Hiraeth: You can't go back, You must only go forward!

How to move forward? I used to be one of those who felt that life was moving too fast. It was why when graduating from High School in 1980, I moved to Maine, lived on a boat and apprenticed under a cabinetmaker who didn't use power tools. By 1990, I'd moved from Maine to NYC to SF. I'd learned to embrace change and even had a hand in creating it; Manuscripts written in rooms on the WELL, first digitally-delivered multi-colored manuscript to numerous NY Pub houses, set standards for electronic text rights, long conversations with EFF/WELL/WiReD folks, fought Disney for Theme Park rights and so on. By the mid-90's, it was getting harder to see the future as it had become so vast a horizon. In fact it had gone global; like the British and Dutch Empires with navies, now the internet lead with Captains of Industry: The sun never set on the internet.

In the early 90's, I tried to sell a manuscript with a Forward by the former CIA Director, William Casey, regarding domestic terrorism. It stated that terrorism was increasing internationally, and would be continuing to escalate domestically ~ World Trade Towers hadn't been truck bombed yet (1993), and  McVeigh hadn't committed the OK bombing (1995) when I was shopping this text.  After them no one wanted to "sell that kind of fear"~ and no publisher would touch it, even though it was written by two renowned journalists (one had opened Eastern Block offices for Newsweek after the wall came down). You who know me well are sick of my phrase "what sells is fear and advise (or fear and desire)". Under Clinton the country sold desire. Most of us bought it, Internet Bubble and all. We kept inventing and innovating. We set our own hours and started "casual Fridays". I pitched books with a Harper's Index of stats to illustrate the future market audience.

Yet I still had the manuscript in mind when 9/11 happened and Bush decided to invade Iraq. Those same two journalists had the same reaction I did, " it's not Saddam, it's Bin Laden". History would prove us right and the powers that be wrong. We'd already moved from the 24 hours news cycle of the 90's to the 3 hours news cycle of the new Century. At that speed, if you repeated something often enough the truth could be buried or misdirected easily. We didn't notice that truth was disappearing, too. We just did more research with our new search engines (Card Catalog to Microfiche, Alta-vista to Google--I've done them all). We were the generation of Watergate, so we followed the money and questioned authority. Men stopped wearing ties, unless they worked in finance. Women wore tailored clothes that suited them, not men's suits for women. Being an agent required more editing skills as the independent publishing houses were being bought up by International Conglomerates, and when the music stopped there were far fewer editor's chairs under each roof. Electronic books began to gain traction. So did other established editorial content move to the web.

The Republicans ruled for 8 years. In that time the language of our nation became riddled with fear and rigid thinking. The Patriot Act, War on Terror, and Axis of Evil ruled the headlines. We weren't scared of Bush, but rather his policies home and abroad that spent down our budget, ruined our reputation with Allies and left many disenfranchised. Cell phones became everyone's pocket computer. News cycles sped up to hourly events; if they could happen near a East Coast meal time, good, but no longer necessary. Fact checking was getting looser, online and in print. System disruption was starting to be the new terror source. Terror of this kind was become many headed and globally run in cells as small as two people. Many editors started becoming agents and writers. Others, with the advent of Print on Demand, started to be packagers and publishers of sorts.

In 2002, I left city life, with my kids and husband, moved to the suburbs and started teaching. Once again trying to reflect, slow down, make a family nest, and do meaningful work. Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention and I was riveted. I read his books, along with Bill and Hilary's, and found him the better writer. I  pounded on doors in NH and voted from him in both election cycles. During the last 8 years words like "mindfulness" and "authentic" became the touchstones of movements, and industries, focused on paying attention to the self in relation to others and the planet. We were back to selling desire in the name of Hope. Overseas terror bombings started to happen with more frequency. Cell phones became our pocket computers; for good and evil. More people on the planet had cell phones than computers or TVs. News cycles sped up to the speed of light; social media made Barack's campaigns like none before. It could also make communication hard to trace. Raw data spilled over everything. If you could make sense of it, you'd win, if not lose or disrupt (which may have been the true intention all along).

May 2011 Bid Laden, the real 9/11 mastermind, was caught and killed in a theater of war staged by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Also the Arab Spring started to flow in 2011. Again it was social media and cell phones that allowed this to happen. It went around and under governmental systems of tyranny. At home hackers were getting bolder attacking financial and governmental systems. Identity theft was on the rise. People had to be careful of keeping track of and changing their numerous passwords. The news cycles were just open 24/7. It came to your phone. Network/Cable news started to fall. Cable entertainment was at an all time high. Data mining began to be a valuable commodity; as numbers strained  through x's and o's became king.

The last 4 years Obama has moved Forward despite constant stonewalling and obstruction from the House and Senate. Internationally he has fared much better than Bush; travelling more and vacationing less. Domestically we've been schizophrenic, or a body of opposites. Hate crimes are up and Same Sex Marriage is legal. Black Friday is being rivaled by Shop Local Saturday. Makers are making and Materialists are buying online at record rates. Tiny Houses are up and Clear Cutting is still tearing our forests down. Technology and the life of the mind are in sync with Moore's Law;  we are all having to integrate our circuits twice as fast each year.

And now? Trump. All Data was wrong. A silent, none-majority won this election. The words now are "normalizing" and "truth" or worse yet, emojis. Driving through 5 states in 5 hours in October; I saw the signs ~ Trump/Pence. Plain as day. Where I teach, same thing. 48% Clinton, 48% Trump, 4% Johnson. They liked that he "spoke his mind", not "being politically correct". He Tweets! Small speed of light missives that can be corrected, but never apologized for, within heartbeats or headaches. He says he wants to "Make America Great Again". Hilary says America is Great and wants to "keep it that way going Forward". She doing what one does with a Japanese Businessman. She is saying "Yes, but..." which is the only way to say "No" and save face in negotiations. There is no going back (Hiraeth---remember the top of the page). There never has been a way back. We are a country of people who want opportunities and to create the impossible, not go back in time.

America said No to Hilary. They believe that Trump is a Choice for Change (my campaign slogan when I ran and won a spot as a College Senator). I believe we are all American. I believe that we are all dancing as fast as we can and trying to stay in the eye of a global hurricane. I believe we all want  work, respect, knowledge, health and a future for our planet. I'm a rural and suburban child of the 60's, who went to High School in the 70's, worked in NYC in the 80's & SF in the 90's,  and now have teenage children while I also teach teenage children. It's in my DNA to look Forward (did I mention my family on both sides have been entrepreneurs and inventors for generations?)! Yet at this time I'm not sure where to set my sights other than saying There is no there there. There is only this moment in which we can carefully monitor each move and not react to the policies and politician that are put in place, but ACT. Once everyone is done mourning or being excited (yes I have a few Trump voting friends) ~ lets get back to the American values  believing in a Future that is better than the Present. We must be kind, smart and vigilant.

We will probably have to not Want More, but may be happier with Less as a Goal, too. The planet and our population depend on that. That is a real futurist change ~ Less is More. Those who have never had Too Much, that will be hard pill to swallow. Those, who have just come up and into their powers, will not want to let go. But let me tell you, as a person more than half a century old: the first half of your life is about acquiring skills, relationships and stuff. The second half of your life is about acquiring more skills, maintaining your relationships and getting rid of stuff. Look up George Carlin's act on Stuff. He's says it better than I can. The American Dream, like the notion that we could ever go "home" again, is a myth. Let's write a new myth where even moving at the speed of light, we recognize, respect and resolve to help each other to move Forward and not slip back into the false myth of the past being better than the Now! No one is superior to anyone else! We're all in this together ~ w/love & respect ~ KN

Back to Being Me!

I was asked to contribute my reflections on being female (Period to Post-Menopausal) for a book a friend is working on right now; she offered specific questions and I answered very candidly...this is risky business, but good memoir exposing practice, so here goes nothing:
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Howdy,

I'm glad you're working on this topic, as I've been discussing it amongst my women friends this summer; the super power of becoming simultaneously invisible and fearlessly present or "seen" as a post-menopausal mid-fifties female!


My periods started when I was 12 at the top of the Empire State Building! (No joke). They continued in cycle with the moon, without fail, until my two pregnancies. Throughout my teens and twenties, I had terribly painful and heavy periods, especially as a teenager. The only thing that helped them was exercise; particularly running, swimming, hiking or rowing. I never took the pill (as many friends did to modulate the flow) until I started menopause. I was a diaphragm girl. Bloating in my belly was always noticeable to those who knew me well, too. Tight waist band, all else fine, and tired (I now think as a non-meat eater from 17-27 it may have been lack of iron that made me so wiped out). Started Anti-depressants at 28, and that seemed to help, too (although sex-drive was driven down).

My feelings about becoming a woman and starting my period were very strong. At 10 I started to develop breasts and was told to "not take off my shirt" in the summers anymore. First indication that this "growing up" was not all it was cut out to be as a girl (1972- height of be who you want to be, yet, not really). I was mortified by having my period start during a trip to a family friends apartment in NYC and having it start at the top of the Empire State Building! The family friend's apartment was pure white; shag carpet, baby Grand, matching sofa set...total nightmare. Then my stepfather, who was not Jewish and was a practicing psychiatrist in Cambridge, upon hearing the news slapped me hard across the face and said, "Now you're a woman", and explained it away by stating that it was a Jewish tradition?!? My mother and her college roommate were in as much shock as were my older and younger sisters!

Married at 34 and then pregnancies. My first child was born when I was 35, the second at 38.  I breastfed each child, girl then boy, for 14+- months. I had to eat a lot of meat to stay balanced for both pregnancies and during breastfeeding. While weaning my son, I was wondering why I was still getting so hot at night, since I was no longer producing the gallons of milk that kept my furnace temps up. I would wake up from this hot wave of energy in a puddle of sweat. I was 39, almost 40, and what I thought was an exceedingly long baby-brain and a weakened physical grip at times, slowly struck me as the on-ramp of menopause.

For the first time in menstrual life my cycles were berserk. The Moon and I got divorced. This was a huge personal loss, as I felt like a human animal being connected to the moon, and like I was related in some way to the sea, which is a great love of mine.

I felt stripped of that connection by these arbitrary gushes that would be heavy and last not 5-6 days, but up to 2 weeks, followed by a week off and then geyser action again. Not to mention that I had just moved from San Francisco to the suburbs of Boston, while career changing by attending Graduate School, working in a new field, having my kids enter school and my marriage falling apart. I often describe these years as "Adolescents in Reverse".

Hormones. To take or not to take; that was the question. It seems that when it comes to our ever longer lives and finally realizing that women and men are different animals, and need to be researched as such, the jury is still out! It was definitely in full debate 14 years ago, as I muddled through ahead of my peers (early with getting my period - feeling like an ugly ducking, and early to lose it- feeling at first like an ugly duckling and now like an empowered critter, more like the one I was before I was 10)! My solution was to take The Pill, a low-dose one. So for the first time in my life, when I was dwindling in both my ability to become pregnant and to be desired by my husband, I was taking The Pill (again, kind of like a teenage girl coming into her powers, and not sure yet how or when to use them). Adolescents in Reverse...

Your question of Haunting, sounds like a different framing of how I think of it  as the Reversal. I don't feel like I'm being haunted by a self I no longer am, as much as I'm finally able to return to the person I always have been.

I feel like I can finally handle the powers of being female on my own terms. I've always been "untraditional"; didn't go straight to college, did male jobs (cabinetmaking, boatbuilding, salvage diving, reporting), it wasn't until after college and Radcliffe Publishing Course that I started working in female dominated fields (Publishing and Teaching). Even then I started my own Literary agency and was told I was intimidating on dates in NYC and SF in my 20's & 30's. I always felt like the same nature-loving, curious minded, adventurous girl who loved to run through the woods and go body surfing, but society and males in particular, saw me as "intimidating"  or "brave" (more from females).

This last decade (I'm now 54) has been a tough yet rewarding. Like a teenager going through a growth spurt, I now teach juniors and seniors in HS, I thought I was going crazy for a while. In your 40's you don't expect to become unfamiliar with your own body and mind , especially after enduring two safe and natural pregnancies (during which I was off Anti-depressants for the duration and the breastfeeding). That same decade I started doing Triathlons, Marathon Swimming and Obstacle Racing. Yet my mind, like it had been during PMS as a teenager, was most clear after exercise and the most muddled the farther away from an exercise or yoga session I became. Getting a dog was a big boost. Much like a teenager joining a team or sport and having to manage their time and health better, a dog did the same for me regarding knowing that no matter what I was doing, I'd go for 2 walks in the woods each day. Shrinrin-yoku  is the Japanese word for "forest bathing." It became popular in the 80's as a mental health and healing philosophy. When I first heard it a few years ago, I realized that I was going back to my girlhood with the dog. During my parent's divorce and pre-pubescent years , my favorite pastime was to hike in woods with my dog. It calmed me and gave me a clarity that later (and earlier) only came with REM sleep or exertion.

As a teenage girl and young woman, I both commanded a great deal of male attention, craved a great deal of male attention, and didn't manage it very well most of the time. I both didn't like being "so visible and available" to the male gaze (streets, subways and such) and wanted desperately to be "seen". The problem was I morphing so fast intellectually and geographically, that the physical and emotional me where often at odds. Thus the "me" that was "seen" was as often a reflection of what I wanted to project as much as who I was, making most relationship foundations fragile from the start.

 When I started college in the early 80s, at the height of androgyny being in vogue, I actually wrote a short story entitled, "Life in the Median". It was Metamorphosis meets Middlesex! In my mind it was a Romantic (in the sense of Mary Shelly being a Romantic) tale of what it would be like to just experience the world through your character and spirit, not a gender. The protagonist goes to bed as a man and wakes up discovering he's become "sexless" in the shower. Now we have so many pronouns (Your, It) that didn't exist then, but I've always had "fluid" friends and a great empathy for human animals (all animals actually, but that's a different story).

I think girlhood and post-menopausalhood are quiet on the mind, body and spirit. Regarding your questions about sex, I'll be as candid as I am comfortable in this moment:

Girlhood: Always curious from a young age to explore my own body and those of my friends/family. Learned very young about masturbation (pre-double digits) and was explored (with invitation on the one hand and with trepidation/out of control on the other) by a girl friend (invited) and older neighbor boy (scared).

Teenager: Too much, too soon. Enjoyed and then depressed, as there was often no real relationship connected to the acts, so I was left to feel like a hollow shell.

20's-30's: Came into my powers; was an adventurous and "sex-positive" person; AIDs and STD's entered my lexicon, yet became committed emotionally as soon as I became sexually connected. It's who I am and it was still too soon at times.

Menopausal (40-46)  & Post-Menopausal (47-beyond): Painful during the Reverse. Needed to figure out how to get my mojo on (especially with no hormones AND Anti-depressants). Made me feel undesirable and "dried up". My husband left the marriage in that department, before I could even "test drive" the solution for the Reverse. Interestingly, I've been divorced for 4 years and a year ago I started dating a terrific man who "sees" me! I've not needed hormones or medical solutions for my relations with this man; I feel my true self with him!


The three years of being a post-menopausal 50-something as single mother living in the suburbs, teaching an urban high school and connected to sentient beings around the globe via the internet were interesting upon reflection.

The Positives:
Wisdom
Usefulness
Mindfullness
Deference
Energy
Fearlessness (some say I've always had this, but those who know me, know that I used to expend too much for too little in return or by stalling in a negative holding pattern).
Balanced Body Image
Power from all of the above


The Negatives:
Match.Com  and the like; Yes it's how I found my man; but the odds were stacked against me. Seems most men my age still stereotypically desire a younger woman and conversely older men (beyond my algorithm setting) were approaching me. I kept saying (and it turned out to be true) that I'd have to wait for either a widower or long divorce man who is really looking for parity (in all ways) who has just joined Match, as they get scooped up right away because they're the white whale of the online dating forums.



A Positive and a Negative:
Invisibility:  On one hand you can be stealthy in some situations; agism provides a cloak of invisibility. On the other hand, being "noticed" would require more work with artificial constructs that I either don't care about, desire or want to spend my time, money and energy producing. It's not just the "male gaze" (translate that to any authority run by males), but it's also using that cloak to not give a damn, to the negative can become a positive!

My Place in the World:
Trying to be true to the authentic me (the one who could take her shirt off in the summer) while using the wisdom I've gained by riding the planet all these years to help make the world a better place.
Trying to be a role model for my kids, students, younger friends  and ultimately my readers (yes I hope to write something worth reading, but that's another story).
Giving as good as I get with love and friendship.
First half of my life has been acquiring stuff (knowledge, house...) and the second half will be about releasing it and living with less.

Prejudice:
Have I felt it as a post-menopausal female: yes once. From my wasband (former husband).
Most painful and unique. Won't allow it to happen again.

I teach Women's Literature and Science Literature; so I'm hoping to educate and enlighten the next generations of men and woman who will be going through this right of passage we call Menopause.

That's really what it is for me; in the cycle of my life it's the Reverse and by extension the corner round which the last chapter of my life is beginning. I'm a Romantic, and I always love new adventures!

The Spirit of Studio Ghibili life lessons....

     Tonight, the last night I'm with my kids for a long time, we watched Spirited Away. They'd both seen it before, but it's one of few Miyazaki films I hadn't seen. It all started when we were still living in SF and our neighbor, punnily enough, introduced us to My Neighbor Totoro. We must have watched that a dozen times the first year we owned to video. Then came Kiki's Delivery Service , Howl's Moving Castle,  and Nausicaa (which I've recently taught in Women's Lit and may use also for Science Lit, as it applies to both). I own, but have yet to see Princess Mononoke (highly recommended by students for the "Princess" and "Woman Warrior" sections of my W's Lit course), and haven't seen (and don't own) Ponyo, but plan to remedy my deficiency on both counts this summer.

     But tonight watching Spirited Away (2001 on the above graph), on the eve of my children going away from me for the longest time in their entire lives (2 weeks for Frank and a month for Lenora), it was a good reminder of how parents must let their children prove themselves by having adventures on their own to test their flight feathers.

     Now this may seem odd, coming from me, who many of you consider an adventurous soul, and I am. And I've tried to exemplify and instill that in my children. However, I've mostly been the parent that has been just out of reach or sight while that was happening. Most family vacations, even before the divorce, were done by me and the kids without the wasband. The last time we all took a trip together was 6 years ago, 2 years before I asked for a divorce, but quite a few years since we'd taken family vacations or even weekends away together. It has primarily been me and the kids, since before we left San Fransisco (Frank was 18 months old and Lenora 4.5 years old when when we moved here 14 years ago).

     The protagonist of this film is a young girl who is being driven by her parents from her childhood home to a new home and new school. Her parents "get lost" very near to their new home and the girl is quickly separated from them in a magical and menacing world where she has to learn who to trust (and not), how to think fast, and to work harder than she ever has before in her life in order to insure her survival and a positive fate for her parents. This isn't simple filial pity and has nothing to do with patriotic duty or her gender. It's totally about her being stronger than she thinks and smarter than she knows (much like Christopher Robin would tell Pooh Bear and he'd learn to believe it).

     Much like my newly graduated girlie going abroad (which she has done numerous times without parents : Quebec, France, Spain, and China. And with me: QuebecII, Australia, New Zealand. And with her father and I as a child: NL, BEL, GER) with her Dad and his fiancee (for the first two weeks with them and her brother: Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Maastrich); however what is new is the 2nd two weeks staying with her Auntie Kiki - in A'dam. I know in my bones she's ready, willing and able for the second two weeks and I can't wait to hear all about them (and for the bag of licorice drops I've requested -- the varieties are simply amazing and I've placed my specific order). I've just never been away from both of them, simultaneously, for two weeks, EVER....

     I doubt she'll encounter witches (the good and bad in SA), or Radish spirits or a golden object charmed with death potions, but in the current crazy climate of fractured hate around the world, there are random acts of violence and senselessness everywhere. The EUFA cup lasts only two more weeks, I know they won't be in any stadiums near the finals or any such densely populated "targets", other than two days out of 4 weeks where she/they'll be in airports. But that is the modern way of parenting now, isn't it? Don't succumb to inaction out of fear of a hateful random action! That is certainly my message to my kids (and students, for that matter). However, it does grate the nerve endings a bit when the morning news has a daily violent act that appears evermore deadly and deranged.

                                         Click on the below URL for a pick-me-up (courtesy of Miyazaki):
   

http://imgur.com/gallery/cfkuv

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     When I was growing up, my parents bought me the classic Maurice Sendak story "Where the Wild Things Are." I believe it was published a when I was 1 or 2 years old. The above illustration is a Miyazakification of Sendak's book, and when I first saw it a few years ago, the gears in my head said, "Yes". Miyazaki is the one who now gets how families and other children are experienced in children's minds, with his moving images and simple language that express complex emotions.  Sendak said, when I saw him at MIT 5 April 2003 during his seminar entitled: Descent into Limbo, When developing the monsters for the book, Sendak drew on his childhood memories of his immigrant relatives. His uncles and aunts would come on Sundays and "all say the same dumb things," he recalled. "How big you are, how fat you got, and you look so good we could eat you up. So the only entertainment was watching their bloodshot eyes and how bad their teeth were. You know, children are monstrously cruel about physical defects—the hair curling out of the nose, the weird mole on the side of the head. And so, you would glue in on that and then you talk about it with your brother and sister later. And they became the Wild Things." Much like, I imagine, Miyazaki used ghosts, spirits and family members from his culture and childhood to inform the creatures and characters of each of his films. As a child, when Sendak was driving his mother nuts, she would call him "vilde chaya," or wild animal in Yiddish. In the book, the mother calls Max "Wild thing!" and he says, "I'll eat you up!" Many of Miyazaki's characters are in dangers of losing a parent's attention and often go hungry as a consequence....

     The last trip the kids and I took, without their father, while we were still a "nuclear family" (how mid-last century does that sound) was to Disney in Florida during February Break of 2012. After years of saving money from selling homemade bird food and bizarre kid to kid yard sales, Frank and Lenora had saved up $500 towards the trip. We had promised to take them once they reached that goal. They'd reached nearly a year earlier, but the wasband kept saying, "not now". Well I began to realize that meant never, so I took them without him. By this point I had my teacher discount (Disney treats teachers from all over America as if you're an Orlando resident and you get their discounts through your union travel agents), so for the three of us the plane, car, motel and tickets to 3 parks (Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Legoland) was roughly 2K for a week (-$500 from the kids)- a bahgin! 

     After the years of saving and a year of waiting, I was shocked that they didn't pick the Magic Kingdom. But they had become too old (Frank was 11, Lenora 14) and they picked the above very deliberately. Legoland had just opened and Frank wasn't near the end of loving his favorite plastic building bricks. The gardens, exhibits and events were grand. Same for all of us with the animals and the "Safari" that transported us to Africa while staying  on the continent of America. But it was Epcot that let them both be kids and young adults. They loved the varieties of foods, music, architecture and cultures all within one circular days walk. They loved walking to meet Pooh (and Tigger too - Estate of A.A. Milne has a deal with Disney - the estate was/is a client of Curtis Brown) as well as going to Japantown for supper. 

    Again where the two worlds collided, Miyazaki and Disney, was in the gift shop in Japan that held all the exclusive Studio Ghibli items. Lenora came away with a Giant Totoro pillow. I bought a medium plush Catbus and I can't remember what Frank bought, but there were tough choices all around! We are fans and love the messages and lessons in the art and narrative so Studio Ghibli, just as I did with Sendak and Milne. I know that wherever my kids go, they'll carry my stories and lessons with them, and when they are faced with new challenges, they may get into scrapes and need to find solutions, but that is how one becomes your own person after all.......

     So I'll leave you tonight with some fan art of all the characters that most kids under the age of 23 can name for you incase you get stuck...just ask them and they'll share their favorite story and lesson with you! 

     Good night to all you lovers of children's books and films (and especially the ones who work just as well for grown ups, too)! xoxo

3 Generations

                                                          3 Generations




                                                       Dusk at one table
                                            Communing with food, love, thoughts
                                                    Lilies closed, all leave.



                          Haiku after a late, long, and lovely dinner with 3 generations.

                           

I'd like to be...under the sea...

     Tonight, after waiting for many years, we finally saw an animated octopus who was not malicious! Hank, the co-star of Finding Dory, is actually a septopus with an unexplained back story on the loss of his eighth limb (except that the incident was so horrific that he never wants to return to the sea. Which bugged me, as I know that octopus are great limb regenerators and very good at staying protected on the ocean floor (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/how-octopus-arms-regenerate-with-ease/), and found it odd that they could spend two years creating the mechanics of bringing Hank to life with digital media, but couldn't write us a plausible back story for the missing leg.

     So I kept thinking about this inconsistency driving home with the kids in the car. They kept referencing Dory's loss of memory and her family. I kept thinking back to Nemo's loss of his mother and losing the full size of his fin. Perhaps the next movie will be Hank's story; how he came to be damaged, afraid, without family and an eighth leg. We'll already know that he learned to be brave and compassionate after meeting Dory and learning to trust his inner voice again.

     Only Octopus are solitary creatures for the most part, after they are born. The mother's ultimate sacrifice, after she lays her hundreds of eggs, is to wash water over them until they hatch, never leaving the cave or rock wall where she's hidden them, not even to eat. The longest documented case of an Octopus mother's love is 53 months of caring for her brood before she died. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/30/octopus-cares-for-her-eggs-for-53-months-then-dies/ That's what Octopus mother's do, at the ripe age of 2 or so, they mate, lay eggs, care for them until they start to hatch and then die.

     The kids and I were honored to see such a mother in action, as a captive in the Quebec Aquarium. (This is one photo from a series of 8 that I took). That mother was roughly 3 years old, but there was no male octopus to fertilize her eggs, so she was tending them and paying with her life, only the eggs would never hatch.  The wall of her tank was roughly 5'x4' and covered in eggs. She kept climbing up and down it, slowly, turning and washing water over the eggs. The woman who worked with this octopus told me that she'd been tending them for 2 weeks and might have another 2 weeks to live. I remarked on how pale the mother was and I remember the woman saying, "She's getting paler ever day."

     Most of the film was examining instinct, natural abilities and how that holds us together. But it also showed how the "crazy behavior" of being present in the moment, making choices based on passion and love can be just as valid as those which we are genetically programed to follow. Migration for the manta rays is just as valid as having chosen family that you risk your life to help and keep intact. Having a deficit (runty fin, no short term memory, a missing leg) isn't a reason for giving up or letting go, but rather the opposite; reasons to be resilient and resourceful.

     On one hand these two "Finding" films are more about finding yourself and believing in yourself, then they are about any external journey to find another who will make everything whole again. Dory still forgets, only she's learned how to thrive, not just survive; like Nemo before her. Hank seems to have accomplished all of this in one foul swoop (much like Dory did in Nemo; but in both the narrative was tracking the protagonists and the co-star was comic or cynical relief).

    I'm very tired now, and I know I'm going to have many additional thoughts in the morning, but I find it interesting that in Nemo, Dory had no parents or wasn't sure if she did, while in Dory, Hank makes no mention of family at all. The one thing they did emphasize about him however, which is true, is that he has three hearts (all octopus do). So I'm guessing that the third in what I'm assuming will be a trilogy, will be to discover that his family will become his students and the Nemo's and Dory's. Being of use and loved are the greatest ways to ride the planet, or navigate the oceans, after all!

New Directions

                       (Section of Acton rail trail in the process of being made from tracks to bike path)

     9 Months: the time it takes to make a child, the time it takes a Senior to finish HS and to decide what college they will attend as a Freshman, the time it takes to realize that the new relationship you've started is growing into something substantial, the time it takes to learn how to best help some one you love and the time to create space for reentry of those who you no longer love.

     I've been silent here for 9 months, too. I was writing this blog every night before I went to sleep for the better part of a year. 4,000 readers from 21 different countries some how found their way to this page of x's and o's, and quite frankly it both startled and excited me. Then I entered a new face to face relationship with a man and that had a similar effect. 

     In these three seasons of silence, I've had to carefully budget my energies: teaching full-time, single motherhood, college applications/visits/acceptances/orientation, a struggling transitioning student, a new man, and the final Grad Class required to equal my second MA for licensure and a lane change (strategic to the one child going to college). There hasn't been much room for not being 100% healthy or for selfish acts of dumping my thoughts here. 

     10 Months ago, however, I injured my ribs. The muscles tore between them and took a long while to heal. Being a teacher is very physical work (standing, walking, writing, carrying and basically moving for 7-8hrs a day). Being a single mom is very physical work (cooking, shopping, cleaning, yard chores and so on). Being mentally healthy is very physical work (dog walking, running, swimming, yoga, biking and more). It has felt kind of like the Freshman mantra of the 3 S's: you must sleep, study and socialize, but you can only do two most of the time (sleeping being skipped and food being consumed for false energy instead = Frosh15#)! 

     The Holidays were celebrated with an immediate blending of our children, who are close in age, all 4; his 2 sons and my son and daughter. This came about seamlessly and with little, to no, fretting. My family liked him and his family seemed to think I was okay, too. The fluidity of this, after being single for the better part of 4 years was astounding and scary. There were moments where I know I had to erase previous relationship tapes and learn how to be the me I wanted to be in a relationship now. Not the married person of nearly 20 years, nor the single person from 20 years ago, but the person I am now. This required really reflecting on all of it and taking the path that is most authentic to me, even if it's unpracticed and unfamiliar. Those are often the most terrifying and rewarding roads to travel.

     

     Ribs healed by January, in time to do a 6 mile winter obstacle course race with my new man, a friend from work and her husband. It was wonderful to be doing something I usually do alone or with work mates/ friends and do it with my "hunny bunny" (as I wrote his relationship to me on my emergency info/waiver - he called me his "significant other"). Then February  and March brought a double whammy of strep throat combined with bronchitis. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. Yet, those months I learned that I can be not 100% and not have to apologize for it. This was new for me and very welcome in my relationship.

     Spring brought an invitation to travel to California with my man, which I had to decline, but it felt great to be asked. My Grad Class, College visits and son need my full attention. Yet some weekends, I started going with my man to help get his sailboat ready to go over. He races during the Spring and Summer seasons. I wanted to learn about his boat (racing, not cruising; more lines than a Shakespeare play) and prepare for being crew. You can learn a great deal about some one by how the folks in the yard treat them, and it was all favorable. Plus, I found them very welcoming to me, as well. 

     By April I was back to running 10K's, doing yoga and looking for tri's and open water races to enter. Then after a lovely Saturday day sail, just the two of us, and at the start of a short dog walk, it happened. Went to hug my man from behind, he leaned forward, and it felt like a hot silver spike was jammed between my ribs in the exact same spot as last August! Drats, dagnabit and double drats! Didn't happen carrying kegs over my head, swinging from ropes or climbing over walls, but hugging my man! So a minor, but effecting every breath, set back.

     These last two months have been busy, ever rallying, trying and grand for my family. My man and I will soon be going for a 2 week sail; one week with two boys (one of his with a friend) and the other week just the two of us. My kids will be in Europe with their father and his fiancee, their soon to be stepmother. 

     So here I am; starting off in a new direction, uncharted and full of change. This summer will be the ending of the family structure I've managed alone for the last 4 years; the beginning of my daughter slowly leaving the nest, while my son receives some TLC and I endeavor to explore my new way of being. Figure it's time to stop being silent, and start practicing my skills at covering transitions, as that is what I hope to write about in depth down the road. 

     

     

Patti Smith Day : What a Night!

   I arrived at the Back Bay Events Theatre in time to still get a seat; one advantage of being a singleton. Some people dressed in her iconic black and white, others dressed in their casual finest and most came as they were. The first order of business was receiving your book; signed or unsigned - to be signed later. I, of course, chose unsigned to be signed post-event. This was not my first Smith Rodeo! Although it was new for them to say, more than once, that she "would not be photographed, do personalizations, nor sign anything other than M Train"!

   A seat in the lower half of the theater on the right side near the aisle was free. The woman in the aisle seat and I engaged in conversation. She was born in SF, which came up when I mentioned where I last saw Patti. She now lives in Cambridge, but had spent decades in Santa Fe and still owns a home there. She is an archeologist by training, but currently the Director of Publishing for the Peabody Museum. We discussed many things; music, books, art, cities and discovered we had many people in common. The favorite photograph in her office is of Owen Lattimore (my step-grandfather) shaving outside his tent in Mongolia. She used it in a book she published and offered to send me a copy of the photo.

   Finally some music plays and out comes a female representative from the Mayor's Office to read the below proclamation! Each time she arrives at an AND, the crowd wildly cheers, until well after the following WHEREAS and into the next clause. The reasoning and curation behind the list of Ms. Smith's accomplishments are well worn stones in these fans fingers, but we cheer on 'til the end!

  Then Patti arrives! She is girlish with her embarrassment and pride. She holds the proclamation above her head and all but twirls. And yes, she's wearing layers of black and white, with black jeans and boots on bottom. Hair natural grey, not dyed the recent brown, for this book tour. When she finally speaks she announces that she came early to Boston and spent the day in JP with her friend Patti Hudson who "owns Monumental Cupcakes", so "I'm sharing the day ~ for two Patti's"! She continued by saying that her dear friend Michael Stipe (REM), texted her from Paris too, with the news of it being Patti Smith Day in Boston, and this thrilled her.

   The podium the Harvard Book Store (with a placard of the cover of her book on it) is set up to the left hand side of the stage with a mic. Patti, has however, decided to wear a mic and spends almost the entire hour in the center of the stage. Well not entirely. She apologizes several times for not being able to stand still. She says she's always been that way, along with the rest of the boys in her grade school. Unable to stop fidgeting, "They'd probably give me a pill today,"  but "I've always had extra energy." Thank god for that, as we've all benefitted by what that energy has allowed her to produce in so many mediums.

  She says she'll read for a little, then we'll have a discussion, and then she'll read some more and then she'll answer questions. Her book is full of yellow post-it notes and she needs to use reading glasses. But before she starts to read she says she's been asked about which train the M Train is...Tokyo, Brooklyn,.... She says it's the Mind Train.....she just wanted to see where the writing and memories would take her.

   Patti begins to read. She reads from the chapters that take place in Cafe Ino, her local NYC neighborhood cafe where she writes daily and the Arcade Bar in Detroit where she and her husband spent hours before they were "noticed" by the world. The singular and strong thread that runs through her writing in the Cafe is captivating. The longing and belonging concert of she and her husband in the bar is heartbreaking. Having read Just Kids (Mapplethorpe and her infancy in art days) and being intimately familiar with them (yes, especially the Sam Shepard/Cowboy Mouth days), this revealing of her present life in NY and her past life with Fred Sonic Smith is a revelation to me. She was extremely private and protective of their marriage, except for the glimpses of their "one mind", as she put it last night, in songs. Her ranting and riffing between chapters is something I was familiar with from seeing her interviewed before. She is very alive and connected...which has earned her the title of  "shaman" in some circles. Patti remained unfazed when a mouse started scurrying through the audience and bringing people screaming to their feet. She made a joke about being allergic to mice and added, "I'm from New York. There was a dead rat on my stoop the other day that was bigger than Cairo (her Abyssinian cat, name for the color of the pyramids), "Get over it!"

    When it came the questions from the audience it was painful. One of the first young women asked her if she used a stylist?! She said emphatically "No, in fact I've been kicked out of a few photo shoots for not using one." I don't want to misquote her, but basically she said her style needed no improvement...it was already perfected. Another young woman (and the two questioning lines were exclusively young people (20-30 somethings), told Patti she was an English teacher and headed a Punk Rock band and she asked Patti about how she got respect and how far she thinks things have come for women. The phrasing of the question was oddly entitled and Patti read her the riot act. "When I started out they told me to "get back in the kitchen", and I said, "Fuck You." She went onto say that there are many bigger social injustices these days (and cited gun violence and human rights), that need to be addressed. That it's good to "fight the good fight", but one must fight! The woman beside me said, "Ouch!".

  The tenor of the questions shifted after that to those of identity and art, again, young people searching. Many questions about crossroads, choosing mediums, and conflicts of life paths. When asked point blank how she identified herself, Patti answered, "As a writer," but then she qualified it in a way that was almost exactly the way Annie Leibovitz answered it during a Q&A with her book Pilgrimages: "When I was 8 years old I read Little Women and I wanted to be Jo." Louisa May Alcott, Patti Smith and Annie Leibovitz.....all iconoclastic mavericks. (I was called those two words the first months I moved to NYC in the 80's and had to look them up...but that's another story). Now to hear the Queen of Poetry Rock (as I call her) say she wanted to be Jo March made perfect sense to me. I had a similar reaction when I read the book, at a much later age than 8.

  What's interesting to about both Leibovitz and Smith is that they both started to produce pilgrimages of the private lives after their spouses died. For Leibovitz it was Susan Sontag. For Smith it was both Mapplethorpe and Fred Sonic Smith. Both from a sense of responsibility to their subjects and themselves, and although Patti didn't mention it (but Annie, did),  to their children.

  Over the course of the remaining questions, she never went back to reading chapters, but did point to book cover placard and said the title several times, in the voice of a late night tv ad salesperson. However she did spit (usual), burb (a first for me), swear (usual), and bring down the house with laughter (her weapon of wit)!

   The grand finale was her singing the song Because The Night that she and her "boyfriend", as she still prefers to refer to Fred, wrote http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pattismith/becausethenight.html. She started and the crowd joined in. Her distinct voice, and tone were so wonderful to hear without any accompaniment.....magic moment. Plus her stamping and clapping, overcomes.

  Half the audience took pre-signed books and the other half (my people) didn't. Now was the time to wait on line, replete with stanchions and retractable canvas lines --ala LAX, for the chance to look her in the eye (a difficult feat, since they don't align) and have her sign your book (sans photos, personalization or memoriblia). I was lucky to be near the front of the serpentine line (easily 400 people) and doing anything nefarious (some men, yes they thought the rules didn't apply to them where shamelessly taking photos of her with large (multi lens) and small (phone) cameras -- they were summarily taken to task). When I rounded the bend, proved there was nothing in my book but its contents (pun intended) I was allowed to approach Patti. As I neared, I spoke up:

" Hi Patti. Last time I saw you was in SF to sign work of your collected poems to my daughter Lenora. She's now 17, getting ready for college and considers it an heirloom."

Patti looked up from signing my book, "Bless you and bless your daughter."

"And also you....", I said.

She smiled in return.

Now if I'd been in line for question to her there would have been two: What was it like to meet and perform for Pope Francis and will she ever write about her Mother's support of her as a young artist?

I can imagine the answers, but I'd love to know them for real.

Off to visit Mass MoCa and look at colleges with my kids....