Game of Quarters....

The 4th Quarter. For me, now, it's the final term of the school year. It has been a term I used when playing basketball in High School. I've never been a football player or watcher, so the four finger salute holds no superstitious power with me. Q4 was an annual segment by which I paid my taxes when I owned my own business and  the quarter I took stock on how the agency was doing. Each year I broke even with enough for comfort in the kitty. It's also dangerously close to that season of my life...

Today was the first day of the '14-'15 4th Term at LHS. I've only three more sets of quizzes to grade before they have to be locked and loaded in the district computer by High Noon on Thursday, so I'm feeling quasi-relaxed. My 2014 taxes are complete and I've received my State and Federal refund checks. And, Game of Thrones resumes this weekend, snow is in the forecast for tomorrow and I can feel my own Winter coming, while at the same time savoring the human autumnal season.

Where does Q4 start for me, I mean really. One set of grandparents didn't make it out of there 60's-70's, while the other made it deep into their 80's. Both my parents are living, vital, active, healthy people.  So I guess for me it could be less than a decade (grandparents minimum age) when I am hip-deep in Winter, or as late as two decades when I stroll into Winter. I'm hoping for the latter.

Either way, I feel Winter Coming. On the one hand, I embrace it. I'm enjoying coming into the full  Fall fruit of my powers. I can physically do most anything I want to do. I'm active in the life of the mind and feeling relevant. My big question is will I have some one to share it all with before I enter Winter? In the same window of a decade (worst case scenario), I envision my children developing their flight feathers and eventually leaving the nest (although I've heard so many boomerang stories, I'm won't be surprised if the return frequently and for spells of time). In just over a decade, 12 years to be exact, I think I could retire (if all things stay as they are and I down size the scope of my nest).  Then I can see a pleasant 4Q. Will I want to share my small space with someone special, if that person presents himself between now and then? It's been three years (4/12ths) that I've been single. I've been on 4 dates. At this rate my odds of still being single are high....

Yet I see a sunny 4Q. The books of Game of Thrones compile a fantasy series called  the Song of Fire and Ice. I guess I see myself a bit as the Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains. Yet when I take the crazy Facebook quizzes, I always come up as Jon Snow! They are both characters who are coming into the Q2 powers, so I"m fooling myself to make any comparison. But that is what happens as you get older. The mirror and epidermis tell you Q4!, while your imagination, energy and desires tell you Q2!

I've got to go to bed, as I have to wake at 5:30.....as I age 6hrs is my bare minimum on sleep to function.

Good night, Queens of fire and nearly Q4 Women, G'night.

Noble Dr. O'Connell

Tonight I took a break from grading papers to listen to Caitlin O'Connell live from the Explorers Club in NYC. Caitlin had invited me to tonights event and to last Friday's event at Hunter College, but I couldn't make it to either. Third Term closed today, and grades are due in the grade book and computer shortly.

https://explorers.org/events/detail/nyc_public_lecture_series_feat._caitlin_oconnell

Caitlin was the last author I represented as an agent. I was becoming a High School English teacher and it was my last year of part-time teaching and on the cusp of my first year of full-time teaching when she approached me. She seen my name in Hannah Holmes' book, The Secret Life of Dust, and figured if I could successfully agent that, I could help her with her book, The Elephant's Secret Sense.

Hannah and I had been childhood friends, worked on the same newspaper in college and after we graduated I went to NYC to enter publishing while Hannah rose up through the natural science magazines. When she was tired of being a jet-set reporter, I said I could get her a book deal if she picked a topic. She called with two: Dust or Dirt. I went with dust. You see without dust there would be no rainforest canopy, no life on the ocean floor, no connectivity of species over great bodies of water or land. We are all truly indebted to first the cosmic dust from which we all sprung, and not the constant redistribution of it.

I guess Caitlin thought if I could wrap my head around that, I could understand and appreciate the invisible language of the elephant and the greater significance and applications that understanding it could bring to light. My one fear was that I was  teaching a 3/4 load, going to Graduate School, my kids were young and I was slowly closing down my agency ~ so I didn't know how much time and attention I could really bring to the book, and yet I believed in it and her fully. So I asked her if she'd mind if I co-agented the book with respected editor/agent friend in NY. When she found out John Michel, was her Stanford mentor's, Robert Sapolsky, editor (Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers was the book they collaborated on), Caitlin was delighted with my choice.

Most of what I represented was nonfiction. Nonfiction affords an agent to be able to represent fiction only 10% of the time. Caitlin came to me with numerous book ideas in various stages of development, as well as screen/script ideas. I committed just to the one book. Tomorrow her first thriller is being published, 20 years in the making, http://www.amazon.com.au/Ivory-Ghosts-Catherine-Elephant-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00OEXM6Y2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1427697231&sr=8-2&keywords=ivory+ghosts, and I'm sure it will be wonderful (it's on my summer reading list).

The fall I looked at her manuscript over Thanksgiving, and then John looked at it over Christmas. The giant Tsunami hit at the end of December, 2004 and took over the airwaves in early 2005. The BBC, as well as various science and nature periodicals were reporting that the Indian Elephants in Thailand seemed to know the Tsunami was coming. There were even reports of the Elephants herding the people and animals that were nice to them to high ground (not those who were cruel and violent towards them). Not only that, they seemed to know how high the water was going to rise.

Caitlin's book, with the science, experiments of Malaysian and African Elephants being pitched to NY publishers at that tragic moment, generated many offers from the publishers. Now I'm proud to say Caitlin has written, produced and compiled works of photography, film, young adult and fiction. I believe her work is noble, valuable and desperately needed in a time where the dust in the wind can bring toxic rain to the watering holes, the climate change is shrinking the habitat of the African plains and Oceans reefs and we're only scratching the surface of what our fellow mammals can teach us about the wonders of the world....

Brava, Caitlin on tonight's lecture. Some day I hope to a) volunteer with you for a stint, and b) come up with a worthy exploration or endeavor of my own.

Good night, to noble & adventurous women world wide, G'night!

Mad Men & Women

 #4 Haiku

My alter ego
A Hockney-esque Mad Woman
Poolside with coffee!

Short and sweet tonight...theme music reverberating in my brain.
Don Draper will enter my dreamscape again and my own timeline of half a century will start to form into manageable building blocks ~ each decade with it's own personality, sensibility and culpability.

To think I once longed to work on a magazine and in advertising, and did indeed. My first job was assistant to a publisher at SPORT Magazine and basically helped him and the admen to sell ads in the pages of the book. Instant shallow expert territory......and yet the big wigs, true Madison Avenue guys, where sharks of such stealth and cunning that I never had the stomach to go anywhere East of Fifth Avenue!

Good night, Life of the mind and power of suggestion people, G'night!

To be Wise, Kind & Swift!

Every Easter this is the book I've read. First it was read to me, later I read it, later still I read it to my children and now they read it when I remember to pull off the shelf. This weekend they are not at home. They are with their father, so I'm reading it to myself, again, like I'm a girl on Easter Eve.

This book was published when my mother was two years old. As it says on the back cover flap; "It is difficult to believe that this very modern feminist tale was originally written in 1939. A gem of a fantasy in which kindness and cleverness win out over size and brawn."--Learning Magazine. As I grew up to become a mother myself, I looked to the Country Bunny as a role model of perseverance, patient parenting, teaching responsibility and assigning common chores to each of her 21 babies. She is also a single mother. No mention of father bunny or any grandparent bunnies to help her. 

However, the book starts when she is a young brown bunny. She grows up with the local folklore, that if you grow up to be wise, kind and swift that someday you may be one of the five Easter Bunnies. Yes, according to this tale, there are five Easter bunnies that do more work in one night than most people do in a year. A singular white "Grandfather" bunny holds a competition whenever one of the bunnies has to retire. As a girl, the country bunny was discouraged to entertain the notion of auditioning (the elder & rich white rabbits and the male jackrabbits tell her to go back to the country and eat a carrot). 

She does go back to the countryside, grow up, grow wise, and have 21 children. She gives each of them jobs to do each day, mostly in pairs; painting, planting, washing, cleaning, sewing and so one. The runty boy is the only one who pulls out her chair for her at night. The illustrations are lush, sensitive and very inviting. Then one day there is news in the woods that a competition will begin for the next 5th bunny. 

The Country Bunny is so excited, she takes all her children to see the event (the cover illustration is how they arrive in town to watch). Grandfather bunny watches all the jackrabbits compete. But he's also studying the Country Bunny and her kids, while they are watching the games. He approaches her and says that she must be kind and wise to have such well behave children and have them hold their ears so prettily. He adds a throw-away line to the affect of too bad she must not have time to train to be swift, too. She whispers something to her kids and they scatter to the wind. Before he can understand what she's done, she's collected and returned them all, in single file before him. 

She is selected, not only as the 5th bunny, but also for a special mission to send a special diorama sugar egg to a child who has been sick for a long time. This involves a heroes journey that is not usually set for young women, especially in the 1930's! Only once, when the Country bunny become's injured, so close to completing her mission, does the  Grandfather bunny appear to her, like Athena does to Odysseus several times during the Iliad, to to help with finishing the task. 

Numerous times I've channelled my Inner Country Bunny when I've been injured, told I can't do something, or tried to model a way of being for my children to follow. 

When I was a girl the Easter Bunny used to bring me and my sister sugar diorama eggs like the special one delivered to the sick boy. It was magical to wake up to it resting on top of a basket full of grass, candies and perhaps a small toy. The egg would have a little plastic viewing window or be wrapped in cellophane so that one could peer into the spring scene and not disrupt the interior. The outside was frosted with flowers and the sugar often glistened like a stack of powdery snowflakes. 

Several times the Easter Bunny has found and delivered the same such eggs to my children. I believe they ate them, something my sister and I never did. I can remember having the egg on my bookshelf well into summer and it seemed to disappear sometime before Halloween. 

So tonight, I'm reading The Country Bunny to myself, then I'll continue reading Haruki Murakami's memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Tomorrow, I'll take the dogs for a brisk hike on a trail that winds near a lake, past a horse barn, through some woods and around a large egg shaped rock....

Good Night, Single Mother Bunnies, G'night! 

Snowdrops & raindrops...

Tonight, with the aid of my phone's assistive light, I saw another sure sign that Spring was taking hold: Snowdrops just below my mother's porch! They were closed for the night, but up and fully blossomed. My mother, to honor the changing seasons, had also put away the sleigh and in it's stead a basket with the dinosaur egg. This is the first year, ever, that I've born witness to whole neighborhoods still decked in Christmas lights, some still half buried in the snow, while also sporting Easter flags or Egg Trees. It's been a long, cold and deeply snowing Winter!

Three of us went out to dinner tonight; a pre-celebration of Easter and a belated celebration of my stepfather's birthday. Just the three of us. The two meals I ate today were both with my Mother.

Just as I was about to drive to my mechanic this morning, Mom pulled into my driveway. She offered to drive me back, as I was going to walk the mile, which is my way during tune-up & oil changes. I was going to drop in on the bagel shop, too during the walk home to get some treats for breakfast for the kids, as we didn't have school today.

I accepted her offer and invited her to have breakfast with me at the bagel shop, as the kids were still asleep, and it would be nice. We had a yummy and leisurely meal together.

Mom had dropped my stepfather for an appointment and didn't plan to stay long. So after breakfast we returned to my house in her car. Mom had come with a basket of Easter gifts for our house, as my kids we going to their father's this afternoon. The basket was full of middle eastern treats, cheese, fruit rolls and three dark red eggs my Mother dyed. The classic red dye is no longer being sold by the Lebanese grocer where we've always bought it. It's been deemed "not healthy", so they are going back to red onion skins and wine vinegar. My mother used beet juice, wine vinegar and red food coloring to get them so deeply red. Then she polishes them with olive oil to give them an added luster. She left shortly after delivering the basket and giving the kids a hug.

She also brought us a dozen hardboiled white eggs and some colors of dye and a paraffin stick. After she left the kids and I spent engaged in our spring ritual of creating design, coloring, texturing and dying the eggs. Each an individual work of art and a wonderful way to spend time together. Every year the art changes as we continue to do so with each season of our lives.

The afternoon was spent with each of doing our own thing. I had bills to pay, Educational Travel details to tie up with my consultant, SAT courses to register for and loads of other little things that are best done online or on the phone during hours I'm usually at work.

Their father came earlier than usual, picked them up, I continued to tie up loose ends and then drove to Mom and David's to pick them up for our dinner date. The drive over was dusted with raindrops. None too big and mostly a sprinkle. By the time I got them into my car, there were no raindrops, only snowdrops. Dinner at a fancy-ish Italian place was nice. Reasonable people watching, delicious fish, mussels, risotto ball and veggies. We all shared everything. I let David pick the dessert, as he was the birthday boy: 84yrs young! Turns out I don't care for Tiramisu, but he loved it, which is all that mattered!

Lots of talks of family and friends. Little talk of work and books. Just passed last night's book, All the Light We Cannot See, to Mom and it triggered great fodder for discussion of WWII.

David, at the time of the novel, 1944, was 13 years old at a Summer Camp in Vermont. He was receiving daily mailings of a progressive New York newspaper, that his parent subscribed him to, with writers like I.F. Stone and introducing Walt Kelly's PoGo. It also had a tiny map of Saint-Malo in Brittany with the lines of the allies advancing with each arrival of the post. David, at the time, was the Editor of the Camp's newspaper: The Thunderbird!

Mom has only just begun the book, but it emotionally started to pull her back to an earlier age. Mom used to tell me stories of how growing up in a house on the top of Edgemoor Rd in Belmont, she'd see stars appear in windows of her neighbors houses and it meant that older brother's of friends in the neighborhood had been killed in the war. Tonight she didn't mention that story, but the intensity of the  emotional effect the opening chapters had on her, made me believe those stories and boys will resurface as she dives more deeply into the pages and narrative.

Drove them home, gave David his gift and each of them a little sweet something. Leaving the drive way the rain start to fall in earnest. By the time I hit Walden Pond, still covered in ice and melting to form a low ground fog, the drops were getting heavier. At the Concord rotary, the wipers needed to be  on medium, and by the Ice Pond at the end of my street, full blast.

Now I lie in bed, with a snoring dog at my side, thinking of Easters of my youth, War novels I've read & taught, and how wonderful it would be to have one day where there was no war on earth. All could rise safely, with purpose, expect to grow old and have fresh water falling from the sky be a sign of life.

Good Night, Passover/Easter/New Year folks, G'night!

The Bearable Lightness of Being...

Just, this minute, finished reading this novel. L.O.V.E.D.  I.T. !

Rich, sensuous sentences. Deep, rich vocabulary. Imagery and History Galore
Humans. War. Individuals who ultimately connect....The Sea...always the sea.

It took Anthony Doeer 10 years to write, craft and deliver this book and you feel the mindfulness of that when your read it.

I'm just going to soak in the revery of reading it as slowly, yet continuously, as I could.
Now I'm done.

Not to swim in the remains and sleep after a very long short week.

Tomorrow night will be a bigger production of words and thoughts.
Tonight I'm lolling in the languid angle of repose that follows a very good read.

Good Night, Readers and Writers, G'night!

Surfing the Sea of Humanity

I love the above image. Is shows a herd of humans swimming towards a goal during an open water race. I often feel in races (on land, over obstacles, in the water) that I'm experiencing time differently, especially surrounded by other human animals. Even though our true self is timeless (if you concur with the ideas of Buddhism and the natural order of living things), we live and experience in sequential time. As Deepak Chopra says, when we synchronize individual awareness with the timing and rhythm of the universe anything is possible. 

Dividing our time into segments or slices of pie each day can help us to be more successful. There are seven important slices, according to Dr. Daniel Siegel, a neuroscientist at UCLA. He looked at how we can use our time so that it supports our wellbeing and inner growth. He list seven ways to spend time:

• Sleep time – Getting a full night’s restful sleep

• Physical time – Taking time to move and let your body be active 

• Focus time – Being alone for a while to concentrate on what matters to you

• Time in – Taking time for meditation, prayer, or self-reflection

• Time out – Setting aside time to simply to be here and rest into existence

• Play time – Time to have fun and enjoy yourself

• Connecting time – Intimate private time between you and those you care for and love

This seems simple and common sensical, yet it's mighty hard to manage if you're not mindful of how your day runs. Like the swimmers above, they know the race course and perhaps have even swum it before or measured it out in their minds. Much like we imagine our day unfolding while we're having our first cup of coffee. But then there are the variables; currents, winds, weather, jellyfish, a rogue kayaker....Or for most us; traffic, an extra errand, an unexpected meeting/call/deadline and so on. How to insure that the goals of your day, that must happen to finish properly, still allow time for you to partake of the 7 slices of pie? How to race in a herd of a 100 people and still watch the harbor seal peering at you, or savor the warm currents as you find them across a frigid bay? 

Basically one has to make time for the time; all 7. It becomes a habit of mind and movement. 20 minutes a day to meditate. 30 minutes to write. 7-12 hrs to work. 1 hour to play. 1 hour to be physical. 1-2 hrs to focus on those you love. Using the commute to commune with yourself or take a personal time out. 6-8 hours of sleep; so the body, mind and spirit swim fluidly. 

What's interesting to me, is when I take the time to be mindful, it seems as if the universe acknowledges it and rises up to meet me. Things general go more fluidly. Even when I hit road blocks (traffic in the car or financial hurdles in the mail), they flow over me instead of tripping me up. I know there will be time to address them and I'm not in an anxious or impatient state, so I'll be clearer and quicker in finding a solution.

It's like watching a school of fish. They are minding how the sun, wind, current and each other are moving. If a predator comes, they surf around it or make stealthy moves to cover the momentary alarm. I find that surfing as a metaphor for life comes in handy quite often....swimming, too. 

Right now is also the season where course selections by students are leading to course assignments for teachers. We're also in the process of a Principal search. So, as one might guess, there are many whirlpools, to navigate; some will bring opportunity and others obstacles. Both will be best surfed with a  refreshed mind, body and spirit. 

Good Night, Body Surfers & Swimmers, G'night!