the bottom of the ninth

These days

2012-05-13T09:03:20-07:00

These days she sits alone in her thoughts, sometimes staring out into space, sometimes counting, tracing the lines of an upside down photograph of something she no longer recognizes. This woman, who made her life as a writer, no longer can hold a conversation, words that used to come so easily evaporate like the dew in the summer sunshine. A broken hip has left her wheelchair bound. She no longer remembers how to walk. The faces of her children are no longer familiar, the sound of their voices absent of the recognition that comes from a life shared, the way I knew her footsteps as she walked down the halls of the house on Preston Drive. Alzheimer's is a bitch. But that's not what I remember. I remember eating Italian sausage and peppers, Mom's signature picnic dish, at summer barbeques in the backyard while the kids challenged Harold Thompson in swimming competitions and the adults played bocce on the makeshift court my father had constructed with railroad ties. I remember memorizing the names of all the rivers and streams in Europe, the Adige and the Arno and the Tiber, their names at the tip of my tongue, ready for the...

A Different Kind of Learning

2012-04-22T15:48:20-07:00

It was Tuesday morning and I was standing in the parking lot of the college, talking to my friend Lynn. I had just returned from spending a week in Nicaragua with an organization called Seeds of Learning. We'd organized a group of high school students to travel to this poor country in Central America to participate in the building of a school. As a teacher, I'm keenly aware of the importance of education. As a parent, I understand the value of learning by doing and as a passionate social worker, I'm invested in trying to change the world. I get excited about witnessing the transformation that happens when people connect their heart with their head, and there's no better way to do that than with our hands. I found myself talking a mile a minute to my friend, sharing different snapshots of the week. We'd been working in a small community outside the town of Matagalpa, building a classroom addition to an existing two room school that was over crowded, forcing the children of the community to go to school in shifts. Because of the lack of space, the younger children (grades K - 2) attended in the morning while...

Tearing Down the Walls

2012-04-19T12:38:21-07:00

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can remember the feeling of the wind in my hair. The sounds of laughter. The feeling of being at peace. It has only been a few days since we have returned home and already I find myself struggling to keep the memories present. My heart open and connected. On the first night, as we all sat together in the dining hall of the Fundación Maria Cavalleri, I looked around the room at the young men and women assembled. 12 high school students, many of whom did not know each other when they had stepped on the plane just a few short hours before. But now, in a new country, we were all we had, a group of strangers sitting in a circle, nervous, hopeful, and unaware of what was about to happen. To all of us. "This will be a week of tearing down walls," our host said to us and I saw some disappointment in the young faces. We had come here to build a school, not to tear down walls. The group piled into trucks and made the 1/2 hour ride to the worksite for the first time. We stopped briefly...

Practicing gratitude

2012-01-08T13:08:05-08:00

"Most people experience gratitude in their lives, either around gifts, friends, kind acts, or sometimes just a good meal, but how much time do you spend, each day, being grateful for these things? Do you make it a practice? If not, a very simple suggestion; each night write down 3 things that happened that day that you are grateful for. It might be someone you met that day, a simple conversation, a hug, or a polite act on the part of another. It may even be that you are grateful that you had the chance to do something for someone else. Practicing gratitude at this simple level trains your mind to find gratitude in the simple things. Once your attention is on things to be grateful for, you automatically stop looking for things to be pissed off about. Over time, this becomes a way of being, not a practice." - Lee Lipsenthal, MD. On Thursday afternoon,as I found myself in a gallery filled with paintings by the Venetian Masters, my throat began to tighten. I was standing in front of a painting by the venetian painter Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders and thinking about my Mom. I was 12 years...

My mama's stuffing

2011-11-25T15:45:57-08:00

My mother put raisins in everything. Oatmeal. Stuffed artichokes. Swiss Chard. And stuffing. On Thanksgiving day, I was scraping the sauteed onions, celery, walnuts and bacon into the bowl filled with toasted bread cubes. "What's missing?" I said aloud as my red haired Aussie stared inquisitively at me, waiting for something to fall on the floor. Raisins. Side dishes come and go. Creamed onions, stuffed mushrooms, twice baked potatoes and candied yams. We've even had tabouli and dolmas when my part Lebanese cousin and his family join us. But there are two traditions that have remained the same through the years, the stuffing and the way I cook the turkey. Mama was a good cook. A really good cook. She rarely used recipes and when she did she was known to modify at will, making use of what Dad had growing in the garden. She had her specialties, things she became known for, but what I loved the best were the dishes she learned to make from her mama, dishes that were steeped in our Italian tradition. Dishes, I knew, she grew up eating as well. My mother has dementia. As her memory continues to fade, she no longer recognizes...

What I am thankful for

2011-11-23T20:15:51-08:00

"If the only prayer you ever say is 'Thank you,' that is enough." - Meister Eckhart I haven't been here in a while. Each semester I feel like Alice, falling headfirst into the rabbit hole and toppling, toppling, spinning and swirling in an endless abyss. Days and weeks and months of swirling. Each week looks the same. A hamster on a wheel. Run. Run. Run. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Harder. Faster. Must. Keep. Going. I am thankful to be running. And while I was running, the air has gotten cooler. The trees are bare, leaves cascading from the branches and painting the lawn in swathes of red and gold and magnificent orange. The darkness comes too quickly and I flip the pages on the calendar. Quickly. Too Quickly. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. There will be an empty seat at our table but across the miles, an extra one elsewhere, as college kid shares dinner with a roommate and his family. I am grateful for generosity. The phone rang this morning. It was college kid. We talked for a long time. "Life is good", he said and he told me the reasons why. It wasn't always like that. A year ago, when we...

The last first day

2011-08-18T12:20:46-07:00

He was up and ready to go before it even registered in my sleepy brain. Grabbing his backpack, he headed out the door. "Bye Mom." Yikes. "Wait! Stop!" I yelled and I fumbled for my camera. I was never very good at that. Some parents are far better at it than I, those glossy reminders of first days; from kindergarten on up. There's Amy in her yellow dress or Joey wearing the t-shirt that Nana gave him. Kyle with his Batman lunch box and Erin hesitantly trying to size up Mrs. Richards. No. Not me. There's a blurry kindergarten photo somewhere, his face obscured by a precocious female classmate as she waved confidently to her mother. It was hard to focus amidst the tears (mine and his) as I gently tried to pry his little hands from my legs. Despite both our our desire to hang on a little longer, requests for home-schooling and Peter Pan promises, he grew up anyway and here he was, marching off to begin his final year of this 12 year journey. When his brother began his final march just a couple of years ago, I promised myself I would savor it all, taking the...

Endings and Beginnings

2011-07-21T20:23:06-07:00

For Kerby Ann "It does not require many words to speak the truth." — Chief Joseph The journey from there to here goes by in an instant. On my desk, I keep a collection of trinkets. Talismans of my professional journey. They have been given to me over the years by the people I have worked with. The people who have taught me, who have watched me grow into the person that I am today. There are beautiful shells and crystals. A Hopi storyteller. A penguin, a small elephant and a painted rock. They remind me of my journey, of the people I have met along the way and of the gifts that they have shared with me. The other day my boss, whom I have known for over 25 years, came into my office and gave me a white buffalo. She is retiring today, after a long and rich career as a social worker, a champion of the poor and disenfranchised. A strong voice for those who have none in the darkness of this often unjust world. Twenty five years ago, when I was a young graduate student, I could not have known the journey I was about to...

Early morning meltown

2011-06-30T21:35:55-07:00

I'm not entirely sure why I chose 4:00 a.m. to have a mid life crisis, but sure enough, there I was, wide awake and in a complete panic about getting older and running out of time to do all the things I want to do... before it's too late. Reviewing my bucket list. I should have seen it coming. The night before we celebrated my "baby's" 10th anniversary of his 7th birthday. Cake, candles, a bag full of all the goodies a boy could want and a big plate of fettuccine alfredo his way, with chunks of roast chicken and crispy pancetta. He towers over me now. I'm not sure how (or when) that happened, but I noticed again as he bent down to hug me when we got up from dinner. "Thanks Mom," he said, and he tried to give me one of those 'teenage' hugs I've grown accustomed to. Nope. Not this time buddy. I squeezed him tight. A real hug. There aren't too many of them left, I fear. My boss is about to retire. The other day she walked into my office and handed me an evaluation she did of me 25 years ago, when I...

Stand for something

2011-06-07T21:22:00-07:00

I am participating in #Trust30, an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Prompt #3: One Strong Belief by Buster Benson It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it? (Author: Buster Benson) _____________________________________________________________________________________ He looked like someone's grandfather. A counter-culture, hippy-ish grandfather, but a grandfather none the less. Ricardo Navarro was standing in the center of the small, thatched roof, quanset hut speaking about his beloved El Salvador, passion pouring out with his every word. The beautiful environmental center that served as our in-country home, tucked deep amidst the bananas and papayas in the El Salvadoran jungle, was his baby, his gift, in a way to the people of this country he...