My one and only vision

Some people have visions all the time. Not just people from eons ago, Old Testament prophets and oracles and such, but perfectly ordinary people walking around in the modern world, living otherwise ordinary lives, shopping for groceries and sending text messages and doing cartwheels in their living rooms …

In other words, my daughter. She’s prone to visions of future events and she wrote about one of them recently, about the vision she had of her husband-to-be, a very detailed picture except the face was blank. So when she met said future husband and one day saw him in exactly that same situation, only now she saw his face, she knew. She KNEW!

She assures me, though, that this happened after she had stated in her inimitable categoric no-nonsense I-will-brook-no-argument-end-of-conversation way that he would never ever be The One.

Let’s go back and start this story from the beginning, with my vision. Along with a lot of other people Heidi and I had attended an all-day meeting and now were in the car getting ready to visit a local friend for some hang-out time. David, a new acquaintance, was in our car because we were not local and didn’t know how to get to the friend’s house, so he offered to ride with us and direct us. And it was in the car when there was this Moment. A very quick, but oh so vivid, sort of flash when I looked at him talking to my daughter and suddenly saw them as if framed like a photograph. The picture kind of jumped at me as if it lit by a strobe. On, off, just like that.

And just like that, I knew. I really, really KNEW.

So it was no surprise to me after that day to watch the two of them became good friends and spend a great deal of time emailing back and forth. (David wasn’t too fond of phones back then.) I’d see Heidi madly keyboarding and laughing out loud as she answered his latest posts. I didn’t see what he did while he answered hers, but presumably he was enjoying their communications to an equal degree.

Finally one day, being nosy, anxious to become a grandma, and naturally possessed of the matchmaking gene (probably inherited from some long ago Jewish yenta ancestor), I asked Heidi whether something was going on with her and David. We were sitting at the kitchen table in my apartment, and I have a very clear picture (not a vision, just your every day garden variety memory) of her giving me the daughter look. You know, the one that says, poor me, woe is me, the long suffering daughter of this relentless, deluded woman. Then she told me, very sternly and with great emphasis (after she asked me to please stop trying to matchmake her yet again!), that no, she and David were not a couple, and besides: “Mom, I guarantee you, it will never be David Baker.”

That was about a month or so before they came to all us parents to ask for consent to be married in a Bahá'í ceremony.

Meanwhile, after that conversation I tried my darndest to put the whole idea out of mind. I really tried. I did. Honest. But one night a couple weeks after the kitchen table denial, I woke up from a sound sleep and saw the vision again and knew, just KNEW, that he really was The One. No matter what she said. Or how firmly she said it. So I got out of bed and wrote his name on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope and addressed the envelope to myself. Mailed it the next day. Received it a couple days later. Put it away unopened.

That’s the envelope Heidi mentions in her blog, the one that is in her wedding book. She and David have never opened the envelope. They just take my word about its contents.

Not everyone is so trusting.

A couple weeks after I’d mailed myself the envelope, I was talking to Heidi’s dad (my once and once again husband, but not at that time) and told him about my vision and about the sealed envelope with its pre-engagement postmark date that was proof that the vision had actually happened. He responded by laughing with most undignified gusto, and said, “Hah! You probably have 16 envelopes with 16 different names in it, and whoever she ends up with, you’ll say, “See, I knew!”’

Now why didn’t I think of that?

An open letter to parents, part 1

You can't imagine what happened to your daughter or how it happened so quickly. A few weeks ago she appeared to be cheerful and mature and the very essence of functional. Now she can't get up to go to the new job she had pursued and won with such impressive energy and determination. She almost can't get up at all, to do anything. That's just one symptom, one way in which she appears to be falling apart, disappearing into an alien personality. She is even starting to look different, her usual clean, crisp, attractive demeanor replaced by unkempt hair, unwashed skin, a standard wardrobe of dirty, disheveled shorts and t-shirts.

The worst part: she doesn't seem to be aware of her own deterioration.  She offers blithe excuses for missing work, and her conversation on the whole has become nonsensical, child-like blabbering such as you've never heard from her before,  even when she really was a child. Before she leaves for a weekend in Chicago's Grant Park, where the Grateful Dead will be performing -- suddenly she is a Dead Head, another new development -- she spins crazy fantasies about a plan to make and sell donuts at the event and claims to be sure she will earn big bucks with this spur-of-the-moment venture.

The world has turned on its axis. Your daughter is no longer someone you recognize.


You don't know what is going on or what to do about it. She is, after all, an adult, still young but not under your protection, not even a member of your household. She has her own apartment, although if she doesn't work, can't pay her rent, that might change, and soon.

Then she tells you what happened on that other weekend, a year ago. A long ride with an old classmate. Not even a date, at least not in your mind or, you think, in hers. A weekend you can barely remember because at the time, when she came home, there was no sign that anything had happened at all. She had already submerged the memory of it so successfully she couldn't have told you about it even if you had known to ask.

She tells you now because suddenly the event refuses to stay buried and is forcing its way back through frightening dreams, confusing flashbacks, disorientation, inexplicable psychological pain -- pain that has transformed her into a parody of herself. She tells you now because a good friend has recognized the symptoms and helped her begin to consciously remember. But she can't call it by its right name. She tells a piece of the story, talks around it without ever saying the one word that will make it real. You see that she is still half in denial. Maybe more than half. Painful memory has returned, but perhaps not acceptance of either the memory or the pain. 


You want to help, offer to take her back into your home, but with a condition: she has to see a counselor. She agrees. You make an appointment. She doesn't go. You make another one. She thanks you, promises she will be there, but misses that one, too. You can see that there will be no healing until she can bring it all out, talk it all out, but you can't make her go to the appointments.


You have been clear that seeing a counselor is her "rent" for a place to live, and after the fourth mysteriously missed appointment you see that you won't help her by letting her avoid the necessary healing work, by providing the means for her to crawl into another hole and shove the memories back to the place where they can be forgotten again and can continue their insidious poisoning, only to come forward as more and maybe worse dysfunction on other days, in future years. 


You tell her she must leave. 

Friends who don't know the whole story, who can't know it because it is not your right to tell her story, assume that of course you would never kick out your own daughter, that's not what a good mother does. But you've prayed about it, and discussed it with her father, and despite the other problems that have caused your marital separation, the two of you have agreed. You have to tell her to leave. He has to refuse to let her come to him. To do anything else will not help. To make her go might not help either, might lead to a horrible conclusion, but setting your own boundaries is the only course of action within your control. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

It is by far the hardest thing you have ever done as a parent. Maybe the hardest thing you have ever done.


She goes, with a plan for what she will do next, although not a plan that makes any sense. But you leave it to her to make a decision and follow through. You pray, a lot. You wait to hear from her. You hope you did the right thing, and still can't see what else you could have done. 

Everyone's prayers -- hers, yours, her dad's -- are answered when it almost happens again, this time with someone she barely knows, a friend of the friend who has given her a place to stay. This time she fights him off, her anger from before exploding all around him and chasing him away. Somehow this clears the air in a way that maybe nothing else could. Suddenly she recognizes that rape is the only name for what happened to her and knows she needs help. She makes her own appointments, willingly goes through the pain of disclosure, of psychic re-enactment, of emotional healing.

She becomes herself again, but stronger, calmer, more aware, more mature. Still the whole episode remains a family secret. You can't talk about your experience because that would reveal hers. Then one day, years later, you are astonished to read her latest blog. Seeing that memory revives your own pain and your memory of hers, but you are relieved that now you can share the experience with other parents. Because you know, in this world of confused and misplaced values that result in uncounted experiences of sexual abuse, there are many, many others who will need to hear it.

An open letter to parents, part 2

Many years after the events that are the subject of Part 1, I wrote and acted the following for a university production about sexual abuse issues. After I left the troupe they included it in a couple more shows, and I had a chance to watch it as an audience member. It seems appropriate to share it here.
 

HEALING

(They start out standing next to each other but both facing audience,.

Mother: I hardly recognize her.

Daughter: I hardly recognize myself.

Mother: It seemed to come out of nowhere...

Daughter: Nowhere.

Mother: because it’s now a year since it happened...and I didn’t even know it had happened at all.

Daughter: How could she know when I didn’t know myself ... until the flashbacks started.

Mother: I thought she was so content... No, more than that. So happy. Motivated. All of a sudden she became the poster girl of positive mental attitude.  I was so pleased.Now I think what I was seeing was her denial, her defense against her own memory..

Daughter: I thought I was responsible for it happening ...

Mother: But she seemed so happy.

Daughter: and had to make it go away ...

Mother: No problems at all.

Daugther: and it did go away ... until the flashbacks started.

Mother: How could I not have known something was wrong?  Such an abrupt change in behavior. Regardless of the direction of that change, how could I not have suspected ... something?

Daughter: The next day ...

Mother: There must have been a sign...

Daughter:  I had already forgotten ...

Mother: something.  I should have seen...

Daughter: made myself forget...

Mother: should have sensed...

Daughter: made it never have happened...

Mother: something.

Daughter: even while it was happening.

Mother: Something.

Daughter: I could not let myself believe it.

Mother: And now I hardly recognize her.

Daughter: And now I can’t stop remembering...

Mother: It’s like she’s been turned inside out.  She doesn’t go to work, doesn’t care how she looks ...

Daughter: and I can’t think of anything else.

Mother: ... and she might be on something. I don’t know how tohandle... I have to get her to someone...

Daughter: I just want to forget again.

Mother: Someone who will know what to do, someone she can talk to...

Daughter: I can’t talk about it.

Mother: someone who can draw it out of her...

Daughter: If I start, I won’t be able to stop.  It will all come pouring out...

Mother: Like poison from a wound.

Daughter: Like poison from a wound.

Mother: (to daughter) Please, get help.

Daughter: I can’t face it.

Mother: It was not your fault.

Daughter: I feel so dirty.

Mother: You did not ask for it.

Daughter: I just want to forget

Mother: Remember.

Daughter: Any way I can.

Mother: Remember.

Daughter: It never happened.

Mother: Talk.

Daughter: I can’t.

Mother: Heal.

Daughter: (to the mother) I’m afraid.

Mother: Believe it.

Daughter: I don’t know.

Mother: Believe it.

Daughter: If I let it out?

Mother: Yes.

Daughter: If I ask for help?

Mother: Yes.

Daughter: If I remember?

Mother: It will lose it’s power.

Daughter: Healing will begin?

Mother:  Yes.

Daughter: (facing audience) How can I begin to say it all, out loud, to anyone?

Mother: (facing audience) It will be so hard ...

Daughter: I can’t do it.

Mother: But not talking about it, pretending it didn’t happen, pretending to forget ...

Daughter: What else can I do?

Mother:... will keep it right there, right inside you, like poison in a wound.

Daughter: Like poison in a wound.

Mother: (facing daughter) Remember.

Daughter: Any way I can.

Mother: Remember.

Daughter: It never happened.

Mother: Talk.

Daughter: I can’t.

Mother: Heal.

Daughter: (to the mother) I’m afraid.

Mother: Believe it.

Daughter: I don’t know.

Mother: Believe it.

Daughter: If I let it out?

Mother: Yes.

Daughter: If I ask for help?

Mother: Yes.

Daughter: If I remember?

Mother: It will lose it’s power.

Daughter: Healing will begin.

Mother: (facing audience) Yes.

Daughter: (facing audience) Yes.

Who is what?

It's going to be a busy weekend, with not much writing time, so I'm offering the following piece I composed and performed for a workshop production at the University of Illinois in October 2006. If the subject interests you, I recommend a new book by an old friend. You can read about it and order it at http://www.storiesofracialhealing.com/. 

Whatever else we can say about racism and race relations in the U.S., outside of all the confusions and conclusions and the psychic contusions that the subject causes, leaving aside the causes espoused by various groups and factions, and the questions of what is fiction and what is fact, beyond all that at least one thing is clear and self-evident – that we know who is who, me and you, who is White and who is Black.

Don’t we?

I say I am White. My six year old grandson, looking at me without the aid of bone-deep knowledge of our skewed history, says I am peach. Each of us on this stage tonight is a different color, a different shade on the spectrum from light to dark, from peach to brown, yet we choose to simplify and amplify and defy reality by calling ourselves, merely, Black and White.

If only it were that easy.

A neighbor, a woman of color – in her case a mellow, slightly reddish brown – and a woman whose sympathetic and empathetic brown face attracts trust and confidence – this woman once told me that she often meets others, clerks in stores, for example, men and women with light complexions, who suddenly lean in to her and tell in her low voices, in careful whispers, after looking around to make sure they can’t be overheard, that actually, really they are Black, but no one else here knows that.

“It’s amazing,” my friend says, “how many people are passing.”

“Really?” I say, amazed. “I’ve never met one.”

Not one of the smartest statements I’ve made in my life.

But what do these people mean when they call themselves Black? They don’t mean skin color. Theirs doesn’t qualify. They must mean something else, or maybe a lot of somethings else, a shared history, a group membership, a heritage, an assumed set of characteristics? All that and more seems to be inherent in the simple color name, Black.

White, on the other hand, means what? When I hear that designation, do I hear a shared history, a group membership, a heritage, an assumed set of characteristics? No. All I hear is Not Black. And that only if Black is nearby, to be compared against.

I met a young man on a bus one day. We started talking, about who lived where, who worked at what, that kind of thing. He was a fair-skinned man, with straight brown hair, unremarkable features, just an ordinary, everyday sort of White guy look. Then he mentioned – and I don’t remember why, it was just a comment that fit in to the conversational topic of the moment – he mentioned, in a casual way, that one of his parents was White and one was Black. In the twinkling of an eye, faster than it took Cinderella’s coach too turn back into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight, that man changed right before my eyes. He became Black. Just like that.

Not one of the proudest moments of my life.

What do my eyes see? What my grandson’s eyes see, simply skin color? No, I see categories called Black and White regardless of the colors that are actually in front of me. I see a light-skinned friend of African ancestry as Black, and a dark-skinned friend with Mediterranean genes as White, because I place significance on those designations. Significances that I’ve learned through growing up in a society shaped and defined by those man-made, self-serving, economically useful significances.

A Chinese girl came to the university department where I work, looking for Dr. Anderson. We had three Dr. Anderson’s on our faculty, which one did she want? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know his first name. His. OK, that narrowed it down to two. Did she know what he looked like. He’s tall, she said. No help there. Finally after a little more prodding, she came up with a descriptive characteristic that worked. He’s very dark, she said, his skin, very dark. Aha, mystery solved. She didn’t want any of our Dr. Andersons at all, she wanted the one who is head of another department in our college. The Black Dr. Anderson. I directed her to that office, one of hundreds of students I’ve seen and served, but one I’ll never forget. Because she saw the same dark skin I saw, but she didn’t see the same significance of that color, so his skin tone was way down on her list of identifying characteristics.

And what of my identifying characteristic, and that of most of my fellow Americans? The characteristic that defines us, the one that limits us and shames us and enslaves us, is our persistent, pervasive, unshakeable insistence on seeing everyone in terms of the meaningless, erroneous, and simply untrue categories we call Black and White.

-30-

Doors: a personal note

Since I know a lot of you are waiting to hear about the result of my application to graduate school, and because I am inexpressibly grateful for your support, the first thing on today’s agenda is to tell you that the letter came and, as I expected, my application was not accepted. It was a pleasant and encouraging letter, very similar to the ones I send every year to about 90% of the students who apply to the graduate program in the department where I work. As with this whole experience, from GRE exam through getting recommendation letters to final decision, it has been an interesting and instructive adventure to be on the other side of such a familiar fence.


So many people were sure I would get accepted that it was quite gratifying to my writer’s ego, even while I knew – both as a writer and as an admissions coordinator – that the chances of that happening were low. Remember limbo contests? How low can you go? I knew that the probability of acceptance, for me or any candidate, was very very very low, for a variety of reasons. I also knew that the English Department most likely had received a high number of applications this year. The prevailing wisdom says that when the economy goes down, grad school apps go up. If the letter had said I was accepted, I would probably have fainted from sheer shock before I finished reading it. Finally getting the word hurt, but it was more of a sting than a slap.

It was also a release. Other options that I had put in a mental pending file can now be pulled out of the drawer and more carefully considered. I tried to submit the best application possible so have to acknowledge, with joy rather than sorrow, that graduate school, at least in this particular time and place, is not the door that is open to me, and that a closed door over there simply means another door will be open over here. And that God knows which door is the right one for me and for whatever avenues of service are tagged with my name.

These thoughts connect well with the ones I had already started writing for this week’s blog. Due to a Facebook conversation, I had been thinking about the

Bahai belief that there are two simultaneous processes going on in today’s world, one destructive of old ways of thinking and behaving and one constructive, which includes many things that many people are doing to create new building blocks of civilization.

My understanding of this view is that these two processes are as logical for world progress as they are for personal growth and change. For a prosaic example, if I want a new kitchen, I first have to tear apart my old kitchen (the destructive process) to make space to build something better (the constructive process). And during the transition between these two processes I have to live with necessary chaos and inconvenience In that light, the destructive process is a painful but positive step.

On a more personal level, if I want to make space for new spiritual growth I have to be willing to let go of old thoughts and behaviors, to leave and if necessary destroy my comfort zone (the spiritual equivalent of an old, no longer functional kitchen). If an old pattern of thought and action is clearly not working, I need to let it self-destruct while I focus my energies on building new habits. If I ask God for a specific favor, even one that appears inherently beneficial, and the answer is “no,” I need to be grateful for that answer and ready to understand the guidance it provides for other paths of service.

Looking at the world situation in this way can help me stay sane on a planet that seems to be going bonkers. I can choose to focus on building new structures, new patterns, new ways of relating, and (to borrow a Twelve Step program phrase) to “let go and let God” deal with clearing away the rubble of the old. As a member of the Bahá'í comunity, this means doing my part to help develop a spiritually based governmental model that places priority on justice and unity rather than winning power through warring factions. It also means focusing on my participation in, and growing understanding of, our mission to learn and teach specific skills for human interaction, skills that help individuals begin to see themselves as noble beings created to serve one another. I believe and see solid evidence that this task we have been given is ultimately the way to begin changing civilization, from the bottom up.

Whether the mechanism is described as one door closing so another can open, or twin processes of destruction and creation, what it all means to me is accepting the events of my life and moving forward with confidence that the right path will become clear, so long as I keep my eyes, my mind, open.

-30-

Modems, maids and mice

How, you might be wondering, am I going to meld three words that share nothing but a beginning “M” into one blog? How indeed? Since you asked, I’ll tell you.

Let’s start with modems, or more specifically, my DSL modem that just suddenly decided to kick the bucket a few nights ago. Earlier that same evening, my cell phone had also died, or so it seemed. The normal display was replaced by a picture of a battery, and the danged thing refused to charge, or start, or do anything. Since we no longer have a land line in our home, a working cell phone is a necessity, so I told my husband I’d be going to the AT&T service center to get a new phone.

That’s what I told him, that’s not what I did. I was recovering from a brief bout of the usual nameless bug (the one that’s always “going around”), had come home early from work and retired to the couch, and just couldn’t work up enough angst about the phone to get dressed again and leave the house.

A couple hours later I discovered that my modem was also among the deceased and had to call the technical service people for assistance. I could manage that, it didn’t involve going anywhere. Of course, I would need a phone to do it and was gong to use my husband’s when suddenly my own phone came back to life. Kind of miraculous, no? OK, maybe not. But it does confirm one of my long held beliefs: that the various kinds of machines and devices that we use to operate our lives secretly communicate with one another.

I became aware of this phenomenon back around 1991 when I was working as a typesetter in a small shop in Evanston, IL. This was in the days before desktop publishing appeared and led to a graphics-capable computer in every home becoming the order of the day. Now just about anyone can produce basic typeset materials – flyers, for example, or newsletters, signs, whatever – because the programming to do that is a standard computer feature.

But in tech world 19 years ago is the dark ages, so instead of modern do-everyhing-except-cook-dinner computers, our shop had three dedicated Compugraphic typesetting machines and another very large photoprocessor that sucked in the film produced by the Compugraphics, moved it through a long channel (5 feet long, maybe 6) of photo developing mechanisms and fluids, and spit finished type out the other end.

This machine was essential to our operation. We could typeset our fingers to the bone but wouldn’t have a product to give our customers if all those keystrokes couldn’t be translated into paper that could be cut and pasted to make masters for brochures and such. And Mr. Photoprocessor knew how important he was to the business and generally managed to break down or jam up or whatever only on days when we had major jobs due.

It was obvious, at least to me, that after we turned off the lights and locked the doors at 5:00 p.m. every day, the Compugraphics and their buddy consulted about whether the next day would be a good one for a work stoppage. Not much due? Keep running smoothly. Urgent deadline? Go on strike. Or not. If they were feeling charitable, the processor would keep functioning and let us finish the job on time.

So I wasn’t at all surprised last week when my phone and modem conferred and decided to provide phone service so I could call AT&T and find out what to do to get back online.

That typesetting shop was a small place, just four full-time employees including the owner, and for a while, one part-timer, a student from Northwestern University. Can’t remember his name. Let’s call him Reginald. Reginald was from Seattle or Portland or somewhere like that, came from a prosperous family and was only working for extra spending money. 

One day when we were typesetting a job in Spanish and talking about our various language capabilities, Reginald casually mentioned that he could speak a little Spanish. Not much. Just enough to talk to his family’s maid. The rest of us were stunned into silence as we contemplated the kind of lifestyle that would include casual mentions of a maid. Fortunately I don’t think Reginald noticed that he had suddenly become the shop freak.

Having a maid would not be easy for a lot of us. A woman who lived in Barbados for a couple years once told me about having a maid there. She didn’t particularly want or need a maid, but if she, an American, didn’t hire one it would be considered very bad form, since she would be denying a job to someone who needed it and flouting the local culture.

She had a full-time job as a teacher and you might think she would have enjoyed the new experience of not needing to do housework in the evenings, but instead she was often at loose ends with too much free time. Plus, she said, it was hard for her to relate to the woman she had hired. She tried to be friendly with her and the woman made it very clear that Barbados protocol demanded a hierarchal employer-employee relationship.

I thought about all this when the student who has been coming to my home for two hours every Friday to provide housecleaning services asked if this week she could come on Saturday instead. Which was fine, except that would mean I might be here at the same time. Ordinarily I come home from work and voila, the kitchen floor is shiny, the bathroom sparkles, the living room is swept and dusted and much neater than I left it that morning. I’ve become used to that, and I’m lovin’ it. But if I’m home when she comes, like I was one day a few weeks ago, it seems very strange to actually see someone else cleaning my house. I feel like I should apologize, or jump in and help, or insist she sit down for a cup of tea. So on Saturday, I made sure she was coming during a time I wouldn’t be there and couldn’t engage in guilty hovering.

OK, how am I doing so far? I’ve covered modems and maids, now how about mice? That’s easy. Have you seen the email that is going around about the mouse who was caught in the computer printer? It includes a picture of his little mouse head, looking dazed and amazed, sticking out between the rollers. That picture (attached here) inspired a conversation with a co-worker about our shared terror of mice. We both admitted to becoming completely unglued at the sight or sound of a teeny tiny rodent, alive or dead. I’ve been known to run screaming through the house because I reached down into a closet to put something away and touched a furry little body. Dead. Not moving. Couldn’t do a thing to me.

Didn’t matter.

And there was the time I hid for 15 minutes in a bedroom while our four cats (not our current four cats, an earlier contingent) batted around a mouse who had very stupidly wandered into our home. My husband couldn’t get to the mouse to toss it out, under threat of being scratched to death by those suddenly vicious felines, so he just watched and transmitted a play-by-play color commentary until the mouse lost 4-to-1 and was gone, and it was safe for me to come out of the bedroom.

Another time, in a different place, there was a mouse that ran behind the TV every night at the same time, so fast my daughter and I never really saw it, just saw a shadow streak past. That I could live with. When the mouse ran itself into oblivion and was discovered lying dead on the floor, I started running instead and pounding on the maintenance man’s door in total panic.

So here’s what I figure. The mouse in the picture was invading the office of a maid service, and the printer conspired with the computers and the copier to nab it and present it to the office staff first thing in the morning.  On the busiest day of the week, no doubt.

There. Told you I could do it!

-30-

Settling in for the ride

Week 3 down, 13 to go. After a slightly bumpy take-off, yesterday we started to settle in for what looks like a smooth and pleasant ride.

What in the heck am I talking about, you are wondering? Since you asked, I’ll tell you. The subject is the Soul Miners Children’s Theatre Company of Champaign-Urbana. A couple weeks ago I described how it started but not much about what it is. Sort of left it as a “to be continued,” because that’s how I felt, like I had just stepped onto a new road and didn’t know where it was taking me.

Kind of like life, huh?

OK, OK, enough glib profundity, let’s get on with the story.

Soul Miners joins a virtues class to theatre arts classes in order to create a spiritually oriented theatrical production company. An account of today’s session should help shape that definition into a more concrete picture.

Heidi and I arrived at the Bahá'í Center in Urbana around noon yesterday (Saturday) to prepare the space for the children who would be coming soon. At a little after 1:00 p.m., the virtues class began. First the students listened to a story and then consulted to figure out the virtue that would be the subject of the class. (Today’s virtue was “determination,” one of the 13 virtues that are expressed in the story we will be presenting on stage. There are probably more than that, but we stopped at 13 because we have 13 weekly virtues classes in our schedule.) During the rest of the class the children studied a couple of quotations about determination, then pasted copies into their books. Each student has a big photo album that they will take home when the term ends, albums filled with pictures they drew and quotations from both eastern and western religious texts and from other inspirational sources. They also played a game, talked, and generally kept busy learning about determination through a variety of activities.

Yesterday’s class was taught by two of the parents. Parent and non-parent volunteers are the scheduled teachers for the next 10 weeks, with as much overlap as possible to preserve consistency for the students.

At about 2:00 p.m. the kids separated into two groups by age, to work with our theatre arts teachers, Katie and Sarah, enthusiastic young women with experience and training in both theatre and working with children. For a necessarily small stipend they have taken on a big job – melding 10 children into a skilled performance troupe. Their charges, ranging from 6-10 years old, are a diverse group of girls and boys from different racial and ethnic categories, from different schools and home schooling, with different religious backgrounds. Some were well acquainted before Soul Miners started, some never met before.

In the workroom formatting a parent contact list, I heard lots of laughter and movement. Curious, I poked my head into the closest class and saw 6 children, a teacher and a parent volunteer sitting in a circle playing “telephone,” with the emphasis on learning how to speak clearly and distinctly for audiences.

After the first hour of theatre arts class, it was snack time. Complements of still more volunteers, the children replenished their energy with apples and applesauce, nuts and peanut butter, raisins and carrots and hummus and home-baked gluten-free cookies. It was an amazingly orderly snack break, because in order to eat the kids had to sit quietly and wait to be served. Heidi’s idea. Impressive!

Then it was time to jump up and get moving again, as the younger and older age groups switched teachers to continue theatre arts training for another hour, followed by the last activity, a 20-minute appreciation session. Sitting in a circle of chairs in a room that was set up with dim lighting and soft background music, children and teachers and parents related what they had liked about the day and expressed gratitude for specific acts of service or helpfulness or public struggles to overcome personal challenges.

By now it was almost 5:00 p.m., the end of a long afternoon, but no one seemed in any hurry to leave. The playroom filled up with kids dealing Uno cards and creating dollhouse families, a small group of parents and teachers discussed how to handle one child’s needs in ways that would help both him and his classmates, one parent wrote a check for tuition while getting a full report from her daughter about the day’s activities, and another student read and signed his commitment statement.

Yep, you read that correctly. We are asking all the children to make a promise in writing to the theatre company and to themselves. In the statement that they sign, they commit to their best efforts at working with others cooperatively and lovingly, to pay attention, to show up every week and participate in performances, and also to acknowledge that they are making a commitment for which they are personally responsible.

There are a couple of reasons for these statements. One is simply that we need a consistent group in order to mount a theatrical production. But beyond that, Heidi and I have strong anecdotal evidence of the value of a child’s personal commitment. (I can tell you my recollections of this story because she published hers recently in her own blog.)

When Heidi was in eighth grade in Evanston, IL, her teachers recommended her for a local program called Earn and Learn, which tied school performance (defined by whatever each student needed for academic or social or behavioral improvement) to the opportunity to meet at an after-school worksite and earn money by doing work for local businesses. Students and parents were invited to an informational meeting, and at the end of the meeting, kids who wanted to be in the program were required to sign a personal commitment statement, and parents were asked to help their children honor that commitment.

Our daughter loved the first Earn and Learn event, a camping trip, but after one day on the job she hated the whole thing and vowed never to return. “Vowed” meaning hollered. She was absolutely, positively, in no way whatsoever going back, and that was that! Except she had signed that piece of paper and we had agreed to it, so the next day we literally high-jacked her after school and drove her to the work site, despite blood curdling screams and kicking of dashboard and threats of mayhem. Seeing she had no choice by the time we arrived, Heidi scowled and growled out of the car and into the work site. I don’t know what Rick, the guy in charge, said or did, but within a few minutes she was laughing and ready to roll. That year in Earn and Learn was one of her best experiences and a major contributor to the person she is today. Without her commitment statement, it wouldn’t have happened. And without the Earn and Learn experience, our Soul Miners venture probably would not be happening, either.

Because although the initial idea for this theatre venture was mine and we worked together for several months on the investigation and learning and planning phases, now that we are in operation as an actual school, Heidi is the lynchpin. She’s planning the virtues classes and scheduling volunteers and overseeing the afternoon’s rotation, attending to myriad details that I wouldn’t know how to handle or even know were needed. So Heidi, this is my very public statement of appreciation. Please ignore me when I get grumpy or impatient and know how thankful I am for your spirit and enthusiasm and skill.

So … back to the present. Week 3 down, 13 to go. As we progress through the term the theatre arts classes will increasingly become rehearsals for our first production, a musical adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant story, provided by the New York Children’s Theatre Company. The various parts and pieces of each Saturday’s activity will be tied together by the virtues exemplified in the tale of an elephant keeping a most un-elephant-like promise because “an elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.” (That was last week’s virtue, faithfulness.)

Week 14 will be devoted to final rehearsals, with maybe a week 14-1/2 rehearsal thrown in for good measure if needed. Weeks 15 and 16 will be performance weekends, two shows each. Then a closing celebration, and a metaphorical long nap for you-know-who before we continue our planning for the next term.

Soul Miners is not a business – tuition and ticket revenue will be used only to pay theatre arts teachers, rent performance spaces, buy supplies and cover other necessary expenses – but it is a very serious venture that we hope will be as successful as the original, award-winning New York group. Even half as successful would be fantastic! After all, we have a modest agenda: providing spiritual education, promoting religious unity as well as just about any other unity you can name, developing talent, producing great shows with both substance and style. That’s all.

Week 3 down. 13 – and many more – to go.

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A Holiday Gift

Holidays are interesting phenomena. So routine and at the same time so special. By routine, I guess I mean predictable. Each holiday, from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, comes at the same time every year, is identified by the same ceremonies and/or activities, inspires advertisements for the same kinds of food, and provides similar shared memories for members of the groups (families, towns, national cultures) who celebrate them. I have never understood why people are so fond of all this sameness.

OK, maybe “never” is a more than slight exaggeration. After all, I was a kid once, many long years ago, and back then I certainly loved the sameness of Chanukkah – lighting the candles every night for eight nights, followed by a different small gift each night – and was never bored by the same annual Purim carnival at the synagogue with all of us kids dressing up as our same favorite characters from the Book of Esther and boisterously shaking the same gragors every time the evil name of Haman was heard in the megillah reading.

Our family even had a small Christmas tradition. I don’t know why. We certainly didn’t believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. In fact, judging from my Sunday School and later Hebrew School lessons, it seems we didn’t even believe He had ever existed, since despite the major part Christ played in Jewish history, He was never mentioned.

Still, Christmas permeates the season so completely that hardly anyone can be immune to it, belief or no belief. Apparently my mother thought we should do a little something to mark the day. No tree, of course. (Already told you that story.) No big gift opening ritual. No strings of lights or Christmas dinner. But yes to “stockings hung by the chimney with care.” Since we didn’t have a chimney, she would hang stockings from a table in the living room and fill them with nuts and chocolate and oranges. And yes to Santa Clause, at least the department store Santa Clause. We have several photos of my sister and I sitting on Santa’s lap. The two of us looked so much alike that in one of those old pictures we are not sure which one of us was the subject of the moment. My super curly hair should have given it away, but the little girl in that photo is wearing a concealing hat, and the coat was one my sister inherited after I outgrew it, so it could be either one of us. And of course, there’s no clue in the photo’s other subject. Santa always looks the same!

That was the only non-Jewish holiday we observed in any way, except for holidays not tied to any particular religion, such as Mothers Day and the Fourth of July. And I definitely did not mind seeing the same fireworks year after year.

You might recall that I ranted on about the evils of sameness in another blog a while back. In response, a good friend offered an alternate view. “That is the real beauty of tradition, that it gets us to thinking about the past and all we have to be grateful for, the large crowd of witnesses that went before us. And if we are thinking about such things it gets us off of the American obsession with self, which has to be a good thing.”

And you know, I think he’s right. There is a value to creating a comfortable space for celebration and observance of important days. I think my problem is more accurately with advertising, with the huge role marketing plays in promoting and creating our national sense of what is right and proper – and expected -- for each holiday. All those advertisements on TV and in newspaper inserts practically mandate how we should feel and what we should do for each holiday, whether it’s eat hot dogs or sip champagne, celebrate indoors or out, rush to the nearest store to buy straw baskets or strings of colored lights. It seems, at least to me, that our national holiday celebrations have become externally imposed to the point that many of us feel compelled to follow the established program and reluctant to try anything different.

There I go, ranting again.

The catalyst this time around came from all the lovely Facebook entries posted by Bahá'í friends about what they were doing to celebrate Ayyám-i-Há, our end of February gift-giving, party-throwing, charity-offering holiday that precedes a fasting period and the start of our new calendar year on March 21. I read about an Ayyám-i-Há pancake party in one friend’s status, an afternoon spent delivering gift baskets in another, a children’s party, a masquerade ball, an interfaith dialogue and dinner, and a celebration concert. One posting included a sample of Arabic calligraphy as a gift to other FB friends, another offered a link to a video and article about a gallery opening. Diversity to the max!

It would actually be much easier for me if we did have set patterns for observing Ayyám-i-Há, because I’m not very adept at coming up with ideas or even, some years, remembering that a holiday is on the horizon. This was that kind of year. During December, influenced by Christmas frenzy, I had grandiose intentions for big doings this week. However, when February actually arrived, my attention was totally absorbed in a couple major projects, and since the world-at-large wasn’t helping me along with a barrage of Ayyám-i-Há commercials and Ayyám-i-Há advertisements and Ayyám-i-Há TV shows and Ayyám-i-Há street decorations (what an image!), my good intentions fell flat.

Heck, I almost forgot to get presents for my grandsons!

And now Ayyám-i-Há is almost over – it ends at sunset on March 1 – but it’s not too late yet. I have one special gift ready to impart: a big, brightly wrapped box of GRATITUDE to all of you steadfast (but hopefully not too long-suffering) friends who read my blog, week after week, even the not-so-hot efforts. Blogging is, after all, a rather self-indulgent endeavor, and it’s pure delight to be able to ramble on about one’s own interests and find an audience of kindred souls who are willing to spend a few minutes reading all that rambling, and often even responding to it with insightful comments and shared observations.

I’m also grateful for all the overwhelming encouragement many of you gave me when I applied to graduate school. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be watching the mail for the promised March decision to tell me whether I’ve been admitted. I’m not holding my breath. That’s not a statement of pessimism, I just know too much about the grad school admissions process after working with it for almost nine years. Even the world’s most qualified applicant – which I can guarantee you I’m not – can be rejected, for a variety of reasons: because her preferred advisor isn’t currently taking new students, or because her academic goals don’t fit well with the department’s program, or because her reference letters aren’t strong or specific enough, or simply because the competition is too stiff. Whatever my letter says when it comes, it’ll be OK. The experience was a good one regardless of result, and not the least because of your confidence and support.

Julie Powell, author of “Julie and Julia,” coined a name for her blog readers. She called them “bleaders.” So to my own wonderful bleaders, let me just end by saying …

Happy Ayyám-i-Há to all. And to all, a good night.

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Out of the starting gate at last

Saturday morning, February 20

TODAY’S THE DAY.

Today’s the day that echoed through my prayers almost three years ago, prayers for guidance about what to do with my life now that I had it back. Now that energy would start replacing the chronic exhaustion caused by daily radiation treatments and chemicals dripping through my veins 24 hours a day. Now that I could get off the couch and make plans, execute plans, turn plans into actual activities.

But what plans? During the Summer and Fall before the cancer was discovered, with my class work for my 44-yeear bachelor’s degree almost completed, I had dived back into the theatre world with a vengeance – acting in two plays, producing an experimental workshop performance about racism, and directing an original one-act for a university group. So as I looked forward to the end of treatments, at first I assumed that now I would head back to that diving board and jump into those same waters headfirst.

Maybe not jump exactly, since the cancer center doctor had cautioned against impeding my body’s healing by doing too much too soon. But at least put a toe in and wade a little away from shore. So the question wasn’t what I would do -- I knew what I wanted to do -- it was how soon and how much.

Until a little voice, or sense, or feeling, or whatever it is that niggles its way into our thoughts, surprised me with a most unexpected message. It went something like this:

No.

That was it, just No.

No, I should not start auditioning again. No, I should not channel my now cherished time and energy into traditional theatrical endeavors, into the immense time commitments necessary to put myself on stages. Stages that gave me tremendous ego satisfaction but were not likely to help society progress in ways that seemed significant to me. That’s what I was hearing, though it wasn’t anything l had expected to hear.

I think that having spent many more hours in prayer and meditation during the last few months than ever before, my spiritual antennae had become a tad more sensitive. And those antennae were waving around and picking up new signals that reminded me service was my purpose, the reason I was still on the planet. Service. Not ego gratification, not applause, not theatre simply for the sake of theatre.

Nothing was wrong with any of that, it just – and I recognized this with certain if bewildered clarity – it just was not for me, now, at this moment. And that was when the mysterious little voice-sense-feeling whispered children’s theatre and spiritual education, and I caught the first faint scent of Today,

Theatre connected to spiritual education? I liked the idea. In fact, it was a good description of a project that I had long considered my absolute favorite theatre experience. This goes back 30+ years ago to a time when I was performing with New Day Chatauqua, a repertoire troupe that combined art with mission. A small group of friends with diverse talents produced shows that artistically presented spiritual themes. That was the one time in my life when the demands of theatre work did not detract from other priorities, but instead combined with and supported them. And I had always wanted to have that experience again.

But a children’s theatre dedicated to children’s spiritual education. Come on, little voice, get real. I don’t know anything about dealing with children. One on one, sure, that’s OK, after all I had raised a child. But one kid is not the same as a group of kids, a noisy, energetic, irrepressible, sometimes even intimidating bunch of young’uns. Never been any good with that. Too bad, said the voice. Do it anyway.

My only model for the kind of children’s theatre concept that was tiptoeing around my brain was a New York City project that I had read about, a group that teaches kids from a variety of racial backgrounds and economic levels to produce award-winning theatre while expressing spiritual values and making important social observations. That was all I knew about it, but it was enough to define a vague goal to start a similar group here in little old Champaign-Urbana.

Initially, though, some preliminary steps would be required. Step one, get to know some kids. Step two, start a neighborhood virtues class, something a lot of Bahá'ís and their friends were doing but that hadn’t yet happened in this community. Such a class would give me some real experience teaching and dealing with children, plural. Step three, morph the children’s class into a theatre group.

And that is what happened. Not exactly in the easy three-step path I had envisioned, but “close enough for government work,” as the old adage goes. A couple years and a couple virtues classes later, when the time seemed right to re-visit my original goal, my daughter (and former performance partner) agreed to join me. We started by contacting the founder of the aforementioned New York City Children’s Theatre Company. She was generous with her knowledge and willing to help. Through many long phone conversations (hooray for cell phones) we learned that the NYC project was much different, much better, and much more profound and complex than we had ever imagined.

If we followed their model, we would offer Saturday afternoon sessions that coordinated a virtues class with acting, music and dance classes which also served as rehearsals for a couple of relevant end-of-term productions. Sounded good. We could do that, right? Sure. No problem.

We decided to call our group Soul Miners, inspired by a quotation from Bahá'u'lláh -- "Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom" – which succinctly describes the educational philosophy, spiritual focus and social purpose that is the basis for the project. We had a name, we were off and running. Well, maybe not exactly running.

More like lurching forward in tentative baby steps and almost stalling out completely two months ago because we both felt overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. We eventually figured out that we had to reduce the plans for our first effort to manageable proportions before we could move on. One small group of students, one production. That hurdle scaled, we set a date and raced out of the starting gate.

The next few weeks became a dizzying dance of find-virtues-class-teachers-recruit-students- plan-curriculum-make-decisions-hire-theatre-arts-teachers-select-show-material-make-more-decisions-set-up-an-administrative-system-get materials-make-still-more-decisions-etc.-etc.-etc. And now, today, the planning phase is about to give way to the execution phase. Because this is it, the day of our first “building character through the arts” session. In just about 4 hours.

Yikes!

We have students and parents (some we know already, some we will meet today for the first time) who have committed to be actively involved in the endeavor. It’s a small group and we will be producing a small production. But it’s a beginning. Another beginning in a string of beginnings that came from that little whatever-it-was whispering a very definite NO, thus steering me toward a new and unexpected YES!

Time to get dressed, get crackin’, lots to do yet today before we open the doors. More later.

Sunday, February 21

DONE!

It happened. It really did! Students came, teachers taught, parents met, papers proliferated, snacks were eaten, songs were sung, prayers were prayed. A dream came true. A goal was met. End of planning, beginning of doing.

I’m sorry I can’t provide more specific description, especially to all of you who have supported this effort month after month with your prayers and your encouragement and kept hearing “soon, we’ll be starting soon” every time you asked until you probably thought “soon” was a synonym for “do what???” I’d like to vividly describe yesterday’s inaugural session but the details are too close for objective narrative, and the eventual result is too far away for subjective speculation. So all I can safely and honestly do today is express how grateful I feel that Day One actually happened. And that now we really are off and running.

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Surprise! (No, thanks.)

The guy on the phone spoke in the condescending and threatening tone that is typical of professional debt collectors. I should know, I’ve certainly heard from enough of them. Not lately, though. The last time was many, many years ago, before I discovered Debtors Anonymous.

That happened in August 1992, at a time when my life truly had become unmanageable, as DA’s Step One says, and I was totally ready to “admit that [I was] powerless over debt” – or really, to be more specific, over a lifestyle based on debt. I didn’t know how it had happened or how to stop it, I only knew that somehow, despite a modest but adequate income, I couldn’t seem to pay bills on time or in some cases pay them at all, and every week I ran out of money before payday. Virtually every Wednesday evening I wrote a check for cash at the grocery store, then raced to the bank at noon on Friday to deposit my paycheck in time to cover the Wednesday deduction. If my boss was a little late handing out paychecks, or for any reason I couldn’t get to the bank on time, I had another bounced check and more charges to add to my debt load.

Not a fun way to live.

Thanks to Debtors Anonymous, I don’t live that way now. I pay bills on time or early, have an emergency fund, keep a detailed record of all expenditures, always follow a current spending plan, and never, ever get calls from collection agencies.

Which is the reason my first reaction to the unexpected call a few weeks ago was complete bewilderment. Second reaction was a faint sense that the amount he claimed I owed -- $95.00 – sounded a tiny bit familiar. Third reaction? Explosive, defensive anger: my pre-DA mode of dealing with collectors. It just popped right in, as if all the intervening years and healing experiences had never happened.

Especially when he kept insisting that I had been receiving and ignoring collection notices. Either he was crazy or I was. That was my view. His view was that I was blatently lying. THAT really made me mad! My days as a habitual financial liar were long gone. How dare he not know that!

I calmed down long enough to get the name of the oral surgeon’s office where the debt originated and a few minutes later learned that yes, I did owe $95 after insurance, and yes, they had been sending me notices, but I hadn’t been getting them due to an address error. $95 had a vaguely familiar sound because several months earlier I had seen it on a statement and asked the oral surgeon’s office about it. The clerk said they were waiting for an additional insurance payment and that when they received it, if I owed anything they would send me a final bill. No bill ever came. No closing accounting with payment due clearly listed. No pink or blue or yellow demands for money. No notices that the bill had been turned over to a collection agency. Nothing. Until the dreaded phone call.

The next day I mailed a $95.00 check directly to the doctor’s office. A week later I called to confirm they had properly recorded the payment and cancelled the collection agency, and that was the end of that. Except I really wanted to call that smarmy man back and make sure he knew that I hadn’t been lying about not receiving the bills. I wanted to, but didn’t, because he wouldn’t have believed me anyway. And I would have become defensively angry with him again. Not a good feeling.

The part of the whole experience that stays with me is how quickly my emotions snapped back into pre-DA mode. Because the source of my anger was mainly guilt. Despite the fact that I had never received those statements and hadn’t even been aware the debt existed, even though it had been more than a decade since the last time anyone had called me about an overdue bill, and no matter that I knew I could just simply pay the $95 that very day … regardless of all that, here came the guilt. Just a couple minutes of it, but enough to be unsettling.

Which greatly increases my delight at knowing that maybe as early as next month I’ll be debt-free for the first time in roughly 40 years. The only debt I have now, other than a secured mortgage, is a home equity loan from the credit union. It’s secured, too, but it feels like an unsecured debt, and it still demands a chunk of money every month. I’ve been paying ahead on it whenever possible and there’s not much left, so between my state and federal tax refunds (which are already in my bank account) and a three-paycheck month (if you have ever been paid every other week, you know what that means), and barring any unexpected major expense (are you listening, car?) it looks like the loan might be completely paid by March 31. If not that soon, within the next couple months. And then when I make my spending plans not one penny will have to be allocated to the past.

That is a great lesson I learned from Debtors Anonymous: how to live in the present instead of the past. In DA vocabulary debting means having to focus energy and dollars on paying for items bought in the past, or for former services rendered, or for financial assistance rendered at an earlier time. Consistent compulsive debting means always looking backward. Recovery in DA meant learning how to look forward, to trust that plans made could actually happen, to pay ordinary living expenses as they occur and have actual discretionary money left over ….

And to never again be afraid to answer the phone.

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Long run, short blog

90 days. That’s what the email said, 90 days. And since that email had been sitting unopened in my inbox for a while, by this morning it was more like 85 days. 85 days until May 1, the second Illinois marathon.

I ran my first and so far only half-marathon last year when Champaign hosted its inaugural marathon event. Before that 10K (6.2 miles) was the longest I’d ever managed, and that was many years ago.

Unlike ice skating, I didn’t start jogging accidentally. It was a conscious decision, a strategy to help me quit smoking by replacing a harmful addiction with a healthier one. My idea was that I needed to develop a routine that would be threatened by a return to cigarettes. Fortunately I discovered that jogging in 5K and 10K runs was fun, even at my slower-than-a-turtle speed.

If six miles is a hoot, 13.1 miles would be euphoria, right? Close, actually. Finishing that half-marathon course last Spring provided an amazing sense of accomplishment, one I definitely wanted to repeat. It’s easy to get out of the habit of regular jogging though, so I registered for the May event in October. I figured that making an early commitment would ensure that I would keep running all through the winter. The weather hasn’t been very cooperative, however. Too messy too often. Too many unexpected ice patches and inconvenient snow mounds.

So instead of jogging I have been doing interval training on the treadmill, which is supposed to be a good way to pick up speed. Interval training means alternating a couple minutes of slow walking with a couple minutes of sprinting at one’s highest possible speed. I can keep going like that for 30 minutes, max. Since it takes me a whole lot longer than 30 minutes to run 13.1 miles, that kind of training is not going to be enough. Hence my determination tonight to head for the indoor running track.

My goal was six miles. I was only able to manage four. Pretty good, actually, considering how boring it is to run round and round the same track like a mouse in a maze, and also considering that I was jogging at the end of the day instead of the beginning. My body strongly prefers to exercise in the morning, as early as possible. I know that, and usually don’t even try to run or work out at night. That email about the marathon inspired a brief temporary insanity, however, which is why I was at the gym this evening instead of sitting at my computer. And why I didn’t finally begin to write until 9:00 p.m., have only been able to manage a short and very boring blog, and am now going to sign off and go to bed.

My apologies to all. And a promise of better reading next wee …zzzz….zzzz….zzzz…..

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Helen and Helena

I just finished reading Julie and Julia, the book that was the basis for the movie of the same name, and have something embarrassingly awful to admit. I’m jealous!

Here this Julie Powell person comes up with this cooking-her-way-through-Julia-Child idea and suddenly she’s a full-time writer. So I figured there’s only one thing to do. Imitate!

Thus, the title of today’s blog. Except I haven’t found a Helena that I can emulate. There’s Helena Rubenstein, a famous name in cosmetics, but being a lipstick-only lady I have absolutely no interest in spending a year, or even a week, trying out all her different eye shadows and foundation creams.

There’s Saint Helena, also known as Helena of Constantinople, who died about 1600 years ago. According to you-know-what informational website, she “was the consort of Emperor Constantius, and the mother of Emperor Constantine I. She is traditionally credited with finding the relics of the True Cross.” Admirable, but definitely not accomplishments I can repeat. Or even understand very well, starting life as I did in the bosom of an eastern European Jewish family.

There’s Helena, Montana, which happens to be the capital of that state. I know this for a fact because when my seventh grade teacher called out “Montana” and I didn’t immediately raise my hand with the answer, she made a very big point of staring at me and emphatically pronouncing my name to make sure I’d get it. I got it. And I’ll never forget it.

And it’s absolutely certain that I could never love cooking the way both Julie and Julia do, or in Julia’s case, did. Nor would I ever willingly work my way through 524 recipes. The culinary highlights of my life make a pretty short list. And since you all know how much I love lists, here it is.

Liver. Yep, you read that correctly. Liver. In my pre-vegan days I adored the stuff. All kinds. Calves liver, chicken liver, chopped liver. Cold liver sandwiches for lunch. (Truth!) I cooked calves liver the way my mother did, dipped in egg, breaded and fried, and now and then daring people have told me that was the only liver they ever enjoyed eating. Not a lot of people Some people. One or two. Maybe only one.

Blintzes. That’s another recipe I learned from my mother. If you don’t know what a blintz is, think crepe and you’ll be close. I used to love watching Mom make blintzes, it was such a major production. First she would cover our big dining room table with a white tablecloth, then she’d mix up a bowl of egg batter and a batch of dry cottage cheese mixture. Next step was heating a small iron skillet – actually, I think she had a couple of them going at the same time – and pouring in some of the egg mixture, then pouring most of it back into the bowl, leaving a very thin skin to quickly solidify. She would dump each circle of cooked egg crepe on the table and head back to the stove for more until the whole table was covered with rows of yellow circles about, oh, I guess about 3 or 4 inches around.

Using an ice cream scoop Mom would plop a mound of the cottage cheese stuff into the middle of each little pancake, and when that step was completed, she would fold each pancake to make a sort of cheese-mixture-filled envelope. And finally most of the blintzes would get piled on a plate and put into the refrigerator for frying at a later time. By now I was visibly panting and salivating, because the wonderful conclusion of this whole project was getting to eat a few of the blintzes that she fried right away

When I tried duplicating this process, some 20 years later, a lot of my egg pancakes were too thin and tore when I tried to fold them, and others were the right consistency but my folding skills were sadly lacking, so I ended up with a bunch of mostly odd shaped and falling apart blintzes. And some of them completely disintegrated during the frying stage. Didn’t matter, though. They tasted just fine.

Mac & Cheese and canned spaghetti. Yep, you read that correctly, too. I used to think that one of the best dinners in the whole world was to make a batch of Kraft macaroni and cheese and combine it with the contents of a can of spaghetti and heat up the whole mess together. And when I say “used to” I don’t mean “used to” as in “when I was a kid.” I’m talking sophisticated grown-up cuisine here.

Banana bread. There was a period of a few years when I was kind of into baking, and one of the two or three items that I made back then was banana bread. I used a recipe that was in the Settlement House Cookbook, the resource my mother had relied on for everything. An easy recipe, except it called for a half-cup of buttermilk. I hated buttermilk, and neither my husband nor daughter seemed to ever want the stuff, either, so it wasn’t something we usually had on hand, whereas all the other ingredients called for were items I kept in stock. One day when I was lamenting to a friend about having to run out for buttermilk whenever one of these baking fits came over me, she told me that I could substitute a solution of half milk and half vinegar. I tried it and sure ‘nuff, it worked. Until the day I decided to double the recipe and make two loaves. In my mathematically deficient brain, I figured out that creating a cup of faux buttermilk required a whole cup EACH of milk and vinegar. Those were strange tasting loaves of banana bread, as you can well imagine.

Vegan chili. So with this kind of illustrious history as a cook, it really tickles my tootsies to have such great success with my chili. Especially since calling it a recipe, or even characterizing what I do as cooking, is really a stretch. I’ve been making the stuff for years, and all it amounts to is opening a bunch of cans and emptying them into a crock pot. Really. Not exaggerating. I put in canned chili beans, canned tomato sauce, and canned diced tomatoes. Swish some water around in the cans after they are empty and pour that into the pot. Add onions. In the old days, before it became vegan chili, I used to add cooked ground turkey. Now I use textured vegetable protein, which ends up looking somewhat like ground meat. Beans and sauce and tomatoes and onions and TVP cook on low in the crock pot for eight to ten hours and voila, chili. Very popular chili that almost always gets completely devoured at potluck dinners, even though I’m often the only vegetarian in attendance, and almost certainly the only vegan. I figure crock pot slow cooking is the secret ingredient.

However, since it isn’t likely I can find a way to turn completely un-gourmet chili into a path to fame and fortune, looks like I’ll just have to be satisfied with being just plain Helen and skip the search for Helena.

Or maybe, if I moved to Montana ….

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Private corners

It’s so much fun reading my daughter’s blogs. She challenged herself to write 30 blogs in 30 days, so there’s a continual flow of yummy stuff to read. And it amazes me how differently we remember things. Not just the experiences of her childhood. Everything.

Throughout her adult life we have spent a lot of time together. Rooming together, working in the same restaurant, performing together professionally, hanging out with card playing friends at coffee houses, sharing an eye-opening series of candid discussions about race unity, serving together as elected members of a Bahá'í spiritual assembly, starting various joint projects and ventures. Sometimes happy with each other, sometimes not.

Yet although so many of her blogs are about times and places and events in her life that are also my times and places and events, her memories of them are very different than mine. More proof that we – all human beings -- each live in our own private universe. I think my daughter and I should put a book together, or rather separately together. List a bunch of our shared experiences, then each go off to our own corners and write about them.

Wait a minute, why does that idea sound familiar? Riiiiiight, we’re already doing that. It’s called blogging!

Now, this minute, we are preparing to launch our most ambitious project yet. It’s a children’s theatre company associated with a New York City group of the same name. We’re calling our local chapter Soul Miners, based on a statement made by Bahá'u'lláh: “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.”

Probably the easiest way to describe this activity is to borrow a phrase from the New York City company and say that our goal is to build character on stage. Following their highly successful model, we will be providing Saturday afternoon theatre arts schools built on a foundation of spiritual education. Or moral education. Or virtues education. However it’s described, the core lessons for the six-to-ten-year-old students will be to know that they were created noble by a loving God, to understand that their highest calling is service and contributing to mankind’s well-being, and to appreciate the essential unity of message in all the great world religions.

And we’ll be aiming for as much diversity as possible in this and subsequent classes – racial diversity, religious, economic, whatever – which will provide great casts for the production of original musicals from the New York group’s award-winning repertoire.

We almost didn’t get started at all. The sheer volume of “how to” information that our New York mentor gave us, and the size and scope and complexity of that 10-year-old project, temporarily paralyzed us into frightened inaction. I might have stayed paralyzed forever, but my daughter, who’s better than me at cutting to the core of things, declared that we would have to just begin very small, very simply, and let the mission develop and grow over time. With that decision made, we were finally able to set a firm starting date and take action to recruit students, teachers, and volunteers.

In another situation I recently heard someone say, “ We are building the ship as we cross the ocean.” I immediately thought of Soul Miners. Yes! I said to myself. That’s exactly what we are doing.

What an exciting journey this will be. What magnificent gems we will help to mine. What wonderful stories we will share. And someday when we talk or write about this experience, no doubt we will each relate a very different version of what happened.

And we’ll both be right.

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A messenger of joy

“I have made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve?”

These words of Bahá'u'lláh have been a challenge and a mystery to me for over 40 years, since I first learned committed myself to the Bahá'í Faith. There was no joy in death as it was understood in my childhood home and early religious education. Death was a punishment, or an injustice, or just simply an end. Judaism, as I was taught it, did not include a view of life continuing beyond earthly bounds.

And I was just plain scared of death. Felt trapped, unfairly given a life that was destined to be snatched away and completely erased, more completely than the pencil marks in my sketches when I rubbed out wayward lines to replace them with more exacting ones. Those lines at least left a faint trace of themselves on the paper. My life would simply disappear, as if it had never happened.

But my contact with the Bahá'í Faith gave me a new understanding of death as a transition from the training wheels phase of life to a continuing, progressing, eternal existence. Eternal. That was the sticking point. My dread, my outright panic at times, transferred itself from fear of endings to fear of forever.

And I still felt trapped, by a fate over which I had no control, no choice.

But I believe that Bahá'u'lláh’s words are true, that they are directly channeled to us by a loving Creator, so my challenge was rely on prayer and meditation to accept death as a “messenger of joy,” and actually become joyful about it.

It’s been a long journey. I’m much farther along the way. There have been moments when I have felt almost there, and the peacefulness of those moments call for more.

It’s not surprising that my period of greatest serenity about death came during the time, starting three years ago this month, that I was dealing with cancer diagnosis and treatment, and with the uncertainty of outcome. Most people tried to be helpful by talking about cancer as if it were a sports event. I was counseled to beat it, fight it, was assured that I would win, with winning was defined as staying alive.

Did that mean that if I died, if the cancer “won,” I would “lose”? Did it mean that death was synonymous with defeat? Such a view didn’t gibe well with the image of death as “a messenger of joy.”

I thought a lot about the fact that death is not an “if”, it’s a “when.” I will die, someday, that was a given. Did it matter that much whether it was now or later? Logically I couldn’t see that it did.

So I could not then and cannot now accept the idea that if I, or anyone, dies from cancer or any other disease, they have lost a battle. Serenity during that time of living in cancer-world came from accepting that, while of course I would do whatever was necessary to get healthy and stay healthy, any result, any outcome, would be OK. More than OK. It would be a positive good.

It’s been a greater challenge to hang on to that serenity about death since I’ve been able to get off the sofa and have an active life again. But in a few days I have an appointment with my oncologist, a routine three-month check-up, and every time one of these appointments nears, I wonder if this will be the one where I learn the cancer has returned. And every time I have to remember the lessons cancer has taught me.

This week, with my upcoming appointment plus all the news about the devastation in Haiti and the trial initiated against the seven Bahá'ís in Iran who are accused of non-sensical and vague capital crimes, I am more aware than ever that death is inevitable, and that it will come on its own schedule, with or without warning.

And that my job – everyone’s job, regardless of their specific beliefs about death – is to be ready for it at every moment of life. Not in a morbid way. Just accepting it. And accepting the “when” of it. Because, as the well-known Alcoholics Anonymous prayer tells us, serenity comes from knowing what we can control and what we cannot control, and from putting our energies into the former rather than the latter.

It seems to me that in today’s world, the manner and timing of our deaths are more and more out of our control. I hear the rumblings of what is coming as the world collapses in upon itself, as the spiritually bankrupt structure of society as a whole implodes from lack of solid support.

It’s not the earthquake that is the disaster in Haiti, it’s the racism and materialism that created a poverty which failed to provide buildings that could stand during an earthquake.

It wasn’t Hurricane Katrina that washed out New Orleans, it was the racism and materialism that created its poor capacity to withstand a major hurricane.

And far too many people die not from disease but from the treatment of disease, treatments and drugs and procedures that often exist to serve stockholders as much, sometimes more, than patients.

Everywhere in the world I see disunity and injustice stemming from racism and materialism, from a lack of real and active faith in God, a lack demonstrated by the self-serving practices of business and government and in the everyday lives of everyday people. I see how we have created a modern Tower of Babel: too high, too weak, too poorly constructed and managed to stand

Bahá'u'lláh talked about the twin processes of destruction and construction that would lead us to a world based on justice and love. Many of us will be caught, often without warning, in the first process, even many individuals who are committed to groups and projects and goals that serve the second.

Since I don’t know what will happen to me or my family, to my friends, to my community; since my limited vision can’t see whether specific events are “good” or “bad” in the overall scheme, both personal and universal; since the only things I can control are my actions and my attitude, I choose joy. Acceptance. Serenity.

And hopefully, whenever it comes, death.

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Health food homicide

One by one they have all gone and now she is alone. The phones don’t ring. No footsteps can be heard in the hallway. Nary a door opens or closes in nearby offices.

The world inside feels as muffled and quiet as the world outside, where several inches of snow are threatening to shut down the city. As the only staff member who took the bus and didn’t have to worry about driving safely home, she has stayed, unconcerned as she answers emails and processes documents. Ho hum, snow again, what’s everyone so excited about? This is winter in Illinois. This is what happens here.

Then she remembers.

She had planned to go to the health food store that evening. She needs to buy kale. And not just any kale. Organic kale. She has tried the other stuff and found it limp and short-lived compared to the locally grown fluffy green bunches that particular store offers. And she absolutely must make sure she never runs out because kale is the secret ingredient in her morning nutrition shakes. Kale is Supervegetable. One sip of that amazing concoction and she can leap tall buildings at a single bound.

But she has only enough kale in her refrigerator for one more shake.

One. Just one. If the weather worsens as much the next day as forecasters are predicting, she might not be able to get to the store to get new kale. The store might even be closed. She shudders to think such a horrible thought.

But wait. There’s more! What if the store is not open tonight? Everything else is closing early, according to the radio, so why not the little store. Gasp! Horrors! What to do?

OK, she tells herself. Don’t panic. Let’s get the facts, then you can panic. And sure enough, when she calls the store she learns it is going to close at 6:00 p.m.

Time to panic!

By the time she leaves work at 5:00 and trundles to a bus stop and waits for a bus and is slowly chauffeured home and shovels enough snow to make a path to get her car out of the driveway … by then it will almost certain be too late.

Too late to replenish her kale supply. Too late to insure that she will have what she needs to make those miraculous morning shakes throughout a possibly shut-in weekend.

Too late! More gasp! More horrors! What oh what to do?

Maybe she could take a bus straight to the store and another bus home from there, just skip the shoveling-snow-to-move-the-car situation altogether. Great idea! Except to take the bus that goes by the store, first she would have to connect with it at the main transit point, and the bus schedule tells her that bus #2 is scheduled to leave that point just minutes before bus #1 is scheduled to arrive. Not such a great idea.

Suddenly the light bulb above her head bursts into brightness with the obvious solution: leave work early. It’s about 20 minutes till 5:00. If she goes now, she’ll have a fighting chance of getting an earlier bus and arriving home with enough time to rescue her car and make it to the store before 6:00.

Off with the computer. On with boots and coat and hat and scarf. Grab book and lunch bag and purse. Turn off all the lights. Lock the doors. Hurry hurry hurry.

It’s hard to hurry, though, when inconvenient mounds of thick snow are piled all over sidewalks and crosswalks, and the parking lot that is the shortest path to the bus stop is an icy obstacle course. But as luck would have it -- and luck does have it sometimes – here is her bus pulling up to the corner just as she arrives. Blessed bus, wonderful bus, opening its welcoming doors to allow her to clamber in.

Huddled in a seat in the dark as the bus rumbles cautiously down the street, she silently urges the driver to do whatever is necessary to keep this vehicle moving with all possible speed – or rather, in this weather, with the least possible delay.

There isn’t a moment to lose.

Ah, at last, she sees her corner. She pulls the cord, the bus slows down, she stumbles to the door, it opens, she’s outa there. Slogging through the white stuff to reach her door. Home at last. Fumble for the key, miss the keyhole in her haste, finally get the door open, drop the book and lunch bag, grab the shovel, push her way to the car, struggle to get that door open, start the car, commence to shoveling.

Shovel.

Shovel.

Shovel.

The minutes tick by as she labors to dislodge heaps of snow from behind the car and create enough path to give her a fighting chance of backing out to the street without getting stuck. Finally she’s done about as much as she can manage, shoveling not being one of her better skills, and she heads back to the car, ready to roll.

Except the car is covered trunk to hood with snow.

Somewhere inside this automobile there is a watchamacallit, she just bought it a couple days ago, it must be here. Yesssss! Here it is, hiding under the passenger seat. Frantically she brushes off the windshield, the side windows, the back window. Finally she’s in the driver’s seat and the car is moving, ponderously grinding its way backwards to the street. She’s at the stop light. She’s only a few blocks from the store. She’s in the parking lot with minutes to spare. She’s racing down the aisle to the produce section, where she sees one lone bunch of kale sitting in its bed of ice water. She reaches for it --

And a hand swoops down and grabs it, leaving her own hand dangling over the now empty bin.

She stares in shocked disbelief at a tall man striding away, pushing his cart in front of him, her kale inside it. This just can’t be happening. There must be more kale here, hidden away in the dark recesses of the store where customers never go. She rushes to the checkout counter and pleads with the clerk to go back there and look. He goes. She waits.

And waits.

And waits.

This is taking so long, is it a good sign or a bad one? Finally she goes back to the produce section to see if the clerk has come out into the light. After a couple minutes, he finally reappears with a cart full of boxes. “Sorry it took so long,” he says, this customer wanted a couple things, too.

“This customer” is the same man who has stolen her kale right from under her nose.

But no matter, there’s more where that came from. Two more bunches, which the clerk is placing on the shelf. But as she reaches down immediately to take them, they disappear right before her eyes. That man has done it again. He has beat her to the punch. He has stolen HER kale.

How can the clerk let this happen? Why doesn’t he do something? But he is walking to a different part of the store to place the contents of other boxes in other places. Obviously he is not interested in seeing that justice is done.

Meanwhile, back at the produce section, that man, that despicable kale thief, is examining a box of avocados, pretending to be totally oblivious to her distress. But he can’t hide the tiniest of smirks. He knows what he’s done. And he doesn’t care.

He does not deserve kale. Kale is too good for the likes of this monster. He is evil personified.

She is stunned, shocked, incapable of rational thought. She has only one idea in her mind. Get that kale. Any way. Any how. Just get it.

She grabs the spiked sign that reads “Organic kale, $2.79,” jumps between the man and the avocados and plunges the sign into her nemesis’ heart. She laughs maniacally as he falls to the floor in a pool of blood, clutching his chest, wheezing, staring unbelieving at her while she reaches into his cart and takes all three bunches of kale, then runs victoriously out the door.

She is in her car, maneuvering snow-packed roads to get home and put away her prize, when she suddenly remembers that she never paid for her groceries. The car clock says it is 6:02, too late to go back. She will have to pay next time she goes to the store.

After all, she’s not a criminal. She just needs her kale.

(Except for the homicide and a few other minor details, this is a true story. Really!)

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