The crumbs of one woman's year: 2017

"Slung as though in a hammock, or a lull, between one Christmas forever over and  a New Year nearing full of relentless surprises, waywardly and gladly I pry back at those wizening 12 months and see only a waltzing snippet of those topsy-turvy times, flickers of vistas, flashes of queer fishes, patches and chequers of a bard’s eye view….

‘Look back, back, the big voices clarion, look back at the black, colossal year,’ while the rich music fanfares….(but) I can give you only a scattering of some of the crumbs of one man’s year, and the penny music whistles."  —Dylan Thomas in The Crumbs of One Man’s Year

Sitting here in front of my window this warming morning, in this lull between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I see the last melting patches of snow in City Park, as I try to channel Dylan Thomas. I think I have. Though the news feeds are full of “best of’s” and “most importants” of 2017, I sit back and see, as Thomas did, a few “waltzing snippets” that stay in memory. Start with a memory, any memory will do.

I’m near Mudbiscuit, my cabin in Florissant, one June morning, walking down Ranger Station Road with Linda and her two dogs, Belle the Border Collie and Hop the Corgi, breathing the crisp, high altitude air, grateful that I can still return to this beautiful place every summer. I’m watching the dogs, sniffing the history of the night with the focus of a rookie detective. I’m distracted by Hop’s butt, long white and gold hair swaying in the wind. An icon of my country life, like the hummingbird feeders, always my first task when I arrive to open the cabin, filled with a vague anxiety that these tiny birds, having made their home in a nearby cottonwood tree, altitude 8,800 feet, will not survive if I stop providing a daily ration of sugar water. Here's Hop and Belle with their human, Linda, that morning.

Then it’s  time to check the greenhouse. Linda planted early and the greens are thriving. Sunlight on the red-stemmed chard, the park choi, lettuce and peas. Back to the cabin to wash, chop, serve, eat. The day passes: I putter, read, answer email, all a blur until the sky colors change, the great magnificent sky, that surprises me every season I return after being away.

Is it any wonder that the Japanese word for nostalgia, natsukashii, has the root, natsu or summer—where memories wander first? But I have winter memories too, this winter of our resistance following the 2016 upset and deeply upsetting presidential election in the US. So many of us then were frightened, disoriented, still disbelieving.

Jump to Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration of the Divider in Chief, and I’m about to join thousands of Coloradans at the Denver Civic Center for the Women’s March. We don’t know yet that it will become the largest protest in US history, with nearly 5 million taking part around the globe. It’s early, I’m anxious, as full buses pass us at the stop near home. A neighbor gives us a lift and within the half hour we’re walking toward the 16th Street Mall. Then I see it—a steady stream of pussy-hatted women, men pushing strollers, kids, a stream of signs, and I can feel the energy and anticipation of the day. I’ll soon see many more that day. But it’s that first glimpse, as the sun appeared over the heads of those early arrivals, that brought both a thrill and sense of relief. We’re all in this together….

A season of protests reminding us of our unity across race, gender, class and generations. On Valentine’s Day, also known as V-Day--observed by the global activist movement to end gender violence--I was again on the Mall with friends and celebrants, dancers, chanters, and speakers--all pledging to work for justice. Images of red and movement and words, but the image that stays is this one of the young STEM women, remembered partly because I learned what STEM meant that day. We’re all in this together....

The year moved into spring, and I see more images of actions: The silent procession around the State Capitol on International Women’s Day, Climate Action on Earth Day, also a March for Science, notable for its creative signs and the youth of many of the participants. A march and rally in support of “our Muslim neighbors”. In my senior building here in the city, we’re writing postcards to our representatives. Having just moved in the previous October, I’m getting to know my neighbors. So much to resist and encourage. Yes, we’re all in this together….

Delicious moments—cooking being the most ephemeral art, its appreciators also its destroyers. Sitting at a long table at The Mercury Cafe with dear friends on my birthday, eating a pagan vegan plate (greens, tofu, veggie green chili, fried cornmeal), perhaps my 100th plate of it, the menu item I order there  most often….An exquisitely expertly-prepared plate of sushi, a birthday gift from a friend, at Denver’s premier sushi restaurant….Another dinner treat from visiting friends in August at a local artisan restaurant, probably my prettiest food picture of the year.

Summer also brought disillusionment. I watched the Rachel Maddow Show nearly every evening with country or city friends, the stories flowing by, marking the damage this hobbled and flawed democracy brought about by electing the current president and Congress. Then one evening, I was sitting with neighbors in the lobby of my apartment building, not distracted by the slivers of visible sunset, and realizing that there can be no giving up. Maybe it was after 45’s insulting speech at The Boy Scout Jamboree or after his refusal to support more safety measures for football players, saying they  would ruin the game. Not the worst he had done, but the gratuitous cruelty and ignorance struck me viscerally. Remembering, I feel again that shiver of fear, then a calmness, a resolve. We simply cannot give up. Elections are coming in 2018. We’re all in this together….

Moments of joy: that’s what my laughter yoga friends call those moments when we look around us, fully present in the beauty that presents itself, perhaps always there if we just bother to notice. Burying my face in a blossoming tree in City Park across the street from me here in Denver; handing out water bottles to exhausted and grateful marathon runners in City Park, probably my most rewarding volunteer experience.

In October, gazing at a sea of student faces at Metro State University. I was on a panel with 5 other women who had worked on Big Mama Rag, a feminist newspaper published in Denver in the 1970s--more than 40 years ago. We were talking to students in the women's studies department, telling them so many important things--about our passion, our mistakes, what we tried to do and what still needs doing. I remember the expression of the transgender youth in the 2nd row who was really listening, as many others listened impassively or took notes; never doubt the importance of the audience's role in a presentation. We hoped they were listening too--not enough time for Q & A before their next class. Afterwards, as we panelists sat around a table in the student center, I remember a relaxed pleasure and pride: remembering this time we shared and our gratitude for being a part of what is now history!

Death made itself visible to me this year, not exactly a next door neighbor, but more like a silent and solemn newcomer who has moved in down the block. In the spring two women died, members of one of my groups (OLOC), one suddenly and one from cancer. Both were honored at one of our monthly meetings in a ceremony led by another member--who herself passed away later in the year from cancer. In early March a former neighbor turned friend—Joanne, age 85—died from complications of cancer and an accident. A day earlier, Gerry Starbuck, my first employer in Denver in 1977, passed away. Later, a good friend from my days in Japan, Kim Oswalt, passed away. Not long afterwards I was telling a neighbor about these deaths. “ It will be more and more like this,” she told me matter-of-factly but not without sympathy. She didn’t need to explain how aging brings knowledge--the sense of one’s own vulnerability accompanied by increasing losses. The image I call up most often is the one below from the Day of the Dead exhibit and celebration at the Denver Botanic Gardens in early November. I paused for several moments before this altar where the artist explained her story and art to a group of children. In the past few years I’ve seen this holiday grow beyond its Mexican roots into a developing North American holiday, with numerous events around town. We need it to recognize the role of death in human life and honor the lives of those no longer with us.

Moments of auditory joy: sitting on the stage of the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago, listening to a young woman play Bach’s cello suite No. 5 on her viola, the lights of Millennium Park behind her.
The Sound Circle a cappella chorus, singing beneath the stained glass windows of a Boulder church.

This fading year of 2017 will always be the year I discovered song. In September I joined my first flash mob where more than 100 of us sang Holly Near’s "Singing for Our Lives", as we peeled off jackets to the surprise of onlookers at the DCPA. Yet the scene that returns is the short concert we gave on the Mall afterwards, becoming celebrities of the hour to passersby. One solitary older man caught my eye, watching silently and then finally, slowly joining in on a song. World Singing Day came a month later, and I was there, on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, where anyone who came by got a lyric booklet with tunes ranging from "Uptown Funk" to "Imagine", and where we sang our hearts out, in one big outdoor karaoke session. Instead of an electronic screen, we had various small choirs lead us, and instead of a room, the sunny, chilly outdoors. In December I was back on the 16th Street Mall in Denver, singing “alternative lyrics” to popular Christmas carols, all aimed at mocking the GOP tax bill, It  passed the Senate the following day, unfortunately, but the singing helped sooth and energize.  I think we’re on to something as we head into Resistance Year #2.

And then Christmas and the company of friends, and some slow easy days with time for reflection.

“And one man’s year is like the country of a cloud, mapped on the sky, that soon will vanish into the watery, ordered wastes, intro the spinning rule, into the dark which is light.” —Dylan Thomas

Ode to The Western, then and now

I’ve often wondered if my childhood fascination with Westerns led to my eventual move to Colorado. Some unconscious imprinting of Western landscapes made me far more inclined to look west rather than east for a possible new home. The answer, which is no doubt more complex, will probably stay lodged in my unconscious. Last week, when I went to see the newest exhibit at The Denver Art Museum (DAM)—"The Western: An Epic in Art and Film"—I didn’t discover an answer, but came up with more questions. The central ones: What cultural and aesthetic ideas shaped my generation as we grow up, and how do movies and TV shows reflect the times during which they’re made?

I enjoyed the exhibit, especially as my friend and film buff, Gayle Novak, joined me for it. She’s an excellent film historian, starting in childhood, having grown up with a movie theater just down the street and no in-home TV to distract her. My experience was opposite—no nearby theater, but a TV set in the living room from my earliest days. Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, got a TV show in the 50s and I was a devoted fan. Writing this, I detoured to youtube, and sure enough, this clip turned up, accompanied by photos from another favorite, Little House on the Prairie.

Along with the Gene Autry Show, I loved The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, The Lone Ranger, Broken Arrow, The Range Rider, Wagon Train and others, none of which are in this exhibit, though I remembered them all as I went through the museum.  All together, they offered me a kind of time travel, set a half century or more earlier, in a very different environment from the one I had in Hammond, Indiana. Of course they reflected 1950s-era mythologies of the Old West and family life. They must have shaped my early understanding of gender roles—with men doing the exciting stuff and women left back at the ranch. Unconsciously I absorbed the idea that the population was essentially white. There were “noble Indians” and “dangerous Indians” in those early days, a mythology masking the taking of the West from Native Americans.

As Gayle and I walked through the exhibit, it was the video clips the drew most of our attention, especially the films of the late John Ford.  In childhood, while I sat in front of the TV, Gayle was in the movie theater, watching his films. There’s a retrospective of Ford’s films in the DAM exhibit. A well-deserved one, both for the magnitude of his work (5 decades, 100 films), but also for his artistry. As the museum program notes, “Ford was inspired by the landscapes, characters, and dramas of nineteenth-century painters. In part by studying classic western American artists, Ford developed an artistry that elevated him to what he termed a “picture maker.’”

At the beginning of the exhibit, 19th century paintings were the focus, and Gayle was quite familiar with that genre as well. Our attention was drawn to George Catlin’s 1832 painting of Four Bears, Second Chief in Full Dress. Catlin claimed to be the first white man to paint Plains Indians. We might guess there are fewer cultural stereotypes in his work than what we see in the work of later generations, yet he was also viewing “the other”, the “exotic” ceremonial dress of Native chiefs. He painted hundreds of portraits, many of which are now in The Smithsonian.

C.M. Russell, a prolific late 19th century painter, is also represented in the exhibit, and a museum guard, noting Gayle's knowledgeable comments to me, advised us not to miss the colors in his painting in the next room. Yes, wonderful color, and it clearly shows the hazards of travel in the Old West, though I found myself idly wondering how they got so many people in one stagecoach. 

As we continued through the exhibit, I remembered how TV eventually gave me access to Ford's work after networks got the rights to broadcast classic films in the mid-50s. The titles blur in memory; no doubt I followed along with the stories, only dimly aware of who the director was and the cinematic genius he revealed in his work. Yet, last week as I watched the clips selected for this exhibit, I saw what a breath-taking scene composer Ford was. In particular, scenes from The Searchers (1956), considered one of the greatest Westerns of all time, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) show this artistry.  I wondered if back in the day, my unconscious also picked up a sense of good picture composition as I watched them. If so, thank you, John Ford. The beginning of this clip from The Searchers illustrates his genius with composition.

Two great morality Westerns with lonely, courageous heroes— High Noon (1952) and Shane (1953), are given their due. This theater marquis for High Noon reminded me of those pre-digital days when we watched everything on a big screen, in relative silence, with hundreds of others.  Gayle and I watched video clips, along with one of Giant (1956), which featured the iconic James Dean just before his tragic early death. This film, based on a novel by Edna Ferber, deals with racism and the politics of wealth and oil in Texas. A foreshadowing of the 1960s, waiting in the wing. 

Ford’s last Western, Cheyenne Autumn (1964) was his elegy to Native Americans. It was a Hollywood version of an actual event, The Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-9, in which the Cheyenne, forcibly removed south, attempted to return. I missed this one at the theater, 1964 being the year I graduated from high school and got ready to enter college. During the 60s, the Western genre turned to new interpretations of history. I saw Little Big Man (1970) with college friends and applauded the elevation of Native Americans and critique of the U.S. Cavalry. The Vietnam war was raging, and anti-military critiques found a very receptive audience. 

That same year, 1970, a book gave me my first understanding of the massive injustice done to Native Americans by White settlers—Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. By the late 60s, the American Indian Movement was organized to redress these continuing injustices. One of the founders was the late Russell Means, and you can see Andy Warhol’s famed politicized portrait of him in this exhibit. The magazine covers below ("Return of the Red Man" and "A Choice of Heroes") acknowledge the cultural changes going on with revisionist history and a reframing of heroism. 

The counterculture Easy Rider (1969) used the same landscapes as earlier Westerns, but replacing cowboys with drug-dealing bikers traveling cross country, finding a mix of tradition, communes, free love and lots of violence. I remember seeing this film then, as a young woman who had never traveled cross country, indulged in free love or tried marijuana, probably with the same sense of wonder and puzzlement I felt as a Midwestern child looking at The Old West. The Easy Rider bike, shown in front of a video clip, is enshrined in the exhibit.

The exhibit continues with a tribute to the genre of “spaghetti Westerns”, typified by The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as “Blondie”, the bounty hunter. Leone was noted for his use of violence, tension and stylistic gun fights, and though the genre was disparaged then, this film has stood the test of time it seems. Somewhat stunned by the scale, Gayle and I stood in a circular space, surrounded by large video screens, each with a tough gunslinger, positioned in a Mexican standoff, ready to draw and shoot. Seeing Eastwood, I remembered his award-winning Unforgiven (1992), which he directed and dedicated to Leone. It was probably the first “anti-Western” I saw, one which challenged all of the old myths of heroism and justice, replacing them with a scathing critique of violence and human cruelty.

The exhibit ends with a display of various sometimes-puzzling postmodern works, including a tipi furnished with Victorian furniture and featuring a satirical western skit on video. Perhaps some examples from the sci fi and fantasy genre (Star Wars and The Hunger Games, for example) would have been a better way to finish.  Those films are places where young people today find cultural representations of all the old themes—justice, morality, freedom and their evil dystopian twins—human folly and cruelty--in the context of the early 21st century.

A changing ecosystem: on wildlife small and large

Coming back to my cabin after months away always evokes feels that old John Denver song, Back Home Again. Things seem pretty much the same as I remember from last year, and then I start to notice the differences. There’s always the weather, some years being wetter, others drier, and the result is more or fewer worries about fire. This year Linda and I have been talking about how the eco-system is decidedly different from other years. Top changes are the disappearance of ground squirrels, the fewer numbers of hummingbirds and the proliferation of an animal that rivals humans for domination of the planet: ants.

Below is a photo of a ground squirrel, taken a couple of years ago. Ground squirrels live in burrows underground, sleeping for most of the year. By the time I would arrive in the early summer, the young ones were out of the nest, gamboling in my compost pile and chasing each other through the yard. At one point I worried that they would reproduce in such numbers that my backyard would start to look like those 19th century photos of the American West, the ones showing thousands—no, millions—of prairie dog burrows along train tracks. But the population never exploded, as predators kept the balance. Still, I always had mixed feelings about the ground squirrels living next door to me—enjoyment of their playful antics and annoyance that outdoor gardening was impossible.

Those critters are nowhere to be seen this year, and it’s pretty clear there are two reasons for that: evidence (large holes) of one or more badgers during the winter and the appearance last fall of a family of feral cats. Mercifully, the 3 cats are all male, one the father (presumably) and the other grown kittens. How do you know they're all male? I asked Linda, picturing a future “prairie dog village” of felines. “I know,” Linda replied. “I felt their balls.” Reassured by her confident assertion, I began to appreciate them more. They are actually semi-domesticated, and they have names. Linda, who loves this little family, built a hay fort for them to get them through the winter and supplemented their hunters’ diet with cat food. One of the grown kittens, Buttons, likes to be petted, and all three can be seen napping in the shade on Linda’s doorstep during the afternoon. Here is a photo of Babe, the other grown kitten, looking, well, quasi-feral.

Yet, even with these three, it’s clear how the introduction of a predator species can alter the wildlife landscape. The wild rabbits are gone, hopefully safe and nesting in a neighbor’s woodpile; so are the mice (no regrets there, I confess). There also seem to be fewer flies. Is there a connection in that fewer rodents means fewer insects/fleas for flies? Is there a connection with the drop in the number of hummingbirds, who, contrary to popular belief, rely on airborne insects for food as well as on the nectar I still faithfully put out. At the same time, a male broadtail I call “bully bird” has been guarding my feeder, chasing away others except for one female, presumably his. Perhaps something else is going on in the hummingbird world, something we don’t see. Or, as it’s a dry year with fewer wildflowers than usual, the birds could have found a more hospitable micro-climate. With complicated ecosystems, all we can do is speculate.

Then there are the ants. Plenty outside and sometimes they bite. Not too many inside, but enough to bring out my murderous instincts: too close to my kitchen counter? Swat! Hoping to balance out my ants-as-pestilence attitude, I checked out a DVD of a PBS special on E.O. Wilson, the renowned biologist who dedicated much of his life to studying ants. There are 16,000 species of them in the world—which I find astonishing—and that’s just the number that have been discovered. Professor Wilson, now Emeritus, contends that if you put the weight of all of the ants in the world on one scale and the weight of all humans on the other, the weights would be roughly equal. I confess that didn’t curb my swatting instincts. Since our species seems well on the way to promoting our own extinction, I find myself mumbling to them, “You’ll have the earth soon enough!) Wilson says people often ask him what to do about ant invasions. “I tell them to crumble a cookie on the counter and then watch their behavior,” he advises. Clearly it’s better to ask a scientist about curiosity, not extermination. As for me, most days I just focus on not dribbling hummingbird nectar on the floor, cleaning counters and hoping for the best.

In the years I’ve been coming to stay here for stretches of time, my sightings of larger wildlife have been astonishingly few. A small herd of pronghorn crossing the land at a distance, a discreet coyote near the dry stream bed at dusk, an occasional deer jumping the fence across the road, a few wild turkeys. Neighbors with forested land or rocky outcroppings can usually add bears and occasionally, a mountain lion, but here, on this open former pastureland, they would never pass during daylight. Include the semi-wild mammals, and I can add visiting herds of donkeys that stayed for a day or a few before heading out the always-open gate. Then there are the domesticated llamas, cows and horses seen along the road from time to time.

I miss the donkeys. As a species, they’re the descendants of pack animals used during Colorado’s mining days. They’re legally protected in Colorado, and often something of a tourist attraction. Cripple Creek, a neighboring town, boasts a resident herd and a summer donkey race event. “Our” donkeys stopped coming a couple of years ago after the rancher who supposedly owns them built a better fence (or so we heard), stopping their wanderings in the neighborhood.

I suppose scarcity breeds appreciation. This morning, while walking with Linda and her two dogs through the trees across the road, we spotted a deer, a beautiful young buck, wandering freely through the trees. A beautiful moment it was in a changing and dynamic ecosystem. And as we reached the road, we looked over at the haze above distant mountains. Smoke from wildfires in Utah and Arizona,   where ecosystems will undergo major changes this summer. We're grateful to be spared--today.

A patriotic week

This holiday weekend I’m at Mudbiscuit, my cabin in the hills, and I’m finding contentment in the quiet, the cooler temperatures, and the lack of distractions, enticing or otherwise.  By that, I mean no disrespect to enticing distractions. Last year I was in the city, spending the evening of July 4 on a friend’s high balcony, chatting and enjoying firework displays over Denver. This year I had the possibility of choosing any of numerous rural and small-town events: an arts festival in Green Mountain Falls, an “old-fashioned celebration” in Woodland Park, complete with flag-raising, art, fun for kids, and a symphony performance. In Florissant, I could shop for antiques or try my skill at the “new ol’ time shooting gallery”; Buena Vista promises a “patriotic parade”, kids’ games and “awe-inspiring fireworks”. I decided to pass them all by in favor of unstructured time here on the land. Most days that means time to take morning walks with Linda and her dogs, do a few small chores, check email, read, or collect greens and herb clippings from the small greenhouse Linda and I tend. Evenings, however, bring a structured event—watching The Rachel Maddow Show at Linda’s cabin and talking about the continual stream of breaking news and scandal out of Washington.

Last year I wrote another blog about my conflicted feelings about this holiday—all of the patriotic associations and some difficult personal memories around July 4 This year, this year of Resistance to the party in power, the patriotism issue is even more conflicted. Despite a sporadic effort to reclaim the US flag as a symbol of progressivism, it still carries too many negative associations for me—memories of misguided wars and right-wing rallies. Perhaps that will change in coming years. I hope so.

Instead of the flag, several news photos on Facebook and reports on Rachel Maddow sent a burst of patriotic feeling through me last week. The photos were of the group ADAPT, a disability rights group. Members occupied the Denver office of Sen. Cory Gardner for 2 nights, demanding that any health legislation passed by Congress protect Medicaid and the health care that millions stand to lose of the Republican bill passes. Photos showed their peaceful protest and then later their arrest as they were forcibly removed from Gardner’s office. Their courage and resilience touched me deeply, part of widespread resistance to this disastrous so-called alternative to the Affordable Care Act negotiated by former Pres. Obama. I’ve always thought that this is the true meaning of patriotism: fighting for your country to be a true land of liberty and equality and justice.

A photo taken after the last members of The Denver Ten were released from the detention center*"

The news stories reminded me of some Denver history that I had forgotten—another protest by ADAPT in July of 1978. Rachel reported that ADAPT members forced a halt to bus transportation after the long holiday weekend ended that year. Their demand? The simple right to ride buses that were accessible to them. Today all city buses have lifts and wheelchair space, thanks to their courage and savvy strategy. Today, nearly 40 years later, ADAPT members again took risks to remind us that health care is a matter of life and death for all of us, some more than others, and that their—and our—patriotic fight for equality must continue. Unfortunately, I could not show support for ADAPT in person last week, but I hope to do so as this health care fight continues to unfold. 

Instead, I showed some small patriotic spirit yesterday when I visited nearby Guffey. It was Heritage Day for this small town, and if anything was an old-fashioned celebration, it was this event. Linda joined me and we decided to make the library book and bake sale our first stop. I know some of the bakers personally, so I jumped at the chance to stock up on Peg’s delicious chocolate chip banana bread, Rita’s baklava, and Lani’s healthy oat cookies. Next stop was a lemonade stand, staffed by students and parents from the Guffey Community School.  Excellent quality with real lemons, so I turned down the free refill offer and tossed another dollar into the coffers. What could be more patriotic than supporting two major cornerstones of democracy—libraries and schools. Later, I contributed to another worthy institution—the fire department—which was serving ice cream and brownies in the firehouse.

Although there were a number of artisans selling handmade and recycled items, I chose to hang out with Pier and Steve, the couple staffing the Park County Democrats booth. Park County, which includes Guffey, is considered a Republican stronghold despite this town’s former counterculture reputation, so I thought Pier and Steve were doing an important and rather brave thing by putting up the booth. Most festival-goers passed them by without comment while I was there—except one dude, decked out in fancy Western gear a la Wyatt Earp, muttered something about Obama and Kenya. That was truly surprising considering how soundly the old “birther” accusations were discredited and the fact that Obama is no longer president (alas!). A few stopped to chat. One was a man who said he’s from a long line of Republicans and is married to a Muslim immigrant. When I expressed sympathy for what has become of his party, he declared, “It’s not my party anymore!” As I wondered how many other Republicans feel as he does, I felt suddenly cheered. Another couple stopped by and rummaged through bumper sticker choices. I finally made a donation and chose one as well, expressing my hopes that we will all survive today’s epidemic of fake news and tweets: “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

By mid-afternoon I was home,  back to my unstructured weekend, sans fireworks and hoopla, but with time to read, reflect, and feed the hummingbirds. Rachel is taking a break this weekend too, but she and I and all of her other viewers will be back tomorrow. The patriotic struggle continues.

*Comment from Front Range Resistance: "By approximately 2:30 AM on Saturday, July 1, all nine of the remaining ADAPTers had been released from the Denver Detention Center. Sisters Dawn and Hope Russell and live-blogger Carrie Ann Lucas had already headed home for the night, but the remaining seven disability activists took a moment to celebrate the achievement of the entire Denver Ten. These brave advocates represent all of us: our diversity, our similarities, and our interdependence."

Some Mother's Day thoughts on "good mothers"

One of the useful things about being old is that age can give us a really useful perspective on our mothers. I'm now 40 years older than the 30-year-old woman who gave birth to me and then spent decades giving me care and love. She passed away in '94, and there's not a day that passes that I don't think of her in some way, an imagined conversation or just a simple awareness of her place in my life.
In adolescence and early adulthood, I spent way too much time grousing with friends about what I saw as her shortcomings, but now decades past that period, I find myself amazed at all she did at each stage of my life: food on the table, nursing me during illnesses, helping with homework, and in general, encouraging me to learn and grow.

During my early-feminist days, the shortcomings I faulted her for were lack of assertiveness and failure to be a feminist role model. At the time, that meant she didn't teach me to go to demonstrations or build a life that was not economically dependent on a man. She did, however, encourage me to get an education--one with a practical side, such as a nursing or teaching degree. She valued education for itself and also as a backup in case one "had to work." Growing up in the 1950s, I knew that both of my parents were proud that my dad could support the family on his earnings in construction. My mother had been happy to retire from secretarial work and be a stay-at-home mom and homemaker. She had once wanted to be a nurse, but that dream didn't materialize. Whether she later regretted that, I don't know. I was more self-absorbed during the times I could have asked her.

Recently, I found myself wondering again about the gifts and problems inherited by children of activist mothers--the kind I once thought I wanted. During the past month or so I heard the children of two different moms--ones who put their commitment to social revolution ahead of or on a par with mothering. The two mothers were Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the National Farmworkers Union, and the late Carol Andreas, a woman I knew briefly in Denver in the 1980s. Their stories show there are no easy answers, and at the end of the day, we can see that each mother-child bond is different, that what might nourish one pair might harm another.

Huerta, who I remembered from the 1970s and 80s when my friends and I boycotted grapes and supported the struggles of frameworkers for a union contract, spoke at the Sie Film Center in early April. The occasion was opening night of a documentary about her life called Dolores. Huerta, who is 87 now, is still going strong. In addition to decades of work on behalf of farmworkers, she has been an activist in other important ways, especially in the women's movement. In 2012 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Pres. Obama. Today the Dolores Huerta Foundation works to strengthen community organizations in California.

Huerta has a vibrant demeanor, and I enjoyed hearing her Q &A. This stock photo captures her persona.

In January--a day after Huerta joined one of the many women's marches held around the country in resistance to Trump's inauguration--she was interviewed by NPR. You can find that interview here. Scroll to the middle of the article, and you can read her reflections on mothering--her belief that her children turned out strong and resourceful, despite living with other families or being "dragged around the country with me."  A few of her 11 children are quoted. One son talks about it his childhood being "tough"; another talks about scars; another talks about crying when she had to leave a loving foster home to rejoin her mother. Later, the film talks about a healing time--during the late 80s when Huerta was hospitalized following injuries inflicted by San Francisco police during a peaceful demonstration. The family came together and reinforced their bond.

In the interview, Huerta does not dwell on regrets: "And I want to say to mothers out there, you know, take your children to marches. Take them to meetings because this is a way that they can become strong, and they understand what politics is all about because they are actually living it. And so there are, of course, regrets that my children did have to make so many sacrifices, but at the end of the day, they turned out great."

It's likely that that Carol Andreas might say something similar. After her death, her youngest son Peter, discovered her diaries and used them to write the story of his childhood with his mother. The book is called Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution. Peter Andreas read from the book last week at Tattered Cover Bookstore, and just today, an essay about his mother appears in The New York Times Sunday Review. It's called "Thanks to Mom, the Marxist Revolutionary." It's quite concise, summarizing how his mother, radicalized by 60s social movements, kidnapped him and took him to South America after losing a custody battle with his father. Peter writes: "From ages 5 to 11, I traveled with my mother from Detroit to a Berkeley commune to a socialist collective farm in Chile to the coastal shantytowns of Peru. Fleeing marriage, coups and arrest warrants, my mother joined street protests and picket lines, and wrote passionately about the oppression of the poor and powerless. With me by her side, we battled the bad “isms” (imperialism, fascism, sexism and consumerism) and we fought for the good ones (communism, feminism and egalitarianism). When we secretly returned to the United States, we lived in hiding in Denver, where my mother changed her name so that my father could not find us."


Through all this, Peter yearned for stability, and in the end, did not choose his mother's revolutionary path. A political science professor and writer and a very engaging speaker, he talks about his choice
to be an academic and "policy Democrat" as one way for a child of a revolutionary to rebel. His path way to academia--a college education--was financed by his father, who had put aside the money for him. Peter's assessment of his mom today is a very nonjudgmental one. She may have done some "bad mothering" but was never a "bad mother". Why? Because she loved me, fought for me--even kidnapped me, he told us in the Q&A after his reading in Denver.

It was that last thought I took away with me, and which I would like to explore with Huerta's children if I could. That absolute conviction that we are loved and emotionally safe with our moms--that's the bedrock of it all, I believe. Yet, there is still each child's temperament and way of processing childhood. Had I been born to a mom like Carol Andreas, I think I would have withered and run back to my Dad. As a more risk-averse girl-child, I don't think I could have survived well--and because I was a girl, may have been exposed to more risks than a boy would have been. I imagine that among Huerta's children, there may be many differences in their memories and experiences of their childhoods.

And then again, there's the rebellion factor; my different choices in life could be rooted somewhat in that. Though my lovely mother was never an activist, she gave me the strength and confidence to become one. Thank you so much, Mom.

Thoughts on our daily walk with Death

We're always walking with Death--that's the truth built into the Buddhist acknowledgement of impermanence. Like so many,  I've gone through hours, days, weeks, months--giving D scarcely a thought, pushing the knowledge of my eventual demise to the back of my consciousness as I plunge into daily tasks and distractions.

There are always moments when the reality of impermanence breaks through--historical photos, for example. I feel a kind of poignance of looking at images of people going through their daily routines, seemingly oblivious to the preciousness of that fleeting moment. There are other times--reading obituaries and noting the age of the deceased. Is she older or younger?--as if that really had any relevance. Death can arrive anytime, anywhere, at any age; we all know that but tend to wince when reminded. And then there are other times--when someone I know dies. This month three deaths occurred in my immediate world. Shortly after the third one, my weekend Buddhist reading list came via an email from the magazine Lion's Roar. The article, "The Supreme Meditation" by Larry Rosenberg, focused on the theme of death. Although Western culture is structured to take us away from that awareness, he asserts, the key to living fully is embedded in keeping that awareness up front and center.

Of course, if death is always with us, it has many guises. I've passed a few frivolous moments imagining how often death would change his profile picture if he were on Facebook. I finally settled on an image that I saw on the cover of a children's book, Cry Heart But Never Break, featured in one of my favorite blogs. It's a gentle image; I so dislike horror.



The Buddhist tradition tends to be more in-your-face about it. This image, Zazen on Waves by Maruyama Okyo (1787), can be seen at Daijoji Temple in Hyogo, Japan.



Recently, visiting the Denver Public Library, I checked out The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski (Flatiron Books, 2017). I just finished it this morning and found it very useful--thought-provoking and well, calming. A teacher/caregiver who cofounded the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, Ostaseski interweaves stories of his experiences there with other examples of those five invitations, invitations to use death-awareness as a means of bringing us "closer to our truest selves". The invitations are: (1) Don't wait; (2) Welcome everything, push away nothing; (3) Bring your whole self to the experience; (4) Find a place of rest in the middle of things, and (5) Cultivate "Don't Know Mind". Click here for extended definitions of all of them.

As I attended two memorial services this month, I had a chance to think about these invitations and what they might have meant for those whose lives were honored. One of them was for Gerry S., the lawyer who gave me my first job when I came to Denver in 1976. He was an open-hearted man who at that time was just recently in recovery and discovering the joy of living without addiction. He had left a high-powered legal office to open his own practice. He was kind to me, offering a very relaxed work environment and passing on books and information about Colorado life. I think he knew how to live fully, especially within his large family and the AA community where he supported numerous others on the path to recovery. We lost touch after I left the job three years later. But now, decades later, when a mutual friend told me that he had passed away at the age of 87, I knew I wanted to attend his memorial and tell his widow how much his kindness had meant to me. I did that following a service at a small Anglican church in South Denver, packed with the many friends and family members who loved and missed him. I believe the stories and images showed a man who brought his whole self to the experience of living.

A week later I learned of the death of Angela S., one of my OLOC sisters. Dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Angela entered home hospice after treatments were no longer useful. Shortly before her death at age 76, she married her longtime partner, Cindy. I was not prepared for the very powerful discovery I made at her memorial service, held at the Church of the Beloved in a suburb north of Denver. Angela, who had grown up Roman Catholic, was part of the Catholic Ecumenical Communion, a faith community that creates an inclusive environment for Catholics who accept the liturgy but not the restrictive politics of the Roman Catholic Church. Not surprisingly, it is not recognized by the establishment church. But it was through this faith community that Angela's family and friends could bring their whole selves to the experience of honoring her life at the ceremony, officiated by a minister who was also a woman. And we could all find a "place of rest" in the inclusivity in which Angela's spouse and commitment to her community could be fully recognized.

There has still been no memorial service for Joanne K., the 85-year-old former neighbor I had visited weekly before her death last month. Perhaps there has been or will be a service at the local Catholic church she attended. We had started a friendly-neighbor relationship during my last year living at Camellia House, one which probably would have ended when she moved last summer. However, shortly before the move, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than 6 months to live. Joanne also had a secret that she had told no one else: she had loved another woman in her youth, a woman who left her, and it seems I was the only one she could talk to about this. Alienated from her surviving brother, she kept her secret from the 3 women who formed her social circle. With others, she was closed, often seeming snobbish but perhaps just not sure how to relate after a lifetime of closure and focusing solely on her career in music. During my visits I hoped to create space for her to open and remember, but she did not choose that path. She wanted to "stop thinking about it." One day she broke a hip, then had surgery, then on to rehab, but was suddenly transferred to hospital when she developed an infection. She was hours away from death the last time I saw her. Hooked to various machines, she labored to breathe and I held her hand for awhile. A friend was coming to accompany her transfer to a long-term care facility that afternoon, so I left. She died alone early the next morning.

The memorial services for Gerry S. and Angela S. gave mourners some closure--and no doubt some reminder of our own mortality, of the invitation to live more fully in whatever ways we find meaningful--through friends, family and/or communities. I wonder how many others leave life as Joanne did, still unresolved about the events and people who disappointed them. May her memory rest in peace in the lives she left behind.

To my mother who would have turned 100 today

My mother and I always celebrated our birthdays together, hers falling on Feb. 4, a day after mine. We are exactly 30 years apart, so as I neared 70, I knew she was reaching the century mark. Or would reach it if she were still alive. She died suddenly at the age of 77 in 1994. This morning I remember her life and wisdom and speculate on what she might make of life were she with us today. Here's one of the earliest photos I have, taken with me when she was about 35.



Here's one of my favorite pictures of her, taken circa mid-1980s with my sister Joan and me.


Angeline Josephine Bogdanski was the middle child of an emigrant Polish family who came to America in 1909, settling in Chicago. Barbara and Leon, having lost their first child during the sea journey, went on to have 7 more: Marie, Stephanie, Joseph, Angeline, Edward, Wanda and Virginia. Angeline--or Angie as she was known to everyone--was the middle child in this struggling family. She almost didn't make it past childhood. A priest was called in when at age 7, she seemed to be dying from--was it scarlet fever? It was a pre-antibiotic era when childhood deaths were not uncommon. She pulled through--and my future existence remained a possibility.

Angie had a bilingual education when that was considered a very normal, non-controversial thing in her Catholic elementary school: Polish in the morning and English in the afternoon. While Polish remained the language at home, she along with her siblings soon became English-dominant. Unlike most of her siblings, she finished high school, graduating from Carl Schurz High School in 1934. She used to laugh about saving her streetcar money for sweets, necessitating a long multi-mile walk from home each day. Perhaps that's where she gained her prowess as a walker, honed all through life by the fact that she never learned to drive.

Four years later, her beloved mother, the mainstay of the family, died from complications of a freak accident---no doubt the worst event of Angie's young life. She was 21. The Depression had not yet ended. Like her older sisters, she worked to help support everyone.  Her youngest sister was only 13. As World War II began, her elder brother entered the Army. Earlier dreams of becoming a nurse were on permanent hold.

She was working as as a cashier at the Chopin movie theater on Division Street when a brash subway construction worker, John Riley, started to flirt with her. She rebuffed him, but one day he followed her sister Wanda home, pretending to have a date with Angie but having lost the address. Arriving home later, Angie was "blown away" as we'd say today, at seeing John and her father laughing and talking.  John did not speak Polish and Leon spoke no English. "Your father has the gift of the gab," she often said to me and Joanie. I think she admired his skill while she remained the introvert, the one who would just as soon spend a quiet evening reading or talking to someone she knew well.

Angie and John married in 1944 in a civil ceremony. A church wedding was out of the question, as they had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church. John had been married before, and divorce was not recognized by the church. Did Angie really mind that? I don't remember her telling us, but she did talk about being in love, and awash in that grand emotion, perhaps religion and its rules receded in importance. That severing set her on the spiritual course I remember as Joanie and I grew up. She attended church every Sunday--and we with her for much of childhood. She felt that religion was a personal matter between God and herself, and that was a constant in her life. She did not take the sacraments and did not miss joining church groups. She was not a "joiner"; her extended family comprised her social circle, and they had frequent get-togethers even after we moved from Chicago to Hammond, Indiana. Years later, when Angie had a hysterectomy in a Catholic hospital, the priest arranged to have her marriage formally blessed in the hospital chapel, as John's first wife had passed away by then. She was very pleased, but I don't believe that event really changed anything in her spiritual practices.

During our years in Hammond, Angie was a stay-at-home mom, sometimes working part-time jobs, like serving food samples at the Jewel supermarket. John was proud that he was making good money during the construction boom of the 1950s, and that his wife "didn't have to work." She told me later, when I was discovering the fledgling women's movement via Betty Friedan and the feminist critique of housework, that those years were the best of her life. "And you hated it when I went off to work when you were little and your father was in the hospital," she would say, puzzled that I would reject what she held most dear.

Today I would have the language to tell her how much I understand and appreciate the work she did; understand that homemaking was indeed a liberation for working class women who, unlike Friedan, never expected jobs outside the home to be "fulfilling". Angie worked well inside: getting a husband off to work early in the morning, the kids up and dressed and off to school, the house tidied, food prepared and served. There were moments of quiet amid all that, moments she--not a boss--awarded herself--for a nap, time for reading, and in the summer, tending flowers under the sun in the backyard. Her reading tastes ran to Reader's Digest condensed novels, as well as Proust and Cervantes.

A Chicago resident all of her life, Angie loved and enjoyed nature. She told us of summers (or was it just one?) when she spent time in the country. (A friend of her family's farm?). In Hammond she enjoyed our small garden yard--no doubt a real treat for a woman who spent her first 35 years in various Chicago apartments). She loved going to the beach, and Lake Michigan afforded several, all accessible by bus.

John died in 1977, when she was 60 years old. I had moved to Colorado a year earlier, and Joanie had left home and married. Recently I found some letters Angie wrote to me during those early years of widowhood, when she had to make a new life for herself. She acknowledged difficulties, but never really complained. She tried to learn to drive, but later sold the car, saying she just couldn't. For the most part, however, she showed a resilient spirit. She continued working in a secure secretarial job with the Illinois Department of Mental Health. Then came retirement and a move to a new apartment shared with her sister Stephanie (who died in 2001). That relationship brought companionship as well as some stress. Here she is in front of the typewriter, circa late 70s. She was a master typist, schooled in the days before correcting buttons or word processors, when speed and accuracy counted.



One terrible day Angie was hit by a car. Nothing broken, but within a couple of years, she developed significant mobility problems. Undiagnosed neurological damage? Treatment ensued, no relief, then a heart attack, which killed her almost instantly. I was living in Japan then, and on our last visit, a couple of months before she died, she wept that she might soon be crippled, unable to walk--an ability essential to her sense of personhood and freedom.

No doubt she had no intention of dying young--at age 77--but she would not have wanted to live beyond a time when she lost the abilities that made life worth living: mobility, eyes to read, a sharp mind. She would have been relieved that she did not suffer for a long time before dying and that she did not become a "burden on you kids". I don't think she would have envied the stuff of 21st century life: electronic devices that must constantly be charged or replaced, the scam-ridden Internet, the 24-hour news cycle. She was never political, but always leaned Democratic. She would be appalled at the results of the last election, no doubt suggesting that she knows someone in the Dept. of Mental Health that the current president should see.

Conversely, Angie would be pleased to see any efforts that made Chicago cleaner and brighter (pollution controls on the lake and river), and the growth of senior affordable living communities. In her day, when you got old and living independently became problematic, you were shoved aside into a "home". Today she would joyfully visit Joanie and her husband Jim in their Chicago condo overlooking the magnificent Millennial Park, and then me in my senior community in Denver, happy that both of her kids were settled, secure and happy.

Happy Birthday, Angie. Love you and miss you, today and always.

Jan. 21, 2017: Pride and power in a sea of pink

It's been 10 days since I joined the Women's March on Denver, one of many sister marches to the massive gathering in Washington D.C. Altogether it was the largest protest in US history and it was a global event: nearly 700 sister marches were scheduled in more than 60 countries, and the estimated number of participants is nearly 5 million.

The terrible first week of the Trump Presidency unfolded after that, and I know I'm not the only one who carried the strength and determination of that march with me through the following days. I'm writing today about why that was so, and how that was so. I know I'll draw on that energy over the coming months and years.

On Friday, the day before, my friend Roberta and new friend Suzanne drove down from Boulder to stay overnight with me. We enjoyed dinner with some of my neighbors and then had a sign-making party. Suzanne, a novice to marching, came with a very clever trick of the trade: take a poster board, fold it in half and tape it, leaving room for a hand in the center. When tired of carrying it, it slips easily in a backpack. Two different messages on front and back. Here you see one with Suzanne and the other later with me. Organizers had asked participants to make signs with the C.A.R.E. acronym--another reason for the gentle vibe of this event. I didn't make my own sign, guessing correctly I'd have no trouble finding one. Suzanne later left her sign with me.



Here's Roberta with her sign: the rights of Mother Earth played a strong role in this march.



In the morning, we breakfasted and donned our pink hats, a gift of Roberta's sister, Bunnie, and Jackie, a friend in my square dance club. We joined others in the lobby of my building--neighbors as well as 3 other friends who wanted to start the day with us. A minute later we were at the bus stop, naively expecting to hop on one heading toward Civic Center Park downtown. We soon learned that full buses were passing people by further up the line. Thanks to neighbor Sid who offered to drive, we arrived downtown in 15 minutes. As we joined hundreds walking toward the park along the 16th Street Mall, we got a preview of the joyful, peaceful event this would be.

I was delighted by the signs--by their creativity and also the range. Though history shows achievements can be reversed, the underlying connections among people are less easily changed. The signs were so diverse. Some visual images in collage form, thanks to Roberta's work with my photos:



And more...



I don't often say I'm proud to be American--shame being the first feeling coming to mind these days when I think of this country's impact on other countries under the Trump administration. However, that morning I was proud, and it was oh, such a good feeling.

The march snaked through downtown streets--there was a shorter and longer option for walkers--returning us to Civic Center Park. There were an array of speakers and performers, all women. I didn't hear all of them, as we left early that chilly day. It was also not easy to hear everyone, the crowd being much larger than expected. (115,000 the latest estimate). But I was impressed by the accomplishments of these women, listed on the march website here.

For me the memories were in the walking, the spirit of being "for" rather than "against", waves from onlookers. There were no counter protesters that I saw. It was easy to walk on that sunny/cloudy morning, chatting briefly with sister/fellow walkers, enjoying our energy, reminding ourselves that we are not alone in our belief that America could become great--not again, but perhaps for the first time.

Finding a ride back home with two friends, we continued the event online. Roberta, Lauren and I watched speeches at the Washington rally; we talked all afternoon about ways to resist, to continue work important to us, to keep our lives in balance. It was good we did this, as we did not yet realize how many civil liberties and constitutional issues would be challenged in the coming week.

We talked more over dinner; it grew dark, Lauren headed back home, and Roberta and I continued on to our monthly square dance event. I laughed to myself, thinking that the day was the political equivalent of a visit to Lourdes. I threw away my metaphorical crutches (fears/limitations) and drew on an energy I didn't know I had. I didn't dance every tip that night, but I could have. The important thing then and now is that I know how to pace myself.
(NEXT: Post-march resistance)

Meeting MLK on his birthday, in a dream cafe

It was a snowy, cold day in Denver yesterday, the day of what is usually the largest march/parade in honor of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I sat at my desk, listening to the megaphones in City Park, as a hardy band organized itself, and suddenly I found myself sitting in a cafe facing the Marade route, Colfax Avenue. An elderly gentleman sat next to me, and as he turned to acknowledge me taking the seat next to him, I gasped in surprise. Beneath the wrinkled forehead and thinning hairline, there was no mistaking those eyes and calm gaze.

"Dr. King," I stammered. "I can't believe what I'm seeing....."
"I can't either," he said smiling. I turned 88 yesterday. Hard to believe. Especially when you don't expect to live to old age, you can't quite imagine what it's like."
"But...how....how is this possible? You died in 1968....and now...."
"Yes, I passed when I was 39, but I took the return option--leave a little sooner and you can come back once a year to see how things turned out."
"You can do that?! I always wanted to.... Never mind, I have so many questions! First--why here?"
"Well, I always loved Soul Food, and....", he glanced back at the chef, lowering his voice, "and this isn't exactly the best place for that, but when the marchers come down Colfax in a bit, we'll have an excellent view. Every year I go to a different city, and usually I march too, but today...."
We smiled at each other. "Me too," I answered. "As my friend Linda puts it, 'you don't want to break an old lady bone' by going out in bad weather. But enough about that. I want to know what you think about today, about what's happening, about your birthday being a national holiday, about Obama, about who really carries your legacy, about...."

"Whoa," he stopped me. "Let's start with one of those". Then he continued, using the more sonorous language he's known for. First, about my birthday. I'm honored, not because I need ego satisfaction, not because Martin Luther King Jr. needs people to look at him, not because the past needs exalting, but because the nation needs a day to focus on its soul, on its ability to love and to seek justice above all." He stopped and looked at me.
"Sometimes," I said, it seems that gets lost amid all the press speculation about possible disruptions or loss of corporate sponsors or news about your oldest son meeting with Trump."
He winced. "I'd prefer to not talk about that... Let's just say our children are always going to chart their own paths." He paused. "I wonder sometimes if I wasn't home enough, that too much burden fell on Coretta. I still miss Yolanda. We used to play and swim together when I was home...."

Seeing his eyes mist, I changed the subject. "Please tell me, Dr. King, who carries your legacy today? I mean in the community."
"Why, everyone, of course. Everyone who carries the message of love and commitment to justice. There will always be a special place in my heart for my contemporaries, those who shared the struggle of the early days with me. John Lewis especially. He's been carrying on for a long time and is getting some pushback this year."
"Yeah," I mumbled. "War by Twitter...." Hoping to pin him down a little more, I asked, "Who were you marching with last year and where were you?"
He smiled, seeing where I was going. "I could say I was marching with everyone, but in fact...I was in Ferguson, walking with Black Lives Matter. Some people think my spirit wasn't there, but it was. And those young people knew it was. I'm still with them."
"As you probably know--your know everything now, right?--the Denver organizers said the BLM disruption last year cost them some corporate sponsors--the people whose money pays for scholarships and all the costs of marching these days."

"Corporate sponsors." He tilted his chin, staring into the distance. "Did you know when I went to college back in 1944, Morehouse College said it would accept any high school junior who could pass its admissions exam? They were trying to fill classrooms. So many young men and women had left to fight in World War II. I got in, got my degree and then went on to the seminary. Free of encumbrances."
"Very different situation today," I responded.
"Yes," he nodded slowly. "And I think we have to remember that corporate scholarships are not the answer. We need justice: an educational system dedicated to excellence, affordability and non-discrimination. That's really the root of everything," I've become convinced. Today's young people will inevitably create the future. Our life spans are limited, and we must always be aware of what we are passing on. I think Mr. Obama understands that."

"Do you ever wish human life spans were just longer?" I asked. I mean that a person could live to see more of the 'moral arc of the universe', as you used to call it--could live to see more of what happens with the struggles they were part of, could live, for example, to see the first African-American president take office."



"I think about that every year when I come back," he admitted. And I've concluded....well, the answer is no. The Creator knew what he was doing when he gave us 'fourscore and 10'. You see, I've realized that 'arc' was not the best metaphor for progressive change. Change doesn't move in a line, we see. It's more like a spiral, and with every return to an old issue, the issue becomes more complex. I don't know how I could lead if I were still on earth today. Perhaps I would have learned to cope the technology, continued to reframe my assumptions...lived through the death of a child...." His voice trailed off. Then he turned to me and said, "No, it's best that we have new leaders, new chances for youth to show us new directions to the promised land. I do wish I had had a chance to shake Mr. Obama's hand, though. I'm 88, two years shy of 'fourscore and 10'. Had things been different...."
"I remember that day," I said, turning to him. "I was a college senior, walking home from the library when I heard the news. I couldn't believe it. I remember feeling frightened about this world I would soon graduate into."
We both grew silent. Our food had arrived, and the first marchers were passing by, braving the cold and tapering snow. "Look at them," Dr. King said, sipping his coffee. "We have hope, yes, we have hope."

New Year Resoluteness

I stopped making new year resolutions years ago.  A combination of reasons for that; tops on the list were a desire to avoid embarrassment at the likelihood of failure and a growing appreciation for the difficulty of changing a habit --however small. Gradually I learned that letting new things into my life bit by bit and then seeing where I wanted to take them was a much better approach. And so it is this year as well. That means life is more like this:


And less like this:


A major thing that I have let into my life since the November election is exploring ways to resist likely assaults from the Trump administration on human rights and the climate.  Have to confess I wish we had a sudden change away from all that, but it's not likely. And so I think about how to focus and stay committed for the long haul. Recently I found this graphic on my Buddhist newsletter (Lions Roar) from a teacher who made this mind map of the process.



The A section--Use "right effort"--has a plant-nurturing image, a perfect fit for me. Then there's B--Use "right mindfulness" to determine the situation, clarify intention, make a strategy, and determine what's needed to allow that to happen. Good stuff there, and I believe I've made some steps in that direction. Determining the dimensions of this resistance movement and making my own strategy should get a boost next week when I join the Women's March on Denver, a sister march to the massive one planned for D.C. on Jan. 21.

Open to everyone, these events are called women's marches because they were planned and organized by women. In Denver all of the speakers and performers are women, and you can find more about that, as well as any other aspect of this march and rally here. I expect that many ideas and strategies will be offered, and perhaps one of them will become mine. This week I'm spreading the word among friends and neighbors at my new address and inviting them to join me in traveling to Civic Center Park by bus that morning.

Meanwhile, I've been looking at how to keep balance in my life. See "C" on the mind map above. A major question is how will new activity find room in my life, which already seems quite full. I've realized that much as I enjoy Facebook, I don't need to access it every day or more than once a day, as I've been doing lately. I also don't need to feed fear and worry with reading endless speculative articles on the new regime's plans. I can better use my time on the day's chosen tasks.

Today's tasks in the spirit of "right effort": redesign my work space, write letters to two treasured friends, take a walk, laugh, make a big bowl of miso vegetable soup, and most important: post this blog, tell you, the reader, about the march and sending you my best wishes for a mindful, productive, joyful new year.