New Year's Eve

I sent my BURN IT email to West Virginia storyteller Susannah Holstein. She will toss my troubles on her annual midnight bon fire tonight and free me to start the year feeling lighter

I read through my 2006 calendar. It has been a full year.
Some high points sure -

Mama at 90 made it though hip surgery -
our family is still in decent health -
Jim and I made a trip to Ireland which had mixed reviews but was something we had long wanted to do -
Jim and I spent a wonderful week-end in NC at Patti Digh's first 37 Day Retreat -
My storytelling career is healthy and busy -

But I have to ask myself - are these really the most important moments?
If not, what are the important moments?

Jim and I lived another year together and celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary yesterday.
My girlhood friend Carolyn died and I have to face the reality of my mortality with sharper clarity.
I am off track about some really significant stuff.
And on and on.

Do I make resolutions to change things -
ordinarily I would have said yes,
until I read Holly Stevens essay on Storyteller and LIstener. Her touching story and suggestion of using "themes" has caused me to rethink things.

This is much like the new take on things I picked up from Patti Digh and her "reframe it" exercise at the 37 Days Retreat.

I told Patti as we left Bend of Ivy Lodge that I thought of her as a significant person in my life. I could not quite put my finger on why then - now I can. I first read her 37 Days blog in Janaury 2006. I loved the writing, her take on the world and her reverence for serendipty - which I share. I appreciated how she added the links that expanded the world related to the essay. Relatively new to internet and blogging it took me a while to really GET it. My world was expanding wider and wider through those links and connections.

At about the same time I discovered 37 Days I met Nellie. She is the mother of my grand-daughter's best friend. I was fascinated to learn that her job was writing a blog. Imagine getting paid to play with ideas and the computer. I started checking her blog New Persuasion regularly, but the content did not touch me personally.

A few weeks ago Patti wrote on 37 Days that she had been tagged for more information about her - tell me five things I don't know about you. I checked the b log of the woman who tagged her. She had tagged 4 others: Nellie, ___, ____, Patti and _____. Yep, that's the same Nellie I met a year ago.

It knocks me out.

The wide wide world - is really a small world.

Berkeley Surprise

We started out for field trip to explore near-by Berkeley.
Oops, need coffee.
So - - an unscheduled stop at the Whole Foods store on a corner of San Pablo .
I took my camera inside thinking to grab a few still life shots in the store. Not gonna happen. I raised the camera and a woman wearing her Whole Foods apron called out, "sorry maam, you can't take photos here."
"What? Why?"
"You will have to ask the manager." I decided to follow that up. Why no photographs - is this a terrorist target?

I had to wait a few minutes for her to come down from her cat-walk office to speak with me, I assured her I just had a couple of friendly questions.
" I am an artist. I like to take photos of produce and store displays but several people have told me there are rules against photographs. Why?
"Its marketing. We are very particular about our set-ups and proud of them and we protect them from our competitors. I have a friend who is a food photographer and I can't let her take shots in here."

So - nothing personal, except my disappointment. It is a beautiful store. I would have loved to spend some time in there snapping away.

Back in the car I told my daughter about my conversation with the manager - she laughed. "I am not surprised. Did you buy anything? Notice the prices? People call this place, "Whole Pay Check."

Our next stop was a salvage yard - a yard which specializes in vintgage house leavings. My daughter watches home remodeling tv shows and is planning a re-model of her home. I am past that stage and was impatient at having to make this stop.


OK! OK!
It was interesting - old windows, doors, claw foot bath tubs, the remnants of a church that had been chopped up - from the communion railing to stained glass windows.

I wandered through aisles of this stuff and had begun to lose interest when I turned a corner.
Wow!
Metal skates, with ball bearing wheels. I had a pair like these. My skates are long gone and I had not thought about them in years.

Looking at these skates brought back a flood of memories.

I got my first pair of real skates, like these, for Christmas when I was ten years old.
They were my "wheels".

I lived in a neighborhood with sidewalks. With my skates I could go anywhere within my zone - to my grandmother's house a mile away; to the Big Star grocery store; to the Plaza Movie Theater on Saturday morning for the kiddie show. On skates I had a special kind of kid freedom.

The metal skate key was all important. You used it to tighten the toe clamps and to shorten the one-size skates to fit kid-size feet. I put the key onto a long plaid shoe string; then tied the ends together and wore that key necklace around my neck. When I walked the heavy key thuddded against against my chest. I wore it everywhere I went, whether I was skating or not. My key necklace was my badge of independence.



Later I saw two boys on skateboards in the neighborhood. I stood at the kitchen sink watching them glide from side to side of the cul de sac. It looked so graceful, so effortless, so free. I asked ten year old Scotty if he thought I could ride a skateboard.
"yeah, I guess you could - if you can keep your balance, jump the curbs and are crazy enough to try it."

Hmmm! Why bother - especially since they don't have a key.

Tackling BART

We had to pick up another rental car at the Oakland Airport. It was not convenient to get a ride there so we took the BART - that's the San Francisco area subway.

We started in Lafayette - took the train to the MacArthur stop where we got off, walked across the platform to wait for the Fremont train - our connection to the Airport. We got off the Fremont train at the Coliseum stop as we had been instructed.
Rushed down two flights of stairs to the street level to board the orange and blue bus - the Air Bart - to the airport. So far so good. We got off at Terminal One - walked a few blocks and crossed the street, watching two rental car shuttles pass us by because chain link construction fences herded us several extra blocks up the street to a cross-walk. Waited ten minutes for the third rental car shuttle to arrive. It took us to the off site rental car pick up center.

It was not hard. We had clear directions.

It took one hour and forty minutes and we paid 10.00 for two 5.00 tickets - one-way to the airport.

Lessons learned:

The person who gave us the directions is not a senior and forgot to factor in the dollar benefits we reap because we are -- so we paid full fare for the tickets and added 2.00 for the bus which is just 50 cents for seniors.

If we ever do this when catching a plane we will be leaving our daughter's home five hours before plane time and only carrying a backpack.

And, most importantly, the adventure reminded us that riding public transportation gives you a real view of the diversity of a city and affirms that strangers can be friendly and helpful.

California Holidays Begin

We flew Jetblue to Oakland today to spend time with our daughter and her family for the holidays.

Caught Writing In My Book

"odd wasn't it, that the crispest memories were of aberrations." (Mirror, Mirror, Gregory Maguire, page 163.)
I was caught off guard by how true that is - so I took out my pen and underlined the sentence - to make sure I would remember it or at least could find it again.

A woman sitting next to me on the couch, also waiting to have her hair cut, saw me do it.

She waited a few minutes and then said, "you wrote in your book."

I was startled. "yes, I did. But, its ok."

She looked puzzled so I blundered on. " I own the book."

That was not enough. She did not look either satisfied or forgiving. She looked at me - like a librarian - - so I added, "I mean its not a library book."

"oh."

I knew she would tell people.

Christmas 1957

During the Christmas Season I glimpse many Christmases of the past.




Christmas 1957. Jim and I lived on Argyle Road in Brooklyn, NY where Jim was an intern at Kings County Hospital. This was our first Christmas without any family around. Jimmy was 13 months old. Christmas morning was exciting for him; so many packages to open.

Here Jimmy discovers the surprise of a Jack-in-the-box.

Mix-ed Up Mail Delivery

Ever had a day that felt like this?

I am, more than I like to admit.

Whenever I have nothing to write I put in a picture and hope it will

inspire me

remind me

prompt me

or whatever.

Sometimes it works.

Today

it

isn't.

PA Sunset

Jim's picture of a November sunset in Pennsylvania.

Being Still

floating

drifting

gliding



resting



quiet

silence

stillness



ahhhhhh

at last


being


still


November 10 - 12, 2006
Fallen lotus blossoms were floating over deep reflections on a pond at Bend of Ivy Lodge near Asheville, NC. during the recent 37 Day Retreat. Patti Digh and her colleague David set a space and time where you could find a quiet place inside yourself to see such wonders in the world around us.

Early Morning Light

Split

Split

in halves

or more

where is

balance

ever?

Juliana in Her Underwear

Our grand-daughter Juliana ( center) is a theater student. She has been an actress from the first moment she took a breath twenty years ago - but we are learning to see her acting in a different light.

We journeyed two hours to see her in her latest romp on stage - actually in the basement of a dorm because the main theater at her college is closed for renovations. It created an intimate venue - putting the actors and the audience in each others laps.

The play was fairly predictable - a look at 3 males and their life passages - mostly through their libido. Juliana played Jack's girlfriend - I don't think she even had a name.

In the playbill Juliana did not list any personal details. There was just a note - "see Juliana's underwear". We did.



A late scene opened on a darkened stage-area. As the lights came up Juliana leaped out of bed with Jack - and wearing only her scanty black silk bra and panties. As her character pulled on silk stockings and later a dress she effectively delivered raw language lines directed toward Jack who had betrayed her with a casual sleep-over.


Ah, now I get it -

Juliana is an actress.

This is not really her.

Whew!

Holding Onto a Little Sunshine

T I A is not an Airline

This week my high school graduating class held a small reunion party in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was terrific. An evening of laughs and playing "do you remember when - - ". I am so grateful for these gatherings because being with people who knew me "when" helps me remember little bits of myself that have escaped.

The next day Jim and I went to Concord for a visit with my mother. She is recovering so well from her broken hip. She is up and walking very spritely. She pushes her wheeler walker at quite a clip. We took her out to lunch. Over lunch at Applebees I was telling her about the reunion gathering and we were laughing at things we both remembered about my classmates.

Mama turned to look out the window next to our table. When she turned back there was a rather blank look in her eyes. When she opened her mouth and spoke her words did not "compute". At first I did not realize what was happening. Then I heard it. Nothing she said made sense. One word did not connect with another. She realized something was wrong before I did. She was totally calm.

I looked toward Jim. "Something is happening here." We switched places so he could take her pulse and check things out - as well as he could in a restaurant and without any medical equipment. (Have I even mentioned that he is a doctor?) I wanted to DO something. Jim said, "wait." In about 20 minutes whatever was happening in my mother's brain righted itself and she began to speak coherently again. She told us it had happened earlier in the day also. "Things happen like this to my words and my memories."

" Now what were yout telling me about your party?"

It took me a moment to remember.

Cornered

On a street corner in St. Remy
like Grant Wood's American Gothic
this Provence couple
seemed
rooted

like immoveable pillars

in place
from the beginning of time
staying
until the end of time

something

someone

to count on.

RED SHOES

between jobs

paused

perched

on a rack

in a


St. Vincent dePaul Thrift Shop

impatiently

waiting

for the next dance

Whiling Away the Time

In a small town in Provence
outside the church
this man patiently waits
for the bride and groom
to finish their vows
so he can make their get-a-way.

Stories and the Star Spangled Banner

The Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore is a cool place. I was there today to tell stories for their "Fall into History" series. I loved being there. All the exhibits are set up proclaiming they are "stories". That is logical - history is the story of what happened - when, where, and with who. But somehow the word history also gives off vibes of offical, pompous, and boring. Where the word "story" draws us in.
Is it because history is taught in school where it is serious and stories are known to be fun.

There was a young woman history-actress who was having a lot of fun with the story of history.
A fifteen year old aspiring actress, she has researched the history of the woman who sewed the giant Star Spangled Banner flag which flew over Fort McHenry in 1814. Dressed as the 14 year old daughter, she tells how General Armitage came to her mother and ordered the flag. The woman made it " 30 feet hoist and 42 feet fly". Now does that paint a picture for you? The young woman was seated in a rocking chair before a large and rather dull painting of Fort McHenry with the "shells bursting in air" and the flag flying proudly through it all. Her well done five minute presentation was an enchanting encounter with history. I hope she continues finding people who interest her so that she can share them.

My stories featured names. Your name is your story, right? Do you know your story?


I could not resist working in the story about how our grandson got to be named for Francis Scott Key. I know you all remember that Francis Scott Key is the man who wrote the Star Spangled Banner. Well for years there was a story in his father's family that they were related to the lawyer-songwriter. Under scrutiny the myth exploded. Oh, Scottie is named for Francis Scott Key that's true, however Key is not a relative, he is the man "who came to dinner." Makes a good story.

Telling Your Family Stories

A series of storytelling classes with Ellouise Schoettler

Learn to turn your memories into stories.
Tell your family stories so people will listen.
Your stories are your family's history and your Legacy.

When: 7 - 9 pm
5 Monday evenings
November 6, 13, 20
December 4 and 11

Where: Kensington Row Bookshop
3789 Howard Avenue
Kensington, MD 20895

Cost: $ 125.00

To register: call Ellouise Schoettler, 301-951-1213 by October 31, 2006
Limited to 8 students

De Ja Vu

October has not started off on high notes.

The newspapers and television news programs report one dire event after another.
School shootings, terrorist incidents and lately scandals on Capitol Hill.

No wonder young people are anxious these days.
They are not safe. And they know it.
Who are they to trust.

People walk into schools carrying guns and shoot school principals, their classmates, or most recently, truss up young girls and execute them - - as happened recently in peaceful Lancaster, Pa.

How ironic that our violent life life invaded a one room school in the Amish county where people attempt to live beside but not in the modern world.

And at the heart of Congress on Capitol Hill 16 year old pages are not safe and protected from elected sexual predators.
And more - that the leaders charged with their safety look the other way rather than risk partisan power.

I was talking with a colleague about this today and she said, "Why aren't people up in arms about this?"

Why aren't they?

Why aren't I?
It reminds me of the October when the 'sniper" was roaming our area and I felt numbed with the uncertainty and fear.