Sensory Overload

It's About Community and Vision ~ and some Luck

My motivation is, what I keep learning ~ from the people, from the cities, from the governments.  I don't keep doing this because I have so much to offer  ~ I keep doing it because I have so much to learn. ~ Mark Hildebrand, 2 April 2008.

I just returned from a compelling lecture by Mark Hildebrand at U.C Berkeley's Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD), in the Global Metro Studies department.  Before today, I'd never heard of Mark Hildebrand, but after today his words will ring in my mind every time I get discouraged with my work, which, lately, has been often.

Mark helped establish the Cities Alliance at the World Bank in 1998, and built it into a global coalition of cities and development partners which, in short, works to create 'Cities Without Slums'. More specifically, Mark's mission through the Cities Alliance was to help cities in developing countries cultivate strategic decision-making in managing urban growth ("City Development Strategies"), to realize the positive impacts of urbanization, and to unleash the potential of cities in managing urban growth to reduce poverty ('slum upgrading') as well as prevent the creation of new slums.

Why was I at this lecture, entitled 'Policy Choices and Slums'?  How did I get to leave work early to attend this lecture on global issues, you ask?  Because the invitation to the lecture pointed out that "slums are not inevitable -- they are the result of failed policies, not poverty.  Policies which anticipate urban growth and promote city-wide inclusion strategies can pre-empt environmental degradation and health risks and help nations realize the positive impacts of urban growth."  And, while we do not have "slums" per se in Oakland, we do struggle with a serious level of poverty and blight, some of it exacerbated over the years by short-sighted land-use policy decisions (or non-decisions) from previous Administrations.  We must also address serious environmental issues, both because of the Port and the impending peak oil collapse.  To compound it all, we also face significant population growth: the projected population growth for Alameda County is 18.3% from 1997 to 2010, and 28.2% from 1997 to 2020.  Here in Oakland, there is intense debate over zoning, land development, and housing issues on how to best manage density and affordable housing, and how to attract business, and how to serve our current residents.  It is a Herculean task.

So, while my job focuses on a tiny corner of the world called Oakland, I often seek out lectures and seminars on global urban development because there is always a parallel in the issues that cities (and local governments) face, whether in California or Cameroon.   What I expected most out of this job is that we truly are directly accountable to everyone in Oakland, not just the voters ~ and in turn, I wanted that to mean that I could directly create change, however small, here within our city limits ~ even change inspired by people and programs on the other side of the world.  Often, too, I am desperate for innovation, for creative development solutions that seem to only occur in developing countries where red-tape doesn't act as a blindfold over vision nor suffocate community voice.  So, I set out to attend a lecture on global poverty, to regain my local focus and inspiration.

According to a 2006 UN-Habitat Report, globally, the slum population is set to grow at the rate of 27 million per year in the period 2000 to 2020.  Mark's lecture focused on Sub-Saharan Africa (where he lived for many years), where 72% of the urban population lives in slums; Latin America and Caribbean, with 134 million slum dwellers; and Asia where slum dwellers make up approximately 60% of the world's total slum population.

Mark discussed the lessons learned in implementing the Cities Without Slums goal in various countries, including innovative programs (and some success) in Brazil, Thailand, and Morocco, as well as shortcomings in several cities.  Ultimately, Mark wants to unleash the potential of cities, noting that the key challenges should serve as guiding goals:

• Cities need to be transformed into proactive developers of urban infrastructure, rather than passive service providers.
• Cities need to mobilize domestic capital.  In Oakland this means creating opportunities for local entrepreneurship, training our work force, and retaining and attracting business.
• We must nurture a well-managed City benefiting the environment.
• We must develop policies predicated on growth.
• We must create a conducive climate for the informal sector.

In other words, Mark said, instead of debating the contribution of cities to development, more energy needs to be spent on unblocking it.  (I wish he would come say this at Open Forum at one of our City Council meetings.)  Overall, Mark stressed the importance of capacity building and coherence at the local government level, and the need to create community building strategies, not just housing strategies.  Mark knows this ~ in addition to the countless cities he has assisted in developing countries, he also built 360 classrooms in rural Chad.  That fact is the one he said with the most pride.

After the lecture, I spoke briefly with Mark, about the parallels between the global issues he addresses in his work and the local issues we face here in Oakland.  I asked him, if he had one element of his model to impress upon our local leaders, what would it be?  He answered simply, "It's about the community, and vision ~ the community vision."

Somehow I overcame my awe of this man and continued speaking with him, eventually asking him how he started in this amazing line of work ~ of life.  He said he is actually an Architect and, decades ago, he tried for about two years to work on this type of urban development.  He said that through a friend he snagged an interview for a job in Tanzania.  It was clear the interviewer was not interested in hiring Mark and so he continued his job search.  A year or so later, a house Mark built was featured in a magazine.  The man who had interviewed him saw the article and called Mark ~ and hired him.  The rest, as they say, is history.  "It's about luck," he said.

After that, I introduced myself to the Professor, thanking him for allowing me to barge into his class.  It turns out the lecture I was invited to was actually the regular class of about 10 students ~ I felt like an interloper, bringing local concerns to a class about global issues.  But it turns out the class is conducting a study project on People's Grocery, which is in West Oakland.  The Professor said he'd like to invite me back to the class to discuss local issues ~ and maybe even to give a presentation.  After Mark's lecture, I was humbled and honored (amazed) the Professor even considered me.

And so I left, inspired, motivated, and hoping I can make my way into some kind of luck ~

Pensamientos Porteños ~

~ Well, not really the literal translation as in "Buenos Aires Thoughts," since I'm not from Bs.As., but more like a few personal thoughts or observations on the nine days I just spent visiting that great city.  Since Buenos Aires is a Port city, residents call themselves Porteños (not only to identify with the City-Port, but apparently to also mark their identity as unique from the rest of Argentina).  Now that I'm back in Oakland, which is also a Port city, I think Bs.As. has inspired me to shake up City Hall with a campaign to call ourselves something sexy like Porteños ~ but that is a post for another day.  If you have any suggestions, let me know.

So, my trip.  For better or worse, given my law school education and legal-eagle eye, my first impression of Buenos Aires screamed TORT(!) and TORT LIABILITY(!).  It became clear to me that, for better or worse, the look and feel of Buenos Aires is not dictated by liability issues, lawyers, and/or an overly-litigious society.  In fact, I became curious pretty quickly about how Porteños view attorneys.  That's why I laughed when I read that the Porteño slang for an attorney is/was "lavandero," which means laundryman in Spanish.  Very soon after this lawyerly intrusion into my enjoyment of Buenos Aires, I did notice other great aspects of the City ~ but let me start first with the tort-related sights.

Deadly Intersections

At many street corners, there is no Stop sign, no stop light, and no painted cross walk for pedestrians.  Nothing.  The controlled chaos was mesmerizing.  One night, I saw two buses careening down two perpendicular cobblestone streets, heading for the same intersection ~ they came within inches of each other, and both screeched to a halt.  Then, while taxis and pedestrians streamed around the two buses, like a river forking into two streams around two boulders, one bus driver calmly gave the signal (like a symphony conductor's swoop of the hand) for the other bus driver to go on through the intersection.  One bus ambled on, its air brakes sighing and moaning loudly about the near-miss. 

At other intersections, most pedestrians, even moms toting young children, often tested the odds, choosing to outrun the car heading towards them ~ believe me, the cars do not slow down when they see you cross the street.  Often, even in a close call between pedestrian and car, everyone seems to treat it as an ordinary event ~ the pedestrian might hang back a little while the car literally brushes past him ~ or the car might weave around the pedestrian at the last minute.  But there did not seem to be a set policy on who has the right of way, or when, or on speed limits.  As any Porteño will tell you: las calles son un quilombo por el transito. 

I began romanticizing the notion of this dance everyone does at the intersections, even the ones with a stop light and/or a cross-walk ~ how you must just "get used to it" and not blink an eye as you face down a taxi barreling towards you ~ until someone told me two buses did collide last week and until I read (when I got home) several articles explaining how traffic accidents and fatalities are a serious problem all over Argentina.

So, while I tested my street bravado a few times, often I would wait until there was absolutely no car or moped within a mile radius before trying to cross a street.  It will be interesting to see how community groups, non-profits, and the government address this serious traffic safety issue.

Sidewalks

Almost every sidewalk I walked down had tiles or bricks missing -- I stumbled more than once, but it seems as if the locals just know how to navigate the fractured sidewalks as well as they know how to careen around the cobblestone streets.  You do not know, or maybe you do, how many Personal Injury lawyers in the U.S. get rich filing "slip and fall" and even "trip and fall" claims against municipalities and private entities for a plaintiff who has injured himself on a "faulty" sidewalk.  In Buenos Aires, and I suspect in almost every place except the United States, the motto seems to be, "Watch Your Damn Step," and "Be Careful," and finally, "If You Trip, It's Your Own Damn Fault."  I liked that.  What a refreshing way to walk down an imperfect sidewalk.

Our walks were incredibly enjoyable and trip-free, and the occasional crack in the sidewalk just made it all more of a Wabi-Sabi Walk.

Children and Families

Like countless other cities, scenes of families enjoying the parks, or working together, or sitting together on the stoop, dominated the urban landscape around me as we enjoyed miles of walking around different Barrios.  Kids ran free, sometimes unattended, in parks, along dusty streets, in plazas ~ I never saw a child on one of those awful parent-child leashes which I see in so many malls here at home.  Even better, there was no yelling of "get back here" or "it's your turn to watch him" ~ adults could carry on their own conversation, with that secret parent's third eye keeping watch.

We talked about how overly protected some kids are, some of the ones we've seen here at home ~ Moms and Dads debating whose turn it is to watch the kids, worrying over child kidnapping stories, wanting to sanitize everything the kids touch, worrying their child will suffer a bump or a bruise while playing, etc. 

I told the story of how, before I started law school, I lived for several months with friends, a new Mom and Dad, and how different they each approached child rearing.  Even when it was the Dad's turn to watch the toddler, the Mom would worry over what her baby girl might be getting into ~ Dad usually left his power tools around, or looked away just at the moment that the toddler placed a glob of dirt in her mouth.  The Dad would usually shrug it off saying, "Aw, she'll just build a stronger immune system ~ a little dirt never hurt anyone," or "Well, she'll learn the hammer hurts if she drops it."  I agreed ~ but I couldn't say so because I don't have kids.

But Gever Tully doesn't have kids either, and he gave a fun TED Talk entitled, 'Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do'.  He describes how allowing kids a certain freedom will nurture them to be creative, confident, and in control of the environment around them.  In Buenos Aires, I saw just that, and parents who were watching but not worried ~ it was nice.

Fortunately, my "Tort Blinders" soon came off and I enjoyed so many other elements of Buenos Aires:

Desayuno

Apparently, croissants are fat-free, low in calories, and good for your skin in Bs.As. because everyone has at least one, often two, for breakfast EVERY DAY ~ yet they are slender and beautiful.  How do they do that?

Most mornings (or afternoons as it were, when I took sleeping-in to new levels), we each had, simply, un café y dos media lunas for breakfast.  After day one, I started adding butter or jam to the croissants.  At a few places, they brought us a basket of croissants and small rolls, so that I may have, ahem, lost count of how many I had on any given morning, (justifying the carb-binge with the long walk we would take afterwards, on the way to lunch, see below).  After a few days I started ordering a fried egg, just to add some protein to the buttery sweetness that jolted me awake each morning.  By day 6 or 7, I just wanted some granola and yogurt ~ but it does not exist, at least not where we were, in San Telmo.  Then, on the flight home from Bs.As., they served medialunas for breakfast!  Ay, if I eat one more carb I think I will explode.  All in all, though, each desayuno was lovely.

Parillas Perfectas

Quite simply, the steak is an art form in Buenos Aires, and there is a parilla on every street.  Everyone will tell you the steaks are cooked perfectly, not really needing much seasoning, and the choice of cuts is impressive.  But what I liked best is that often when you order a steak, that's what you get, a huge slab of perfect steak ~ no need for side dishes, except perhaps a small ensalda mixta ~ and a cup of wine. It is heaven.  I was raised in Houston, where not only are the steaks huge, but they usually came with a side of lobster, a baked potato dripping in butter and sour cream, and even prawns wrapped in bacon. Seriously.  I have seen that platter.  In Buenos Aires, your plate might look like what we had on my last afternoon, at La Raya in San Telmo.  Morfamos como chanchos (pero cute chanchos)!

The Cheek Kiss Greeting

My first day in Buenos Aires, we went to Paula's house for lunch.  When Paula opened the door, I instinctively held out my right hand to shake her hand, but then in that nanosecond I noticed she had leaned in towards me, and reached her right hand up to place on my left shoulder, and had clearly intended to give me a cheek kiss hello ~ which I quickly learned is the greeting all Porteños use ~ for men and women.  I felt so rude!  I meekly walked into the next room, where four strangers were introduced to me ~ and each one warmly grabbed my shoulder as they kissed me hello.  It was lovely.  Later we all shared beer and lunch, and then mate ~ a gringo, una Mexicana, tres Porteños, a Brazilian, and a Norwegian; it was perfect.

The next night, at Paula's going-away party, I was ready for some cheek-to-cheek kissing!  We walked into the party room to about nine smiling faces sitting around a large table filled with food and drinks ~ it took forever to kiss everyone hello, which made it that much sweeter.  Then, every time someone new arrived, we watched as that person ran around the table kissing every person hello (and later, kissing each one goodbye).  I say we all adopt this wonderful custom and kiss each other on the cheek the next time we see each other.  If you're a macho man worried about kissing other men hello, take a moment to read this hilarious post with step-by-step instructions on "how to kiss other men as smoothly and casually as a native Porteño." ~ :)

Pocho Spanish vs. Porteño Spanish

Apparently, Spanish, which was my first language, is "quite good" according to some Porteños.  My first night out with them, though, a few couldn't understand a word I said, although that night, there was Tequila and beer and wine involved, so that might have added to the language barrier.  At that party, someone had to literally translate my clipped pocha Spanish/accent into the fluid Rioplatense Spanish they speak in Buenos Aires.  Believe me, this caused me great grief.  To top it off, when one of them asked me, "que eres?" I automatically answered, as I always do, "soy Mexicana."  Then he asked where I was born and when I said, "los Estados Unidos," he corrected me and said, "Bueno, entonces no eres Mexicana."  Oh the existential angst that crept up for me had to be washed down with a swig of cool Heineken.

And that is another blog post for another day........

musing

It comes in threes for me, it seems ~ inspiration ~ often three seemingly disconnected events dance around me in synchronicity, until I notice how the elements attract each other, how they fit together, and how their combined force amplifies the electricity of the epiphany that shocks, then soothes, me.

Last Saturday night, after about four hours of a grueling hike against the wind to a snow hut that dangles precipitously on the edge of a ridge in the Sierras, I sat at a wooden table with three strangers and two friends.  The low, flickering light from the lone candle cast long shadows on the white-washed walls.  As we sipped wine and Manhattans and Maker's Mark (in my hot cocoa), and as the dense cloud of a marshmallow bobbed up and down in my cocoa, I soaked in the warmth of the night, despite the freezing, frantic winds howling outside.  Later I will write about the actual weekend and the snow trekking that I never thought my body could withstand, but for now I want to think only about the bright smile of the person who recommended I read the book Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

I bought the book a few days ago and put it at the top of my pile of "books to read" ~ the books near the bottom of the pile sighed sadly, resigned to the fate of waiting even longer to seduce me.  But Three Cups of Tea seemed confused when I walked away, leaving it naked and unopened at the top of the pile, wondering what it could have done to entice me right away.  But I was thinking about it ~ and that counts.

Then a couple of days ago, a lovely twitter friend posted a stream of tweets chronicling a conversation with someone she adores, who wanted to tell her about the death and birth of stars ~ she didn't want to forget what he was telling her about the infinite mass (and thereby possibility) of space and time ~ so she flung his words (and her fascination with him) into cyberspace, to seep in under the skin of someone like me.

So I remembered ~ and I checked ~ yes, new stars are born out of the atoms and molecules of stars that have exploded, and gravity is the driving force behind the birth of a new star.  And, although gravity is a weak force, it has an infinite range, so that slowly but surely it pulls the particles together, and they then accelerate inwards.  The process is very slow, but there is all the time in the universe for it to happen.

And I liked that. 

Then it reminded me of the massive midnight-blue sky above me that night at the snow hut ~ I went out after dark to walk around and was mesmerized by the infinite salty sky above me ~ that's what it looked like to me ~ salt everywhere, the seemingly random granules forming protective walls around the beautiful constellations.

So today I took the book with me to the tea shop, and over two pots of tea, as the steam floated up and made the still-present salt in my eyes burn, I read this in the first chapter, aptly titled, 'Failure':

The wind picked up and the night became bitterly crystalline.  He tried to discern the peaks he felt hovering malevolently around him, but he couldn't make them out among the general blackness. ... Sleep, in this cold, seemed out of the question.  So Mortenson lay beneath the stars salting the sky and decided to examine the nature of his failure.

And so I did that a little ~ really sitting at the counter with my Failure and asking it how I did it all so wrong.  It sipped tea with me a while ~ and the tango music on the speakers taunted me ~ we both sighed.  As I finished off my food and sipped the last of the tea, Failure put its heavy arm around me and walked with me outside.  And then it let me cross the street alone, on to the place where I needed to be next.

in a moment ~

~ a perfect moment can seem like the sweetest lifetime ~

On Thursday nights I gather with a small and sweet group of friends to work on a semi-writing volunteer project; it's very private, it's very intense ~  and every Thursday night, the starry sky on my drive home is infused with the pale yellow tint of the laughter they evoke from me, and the brooding midnight-blue of B's smoky voice, the fire-engine red of the sparks that bounce off of Y's curls when she talks, or the copper-coated words of comfort R throws into the pot of proclamations we all take turns stirring up.

On those Thursdays, there is usually a moment, sometimes two or three or six, where my heart lights up as I watch someone's eyes glimmer with Understanding or Passion or, even, Need.  Although we have a certain task to work on, often personal stories come out, and so I have learned bits and pieces of each person's history or home life ~ some of it intensely private so that I could never share it here; but I can share what the experience is like for me, learning about people in this way.  There are some groups where the work is the focus, and personal issues don't seep in as any sort of distraction ~ those groups feel close, without really being intimate.  But intimacy in some groups, for some work, is so vital ~ and I'm so glad to have stumbled upon a group of hard-working people who are so open to being so raw sometimes; and with whom I fall in love all over again every week.  This doesn't mean we see each other during the rest of the week, or that we hold hands and sing Kumbaya on Thursdays.  Instead, I get to experience  jewel-like moments with them that I then get to slip into my pocket so that I turn that moment over with my fingertips, touching every smooth corner of the thought or the sentiment, for the rest of the week ~ it means that I get to spend the rest of the week thinking about these people, and appreciating them, and really taking to heart the things they say.

Last Thursday, someone made a strong statement, and another person asked, "Why would you do that?"  Without pausing, the first person responded ~ "Because I have your heart in my hand."

It shook me up, it rattled my cage of thoughts ~ we haven't known each other very long and I was taken aback that someone would say something that intimate and mean it, and be so protective.  It made me think of the people who say and do things knowing they have my heart in their hands, and so are very careful with it; and it reminded me of the people who don't do that; and it showed me the complete strangers who do that were looking right at me.

The moment hung in the air for a nanosecond, and the conversation continued ~ on to something else ~ but now the conversation, and these relationships I am forming, are cradled in these protective hands ~ so I think I will swing in that cradle for a bit, to see what it feels like when people are careful with your heart.

I wasn't going to write about this but then I heard a show and an album about those moments ~ that flash of a moment where you fall in love, or your world changes ~ and so I felt like the Universe was telling me to just spit it out ~ to tell this little story.

First, I listened to the Valentine's Day episode of This American Life.  Sometimes I like the Prologue much better than the actual acts, and that was the case with this episode.  In the Prologue, Ira Glass speaks with Richard Klein of Cornell University, who explains that the way we view love really began with love poems in the 13th century — an illusion.  Ira Glass asked "what do we talk about when we talk about love?"  His answer ~ "this very moment" ~ the moment you feel it.  Richard Klein said it is that "coup de foudre," that bolt of lightning, of seeing someone and instantly falling in love.  The Prologue wasn't about the aftermath, or the reality of it all, or how love changes ~ it was about simply the moment that your life changes, when you fall in love.  For me, it seems to be every Thursday night.

For Richard Klein, it is Petrarch and Il Canzoniere, which Petrarch wrote for Laura, the woman into whose eyes he looked and fell instantly in love, but with whom he had little or no personal contact, ever.  There is a wonderful collection on-line of Petrarch's work, with the simple caption: For a woman he would never know, For a woman he could never have, He should change the world forever.  The passion that Laura deNoves stirred in Francesco Petrarch led him to compose the first lyric love poems ever written ~ 366 of them to be exact, all an ode to Laura.  I envy the impression she made.  Even near the end of the obsession, in poem 352, Petrarch writes vividly about the profound impact of that first glance:

Spirto felice che sí dolcemente
volgei quelli occhi, piú chiari che 'l sole,
et formavi i sospiri et le parole,
vive ch'anchor mi sonan ne la mente:

Happy spirit that glanced so sweetly
from those eyes, brighter than the sun,
and formed the sighs and speech,
so alive they still echo in my mind:

From an Italian, 13th century Renaissance humanist to a 21st century SoCal self-described pocha blogger, matters of the heart are still what drives us to write with passion, to write about the impact on our being of that first moment we look into that other person's eyes ~ and we are changed forever.  Petrarch wrote that before that moment one lives in a life of distraction, and when we encounter the eye of the other, it turns you into something else ~ all you want to do is to return over and over to that ~~ to that feeling, that impact, that moment.   

In the podcast, Richard Klein also  explained that the ancient Greeks had (at least?) two verbs for "seeing" or "to see."  The first verb means "caring observation" ~ the second refers to "the look the eyes can flash, like lightening, like dragon breath, that not only illuminates the eyes, but sends out the kind of fire that penetrates the eye of the other ~ a separate word for that moment when the eyes flash and imply a fateful encounter."

We all know that feeling ~ that moment of initial rapture ~ we all also know quite well that it doesn't last; it's just a dream.  But it seems to me that the most profound people are the ones who love finding it all over again with the person who elicited the feeling in the first place.

And so Thursday I look forward to falling in love again with the colorful batch of spirits who help me write ~

On that note, I leave you with this song, Tiny Heart and Clever Hand [mp4], by Tender Forever, off their Wider album.  (It's sweet and funny and fun ~ stick around past the howling wolves in the Intro.)  I think Tender Forever's biography fits the theme, and Me, perfectly today:

Melanie Valera is the throbbing heart and head philosopher of the solo band, Tender Forever. She cut her performance teeth on the street of her hometown of Bordeaux, France, covering sixties girl bands standards for money for a whole year as part of the Bonnies. Along with this enriching, character-building experience, this hyperactive lady started a long-distance electro-pop project with an American friend she had met on the very last day of her trip to S.F., Ca. Garrison Rocks, a spontaneous love-at-first-sight band, endured and evolved, up until becoming a Franco-American orchestra including 3 new members. The team performed about 40 shows in 7 months, notably with Little Wings (K recs.) and Ted Leo (Lookout).

Oh, and the Hand Open With Heart is a mosaic by Cleo Mussi.

tell me something good . . .

an intimate conversation, a closeness despite the differences between you, an old soul in a new friend ~

then a long drive home, the lights on the bridge getting brighter, closer ~ as you ponder the profound impact of a gentle voice ~

is a lovely way to spend a Thursday evening.

I spent time tonight with my friend 'Y'.  We are new friends, but she is so open, so honest, so raw at times it amazes me how she contains it all, or how a song hasn't been written about her yet.  She brims with emotion, with wisdom and warmth ~ like the cup of tea you need at the end of a long day. She listens with her heart and her eyes ~ she speaks from the soul, from her core.  And you can't help but listen ~ really listen.

Y told me about some difficult times she has had ~ about that low point that many (only a few?) of us reach when we have been dragged down by doubt ~ in ourselves and in others.  For some, that point means forgetting all the great things about yourself.  So many of us have done things to try to feel better about ourselves and/or numb the pain ~ some sleep around, some drink, some run away, many of us bury ourselves in work so we're not distracted by the emotions we don't know what to do with ~ some of us write about it so we don't have to live it.  We all do something about it, for better or worse.  Y did something about it, too.

One day she sent an email to some friends and family and, I say through sheer courage, she says through sheer need to survive, she asked them all simply, "Tell me something good about myself; I need to hear it." 

She was inundated with responses. 

I told Y how a few weeks ago our friend 'N' told me, "Think of something you really really want. ~ Now, I have no idea what it is unless you tell me."  So many of us never really tell others what we really really want ~ not as in world peace or universal health care, but that other thing, that one "thing" you need to make it all better  ~ have you told anyone about that? 

Well, Y did ~ she admitted to a whole group of people what she needed. And when she read all the responses, all the wonderful things about her, she thought, "Well then, they can't all be wrong!"  And she smiled at me.

For some of my friends, if I tried that, they would likely punch me in the arm.  I have one friend who, when I make her laugh (which is often, usually at my expense), she will put her arm around me, kiss my cheek and giggle, "damn I love you."  So, I'll take what I can get.

You think you know what I'm going to ask you, don't you? 

Well, I do want you to do something ~ I want you to think of that vital person you haven't seen in a year or in a week, or the person you woke up next to this morning, or the person you wished you had woken up next to ~ that person you should call or email or tweet or DM or text or scream at across the house ~ and I want you to tell them what you like about them ~

tell them something good ~ about themselves.  don't wait until they need to hear it.

Go ahead ~ I'll wait ~ then come back here and tell me what it was like.

And for no particular reason, or maybe at least one good one, this song [mp3] to close the evening ~ or start the day, since it's 1 am. ~ ;-)

(my) relativity of memory

        Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. 
                ~ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Thursday night over dinner, a friend asked, "What was your childhood like?" Just like that, out of the blue, over a pink lemonade with a bright green sprig of mint floating on top, and red lanterns reflecting in the window watching over us.

I've been asked this question before; we all have.  Without thinking, I almost uttered my usual answer: "I don't remember."  But I stopped for a bit, I thought about it again, I squeezed my eyes and tried to shake out at least one memory ~ like the final flavorful granules out of an empty salt shaker ~ but none came.  And so my answer was the same: "I don't remember."

But I wasn't talking about childhood amnesia (the common inability of adults to remember the earliest years of their childhood, typically anything before age 3 or 4).  No, my marker is age 14 ~ I told my friend I cannot remember anything, well no structured memory, before I was age 14.  I explained that our family home burned down when I was 14, on Christmas Eve; a brand new house, with brand new everything, a Christmas tree overflowing with presents, and everything inside but the clothes on our backs. The fire was so traumatic that my memories seem to begin with that event; everything before seems to have been erased.  I wrote about the fire before, briefly ~ about fleeting Fire Memories.  But Thursday night I told my friend more details about the fire ~ important moments of that particular day that I have not told anyone, no one.  In so doing, it made me remember one more important detail about what happened that day ~ something I had never thought about before; it's important, and so now I need to fit that piece into the puzzle that the fire has been for me for so many years.  So, while I was lightly liberated, in revealing something to someone that I have never uttered before to another living soul, I was also more deeply distracted by what the revelation means.  I suspect it will take another decade to figure it out.   As I sat there and thought about all this, and as my friend stared at me with wide disbelieving eyes, I realized the song playing on the restaurant's speakers was one of my favorites: El Cuarto de Tula [mp3] by Cuarteto Patria.  Really.  The song is about the firemen, with their bells and their sirens, rushing to Tula's room, which is on fire.  The utter irony danced around me as Eliades Ochoa taunted me with his melody ~~ Ay mamá, ¿qué pasó....

I don't know if changing the pieces of the puzzle, or filling it out more completely, will help me remember more about my childhood ~ but for now, I remember only 4 specific things:

(1) The smell of the cafeteria in my elementary school.  At certain moments in my adult life, I have recognized the smell, which I can't describe, and I remembered my elementary school ~ I don't remember my friends, or what the school looks like, or  even if my siblings were born yet ~ only the smell.  It is comforting, despite the darkness of the canvas surrounding it.

(2) I have a tiny heart-shaped scar on top of my left foot; right on the bony part.  When my family lived on the North Side of Houston, in a tiny apartment in the 'hood, I walked to the corner store with someone, but I can't remember whom.  We bought a huge bottle of Coca Cola ~ they were still made of glass back then.  I carried the bottle home, and just before we made it to the front yard, the bottle slipped and broke across my left foot.  I can't even remember how old I was.  I only remember the glint of the sun in the shards of Coca-Cola glass, and standing barefoot and bloody in the steamy summer heat that wafted up from the warm sidewalk.  I don't remember any other part of that day.

(3) I have a small scar, like a small brush stroke, right at the corner of my right eye.  If I were a chola, the scar is where I would have them ink the tear-drop tattoo.  One summer in Matamoros (I don't remember how old I was), a family friend or cousin and I were playing in the street.  Either we started playing rough, or he got mad at me, but from several feet away he flung a twig or a stick at me ~ hard.  I remember watching the twig propel itself towards me and at the last possible millisecond, I twitched my head to left and closed my eyes ~ the twig punctured a small spot of skin, right at the bony edge of my eye socket.  My grandparents, realizing how bad it could have been, made it that much worse for the boy who threw the stick at me.  I can't remember at all who the boy was or is.

(4) There is a small imprint of a steel beam, in the shape of a tiny leaf, on the bridge of my nose ~ right between my eyes.  I don't remember how old I was, but well before I was 14 I can assure you, somehow my family convinced me to be a cheerleader (along with my sister) for my little brother's flag football team.  I don't remember any of the game that day, or ever cheering at any of the games, or any of the other little girls on the cheerleading team.  The uniforms were maroon I think, with white turtlenecks maybe.  But at that one game, or maybe it was the first and only game for me, I remember that it was time for us to line up on either side of the goal post, to hold the banner between the posts so that the football players could burst through it, onto the field.  Just as I was about to take my place on the field, I think my mom dropped her car keys under the bleachers ~ she was sitting up pretty high and far back.  She insisted I go grab her keys ~ I was furious.  So, in my Arrona-stubborn-step, I stomped under the bleachers, found her keys in the grass, bent down hurriedly to pick them up, and whirled around ~ smack dab nose-first into a steel beam.  Maybe I never went back and cheered at any games, who knows.  It was my fault, for rushing under there and stomping around ~ I remember that ~ and I remember vividly the lightening between my eyes when the edge of the steel beam ripped into the bridge of my nose.  And the kids at school making fun of me when I went to class with a bandage or band-aid across my nose. 

I think that's it.  And these memories I remember because I have a physical reminder of each one ~ a sense of each of these moments has been ingrained in me ~ on me.  If I didn't have any physical scars, would I remember less?  Or more?  This has been a lifelong struggle, well at least since I was 14 ~~ to remember what it was like, what *I* was like, at age 7 or 8 or 9 or 10.  When I see my friends' children, and I see how fully their personalities are formed at those ages, and even younger, I wonder to myself what I may have been like ~ did I make profound philosophical statements like Jaq does?  Or did I emote as much as Dylan does, or use puns like she does?  Did I ask questions like Shelby does?  Did I read the dictionary like Diandra did when she was 7 or 8?  Did I shrug my shoulders and sigh like Rudy Jr. does?

For most people, looking at childhood photographs may jog their memory ~ a photo of you in the bathtub when you were 6 may help you remember that you wrestled with your brother in the mud that day.  A photo of you smiling broadly may help you remember it was the day your braces came off.  But for me, for my family, most of our photographs burned in the fire.  We've never even talked about the fire.  Ever.

There is a concept called the Forgetting Curve ~ it illustrates the decline of memory retention in time (the "speed of forgetting").  But related to the Forgetting Curve is the concept of strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain ~ that is, the stronger the memory, the longer we can remember it.

That's why photos, actual printed photos not just pixels on my Flickr account, mean so much to me.  And what photos represent, well it means that much more ~ a firestorm of memory more. ~ One August, a lifetime ago, I stayed up all night making a scrapbook, a memory book, for someone ~ an attempt to capture all of the good memories in one place, to make them all tangible so that they could be made worth their weight in gold.  But, the person didn't even really look through the scrapbook until days later, and the scrapbook stayed behind while the person moved on around the world; and the scrapbook was tossed into a box with other knick knacks and books, and put into storage, shortly thereafter; it's sitting alone in the dark, as memories are apt to do, I suppose.

But I want to remember.  I want it to have meant something ~ what the photo represents means something ~ you can't appreciate that until you lose your photos, or your memories, or the value someone else never really placed on them anyway.  That's why photos, and memories, are so important to me.

A few years ago, my mom mailed me what photos she did have of me as a kid ~ the handful of tiny snapshots, some still singed around the edges from the smoke damage, fit into a single ziploc sandwich bag.  Looking at most of the photos though, didn't jog my memory about the events they pictured.  There was a photo of me in a bikini (gasp) at maybe age 8 or 9, doing a headstand in the wet sand.  I have no recollection of ever going to the beach with my family, and I couldn't have been in my right mind, what with doing a headstand in a bikini.

But there was one photo, from a Halloween party at my dad's bodega, where I vaguely remember my mom buying costumes for my brothers at the last minute from a drug store ~ I think my brothers were horrified by the plastic ready-to-wear Chewbacca and Maitre'D costumes my mom made them wear.  I think my mom told my sister she could go to the Halloween party as a little girl ~ but she WAS a little girl!  They put her hair in crooked pony tails and made her wear white tights.  We were so poor back then.  So, for me, they made me a Gypsy ~ I call it foreshadowing.  I think I'm wearing one of my mom's scarves around my head and some of her clothes.

I read somewhere that D. Ewen Cameron wrote in 1963: "Intelligence may be the pride — the towering distinction of man; emotion gives colour and force to his actions; but memory is the bastion of his being.  Without memory, there is no personal identity, there is no continuity to the days of his life. Memory provides the raw material for designs both small and great. Thus, governed and enriched by memory, all the enterprises of man go forward."

So, if I have no memory, do I have no identity?  If I make it up as I go along, is my identity true to my real self?  Does your childhood shape you so much that even if you can't remember it, you are trapped by it?  If everything you once knew goes up in flames, what fragments do you sift out of the ashes?  Which do you leave behind?

I don't want to believe that forgetting is really part of the process of remembering, that my brain is trying to be ruthlessly efficient by ignoring distracting memories in order to better capture new or better memories. 

I want to believe that what I need to remember wants to be remembered, and it is trying to get my attention ~

winter

    Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
            ~ Pietro Aretino
   
It is winter in Oakland ~ there is no snow, there are no snow angels, no snowmen smiling in the front yard of the house with a white picket fence.  Instead, there is rain ~ gray skies, and days and nights and yet more days of rain; and when there is a break in the rain, you walk gingerly along softened, drenched streets, quietly and softly under the hesitant sun, hoping you don't disturb the warm hazy rays or wake the rain gods ~ and you remember, quietly, alone, to yourself, to love the downpour because the glint of a squeaky-clean world is, maybe, almost, worth that feeling of nearly drowning.

or maybe that is just me ~ because I love the rain ~

This winter ~ now ~ I look forward to Monday and Wednesday nights when I listen to silly Spanish talk-radio on the drive home, to get in the mood for my Spanish conversation class ~ and to the solitary, dark drive home ~ headlights like two daggers cutting through the fog that wraps itself around the hilltop campus, gliding down steep rain-slicked streets, switching back to English ~ music, thoughts, words, alone in the car.

Tonight I caught up with NPR's All Songs Considered January 10th podcast ~ as usual, an eclectic and impressive line-up: Billie Holiday, The Magnetic Fields, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Peter Gabriel, Vampire Weekend, Fire on Fire....and right before the end, an epiphany in the form of a song, 'For Emma' (mp3), by Bon Iver (pronounced 'Bon Hiver', which is 'good winter' in French).  When I heard the song, I was speeding along a dark highway, alone on a damp winter night; my mind swimming in cold murky thoughts ~ somehow, it was all lovely.

So of course I came home to read more about this Bon Iver person ~ real name Justin Vernon.  I know all the Kool Kids, the bloggers and the internet stars, already know all this, but I learned tonight that Justin self-released his album last summer ~ and the album is the product of what sounds like an amazing solitary journey: four months time spent writing and recording in isolation last winter in his father's hunting cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin.  If you don't know about this amazing album, read the hype at Reveille Magazine.   (At the end of the article, there is a link where you can stream the entire album, which is due for a national re-release next month.)

When you hear the album you will agree that "all of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, was suddenly purged into the form of song." God I wish I had that talent ~ to purge pain and produce instead something brilliant like this album, or even something simply lovely, or something quietly cataclysmic. ~~  I just had a déjà vu, like I've felt this before and written this before, even this part where I realize I'd felt and written this even before that ~ sigh, maybe the third time is the charm. ~ Justin Vernon chose isolation; he walked through its door. ...... But what do you do when isolation chooses you; when it opens the window to your soul, pulls you through it, then locks the door behind you?  Where's the album that tells you that story?

On this album, Justin's lyrics on Stacks are pithy and potent ~ this man knows what he's feeling, what to say, and how to say it:

This my excavation and today is kumran
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed
...
Whatever could it be
That has brought me to this loss?
...
This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

But my favorite is 'Skinny Love' (mp3), where Justin asks you:

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

~ because I am one of those people, maybe the only one in the entire world, who really believes that these are the questions that truly matter ~ because when someone allows themselves to really love you, and when you allow yourself to love them in return, then everything, everywhere, falls into place.

Because The Plastic Bag Industry Shouldn't Dictate Environmental Policy ~

Last July, the Oakland City Council adopted the ordinance I co-wrote to ban plastic bags in Oakland.  [I also wrote a one-page FAQ about the ordinance.]  In August, the plastic bag industry sued the City on the grounds that we did not consider the potential environmental impacts of banning plastic bags(!).  The Ordinance was to go into effect on January 18, 2008, but the City agreed to delay enforcement pending resolution of the case on the merits in the trial court ~~ oral argument is scheduled for Tuesday, January 29, 2008.

To bring attention to the bullying litigation tactics of the plastic bag industry in killing sound environmental policy as it chokes marine life, Councilmembers Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan will hold a Press Conference on the front steps of Oakland City Hall on Monday, January 28, 2008, at 10 am.  If you're around, please come out to the Press Conference and show your support ~ we will be distributing free Oakland canvas bags (like the one in the photo).  If you have a poster showing your support or bring your own canvas bags to hold up, we'll probably have you stand behind the speakers, on camera!  [Before I attack the plastic bag industry, I do want to point out that one lone 'bag monster' does have its own blog ~ a clever, funny, and very informative site!]

Monday's Press Conference will focus on the use of litigation tactics of the plastic bag industry to stall environmental measures.  But I want to also mention the very important environmental issues we highlighted in our June 2007 Press Conference, when we talked about why this plastic bag ban ordinance is so important:

• Every year, Californians use 19 billion plastic bags, and throw away 600 bags per second – creating 147,000 tons of non-biodegradable waste.
• These “free” plastic bags actually cost millions of taxpayer dollars each year in litter abatement, collection and disposal costs, landfill costs, street-cleaning costs, and contaminated recycling processes.
• Almost 10% of the oil consumed in the United – approximately 2 million barrels of oil per day – is used to make plastic, including single-use plastic bags.
• Petroleum-based plastic bags do not biodegrade, but instead persist in the environment for hundreds or thousands of years, slowly breaking down through abrasion, tearing, and photo-degradation into tiny toxic plastic bits that enter the food chain when animals mistake those materials for food.
• Beyond the economic costs, plastic bags are also a blight to our parks, neighborhoods, creeks, lakes, and the Bay.
• Not only do plastic bags get caught in trees, telephone poles, storm drains, and waterways, but approximately 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die each year from ingesting, or getting tangled in, plastic marine debris.

At Committee in June and at Council in July, we had scores of supporters come out and speak in favor of the ordinance.  The compelling data convinced the City Council to do the right thing and adopt the ordinance.  We made it through the first hurdle.  But now we're spending taxpayer dollars fighting this lawsuit and cities across the country are watching ~ policy aides from Hawaii to Texas to Florida have called me to discuss the importance of this legislation and the devastating effect this lawsuit will have on environmental legislation if the plastic bag industry wins.  Several other municipalities are so intimidated by the mere threat of a lawsuit, and the cost of potential litigation, that they are holding their legislation until they see how Oakland survives this lawsuit. 

I should note here that the plastic bag industry did not sue San Francisco ~ it sued Oakland, even though our ordinance was modeled on (but not identical to) San Francisco's legislation.  We are clearly seen as the smaller, more vulnerable municipality, with scarcer resources to fight this litigation.  That alone, that tactic, is infuriating.  I should also note that no grocery store owners spoke out against the San Francisco or Oakland ordinances ~ the California Grocer's Association and the plastic bag industry are the opponents.  In fact, some smaller grocers have stated that when the big chains comply with the plastic bag ban, it will drive up demand for alternative bags and drive down the cost of compliance, making it even easier for them to comply (many of whom are eager to do so ~ after all, local shop owners know that Bay Area shoppers are environmentally conscious).  This is a case of David versus Goliath ~ the single stone needed to stop this particularly nefarious Goliath is this lawsuit against Oakland ~ we just have to win; the fate of local environmental legislation across the country depends on it.

There are so many frustrating elements of this plastic bag ban issue and the reasoning of the plastic bag industry in their lawsuit.  For one, they are corrupting the good intentions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by claiming that our proposed ordinance constitutes a "project" under CEQA, thereby triggering environmental review.  Generally, actual construction or traffic projects, or physical changes to actual land parcels, are "projects" which require an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) under CEQA.  However, even if our proposed ordinance were considered a "project" under CEQA, an EIR would be wholly speculative because they are asking us to essentially predict consumer behavior.  In other words, the plastic bag industry is claiming that if we ban plastic bags, then consumers will use paper bags or compostable plastic bags instead, and that will have an adverse environmental impact.  But, says who?  Who says that's what consumers will do? 

First, as we explain in the June 26, 2007 Staff Report we presented to Committee, our ordinance doesn't promote the use of paper or compostable bags but rather encourages retailers to provide incentives for shoppers to use canvas bags.  Indeed, it's an ideal marketing and branding opportunity ~ even Safeway and Long's now sell reusable bags with their logos on them.  Second, you can't assume (especially in the Bay Area) that shoppers will simply choose paper or compostable bags rather than bring their own canvas bags - the plastic bag industry does not present any evidence to support that claim.  An EIR would cost Oakland taxpayers over $100,000, and we would have no more information than we do now.  The plastic bag industry knows this ~ if they win, and if we have to conduct an EIR, not only is the implementation of our ordinance delayed, but countless other cities will be intimidated into not adopting plastic bag bans.  That has already happened in Fairfax, CA, where the Town Council repealed the plastic bag ban it unanimously approved last July, because it was bullied into doing so under threat of a lawsuit by the plastic bag industry.

What is even more appalling is the fact that the plastic bag industry is bullying its way into dictating environmental policy.  About three years ago, San Francisco officials began developing legislation to reduce the blight and pollution caused by single-use plastic bags (in San Francisco alone, 50 million to 150 million bags are distributed each year!), by imposing a tax on petroleum-based plastic bags.  The intent, of course, was to encourage shoppers to simply bring in their own bags ~ much like most Trader Joes and Whole Foods customers already do.  The supermarket chains asked San Francisco officials to instead give them one year to investigate the issue ~ they promised to keep track of how many bags their stores distributed and they promised to work with San Francisco to reduce the use of plastic bags by 10 million.  However, when the year passed, and San Francisco officials asked for the data, the supermarket chains refused to reveal the numbers, saying it was trade secret information.  Even worse, instead of working on the actual problem during that year, the California Grocers Association and the plastic bag industry actually lobbied the California legislature to pass AB 2449 ~ an insidious bill which explicitly forbids cities from charging fees for plastic bags!

As I explain in the Supplemental Staff Report I co-wrote for the City Council on July 3, 2007, all AB 2449 really did was to implement a pilot program, in effect from July 1, 2007 until January 1, 2013, requiring large supermarkets in California to offer in-store recycling of plastic grocery bags in exchange for the pre-emption of local ordinances mandating a bag tax or other recycling efforts.  The plastic bag industry and the grocers association sponsored AB2449, so the bill was by no means built on a foundation of altruism or actual environmental concerns, but rather on protecting their bottom-line: profits.  So, the bill is woefully inadequate in several key areas: 

• There is no requirement in AB 2449 for plastic bags to be made out of recycled content;
• There is no requirement in AB 2449 for an affected store to reduce their plastic bag usage;
• There is no requirement in AB 2449 to provide incentives for shoppers who use reusable bags or any requirement that consumers use reusable bags, although the bill does require stores to make reusable bags available to customers which may be purchased and used in lieu of paper or plastic carryout bags;
• There is no direct appropriation for enforcement or education contained in AB 2449. However, the measure does stipulate that any civil penalties collected pursuant to the bill may be used for enforcement of this bill.

As much as I wanted to tear apart AB 2449 in that Staff Report, I had to be diplomatic and write:

The proposed [Oakland] plastic bag ban is a parallel, complementary approach to AB 2449. This state law requires grocery stores to provide recycling bins for the collection of plastic bags – after the fact, after the plastic bag has already been manufactured and discarded. The intent of AB 2449 is to keep bags out of landfills. AB 2449 is therefore a downstream approach that addresses end-of-life of a product once it has been produced. The plastic bag ban Ordinance addresses the much more highly leveraged upstream arena of generation and consumption – and seeks to stop plastic bags from being manufactured in the first place.

All California cities should pass Resolutions asking the State Legislature to repeal AB 2449.  And just this past Tuesday, January 22, 2008, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors did just that ~ the Board passed a Motion (which was introduced in December) to instruct the Chief Executive Officer to include in the 2007-2008 State Legislative Agenda the sponsoring or pursuit of legislation to repeal AB 2449.

The fact that there is only one U.S. city (San Francisco) with a plastic bag ban, while the rest of us are literally held hostage by the plastic bag industry is shameful.  A growing list of countries and foreign cities from Australia to Zanzibar have already banned plastic bags, including China, Denmark, Ireland, South Africa, Taiwan, Singapore, Melbourne, and a number of East African countries.  The U.S. should now join the one-quarter of the world's population that has banned this toxic pollutant.

Maybe we can do that soon, with the support and smart business sense of national chains that promote progressive environmental policy:  Just last week, Whole Foods, Inc., announced that it is phasing out the use of plastic bags in all of its stores nationwide by Earth Day, April 22, 2008.  Locally, City Car Share, which helps reduce air pollution and gasoline consumption by reducing the number of cars on the road through car sharing in Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, now provides reusable bags for grocery shopping in all of its cars.

Oakland is fighting a big fight on behalf of a lot of other wealthier cities ~ if you can, come out and show your support.

The Art of Tea ~

Over the past few years I've slowly discovered the quiet, calming delight of tea over coffee.  I still need my morning Americano to jump-start the day, but a few times per day and often at night, I also need to slow down and enjoy a moment of quiet, best done with a cup of tea ~ Jasmine tea is my favorite, but this has made me reconsider ~ ;-). 

Last year for Christmas, I received a beautiful green tea pot and tiny tea cups as a gift ~ there's nothing sweeter than sipping tea and nibbling ginger snaps late on a cool Oakland night.  I'm lucky enough to live in the Bay Area where tea and the culture of tea have seeped into a part of the daily ritual for many people ~ along the way I have found myself finding contentment musing over a pot of tea at various tea shops.

When I lived in San Francisco, I spent many rainy days studying for the LSAT at Samovar Tea Lounge in the Castro; in law school I spent countless study hours with Jee and Quyen at Téance in Albany (sadly, now closed) and at L'Aymx Tea Bar (the original location on Piedmont Avenue, and now the new location close to home, on Lakeshore Avenue) in Oakland.  ~ The few times I am able to get out of the Bay Area, I like to find the local tea shop and sit a while ~ in Chicago, it was the lovely Tianguis, run by the very lovely Irasema ~ even Fresno (Teazer World Tea Market) and Houston (Té House of Tea in the Montrose) have charming tea lounges ~ and you can't drive through Encinitas without stopping at Pannikin Coffee & Tea.  More recently, I am a big supporter of the new Numi Tea Garden in Oakland and the very cute Julie's Coffee & Tea Garden in Alameda. 

When I think of the different tea shops I've been to, I don't just remember the tea and the atmosphere and the service ~ but I remember who I was with, what we talked about, how I felt about them and the tea and the day. 

So, as my taste for different tea leaves has grown, it didn't really occur to me that the easy availability and (semi-) reasonable prices meant that the ancient craft of farming tea has been taken over by mass production, even in China.  This is the focus of the film All in this Tea, by Less Blank and David Lee Hoffman.  Apparently, the film goes beyond the beauty of the art of tea to show why the craft should be honored and preserved, and to discuss quality over quantity, fair trade and organics, and sustainable development.  SFGate gave the film a great review (which doesn't mean anything but I like that the little man is out of his chair). 

The film will be screened this Wednesday night, January 9, 2008, at Numi Tea Garden in Oakland (2230 Livingston Street).  A $5-$10 donation will be requested.  Go if you can! ~ Either way, please leave a comment telling me about your favorite local tea shop ~ if I can, I'd love to check it out!

at any age ~ at every age

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.
    ~Emily Dickinson

After the torrential downpour we had yesterday, I woke up early this morning, to a break in the storm and a glint of soft sun peeking in through the white curtains.  I drove for a bit, zig-zagging around fallen tree branches, sinkholes in the middle of some streets, water bubbling up through others, and rushing rivers of rainwater cascading  through the gutters.  The town I was in shimmered and the yellow trees glowed.  I was glad to be out driving, heading over to the senior home where I am a ball-toss volunteer ~ helping a group of seniors get warmed up for the day. 

The ball is actually a balloon, since most of the seniors have had a stroke or other medical ailment that has left them pretty fragile.  The first time I was in the room, I felt incredibly sad at the sight of some of the seniors slumped over in their wheelchairs.  But AO had said "HI" to me, smiling brightly and putting me at ease.  So, when I returned this morning, I was happy to see them all.

A handsome man walked in with his daughter, Sara, who is maybe 12 years old.  I thought they were there to visit a family member, but the man was simply dropping his daughter off to volunteer and he would return in an hour.  I asked Sara if she was volunteering through her school ~ "No ~ I like volunteering with old people," she said with a smile.  So, we tag-teamed, grabbed two balloons and got to work.

The volunteer coordinator, Melissa, turned on the CD player and Nat King Cole began crooning 'Unforgettable'.  I didn't know whether to feel it was cruel or sweet to play that CD, which would end an hour later with the song 'Too Young'.  Then Melissa explained to us that HW shrieks to get attention and RT will say she has to go to the bathroom even when she doesn't really have to go, so we should just go get Melissa when that happens.  She gave us a little more information about each senior ~ packaging each one into a one-sentence personality, or identity tag.  It's true that at first it's much easier to remember people as "shrieker" and "red sweater" and "sleeper" than their names ~ but I felt a little awkward, standing in the middle of the room where they could all hear us ~ until I noticed many of them were asleep, or simply not paying attention, anyway.  I wondered if they would be annoyed with me interrupting them to throw a balloon around.  I wondered if they get annoyed by the chipper voice the nurses use, as if they are speaking to children.  I wondered if they were lonely.  I wondered if I would get to know any of them, and come up with my own way of identifying them.  It made me think of how I "package people" to remember them ...... but that's another blog post for another time.

I started talking first to MI, feeling it would be a little too forward of me to just walk up to her and toss a balloon in her face.  Melissa opened the curtains and the streaks of sun gave way to sheets of rain.  MI said something about the intense weather and I told her I had been driving in it yesterday ~ she asked what it was like, driving in such a storm ~ "We're so sheltered in here that we forget what the real world is like."  And she laughed a little.  I asked her if she would like to play "volley-balloon" and she smiled and said yes.

The balloon toss isn't just to kill time while Melissa prepares snacks and movie time.  Arthritis and strokes have left some of the seniors with limp arms and hands ~ the balloon toss helps them try to reach up and use those arms, it helps them loosen up joints, and I guess it does help them pass the time.  MI was pretty limber and she punched the balloon pretty fiercely a few times.  When she missed she would say, "I'm sorry," and after a while, we actually enjoyed a conversation as we punched the balloon back and forth.  She sang the lyrics to "Mona Lisa" and later she told Sara she was really good with the balloon.

I gave MI a break and walked over to AO, whom I had met a few weeks ago.  She remembered me and smiled when she saw me, which warmed my heart.  At first she favored her right arm, leaving her left hand resting on her chest,  but after a while, in her excitement, she started using both arms and I felt incredibly useful today ~ she even used her legs a few time when the balloon went low, and we laughed and called it balloon soccer.  By now, most of the seniors in the room had been watching, and started looking interested in the silly game.

I looked over at RS and asked her if she would like to play, too.  She turned her head sideways, to give me a sly look, and she flashed a wry grin, then wriggled her fingers(!)  She was hilarious.  Sometimes she would fake me out and instead of punching the balloon back at me, she would just catch it and hold onto it, to watch me stumble around as I waited for the return volley.  She'd peek her face out from behind the red balloon, and giggle.  I immediately adored her.

Then, when HW shrieked to get my attention, RS frowned but gave me the nod to toss the balloon to HW next.  HW was pretty low-functioning, physically.  She was difficult to understand and I wondered if behind the huge glasses and the muddled speech she was totally lucid and thinking, "I'm not a toddler! You don't have to say 'Good job!' to me when I bat the damn balloon!"  Her right hand functioned better than her left and she would give me the "ready" signal by throwing her right arm into the air ~ I would basically gently toss the balloon right into the palm of her hand and let her SLAM that thing right into me.  Then, in her excitement, she started using her limp left hand ~ and she started raising her left arm as the "ready" signal ~ smiling each time I grunted "UUUUFFF!" when I caught her return volley.  After a while, I went back to MI ~ MJ, who was in the wheelchair next to her and who hadn't said anything the entire time, quietly inched forward in her wheelchair, letting me know she wanted to be next.  MJ had been sort of slumped in her wheelchair, looking down...until I tossed the balloon to her ~ her eyes lit up, she giggled, she smiled ~ but she never said a word.

By now I was working up a sweat ~ really.   Because they have little control over their arms and the force they use, most of the shots they made were widely random, bullet-like shots ~ I had to dance side to side to catch many of the shots, and after a while I found myself dancing around to the beat of the music, singing along to some of the songs with them.  I'm sure it was a funny sight, but we had a lot of fun.  I know I'll never look at a red balloon the same way......

After, we signed the Volunteer Book and I noticed how many volunteers visit this senior center.  I flipped through the pages and noticed the people who visit every week for the "Best Friends" activity, or to play Scrabble with the seniors ~ Melissa told me there are a couple of Scrabble-Shark seniors who play for blood.(!)  Word in the halls is also that a new guy was a friend of Hemingway, and is actually a character in one of Hemingway's stories ~ so next time, I'm going to seek him out and see if he'll chat with me.

Later, after some aimless driving, I ended up at Caffe Trieste in Berkeley.  I walked in just as another ocean of rain let loose from the sky ~ it was crowded and steamy and I wondered where in the world they fit the band when they have music there.  I sat for a while and couldn't help but overhear the older woman next to me giving a brain-download to a younger woman, the new teacher who would take over her fifth-grade class, as they went over the class list: "This little guy is such a creative soul; this one here will raise her hand all day and interrupt and want to answer every question; this little one is borderline-autistic, but I wouldn't say it like that to the parents;" and so on.  She was packaging each kid for easy identification for the new teacher ~ and I wondered if the i.d. makes the kid or the kid makes the i.d. ~ in other words, if the i.d. predisposes the teacher to fit the kid into a certain box, before the kid has even had a chance to explore every corner of the box and see if he in fact wants to be in that particular, or any, box. 

And I was left wondering what box I'm supposed to fit in ~ what "new" I'm supposed to be tomorrow ~