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No Place to Ever Arrive

January 19, 2016 by mountainmornings

Yes, I’m a child of the 60s. That was my coming of age decade. But instead of going to Woodstock and taking the fast lane, I was living the life of a newlywed in Cambridge. MA. Shopping for groceries in the same corner store with Julia Child, walking the cobblestone streets and learning to love New England.

Up until that point I had seen only one band live and in concert. The Byrds, an LA wannabe Beatles-type folk outfit, played at an MIT mixer in 1967; this Freshman at Emerson College was invited by an engineering student. And that was it. No love-ins, no more rock concerts. You might say that I missed out on most of the rock music revolution of my generation.

“Bob went to Woodstock and I went to Westchester.”

But after my divorce and marrying Bob, moving back to NJ in 1985, I had a second chance at the fast lane with NY just a short train ride away and the Garden State Arts Center in our own backyard. My cousin Jamie took me to see the Stones for my 50th birthday. The Boss was a ubiquitous presence in town. And in the 90s, my friend Betsy, who is married to a musician/promoter turned agent, danced in the aisles with me at my first Eagles concert.

In the wake of the Eagles’ guitarist and cofounder Glenn Frey’s death yesterday, I’ve been reliving my life in lyrics. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/glenn-frey-eagles-guitarist-dead-at-67-20160118

Most people don’t know that the Eagles became a band as a direct result of touring with Linda Ronstadt. She was one of my favorites. In fact, Bob and I would sometimes entertain friends at parties singing “Prisoner in Disguise” together, with Bob on guitar and harmony.

You think the love you never had might save you
But true love takes a little time
You can touch it with your fingers
And try to believe your eyes
Is it love or a lie?

Read more: Linda Ronstadt – Prisoner In Disguise Lyrics | MetroLyrics

And the Big Chill would never cease to sing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” every Thanksgiving – to our kids’ utter disdain – a song made famous by a guy the Eagles threw out of their band!

Recently we cleared out our music system, giving away 30 years worth of speakers and amps. The only thing Bob wanted to keep was the turntable. When I asked my hair stylist what he would buy now for a sound system, he said, “Are you analog or digital?”

Well I’m not sure. I suspect I’m a little of both. We are not “gamers,” and we don’t need a wall of sound set up around the TV. I remember when the Rocker started playing with the Parlor Mob. He had all sorts of pedals to recreate the kind of distortion our early bands had on their albums. After fronting with his first heavy metal band in our garage during high school, I found this new band’s sound somehow achingly familiar. My friend DeeDee even downloaded some of PM’s greatest hits!

I spent the weekend in Nashville, it was a quick grandbaby visit. A chance to catch up on butterfly kisses and teach the Love Bug how to rock the Twist. Yep, I had Chubby Checker on YouTube, and clapped while the Groom played guitar, Buddha Baby pounded a keyboard, and my Bug was on the harmonica.

When you marry an Emergency Physician, you marry a nomad. Bob always thrived on risk and adventure, he loved breezing into a new town and fixing a hospital ED. I was always the opposite, hating to rip out my roots, starting over with “no place to arrive.”  Trying to bloom again every single time

I guess I’m still in the slow lane. RIP Mr Frey.      IMG_3743

 

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“Waiting to Live”

January 14, 2016 by mountainmornings

I’ve never heard of a book getting so much pre-publication press. The Bride sent us the NYTimes Book Review and pre-ordered it from her fabulous Nashville bookstore. Bob pre-ordered it on his Kindle. Then right after Parnassus uploaded Ann Patchett’s new year book recommendations on their blog, Musing, she sent out another special edition to sing the praises of a previously unknown author http://parnassusmusing.net

“When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi – Ann said

I’m making it my personal mission to urge everyone to buy it and read it, in part because the author isn’t around to do his own promotion, and in part because he’s left behind a wife and a young child who should get the royalties. I want everyone to read this book because it’s a brilliant piece of writing and a singular and profound piece of thinking, but it’s also more than that: When Breath Becomes Air makes us stop and think about how gorgeous life is, how heart-wrenching and brief and amazing. Paul Kalanithi’s life was short but utterly essential, as our lives are, in very different ways, short and essential.

From what I hear, every store in the country has sold out of this book!

Dr Kalanithi was a neurosurgical resident at Yale when he began to feel the symptoms of his disease. Metastatic cancer had flooded his body, his lungs were peppered with tumors. Time stood still. Should he and his wife have a baby? Would he ever be able to practice in a field he’d spent nearly half of his life studying and preparing for; could he learn how to die in such a short time. He had been a student for so long, obtaining two BAs and an MA in Literature at Stanford. Then still searching, he received another MA in Philosophy at Cambridge. Finally medical school, with a residency in Neurological Surgery, followed by a post-doc Fellowship in Neuroscience.

We know what this life is like, the Groom is in his last year of a Fellowship in Pulmonology and Critical Care Medicine. They have been waiting to buy a house, waiting for that academic posting, waiting.

Dr Kalanithi was almost finished with his training, when he would have to reverse course, and become the patient. But from everything I’ve read, his writing is sublime. He takes us on the adventure of his life, from being home-schooled in Arizona, to his first introduction to a cadaver in medical school. Witnessing both birth, and death in the same day. Not every doctor can craft a perfect expository essay, but it seems his steep background in literature uniquely prepared him to write his own biography. He started typing during chemo.

Knowing how this will end, normally I’d pass on this book. I’d say no to the pain of reading what happens around us every day. Aunt Sue died of lung cancer last year, Bob became a patient last Fall suffering complications from spine surgery. The Groom’s mentor at Vanderbilt succumbed to pancreatic cancer right before Christmas – a physician who was so loved at Vandy, his nurses stayed at his bedside round the clock for weeks before he died. My brother Mike and Brian. And then there is my own Father, dying at 47 from brain cancer, when I was seven months old.

But I’ll be next to pick up Bob’s Kindle. Maybe I’ll learn how to live each day as if it is my last. I’ve always wondered what that phrase would mean to me. Would I start trying to squeeze 20 or 30 more years into the time I had left, check off my bucket list, or would I relax and simply enjoy each moment? Accepting the fact that we will all die, and choosing to live life with grace in spite of that, is our highest calling.

I only have a picture of my Father on my desk, Dr Kalanithi’s daughter will have so much more.

IMG_3738

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Wellness Trending

January 12, 2016 by mountainmornings

Good morning Mountaineers! HA, so funny that I actually thought of a name for y’all. But hey, we are all on a journey, with hills and valleys. And even though everybody is trying to figure out what POTUS will be saying tonight in his shortest (and last 😦 State of the Union ever, I wanted to talk about those 2016 goals we’ve all made over a week ago. You remember, that dubious resolution to “get Healthy” by any means necessary.

The way I see it, we have three options if we ever want our arms to look like FLOTUS:

1 – DIY, get one of those FitBit bracelets, track everything you do, every step and heartbeat, every morsel of food you put in your mouth, and hope for the best. Run or walk every day, maybe do a fitness tape in your living room? This step requires a bit of an OCD attitude and it’s not for me. But if it works for you, yay!!;

2 – Join a Community, sign up for a gym membership, adhere to Dr Atkins, join Weight Watchers or order your food via Jenny Craig. This would seem to me the easy way out, you limit your choices to a certain prescribed set of rules. Don’t eat after 8pm; Don’t eat carbs; don’t, don’t don’t; don’t do this or that. This may work, but often it’s time limited, ie people give up easily.

3 – Eclectic or CustomCare – in other words, pick what works for you from the combined knowledge of our foremothers – one from column A and two from column B. Now this would be the obvious choice, and I was thinking about it while listening to NPR about the rise of “Boutique Fitness.” Cross-Fit, Pilates and Yoga, Soul Cycle, you know the drill. https://onpoint.wbur.org/2016/01/07/soul-cycle-crossfit-boutique-fitness

Has exercise become the new religion or the latest drug of addiction? There’s no denying people can be pretty crazy about their party of choice. But that’s nothing new. When I was younger, it was all about Dance Aerobics. And it wasn’t Disco either ladies, or Jazzercise. It was the early 80s HipHop, when white suburban housewives had no idea what it was and they had certainly never heard of Qtip and 2Pac. We would push our leg warmers down around our ankles, secure a spot on the NY Sports and Racquet gym floor, and feel like fly girls. Literally, I felt like I could fly sometimes!

Because music does that to you right? Well, music and a bunch of endorphins pounding through your brain.

What I’m thinking is it’s about time I got my groove back. I’m not into biking in a gym to a computer and a preacher-like leader, sorry Polli. I’d surely break a bone trying out Cross Fit. But my soul is soothed when I’m dancing, so maybe it’s time to try that Barre class at a little place in Ivy?

Also I bumped into a Nashville dietician, McKel, Hill, who has branded herself the Country Queen of Wellness (or maybe I call her that?). I found an article about her while waiting in my retina doctor’s office. Yes, aging not only gives you crow’s feet, which I don’t mind, but it can wrinkle your retina too! McKel started a blog, “Nutrition Stripped” http://nutritionstripped.com/blog/ – but she may have started a movement. In the heart of Southern Fried Anything, she asks us to eat real, wholesome food, and not only makes it look easy, she makes it beautiful.

I signed up for her Instagram account so I can be inspired by her recipes. I’m sure if I lived in Nashville, and won the Lottery, I could hire her to be my Wellness Coach. This would be the extreme #3 – get yourself a private chef, and a trainer! Which is why I’m wondering why Oprah bought into WW?

McKel asked her followers recently what wellness trends we’d like to say goodbye to from 2015. I’d say so long to chia seeds! What about you. If you won the Lottery of Wellness, what would you do? That’s me in the 1980s of NJ, second from left. Nuff said.76076_1476536429644_4871505_n

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The Big Squeeze

January 8, 2016 by mountainmornings

Last night I ventured out into the rolling hills of Albemarle County to attend a cocktail/get-together/girl-fest at an old friend’s farm. It was billed as a “Squeeze,” to reference a term associated with Dolley Madison.

With an astute sense of purpose and considerable charm, Dolley Madison navigated the waters of Washington society in an unprecedented way. She brought together disparate groups of politicians, diplomats, and local residents in a social setting. Weekly parties, called “Wednesday drawing rooms,” or “Mrs. Madison’s crush or squeeze,” provided a relaxed atmosphere for politicking and mingling. With no invitation required, these parties sometimes attracted four hundred guests. Some individuals who rarely associated with one another found themselves together at the White House. Even a boycott by President Madison’s opposition party, the Federalists, fizzled when members realized there was no political advantage to staying away.  http://www.whitehousehistory.org/teacher-resources/saving-history-dolley-madison-the-white-house-and-the-war-of-1812

I met a past Mayor of Charlottesville, an art and fashion historian, and the woman who ran the county’s social service network for thirty years. I talked with a lovely young woman who coordinates Planned Parenthood’s educational initiatives. It was an incredible evening jam-packed with energy, enthusiasm and best of all, fun.

Since I knew I was among “my People,” I asked almost everyone one important question – Hillary or Bernie? And I must say that Bernie was winning in my anecdotal poll. His approach to politics hasn’t changed; he’s deliberate and determined, much more progressive than Hillary. And they all liked his wife, who kind of reminds me of Dolley.

So while Planned Parenthood put their considerable support behind Hillary, and the President was in NOVA schooling the nation about guns at a Town Hall meeting, Trump was vowing to get rid of gun-free school zones. I was dumbstruck!

At least this will be an election year where the stakes are very clear. Would you like the NRA to continue influencing public policy? How about writing bills according to one’s religion? Or would you rather elect someone with integrity, someone who won’t mock disabled people. Someone who actually believes in science?

I’ve been thinking about Dolley this morning. She was thrown out of her Quaker religion for marrying outside her faith and never looked back. She and President Madison retired right up the road apace at Montpelier. Her reputation was secured in 1812, when was brave enough to stay at the White House while the British advanced, saving many of the nation’s art treasures, including that famous portrait of Washington. But it was that indescribable something that set her apart, her “joie de vivre.”  Her …”social skills, charm and personal popularity to win over her husband’s political opponents and help advance his career.”

Dr Jim always says it’s personality that can cog up the works in any business. But it’s also personality that can help a system as big as the federal government run smoothly. Above all else, we need another Dolley (or the male equivalent) to get our legislators talking and in the same room, if not on the same page. A civil discourse, is it too much to expect?     IMG_3722

 

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Are You Hungry?

January 5, 2016 by mountainmornings

If you grew up in a certain type of household, you would never enter or leave your home without being offered food of some sort. The usual response from my stepfather, the Jewish Judge,  would be, “I *could* eat!”

Fast forward to now, and just try to get out of Great Grandma Ada’s house without a bag of snacks for the journey. Seriously, she will tackle you with Buffalo Cake! It doesn’t matter how long you’ll be on the road, you *might* get hungry, right?

Well who whoulda thunk that the Oregon militiamen would have saddled up their pick-ups with guns and ammo to occupy a federal wildlife sanctuary gift shop and – wait for it – forgot to bring provisions. I mean really? Obviously there are no white guys in this group of Middle Eastern or Italian descent! Here is the tweet that one guy named Blaine sent out, expecting the US Post Office to deliver a package to their well-armed doorstep.

“ATTENTION…SHARE…ATTENTION…SHARE!!!! Anyone that wants to send any supplies (or snacks) can send them to General Mail, Burns, OR”

Here is my solution. You’ve got guns, so go use them as God intended. Shoot a pheasant and roast it outside, on a fire, you guys know how to make a fire right? Make squirrel stew, forage for greens and berries (I know it’s January, but try) and once you run out of soda from the vending machines, melt some snow.

Pundits are saying this would never be tolerated if a bunch of Muslims or African Americans took over a federal building. Let’s see, first of all they would have thought ahead and brought food. And most importantly of all, they would not have brought GUNS. The whole point of a Gandhi/MLKing type protest, or school sit-in like we Boomers used to do in the 60s, is that you sit down and don’t move.

The point is the non-violence part! You bring your own snacks and wait to get dragged out by those police or the national guard. This is what makes a good visual on TV or your nearest hand held device. This is what changes hearts and minds! Not a guy in a cowboy hat with a gun saying he doesn’t want to die here. Guess what, we don’t want you to die there either.

On second thought, maybe we should send him food?

We lived on the border of a bird sanctuary in the Berkshires. And I’m just guessing, but if these guys came to Canoe Meadows in MA, the whole town of Pittsfield would have run them out in a heartbeat. With picnic baskets from Lenox.

Rough-Meadows-credit-Alan-B-Ward

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A Study In Money

January 3, 2016 by mountainmornings

Purely speaking, we all know money can only get us so far. The finer things yes, like cars and homes and private schools. But I always thought it can’t buy you happiness. Rich people can be just as miserable in their second home as somebody in their rented walk-up. Optimism is available to one and all. And I like to think we can all still aspire toward that American Dream with enough hard work and luck!

What money certainly can buy you, in this country, is legal representation should you screw up.

Which is exactly what happened to Ethan Couch, that “Affluenza Teen” in Texas. How many of us have done something dreadful, used poor judgement in whatever shape or form, at the age of sixteen? Admit it. Bob has often said he would never get away with some of things he did then, if his sixteen-year-old self tried them now.

My point is that the Texas teen may or may not know right from wrong when he royally screwed up, killing four people while driving drunk. His parents hired a great legal team that came up with that defense, and he was tried as a juvenile. Which is as it should be, we’d all want our child to have a second chance at life. To find redemption eventually once his brain stops growing at around age 25. To become a mensch. We are a country that believes in second chances.

But let’s face it, Couch received probation because he came from a wealthy family. Let’s think what might have happened to a poor boy of color. In Texas.

I thought a lot about him while I was reading this article in The Atlantic at the gym: “The Silicon Valley Suicides” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/ It was all about the stress of top tier high school students wanting to go to Stanford, taking lots of AP classes, not sleeping and some are jumping in front of trains. In fact, they have a second cluster of high achieving teen suicides in Palo Alto, California. What I found fascinating was a secondary Yale Psychiatry study that was referenced.

In the inner-city school, 86 percent of students received free or reduced-price lunches; in the suburban school, 1 percent did. Yet in the richer school, the proportion of kids who smoked, drank, or used hard drugs was significantly higher—as was the rate of serious anxiety and depression. This anomaly started Luthar down a career-long track studying the vulnerabilities of students within what she calls “a culture of affluence.”

The researcher, Suniya Luthar, found that in comparing students across the board along socio-economic standing, she came up with a statistical U curve, ie the poorest students and those from the wealthiest families had the highest incidence of discipline and behavior problems. Aha, so someone actually is researching what’s going on in our schools! But surely it’s not ALL about the money.

To paraphrase F Scott Fitzgerald, the very rich are very different from you and me. I would only add because they can afford a good defense. Why should we expect their children to hold any better virtues, to have a moral compass,when their parents do not? A mother who runs to Mexico with her fugitive son, and pays his tab at the strip club, deserves our sympathy. And maybe some counseling while she sits in a jail cell awaiting her right to due process.    5p0fkm-L

 

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When Disaster Strikes

December 29, 2015 by mountainmornings

Have you or anyone you know lived through a natural disaster? The closest I came was the “once in a hundred year flood” that happened right after we moved into our mid-century modern ranch on a tributary of the Shrewsbury River in NJ.

Except that we luckily had flood insurance, friends who took care of our kids until we were able to fly back from a medical conference, and only lost a car and an HVAC system. The Corgis were stashed in the laundry room, which was thankfully above the water line. We had the resources to recover, and we were lucky.

But last week Bob spoke with the Bride and Groom as a tornado swept through Nashville. They had bundled up the kids and the dog and were hunkering down in their basement. Bob can plug into aviation weather tracking and see the path of the storm on his laptop. It was right above downtown Nashville. As sirens blared, my daughter led her family through a pretty complete soundtrack of the Love Bug’s life.

And when it was all over, I saw the pictures of the devastation that same storm system delivered to a small, little known part of the world. It’s a landscape with majestic magnolia trees and more historic, antebellum homes per square acre than any other place in the Deep South. Holly Springs, MS is where my sister-in-law grew up and where my brother Mike died. And it was the epicenter for that tornado.

Now I never ask you for anything. Week after week I say my peace about family, or politics, or “whatever is on my mind” as Bob likes to say. But that tornado wiped out the girlhood home, a farm belonging to a friend of my brother’s family in Holly Springs. Shelby is a beautiful soul. She was so close to my family at Walter Place, that she helped care for my brother when he became seriously ill. When I first met her, I thought she was an angel in disguise. She wants to become a nurse, and is currently working as a vet tech. Her parents are the salt of the earth, who were left homeless the day before Christmas Eve.

So if you feel so inclined to give a little something to those in need before January First, a friend of Shelby’s family has started a Go Fund Me account, “Kivelle Family Tornado Relief Fund” https://www.gofundme.com/u3g6xfw4

Her parents didn’t have any luck in the face of that tornado. Their MS farm was erased from the earth. But her Dad was a Union worker, as many small farmers need to have two jobs, and his Union buddies have started this fund to help them rebuild and recover. I like to know where my money goes for a good cause, and this one is about as good as it gets.

I love you Shelby, and thank God your family members are safe.   947035_10208598182494010_6736234418063270556_n

 

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Top Ten Moments

December 27, 2015 by mountainmornings

of 2015

1 – Taking Great Grandma Ada and Hudson to Florida. This was done ostensibly to show her what snow birds everywhere know, winter is better when it’s warm

2 – Last winter was a wonderland because we actually had snow, and Buddha Baby, aka Buddy Boy, aka Jumpin Jack recognized his Nana and Pop Bob IMG_2487

3 – Whenever Bob does the dishes. I am forever grateful.  IMG_2165

4 – That time when the Rocker played on Dave Letterman

5 – Our trip to our favorite island IMG_2324

6 – Bob opening the expanded, brand spankin new ER

7 – My visits to the Shana Maidela, aka The Love Bug, aka Magoo II and her little baby brother too!IMG_2373

8 – Our trip to the Left Coast, “Welcome to LA!” IMG_2652

9 – Surviving Cervical Spine Surgery with some help from a young Jedi Knight  IMG_3235

10 – And I’m still trying to perfect the art of the Selfie, hint, sunglasses helpIMG_3646

Hope your 2016 is Happy, Healthy, and full of Harmony!

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Culture Clash

December 23, 2015 by mountainmornings

In this hectic, sometimes happy time of year, think back to when you were little. Did you dread getting another slip for Christmas from a great aunt in the state of Washington? Maybe that was just me. But ladies, remember slips, and garter hose, and dare I say girdles? Now they call them Spanx and women pay good money to  have their internal organs shoved up into their chest!

I’m only asking because I just read a great, local newspaper gem in the Daily Progress from 1915: “Yesteryears: Community Christmas tree, Part 1: A 1915 plan to bring everyone together.” People on the Planning Board of TJ’s little piece of Virginia felt the community needed a city Christmas tree. They wanted their citizens, poor and rich, white and black to come together for a show of solidarity : “The goal was to instill the Christmas spirit in young and old, and give them something to sing as they marched to the community Christmas tree.” http://www.dailyprogress.com/jobs/yesteryears-community-christmas-tree-part-a-plan-to-bring-everyone/article_cc67486c-a517-11e5-a496-4f0079d8e773.html

I must have covered a lot of Town Christmas Tree Lightings over the years as a reporter. My kids marched, our neighbors sang. I’ll always remember 2001 in the Borough of Rumson, NJ, because I had given up my column as we were preparing to move South. And all I could think about was standing there in the cold, thankful I didn’t have to write about it. What could I say while our community was still in shock?

But back in 1915, teachers used to teach their students the lyrics to all the Christmas Carols for their procession to the Tree. Nobody complained. Nobody sued the School Board. Last week however, in a neighboring county, some parents and students were up in arms about a World Geography lesson. In fact, the schools were closed a day early for Christmas/Winter/Holiday break!

Children were asked to copy some Arabic script as they were learning about different cultures and religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and one girl didn’t want to do the assignment. The purpose was to see how  difficult it is to write the characters, and maybe how beautiful it can be too. It wasn’t a really well thought out lesson, as the teacher in this case said that it came directly from a teacher workbook. The phrase these Augusta County students were given, ostensibly as a little lesson in calligraphy, translated to:

“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God”

What an uproar this caused. Our little School Board shouting match went viral and national news networks chimed in – how dare this teacher have our children write this; she should be fired; another instance of the vast liberal agenda! Well, the Board moved quickly and to their credit did not fire the teacher, but they did issue a statement saying that in the future, any example of Arabic writing will not have any religious meaning. OK.

The Augusta County assignment was more vulnerable to outcry because of the unwise step of including the shahada. But there’s little question this is about fear of Islam, and not about objections to religion in the public schools. After all, Augusta County schools also offer students the chance to leave school once a week to attend Bible study. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/augusta-county-virginia-schools-arabic/421194/

So today Christian student athletes can pray around a flagpole on school grounds, Christian children can miss class for Bible study, and let’s not forget all the secular reindeer and snowflakes we have kids cutting out in the days before Christmas. Let’s remember our country was founded on the principal that we NOT favor one religion over another. In fact, President Thomas Jefferson had this carved on his tombstone when he died. Meanwhile, Merry Christmas everyone who is celebrating, and Happy Festivus otherwise! CT9bT8iUsAAHCpG

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May the Force Awaken

December 17, 2015 by mountainmornings


“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”                

Willa Cather

I wonder about the Star Wars hype this weekend, will Star Wars: The Force Awakens live up to its name? To be honest, I was enamored of the first trilogy. In fact, we took the Bride to “see” her very first movie when she was six months old, 1980s The Empire Strikes Back. She was enthralled with the lights for the first half hour, then fell promptly asleep in my arms.

We know that this is really an old fashioned morality play, a fight between good and evil. George Lucas and writer/philosopher Joseph Campbell were friends, and we know that Campbell’s book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” helped Lucas flesh out his sci-fi plot. But the story is as ancient as Aristotle. A young hero arises, is given a test, finds a mentor, must go into a cave to fight the dragon, returning victorious. Of course in each telling, the journey becomes infused with different details, but the story remains the same.

Carl Jung also detailed creation myths and archetypes of universal characters from around the world long before the internet helped to flatten it. The Swiss psychologist wrote about “… constantly repeating characters who occur in the dreams of all people and the myths of all cultures (and) suggested that these archetypes are a reflection of aspects of the human mind – that our personalities divide themselves into these characters to play out the drama of our lives.”

Jung spoke to our “collective unconscious.” A place where every culture invents its own religion and set of rules in order to make sense of the vast universe, to answer some old existential question like how did we get in this mess?:

” A young hero, the wise old man or woman, the shape-shifting woman or man, and the shadowy antagonist.”     http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero’s_journey.htm

Listening to the GOP debate this week, it all sounds too familiar. ISIS is the Evil Empire, and for some reason it will take one of these conservative hawks to defeat it. But they are not the heroes in my playbook. Because they can’t see what’s happening right here at home. The bloodshed our own home-grown terrorists have caused, our own mentally ill with guns – killing themselves, accidentally killing their children, murdering unarmed people on the street. Killing a nine year old boy for the “sins” of his father.

When the whole LA County school system has to shut down because of a threat, we may be too late to the battle. One thing Campbell’s hero would have done, he would have recognized these GOP tricksters for what they are. He OR She would have found a way to change our collective perception of Evil.

I heard a refugee from Syria on NPR say the jihadists are all young men buying candy bars and Cokes with American dollars. We need to fix our American dream, in order to sell it to them. We need to reawaken the hero in us all.

Here is my hero in the aviary. He just got a new iPhone, after years of refusing to come over to the Light Side of Apple. May the Force be With You!  IMG_3616

 

 

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