How My Light Is Spent

Plateworthy (my husband - a literatura academic) walked into our home office on Monday night to find me reading in quickly fading evening light. He says to me, "Alright Milton, you gonna turn the lights on?"

So I ask him, "Is that how Milton went blind? Not some congenital thing?"

"Sure," he says. "He had to dictate Paradise Lost. The whole thing. Some other things too like (he says this smiling as if to make his point) the sonnet that begins 'When I consider how my light is spent' about his blindness." I love that he remembers this sort of thing -entire passages- even though Milton is not his area.

Then in seconds, he pulls Milton's Complete Poems and Prose from the shelf, flip flip and bam, there it is, Sonnet XIX, and it is lovely.

I love that he brings beautiful words into my life. It's like that line in Wonderboys, "She was a junkie for the printed word, and lucky for me, I manufactured her drug of choice."
I really get that. And a phrase like "how my light is spent" is something I could chew on for a few days. Warm chocolate chip cookies I never knew were there.

How my light is spent.

What an image, a phrase, a challenge.
Not just about blindness, but about how life is a brief light.
In.
Flicker.
and then
Out.

How will I spend it?
How will I share it?
What will my life illuminate?

I don't conserve my light either. I don't limit my attention to things that are good or beautiful. I don't always spend my light in ways that make me or any one else happy or the better for it.

But I should.
Because I am so damned lucky.



**if you enjoyed this piece, check out the albums of Orchestra Baobab. Perfect summer music in every way.

Whatever I Am

So...if it is true that, "Whatever You Love, You Are," I get a bit stuck on the You Are part. I flip through my journals and look at the images I have saved* for insight. I begin to wonder if maybe I love too many diverse and incompatable things, like salty air and snow.

So I make the list, uncensored and honest:

I love
words

water

paper and books

magazines and typewriters,
bookstores and pens,

music and romantic comedies,
writing and paintings,
photography and advocacy,
helping someone find the word that sets an emotion free,
color,

humor,
bringing order to something,

listening,
making connections to make sense of things,
resolving conflict,
travel,
scotch tape,
hydrangeas and quilts,
flapping sails and harbor sounds,
thoughtfulness,
pianos and violins and cellos,
coffee and scones,
tea and chocolate,
Polaroids and

porches,
pink tissue paper flowers on the way home.



I love catching a moment that will never be again.

...when no one is looking...

...and just before it is gone.


I love stories around a table.
Burgers on the grill after a long winter.
Cold beer & avocados.



I love seeing her hair in the sunlight, like an Andrew Wyeth painting.
I love making my dad laugh out loud and seeing my mom inspired.


I love all that I have
and all I have lost.

I love it all madly. So what does that make me?

Today (which I qualify because this sort of thing changes) I think it means that I am one of those books you can find in a couple of different sections, or an album that has to be cross-referenced to find because it's not kept where you would think it should be. I like to think I'm on the nightstand under a bottle of water, or in the carry-on traveling on the overnight train to Madrid with wavy pages from the saltwater, or maybe just bath water. Or that you called in sick just to finish reading, but that the words made all the difference in the rest of your life.

I've heard someone say once that in a crisis of faith, she turns to books. I do too. I hope that some day, I'll be the book that has the answer for someone.

If I'm working on litigation or taking a photograph, or writing an essay, I hope that the work, the purpose, fullfills the prayer a dear friend shared with me from Marianne Williamson, that "if this is the highest and best interest for me and those around me, then please allow it to happen."

I guess that's who I am.

But, it's still a guess.

*The images photographed in my journals are old copy from Home & Garden, O at Home, Oprah Magazine, and Real Simple respectively.

Letting Her Go: A Eulogy

A new post for Skirt!


---------------
I've received many emails and calls about expressions of sympathy. I can't tell you how much that means to me and my family. We've asked in lieu of flowers for donations
in memory of Pauline Faith to go to:

Meals on Wheels
Daviess County Senior Services
Elizabeth Munday Center
1650 West Second Street
Owensboro, KY 42301

If you would prefer to donate online or to a different chapter, you can do so online here:
Meals on Wheels

**As an aside, Elizabeth Munday (for whom the center mentioned above is named) was a great lady too. I adored her and her stories about her travels and visiting with the Peabody ducks. I would be such a different person had I not been blessed by knowing so many wise women who approached 100 years in age ...Aunt Ivy, Elnora Schoppenhorst, Ms. Munday and now Grandmom. My other Grandmother who died in 1995, didn't make it to 90, but she was wise and amazing, too.

The Lloyd Dobbler Career Plan

Here's a new post for Skirt!

In Her Shoes

a new post for Skirt!

Pen Pals

My new post for Skirt!

Happy Birthday America

My new post for Skirt! is available here.

In-Box Full

My new post for Skirt!

The Promise of Friday

My new post for Skirt! is here.

Passages

It begins slowly.

We put away the tiny socks, the mobile, the gemini. I folded up the onesies. The bottles and black and white patterned toys go to Goodwill.

Then the pace of everything escalates: the boppies have no more use, the baby tub, the high chair, the things I tied on the crib rails that sing, the pack-n-play.

Just as these items trickled into my home one-by-one, their names new to me like learning the vocabulary of a new language, they rapidly outlive their usefulness for my once very tiny soft baby, who now tries to stand on them or use them to build forts.

The gear in the storage area begins to talk to me at night: asking me why I'm holding on to it.

Someone else could be using me.

Are you sure I will be used again?

Will I be outdated when you turn on my switch next time?

I ask myself the same question.

The smaller gear is not as pushy about leaving.

The pacifiers went away in February.

The diapers in May, and with them, the changing table.

The crib is coming down this weekend.

It is the last vestige of the way her room looked the day we brought her home from the hospital.

It's exciting to watch her (and her room) evolve from baby to young girl. And it is a reminder at how fast it all happens.

I once came home from College (753 miles from home) unnannounced. I was the last to go away to school, and the last to leave an empty room behind. When I opened the backdoor by the kitchen, my mother was standing at the end of the long hallway, carrying a laundry basket into the guest room where she folds clothes. She stopped and glanced up at me and continued walking. When I said her name, she ran back into the hallway saying, "Oh my God! It's really you!"

"But, you just looked at me," I said.

"I see you girls here all the time. I didn't think you were actually here."

I know what she means now.

I walk into my little baby girl's room now and I still see her learning to crawl, pulling up on things, even when she walks past me to put on her clothes

all by herself.

Phenomenal Women

Dr. Maya Angelou's 80th birthday is today. When I was 16, I lucked into two tickets to attend a reading with Maya Angelou. I wrote to her and invited her to come to our home for dinner after the reading. Can you imagine? I just put it out there. I was thinking, I love her. Of course she would like to be invited to dinner. Why not.

16 is great in that way.

She didn't respond to my letter, but I didn't care. I just liked sending her good words. She continues to send so many to me through her work.

I took my favorite English teacher with me to the lecture. She has since retired, but I still send her holiday cards and still love her to bits. English is not her first language and perhaps that is why she loves it and how she is able to inspire others to see it for new beauties that go unnoticed by the accustomed ear.

I used to dream of attending Wake Forest and being one of Dr. Angelou's students. But as I sat in the audience and listened to her speak, it was not all that different from reading her work or listen to her spoken word. In that moment, I felt this great comfort about books and the written word: that you can be a student of anyone who puts it down on the page from anywhere in the world.

Thank you to Mrs. B, and thank you Dr. Angelou for being such great women, teachers, friends.

On Writing & Confidentiality

Rebecca Walker mentioned in a lecture I attended once that she tries very hard in her writing to be honest, but to do no harm. I struggle with that too and primarily with feeling that so many stories I have to tell are not mine alone and that I am somehow stealing part of another's individual experience. Our lives are all tangled.

Anne Lamott says you have to write as though everyone you are writing about is dead. I can't do that. But having read her work, I don't think she does either. She seems to be careful with people too, though probably more ruthless when commenting on herself.

There is that concept in the law that my rights end where yours begin. This is a problem for a writer. What belongs only to me and no one else? Very little.

I haven't written here in a few weeks because everything I have been wanting to share has involved the intricacies of other people's lives and deaths and I'm hesitant to share other people's stories without their consent. I'm left with only cliches about how life is precious, how the balance of work-family is kicking my ass but I'm enjoying the ride, and that, as O mentioned in last month's magazine, "Parents, I bow to your endurance!"

What I can say is that I'm inspired to write by people like the brilliant Jonathon Safron Foer who has said that he writes the kinds of book he would like to read, but can't find. Lately, I have come across novels that have titles that are exactly the title I would write, in fact much better than anything I could come up with, but inside the cover, it fizzles.

As the weather turns colder, my body reminds me of every broken bone, every muscle tear. Injuries I forgot I ever had, my body remembers. There is a novel called What The Body Remembers (by Shauna Singh Baldwin). It's a lovely book, but not at all what I was looking for and I left it feeling this title could have been cultivated in so many different ways.

The body having a separate memory from consciousness is a concept with endless story telling opportunities. All of our bodies are this way. Infinite possibilities.

When I saw the cover, I instantly thought of my mother begging us as children not to bump into her chair because the jarring sensation made her re-live falling from the attic, through the Pink Panther insulation and hitting the concrete garage floor. She was looking for baby clothes that had been stored away because she had just learned she was pregnant with me.

When my father came into the garage and found her, he knelt down, held her face in his hands, Viet Nam still fresh in his mind, and told her, "You're not going to die." They still can't get through the story today, 30 years later, without a bottle of wine and tears. I remain amazed that through the course of the pregnancy, her broken pelvis healed in time to deliver a 9lb 12 oz baby. The intensity of that trauma is most likely blocked out by the mind. But the body remembers.

Getting Mother's Body (Suzan-Lori Parks) turned out to be a literal title about retrieving the physical body. Now I love Suzan-Lori Parks. I'm excited she won a well deserved McArthur and to hear her talk about studying with James Baldwin is inspiring. She compared his students to flowers, all turning to face his sun and all more radiant in his presence... or something like that. She's amazing and I raced out to buy her book. But the title had a million places to go, and chose only one.

I foresee feeling this way again about a new film Things We Lost In The Fire. What an amazing title. Bret Lott teaches that writing is all about making choices. This title made all of them and none all at once. Damn. It could be anything. And, it should be said, there is a beautiful 2001 album by Low of the same name and I hope they are getting some kick back for coming up with such an amazing phrase.

This title made me think of *Fran, a Southern comfort food cook who now has a low country restaurant. When she showed me a recent grease fire scar, conversation drifted to stories of other fires. She told me that she kept a journal every night of her children's lives for 15 years that was lost in a house fire. Her husband passed when the boys were young and most of her photos of them together were gone. She told me about the pages and what the journal looked like with a hollow expression on her face of loss beyond measure. Watching the news this week, I thought about her and her journal and all of the things lost by each family- the vacuous nature of things lost in such a disintegrating way.

I'll keep writing. Though not about work, or where I live, or confidences shared. It's difficult to leave so much out and get to the root of things, but I have to write. Foer was interviewed about a year ago, when his child was 10 wks old and said:

"How do I put this? I love being a writer, but I don't love writing. An analogy might be, right now, I love having a kid, but man, oh man—it's so hard. Twenty-four hours a day. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. If you were to ask me each step of the way, "Do you feel like doing this?"...

As in: Do you feel like changing a diaper? No. Do you feel like jiggling a kid at four a.m.? No. Do you feel like cleaning barf off your shirt? No. But at the end of the day, if someone said, "Would you have wanted to spend the day any other way?," I'd say that's how I wanted to spend the day. When I write, I don't find it enjoyable page-by-page, but I'm really glad that it's what I do."

Thanks for reading.

A Rock, A River, A Tree

I work in a law office of 50 people and in the same week, we had a birth, a funeral and a wedding. I took photographs to commemorate two of those events (links above) and maybe because of that, last week felt more important and more tangible to me.

For our office manager, ordering flowers to send to these respective events, it probably seemed just like any other week. All offices are filled with the details of our personal lives that can interfere with efficiency.

Last week was just an intersection.

But for me, last week, I witnessed a lifespan unfold in what seemed like a few moments -- thrilling and scary, solemn and beautiful, all at the same time. The human condition in fast forward.

The thing about photography and writing, I suppose, is that part of its primary purpose is to witness and testify, both of which are terms of art (no pun intended) that surround my legal practice, and frequently come up at church. I didn't realize they pervade my hobbies as well.

When I look through my camera's viewfinder, I am searching for that which I can empathize, what I would be feeling if I were the subject, what I would want to see if were in the frame, to find myself in the subject's experience. For me, an image should be relevant to the person in it. But there's that legal standard creeping in again. Evidence only comes into play if it is first relevant.

I'm sure someone else has put this much more articulately, but what I love about photography, writing and representing people is the feeling of connectedness with other people and in turn the world, finding universality in the details of our lives, and helping people tell their stories, testify. Birth, love, death, ache, joy, desperation, comfort. Maya Angelou's words on this topic have driven my career and motivated me since I first read them when I was seventeen, "...that beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."

I think I needed to be reminded of that. In the days after 9/11, or the tsunami, or hurricane Katrina, we didn't have to be reminded of how that is all that matters: birth, love and the inevitability of death. It was right there on the tip of all of our tongues. People got married, had babies, quit jobs and made big decisions realizing the importance of carpe diem.

The morning of 9/11, my parents flew over the twin towers just a few hours before the fell. I lived across the country from them and the rest of my family. I stared a the TV, like everyone else, horrified. So many people were carrying photographs of missing loved ones. The photos were testimonies to their love, desperation, and inevitable loss. What I most remember about that day was the photos people held of their wedding days, of their brides or grooms, of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, co-workers. Our connectedness never felt more real.

That afternoon, I went to Kroger to stockpile baking supplies because that's what you do when the world is ending and you are Southern. My boyfriend (now husband) realized he had forgotten the Kroger Plus card (a must for students) and went home to get it, leaving me in the frozen foods section holding a bag of chicken breasts. I was in the exact same spot when he returned, lost in thought about how I wanted to make sure he would be able to find me, unlike the wandering people on TV, and how maybe the world wouldn't collapse if I made something warm that my Grandmother Viola once taught me to make when she was alive and we were together in the safety of her sunlit kitchen.

Feeling what these three families are going through --birth, death, marriage of two families-- was such a gift to me and brought me closer to my own feelings of the fragility and raw beauty of life, even in it's cruelties.

But this morning, as Maya writes, "on the pulse of this new day," I went back into the office, stepped into the elevator and, "looked into my sister's eyes, into my brother's face, my country and said, very simply with hope, Good Morning."

Where Have You Gone Carrie Tuhy?

Paul Simon was on Charlie Rose this week --I know, I'm officially 200 years old. Not only am I watching Charlie Rose, but my other media go-to shows are on NPR. Oldsville-- and he said that our society is too focussed on the "empty calories" of celebrity culture. I am certainly guilty of consuming the empty calories of Pop Sugar, People, Hello!, etc., and of enjoying every cotton-candy bite. My challenge lately has been finding things that aren't empty calories.

My legal ethics professor used to say that all human beings are mimetic. I was dismissive of that idea at first. I'm an original, right? I don't imitate people. But, when it comes down to it, I'm always looking for role models, professional mentors, people who are living positive lives and balancing responsibilities. I'm watching this play out with my daughter right now as she is picking and choosing what things she wants to emulate from the various influences in her life. I'm starting to think that our obsession with celebrities is more of that pursuit: for role models of success.

As a type A personality, semi-OCD, compulsive organizer who loves magazines, the launch of Real Simple Magazine was very exciting to me. I was a charter subscriber and read every issue cover to cover. Those were the days when they ran articles on actual families who had found ways to live simpler, quieter, less chaotic, organized lives! It was the I Ching of organizing and time management filled with ideas for creating zen in your home and office. For me, there were role models in the articles. People who were living life in a positive, simple way. Where can I find that now? Now, Real Simple is filled with 3 page comparisons on different kinds of ketchup. Boo! What is this, Consumer Reports? A Pepsi Challenge? I've tried to find comfort in the pages of others: Domino? Blueprint? Martha? In the words of George Costanza, NO. NO. NO. They are lovely, but Pixie Sticks nonetheless.

I'm thrilled that Victoria is coming back in December, but that's not going to fill my need for somebody to give me tips on how to (absent amphetamines) find time to organize my day planner, car, office and kitchen drawer while packing a nutritious creative lunch, planning a relaxing family outing/neighborhood picnic with time to spare to evaluate storage solutions for my imaginary farmhouse.

In those golden years when Real Simple began, Carrie Tuhy was Managing Editor and her essays at the beginning of each issue were always worthy of tearing out and keeping in a journal. Her piece after 9/11 was more poignant than anything else I've read on the topic. The magazine ran stories then about large families and how to keep schedules for them, streamlining at work, groups of girlfriends re-uniting for simple dinner or getaway, finding ways to bring a neighborhood together, adding time to your day by organizing obligations, running a restaurant with friends, coping with loss in a proactive way. Stick-to-your-bones journalism. Now, there is Heinz v. Hunts. Seriously.

A New York Times article said Ms. Tuhy was replaced as editor because she had "management problems." Whatever these alleged problems were, I don't care. She's human. What was inspiring to me was that she had vision and could find stories of people who are trying to make it work and who were willing to share what was working for them. I don't need my role models to be perfect, just willing to share in a meaningful conversation.

Seaworthy Living

About once every 6 months or so, our 1300 square foot stone cottage starts to swell. You can almost see the house's pulse from the street. I re-arrange and re-organize and purge clutter and try to set up new play areas for my daughter's toys, the dog's toys, the cat's neuroses, my husband's books and my bags. And then, I start feeling antsy under the pressure, and before I know it, I'm wandering over to the local Realtor website of area listings.

Of the thousands of listings, there is usually only one that peaks my interest and then I obsess about it, decide that ultimately it won't work for some reason or another, and then re-commit to the cottage, promising to be a better resident, devoted to finding new creative solutions to the challenges of a small space. I have always dreamed of living at sea, and this is a nice trial run at togetherness. We just need those nautical cabinets in the house with latches to secure everything and clean off the surfaces.

A year ago, we found the perfect house for us and it sold within 5 hours of going on the market. But in retrospect, we were secretly relieved that it sold so fast, because if it hadn't, and we were actually confronted with all of that space, it would have been a difficult decision.

For all of the challenges of a small house, I am comforted that no one is ever alone in the cottage, that one load of laundry can make the entire house smell like clean cotton, that cooking in our kitchen is always done elbow to elbow. You can't stay mad at anyone in the cottage because, like being on a boat, there's just not space to walk away. Music is shared. Dancing is encouraged. Cuddles are sometimes accidental. But it's home.

I just have to remind myself, each time I feel an impluse to take on more of a mortgage, how wonderful it is to have a cozy English cottage that we can fill up with books and tea and brio trains.

Southern Belles with Babies & Briefcases

I went to law school with some tremendous, impressive women. Cerebral rock stars. There were more women than men in my class and they dominated the top of it. After graduation, many of them filled prestigious positions at big firms in the neighboring big city.

Five years after graduation, few of them remain in the practice of law. What is particularly interesting to me is that these women, most of them now mothers, have not left the workplace, they have just left the practice of law. It bothers me because, even on my most challenging days, I believe we need women in the law to effectuate positive change for women and families on a grassroots level.

I have read all of the books I can find on the bigger Mom/Work issue(s) (Naomi Wolfe's Misconceptions, Judith Warner's Perfect Madness, Daphne de Marneffe's Maternal Desire, and so on) and I am noticing that although these books are brilliant and well researched, they only identify the problems. I'm sure that brings comfort to many women who felt alone in the same way The Feminine Mystique helped an earlier generation. But, the books leave my most important questions unanswered. I don't want to just complain about pitfalls in the FMLA.

Generations of women before me have made sacrifices that have allowed me to be in my profession, so I can't complain. I feel terrible complaining about anything related to motherhood because I am blessed to have my daughter in my life.

My question is simply, how can we make the practice of law more accessible to parents and how can I be more efficient in managing the balance?

To try to answer those questions, I've been interviewing former classmates and women who I have litigated with and against, on the subject of how they are managing the work-life balance and why the law is particularly inflexible. The answers have been a fascinating look into the profession.

Rather than tell you what societal issues came up, I think it's better to focus on what is working for some of them. I'm hoping this can be part of a series and when I hear something helpful, I will pass it on.

The greatest piece of advice so far was from someone I had a case against in the past. I called her up and asked her to meet me for coffee one afternoon (her beautiful kids are 2 & 4) and she was so gracious with her time.

She said that she finally had to reconcile the fact that her own Southern upbringing --her definition of what it meant to be a wife and mother, her own expectations for herself in that regard-- and her current career demands are incongruous. Accepting that fact has really helped her.

For her, this came to a head when guests popped in unannounced after she had been in court all day and had just walked through the door to squeeze her kids. She was mortified. "I had to get over that the house was a mess and that there weren't cheese straws on the table and flowers and h'ors d'oevres. It's okay if those things only happen on special occasions."

She and I both want to have time to do those things: to make people in our lives feel special with the kind of the hospitality we've been raised is appropriate, but that our schedules won't permit it. Her guests could have cared less about the cheese straws, or their absence. Once she got that, she felt more free to live her life.

She said a million little things that resonated with me, but that story sort of personifies the inner bind we all feel about living up to our expectations for ourselves. I've read a lot of articles where people feel strangled by the cheese straw type of thing, (or whatever the cheese straw is for them) and that it's a burden put on them by society. I don't feel that way. Those are things I would like to do, there's just not enough time.

Last Christmas, I felt so overwhelmed. I wanted to do every cute felt, snow flake, mittens, cookie, cocoa, knitting, string popcorn, Christmas book, caroling activity in every kids magazine. I wanted to add new traditions for every part of every holiday. I finally realized that it wasn't that I had too much to do, it was that I was taking on too much. I wasn't making any choices. I have found some solace in knowing that I don't have to do every single thing all of the time. Some days there will be cheese straws and some days there will be cheese pizza.

My friend's practical survival tips:
1. Type up a list of birthdays and holidays for the year and keep them on you to work on year round. Keep the file on your computer to make changes as needed.
2. Have one area for clean laundry where you can close the door. This way, if you don't get everything folded and put away, the kids can go in and dig for clothes which they really enjoy.
3. Hire a babysitter some Saturday morning so that you can work on a house project that is draining your energy.
4. Re-evaluate how you are spending your time for each hour of the day. What's working, what's not. Re-group and make a new schedule.

More on this later...

For Mother's Day

When my parents moved to a hurricane-prone area, I started receiving boxes filled with photographs to preserve in case of a flood. After sorting volumes and years of photos, I am struck by how many vivid memories I have that were never photographed. Most of these have to do with my mom. Like many moms, she was more often behind the camera that in front of it. Or like me with the delete key, photos of her would show up missing.

Those missing photographs were snapshots in my memory. Like, for example, how she looked floating in front of my little boat raft in the pool, or putting on make up, or cooking popcorn on the stove, or the back of her hair when she drove or what her hands looked like when I would play with her rings in church. (As it turns out, her hands look very much like mine when my daughter holds my hand.) There are moments when my daughter looks at me very hard - when she is studying something I'm doing- I wonder if she is taking one of those snapshots.

For the last 12 years, I have lived 700 or so miles from my mom. Though we talk almost every day, when I think of her, I still imagine her to look like my childhood mom, busting me out of preschool to go get cheeseburgers and watch As The World Turns. I remember what she smelled like when she was getting ready for a party or church, like perfume and spray starch or after a day at the pool, chlorine and baby oil. Even as a married woman, long gone from home, I opened a package from her and just the smell of her perfume made me burst into tears.

Here are a few of my favorite photos of my mom. I'm sure if given the chance to see the originals, she would hide them. But to me, she looks so beautiful.






I love this photograph. She looks so beautiful. I just hear Diana Ross singing Baby Love when I see this photo.


Mom went to college when I was 6. Here she is drawing Squirt, the family Hamster, for an art class. Even at 6, I understood how brave she was to go back and I was so proud. I still am. I hope I inherit her energy to constantly try new things. Happy Mother's Day Mom.

Fighting Fires

Cookie Magazine mentioned this family's blog in this month's editor's note. http://www.princeliamthebrave.blogspot.com/ This little boy is close to my daughter's age and I believe they would be fast friends. They share a keen interest in cheese puffs, Curious George (who they both refer to as "George Monkey") and firefighters. This is his parents' courageous blog to update friends and family of his brave, and I believe winning, cancer fight.

As a believer in the power of prayer, I wanted to pass along their blog with hopes that more people will say a prayer for this little man and for his family. In their most recent post, they write:

"I know in my head that the medicine is working. I know in my heart that the prayers, positive thoughts, blessings, healing crystals, blessed figurines, good wishes and meditations are also working. A friend is making 40 loaves of Challah bread this weekend with a group of women from her synagogue in honor of Liam. It's an old Jewish tradition that brings good health to those in need. We are honored that they would make such a commitment of time for a child whose parents aren't a member of their community. But again, it takes a community the size of New York to heal a sick child."

I am so moved by people doing what they know how to do to effectuate change and lift people out of crisis.

As I child I remember visiting my grandmother (who passed away in 1995) and hearing her in the kitchen at 3:00 am brewing coffee to pour into thermoses and making sandwiches, wrapping each one in wax paper. It wasn't until morning that I learned that a furniture factory caught fire in the night causing chemical explosions and that fire departments from all of the surrounding counties had come together to fight the fire. My grandfather packed up her sandwiches and coffee and took them to the firefighters to eat during breaks to give them strength to keep fighting the fire all through the night.

It's such a vivid memory for me because I was so impressed by her ingenuity. She knew she could do something in her own way to make a difference and she did it without hesitation. She saw a need beyond the flames. Women in church basements and sewing circles around the world have done this for centuries. When everyone is scrambling, they are finding ways to solve problems, bring comfort, and organize the madness.

We're all part of the same community. If only we could each use our skills, even in small ways, to help each other. Perhaps it does take a city the size of New York to heal a child. But with the internet, a global community as big as the ocean, just think of the great that we could do for our children. 40 loaves of Challah bread to you and your children and good health.

Grand Women

Remember in Fools Rush In when Selma Hayek’s character goes to her great grandmom’s house in Mexico? Her Grand is this beautiful, Georgia O’Keefe, Eudora Welty type of gal and you just want to go to her house and quilt or make something fabulous to eat with tamales. I love that movie.

Or there’s the scene in An Affair to Remember when Cary Grant goes to his Grandmother Janou's house and she is beautiful and wise and she hugs on Deborah Kerr (who is sort of in need of some support) and they play the piano together. I love that movie.



My Grands, and the Grands I’ve adopted in my life, are (and were) those kind of girls: huggable, filled with experience, adoring women who walk into the kitchen and come out with something that tastes like every ingredient is the result of someone’s best day.

My husband’s Granny, who I have claimed as my own Grand too, makes mouth-watering apple pies that actually transform a cup of coffee. I’ve noticed they are usually made in celebration of a homecoming.

My 95-year old Grandmom, who has a “gentleman friend” because, as she told me, “he’s too old to call a boyfriend,” is still staggeringly beautiful and makes coconut pie every time someone she loves passes away. There was a time when people at her church looked for coconut pie as a comforting staple in times of grief. And no celebration is complete without her cheesy squash casserole with Ritz crackers and loads of butter.

The Farmer’s Market is starting up here again for the summer and I’ve been thinking about another one of those kind of girls, Diana Kennedy, and how we need to go get some fresh vegetables and try out a recipe.

Ms. Kennedy is this lovely, curious English woman who moved to Mexico with her husband Paul where he was writing for the New York Times. And then he died of cancer. But instead of heading home, she decided to live in Mexico and became sort of an anthropologist, traveling to remote villages and learning from the local people, cooking in their kitchens, quietly respecting and preserving their unique recipes. Her mission is to collect recipes that have been passed down for centuries, but have never been written down or published. I just love that.

She has built a solar-powered adobe eco-house where she grows her own vegetables. In photos, it looks like something from Under the Tuscan Sun.



I did some research and found out that she’s been traveling around Mexico for 47 years now. She asks these great questions from people about what something tastes like and then, before you know it, she’s in their home and they are cooking together. Now there’s a diplomatic approach I can get behind.

One website quoted her as saying, “I never travel in straight lines. The important discoveries in my life have always happened by chance.” Awesome.
Here’s a link to her work: http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Diana+Kennedy&x=0&y=0

Wonder In Uncertain Times

We get the magazine www.wondertime.com (thanks shishie!) which prints beautiful pages with suggestions of small, magical things about the world to share with your children. One article talked about how to make an adventure out of airline travel for your toddler. Another article shared one mom's experience of lining up all of her kids' toys in a parade during naptime to watch them re-discover some old friends when they woke up. Inspiring, adorable, creative stuff.

Wondertime has me thinking about how to make the most of these years when everything is new and when my daughter is discovering all of the fantastic things about living. Things like chocolate and sunshine, the sprinkler and sidewalk chalk, books and music.

She's been learning about the people of her neighborhood at school: fire fighters, police officers, postal carriers and doctors are this month's subjects. She has hung on to every detail about them and when we encounter one such individual, she is so thrilled to see them, waive, and tell them what she knows. During our regular Saturday morning bakery visit, she stands almost at the door greeting people as they come in. "Hi!"

After a day like today, I worry that I may be setting her up for disappointment later. The world is not safe. There are many days that are scary and devoid of any magic or wonder -- when the people of your neighborhood can't protect you. How I wish I could re-create a world for her that is more like the one I've been selling. I am beginning to think that as adults, we are in a constant battle to force our current experience into what we initially thought the world was supposed to be as children. Will it be more disappointing for her to learn over time that one by one, the things that she thought were shiny, safe and secure could have rusty, sharp edges? I suppose the child in all of us gives us the capacity to experience, remember and hopefully recapture joy: finding shapes in clouds, reveling in the miracle that plastic caplets can magically turn into sponge dinosaurs in the bathtub, that an empty shoebox is the perfect a stage set for a playdough snowman performance.

Maybe that's what we all need on a day like today. After we cry our eyes out and pray and get angry and challenge our faiths, maybe all that's left is to help our children, and in turn ourselves, find wonder in a scary world.

My prayer is for new moments of hope and wonder in a time, after another event, that is not representative of who we are as a people of the American neighborhood.