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....

Jolicoeur = Cheerful Heart

  Tonight I watched The Age of Adeline a film about a woman who in a reversal of Shelley's Frankenstein, is not brought to life, but rather put into arrested physical development by a stroke of water and electricity; being stuck at a perpetual 29yrs old for six decades. The premise being that most people entertain the idea of being young forever or living forever, but the protagonist says early on that "never growing old with someone you love creates heartache."  In the end, she gets her wish, I won't explain how, but it's an endearing modern fairytale, to live a life with one person and all that entails, a very old fashioned romantic ideal. Most narratives now are spent considering what it would be like to live many life times and preferably forever.

  At the end, I noticed an odd coincidence, it was co-written by Salvador Paskowitz. http://creativescreenwriting.com/i-dont-think-anyone-works-harder-than-writers-salvador-paskowitz/ You see, Sal was once my brother-in-law. His sister was married to my brother. We have a common nephew. He is a part of a surfing dynasty that was the subject of a film called Surfwise. Now the coincidence is this: I've been wanting to watch this film since I first saw the trailer. I'm a sucker for time-travel-romances. I'm still waiting for my cosmic soulmate to bump into me at some fateful bend in time. And I've been thinking a great deal about a surfing and running friend of mine, Nanette, for a week now....

  Last time I saw Sal was in Honolulu on Waikiki Beach...The Home of The Duke; the father of international surfing, whose birthday was honored yesterday with a Google Doodle. And I hadn't been back there until two months ago when I took this picture.

   For a week now, I've been thinking about two things : That one of my dearest friends, a chosen sister, (Nanette) was losing her Dad to Cancer and that it took a quarter century for me  to beat Bob Jolicoeur in a road race. They are one and the same man.

  When I first met Nan's father, Bob, he was living in luxurious modern Maine house in the tony neighborhood of Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth.  I was 20 years old and just starting college work at USM. Bob was a big-wig in Portland Banking. He and his wife Pris were exceedingly warm and nice to me the first time I met them at their home. Nan and I would later become roommates in a third floor flat in Portland on Frederick Street with the highway, train tracks and a Denny's as our neighbors.

   Bob was a runner. He started running at 35 and had been running a decade when I met him. Nan and I would try to keep up with him throughout our college years to no avail. During those years, the Bank folded out from under him. Instead of being proud and entitled as a middle-aged former banking executive he did something that really impressed me: he took a job in a laundry mat, while he developed new business opportunities.

  Nan moved to Higgins Beach during college, with her then boyfriend, now husband, Craig. There would be many a surfing, running, biking and clambake birthday party on the beach or in their old farmhouse before it burned down. Bob and Pris were often in attendance.

  When Craig, turned 50 we all attended a party at the Boy Scout Camp just down the road from the beach. Bob and Pris were there, dancing, singing and laughing. They were enjoying the grandkids, multi-generational friends and celebrating with their son-in-law.

  Over time, Bob and Pris would run two businesses: she a interior design company and he would do peoples taxes. They'd also become "snow birds", following the sun and sea; Florida in the cold months and Maine in the warm ones. Running year round in short weather!


  Nan and I would enter races with Bob. Nan, of course, entered numerous races with him over the decades.  He'd run 56 marathons in his career. Nan has run at least one and I've run none. Never been tempted; don't know why. I can run Half's very comfortably and that is where I'd like to keep it. But Bob was driven. Racing himself and helping others to enter the world of running. I know I've run several Beach to Beacon's (10K Joan Benoit's race) and at least one Half Marathon in the last decade with him.

  Which is when I finally, after 25 years of trying, beat his time in a race. And yes, he was 25 years my senior!!! He inspired me to push myself for my own PR, but also to catch a taste of what it felt like to run at his pace. He was modest and generous with other runners, which endeared him to us all. He was often the person you'd see the days leading up to races that was volunteering at the tables with bibs and t-shirts and such.

  He was always near the water; in Maine and Florida. Two Lights when I first met him, Higgin's Beach briefly during the years Nan and I were having our children, and going south in the Winter. And for most of the last decade they lived at Old Orchard Beach. Bob had retired, but was still driven to produce so he started a new business at age 74...

At Nan's 50th Birthday, Bob and Pris and Nan's in-laws surprised her with a party. A bunch of us had taken her skating at an outdoor rink in Falmouth, as she "didn't want to fuss and doing anything". But we insisted that we all go back to Carol's (her mother-in-laws) for a warm-up, as she lived in Falmouth, too. Bob and Pris had bought lots of Mardi Gras party favors (as Nan's birthday is mid-February) and turned it into a "not-turning-50-Mardi-Gras-party"! That was 4 years ago, in the picture above, with Nan in the foreground and Bob over her left shoulder....

  Two years ago Bob was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructed Pulmonary Disease. He took two pills a day to combat it...

  Three weeks ago, Bob started to not feel well. Within a week he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. The next week his stomach was filled with fluid, then came the walker and the those amazing blue eyes (as if the sea took residence in them) became jaundiced. By the middle of last week he needed a walker. Thursday they'd decided that he'd been healthy enough prior to the diagnosis to attempt chemo treatments on Monday. Friday they treated the fluid in his stomach.

  I'd been texting and talking to Nan all week. I drove to Maine Friday and stayed 'til Sunday. Saturday I met Nan face-to-face. She reported that Bob was breathing heavily and not eating....our inspiration was fighting a race he wouldn't win. Nan, Pris and Celeste (Nan's sister)  courageously took up the baton and opted for hospice at home. They stayed with him and were joined by Danny, Nan's brother, over the next 48 hours. Bob died surrounded by family yesterday at 5:40PM.

  Bob never spent a night of his life in the hospital. He spent his life with his family by the sea.
Yesterday was Duke's, the father of international surfing, birthday. Yesterday was Bob's death day, the father of a year-round surfer and my favorite running partner in Maine; Nanette. Mahalo, Bob for your dear daughter, my chosen sister, and your inspiration to both of us over the decades.

Summer time and making a living is uneasy....

  Just got off the phone with one of my co-teachers. You see we start work a week from today. Yup, 24th of August in a cement building built in 1961, and I teach on the second floor. Today and tomorrow the temperatures will reach in the mid-90's. It is forecasted to reach as low as the mid-80's by next week. My friend is dreading going back to school, and it's not just from the potential heat-stroke we've all experienced in the building numerous times over the years, but it's the mounting mandates and lack of administrative support that really has teachers hot under the collar.

  You see there is a National Teacher Shortage right now. Do you wonder why? I don't! To be a High School Subject Matter teacher in the State of Massachusetts, one must have not one, but two Master Degrees; one in your Subject area and one in Education. I think it's even more difficult for the elementary teachers, in terms of licensure, but I'm not sure of that. From the time you pass the MTEL (state licensure testing evaluation) for your first license, you have 5 years to receive both Masters and have worked in and received stellar reviews and Professional status in one school district.

  This is getting increasingly tough to do, as the review process and the common core mandates piled on these new teachers (as well as those with Prof. status ~ tenure is a term no longer used to mean safe ~ all teachers are evaluated regularly now, it's just the frequency that changes) makes the stress levels high. So forget about having to pay back college loans while getting two masters and then being required to take additional graduate level courses in both your Subject Area and Secondary Education forever, paying for them out of pocket, and not having that be a pinching reality. You also have to jump through an every increasing number of digital data hoops that you have to design yourself, implement, analyze, graph and file for review as proof of your good teaching practices and how your students are empirically benefitting by them.

  Most teachers do NOT have the summers off. They teach summer school, take graduate courses, ramp up their second or third jobs as tutors, landscapers, coaches, writers, or all of those in some combination. Their windows of time not working can be two weeks really "off" in the summer or not being "off" at all. I'm lucky in that I can manage, with careful budgeting to truly take the time off. But I still lead a HS trip Down Under, finished a Grad Class and took a week long writers workshop (which equals 5 weeks out of my 8 spent "on", not off). Now I'm lucky that I love traveling(which pays for the teacher to lead), teenagers (my own and students), writing (course work and my own) and thinking (about all of the above). Most teachers do not have this luxury and almost all take at least one course during the summer for continued Professional Development credits and to stay current (again, out of pocket).

  I know of no other profession where all of the above is true. Also where it's true and the professional  is often unsupported in the district where they teach. So much so that nationally 3 out of 5 new teachers quit the profession before they reach Professional status (3-5 yrs). Many older teachers are retiring early, as they can't take the continuously changing challenge of meeting new mandates and being responsible for data that we don't have the real resources to complete successfully. The stress for the young and old is mounting.

  I'm in the middle as a career-changer who joined the teaching world in my 40's. The 20 somethings and 60 somethings are bailing at an alarming rate. Now the mid-career folks are shifting districts, thinking that with more resources or a better managed district the classroom will be more in their command. But there really is no geographical solution (although resources and great management help). Just like Medicine, Publishing, or any other profession where the life of the mind meets human interaction, the one size fits all, bottom line and data driven models are running rampant. We're losing the experienced and knowledgable teachers, doctors, nurses, editors, agents and artists who don't want to work for conglomerates or the political ~ philosophical paradigm of the year.

  That's the other side of this frantically fast and ever moving policy shifts; nothing ever stays in place long enough to really see how any of it works or doesn't and why! Each new politician, Superintendent, CEO, Board of Directors, wants to put their own signature on the process, without ever asking or listening to  how they may be repeating past mistakes or not taking into account the reality of so many hours in a work day (although all professional people bring home work now-- no teacher ever leaves all their work in the classroom or employee all their work in the office...not if you want to stay up to date and relevant )! So people are working longer hours, for less money (inflation has not kept up with the cost of living, Doctors insurance rates are ridiculous, Cities/towns aren't always voting to give monies to their school districts ==fire & police, probably, teachers not likely) and feeling less useful as a result.

  We are currently without a contract in the district where I teach. There was talk last Spring of a Work to Rule decision, if we should come into this Fall with no movement forward. I've heard nothing and school starts in a week. Our 3% annual raises of 10 years ago were reduced to 1% and now they have flatlined. Yet we're expected to do all of what I've stated above...Graduate class expense have gone up more than 1-3% in the last decade, so has gas, school supplies (don't get me started) and so on.

  My co-worker is usually an easy-peasy kind of person. But this last year, without a Principal, and no leadership, forget about support, the spirit in the building was crushed. I'd hoped the summer would allow my colleagues to regroup, refresh and come back nourished with the time and distance we need to charge our batteries (teachers make more decisions in one day than doctors do). But instead my pal is worse, as several colleagues have left (early retirement or resigned) and others still wish to leave. The idealism of "changing lives" and "making a difference" has been left in the wake of impractical schedules (we're supposed to have 3 preps, but with limited resources and large classes it can really be 4-5) and seemingly arbitrary solutions that won't really benefit the student.

  So I told this person that I'll try to make them laugh, I'll keep doing the best in my classroom no matter what is happening in the administrative avenues, and that no matter how hot it gets in my room (100+ one year on a thermometer), I'll keep things chill! Good thing I took that writing and meditation workshop this summer!!!