happiness that lingers is not the face the world turns to you," she said. 'It is the face you turn to the world.'" (Sight Hound, by Pam Houston)

Sigh. Alright. I'm coming for you Mary, have your smiley stamp ready.

Happy smiling dog, originally uploaded by LivornoQueen.

The Stories Our Leaders Tell Us Matter

2011-08-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

"The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to 'expect' stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought. Our species existed for more than 100,000 years before the earliest signs of literacy, and another 5,000 years would pass before the majority of humans would know how to read and write.

"Stories were the primary way our ancestors transmitted knowledge and values. Today we seek movies, novels and 'news stories' that put the events of the day in a form that our brains evolved to find compelling and memorable. ... the holy books of the three great monotheistic religions are written in parables."

In "What Happened to Obama's Passion?" an opinion piece in Sunday's New York Times, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation" continues, setting the stage of Obama's inauguration in the midst of an economy spinning downward, a month in which three-quarters of a million people had lost their jobs. Westen offers a story that President Obama could have shared with the American people on his inauguration into office. One that would show he understood the suffering of the majority of the population, one that said "he understood what they were feeling, and that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. ... A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative — and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it — would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. ...

"And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it."

Westen continues to tell the story of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and that when Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, "he stepped into a cycle of American history, best exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy."

Yet, instead of looking deeply at that history, Obama "chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it."

Westen describes Obama's half-stimulus package, and that, to the average American, "who was still staring into the abyss, the half-stimulus did nothing but prove that Ronald Reagan was right, that government is the problem. In fact, the average American had no idea what Democrats were trying to accomplish by deficit spending because no one bothered to explain it to them with the repetition and evocative imagery that our brains require to make an idea, particularly a paradoxical one, stick."

I connect so deeply to this idea of story-telling, that we need to reclaim our narrative as a nation. Read the entire (beautifully written) piece here.

(Image from NYT)

Not Alone... but Overwhelmed

2011-08-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

Removing the bright blue wrapper from yesterday's New York Times, I saw the image of a starving child in Somalia. I'm thankful for the Times for printing this front page story to raise awareness about the famine, but it's hard to start the morning with tears and, reading the article about the insurgents blocking aid programs from providing food and water, a feeling of total helplessness.

And then to my job, where I'm surfing food blogs to find chefs for a reality show. The paradox of photos of the morning's photo of a child dying from malnutrition juxtaposed with gorgeous photos of specialty dishes is not lost on me. I just had a conversation with a friend from Holland, talking about the sickness of greed that has infected the first world, and particularly the U.S. To have SO much wealth concentrated in such small areas, while vast swaths of humanity are suffering, where tens of thousands of Somalis are already dead, and more than 500,000 children are on the brink of dying, is sickness. It's unbearable, and I don't know what to do.

So I went for a walk after work, and via Pandora on my phone, Michael Franti sang to me.

"I'm Not Alone" is not an answer, but it's something that keeps my spirits up, and keeps me asking how. How can we actively show others that they are not alone? How can we change the course of history, NOW? How can we get food to these starving children, NOW. How?

And I'm reminded of the work Amani is doing in the Congo, reminded that these women and children and families are not alone — that good work is being done.

From Nabirugu*, one of the women in the sewing collective that is supported by your donations.

"My name is Nabirugu*. I am 21 years old. I have no father. I joined the ABFEK centre 10 months ago and today I am ready to go and start my own sewing workshop based on the skills I have [learned]. Today I am able to measure,cut fabrics and join them. I can now make dresses, skirts, a pair of shorts, pants, and blouses. Isn’t this progress? I learned to use sewing equipments in this centre, before that time I had never used a pair of scissors to cut fabrics or a tape measure. I am very proud of my training in this centre. Now I have hope and confidence. I hope for success in my life. If I succeed to get my own sewing machine, I can start a small business such as making school pupils uniforms,make [outfits] from fabrics when there is a wedding ceremony, make my own clothes without paying as I was doing before. We need to start learning embroidery and then people will not be taking their fabrics to Bukavu if they need embroidery. I am very happy and I thank everyone who has donated his money to provide us with the sewing equipment we are using in this centre."

We're not alone.

Tell Congress to help Somalia NOW. (Via the International Rescue Committee)

(*Names are changed to protect the identity of women in the workshops.)

Dolly at the Bowl and News of Oslo: Little Sparrow

2011-07-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

Dolly saved my soul tonight.

"I'm gonna preach," she said in that eastern Tennessee lilt I love, and after railing on those those people who predict the end times, she started to sing about how we're "so consumed with fear of dying we miss the joy of living..."

I kept reminding myself to stay in the moment, to soak up every bit of her Dolly-isms and the fact that, sitting in the third to last row, in section W, there were just 17,000 people separating me from this legend. As she told stories of growing up in the hills of Tennessee, I wanted to be enveloped in her history, her family and her enormous bosom. She's just so unabashedly — DOLLY.

Dolly played a harmonica, an auto-harp, a recorder for song about the Smokey Mountains, a saxophone for a bluesy tune, and a bedazzled piano. She sang an a cappella rendition of "Little Sparrow" which was so haunting, the entire, sold-out Bowl was still. She quickly followed with the sing-a-long crowd pleasers "Islands in the Sea" and "9 to 5." It was HEAVENLY.

Kind of literally, for me. I find, when I'm outside of church, in what to me is church, outdoors, under trees and a star (or three, which is fantastic for being right off the 101 in Hollywood), surrounded by people who are being kind to each other and pouring cups of water and wine, I already feel more connected. And then, there's Dolly. Her plastic surgery, her unabashed flirting and acknowledgment that she "wants to go to heaven. But it sure is hell trying to get there." Talking about Jesus in her songs and how we should just enjoy life and love one another. While singing one of her new gospel songs from a new movie with Queen Latifah (out in 2012), I was moved to tears. Feeling wounded by the church and the right-wing politics that have taken over Christianity, I push away and bury deeply so much of what I love about the faith. That God is love. The the God of Love is in everything.

And yet, just now, as I type this in a euphoric high of post-Dolly in Hollywood, I read my LA Times news breaker that the man suspected of the bombing and mass-murders in Oslo Norway is being described as a "right-wing Christian," and the death toll is up to 91.

Fuck. I have no other word and want one that hasn't been so overly-used to lose its power. Anger and sorrow mixed. Fuck. I want to believe that the God of Love is in everything, but what do I do with this news? I've lost my Dolly-buzz and am back into reality, and trying, trying to be still in the midst of chaos and pray for a more loving world. For those in Norway, I hope that love shows itself in the midst of this senseless tragedy. Suddenly the sad song of "Little Sparrow" seems like a good way to close.

(Photo: Hollywood Bowl)

Pass the buck. Action Kivu on Philanthroper.com - log on to donate a dollar!

2011-07-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Do you philanthrop? (Philanthropize? I'm always attempting to coin new verbs.) Philanthroper.com is sort of like those daily deal sites, but instead, they give you the option to do good, one dollar a day, if you choose. And today, Friday, July 22nd, they're featuring Action Kivu!

"Passing the buck" is generally not a flattering phrase, so we're re-defining it, and asking you to pass along a buck to the women and children of eastern Congo. $1. 100 pennies. You've got that to give, right? Log in at Philanthroper.com, give a buck and tell your friends. (If you missed our day and, naturally, you want to philanthropize for Action Kivu, you can always donate here. In fact, you can make it a recurring donation — 4$ / month, the cost of a latte, will send one child to school.)

Check out the Action Kivu blog to learn more! And log on today to Philanthroper.com to pass the buck along to women and children who need your help.

L'amour est inévitable

2011-07-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Westwood Village, in the heart of UCLA's campus, has a large population of homeless folk. I'm not sure why, but my theory is the ease of picking up recyclables to cash in. A morning walk on any given weekend reveals red plastic cups, the quintessential college vessel for cheap beer, and post-party cans and bottles that they leave strewn upon lawns, sidewalks and passed out frat-guys.

Walking past one of the Village boutiques that I can't afford, a small shop that imports their wares from Italy and likely thinks it acceptable to charge 50 dollars for a tee-shirt simply because the price is marked in euros, I saw one of the regular homeless women staring into the shop window. She leaned in, her tattered grey dress hanging down over her dirty bare feet, seemingly transfixed by the words on a tank-top: L'amour est inévitable.

I wish I could wear that tee-shirt without irony. I wish I could afford that tee-shirt. Though I'm a hopeless optimist at heart, and believe love is the outcome of all that's happening, I'm disheartened daily by the increasing number of people struggling in this world and the role we all play in that. As our own governments, local and federal, cut programs to save money, more people are left on the street, many in need of medication, unable to grasp reality, let alone land a job in an economy where college grads are unemployed. At the same time, "US spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has already cost at least $3.2 trillion, and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, far higher than previous estimates, according to a new study released by Brown University.

I'm heartened by lovely connections I see daily, especially to and from work on the bus, where I see punk kids give up their seats, shuffling their skateboards to the back as they help the elderly sit down. I recognize there are days when it's hard for me to practice consciousness awareness, to be open to others around me when I'm consumed by my own worries, large and small. But, as Desmond Tutu wrote about the concept of Ubuntu: "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. We say, 'A person is a person through other persons.' It is not 'I think, therefore I am.' It says rather: 'I am human because I belong, I participate, I share.' ... A person with ubuntu ... has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are. ... It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me." (No Future Without Forgiveness)

Since I can't afford that shirt, I guess I'll just have to make it clear in other ways that l'amour est inévitable. I'd love to hear your love stories and random acts of kindness. Meanwhile, I'll wait for some rich person to buy the tank-top, grow bored by it, and sell it to Crossroads Trading Co., where I'll pick it up for a cool 8 bucks.

The Sound of Yoga OM-G

2011-07-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Every Wednesday night I let my inner yogi out to play at YogaGlo. (You can glo too, even if you don't live near the studio - they offer classes online and streaming video here.) Steven Espinosa teaches a beginner's class, and I plan to never graduate. He's gentle and careful and funny and reminds us it's okay to rest, in our practice and in life, and always opens the class with a lesson about how yoga fits into our daily lives and world.

Last night he talked about the sound of "OM." We begin each class by sitting comfortably, paying attention to our breathing, and then, when we've become a little more present with our bodies, our minds, and our hearts, together we offer three OMs. Steven explained how the meaning can vary across traditions, whether you learn about it from Buddhism or Hinduism or another "ism," but the overarching understanding is that it is the original, primordial sound of the universe. So when we breathe out in OM, we are adding our sound to that that is already there, in everything.

He also explained how it can be viewed as the cycle of life and of a yoga practice. Beginning with your lips closed, a hum that grows into the OM, mouth open, breathing out, ending in silence with the last of the breath. In yoga practice, we begin with breath and silence, transition into energy flow and movement, and then finish in savasana, which is corpse pose. Thus the end of life, or the evening's class, however you want to view it.

Every week our OM is different as different people gather and add their various energies to the universal one. One week I felt like I was in that commercial, sitting in front of a giant speaker my hair and skin being blown back as I struggled to stay upright, the energy was so loud and strong. Most weeks it's a gentle hum that is still filled with power.

This week, as I tried to time my movements with my breath, it felt like I was trying too hard, I was too aware and not in rhythm. By the end, as I relaxed into savasana, letting my hands and feet relax heavy into the floor, I became aware of a wild energy swirling through me. The image I saw was a furious storm centered in my heart and stomach, more OMG! than OM. Lying there, in corpse pose, I was able to detach from it enough to welcome it. As I've been learning from the Buddhist tradition, I don't need to label and judge these things, but be aware that this too is part of life. And last night, part of my yoga practice. It had seemed distracting, but instead it was just waiting for me to notice it.

A lot has been happening on the ground in the Congo lately, and good change is happening as our friend and Action Kivu partner Amani has been partnering with other organizations and people to make his dreams a reality. He wants nothing less than peace for his community and country, and healing for the women and children who have suffered so much in the conflict. After starting a Sewing Collective to teach women a trade and give them a safe place to gather, Amani envisioned a "Peace Market," a safe, communal space along the border, where the Congolese and Rwandans could come together and work alongside each other towards peace and a stronger, healthier economy. And this last weekend, it became a reality, due to his hard work and the partnership of other amazing organizations including Empower Congo Women and Falling Whistles. See photos and read more about the Peace Market at the Action Kivu blog, and the testimony of one woman whose life will change by having the simple shelter needed to sell her fabrics and clothes.

That energy swirling through me? I think it has something to do with this. To witness and be a small part of great change that is adding to the healing and repairing of this crazy world. My Action Kivu partner and friend Cate and I are planning a trip to the Congo late this fall. Amani has asked me to write his story, and the story of his community, and there is nothing I want to do more, and nothing I'm more afraid of than that honor and challenge. Scrimping and saving to make that dream a reality, and to sit in the midst of the swirling energy of excitement and fear, to breathe through it and accept it and work with it.

Thanks, yoga.

(Savasana photo: Scott's Yoga Forum)

Riding with Strangers / How Chimps Attack

2011-06-08T21:40:00.000-07:00

Over pancakes, eggs, decaf coffee (me), and tea (roomie), the roommate and I discussed how chimps attack people (they first go for the jaw, so as to break the mandible, what they themselves use to fight), what it's like to feel caged, and whether it's nature or nurture to find natural body odor offensive. A typical Tuesday morning. Later I sat in my cubicle at work, judging people in my casting capabilities, gnawing on a banana and wondering how far we've come from attacking each other.

Riding on the bus, I often have time and the olfactory experience to wonder about the body odor question. But for the majority of my bus riding, I really enjoy being car-free. One of my favorite things in life is to people-watch, eavesdrop and speculate about the lives they lead. I never did learn the story behind the immaculately dressed elderly woman, a diamond the size of a baseball on her left finger, pulling what looks to be her life's belongings in a collapsible cart while talking to her companion, a Spaniard in a worn suit and long mustache.

Today, I walked up to my stop in Santa Monica and watched the number 10 bus breeze by, as I gave the universal sign "not my bus" by shaking my head and stepping back from the curb. Unfortunately, my bus-stop friend did not know the signals, and was baffled that her bus didn't stop for her, when she was clearly holding a dollar in her hand.

Jumping on the number 1 bound for UCLA, I asked the driver whether another 10 would be coming by soon. No, he said, tell her to get on, and we'll try to catch up with her bus. Erwin the bus driver sped around traffic, quickly eying the stops to make sure he didn't need to veer right to pick up other riders, contacted the 10 bus via his Metro-phone, and timed it just right to catch up, so the lost passenger could hop on her downtown-bound bus.

As I exited my regular stop, I left from the front of the bus, and thanked Erwin once again for taking the time, making the effort to help one passenger. I enjoyed doing it, he said. It made me feel good.

It's the little acts of connectedness that keep my faith in humanity alive. These moments remind me we actually are more evolved than chimps.

(Photo courtesy Long Strange Trip)

CULTure of Beauty

2011-06-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

A friend and I went to see the CULTure of Beauty exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography. Walking in I was face to face with many of the models and images I try to avoid looking at lately, in order to maintain at least a slight amount of love for my own hips, thighs, nose and mouth that are uniquely me.

I was also confronted with images of a child beauty queen, a needle inserted into already pillowy lips to plump them further, and an elderly woman whose involuntary shaking made her grip her animal print cane tighter to balance on her black and white pumas, shaking that made her wide-brimmed red hat vibrate violently. In front of every model she ooh-ed and ahh-ed over their slender, air-brushed beauty, and I thought, she just doesn't get it. This is supposed to enrage, not encourage.

But then I realized that I could look at Christy Turlington's face for hours and still find it beautiful. As stated in the short documentary that is part of the exhibit, "beauty appeals to our most base instincts and our highest spiritual longings." The point of the exhibit, for me, was to be aware and mindful of that one image of beauty we're being sold today. And instead, to see the beauty in all faces, especially in the wizened, wrinkled face beaming out from beneath her shaking red hat.

Writing and life advice: Have less stuff (and don't stab Al Franken in the head with a pencil)

2011-05-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Last night WriteGirl, a non-profit that mentors at-risk girls with professional women writers, hosted a fundraiser to honor five women for their bold writing. After a warm and funny introduction by one of her former roommates, Sarah Silverman took the stage. She twisted her note cards in her hands, explaining that her speech would be one of those filled with bullet points and no meaningful ending.

The things I learned from Sarah Silverman's hilarious acceptance speech for her Bold Ink Award:

Feminine facial hair and the experiences we endure to remove it is ALWAYS funny. Sarah talked about her first brow "separating" appointment, to make two eyebrows out of the one. Following the clinician back to the room, the woman stopped, turned around and asked Sarah, "So, will it just be the mustache today?"

Whenever possible, reference NADS, from Australia.

Stabbing Al Franken in his "winter Jew-fro" while a fellow writer on SNL is a funny story, but might not have made sense in the moment. "I wasn't asked back to SNL," Sarah told us. "I'd like to blame the fact that everyone saw me stab Al Franken in the head, but when I look back at the sketches I wrote, they were terrible." (A reminder to keep writing / working, shitty first drafts are inevitable and necessary.)

"Write prose just like you talk. Just take out all the likes."

If you're supporting yourself and your stuff by "doing something that crushes your artistic soul, stop doing it. Just have less stuff."

Animal Messengers

2011-05-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

"Animals in nature always have a message for us," my DailyOM email told me. "Start noticing what animals show up in your life and when."

I live in Los Angeles, in the middle of UCLA's frat community. Thus, the animals I've encountered recently include a sidewalk squirrel I had to sidestep, so focused was he on the spilled In&Out, he didn't give a damn about human foot traffic. A crow who kept dropping branches on my head before successfully beaking one with with to build her nest. And a drunk man-child weaving his way home during my morning walk. What messages might I have missed?

I noticed the effort the crow made, never giving up on securing a branch in her beak. As the little bits of tree limb fell down into my hair I was reminded that I'm just a visitor, living in their wild world where nests need to be made. I saw two other crows pecking at a plastic bag outside an overturned garbage can and my heart broke a little. A tiny gecko spun in dazed circles after my friend and I and our big feet accidentally interrupted his long journey across the sidewalk. Though his tail was smushed a little, he regained his balance and another passerby assured us that lizards' tails are made to regenerate.

"Animals share our planet with us, but experience it differently—each has its own abilities and gifts that allow them to interact successfully with the natural world. Since we are merely one manifestation of the universe’s energy in action, when we feel the need for direction we can turn to animals in nature for guidance. Animals can show us different ways to approach and deal with our challenges."

So, the lessons I'm taking from the animals in my wild life: nesting, regeneration, and standing my ground to get my morsel in the middle of the ebb and flow of life and traffic. Oh, and not to get so drunk I'm stumbling home at 7am. Thanks, fratanimal.

Morning Poem | Happy Earth Day

2011-04-22T08:14:00.001-07:00

September morning, originally uploaded by nl :.

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver

UCLA vs. Miami Beach - Girls gone wild?

2011-04-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

"Oooh, Pablo, I lo-o-o-ve you!" one girl hollers as loud as she can while still trying for silly sultriness, writhing somewhat suggestively in short shorts and a tee shirt.

Her friend laughs as the two boys on a balcony across the street holler back, decidedly less seductively: "Take off your shirt! Show us some nipple!"

Oh good god, I thought, as I walked up the hill in the middle of Frat-town in UCLA-student infused Westwood Village, am I in the middle of a Girls Gone Wild shoot?

"That is SO degrading!" the girl screeches back, her faux-Latin-lover accent gone.

Long pause, and then a boy's deep bellow into the warm night air, "I'm sorry I objectified you!"

In return, "Apology accepted!" And she quickly resumes her play of swooning in a silly, seductive accent.

It gave me a glimmer of hope, after reading Female Chauvinist Pigs, that not ALL 20-something girls are buying into the need to bare their breasts on demand.

But for all my friends already worried about raising kids in our sex-saturated society, reading this book might induce self-sterilization. As writer Ariel Levy points out, Girls Gone Wild is too frequently the norm. The real, interesting, many-tiered parts of sexual liberation has been pushed aside as raunch has become the only alternative for expressing sexuality.

"We have to ask ourselves why we are so focused on silent girly-girls in G-strings faking lust. This is not a sign of progress, it's a testament to what's still missing from our understanding of human sexuality with all of its complexity and power. We are still so uneasy with the vicissitudes of sex we need to surround ourselves with caricatures of female hotness to safely conjure up the concept of 'sexy.' When you think about it, it's kind of pathetic. Sex is one of the most interesting things we as humans have to play with, and we've reduced it to polyester underpants and implants. We are selling ourselves unbelievably short."

The book is both juicy and enlightening, filled with educational tidbits about the range of sexuality (I'd never heard the term "boi" before reading it). Rather than empowering ourselves through sexual freedom, we're removing ourselves further from true knowledge of pleasure. Making porn stars and strippers our guides into the nether regions of sexual expression, when the JOB of these women is to FAKE pleasure, represents a significant disconnect with reality.

Levy is a great writer, making what is at times a horrifying subject entertaining with her verbal spin:

"Without a doubt, there are some women who feel their most sexual with their vaginas waxed, their labia trimmed, their breasts enlarged, and their garments flossy and scant. I am happy for them. I wish them many blissful and lubricious loops around the pole. But there are many other women (and, yes, men) who feel constrained in this environment, who would be happier and feel hotter — more empowered, more sexually liberated, and all the rest of it — if they explored other avenues of expression and entertainment."

..."The women who are being emulated and obsessed over in our culture right now — strippers, porn stars, pinups — aren't even people. They are merely sexual personae, erotic dollies from the land of make-believe. In their performances, which is the only capacity in which we see these women we so fetishize, they don't even speak. As far as we know, they have no ideas, no feelings, no political beliefs, no relationships, no past, no future, no humanity.

"Is this really the best we can do?"

Don't Piss Off the Yogurt, Female Chauvinist Pigs

2011-04-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

Tom Shadyac sits mere inches from an angry bowl of yogurt. Why is the yogurt quivering with angst? Because Shadyac has just sent waves of tension into the ether, and -- the yogurt is ALIVE. A scientist with a Will Ferrell 'fro and awesome 1970s specs has inserted sensors into the yogurt, and then caused Shadyac stress by referencing his agent, lawyer, and ex-wife. Shadyac, not at all connected to the yogurt except by the air shared between them, made the yog-o-meter fluctuate wildly just by the energy he was exuding, his stressful feelings of unresolved conflict.

Watching "I Am," Shadyac's documentary about the connectedness of all things, I was in turn inspired, moved to tears, grossed out (look AWAY when you see an image of an eyeball), and concerned that I might never want to eat yogurt again. And I love yogurt, especially the good, thick Greek kind. But because my yogurt has live bacteria, part of the reason it's so good for me, is also the reason that it responds to the energy I'm giving off. So now, just before I devour it, I send waves of love and sunshine to my Chobani.

The brilliant minds and hearts whom Shadyac interviews on his journey warn us that we're facing a major change in how we live. If we don't act in more compassion and cooperation, we won't survive, or at least not living life as we know it. The film highlights that in Darwin's Descent of Man, published in 1871, Darwin only mentions the phrase “survival of the fittest” twice, while he mentions the word “love” 95 times. "As Thom Hartmann notes in “I AM,” behavior across the animal kingdom regularly demonstrates cooperation—from the group selection of a watering hole, to the flocking of birds, to the schooling of fish. “It’s in our DNA,” says Thom Hartmann. “We are born to be our brother’s keeper." (Borrowed from Steven Meloan's blog.)

Shortly after watching the doc, I started reading the book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. I'm having a hard time putting it down, it's so juicy and enlightening. More on that in another post. Tonight, I was reminded of the theory of cooperation and a sea change in our way of life while reading about the women's and anti-war movements in the 70s. Author Ariel Levy writes, "Brownmiller, characteristically, was seeking something more momentous and unwieldy: nothing less than the overthrow of the patriarchy, which had to start in the minds and bedrooms of Americans as well as the workplace — change from the inside out." She continues to quote how Bill Ayers described his involvement in the Weathermen's protest activities, "I was committed to being a part of what I thought was going to be a really serious and ongoing rebellion; upheaval that had the potential of not just ending the war, but of really overthrowing the Capitalist system and put[ting] in its place something much more humane."

Where are we making those changes today? What can we do? We can start with awareness of the emotions that we feel and are exerting upon every living being, even our breakfast foods. And we can try to be the change we want to see, as one loving and powerfully compassionate man taught us.

We can pay more attention to each other, and injest more Michael Franti:

Joyful change, painful change

2011-03-25T21:08:00.001-07:00

I slept in my very own bed last week, for the first time in 6 months. At my friend's house in Costa Mesa. After selling him my bed, giving away my tv, my bookshelves, my desk, and any superfluous tchotchkes cluttering up my closet (you're welcome, Good Will shoppers and proud new owners of my high school yearbooks) I was free to pack up and move to Kosovo. Free to experience the change and challenges that I needed in order to face some of my less-than-productive patterns. Free to realize I love to travel, but also love to live in L.A. in the community that has been years in the making. Free to move back to L.A. via a rain-soaked stint in Portland, OR.

The last 6 months have been filled with a lot of support and a heaping of honesty from close friends. Even though conversations were often filled with tears, I listened with an open heart as my best friends pointed out my faults. In love. I wonder how many people never go beyond surface relationships, never allow another to see your shadow side, never willing to speak the truth as you know it to each other. Despite how hard it can be to see yourself mirrored back to you as only a soul-friend or sister could do, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I balance it with a healthy understanding that only I can know my exact experience, but how good it is to know someone loves me so much they want to see my unhealthy patterns change.

And so I'm back. And as hard as it was to say goodbye to family again, especially my sister the life coach, her husband the chef and historian, and Vesta Rae, the wonder cat, it feels right. It's a good way to shed light on what I want to change, by taking time, difficult time, away, and then coming back to the familiar, back to a known place and community. It's shining a greater light on what Iwant to change, maybe more so than going to a different city would do. Changing how I spend my time and money, so that they're invested in what I really value, not frittered away. Making time for close friends, conversations over a bottle of wine and a simple meal of real foods found at a farmer's market. Taking classes to move forward in the writing career I want, learning the tricks of digital photography, though I'll always miss hovering over trays filled smelly chemical washes, watching a photo emerge, hanging it to drip-dry. Making time to read great writing. Making time to write.

The day I decided to come "home," I read this horoscope for Sags: The most important thing now is to consider what you want in the future, rather than seeking immediate gratification. Impulsive behavior might be thrilling in the moment, but it won't help you in the long run."

I think this means I have to say "no" more, to be clear with the universe about what I want to come into my daily life.

And that same week, a horoscope from DailyOm

Joyful Changes

Fickleness can permeate your thoughts and actions today, causing you to feel unsure or disjointed. You may change your opinions about your relationships and goals frequently as you go about your daily duties. If the uncertainty begins to distress you, take a moment to reflect upon the necessity of transformation in the growth process. You may be loath to leave your old life behind in order to embrace a new way of being. To calm your fears today, you will likely need to contemplate how altering your existence will impact your everyday life. Making the changes you are comfortable with in the present can further help you prepare for larger transformations that may take place in the future.

Silver Lake Hilltop, originally uploaded by hburrussiii.

The Wisdom of Walker: Waiting

2011-03-03T16:46:00.000-08:00

In her 1987 talk to Spelman College students entitled "Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain," Alice Walker shed some light on the painful growth periods we experience.

With age and experience, you will be happy to know, growth becomes a conscious, recognized process. Still somewhat frightening, but at least understood for what it is. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of personality is about to be revealed.

And so I wait. It seems right that it's still wintry weather outside, but with the sun breaking through the cloud cover just before sunset, making the days seem inch by minute a little longer, that maybe my new life is waiting for Spring to let me know what I've been in waiting for. (I'm dying for warm, dry weather, to go to a garden / patio party.) I write letter after cover letter for jobs ranging from answering phones and setting wake-up calls at posh hotels to executive assisting at a conservancy society. I continue to let the latest experiences in Kosovo germinate and compost in my mind and soul before I process them in writing. To find, as Adam Hochschild wrote, "ways that the outer journey can mirror an inner journey. That is not only what good travel writing is about; it's what life is about."

DesignWonderland.net

week-long days

2011-02-20T11:16:00.001-08:00

It's a lovely Sunday in Portland, soft puffy white clouds hopefully keeping a little warmth down here on the ground. I haven't ventured outside yet, but it's the kind of day that I want to stretch out as long as I can, into the week-long days that Alice Walker writes about, "days of enormous trees and mellow suns" that she tells me still exist, "still beautiful, still mysterious, still with week-long days (if you turn off TV and radio for months on end), still profound." (Walker, Living by the Word)

I'm house/kitty sitting for my sister and brother-in-law. They have a small condo right in the middle of what people call an up&coming neighborhood, so there are cafes and little thrift stores in walking distance, as well as some kind of treatment / recovery center for women across the street. The women there take many, many smoke breaks on the corner, hard women who have had hard lives and weren't taught the emotional tools to cope, a real-world reminder beyond the world of the wine bar Kir, Le Pigeon and the 20something quasi-hipsters at the Doug Fir. Sometimes I'm wary of them. The women, and actually, when I think about it, the quasi-hipsters. But mostly the women, that they're looking at me and not understanding me, thinking I'm soft, privileged, judgmental. Maybe I am, and that's why they make me nervous. Their looks seem to be a constant "Fuck you," telling me to keep my distance, but my sister reminded me that non-violent communication would ask "what are they trying to say they need with their fuck-you looks?"

It's a Powell's books day - I'm reading a collection of short stories by Pam Houston, and want to go pick up another. She writes about horses and dogs and the prairies, and that's part of the reason I haven't left the house yet. I'm not quite ready to leave wide-open spaces to shuffle so close to others and their unspoken needs that I can't always read.

Courtney, originally uploaded by Elspeth and Evan.

Recommended beach, bonfire reading: Cowboys Are My Weakness

2011-02-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

I have a dog named Jackson, who between the ages of four and five, in people years, became suicidal. In a period of less than twelve months, Jackson jumped out of the back of a speeding truck, ate a fourteen-pound bag of nonorganic garden fertilizer, and threw himself between the jaws of a hundred-and-fifty-pound Russian wolfhound. Similarily, when I turned twenty-eight years old, I started to date a man whose favorite song was 'Desperado.'

... My friend Debra said, 'He's not an altogether bad person. He just has no imagination, and of course, that has made him a little mean.'

(From "Jackson is Only One of My Dogs", by Pam Houston)

As I was on the hunt for some fun reading, an escape, my sister handed me Cowboys Are My Weakness, by Pam Houston. It takes me out of the mountains, bare branches and grey skies of a Northwest winter into the plains and prairies of Montana and Wyoming, and once, the frozen tundra of Alaska. Her characters are strong women with a weakness for dogs and the wrong kind of men. You can relate to how they change their lives, adopting the odd hobby here and there. Who hasn't donned ugly thigh high rubber boots to stand knee-deep in freezing river water, fly-fishing for love? Then, in a moment of clarity, her characters connect with who they really are, and what they really want in companionship. Most likely a dog.

In an interview with Powell's Books about her later book, Sight Hound, Houston says, "it was time to write about a few good men. That one of those men happens to be a dog, well, who would call it a surprise?"

Adding Houston's bibliography to my beach, bonfire, lazy day reading list.

(Photo: I'm thinking a paul newman-esque cowboy would be a fun catch.)

Through the window of my mind

2011-02-15T16:56:00.001-08:00

Through my window, originally uploaded by ILoveDoodle.

I'm feeling — stuck. I'm letting voices in my head panic about the fact that I'm 35 and seem to have no marketable skills for today's society. In response to my moping about the current, grim job market, my friend emailed: You haven't had the luck you deserve with work, but you're talented and special, and look at the amazing adventures you've had along the way.

I needed to read that, to remember that I've enjoyed and learned from my adventures, good and bad. And that this period of unemployment and a limited social circle is another sort of adventure. Today as I waited for the bus, standing in the cold, spitting rain that seemed so Oregon, in a bad way, mean rain that blows sideways in the wind that threatens my umbrella, I thought once again how much I dislike my life right now.

And then it clicked. I'm enjoying being miserable. I must be, since I keep letting those thoughts swirl around my mind. And realized that I, at that exact moment, could ignore the mindfulness and awake-awareness that just happened and wallow a bit more in how disgruntled I am. Or, I could try to change my thinking. I've been so panicked that my life is going to be small, uneventful and boring. And then I realized, of course it will, if that's all I'm thinking about.

So it's time to pay attention. To catch and change my thoughts. I can't change this damp, bone-chilling weather, but I can appreciate that the white lights in the shop window glow a bit brighter because it's so grey. I can't change the fact that the people on the bus are crazy. Crazier than L.A. bus riders, but I can silently sing "the freaks on the bus go round and round" and make up stories for them, and maybe even try to empathize that they are just a wee bit emotionally out of touch and unaware, as I have been the last few weeks. I can't change the fact that jobs I'm applying for are not responding to my resume, but I can write more, read more inspiring writing, and GET OUT to meet more people. Life is what I think it is.

Design desire: Design Sponge - Sophistikat

2011-02-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

I can't get over how much I want this combination in my non-existent home. I am so okay with asking Hermes for boxes sans 'spensive trinkets.

(Design Sponge: Flor’s new “Sophistikat” floor tiles and the gorgeous stack of Hermes-style boxe)

Connected: I AM my brother's / sister's keeper

2011-02-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

Tom Shadyac, director of Jim Carrey's face in "Ace Ventura" and "Bruce Almighty" went on a life-changing adventure, asking the world's greatest minds "what's wrong with our world and what can we do about it?" What he found out was much more hopeful, that our connectedness is scientific, it's in our DNA. As Desmond Tutu says, "We are because we belong." (I'm geeking out a little at the opportunity to see and hear more from Desmond Tutu. He has the most peaceful, happy face of anyone I've ever seen. Except some of those guys in Bhutan where gross national happiness is part of the government's work.)

In King Leopold's Ghost, writer Adam Hochschild quotes Roger Casement's 1892 assessment of the brutality of colonial Africa. "'Altho' the men were their soldiers we all on earth have a commission and a right to defend the weak against the strong, and to protest against brutality in any shape or form.'"

The Congo is still suffering brutality, but in the face of rape, poverty and disease, there is hope in our connectedness. Action Kivu gives you the opportunity to connect directly with the work being done to send orphaned and vulnerable children to school, giving them a sense of family, dignity, pride and excitement about the future. Your donation enables a woman who was a victim of rape or watched her family killed to learn the trade of sewing, to create and be a part of a healing, supportive community.

We're doing a week-long Facebook fundraiser for Action Kivu's work with women and children in the Congo - can you give today?

"We are born to be our brother's keeper. It's the way that we're wired."

Tee time, babies and beer: Things to Do in Portland

2011-02-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

I golf. Never thought I'd say that, as I always agreed more with Twain that the game seems "a good walk spoiled." But toss me a glass of wine and a club and suddenly I'm hollering "Four!" to warn the ladies to guard their babies so I can whack my bright blue ball in the general direction of a white flag and hole.

This Saturday, my sister and her husband suggested we make the most of a Portland day without rain and go golfing at McMenamins Edgefield, just a short drive east of Portland. Before leaving the city, we stopped for lunch at the food carts on Belmont, choosing pizza (gluten-eater brother-in-law), a Greek salad (sister) and fries (me). Arriving at Edgefield in mid-afternoon sun breaks, we stopped in at the golf shack to sign in for our tee-time and to pick out our clubs and cups of hooch: beer (gluten-imbiber) and wine for my sister and me. Being around the same height and from the same gene-pool, my sister and I figured we could save four bucks and share two clubs. A bad idea made worse after we polished off that wine and our balls were flying in different directions on the green.

Edgefield's 12-hole course is low-key, as evidenced by the party of twelve or more ahead of us that held up our game. Six golfed while wives and girlfriends coo'd over babies strapped to bellies and sauntered off the hole engrossed in chatter when their group finally moved on. The only downside to the day, these happy people brought out the worst in me. Their group kept growing and even appeared to be procreating on the course as we paused again for three more women to cross the green, and one called out "you can't make a pregnant woman run!" Ha ha, she laughed, never apologizing. Ha ha, I thought as I swung my club in her direction. Maybe I should have had one more glass of the happy juice.

Heading back into town, we parked at my sister & her man's condo and walked to Olympic Provisions, a local charcuterie. Their sign proclaiming their specialty, MEAT, will scare away any confused vegan who might stumble in.

We ordered a bottle of wine and a couple small plates, one a chef's choice of three kinds of salami that, cross my pig-loving heart, tastes just like butter. It practically melts in your mouth. We made an attempt to love our arteries with a plate of beets, carrots, savoy cabbage, horse radish cream, caraway seed. And under the category a first time for everything, I fought my sister over the last bite of perfectly roasted cauliflower.

A lovely day in Portland, Oregon. I'm also going to be following these blogs: 365 Things to do in Portland and Things To Do In Portland, to try to find more community fun.

Embracing change, saying YES, and what ISN'T working

2011-01-27T14:01:00.001-08:00

Living a simple and meditative life, originally uploaded by B℮n.

By acknowledging the existence of what’s not working for us,
we can begin the process of change.

"The hardest thing about saying yes to the universe is that it means accepting everything life puts in front of us. Most of us have a habit of going through our days saying no to the things we don’t like and yes to the things we do, and yet, everything we encounter is our life. We may be afraid that if we say yes to the things we don’t like, we will be stuck with them forever, but really, it is only through acknowledging the existence of what’s not working for us that we can begin the process of change. So saying yes doesn’t mean indiscriminately accepting things that don’t work for us. It means conversing with the universe, and starting the conversation with a very powerful word yes.

"When we say yes to the universe, we enter into a state of trust that whatever our situation is, we can work with it. We express confidence in ourselves, and the universe, and we also express a willingness to learn from whatever comes our way, rather than running and hiding when we don’t like what we see." ~DailyOm

A born people-pleaser, I may have said yes too frequently in life. But that yes usually ended in a question mark. Church lady eyes me, her eyes spinning like a slot machine that lands on double Preacher's Daughter:
Rebecca, will you teach the most difficult. largest and rowdy group of church kids?
Me: Yes? (Cut to a kid fight with a bible and a little girl with a fresh black eye.)

So for me, learning to say yes to the universe means to do it with confidence, by choice, knowing that I will learn from what comes my way, even when it's painful, or makes me look bad. Not that I have to say yes to everything. I'm slowly learning to cut short what ISN'T working for me, and that feels equally empowering. After another botched attempt at this thing I call dating, I quickly defined what I wasn't willing to put up with, and, as chipper, cheerful and firm as I could be, communicated it to the man in question. And, as my sister reminded me, every time I am clear with what I want, the Universe hears me.

Now I'm trying to get clear on a career. Hear that Universe? Writing stories about real people. My resolution is to get out and get lost more in Portland, to talk to strangers. To clear my head of society's expectations and enjoy this moment, as this is all I've got. A clear, blue Portland sky in winter, The Cure on the radio in a warm cafe, a grey cat across the street who's trying to find a way in to the chiropractic clinic.

Tattoos and TV

2011-01-24T19:17:00.001-08:00

Trinities, originally uploaded by Kevissimo.

While I debated butterflies and dolphins and favorite lines of poetry, hipper friends of mine have found the art of ink. Like Mandy, photographed here by our wildly talented friend Kevin Rolly. I've often wondered if a colorful tattoo would distract from my blinding white, SPF 45-guarded skin, but as a dedicated commitment and needle phobe, I'm still lily-white.

So when a tattoo reality show needed someone to recruit artists here in Portland, I was OBVIOUSLY the woman for the job. Asking friends and Yelp for the best up-and-coming artists, I google-mapped my way around the studios of my new home, Portland. Some artists were obvious camera whores, ready for their close-ups, many just wanted their craft to be represented well, while others informed me ever so gently of the horrors of reality TV.

But, as a fellow L.A. transplant to Portland told me, everyone here is so NICE. And despite my mother's fears that I'd be talking to bikers in chains, most of the artists are just that, artists. They spend hours consulting with clients and sketching, helping bring about a shared, creative vision.

One artist and I talked about how to balance life and work / creating art.. He's started scaling back, after being booked 7 days a week, to do a little more living. "I can only be inspired in my art if my life is inspiring." Great advice. I'm going to try to find some inspiring (and free) things to do in Portland in the coming weeks. I talked with another about moving where life takes you, traveling abroad, and trashy TV. He had me crying-laughing as he tried to justify his "Rock of Love" addiction, which, by the way, UNjustifiable, and told me of a few good places on Belmont to check out.

I'm still not ready to commit to any body art, (as one tattoer told me, if you're not sure, put it on a t-shirt), but I feel even more connected to a community here in Portland. And learned that no, they won't pay me to practice their tats on me.

Settling

2011-01-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

The word settling has such negative connotations in my mind's eye. The image of sitting across from some man at a breakfast table with bad coffee, nothing to say, wondering if there is someone better somewhere else. I want to begin again. To imagine settling into a place, settling into a community, people who read books, watch movies, think 30 Rock is hilarious and believe in fairies and woodsprites.

I've posted the poem before, when a rainy day in L.A. reminded me of Oregon. But I'm reminded of Settling again, now that I'm living in Portland, surrounded by bare branches, puddles that reflect grey skies, now that I'm considering what it means to settle in somewhere.

I was welcomed here — clear gold
of late summer, of opening autumn,
the dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree,
the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow
tinted apricot as she looked west,
tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun
forever rising and setting.

Now I am given

a taste of the grey foretold by all and sundry,
a grey both heavy and chill. I've boasted I would not care,
I'm London-born. And I won't. I'll dig in,
into my days, having come here to live, not to visit.
Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain's vast presence, seen or unseen.

~Denise Levertov, "Settling"

(Photo: NYMag)

The Dalai Lama and L'engle: Reconciling religious pluralism

2011-01-21T13:56:00.001-08:00

Chrishall wilderness 3, originally uploaded by davieunited.

"This still leaves unanswered the question of how we should relate to the divergent and contradictory doctrinal teachings of the religions. From the Buddhist point of view, the belief in a transcendent God, with its emphasis on the idea of a first cause that in itself is uncaused, amounts to falling into the extreme of absolutism, a view that is understood to obstruct the attainment of enlightenment. In contrast, from the monotheistic religions' point of view, Buddhism's nonacceptance of God and divine creation amounts to falling into the extreme of nihilism, a view that is dangerously close to an amoral and materialistic view of the world.

"But, on the other hand, from the theistic religions' point of view, if one believes that the entire cosmos, including the sentient beings within it, is a creation of one all-powerful and compassionate God, the inescapable consequence is that the existence of faith traditions other than one's own are also God's creation. To deny this would imply one of two results: either one rejects God's omnipotence — that is to say, that although these other faiths are false ways, God remains incapable of stopping their emergence — or, if one maintains that although God is perfectly capable of preventing the emergence of these 'false' ways, He chooses not to do so, then one rejects God's all-embracing compassion. The latter would imply that, for whatever reasons, God chose to exclude some — in face, millions of His own children — and left them to follow false ways that would lead to their damnation. So the logic of monotheism, especially the standard version that attributes omnipotence, omniscience, and all-embracing compassion to God, inevitably entails recognition that the world's many religious traditions are in one way or another related to God's divine intentions for the ultimate well-being of His children. This means that, as a devout follower of God, one must accord respect, and if possible, reverence to all religions. ... Given the need for upholding the perspective of 'many truths, many religions' in the context of wider society, while the dictates of one's own faith demand embracing the 'one truth, one religion' perspective, I believe that a creative approach is called for here... One might, for instance, make a distinction between faith and respect as two distinct psychological attitudes in relation to the world's religions." ~ Tenzin Gyatso (the fourteenth Dalai Lama)from "The Challenge of Other Religions" in Shambhala Sun.

Having been raised in the American protestant church, I can already guess some of the pat answers with which people might respond to the Dalai Lama. Pat answers, perhaps, but not easy, for even the easy answers of some Christians are more multi-layered and complex than some care to explore. To say we cannot understand God's will or that God gave us free will and choices so that we choose the "right way" isn't acknowledging all of the Dalai Lama's dialectic.

For the last seven or more years I have been in a place of searching, questioning how to reconcile all that I DON'T believe and/or agree with in the Christian tradition (especially the American church) and the idea of one truth, one religion, with what I've learned, witnessed and experienced in the broader world. Questions about translation issues, culture, the original meanings, and the beauty of metaphor reminding me of the differences between what is fact and with is Truth. Reading as much as I can from different traditions, being open to the truth I gather, knowing that God is LOVE, one of the key points of Christianity I do agree with, and I believe gets buried far too frequently. Reading and re-reading Madeleine L'engle, my childhood mentor, she reminds me that faith is mystery, and love is wild. And that we've lost a great deal of that mystery and wild love.

"The sects and fundamentalists are growing because they offer black-and-white answers to all the unanswerable questions. ... The damnation of others seems to be a large part of the pleasure of accepting the answers to the unanswerable questions. X and Y cannot be saved unless Z is in hell. ...What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians, because a tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn." ~Madeleine L'engle, Penguins & Golden Calves

Arrive in style

2011-01-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

Dammit Chrysler - you got me. Their new commercial bemoans our general lack of style today, showing images that take you back to the golden age of film stars, well-cut suits, flowing dresses, the days of the Hepburns (Audrey & Katherine). When did it become acceptable to run to the store in pajama pants? Why shouldn't you put some thought and creativity into how you present yourself?

I know that we can't all afford designer duds - in fact, I'm the first to argue that our culture is far too focused on appearance, and should put more of our money toward a world where children don't die, daily, from hunger.

But I still love to see people express their personal style, whether it's the perfectly fitted suit (hello Don Draper!) or a combination of colors and thrifted pieces. Life can be pretty dreary, why not add some color and interest? Which is why I drool over the street style blog The Sartorialist. Here are a few of my favorites - showing that Chrysler is wrong. Some people still know how to arrive in style.

Daydreaming rainy Portland

2011-01-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

At Costello's Travel Cafe on Broadway, taking a break in my tattoo artist finding weekend (reality casting has followed me north). It's so very Portland outside and in, steady rain, people in fleece and waterproof jackets drinking coffee, reading books, talking knitting around a table full of colorful wool. A 20something guy in a newsboy hat and round wire spectacles is writing furiously in his journal.

A girl sits at a table by the window, backlit by the grey light outside. She sits motionless, her hands cupping her chin and appears to be simply watching the rain fall, and I'm reminded that sitting in a cafe, watching the rain is very important and something that is missing in my life lately. It seems something my poet guru Mary Oliver would approve.

Dear Diary: Friday morning at the market as a Turkish tourist

2010-11-19T07:23:00.000-08:00

Friday, 10:30 am: Walked to bank to pay KEK (electricity bill) and wire money to my mom to deposit to my bank account.

11:14 am: Practiced ignoring line of 10 + angry Kosovars waiting to wire money. Composed chapter of how to win friends and influence people in Kosova.

11:15 am: Smiled in response to five dirty looks from people waiting OUTSIDE the bank to wire money.

11:30 am: American friend and I joined a Turkish tour group. Surrounded and photographed an elderly Albanian man in traditional hat.

11:35 am: Turkish tourists began to suspect they had not seen Sarahann and I on their bus...

11:41 am: "They're probably a Muslim group, going to the mosque to pray." ~ Sarahann

11:42 am: Turned off camera and ditched Turkish tourists outside mosque when they entered to pray. All about respect.

11:45 am: Continued on way to the market. Quickly turned on camera and circled back to grab a photo of little man in blue, who saw me coming and picked up his pace.

11:46 am: Got'im

11:51 am: Made it to the market, yelled at for taking photos. (See earlier entry re: winning friends.)

Holding close the narrow-nosed, claw-footed creature

2010-11-10T04:24:00.000-08:00

Walking with my neighbor Lena of Kazakhstan after lunch in downtown Prishtina, I shared a recent, rather bizarre dream I'd had. Did you dream it last night? she asked. No. I thought back in my week. On Wednesday night. Oh, she said. You should pay special attention to dreams you have on Thursdays through Sundays. Why, I asked, wondering if those cigarettes she'd smoked were packed with something more potent than tobacco. They tell you more, they mean more, she said. It's just something about the cycle of time.

Hmm. I continued to share about the small dog I had adopted in my dream. It was soft, small and furry, but its head kept shape-shifting into an anteater's, with a long, skinny nose. I had to hold it close to my chest all the time, and when I took it outside to go to the bathroom, it fell into a puddle of rain water and started to drown. I snatched it up and squeezed its little brown body like a balloon, so that water squirted out its long nose. It sputtered and started breathing again, its little feet turning into the claws of a lizard, gripping my fingers as if it would never let go.

Lena thought about the dream as we turned into the alley on the way to our apartment building. Just hearing this, she said, I think there's someone in your life who has to make a change, make a decision. And this decision might hurt other people. But the person has to choose. She paused. I think this person will choose what is best for herself/himself, even if it hurts other people.

At the time, I'd found her interpretation interesting, as I had a friend in a job he didn't like, and I wondered whether his choice to quit or stay would hurt loved ones or colleagues.

A week later, I think the dream may have been more personal than that.

Since I arrived in Kosovo a month ago, I've been struggling, not only to adapt to the culture, the "Albanian" way of communicating and interacting, but to my teaching job. I feel overwhelmed, exhausted. When I'm not teaching class, trying to convince adults not to interrupt or speak over each other, while simultaneously explaining the rules of when to use the past perfect continuous verb tense, I'm prepping, trying to understand how to be a more creative teacher. I've never taught before, and so much is unknown.

I'm an introvert by nature. Some people are surprised when I say this, unless you've roomed with me, and know how much time I spend alone. I love people, I love talking to new people, hearing their stories, but I most love one-on-one time, to really engage and get to know them. And after that hour with someone? I spend two or four hours by myself, processing and recharging.

After three weeks of teaching, the exhaustion and feeling of being overwhelmed was getting worse. It seemed a good time for my psyche to add anxiety and panic attacks to the mix. I like my students, I'm sure they're good people, I just want them to stop asking me questions. To stop expecting me to have all the answers.

Maaaaaybe teaching isn't for me.

Within a week I had made my decision to return to the U.S. It wasn't only to find a different job and escape the bad evaluations of my teaching style. I was reminded of another, more practical conversation with Lena of Kazakhstan. You're going to have to decide whether you're living abroad or in the U.S., she told me. You're going to have to choose. The longer you're away, the harder it is to return. You need to decide where you want to create community.

Lena seems prone to seeing the negative side of things, and making pronouncements. But this stuck with me. I want to travel, to see new places, meet new people, share their stories through my writing. But I want to be in community with my family and friends, to honor and foster the long-term friendships that have shaped my life. To be present for major occasions, the birth of a baby, a birthday, an anniversary, as well as everyday occasions, little revelations over cups of coffee and unexpected laughter. I want to create this community at home, and continue to travel to expand my understanding of it in the world.

I don't want to hurt the friends I have to say goodbye to here, but I believe that you can only give real love and joy from a healthy, full reserve in yourself. Looking back at the dream where I reached into the water to rescue the drowning, sputtering animal who couldn't pull itself out, I realize I may be both that little, narrow-nosed, furry, claw-footed creature, and its caretaker.

The life you save may be your own. (Flannery O'Connor)

Invitation to Novelty

2010-11-02T03:28:00.000-07:00

I often take brain breaks from my lesson planning, my eyes crossed from internet searches, hunting for a creative way to teach the present continuous. Leave space in the lesson, a friend and former ESL teacher in China told me. That way the students have room to create as well. It's hard for me to do this. I fear sitting in a quiet room, all eyes on me, waiting for me to impart knowledge. But when I DO leave space for creativity, wonderful conversations happen. Stories of falling in love, a debate about the best age to get married, a lesson in Albanian culture about family planning (you must keep trying til you have a boy). And how much all of this has changed in the last ten years.

John O'Donohue writes about advice given him by a philosopher of science. "Try to discover a few questions in this area that no one has thought of asking, then (you) will have discovered something truly original and important. This advice was an invitation to novelty, an inspiration to perceive a given situation in a completely new way."

I want to ask new questions about why I am here, what it means, what life is like for Kosovars, 10 years after the war. I want to introduce my students to the opportunities of imagination, in studying and in the workplace. Yesterday I wrote an excerpt on the board of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, "When Death Comes." Grim subject, you say? The language book was introducing the idea of a "bucket list," things you want to do before you kick the bucket. So after teaching the class of hospital administrators and public health students another crazy American idiom, we read through the poem on the board.

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom; taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
~Mary Oliver

There was a pause after the students finished reading the stanzas aloud. This is beautiful, one said. I like this very much. Can I get a copy?

In that moment I saw not only how important imagination is to everyone's day and workplace, but how important it is for me, in my current work teaching. To share something that means so much to me, and see another person, almost a stranger to me, who has lived through and seen so much pain, fear, anger and tyranny of humanity, respond in a similar way.

I reminded them to look for the details of life, that we'd be using more poetry and story to improve our writing and our work, how we see the world. In the words of Mary Oliver, "Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work."

Cows grazing on the hospital grounds

Ferris Wheel of Death? Just outside hospital, hearses and a carnival.

Fluctuation of Feelings - Get Some Headspace

2010-10-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

I'm learning to sit with my emotions. Since moving to Kosovo, that means I'm acknowledging and sitting with 17 different moods a day. At least. They come without warning, the smell of Yogi's Deep Breathing tea steeping reminds me of the cup I drank with my mom and my sister before I left, sitting around the kitchen table, the cats winding around our legs. And suddenly I want nothing more than to be at home with them. Never mind that I wouldn't have a job or the money to purchase the Yogi tea. Rational thought is not one of my mood swings.

But occasionally the rational thought seeps in, especially while I'm practicing guided meditation. After reading a particularly panicked email in which I described how exhausted I felt by daily interactions in a foreign culture, not to mention my non-stop schedule of teaching or preparing for class, my sister suggested I visit GetSomeHeadspace.com. They offer short, guided meditation in a soothing, practical British voice. It's all about the fact that you don't have to make an effort, that you shouldn't try to be perfect at meditation.

Why can't I stop thinking? "Because you’re a human being, and our default setting has become frenetic thought! If we could stop thinking at will, we wouldn’t need to learn to meditate. Just be gentle with yourself. It’s like whack–a–mole — the more you try to quash your thoughts, the more they’ll pop up. Bring your attention back to your breath each time, and with a little practice the sense of calm will begin to increase."

It's helping. It's interesting to slow down and be aware of what thoughts do flit through, as I sit back and watch them pass by. Yesterday, when my new friend, British Mind-Guide/Guru told me to let me mind be free, to let whatever thoughts might come run free, I saw, smelled and heard the streets I walk everyday. The muddy puddles of potholes where the alley isn't paved. The car horns honked in anger at the inevitable traffic jams. My heeled boots pounding on the pavement outside the market, announcing my arrival.

Today when British Mind-Guide/Guru asked me to scan down my body to see how each part was feeling, tense? relaxed? heavy? light? and to recognize my emotions, what we're actually feeling beneath our thoughts, the first thought was "I miss my best friend." While that's a given, it's interesting to see that it's right there, beneath all my thoughts about my neck tension and needing to do the dishes. Today I also thought about a countdown calendar. That I'm almost to month 1, looking forward to month 3, when everyone tells me I will feel more comfortable in this new, different place. And, looking forward to month 6, which is my deadline to consider returning home, to decide what comes next in life.

While I'm being very loving with these thoughts and emotions, I also recognize that focusing only on the future defeats the purpose. It defeats the present moment. My Daily OM email today reminded me of the power of positive thinking:

"Confidence and empowerment are mental choices, so you may have to convince yourself by acting as if you already possess the feelings you want to have. Today you are able to convince yourself and others of the truth of your confidence and inner strength. Positive thinking, the use of affirmations, and our imaginations are powerful tools in building our dreams.

"...When we can convince our minds that such things are possible, we have made the first step in making them our reality. As with any energy, this works in the negative as well. This is why it is important to keep our thoughts positive. We have the same power to create and experience negative outcomes as positive ones; it is up to us." ~Daily OM

Engage the depth, danger, and darkness of your life

2010-10-24T04:15:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my two week anniversary of Kosovo: Round 3. It's been a great two weeks, but, as my closest friends and family know, an emotional time. Emails arrive in their inboxes ranging from the ecstatic to the forlorn. Some are filled with long, run-on sentences describing my day with students, visiting the SOS Children's Village, meeting another American woman who has a fun sense of humor, a friend with Celiac so she gets it, and a truck and willingness to hunt for gluten-free foods. Some are filled with audio files of me weeping.

I'd forgotten that homesickness actually feels like you're sick. It's a heartsick, gut-sick feeling. My walls are thin and I'm positive my lovely neighbor Lena is terrified to visit me, or is preparing a care-package to leave at my door with tissues and prozac. Mornings seem to be the hardest for me. I wake to emails written by friends who are nine hours behind in time, and something is triggered in my tear ducts. That I'm missing out on so much of their lives. My best friend is having a baby soon, and there is nothing I want more than to fly back to be there to meet this little girl the moment she arrives.

To BE there for my closest friend, to experience her growing excitement and belly, to shop for baby furniture and soft little onesies. Talking to my father about it, he told me he worried most about how much I'd miss this close friendship, and that I'll have to grieve the loss of proximity (but NEVER the friendship). But then I wonder, why did I create this loss? And more doubt creeps in. Yet I also feel, when I'm not in the throes of the heartsick feeling, that this move was the best decision for this time in my life. I needed to create change in my life, to push myself. I absolutely want to be in two places at once. Why is that not possible?

Reading Anam Cara this morning with my breakfast and Nescafe coffee, I opened it to a section about contradiction. Have something to teach me, Universe? John O'Donohue writes:

"We need to have greater patience with our sense of inner contradiction in order to allow its different dimensions to come into conversation within us. There is a secret light and vital energy in contradiction. Where there is energy there is life and growth. Your ascetic solitude will allow your contradictions to emerge with clarity and force. If you remain faithful to this energy, you will gradually come to participate in a harmony that lies deeper than any contradiction. This will give you new courage to engage the depth, danger, and darkness of your life."

So, this morning, instead of turning on an episode of Gilmore Girls to escape, I'm going to try a guided meditation, to try to remain faithful to the energy of contradiction, when all I want to do is run away from it. It's too early to start drinking, so meditation it is.

Ask Teacher Rebecca your most awkward question

2010-10-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

How do you explain to your class of students, in your most proper English, a sexually explicit phrase? With illustrations, of course!

It started when I was using the technique of drawing a picture on the white board to help understand a vocabulary question my student was asking. So confident, such a great, creative teacher. Repeat that phrase, I asked her. It doesn't quite make sense, I said, as I illustrated the first word, lips, with a big set of smackers on a cartoon face. What is the second word, I asked again? Repeat so the whole class can hear. Downstairs, she said in a thick accent. Down, where? Oh, stairs! I started drawing stairs before I froze.

Taking my sweet, unknowing student aside, I asked in sotto voce, where did you learn this phrase? She replied, mimicking my low tones, "From a Tokyo Police Club interview. He said something about kissing? They're one of my favorite bands."

I erased my illustration with the back of my hand and told my student I could describe what that meant at a later time, perhaps not in mixed company.

Week 1 down. It was off to a bumpy start, what with my perfectionism kicking into high gear (why can't you be the best the first time at something you've never done before?) but I've relaxed a bit and tonight was just fun. I love my pre-intermediate class, askers of inappropriate questions. We meet every weeknight. They're loud and eager to speak in English, interrupting each other when someone is not working fast enough. The class ranges from two teen-aged girls to men who are journalists to two women who, as doctors in their 50s, obviously led the way on the path to equal rights. I can't wait to hear their stories, in a place where women only recently began working outside the home.

Last night, after a rambunctious round of role-playing, the two teen-aged girls stayed after class. Teacher, what are you doing after tomorrow night's class, they asked me. While I debated whether I'd buy my Milka chocolate bar and a bottle of wine BEFORE going home or stop at home to drop my books off first, they interrupted my daydream of doldrums and asked me to go out with them.

Hangin' with the high schoolers on a Friday night might not sound like I've found my community, but these girls are so sweet and funny and dream big dreams, I feel I have two new little sisters. One of the girls brought her younger brother to meet the American. Poor kid, he sat through 90 minutes of English, his only consolation a mocha piled with whipped cream while he patiently observed three girls and another 2 hours of unintelligible chatter. Plus the hysterical laughing when "teacher" finally explained the lips downstairs comment. (I made sure he didn't understand ANY English.)

I don't know whether to curse you or thank you, Tokyo Police Club. Not my finest hour of teaching, but probably the most fun.

Cartoon robots have nothing to do with Tokyo Police Club or a night in Kosovo, but this popped up when I googled "cartoon drawings of people" and who doesn't love a cartoon robot?

this too shall pass ... with a little help from cross-cultural comedy

2010-10-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

My first night teaching fell apart a little. The make-shift classroom was overly heated, I overheated, and the books hadn't arrived. Books on which I had based most of my lesson. That's okay, I had the placement test to give the students. Wrong answer. The chairs with built-in desks had not yet arrived, making it nearly impossible to force students to write on their laps. These are part of the growing pains for the language center. Roll with punches, right? It's a good sign when one group has to meet at a cafe to find space/tables on which to write. But a bad sign, when a teacher, sans books and lesson plan, cannot roll with said punches.

Already nervous for my first class, I FROZE, off my lesson plan, jumping around from grammar lesson to past participle, certain the students could smell weakness. I couldn't seem to form an active sentence that I could convert into a passive one. I FROZE. It was like that bad dream, but I was wearing all my clothes. So when the guy from Turkey with the unintelligible lisp gave me an active sentence, followed with the joke "I could teach the class!" any remaining confidence I had was destroyed.

Thankfully, my second class of pre-intermediate students went much more smoothly. But I was questioning why I was in Kosova, why I thought I could teach, why I thought I knew English. Had I actually ever felt a punch before, let alone rolled with one? I couldn't remember. I was set to start my period the next day, my hormones out of whack with the time change, and I hadn't eaten a full meal in days, trying to avoid gluten in a food-culture based on flour.

Ahhh... emotions, flaky, easy come easy go emotions. After a day of feeling downright depressed and ready to board the first plane to L.A., tonight I had a lovely evening with my nightly pre-intermediate class. We discussed friendship, vocabulary and grammar. We talked about the uses of "who" vs. "whom," watched the "Scrubs" scene below, and learned that sometimes, comedy transcends the painful comedic moments of my own life and puts everything into perspective again.

Been there, done that

2010-10-15T02:05:00.000-07:00

"Generally, the familiar, precisely because it is familiar, is not known." (Hegel)

Day 4 in Kosovo: I take the same routes every day: to the store, to the language center, to the cafe to meet a friend. If I stray off the path, I might get lost, and the only way I know to describe where I live is to reference a sports center and a park, and hope a stranger will direct me back home. But even in my known path, I have to treat each step as new, eyes on the ground to avoid open, uncovered drains in the street, deep ditches left unguarded when the construction workers go home. Will this ever feel familiar to me?

In Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, John O'Donohue warns about the familiar, and explains that it is merely a facade. "Familiarity enables us to tame, control, and ultimately forget the mystery. We make our peace with the surface as image and we stay away from the Otherness and fecund turbulence of the unknown that it masks. Familiarity is one of the most subtle and pervasive forms of human alienation."

Yesterday, as I waited for the bus to take me to JYSK (the Ikea of Kosovo, pronounced "Yoosk") I felt the familiar sense of being isolated. The women on the street here are so close to each other, walking arm in arm, laughing and kissing goodbye, and seem to eye me with a questioning look. I also think they're judging my shoes. They're very European, wearing fabulous heels and boots that I doubt they carry in my size (BIG). Most likely I'm reading into this, but I find it very difficult to connect and break that language and cultural barrier with women. I felt myself closing off, trying not to smile at strangers, which is my normal way of greeting people. (I was once told by a grip on a film set that he thought I was "simple" when he first met me, since I smiled all the time.)

Reading O'Donohue and Hegel's quote, I was reminded that if I shut off from engaging in each day, as I am, open and present to the mystery that surrounds me in the familiar, I will miss out on life. So I hope that as I study the Albanian language and Kosovo culture, I can bring my own open eyes/mind/soul to it, to stay aware of the "turbulence of the unknown."

JYSK, by the way, is a Danish company, and FAR more expensive than I expected (a wool throw for 50 Euros? Really?) I bought new sheets and pillows, and baffled by the use of centimeters on the packages, ended up buying twin sheets for my double bed. I cuddled into my too-small sheets last night, thankful that nothing yet is too familiar.

(Almost) At Home in Kosovo

2010-10-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

Home! In a hotel.

The Prishtina airport smelled like cigarette smoke, and reminded me why the British Airways flight attendant kept reminding our flight that smoking was prohibited on the plane and in the terminal. My friend Fisnik picked me up – so lovely to see him after almost five years.

As we drove down what I dub Narrow-Miss Lane, Fisnik navigated what seems to be rule-free traffic while I called my new boss. We parked and I kept reminding Fisnik to look for the street address I had for the language center, while he kept reminding me that street addresses don’t matter and aren’t listed. Naturally, the national was right, tourist was wrong, and we happened upon the sign for the center. I walked up the 4 flights of stairs to the language center office. I met Boss, his kids, and his accountant. He commented that I am tall. (It’s true.)

Walking downstairs to meet Fisnik and talk about apartment hunting, in hopes to find an available place where I could land for the night, it was only fitting that we talk over a cup of coffee. The main boulevard was crowded with students and vendors, and draped with the American flag flying next to the newly adopted flag of Kosovo. “See,” Boss said. “They knew you were coming today!” (Apparently, so is Hilary Clinton.)

We entered a smoke-filled café. Boss asked if I mind if he smoked. Since one cigarette would not mean much difference to the general cloud of smoke, and since he was really only being polite, I said yes.

As we sat, drank, smoked and talked, I brought the conversation back to the apartment hunt. Fisnik looked at his watch. Suddenly, a tall, solidly built man in a dark overcoat joined us. They said hello, and Boss introduced us to his friend, who sat, ordered an espresso, pulled out his pack of cigarettes and sat down to smoke.

Fisnik was eerily silent most of the coffee talk. Turns out, he is more paranoid than I am, which is hard to believe if you know me, or have received my 2am phone calls checking in on you after a bad dream. I am the girl who expects to find a dead body in every dumpster (watch Law & Order people – finding a body is inevitable, only a matter of time), and who lives by the motto: Only the paranoid survive. Fisnik was sizing up my new boss, and then the man he dubbed the “Silent Killer” (S.K.) in his overcoat, who, granted, could be straight out of Central Casting for that role. And is a lovely soul who went out of his way to try to find me a flat. Fisi told me all his paranoid suspicions later, when he felt better about my safety and life-span after Boss's wife arrived. She was lovely, smiling, straight from a pilates class and her job. Suddenly, we were all friends, and Fisi was driving Boss, S.K. and I through the dark, rainy streets of Prishtina, on our search to find me a home.

Boss and S.K. did their best and showed me a couple of places, while I played the role of American perfectly and dove in, trying to negotiate a rent I could afford. I’m typing from a hotel room (it smells like smoke), so the search continues tomorrow.

(Photo: Life.com)

How to move

2010-09-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

I'm moving again, away from a lovely apartment, neighborhood and a community of friends I adore. And I'm ready to do it, to see what comes next, to start a new chapter in Kosovo. I've grown to love change, to lend it a helping hand if it's not happening fast enough, but this was not always the case. I hyperventilated the night my parents told me we might move to Tennessee. In front of a plate of bribery Chinese food, inedible at the words that my father was checking out a new church. I won't move to Texas, I shouted before nearly passing out. Driving across the country in an aerostar, landing in a new junior high halfway through my 6th grade year, this little 12-year-old drama queen had many more breakdowns.

How could I move to land-locked Tennessee? I'd lived in Oregon since I was two years old, where my favorite summer memories were at the coast, waking (being woken) at dawn to splash barefoot across the ocean inlet, searching for the perfect sand dollar. Lying in the dunes at night to watch for shooting stars, running down to scuff along the dark water line to "spark" in the phosphorescent-rich sand. How could Tennessee compare?

But I remember one summer night at our house out in the country, joining my mother on our front stoop, watching neighbors stroll by, saying hello and commenting on the heat of the day. We sat in silence as one by one the fireflies created a sea of lights in our overgrown grass.

I'm looking forward to see how my world expands, and what I grow to love in my new home.

(Photo from Desktop Nexus)

poetry in the laundromat

2010-09-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

My friend just posted this video on "dirty jobs," thinking about the worth of work and our perception of manual labor. (It starts off talking about the castration of lambs, a unarguably dirty job, but he gets to the point, if you stick with it.) It added to a journal entry I re-read last night as I'm packing away my books, sorting through what to keep, and a Mary Oliver poem that finds the beauty in everyday life.

To the man in the laundromat calling out loudly to the owner, a wiry white guy whose faded jeans were too big for him, Hey, man, you need someone to sweep the floors? The owner continued uninterrupted, walking to the back, saying over his shoulder, Not right now but give me your info, you never know when we'll need someone. He was still walking as the first guy halfway followed him, Yeah, I could sweep, clean up - whatever you could pay me.

Singapore
by Mary Oliver

In Singapore, in the airport,
a darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women's restroom, one compartment stood open
A woman knelt there, washing something in the white bowl.

Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.

A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that's not possible,
a fountain rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment
struggled together, and neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch as she stares
down at her labor, which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays,
as big as hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.

I don't doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from
the crust and the slop and fly down to the river
This probably won't happen
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic,
who would want it?

Of course, it isn't
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
the light that can shine out of a life.
I mean the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
the way her smile was only for me sake;
I mean the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.

Beautiful Beets and Demanding Squash: A Love Story

2010-09-11T00:36:00.000-07:00

I almost didn't read the last page of Orion's Sept|Oct issue. The title "On Cold-Weather Vegetables" didn't exactly reach out and grab me. I live in L.A, where roots and beets and squash are not necessities. But. I'm moving to Kosovo. Cold-weather will once again be part of my seasonal life. Meals are more of a celebration; unexpected visitors always mean caj (tea) or coffee, snacks, and perhaps a meal shared at the table. So, on my bus ride to downtown L.A., I folded back the last page of the magazine and settled into Katrina Vandenberg's beautiful homage to the demanding parts of life, unexpected tastes, that commitment to what's difficult and unwieldy in love and life and veggies.

"Back in July, the tomatoes and corn the farmers offered were cheery, Crayola-bright. October is scary ... Cold-weather vegetables are demanding. They require a little muscle behind the knife... Inside, their flesh is richly colored and dense. They're messy ... We wrestle with them. They refuse the ease of the salad bowl and insist on long roasting.

...They're acquired tastes, ones I didn't love until I was in my thirties, my husband an even more reluctant convert than I. But this time of year and at this time in our lives, our meals together are changing. When the air begins to bite with cold and the smell of decaying leaves, the colors and tastes of what we eat begin to deepen.

I watch my husband from the kitchen window as he pulls dead morning glory vines from the trellises. I love him differently than I did the day I married him.

...Andre Dubus describes the meals between married couples as not mere eating but a 'pausing in the march to perform an act together,' a sacrament that says, 'I know you will die; I am sharing food with you; it is all I can do, and it is everything.'

...Christians regularly take communion, a ritually shared meal that acknowledges the mysteries of life and death, but mealtime is especially poignant in the fall, when Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead, and Celts once celebrated Samhain, and ancient Greeks told the story of Persephone disappearing into the underworld — all harvest festivals that connect sharing food with death and gratitude. So we start with what the earth has given us. We shape it into something else. Perhaps there are candles. We talk. We have enough and are together..."

~Katrina Vandenberg

You can listen to the whole story here.

(Photo: loxosceles, Flickr.com)

Illustrations | Art I Love: Nathan Ota

2010-09-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

Head for the Clouds

Flavorpill's Daily Dose Pick today was Nathan Ota, an artist trained in illustration. Magical.


Watching Over Me

See more of Ota's work here.

"To Franz Kafka"

2010-09-07T22:18:00.001-07:00

Like you, I want the time to meditate
To wander and sit still, to let the day's
Humiliations redeploy and blaze
Across my field of vision to irritate
My soul until the demon language flow
And purge experience to common sense
Making me master of inconsequence,
Letting me know the little that I know.

Yet, like you, I am bogged by aptitude
For getting tedious work done fast, amazing
My colleagues daily by my skill, and hear it
Praised, take it to heart, and know that interlude
Of felt responsibility, hair-raising
Pride of doing well what breaks the spirit.

~ To Franz Kafka, by David Galler

cheese and fruit plate, originally uploaded by rosidae.

(This poem rang particularly true when I was praised at work for the beauty of my cheese plates.)

Writing prompt: You hear music in the background

2010-09-07T09:01:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by Lucas SD.

Rounding the corner of the park, I skirt the edge of the busy street. The crossing guard sees me and waves just like every Monday. His stop sign swings in the air, back and forth, different today. I slow down and look closely at each person, car and vendor on the street. I hear it, faint in the background, the music that everyone seems to be moving to. The crossing guard lilts as he leads children across the street. The kids swing their satchels to the beat. The policeman directs traffic, his whistle the off beat.

Whatever the song is, I quickly realize I am the only one who doesn't recognize it, who is not involved in the intricate dance. When I stop to listen, the crowd spills around me, not missing a beat. Spinning in a slow circle, I see the homeless man helping the lady with her groceries, their dance a ballet. Stepping closer to hear, to feel the beat through the sidewalk, I narrowly miss being hit by the streetcar whose bell chimes in time; I am out of the rhythm.

Danny & Annie on StoryCorps

2010-09-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

The story of Danny & Annie's first date, marriage and being parted by death. Absolutely beautiful, inspiring and heartbreaking. Break out the tissue box, and maybe write a love letter to someone in your life. Or at least a romantic weather report.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Last days in L.A.: Celebrity Stories

2010-09-04T19:26:00.001-07:00

Griffith Park, originally uploaded by williwieberg.

It's official! I'm moving to Kosovo to teach English. My tickets are booked, I've given away and sold over 200 of my books, shredded old production documents and given my roomie and landlord my 30 days notice. At this point, if I don't move to Kosovo, I'll have to join the homeless guys camped outside the public library. Not that free internet and books aren't tempting.

As I'm packing up, reading through old journals (mostly mortifying), I've come across those rare moments that make for great L.A. stories. Hanging up on Mel Gibson — twice. (This before his recent rants, so there was really no good reason to disconnect him from the head of Sony.) Cat-sitting for Toni Basil. Taking Bono's digits and chatting with him about his flat in Nice.

In one journal from my days at Icon Productions: Today a man called, asked my name. "What would YOU do, Rebecca, if someone put your experience, your life, in a movie?" he asked. A bit confused, I asked him to elaborate (first mistake: engaging the crazy). The movie "Braveheart" used some of his experiences, he clarified. Too curious to hang up, I asked him which scenes specifically were from his life. 'Well, my brain, for one!' he replied. Regaining my speech, I told him I didn't think we could help him, so he asked for Columbia Pictures' number. I advised him to call information, if the people in the white jackets didn't find him and revoke his phone privileges first.

Or the older couple who called from the midwest and demanded a refund of their $9.25 movie money for "Payback," saying it was too violent, and they only went based on their trust of Mel Gibson's history of past roles.

Or Toni Basil (of "Hey Mickey" fame) and her cat-sitting to-do list, reminding me to call nightly with an update on her hairless wonders.

I'll miss L.A. — the neighborhoods I've come to love, the unattainable beauty of the gay men of West Hollywood, the Arclight movie experience, the pre-show picnics at the Hollywood Bowl, the smell of Kings Road coffee roasting, the hikes at Griffith Park, the jacaranda blooming soft purple, the thrifting on Melrose. I can't wait to tell the stories of life in Prishtina, but I know L.A. will always be home.

Flea Market Fancy Fabric Giveaway and Fundraiser for Women's Sewing Workshop in Congo

2010-08-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Are you crafty? Want to help your sewing sisters in the Congo?

My friend Cate and I have been working alongside Amani of Action Kivu, a nonprofit in the Congo that works to empower and educate women and children affected by the ongoing conflict there. The war has stolen over 5.4 million lives, and rape is widely used as a weapon of war, with estimates putting the number of rapes in the hundreds of thousands.

Cate's twin sister is a sewing / quilting queen, and has launched a fundraiser for Action Kivu's sewing workshop, to fund a safe place of community for the women to meet and learn a lifelong skill and to purchase sewing machines and fabric. If you want to partner with and help your sewing sisters in the Congo, visit Handmade by Alissa to see a video about Action Kivu's work, the women in the workshop, and to read the details of how you can donate and also enter to win a fabulous giveaway. I have no talent for sewing besides the odd button that keeps popping off, but apparently, this flea market fancy fabric is hard to find, and makes sewing that much more fun. And fancy.

Your donations are tax deductible, go towards helping empower women to heal and become self-sustaining members of society, and every dollar makes a difference. And if you want to partner with the women on a monthly basis, you can do that as well.

Visit Alissa's blog to read the details of how to donate for this specific fundraiser and be entered in the fabric giveaway. And tell your friends / bloggers! So thankful for your help.

(Generously donated by Jacquie from Tallgrass Prairie Studio.)

Illustrations and Sculpture I Love: Lisa Kaser

2010-08-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

High Desert Gallery was our fifth art gallery in two blocks, and I was cruising through it. Bright, beautiful oils and watercolors, but nothing caught my eye, until I stopped to peer closer at a wax sculpture titled "She Went As A Pumpkin That Went As A Tree." Fanciful and slightly spooky at once, I was in love. And if I wasn't already planning my "Dooneese" costume for Halloween, I'd start working on the papier mache for a pumpkin that dresses as a tree, though the photo on the website doesn't do it justice.

I also loved "Delighted by the Wind."

Lisa Kaser is an illustrator / sculpture...ess living in Portland, Oregon. Her illustrations are off beat and magical as well.

"Respite Under a Wild Umbrella" courtesy of Mireio (who has an interview with Lisa Kaser here).

And from Lisa's Etsy shop:

"The Angel of Mercy Moves in Mysterious Ways"

The Hero in Your Story

2010-08-19T16:53:00.001-07:00

Par-delà les nuages..., originally uploaded by Aelin Quan.

After 36 hours of lecture on story from Robert McKee, Donald Miller's roommate Jordan sums up what makes a good story in just 11 words: A character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.

Miller's latest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life talks about living your own life like a movie story, cutting down on those superfluous scenes where nothing changes. Hearing this idea that we could be living good stories, Miller's friend Jason decides to craft a better story for his family, in hopes that it will help his teenage daughter make better decisions.

Looking for something worthwhile for his family to pursue, Jason came across an organization that builds orphanages around the world. When he learned that it takes about $25,000.00 to build one, he remembered that a good story involves risk, and not knowing where the money would be found, agreed to build it.

After his wife and daughter took some time to process how this chapter might change their lives, each jumped in the journey. His daughter asked to travel to Mexico to meet the kids, so she could share their stories and photographs on her website in the hopes that more people would find their place in the story, and help. And she quickly dumped her loser boyfriend, because, as her dad said, "No girl who plays the role of a hero dates a guy who uses her."

It reminds me of Iris, Kate Winslet's character in "The Holiday." (Mock the movie all you want, but Jude Law has never been more delicious.) When Iris flees her newly engaged, player of a non-boyfriend for Los Angeles, she meets Arthur, a screenwriter from the golden age of cinema. He introduces her to the leading ladies of his day, and teaches her to stop playing the best friend role and start acting like the star of her own life.

How many of us are walking through life, watching them happen to us, not sure that we would want to watch our own story on the big screen? As Miller asks, "I wondered if life could be lived more like a good story in the first place. I wondered whether a person could plan a story for (her) life and live it intentionally."

This year has been a period of quiet reflection, also known as unemployment. And now, I'm ready to take some risks.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
~ Mary Oliver

Eat, Pray, JAVIER

2010-08-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

"I want to go someplace where I can ... marvel ... at something," says Julia Roberts, playing Elizabeth Gilbert in the film adaptation of Eat Pray Love.

I too, want to go someplace where I can marvel at something, or someone. I plan to go straight to the Arclight, without stopping, to marvel at Javier Bardem. He's the reason I went to (and purchased the DVD of) "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." He's the reason I almost lost my web producing job for posting too many photos of him during the "No Country for Old Men" Oscar season. (Red carpet photos, of course, not the creepy bowl cut with a cattle prod look he rocked in the movie.)

Here's the trailer, one more time (or twelve) before the movie opens this Friday. Feel free to fast forward to 2:00 in, where you get a glimpse, just a tease, really, of Javier.

(Photo courtesy AllMoviePhoto.com)

Path Finding: Teach Abroad?

2010-07-30T19:03:00.001-07:00

The Path, originally uploaded by Arkadius Zagrabski.

I've been a job-search schizophrenic lately. In just over one month, I've sent out emails to my poor, poor patient friends and family with the following subject lines: "Massage therapy! Info please," "What do you know about broadcast journalism?" "Nutritionist, could that get me work in a developing nation?" and "Hey, Obama, will you pay for my grad school?"

That last one may have put me on a watch list.

Perhaps I should take my meds, you might be thinking. Unemployed over a year, receiving no feedback from flinging my resume far and wide, feeling undereducated without a masters, but underemployed to afford said masters, I'm spinning myself in circles. My meds in this case include deep breathing, closing my eyes to slow the spinning, and to look at what is connected in all my dream jobs.

Helping others (massage, nutrition). Hearing and telling stories (journalism). And most of all, always, travel. I was recently reminded of one of the quintessential quirks of my Sagittarius sign, the willingness to try new things. The get up and go of life is what makes me feel alive.

And suddenly, it came to me, a little voice or possibly an ad via gmail: teach English overseas! "I can't believe we didn't think of this sooner," a friend said. "It's perfect for you!" And from my mother, my biggest champion, and the woman who helped finance my first adventure overseas (Serbia & Kosovo): "It's perfect! You could have taught English when you were 7." Granted, though I was a geeky kid whose idea of a fun car game was asking for harder and harder words to spell, I was also so shy I couldn't be found in crowds, hiding behind my mother's skirts. But now? I still love the bizarre rules of the English language, and bonus! I'm WAY too tall to hide behind anyone, thus accustomed to being on display.

I'm researching the best online programs for certification, and would prefer to be placed back in Kosovo, or Eastern Europe. I understand the pay is not great in developing nations, but that's where I want to be, to help those who are hungry to learn. If you know anything, please email me! (rebecca.snavely at gmail) Especially if you know of an organization known to help supplement the local pay, as incentive for native English speakers to work in developing countries. Student loans must be paid, or else I'd go for the people, their stories and live on peanut butter, bananas, and Turkish coffee.

This feels less schizo, more right. Ready to jump in to the unknown.

Dream Decorating: Soul Space

2010-07-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

"Your emotional impulses could push you toward extravagance, which might mean that you could be more inclined to indulge in buying things that aren’t necessary today. This need to treat yourself might be rooted in a much deeper desire, however—the desire to feel completely satisfied. Perhaps you can reflect on what you think you lack in your life and the things you feel you need to be fulfilled; the items you crave could give you some insight into where the emptiness inside may lie. Try asking your deeper self what your true emotional need is. ...

"Once we understand our unmet desires, we are able to treat ourselves to what we really need. With the messages we get every day telling us that we are not nearly as good as we should be, it is easy to buy into the idea that we have to acquire more to feel good about ourselves. Turning our focus inward, however, allows us to realize that while we do need to indulge ourselves once in a while, it is usually our spirit that needs love and pampering; this is something that no material good can fulfill. Seeing that there is a connection between your material desires and deeper yearnings will help you find satisfaction in something that is infinitely more meaningful today." (Daily OM)

Unemployed, I have no extra cash to blow on my unmet desires. But if I did, what would be my indulgence? I'd makeover my apartment, my space. I'm talking real makeover, upheaval. One for which I'd need to enlist one of the handy men from HGTV, to tear up the nappy carpet and put down beautiful, aged hardwood floors. To make some built-in bookshelves and an outdoor space to feed friends and sip cocktails. To invest in luscious fabrics from India (oh, yeah, let's throw in a trip to India in there, while we're at it).

While I can't redecorate, I can rid my life of excess stuff, to open up my space. And I can pay attention to that impulse to make things more lovely, to create space and ask what that means for me in a spiritual sense of self care. A little organizing, re-decorating and clearing of space in my soul.

Based on my dream decorating photos (below), I like simple, open, light and airy rooms, filled with books, greens and twinkly lights. I haven't felt very open or sparkly lately, more bogged down with stress of a never-ending job search, uncertainty about the future. Unsure of what I bring to the world, if I can live the dreams of a writing life that I want. Sitting with this meditation, looking at what I'd buy for my soul care, if purchases could fix my inner angst, I realize I need to clear my head of all the clutter and clanging. To write and let myself get creative, without fear. To seek out beauty, green and sparkle.

(Daily Imprint)

(Design Sponge)

(Abbey Goes Design Scouting)

(Martha Stewart Living)

Walkin' in L.A.

2010-07-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

One thing's for sure, he isn't starring in the movies.
'Cause he's walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
(Missing Persons)

Life lived outside the box and outside the car gives you a different perspective, a closer view and proximity to people. I love living car-free in Los Angeles. I wonder about the 20-something girl with sad eyes who laughs at her son's stories. About the man at the back of the bus, his head buried in his arm, leaning against the window, wailing and sobbing into his cell, unintelligible through his tears and language. The giggly 3 year old girl trying to turn the attention of the teenaged kid from his phone.

The driver who stops in the middle of the road to ask the wobbly woman, who looks drunk? off her meds? if she needs help. She waits til the woman makes it safely to the sidewalk before driving on. The driver who drops us at Book Soup, and circling back on his route a half hour later, honks to see if we need a ride back down the hill. It makes L.A. seems a little smaller, a little less of a sprawl, a little more a community.

We’re caffeinated by rain inside concrete underpasses,
rolling along treetops, Chinese elms, palm trees, California peppers.

(from "We're Caffeinated by Rain," ~ Sesshu Foster)

Song for Saturday: Michael Franti - Sometimes

2010-07-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sound body and sound of mind
Sound of the rhythm and sound of the rhyme
Somebody marchin' out all of the time
Biggest mistakes are the humanest kind
Judge not, lest you be judged

Show love and love who you know
Family wherever you go
Tokyo to acapulco
Bravissimo, magnifico
Peace to the people who be losin' their head
Peace to the people who be needin' a bed
Love to the people who be feelin' alone
Spreadin' love upon the microphone
Hope to the people to be feelin' down
Smile to the people who be wearin' a frown
Faith to the people who be seekin' the truth y'all
All of the time, and i say

Sometimes, i feel like i can do anything
Sometimes i'm so alive...so alive
Sometimes, i feel like i can swim ‘cross the sky
Sometimes, i wanna cry

Researching sadness

2010-07-13T13:09:00.001-07:00

Holleywood Road Self Guided Tour - stone road, originally uploaded by EL@Seattle.

As my close friends know, I often revel in the melancholy. It makes my extroverted happy-all-the-time friends quite nervous, but I need it. Some days I crave the grey, the unknown, the mood in between. I'm having a quiet day today, and took a break from job searching and picked up Words Under the Words, a book of selected poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, and opened it to "The White Road."

The White Road

I can't even count
how many of my own feet
walk the white stone road today.
As if the feet of past years
tramped alongside,
and the future feet,
anchors already forming
in the sea of blood,
accompanied.
Why should such a simple sadness
well up like a crowd?

Now I've even forgotten
whose sadness it was to begin with.
May it belongs to the nun
who waits for the 6 A.M. bus,
whose headscarf is white
and always tied.
Maybe she feels lighter today
having dropped it.
Or the man at the state hospital
who kept singing
"These are a few of my favorite things"
though his cigarette trembled
and he wore pajamas in the afternoon—

These stones have smooth backs.
They could be praying, or sleeping.
I could be anyone else,
researching sadness,
finding out how it adheres to the world,
bubbling and thickening, flour in broth,
how women who have lost children
sometimes feel like women
who have lost homes in fires
or men in their fifties who feel
the days shrinking in front of them
sometimes weep for a neighbor boy's dog.

Stories: Are You There God? It's me, Rebecca

2010-07-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

He slouched further down the pew, sliding til his neck seemed to disappear into his tee-shirt. I don't want to, he whispered desperately to his mother, who said, Fine, and grabbed the hand of his younger, more pliable brother, leading him to the front of the small church. The boy left behind crashed down into the wooden pew, leaning as far back as he could to become one with the wood, hidden in the bench.

Seated right behind him, too tall to fit length-wise in the pew, I nodded my approval. This was all a bit much, wasn't it?

As the woman in the bright colored dress started reading a story to the children gathered at the front of the church, the boy squirmed and wriggled, well-hidden and ignored. Having ditched my church-going ways a few years ago, I thought about the rational, positive, progressive points of the Episocopal church. They openly ordained gay leaders and welcomed all. Madeleine L'engle, one of my favorite writers, was Episcopalian and loved the liturgy. The church was 20 yards from the front door of the house where I was staying for two weeks.

During the announcement time, a man stood up at the back of the church and asked us, if we cared at all about the environment, to check out handsacrossthesand.com, to see photos from the recent gathering. "If you're concerned about the oil spill and global warming, and, you know, want to save the planet." The crazy lady with long braids, big hips and daring cleavage bounced around the aisle, her announcement excited and unintelligible. During the prayer time, people raised up names of those in pain and need they wanted to remember, and the visiting pastor asked for blessings and care for the animals affected by the oil spill in the gulf. This was definitely a northern California crowd.

Something was tugging at me. When the service started with a procession of the cross, some old, ancient part of my churched soul stirred. I had to follow the Episcopal high-church service by the bulletin, all those recited God is Goods and And Also with Yous.

The kids up front engrossed in the pictures in the storybook reading of the 23rd Psalm, our boy's arm shot out from his hiding place. Grabbing a hymnal from the back of the pew before him, he pretended to be bored, flipping through the pages. You could almost hear him sigh and see him look at his pocket watch, as if he were an old man waiting outside the salon for his wife. His head cocked in curiosity when the church lady read from the story: Thou annointest my head with oil, she said, pointing to the illustration of two polar bears. Huh? said one little boy. Where'd a polar bear get oil? asked another. Our boy raised his head and scuttled to the edge of the pew, looking down the aisle at the group up front.

The pastor called out for blessings, and the crazy lady with deep breast-baring cleavage dragged her husband to the front, (if you don't ask, you may miss out!) where she bounced from one foot to another, asking for traveling mercies for her husband's upcoming trip and a blessing for their wedding anniversary. Hearing it was another woman's birthday, she grabbed her and placed her in a squeeze between herself and her husband. The pastor gave the blessings for the coming year.

During story time for the adults, the pastor reflected on Luke 9: 51-62. He spoke of centering, and his own story, when he felt lost. Studying for his PhD, involved in the 1960s activism, he said, I was doing everything I could to be good. And I realized that there was a dead feeling inside, that what was real and was truly me was dying, and if I didn't do something, I would die. One day, he said, I opened a book about pottery, and read this quote by John Middleton Murry: "For the good man to realize that it is better to be whole than to be good is to enter on a straight and narrow path to which his previous rectitude was flowery license."

What does it mean to be whole, versus being good? Years of church, Sunday school, bible study, youth group and Christian college courses, and I too am tired and dead inside from being good. But when I start to open myself to what it means to be whole, I feel that spark of life come back. I was shocked to find it sparked inside a church, but maybe that is right. If church is where I got bogged down by do-gooder-ness, perhaps that is where I needed to be reminded of the beauty of metaphor and story of Jesus's teachings, that he taught in stories.

As he leaned into the aisle for a better view, the boy gripped the edge of the pew, willing himself to stay in the spot he had claimed. Suddenly he was up and in quick, jerking jogging steps rushed to the front of the church, nestling into his mother's arms, absorbed in the story. And I leaned forward to take in the pastor's story, to be reminded of Jesus's stories, and the ongoing stories all around me. To wonder where polar bears would get oil with which to be annointed. To be reminded of people who live authentic lives of faith and questioning, who bounce to the beat of a different drum, who demand blessings and join hands to save the planet and each other. Stories that call us to justice, love and being whole, being who we are, my story different from yours.

Writing & Life Advice: Anne Lamott on Making Time

2010-06-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

Finding time to be creative, to give yourself over to whatever feeds your soul, means making time. And according to Anne Lamott, that means giving up something that you may feel is a necessary part of your multi-tasking life.

"I sometimes teach classes on writing, during which I tell my students every single thing I know about the craft and habit. This takes approximately 45 minutes. I begin with my core belief—and the foundation of almost all wisdom traditions—that there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.

"Then I bring up the bad news: You have to make time to do this.

"This means you have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement. That multitasking can argue a wasted life. That a close friendship is worth more than material success.

"Needless to say, this is very distressing for my writing students."

Blogs are good for creating that space, and reminding you to tend to your creative side. When it is ignored and outdated, a blog eyes you with the forlorn look of a neglected puppy, eyes deep pools of hurt and confusion. Blogs keep you coming back, to find community, to feel you're sharing a bit of you with the world, and to keep up the hits (and we allll crave the hits, stats are how you know you're not just shouting into deep space).

My friend Paul has created a blog for just that sort of creative accountability. Get a hit of inspiration from him at Pablo's Doodles.

Anne writes,

"I often remember the story from India of a beggar who sat outside a temple, begging for just enough every day to keep body and soul alive, until the temple elders convinced him to move across the street and sit under a tree. Years of begging and bare subsistence followed until he died. The temple elders decided to bury him beneath his cherished tree, where, after shoveling away a couple of feet of earth, they found a stash of gold coins that he had unknowingly sat on, all those hand-to-mouth years.

You already have the gold coins beneath you, of presence, creativity, intimacy, time for wonder, and nature, and life. Oh, yeah, you say? And where would those rascally coins be?"

Read the rest of Anne's advice on how to find time here.

When There Is No Flow: Haruki Murakami

2010-06-09T18:11:00.001-07:00

I felt decidedly out of the flow of life last Sunday. Parking the car my friend so lovingly loaned me, I griped and grumbled at people who couldn't park perfectly, leaving three feet on each side of their car, and no room for mine. For making me walk an extra three blocks to Larchmont Avenue, which on a farmer's market Sunday morning is packed with people who have the gall to stop mid-sidewalk, kissing the air hello, clustering in groups of strollers, stray kids and dogs. Side walk people. Walk. I'm truly surprised they didn't scatter at the sight of the dark thundercloud that must have been brewing above my furrowed brow, or run from the Wicked Witch of the East soundtrack that surely accompanied my angry, determined, weaving walk up the cafe-lined street.

The smell of ripe peaches and flowers filled the air as I neared the open-air farmer's market, mingling with the faint smell of puppy dander and pee from the makeshift, mobile pet adoption park. Pushing past strollers of babies giggling and clapping at playful puppies and tumbly kittens, I was caught off guard by the gaze of an older girl with Down syndrome. She sat quietly on the bench, completely still in the midst of the madness, her legs crossed like a Yogi.

Her serene look made me pause, to take in the orange tabby kittens (but not take them home), little toddlers wagging their whole bodies in time with the puppies' tails, begging. To take in both the hopeful faces as well as the sad reality that most of the animals would not find homes. She reminded me of what I'd just read in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, when Mr. Honda tells Toru about being in the flow.

"The law presides over things of this world, finally. The world where shadow is shadow and light is light, yin is yin and yang is yang, I'm me and he's him. 'I am me and / He is him: / Autumn eve.' But you don't belong to that world, sonny. The world you belong to is above that or below that."

"Which is better? I asked, out of simple curiosity. "Above or below?"

"It's not that either one is better," he said ... "It's not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up, and find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up, the world is darkness. 'I am he and / He is me: / Spring nightfall.' Abandon the self, and there you are."

(From The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami)

"When there's no flow, stay still." That might be the hardest thing to do, especially in our society. I wish I could draw better than I do, to capture the stillness of the girl I saw, to remind myself to stay still, to pay attention to the flow of the present moment.

Old wooden boat!, originally uploaded by CyrusMafi.

An Eye on the Sparrow

2010-06-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid. Afraid when I consider what is happening in the world, and my place in it. I get overwhelmed when I read about collapsitarians and the peak oil crisis in light of the gushing gallons of oil in the Gulf Coast. I read about political unrest, babies dying from treatable diseases, and fear and ignorance. And I'm afraid that God's eye is not on the sparrow.

One year, we discovered a dead baby bird on the floor of the fireplace at my parents' house. A family of chimney swifts, small, sparrow-like birds had made a nest in their chimney. My folks forgot to seal it before the next season, and they came once again. We heard more fluttering in the firebox. The cats were elated to have prey trapped so close, frustrated that we wouldn't open the glass fireplace doors to let the birds out to play.

Peering inside, we saw two little birds clinging to the metal netting of the screen. I worried they couldn't fly, but when my dad looked inside later, they were gone. The chirping and thundering of wings grew louder and louder until it was an alarm clock at feeding time, early in the morning. Then one day, silence. The birds had flown the chimney. But the cats were still on patrol outside the fireplace, poised to pounce. Looking inside, I saw one bird, quiet on the floor, and one fluttering next to it. Dad put on gloves and picked them both up -- tiny, the two barely filled one of his palms. I was sure the one was still alive, and we took it outside, placing its head near a shallow saucer with water, thinking it was dehydrated and hungry. I crushed almonds into easy to eat almond-dust. I know nothing about birds. It lay propped on the little dish we used for soy sauce, breathing tiny shallow bird breaths.

Wearing vinyl gloves to protect it from my human-ness should its parents return for their abandoned baby, I took a small garden claw and dug for worms. Tears welled up as I prayed to find a worm in one breath and demanded that God honor the promise to keep an eye on the sparrow. As far as I could tell, only my eyes were on this one. I found one small worm, and dangled it near the bird's beak, alternating that with drops of water. I rearranged her, trying to aim her beak for the shallow pool of water. Every time I turned her on her stomach, she would struggle and flip on her side, then on her back. Her beak opened, and occasionally when I dropped water on it she shook her head, making her whole tiny body shake like a dog coming out from a swim. Watching her tiny claw feet grasp, I was hopeful. She made two brief chirps, and I thought if her wings were broken from the fall, she could be my new pet, kept safe in a roomy cage from the kitties.

She took one last gaspy breath, and when I moved the almond dust towards her, I noticed she was no longer fighting. I couldn't admit my nursing hadn't worked. It was getting cold; I warmed a fluffy old towel in the drier and wrapped her in it. I had a glimpse into Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, where she could not throw away her husband's shoes the year after he died. If she did, what would he wear when he returned? I couldn't think that I had watched a helpless creature die and been impotent to save her. Not yet willing to admit the physics of the world, I wrapped her lightly in the towel and placed her in a shoe box in the shed. When my dog had died earlier that year, I'd learned that I am physically and emotionally unable to bury a pet. I felt like I was suffocating with the finality of throwing dirt on top of his body. If it weren't for my mother burying the dog, and her promise to bury the bird that night, I might end up the crazy lady with all the dead pets boxed in the shed.

I am the crazy lady who hopes that death is not the end. Perhaps that is where faith kicks in for me, not that God will save every creature, but that there is something beyond this, for the little soul of this bird and my clumsy cocker spaniel. And that God's eye on the sparrow is us, looking out for each other. That we can make positive changes to live in community, growing local food, relying less on oil. That we can support and care for those around the world for whom our way of life and war have left in poverty, helping to find what it means to live sustainably. That we do all we can to feed, water and wrap each other in warm towels (shoe boxes optional).

(Photo: "An eye on the community," Carf photostream, Flickr)

Take a Hike: National Trails Day

2010-06-04T19:28:00.001-07:00

Stairway to no where, originally uploaded by jandazzatron.

Tomorrow (Saturday, June 5th) is National Trails Day! Find an event at AmericanHiking.org.

I have fond, very green memories of Silver Creek Falls in Oregon, wandering down the mossy, damp paths to be lightly misted as we stood behind the sheet of the waterfall.

Now that I'm an L.A. girl, I'm in love with Griffith Park, but still need to discover new trails.

What/where is your favorite hike?

(Photo of Echo Mountain in Pasadena by the lovely and talented Janelle Randazza)

Summer Jobs: The customer is always right

2010-06-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

Waking early in the summer, my job was to open a mom&pop cafe, just off the highway that led from our bedroom town to downtown Portland. Still half asleep, I let myself in the back door. Tying a brown apron lettered with the white script "Herbs & Spice" over my jeans and tee shirt, I spread a crisp white coffee filter into the basket, measured fresh ground coffee beans and hit brew. I flipped the switch on the yogurt machine and the open sign, taking chairs down from the three cafe tables.

Herbs & Spice sold espresso drinks, coffee, the aforementioned herbs and spices, as well as home brew kits in the back. The married owners, Doris and Jim, seemed never to age over the years of hiring high school kids to man the store. Jim taught us the basics of brewing your own beer in your basement. So we could help customers, of course. Doris taught teens the basics of customer service. No matter what you were busy doing, the customer came first.

Every afternoon, like clockwork, a tall elderly gentleman with a full head of white, wavy hair arrived to order an iced latte. To go. He shuffled in, placed his order, smiled, and shuffled out, clutching the red coke cup already sweating in the summer heat.

One day he arrived, on time, only to berate my coffee making, ice-shaking skills. "Every day, I order an iced latte, and every day I take it home to my wife, and it's COLD!" he bellowed at me.

Confused, I smiled. "But sir, an iced latte is cold."

He barely let me finish, a man on a mission. "All I know is that my wife is complaining that her coffee is cold."

"You are ordering an iced latte, yes?"

"I know what I order!" he yelled. I'd never seen him like this. I called for my manager.

Hearing his complaint that his iced latte was always cold, my manager offered him his money back for his most recent purchase, and suggested he might want to try another cafe. Perhaps one where iced lattes came hot.

Looking back, I wish I had simply honored his request, and made every iced latte he ordered for his house-bound wife piping hot. It seemed a small order to keep this customer happy in his routine. Because, of course, the customer is always right.

NPR's All Things Considered is asking the question: which summer job influenced you the most? Click here to submit your story.

(Photo: Yami Yugi, Flickr)

Shopping for Singles and Online Dating Tips for Dudes

2010-06-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

After hearing that most all my unattached acquaintances are shopping for singles (for free!) at OkCupid (or OkStupid, as one friend said in a Freudian slip of the tongue), I decided to check it out. Just like other sites, you can enter certain criteria for a search, and scroll through pages of photos and catchy phrases. Unlike other sites, you answer a few questions, say how you'd like your date to answer them, and whether the question is highly relevant in your quest for a mate or a date for Friday night. Some of them involve math, in hopes to weed out the OkStupids. Or science, such as, "Which is bigger, the earth or the sun?" (To weed out the super-sized egos?)

After just days of being online, I have a few tips for the men playing the mating game.

Photos. If you have a photo of you lit only by the light of your computer screen, erase it immediately. My friend has challenged me to respond in total honesty to all emails, e.g., "Your profile photo is so frightening, I'm afraid if I met you for coffee I may not make it home alive. But for the sake of your dating happiness, take another photo: more smile, less psycho."

Don't LIE, about your age, your current marital status, your allergies to cats. We will find out immediately. Especially if you posted an out-of-date photo. It's gonna be obvious.

Write in full, complete sentences ("Hey" is not a sentence). For fun, check your spelling. Girls go for good grammar. Find something in her profile to ask about. Don't be obscure. I have no response to "Travel with me" or "Cute." (Also, not a sentence.)

I'm still baffled how to answer this email, written to my "handle," Rebecca_LA.

"Hi, I'm Jack. What's your name?"

Err... Rebecca.

I got nothing. Was that fact not clear? I'm worried about his answer to the earth vs. sun size question. And suddenly, that seems very relevant.

(Photo: Flickr via Writers Free Reference)

SATC2: From characters to cartoons and buffoons

2010-05-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

I knew it would be bad. The first movie was fluff, and downgraded the characters I liked in 30 minute segments to caricatures. But the movie was a chance to see the "girls" again. As every woman I know who liked the HBO series, "Sex and the City" was, at its heart, a look at soul-sisters. The shoes, clothes and men were just eye candy and escapism.

I couldn't understand the vitriol in the reviews I was reading. OF COURSE it would be bad. Nobody expects much more than friends, men and shoes. Why waste your time and energy reviewing this?

And then I saw the film, and I got it.

I walked out of "Sex and the City 2" SHOCKED. There was a point where I turned to my friend and uttered the words "wildly offensive."

As Matt Zoller Seitz titled his review so perfectly: THIS is why they hate us. In his words:

The movie's privileged cluelessness reaches an early zenith when Miranda impulsively quits her cushy job at a law firm because her boss is sexist, and springs the decision on her husband (David Eigenberg) during her son's grade school recital. "Good for you, honey!" he exclaims. "I'll get another job, a better job!" she assures him. "I already called the headhunter." They should have ended the scene by having a giant bag of money fall out of the sky and land at her feet.

Very rarely, if ever, do the characters, much less the filmmaker, suggest that they're all living in a bubble -- which is something that even the most wealth-obsessed escapist comedies produced during the Depression somehow managed to do with regularity, as a means of preserving their implicit agreement not to take the masses' hard-earned money and slap them across the face with it.

Never does "Sex and the City 2" acknowledge, even obliquely, that what Carrie and her pals consider "normal" and "comfortable" is not only foreign to the existence of 99% of the population, but that it might in fact be a sign of obscene excess, the spiritual equivalent of carrying around 200 extra pounds -- mountains of fat produced by an unhealthy upbringing and an addictive, soul-dead, self-loathing mindset, fat that cannot be characterized as a matter of genetic destiny no matter how desperately the afflicted person tries to rationalize it as such. When I watch these women sashay through their designer-labeled lives, I don't see escapism: I see pools of bloody runoff gathered in the gutters of a diner's grill. That shit'll kill you.

Do I even need to describe the scene where Samantha shakes handfuls of condoms in the faces of Muslim men while thrusting her hips and shrieking "YES! I have SEX!" I would have walked out then, but I knew the 2 hours and 35 minutes were almost over, and I was curious how it would end.

But what might scare me the most, was that the audience around me (minus my two horrified friends) were laughing and clapping through the entire scene.

As Seitz writes:

At the same time, though, much like "Transformers 2" (hmmm, "Sex" director Michael Patrick King as the gay camp version of Michael Bay -- or is that a redundancy?), "Sex and the City 2" is more than harmless escapism. It's an accidental candid snapshot of the sick, dying heart of America.

(Read the full review here.)

Have you noticed?

2010-05-25T19:03:00.001-07:00

Mountain Forest Stream, originally uploaded by bill.lepere.

My morning hikes on the paved road of Runyon Canyon aren't cutting it. I need nature, sans women in short shorts and bikini tops working on their tans while I huff up the hill, sweaty and red-faced.

I open my windows for blue sky and open Mary Oliver's book of poetry American Primitive, to be transported into nature. The poem GHOSTS begins with:

1
Have you noticed?

2
Where so many millions of powerful bawling beasts
lay down on the earth and died
it's hard to tell now
what's bone, and what merely
was once.

The golden eagle, for instance,
has a bit of heaviness in him;
moreover the huge barns
seem ready, sometimes, to ramble off
toward deeper grass.

I stopped reading with the thought that I am so removed from nature, I never see/stumble across where an animal has died. Roadkill doesn't count. This seems important to me tonight, the realization that so many animals die their natural death, and lie where they fall, unburied by those uncivilized animal family members of theirs. And I was not aware.

And it makes me aware that I live surrounded by cement. I remember summer drives through the mountain corridor on the way from the Willamette valley to the Oregon coast, and out of my windows were streams and uncharted hikes up fallen logs. I always wished a part of me would pull over and take off into the woods. I also wished a part of me had survival skills, or at least a sense of direction.

Mary Oliver ends her poem:

7
Once only, and then in a dream,
I watched while, secretly
and with the tenderness of any caring woman,
a cow gave birth
to a red calf, tongued him dry and nursed him
in a warm corner
of the clear night
in the fragrant grass
in the wild domains
of the prairie spring, and I asked them,
in my dream I knelt down and asked them
to make room for me.

Mindfulness

2010-05-15T11:02:00.001-07:00

Little Child and tree, Lago Balsano, Tusdcany, Italy, originally uploaded by jackie weisberg.

The last few days I've been made aware of how people can react — not respond — but react, in anger, in hostility, without considering the consequences, or how we are all in this together. To react in anger does not encourage dialogue or resolve any issues, it only encourages further reactionary replies.

And my initial response was to react. But little by little, I'm learning to pause, to breathe, to laugh at myself and to remember what I care about. And then to respond calmly, if it is worth responding at all.

Reading Thich Nhat Hanh this morning helps. In Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, he writes:

"In Buddhism we speak of the world of phenomena (dharmalakshana). You, me the trees, the birds, squirrels, the creek, the air, the stars are all phenomena. There is a relationship between one phenomenon and another. If we observe things deeply, we will discover that one thing contains all the other things. If you look deeply into a tree, you will discover that a tree is not only a tree. It is also a person. It is a cloud. It is the sunshine. It is the Earth. It is the animals and the minerals. The practice of looking deeply reveals to us that one things is made up of all other things. One thing contains the whole cosmos.

..."One thing contains everything. With the energy of mindfulness, we can see deeply. With the Holy Spirit, we can see deeply. Mindfulness is the energy of the Buddha. The Holy Spirit is the energy of God. They both have the capacity to make us present, fully alive, deeply understanding, and loving. That is why in our daily life, we should live mindfully, we should live with the Holy Spirit so we can live every moment of our daily life deeply. If we do not live each moment deeply, there is no way we can touch the ultimate dimension, the dimension of the noumena."

Always Ask the Turtle

2010-05-13T21:13:00.001-07:00

Academic Treks: Sea Turtle Studies, originally uploaded by ChoiceCamps.com.

"I took geology because I thought it was the least scientific of the sciences," Steinem told an audience at Smith College.

"On a field trip, while everyone else was off looking at the meandering Connecticut River, I was paying no attention whatsoever. Instead, I had a found a giant, GIANT turtle that had climbed out of the river, crawled up a dirt road, and was in the mud on the embankment of another road, seemingly about to crawl up on it and get squashed by a car.

"So, being a good codependent with the world, I tugged and pushed and pulled until I managed to carry this huge, heavy, angry snapping turtle off the embankment and down the road.

"I was just putting it back into the river when my geology professor arrived and said, 'You know, that turtle probably spent a month crawling up that dirt road to lay its eggs in the mud by the side of the road, and you just put it back in the river.'

"Well, I felt terrible. But in later years, I realized that this was the most important political lesson I learned, one that cautioned me about the authoritarian impulse of both left and right.

"Always ask the turtle."

~Gloria Steinem

(Story quoted from Yuni.com)

Mind Wide Open (Hymn by Aimee Bender)

2010-05-09T21:38:00.001-07:00

Mind Wide Open
Originally uploaded by picazam

"When they were older, they took over the village and ran it perfectly. Little did their mothers and fathers know. That when they'd eaten the foods and breathed the air and felt the feelings and made the love that created their children, they were, for once, in perfect synchronization. ...

"The child with divine ears listened to the soil, and pointed to where he heard the seeds unfurling with pleasure. Plant here, he told the one with the longest arms who could reach straight into the heart of the dirt. In later years, that eyeless one ... when the sadness was unbearable ... could hear the types of tears by the pace of the blinking, and know in which manner to offer comfort.

"Then the grand feast, with foods of all kinds, even for the several who did not eat food but survived only on the quality of listening. They usually hovered at the corners and when they grew wan and skinny, it was a reminder. To focus. On this day, they filled up visibly, fat and happy.

"No one needed to say it, but the room overflowed with that sort of blessing. The combination of loss and abundance. The abundance that has no guilt. The loss that has no fix. The simple tiredness that is not weary. The hope not built on blindness."

~ from "Hymn" by Aimee Bender

Naked American in Japan: Experiencing an Onsen

2010-05-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Most Americans won't go with us to the onsen, Donna told me. They have a problem with public nudity.

The Aguri No Yu onsen was nestled in the mountains (Asama San) near Komoro City, Japan. The baths were divided, girls on one side, boys on the other. The steam came up from the natural hot springs, the various pools had different temperatures and some had falls of water that pounded your shoulders and back like a big Swedish masseuse. I didn't see the problem. Let's get naked.

I was reminded of my onsen experience when I opened my DailyOM email: "Finding time to be as naked as the day you were born can awaken feelings of contentment, freedom, and self-love."

With Canadian-born Donna leading the way, we walked into the ladies locker room. Surrounded by smaller Japanese women, I was used to the stares, a tall, very white American. In one small village market, a little 4 year old girl pointed and laughed openly, shocked at my appearance. Donna married a Japanese man, and even after 20 years living in the culture and behaving more Japanese than Canadian, she is accustomed to the stares. It's okay, she told me. They like your pale skin. A solar-phobe/30 SPF addict living in Los Angeles, I was used to being gawked at for being so white.

Donna handed me a small towel, light and gauzy with blue Kanji script. Use this to cover up if you need to, she instructed. (Cover what? The towel was all of 5 square inches.) But women use it to wash, and then wrap their hair.

Naked as the day I was born, I strolled with Donna and women of all shapes, sizes and mostly one hue, into the bath. We joined the other women who sat on a stool beneath a shower head and scrubbed away the day's dirt. Clean, raw and pink, we then made our way to the largest pool, the most temperate.

Next I sat under the two pounding waterfalls, that worked out the little stress I had from navigating the Tokyo train system with my dad. And then I padded outside, where steam rose off the hottest pool. Sinking in, I smiled to the Japanese women who serenely nodded their approval of my presence, white skin, long legs, big hips and all. We sat in silence, surrounded by mountains.

Daily OM reminds us:

"For most of us, it is probably difficult to remember the last time we were comfortably naked for a period of time longer than 20 minutes or so. Many of us are only naked for the length of time it takes us to shower or bathe. We quickly dry off and put our clothes or pajamas on, without taking even a moment to enjoy the feeling of the air against our bare skin. Most of us learned that this was the way to do things from a young age, and we may not have been exposed to another way of thinking, but many cultures regard nudity as completely acceptable, even in somewhat public settings. If you have ever had the good fortune to assimilate yourself to this way of doing things, you may have found the experience liberating enough to allow it to influence the rest of your life.

Perhaps you swam topless in Tahiti or took a sauna in Sweden or Finland. ... You may have noticed the lack of vanity in people who are comfortable with their naked bodies. Old ladies and young girls sit side by side, seemingly without concern for how they appear. We see that it is not necessary to hide our imperfections; from cellulite to wrinkles, all is accepted with equilibrium. We can see the beauty and naturalness of our different bodies, accepting ourselves as just right, just as we are."

(Photo: Japan-Onsen.com - Myoko Onsen)

O Windy Night

2010-04-30T22:59:00.001-07:00

Storeton Wood trees in the wind 2, originally uploaded by jimmedia.

The wind is gusting and howling tonight, blowing through cracks in windows to rattle doors. I love nights like this — it reminds me of story book nights. It makes me realize how small I am in the face of Weather, of the World, which makes me realize more may be afoot than we notice on a daily basis.

Tonight I'm thinking of Popi, my best friend Caroline's beloved grandfather who died this week, while recovering from an open heart surgery at age 92. He was loved and loved his family, his community, lived a rich, full, intelligent life, and will be missed.

I'm also reminded of A Wrinkle in Time, which Madeleine L'engle opens with:

"It was a dark and stormy night.

"In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.

"The house shook.

"Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook."

And Mrs. Whatsit comes with the wind, and thus the beginning of the adventure into the unknown.

Here's to the unknown and dark, windy, stormy nights.