LynnSight

Cargo Cults

2012-02-05T15:18:00.005-07:00

I recently discovered the concept of "cargo cults" while reading about potential pitfalls in science and software development. The term surfaced after World War II. The South Pacific island natives had welcomed the valuable and more advanced cargo brought by the planes during the war. And when the war ended, the planes and cargo stopped coming to the islands. Since the locals never understood why the cargo was coming in the first place, the only thing to do from their perspective was to duplicate the previous conditions--so they built crude runways, wooden planes, bamboo radios and headphones, all in hopes of luring the planes back, and with them the cargo. Some of these ever-optimistic cargo cults persist to this day in the South Pacific.

Now that I've heard the term, I've started to see signs of cargo cults everywhere. At work, I see mixed results from efforts to put the structure of agile development in place (short iterations, Scrums, standup meetings) in some cases without a full understanding of the underlying principles of the Agile Manifesto (e.g., individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, responding to change over following a plan, trusting a motivated team to get the job done). I see senior managers without a true belief in the end results possible with agile (greater opportunity to quickly respond to changing customer requirements, better quality much earlier in the process), conducting the scrum meetings with agendas they've devised but being unwilling to listen to and trust their teams enough to let them surface and resolve impediments, grow and improve together each day.

Some organizations go through the motions; they “do agile” without “being agile" and then are perplexed not see the hoped-for results. Without the willingness to trust the teams, good results can be hampered by fear-driven behavior.

If the previous jargon-filled example sounds like mumbo jumbo to you then consider my kitten, Zuni. Each morning (barring an egregious lapse by her faithful guardian), Zuni's food bowl is refilled with just enough cat food to keep her from becoming a fat little indoor cat. Who knows why it happens from Zuni's perspective, this reappearance of food, but it does happen with great regularity. On the rare morning when the bowl remains empty longer than expected, Zuni searches the house for one of her toy mice, carries it to the food bowl and sets it down. If there is no result soon, she searches the house again for a second toy mouse, sometimes placing this one inside the bowl for added emphasis. The weird thing is that this ritual does work from her perspective--eventually food appears in the bowl, and Zuni's cargo cult continues. Of course, this is my own less than scientific theory about Zuni's behavior and I have to admit therefore that the cargo cult in question may be my own.

I propose that a good number of religious activities in certain contexts are also examples of cargo cults. What cargo cults have you seen in your journeys?

Do You Want Assertiveness with That?

2012-01-07T14:07:00.006-07:00

There are all the other promises to myself, of course--like exercising, losing weight, and connecting more with other people. But my main resolution for 2012 is to be more direct. I am astounded at how often I phrase a desire or intention I have as a question. Instead of making my desires clear, I throw out a query. What often happens next is that the perfectly reasonable recipient responds with what he or she wants and that becomes the plan.

This is not because the other person is an overbearing asshole.

It's because I almost always default to what other people want. So I end up getting less of what I want, and quite unnecessarily. The reasons for this are rooted in the distant past and likely have to do with my childhood; therapy fodder for sure. Meanwhile, a yellow sticky is emblazoned on my computer at work that says, “Be Direct.” I am mildly encouraged that it does not say “Shouldn’t you be more direct? ” or “What do you think of the idea of my being more direct?” Or a crafter, sneakier version: “I’ve been thinking about whether I phrase too many of my ideas as questions lately—what do you think?”

The Christmas Cactus

2011-12-12T21:18:00.001-07:00

A little less than a yearago, I received a Christmas gift. It was a Christmas cactus with a noteattached explaining that if I took good care of it, next Christmas it wouldbloom. I set it on my desk at work, andas the new year began I made a pledge to myself that despite my decidedly not greenthumb, in this case I would channel my father the master gardener and tendlovingly to this cactus, in hopes of seeing the promised Christmas blooms.

The Internet is your friend in cases like this and Ifound a wealth of advice on how to care for a Christmas cactus, with promisesof abundant blooms next holiday season. I conquered my sense that it would be hopeless (based on the mourneddeaths of houseplants past who were unfortunate enough to be under my care). I acted on faith alone and entered a repeating note in my computercalendar for each Tuesday morning that said: “Smile. And water the Christmascactus.” Each Tuesday I did justthat.

A few months ago somethingtold me to move the cactus to a sunnier corner of my office to catch thewestern sunlight. In early November theChristmas cactus pushed out many promising buds. By Thanksgiving, glorious pink bloomsemerged. And they’ve continued to gracemy office with their happy color all this holiday season.

I assure you that I amgrateful for the many ways this past year I’ve seen proof that faith can workmiracles and bring unexpected blessings; I wish both of these for each of youthis Christmas season.

The Old Bag Allegory

2011-11-12T20:17:00.007-07:00

A domestic conversation with M recently had clear parallels with what I’ve observed at work. At the time, I was performing the mildly onerous daily task of sifting the poop out of the kitty litter box with my trusty slotted scoop and dumping it into one of the used plastic bags we save for this kind of thing. A particularly battered bag had been prominently placed next to the litter box so I went ahead and used it. M said, “From now on, be sure to use the old bags I put by the litter box.”

“Okay,” I said. “But how do you define old bags?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we have a drawer full of plastic bags and to me they’re all used and therefore old bags. But I’m sensing you have a more specific definition of the preferred oldness of the bags to be used for kitty poop and I’m just trying to understand your logic.”

“You don’t need to understand my logic. Just use the bags I set out for you by the litter box.”

“But I do want to understand the logic.”

“Why? Why do you need to understand the logic of which bags are the old bags?” he said with some annoyance.

This is where I started to see the work parallels. I smiled.

“Because, one day when I’m ready to scoop the poop and you are not around, alas and alack there will not be a bag set out for me to use, and I may have to Think for Myself and select a bag from the old bag drawer. Wanting to do the best possible job of following your old bag orders under this challenging circumstance it will help me greatly to know how I can tell which of the old bags are suitably old enough to be graced with cat poop,” I explained.

“Ah—well, a bag that has merely been used to convey vegetables from the grocery store to our house is not sufficiently old. A bag that has been subsequently reused after initial arrival at our house—that is a truly old bag,” he said. We were both laughing by then.

“Aha,” I said. “Now I know.”

And so it goes at work. If you want people to do work that meets your expectations then you had best give them the supporting logic as well, and you’ll get more consistently positive results, even when you aren’t around. They might even help you come up with some better logic; you never know.

“I assume that since you never reuse the green bags the newspapers come in that they can immediately be classified as old bags suitable for kitty poop; would this be a correct assumption?” I asked.

“Why yes,” he replied.

And there you have it.

Eschewing Techie Twinkies

2011-11-05T16:26:00.005-06:00

"Moderation in all things - including moderation." - Mark Twain

Too much of a good thing...are social networks, computers, and mobile devices of all stripes robbing us of our opportunity to truly connect with each other and with nature as well as our basic ability to think in depth?
An article in the Sunday Boulder Daily Camera called "The Technology Diet" likens our constant high tech connectedness to a fast food addiction. Some folks, even 20-somethings, are going off the grid completely, seeking to again hear themselves think and get to a point where they can read a book steadily for more than a few minutes without checking email and Facebook.

The article mentions Lewis Mitchell Neef who has posted about Internet craving and the damage it does in his "Adrenal Fatigue Project," a "satire on the pointless blurbs of misinformation that the Internet constantly bombards us with, inducing a heightened awareness and fatigue." Neef urges not to drop out completely but to "use your time wisely and be present" (good advice under any circumstances). Use the Internet to find real connections and further good causes.

Also mentioned is Laleh Mehran's and Chris Coleman's W3fi movement (pronounced "wee-fy"), showcased recently at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. They outline a three-step approach for being productive and avoiding mayhem on the Internet: know yourself online, be aware how your actions affect others, and know how you can connect with others positively and productively.

Andrew Weil has written another of his excellent down-to-earth books recently called Spontaneous Happiness on finding happiness in the modern world and one of his prime recommendations is to limit digital distractions and seek more connection with others and with nature to find the peace and sense of well-being we all seek.

There was a time I remember, my children, when we didn't carry around cell phones, when we didn't have something called a "digital presence on-line," when we read more, made our own music, had real conversations with each other.

I'm becoming more mindful of that lonely state I find myself in sometimes late at night, continually seeking something real online, long past the point of exhaustion, looking for truth in all the wrong places. That's a strong signal that it's time to power off and tune back in to real life.

The Bug

2011-10-22T19:04:00.005-06:00

How to describe my fascination with Ellen Ullman's 2003 novel The Bug? The scene is Silicon Valley in 1984 when the mouse as an input device is still an innovative new technology. The story is told from the perspective of software developer Ethan and a tester Berta--both doing battle (often at cross purposes) to track down an insidiously elusive bug they end up calling "The Jester." The bug takes on a personality of its own, appearing only intermittently at the worst possible times, sabotaging important demos, and ultimately becoming a haunting nemesis for both of them. In the end, Ethan's efforts to debug his code become intertwined with his efforts to debug his life, which is rapidly unravelling all around him as he loses his wife, colleague, and the manager who appreciated him and lured him into the project to begin with despite Ethan's self doubt.

Ethan's real passion is an artificial intelligence program he calls the simulation in which he tries to program his cyber creatures to socialize and thrive. Survival in the simulation depends on whether a cell is surrounded with other healthy cells, but Ethan's creations are not thriving, despite his efforts. The novel's structure is divided into four parts, each preceded with a diagram from the simulation, showing the progression as a hapless cell is deprived of each of its neighbors in turn, paralleling Ethan's own life of increasing isolation.

The author was an English major before she got into high tech (I can relate to that) and weaves a number of literary allusions into the novel including Eliot's Middlemarch, Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Shelley's Frankenstein (the tester's name is Roberta Walton and the name of the narrator in Frankenstein was Robert Walton).

Ullman's descriptions of software engineers and their quirks absolutely rang true from my own experiences in the industry of the 80's--from the relentless fascination with puns to the office collections of toys like squirt guns and boffo swords, to the hilarious description of Ethan's attempts to answer pointed questions from the bean counters about The Schedule while balanced precariously on the only seat remaining in his manager's office--a bouncy ball.

The toys and puns take on a vaguely hostile air as the intense pressure from the venture capitalists to deliver on the impossible schedule increases. Ullman vividly describes the 7x24 obsession with churning out and debugging huge quantities of code and the challenges many technically brilliant engineers have with emotional intelligence and deciphering what is really going on in their bewildering social interactions. She also does a great job of depicting the challenges of management, aka herding the cats--both what an excellent manager can mean to the productivity and sanity of technical people as well as what havoc can be wrought by a terrible manager. She shows rather than tells us these things--with dark humor and clarity. The story does take a very bleak turn at the end, but she has lined up all the events that lead to this so thoroughly that the ending is logical and inevitable.

Ullman also penned a 1997 autobiography called "Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents," about her Silicon Valley years as a software developer--she mentions that she was the first engineer to be hired at Sybase to work on the client side of groundbreaking client-server architecture. In "The Bug" the company is called "Intelligentsia" but includes an eerily accurate portrayal of one of Sybase's founders and his habit of nodding and smiling during every conversation regardless of the content.

Other novels have explored the computer world and its sometimes cutthroat ruthlessness. There aren't many novels that delve into the complexity of a coder's brain, motivations and inner life with this level of depth and empathy. To unambiguously tell the machine what it is you want it to do, you often must become part machine yourself--sometimes at great cost.

Authenticity and Facebook

2011-09-19T21:20:00.004-06:00

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

Mark Twain

I found an interesting article in the New York Times last Sunday about authenticity, especially on-line. (Anybody who's been around for awhile surely recalls the old cartoon about how "nobody knows you're a dog when you're on the Internet.") Everybody these days seems to be professing authenticity, a big topic of discussion in connection with the many GOP presidential candidates. One thing I'm pretty certain about: the truly authentic don't have to announce it to the world.

The article mentions Facebook--how it is usually our presentation of "ourselves on our best day." And that a typical person's post is an attempt, consciously or not, to sell him or herself. I think Facebook is a little more complicated than that; people who post are driven by one or more motivations including the need to publicly reveal:

- the best possible face

- a singular item expected to awe/amaze/amuse

- a whine, with the hope for sympathy

- an opinion, with the hope that many will agree with it

- a series of compulsively recorded details about every day life in a ploy for attention

- a polite, dutiful periodic comment in order not to appear to be too much of a lurking voyeur

- a short response to someone else's post to demonstrate solidarity and/or some level of participation in life

There are probably many other modes--do people even think about it anymore? Or is Facebook so ubiquitous at this point that asking these questions is like asking what "mode" somebody is in when they use a telephone or send an email?

I think the underlying motivation is to connect with other people in some way, but without any great investment of time, energy or commitment. However, this basic need to connect is authentic, no? Even though the "face" people present on Facebook may not be truly accurate or authentic, it does give people a way to maintain at least a very low grade connection with others. And so Facebook has redeeming value because it allows people to stay connected albeit in a very superficial way for the most part.

So, back to authenticity--how to define it? Is it telling the truth no matter what, even if it does more harm than good? I think it's telling yourself the truth, and acting in close concert with your most deeply held values, no matter what the cost. Given this, mentioning authenticity and presidential candidates in the same breath seems highly contradictory.

Summersense

2011-08-14T11:42:00.010-06:00

The grassy green fragrance of Queen Anne's lace,
The brassy sassy yellow-black sunflowers,
The snowmelt rushing downward

Under soft warm air.
Lightly salted sweat at mouth corners,
Deep breaths.

The last waltz of summer.

***********************

Bill Keller wrote a great column in the Sunday NYT about those plodders on Capitol Hill who are all so very sure of their viewpoints. He says what they all need is a good dose of poetry and he quotes the poetry columnist David Orr who commends poetry for encouraging "hesitation, doubt and ambiguity."

The column also includes these wonderful but sorrowful William Carlos Williams lines:

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

I've always believed more progress is made by people who have a modicum of humility about whether they've got all the answers. And yet our election process seems to insist on absolute surety on every subject.

On Songwriting

2011-07-30T15:10:00.002-06:00

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near, as it were your own?
It's a hand-me-down. The thoughts are broken.
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

"Ripple" - Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia - The Grateful Dead

I’ve been thinking about the experience of writing songs--which I have only done a few times in my life a long time ago. One friend I know launched passionately into a major period of songwriting recenty, inspired to go actually arrange and make a recording in Nashville. I’ve seen M launch into lengthy, intricate guitar riffs that are completely improvisational. I’ve known many friends through the years who have written music. The other night my brother-in-law played a Beatlesque tune on my back porch that was so good I was trying to dredge up the memory that would tell me which 60’s band recorded it when, only to learn that it was an original.

I myself wrote three songs (that I remember) earlier in my life. They came to me out of the blue and almost fully formed with only some lyric tweaking needed, and it was like a small miracle each time. Writing songs is magical.

I just finished reading an autobiography called “Life” by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The book was aptly named since it is remarkable that Keith is still among the living after his colorful career immersed in blues, rock and roll, and every drug you can name. The book is surprisingly detailed and insightful and has some special treats for guitarists since he talks about his discovery of open G tuning as well as his early and electrifying (literally) experiences with amps and sound systems.

Keith has this to say about song writing: “What is it that makes you want to write songs. In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.”

Keith talks at one point in the book about the search for the holy grail of the lost chord--many songs have been sung about that one. Especially interesting to me are the great songs about songwriting, like The Grateful Dead’s “Ripple” quoted above, and of course, Leonard Cohen’s oft-covered “Hallelujah” which also speaks of that elusive chord:

I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the Lord

But you don’t really care for music, do you?

Well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift,

The baffled King composing Hallelujah.

Hallelujah indeed to all the great songwriters of the world, known and unknown but all appreciated.

Bad Moods Are Like Secondhand Smoke

2011-06-27T21:20:00.000-06:00

I am not an overly moody person most of the time, although I admit I do have my moments. Lately it seems I'm surrounded by moody people, however: people with lots of ups and downs, people who are easily angered by the unavoidable black flies in the chardonnay of life (with a shout out to Alanis), people who are never satisfied, cynics and pessimists of all stripes, people who take work too seriously or not seriously enough. Stop. Wait! This is becoming a moody list of Things That Really Piss Me Off and that is not the topic of this blog.

The topic of this blog is the impact of one person's bad mood on those in the vicinity. Especially those very black moods that twist and curl their sinuous ways around our heads before we have time to move away. Like secondhand smoke, they are inflicted by one thoughtless, oblivious person on others, sometimes many others, in no time at all. The impact of a dark mood on others is hard to undo, even more so if the moody person holds great power either through love or authority.

Knowing all this, I try to be mindful of my own attitudes and moods (especially the darkest ones) and stifle myself where appropriate. Perhaps there should be a special glassed-in area set aside where people with bad moods can go to unleash their secondhand miseries on each other after which they could return to civilized society with only the faint odor of bleakness lingering on their persons like a cheap perfume.

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. - Voltaire.

Kaizen

2011-06-25T11:23:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been mindful of Kaizen, the Japanese concept of continual, incremental improvement. The first step with Kaizen both at work and at home is awareness: clearly seeing the possibilities for improvement.

Since improvement is incremental with small measured experiments to check progress, the concept of Kaizen can overcome that sinking feeling that "this mess is way too big to tackle." It does require a degree of trust, optimism, and faith in oneself and other people, however, since very often an improvement can't be made without some agreement and cooperation from the larger group. Open, frequent communication is essential to Kaizen.

I had a conversation with a colleague who was new to one of our teams at work yesterday. I was (from my perspective, of course) attempting to communicate the benefits of working well across teams, explaining the history behind why this federated group of teams had joined together for common goals, how important it was to maintain respect and collaboration across these teams. "I want you to be successful on this team," I said at one point as I was trying to convince her to be more mindful of how her actions were impacting the group as a whole. "I'm already successful," she snapped back. Just one time in my life I would like to feel that kind of certitude, but I don't think it would help me for the long haul. To understand why, keep reading.

How can you be successful without considering the team as a whole? Kaizen assumes that the group works together to identify ways to improve quality and efficiency, and then incrementally implements these steps, testing progress at each step. It doesn't work well for those who don't want to acknowledge mutual dependencies.

I was heartened the other day during a team retrospective meeting to hear a respected and brilliant software architect comment that very early team communication about how a task will be accomplished can help guide it the right way from the beginning and can therefore reduce waste of time and resource. But this takes time up front, and some patience, and the natural urge to proactively communicate. Not everybody is born able to do this. It has to be encouraged and developed.

My dentist (of all people) has a saying his staff quotes during lectures about proper dental hygiene: "The trouble with communication is that people think it's happened."

True everywhere in life. If you think you know what's going on already, and if you're absolutely positive you're on the right track, you don't bother to ask, and you jump straight to a solution that may have little to do with addressing the root cause of a problem. I've done this so many times I've lost count. But at least I'm mindful of the trap.

My Kaizen thought for the day: ask five whys to understand a difficult problem, and always question what you think you already know.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Of Mice and B-bikes

2011-06-05T22:22:00.000-06:00

I steel all my courage. At the bottom of the path through the CU campus and across the creek is the B-bicycle station which I have carefully cased previously, its red bikes on display. Ive already walked a couple of miles to get this far, and today I intend to check out a bike for a short spin. I follow the instructions to insert my credit card.

On my first try, with only 30 seconds of insistent beeping allotted to pull a bike from the rack, I get confused and press the silver button which is only to be pressed if you have a special B card which I of course don't have. Three beeps tell me the bike has been "successfully returned," still locked tightly into the rack, not my intention at all. But since I have 24 hours of usage for my $5, all I have to do is swipe my credit card again and this time I hastily yank the bike out of the nearest slot. I now have the B-bike in hand and, happily, no onlookers have seen me fumbling.

A small sign on the bike says "B-cycles will self destruct when ridden on commercial sidewalks and pedestrian malls."

I imagine what this self-destruction might involve: whooping alarums? A poof of smoke and perhaps for drama a small lick of flame? A mechanical recording that warns "this bike destructs in 30 seconds" or perhaps simply "I can't do that, Lynn?"

My plan is very simple, anyway. I will ride the bike strictly on the bike path from here to the next station, just past Broadway--about 7 blocks. But this does take courage on my part, because I've always been nervous on bikes: a wobbling, unassertive rider too shy to call out "on your left" when I pass a pedestrian. And I am also doing the unconscionable (given my frequent exhortations to my children); for this short experiment I am Biking Without a Helmet.

I keep my backpack on my back rather than using the basket, hoping it will be more stable. I try to remember the last time I was on a bike. I take a breath and careen off down the path, which is not flat of course since each bike path underpass involves a small dip down and back up again. Despite my ability to walk relatively long distances, I'm out of shape bike wise and actually have to suppress my humiliation and briefly walk the bike back up from the underpass at 17th.

It is an unstable but quick ride, and the sharp pain in my right hip from my walk that had caused some limping a bit prior to arrival at the bike station has magically disappeared, perhaps because the hip got a rest as I sat on the bike using muscles and joints in different ways.

But my relief is palpable at being able to get off the bike again, push it back into an empty slot in the rack behind the Municipal Building, and observe the reassuring triple beep and green light indicating that it has been successfully returned without self destruction of either me or bike.

For my $5 I can do that again and again anytime in the next 24 hours free, as long as my rides are under an hour. And rest assured, if I try it again today, it will be another short ride. I love the concept though, encouraging alternative forms of transportation with these $1000 smart bikes that are tracked by GPS and are suddenly so readily available along our Boulder Creek Bike Path. I hope they end up being successful. Biking as an alternative does seem to make sense for me and my hips, so maybe I'll continue to take baby steps like the one today.

Laughter Yoga and The End of Days

2011-05-21T22:08:00.000-06:00

I could only chuckle to myself when I awoke this morning to the realization that I had been Left Behind; I had not been "raptured" as predicted by a certain Christian minister who was sure he knew when the big event would occur despite clear biblical references saying that only the Big Guy himself really knows the timing for these types of events. Of course, I would have been left behind anyway since I can't claim innocence from at least some minor and possibly major (depending on your flavor of religion) transgressions I've committed over the years. But I was also still safe in my bed and had not been dumped out of it by a cataclysmic earthquake either, so unless the end of days is a lot more subtle than previously suggested I think we've all dodged the bullet.

I am glad I chuckled, since I've been working lately on being less grim and serious, hoping to increase the joy in my life. Laughter is supposed to be a key component for this. I bought an app for my iPhone that randomly supplies one-liners from famous standup comedians like George Carlin and Richard Lewis. And I ventured out last Monday night to try something completely different--Laughter Yoga.

This is a group exercise in which everybody forms a circle facing each other and maintaining eye contact while a leader guides the group through various simple exercises in laughing--the deep, guttural, Kris Kringlesque haha hoho kind. This is not an opportunity to be the life of the party with jokes or standup comedy. It's more like a guided physical experience in using all the parts of the body together to produce extended mirth--lasting a good 40 to 45 minutes or longer. It takes a surprising amount of physical energy to sustain and I'm sure that's part of why it's beneficial. It doesn't matter if you aren't in the mood to laugh. You "fake it 'till you make it." And my experience was that the laughter can be infectious and can turn genuine.

A number of studies have shown that the act of laughing (even when you're forcing yourself) can be very beneficial--reducing stress, raising dopamine levels, increasing positive moods. It is also a natural way to connect on a basic way with other people.

I think I observed warmth and compassion in the eyes of some of those surrounding me, and a certain level of acceptance for whatever measure of laughter I (the only newby in the group) might achieve. Since we were supposed to be maintaining eye contact as we cavorted about the small wood-floored room with the royal blue meditation cushions stacked in the corner, I sometimes caught glimpses of more complicated emotions--grief, quiet desperation, hope. One man's laugh lines crinkled in friendly smile, a woman's wide-eyed glance sprang from the corner of her eye like a startled thoroughbred's.

I'm not sure yet what I made of it. But as I thought about the experience Tuesday morning while driving to work, I laughed out loud in a way I perhaps wouldn't have without the experience. And when I caught myself thinking sad thoughts this morning I forced a smile--and felt a little better. Good signs, no?

After all, those of us who have been Left Behind had best keep our spirits up.

Requiem for the BookEnd Cafe

2011-05-15T14:51:00.002-06:00

It’s like a missing tooth you keep feeling around for with a wistful tongue. My favorite espresso joint in Boulder closed on May 1. A kindred spirit who also loved the place sent me some photos to remember it by. I keep thinking I’ll head down there, and then realizing it is no more. Why was it so special?

For one thing, it was attached via an inviting brick archway to the independently-owned Boulder Bookstore, one of my favorite places in the world. A person could sip a latte, then go next door to peruse the inviting shelves, then come back for more latte, and repeat. BookEnd had old red brick walls, and shelves filled with ancient tea tins and pots. There was a large ball of string on display, and a huge painted wooden frog. The soundtrack was usually playing music I enjoyed and the overall hubbub of the place was enough to energize, but not so much that it overwhelmed.

You could sit next to the tall windows and people watch for hours as the parade of humanity* which is Boulder’s Pearl Street ambled by. Or you could sit outside at the stone tables next to the black iron grillwork and listen to that long-haired old guy with the beard who sings pretty well, knows the words to every folksong ever written and always seems to know which one you want to hear next. Chess players, students, tourists, silver-haired groups in lively conversation, writers, families--all found a cozy place to hang at Bookend. I can only hope for a swift resurrection.

*The Pearl Street parade can include the likes of a small boy balancing a luminous green-purple peacock feather on his index finger as his proud father looks on, a smiling young couple holding up a sign offering “Free Hugs,” several people in a row on mats doing yoga on their backs and offering to balance onlookers on their feet, a ragtag band with a guitar, washboard and fiddle singing fast jazzy tunes in raucous harmony, a flamethrower and juggler explaining to a member of the audience how not to toss the axe up to her while she’s pedaling the unicycle lest bloodshed occur, a blonde belly dancer undulating to a languorous drumbeat gradually building to a fast crescendo...and so much more.

Impostor Syndrome - True Confessions

2011-05-07T23:35:00.001-06:00

All my life I’ve suffered from Impostor Syndrome--that persistent certainty that I’m not worthy, that everything I’ve achieved is by chance, an inexplicable twist of fate. And that surely any moment my fraudulent charade will be uncovered and I will be drummed out of my position in mortal shame. This self doubt has crippled me at times and generated huge anxiety for me. So often I’ve felt that I just don’t belong where I am in any way, shape, or form. According to my research, this is a surprisingly common affliction for women and men. The prescribed treatments include:

attending group therapy with others in the same boat--hearing how common this state of mind is with others who by all outward appearances are deservedly successful
imagining what the response would be if you explained your “incompetence” to the supportive people you have “fooled”
keeping records of positive feedback received
employing positive self talk: “I will do well in this presentation” rather than “I know I'll screw this up somehow”

In my own experience, no amount of self talk has been fully successful in eradicating this feeling, but awareness of it has helped me to stay mindful of the distorted thoughts around it and able to resist it to some degree.

I do remember a conversation I had with my father about 12 years ago (he of the “Horrible Example” fame) when I told him that I had been promoted. (I will resist the urge here to itemize all the reasons still lurking in my own head for why this was surely an improbable turn of events). My father’s reaction to the happy news was sheer, unmitigated disbelief. I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his tone of voice. He could not comprehend how it was possible. I do know that my father loved me very much--but this reaction was painful for me I must admit, and further contributed to my own doubts about my worthiness.

In thinking back on it, I think my Dad’s reaction was driven by his own negative world view--the self doubt that tortured him all of his work life and caused him huge suffering.

I remember once in a therapy session (oh, yes, I know from therapy) with a male grad student when I was in my 20’s being called on my “dumb blonde act”--it was a pretty crude and roughly handled confrontation but I’ve never forgotten it and eventually I came to understand what he was driving at. He said, “You’re just a little cream puff, aren’t you?”

Understanding all of this, today I’m able to let go of the hurt and feel compassion for my father’s past suffering, and the suffering of all who feel like impostors, who have the excruciating sense of unbelonging that can make life such a grind.

So--for all those fellow suffers who may be reading this and looking for a solution--please look objectively at the evidence, and then choose to believe in yourself. You are not perfect, but your achievements are real and deserve your recognition and self love.

Comments appreciated (but I’m determined not to think less of myself if there are none). Dear, dear. What a piece of work I am...

The Sheening

2011-03-26T19:10:00.000-06:00

As one of the most well known actors in American sit-com history axes a hole through the American psyche and sticks his head through to yell, "He-e-e-re's Charlie!" I have to weigh in on addiction and our attitudes toward it in this crazy culture.

Every standup comedian and late night host alive has won some laughs now at Charlie Sheen's expense. Some people suggest Charlie is laughing all the way to the bank as he flits from one paid interview to the next. the world is well aware of his cocaine and alcohol addictions, his crazed comments about maggots and devils and flying monkeys ( okay, he hasn't gotten to flying monkeys yet but it's only a matter of time), his repeated acts of self destruction. His name has been added to the Urban Dictionary as a synonym (verb) for outrageously out-of-control behavior.

Anybody who has loved another person In the grips of addiction has a hard time laughing. Addiction is like a whole other entity--it is the other woman, the best friend, the first choice always for an addict not in recovery. It comes ahead of family, love, work, even food. It is like the devil himself, possessing its victims and changing them into heedless, soulless zombies or ax wielding family wreckers.

And, like a horror picture, we all want to laugh about it to keep ourselves from crying or screaming.

So my heart goes out to all those who are close to Charlie and who are getting sheened once more in a long series of sheenings. May they, and he, find peace.

Rooting Out Resentment

2011-02-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

"Resentment is like swallowing poison and then waiting for the other person to die."

I've been thinking a lot about resentment and how it eats at at you relentlessly if you let it. It is a wicked bad waste of energy--like weeds in a garden that are best pulled out by the root.

Roots of Resentment:

1. Comparing your lot in life with others

2. Doing things for somebody else they could be doing for themselves

3. Imprisoning yourself by limiting your perceptions of what is possible

4. Refusing to accept what is

5. Dwelling in the past

Remedies for Resentment:

1. Being grateful for what you do have

2. Setting boundaries

3. Thinking outside the box, trying new things, keeping an open mind

4. Letting it be

5. Forgiving and letting go

Ah. That feels better.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

2011-02-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing a lot about Amy Chua's book, interviews and articles on how and why Chinese mothers are different from Western mothers in their parenting style. In this excerpt from her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," she describes an epic battle with her 7-year-old daughter in which she insists the girl practice her piano piece until she's got it right on the night before her next lesson, at a huge cost to the peace and psyche of the family. Her argument is that this is a demonstration of true parental devotion--based on her unshakeable faith that the kid can and will be able to achieve the goal.

When, after a night of screaming and denial of such comforts as supper, water and bathroom breaks, the daughter finally manages to play the piece correctly, she is so thrilled and happy with her achievement that she comes to her mother's bed to cuddle.

According to Amy Chua, Chinese mothers don't allow activities like sleepovers or watching TV--ever. All the more time to focus on the goal of perfect A's in all subjects (gym and drama exempted) and mastery of either piano or violin (no other choices allowed).

Western mothers, on the other hand, are overly focused on their child's self-esteem and don't possess the same unshakeable believe in the resiliency and strength of their children. They want to help each child find her true passion but, for the sake of a kid's happiness or self esteem, are unwilling to push and shove their kids past the inevitable early difficulties when learning a new concept or skill.

In the end Chua does show some balance in her viewpoints on parenthood, concluding with the comment that all decent parents act out of love for their children despite their different parenting styles. She says:

"Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."

The above conclusion rings true for me in my own observations of the contrasts in the two cultures, but why can't these goals be combined by applying a balance of approaches to parenting, based on the kid and the situation on the ground? One size does not fit all; sometimes strict discipline is the right tool and at other times letting go and allowing a kid to stumble and learn from the consequences can be the better path. You've gotta play it as it lays, because parenting is much harder than blindly following one set of rules.

Parents, kids - what do you think?

Tiny Bubbles

2011-01-30T14:53:00.001-07:00

Though life is made up of mere bubbles

'Tis better than many aver,

For while we've a whole lot of troubles

The most of them never occur.

Nixon Waterman

I spotted an interesting article called "20 Questions That Could Change Your Life" a few days ago--it recommended questions a woman should ask herself on a regular basis in order to have a full and happy life.

The last question listed is, basically, "Really, truly -- is this what I want to be doing? And what could I do to make this moment more delightful?" I was in my office on a Friday on the last of the week's day-long conference calls with people in distant time zones, my joints creaking from sitting way too long in one position, and I asked myself this question. I gazed around the office and my eyes settled on a tiny green plastic container shaped like a champagne bottle that I'd gotten as part of my 20-year work anniversary a year ago. I picked up the little bottle which held a soapy solution and had a tiny bubble-blowing wand attached to the inside of the cap.

As I continued to listen to the call, I blew bubbles, lots of bubbles, which floated briefly in the sunlight in my office like little beacons of joy. I glanced over at the small fountain I have on a corner of my desk surrounded by six tiny laughing buddhas. And I smiled.

Why Am I Not Serene Yet?

2011-01-23T21:10:00.002-07:00

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm”

One of my plans for the new year is to find a path toward greater serenity. Here are my top ten ways to become more serene:

10. Minding my own business rather than everybody else's.
9. Letting go of things I can't control.
8. Opening my mind to greater spirituality.
7. Counting my many blessings.
6. Taking care of myself with healthy food and exercise, and remembering to breathe.
5. Connecting with other people.
4. Focusing outside myself on ways I can be useful to others in need.
3. Listening to my heart to know what I want and need.
2. Spending time in fresh air, sunshine and nature.
1. Living in the moment rather than regretting the past or fearing the future.

Any others you want to add?

Innisfree, Part II

2010-12-28T20:13:00.002-07:00

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

William Butler Yeats

On a cool, sunny Tuesday morning I peer through the window of the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café. The windows are no longer papered over with fine poetry and are now clear and newly washed. There are people inside; the place has finally opened. I hesitate, but then a man stands up, opens the door and says, “Lynn?”

He’s recognized me from my blog picture. I’ve actually found a bookstore and café where everybody (or at least somebody) knows my name. I walk into a small but beautiful space with long narrow counters along the front windows and down the center of the cafe where a person can sit and sip coffee while perusing fine poetry. A shiny new barista’s station sits at the back with a chalkboard listing espresso options. The wooden bookcases are filled with a mouthwatering variety of poetry: Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, an extensive selection of Charles Bukowski, and much, much more. I know I’ll be back again for a more in depth perusal.

The owner’s name is Brian. He’s Irish and has the Irish love of good poetry. He and his wife Kate met and fell in love at a poetry workshop and have had the dream ever since of opening a small poetry bookstore and café. The circuitous route toward this dream included a stint in the Peace Corp, working with Navajo tribes in Arizona and teaching language arts. Now he and Kate have settled in Boulder among friends to raise their two young children. And I find myself standing inside their dream.

Care has been taken with every aspect of the space: sun streams in through tall windows, all manner of good poetry is arranged invitingly on the warm wooden shelves, and they have chosen to serve fair trade coffee roasted by the local company Conscious Coffees, who have their own dream of sustainability and simplicity, delivering their coffee by bicycle in reusable steel cans.

Standing inside this Boulder dream feels good and right. I highly recommend that my vast blog readership check out this fine place on the Hill across the street from the Sink. Sample the good coffee and find some poetry that speaks to your heart—tell 'em Lynn sent you.

Good King Wenceslas

2010-12-12T20:32:00.002-07:00

Ye who now will bless the poor

Shall yourselves find blessing.

“Good King Wenceslas”, John Mason Neale

On one of my many Boulder walks one recent winter morning I pass by a bus stop where a man sits alone with a huge backpack. Just as I pass him I hear:

“How ya doin’?”

I think of ignoring him, walking on; you’re not supposed to talk to strangers, right? But I turn around, smile and say, “I’m doin’ okay—how

about you?”

“I’m good,” he says. “Can you tell me if I can walk to Table Mesa from here?”

It is maybe a mile away and I’m not sure how big a walker he is. “Depends—are you a walker? Dressed warmly enough?”

“Oh yeah, I’m warm—except I need a hat that comes a little further down to cover my ears, and some gloves.” Sure enough, the hat’s a little small for his head and his gloves are the kind with holes in the fingertips—he holds them up and wiggles them for me to see. It is icy cold and breezy. His bright eyes look out at me from a brown face as he tells me he plans to go up to Table Mesa and play his boom box to earn the $8 he needs to buy a hat and gloves at Savers. He just came here from Oregon he says, and was fired from his job for giving away food. I explain that Pearl Street is the place for street performers, not Table Mesa—but he says he’ll buck the trend and see what happens since he’s on his way to Golden anyway where he has a place to stay for the night.

So I hand him a $20 and tell him good luck at Savers. With a huge smile of thanks, he shakes my hand.

Was I naïve? Crazy? Maybe. But despite the donations we faithfully make to the Boulder Homeless Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, and Community Food Share each year, this seemed more real.

Salad Days

2010-12-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

An 11/25 NYT article by Judith Warner, "Junking Junk Food," describes Sara Palin's latest maneuver, bringing cookies to the kids at a middle school in Pennsylvania to fight the "school cookie ban" there. Apparently Palin tweeted that she wants to "intro kids 2 beauty of laissez-faire."

This woman is really starting to bug me. When 17% of children and teens are obese, doing what we can to encourage better eating habits is not an example of the "nanny state" anymore than educational programs on the dangers of smoking.

I had a fine moment as a mother a couple of days ago when my 24-year-old son told me that he was glad we had so many salads when he was a kid, that he loves having them when he comes over for dinner, and that often his "mouth waters" craving a salad. It can be done and it's not nanny state, it's good parenting.

Otherwise

2010-11-06T15:29:00.001-06:00

Up on the Hill in Boulder across 13^th from Buchanan’s Coffee Pub is a small storefront papered over with poetry and a sign that promises “Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café, opening soon.” The website also mentions an opening in early November, but previous signs have promised October—I am hoping for the best since I think the world has far too few Poetry Bookstore/Café combinations. A few days ago this poem was posted in the window in large letters:

Otherwise

Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

Some might say this poem is bleak or ominous – but I choose to see it more in terms of a reminder to be grateful and joyous about the present. The poem represents a feeling that haunts me, but at the same time is the key that will set me free, because the choice is always either fear of losing all you hold dear or love and gratitude for all you have right now. Every morning I wake up and choose one way or the other--and that choice makes a big difference in my frame of mind for the day.

This is an idea that I didn’t think about in my 20s that I can remember, and also an idea that may be foreign to many 20-somethings today. But after much loss and challenge in my life, this idea is now at the forefront of my mind. The most important point is that this is a choice, each moment of each day.

10-20-10

2010-10-19T21:47:00.000-06:00

It’s fall and the orange-red-yellow leaves against the electric blue sky always remind me of my daughter Caitlin, who was born on October 20, 1988. I had an ultrasound before Cait was born since I was of a certain age. At the same time I got the good news that I was carrying a healthy baby, I was also thrilled to hear that I was going to be blessed with a daughter. Since this was my second and last baby and the first was a son—it was the best news I could have heard. I was so ecstatic that I actually developed a temporary appreciation for the color pink, never a favorite before this.I was close to my mother and as an adult I enjoyed many a good talk with her, often over a glass of sherry on the back deck at the family home on Sugar Lane in Indiana. I very much wanted that same experience with a daughter of my own.

When Caitlin was born, on one of those beautiful autumn days we have in Boulder in October, she was already sporting a small fuzz of golden-red hair—a little surprising since neither M nor I have red hair though it does run in my family. But why would we be surprised that our autumn girl would have hair with autumn colors? Cait went through a few years when the hair was a challenge, sprouting out of her head in unruly glory, but eventually it grew into a gorgeous flow of golden red that is one of her best physical features today.

She's smart too, having inherited a scientific bent from her two great grandfathers who were both scientists, as well as my own mother who had a Masters degree in Botany and whose favorite subject as a fifth grade teacher was science.

This winter Caitlin will graduate from CU with a degree in Biochemistry, and she’s working hard on an honors thesis to top of her undergraduate work. She has shown great discipline, drive and courage in the face of the challenges this has presented her, and I’m excited for her and proud of her as she takes her next steps in the world.

Happy birthday, Caitlin!

Freedom

2010-10-09T20:37:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Lui Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. “Who the heck is that?” you may ask. He is a courageous Chinese dissident and one of the authors of Charter 08, a manifesto published in the People’s Republic of China in December 2008. Charter 08 demands freedom and democracy for the Chinese people. Lui Xiaobo will not easily enjoy the prize money since he is serving year two of an eleven-year prison sentence in China as a result of Charter 08’s publication.

I found the English translation of Charter 08 on a website called Human Rights in China (HRIC). The document outlines 19 demands for democratic change—concepts we take all too much for granted in the U.S. including an independent judiciary, a guarantee of human rights, freedom of association, assembly, expression and religion, and election of public officials. The Chinese government is quite unhappy with the Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding this prize and has warned Norway formally that this act will “pull the wrong strings” in the relationship between the two countries.

Since I work closely with people who live in China I take great interest in the changes that country is now undergoing. The people I work with are like anybody else—they want to earn a decent living and provide the best they can for themselves and their families. We do not talk about dissidence since they could risk imprisonment. But I believe in them and like them, and I think I see signs of an awakening to the desire for these long-denied freedoms. The Chinese people have been through many trials but they will overcome; it is time. Charter 08 says it very well:

“After experiencing a prolonged period of human rights disasters and a tortuous struggle and resistance, the awakening Chinese citizens are increasingly and more clearly recognizing that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal common values shared by all humankind, and that democracy, a republic, and constitutionalism constitute the basic structural framework of modern governance. A “modernization” bereft of these universal values and this basic political framework is a disastrous process that deprives humans of their rights, corrodes human nature, and destroys human dignity. Where will China head in the 21st century? Continue a “modernization” under this kind of authoritarian rule? Or recognize universal values, assimilate into the mainstream civilization, and build a democratic political system? This is a major decision that cannot be avoided.”

In other words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...”

We live in interesting times. Right on, China.

Beating Google

2010-09-19T14:47:00.000-06:00

M sits across from me at the Bookend coffee shop and googles “left-handed underwear” on his iPad after hearing about it last night from Garrison Keillor on “A Prairie Home Companion.” He discovers that there are 183,000 hits for this concept including one offering the opportunity to buy the item on line and promising that it will "save left-handed men up to 3, often vital, seconds when visiting the loo" (locating this reference is left as an exercise for the reader).

In an excess of gadgetry we now both have iPads, and we’re enjoying the hell out of them. I have downloaded several books and now have a rule that I must finish the last one before downloading the next one I’m interested in. It is incredibly easy and convenient to get them and read them on the iPad. I’ve eschewed the Apple-developed book reading app in favor of Amazon’s Kindle since I already have a long term buying relationship with Amazon and I don’t want to get too cozy with Mr. Jobs just yet.

Now that M’s learned how easy it is to get connected at his favorite espresso haunts, he’s having a fine old time, indulging in every urge to look up words and phrases in on-line dictionaries and Wikipedia, reading his email a little more often (maybe), moving just a touch beyond his former neo-Ludditism. The iPads, which we both carry in our backpacks almost everywhere we go since they are no heavier than a book would be, do bring us a step closer to that thrilling Star Trek nirvana where in every case of curiosity or information deficit, one can simply say in a confident voice, “Computer…” and then ask for what one needs. After a few days of this, M mentioned that he had tried once again, unsuccessfully, to “Beat Google.”

“What do you mean, ‘beat Google?’” ask I.

“You know—search for something it can’t find an exact hit for.”

“Ah—have you tried Googling your own name, in full?”

“No.” Pause. Blip blip blip. “Oh.” Zero direct hits on that search, and another challenge met. It turns out that M flies so far below the radar in Cyberspace and the world in general that there are no exact hits on his full name.

Of course, M has also discovered the seductiveness of being constantly on line—the tendency to look something up, then follow a referenced link, then find an interesting article, perhaps on left-handed underwear or some other topic, and then wonder “what was I doing a minute ago, anyway?”

The price we must pay in the modern age.

Untethered

2010-09-18T13:25:00.000-06:00

My office is moving to a new location. So we all packed our stuff Thursday night and worked from home Friday—on Monday morning we’ll show up at our new home ten miles away and settle in. I had often envisioned the scenarios in which I might pack up my little cardboard box with the photographs, mementos, plaques, coffee cups and pathetic spider plant that has somehow managed to stay alive all this time, not due to my own benign neglect but rather due to the efforts of our admin who has a kind heart. The scenarios I usually imagined were of the pink slip and the take this job and shove it variety. But in the end I packed my box in a much less dramatic exit, simply to move to a new town.

Still, it brought back some memories of the time I was laid off in November 1989, when I packed my little box in a shocked daze when I was booted out of my high tech job after 9 years. Back then I hadn’t yet learned the signs and portents of impending layoff and so even though we’d had multiple painful rounds at my company and co-workers were dropping like flies all around me, I was still pretty stunned when it finally happened to me. I was in good company—a large crowd of us headed over to the Outback Saloon and drank heavily, then I drove myself home, weeping all the way. It was almost Christmas time, I was the sole support for my little family which consisted of one Mr. Mom and two kids aged 1 and 3, and I was driving home bearing the holiday tidings that I was out of work.

In the days that followed I made looking for work my job—spending 8 or more hours a day networking, fine-tuning various versions of my resume, writing cover letters, poring over want ads (we had want ads then—which were published in the newspaper), going to support group meetings, making cold calls, worrying. Each morning I would walk the kids over to the pre-school a few blocks away and linger for the excellent coffee brewed by Laurie the pre-school teacher, delaying as long as possible the time when I would have to hunker down for the day to bang my head against the wall of unemployment. One morning Laurie gently informed me that she had a job teaching pre-school and that it was really not okay for me to hang out trying to have conversation and cadging coffee refills while she was trying to teach the kids their colors and shapes.

After that cruel but necessary rejection I went straight to it at my computer each morning, doing everything in my imagination and power to find work, striving to quell my rising panic and endless fears: we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage we would end up penniless in the street my children would be dressed in rags we would wait in soup lines for our supper we would end up sleeping in the car.

After about 7 weeks, just as the severance was drying up like a Colorado creek in August and the paltry unemployment benefits were about to kick in, I was lucky enough to land an unadvertised job through a connection, and oh what a gigantic relief that was. I remember those days often when I hear about the unemployment rates now, and I’m filled with a deep empathy for all those who are desperately seeking work. Here’s hoping the economy turns around soon. Meanwhile I am so lucky to remain employed, and so grateful.

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

2010-09-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

One of the prime goals of parenting is to become utterly dispensable—to end up with kids who are independent and confident and who fearlessly question authority, including yours. And an inevitable step on this path involves having your own kids realize your utter fallibility---the terrible truth that you are sometimes (may chance oftimes) dead wrong.

I’ve been thinking again (with love) about my own father, a strong personality and a man who did not easily admit error. When he got an idea in his head it was almost impossible to change his thinking. Even in my thirties I still avoided crossing him and put up with various eccentric and ill-advised behaviors from him rather than take that one giant step.

I’ve also been thinking about my ongoing battle with the voice in my head that relentlessly reminds me I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m an impostor, a failure, yada yada yada. I recall the day when I proudly told my father I’d been promoted to director at work. His initial reaction was undisguised disbelief. He could not accept that I had managed to get this promotion or that I would be able to do the job without failing.

Now, many years later, it occurs to me that the voice in my head questioning the validity of every move I make is my father’s voice: The Great and Powerful Oz. And the terrible truth is that there was only a man behind the curtain, a man who was sometimes dead wrong himself, and man who was insecure in his own life and work, damaged by his own father’s disappointments and held back also by the culture of his time which had no room for the idea of a woman like me rising to such a role.

It’s a shock for a kid to finally admit that the parents are human. Much as it was a shock for Dorothy and her companions to discover that the Wizard of Oz was not so great and powerful after all and they were going to have to find their own solutions to their various problems. Here's hoping I applied some of what I learned to my own parenting role and to some decent degree restrained myself from excessive hovering, questioning, doubting and dominating. I hope I’m doing a good job of letting my kids go, letting them rise to their individual occasions, allowing them to seize their autonomy and independence sooner rather than later. We're not in Kansas anymore.

Been There, Shrunk That

2010-08-19T17:06:00.000-06:00

At M’s recommendation I read an article in the NYT Sunday magazine called “My Life in Therapy” by Daphne Merkin, about one woman’s 40-year epic with psychotherapy—all her hopes for how it would fill the terrible holes in her psyche and finally give her the love and attention she never got enough of from parents and lovers. She describes a sometimes amusing, sometimes harrowing sampling of a wide range of therapies from age 10, including classic Freudian psychoanalysis which I frankly have no earthly use for since I’ve always believed it was demeaning and disrespectful to women (and probably men as well) and seemed more likely to keep people stuck in the past focusing on the inevitable imperfections of their childhoods.

My own experiences with therapy have been numerous. I too was taken to see a woman who was probably a psychiatrist when I was around 10 years old and had suddenly decided I hated school when previously I had loved it. The root cause for this was that I was having difficulties with arithmetic, and this was the first time in my brief school career that I had found anything in the classroom remotely difficult. However, I didn’t talk about this during my session. Instead, I told the attentive white-haired lady about the recurring dream I was having in which I was arguing with a talking skull, and how I had eventually learned in the dream to wake myself up by pushing the skull away with my hand and uttering a “bad word.”

“What was this bad word?” asked the psychiatrist.

“I can’t say it out loud.”

“You can say anything in here.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Excuse me?” she responded with surprise, since up to this point I had been a very good little girl in the session.

“Shut up was the bad word—we’re not allowed to say ‘shut up’ at our house.” And indeed we weren’t—it was literally considered an unacceptable word in our household.

Later in my 20s and 30s I struggled with shifting moods and depression, and a few severe cases of a broken heart along with a profound fear of failing at school and later at work. I drifted from one therapist to another with little or no progress in my estimation. It was only the year after my mother died, in 1999, that I was forced by a vicious darkness of the soul to do real work in therapy in order to survive that grief and the several more that followed. My therapist then told me that there was no way out but through…and introduced me to the cognitive behavioral therapy. And from that point, I did find a few good therapists who helped me make some progress; I also began reading a large number of books on my own, centered around letting go of rumination about past and worry about future and focusing on living more in the present. And also paying more attention to that blathering negative voice in my head and how to step outside its influence and talk back to it (even telling it to “shut up” on occasion).

Can therapy be an addiction? This is suggested in Merkin’s article and it likely can be, but for me it was more like a journey that simply took a long time and that in the end was productive. It just takes time and experience to finally wake up and see through the fog to notice what’s really going on and how much power you hold in the search for serenity.

Daphne concludes the article with: “Therapy gave me a place to say things I could say nowhere else, express the feelings that would be laughed at or frowned upon in the outside world—and in so doing helped to alleviate the insistent pressure of my darker thoughts.” I agree—in other words, it helped me find my voice.

She also says therapy “provided a space for interior examination, an education in disillusioned realism that existed nowhere else in this cacophonous, frantic planet.” Agreed again—in other words, it helped me wake up.

What about your experiences with therapy good or bad?

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Life is but a Dream

2010-08-19T11:14:00.000-06:00

Ever drifting down the stream--

Lingering in the golden gleam--

Life, what is it but a dream?

Lewis Carroll

I’m plowing through Stephen King’s Dark Tower series this summer and just finished book four, “Wizards and Glass.” A key theme and phrase in these books is “there are other worlds than these,” and there are many instances in the series where characters move in and out of worlds and times in a dreamlike fashion where death is not an absolute and people are never quite who they at first appear to be. Also, I recently saw Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a thief who can move in and out of his own and others’ dreams—but when can he be absolutely sure he’s not dreaming?

In both of the worlds created by these fantasies a person to some degree is able to choose his dream. In the Dark Tower, Roland the Gunslinger seizes opportunities to move between worlds (or are they dreams after all?) in his obsessive search for the Tower. In “Inception,” DiCaprio’s Cobb character moves between dream worlds as easily as pressing a floor button in an elevator, choosing to invade the dreams of others and even plant ideas in those dreams with dangerous and tragic results. In the end he must choose to return from a dream he’s having trouble letting go of but which he knows is destroying him. And in the end, is his chosen world just another dream, albeit a happier one?

It seems our experience of life is defined by our perception of it, so we can choose our dream—but it’s so damn hard to keep that in mind (as is the case when you are actually dreaming, especially during a nightmare). It’s difficult to be mindful that we have far more space and choice than we perceive, and that we can choose to swim up through the murky water toward the surface and the light rather than succumb to the illusion we’re drowning.

The other thing it’s hard to keep in mind is that everybody else is in their own dream, in various states of unconsciousness or wakefulness, and that their dreams are not yours, or vice versa.

Nothing is quite what it seems on the surface. If we’re not awake enough, we box ourselves and other people in with assumptions, “truths,” “limitations” that are not real. If only we could have a way to jog the memory like Cobb does in “Inception”--to spin the little top to help us see what is real. On the other hand, if we’re happy and at peace, isn’t that all the real we need?

Are Men Less Adaptable?

2010-08-07T11:57:00.001-06:00

M and I read and had much discussion about an article recently in the Atlantic called “The End of Men” by Hanna Roslin. It was about how American women (and actually women in other countries as well to some degree) have actually become the dominant gender in our culture in many ways. For example, more women are now managers in the US (although I can attest this is still not true in high tech). Moreover, countries who allow women to participate in business are measurably more successful financially than those who do not. More women than men are earning college degrees now; in fact, some private schools are so concerned about keeping the gender balance on campus that they’re applying a form of affirmative action and relaxing certain expectations so as to be able to accept more men.
Women are marrying much later in life and more women in their 20s are questioning the value of long-term relationships with men their age, not seeing these guys showing much readiness to be equal breadwinners. They are making sure they themselves can earn their own way and in many ways saying that they don’t need men to have happy, fulfilled lives.

I’ve lived most of my life in what used to be called a “role reversal”—my husband stayed home with the kids and I earned the money to support us all. (When I mention this arrangement to others it is amazing how many men say, “Oh—I always wanted to do that.”) At the time M wanted to write and believed he’d be able to find the time to do that at home and take care of the kids and run the household. Easier said than done, as any stay-at-home parent will confirm, but we were new parents and we didn’t know. I had entered high tech and was making a pretty good salary for that time, more than I’d expected to be making with a BA in English. My hopes to teach English in high school didn’t work out, since jobs in education were scarce back then.

Unlike many “Mr. Moms” I’ve heard about, M took the role very seriously—ran the household, did all the cleaning, planned and cooked all the meals in addition to raising our two children and making sure they got where they needed to go for pre-school, elementary school, piano lessons, softball practice and more in our trusty Dodge Caravan. M and I have always had a very equal relationship and made all our decisions in every area together. It has been a good partnership.

But I’m not sure most men are prepared to do that despite their expressions of interest in it, and I hear that many who have ended up unemployed at home while their wives work have not adapted in such a way as to pick up some of the housework and cooking so that work overall is equally shared. So in that case, the imbalance and unfairness is unacceptable, especially to young women these days who see their way clear to living completely independently of men and having complete freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want, including having children by themselves if they wish.

And if this is starting to happen as the norm it is a huge shift in culture.

Reinforcing this is what I have often observed over the years in my work--that when change and adjustment and adaptation to current conditions on the ground are needed, it is often a core group of women who step in, collaborate, help each other often reaching across organizational boundaries, finding the new path to make it happen.

Many reasons were offered in the article for why men are not the kings of the castle they used to be. Modern businesses call for more social intelligence, more collaboration and communication skills, to balance the competitiveness. Men turn too often to competition first and foremost, and do not seem to draw on the other skills where they would work best. Also, the suggestion is made in the article that men are less adaptive to the constant and inevitable change in business today than women are. More men than women are unemployed these days since some of the hardest hit job categories are primarily male-oriented, construction and manufacturing for example. And when men find themselves booted out of a job that then completely disappears, they seem less able to see the paths to reinvent themselves, to adapt to new careers and learn new skills.

You might think, as a woman, I’m glad to see this. But I’m not. My long-time relationship with M is based on equality, respect, and a refusal to be boxed in by assumptions about what our roles should be. In other words, we have both adapted and continue to adapt to a wide variety of changes and this is why we are still a happy couple. That is not to say we haven’t had our difficulties and had to adjust to major changes (the empty nest is so very empty at times, not to mention the changes that deaths in the family can bring). But we have continued to make it work and learned a lot along the way. I hope my son and daughter both find someone they can share this kind of relationship with. I also want them both to be able to have strong, productive careers that give them satisfaction and the feeling they have accomplished good work.

Meanwhile, gentlemen, please don’t underestimate what women have to offer-- and how about paying us an equal wage for equal work? That would be a good change.

Skullcandy

2010-07-24T22:44:00.001-06:00

Last Sunday I decided to venture out and buy a pair of headphones for our home PC so that when I wanted to listen to music or video clips while I’m on the PC in the family room, I can freely do that without having to worry about disturbing M while he’s reading or watching TV.

So we went to Best Buy and got some advice from a patient young man, very tall, very skinny, a huge mass of long, golden brown curls haloing his head. Since I’ve never owned headphones before (I know, hard to believe), I had amusing questions for the young man like, “do you think that little hole in the front of my computer speaker is for earphones? How can I be sure?”)—but he answered all my questions with a bemused look (you can also plug these headphones into the similar little hole you will find in the IPod you have). He warned me that the earphones were quite powerful so I should take care not to blast my ears to kingdom come on the first try.

I wanted something fairly inexpensive since I had no idea what I was doing, but of high quality that would shut out ambient sound pretty well so that I don’t have to hear the Nuggets game in the background when I’m listening to Joni Mitchell. I ended up walking out with the somewhat age-inappropriate earphone brand “Skullcandy”, thoroughly secured in snappy clear and black plastic packaging decorated with ominous looking skulls. The brand name has made me feel slightly more dangerous than I have any business feeling, I think.

I went home and plugged these headphones into the little hole in the speaker without incident, and then (being careful to keep the volume low at first), tried listening to a song I had recently downloaded to iTunes, Bonnie Rait and John Prine’s version of John’s “Angel from Montgomery.”

Wow. It was wonderful.

Now I understand better why my kids make sure they have music wherever they go, in the current age a possibility when previously it was not.

The music came through beautifully, in all its nuances and glory, and I was left wondering why on earth I had waited so long to treat myself to this “skull candy.” I was so transfixed that an annoyed M had to stand right in front of me waving his arms to get my attention—he’d been trying to talk to me from behind, and I hadn’t heard a thing. In the classic teenage move I lifted up one of the earphones and said, “WHAT??”

Anyway—lesson learned. This was another reinforcement of the importance of treating my brain regularly to new experiences and sensations—great music, books, art, nature, conversation. What else have I been unwittingly starving for? And what are you starving for?

Remember what the dormouse said,
Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head.

"White Rabbit" - Grace Slick

Finding My Voice

2010-07-18T21:40:00.024-06:00

Maggie Kuhn

After a long blog drought it struck me on a hike today that what I wanted to write about was finding my voice. Have I finally found my voice after these many years, or not? And what does that really mean? To me it means speaking the truth out loud, clearly, kindly, rather than “stifling myself” constantly. I stifle myself because of fear—fear of rejection, of authority, of dismissal, of my own sense of worthlessness.

I think finding my voice is not a one-time achievement but an ongoing quest. I’ve won some battles in this respect but I’ve not won the war, since I often still have to drag myself kicking and screaming to the point where I’ll speak up even when it is absolutely warranted. Part of me firmly believes that if I actually spoke my mind clearly, honestly and kindly at every opportunity that there might be such a radical change in my life that it would become unrecognizable. Often it seems ever so much safer to be satisfied with the sounds of silence (Paul Simon had much to say on this topic).

But more and more I’m noticing physical reactions to my forced silences that might be strong hints that I really must speak out more—reactions like insomnia-producing pain from my jaws due to the clenching and grinding I’m unconsciously doing day and night.

A wise woman asked me recently if I was singing these days. I am not—even though the songs and their lyrics were always a source of joy and a way I could express deep ideas and emotions in my life no matter what was going on. So the other night I got out the songbooks, pulled up a chair on the back porch, and told myself I only had to sing three songs and then I could quit if I wanted. Of course, I sang many, many more—folks songs, spirituals, Leonard Cohen, James Taylor, John Prine. It felt good.

At work and in my personal life, I’ve often kept my silence rather than be shut down or dismissed. I think it’s dismissal that’s most painful; it feeds into my thought patterns about losing another person’s love or esteem. But in my saner moments I know that someone else’s dismissal of me or my ideas is often much more about them than it is about me.

When I was young, my father (who I loved dearly) had particularly strong ideas about a child’s behavior. A child was to be obedient (even though he himself was not in his own childhood, as his stories revealed). Above all, a child should not “talk back,” but should show respect for her parents. At times I was chastised for talking back when, in truth, I had no idea that I was guilty of this nefarious and disrespectful deed. If I did talk back there were usually consequences that to me seemed devastating—mainly "the look" or angry yelling. I’ve never been able to tolerate being yelled at without becoming incredibly upset about it—and so I’ve developed a variety of techniques for avoiding yelling and conflict of any sort.

Many of these techniques can be used constructively—diplomacy, fairness, kindness, strong listening skills, excellent verbal skills, empathy. But in the end it is only with great willpower that I’ve steeled myself over the years to “talk back” to those who have power over me. I have to overcome a myriad of unpleasant physical reactions, including tears, trembling, a shaky voice, clamminess, hot flashes and a sinking stomach. Not to mention the catastrophic mental responses like fear that I will lose the love or esteem of the person I’m confronting, questions about how important this issue really is (when weighed against my very survival), questions about whether I am perhaps dead wrong about this particular issue after all, and fear that speaking up at this juncture will irrevocably destroy the relationship and the person I’m confronting will lose respect for me or never speak to me again. To someone who is not familiar with this kind of conflict avoidance, these fears must seem incredibly neurotic.

The interesting thing is that often when I finally force myself to have a conversation with the person in question I find that they have a perfectly reasonable response, or at least a response that does not result in the end of the world as I know it. Of course, this isn’t always the case, and sometimes I have battles that leave me the worse for wear or that lead to more trouble for me. But even then I usually feel as though they were battles worth fighting in the end—words worth saying for my own self respect. One of the first confrontations of this sort I remember daring to have in my life was, not surprisingly, with my father.

I was around 21. My father had decided he didn’t want to “subsidize” my “shacking up” with M any longer. I was finishing school and my parents were still paying some of the expenses, although I had a job. I was living with M (we would not be married until many years later) and we were absolutely in love. We are still together today, 39 years later. Despite all my efforts to avoid confrontation on this, it was clear that I had to stand up to my father. I was shaking so hard I could barely speak, even though it was a hot summer night on the deck looking out on the deep green, firefly-lit Indiana woods. My mother fluttered around in the background like a firefly herself as the confrontation became more heated. I had learned many of my confrontation avoidance techniques at my mother’s feet and I realize now she might have feared she would lose me somehow if the confrontation continued. But I gathered together every inch of courage I had and told my father that if he was suggesting I choose, the choice would not be in his favor, and that I would support myself from now on in order to remove money from the equation. The consequence: voices were raised but the world did not end, and over time my father came to respect, trust and love M.

Many confrontations have happened since then—usually with far more angst beforehand than they deserved and with much better outcomes than I had expected. And so, I have found my voice—I just have to keep finding the courage to use it.

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

Paul Simon

Do you have a story to tell about finding your own voice?

24

2010-07-05T10:42:00.001-06:00

Today I have a son who is 24 years old. He’s many things including a mountain climber and a risk-taker—and he loves Boulder. I know well that he also has a growing wanderlust and I would predict road trips and other adventures in the not so distant future. Neil Young really had it right:

Old man, look at my life

Twenty-four and there’s so much more

Live alone in a paradise

That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost.

Give me things that don’t get lost

Like a coin that won’t get tossed

Rolling home to you…

Neil Young

When I was 24 it was 1977. Just a few months before my September birthday, M and I had packed everything we owned (mainly books, a typewriter and two guitars) into a tan square-backed VW and moved ourselves from Bloomington, Indiana (where at the time both cheap housing and jobs were in scarce supply) to Boulder, Colorado, mainly to follow our dream of living near the mountains. I had graduated two years before. We left everything behind in Indiana—all our friends, our family, our low-paying jobs, the abundant green of Hoosier woods, the orange-red of the Indiana fall. I am surprised now that we had the courage to make such a monumental change, but at the time it seemed like exactly the right move. We did have each other, after all.

It was May. We were blessed with warm, summery weather and we had no idea how lucky we were about that—we camped in a tent for a week at the Wagon Wheel Campground up Four-Mile Canyon, and then we found rooms in a house on the corner of Arapahoe and Lincoln, right across from the public library.

Our housemate was a very strange ex-Californian named Peter, who was older than he wanted us to think, and who had been writing a screenplay for many years. He was short, blond and tanned, and looked like a misplaced stubby little surfer. His mother was wealthy and he seemed to have a limited but steady income from his mother to follow whatever dreams he might have. He had once been a member of a cult on the West Coast, the subject of the screenplay.

We weren’t in Indiana anymore.

The year we came to Boulder a lot of construction was going on along a street called Pearl; they were building some kind of new-fangled outdoors mall where the street would be closed off for a few blocks and only pedestrians would be allowed.

We were both writing a lot—M in longhand, I with my trusty little electric typewriter that my grandfather had given me when I started college. We’d saved up enough money to not have to work for at least a couple of months. It was a time of shining hope and vast optimism. Ten years, later, Shannon, you were already one year old. Happy 24th !

May your hands always be busy

May your feet always be swift

May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful

And may your song always be sung

May you stay forever young

Bob Dylan

Independence Day

2010-07-04T17:48:00.003-06:00

As M suspected, it was sunny up in Breckenridge this morning, despite being gloomy in Boulder. We drove west on 70 across The Great Divide and when we emerged from the Eisenhower Tunnel, as if we had journeyed from Kansas to the Land of Oz, we had blue sky and a 4^th of July parade, which was in full swing down Main Street with Corvettes, flags, kids, dogs and firemen. The folks of Breckenridge do have the USA spirit.

After quite a bit of searching we finally located our favored Breckenridge independent coffeehouse, The Crown, and found a great seat in an alcove just inside the front door with a fine view of the red-white-and-blue hubbub continuing on the street below. The Crown has antique mirrors set into carved dark wooden hutches and four stone cupids mounted in a row on one wall and two crystal chandeliers. It is a fine place any time of the year.

On our way back to the car later we passed firemen in the middle of the still blocked off Main Street letting groups of thrilled children handle fire hoses, each group pointing at the other and just close enough to get everybody a bit wet.

Parades are different now than they were when I was a kid. Today parades have lots of shiny red and blue streamers and glitter and decorated high tech baby strollers and Corvettes. When I was a kid, all the girls and women got together and spent many hours in the days leading up to the parade making flowers out of pastel Kleenex—you stacked together the tissues, tied them in the middle, then fluffed them out to make pale pink, green, blue or white blossoms. These were painstakingly woven into the chicken wire shapes built over the vehicles used as the bases for the parade “floats.” Then, on the day of the parade, the prettiest girls in school graced these floats, sitting high atop them in their pastel prom dresses and slowly waving to the crowd with white-gloved hands. One girl got to wear the crown—having won the honor of being queen for a day. Was I ever one of these girls? No, I was on the sidelines wearing denim, peace symbols and a go-to-hell hat.

Also—we always had multiple marching bands in their uniforms playing Sousa and there were always pom-pom girls and baton twirlers and there was always a drum major leading the parade and marking time with his staff. Humanitarian men called Shriners wearing red fezes drove little motorcycles in little circles along the parade route.

Today, none of this was in evidence—nary a piccolo player nor a tuba blower nor a drummer nor a Shriner could be found. But there was still a lot of hooting and cheering and American spirit, all the same. The parade concluded with a spirited reading by a man dressed in 1776 garb. When we first heard the voice coming over the loudspeaker I wondered whether we might be hearing a modern-day Tea Party diatribe, but in fact it turned out to be the actual Declaration of Independence, indeed a radical document if you ever heard one. Happy 4th of July!

Random Acts of Beauty and Musings On Escape

2010-07-03T15:20:00.000-06:00

We take a journey to Denver for the day, and the city presents some quirky images in our sojourn around Lodo and down by the river. A random act of beauty presents itself—colorful crocheted flowers woven into the metal grid of a construction fence. We ask a local guy passing by which group did this and he explains that it happened just a couple of nights ago—an unnamed group of girls showed up, wove the flowers into the fence, stood back admiring their handiwork and smiling, then moved on. These small moments of loveliness do come along if you keep your eyes open.

We spend awhile writing at the desk with the blue lamps at the Starbucks next to Confluence Park, and then wander into Union Station, with the sign that says “Travel by Train,” and the big old wooden benches and the high arched windows. Train stations always give me the urge to travel, and trains are a great way to really see what your passing through on the journey. There are trains that go west over the divide through Glenwood Springs and all the way to San Francisco--if a person were ever to take a great notion to quietly escape her life and journey incognito for a few days, or weeks, or months.

Are Newspapers Necessary?

2010-06-27T18:19:00.014-06:00

Doonesbury has had a string of great strips lately on that antiquity, the newspaper. To many younger people who are constantly online, newspapers seem old fashioned and ridiculously cumbersome. I’ve been trying to clarify in my own mind why it’s just the opposite for me, why I’ve been fervently grateful for newspapers most of my life.

On Sunday mornings we get The New York Times, which certainly gives a broader and better perspective for the week than the Sunday Boulder Daily Camera. Usually, as is the case today, we fold up beloved sections like “Week in Review” and “The New York Times Book Review” and stuff them in our backpacks prior to leaving the house. Wherever we end up for coffee after our drive or walk, we have them handy and they can be guaranteed to offer up new ideas and happenings--information we do not know we don’t know.

Today we sit outside Starbucks on Pearl Street in the perfect June air and M points out an article about the appalling idea of implanting e-books into one’s retina. Presumably newspapers would also be available this way. For someone like me who is still leery of considering laser surgery to correct my astigmatism, this seems beyond the pale.

Newspapers are more versatile than computers or e-books. You can read a newspaper anywhere and anytime you like, unencumbered by details like unavailability of free wireless Internet, lack of convenient power outlets, failing batteries or electrical equipment. If you’re on a beach you can get smears of sunscreen sprinkled with sand and seagull droppings on your newspaper and really be none the worse for wear. After you’ve finished reading the paper you can cut clippings from it to send to children in faraway cities or to be magnetically posted on the refrigerator door.

Long ago on humid summer nights in Indiana, those with the knowhow could shape and twist newspapers into loosely formed balloons and light them on the bottom edges. The fire balloons would then gently lift and soar aloft, rising with the heat upward and upward into the dark night sky to be transformed into sparkling gold and black lace against the stars, with only the fireflies the wiser.

If all else fails and you have no parakeets whose cages need lining or puppies who need emergency haven, you can recycle newspapers and they will live to see another day.

You can truly focus when reading a newspaper if you like, and not be lured to other links and obligations like checking your e-mail again or peeking to see if anybody likes you on Facebook.

I will not go so far as to say newspapers are essential to my sense of wellbeing but with some good coffee in the morning, they do contribute positively. Is this, then, an irreconcilable generation gap as the youth reads their news on the laptop screen each morning? To my broad blog readership, especially those under 25, I pose this question: “Are newspapers necessary?

Paper Bird

2010-06-20T19:49:00.001-06:00

In my continuing effort to get a life outside work, we ventured down to Pearl Street for this summer’s first Bands on the Bricks event, featuring a homegrown Boulder band called Paper Bird. Paper Bird is an intriguing 7-member musical mixture with three female vocalists doing strong, tight harmonies, a banjo, a bass, a guitar – all spiced up with the occasional Dylanesque harmonica riff and a jazzy trombone. Once in awhile one of the women whips out a trumpet and blows a few bars to punctuate a song. Almost all the tunes they do are original and despite the fact that the sound mix wasn’t quite right and the vocals didn’t come through optimally, I became an instant fan, going so far as to buy both a t-shirt and their first CD, “Anything Nameless and Joybreaking.” They have a new CD coming out in July called “When the River Took Flight” that I’ll probably try out as well.

I’ve been listening to the CD in my car all week – a vintage sound and interesting lyrics (which you know I am a sucker for from my previous blogs). Example:

"If i sewed together all my illusions of youth i could make a coat that would keep me warm in December. if we laid all of our desires side by side we'd be walking on broken glass for miles.

chorus: if i ask enough questions with no hope for reply would i understand the structure of love? i'd like to understand the structure of love."

Esme Patterson, Paper Bird

It’s a satisfying combination of not-easily-categorized bluegrass, jazz, blues, folk—they were a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t heard them before, give them a whirl.

Rainy BoulderWalk

2010-06-13T15:44:00.000-06:00

Before our walk we gaze out at the backyard, where the cold rain continues and the grass appears to have grown a full inch overnight. As sometimes happens between couples who have been together for a long time, M and I simultaneously remember a Ray Bradbury story about a planet where it has been raining for the last seven years and the children who have never seen the sun: “All Summer in a Day.”

Colorado natives are not accustomed to multiple days of steady rain, and that’s what we’ve had. Sunday morning we decide to break out the ponchos and risk our lives to stroll along the Boulder Creek bike patch in the epicenter of the flood plain. We park our car on one of the upper levels in the nearby parking garage “just in case,” and ponder whether we would hear the rush of the hundred-year-flood in enough time to climb to safety above the creek path.

Along the wider than usual creek, the water rushes by. Two kayakers carry their gear past us on the way up to their usual launching point. “You’re really going to try it today?” M asks in amazement, and they chuckle nervously. The water is high, but not as high as we’ve sometimes seen it. The underpasses are partially dry and still walkable. The rain lightens after awhile, then pounds down heavily, then lets up again, a pattern that repeats again and again. The clouds throw a heavy cloak over the Flatirons and the rare deep green of the foothills. At Eben Fine Park a group of gung ho runners soldiers ahead with their sprints and stretches and then heads up the creek trail, their coach running effortlessly alongside them uttering words of encouragement.

Chief Niwot sits, stoic as always under the downpour, and the birds seem to thrive; the excess water does flush the worms out of their hidey holes. It is cold for June, around forty degrees. Last night the steam rose up from our outdoor hot tub and the rain drops made circular patterns on the surface of the water encouraging meditation on the present moment.

Yes, it’s a cold rain for June—but we remember the drought days and watering our thirsty flowers with gray water from the bathtub, and are grateful for life and rainfall, knowing as we do the strong connection between the two.

Inverness at South Padre Island

2010-06-03T19:46:00.001-06:00

“If there is anything you need and don’t see, please let us know…and we will show you how to do without it.” - Sign on the bathroom wall in the Inverness condo at South Padre Island

And after a few days at Inverness I see that I have everything I need. Maybe it was the constant sound of the surf, or the sleepy heat of the beach between wind bursts, or the 11th floor balcony looking out toward the infinite ocean horizon, or the large sign under the big-screen TV that said “RELAX.” In any event I feel like I can smile easily again and have had a good rest.

I found time to do things like bend myself backward in repeated attempts to capture pictures of seagulls and pelicans in flight from my bird’s eye perch on the 11th floor. And to just sit by the ocean and listen to the waves and read and read and read and read for hours on end. And to let the heat reflected off the sand soak into me and then to finally swim in the salty cool waters, dodging the clumps of seaweed. And repeat. And also to be rested enough to be willing to get up in the middle of the night to observe the thunderstorm and light show out at sea. And again in the morning to arise and gaze down the shimmering path of light leading to the sunrise over the water.

We call it a “vacation” in the U.S. which sounds so empty and clinical. I prefer the European word for it. Believe me, they know how to take time off, and they call it “going on holiday.”

What Not to Say

2010-05-28T19:45:00.000-06:00

“Silence is the true friend that never betrays.” - Confucius

Silence is underrated. I’m a very verbal person so I almost always have something to say. I have been focusing more lately on examining things I want to say and following Sai Baba’s mindful recommendation:

"Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence?"

I believe this is a great approach to apply especially in cases where you are struggling to let go—of a grown child who is making his or her own way, of an employee who is smart enough to know what she’s doing and rarely needs your guidance, or of a loved one who is standing strong after a rough period.

In each case, saying less rather than more contributes to their growing strength and self-confidence. Unsolicited advice is an example of “helping” that doesn’t really help, and is one of my worst vices. Advice on every topic comes spewing out of me like a Gulf Bay gusher, and once it starts up it’s hard to cap. I need the Kevin Costner solution—some kind of machine that chugs away efficiently separating the messy, oily crap from the clear ocean water of support and love.

When I’m in doubt, I have found that staying silent listening carefully is often the best course; it’s amazing how much I learn that I didn’t understand before. Try it. Oops – that may have been unsolicited advice. Oh well.

Unfettered and Alive

2010-05-22T19:01:00.000-06:00

On the way to work Friday morning Joni’s “I Was a Free Man in Paris” plays on the radio. I turn up the volume and sit in my car in the parking lot to listen all the way to the end.

“The way I see it,” he said

“You just can’t win it….

Everybody’s in it for their own gain

You can’t please ‘em all

There’s always somebody calling you down.”

The song is said to be about Joni’s agent/promoter David Geffen, creator of Asylum Records in 1970 (I know—that’s a long time ago). It’s about the high cost of selling your soul to the corporation and the longing for freedom from it all.

So--if you work for a corporation, or more generally for money in any sizeable amount, have you automatically sold out? When I hear that phrase “free man in Paris,” I feel a great longing for the freedom of not having to answer to anybody else for things I don’t necessarily believe in—but on the other hand I do try every day to stay true to my principles, even as I also work toward the goals of the corporation as I understand them and when they make sense to me. I focus on treating others with kindness and fairness, and on teamwork.

“I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for…”

Sometimes I find myself skating uncomfortably close to some sort of edge; I ask myself again and again whether what I’m doing is right and struggle to stay the course accordingly.

“I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive.
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one’s future to decide.
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.”

The ethical tests I usually use at work and elsewhere are: 1) could I explain it to my Mom and 2) would I be able to read about it in the newspaper and be proud of the calls I made. There’s always the option to walk away—you are always the free man in Paris in this sense. There are potentially high costs of course, but you always have to know walking away is an option. Therefore, there is no excuse for violating your core principles, right?

I Stress, Eustress, We All Stress

2010-05-16T14:31:00.000-06:00

I learned a new word from a friend’s blog recently: Eustress. It means “good stress,” as opposed to the opposite kind, distress. It’s the kind of stress that’s supposed to give you a positive feeling of fulfillment. Examples might be getting a promotion at your job, childbirth, riding a roller coaster. The challenge is that your body reacts pretty much the same to either eustress or distress; the whole key then is to learn how to adapt to change whether positive or negative.

My “How I Stay Sane” blogs are all about some of the various approaches I’ve discovered for adapting to change and being awake enough to find equilibrium through these changes. It ain’t easy, I know that much. Despite all my efforts it’s still a challenge when I face the inevitable unknowns implied by major life change.

One of the most immediately helpful techniques I’ve found is to focus on the here and now, and finding little ways I can make the world a better place right this second as I take the next small step in my life. If I’m headed somewhere on business and I’m worried about how well I might fare on this trip, it helps me to break the planning for the journey and the journey itself down into very small steps in which I strive to be completely present and do the very best I can each step of the way.

I check my bag and tip the guy a little extra; when he wishes me a good day I look him in the eye, smile, and return the favor. I smile again as I help the young mother who has just dropped the diaper bag near the top of the escalator and is looking lost and flustered; I steer her to the nearby elevator that will be much easier for her and her toddler. I speak calmly to the tiny elderly lady in the seat next to mine whose eyes are large and whose hands are shaking a little as she tells me this is her very first flight. As the plan takes off, I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and remember a peaceful walk through the forest I took awhile back.

These are all little choices that make the world a tiny bit better for me and often for those around me. They take me outside my inner world of anxiety and what-ifs and disaster scenarios and help me remember the Desiderata mantra: No doubt things are unfolding as they should. They work for both types of stress: the distress of a flight back home to help a very sick family member, and perhaps the eustress a person might feel about a flight to San Francisco to start an exciting two-month internship in a genetics lab.

What are your methods for dealing with *stress?

BinBots, or "Are You Acquired? Have You Ever Been Acquired? I Have."

2010-05-15T17:12:00.000-06:00

A colleague of mine used to utter a phrase I always heard as “BinBot” when talking about an employee of a company that’s “been bought” – i.e. acquired by another company. Many years have passed since the last time I was acquired.

But last week my company and another much larger company announced what they say is a marriage made in heaven. Their CEO actually told us in a meeting that we were “beautiful” and they “don’t want to change a thing about” us – that we will remain an independent entity, etc. etc.

This much adoration is enough to make a girl bat her eyes and blush furiously, but I think I’ll not let it go to my head.

We know damn well the only constant is change. But we are assured that nothing will change, we are doing great already, we should proceed with our existing plans and priorities and not be distracted by the fact that a company ten times larger than us has plans to buy us, or the other fact that now there appears to be a potential bidding war over our lovely selves.

A girl has the urge to say, “Why don’t you and him fight?” But a fight would be unpleasant and somebody might get hurt—most likely the tiniest bystanders (that would be us). I hope the deal goes through smoothly and quickly—this would be much preferred over a prolonged engagement, or a bloody brawl at the wedding, or worse still a shotgun wedding with one of the other scarier suitors—who have belatedly realized how gorgeous and irresistible we are and how much they do not want someone else to have us.

It’s kind of nice to be desired again—it seems like it’s been forever.

Clouds, Part II

2010-05-15T16:29:00.001-06:00

“I am not going to be in a f*#&%ing cloud, ever,” he proclaims after I try to explain the concept that one could avoid the annoying presence of Windows and all the virus-firewall-security downloads and warning messages by going to a very simple operating system called Google Chrome OS, coming soon to a computer near you.

From what I read, Chrome OS’s only job is to get you online, where all the apps you need, along with all your personal files, are stored and accessible to you, anytime anywhere. Some say that an “operating system = browser” approach is unnecessarily limiting and even claustrophobic; however, this level of simplicity would seem to be potentially attractive to my neo-Luddite soul mate who gets so frustrated when unexplained and mysterious events occur during his computer usage. On the other hand, the absolute need for an Internet connection to do anything useful could be limiting as well.

He says he doesn’t trust the Internet, but Too Late—he does most of his banking on it. He was finally able to buy the right size jeans (31 in seam, not easily found in brick and mortal establishments) by ordering them online last week. He recently discovered how cool it is to send an e-mail to a family member and get an almost instantaneous reply.

Could we stomach yet another high tech device on top of the two cell phones, conventional PC and Netbook we already have? I am not thrilled with the iPad, am thinking about getting a Kindle, but the Chrome OS intrigues me also and makes me think I’ll wait and see what a Chrome-based netbook might be like, keeping all my data and apps in the Google Cloud. Would it be safe long term? I did take one step in that direction a few weeks ago. In my continuing search for a carefree and automatic way to backup data, I signed up for Carbonite, which quietly backs up all your files to the Cloud over a couple of days, and then continues to quietly back up any new files or changes immediately as they happen. So you always have an up-to-date backup on-line. It works like a charm--you can easily see the files anytime, and download them back onto your PC whenever needed. Nevertheless, for the really important stuff I also back it up onto more conventional media periodically just in case. I don’t have my head completely in the clouds just yet.

The Other Mother

2010-05-09T16:53:00.000-06:00

He was 34 years old when he told her, to her great delight, that he was finally ready to have children. He presented a clear and written plan: there were to be two children; not one who would be lonely, not three who would be overwhelming. She would earn the money (since she’d shown a knack for it) and he would quit his job and stay home with the children, because this was an important job best not delegated. And in his “spare time,” he would write.

He learned a lot, fast. Childbirths were not in clearly defined stages as outlined by the Lamaze coach but instead were messy, hair raising and unpredictable affairs with nevertheless satisfactory conclusions. Fear that he would be too disgusted to change diapers evaporated as he became accustomed to this and other quotidian activities. He was astounded at the titanium strength of the bond that formed almost immediately once each child was born—a bond both painful and joyous at once.

His sleep problems worsened during the era of 2-hour feedings and the spare time for writing never seemed to arise—but there were other rewards and he persevered.

He soon developed a routine that worked, and stuck with it. One thing he remembers is how much he loved to read to the kids and how much they loved it too. He worked hard to make the house a home, plan and shop for the weekly menus, cook the meals, keep the kids and their clothes reasonably clean.

When she came home from long days at work he sometimes left her to bathe the children and read the bedtime stories, while he disappeared for hours at a stretch seeking the alone time he had sacrificed. The times to write became few and far between.

At one point he taught the kids to call him “Captain,” since he couldn’t bear to hear “Dad!” even once more. He helped find a good pre-school, helped later with homework, taught both kids how to cook, volunteered for field trips and in the computer lab at the elementary school, danced to Jimi Hendrix with tiny dancers in the kitchen, allowed games to be played with pots and pans, and supported kitchen chemistry experiments. He went to baseball, softball and basketball games. He set up piano lessons and insisted on practice sessions. He had the kids track their allowance money and make budgets to give them a better appreciation for the value of money. He insisted that chores be done each week and tracked progress in charts on the refrigerator door.

He encouraged both kids to work hard in school, to think and ask questions, to notice nature and take a strong interest in the sciences. He took the kids on boogie boards out to the reef at Panama City Beach and dove for sand dollars. And he made sure they had sunscreen on beforehand. He played catch, threw the Frisbee, taught them how to ride their bikes. He watch the movie “Mr. Mom” with more critical analysis than amusement: “What bozo doesn’t know how to run a vacuum cleaner?”

He provided support and a listening ear when the working mom had a bad day at the salt mines. The “role reversal” was a matter of mild interest to friends and of concern mixed with amazement to grandfathers, but was never really well understood outside the immediate family.

He never really took adequate credit for all he contributed to make two beautiful, intelligent, good-hearted children who I am grateful for every single day.

This is a tribute to the “other mother.” Happy Mother’s Day!

A Heroine’s Journey

2010-05-02T17:29:00.000-06:00

I got an e-mail from a career coach awhile ago about the idea of treating your working life as a “Hero’s Journey” – a way to inject new purpose, life and spirit into work. She references Joseph Campbell’s work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Although the monomyth is viewed by some to be dismissive of women (since very few of the thousand faces end up being female), the concepts of the hero’s journey have always intrigued me; I find that the fiction I love best usually follows the hero pattern as described by Campbell here:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

The summary of the steps in Campbell’s journey that I like best is Phil Cosineau’s, from his book The Hero’s Journey:

1. The Call to Adventure

2. The Road of Trials

3. The Vision Quest

4. The Meeting with the Goddess

5. The Boon

6. The Magic Flight

7. The Return Threshold

8. The Master of Two Worlds

Some great examples from fiction and film that follow the pattern and that are particularly well-loved by me include:

• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. And, also his later book, Ender’s Shadow.

• The Eye of the World, the first book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

• Wizard’s First Rule. The first book in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

• The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum - but I think mainly of the very famous 1939’s film starring Judy Garland. Aha – a female hero.

• George Lucas’s space opera series Star Wars

• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

When I am enjoying a movie or book like the one above, there’s always that moment where the challenge has been laid down and the journey has really begun when I get a surge of excitement and anticipation about what lies ahead. I would love to be able to write fiction that does this.

Is there way to get that feeling for real – to have a hero’s journey as one travels through life? At first it seems utterly unrealistic. But why? Is it that we have no opportunities for decisive victories or that we fail to recognize those opportunities or even the victories themselves when they actually occur? Also, some might say that each meditation is a potential hero’s journey; I know for me even five minutes of time successfully clearing my monkey mind of all the obsessive thoughts and distractions and finding that serene peaceful place could be considered a decisive victory of sorts.

The “boon to mankind” part is even harder, and this is an area I’m clearly lacking in my life -- I keep seeking good ways to spend more time contributing meaningfully to community well-being.

What's your favorite Hero's Journey - from life or literature?

Are Optimistic People Just Plain Stupid?

2010-05-01T14:13:00.001-06:00

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about a difficult challenge at work and the next thing I was going to try to meet this challenge. And she made it abundantly clear that she believed I was hopelessly naïve to think I could have any power to influence the outcome, since this is just The Way Things Are.

I myself have moments of cynicism, believe it or not. My boss told me awhile ago that I “tend to assume the worst,” not the greatest opinion for your boss to have of you. But despite his opinion, for the most part I believe I am optimistic about having a shot at influencing the outcome in many situations, and that it's worth my effort to try. I reason that if I give up, assume it’s hopeless, and don’t even try, the outcome will be pretty predictable and I’ll regret not having tried harder. So I continue to continue.

Cases exist where this is insane, of course. There are cases where I’m expecting others to change their basic DNA, for example. The only thing in the end that I have control over is my own actions and reactions. I can make an effort to influence others and I may or may not succeed. But if I trudge forward over the same ground again and again without success, at some point it morphs from perseverance to stupidity. Deciding when that point has arrived is a matter of perception, judgment, and wisdom.

God, grant me

The serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

And of course, the wisdom to know the difference can be the hardest part. Things I cannot change:

• Everybody dies

• Everybody makes their own choices and each choice has consequences

• “All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” The Boxer, Paul Simon

Things I can change:

• How I live my life before I die

• How loving I am to other people before they die

• How I react to events that unfold. “There’s something lost and something gained in living every day.” Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell

Thank God for Books

2010-04-25T15:48:00.000-06:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who read voraciously, necessarily, constantly—and those who do not. I am one of the former. Books are a huge comfort to me, a light in my life, an inspiration, and a reliable way to see the world in fresh perspective. When I am low, I can often climb back out of the sinkhole by picking up a good book.

I observed the recent gadget frenzy over the release of the iPad with curiosity. The idea of reading books via electronic medium is not new, but the iPad is said to reach a new level of elegance and ease-of-use, and to make the act of reading a book a new and better experience than the old-fashioned way with the pages that must be turned by hand, the well-worn covers from rough backpack rides, the used book experience of occasional encounters with strangers’ opinions scribbled in margins usually with no added value, the teetering piles of books on the nightstand and on the floor next to the nightstand, the Tom and Jerry battle between you and your purge-happy spouse who (although also a voracious reader) dislikes clutter and periodically spirits off boxes of what he considers to be “junk fiction.”

After the initial hubbub subsided last week I ventured into the Apple store to see the iPad. I am not an Apple user normally so it took me a little while to figure out the user interface (you press the on button to go back to the main desktop). The one I looked at did not have a book on it to “page” through, which was my primary interest. I look at computer screens all day long—do I want to associate this latest gadget with the pleasure of reading? When I read a book, I like to focus on it, and it alone. (I know not everybody reads this way but I once almost missed a flight out of Chicago to Paris because I was so engrossed in the book I was reading.) Do I want my book-reading experience to include the constant option for yet another distraction--the option to be instantly lured away to this or that website whenever I have the urge? My God, have I become a neo-Luddite? Nevertheless, at this point, my thinking is: “Hell no, I won’t go.” But one day, I may well feel differently.

One of my favorite writers, Anna Quindlen, had a great column in Newsweek recently called “Turning the Page,” which was in part about the question of whether iPads and other devices like it foretell the end of books as we know them. She reminds us that some said radio would end when television arrived on the scene, but NPR begs to differ. Her conclusion rings true to me:

“Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that’s why it survives. There are still millions of people who like the paper version, at least for now. And if that changes, well, what is a book really? Is it its body, or its soul? Would Dickens have recognized a paperback of “A Christmas Carol,” or, for that matter, a Braille version? Even on a cell phone screen, Tiny Tim can God-bless us, every one.”

Earth Day 1970

2010-04-25T15:04:00.000-06:00

White tents and booths with information on compost piles and solar panels have sprung up in Boulder’s Civic Park for Earthfest on this partly sunny spring day. I remember the very first Earth Day, in 1970. I was a member (I might actually have been president, I can’t recall for sure) of the Edgewood High School Ecology Club. One of our main projects was to build a large brightly painted wooden box with a hinged lid which we placed just outside the entrance to the grocery store in Ellettsville, Indiana. Here, ecology-minded citizens could deposit their newspapers and cardboard for recycling (back then, this was pretty much the full range of our ability to recycle materials, at least in Ellettsville). Periodically when the box was overflowing and the grocery store manager’s annoyance had reached its peak, we would borrow a truck, load all the newspapers into the back, and drive to the west side of Bloomington where there was a place we could unload the papers for recycling.

Today in Boulder we have three separate containers right outside our house, one for paper, cardboard, glass and plastic, one for compost material (vegetables, egg shells, coffee grounds) and one for the irredeemably unrecyclable remaining crap, which we try through good buying habits to keep to a minimum. The contents of each of these are conveniently hauled off on a regular basis as part of our trash service. We have a little white ceramic compost collector by the sink lined with a pale green compostable bag and I always feel a tiny sense of accomplishment when I carry one of these full bags of vegetable discard out to the larger compost container. We are lightweights, however, as there are other people right in our neighborhood with their own compost piles and large vegetable gardens on which they spread the compost they generate. Even so, we continue to make small strides to better honor Mother Earth and hope that the larger initiatives for renewable energy will take hold.

Another thing my Ecology Club did back in 1970 was create and perform a short save-the-earth skit at various schools in the area, and at the end of the skit as the finale we paraded into the audience singing a song, me leading the way with my trusty guitar. Our teacher and sponsor was Mrs. Wilt, a tiny bespectacled woman with long black hair whose quietly radical teaching style somehow slipped under the radar of our rabidly conservative school administration back then. She selected and helped us learn a song for our traveling ecology road show; peculiarly enough in retrospect, the song was “Suicide is Painless,” the theme from Mash:

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The things that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I could take or leave it if I please…

So, “WTF?” you might well ask, children (because only my children could possibly still be reading this, and I can’t be certain of that). I think the song was meant in this context to evoke the same concept as the image of the unaware frog in the bath being slowly brought to a boil. And thus ends another strange tale of long ago and far away in Ellettsville, Indiana, US of A.

A Cup of Tea

2010-04-03T15:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I observed someone I work closely with demonstrate the same kind of egoless approach to work that I strongly support. One technical group was suggesting that another group’s plan and architecture were very risky and questionable. Since the level of dependency on this component was high for the project, there were concerns. The leader of the questioning group stepped in to say, essentially, that both groups should mind their own business and trust that the other group was doing the right thing. But the leader of the group under question responded that we were all fortunate to have access to many bright minds in our company, and that his group would welcome whatever further review and refinement of their plans might be needed.

Instead of taking offense, or going on the attack, he responded with an open mind, ready to hear what he and his group might not already know.

This is the kind of approach I believe in and try to practice myself, that is, setting aside ego to make progress. Some might view it as passivity and weakness—but to me it represents confidence and strength, and my admiration for the individual who took this approach rose considerably. I’ve found that this is ultimately the better course and one of the ways of maintaining high integrity and a clear sense of my true north. Seeing it in another person at work made me feel downright happy and almost as though I fit in, although not quite.

At home and at work I strive with varying degrees of success to really listen to people. I find that I am least productive when I am only half listening to what somebody is saying, assuming I already know what they’re explaining. This happens more often when I’m multi-tasking, a nefariously unproductive habit that rarely ends well.

An oft-told Zen story comes to mind, about the university professor who goes to see the Zen master to learn the meaning of life. After a lengthy and not necessarily productive exchange, the master pauses to pour a cup of tea, and continues pouring as the tea overflows the cup. Finally his visitor says, “Stop. Stop. It is already full!” And the Zen master says, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Clowns

2010-03-28T16:39:00.000-06:00

If we couldn't laugh, we'd all go insane." - Jimmy Buffett

I still read a newspaper each morning (one that is printed on actual paper). This morning the Boulder Daily Camera had an article about how many states are in such dire straits financially that they’re looking at creative new ways to collect revenue, like collecting taxes on services rather than just merchandise. They’re considering taxes on, among other things, helicopter rides, bowling, funerals and accounting services. And of course they are also considering (I am not making this up), taxes on clowns. I know what you’re thinking. Are mimes next?

I’m sure everyone is well aware of the increasing prominence of clowns in our lives, with impacts as yet unmeasured. Clowns are showing up more and more often at everything from children’s birthday parties to circuses, from horror films to bachelorette parties, from the House to the Senate.

You could tax them extra for the red noses (especially the ones in the Senate). You could tax the people who hire the clowns also (oh, wait, that would be we the taxpayers).

The more I think about it, laughter being at a premium, it seems excessive to tax clowns. Please, God – anything but the clowns. As Emily Litella used to say, “never mind.”

Up in the Air

2010-03-22T13:22:00.000-06:00

Since none of my family members have the remotest interest in seeing a film about people getting laid off or business travel, it was ironic that I finally was able to see the film “Up in the Air” in my hotel room while on the road last week. George Clooney plays the part of Ryan Bingham, whose job takes him on the road 340 days each year meeting with employees to tell them their jobs have ended, relieving their spineless managers from the task. Ryan loves his job, has traveling down to a fine science (there’s an amusing series of scenes demonstrating all his tricks for getting through an airport efficiently), and strives toward his goal of earning 10 million miles on his airline loyalty account. He is a pro, in that he possesses a rare talent: the ability to look a person in the eye and with fairly consistent (although regrettably not 100% consistent) success convince that person that losing their means of support and sustenance is after all not a great misfortune and catastrophe but in fact represents a brand new day filled with fresh opportunity and hope.

The title “Up in the Air” describes not only where the main character spends most of this time, but also where he leaves people after his visits with them, as well as his own state as the movie progresses.

Ryan Bingham has spent most of his life thinking mainly about himself and how to get what he wants rather than connecting with people he really cares about. But as events unfold he shows some signs of change when he starts to actually fall for a kindred soul who is just as seasoned a business traveler as he is. He also decides at the last minute to attend a niece’s wedding where his one skill, see above, comes in handy to save the day.

But ultimately Bingham ends up facing the same kind of loss he’s been imposing on others – a huge change in his job that will result in no more travel as the company experiments with conducting exit interviews via teleconference. He can talk the talk – but can he walk the walk and find the pony hiding in the pile of manure?

See for yourself – let me know if you liked the movie.

I've Been Represented

2010-03-20T16:52:00.000-06:00

I heard an interesting segment on NPR’s “All Things Considered” yesterday about China’s growth and the accompanying rapid changes in the Chinese language. The latest is the emergence of a special meaning for the word “bei” (pronounced bay), which when used in front of a verb makes the tense passive. Bei and passive tense are used by the Chinese these days to convey the idea of the people’s misrepresentation by authorities, part of a widespread rebellion against China’s heavy-handed leadership and slowly dwindling authority – “bei” is used to communicate in the “passive subversive” tense.

Thus, in China if you’ve been beaten to death in prison and the authorities are claiming it was suicide, then you’ve been “suicided.” If they shut down your subversive blog, you’ve been “harmonized.” And, if they gather together a group of people you’ve never heard of before and have them vote on matters you care about, you’ve been “represented.”

Especially for the younger people in China there’s an increasing thirst for freedom of speech and other liberties many of us take for granted in the United States. On the other hand, I can say I’ve seen something like the same type of scenario play out right here in the U.S. on occasion. Suppose your corporation conducts an employee survey which reveals that a number of employees believe poor performers are not being dealt with properly. So, the company decides that the best way to handle this challenge is to impose a strict curve on the performance review ratings each year, wherein managers must assign the highest rating of 1 to no more than 15% of employees, the next highest rating of 2 to 50%, the “average” rating of 3 to 30%, and the “not meeting expectations” rating to 5%, regardless of the actual distribution of productivity or growth for said employees. If you happen to be a skillful manager who works with the lowest performing 5% to either help them improve or move them out of the company, well then you get to identify the new 5% of losers next year from your remaining employee pool.

And suppose further that when managers and employees protest that this is not very fair all in all, they are told that the company is merely responding to the employee survey and giving the employees what they themselves requested.

It looks like this is a case where employees have been “represented.”

Real management would involve something much more difficult – senior managers identifying and taking a look at each of the poor managers in the company who are not truly differentiating when they assess the performance of their employees and who are lazily giving too many of them high ratings, and dealing appropriately and individually with each of these managers. But instead a “one-size-fits-all” approach with an easy-to-measure curve is applied. And everybody--the good, the bad and the ugly--can equally claim that they have been “managed.”

How I Stay Sane, Part IV: Awake at Work

2010-03-15T22:12:00.000-06:00

Recently I’ve seen a lot of change at work.

“What else is new?” you might ask. “Haven’t you learned by now in your lengthy career that change is the only constant?” Well, these particular changes are larger than usual, resulting in my managing totally different people and product groups, and with a new angle focusing on quality assurance rather than product development.

The opportunity for learning and growth is huge. And I have much to learn, which can be very stressful.

To stay sane and strong, I’m using a number of tried and true coping mechanisms, one of which is to re-read a marvelous book by Michael Carroll, “Awake at Work: 35 Practical Buddhist Principles for Discovering Clarity and Balance in the Midst of Work’s Chaos.”

You don’t have to be a practicing Buddhist (I am not--I am more of a dabbler) for these principles to be useful. The main point is that clarity can be gained by slowing down just long enough to become present and mindful of what’s going on in the present moment—by being “who we are, where we are right now,” as Carroll puts it.

This mindfulness allows curiosity to replace fear and hope (both of which can cause painful and futile resistance to the reality of the present moment). A calm curiosity can bring unexpected insights about what’s really going on at work and how to better deal with it.

Here are three principles that particularly ring true for me in my reading of the book this time around--although there are many others I find just as helpful:

“Work is a mess.”

“Power is unnerving.”

“First to pacify, last to destroy.”

First, “work is a mess.” Accept that unpredictable surprises and messes are inevitable. Instead of panicing, blaming, or regretting, seize these opportunities to find creative solutions. As Sun Tzu said, victory is achieved not through the execution of previously laid out plans but by being relaxed, open and awake at that moment when surprise strikes—and then trusting your natural intelligence and instincts to know what to do in these crazy moments.

Secondly, “power is unnerving.” As I become accustomed to working with new figures of authority, many of whom seem absolutely certain at all times that they are correct, and at the same time become the new boss for other people who are meeting me for the first time, it is good to remember that authority, either ours or someone else’s, can cause great stress and discomfort. But these very sensations are a signal to be ever more mindful, alert, precise--and to focus on the moment, allowing it to be okay if we’re uncertain, heeding that very uncertainty as a signal to remain fully mindful. (Another principle related to this one is to “welcome the tyrant. ” A bully at work may be just the thing to wake you up and focus you on being right here, right now—allowing revelations you never would have had otherwise).

“First to pacify, last to destroy” is the third concept. Four methods for dealing with conflict are presented, and I find that these are so much a part of my natural instincts that is it great to see them written down and validated. The first is to begin by “pacifying”—being curious rather than resistant to the conflict and listening to discover the other person’s viewpoint. The second is “enriching”-- looking for ways to support another person rather than focusing more narrowly on our own objectives alone--looking for the win/win, the higher level common goal. The third approach Carroll calls “magnetizing”—focusing on compromise, gaining agreement and support, which can only be done by having first addressed the previous two concepts and understanding where the other person is coming from and how you can support that other person’s goals as part of the solution.

The final method for dealing with conflict is “destroying.” This is the hardest one for me—the ability to say no during conflict and walk away if necessary. The point here is that by exercising the previous methods first (pacifying, enriching, magnetizing), there’s a foundation for finding the strength to walk away—not in anger or hate, but as a last resort after all else has failed, knowing you did your best. And, as I’ve always believed, this measure should only be taken as the last resort. Not all people in business believe this; some hold the view that “tough” management can only be demonstrated with an easy willingness to destroy first. But I agree with the idea that being “first to pacify, last to destroy” is the true hallmark of wisdom and courage. Even so, you’ve got to be ready to confidently take this measure when the situation calls for it.

If you are seeking new ways to look at work, get this book--and let me know what you think.

Sisters of Mercy

2010-02-07T21:21:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago my husband, daughter and I spent a weekend sitting with my husband’s dying mother Jacki; she passed away just a few days after we returned home.

In a tiny Ohio apartment in the coldest days of January, her husband and many family members surrounded her hospital bed, offering what each of them could in love and comfort, seeking ways to say good-bye. The five stages of dying and loss played and replayed themselves not necessarily in neat order, with everything from anger to denial (“I am not dying!”) to acceptance and surrender. I struggled to find ways to respect her experience and her needs as she drifted further and further away hoping my own family would do the same for me one day.

The experience evoked memories in me of other losses including my last days with my father, sitting by his hospital bed feeling as helpless as hell, wishing with all my heart that I could somehow halt the relentless failure of each organ in turn, the inevitability of a life slipping away.

“There’s nothing you can do for me, kid,” he said at one point as we shared an orange together. I remembered him years before offering my grandfather sections of orange in the convalescent home during the last few months of grandfather’s life.

“I know there's nothing I can do—but I wish there were. I wish there were,” I replied.

And what do you do for the dying in those last hours or days when they can move so swiftly among flashes of fear, denial, regret, pain, acceptance, love, anger? Surrounding her bed, each of us did what we could. Her daughter and her friend stayed there and provided care day and night, her sons were there for her in every way they could be, each of the grandchildren did their best, her husband sat by her bed and asked if there was anything she needed.

I rubbed Jacki’s feet and legs a couple of times, for as long as she seemed to want me to, and was rewarded with the smallest of smiles as she gazed into my eyes. I told her we all loved her. I asked her questions about her distant past, trying to focus on the good memories. I helped her with a few sips of water, took my turn giving her meds mixed with yoghurt, distracted her from her discomfort while the hospice nurse bathed her by talking steadily of those sun-filled summer days at a Florida beach years ago when she took the grandkids for a few nights and gave my husband and me some delightful alone time that meant the world to us at the time. I thanked her once again for that kindness.

My sister-in-law and I sang Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” together for her as I played the guitar.

Oh the Sisters of Mercy they are not departed or gone.

They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on.

And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me their song.
I hope you run into them, you who’ve been traveling so long...

We all sang another song she remembered and liked that the family used to sing together: “Abilene.”

Everybody did everything they could to provide love and comfort at every opportunity and yet in the end of course nothing could halt the process, and a few days after we left, she was gone. I am, as I always am after a death in the family, with the feeling that somehow I could have done more, or done things differently--the familiar regret that always consumes me when a family member is gone forever and I’ll never hear that voice again.

Farewell, Jacki.

Here and Now at The Laughing Goat

2010-01-01T18:56:00.003-07:00

I spend part of the morning at my new favorite coffeehouse, The Laughing Goat. Near Pearl and 17th, the coffee is great and the ambience hits a sweet spot for me somehow. I usually sit at the front tables to soak up the sun’s warmth. The tabletops are a subtle rich mixture of orange-brown-green metallic color. A sign over the espresso bar says “Be Nice or Leave”, and further down the bar the light fixtures are covered with a warm orange-brown crinkly fabric that reminds me of Cecropia moth cocoons. Flyers advertise poetry night on Monday evenings, the Beat Bookstore a few doors down, live Jazz on Wednesday nights, and more. The walls are black-painted cinder block and artwork in orange and turquoise covers the walls. There is a Buddhist shrine in the front window with an orange shroud, incense burners, candles and prayer flags. Bluetech rhythms swirl from the sound system. On a high shelf, a white ceramic goat stands with a toothy grin and a green and gold saddle on its back, seasonally sporting a red Santa hat with white trim.

All in all, a good place to write my New Year’s resolutions. Aside from the usual self-exhortations to work out more on the treadmill (the only technique guaranteed to get my heart rate up to the desired level), eat less crap, write more, etc. etc., my main resolution has to do with…paying more attention to what I need and want in the present.

As I type this, Emily the Cat lies in front of the computer, batting at the cursor as it moves across the screen, along with, occasionally, the (hah!) mouse pointer. She has only recently discovered the wonders of the computer, after I changed the screensaver to a marquee message in light blue English Gothic lettering, the message being simply: Here and Now

Whenever the screensaver kicks in, “Here and Now” gyrates, whirls and tilts against a black screen in a manner far more enticing than a mere mouse could ever be. Emily bats wildly at this message, much as I do several times every day.

My main resolution is paying attention to what I need and want, Here and Now. This may seem like a no brainer to many people who are well-versed in knowing what they want here, now, there and everywhere, but for me—a person who throughout my life has focused on making everything run smoothly, helping everyone find what happiness might be possible for them, earning what approval I can and never earning enough to satisfy me—it is not a no-brainer.

Much can be learned from Emily the Cat, who consistently focuses on what she needs and wants here and now, whether it be her morning treat, to be let in, to be let out, to be petted on a warm lap. At the moment she would like to catch in her claws the odd little vertical line that scoots randomly across the screen, sometimes backing up for a moment as I fix a typo, then jerking forward again in teasing fashion. Come to think of it, she wants the cursor here and now, but she cannot have it—ever (though at least she knows what she wants). So this analogy has perhaps fallen to pieces right before my horrified eyes, and yet it amuses me, right now this second, so it hasn’t been a complete loss.

In hasty conclusion, I do believe there’s simple joy in Here and Now…let’s see if I can remember that this year.

Cardinals and Snow

2009-12-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

As I gazed at my Starbuck’s latte and pondered what I would say in the Christmas letter this year, I noticed a phrase printed on the side of the cup: “We invite you to LISTEN to your DESIRES and to RENEW your HOPE. To see the world not as it is, but as it COULD be. Go ahead. WISH. It’s what makes the holidays the HOLIDAYS.”

This contrasts with the Buddhist philosophy to neither hope nor fear, to let go of longings and be mindful of the joys available in the present moment. Can one let go properly (the lesson I keep working to learn over and over again) and yet retain hope and optimism? It seems that in order to renew hope one must begin by paying attention to the present moment and being mindful of all there is to be grateful for, here and now. And there is an optimism perhaps in Max Ehrmann’s phrase from Desiderata: “no doubt life is unfolding as it should.”

If a therapist were consulted, she might say that the first part of the Starbuck’s exhortation, the part about listening to one’s desires, is a very good plan, especially for those who have a tendency to try to make sure everybody else has the oxygen mask in place during the plane emergency and end up almost passing out from oxygen deprivation themselves.

A meditation on one’s own desires seems selfish and not in keeping with the holiday season—unless perhaps you have lost hope and you need to find a way back to the vision in the shining child’s eyes, seeing a Christmas morning where all wishes come true. For the Christmas book this year, my book club chose “A Redbird Christmas” by Fanny Flagg (also the author of “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café”). This is an unabashed fairy tale in which good people and a young child hope when it seems that all hope is lost, and end up with a Christmas miracle beyond their wildest imaginings involving redbirds and snow in the Deep South.

I have always associated red cardinals against a snowy background with Christmastime. I remember when I was around seven my mother wrapped a package especially for me and taped a red cardinal to it, carefully cut out from an old Christmas card. I don’t remember what was in the package, but I remember the love and thoughtfulness represented by the cardinal decoration. I also remember watching all the birds, including the cardinals, flock to feast on the sunflower seeds my Dad placed out on the upper deck bird feeder during the coldest, snowiest days of winter at our Sugar Lane house back in Southern Indiana. Those birds had reason to hope each year and also seized any opportunities in the present as well. So I will have my cake and eat it too, combining hope with mindfulness of the present. No doubt events are unfolding as they should.

So I wish that everybody who reads this has a great holiday. May all of you take a deep breath, be present, and renew your hope in the coming New Year.

Persimmon Pudding

2009-11-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl back in Indiana we always went to Grandmother’s old brick house on Dunn Street in Bloomington for Thanksgiving Dinner. The table would be set beautifully, with polished silver candlesticks and flatware, and a real lace tablecloth. We feasted on roast turkey, rich dark brown gravy, dressing, mashed and sweet potatoes, green beans simmered with bacon, and Grandmother’s special, tart, not-for-everybody cranberry and orange relish. For at least one dessert we would always have persimmon pudding with whipped cream on top. The persimmons were gathered from beneath persimmon trees on a nearby property my grandparents called “the farm.” I knew nothing of how such a dinner was orchestrated and set upon the table with exactly the right timing—Grandmother made it look very easy. I might be asked to bring some of the dishes to the table or fill the water glasses.

After Grandmother was gone, my mother made the Thanksgiving dinner each year at our house on Sugar Lane. I helped a lot more at this point so I could start to see how bringing such a feast to the dinner table was like an air traffic controller managing the simultaneous landing of several Boeing 777’s at the same airport—a calm demeanor and careful planning were both essential. My Mom also made it look easy but I began to understand what it took, and helped as much as possible with the relish plate containing the olives, celery and carrot sticks, and the traditional green beans simmered with bacon. But my father was always the one to make the persimmon pudding. He had planted persimmon trees many years before up in his vast garden, using seeds obtained from the farm—and each year he would harvest the persimmons that had fallen to the ground and were starting to soften, peel them and mash them into a rich orange pulp. With the precise care and intense breathing he applied to most important tasks he would mix and bake the persimmon pudding. I began to see that this was homage to his mother perhaps, although we never talked about it.

Later, I moved far away to Colorado and began to have Thanksgiving dinners of my own, learning to overcome the momentary panic when confronting a large turkey ready to be stuffed, calling my mother for advice where necessary.

Me on the phone: Mom—there are icicles inside the turkey!!
Mom: Yeah, there always are—just knock ‘em aside and stuff the old bird.

My father would painstakingly ship me enough frozen persimmon pulp for one batch of persimmon pudding, which due to his master skills at packaging and shipping would arrive in perfect time and condition for me to make the dessert for my Colorado Thanksgivings.

Dad is gone now, but persimmons can be found around this time of year in the produce department of most grocery stores. And so this holiday I give thanks for these memories and I pay homage to those who came before me as I slowly and lovingly mix the ingredients for today’s persimmon pudding we will have with our family feast to come in a few hours. M is in charge of most of the cooking, since he is the master cook in the family, but I do the pudding, and the traditional green beans simmered with bacon.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. May each person reading this make and hold dear all the beautiful memories of your own families.

Seasons

2009-11-07T15:57:00.002-07:00

M and I walk north from Pearl on 13th and make our way to the North Boulder Community Gardens where piles of mulch and bales of straw announce the approach of winter. I notice for the first time a red stone bench with two trees planted in the half-circle. Someone has placed a few wicker chairs with comfortable backs in the half-circle as well, and the little park looks south over the gardens toward the Flatirons. The chair back feels warm from the sun as I settle into it and gaze at the view; I’m grateful for a momentary sense of inner peace. The stone bench has five separate sections with inscriptions. It is a dedication to Thomas Clark, “A Man for All Seasons,” it says. In the center section is carved:

Thomas Clark - A Man for All Seasons
Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.”

I think that Thomas Clark contributed much to the Community Gardens and has been remembered in this way; I could do worse than to be remembered as a "woman for all seasons." Two sections on either side of this are carved with phrases representing each season, and so we find:

Spring – Joyful Renewal
Summer – Generous Abundance
Fall – Passionate Celebration
Winter – Peaceful Reflection

M and I agree that on this November day we would seem to be somewhere between celebration and reflection. It is a beautiful spot, and I tell him if I go first, he should meet me here in spirit, and I would do the same for him. He agrees to this with mild amusement, but later comments with typical irreverence that it is more likely his spirit would come back in a Terre Haute whorehouse. Despite getting a pretty good night’s sleep, he is tired today he tells me, but has been able to write again just a little this week.

Knowing as I do how much seasons can affect moods, it's comforting to have these positive phrases set in stone to describe Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter--almost like a meditational theme for each. I’ve always loved climates with clearly defined seasons; they can be relied upon to change just when you’re most ready for a new perspective.

Wild Things

2009-11-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

So I know you’re all asking yourselves, “Should I take my grownup to see ‘Where the Wild Things Are’?” I know you’re thinking, “My grownup enjoyed the book—we read it together often enough—but will the film version of the Maurice Sendak classic really be suitable for grownups?”

Spike Jonze’s back story on Max’s wildness got to me. Max is a lonely kid with a good but distracted mother, an older sister who breaks Max’s heart to be with her friends, and a father who’s left the family behind. This is a kid with overwhelming energy and emotions, but also a kid with great heart and a need for love and boundaries. After a particularly beastly scene with this mother, Max in his wolf suit sails off to a distant land where the wild things are and discovers several huge monsters, each with an oddly civilized name like Carroll, Douglas, Ira and Judy. Each wild thing plays out an emotion (feelings of anger, abandonment, alienation, shyness, regret, resentment, love, aggression) and they interact in all the ways a family does—meaning that they have great power to work together, help each other, and of course hurt and destroy each other as well.

Max convinces the wild things that he has special powers that make him uniquely suited to be their king, and they build a fantastic fort together. The wild things are all parts of Max himself, as well as Max’s family, in a kind of Jungian fantasy. Where the wild things are, a mother’s love can literally swallow a boy whole to protect him and only reluctantly regurgitate him up again when the danger is past and he complains that he’s having trouble breathing.

The wild rumpus is great fun, but over time things become complicated as they will when various personalities and needs interact. It is harder to be king than Max had first imagined (after all, every prior king has eventually been eaten up by the wild things), aggressive war games end up causing pain, and in the end he realizes what he really needs and sails back home to have a late supper with his mother, who’s very glad to see him.

Ultimately this is a movie about almost everything that matters, so I do recommend it for discerning grownups. Would I say it is too dark or scary for kids? Maurice Sendak explains how he would answer this question in typically wild fashion: "I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate ... If they can't handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it's not a question that can be answered."

All righty then.

Clouds

2009-10-31T19:52:00.000-06:00

One of the latest trends in high tech is “Cloud computing”—the idea that software, hardware and services are all available from a ubiquitous Internet "cloud" and companies or individuals can use them as they would utilities like electricity or water, paying only for what they need. All this without having to worry about buying the hardware and software, maintaining it, applying patches, worrying about whether it will continue to have the needed capacity, and so on. Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Computing (Amazon EC2) is one example.

Of course, all your data is also up there in the cloud somewhere, so security is a top priority, and there’s always the worry that somehow another cloud user or somebody outside the cloud will be able to get access to your valuable information--hackers don’t go away.

But this particular development looks like it might end up changing the whole landscape for software and hardware companies in the same way the Internet has done and as such it has lots of people in the industry pondering it with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Like any world-changing technology it has its pros and cons. Joni Mitchell had some wise words to say about clouds in a song she wrote back in 1969 and as I study the complexities of Cloud architectures, I hear her words:

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feathered canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way…

Oh yes, no worries, a thing of beauty, everything taken care of by the ice cream castle, I mean cloud provider, and you pay for only what you need and use. You can truly access your data anywhere, anytime, from any device.

But now they only block the sun.
They rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way…

It’s a game changer for companies, IT departments, end users – all trying to figure out how to manage their huge quantities of data and provide it anywhereanyhow – but keep it safe and secure at the same time. Like any game changer it can make you a little queasy--what will it all mean and how will it all unfold? Get out your crystal ball and think fast.

On this whirling planet change is constant, and there are always ups and downs. The new new thing can be a wave you ride or one that sucks you under.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.

As usual I'm faking it til I make it--swimming as fast as I can to understand both sides—NOW

Let It Be

2009-10-24T16:50:00.003-06:00

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me.
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. Paul McCartney

Last Sunday morning at 10:20 I found myself standing very alone on the corner of Pearl and 13th, filled with despair and grief about the illness of someone close to me. And I remembered seeing that there was a 10:30 am service at the First United Methodist Church a block away. I made it there with time to spare. The silver-haired gentleman greeting people at the door said, not unkindly, “Are you coming in?” “Yes, I am,” said I, and I took the program he handed me and walked on in with my backpack, jeans and tennis shoes, telling myself that God wouldn’t care, that God would be happy to see me in a Methodist church again for the first time in 42 years.

I found an empty pew near the front and sat in the middle right behind the familiar wooden rack holding the Methodist hymnal and a Bible. The program stated that all were welcome here regardless of gender, race, class, age, ability, religious affiliation or sexual orientation. One whole wall to the left emitted light through multicolored glass squares, and the church seemed very spacious and open.

Just as the service started a man of perhaps 33 slipped quietly into the same pew on my left, but at a respectful distance. He was also wearing jeans I noticed with mild relief, and wore a silver ring in his right ear. The service proceeded much as a remembered from long ago, the affirmations, the choir leading obscure hymns (I wanted to call out “Rock of Ages!” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee!” but I didn’t think they were taking requests), the prayers for those in the hospital or suffering a loss. The sermon was on the topic of seeing clearly, as blind men did after Jesus healed them, and truly recognizing that all we possess is really God’s, not ours (and despite these difficult times have you considered increasing your tithe lately).

As I murmured The Lord’s Prayer near the end along with the congregation, a tear rolled down my cheek and clung with some tenacity to my jaw until I finally brushed it away.

Toward the end of the service after a brief explanation that especially in this flu season it was okay not to shake hands, the “Pass the Peace” ritual occurred in which people turned to greet their neighbors. The man with the ring in his ear gazed at me with warm brown eyes, told me he was a regular attendee and had grown up in Boulder, that the ministers were great and the church was accepting of all who came and that he hoped I would find what I was seeking there.

When I was young my Dad and I went to the old limestone Methodist Church on First Street in Ellettsville some Sundays, the morning light streaming in through the old fashioned stained glass windows. For awhile I sang in the church choir. I never really considered myself a believer nor did he—but we sat together in the dark old pews sharing a hymnal, and I can still hear his deep voice singing the bass harmonies next to me.

At the end of the service everyone turned around in their seats and gazed up at a balcony where a bell choir played another hymn, the children from Sunday school standing by. And as I left the church that morning I felt a little closer to God and just a little more hopeful that no doubt events were unfolding as they should.

Letter to Falcon

2009-10-17T17:48:00.000-06:00

Dear Falcon (what a cool name),

For some reason I had the rare urge at work on Thursday morning to check the 9news.com website, and so I caught the breaking story about a 6-year-old boy on board an experimental aircraft drifting higher and higher into the air and away from his family’s Fort Collins home, with news and military helicopters in hot pursuit.

I kept an eye on the story throughout the next several hours, hoping desperately that you were okay and safe, and fearing the worst when I heard the news that the craft had landed, with no sign of you inside or nearby. Later in the day we all learned that you were alive and well and had been hiding in the garage attic of your house for the previous five hours, fearing your father’s anger about the escape of the untethered silver balloon.

Now we have what we call a media frenzy and you’re getting your “fifteen minutes of fame.” Some people are very angry with you and your family.

And Falcon, let me tell you right now that despite whatever crazy complications may end up being revealed about you and your family (and all families are complicated, by the way), my main response on hearing the truth continues to be great happiness and relief that you are safe and sound.

Questions are being raised—was this whole thing a hoax? Did your Mom and Dad talk you into it? I heard your father’s voice when he said, “he scared the heck out of us,” and I don’t think so. I think you were scared and you hid.

The whole thing made me remember a story from my own childhood when I was about your age. My Dad was well known in our small Indiana town for his eccentric hobbies, one of which was kite making. He handmade beautiful multi-colored box kites from tissue paper and balsa wood, and entered them in contests. Sometimes he also made gigantic kites, taller than he was. When he flew these very large kites they had quite a strong pull, and even a grown man had trouble hanging onto them sometimes. Dad would fly the kites for many days at a time and sometimes he even attached a small light before sending one up, and the kite would emit a mysterious, UFO-like glow after dark.

One windy day some neighborhood kids and I were curious, playing around the way kids do, testing the cord strength of the latest large kite which had been up in the air a record number of days. We were pulling on the line just a little and then letting it go to hear a certain very satisfactory twanging sound. But then, right before my horrified eyes, the nylon tether broke, and the kite fluttered loosely to the earth.

I knew my Dad would be very angry when he found out—so I climbed a ladder in the garage and hid up in the attic for a few hours. Unlike your own experience, no one really noticed my absence at all (back then kids were a lot less supervised than they are nowadays). Later, when my Dad came home and I got hungry for dinner I had to climb back down the ladder, get yelled at and face the music. And it’s hard to get yelled at by your Dad—anger and disappointment can be scary. Even when he was yelling, though, I pretty much knew my Dad loved me very much, and I’m hoping that’s true in your case too. Somehow, like the son of a guy from mythology called Icarus, you flew a little too close to the hot sun, the waxed wings your Dad made for you melted, and you fell to the earth—all from your dark little hiding place in the attic.

But this too shall pass, Falcon. Hang in there.

I Dwell In Possibility

2009-09-26T14:49:00.000-06:00

I stood in my backyard this morning and soaked up the Colorado sunshine, seeking a remedy for my continuing melancholy. Focusing on the present is a cure, as is Emily Dickinson’s suggestion: “Dwell in Possibility” per the black magnet with white script posted on the side of our refrigerator. Is the idea of dwelling in possibility in conflict with the idea of focusing on the present? Some say that the phrase reflects Emily’s reclusiveness and isolation; she lived her life isolated in her imagination, and had little contact with real people and situations. But I’ve always preferred to interpret it ultimately as an expression of the same kind of hopefulness and optimism expressed by Helen Keller: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

The world always offers new possibilities for love, life, learning – we have to be open-minded enough to seize them.

On our walk this morning M shared the shocking news that “carpe diem” does not mean “seize the day” at all in strict Latin translation, but instead means “pluck the day,” as in plucking a flower. Who knew? But now that I know the truth, it seems that “pluck,” as in “enjoy, make use of,” is perhaps better than “seize,” which has a rather militaristic, possessive, muscling-others-out-of-the-way ring to it.

Today I feel a weariness and lingering sense of lost purpose after a week-long business trip to the Emerald City in the Valley of Silicon looking for heart, brains, courage and a path homeward. My next magical trick is to focus on the present, and pluck the day.

Little Old Lady Ninja

2009-09-20T17:59:00.000-06:00

The blues come on little rat feet…apologies to Carl Sandburg. I have been pondering new ways to avoid the Sunday night blues after a particularly bad bout with the Sunday night blues last weekend.

The other night I was vegetating on the couch with my feet up reading junk fiction after a long day fighting dragons and tilting against windmills at work. I was wearing my black satin pajamas, and as I rose smoothly (hah!) to get myself a cup of tea my husband remarked that I looked like a “little old lady ninja” in those black pjs.

Okay, I’ll take that. My goal as I get older is to remain strong in body and spirit, at the ready to fight the demons and dragons found mainly in my own imaginings. Better this than a feeble old lady in a flannel nightgown.

The Sunday night blues is one of my demons. Every Monday morning at work when I ask people how their weekends went they say “Great—but too short.” (I am excepting of course those who have worked all weekend).

I’m pretty sure many people of all stripes fight the Sunday night blues. There are many blogs and articles with tips on how to beat them, from distracting oneself with non-stop activity, to planning some special treat for Monday morning, to meditation, to sunshine and exercise. As a matter of fact, it’s a gorgeous, sunny, September Sunday here in Boulder. Revel in it, I say! The ultimate trick I have is pure determination—to just be hell bent on wringing every last drop of joy out of each moment, Sunday or no. So - fight back against the Sunday blues like a little old lady ninja—and if it helps, imagine me: black-clad, feet planted, hands raised, staring down the demon blues in mock ferocity.

Synecdoche

2009-09-12T15:48:00.001-06:00

I saw Charlie Kaufman’s film “Synecdoche, New York” last night – a complex, image-rich movie about a playwright in a severe mid-life crisis, trying to find truth in his work and relationships. The term “synecdoche” is interesting: it is a type of metaphor in which either part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, or a general class of thing is used to refer to a part or a sub-class of the whole. One example of synecdoche is the usage of a single characteristic to distinguish a fictional character—e.g. calling a character “Bright Eyes” or “Brown Shoes” – usually done when the observer doesn’t know or care what the name of the other character is. Other examples might be “suit” for a businessman, or worse “empty suit” for an incompetent businessman, or “gray hair” for an older person. I remember once at work recently talking to a large financial customer about their mainframe applications and requirements and asking who in their company could tell me more about their current needs. “You mean the gray hairs?” responded the brash young New Yorker. Ah well.

Another example is Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

Anyhow, as I apply this to the film, the main character Caden Cotard (played by the gifted Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a playwright who has had some level of success in regional theater in Schenectady, NY (get it? Schenectady/Synecdoche). He is suffering from a mid-life crisis in which everything seems to be falling apart including his own body and his relationships with his wife and daughter. By the way, Cotard’s Syndrome is a mental illness in which a person has the delusion that he is already dead. Although his wife takes their daughter and leaves him, Caden ends up winning a monetary award that lets him work on his masterpiece play. As the film progresses there are more and more dream-like sequences—he hires actors for his new play, but then seems to be hiring actors to play the roles of important people in his real life. Eventually he finds an actor to play his own role, and with greater insight than he himself seems to have.

The love of Caden’s life is Hazel, who lives in a house that is always smoke-filled and burning. Even when we see her purchase the house she thinks aloud with the realtor about whether she will end up dying in the fire—strolling contemplatively from room to room as flames flicker through a window or in a corner.

Caden’s four-year-old daughter Olive, who he loves dearly, remains four in his mind long after his wife and her lesbian lover have spirited her off to Germany and she has grown up to be a tattooed erotic dancer whose flower tattoos are dying as she does and who has, inexplicably, a German accent. In the end, each character including Caden himself is defined by a particular characteristic (here’s one of many cases where synecdoches seem to come in) but at the same time we see how limiting and artificial those definitions are, and that in reality each character has layers and depths that we can only begin to understand. A few words in shorthand from the director to tell the actors who they are or how to be seem more and more inadequate.

I think Caden in his mid-life crisis feels trapped by these limitations he has applied to himself and others around him. In the end of the movie when he’s much older as is Hazel, there is a beautiful, golden scene in which they are briefly able to move beyond these limitations and their love shines through. But of course life is short and there is a price to pay for choosing to live in a smoke-filled house afire, or loving someone who does. They only grasp what is truly important and real at the last possible moment.

Eventually, Caden takes on the role of his ex-wife’s cleaning lady Ellen, and the actress who was playing this role becomes the director, guiding his actions through a small earpiece he’s been provided. The last instruction he gets is simply, “Die.”

Let me make it clear that these observations only touch the surface of what is going on in this very complex film – it is definitely worth seeing and will generate some good conversation.

Smoking

2009-09-05T22:00:00.000-06:00

“Mad Men,” a TV show about a male-dominated Madison Avenue advertising firm in the early 60’s, is true to the era with many of the characters perpetually smoking—in the office, in bed after sex, in restaurants. In modern day this pervasiveness of cigarettes is jarring. But back then it was totally acceptable to smoke pretty much anywhere: in the car, in elevators, in small conference rooms or offices at work, after dinner with your children, on airplanes, even in hospital waiting rooms.

As kids we used to suffer riding in the smoky family station wagon in winter with the windows cracked just a little to “let out the smoke.” Sparks would fly out the front side windows and into the back side windows and our eyes. My sisters both ended up in the hospital more than once with pneumonia, heart ailments and other complications that were surely exacerbated by secondhand smoke. My parents and practically every other adult we knew in the 50’s and 60’s didn’t know any better. They smoked all their lives. During World War II my Dad, in his early 20’s, smoked to help calm his nerves and garner some measure of comfort in a place where one of his jobs was defusing landmines. After dinner each evening my parents sat out back smoking and talking while the kids did the dishes, the orange glow of their cigarettes all you saw in the darkness on the back porch. It was so much a part of them that today with both of them gone now for many years, the smell of cigarette smoke, while onerous, also makes me remember and miss them.

But I also remember my mother often saying that smoking was “a nasty habit,” one she wished she had never started; she was talked into trying it by her best friend Nell when they were in their early teens, and it hooked her immediately. Right after her retirement Mom found out she had emphysema and quit smoking; the next 7 years before her death she suffered a great deal, struggling more and more for each breath she took, puffing medications from a machine to help clear her bronchial tubes, volunteering her time to educate others on how to quit smoking and why they should. She did not complain, and attributed all her suffering to the terrible mistake of taking that first puff.

My father never did give it up—the addiction was too strong—even though the doctor told him repeatedly it was killing him and that smoking around my mother, whom he loved dearly, was also killing her. He once told me after a failed attempt to quit that resulted in a serious depression that quitting was like losing his best friend.

In February 2001, as Dad sat outside in a wheelchair on the hospital loading dock while we waited for the ambulance to come and take him to the nursing home where he died a few days later, he had a single request: would I give him a smoke. Awkwardly (since I never in my life even touched a cigarette, my mother having taught me well), I pulled a Camel out of the pack, managed to light it, and handed it over so he could take a few puffs. His look of pure relief and gratitude made me feel like we were sharing a moment’s respite in some cold Belgian foxhole in the winter of ‘45, and perhaps in one part of his mind we were.

If All Else Fails, At Least I Can Serve As a Horrible Example

2009-08-30T14:34:00.007-06:00

My father worked at the RCA plant in Bloomington, Indiana for many years where they built television sets for a grateful nation. I am still not quite sure what my Dad did there, but it had something to do with parts inventory and quality control. When I was in my early teens he would sit at our dining room table poring over computer printouts listing part numbers, cross-checking them against other lists he had neatly hand-printed on separate sheets of paper. I would sometimes help him with this cross-checking task, and he taught me how to read out the part numbers in just the right way to make his part of the job easier. After a hard night’s work we would turn to Scrabble to take our minds off anxieties about the day to come.

Although he rarely showed it directly, he was frustrated by his work, and often felt that managers above him were not listening, or not intelligent enough to understand his ideas about how to proactively prevent one of the most catastrophic things that can happen on a moving electronics assembly line—unexpectedly running out of a part. Although computers were clearly used in this operation, it seems somehow that they weren’t used effectively, and parts shortages or shipments of poor quality unusable parts happened frequently enough to cause a good degree of heartburn. It was only later when over a couple of summers I actually worked the assembly lines to earn money for college that I got a fuller sense of the direct impact of parts outages on operations (as well as a clear object lesson in why a college education was essential if I didn't want to continue in a similar line of work). Imagine Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory when the line goes out of control and substitute circuit boards and silvery hot solder baths.

I think my Dad suffered from the same curse I suffer from at work today, likely an inherited trait—strong fear of inadequacy and failure. One of his coping techniques was to utter the following ironic mantra: “If all else fails, at least I can serve as a horrible example.” He actually spoke these words sardonically to his management at times--using the horrible example phrase when all other methods of selling his ideas had failed. In so doing he revealed himself as far more of a rebel than I ever had the guts to be. The searing need to bring high value to your work every day can overwhelm to the point where no accomplishment is ever good enough. Like any other overpowering need, it can be crippling. Demanding perfection from yourself can set you up for constant failure in your own mind.

But hell—at the end of the day if all else fails, at least I can serve as a horrible example.

Pretty Little Feet

2009-08-23T15:55:00.005-06:00

Each summer when we were young, my Mom’s mother would fly out from California for a few weeks to visit. We got to go to the airport (which had a very exciting ride called an “escalator”) to pick her up. To make room in the tiny Ellettsville house, my brother would move out of his room into the garage to sleep, the garage door rolled open to the summer air. I slept out there also to keep him company, and my mother made things cozy with an old oval rag rug, reading lamps, and late night snacks.

Granny, whose first name was the very old fashioned Hazel, would arrive with her small suitcase--a sturdy woman with silver-gray hair who without fail enjoyed a daily solitary morning walk through the neighborhood in her sensible size 9 shoes. She was a widow; my Grandpa had died when I was only two. Granny never raised her voice to us, and yet somehow even an expression of mild disappoint from her would bring us to despair, so we were always on our best behavior for her visits. If we behaved particularly well, we could expect to be treated to a Chinese restaurant dinner in Bloomington with fortune cookies and sherbert for dessert.

Once when I was sitting next to Granny on the couch with my bare feet propped up on a chair in front of me, she glanced down and said, “You have such pretty little feet,” a compliment that made me inexplicably happy. And despite the fact that I cannot claim any credit for the feet I was born with and the more prominent fact that my feet are less than extraordinary, I have never forgotten this positive comment. Forty-six years later as I look down at my enameled toes and lightly tanned feet each summer her words come back to me and give me a small measure of happiness—a great lesson in how much influence a single kindness can have on a child throughout his or her life.

Firefighter

2009-08-16T16:43:00.004-06:00

In the Indiana summer of 1963, I’m almost ten and my brother Paul is eight. The babysitter Gloria watches TV in the living room as usual, and in the backyard the neighborhood boys find creative new ways to kill the giant spotted gray slugs that emerge on the back porch after each summer rain. Everybody knows that pouring salt on them makes them melt like the Wicked Witch after Dorothy tosses water on her; but what about the Witch’s Scarecrow tactic—fire? The bigger boys have matches, and there’s plenty of lawnmower gasoline.

The next thing we know my brother is rolling around on the ground, one denim pant leg on fire, screaming. I have wished many times I knew all the tricks I know now about treating burns, but back then we had only Gloria, a frightened thirteen year old who won’t call our parents because she doesn’t want to piss them off, and who thinks maybe butter will help. My brother lies on the couch in agony, with giant blisters three and four inches long rising on his leg. Eventually, my parents arrive home and take him to the hospital.

My brother was a frequent flyer in the ER. He had more energy than other kids. He could never sit still in school, could never do what he was told, mercilessly teased my younger sisters with taunts, hands wiggling in their faces, and more. He had a lot of trouble sleeping. He liked to play with knives and fire. My father said he “only learned things the hard way.”
He was bipolar—and in 1963 nobody in our circles knew much about that, or about therapy or lithium. So there were many trips to the ER, and when he got older there were trips of another kind, as he sampled every drug he could get his hands on, perhaps unconsciously seeking some relief or control for his wild energy.

He never teased me. My fate instead was to be the responsible firstborn, trying and failing to keep the younger sisters safe from him, trying to keep him safe from himself, flushing the acid he got in high school down the toilet, talking him down, picking him up, helping him out, loving him nevertheless, appreciating the good things—his wit, his music. I fought the fires the best I could, and there was a lot I didn’t know then that I know now.

Suicide attempts, pharmacy scams to get prescription drugs, prison assault, drama, insanity followed over the years—fires galore. There came a day when I began to truly understand that some fires burn so fiercely that the best firefighter is powerless to contain them. A few months later, shortly after he turned fifty, my brother moved into a lonely little apartment he was provided when his name came up on the waiting list after various agencies finally acknowledged he was too sick to support himself. He adopted a stray cat. He had many visitors, but few friends. One Saturday night he sat down in a blue armchair he had found for himself that was a lot like the blue chair I used to have in my living room years ago—and he shot up enough methadone to stop his heart forever.

It was only then that his pain and my firefighting on his behalf ceased.

Four

2009-08-09T20:21:00.003-06:00

As I sit in the coffee shop a large, multi-generational and multi-ethnic family arrives and chaotically settles itself onto the outside patio. The family is mostly white but there is an Asian girl of about 10 with long black hair and thick glasses, and a beautiful Afro-American girl of about four with warm brown skin and bright eyes. She and her white sister about the same age hold hands as they find their seats; they are utterly adorable. I admire this family for giving these children a home and being open to diversity; they seem like a family worth knowing. All the children seem to get lots of hugs and attention.

The four year old is picked up by the older sister and held briefly, and I’m reminded of my sister Nell, seven years younger than I am. When she was that age, whenever she was asked any question she always responded by holding up four fingers and saying, “Four,” her age. So for quite awhile we all called her “Four.” She was the youngest of four children in the family, very cute with a pixie haircut and big brown eyes. She loved to ride piggy back and I would often carry her long distances on my back.

Four is a magical age. When Nell was four and I was eleven we were still living on Dewey Drive in Ellettsville and hadn’t yet moved to Sugar Lane. The three girls in the family shared a single bedroom, and there was only one bathroom in the little house.

In summer bands of kids freely roamed the little town with less to fear from strangers back then. We spent a large part of one summer digging deep holes under the gigantic sycamore in the back yard, and even dug recesses into their walls for little fireplaces, wisps of smoke rising from their separate earthen chimneys. Summer rains were bathwater warm. The water mixed with soil to form a rich brown soup that a child could convince herself was chocolate. Mud pies and thick concoctions of chocolate pudding and cake batter were poured from one container into another and baked in the sun.

The men in the neighborhood pooled their money and built a simple cement block swimming pool a few blocks away called the Turtleback Swim Club, and on many a hot summer evening my father could be persuaded to take us night swimming, the underwater pool lights shining mysteriously from the water’s depths. On cooler nights we would cling to the edge in the water near the lights for the small amount of heat they emitted. Back then, sometimes the chemicals weren’t right in the pool, but we swam in it anyway despite coffee colored water that turned our blonde hair a slightly green tinge. A four-year old could ride on her father’s shoulders and be tossed high into the air—could also pretend to be terrified at the bullet form of the father swimming swiftly underwater, grabbing her to toss her again high into the air or side with her in a splashing battle with the big boys.

Those summers, the creek nearby hosted minnows and crawdads which to their misfortune were sometimes captured and made into pets for awhile. A four year old was sometimes sent out with iced tea for the gardening father and rewarded with a taste of a lightly salted, sun-warmed tomato or green pepper.

Those were some of the good parts of being four. But don’t be fooled; there were terrors as well—a menacing older brother of ten who could spin out of control and other big boys rumored to kill baby birds and commit other acts of cruelty. The truth was, even then the world could be a complicated and scary place and nothing was quite what it seemed.

M

2009-07-28T19:48:00.006-06:00

Each year the entry on my calendar says simply “M.” This morning I go to the hospital and change into one of the thin pink (they are always pink) gowns, place my clothes in the locker (I always try to get #7 but it is never free) and wear the key on its stretch band around my wrist. I sit in the waiting room filling out a form on a clipboard. Next to me this year is a very old lady with a lovely, well-lined face and snowy white hair, in a pink gown much like mine. We commiserate on the meager two-snap closing in the front of the gown, and then she blinks in dismay through thick glasses at her own clipboard.

“They want me to fill this out and I can’t see,” says she. “My daughter usually helps me, but she left for Alaska this morning.”

I don’t want to presume, but I want to help if I can. “I could help you if you like,” I say.

“Would you?” She seems genuinely relieved, so I scoot over to the chair next to hers and we work together on the form. I learn that her name is Marilyn. She was born in 1918 and is 91 years old.

She has had two different kinds of cancer and two different operations for it, one for each breast. “What bad luck,” I say, “But you sure are a survivor!” She smiles gamely.

She tells me she is very glad her daughter lives nearby and can’t imagine how it would be to not have family close at hand. She is wonderful, and positive, and still quite spry. I feel a surge of grief for my own mother, gone for 11 years now.

“See you later, and good luck,” I say when they call me in for the strange imaging process that involves mashing my breasts into various painful configurations.

I ask the technician how this test is done for women who have had double mastectomies and remark on how positive the woman waiting outside seems to be. “Oh, she probably had lumpectomies and we can still do tests in those cases. Yes, it sounds like she hasn’t allowed breast cancer to define her. For some women, it ends up defining them forever. For others, it defines them for a short while of course, but then they live through the experience with grace and strength. Seeing that happen is one of the best parts of my job.”

So far each year, despite a few false alarms, the news has been positive. Whatever comes, I hope for grace and strength.

Art Fair on 29th Street

2009-07-26T16:27:00.011-06:00

We stroll through another Art Fair at 29th Street, this one with an unusual number of creative, lively, colorful sculptures. And yet you wonder where you would actually place these creations in your small Martin Acres home: Joan of Art's large bronze Humpty Dumpties in various moods and disguises, designed to sit on some designated ledge. Humpty’s various personalities on display. One dyspeptic Humpty with unhappy bags under his eyes smokes a bronze cigarette and holds a bronze martini glass. Another smiling Humpty shrug with palms turned upwards in French c’est la vie fashion. A bronze Buddhist Humpty meditates cross-legged. Even the tiniest bronze Humpties are $90 it turns out, much to Mark’s disgust.

“How much would you pay then, for a small clever bronze Humpty?” I query.

“Nothing,” says he, although he has previously admired them.

“Not much of a supporter of fine art, apparently,” say I.

“Fine art?” he replies darkly.

Jin Powell's booth displays metallic sculptures of lithe figures dancing forward into a strong headwind, wearing colorful strips and drapes of clothing that flow gracefully behind them. Many are female; their uplifted breasts proudly lead the way as they plunge gamely through gale-force air currents, thin wisps of blue/green/purple orange fabric flowing gracefully behind them. Beautiful. Inspiring even, to me anyway. But where to place such art? On the back of the white porcelain toilet allowing tasteful reflection in the bathroom mirror? On the mantel next to the dyspeptic Humpty and the potted plant? Perched on the edge of the outdoor spa to keep us company as we soak?

And what of the hug delicate glass bowls in randomly fluted shapes and shades of orange, purple and blue, matching bowls nested inside them, shining like rainbows in the sunlight? Getting that same shaft of sunlight to shine just so on them in our house would be a challenge.

“We need a larger house,” says he, not really meaning it in the grand scheme of things but offering it as the reason for passing up such beauty. That’s where these pieces will find a home one hopes, in houses where whole rooms, with skylights admitting shafts of purest light are devoted to beautiful art. In a Martin Acres house we look at pictures on the Internet.