Ain't I a woman ... ?

Another busy week, but a thoughtful week it was.

My mind has been spinning with new thoughts born of the visit to Humboldt State University, and exposure to information that was mind-bending in that I became more acutely aware that so many of my conclusions have been arrived at in intellectual isolation and with unguided reading and a haphazard system of self-education.   My natural intelligence has served me well, but how much more could I have accomplished had I had the advantage of attending such a university in my youth?  How I do envy those young woman of the sisterhood whose lives and achievements are being shared with a generation of the young leaders who will take us into the future.

On the long drive back (after I was beyond the snow line), I was reminded of something said in passing by my host, HSU Prof. Christina Accomando who has done extensive research on Truth:

"... Sojourner Truth's first language was Dutch.  She was born in New York where she was owned by a Dutch family.  Her legacy is oral and transcribed in some imagined southern slave dialects by various scribes whose work it was to record her words over many years."

I found myself harking back to those words that echo down through history from the Seneca Falls Conference, "Ain't I a woman?"

Those thoughts (from my undisciplined mind)  collided with  two unrelated others and the combination threatened to derail yesterday's bus tour during which I found myself expressing them aloud -- and before I'd gotten around to understanding them fully.  I'm still working it through so this post may undergo revision as I do so.

The first is that I have a persistent need to disassociate myself from the "Rosie the Riveter" story.  I've always considered that story a part of the myth of the emancipation of women into the work force -- and my contention has always been that this did not apply to women of color since we've been working outside the home since slavery. Given the fact that, until recent times, black men had been limited to the lowest-paying service sector jobs, so it had always taken two salaries to support black families.  My WWII job in Boilermakers A-36, a Jim Crow union created for blacks only, meant that I had never seen myself as the romantic Rosie of "We can do it" fame.

Yet I've become increasingly uncomfortable with my position.  It wasn't that I felt that it was untrue or unjustified, it's just that there is a legitimate white Rosie story that isn't being told, and that it needs to be.  And, that white women needed to be demanding more from that history than a catchy tune, red bandannas, posters, and belated kudos.

The equally compelling thought was of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in which 149 lives were lost; immigrant women working for $6 a week under such conditions that in the aftermath, the horrific conditions of the workplaces in the garment industry came under harsh scrutiny, and the movement for unionization was strengthened.

WWII did not bring American women into the workplace for the first time.  That's a myth.  Women have been working since time immemorial.  Only it was not called work until they were introduced to what had formerly been male occupations ("work").  What women did was always defined as their life roles -- to be ever in support of the men of the society.  We have always been secretaries, librarians, teachers, nurses; always supportive of men -- with few exceptions.  Women's work consisting of child care, general housekeeping, shopping, washing and ironing, budgeting, preparing meals, etc., were considered "what wives do"  until they were recruited into the work force to do welding, riveting, conducting orchestras, dispatching trucks, engineering, reading blueprints, ferrying aircraft into war zones, contracting, manufacturing munitions, assembling jeeps and tanks, etc.; all work, for the first time in history.

Despite the fact that Rosie was often a poor woman whose opportunities were limited before she entered the defense industry, the romanticized vision that endures was that she was a middle class white woman (played by Katherine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell) who called her hairdresser or manicurist to cancel her next appointments and headed for the shipyards and aircraft plants to sign on as replacements for our fighting men.  That those pioneer women who were widowed by the Civil War and WWI had not been workers -- though raising large families, alone, on farms they ran themselves -- were not workers???  That those immigrant women whose lives were lost in the Triangle fire were not workers and therefore not counted before WWII as such?  Were those migrant sweatshop workers even counted as women?

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and the rest of the Suffragettes might have fared better had they heard Sojourner Truth's words as "Ain't I a worker?"  Maybe the scribes got it wrong?  But then, what do I know?

Maybe, in time, some powerful gutsy white feminist -- whose passion for her story equals mine for my black story -- will appear out of the blue to guide walking tours at that great Rosie the Riveter Memorial on the Richmond Marina -- and make the feminist story come alive!  It's one of the multiple stories inscribed along the walkway that begs re-visiting, along with the story of Henry Kaiser, masterful industrialist who changed the workplace and revolutionized ship building;  the Port Chicago explosion that brought about the desegregation of the Armed Forces; the story of the internment of Japanese, 70,000 of whom were American citizens; the moving inscription that tells of the fact that WWII gave us 54.8 million casualties, worldwide; a number reflecting the last time we included civilian deaths, before the concept of "collateral damage" was introduced into the language of war; and the story of women in all its complexity -- because we were represented in all of those stories -- except that of Port Chicago -- and with little recognition -- until recent times. 

I have a feeling that these thoughts may undergo revision.  I managed to get myself into a fairly lively debate with two of my male colleagues yesterday which, unfortunately, gave off more heat than light -- so I'm not yet comfortable with my conclusions -- but the very fact that this history is still raising passions may be proof enough that we're finally processing it.  Maybe we'll get around to processing the Civil War before I trade my ranger flat-hat for a French beret!

The Humboldt adventure looms large this morning ... .

While writing the last entry Dorian called to ask if we could make a trip to the fabric store for some yarn she needs for a project.  This meant driving to the mall, waiting in the car under the protection of our blue handicap placard (a privilege almost equal to having valet parking) while she makes her choices.  This sometimes involves a generous amount of time -- but that's what crossword puzzles were meant for, and I always keep the latest New York Times magazine under the seat for just this kind of opportunity.  And such errands also allow time for chewing on whatever is left unprocessed in life that either was initiated by writing, or, is resisting resolution.

My mind was still occupied with the S.F. State protest of 40 years ago, and I remembered that -- (and long before blogging was even a word)  I tended to write accounts of significant events for myself.  Since these were rarely shared and certainly not meant for anyone else's eyes, my files were bulging with what I now see as first-person accounts of historic events.  Who knew?

All that is to say that somewhere in my files is that "first-person account" of that dramatic confrontation on the S.F. State campus.  My Humboldt experience suggests that it's important that I add that document to this blog (maybe under Cbreaux's Annex?).

And it is critically important to resist the temptation to make the corrections that 89 year-old far more experienced Betty might be tempted to do -- (The original was pre-computer; typed on my trusty IBM Selectric without SpellCheck or the editing capacity now available.)   I know that I must simply scan the document as is, typos and all.  As I recall, it's polemical and filled with youthful hyperbole, which may be precisely why it's important to not allow myself to try to temper young Betty's voice.  Maybe that's where the value is; value to preserving and revisiting that woman-that-I-once-was involved as a mere bystander in a major confrontation that changed the very nature of educational institutions and democratized the process in ways that bled out into every other institution and pointed the way toward freedoms promised but more often denied.

And I was only a spectator to social change.  I was on campus that day with two UU ministers (Revs. Aron Gilmartin and Harold Wilson) in a quest for understanding of the headlines we were reading almost daily.  Did I consider myself a political activist?  No.  Not then, and not even now.  When I saw the words describing me written out on the whiteboard on Thursday morning in that classroom, it was jarring.  All of those titles were endowed after the fact.  They all represented simply Betty in the process of living of a life and responding intuitively to whatever presented itself.  I recall when I first saw -- in print -- myself described as a cultural anthropologist, I had to look up what it meant!

Now I need to explore those files for that paper and hope that I don't lose the sense of its importance in the process -- and opt out of posting it.  At times second thoughts may stifle creativity.  The Sisterhood will be happy to get it, and will use it well.

It's over -- but maybe it's just another beginning -- this newest chapter in the remarkable life of Betty ... .

The Humboldt experience will mark the place where so much came together for me -- at a time when it was crucial to my next steps.

I'm in one of those periods where life is unfolding at a rate that defies understanding, and when I haven't the luxury of time to process all that is happening to me and to my ability to make sense of the world.  I've lived these periods before, but never with such a sense of urgency and import as now.   Yesterday at Humboldt State University before combined classes of young students I was a teacher.

I may have finally come to terms with the appropriateness of May 14th and the commencement ceremonies -- as the place where academic achievement equates with life equivalency.  I'm not the first, and I'll not be the last.  There are a host of extraordinary ordinary folks who have been honored by the academy, legislatures, institutions, for having taken the more circuitous route toward the same goals yet arrived at the same place having had impact along the way.  I think of cousin George Allen, a grandson of my enslaved great grandmother, Leontine, who rose to be president of Southern University -- only the second generation out of slavery, and the many African Americans of note who followed.

Most important, I discovered a sisterhood that exists on that campus that exemplifies the changes the world will need in order to survive the lightning quick rate of change that waits for no one.  This cadre of young teachers have an excitement about them that one can only hope is reflected widely across the academy. 

I rarely read back through my blog, there's
little time for that, so I'm not sure I've written about the experience of sitting in a Berkeley meeting of politically progressive elders -- mostly former east coast "red diaper babies," now grown old --  as they discussed just how we were going to change the world for the better by whatever means necessary.  These were white-haired "revolutionary" veterans of peace marches, and "Save the Whales" and "A Woman's Right To Choose," etc.  That was in the afternoon.  That very evening I drove to the Fruitvale District of Oakland to the Nu Upper Room, an artist's collective that met in the historic old Masonic Temple where the Hip Hop generation -- guided with love by guru Rafiq Bilal -- was hosting a cultural revolution of its own -- and I discovered that those goals that were being fought for so earnestly by those Gray Panthers earlier in the day had already been achieved across town and by nightfall!  One simply needed to change the lens and tilt the viewfinder a tad and nirvana was a reality.  Here were young people of every color and ethnicity; visual artists, dancers, playwrights, poets, gathering in the name of black culture and honoring it and themselves in ways that were stunningly meaningful.

It was so in Arcata.  Instead of idealistic black revolutionary Hip Hop Guru, Rafiq, here was this amazing sisterhood made up of Christina, Wurgil, Maria, Patty, Karla, Janet, Lorena and Barbara -- all leading eager and inquiring young students in an exploration of subject matter that only a few decades ago were being so valiantly fought over in our educational institutions.  And, yes, I was in that crowd  in 1968 when jauntily tam o' shantered S.I. Hayakawa stood on the rooftop of the Student's Union with his bullhorn taunting the crowd below in that dramatic confrontation over the resistance to the creation of an Ethnic Studies Department at San Francisco State.  That scene ended in tear gas and law enforcement officers on horseback swinging truncheons while plowing through a mass of determined students and supporters -- a sign of the times.

On the long drive home, at Laytonville, I found myself driving through a pouring rain sobbing convulsively!  My personal storm lasted until the outskirts of Willits many miles south.  It was a long but cleansing drive through magnificent redwood and rushing river country that I'll remember with awe for the rest of time.

And how strange that I hadn't found closure on the S.F. State event until this adventure at Humboldt State University, some 40 years later.

Connecting the dots has become a profound ritual in these concluding years.  Maybe that's reason enough for recognition on May 14th. Maybe it simply means acceptance of my role as "first source" to a history of some of the most tumultuous eras in our nation's narrative -- a time when the social landscape was altered for all time, -- and I've been witness to that history and have lived into the actualizing of what is no longer seen as alternative, but essential to the education of whole persons; whole young Americans. 

And the long drive home yielded more ...

later.

Just when I sense that I'm beginning to take myself too seriously ... look what happens.

First there was Tutt (another Charbonnet stranger cousin who appeared magically from cyberspace) to inquire if I knew of a Charbonnet family crest -- a Coat of Arms?  I was delighted that there just might be such a thing somewhere, but punted by sending an email to Cousin Paul in Baton Rouge, the arbiter of all things Charbonnet from his side of the family.  Surely such a thing could hardly have emanated from mine.  This was a European thing.   Our side is into ceremonial masks and totems; no crests. You may recall -- if you've been reading my blog for a while, Paul and Shirley -- from the melanin-challenged side of the family -- actually flew out to the West Coast to meet me a couple of years ago.  It was a grand reunion that found us more confounded by our politics than by race.  Paul is a devout conservative  Republican and I, well,  you know the answer to that one.  But politics aside, we were absolutely delighted with what we found in each other and celebrated coming together after centuries of separation.

The next day Tutt followed up by another message announcing that he'd indeed found one, and that he would share it with me as an attachment. 

Meanwhile, Paul responded with "I don't know of any, but were it possible to do so" this is what I would design in honor of our most senior and illustrious family member" (I'm paraphrasing).  And, so saying; voila!

Maybe I'll have it emblazoned on a tee-shirt or make it into a flag to hang from the antenna on my little Honda.  Maybe two -- one on each side a la diplomatic service!

I can just imagine getting a fit of the giggles in the middle of some self-induced profundity -- just thinking about this image!

I can just imagine historic St. Louis Cemetery in Old New Orleans sending up a roar as the ancestors roll over in their crypts! ... while in another part of the graveyard -- waaaaay over there in a corner --- others are dancin' for pure joy at what has come to pass.  I've always known that there were those down through history who were always trying to get it right; and that history has mostly been written by those who didn't.  And that in our generation, we've moved closer to that place of racial harmony that we all must reach before true democracy is replicable throughout the world.

Maybe it was always a family thing.

When the call came from a member of the faculty at Humboldt State some weeks ago, it seemed a likely add-on to end the busiest time of the year for me... .

She told me in that original email introduction that her classes had been reading my blog after being introduced to me through a few paragraphs of Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi's recently-published history of the ACLU in California entitled, "Wherever there's a fight."  Elinson had interviewed me a few years ago, and had later sent a copy as a gift -- and before the end of last year we shared the podium at the Japanese American Methodist where we were panelists.

Meanwhile, those classes have apparently viewed the videos and clips on my blog and after doing so faculty invited me to spend a few days on campus meeting with classes in Women's  and Multicultural Studies.  I have no idea how this will play out, but I gather that the format will be informal and that I will be primarily in a Q&A setting -- that's where I'm most comfortable, anyway.

It seems reasonable to ask for annual leave from work in order to have this on-campus experience as a preliminary to my upcoming great adventure at the California College of the Arts in May.  I've had a difficult time getting into a place where that whole thing doesn't feel waaaay over-the-top and downright weird!  An honorary doctorate, indeed!  But maybe if I could just get out of the maelstrom for a few days, I can make some sense of it. May is coming up fast.  We're at the point of having to send in the invitation list, measurements for cap and robe, begin to form a commencement address to deliver(!); and all of that has to come from somewhere within -- some place where I'll need some stillness to reach.  Perhaps Humboldt State nestled in the old growth redwoods is that place.

I've never written a speech; been "uploading" truth now for years with nary a note nor clues chalked onto cuffs or palms.  But it feels as if a commencement speech needs more preparation than that; more evidence of study and effort ... but whenever I try to cull those gems of wisdom that occur deep in the night to wake me from sleep ... in the morning they've vanished without a trace.  And you know what?  I know that it's in me somewhere and will emerge -- maybe as I stand on that dais and not a moment before -- but it would be so comforting to feel certain that I'm deserving of such an honor.

Tennyrate, I was offered the option of being flown in (50 minutes out of SFO on United), or the only other alternative -- to make that 5 and-a-half-hour drive north up Highway 101.  Sounded so enticing -- given the reasons above -- until the past couple of days when the storms have been relentless.  I feel so in need of that 5 hours transition time between lives.  I will be driving north into rain country.  The snow level has been as low as some of the Bay Area foothills this weekend.  Now I'm anxiously watching the 5-day forecast and hoping for change.  It doesn't look very promising.  However, the die is cast, and I will leave early on Wednesday morning -- with a couple of audio books on CD (Mark Twain as narrated by Matt Damon and Howard Zinn's History of America which I've never had time to complete).

Wish me luck, guys.

There are times when past and present collide and all of my dimensions get into a grand melange and there's nothing to do but simply stop! ... .

My great adventure at blogging started, after all, with my entry into the exacting science of genealogy years ago.  It was in tracing my paternal line that all manner of obstacles prevented my ability to trace any of the women among the ancestors. This was particularly ironic since there is such a long line of strong women whom I remember vividly (Mammå, herself - Leontine Breaux Allen, the matriarch of the Breaux line; Aunt Vivian Jernigan, the dynamo from my mother's generation; Aunt Alice who created the first school for black children in St. James Parish; and so many others) -- but they were impossible to track due to name changes through marriage.

I first started this journal in September of 2003 as a way to leave my own history for those who come after, and, here it is March 2011 and I'm still blogging.  Not only that, but I'm piling on "Life" in so many ways that I'm breathless just trying to keep up with myself!

I'm reminded of this because right in the middle of one of the most crushing speaking schedules to date, a member of the family emailed this photo of these paternal ancestors.  It is by far the earliest I've ever seen, and not only that -- but it is a photograph of one of the women in my lineage.  Wonder of wonders!

With my talk yesterday at Berkeley City College just completed, and, only two days away from my Humboldt State University campus adventure in the offing -- all I can do this minute is think about returning to this fascinating work that started it all.  With the help of others I've partially completed 13 generations of the Charbonnet Family Tree (see links above the archives), and I'm so afraid that it will remain unfinished even as this amazing American family saga continues to unfold ... .

Then this morning I opened my mail to an announcement that the family crest has been located ... and that this distant cousin from my time will send it along as soon as received ... .

Just how many worlds can I manage to maneuver in simultaneously without crashing the space ship?

... then today there was the panel on Women's Empowerment at St. Marys College in Moraga ...

Such a different view of the world!

The drive from the urban area of Richmond with its grittiness and dark view of the world -- across scenic San Pablo Dam Road; through picturesque Orinda Village and the outskirts through the once familiar now any-small-city-in-the-USA-ized town of Lafayette; across the rural landscape past the Sunday cyclists and out into the back countryside to Moraga and venerable old St. Marys College -- and it was bound to be a novel day.

I arrived at the campus Soda Center as the keynote speaker, the Mayor of Moraga, was at the lectern.  The room was half-full, but then I recalled that this was the second day of a two-day conference, and participants were scattered into breakout groups.  At this point I had no idea what to expect, except that I was to serve on a panel with unidentified others.  Not much to go on, right?

We were given a printout with a selection of questions that might be used to guide our presentations.

It went well.  I felt comfortable and able to respond to my own satisfaction.

This experience, as it happens, will serve as preparation for my 3-day, 2-night, adventure as a guest lecturer the last week in March at Humboldt State University.  It may also serve as preparation for my commencement  talk at California School of the Arts in San Francisco in May.  That still lies ahead but is looming less and less threatening as I build on the campus experiences, before a generation that seems finally but truly ready for the honest national conversations that their parents and grandparents have avoided until now.

Such a dedicated and earnest group of young panelists, each with a passion formed of personal experience, and each having found a channel through which to effectively confront whatever challenges lay before them.  I felt a deep sense of separation born of age and experience, yet an equally deep realization that such a treasure of self-discovery lies in their futures -- still forming -- and that they are each change agents who are earnestly and with love creating the world in which my grandchildren will either knowingly or unknowingly and in faith -- join them in building a world far more empathetic than the one which parented my generation.

How honored it feels to be available to stand on the same side of the racial and cultural barriers with them as we together bridge the chasm of cynicism and indifference at this end of the 1st decade of the 21st Century.  The Age of Aquarius!  

Whoever would have dreamed ... ?

Still nursing the bi-centennial grandfather of colds and making every attempt to not let it interfere with Life with Betty ... .


The video below was done at the February 19th Family Journey Day sponsored by Supervisor Keith Carson of the Fifth District of Alameda, County.  It drew about 150 hardy souls who were willing and able to attend despite a drenching extended downpour.  


We were 3 panelists; a woman minister, a retired former San Francisco State head of the Department of Black Studies -- and moi.



After being totally intimidated upon noticing the voluminous notes each were clutching prior to the opening of the program (I never speak from notes), I settled in to listening for clues of what I might draw from the others when my turn came at the lectern.  Fortunately, I was not the first to speak so could build on Dr. T'Shaka's words, though he didn't leave many lifelines to cling to.  Our accounting of those years differed enough so that I had to find my own way in the telling. 


All 3 talks are accessible on You.Tube.com, so -- the complete afternoon with Q&A are available.  

This audience was interesting in that it was almost all African American, and mostly young.  It was a challenge to make this history compelling to youth who've had so little preparation with which to receive it.  I'm told that this program will usher in a comprehensive one that will involve learning the rudiments of genealogy and building family trees that will extend through the summer; a worthy undertaking.


They were very gracious.  It was an afternoon well-spent.

Family Journeys (Part 3) || African African Family and Black History Pro...

Sorry to have been missing for so long ...

I know.  It’s been a long time between posts -- maybe the longest time ever.  But the first 3 months of the year have become busier than ever due to the increasing number of African American-related events that have found their way onto my calendar; more each year. 

To completely confuse matters -- I was not only scheduled beyond reasonable expectations, but received a jury summons right in the middle of it all, and for reasons beyond my ken, I reached a point where I simply stopped everything until I could catch the ring on this merry-go-round and ride until some destination would reveal itself. 

Last week, as ordered, I found myself seated in the jury assembly room in the Martinez County Courthouse at the appointed hour of 8 am. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask for release from duty (I’ve been called before but never served) because -- down deep -- I know that this is one of the rights guaranteed by the constitution to any American citizen accused of a crime.  The only way those rights can be guaranteed is if ordinary people like me participate in the process.  I have never, and would not ever opt out.

But in the end, that’s precisely what I managed to do.  At least a deferral was granted at the very last step in the process of jury selection.

We were the last 65 potential jurors in a roomful of twice that many.  We were led to the third floor courtroom of Judge Barbara Zuniga for final selection.  The Bailiff set the tone.  This was serious.  I had no idea how that process would go, never having reached this far.  We sat in awed silence as he prepared us for next steps.

Finally, we were suddenly on automatic.  “All rise!” and a slim and attractive blond robed woman entered from her chambers to do what to her must have been ritual and dull.  To those gathered before her, it was surely not.

I’d entered with the first 18 and therefore filed into the actual upholstered chairs of the jury stand.  The rest were seated as “audience.” 

She told us what we might expect over the days ahead; that those remaining in the pool were to return next Tuesday morning at the appointed hour to be examined by the attorneys, and that she didn’t expect this particular case to last more than 5 months. 

Also in her preparatory speech she pretty much erased any excuses that those of us seated before her might be harboring.  It said clearly on our summons that any reason for non-serving had to be submitted 5 days prior to the date issued on the summons. 

Yet, here on the paper before me now was a new form that clearly stated, “I would like to be excused because ...”.  She ended her presentation with the words that everyone would be excused now to return on Tuesday, but that those of us who felt that we had any reason not to serve at this time should remain in the room.   This was unexpected.

Five months.  At my age this could easily be the rest of my life, right?  And here I am with speaking engagements that have been building over the past 3 months (January - the King Holidays; February -  Black History Month; and March - Womens’ History Month), and my unique role with the National Park Service would suggest that I would need to cancel all of those (now advertised) dates with no one to send as replacement speakers.  The full impact of those facts suddenly rose to be dealt with.  And not from the standpoint of ego needs, but simply from the very practical standpoint of my status as the resident  “elder” whose memory has become an irreplaceable asset to the work of interpretation of the Rosie stories of the Home Front.

Only this past week a major newspaper story had been published in all of the local papers about my talk at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, and flyers were being distributed about Alameda County 5th District Supervisor Keith Carson's Family History Day in Berkeley -- in which I was to be one of 3 panelists.

And, I’ve been invited to be a guest lecturer at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California (50 minute flight) where I will be their guest on campus for 3 days and 2 nights.  I’m scheduled to fly up on Wednesday, March 23rd to meet with classes in multicultural studies.

Impulsively, I managed to get enough of that into two paragraphs (starting with my age), and -- the judge must surely have seen the news articles -- and hand it to the bailiff.
 
It was no more than five minutes later when -- after disappearing into the judges chambers with our little slips in hand -- the bailiff returned and called my name.

“Mrs. Soskin?  You are granted a deferral for 11 months.  You may leave the courtroom and return to the Jury Assistance Desk downstairs off the main lobby to arrange for your return. “

I signed on to be re-summoned on November 1st.

You just never know.  And by then I will have celebrated my 90th birthday!

Now, which do you suppose warranted the deferral, a consideration of my age, or, my new-found rather fragile celebrity?  We'll never know.

The evening was magical ... !

Lawrence was magnificent!  His rich and velvety baritone-bass filled the hall without amplification.  I heard the old spirituals as if for the first time; Deep River, There is a Balm in Gilead, Motherless Child, but also Summertime and Ol' Man River.  The audience was racially mixed and culturally diverse (one could tell that from the fact that those new to classical music applauded at the ends of movements while the seasoned concert goers waited until the final notes of the piece have sounded).  I now consider myself  "seasoned," but not enough to feel superior and annoyed at the novice theater-goers who aren't clued in to (formal) audience protocols.

It's that "call and response" thing I've talked about.  In my world we Black folk don't sit on our hands.  We let artists know that we appreciate them.  It's one of those cultural variations that will probably always remain.  It's like they clap on one and three to the music, and we clap on two and four (syncopation).  You can tell -- when you're sitting in a darkened theater -- that the audience is racially integrated when the rhythmic clapping falls on all four beats.  If you find yourself in an audience where you're the only one clapping on two and four -- you better look around!  (You may be in the wrong room.)

The city of Lafayette, California, has been given a giant leap forward in the race toward reconciliation through the Gold Coast Chamber Player's concert -- but that isn't all.  On Monday evening the Veterans Memorial Hall in Lafayette is the site of the NPR broadcast of the Commonwealth Club -- an evening panel discussion in which Rep. Barbara Lee and others will participate -- the second event in the city's month-long observance of Black History Month.  Would love to attend, but this is a busy week, and it's quite impossible to take the time.

If what is happening in the Diablo Valley is any indication, we need no longer ask if the Obama presidency has made a difference in national life.  We are quite ready and willing to have those long delayed conversations in order to process decades of forgotten and/or neglected history.

Today I accepted an invitation to appear on National Public Radio station KALW (SF) for an hour between 10 and 11 o'clock on Monday morning, 2/7.  The subject will be unsung heroes of the Home Front Era.  I believe it's a call-in show, but I'll know more about that tomorrow when the producer calls to fill in the details.  It will take little effort since they've suggested that I not come into the studio but do my part by telephone from my office (will wonders never cease?).  I'm not at all sure that would be preferable since I think I'd much prefer seeing the person I've speaking with.  Since
I'll be conducting two bus tours this week (2/3 and 2/5), there should be much to talk about.

And in the background of my mind there will be sounds of that deep, deep, rich baritone with those resonant low notes ...

Photo:  The logo of the Gold Coast Chamber Players.

Conversations need not all be verbal ... case in point ... .

They've been playing in the background of our national life through the Arts for decades and have probably moved us further along the path of reconciliation among people of different races than all of the speeches of all of the great orators over all of the centuries.  These "conversations" (i.e. "the Kirov Ballet meets Alvin Ailey," and "Ray Charles with strings plays Carnegie Hall) have moved past novelty into the creation of new art forms in music and dance to delighted audiences throughout the world.  The "Black voice" as Dvorak described it -- is so powerfully and deeply infused in all of America's popular music that we may have forgotten its origins or appreciated its contribution to the very definition of what is uniquely American in our music; or the culture of pain and anguish; the unbounded joy and deep sorrow; the struggles which produced it.

Over the past few years I've been flirting with chamber music -- and finding myself yielding to its magic but always suspecting that "... a little Mingus on bass and Max Roach or "Philly" Joe Jones on percussion -- maybe Miles with a muted riff now and again..."  might improve Haydn a bit (grin!).  But over time my resistance gave way to a genuine appreciation for the genre, even while secretly wishing that my greater love, jazz, might one day be seen as equally classical music.  It was the violas playing Mozart and cellos playing Villa-lobos, especially, or almost anything else, that won me over in the end.

Next Saturday evening I will attend the opening concert of the Gold Coast Chamber Players in Lafayette, California -- a place located within a comfortable hike from the home we built in the 50s -- the place that was so life-changing for our family in a tumultuous time in our nation's history --- ten years or so before the Civil Rights Revolution of the Sixties, and long before we gave up the less than welcoming suburbs and retreated back to a more comfortable anonymity of a racially and culturally diverse life in the city; a debt owed to our children once they reached adolescence. 

The Gold Coast Chamber Players are bringing Lafayette its first observance of Black History Month -- in a place where perhaps one percent of the population is other than white.  Not only that, but the artistic director and my dear friend, Pamela Freund-Striplen, is bringing together her favorite composer, Antonin Dvorak, with brilliant African American baritone, Lawrence Beamen, in concert.  Not only those two giants from different centuries and races, but also included in the program will be the work of William Grant Still, a noted African America composer from another era.

... and I will be appropriately-clad in my conservative black crepe suit with pearls -- to be (with other volunteers) greeting the music lovers upon arrival and pressing programs into their hands.   And, I may be the only person in the room who realizes just how far we have all had to come in order for this to be an ordinary social event, or of how much change over how many years was necessary for any of this to even begin to be normal.  


This weekend's "conversation" between Mr. Beamen and Mr. Dvorak across the ages may enable those of Diablo Valley residents to deepen.  They've already had their effect upon me in that these conversations are more often being engaged in from the same side of the racial barrier, finally, and being less often shouted across chasms of hatred and acrimony.  But this may be more true in this part of the country.  Overall, there is still much work to be done, but Lafayette is taking the necessary steps toward fulfillment of the promise, " ...in order to form a more perfect Union".


Do watch this amazing 34 year-old "Robeson" in this interview.  He was born in Mississippi but raised in Richmond, California (my town).  His youth doesn't permit him to comprehend the distance we've all traveled since his grandparents back home were expected to step off the curb and into the gutter when encountering a white person on the pathway -- and never to make eye contact without threat of harm.  And where hardly anyone would have known his last name -- surnames were for whites, only.  Mister Beamen?   Never!

But that's  a conversation for another time ... .

Program, anyone?

HARMONY & MELODY with Lawrence Beamen and the Gold Coast Chamber Players

On Tuesday another of my bus tours will be filmed; this time by World Trust ... .

I was reminded of this PBS piece (below) that was filmed about two years ago, and I needed to view it again in order to remind myself of just what were the important lessons from that experience that I may need to call upon again.

I think if there's anything to be learned from viewing it again, it would be that one really can't prepare for such an event.  It means being whoever I wake up to "being" on Tuesday, and using whatever is in the air that day.  Most of the work comes with the editing, maybe.  I'm pleased with this footage -- and could never have guessed how it would turn out while we were filming.  In fact, somewhere along the way I forgot that the cameras were present.  The film crew was very unobtrusive.  Maybe it will be so this time, too.  

I believe that Dr. Shakti Butler, Founder and Executive Producer, is planning to create a segment that will be incorporated into her next documentary.  Her field is psychology, with specific work aimed at achieving greater understanding between those of different races and cultures.  She travels throughout the country conducting workshops for educational institutions and corporations.

She invited me to her home some weeks ago where I shared a lovely dinner with her family which included her cinematographer husband, Rick Butler.  I left with 3 of her films in hand, all really fine.  It was surprising to find among those pictured several people whom I've met in my wanderings over time; Aisha Bilal in a dance sequence; Erika Huggins of the Black Panther Party, we've never met, but her oral history sits in a binder on my desk.  She is so articulate ... so sensitive ... so insightful, so wounded yet (surprisingly) so compassionate -- that I keep that binder within reach for those times when I need centering, focus, when, temporarily, the path forward has become clouded.

Also on camera is one of my favorite speakers, Tim Wise, whose understanding of the concept of white privilege is so dead on that -- despite the seriousness of the topic -- his wry delivery of skillfully scripted comic lines rivals the best of the stand-ups!  I bought a copy of his speech on video and presented it to our police chief as a gift a while back.  Richmond (as does many cities) has both a black and a white police officer's association within its structure.  A holdover from less enlightened times?  That's a conversation I'd love to have with him someday.  What's with that, anyway?  I would hazard a guess that it's at the insistence of black police officers.  Were it the other way, it would not be allowed, right?  Should this be the other way around it would be considered racist, surely.  Just one of the contradictions that we've learned to live with without questioning.

Maybe we need that conversation before I arrange for those tango lessons.

So  much to do ... so little time.

This Is Us! Betty Soskin

DRUUMM (Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian-Universalist Multicultural Ministry)

... an organization about which I knew nothing until recently, but I'd been invited  to make a presentation on my work with the National Park Service before the group at a national conference hosted yesterday by the 1st UU Church in downtown Oakland. I'd accepted since there is this little understood lack of visitation by People of Color in our national parks,  and that this might be a way to reach into this community for some answers.

Because I'm never presenting from prepared notes and depending upon memory, passion, and whatever arises from the audience, I arrived on Saturday to spend an hour or so trying to get a "feel" of the group that I would appear before on Sunday afternoon.

It felt good.  Home.  Comfortable.  I'd long ago lost the need to "belong" in connection with organized religion.  It happened while I wasn't noticing.  It must have been then that I released my spiritual "training wheels" and struck out on my own individual search for answers to Life's great questions.  This work was far too important to entrust to any priest, lama, minister, rabbi, or shaman as intercessors, but needed to be individually confronted in a random universe.  I didn't notice when that happened; and am aware of the change only in retrospect. I recall no spiritual/intellectual coming-of-age; just a drifting away into new territory that more resembled astrophysics then religion -- but that provided no more answers than before -- when I was looking over my husband, Bill's, shoulder at the Tibetan Buddhist disciplines and practices.

My youngest son, David, raised UU, but eventually returning to the Faith of Our Fathers, Catholicism, was among those in yesterday's audience.  In a way, after a long absence he was returning to the humanist environment of Liberal religion.  That felt good.  At the end of my talk -- during the Q&A he spoke to the arc of his spiritual life and -- contrary to what might have been expected, I felt complete success as his spiritual guide through childhood in that he had chosen for himself as an adult, the faith of our centuries-old paternal line, the Charbonnet, when he opted for legacy over denominational definition.  The Creole Charbonnet men had been builders of Catholic Churches in New Orleans since the early-1900s, when my grandfather, Louis Charbonnet, designed and constructed the Convent of the Holy Family Sisters - the first religious Order for African American nuns in the country; as well as the historic Corpus Christi Church in the Tremé.  Among our family treasures is this fading photograph of Corpus Christi High School, one of the earliest constructed for children of color; also a Charbonnet site.

Besides, I was almost certain that the God in whom David believes as all-powerful and all-loving would understand David's mother's atheism and credit her with having gotten the love message and executed it well throughout life.  Crazy?  Maybe.  But my children were guided toward finding their own answers to great questions -- then joined me in later life in the search for meaning, and had arrived at their own answers without losing respect for the individual choices of their parents and siblings.  This speaks well for UUism.

Another discovery was that somewhere along the way it appears that I've outlived my rage.  I truly believe that  anger has served me well over a lifetime, but that at some point over the past decade or so, it has been transformed into something other -- yet leaving behind the associated passion.  Maybe this is what has empowered my work.  There is something operating that feels new and which provides an edge -- I can see it in the faces of my audiences.  I'm left with an inexplicable feeling of awe at the close of each talk -- almost tearful.  I've not figured this out, nor do I know how one consciously creates such moments, but oh how I wish they'd come at some earlier time of life.

But then I do dimly recall knowing such moments while singing ... when even this Atheist experiences the touching of souls -- even while doubting the very concept of "the soul."  That's when the need for suspension of judgment kicks in -- and one consigns those things which one cannot touch, hear, or see -- but which one knows are there-- to be cast out onto that illusive dimension called "The Ineffable." 

Over the past 24 hours, I've found myself wondering for the first time, seriously, if the time hasn't come to climb out from under my flat hat and finish up in a sprint as Betty Soskin, Private Citizen?

I'm really not sure yet, that this is the proper course, but at least there are stirrings ... and, no, I've no intention of slowing down or retiring (at least not before I've taken those tango lessons and learned to play the cello).

My identity is more and more determined by an expanding public image but maybe the "juice" still emanates from my private self?

In thinking about how to handle the CYCLE gardening project -- all of the answers that rise to the top fall outside the perimeters of my ranger role.  For instance, were I not with the park service it would be easy to  have someone measure off the empty and garden-ready space to see just how many raised beds it could accommodate; have someone with more expertise than I to tell us how much each would cost, then initiate a campaign that would invite the public to "purchase" individual beds.  Funds raised would provide the lumber for each, and -- if such a campaign were successful, we'd be off and running before we've lost the kids.  How's that for an idea?  It might even be possible to run such a campaign online ... needs more thought, though.

However, it's "under the flat hat" that I have six months of commitments to fulfill -- so maybe over the past 7 years the power that now fuels my work and reputation (beyond what came with me into my position from my private self) would disappear in a "poof!" once I discarded the uniform.  It's so hard too gauge that. "Celebrity" can be deceptive; an ego trap.

On the other hand, maybe I can have it all.  Maybe in some way those projects which seem relatively unrelated to my interpretive role with the NPS can be made to fit under some arcane classification; maybe I'm simply needing to give more time to making the connections.

I'm convinced that somewhere in here there is an explanation to just why it is that the National Park Service is having such difficulty attracting visitation from the ranks of "People of Color."  The recent Oprah & Gail nationally televised visit to Yosemite was an attempt to chip away at that persistent problem.  Maybe those connections must be made -- not by black celebrities from luxuriously outfitted campers -- but through relating back home in communities where the under-served and under-privileged might be introduced into the park system through home-based community-created programs as a beginning point; and by rangers of color under flat hats.

Maybe as long as I'm one of those rare beings, there is a need for me to remain in place with the full force of this great federal agency providing the wind at my back.


Maybe I've thought this through enough over the past few minutes (my fingers/brain connection usually can be counted on to deliver), and retirement can be delayed -- at least until I've found an answer to this gardening project.  To Lily Mae and Lena, and to those young people -- currently, I am the federal government's response to their dilemma, I just can't fathom just how that is.

Maybe that's reason enough to carry on, at least until I locate that tango instructor.

Now if I can only figure out how to get someone else to design that fund-raising campaign while I continue to be the governmental response to those who need one.


Photo:  top was taken at the Home Front Festival in 2010 at Shipyard 3 in Richmond.
             bottom -- 1972 Democratic Convention at Miami Beach, Florida where I was a McGovern  delegate.  This may have been where "private citizen" Betty was successfully launched.

Off into another year of unknowns and untested days, weeks, and months -- another gift of Time ... .

Our staff has grown considerably over the past 3 years and adjusting to just who I am and how working in this new constellation effects my work is a question to ponder.  We've had 3 superintendents over the 6 or so years of my park history, and -- not only are there more than triple the number of staff as when I started, but there are positions now that have never existed before.  Coming so late into the National Park System means that I will probably never feel a part of the culture, and that has both its advantages and disadvantages.  I'm less representing the park out in the community than I am the community's person within the park system -- and that feels right -- as it should be.

I'm working among relatively young staff who come from a wide range of experience in both urban and wild places, and many who are having their first west coast experience.  On the other hand, I'm working in a place where all but 6 years of my entire life has been lived within a 30 mile radius.  And, my age -- which places me among the dinosaurs -- also means that I am a "primary source" in terms of the WWII era being enshrined by this park  As such, I continue to have a legitimate place among the young with whom I'm actively engaged day-to-day, and the sense of being an "anchor" in some ways.  Just hope I can avoid having that anchor turn into an albatross -- for which I'm ever watchful.

There are four parks under our management team (John Muir, Eugene O'Neill, Port Chicago, and Rosie the Riveter),which presents a variety of visitor's experiences as well as a fascinating variance in interpretive demands on each of us to be informed and actively defining "the work".  This is especially true for the newest of our 4 parks -- "Rosie."

So how on earth do I fit Lily Mae Jones and her kid's violence prevention nonprofit, CYCLE, into the matrix?  Not so easily, sometimes.  The NPS has its own great programs that have been tested over time, Junior Rangers being one such.  We have another under development at Rosie that is training a group of teens to be civic ambassadors under the direction of a very capable ranger co-sponsored by the City of Richmond (with stipends) which is designed to serve 8 young people in a year-round training that will serve their needs, the city's, and the park's mission and interpretive goals.  With civic partners, we are also in the third year of development of a very successful summer program for middle school girls which is Rosie's Girls, which gives girls in their early teens a taste of non-traditional occupations ordinarily limited to boys.  That serves 2 groups of about 20 youngsters daily for  two cycles of 3 weeks during the summer.

On the other hand, there's Lily Mae Jones with her 50 to 85 young people (18-22) gathering together on weekends in a program of their own making.   Those efforts have been stymied by lack of materials.  Roots could hardly be more "grassy" than theirs, but except for my informal attempts at marrying the aims of the City and the NPS under a very broad interpretation of "civic engagement",  their enthusiasm will remain untapped.

Learned yesterday in a visit to Lily that the program that supplied the young people (YouthBuild) has been temporarily stalled, and the director sacked!  I'm hoping that this is simply a rumor,  but then I recalled that this is often the fate of city-sponsored programs.  They're usually initiated in the early days of each incoming administration because newly elected officials have campaign debts to supporters who've worked hard and must be rewarded with appointments.  The easiest way to do that is to be named to head fragile programs -- mostly those designed to serve youth who haven't the political power to prevent the gutting.   They're a weak constituency -- unlike that of Seniors, for example, who've learned to scream hard and loud, and march on city hall, and who vote!

That bridge that I live on between federal and city -- community and national parks -- may be primarily responsible for last week's plunge into depression.  It's that feeling of recurrence of problems long thought "dealt with", that keep showing up as though for the first time.  This is surely the nature of life and a function of aging.  Of course, I've been here before -- and many times.  And, should I live so long, will turn up again.  But what is also true is that each time there are new possibilities; new tool kits to test; new technologies to explore; and new minds to unite with in finding answers.

Among the new staff members are, potentially, those with new insights with whom I can add my tested and true political experience and, together, we'll add our voices and energy to that of my "Iron Triangle Gatekeeper" friend, wonderful and altruistic through it all, Lily Mae Jones, in her persistent efforts to reduce violence among the young of her community.

I'm still here ... !

... and after viewing the crystal ball drop over Times Square repeated ad nauseum (why is that anyway?) and a good night's sleep, I've risen to a new day and year and a calendar that would make any other woman of such advanced years envious in anticipation.   Besides, I'm a pushover for the Rose Parade, and this one is everything that the active child in me could wish for.

What other woman of my age is looking forward in the months ahead to ...

• presenting a talk at the Oakland Main Library as a part of their Black History Month's observance;
• another filming of one of my regular "Betty-led" bus tours of the scattered sites that form the Rosie the Riveter WWII/Home Front National Historical Park by World Trust Films;
• a lecture before students and staff at Samuel Merritt -- the graduate school connected with Summit Medical Center in Oakland;
• another before the students of Emeritus University in Pleasant Hill, California as their Women's History Month program;
• a series of meetings and filmings now in the planning stages by Brigham Young University's nationally televised program, "The Generations Project", which if finalized, will take me back to uncover family history that has been elusive.  It would provide connections with ancestors back behind the slave curtain, and may involve travel and several weeks of production time both here and in Utah --plus wherever that history leads;
• and, finally, during the week of May 14th, being celebrated as the recipient of this year's honorary doctorate by the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where I'll been invited to give the commencement address!

That's for starters.

I just don't see any time or space for being depressed, do you?  Besides, the fantasy of the BYU experience causing me to (after death) find myself wandering aimlessly -- halo leaning noticeably leftward -- as a displaced black UU illegal alien in a Mormon Heaven sends me into spasms of long suppressed giggles -- the ultimate defense against accumulated sadness.  And, wouldn't it be great if we could save up giggle energy like rollover minutes as insurance against the dark times?

Besides all that, Dorian is at this moment watching the Rose Parade emanating from Pasadena and as I watch her delighted expression, a kind of peace descends. Mental retardation has protected her from having the ability to project into that future that I'm so fearful of on her behalf and for that I'm so grateful.  I worry enough for us both. 

If we're lucky, her mother will be so busy dispatching life as it evolves that hovering over her  -- sending negative vibes -- or at least neutralizing them into some harmless form (as before), and her healing (now fully underway) will continue. Her life will be whatever that dreaded "unknown future" delivers despite my best efforts to see behind every obstacle along the "Road of Life."

Despite that formidable listing above, Life surely has its way of keeping even the most celebrated of us humble. And deserved or not -- I'm finding that I'm often now reaching out for "celebration" as a defense against the overwhelming unfairness that shows up clothed in that velvet cloak of realism gone deliciously and capriciously mad!  And, no, logic is no defense.

On this first morning of the new year, I'm feeling both -- celebrated and properly humble.  And, oddly enough -- lifted from the gloom of yesterday and looking forward to tomorrow with an eagerness that has been lost over the past several weeks of the Christmas blues entitled "Missing them.".

I'm back, guys!

The closing of the books on 2010 is with an Auld Lang Sigh of relief ... .

The year started with dealing with the after effects of Dorian's auto/pedestrian accident which happened on November 27th of 2009.  It was a devastating nightmare that resulted in badly fractured legs and the beginnings of two rounds of orthopedic surgery months apart (the second to correct the first) and 7 months of stays in 4 rehab facilities -- and ends with the two of us waiting for the New Year's confetti and noisemakers to kick in.  We're sitting before a fireplace, together, and grateful for having prevailed in the face of a troubling year.  But it's bitter sweet.

Dorian is not reflecting her mother's doubts and cynicism, and is blithely unaware of the costs of a year of travail.  She is simply glad to be sipping her cocoa and waiting for the sounds of celebration.  Would that this were also true of me.  Not so.  I'm still aware of a dip into depression that will be addressed when I've wrung all of the angst out of this one! 

I've lived long enough to know that this is cyclical; that this is the time of year when ancient Man created the Saturnalia to coax the sun our of hiding -- and that eons have not changed the needs for such.  I plan to start a promising calendar of events that are waiting for the turn of the decade to kick in, and that happy fact sits just behind the depression -- waiting to be expressed in the weeks to come.

But for now, I'm understanding how a mother might feel less comfortable leaving an adult/child in the world beyond their lifetimes ...  than wishing ... no, I won't go there ... but know that it is surely love that brings such thoughts into play -- even when such unspeakably dark images rise to prepare us for the dealing with our own mortality.  Repugnant though such thoughts may be; they need to be dealt with for the sake of preserving one's sanity; confronted and consciously discarded. 

I was so sure that  -- having devoted my entire life to increasing her capacity to survive beyond me -- only to find that in the final decade of those long and dedicated years -- that those attempts may have failed after all.  Maybe I was trying heroically for the impossible.

For Dorrie it was 7 months of learning to walk again, twice, upon discovery that the right tibia had rotated enough to make walking impossible without re-breaking and re-setting -- and starting all over and again learning to deal with new physical disabilities added to lifelong mental deficits ... .

And that was just Dorian's trials.  Her mother managed to visit noon hours every day without fail, taking and returning laundry and providing gifts to keep the peace while continuing to fulfill the requirements of a demanding job as a park ranger guide all the while.  It was a tough year that left scars that we're still dealing with.

The irreparable damage to the fragile framework for the living of her life beyond mine cannot be overstated.  We don't have time to do it all over again, and no amount of financial settlement can make up for that loss.  We've both regressed to the point where I've become a nose-wiping baby-talking "Mommy," after a lifetime of training us both for my departure from this world and leaving her as prepared as possible to withstand the loss of her principle support system.  It is now threatened beyond imagination by recent events, but before the year ended she was back living precariously again on her own in a condo nearby with assistance -- and though it will never be quite the same again -- I've gone on with my own separate life in an exciting career far beyond either my own or my colleague's expectations.

Something was destroyed with that accident -- something that has to do with my confidence and trust of "The World," and the vagaries of "Fate." 

This night -- when the world feels so fragile and peace ever more deeply beyond reach, I'm finding myself more timorous -- wary -- and, while relieved that 2010 is ending, I'm far from ready to move into the unknown future, and for the first time in memory. 

Maybe it's that damned Mayan calendar ... .

and please, dear Goddess, ... may it be

a Happy New Year!

Maybe another visit to Dmitri's website is in order ... .

A day or so ago I crashed out of that blue funk and back into "The World" ... and all it took was a  fan letter ... .

After reading the email sent by a kindly stranger on Tuesday, I realized that here was someone -- the age of one of my sons -- with whom I could start a conversation somewhere in the middle of the sixth paragraph!  We both speak "jazz!"  There has not been a lot of that in my life over the past several years.  I've had music experiences, though, in many forms, all wonderful.  I've stretched and grown to meet the new (to me) more disciplined art form of chamber music, and have felt enriched by it, though never feeling quite "at home" with the genre -- in its equally disciplined audiences I remain somewhat self-consciously involved.  I'm always aware of my fashionably-confined toes struggling to express themselves invisibly to the insistent rhythms put down by the low notes of the bass or cello -- but failing miserably.  Music for me is a participatory art form, a gift left over from my instinctive intuitive African American "call and response" roots.  It's in the DNA!

Somehow I'd missed "serious" music despite the attempts made by Ms. Reiniger, my fifth grade teacher at Highland Elementary.  It was she who introduced me to the classics, but my own cultural background soon crowded that out in favor of input from the likes of Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, and the jazz masters of that day. Yet, to this day the first strains of Sibelius's Finlandia brings feelings of elation that take me back to that modest classroom in the East Oakland Flatlands and the scratchy primitive recordings she brought to share a passionate love of symphonic music with her students.  It's always Ms. Reiniger who is (in spirit form, of course) sitting approvingly behind my left shoulder at chamber music concerts; and I truly welcome her re-entry into my life on such occasions.  But jazz is home!

The name at the bottom of this wonderful letter sounded vaguely familiar -- enough to cause me to Google it, then to spend a delicious hour or two browsing his website and discovering signs of myself there; even my Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Renascence", which reminded me of sitting on a piano bench in the basement-turned-studio of the North Oakland home beside a young friend, (later) renown tenor saxman, the late Jerome Richardson, as he introduced me to Edward MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose." It was exquisite in its simplicity.  We sat in silence as the last notes faded away.  I was about sixteen; Jerome perhaps 3 years older,  I think we both  recognized that day that beauty could not be confined to genre -- that labels could not limit its power and that it would turn up in unexpected places for the rest of our lives in music in all of its forms.  (And how long has it been since that image has come up for me?)

Dmitri mentioned that we shared a world view and that he has moved to the Southwest from the Bay Area, and "We'd met at a jazz concert in the East Bay," his email read, "...and when I get homesick for the Bay Area I read your blog."

I typed his name into the little search bar -- (above the banner at the top of the left side of the screen), and guess what?  I'd written an entry on June 12, 2005 about that very jazz concert where I'd heard him play that one time. I didn't recall the name of the pianist who'd appeared with him, but there it was, "Dmitri Matheny." He plays flugelhorn, and as I read my description of the experience I was transported back to that evening as if it were yesterday. The concert was one produced by the Gold Coast Chamber Music Players; before an audience of suburbanites in Rossmoor,  a retirement community in the Diablo Valley.  Who ever would have expected that?  By what powers did I mark that evening 5 years ago for remembering -- a wisp of an idea that one day I'd be brought back from a blue funk by a kindred spirit?  Hardly.

Yet, this Berkley School of Music-trained brilliant jazz musician gave me a most beautiful tribute; it affirmed me as an artist -- something I rarely self-identify with or feel worthy of claiming title to --

Dmitri said,  "I don't have your gift for the written word, but here's the thing: I want to play music the way you write."  How unbelievably lovely is that?

What a powerful antidote for depression.  I may never feel blue again -- at least not until the next time.

Which reminds me to plan to take in at least some of the San Francisco Jazz Festival this year.  Maybe I'll hear Mr. Matheny again, and if not, to at least allow myself to be open to the creativity and aliveness that jazz represents to me -- still.  I was reminded of that vibrancy as I listened to the music on Dmitri's website ... and I will visit often now that I've discovered this wonderful resource that is so much a part of the essential me.

As these holidays approach, I'm acutely sensitive to the irrevocable passage of time ...

This year December brings with it a depression tagged with my name and address -- and I've not wanted to write lest the very act of recording those feelings would embed them hopelessly in my psyche -- never to be removed.

To the extent that there is inevitably some semblance of the old self-fulfilling prophecy connected with it, the news of Sparky's death (Lily Mae's canine companion) gave substance to feelings that I'd been trying to deny for weeks.  Lily's grief was contagious and became hopelessly attached to mine -- grief that may have gone unrecognized without the stirrings of empathy for her tragic loss.  It would have remained a disembodied sense of loss and sadness without cause -- but now could have a name and rise to be identified and owned.

Heading into the Christmas season has always involved troubled waters and denial.  I do miss those who are no longer here.  I do miss my parents, my sisters, my eldest son, old friends long gone, and during the holiday season most of all.

Yesterday may have seen a final break in the darkness.  December 17th was the birthday of Mel, my teenage friend and first husband;  and the father of my children.  It is also the 20th anniversary of my father's death. And then Bill, my second husband and partner who also died within the same year (1987) as did the other two significant men in my life; Mel and Dad.

But now that fateful anniversary day has passed and I've survived  -- and maybe now I can return to my blessings -- of which there are so many.

And, no, we've not yet succeeded in rounding up the lumber with which to continue the work on the Lily Mae Jones Gardening Project -- and yes, the kids are still showing up on the weekends -- to see what comes next.  The mulch pile has grown as the Department of Public Works continues to make truckload deliveries to the site.  Not sure how long simply shoveling that pile around will satisfy those young people, but maybe all is not lost.

There is also the disturbing probability of staff changes in the city's great youth program, YouthBuild, in light of our having gone through another election cycle and the changes that inevitably  follow.  There will be the usual political appointments that are in the interest of the newly-elected, and which are seen as more in keeping with changing agendas and priorities.  Adult leadership will be impacted by "process" and it may take months to get the rhythm back -- meanwhile such programs are interrupted as new alliances are formed in the civic political infrastructure.  

A local photographer (after reading the story here) emailed this week to say that he would like to visit the site take some photos and, just maybe, he can draw some interest to the project before it's too late.  He has connected with Lily and Lena, and they'll meet sometime early next week to see what can be done.

Meanwhile, I've continued to conduct bus tours in my capacity as "interpreter" and accept speaking assignments in and out of the community -- and still find them rewarding experiences -- though the reason defies understanding.  I'm surely not an historian by training, and am subjecting my "tourists" to what is clearly my own oral history, though that seems to be pretty effective and I still end each 3-hour tour with a busload of new friends and feelings of having "connected" beyond my generation.  Maybe that's more than enough to expect in these waning years.

More later; meanwhile I need to meditate on today's Senate's repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" for my late gay son, Rick, who, regrettably, didn't live long enough to benefit from a greater acceptance from a world that proved too cruel to continue to exist in.

Meditation in this case will consist of sitting wrapped up to my chin in a blanket before the fireplace missing him, and all those dear ones whose lives ended before my own.

Now if only I could get up the courage to go out and find that perfect tree and begin to unpack the ornaments with each memory attached ... .

Oh, yes, then I'll give a call to Kokee Amanda Reid, my granddaughter whose birthday was December 16th -- more than enough reason to be aware of the passage of time and the value in appreciating each life as it unfolds or passes on in the irresistible march through the decades into eternity.

Me?  Oh, I'm still shopping around for some Faustian bargain that may match my tenure on the earth with the 30 years my banker gave me on my mortgage!

In the Sondheim lyric as sung by the inimitable Broadway Diva, Elaine Stritch, "I'm still here" ... .

So is my friend, Lily Mae Jones, though she was truly looking forlorn last week when last I dropped by to inquire.  She was sitting in her wheelchair at the front of her driveway -- tossing the daily spread to the pigeons who visit for the toss-out that sustains her sense of self-worth.   She makes a daily trip in her motorized wheelchair to the Rescue Mission some blocks away for stale bread with which to fulfill avian expectations. Her beloved aging dog is lying hopelessly ill on the garage floor just behind her -- Lily can't possibly afford the vet's bill to relieve him in what are surely his last days.  She was obviously heartbroken but stoic; and I was of little help.  This could mean quite literally thousands of dollars -- the fate of so many of those whose heart capacity includes much-loved companion pets but whose income doesn't allow for much beyond that.  One of the unheeded tragedies of life in the Iron Triangle and communities like it.

On our last visit to Dorian's vet for a look at a growing bald spot on her cat's hip (to the cost of $85 for examination and prescription), she was admonished for not maintaining her pet's dental care, "there's tartar building up which will cause problems in a short time."  Dorrie's face clouded over with guilt - because her mental retardation did not allow her to filter out what is truly needed from whatever else this might be.  Dorian, like Lily Mae, lives on Social Security that surely doesn't allow for such costs -- but I can't imagine what life would be for Dorian to live alone and independently without the companionship of her pets.

While just across the street, the work of the young people has been stalled despite the delivery of a truckload of mulch from the city's Department of Public Works.  Due to a lack of response to the call for lumber with which to construct the raised beds for plantings; and because of soil contamination left over from industrial practices that date back to the time of the World War II, seeds planted directly into the soil yield food not fit for human consumption, sadly.  There has been excited announcements of  much grant funding awarded in this city for such projects (as announced in recent press releases), so it may be simply that we need to attempt to get some of that directed into CYCLE's gardening project.  So often problems arise from the simple fact that one is not in on the politics that are operative -- even as it applies to what's going on in the Congress at this very moment.


Still working on solutions and finding little more than fitfully listening ears and not much else, actually.

Ironically, much of the time I find myself as well as agencies I've worked with over the years providing answers to questions that no one is asking.   But I think this is simply a case of finding the connecting links that may need some nudging. And, yes, I'm aware that this is probably way beyond my job description and the ranger's "civic engagement" box on my reporting forms.  But it's where the work takes me.

In the park service there's something called "wayfinding," an attractive word, right?  Can't see where there's any application here, or at least that I can see at this point, but maybe by stretching here and there something will give ... .

These 85(!) young people  turned up on Friday despite the rain, only to find the resources needed to complete the work had not turned up -- at least not yet.  This was the third weekend, and I'm not sure how long we can expect the momentum to last before they give up on this particular dream.