kudos to mtv....

...for balancing out their maddening "16 and pregnant" franchise with a solid 30-minute look at abortion, a topic that seldom gets moving, thoughtful treatment anywhere. and thanks to salon, for reviewing a show that apparently only aired once, late at night.
say what you want about dr. drew, he's consistently a source of straight, respectful talk about sex, aimed at just the audience that needs to hear it most.

www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2010/12/29/mtv_abortion_show_no_easy_choice

who knows where the time goes?

sandy denny's windswept lonely song is never far from my mind. her voice, the scratchy british grandeur of it. the images and waves of richard thompson's guitar. and her question, a heartbeat that sounds like home.
who does know? it's a riddle, a koan, a question mark that rolls on and on.
i know it's all circling, never resting. it's not a straight line the way we imagine in times of too much to do and the choking worry of not enough time to get it all done; not a ruler to be checked off in millimeters or inches, hours or minutes.
more a river that we swim or wade along.
i remember september and october and november. writing, scrubbing old walls till they are clean enough to paint. remembering and forgetting.
and here it's december, nearly the end of. i treasure the last days of each year, reluctant to let the number i've finally gotten used to -- 2010 -- leave; reluctant to get used to the new one. they change so fast.
a story before going.
on christmas day, i was in a tiny church in the florida panhandle. it was my grandmother's, when she retired to that corner of the gulf of mexico, and then my parents. my father's last christmas -- 2003 -- he'd created a songbook of christmas hymns for the church, joined the choir to add his voice to theirs. i'd gone in hopes of seeing a copy, snagging one even.
i arrived late, grabbed a seat in the back, grateful to sing those once-a-year songs with a crowd of strangers.
across the aisle, a huge man in a hunting jacket held a whimpering yorkshire terrier on his lap. everyone pretended to ignore it. i wondered how he'd gotten it past the usher.
finally, at a quiet part in the homily, a woman in a bulky fur turns around to complain to the wife, who wears all black but for a thin gold ribbon banded around her short gray hair.
"can you please do something?" she whispers. "the dog is distracting me."
the big man doesn't give his wife time to answer. "it's a baby," he hisses, "alright? he can't help it!"
her white-headed husband turns around to see who's yelling at his wife.
"don't stare at me!" the big man says, louder. "turn around! you can move if you don't like it!"
it's right in the middle of the sermon, and for a second we wonder if the young priest will intervene.
he's up there talking about light and love and waiting and the birth of a tiny king and his audience is torn.
the fur coat and her husband stand without looking back and move five pews up.
the big guy pets the pocket-sized fur coat in his lap and stares straight ahead.
finally, he gets up slowly with his dog and walks out the door.
his gold-banded wife looks around with a smile, nodding at anyone whose eye she can catch, "sorry. i'm sorry. sorry."
and on it goes.
the little gap inside what was expected closes, and everyone sings aloud the words they know by heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xODjbfYw8

in these times

it's tempting to let the political storms rage on their own, to stay out of it, to let the crazies tire themselves before moving on.
so many of them are fronts to sow discord, to pit us against one another, to generate enough smoke that what really matters can be obscured.
sunday mornings honor thoughtfulness, whether you find your inspiration in scripture or newspapers, literature or film. it's when i most miss the kinds of shaggy conversations my parents excelled at, both natural and lifelong teachers who valued rhetoric and logic, poetry and passion, and could talk for hours about the lessons of history and civilization.

if latin -- which was called a "dead language" before its surprise return to high schools -- and the proudly low-tech game of chess can be rediscovered by the young, is it crazy to hope that debate teams could return as well? we have never needed them more, to bring back the art of weighing ideas on their merits, to understand that moral high ground is not the same as real estate. it does not belong to whoever shouts the loudest or pays the most. everything isn't relative.
two of the voices i came across this morning said what i was thinking far more persuasively than i could. i'm grateful for their voices.

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/real-americans-please-stand-up/?src=me&ref=homepage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPPxBrtrH1c&feature=player_embedded

happy anniversary, mom and dad

In New York City on this day in 1951, my parents walked down the aisle at St. Thomas More cathedral in Manhattan as husband and wife. She'd just turned 24; he would be 26 in four days.
By today's standards, the wedding was small -- one maid of honor, one best man.
The cake was tiny. Guests look crowded into three long tables.
The reception appears to be in a hotel, but which one isn't clear. If I remembered to ask, the answer didn't stick.
What did was the faith and hope that carried them that day, that danced them around a banquet hall, that kept each one reaching for the other's hand.
Their joy streams forth from the grainy black-and-whites. They cannot know their shared life will eventually bring six children in 10 years, work they love and challenges they struggle to meet, an illness they cannot beat. Or which things will strengthen their bond, which nearly break it.
All that's certain is the word inscribed inside their wedding bands along with the date: Caritas.
Greek for love -- the selfless kind, the way God loves, the way we strive to love one another -- it was their guiding star, their anchor in stormy times, their rock.
Wherever they are now, the next world or someplace I can't imagine, I like to think of them as they were 59 years ago today. Their faces so innocent and beautiful, so glazed with love.

tsk tsk on me

meant to post this link to my story on three cool artists -- katie hall, right; j.d. koth and lisa tuttle -- and their work last week (argh) but hey, pix look as fresh as ever and art is up through october. if you live in (or near atlanta), the Art on the Beltline exhibit is most definitely worth a visit.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/around-the-corner-a-573144.html

7.27.27

This is the day, 83 years ago, when M. Eileen Connolly Drennen was born.

Had my mother lived past Feb. 9, 2002, we would have had one hellacious party. Every year after 75, certainly.

As it was, the one big blowout we managed to have was for her 70th, and we made it as grand as the nursing home where she spent her last years would allow. Took over the dining room, brought in balloons and food and cake and music, and invited every relative who could make it -- including a brother she hadn't seen in 20 years.

Thank heavens for that.

I was thinking of her even more than usual today because I saw her everywhere this weekend, at another birthday celebration in Philadelphia, where my brother and his children threw a surprise party for my sister-in-law on the occasion of her 50th.

She was clearly present, in looks and spirit, in so many of the descendants who traveled far and wide just to yell SURPRISE and see Debbie's face erupt in shocked joy.

My mother's smile, dimples, great wheezy laugh; her love of song and singing, all live on in the lives she made and the lives she made possible.

So tonight I raise a glass in her honor, for all she was, and all she helped us to be; for all the stories she told us and all the ones she never found a way to tell.

shadowcasting

it's been a week of living in the s.l.o.w. lane.
took a spill last sunday while exploring an urban trail near the house. as i was breathing in the joy of morning and ideas and lazy conversation with my sweetie, a rusty wire hanger with nothing better to do reached out and bit my foot.
maybe it was just trying to get my attention?
it so did.
i've been replaying the wild upendedness on my internal movie screen every day since. all of a sudden, the bluesky traded places with the gravelly trail and down went up and i went down.
arms that had been swinging happily forward pitched low to soften the crash. time didn't slow down, as it seems to do in movies. everything happened in the space of a breath.
thankfully nothing broke (hence the post-crash photo at right) though the wrist on the right got sprained and the rotator cuff on the left got torn and the knee got away with just a scratch.
so i've had a week of life -- more of the deep stuff; less of the fluff -- at a much lower mph.
(literally. since it took 5 days to be able to wash hair in the shower with both hands -- !!! -- the car hasn't gotten so much as a glance.)
it's been enough to give even a biology freak like me (who finally made it to philly's mutter museum this spring and if you haven't gone yet, do) a new respect for the symphony of unsung muscles and tendons that whir away behind the scenes.
so maybe that's the freebie. limited distractions equals deeper focus and even more gratitude for the whole schmear.
so i guess i owe that old rusty hanger a note of thanks:
i'm sore -- but not at you.

wondering....

if at the precise moment you think you have someone "all figured out"
it's really a sign
you've stopped seeing them...

in his own time

i'm so happy to welcome koji michael to the world!
my beautiful grandson arrived sunday afternoon, on his own schedule, weeks before doctors predicted.
his smart dad, also a doctor, had a hunch he'd catch an earlier flight and turned out to be exactly right.
seeing the beautiful pictures of his just-born face is a thrill -- hard to describe to anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of waiting for the next generation and maybe impossible to explain to anyone who has.
though he will certainly bloom into his own unique self, it's amazing to see, from the start, such dear traces of his many-branched family tree.
blessings and congratulations to his dad, mom and big brother jake (and all the rest of the branches).
you make such a beautiful family!

ode to the SLR

it was old and battered, a pentax k-1000.
my sister passed it along when she upgraded to something sleeker.
it was manual everything, no automatic anything. i was in my early 20s, newly enthralled by the magic of darkrooms and images and the power to save what i loved enough to capture.
looking through that lens was how i came to understand what it means to truly focus. the rest of the world fell away as my eye tumbled into the object it had found.
all that mattered was the conversation we had without words: its beauty beamed like a lamp into my brain. my eye registered and clicked YES and zoomed in, closer and closer, then back a little, from fuzzy to sharp, distant to intimate, until it was framed just so.
then and only then did i press the shutter to save it.
the memory returned yesterday, when i was working on a short story i'd looked at too long to see properly -- so put away -- and only recently took out to try again.
it worked. but only after i turned off all distractions and looked deep into the thing through the lens of focus.
when i let the rest of the world fall away, i heard the tiny click of a new door opening inward.

in honor of mamalove

i got up this morning wanting to write about this day and then got a juicy bolt of deja vu when i remembered i already had (two years ago on myspace). reprinting here 'cos it says what i wanted to say.

sunday may 11
Current mood: thoughtful

it's about to be mother's day, which for most folks is the day to take your mom out to brunch, or bring /send her flowers or a card. you can't escape it with the relentless onslaught of commercials on the radio or TV, the massive card displays in stores, the general hype.
if your mom's still with you, that's probably not a bad thing -- it's easy to forget to send things on time, and who doesn't like a reminder for something you actually want to do?
if your mom has passed on, it comes with a bit of a sting. you think of all the things you wish you could bring her, even cards that would be just right for this year, if you could figure out what address would actually get them there.
i know a lot of folks who plain hate the day and think it's just one more commercialized excuse to make money off people's guilt or love or willingness to spend. some folks don't even notice, or care.
but if you think of all the ways the very idea of MOTHERING runs through women's lives -- whether they are women who raised kids who surround them each year, or kids who live far away and don't get home much, or kids who just don't keep in touch as much as their moms wished; or women who didn't raise children because they weren't able to have any, or waited too long and missed the window, or lost what children they carried to miscarriage, abortion, adoption or divorce -- perhaps you get a larger sense of all the things the very word encompasses.
now i think of it as MOTHERS Day, without the apostrophe, as a celebration of the plural rather than the single. it's an opportunity to salute all the women, still here or passed on, who loved unconditionally, as best they could, whatever young person was in their life, for whatever length of time -- whether a child they bore, or one they raised or a kid they just happened to love. that includes grandmothers, aunts, teachers, other people's moms, sisters, friends, colleagues and strangers.
on mothers' days past, my church used to hand out flowers to all women, young and old, which struck me as both insightful and kind, since it hinted at past and future and the fact that many women's stories of MOTHERING aren't as easy to know, unless they tell you, but the simple odds are that most women have, or one day will, give of themselves to a child or children they love.
i'm glad there's a day that people remember, and tell the women in their lives THANK YOU, or i noticed / remembered / and wanted to make sure i told you so.
cheers to all the women who have mothered, whether it's something they are honored for or not; to all those who are mothering now, as well as those who have yet to mother but consider it something they will one day do. sweetness and honor be yours, in memory and gratitude.

on finishing

today i'm celebrating completing a task that was taking WAY too long, and maybe that explains the joy of seeing it in my rear-view mirror.
it seemed so easy on the surface -- newsletter? pfiff! -- but man was there plenty new and challenging and (from here, tralala) invigorating lessons waiting for me underneath. new computer system (i've always been a Mac girl) and new software and a whole range of newnesses.
if i can remember that what daunts me at first may well thrill me in hindsight, maybe it will help me get better at regulating my pace into one steady and true as a heartbeat. (artwork / jennifer yurfest)

Memory and Being

I love the American Public Radio show "Speaking of Faith."
Its host, Krista Tippett, is one of the best interviewers on the air. She knows enough about her thoughtful and inspiring guests to ask smart questions, but lets their voices anchor the show.
A subscriber email includes her blog about that week's guest, and links where listeners can learn more. This week, "Alzheimer's, Memory and Being" features Alan Dienstag, a psychologist who ran a writing group for Alzheimer's patients with novelist Don DeLillo.
In a long (but fascinating) essay, Dienstag admits he didn't at first see how any task that reminded patients of what they were losing could actually help them.
DeLillo, whose mother-in-law had Alzheimer's, managed to change his mind, he writes, by telling him, "Writing is a form of memory." It wasn't anything the psychologist had ever considered, but he soon witnessed the power his patients found in reclaiming, and saving, their own stories.
His observations about how they managed to do that, even as their own brains were closing down, will touch anyone who puts pen to paper, "to preserve in some form a record of who you are, who you were, and who you wanted to be in this world before it slips away."
The full essay can be found here:
SOF: "Lessons from the Lifelines Writing Group for People in the Early Stages of Alzheimer's Disease: Forgetting That We Don't Remember" by Alan Dienstag | Alzheimer's, Memory, and Being

newspapers 101

i used to wish i was good at sports.
it wasn't that i hated being picked last for kickball or dreamed of becoming an athletic star. it was more about admiring the way teams seemed to be part of something bigger than the individual, and the only teams i ever saw were sports teams. i loved the way they could make things happen working together -- with secret signals, cues and shouts -- they couldn't have done on their own. i used to watch with my breath held, as if i could figure out how it was done if only i stared long and hard enough.
fast-forward to 1978, when i arrived in tallahassee, florida, fresh from community college.
i quickly got hooked, as a reader, on the tabloid newspaper in racks all over town called the florida flambeau, which turned out to be a little newspaper with a big profile. it was once the college newspaper, had recently gone independent, and often beat the larger papers of record on big stories of the day. it filled me in on my new surroundings in a way that was smart and engaging, funny and deep. eventually, i worked up the nerve to ask if i could try out for the team.
imagine the relief of discovering that what they wanted -- curiosity, stubbornness, energy to burn -- were things i already had.
others have written more eloquently about the paper (see moni basu's blog at http://evilreporterchick.blogspot.com) and the times (track down diane roberts' story about the slutboys in the archives of the oxford american). but having recently returned from the first ever flambeau reunion, i wanted to publically thank the people and place that set me on my path in life. they taught me how to separate feelings from opinions so it was possible to debate ideas. they taught me the difference between objectivity and fairness, how to engage in a community-wide conversation, how to fight for positive change.
maybe everyone who starts out at a small paper feels this way about the places that launched them, where they absorbed newspapering from the ground up.
but even a quarter-century later, i marvel at the mix of personalities and skills, backgrounds and obsessions, that came together as the flambeau newsroom. as part of the team, and as a lone voice, it's where i first learned the power of the right words at the right time.

the wait

at first it seems like such a hassle: getting to the courthouse by 8 the first monday of daylight savings time, especially if you hadn't slept well the night before.
and then it feels like one, as you sardine into the lobby with hundreds of other citizens like you, here because we've been invited to appear and have no good reason to decline, but can find no rhyme nor reason to what is passing for the formation of a line, trapped as we are in front of three glass doors, one of which revolves like the barrel of a gun, discharging lawyers and clerks and courthouse staffers into our midst like clockwork.
fortunately, we're all so sleepy (it sure feels like 7, way too early to be adrift in such a crowd) that we're docile as sheep, no pushing or shoving or Bad Attitude and before we know it, we are in fact part of some kind of line that is in fact moving forward.
some of us make small talk, glad for a distraction. others bury their noses in books or tap away on cellphones.
and then finally we whoosh through the metal detector and elevators and crowd into the grand waiting room to watch the video that lays out what's ahead.
and then we set about the business of the day, which is Waiting.
we try to respect each other's personal space, as if we're here together on the largest airplane in the world, trapped on a runway without a clue as to if it will ever take off.
those who are not summoned eventually get a lunch break. those who are summoned leave by the dozen for various courtrooms.
which is better: to be called and serve? to get inside the courtroom, learn about a case and see up close how the system works? last time, i was an alternate and took the whole thing so seriously i took copious notes on the testimony, eager to be useful once deliberations began.
in the end, i was sent to a waiting room in the basement, to be ready in case anyone got sick, which no one ever did. at first i felt ripped off, as if i'd taken all those notes for nothing. then i learned that the young man was convicted of capital murder, and i was grateful i hadn't had to be part of deliberations.
so today's wait of 7 empty hours was a relief.
i came, was ready to go. but didn't take any notes.

snow, southern style

from a second-story window it looks like snow: distinct white pellets of precipitation descending from above. heavier than rain but coming down nearly as fast. not floating down like the fluffy snow i remember from my hudson valley childhood, nor sticking as the real stuff does. but it's prettier than sleet -- which sounds like sideways metallic needles that sting when they hit your face. but oooh, even as i stare it starts to puff up into The Real Thing. here's a fast picture as it is now (hard to see unless i shoot against a dark background and even then, nowhere near as pretty as it is out the front window, against a white sky and gray tree branches, which don't, as it turns out, show up as well on film). it's slowing down, getting fatter and sticking ever-so-slightly to rooftops and boughs and even the grass. better get out there quick so i can tilt my face up into it, while it's still fresh.

beltline: the secret road

we headed out bright and early last saturday morning, buoyed by the bright blue sky and springish breezes. it was a perfect day for walking so we plotted out a long one (7 miles) and headed out, sunglasses and ballcap in place, comfy sweatshirt and sturdy sneakers (well, me anyway. T always wears his regular knocking about wear, no matter what the outing). headed out and walked through little 5 points and inman park, over the MARTA bridge to reynoldstown, through the northern bits of cabbagetown before crossing back through the krog tunnel (eager to see the latest wall art) toward irwin and into the old fourth ward.
all of a sudden we saw a knot of people trudging toward us, on a dirt path neither of us had noticed last time we were on this stretch. we stopped to watch, wondering who they were and what they were doing, and soon realized it was a walking tour.
"welcome to the beltline!" someone yelled.
gee -- thanks!
though it's still a work in progress, the piece of the rails-to-trails path in our neck of the woods is finally something accessible. everyone we saw on it that day (and the next; of course we went back, to walk in the opposite direction) seemed to be just as thrilled to see it, finally, for themselves.
we marveled at the stacks of railroad ties, cleared paths and signs of the old kudzu trail's recent tenants (a red knit sock or lone shoe; an empty bottle of brandy or mattress; hunks of old metal or deconstructed grocery carts) and finally being able to walk across the old RR bridges over north avenue and ponce -- though that one took some focus, as holes big enough to catch a foot revealed the busy, well-trafficked street below.
most marvelous of all was the chance to see this part of the world from a new (old) vantage point, as if you were walking through the backyard of one neighborhood after another and seeing them with new eyes.
Details: www.beltline.org

on the record

i'll be writing more about this topic in coming weeks, but for now just posting a quick note about some very cool work being done on behalf of adoptees' rights to their original birth certificates, family and medical history.
there is no other segment of the population that is denied its history, or its legal records. the old reasons for "sealing records" -- and there is lots of debate about who it was originally done to "protect" -- don't hold any longer.
this is the age of free information. you can get passenger ship lists online at ancestry.com. you can view the social security death index, online. you can find photos of your great grand-mother, online.
everyone has a right to know where they came from, and who they came from and what their true historic and genetic ancestry is.
here's a youtube video done by the lovely and talented zara phillips and darryl mcdaniels (of run dmc), both of whom are adopted, that says it all.

connecting the dots

so we went to the beach with piles of art supplies, notebooks, whatever was in our distinct piles of Stuff We're Working On and claimed the gift of time and space and no distractions. piled the dining room table with as many paints and pencils, crayons and cool supplies as would fit and each claimed one end of the table that looked out through two picture windows over the atlantic. then we unplugged from the cycle of time that usually runs our lives: what has to be done by when, and for whom; where do we have to be; what must be finished by when -- and dove into the Yet to Be Seen in front of us. we'd both fallen way behind in the fabulous "Inside Out" e-course we'd joined, and though neither was panicked over it -- we really did understand where ever we were in the process was where we were meant to be -- we jumped at a chance to claim a boundless sea of hours to play in.
and between the wee-hours of monday morning drive down and the rain-clogged and then snow-stormed drive back friday, we packed in days upon days of writing, drawing, walking, talking, music, making connections, a-ha moments and serious deepening of all the laugh lines we've earned thus far in our lives. oh -- and rediscovered the singular pop wonderfulness of lou christie videos on youtube.
pulling away from what you know to find what only you can discover reminds you why you forge ahead on the path of mapless exploration, past the scary parts, the dead ends, the roadblocks.
what you find along the way is priceless beyond measure.

ties that endure

i am so grateful for my family.
after you lose both parents, you can splinter apart like planets cut lose from gravity, spinning off in opposite directions. in the gap between losing, you may, if you're lucky, learn there really is no misunderstanding too deep to reach across.

going all the way

so my brilliant friend jennifer had an idea: an e-course on creativity!
we can take it together, she said. it's only for a month. please please please take it with me. come on, please. it will be FUN!
jen does nice work -- like the way she makes it sound like i'm doing HER a favor.
sly jen! i don't know if she heard me nattering about holistic creativity or if she's just got good timing. or if it even matters. what does is that she was right.
of course day 1 was fun: gathering up all the new stuff we'd need (notebooks, markers, paint -- at, even better, a 50 percent off sale) and diving right in, drunk on the very idea.
but the roots of the day crept into my dreams, waking a mess of dormant ideas that were still sparking by the time i sat down at the desk after breakfast.
day 2's assignments sent me so adrift on the river of time i had to race out for a 1 o'clock appointment with wet hair and a handful of crackers for lunch.
when i got back, i dove right back in until my stomach took charge and ordered me out to the kitchen to fix dinner.
i'm going to take the whole party of synapses to sleep for today.
can't wait to see what tomorrow's like.

building beauty

it's been months since i've picked up pliers to bend wire, sorted through the boxes of beads and findings to put together just the right elements into earrings or bracelet or necklace. i know it's time to go back when pictures of what might work together start showing up in my mind. maybe i'm stuck at a traffic light, or in line at the post office; maybe i'm out for a walk, marveling at the patch of moss that didn't freeze or the color of the sky when the sun begins to make its descent. one idea pops in -- what about the tea-colored pearl with a smoky amethyst square? or would a narrow blip of turquoise be better? -- and i turn the idea over until another appears. each leads to two or three more until they're more than i can keep straight and the pressure to try them out for real crests. then i clear the desk of papers and books and cat hair (a losing battle, but it helps to start clean) and play. it can take minutes or hours or a day to hit peak flow, when my hands can't keep up with the ideas and i'm forced to start three things at once just to see which one needs to be made next. i never mind how long it takes to get there: the ride is always worth the wait.

epiphany deja vu

Happy 12th day of Christmas, Little Christmas, feast of Epiphany.
The word always makes me think of James Joyce, who called it the "revelation of the whatness of a thing," the moment when "the soul of the commonest object ... seems to us radiant."
Lately, some of my brightest a-ha moments have reminded me of Yogi Berra.
Just when the flash of insight burns brightest, a tickle around the edges seems to feel strangely familiar, until I realize -- say, wait just a minute! -- that it's one I've had before.
An epiphany deja vu.
At first I worried it was a sign of dwindling memory, a hint of the creep of Old Age. Now I think it's just the circular nature of big lessons. You can't always Get It from a straight-line POW! Sometimes wisdom eddies around you, maybe in smaller and smaller circles, until you really Get It. Or, at least until the next one flickers around the bend.

turning of the tides

i know it's all a construct, but i love the demarcations of the new: day, season, and most especially YEAR. it's comforting to know there's always another chance to do a better job at whatever you turn your attention to. here's to a fresh view in every direction, and the charm of beginner's luck for each of them.