There was a strange but exciting phenomenon ...

happening in the Greater Bay Area during those years of the late Sixties, Seventies, and early Eighties. Like a giant magnet, or vortex of some powerful force -- we were caught up in unpredictable times of great social change, and most of it was being born right here in the eye of the hurricane. This great liberal-progressive social climate came into being -- not because this was our reality, 'til that time we in the Bay Area were a pretty ordinary polyglot of human beings living a fairly ordinary lifestyle with all of the limitations of middle America. But because liberal-progressives from around the world perceived it as the Progressive Capital of the World they brought it into being as a self-fulfilling prophecy simply by settling here.

Tuptin and Sang Sang - gifts fom Tarthang Tulku

In a few short years, that heady world of the Academy was impacted by that in-migration of intellectuals from every field of study. We were the home of the development of the A-Bomb at UCB and its sister facility, Los Alamos, the original birthplace of the United Nations, the Stanford Accelerator, more Nobelists than any other area on the planet, the original site of the school desegration experiment (Berkeley's busing program), the Free Speech Movement and the point of origin for the Mississippi Freedom Summer. It was the birthplace of Werner Erhardt's EST, and much of the Human Potential Movement grew out of the work at Esalan under Fritz Perls et al, the Zen Center in Green Gulch, and Tassajara. Living on the edge of the continent, an emerging and fragile peace movement, at the cutting edge of a social revolution that would change the world, the excitement was almost palpable. There was electricity in the air -- and positive change on everybody's agenda.

Since all of this was happening in my very own backyard so-to-speak, there was a circus-like atmosphere to it. It was all larger than life, and it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if I'd awakened one morning to find all of the circus tents gone! Bill and his world were a large part of that. I loved it all with a passion and fully participated but with a healthy skepticism that kept me aware that -- like the Flower Children in the Haight -- this was only partly real and partly pageantry of a kind I'd never experienced. There's a lot of that left in me. The full test came later, and despite the phantasmagorical(!) addition of the Tibetan Buddhism siddhis into my vocabulary -- I never did become a convert.

Bill was one of the more liberal contributors to the Tibetan Refugee Project, for instance. He sent funds freqently to Dharmsala in India and visited that settlement twice during our marriage. On one such visit he chose for me as a penpal Lama Wangdor who had escaped the Chinese invasion in 1987, bringing with him only his mother's colorful "apron garment," two silk brocade shirts, several "Z" stones sewn into his garments, and a scroll. When he reached Rewalser in the Himalayas, he climbed a mountain and lived out the rest of his life in meditation in a barren cave. He lived there, alone, for 14 years. Over time, pilgrims made their way to his cave for religious instructions, and eventually built a temple at the bottom of the mountain as they became converts for his teachings. Lama Wangdor was a gift from Bill. I resisted, however, becoming his student.

I knew no Tibetan, Lama Wangdor, no english. I wrote him nonsensical letters about everyday events in Berkeley -- and occasionally would send a gift package of some sort. Recall at one time that I sent six copies of Arizona Highways(!) just because the photographs were so beautiful. Through an interpreter, Lena Ford (from New York via San Francisco), he wrote wonderful letters to me, some containing unbelievable accounts of events that required the need to either suspend judgement or censor them out entirely. Life changes were coming so fast, that there were no ways to deal with them short of developing some new "pegs" to hang things on (in my head).

One day I received a package from Rewalser. In it were the "apron garment," two silk brocade shirts (exquisitely soft from years of wear), and six "z" stones sewn into the garments. In addition there was a beautiful prayer rug featuring a tiger on a yellow background, and two pairs of brightly knitted vari-colored socks of yak's wool -- in precisely my size. Since there is very little give to yak's wool, the size would have to be perfect. We'd never met. How on earth did anyone know? Yet someone obviously did.

Bill and I enjoyed the company of a longhaired yellow adult cat named Peanut Butter. She'd come with the house. We loved her. After a long time of living together, one day she was killed in traffic and we were devastated! That evening I wrote a letter to Lama Wangdor. By this time it mattered little that he knew no English, he had quite magically become a friend. I was seeking no great Tibetan truths nor great religious instructions. Ours was a friendship that wasn't dependent upon any of that. I spilled out my sense of loss, and felt better.

A few months later there was a call from New Delhi from Lena Ford. She had just taken a bus (two day trip) from Rewalser to New Delhi with a 6 month-old Lhasa Apso and placed him on a jet for San Francisco. Lama had presented me with Peanut Butter's replacement, a puppy from a recent litter from the pack that guarded his temple at the bottom of the moutain. They work with the giant mastiffs that guard the exterior. Lhasas are bred to tell friend from foe, and work on the inside of the temple.

On schedule, I drove to S.F. International airport and right to the baggage depot to retrieve my small white closely-clipped new friend who was housed in a homemade wooden travel crate with Tibetan flags attached. It was love at first sight! His Tibetan name translated to "Lion's Child." Sang Sang was the name we used. We spent 15 years together, he and I, day and night, at home, work, and at play.

It was clear that this little friend had come to the US with very special instructions to take care of me, and that he did.

An example: Some time later I left the university to take over our store due to a changing circumstances. I hired a man to work for me who seemed perfectly normal. My little canine friend hated my new employee and went into a frenzy of barking and growling whenever Sam entered the store. I had to close him up in a back room each day in order to keep him from attacking Sam. Everyone else -- including the occasional customer who wandered in -- could come and go at will. Not so with Sam. It was hard to understand. Sam lasted about a month. It took me that long to discover that he was stealing from the cash register and making off with merchandise. Sang Sang knew. I learned.

Sang Sang would ride everywhere with me. As long as I was in the car, he would be alert and active. In returning to the car at the end of some errand, I could not see him, always lying down -- as if asleep -- on the floor of the front seat. It was as if he would come alive only when I was present, unless some threat was sensed. Not even Bill could approach me unless I was obviously welcoming of his attention. I was told that -- when I left the house on those rare occasions when I couldn't take him along -- he would climb into my closet and sleep on my shoes until I returned, no matter how late the hour.

We shared life for 15 years, until his death. I bought a female Lhasa as Sang Sang grew older and more feeble, so that I could have a puppy to survive him. It proved to be impossible to breed. Sang Sang was one of a kind. He'd entered this country on a mission, and fulfilled it faithfully, but he was not to be cloned.

In the years before Bill's leaving for his extended period of study, Lama Wangdor visited us here in Berkeley. After 15 years, Sang Sang knew him, though he was a very young puppy when sent to the States.

There was much that I never understood in those years, but always believed that my truths would unfold in time. Sang Sang was a part of that. Lama was another. When I apologized to him when we met, "...I just don't understand why I'm so resistant to following these practices as Bill and everyone else does ...," he told me not to fret. "You'll know." "You'll know." It's been many years now, but I'm still questioning. I clearly do not yet know... .

About William F Soskin, Ph.D.:

Born Billy Sosinski, in Michigan, son of Polish immigrants Peter and Mary Sosinski, brother of older sisters -- Claire and Dorothy. There was a deep sadness about Bill, the reason for which took many months to unfold. The family lived in Grosse Pointe, but the kids grew up in this very wealthy suburb of Detroit as the children of the school janitor and town drunk. When Dorothy, the eldest, left for college -- she immediately changed her name to Soskin in order to escape the perceived stigma of her Polish ancestry. Claire skipped college and took off for Chicago where she eventually became the chief buyer for womens' wear in the Hudsons Department Store. Bill attended the university and -- at Dorothy's suggestion -- also changed his name to Soskin. That neither was aware that they'd taken on a Jewish name I found really interesting. Bill and I were on countless Jewish mailing lists during our time at the university. So much for name-changing as a way to fold into the mainstream and escape prejudices.

I suspect that meeting Bill at the height of the Black Revolution -- at a time of my own identity crisis -- and the boldness with which I embraced my blackness played a part in our courtship. I was feisty and defiant, insistant upon my right to BE without reservation. It was interesting to me that someone of white skin could have suffered the same kind of racial identity crisis for an entirely different set of reasons; not the least of which was escape from a life of poverty and shame. This learned man, this accomplished intellectual and I were not so different after all, though the path to overcoming the past may have been less difficult for him, or was it? There comes the point where he could escape being Polish and poor and relax into simply being "white" and affluent.

When we met, Bill's world was made up of the leaders of the worlds of psychology, physics, the innovators of the Human Potential Movement that was emerging from Esalan, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. He (and many others) were serious converts to Tibetan Buddhism that they saw as the convergence of physics and spirituality. Timothy Leary lived just down the hill, authors Isaac Asimov and Fritjov Capra, John and Toni Lilly (Dolphin Research) were friends, as were futurists Don Michaels of the University of Michigan and Gay Luce, founder of SAGE, Charlotte Selvers, Sam and Jan Keene of Psychology Today. Their spiritual leader was Tarthang Tulku, Rinpoche, of the nearby Padma Ling, the Tibetan Institute on the border of the campus and across the street from the building that housed our research project.

Bill was consultant to the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California where we both served with then Bishop J. Kilmer (Kim) Myer and Archdeacon John Weaver, on the Vallombrosa Conference planning committee. This was the think tank for the Diocese where, annually, papers were presented on the critical themes of the day. I got to hear Paul Erhlich give his "Population Zero" work that grew into his book; heard the arguments for and against the highly-contested Peripheral Canal, Economist Hazel Henderson predict the economic outlook for the next decade; John and Toni Lilly introduce their dolphin research that had barely begun in Southern California at that time. A parade of the leaders of the time marched through my life in growing numbers.

After years of making oatmeal, wiping noses, kissing boo-boos for four growing kids, I now found myself as curious as a 12 year-old cast into the world of doctoral candidates and professors -- with a thirst for knowing that I was only dimly aware of until that time. Our livingroom was the meeting place for new thought and novelty, and I held a front seat in the theater of the future!

I never felt patronized by either Bill or his brilliant friends. My openness and obvious curiosity about everything must have invited them in. I was never afraid to question and challenge, and Bill's obvious pride in my willingness to participate guilelessly fed my confidence. He was so enabling! My head was spinning with new information, and my curiosity sharpened with each day. Imagine having this world-renowned university literally at my finger tips day after exciting day!

In a matter of months I was brought out from behind the desk in the front office and introduced to co-leading groups of adolescents at the school test sites -- co-leading with doctoral candidates from the university. I was working closely with future psychologists in every phase of the experiment, including reviewing, editing and evaluating reels and reels of videotapes of the work. Eventually able to critique the work with my husband, and listened to as well. Helped to shape grant applications and to write missions statements and budget justifications. Can you imagine? Weekends were spent in seminars at Padma Ling, and Salons in livingrooms in private homes around the university -- with the newsmakers of the day. It as like having a ten year private tutorial toward a non-traditional doctorate.

After several months, Bill came to my desk to ask if I would take a long lunch. He wanted me to see a house he was thinking of purchasing high above Berkeley on Grizzly Peak Boulevard -- overlooking one of the most beautiful vistas on the coast. When we reached the modest home with an overgrown garden, we stood for a minute looking at the view and he said, (our home in Walnut Creek was actually far lovelier, with much more space) "don't want to rush you, Hon, but I'm wondering if you would move into Berkeley and share this home with me? It's just a place where we can get to know one another -- just to see if it would work ...".

We sat for a while looking out over the hills -- and he followed with, "...you know that I'm studying Buddhism. I don't know at what point it will be, but when the time comes I will be required to enter the monastery and be in total isolation for 3 years. That has been my ambition for many years. I must complete my studies. You must understand that."

I asked for time to consider how that might effect my life, and after much thought -- a few days later told him that I was in a place of decision-making. Told him that my marriage was over, that my home was being seized by the IRS -- that I had no idea whether I would coming to live with him because I loved him, or whether I was simply escaping from an unknown and very uncertain future. In addition to everything else, I was suffering from empty nest syndrone and not nearly ready to face this final separation from my children. His answer a day later was to deposit $5000 in the local bank -- hand me the bank book with my name at the top. Enclosed was a note, "...these funds will always be here. It is your security, to be used if and when appropriate. You can feel free to move on at any time. You'll know now whether you're here because you want to be. Meanwhile, will you marry me?"

Then we agreed that at such time that he felt the need to enter the part of his training that required that period of isolation, we would divorce. Since neither us could be sure just who would return from such an experience -- and since neither of us felt that I should be confined to living in my own version of isolation because of the demands of his religious practice -- we would come together and renegotiate our relationship. And, we would do all of that legally, so that he could feel free to move on -- deeper into his religious experience -- if that's where life led, or that I would continue my own life without him -- or with someone else. We would spend the year before his departure working out the legal plans and consulting with a good therapist. And, we did all of that.

How Berkeley can one get?

Photo: William F. Soskin, Ph.D., Research Psychologist, University of California, Berkeley. His major work was with Project Community, a drug prevention program for teens that grew out of the phenomenon of the Haight-Ashbury Lovefests occurring in San Francisco in the Sixties and Seventies. He served as consultant to the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California, as a member of the Vallombrosa Conference, was a candidate for the Club of Rome (Advisory to the Vatican), a devout Tibetan Buddhist, and my second husband . The small pic shows him in retreat at Odiyan, Nyingma Monastary in Sonoma County, California.

Interesting how life continues to be all-of-a-piece ..,

even over what seems eons of time. There's a crazy kind of predictable rationality operating that defies logic.

Yesterday Jennifer and I attended a luncheon at the San Francisco Foundation offices with a group of arts funders from around the Bay. It was my first such meeting as a private citizen, and it took some time for me to resist the urge to identify myself as "field representative for ...". Going to miss that power base, for sure. Not sure just who I am without those business cards. My power no longer emanates from the State of California, and that's significant. In a way it's reminiscent of those days of wondering just who I was without the men in my life to define me, the replaying of an old theme.

After a delicious vegetarian lunch and some exciting informal presentations by program reps and a number of nonprofit execs, it began to feel more comfortable. The problem was that I knew why we were here (locating the source of funds for our ventures in Richmond), but was totally dependent upon Jennifer's expertise to identify the relevance to our goals. Kept trying to generalize from the specific; to figure out just which persons around that huge conference table held the key to our goals, and just which of my personal resources to bring to bear upon that. This would occupy me for the next two hours. Itched to enter the conversations for a bit, but eventually decided that this may be the time to simply listen and learn.

Then it began to dawn on me that those personal resources were made up of being the parent of Bob Reid, Music Resource for the Santa Cruz Schools and Young Audiences (their chief exec was sitting at the other end of the long table), Dorian Reid, National Institute for Artists with Disabilities (NIAD) artist, and as a five year member of the board of directors of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. This was my frame of reference. When I mentioned Bob there was a smile of recognition from the Santa Cruz team, and that felt good. Finally, felt myself settle into the room comfortably, and content to listen without the urge to speak. That's when I know I'm totally there.

Bob's appearances with the UN Children's Choir at the United Nations in New York, his work with Pete Seeger's Hudson River tours and with the National Triplet's Conventions for several years running, his current work with music composition with school children of all ages, as well as his solo performances around the Monterey Bay communities -- in this board room -- became the foundation now for my own work. We've come full circle. The torch has been passed. It felt so right. I am now "Bob Reid's Mother!" In Berkeley, I've already become "David Reid's Mother," since he is now fully identified as owner-proprietor of our family business, "Reid's of Berkeley." It really did work out. Those arrows soared in an arc then fell just precisely where time and life might have predicted.

And...that makes me miss Rick all the more -- to be reminded of my Dorian who will live her life like the bird with the broken wing ... designed to fly, but unable to fulfill the promise for reasons far beyond her control, or mine.

But it's Bob who is with me this morning ... in my imagination ... .

Will call him later.

So ... watched "60 Minutes" in vain ...

Not at all sure whether the piece I'm waiting for is being shown on "60 Minutes" or "60 Minutes II." Not even sure which nights they're shown, but will watch the TV logs for more information. I am aware that the program is divided into thirds, and that those thirds are subject to change -- depending upon what is deemed more relevant by the producers on any given day.

But, back to the past:

Life does have a way of rolling out time in its own fashion. And Central Casting couldn't have done a better job of programming it. Simultaneously with the disintegration of my marriage came an elevation of my role in community life. It was the summer of the Democratic Convention at Miami and -- after all those years of climbing out of the depths of racism -- this same community chose me along with others to represent our congressional district as their McGovern delegates. Over the years, combatting racism had given me a pretty high profile and made me something of a leader among liberals. It would have been pretty hard to not choose one of the very few people of color in the entire eastern part of the county. So I saw it as a mixed blessing and less related to who I was than what I was.

What a tribute it was to receive enough funds from friends (with loving notes tucked in) to not only pay my own costs for travel, but enough to take care of other delegates who didn't have that strong base of support.

So there I was at the Doral Country Club in Miami with the largest delegation in the nation -- right along with delegates Shirley MacLaine, Dolores Huerta of the Farm Workers Union, Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek - just another delegate, though; and Marlo Thomas who was star of "That Girl" at the time. What a time!

It would be wonderful to take the time to describe that experience, but may be too much of a diversion at this point in the narrative. Maybe later. What I really want to say is that I'd left home a modest mommy and I arrived back home from that heady experience a few days later with such a strong sense of self that the great university and its offer of a position seemed quite appropriate. Just a few weeks before that great whirlwind of political activity I was a little suburban homemaker without a lot of confidence in moving about in the larger world. I was a youthful late forty-something with little meaningful job experience. But now I was someone who'd been captured on national television in my red/white/and/blue splendor, had been photographed with the President of Togo (had never even heard of that country at the time), and the Prime Minister of Australia! I'd shared a sandwich with Senator Alan Cranston and had the head of the State Department's San Francisco Reception Center as my seat mate on the flight south. Had pictures taken with presidential hopeful Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, and another done for the home newspapers presenting a bouquet of roses to candidate George McGovern.

And, it was fresh out of this larger than life experience that I returned to Walnut Creek and an job interview with the director of Project Community. It had been scheduled before I left for Miami. I must have been emitting a glow because Dr. Soskin came into the room during the interview and stayed. At the end (it had gone on much too long), my friend, Stanley (director), asked if I thought I would like to join their staff. My very naive response was, "...I don't know if I can really do this work -- being relatively inexperienced in the world of work -- but I'll tell you what -- I'll work for two weeks -- you won't have to pay me -- and then we'll talk about whether this is something that I can manage to your satisfaction." Bill was listening. This was silly, I suppose, but really truthful, and he was obviously intrigued by this quirky, pretty, obviously bright woman. I suspect that my excitement was contagious.

At the end of the interview he asked if I would like to go out for a bite. "Would love to hear more about your Miami adventure, Ms. Reid." We did. I bubbled uncontrollably for another hour. I was still in my paper hat; irrepressible! He was delighted. A week later -- on my birthday -- I drove home to Walnut Creek to find two dozen red roses on my front porch with a card from Dr. William Soskin.

Reported on campus to the personnel department for my formal interview at the end of two weeks. After all, I wouldn't be working for Dr. Soskin, but for the university. The interviewer had me fill out a battery of documents that included one of those identification sheets (that "wasn't for i.d. purposes") with all the little boxes. Still riding on my newfound confidence and buoyed by knowing that I was being sought after by this brilliant, tall, sophisticated, world-traveled, UC professor -- I flippantly marked every box, including "other." The interviewer laughed saying, "no one has ever done that." A practice that would surely grow in the years to come. I must been outrageous -- expressing this newfound confidence of a newly-released mother of four because when the interviewer looked at the starting salary on the yellow sheet, she asked if that was satisfactory -- and if I was being stolen from some other university program! Must have been that glow.

There was one small hitch.

Youngest son, David, was living in town and attending Berkeley high school. As it happened, Project Community was using Berkeley High as one of its experimental sites. David was one of the students in Bill's program and David's mother was not only here at the university, but was involved with the head of the research project. More than a minor complication.

David had been to Europe that very summer. Two years before he'd spent the summer in a work study program with a foreign student from Denmark. They'd worked together in a Swiss hotel and then traveled to his friend's home for the rest of the summer. This summer he and Nina (a little Jewish girl from Southern California) traveled together to Paris, England, Switzerland, Spain, and all the way down to Morocco. in Preparation, Nina's parents had flown up to Berkeley, visited with us for dinner where we became acquainted and discussed ground rules. We presented our two 16 year-olds with EuroRail passes and new sleeping bags and delivered them to the airport the next day. The two kids were in the same class at Berkeley High, and it seemed not nearly as risky as it might be today. It felt right.

Having allowed that kind of freedom for David (and Bob), it may not be terribly strange to learn that they extended to their mother the same kind of trust, with accountability. We'd talked a lot about that kind of stuff, informally, over time. Though out of character, I experienced no objections from the boys. By now Rick had declared his independence. Mel was off on his own (without a formal separation, but living in town, that is), Bob was experiencing his 18 year-old version of emancipation, and Mom was in love! It all sounds a lot more disjointed than it lived out, I think.

Life simply seemed to moved us on that great chess board in ways that reconfigured our relationships, totally. I marvel at the realization that we lived through those fault lines without more trauma, at least than was apparent at the time.

It's only now -- in looking back -- that I wonder whether I was so absorbed in my own experience of emancipation that I may have missed some epochal happenings in the lives of my kids? I'll probably never know the answer to that one. It's probably just as well. Being the bow from which those arrows are launched into space may be all any mother can be. I wonder if we ever really know when the letting go can happen without incident? We've all come back to the source over time, but the ending of our lives as an intact family ended over that fateful summer, and what followed seems unrelated to anything that had gone before.

Am confused ...

Was the role of Tina Turner in "What's Love Got To Do With It?" played by Lynne Whitfield or by Angela Bassett? Constantly confuse those two actors, both fine and equally gifted.

Saturday again. Dorian is off to basketball practice for Special Olympics. She'll take BART to her apartment afterwards and continue to pack boxes on her own. It's important that she be allowed to separate from the old environment at her own pace -- to the extent that we can afford it. Having her actively participate in the process is probably an important element in getting her to "move" psychologically, with my role minimized as much as possible. It's all going terribly slowly, but that seems unavoidable right now.

I'm here in a blissfully silent apartment. Hadn't realized how much my ability to go in and out of my busy world day after day is dependent upon a critical balance between that and the luxurious stillness that comes with living alone. Having the time to vegetate, meditate, mull over, ponder, dream big dreams, and reconsider is something I was beginning to miss terribly, though only now am I beginning to sense what was missing.

Thinking in the wee hours about that day long ago when -- into my office at the university came an agent from the Internal Revenue Service. I had only recently been hired as an administrative assistant to the chief administrator of a research project on campus. In a less than a year I would be married to the chief investigator of that project, Project Community. This would be Dr. William F Soskin, Ph.D., psychologist, graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Clinical Researcher and Professor of psychology at the University of Chicago at Urbana, Associate Professor at Harvard, and -- most recently (at that time) associated with the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) in Washington and a member of a Think Tank that served as advisors to Presidents Lyndon Johnson and later to John F Kennedy. Along with his best friend and our best man, Psychiatrist Leonard Duhl, shortly after Kennedy's assassination, Bill had arrived on the West Coast on assignment to study the Flower Child phenomenon in the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. Leonard came with a grant that was designed to initiate the first comprehensive school desegregation program in the country, in Berkeley. Two learned and fascinating men on a mission.

Back to the visit of IRS:

My marriage to Mel had ended years before -- but refused to truly die. We'd grown apart as a couple but were both clinging to our parental roles -- and trying hard to be respectful friends. I knew little of his life -- or of the fact that he'd begun to lose everything of value over a period of several awful years. His desperation led him into regular weekend trips to the gambling tables in Reno and huge losses that eventually robbed him of everything he'd built over all a lifetime.

Over the same summer all four of our children had moved on. Rick was now 21 and living in a rented apartment in Berkeley. David was living with my long time friend, Jean, and her husband, Roger, while attending Berkeley high school. We'd given up on the suburban high school for him since neither Rick nor Bob had succeeded in making all the way through to graduation, though each remained in class until the end. We'd taken David from the local public school and enrolled both him and Dorian at a wonderful private school in the Alhambra Valley -- some miles from home. To now put David through that misery was unthinkable. Racism had proven too difficult for any of them to get through, especially since their parents were so distracted by problems too devastating to share and the resulting growing alienation. Neither Mel nor I were aware of what our sons were having to live through. How I regret having to remember that truth.

Rick's homosexuality was by now a huge factor and (I later learned from him) he was cutting school and spending his days wandering the streets of San Francisco in the Haight Ashbury -- exploring the underside of the Gay lifestyle that would later take over his life. The indignities suffered at school from his skin color in childhood were now replaced by gay-bashing as a young adult. This was complicated by the fact that he was working for his Dad at our Berkeley store on weekends, and witnessing Mel's other life, a life that involved other women and the high life of being a handsome and important concert promoter and manager of the renowned Edwin Hawkins Singers as well as successful merchant and entrepreneur.

I remember one terrifying night when the telephone rang and it was Rick rasping out, "...I'm in a phone booth across the street from the store, Mom. I'm gonna kill him!" He was talking about Mel. He was obviously spaced out on alcohol and out of his mind with rage! I was terrified and helpless -- and 15 miles away in Walnut Creek. Spent the next hour talking him down and silently desparately praying to some unknown God ... .

By now I was living pretty much alone in Paradise, with David and Rick in Berkeley while 17 year-old Bob was spending the summer hitch-hiking across Canada (with my permission, I blush to say). Bob and I had attended the Unitarian-Universalist General Assembly in Cleveland where Bob had the heady experience of receiving a standing ovation for remarks he made on the Sanctuary Movement -- this was during the Vietnam War. He was so bright and so capable (I believed) that when he came to me and asked for permission to return home via Canada as an adventure, I agreed, and flew home alone. Dorian was by now living at a boarding school for the mentally handicapped in Marin.

Taking a job seemed the only answer after years of child-rearing, and finally trying to make decisions about how to spend the rest of my life as a single adult woman.

Back to the Treasury Department Agent:

"Mrs. Betty Reid?"
"Yes."
"Mrs. Melvin A. Reid?"
"Yes."

Then he presented me with an official document that announced that our beautiful home of 20 years in Walnut Creek was being seized for non-payment of income taxes. I stared in disbelief!

"I must ask you to be off the premises within X number of days -- at which time it will be placed on the market for sale."

I'd never had the courage to not sign the income tax form, even after I was no longer Mel's wife. Had no idea that those taxes had not been paid for an unknown period of years. He had systematically gone through every cent and piece of property we'd owned -- at one point a single-family home, a small duplex, plus a newly-built commercial building that housed our business -- all situated on a single block from one street corner to the next on a main street in Berkeley. An estate meant for our legacy -- for the kids. Gone. Everything gambled away. All that was left was the building -- but even that was facing foreclosure, though I wasn't yet aware of it at the time.

I'm certain that Rick had known all and held secret since he'd worked closely with his father in the store since a teenager. How I wished he'd shared that burden, but how? It must have been almost unbearable for him... .

My life separate from Mel was still relatively tolerable. I'd become a pillar of my UU church with a host of friends. It was easy to shut it all out in busyness, and I did. Was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement -- was filling the empty spaces with song-writing and social action. Leaving my marriage was not an option since the indelible mandate of a Catholic ceremony had sealed my fate and my parents' dominance over that fate could not be challenged. At that time, there had not been a divorce in the family. My father was adamant. I was compliant. Foolish when I think back on it, but lives have been guided by less, I suppose. And after all, a woman's role was to tolerate a man's excesses, and by and large, Mel had been good to me and never abusive. This satisfied the bargain as far as my folks were concerned. My expectations were limited and he lived up to most of them. Sound familiar?

There was a long period when I knew that I would eventually be divorced, but that period coincided with one of inertia, emotional paralysis. Was still defined by my roles of wife and mother, with the missing part being that of woman. After being married so young and for so long, the thought of stepping off into independence was too frightening to seriously consider. So I sat and lived in the land of "what if" and "if I'd only ...," and postponed decisions day after disconsolate day. Convinced myself that there was only one man in my life, ever, and that I'd failed him miserably. Can't recall ever actually taking charge of my life and stepping forward into that unknown future. Spent months on end simply existing without a compass. Then, the job opening at the university opened new doors through which I stumbled one day in early September of that year.

Given that history, it should come as no surprise that -- within months I'd become the spouse of another. It simply had not occurred to me that I might be capable of existing as a free-standing being, or that I had the strength and the power to do so.

Some time before I'd gone through a mental breakdown and 3-year recovery at home. The experience served to break through the vise-like grip of a failed marriage. A fine Jungian psychiatrist, Dr. Jean Neighbor, gently pulled me from the edge, opened the doors to thoughts of escape from my marriage, and into a new future that would begin the unfolding of a life I'd never ever have anticipated. Looking into the seductive face of suicide can be the catalyst for monumental change -- for those of us who survive the temptation to use this permanent answer to temporary problems.

Am beginning to understand why it's been so hard to look back. But there's much about those days that I now know contributed substantially to providing the steel that holds me together now. These were the years when I learned something about the human capacity to bend and sway against adversity, how pliant is the soul. I learned to take away from the experience -- the tools necessary for survival. Some of them are pretty primitive, I guess, like acquiring a keen sense of just where the bottom is -- and how to touch down ever so lightly -- just enough to spring back up into whatever comes next; after the fall ... .

But it's Saturday again, and there's all this beautiful silence to bathe myself in -- before it ends and the din of senseless chatter has to be withstood ... .

More tomorrow.

Just returned from the pre-screening of "our" film ...

I'll not try to do a review, but to invite you to watch for it next week on the FX Channel. Lynne Whitfield is even prettier in person than on screen, if that's possible. She's also a delightful person. Anyone who saw her play Tina Turner will appreciate her acting ability. She does real justice to my personal heroine and very dear friend, Barbara Cottman Becnel. The story is a delicate balance between Barbara's story and Stan's. There was an announcement by the director tonight that only yesterday he'd received an invitation for the film to be screened at Cannes! That's most unusual for a film made for television; almost unheard of.

Jamie Foxx, a comedian whose specialty is stand up does a heartbreaking performance in the role of Stanley Williams. Would have expected him to play it over-the-top, but he is restrained and smoldering in the opening scenes and tender and poignant later on. This may move him into more substantive roles in the future. But I'm getting into reviewing -- which I said that I would not do.

I watched it with our hometown audience, so the standing ovations were meant to tell Barbara how we felt, but now that Robert Redford's SunDance Festival and the African Film Festival of Los Angeles have both evoked the same strong appreciation, I guess we can join with the rest of the film folks and say, "Bravo!" Can't wait to see what happens at Cannes. And, damn! This could have been the one time in my life when I might have done the Riviera thing, but can't due to an over-booked dance card!

Did I mention that Barbara acted as co-producer on the film? I'm so proud of her that I could scream from the sheer excitement of it all!

The balances in my life continue to flow with the best of timing. Last night Dorian and I attended a performance of granddaughters Alayana (8) and Tamaya (6) where they danced a traditional dance from the Phillipine culture (their mother is from the Phillipines). They were in costume, and did a "Dance of the Lights" that they'd seen performed at some celebration -- came home and choreographed their own version. It was beautiful! I'm sure that Hallmark has a card for this one, and I'll send two off in tomorrow's mail, cards that they can tuck under their pillows, "Grandma is so proud of her two favorite dancers on the entire planet!"

As I've said all along, my life is beautifully peopled, even on those days when I forget ... .

Feeling overwhelmed ...

Dorian's everyday behavior seems increasingly bizarre, but then maybe this is not a change -- but simply new information for me. After all, I've not lived with her since she was quite young. Day after day I am clearly slipping into a custodial role with her; one that fits neither of us very well. She's trying desperately to cling to her limited independence while I'm trying to retain my sanity by putting my life on hold -- even while I anticipate new projects. That way lies madness!

Yesterday and the day before we spent many hours packing boxes of things she could not part with. Only problems were that there was no relationship between what she needs to run her life and the possessions she collects (is buried under!). There were five baseball bats, seven basketballs, over a dozen tennis balls, a number of Barbie dolls -- some duplicates (still in original boxes), eight sleeping bags, two cue sticks, about three dozen various-sized stuffed animals crammed into garbage bags and hidden under her bed, three boxes of athletic socks, 14 large umbrellas, six metal trunks filled with we know not what -- you get the picture. No rhythm or rhyme to any of it.

Like an automaton, I packed and hauled boxes into storage. There was simply no way to confront her with the need to eliminate all this garbage that she's so zealously guarded against anyone for so many years. What I've decided to do is move my storage items to my apartment and move as much of hers (untouched or thinned out) in. That way I can spend the next year (when she's otherwise involved) pulling out one box at a time and disposing of the contents to the appropriate recipients. Much is unused, with tags still attached.

To try to change everything in her life simultaneously would be too hard. She is having to give up her apartment, her social group, her service agency (Clausen House), her psychologist, and perhaps her beloved Speedy and Gracey (cats). To whittle away at anything else might serve to disorient her, totally. She simply doesn't have the capacity to understand the why of it all.

Meanwhile, on Monday Jennifer and I met with a small group of the Chamber of Commerce where Jennifer did a fine presentation of our concept for the management of the Convention Center. Not sure how it went over. The city is in such disarray with the prospect of eliminating at least 50% of its workforce (including fire and police forces). The need for income generation is so acute at the moment that the competing plan for use of the Center includes using it as an indoor flea market by day, and leasing it out to the WWF (WorldWideWrestling) evenings. That's a tall order to deal with. Our plan is aimed at enhancing the quality of life in this city at a time when so much seems hopeless. The city staff (and maybe the Chamber as well) is seeing the answer as embedded in accounting procedures. We have another presentation soon, and our job will be to try to re-frame the arguments.

This afternoon actress Lynne Whitfield will be in town for a reception at the Contra Costa Community College. The occasion is a pre-screening of "Redemption," the film about Stan Williams from San Quentin's Death Row. Sixty Minutes piece will be aired this Sunday, and next week the FX Channel will show it nationally. Will let you know how it all went.

Have accepted a seat on the Advisory Board of the Educational Fund Foundation Board (only a few meetings a year), an important place to serve at a critical time in public school education.


Will try to keep active, politically, in whatever ways I can -- not only to do due diligence to those things I hold inviolate, but in order to balance the mind-dulling day-to-day dealing with Dorian. When I come in the door, there is the tendency to dumb down my mind, and talk in grunts that say little but keep the doors of communication open between us. For my own sanity, I tend to go through a little ritual of turning down some imaginary buttons situated somewhere just above the base of my spine -- that keep me from feeling too much or too deeply -- a kind of survival mechanism.

There's a familiar feeling about the process. Not sure where that comes from, but it feels old and from some recess of my mind that was created in and by Little Girl Betty. The fact that I've survived all these years may attest to the effectiveness of that little ruse. Problem is that the more fully evolved Betty is impatient with the need for that kind of self-protection. The need to live life at full throttle before it's too late plays the lead role now, and this gives rise to a faint but smoldering resentment at the unfairness of it all.

Maybe I'm simply depressed today at the thought of having paid still one more month's rent of over $1000 because I've not been able to wade through the debris of my daughter's life in a timely manner. To have to do that against her strong resistance is doubly hard to handle. To know that -- given her handicaps -- she is incapable of understanding the crisis we're facing or the reasons for these uninvited changes makes me feel needlessly guilty and unbelievably cruel. Never mind that this is irrational. It's a feeling, all quite real and devastating!

If any of this provides just a hint of what parents of mentally and physically handicapped sons and daughters are facing, perhaps setting the words to screen is worth it. The budget cuts that have so drastically changed the landscape of so many lives can be seen in what we're having to deal with. If one with as much access to systems and bureaucracies as I can't find my way through it, what on earth is happening to those who haven't a clue of how to alleviate the pain?

Remember that "safety net" that was created so skillfully during the Roosevelt administration and so blithely dismantled under Reagan's? This is where it led. The deregulation of both economic and energy systems, and dismantling of the public school systems; the elimination welfare for those who couldn't otherwise survive; plus the constant drumbeat of "no new taxes!" has brought us to ruin. Anyone with an ounce of sense must see that we're not taxed enough! Taxation is the cost of living in a Democracy.

Were I not here to catch her, my Dorrie would by now be living under a bridge somewhere, or in the doorway of some building in the abandoned downtown. And like many others, would have absolutely no idea of why ... .

I feel somewhat shaken ...

Heard my cell phone ringing somewhere in the distance -- buried in my purse way off in the livingroom -- but couldn't reach it in time. The little screen flashed the "unanswered" message but when I tried to reach the voice mail feature, it was busy. Finally I reached the unfamiliar number after going through the process and there was a woman's voice -- sobbing wildly! She could hardly get the words out, but it was clear that she was responding to an email she'd received that announced my death! Of course it was a tragic mistake.

My friend Jane (whom I rarely see these days), is a marvelous satiric writer. She's also an avid peacenik and activist who lives her truths with fervor. About a year ago she actually went to Washington, D.C., to the White House to place an eviction notice on the fence! Her stream of clever and profound writings have been worthy of publication, and I often forwarded them to others who shared her passions. One of those was Betty Smoot, a virtual friend from Seniornet with whom I'd corresponded through emails for years. We'd never met. She's spent her final years in a nursing home in Ohio, I believe, and continued her political advocacy to the end. She was a natural for Jane's newletters.

This morning I along with others received notice of Betty's passing from her daughters. Jane must have been on Betty's mailing list. Obvious mistake.

Jane's hysteria was there in my voice mail, but it was I who was shaken! She spilled out her fears and regret in a lengthy message --regret at not having spent nearly enough time together of late, etc., it was totally unexpected, and no little upsetting. It was also reassuring of her caring and of my not being alone -- ever. What a wondrous thing... .

This was not the first such incident in my life. It comes of being a "Betty." I suspect that there are few bearing that name who are under 60, but in the older age range, we're plentiful! In the earlier case -- it actually was another Betty Reid (a relative of my first husband's).

It was an early evening performance of the band of Johnny Otis, rhythm & blues artist of my youth. He'd grown up with my Mel in South Berkeley where (Greek) Johnny Velliotis' father ran the corner grocery store. Johnny spent his youth in a small group of otherwise black kids who played sports together at San Pablo Park, or, for those who were into music (Bernard Peters, Jerome Richardson, Vernon Alley, Curtis Lowe, etc.) jammed on many a Saturday afternoon in garages around the neighborhood. Johnny (name now changed to "Otis") wanted more than anything else to be one of the "brothas," Black!

Like Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Vanilla Ice, among today's rappers, Johnny took on the language, dress, attitude, etc., of the guys he ran with and does to this day. Eventually, he formed his own R&B band and toured nationally. He married a Berkeley girl, beautiful Phyllis (African American) to whom he is still wed. For a time he was a "Reverend" in a Black church he founded in East Los Angeles. The Otis's have since moved to Santa Rosa, I believe, where Johnny -- now a deejay -- still hosts a Saturday afternoon radio R&B show for Pacifica Radio.

A few years ago -- and long since Mel's death -- I learned that Johnny was appearing with his band at an Emeryville jazz club. My son, David, and his lady invited me to attend the opening with them. It had been years since I'd seen Johnny -- couldn't recall how long it had been. He'd been Mel's friend, and I only knew him slightly. Nonetheless, it would be fun to hear him again. "Hand Jive" was one of his big numbers, and Little Esther, blues singer one of his discoveries.

We sat at a table some distance from the stage, with dancers scattered in between. At intermission, I walked to the stage and motioned to him -- to simply say "hello" -- not really sure that he'd remember me -- and he blanched! He could hardly speak. I noticed that he was tense but attributed it to his struggling to recall just who in the world I was. After all, we'd aged considerably. After a few awkward moments, he backed away and disappeared into the green room.

Some time later, he came over to our table and apologized for his behavior. "I was stunned, Betty. You may not know it, but a few months ago I learned of your death. I did a long eulogy on the air (KPFA) in honor of you and the work you've done over all these years. Almost fell off the stage when here you were -- standing in front of me -- right here -- resurrected!!!

I remembered then that Betty Reid, wife of Mel's uncle, Bob Reid, had died of breast cancer after a long illness. I'd lost track of that branch of the family after Mel and I parted -- so her passing was relatively remote for me. Hadn't occurred to me that anyone would confuse us. Obviously Johnny had.

Thought of him today, and of how hard that shock must have been for him. I received a lovely letter from him a week or so later. "After seeing you, I wanted to give you your flowers now." (Or words to that effect.) Ran across that note only a few days ago while trying to organize my thoughts for an attempt at more writings of the past. Funny how these things run together ... like an omen.

How I wish I'd written my friend, Betty Smoot, more often while she was still here to read words of support. But I'm sure that's the way it will always be.

What I CAN do is pick up the phone and reassure Jane that all is well and that I love her, too!

Ressurrected, yet another time!

Have been doing a lot of thinking ...

about a critical of period of great change that drew me out of the suburbs and back into the city in the early Seventies. Trying to deal with that before taking on the writing of history of my participation in the Black Revolution poses some problems -- is not easy to do. It's a matter of organizing my thoughts a bit more, I suppose. Those were such important eras in both my own life and the lives of the entire country. We, together, underwent such earth-shaking social, cultural, and political change... .

To do it justice, I'm trying to plow through files and notebooks, carbon copies of letters written and received from others, pouring over old photographs, newsletters and announcements. Each invites remembrances that both pain and elate. One thing is certain, my life was "well-peopled," as it continues to be. Over all the years there have been Avatars (guides) and close companions who've softened the hard places and enriched even the most rewarding experiences for savoring later (in these years).

Having Dorian return to live with me means that I'm having to make space and discard a lot of items that had been difficult to part with before now. That means that I must examine the contents of all those boxes that I've carefully hauled from place-to-place in my last moves -- something I've purposely neglected to do because I feared looking back... now I must do just that. There are just so many under-the-bed and top-of-the-closet storage devices available, and the square footage of this small condo can accommodate just so much memorabilia, and Dorrie comes with her own brand of "must saves."

Just ran across a newspaper article that might serve as a place to begin. Maybe I can start with that and work my way back through what brought me to that point, just a thought. There are other clippings of my years as a small merchant in our family business in Berkeley. Those years seem so far in the distant past now. Those were the years of becoming?

Perhaps one of the sure signs of aging is that we begin to think of ourselves as fully formed, with not much time left in which to continue the shaping of a life. Though I must say that I've not yet lost the sense that I experience a pattern of major change with each succeeding decade, a kind of reincarnation without leaving the world. I'm still more aware of beginnings than I am of endings, and wake each morning with all senses open to any signs of newness in the air. Perhaps that's the last thing to go ... maybe.

Photo: Lost in thought at a meeting at the home of Archdeacon John Weaver of the Northern California Episcopal Diocese in San Mateo, California. These were the early "Bill Soskin" years when we were deeply involved in the Vallombrosa Conference that served as a think tank for the Diocese under Bishop J. Kilmer "Kim" Myer.

Met yesterday with the campaign consultant who ...

(we're hoping) will run my young candidate's campaign for the city council. The meeting was at her invitation, and since she is one of the top campaign organizers in the state, this is really significant and suggests that the "buzz" out there in the political world is causing excitement, enough to attract her attention.

First met Catherine Lew, Esq. when we were both working in the Jessye Jackson campaign for the presidency, his first run. She was campaign boss and I was serving as Northern California co-chair with former Berkeley mayor, Gus Newport. She has since gone on to handle candidates all over the state, including two successful runs of my former boss, Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, Mayor Irma Anderson of Richmond, several city council members here in this city, plus a host of other city and state campaigns for both office holders and initiatives. Her firm is presently working on about 50 campaigns throughout the state. She has an enviable record of successes. We'll wait for the two of them to assess their prospects and then decide if this is a match. I know that he was impressed, and now we'll wait to see if she felt the same.

Having mentored my young friend for about three years, give or take a few months, it is rewarding to see others beginning to see what I sensed about him many months ago. His integrity shines out of his eyes. He is one of those young people who is seen by his own community as a natural leader. He is not the product of a political machine. His community support is broad and deep. Without any significant outreach, his campaign coffers already boasts over $7000 in contributions, and we've not yet held fundraisers.

You might like to check out his web site -- put the name Eddrick Osborne into your browser and take a look.

I so enjoy our one-on-ones and frequent luncheon conferences. He is a bright, eager, and willing student, and I need to pass along a lifetime of political experience to someone -- the perfect "marriage." It's a rare privilege to be able to mentor one who will follow, the only real immortality there is, I believe. The chance to influence the next generation through the passing along of whatever wisdom was gleaned from my own life experience is a gift to be treasured. (Such thoughts come more often these days.)

Recalled a pearl of wisdom this morning ...

The familiarity of the words woke me with a start.

It was during a session of the Board of Trustees meeting of Starr King School for the Ministry - a seminary member of the consortium known as The Graduate Theological Union on the northern boundary of the University of California, Berkeley. GTU is made up of ten or so theological schools of as many denominations (Buddhist, United Methodist, Unitarian-Universalist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Jesuit and Franciscans, The Pacific School of Religion, etc.). Served two three-year terms on the board that was selected from a national pool of UUs. We met several times each year in marathon 3-4 day sessions that brought together some of the most exciting thinkers I've known. It also provided some of the richest intellectual experiences of my life. We were both clergy and lay participants, with differing religious beliefs and political persuasions all within the context of UU-ism. When compared with the general population, I would have to say that within that context, we are universally considered liberal.

Not sure what the context was ... I believe that I was trying to explain just what it was that I'd learned of value during those years as a merchant in the Black (mostly) low-income community of Berkeley. My response to a question was, "...I learned that if I was going to change the world in which I found myself, I would have to BE what I wanted to see." At the time it seemed a tiny truth. It obviously wasn't.

One day recently, at the suggestion of a friend, I entered my name into my search engine (this had never occurred to me) and -- aside from links to my blog and some other sites -- was one to a major speech presented at a general assembly of the denomination. It was delivered by Starr King School president, Dr. Rebecca Parker. She'd quoted my simple words in the body of her keynote speech. In addition there were several sermons from ministers in pulpits from other parts of the country, people who were total strangers. I was stunned! That I may have guilessly said something of religious significance was awing to me, and stunning because it was so simple -- that "simplicity that lies beyond complexity."

I closed my eyes and could visualize the fireside room where the group gathered, hear the sounds of movement along LeConte Avenue; childrens' voices from a daycare center nearby, and feel again the rightness of those words. They'd spilled out of a very young and unpolished Betty (another of those who lives behind my eyes still), one not yet old enough to question the truth of them, nor self-conscious enough to censor their elegance, and trusting enough to accept the fact that those sophisticated thinkers would understand what they meant. That's what woke me this morning. One of those rare moments of truth. This has has been a driving force in my life, a personal philosophy, these few words define it well.

I suspect that the reason for the guilt feelings yesterday about not participating in the demonstrations is related. I think that it matters little just how many others are acting in ways that support my beliefs, the fact of my not "being what I want to see" weakens ever so slightly my own effectiveness in the world, and leaves me feeling diminished. This, I cannot delegate. And -- only I will know when I've failed to live up to my own guiding principles... .

Am working on polishing the first draft ...

of our convention center proposal while in the background my radio is carrying a remote broadcast of the Stop The War demonstrations taking place in San Francisco. Feels strange to not be a part of the action. Not sure whether I'm beginning to withdraw from age, or, whether somewhere deep inside I've given up on the effort as useless? I've noticed that I'm beginning to flip the remote away from newscasts when the war is shown. The list of pundits that I avoid is growing so that -- unlike earlier times when I felt a strong need to hear from both sides -- this is no longer true. My senses have crystalized into a single view of reality, and I've become a part of the polarized state of the union. The outrage is beginning to fade -- a bad sign - and in its place is a growing sense of futility. Is this what others are experiencing? Isn't this what breeds apathy? Maybe these are the danger signs that need to be recognized and resisted. If I begin to lose my sense of urgency, it will mean that I will also begin to squander whatever influence I've acquired that helps to shape the opinions of others.

There's a presidential campaign and election to be lived through over the coming months , perhaps the most important in my long lifetime. The possible outcome is frightening to me, since the recent election in my state. I was so sure that George Bush could not be elected, or, that my state would ever be governed by Arnold Schwarzennegger! Found myself staring in disbelief yesterday while watching him speak of the amending of the constitution so that those not born in this country can aspire to the presidency. His examples, "...look at the fine work of former Secretary of State, Madelyn Albright and Kissinger!" To watch him speak those words with the awareness of what this weightlifter has already managed to achieve gave me chills!

This continuing public adulation of image combined with the monopolization of the world media, encourages the "empty suit" system of running the world. The extension from the image of handsome movie star that launched Ronald Reagan and now includes Arnold may suggest the simplistic way we may be choosing our future leaders. It's like the pretty blonde as the dominant prototype for the most desirable of women. It suggests a system that encourages the dominance of handsome charismatic male (movie star?) that is the most acceptable to a homogenized and dumbed-down society that can then be manipulated by a Corp-ocracy (or is this a word?).

I'm reminded that -- of all of the presidential candidates who appeared at the California Democratic Convention last summer -- John Edwards was the most handsome and least impressive. He was actually booed by the delegates as he defended the US's invasion of Iraq. After seeing him there, I watched him in the months that followed in disbelief, as he rose higher and higher as the potential Democratic nominee, and saw him sharpen his "acceptibility" while improving his delivery and "nice guy" image until he is now seen as a possible vice-presidential nominee along with John Kerry. "He's turned out to be a fine campaigner," say the pundits. I heard little in his speeches that would justify his ascendence to the highest office in the land and the world. And I am reminded (after spending some years in speech-writing that placed words in the mouths of leaders), that those carefully crafted campaign speeches were the products of others who fine tuned every thought he and others expressed. I'm influenced by the thought that -- as an obvious intellectual and man of principle -- John Kerry's speeches will have been, if not actually written, are necessarily endorsed and approved by him, personally. I'm certain that, when possible, he is his own chief writer.

John Edwards honed his generic speech so that it needed little change as he moved from state to state and crowd to crowd. It was an all-purpose speech built upon Democratic universals primarily created by Howard Dean. May I add that John Kerry also wisely borrowed generously from the same source. All owed candidate Dean an enormous debt for the shaping of the Democratic response to the Repubican administration's choice of directions for the future of the country.

I remember sitting in awe as John Kerry appeared before Congress in protest of the Vietnam War many years ago. Hoped that one day he would be precisely where he is -- on the threshold of the White House. His Lincoln-esque appearance is surely helpful to his candidacy, and I am certainly hopeful that he will be our next president -- but this is again the yielding to "image," is it not? He happens to share the monogram of JFK (a subliminal clue) and is clearly an intellectual and a man of deep moral courage. It took months for me to fully appreciate this over the obvious daring and strong conviction shown by Howard Dean -- a commitment to those things that I hold non-negotiable. I'm one of those who wavered between the "Anyone but Bush" movement and a strong pull toward Dean. At this point I'm completely satisfied with Kerry as nominee and will give it my all, but I'd feel a lot better if I didn't have the feeling down deep that the entire process may some day be turned over to Central Casting!

While I'm continuing to do the online things like signing petitions, emailing my representatives, sending small checks to support those who are closest to the centers of power -- I'm feeling less effective. This all feels too easy, somehow. Will probably shut down this keyboard and join with others tomorrow in the continuing street actions. Guess I really do need to be in the middle of those marches in order to recapture the fervor, a sure cure for growing apathy. That's contagious, and can't be simulated by sitting comfortably in front of my television set or sending off emails from the solitude and safety of my den. The confirmation that I'm not alone has to be reinforced by live action from time to time -- if only as a frame of reference for those times when I can't join with others of like mind.

Today I'm experiencing some guilt at not being among my compatriots on the streets of San Francisco. Pretty evident, wouldn't you say?

Met yesterday with Jennifer ...

to go over the Convention Center and gather what background information we might need for the writing of the proposal for the Chamber. Learned a lot. Our major competition appears to be Clear Channel, the media giant that now owns and operates Bill Graham Presents (out of San Francisco). They've approached the city with an offer to take over this venue for the purpose of presenting WWF (WorldWide Wrestling!). Can't think of a more perverse use of a public facility in a city with little history of supporting its cultural heritage or colorful history. I shudder to even consider such use of this valuable facility. But we will persist. In the interest of that we met with a member of the city council to seek his support and to ask some pertinent questions re the city budget. Good meeting, but disconcerting since he seems to see nothing wrong with the city's at least considering leasing the place out to some outside entity as long as the city could climb out from under the continuing losses incurred by the Center through under utilization. We will have considerable work to do to turn this kind of thinking around.

Afterward, with Dorian quietly at home with her cats and working happily on an afghan, I attended a meeting of a fascinating group that was brought together to do some planning for a panel discussion to be presented to the public on the history and effects upon Japanese-American, African-Americans, and Italian and German immigrants who were abused or interned during World War II. This was the first time within my experience that I've had the chance to compare notes in this kind of diverse group. It was a rare privilege, and in looking around that room -- it was clear that these "chosen" people were aware of how important these explorations can be.

I'm sure that the conversations about that period of shame has been talked about over the decades, but mostly within our individual racial communities. To have the opportunity to break the silence and share the feelings of confused Americans, and simultaneously "inside outsiders." We are surely both, even after years of citizenship by birth (in most cases) and accomplishment. There's something schizophrenic about it. It's crazy-making to feel so much a part of the whole, by right, and therefore participants in making the laws that govern us -- while at the same time being the "outsiders" without the chance to ever truly come "inside."

The personal disclosures we experienced yesterday ran counter to Asian culture, I believe. The natural reticence of the Japanese would run counter to these kinds of exchanges. The three women had lived in Richmond for most of their lives and were a part of a community that was both Christian and agricultural -- operating nurserys throughout the area. The conversation was slow in getting started with lots of words and little information. However, before we ended the the session, the interactions were warm and open and begged more time for developing deeper. After all, we came together as strangers for the most part, and the period we were re-entering had been painful and better forgotten -- at least until now.

There were two men at the table, both Italian, and both historians (as was one of the Japanese women, a doctoral candidate from the university). It was such a privilege to come together (this is a project related to the development of the Rosie The Riveter Memorial Park), since I can see little reason for it to have happened under any other circumstances. Learned a lot.

New insights: At some point in our young history as a nation, it became more important to be white Americans than to retain ethnic identity. Have no idea when that happened, though I can recall some time ago, hearing an interview of two Cuban men who said that it was a revelation -- after arriving in the US to find that -- where they were "Cuban" in their own nation, upon arrival on our shores one became a "White Cuban" while the other became a "Black Cuban." Their lives separated at the point of entry and their potential opportunities to enter the mainstream was dictated by their skin color.

The two men (Italians) and their German counterparts -- spoke yesterday of simply melting into the mainstream at war's end, while -- for reasons of our physical differences -- both Japanese and African-Americans remained outside. White privilege continues to heavily impact what happens to lives within our borders. That has changed little over time, sadly.

Will tell you more about it, but now I must leave to pick up Dorian from NIAD and hear about her block printing pieces that will be in the next exhibit in their gallery. She left home excited and anticipating a fine day. For that I'm grateful.

But meanwhile, I do want to share more about yesterday's exploratory meeting and about the plans to extend and develop this conversation to include the greater community.

That shameful period in our nation's history needs to be re-visited in order to (maybe) raise our consciousness about the fate of those being held at Guantanamo Bay under similar circumstances. Bringing today's sensibilities (post Civil Rights Revolution) to yesterday's abuses is urgently needed in these troubled times.

It feels that way... .

My friend, Barbara Cottman Becnel,

the remarkable woman who is the executive director of Neighborhood House, the 45 year-old social program in North Richmond -- but more importantly -- the woman who has managed to arrange the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize to a man sitting on San Quentin's Death Row. That would be Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the Crips in Los Angeles. But I've spoken of this before and suggested that you look up his web site (Tookie's Corner).

"Redemption," the film that was shown at Sundance is about to be released in mid-April. It will be shown on FX, but before that date the Sixty Minutes segment will be shown on CBS-TV. I believe the date of the release of the Sixty Minutes piece is April 4th, but I'm not certain of that (will post the dates before this weekend).

Tennyrate, Barbara finally has a copy of the film in her hand and has asked me to help her to arrange a couple of pre-screenings here in the Bay Area -- between the dates of the Sixty Minutes piece and the actual television release. It will be invitational to a selected audience. Could be used as a way to support the work of the anti-death penalty groups. There is growing interest here in a call for a moratorium. Jennifer and I will work on that this weekend. Will probably try for the Oakland Museum (James Moore) theater, if it is free for at least one evening. If you're in the area, you might like to stop in. Another possibility will be Geoffrey's, the club in Oakland that is owned by a cousin (remember Dorothy's recent 90th birthday party?).

It's something to think about; a distraction from the things that are not resolvable at home. That's often the way things get worked out for me. Set them aside, take on something totally different -- and in some oblique way -- the knots are unraveled and solutions pop out in full blown. It's kind of a Zen thing. But you can't cheat. The technique demands that one give up all thoughts of the knotty problem, replace it with something achievable, and -- voila!

So tomorrow I'll meet with Barbara and begin the process. Dorian is working on a "rainstorm" at NIAD (working in tempera, I believe) and an eagle, I believe. There is another exhibit soon and she's doing a series of wood block prints and several paintings (including the "Psychedelic Cat" and her "Rainstorm." That's tomorrow. On Saturday she will do basketball, we will bring her friend Chris home with her for the weekend (he is actually more severely handicapped but with a very different set of abilities. He is literate where she is not -- though he has some physical disabilities that make it necessary that he wear a helmet at all times when out of doors. They have a really compatible relationship that is best described by the fact that when she keeps her journal, it is dictated to Chris who does the writing for them both. This means that he is trusted with her most intimate thoughts. And, no, she's not in love with Chris. He's her friend. She's quite clear about that. They've been friends for about 17 years.

His father and stepmother live about 90 miles away in Willits on the North Coast. He lives in the Clausen House community and has a job in the mailroom at the Kaiser Building in Oakland. He is relatively independent and the two of them have much in common. Chris has spent the past two weekends with us, and will be back on Saturday after basketball practice.

I'll need to be sure to have something to work on or I'll soon begin to resent being confined by the needs of not only my own daughter, but the additional responsibility of picking up and delivering Chris as well.

These next few weeks will begin to cement my immediate future, if I'm not careful. Holding all of this in balance without losing my own sense of independence will be tricky. Keeping track of when I'm working for her welfare and when I'm working for my own will be a real challenge. Thankfully, I have friends and professionals to draw upon for guidance, and enough things of interest to hold off dispair.

Find myself wondering -- if someone with as many contacts to draw upon -- after years of working in the political realm -- if I am so deeply effected by these draconian budget cuts, how in the world are people without these resources managing these days? And, I find myself wondering when someone in that world of powerful people will utter the dreaded word, "Depression?" The economic system has come unraveled, and we keep inventing new words to describe the state in which we find ourselves. With this unprecedented deficit, wars galore, terrorism to contain, a deteriorating system of public education, a decaying infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.), a runaway pharmaceutical system and fewer and fewer able to afford health care, retirement systems collapsing, corporate fraud rampant... .For those of us who can remember the Thirties (and I was surely aware), there is a sense of deja vu that causes some sleepless nights. The only difference may be the language we're using to describe this system of self-imposed destruction we find ourselves caught up in.

On my darkest days, I cannot see the corrections coming in time to relieve what Dorian and I are facing in the short term. In the long term, the only answer seems to be to work hard to unseat the present administration. Have been asked to host one of the MoveOn's community meetings. Will do that. Those are being held in selected bookstores throughout the country. My assignment is Barnes & Nobel in Walnut Creek. This is in relation to a book that's being released -- which means that I must find the time to read the book, first.

I'm off to check out the instructions and locate the book. Meanwhile ... life goes on.

Busy, busy!

Dorian and I visited a local sheltered workshop on Monday. There were 92 clients sitting at work tables in a huge warehouse, doing piece work. I marvel at how accurately her antennae registers what are often feelings identical to mine. In some strange way, she "reads" me, and responds appropriately to what she picks up. My instant unguarded response was to the quiet in the room. Should have been comforting, and a strong indication of contentment of those working so diligently at those tables. Instead, I could feel myself tighten up and silently polish up my smile a bit. It was not something I was particularly aware of at the time, but in retrospect, it was there.

We were on a guided tour with the director of the program, a lovely woman who obviously had been prepared by Dorian's social worker well. She was welcoming and gave us room to roam at will. Dorrie discovered an old acquaintance from Clausen House and -- after some hesitation and not well-hidden distress (tears were very near) -- she was in deep conversation with Ed.

Then came the resistance. It was not to be ignored. The rush of tears and the obvious not-yet-voiced-or-understood intention to scuttle this plan before it went too far! She was not having any of this. Not sure where it was coming from, but some of the feeling (from the few words that I could overhear as she and the director talked) were related to her sense of being curbed, reined in, infantalized, loss of independence. It was all garbeled and disjointed, but I could hear it. Coming home to live with me -- even temporarily -- was hard for her to deal with, but Mom was too nice to rail against, but she was "Mom!"

I left her deep in conversation with the director while I left to sit in the car and give her the space to vent. She came out about ten minutes later with face red and blotchy from crying, a tell-tale packet of tissues in her hand, and the director's business card with the promise to call when she'd made her decision about this job. We drove home in silence. She'd managed me very well. I was totally disarmed and wondering where I'd gone wrong?

Yesterday, after a talk with her social worker, I felt a little less lost. Began to realize that most of the plans I'm making will serve me far better than they'll serve her. I need her in a safe setting for my own sake. In the best of all worlds, I'd have her living just a few acres away in a lovely senior housing complex where I can be supportive (and controlling!). How crazy! She would be in a world where everyone would be elderly and there would be no one from her social group with whom to interact.

It's also true that -- in that world of the brain-damaged and retarded -- people operate at a level where needs often overwhelm the ability to give. As a relatively high-functioning handicapped individual, she has as hard a time navigating that world as she has that of "normal" people. The world is simply not designed for Dorrie... . But then I knew that. It may just be that having her on her own all these years has blinded me to the fragility of her existence and of her hunger for understanding.

So, I'm again at a loss. We are living together. It's been little more than a month now, and -- except for her two days a week at NIAD (National Institute for Arts & Disabilities) studios, and two weekends when we've picked up her friend, Chris, to be our houseguest -- little has happened for her. We've not yet given notice to her rental agency and we have yet to go to her apartment to pack up and move things. That may have to do with my secret hope that we're turn up a place to move them to. The total disruption of my small condo is hard to accept since it will (hopefully) be temporary. Is that selfishness? Am I holding out for fate to intervene in some way so that I can keep my space in the world as sanctuary?

But it isn't just that. I'm sensing the same resistance in her. She wants to be on her own, for whatever that may mean. I want and need her to be safe. She has little understanding of what "safe" is, I think. Without the intellectual ability to understand the concept, how can she protect herself? And having that ability, how can I not demand the right to protect her from herself?

She can only think about finding her way back to independence (after 16 years of being essentially on her own), and I keep trying to find the balance between helping her to retain what she can of that -- while distracting myself with the work with Jennifer and the excitement of new projects.

Yesterday I drove her to Oakland to meet with her teacher for the afternoon. Today she is at home while I meet with Jennifer to look over the Convention Center facility -- then to meet for lunch with a council member of the Finance Committee to talk about the proposal we're preparing for the Chamber of Commerce. Tonight we'll attend the symphony. Tomorrow I have an interview with a student from Laney Community College for a taped interview about the union movements of World War II. On Saturday Dorian has Special Olympics basketball practice in preparation for the tournament next weekend. That should be enough distraction for both of us, and the indecision will carryover into next week.

Meanwhile, I'll be working on a MoveOn project that involves hosting a meeting at the Walnut Creek Barnes & Noble -- time uncertain. The calendar remains almost as full as it was when I was working with the State, but the volunteerism doesn't meet my need for earning a salary again. That's what the Convention Center project should produce. Will know more about that in the next few days. So far, so good.

Life does go on... .

If you don't have a grandchild of your own,

beg, borrow, or steal one from a friend or neighbor. When the Lion King comes to where you are, choose a Saturday matinee when the theater is filled with wide-eyed children. That's the way to see this magnificent production! Felt the years drop away at the raising of the curtain on Scene 1. Julie Taymor's genius has created a spectacle unlike anything ever seen in the history of the theater. We were all spellbound for the full 3 hours of pure magic.

Must have been a performing artist in some former life. "The smell of the grease paint, the roar of the crowd" are more compelling to me in these later years than ever before. To be able to facilitate that kind of magic is such a gift. Drove by the convention center on the way back from the BART station, and imagined it filled with the young and the young in heart -- experiencing the kind of afternoon we'd had this afternoon. And it wouldn't have to be "Broadway," but theater of the kind that this area is capable of producing or sponsoring.

Will call Jennifer later and talk spectacle and magic and drama, music, dance, and all of the wonder that I felt tapped into this afternoon.

It was impossible to stay with the fear (terrorism) and panic that crept into my consciousness this morning. That was all cleared out by the sheer joy and color and love of a shared experience in that beautiful old art deco theater. Maybe those things are totally incompatible -- fear and that kind of wonder.

Also recalled a comment made by one of the presenters at the recent California Arts Council conference I attended a few weeks ago. "When asked to create a list of those things most essential to creating and maintaining community, the lists include jobs, affordable housing, education, crime reduction, etc., but rarely do "the arts" appear in the top ten." Then she added, "but everything on the list is arts related in some way." How true. In one way or another, there's a component of art somewhere.

I'm fairly sure that every dollar saved by the school district by cutting out arts, athletics, libraries, will be expended through increased police budgets. We must feed the souls of children or their childhood will suffer a short circuit of some sort along the way.

This old kid got a shot of adrenalin in some places that I thought were atrophied! And I find that I'm about as turned on by this new direction (away from politics) as anyone can be. It's clear that doors are still opening and that there is still much newness to experience. The teachers are out there, and I'm beginning to accept the notion that I might be one of 'em!

After several days of running down the list ...

of available apartment possibilities (all in vain), Saturday is back and Dorian is off at basketball practice for Special Olympics. Stopped just long enough to say that today is our Lion King day in San Francisco. Am leaving to pick up my little granddaughters for the trip across the bay and the great adventure of live theater as seen through the eyes of six and eight year old aspiring dancers. That should take care of all of the residual garbage that's cursed the past couple of weeks of uncertainty.

Must admit that I woke in the night thinking about the bombing of the train stations in Madrid and had a moment of panic as I thought about crossing under the bay on BART with the kids... . It's always just under the surface these days, the danger of life in our times. Caught the news this morning and a clip of our fearless leader making his boastful macho verbal jabs at the terrorists, and wondered if this idiot has enough sense to be fearful? He came off like a kid poking a wasp nest with a stick, or, a fool pouring gasoline on kindling -- to get a light for his cigarette! How did we come to this? To even consider that we are in danger of being bombed off the floor of the bay seems incomprehensible, but is it? Will surely think of it as we leave ground surface and move under water today. Hope the pot of gold (Lion King) at the end of the rainbow is enough to create sufficient calm so that I won't pass along the fear to the kids.

Living in the shadow of the Chevron/Texaco refinery caused some concern in the first few days after 9-11, because it was the nearest prime target for sabotage. Since that time I suppose I, like most, have gotten used to the danger in the shadows -- and gone about the business of creating my own reality. The fear has a way of being refreshed from time to time, and today brings another spasm... .

Impotency that rises from having no clear ways to respond to the danger threatens to paralyze me. The only response that makes any sense if that which we can do only in the aggregate. Allowing myself to believe that we'll all do the right thing come November, and sweep the present administration out of office seems far fetched. Realizing that there are few responses that one can apply as a single being, and that letting that truth surface too frequently adds to the feeling of helplessness. I'll have to trust that there are enough rational folks who see the real perils, and that we'll come together to change the course of history. Would that we could "out source" this president and get back to the business of creating and re-creating the democracy as our founding fathers intended; each generation in its time.

Meanwhile I'll just send another little check to MoveOn, sign another petition to my representatives before leaving for San Francisco, and trust that others are out there doing the same, each time with a silent prayer that we're not acting alone... We'll just have to trust that there are enough of us leaning in the direction of constructive change -- and that, together, we will prevail. I believe that.

But for now -- there's The Lion King and the excitement of a trip to San Francisco to enjoy, before picking up Dorian and another weekend of checking out ads and making plans -- and feeling uncertain about the future ... .

Met this morning with a member of Richmond city council, and later with the president of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. Decided that -- in light of the total breakdown in the financial structure of this city ($35,000 million deficit), an environment of utter chaos has been created -- out of which will come opportunity!

I have joined in partnership with my friend, Jennifer Ross, in her consulting firm, "In Face Consulting." Together we've proposed to take over the Convention Center in the heart of the civic center, and bring it to life in service to the community and to produce much-needed revenue. Learned that the Chamber already has a proposal before the council to do just that, but even after a year of negotiations -- they've gotten nowhere. Today the president and I opened up a conversation that should end with a contract for Jennifer and me to manage the convention center and pull together the arts community (National Arts & Disabilities, wonderful Richmond Arts Center, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, etc.) into one entity.

Yesterday's newspapers carried the news that -- as the first school district in the state of California -- ours has eliminated all sports, arts programming, closed all libraries, and cut out counselors. That makes the convention center and its assets an extremely important engine for creating or re-creating community and making up for the losses our young people will suffer.

Tonight I will attend one of four community meetings where the mayor and council will lay out the budget deficits for the citizens, and take comment. On Thursday, I will tour the assets (as well as the convention center) as preparation for several days of proposal writing for the Chamber to consider. They would be the fiscal agents and rent the facility from the city, while About Face Consulting will create programs, build calendars, work out budgets, do booking and leasing for conventions and seminars, etc. We will operate masters classes in various of the performing arts, and people such programs from the broad range of contacts we both have in the arts community.

Those recent informal pot luck dinners in Berkeley lofts; the visit to Joanna and Zaccho Dancer Theatre, lead us to today's developments. Among that group you'll find Carlos (manager of the Yerba Buena Cultural Center in South of Market in S.F.) and Zellerbach on the Berkeley campus; David who manages the Herbst Theater - also in S.F.; plus friends who are involved in the very troubled Alice Arts Center in downtown Oakland. All are ready to work with us in creating another venue for the artists they bring to town (at their expense). We would involve such artists in both performances (when appropriate and affordable) and as Q&A's for young people of the area weekend matinee sessions. Exciting stuff!

Next week we'll begin to put pen to paper (Jennifer is grants writer and financial wizard while I'm the "visionary" and the "bringing-people-together-person"). We'll meet the following week with the inner core of the Chamber and the members of the city's finance sub-committee of the council.

This feels terrific.

Now, I'm off to look at an apartment for Dorian in a nearby complex -- within walking distance to my condo.

Hold good thoughts!

Betty Lloyd Webber

Life goes on ... .

Spent last 48 hours looking into day programs, 30-day notice for moving, checking out truckers, places where donations of household items are wanted, (whatever will we do with 13 umbrellas?), hauling 15 years accumulation of junk ... It's gonna be a long spring of readjustments. So far, so good. Not too much resistance to date.

First program (just a few blocks away) turned out to be unsuitable. Population is at a very different level of functioning -- below her by far. That may prove to be a problem I've not given enough thought to. Her social worker has weighed in and she's someone whose counsel I value. Have arranged to visit another that she's recommended on Tuesday of next week. There is a web site, and it looks promising.

It would be so easy to just give in to the temptation to keep her here with me over the next few years and then let the chips fall where they may. Unfair to David and Bob, though. I owe it to them to complete my role in her (their) life by continuing to prepare her for my taking leave of the planet to fulfill my role in this universal recycling process called "Life!"

Which reminds me of one of those attitudes I've exhibited over time -- an attitude that tends to alienate me from many in the community of professionals who work with the mentally disabled. I am unalterably opposed to allowing my daughter to bear children. Felt so strongly about it that I arranged to have that possibility eliminated when she was in her early twenties. Sterilization is not legal in my state, and required finding a sympathetic physician who would perform the necessary surgical procedure. Have never regretted that decision. We prepared her with as much honesty as she could understand and it went well. It was done only after she'd been allowed (by the institution) to become pregnant while in their care -- and been aborted without my knowledge or consent. She was an adult, so neither was required. Nonetheless, had she not very innocently reported the fact to me -- I'd have never known. I bitterly resented not being able to be with her for comfort at what must have been a frightening and confusing time. She was in her fourth month, I believe.

When confronted, staff explained to me that the legal reason why she could not be sterilized had to do with her inability to give informed consent. She was not considered capable of signing her name under the law, but was capable of giving birth and parenting my grandchild. There is a young woman in Dorian's disabled community who has now given birth to three children, and is "caring for them." Such a tragedy... .

When I see films like "Forest Gump" and "I am Sam" and others of that genre, I am furious! They romanticize this population to their detriment. Allowing parenthood to the mentally disabled doesn't take into account that the custodial responsibility is therefore extended to the next generation. No one thinks about what it means for the siblings of the disabled when the parents have passed away. This heavy load will die with me. Had I not eliminated this complication, my sons would have their freedoms and those of their children limited both financially and psychologically. The movies end far short of doing those important projections, therefore leaving much that is critical to the story unresolved. The emotionality such stories produce mis-inform audiences and add to the problems that families face over the generations. I hope that I've guaranteed Dorian enough goodwill and caring by not placing her brothers in the position of having to bear the considerable weight of her existence throughout their own lives. I think that I've allowed enough room for them to love her by not having their lives restricted prematurely.

Interesting fact: Dolls never worked with Dorrie. Other little girls use them as a way of role-playing their way through their childhood. "Let's pretend" was beyond Dorian. This requires abstract ability. She brought her babies to me to be dressed and fed. That's what mommy's do, right? Given her very limited ability to project herself into the future, there was no way for her to imagine herself in the role of mother. She's come to that late in life through caring for her two cats. Now, she's "mother" and I'm "grandmother" to Speedy and Gracie. Have you any idea what it would have been like had she been allowed to give birth to a child? She would have brought it (rightly) to me. I'm the "mother." Or, it would have been taken from her -- given her inability to parent. The irony of being allowed to give birth while being considered incapable of "informed consent" is shocking to me.

On the other hand, we have a healthy young woman whose body is strong and capable of reproduction but whose mind is hopelessly damaged ... do you deny sexual expression? I say not; another departure from the view of the professionals, though that is changing in this time of sexual freedom. Keeping that all in balance has been a real challenge. We have a lot of growing to do, as a society, but there are signs that all is not lost. I do meet some truly enlightened souls along the way, and it helps. My views aren't as shocking as they once were, and I run into an occasional parent who says a silent "amen."

I'm off to pick her up at her arts program (Tuesdays and Thursdays, all day) and I'm late.

Tango still mostly in the mind, but coming up fast... .