#Metoo

It's been more than a month since Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was toppled by multiple allegations of sexual harassment and sexual abuse.  For once the women were taken seriously and the flood of accusations has just gone on and on day after day with more and more powerful men falling.  #Metoo has provided a platform for more women (and men) to tell their stories of abuse.  It's not just white men in public positions of power that are abusers.  Women (and men) in all walks of life have experienced sexual harassment and abuse in their work and lives.   I hope this time represents a sea-change in our culture so that such abuses are no longer tolerated.  Maybe everyone just had it, when an abuser was elected President and this is in reaction to him.  For me, it's shocking and yet it isn't.  When I was younger, I had an instinct to keep away from " the dirty old men" as I used to call them.  Lucky, I've come across just a few such men in my life experience.  One of the Physics professors where Bob was a graduate student was known, at least by the women, to be too familiar with the grad students' girlfriends.  There were male parishioners at a churches I served who used to try to feel me up in too long hugs and I had to duck away from them and make sure the hugs were shoulder to chest.  It represents a big can of worms concerning the accountability - what will happen to these abusers.  I hope women (and men) will keep coming forward to tell their stories and will continue to be supported for their courage and that such behavior is no longer tolerated ever, ever again.  Maybe I'm being too hopeful here.  It's been a long time going on.
I

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A little kindness goes a long way

After a stormy Sunday, this morning dawned bright and sunny, so headed out with a long shopping list.  I had eight different places to go.  But it is one moment that stands out from the 3 hour outing and I keep thinking about it.  As I was getting into my car by CVS, I had to wait as a couple about my age was getting into the car next to mine.  The husband gently helped his wife into her seat, stood there for a moment as she settled in and then helped her with her seatbelt.  As I watched him, I was overcome with his gentle kindness.  So I told him as he moved to where I was standing that he was very kind.  He shrugged and said, "what are you going to do, she has Alzheimer's."  In that moment, I was flooded with gratitude for my good health and sound mind, realizing it could be otherwise.  But even stronger was my gratitude for his reminder how little kindnesses make our lives sweet, no matter what else in happening.

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Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays.  I love it's focus on being grateful and the gathering of friends and family together.  I love the hustle and bustle in the kitchen preparing the traditional feast of turkey and fixings.  I love the smells of fresh baking bread and roasting turkey.  Sitting here on Thanksgiving morning with my cup of coffee, I am remembering Thanksgivings past back even beyond my days in college to my family before we made our family.  I remember my mother's beautiful table with crystal goblets, sterling silver and the lace tablecloth.  Bob and I have shared 51 Thanksgivings, it's remarkable!  I remember the one in 1973 when we were on leave from Yale, living in my mother's house in Glendale, when the kitchen sink got plugged up and Bob had to do emergency plumbing in the kitchen while I cooked dinner, stepping around him in the middle of the kitchen.  I remember the many Thanksgivings we shared with our dear friends, especially the Knop's here in Berkeley.  I remember Thanksgivings shared with my dear departed brother Richard and his wife Miriam, others with my sister Kate and still others with Bob's brother, Paul and his wife Shelley.  It is indeed a day to be very very grateful for all the many blessings we have and we have too many to count.  This day, Bob and I will go over to Pt. Reyes National Park, to Abbott's Lagoon, and hike to the Pacific Ocean, then go to a nearby restaurant to have dinner.  Today, I feel the peace settle upon me and I am especially grateful to have a peaceful day to look forward to and for peace in our distressed country, if only for a day.

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Spirit's role in climate action

Yesterday, Nov. 13, 2017,  there was an Op-Ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle that caught my eye- "Spirit's vital role in climate action."  Marc Andrus, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, wrote on the importance of aligning one's deepest inner values with social action, in this particular case, climate action.  I found it interesting that such a "religious" perspective was out there for everyone to read.  For years, I've felt that any social action for justice must be undergirded by a deep awareness of spiritual values.  He writes "Within your heart are values, treasures really--compassion, courage, forgiveness, ambition.  These values and more will reveal themselves if you open yourself to them.  Our actions depend on these values.  Climate action begins within."  If we act out of fear or anger, our actions will turn negative and eventually we will burn out in despair.  In these challenging times when those of us who believe the data about climate change feel beleaguered and beat up, it is especially important that we connect to something greater than ourselves.  It doesn't matter if we call this God or Spirit or just our strong love for Nature.  It's not enough just to write a check or march or write to Congress members, first we must pause and connect inwardly to our core's deepest values.  Then, aware of these inner values, our actions can be sustained and powerful.   For me, whenever I go to the Botanical Garden, I feel a sense of peace flowing through me and I am calmed.  In touch with this peace, I am actually praying and it is from this place, as Andrus says that "climate action is prayer."  You can't have one with the other, the two parts, inner spiritual awareness of values and social action, must be linked for the most powerful results.


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A Walk in the Woods

There's so much bad news out there.  Another mass shooting, this time in a south Texas church, horrifies me once again.  It's  been a year tomorrow since Trump was elected President and it's been a hard year.  So today we took to the woods.  Hiking with two other couples, we enjoyed the amazingly colorful yellow, red and orange trees, the fresh cold air, and the peace of wild places.  It was a wonderful park we hiked in only half hour from E. Lansing.  We were alone in the park and passed only one other hiker on our 4 1/2 miles.  Walking along, I could literally feel the cares of the world slide off my shoulders.  Big views of natural beauty as well as small views, like bright leaves on the ground or the little beige thumb size frog that hopped across the path in front of me  brought me great joy.  My perspective on life was corrected as I realized once again how wonderful our world is and what a gift it is to be alive.  Trees do that for me.

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The Switch Witch

Bob has been walking Sonja to school in the morning.  He says she's quite chatty and they have interesting conversations.  The day after Halloween the subject of the "Switch Witch" came up.  She'd overheard a conversation we had with Arne while they were out trick-or-treating in California.  When I mentioned the huge piles of candy the girls had gotten,  Karna asked if the Switch Witch came here in Michigan?  For our California grandchildren, on Halloween night, the Switch Witch comes and takes all the candy away leaving presents in place of the candy.  Sonja told Bob, "I don't believe in the Switch Witch, I think it's Aunt Karna that takes the candy."  They pondered what happened to the candy after it was gone.  As they walked on, she pronounced that she did believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but not in the Switch Witch.  She was dead certain about this.  This certainty even in the face of evidence to the contrary reminds me of our political situation, here in the United States.  Trump Republicans are certain of their beliefs and nothing, no facts, no arguments, will convince them to change their minds.  Democrats, too, have their beliefs (their lens on reality) that cannot be changed.  I wonder if the whole world is confused these days.  We've lived through years of very pragmatic and relativistic times, maybe people are just clinging to something to hold it as their rock of truth.  Never in my lifetime has our country and our world been divided with such hostility.  I fear for what is to come.
FYI:  the Switch Witch's candy is donated to the local school where it is sent to our servicemen overseas.

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Halloween

Halloween was brilliant, extreme and lots of fun this year.  First of all, I was designated to make Sonja's chicken costume.  Paula had procured all the parts: 6 white feather boas, 1 yellow feather boa, a tee shirt dress, red tennis shoes, yellow tights and a chicken hood.  I sewed the cord in the boas on to the dress.  It took me one full day plus a couple of hours.  I muttered.  I sputtered.  The last stitch was completely just as Sonja walked in from school on Monday.  She was thrilled with the outcome and her joy made my work worth all the effort.  We had an early dinner to be ready to walk downtown for the "Great Pumpkin Walk" at 5 o'clock.  Kids from the area trick or treat the shops.  This year just after we left home, it began to lightly rain, then the rain picked up and the wind too and it began to hail, then it began to snow as the temperature plummeted.  A frigid cold front pushed through for half an hour.  We took refuge in the The Wild Goose Inn (the only B and B in town).  Paul ran home to get the car and picked up Bob and me.  Paula and the girls, every hardy, went on with umbrellas.  We met up and continued to trick or treat as the rain stopped.  It was an extreme weather extravaganza.  Tuesday, Halloween night, was clear but really cold.  Paula finished decorating the house( she loves to decorate for Halloween).  She put the carved pumpkins out on a bale of hay, lit the tombstone and lay a scarecrow with a pumpkin head on the ground.  The house had orange lights and big spiders all around.  After the tornado siren sounded at 6 pm, they went out with the girls plus a neighbor girl to trick or treat in the neighborhood.  Bob and I stayed to pass out the candy.  70 cute trick or treaters came to the house.  My favorite, besides my granddaughters of course, were a suffragette dressed in a beautiful turn of the 20th century long lacy dress who gave me a paper listing work yet to be done for women's equality and small skinny boy in a yellow tee shirt who told me he was Captain Kirk.  He had no jacket or bag for his candy, but pointed to the van when I asked him where they were.  His parent drove him from house to house!  The girls returned to pour out their candy and sort it out but neither one particularly liked all the candy.  Instead they ate apples and cucumbers.  Paula takes the bulk of unwanted candy to give to her students.  All is all it was a great Halloween.



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