This morning brought another day of filming ... but with a twist ... .

... which required trying to build an information bridge between 30 Rosie's Girls -- a park-sponsored group where the youngest was 10 and the eldest, 14 -- and an elderly woman fast-approaching 96 years of age.  Challenging?  You betcha!  I was terrified at the prospect, the fear that I didn't have the ability to bring their generation together with mine in a coherent way in the sharing of the Home Front history.  How on earth can one do that?  Yet it seemed to work despite the fear.

We gathered at Kennedy High School in a room that probably housed classes in social studies or civics because every available space on the walls was covered with photographs and posters of past national leaders.  Images of Presidents Clinton and Obama dominated the room.  Our sitting president was not represented on these walls, an interesting observation as noted by one of the cameramen.  It would have been interesting to learn whether we'd simply overlooked that image, or, if there were political debates among the students that ended with a conscious decision to allow the omission.  Interesting?

After a brief opening statement about my personal history -- based on a conversation in the car while on the way -- we did a Q&A.  The girls seemed so woefully young, and unknowing, but open and willing to participate as we gathered in chairs that formed a semi-circle with me in the middle.

By the time I felt fully engaged -- about 30-minutes later -- the lights behind their eyes began to slowly shine on, and the room started to come alive for me.

The conversation at times felt far afield from where I thought we should be going, but by the end my feelings of awkwardness had all but vanished, and when our director, Carl, stepped in to remind me that the spread of history that lay between my great-grandmother, Leontine Breaux Allen, and me, might be of interest to these kids.  In the telling of that history, a pathway opens up where the most meaningful part of my story enters, and I'm "at home."

Oddly enough, it is in the telling of that narrative that I feel most "American," because that story places me in the context of one of the nation's most perilous and life-changing times; that of slavery and emancipation.  My enslaved great-grandmother's role in our history may have been involuntary, but the fact that she survived those painful years at a time when education was forbidden meant that she was illiterate.  Schooling was far beyond her reach as both a slave and as a woman.  Yet only one generation later one of her daughters, Alice, would create the first school for colored children in St. James Parish, Louisiana.  Alice served as its principal until her death.  One generation later, a grandson, George Allen, would serve as president of Texas Southern University, one of the nation's historically Black colleges. This surely speaks to her participation as a strong guiding force in her family -- in a fast-changing nation of imperfect folks trying to "get it right."

Through her long lifetime -- she lived to be 102 -- she was able to instill in her 13 children enough ambition, dedication to principle, idealism, and ethical standards that her great-grandchildren, of whom I'm now among the eldest, are still among the nation-builders, in a nation of extraordinary ordinary folks still trying to get it right.

I touched on none of that, but just being reminded of the full story of how much later generations (mine) were enabled by those who lost almost 300 years to the evil institution of slavery in this country continues to allow me to feel the full weight of my citizenship in this still-striving young country ... in my role as a passionate interpreter, a truth-teller, serving in a federal agency, the National Park Service.

This morning gave an indication of just how important my ranger role is in these continuing chaotic times as we continue the process of forming that "... more perfect Union."

As I looked out into those upturned young faces, I could see tomorrow -- though innocence abounds -- but also I could see the openness that is an essential element in creating the future that they will live into ... .

It is such a privilege to be in a position to be able to influence their choices in even these small ways ... like sitting around in a semi-circle sharing history at Kennedy High School in Richmond, California, on this day, July 10, 2017.

We ended with a pledge.

Repeat after me:

"Every day in every way what I am to be I am now becoming!"

In an odd way, these simple words speak not only to the state of adolescence, but to a young country in progress, as well.

And that, my friends, is an example of the simplicity that comes after complexity!

It felt right.

Maybe it was the Fourth of July that created the climate ... .

... or the questions that come up in the Q&A following my talks, but for whatever reason I'm bringing those conversations home at the end of the day, and lingering over them for hours into the night.

My audiences are visibly depressed and are looking for a reason to hope at a time when our nation appears to have lost its way ... or, found new pathways forward in which at least half the country is faltering -- too unsure to trust our institutions for guidance more than for a few hours at a time, or until the next newscast.

Whether by intent or by accident, unlike those audiences, I find myself more hopeful than the headlines might justify.  It's hard to explain, but let me try:

The Revolutionary War of 1776 brought into being our "One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all (some?), and pressed this young country forward into what has become cyclical periods of chaos.  Democracy is not static, but dynamic.  My 95 years have provided enough time to enable me to look back and see the patterns.  I'm now seeing such periods as the times when our democracy is being re-defined; when we're making necessary adjustments in our collective decisions and institutions that will give us a way forward.  It's at such times as these that the reset buttons are revealed, and another round of "the work" can begin.  These are the times of the greatest chance to take whatever steps we must "... in order to form that more perfect Union." Time to "... promote the general welfare". These opportunities rarely occur in times of calm and serenity, if such have ever existed.  These cycles of change are invariably dramatic and fraught with risk.

We're in another of those chaotic periods now, and it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work building the next platform upon which a new generation of Americans will stand to continue this grand experiment.  Maybe the greatest threat to our governance is the fact that only 17% of those between 18 and 24 turned up to participate in our last election -- when we elected a president with a bit more than 25% of those voting.  Fifty one percent of that vote came from those over 51, presenting an imbalance in governance tilted toward yesterday rather than tomorrow.

This country started out with those long-revered and imperfect slave-owning Old Dead White Men who probably did the best they could in establishing our Democracy.  From where I find myself these days -- Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, the Adamses, Madison, Franklin, Paine, et al, --  created out of their chaos of 1776 -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution with its durable Bill of Rights that founded this nation-- and given the systemic limitations that gave birth to some fatal flaws -- that brilliant work was probably the best we could get out of the bold leadership of their day.  We're still trying to overcome the contradictions embedded in them, but at least two important questions were answered by the last administration.  Never again will we ask if a woman would ever be allowed to run for the highest office in the land, or, if an African American is capable of being President of this country and Leader of the Free World.  Those discussions are over for all time.  In less than 7 years, a generation of children who lived through the Obama administration and know no other will become voters.  The changes we've been working toward and waiting for have already taken place.

Ever since 1776, each generation has had the responsibility of re-creating the Democracy in its time.  A tall order, that, but necessary if our system of participatory governance is to survive in our day.  We cannot continue to sustain ourselves with a 40% turnout in general elections.  Whether we explain that to ourselves as the result of voter apathy or voter suppression, the result is the same; loss of control of our institutions, and the resulting concentration of power within a chosen few of the privileged. That is  antithetical to the intent so eloquently spelled out in our founding documents.

The Great Experiment is on-going.  Democracy will never stay fixed.  Fortunately for us, there was enough resilience built into the system by those imperfect men that the adjustments needed in light of an ever-changing nation are and have been achieved, but only the dynamism emanating from a passionate and caring electorate will sustain us.

Ultimately, it all depends upon We, the People, and we, too, are imperfect.

I see citizen involvement rising daily among the current electorate with the help of unprecedented access to information, a proven and dependable body of media despite the sensationalists, and many ethical and caring State and National representatives peopling our Halls of Congress. Technological advances are light years beyond where the fertile imaginations of those courageous Fathers of our Country might have taken them.   They could hardly have imagined a nation where their ideas would forever influence a world still yearning to be free in this, the 21st Century.

Why on earth would one not be hopeful?

We need only to look to the upward spiral that defines America to see, albeit dimly, the next steps in our most recent cycle of creative chaos!

This is who we are.

My Editor asked a question yesterday that may need to be answered ... .

"Do you recall what caused you to create this blog, Betty?"

He's been working with this journal for months now in the process of constructing the book, and nowhere have I ever mentioned how it came to be, apparently.  I thought for a few minutes, and then realized that I'd never anticipated needing to explain its origins since this was always a conversation I was having with myself, and therefore never needed explanation.  Though in the beginning the intended audience was my children and theirs, and those yet unborn.  I'm not certain that I'd ever thought to inform them of its existence, or that anyone beyond the family would have any interest in its contents.

Back in the late Nineties I'd been working on our family history for months through visits to the Mormon Family History Center, and to the genealogy websites then developing online  at the time and were increasingly intriguing.  It slowly began to dawn that the women got lost or were nearly impossible to follow.  It was frustrating when an interesting ancestor would unceremoniously drop out of sight as names changed through marriage, or, they simply ceased to exist in the records through changing and unexplained relationships. Everything rested with the males in the lineage, though there were obviously many colorful and fascinating women down through the ages, people I hungered to know more about.

I've lived through some tumultuous history during my lifetime, and how an ordinary woman survived those times surely should be as fascinating to those unknown future historians as it would have been for me to be able to know how our ancestors got through those perilous periods of slavery and reconstruction, yet survived to produce my generation.  It felt as if a debt might be owed to those who preceded me in life, a debt that I could assume because I, and my generation, were that legacy that their pain and suffering made possible.

Those years of research had changed unalterably my perceptions of my own place in history and the world, and has given me a strong sense of the continuity of Life.  Technological advances have enabled present generations to make linkages with the past that were only accessible to professionals not that long ago.

East Bay Center for the Performing Arts Map
(Click to enlarge)

At some point there rose a need to leave footprints of my own life for the family historians of the future to follow.  I would not be lost.  The experience of reconstructing our  history had given me a deep sense of having a foundation upon which to build, and that those few bricks that I was contributing to that family foundation would help to erect the platform upon which the next generation of our young women would stand.

Owning my first computer opened up possibilities undreamed of, but -- untrained in the field -- that first post in September of 2003 was just a stab at finding a place to stand while I figured out the parameters and how to "make it up as it went along."

I had little sense of anyone actually reading it.  I didn't dream of the possibility of an unseen and unrelated readership having any interest in its contents.

After some months of sitting with my own thoughts, alone, this blog began to slowly become the mechanism by which I could hold conversations with myself as I processed life.  There was never an outside presence standing in judgment.  I cannot recall any time when it ever came up in conversation with any family members.  I'd list the links to it among the other assets in my Will, but that it would surely hold little interest among the young until after my death.

Oddly enough, neither did I ever become aware of or write to a public audience.  I've never invited criticism, permission, arguments for or against anything, it just became a method of ordering my life as it was being lived; processing fears and resentments, concerns -- both public and private.  Opining about everything large and small, so that I might leave at least an impression of my having shared life on the planet, and that I'd contributed in tiny increments either by what I did or failed to do toward creating the future, along with everybody else on the planet.  No more, no less.

At Telluride, Colorado, presenting, Summer 2016

Now that I'm aware that this personal journal has developed a worldwide following over time, I still tend to be writing without being consciously aware of whoever is out there reading my words.  I'm usually sitting at my computer, alone at the end of my day, generally in my pajamas and slipper socks with a single library lamp at my elbow dimly-lit, and in conversation with myself while letting you listen.

There has never been any particular order to any of it, no rhyme or reason, just a way of explaining Life to myself while in the process of living it.  I rarely go back to re-read anything I've written, but find that I've expended all of the energy (sense?) of it in the original documenting of the thoughts, though -- once written -- I find those thoughts committed to memory for all time, as with all of the songs that I've ever composed, despite the fact that they were rarely written down nor published anywhere.  Because there are few stated rights or wrongs there is little reason for making corrections.  The magic, the power, appears to be embedded in the act of creation for me, whatever the form.

In a strange way, this journal appears to be propelling me forward into an unknown future with intentionality.  It brings a sense of order to my life -- though never with a conscious awareness of the unfolding process ... only in the sense that -- for me, for this hour, in this moment,  and though it is always subject to revision in the light of new realities --

this is my Truth.

New considerations, maybe ... ?

A request to participate October 4th in a one-on-one interview in New York for the Atlantic has stirred up some random,  though not very focused, thoughts about the need to face the fact that -- despite the lateness of the hour -- I may need to begin to plan the next phase of being Betty.

Since I'm in the uncharted waters of Life, I don't think I can be blamed for not seeing this need before now.  The maps with which to navigate these next few years do not exist.  Facing the fact that there are so few of us left to carve out the pathway forward is sobering.  I'm quite literally living into times where there are few models, and those that do exist are as limited in their outlook as I am in mine since we really don't have much to go on, much less to plan for.

Everyone around me seems to be surprised that I'm not only still here, but am still functioning at an acceptable level, with few signs of diminishing capacities.

Who knew?

I've been figuring on just staying on until I'd outgrown my usefulness to the Parks -- assuming that I'd recognize that state when it arrived -- and then go straight to the cemetery.  That seemed a workable plan as long as all on board were in agreement, and there are still no signs that I've reached a maximum level of productivity, and our audiences are still filling the little theater for each of my talks.  Little  need for much thought about the inevitable.  Time would surely take care of that.

However, there has been a growing change in requests for my involvement, and it's quite specific:  While I'm still sought out for off-site presentations around interpretation, history, environmentalism, etc., there is another issue creeping into the mix; aging as an important issue in a time where that surge of Boomers are approaching these later years, and may be seeking an alternative to the Adoration of Youth model of aging.

Those of us -- and there are an increasing number -- who have somehow found ways to continue active lives with a purpose; have perhaps escaped the lure of plastic surgery; have pretty well embraced these years without fear and as natural to be enjoyed for what they uniquely bring; a period of summation and completion.

Perhaps, without intent, I've become a model for that alternative, or for something like it, and requests for public appearances are becoming less related to my National Park role as to that of being a representative of my generation, a generation now reaching into their mid-Nineties.

Do you suppose I'm needing to begin to look into that more closely?

Has the time arrived when I should be leaving the park service for this new role in these final years, as an Ambassador for Old?  That book that I've finally written will be published in February, and I'm guessing that it will push me closer to that new career as spokeswoman for the PolyGrip Crowd!


Did I just hear someone utter that word that I've rarely allowed into my consciousness until now?

Retirement?

Maybe not that, but a more fitting word -- Transition.

Now to figure out how to blend roles:

Speaking last week at the David Brower Center in Berkeley for PGN-ONE (People of the Global Majority), to about 200 young People of Color at their second annual national conference -- young adults of every conceivable racial mixture; people like me.  I was looking into the future; contrasting their world with that of my generation in a ten minute talk that brought enough excitement to me as anything I've ever done through all my years with the Park Service!  They've finally sorted themselves out from the rest of the world, and identified themselves as"Other", and proudly!  These were my peers, if age were not a consideration.  Here was the WE of ME!

Given the power of unprecedented communication, unlimited ability to travel, the Internet, technology, mobility in general, this is what the world's population will look like in the not too distant future.  And any notion that miscegenation befouls the human gene pool proves to be totally absurd.  We may even enhance it!  It was a moment that resembled my presentation on  the Google campus in Silicon Valley last spring when I was privileged to have a chance to step into our technological future for an afternoon.  This was the equivalence in world demographics, and through my work I get to be a willing witness to and participant in -- all of it!

Lots to think about, right?

Gearing up for another season of rangering ... .

And, for one who is no longer buying green bananas ... it's more than a notion to be even considering requests for October, yet that's the new reality.  We just booked September 28th to participate in a campus-wide Teach-in on Diversity at the University of San Francisco, and another for mid-October.

Wondering if I'll still remember how to tie my own shoes by then?

All systems continue to be "Go!", but I'm losing my sense of future.  Is this what is meant by being on borrowed time?

Yet the sense that I'm continuing to do good work; that these years of summation are delivering meaning -- not only to me -- but to those with whom I'm lucky enough to share these deceptively simple insights -- as they continue to unfold.

It brings to mind that wonderful little box-in-the-middle-of-the-page in a long ago edition of Reader's Digest:  "There are two simplicities, the one that comes before and one that comes after, complexity."  The quote was credited to the Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast.  It was profoundly important to me on first reading, and now it accurately describes the stage in life that I've reached in this final decade.  I'm in that place of the simplicity that comes after complexity.  This is the place where life has taken me after the long process of testing, probing, accepting, rejecting, questioning, etc., and now it feels as though I've known all along; Truth.  And as the peeling back of the onion continues, I'm more and more certain that the greater truths were all known by the time I was about six.  Truth was embedded in the senses, intuition, empathy, compassion, curiosity, etc., and would be revealed in bits and pieces over the accumulating years as nuance and sophistication folded in.  It seems to be simply a matter of remembering what was intuitively known, and trusting that despite all.

In re-discovering this photo of these two world renown "6 year-olds" with whom I shared a few meaningful moments long ago, I may have stumbled upon "essential Truth" without realizing it.  Wish I'd had the good sense to pay attention when the opportunity presented itself quite by happenstance.  I should have guessed that it would be in the process of peeling back that I might discover the meaning of it all.  Never in the "piling on and discarding" -- time after time -- on into the absurdities that I'm finally learning to ignore.  

I've met both these great men, the Dalai Lama
and Monk David Steinl-Rast -- both were life-changing events.
Both these beings were humility personified.

Everything I needed to live a life was "in there" from childhood.  It was the triggers and tools that would be acquired through youth and young adulthood that would provide the education that would continue throughout life.  And schooling must not be confused with education.  Schooling provides those tools that are used throughout life -- and it is in the laboratory of life where education occurs.  It was a very wise middle school teacher, John Hughes, who planted that gem when I was barely in my teens.  Hughes was that enabling elder (probably in his thirties) who served as a temporary guide in those critical years.  In looking back, it is clear that the Avatars have turned up as needed throughout the years.

There is a familiar ring to each new insight these days, as though from a deep well of experience garnered over decades of confusion and occasional revelation.

... the deeper the learning, the greater the reservoir of that which is still to be known!

One day I'll try to speak of the experiences of meeting them both, but not just yet.  I've never felt comfortable in sharing the details of those two separate but equally moving encounters.  In a peculiar way, speaking of them always felt reductive somehow, and didn't match the level of intimacy and humility that characterized both experiences.  There was a kind of magic in their presence, a magic that was unforgettable, even as I remind myself of how rare this was/is, and how amazing to have touched lives with them both.

And, no, I was never a student of either, regrettably, but just to be in their powerful presences allowed one to gain a sense of connectedness that left me awestruck for months and years afterwards.  In both instances I was one of many, in a public situation, yet their abilities to cut through --- soul-to-soul -- is indisputable.

Bill Soskin, my husband of ten years before his death, was a devout student of Tibetan Buddhism, and his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, visited Padma Ling, the Temple in Berkeley, where the refugee Lama Tarthang Tulku, Rinpoche, conducted classes for Western scholars interested in exploring the interface between Eastern religions and Western social sciences.  Many hours were spent being exposed to a system of belief that I was content to be a spectator to.  We had the honor of being in the Dalai Lama's presence on more than one occasion.

Wish I hadn't outlived my peer group!  Now that I'm needing to compare notes with other elders, I'm looking into the faces of the young ... .

Great flood of 1927 - New Orleans

Wish I could remember to whom it was that I spoke of my fears of traveling to New Orleans ... .

This is the weekend that my son, David, had gone to elaborate lengths to try to organize a Charbonnet family reunion in our ancestral home of New Orleans.  It was to coincide with the return of his two daughters, Alyana and Tamaya, to the US after several weeks of travel as students through Europe.  They were to meet us in New Orleans on June 21st (tomorrow).  We would spend several days of celebration with the relatives gathered there.  We would visit St. Louis cemetery where so many of our ancestors have been interred over centuries.  There would be a gathering at Corpus Cristi church in the Tremé, the Catholic church that was built by Louis Charbonnet, my paternal grandfather, and in whose name there was so much family pride and honor invested.

Though we learned of it after the reunion plans were made but unknown at that time, our cousin Municipal Judge Desiree Charbonnet would be announcing her candidacy for the Mayor's race in New Orleans!  This was the summer to celebrate, and  Desiree's time had come -- she would be the first woman of this historic city to seek this high office, and a Charbonnet to boot!

Grave of Voodoo Priestess Marie LaVeau

 St. Louis Cemetery

Weeks ago, as the date approached, for nameless reasons, I began to experience a sense of unease.  A kind of disquiet.  I was torn because -- given the fact that my 96th birthday comes in September -- this might well be the last chance to visit the city of our origin.  I was fairly certain of that, and at a point where David's plans seemed to be falling apart, had written a general message to the family supporting those plans, and gently pleading that alternative plans to postpone to next summer be tossed.

I may not be here.

It was decided that this weekend's arrangements would go forth, and then the fears set in.

I kept postponing making reservations, and -- unable to give a reason -- started to try to justify my reluctance because of frailty, of "aging," though I was continuing my 5-day work week with no difficulty.


I finally admitted to someone (and I can't for the life of me recall who that was), that it was fear, that I'd had a dream that brought that 1927 Great Flood back to reality, and given that June was the beginning of hurricane season in the Gulf -- I became consumed by a disabling fear that lasted for several weeks and could not be shaken.

It made no sense since this was the same weekend during which we'd -- only a year ago -- spent a week in New Orleans for the honoring at the WWII Museum.  There had been no such feelings of dread at that time, and that, too, was the beginning of hurricane season.  Why this sense of prescience now?  But it was undeniable, and persistent.

A few weeks ago, I finally found the courage to call David to tell him that I was not going to be able to make the trip after all.  I could hear the crushing disappointment in his voice, and -- in a day or so -- learned that he, too, cancelled, making the trip impossible for my granddaughters to end their travel summer at the reunion in New Orleans.  I felt profoundly guilty of bringing this important reunion to a halt by my inability to shake the unreasoning fear ... .

Heard just a few moments ago by radio that there is a flood warning reaching from Houston, Texas, to the Florida Panhandle over the next few days.  It is expected to bring 12 inches of rain through New Orleans over the next 24 hours, with serious flood warnings.

A senseless foreboding?

I'm not so sure ...

I sang at my own wedding, no guests, just
another secret ... .

Late Sunday afternoon brought another aspect of filmmaking ... 

... this time adding to the voice-over thread to be filled in behind related images of the other documentary (90-minute) of Bryan Gibel, filmmaker/producer.

For a second day-in-a-row (unusual) I found myself seated in a quickly created "bunker" formed of quilted blankets hooked together to make a kind of sound booth, going over old history, but not of the kind that deals with the WWII Home Front, but of "Betty" history, which turns out to be far deeper and with an emotional content that is only hinted at in the national stories, or of a different kind, at least.

In the aftermath, I've found myself today going back over that interview, and finding places where there are glaring contradictions and inconsistencies:

Where much of the interview was taken up with how thoroughly I'd discounted the artist part of myself in running away from the brief encounter with the entertainment industry, nonetheless I've certainly written about that side of myself in this journal, and rather unsparingly.  In fact, she holds a prominent place in my personal narrative, even while I'm denying her existence.

I wonder if the fact that -- over time she has evolved as a third person -- somehow severed from the whole, a "she." Though there is clearly some recent movement occurring, at integrating into a more complex Betty at a time when I'm being forced under the scrutiny of filmmaking to incorporate all of me into coherence.  But is that consistent with real life? Am I not, alternately, all of those splintered pieces, and does the weaving together of all of those divergent bits and pieces not present the next  challenge in this final decade?

Maybe that younger creative artist Betty, was never "disappeared" at all, but has been dormant; waiting patiently in the wings to reappear at some auspicious time when the barriers were lowered, and this final integration was even possible.  At a time when there was no marriage to save nor children to raise, no aging parents to caretake, no business to reclaim as legacy for our kids, no handicapped daughter to prepare for my exit, just maybe ... .

It's beginning to feel that way as I sit behind that west gallery exhibit at the bayside windows of the Visitor Center, waiting to present my two o'clock program.  That perch allows me to become disconnected from those gathering at the front desk for their tickets long enough to find the quiet offered by idly watching the incoming bands of fog silently drift in over the water, the changing light, the wind playing capriciously in the branches of that giant eucalyptus, the rising and lowering of the tides, that ever-changing vista of Brooks Island, the East Bay hills, the San Francisco skyline, the moody panoramic Bay view, shore birds in constant and ever-graceful flight, wind-surfers skating over the waters precariously, the occasional leisurely passage of a sailboat... .

Often of late, I draw my cell phone out of the pocket of my uniform, press the button for music, and holding it to my ear so that voice won't bleed out into the west gallery -- listen secretly to my younger self of 40 years ago -- singing the life I was living at the time my songs were birthed ... and that life returns with all of the affect it carried at the time they were written.  There are times when it takes more than a moment to bring myself back into the present.

10 years ago.  Age 85

But then it's time to creep down the back stairs to enter our little theater where I, alone, sit on that kitchen stool and watch as those inquiring strangers begin to enter my space in twos and threes until the room is full, and the stories begin and a quite different past becomes alive again, once more, and we're sharing that other journey back through time ... .

And as complicated as it sounds, it is I who serves as the connecting link to what is on the surface a set of conflicting realities, but equally authentic and equally true.

What happens to, "I rarely spend time regretting the past or anticipating the future; there is only NOW"?  That's a fine example of conflicting truths, a concept that arrived unannounced shortly after my 90th birthday; an axiom that I stubbornly believe to be not only possible but an important fact of life.

Yet, it is all of a piece, is it not?

It is in these moments that I am beginning to feel all the parts of myself beginning to come together, and the distances between lessening ... and the hope that, in time, over continuing days, weeks, and months, under the scrutiny necessary for meaningful filmmaking ... I will become whole, perhaps for the very first time, like metal shavings attracted irresistibly to a magnate.

Meanwhile, I'm fairly certain that I'm in for some highly emotional moments as that integration process takes over.

The prize is that somehow I've developed the ability to place myself somewhere out of range and watch that process as it unfolds.  I suspect that it is this ability that allows me to learn from it all, and to use it in my work.  I'm able to become a spectator to myself. To see myself in context.

There is the sense that -- in these final years, I'm being all of the women that I've become over time, and using everything that I've ever experienced in reaching this remarkable time of life.  It's all incorporated into that aging women sitting on that kitchen stool before those audiences of 48 friendly strangers every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday on into infinity.

I suspect that it may be time to pull those curtains back and let the sun in; and let the music play ... as I live all of the complex layers of my existence, simultaneously ... .

... and wherever did I get the idea that life was linear?

This was a day of filming, this time at home as the very private person that I am when not "rangering" ... 

One of the fine filmmakers appeared with his team to conduct an on-camera interview to feed into the 30-minute work that is now nearing completion after  more than three years of shooting.  I'm learning a lot about filmmaking in the process, and since the producer, Carl Bidleman, tells me that they now have produced about 50 hours of work which -- after editing -- will become that 30-minute film for the National Park Service. The end may be in sight.

The release date has not yet been set, but I suspect that it might be late fall or early winter.

I imagine that the editing may be the most satisfying  part of the process, but I'm projecting here, and have no real sense of what really goes into filmmaking.  It was fascinating to see them -- after the actual interview was over, and just before the complicated set-up of lights and cameras were being disassembled -- they called for a "hush" while the room's ambiance was recorded through the cameras.  When questioned, Carl explained that this was needed for the editing, for blending fragments of scenes together without blank silences.

After this extended period of being filmed, it doesn't take more than a few minutes to forget the process,  the cameras, and hear just the questions -- and to react without self-consciousness.  I'd never have guessed this would ever be possible, but it most assuredly happens with experience over time, once those behind the cameras have become simply trusted and good friends, eventually, of longstanding.

What the end result will be I cannot imagine.  But maybe this works for me since I rarely spend much time in yesterday or tomorrow  (except when called for in my work).  There has always simply been "Now!" I suspect that this attitude is a holdover from childhood, and just something that I've never outgrown.

I've lived my entire life in a constant state of surprise, rarely borrowing from the future or regretting the past,  which tends to keep the present always alive and guess-worthy. Anticipation could not have improved this ongoing new reality that sets me right in the middle of the Art of Others, something that has become increasingly exciting as I've grown older.  I feel like an ever-evolving collaborator in training.

The filmmaking has become organic, much as my work with the National Park Service has become over time.  There, I'm but one element in the visitor experience which includes orientation films, life-cast figures, documentation of the Home Front Story, all the works of other rangers,  historians, writers, artists, fabricators, lighting designers, etc., and me!

A Betty sandwich with Carl and Stefan

It is also true of the book which is being set for release in February, and that is being edited by Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor from a combination of my oral histories (archived at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley) and this blog.  It is in second draft stage at the moment, and is being published by Hay House out of New York, and will bring together their writers and editors with my collected words.  These often unrelated essays on cabbages and kings and (at times) pure rants, and sometimes, prayers, will become an amalgamation of all those talents and minds, and I will again be a part of something larger than myself.

A thought that has never occurred to me before this very moment:  What greater exit from this dimension than to simply disappear into the works of others?  That might be the perfect way to move gracefully into whatever immortality there is, just to blend seamlessly into the whole with little notice.  Maybe this insight has moved out from the subconscious to provide a rationale for whatever comes next  ... whenever...  .

Who on earth would ever have imagined that my little living room would become a movie set on occasion, and that I would become at 95 a "star" sitting at my dining room table comfortable in my socks and non-glamorous cotton trousers, and be as relaxed as a cat on a window sill basking in the noonday sun!

Yet that is precisely where we are in life on this day, June 9, 2017.

Betty Reid Soskin & Dylan Lew at An Evening with NatureBridge

Thirty-five, and counting

Life is definitely not in sync with what's left of the old "Bod"... .

I'm finally beginning to sense myself as living in Leftover mode.  There has, until recent years, been just enough leftover pretty to feed my ego as needed.    I've lately become that 35 year-old woman trapped in an aging and shriveling body -- looking in the mirror each day and wondering what happened?

My self-image has become out of sync with what the camera captures, and it's disconcerting at best.  I don't mind having my photo taken -- countless times each week -- just don't want to look at them.  Maybe it's because my mother jumps in front of the camera lens every time, and she died in 1995!

Maybe this is the cost of continuing to live a life out of context.  The world around me grows younger with each day -- as I grow older. That just doesn't compute, does it?


Then I walked out of the front door and down the stairs (more rapidly than usual, just to show my neighbors might be peeking out from behind the curtains at that exceptional 'lil ole lady) to the mailbox and found therein a large manila envelope from Dr. Stephen Lockhart containing the recently published catalogue of REI, as promised, and I'm the centerfold in a story about the empowerment of women.

There was also a large white envelope holding a long letter from John Hartnett, a student of a museum class at City College of San Francisco who was in the audience of a presentation at San Francisco Maritime two weeks ago.  He was assigned to create a community engagement plan for an exhibition of a local museum with the goal of targeting a new audience, mostly the African Americans who are unrepresented in museum visitation figures.

He enclosed his proposal, asking me to provide some feedback ("... if time and your busy schedule permits").  His work is both imaginative and evocative.

In the same delivery was a long letter from a young Latina from Texas, Gabriele Contreras, who was responding to the NatureBridge Gala, a staffer, I believe, and it was a stunning testimonial that affirms my work in a way that places the concerns expressed about aging in the category where they justifiably belong, on the trash heap!

Wedding day at Fifty

That I'm being heard at 95 is priceless.  The contents of a long memory bolstered by continuing insightful analyses based in Truth cannot be bartered, bought, or sold.  It is I who establishes the value on that, and no one else.  How I'm being seen is fully dependent upon external sources over which I have absolutely no control.  It is foolhardy to even attempt to influence how one is seen.

I need to be satisfied with the fact that -- when it was important to have those peacock feathers -- they were there.  I wore them well.  I lived a good part of my life as a very pretty woman, though it may surprise you to learn that this was hardly the way I saw myself at the time.  It's only in looking back that the obvious becomes clear.  I wonder just why that is?  Little came from that source except for the two husbands that I've out-lived,  both men who would have settled for far less than the complex woman that I was/am.  Most of my worth was recognized long after the "pretty" began to fade.  Physical beauty was little more than a distraction.  How fortunate that I've lived long and deeply enough to know that my tenure on Earth has been meaningful and far more grounded in reality than physical attributes would ever suggest.

... and when every breath is being laboriously breathed back into life through work of substance; after the last drop of juice is in the process of being squeezed out of the physical frame received at birth and re-shaped year-by-year -- when laughter is still a first response to it all -- this is what remains:

a frame from a film in production by Carl Bidleman

I'm being interviewed by our filmmakers upon return from the National Tree-lighting ceremony in Washington, and recalling a moment in the evening when I overheard someone explaining over the public address system why things were a bit delayed,"... we just heard that Miss Piggy is caught in traffic."  I was so deep into fantasy at that point -- the entire experience had become surreal -- that I remember thinking with all seriousness, "Someone should have told her not to drive!"

   

Pretty is a lovely thing to be, but is highly transitory when viewed through the rear vision mirror.

But I do still miss the pretty ... .

Maybe it was the altercation in Montana ... maybe it's simply the obvious rise in boorishness ... .

... but -- despite the fact that I'm living in days of unanticipated personal success and triumphs -- there is the undeniable pall of depression creeping up to blunt the good feelings far too soon.  Is this payment for last week's Brigadoon moment?  If so, it was worth every pang of insecurity and shared national embarrassment experienced while watching the national and international news of the past several hours.

How must all this be effecting those too young to have the long range of experience to have seen these periods of chaos that, at least for my generation,  are understood as cyclical?  That they've been occurring since at least 1776, and that the nation is subject to these political and social periods of upheaval from time to time.  Do they understand that it is in these periods of chaos and confusion that our democracy is being re-defined, adjusted, the "buttons" and systems re-set as we go forward onto the next platform upon which we will continue the great experiment that is America?  And that it is in these tumultuous times that we must put our shoulders to the wheel and work hard to recreate the future? That this is what is required "... in order to form that more perfect Union".  That these are the days that provide opportunity to together shape change, change that is irresistible and constant?

Can they possibly know that each generation has to re-create democracy in its time or it will die?  That it matters not whether it is voter apathy or voter suppression that is the cause, but that those slave-owning imperfect white men who founded our country created the pliant and resilient foundation upon which this participatory form of governance is based -- but that it must be maintained and nurtured by a succession of generations of imperfect human beings as we stumble on into whatever comes next?  And that we have become that multiracial multicultural nation of people because it is precisely those founding documents and practices that created us in the first place?  We were produced by the idealism embedded in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights by our better Angels.

... and, just maybe it is this newly emerging generation who are those better Angels.

At least that's who they appear to be to me in my less fearful moments ... .

So maybe I'll just ignore the boors and uncivil and try to remember how the world looked through the confetti of Commencement.

The NatureBridge Gala was Ga-lorious! ... .

It was held in San Francisco at the Bently Reserve, the beautiful historic building on Battery Street in the Financial District.  I gave the keynote address, followed by a speech by Dylan Lew, a handsome young high school student being honored as this year's  most outstanding participant in the environmental program for youth.  We made a great team, and I plan to be watching his rise in the Movement as he spreads his wings over the years to come.

Despite the headlines, hope springs eternal each time I find myself before audiences of such idealistic and energetic people of all ages, genders, races, ethnicities; those drawn to the environmental movement.

Last summer I was invited as a panelist to the Telluride Mountain Film Festival where I found myself both surprised and delighted with that crowd of the fit and tanned young men and women who people that world -- when they're not climbing mountains, filming great white sharks,  skiing down impossible slopes, probing the bottom of the sea, and saving endangered species while filming it all for the rest of us.  They seem to be doing all that good stuff that we ordinary folks don't have either the time or the financial resources to take on.  Came home thankful for the One Percenters, and vowed to silently support their efforts whenever and wherever possible.

I'm not sure that I can justify this attitude among my peers, but it made sense at 9,000 feet!

I felt somewhat the same way at the NatureBridge Gala.  That evening they raised $750,000 at their annual auction.  I tried to keep my eyebrows from rising to my hairline when a man at our table bid $50,000 on an item!

I know of the incredibly valuable work this organization provides -- an environmental education for thousands of school children every year; children from K through 12.  It is an amazing program that perfectly meshes with that of our National Park Service.

Our Rosie's Girls -- a summer program sponsored by our park that introduces middle school girls to non-traditional roles in the work place -- and that features two 3-week sessions that ends with a weekend trip to Yosemite --  which is fully funded by NatureBridge.  There is no cost to students which allows many to experience the wilderness for the very first time.  Some of our inner-city participants who have lived in the coastal Bay Area for their entire young lives, have never seen the Pacific Ocean.

It is impossible to be depressed despite current headlines when moving around in circles of great minds doing great things with the zest of a people who share an uncompromising expectation of a world that fully intends to meet its challenges and prevail.

I do believe ... .

Catching up in my journal ... this one slid by but needs documenting ... .

Author/historian Daniel Howe and photographer Simon Griffiths visited our park a few weeks ago to conduct an interview to be included in a book featuring profiles of National Park rangers across the country.  To be included in such a work is a great tribute when you consider that my history with the parks is relatively short compared to others.

I learned that they'd flown out from their homes in the Carolinas to spend a day each with Ranger Shelton Johnson of Yosemite National Park and me.  Of course, Shelton is the iconic park ranger who was featured in the Ken Burns huge PBS special on our national parks.  To be considered in the same league -- much less the same book -- as Shelton is beyond my wildest fantasies.

Filmmaker Carl Bidleman and his photographer, Stefan, were also on hand to cover that interview for inclusion in their 30-minute film in production for other purposes.  That film will feature my recent life as a park ranger and should be released in late fall.

Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

One lifetime in which any one of the great adventures of these past few years should occur, is unimaginable, yet ... .

Saturday, May 13,  2017, will go down in my personal narrative as comparable to the Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, or, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, or the sharing of the tree lighting ceremony with the First Family -- with that frayed-around-the-edges little picture of my great grandmother, Leontine Breaux Allen, clutched in that little maroon velvet pouch in my left hand as I introduced the president to the nation; the memory of the warmth of the hand of President Barack Obama as he slipped that coin engraved with the presidential seal into my palm ... all of it was embodied in that moment when the beautiful cowl was draped over my graying head and slipped into place by the gentle hands of President Elizabeth Hillman.

There were two teams of filmmakers somewhere out there in the audience of 4000, filmmakers who by now have become indistinguishable from my friends and were no longer to be feared or even noticed as they go about their work of documenting this extraordinary ordinary life of Betty Reid Soskin.  They've now been with me in the shadows for over a year, and by Saturday had become almost invisible despite the paraphernalia necessary to their mission, simply because there was so much in the way; family and friends scattered throughout the VIP section, over 200 graduates capped and gowned eagerly and daringly standing on the threshold of "Life". I'd caught a glimpse of my two sons and granddaughter, nieces, cousins, friends from my Unitarian world who are no longer a part of my daily life, but who helped to get me over many of the rough patches to today.  Friend and mentor Farai Chideya who had flown out from New York a few hours ago just for this ceremony, and would be back on the afternoon flight for her return trip!  My National Park Service family was well represented.

The young Muslim woman who gave the opening address, and who was wearing the traditional scarf covering her head but with 3 inch strapped heels, and California denim Levis peeking out from under her somber black robe!  Fiery political activist Lateefah Simon who gave the commencement address to an adoring audience -- and you knew somehow that -- given just a few more years on the earth, that I was watching the next rising star in the State legislature.

From the moment of arrival, I'd been shepherded from place to place by gracious Mills faculty, board members, all manner of hosts and hostesses, so that there was never a moment in which to connect with friends and family, which was one of the unexpected disadvantages.  I'm now receiving loving messages from many who were witnesses to my great moment, but were unable to ever connect during the event.

Also unanticipated was the strength and power of the "virtual" community that has now become the source of energy and courage that I'm consciously drawing from each time life hands me one of these larger than life experiences.  Some in that "family" have been with me for the past 25 years, from the world we created on Seniornet, an online community emanating from San Francisco many years ago.  Quill, Janina, Jayne, oh so many, whom I've never laid eyes on, but who have been the  wind beneath my wings for a very long time.

So much is owed to so many ... .

In those rare moments between thrills sitting on the platform as the graduates paraded past receiving  their diplomas, I was so aware that -- rather than "We shall overcome" playing in the back of my mind in the rich contralto of Mahalia Jackson, it was something quite unexpected.  This was my Brigadoon moment, and my black metaphors were hopelessly overwhelmed by a long life in the rich diversity of the greater Bay Area.  It wasn't the voice of the noble Dr. Martin Luther King whispering in my ear, but a tiny brown leprechaun resplendent in green garb sitting on my left shoulder channeling Al Jarreau riffin' on Look to the Rainbow!  

Oh, and this song, "Look at me", was written over 40 years ago.  Only the last line was changed to fit the occasion.  My music, including  Look at me, is becoming the sound track to one of the documentaries now being filmed.  There is talk of an album to be released along with the films.

Which  brings us to yesterday, the day after this memorable celebratory ceremony, but while I'm still in my paper hat ...

Photo by Mike Pompa

Look at me!

Look at me and you'll see how I'm flyin'!

Can't you see this is me, no more cryin'

Feel like I'm Series time and this is my inning

Maybe this is a game

but this time I'm winning!

People say she's like a girl from the moon

she's a dead one

Now I'm like a balloon

and a red one!

Twelve feel high still growin'

and all my dreams aglowin'

Look at me, look at me, look at me

Look at me, Look at me and you'll see

I'm finally a Mills woman!

Saturday brought another of the occasional interviewers to the Visitor Educator Center ...

... but this one was a bit out of the ordinary in that his name was Brian Yochim, and he was from St. Louis; an academic.  He wanted to interview me for a textbook he's writing for psychiatrists and psychologists.  The Psychology of Aging is his subject, and I suppose those of us at the upper end of the Pyramid of Life are increasingly of interest since there are so many more of us now than ever before in history.  How these years are spent by those of us fortunate enough to reach this final decade with our cognitive functioning intact are quite the phenomenon.

I've suspected for a long time that much of the interest in my work tends to lie in the fact that I'm such a late bloomer.  Though I cannot say that I didn't work -- I'd been a stay-at-home mom for the first half only but after having helped to start our little family business in Berkeley until motherhood took over my life.  Didn't have my first significant formal job until I was almost fifty, and have been working ever since.  That the National Park Service hired me as a permanent park ranger at 85 continues to bring smiles to the faces of the elders who stop in, especially when I playfully suggest that they keep their resumes updated, "you never know when the call will come!"

In this interview which was not from the usual perspective -- but from a very different line of inquiry, I became more aware of the fact that I'm now living day-to-day out of context.  My world is peopled by the young.  That probably effects the way I look at life, because there is far more future and hope in those under fifty than above the half-century mark.  I'm guessing that life would look much different were I living in a retirement community among peers.

Found myself wondering how much our attitudes about growing old are "caught" from the setting in which we find ourselves?  Wondering how much power lies in external definitions of the nature of aging?  Is the dementia so prevalent among those over 80 due to contagion?  Is the fact that -- as I am realistically dealing with end of life issues -- I'm still moored to the present through the environment that is provided by my work -- is that what's making the difference?  Has the ghettoizing of the elderly been destructive to our well-being?

Had my annual physical mid-week and was curious as to why the physician wasn't guided by the state of my well-being rather than what I'm projected to be at 95.  No longer are certain tests done routinely.  No longer checking for cholesterol levels, for instance.  There are tests that get dropped off the schedule after a certain age.  No mammograms.  No PAP smears.  (Have I outlived my PAP, maybe?).  Just a great young doctor going into raptures of delight at how great is my continuing state of excellent health, no meds except for a 12 mg tablet to control blood pressure, no chronic illnesses; no arthritis, no diabetes, no, no, no ... .  He says, "My God, you're like a 60 year-old!"  So why is he not treating me like a 60 year-old?  Why is he suddenly taking my blood pressure in a standing position "because that's what we do after 75," instead of sitting down as my fine state of health should demand?  But that's what the doctor's manual says, as he showed me on his computer when I looked quizzical.

I live in Hilltop Village, about a 35 year-old low to moderate income housing development where there are children, young parents, middle-aged couples and singles, dogs and cats galore, and at least one parrot.  My work involves day-to-day contact with young rangers with varied life experiences and attitudes plus a few of those nearing retirement age having put in their 20 years.  All are firmly invested in NOW, and are deeply engaged in meaningful work.

Really, by the end of the interview I found myself with more questions than answers ... .

I wonder if Mr. Yochim went home scratching his head and wondering, too?

Surprises abound!

Opened my federal IPad yesterday -- when the world was looking impossibly dark and unpredictable -- and there it was; a message from President Elizabeth Hillman of Mills College announcing that I'd been selected to receive an honorary doctorate at their May 13th commencement!  Can you imagine?  But of course you cannot.  No one could possibly understand how much this means.

I grew up at a time when college was only for the privileged.  Young women whose parents could afford to, sent them to higher education in order to enable them to marry well, though some were sincerely seeking higher learning in prescribed fields, getting an "Mrs." was worth far more than earning a Ph.D.,.

As a child of the depression era -- college was unthinkable, but being a part of the crowd heading into life-changing careers was important.  Like most parents, mine saw to it that the young men I was dating were those who were on the ladder to great things.  That I would aspire to be a student was not encouraged in the least, and was generally thought to be a waste of time for girls.  Graduating from high school was, at that time, quite enough.  I'd fulfilled my parent's hopes by the age of 18.  That I would be married and a mother (in that order, hopefully), by the time I was 21 would surely not fulfill my own ambitions, but being educated beyond high school was simply not a part of the equation.

Yes, that's me -- top row.

I grew up in East Oakland at a time when there was little opportunity to even ride past Mills College unless the bus on which I was riding was within range of that campus.  At such times I would ride by and wistfully wonder what magical things went on behind those lush ivied walls.  I could barely see beyond those magnificent fortress-like gates just off MacArthur boulevard  that led into who knows what Secret Gardens ... .  Maybe the likes of Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison, the Bronte sisters, Amelia Earhart, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Georgia O'Keefe, Jane Addams, Clara Barton,  Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony and Cady Stanton, Rachel Carson, Helen Keller, Madame Marie Curie, Louisa Mae Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe et al, were waiting behind those walls.

There was that turn in the road that would bring the scruffy flatlands into view as we descended from the foothills to our home on lower 83rd Avenue -- where such names might be rarely heard, but who were already familiar names to this inquiring young mind.  But, of course, I grew up as a second generation Californian studying from an exclusive curriculum designed for a white and homogeneous America.

It would be decades still before the wisdom, voices, and likes of Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Zola Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, Teri McMillan, Isabel Wilkerson, Sonya Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, Bell Hooks, Audre Lorde, Olivia Butler, Bessie Coleman, Dr. Mae Jemison, Ida B. Wells, Fanny Lou Hamer and our own Rep. Barbara Lee, could be imagined behind those walls of a by now more inclusive institution of higher learning. I only learned of Dr. Katherine Johnson, the brilliant physicist/mathematician of NASA fame, on Netflix a few nights ago!  Or that I would be a middle-aged 46 year-old woman when, in 1967, the Lovings would be imprisoned for loving one another enough to marry in the state of Virginia, a State where such unions were then prohibited by law.

No longer am I invisible or unrepresented.

I am worthy.

Education was generic then, and did not yet reflect the changing racial and cultural demographic of the City of Oakland that we've since grown into, though at that time (pre-Proposition 13) our state system of public instruction was the envy of the country and the world.  That I've experienced a long lifetime of an ever-evolving curiosity and always an avid reader probably harkens back to that early training under the guidance of a succession of strong white teachers who cared enough to nurture the spark evident in my questions despite the flawed social system imposed by the times.  Fortunately, to their credit, I was never forced to perform under the crushing burden of low expectations, though there are the lingering effects of cultural deprivation and expropriation still to be overcome.

I would be a young adult before Ruth Acty would become the first African American woman to be hired to teach in the public schools of California.

It was much later in life when -- in the early months as a new and untested member of staff of our park -- Martha Lee, our superintendent, received an invitation for someone to participate on a panel sponsored by the National Women's History Project's annual national conference to be held on the Mills campus, and no one else was available to send.

The assignment would present my very first opportunity to be behind those beautiful ivy-covered walls and storied historic buildings -- and I could hardly wait.  That was in spring of 2006, and as the result of my participation on that panel, I was named as one of ten of the Women, Builders of Communities and Dreams, honored nationally in ceremonies both at Griffiths Park in Los Angeles, and in Washington, D.C. at the historic John Hay Hotel -- just across from the expansive grounds of the White House.  This would be my introduction to the nation's capitol, and life was never the same thereafter.

Mills College and I now have a shared history, and that this beautiful campus should now become the site of this ultimate honor caps the dream that was so far beyond imagination of that little girl of color riding so wistfully by on the MacArthur Avenue bus line so long ago, dreaming the impossible dream ... .

Those little girls of color are still riding past ... past those seemingly forbidding gates that, symbolically, stand for the unseen forces against which so much energy must still be expended.  To some those gates may still be perceived as protecting those within from those without.  There is still little awareness of the depths of unexplored potential, or, that the barriers of old have lost much of their power to exclude the curious, or limit the reach of those who aspire to greatness.  Over time, Mills College has contributed much to the lessening of the obstacles to fulfillment for so many.  In all of our names, I thank you.

... and, it is true that all things are possible, even if one has to wait a very long lifetime for the fantasy to become breathingly, livingly, and lovingly real!

In our little theater in a moment of reflection post-talk (Getty image)

Interview with Richard Dion from The Soul of California, Podcast from Germany ... .

... went well, I think, though I have no way of knowing, actually.  I have no idea what audience it will be aired for, or -- since it was in English and not German -- whether the intended audience is in Europe or the United States.  The Internet had made the world so small that one can originate programming from almost anywhere -- including outer space.  The direct connections have been obscured irreversibly.

It occurred to me that -- when I'm giving my talks in our little theater with its limited seating capacity (48) the intimacy is so clear -- that it's possible to deal with sensitive subjects easily, and that fact colors my presentations, and keeps my truths fresh for me.  As long as I can see faces that are hearing my words for the first time, those words continue to be alive for me.  Were that not true I think my talks would not be possible without gradually going predictable and boring.

My talks tend to vary over time, with differences in stresses and accents because my audiences continue to bring newness and freshness with them each time they enter into my small circle of listeners.  New questions give rise to new or changing memories; the dynamism goes on.

It is hard for me to establish those conditions with a radio audience.  If I allow myself to stray from the singular voice of the person on the other end of the telephone line -- it tends to become diffuse and I lose focus.  On the other hand, if I simply stay with that voice (an audience of one) maybe  something gets lost ... .

I'm so dependent upon the ambiance provided by my setting that it's hard for me to judge whether my effectiveness comes through when the access to those faces, eyes, questions, are not possible -- as in radio interviews -- that these are a waste of time and yield little but noise.

Maybe that uncertainty is the reason that I tend to never listen to those programs after the fact.  Maybe I'm afraid that I've not lived up to expectations -- the reason my opinions are sought by
"the World," and that I must not trust this publicity-manufactured celebrity at all.

I truly don't know.