Tellebration: Stories to Remember in Santa Rosa

Tellabration!™  

Stories to Remember 

Will Captivate You

Do you have fond memories of listening to family stories? It may have been at the annual picnic, on the porch, or around the kitchen table, years ago or recently, but those memories stay with us forever.

Perhaps your parents told you bedtime stories and you want to continue the tradition with your own children. Or maybe you’re running out of ideas for uplifting conversational topics in these challenging times.  Sonoma County’s Tellabration!™ should be your destination!

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Sonoma County Book Festival 2011

Travel the World

without Leaving Home

By Penny Hastings
Close your eyes and imagine a place where everyone who reveres the written word gathers together with books and book people…where authors, poets, children’s book authors, storytellers and book sellers all gather on one fantastic day. You can be one of them if you come to the 12th Annual Sonoma County Book Festival in Old Courthouse Square in downtown Santa Rosa on September 24, 10 am – 4 pm. Admission is FREE!

Authors Maxine Hong Kingston (I Love a Broad Margin of My Life, The Woman Warrior), Ann Packer (Swim Back to Me, The Dive from Clausen’s Pier,) Geneen Roth (Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money, Women, Food, and God, are among the many nationally recognized and local favorite authors who will present their newest works, mingle with readers and autograph books during the day.

Must-see Belva Davis, an award-winning journalist who has covered Bay Area politics for four decades, will read from her memoir, Never in my Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism. Davis, who lives in Petaluma, will appear with co-author Vicki Haddock. You can see Davis at 12:45 pm in the Forum Room of the downtown library.

Poet Jane Hirshfield leads the distinguished list of acclaimed poets presenting their works at the Book Festival. Hirshfield’s award-winning books include the new Come, Thief, her seventh poetry collection. Al Young, who served as Poet Laureate of California from 2005-08, Francisco X. Alarcon, an award-winning Chicano poet and educator, Judy Halebsky, Christine Hutchins, Lee Slominsky and Catherine Strisik are some of the other poets attending.

For children, the Peanuts Pavilion area will kick off with Megan McDonald, author of the best-selling Judy Moody series at 10 am on Old Courthouse Square. The Schulz Museum’s booth will host celebrated cartoonists—including artists from Hanna Barbera—who will teach children to draw familiar characters from Scooby Doo to Disney princesses. Storytellers, entertainers and book authors reading from their works will also be on hand.

New this year, the Secret Agent Jack Stalwart Treasure Hunt will be ongoing throughout the day. Based on the popular series by Elizabeth Singer Hunt, the treasure hunt encourages children and their families to solve clues by visiting businesses along Fourth and D streets…both will be closed to car traffic from Old Courthouse Square to the downtown library.

An expanded young adult section presents panel discussions of topics for teens, including “Save the Drama for Your Mama: Contemporary Young Adult Authors” and a Teen Poetry Slam with cash prizes.

Five fascinating panel discussions, including “The Sky is High and So am I: Alternative Subjects” will draw festival-goers. Other panels are “Shots Happen” (Mystery Panel); “Books: The Rumors of My Death have been Greatly Exaggerated” (Book Business); “Writing for Film and Stage” and “Writing Local History with Gaye LeBaron.”

Visit www.socobookfest.org for a schedule of the days’ events, a complete list of presenters and more information about the Book Festival.

The Sonoma County Book Festival, the oldest general interest book festival in Northern California welcomes the entire family to a full day of literature, poetry and fun.

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Chester Aaaron on Over-Radiation of African Americans

Over-Radiation of African Americans

A Conversation with Chester Aaron

By Raynetta James
Chester Aaron, now 87 years old, has published 25 books: fiction and non-fiction, adult and young adult. He has won a variety of awards, including NEA and Primo Levy grants. His books have been translated into Dutch, French and German. He is a WWII veteran and a professor emeritus of Saint Mary's College. His new novel, About Them, is due late this year, and a new collection of ten short stories, Saved for My Pallbearers, is due early next year.

I have been getting creative writing tips from Chester for almost 2 years in a class started by Lolly Mesches to raise funds for the Occidental Center for the Arts. It was hosted at the home of the late Doris Murphy, a long-time labor and justice advocate and a founder of the center. During the year or so that Doris was well enough for us to meet at her house, Chester told me a story that came to mind when the current radiation crisis in Japan began. So I asked him about it:

Q. Chester, you told me that, when x-rayed, African Americans often received more radiation than a white patient of the same age and size. They got a higher dose of radiation than a white person, only because they were African American. Is that right?
A. Yes. The amount of extra radiation varied from tech to tech, hospital to hospital, but it was happening all over the country. The amount of extra radiation ranged from a third more to a half more that a white patient of similar body mass would have received. Radiation, especially in the aggregate, is dangerous; that's why there are lead shields. So over-radiation is likely to have caused many deaths and health problems over the years.

Q. How did you discover this over-radiation?
A. By accident. In the late 60's I was Chief Technician in the x-ray Department of Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California. I was concerned about the lack of standard training and practice of x-ray technicians and I believed licensure would help establish standards. At that time, New York was the only state requiring x-ray technicians to pass a state-sponsored exam to prove they were knowledgeable enough to safely dispense radiation to patients. We had been trying to get similar standards and licensure in California.


I was preparing for state committee hearings, when I learned from Pat, one of the seven x-ray technicians at Alta Bates, that she was giving extra radiation to every African American patient that she x-rayed, regardless of age, gender or the target of the radiation, whether it was bone, soft tissue, organs or the skull. She had been ordered to do so by the Radiologist who trained her. The text she used in training said that African Americans required extra radiation to provide films of acceptable diagnostic quality. Later, I found that the practice was common.

Q. When did it happen? Is it still going on?
A. After I discovered it in the late 1960's, I tried many times to get it stopped and acknowledged. It may have been stopped, in many hospitals, but it was never acknowledged. The question of after-effects on present and future African Americans should be studied and dealt with in terms of health consequences and deaths.

Q. You're saying although it was stopped, we should still be concerned?
A. I am. First, the effects of radiation are long term. Skin cancer, thyroid cancer, leukemia and reproductive harm are all possible. Second, the practice is part of the history of racial inequality in this country, part of the history of African Americans being treated as if they are "other." And the response of governmental officials and institutional leaders is part of the history of African Americans being treated as less than equal. Consider the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study of 1932-1972, when 400 Black men were infected with syphilis with secret government support. We don't stop being concerned about the ramifications of that experiment just because it was stopped. In both cases we should recognize that the same practices applied to white people would not be tolerated.

Q. And how did you try to stop it?
A. Over the years, I have contacted more than a hundred people who I thought should and would be concerned. I selected people I thought would do something to stop over-radiation, but I got few responses and less satisfaction. Each time I would send information to someone who should have cared, and either hear nothing or be brushed off. For instance, the last big push I gave it was in 1998, when I sent a letter to Ed Bradley. His program, 60 Minutes, was one that took risks and investigated stories in depth. I offered him a story more than 50 years deep. I told him how I had discovered that in most American Hospitals African Americans were being over-radiated, receiving more radiation than a comparable white patient, and that it had to be disclosed; it had to be stopped. The practice, I said could be more disastrous to African Americans than the results of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Q. Weren't they interested?
A. I did get a response, from Catherine Kim, identified on her letter as "...a researcher for Ed Bradley." She said Mr. Bradley wanted to visit my California farm to interview me and disclose this unrecognized and horrible piece of American history. I agreed, but three days later a letter from Ms. Kim informed me that Mr. Bradley, having received information that the practice of over-radiating African Americans had stopped since I had first disclosed it some thirty years before, was canceling the pending visit and interview.

Q. That must have been disappointing, to get so close.
A. It was. I wrote back to inform them that though the practice had diminished it had not stopped. Even if it had stopped altogether, the reasons for it to have ever existed had to be disclosed and researched farther for a variety of reasons, only one of which related to our country's history. I told them that Mr. Bradley was certainly over-radiated when he was young because he was a "Negro," and that his parents had been over-radiated because they were "Negroes." Because of that generational over-radiation Mr. Bradley and his children and his children's children, may very well inherit ongoing health problems. And, I asked, what about African Americans who, unlike Mr. Bradley, do not have the benefits of high income and good health care to deal with those predictable and unpredictable consequences?

Q. What did they say to that?
A. I didn't hear a word. Sadly, 8 years later, in 2006, Mr. Bradley died of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. The risk of that disease greatly increases among people who have been exposed (or whose parents and grandparents have been exposed) to high doses of radiation. And the chances are very high that the parents of Mr. Bradley and Mr. Bradley himself, every time they were x-rayed, from childhood, received as much as twice the radiation that would have been given a white patient the same gender, age, size and muscle-mass. Think Hiroshima. Think Nagasaki. Think Chernobyl. In my letter lamenting his death, I included those details, but I never heard from Ms. Kim or anyone else at CBS.

Q. But that wasn't the first time you had tried to disclose and stop over-radiation, was it?
A. Oh no, as I said I had contacted hundreds of people over the years. When I discovered the practice in the late '60s I was in my mid-forties, barely 20 years home from WWII, where I had participated in the liberation of the concentration camp of Dachau. How could I not be sympathetic to the fate of innocent victims? So when I discovered the practice while preparing for hearings on State Licensure, I was astounded. I had received two years training at Cowell Hospital on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. I had worked as an x-ray technician at Kaiser Hospital, San Francisco for two years and Alta Bates Hospital for three years before being appointed Chief Technician by the three Radiologists serving Alta Bates Hospital. In all that time I never once used the color of a patient's skin to determine how much radiation I should use. 


And my films had been acceptable to the Radiologists; after all they had made me Chief. I had never even heard of such a theory. But then Pat told me she had been ordered to do so by her Radiologist trainer, and her textbooks said that African Americans required extra radiation to provide films of acceptable diagnostic quality. Then I found out that most x-ray technicians had been taught the same thing, and did increase the dosage of radiation for African Americans. Their reasons varied: African Americans had darker skin, African Americans had harder bones, or African Americans' bones contained more calcium. I could find no scientific evidence proving any such reasons were legitimate.

Q. That was when you were fighting for licensure legislation. Did stopping the practice of over-radiation become part of the effort?
A. When our group working for State Licensure traveled to Sacramento to meet with the Committee on Efficiency and Economy in the State Assembly whose Chairman was Willie Brown, later San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, an African American. I was selected to act as spokesman. To illustrate the need for licensure, I noted that every x-ray technician in the state must learn the truth: that extra radiation to African American patients was not only unnecessary but hazardous. Willie Brown declared the meeting at an end. The Committee had no time, he said, to consider such discussion. Over the following years my letters of further explanation and appeal to Representative Brown received not one single reply. We failed to get licensure at that time.


I got involved in helping the East Bay technicians decide on the union by whom they wished to be represented. The ILWU (the International Longshoremen Workers Union) was selected. In that effort, I discovered through questions added to a survey of x-ray technicians that 72 of the approximately 90 technicians surveyed stated they did routinely give higher doses of radiation to African Americans. I tried to get the ILWU involved in the over-radiation battle, but our local representative and the Union officers could not have been less interested.

Q. Where did it go from there?
A. I kept gathering information about the possibly homicidal practice of over-radiating African Americans, and I heard about a physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, Time Magazine, Sept. 8, 1967) who stressed the hazards of x-rays, inconsistent dosage and lack of training for many who gave x-rays. We exchanged letters of support for each other's work.
I heard from technicians all over the country who were as angry and helpless as I was and who gave me details of the textbooks and their Radiologists (many who "ordered" their techs to give extra radiation to African Americans.)


Senator Jennings Randolph (D. West Virginia) sent me a letter of strong support. He worked for many years to get Federal legislation to establish minimum standards for the accreditation of x-ray machine operations.


By the early to mid '70s I had a collection of letters and research documents totaling about 50 pages. By the late 90's, I had sent perhaps 50 copies to officials in the NAACP, in Health, Education, Journalism and Government, including my own senators Feinstein and Boxer and Representatives Lynne Woolsey and Ron Dellums, and to Representatives Shirley Chisholm and Maxine Waters, pleading for support. Maxine Waters sent me a card informing me that she was referring my letter to my Representative, Lynne Woolsey.


Rep. Woolsey did take the matter to the Office of the U. S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. I received a letter from Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, dated May 20, 1998, which said that the practice did not, quoting here "appear to indicate ongoing violation of CRIPA (Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act), i.e. the circumstances you have described do not involve practices to which individuals confined to or residing in public facilities (let me emphasize that phrase) presently are being subjected. Under these circumstances we have no authority to initiate an investigation under CRIPA of your allegations...."


Rep. Ron Dellums, my own representative from my own city did not reply. A few years later, when I informed him that I intended to disclose this information to the then-very conservative Oakland Tribune, his Oakland Office Manager called and suggested I come to the office. I did. His greeting: "I understand you have a problem." My response: "I don't have a problem. You do. And Representative Dellums does. You are both black and I am white." He said he had not read the report I had sent to Congressman Dellums. I got up and left the office.


At meetings of my own American Society of X-ray Technicians I was hooted down and more than once called a Communist or agitator or both.

Q. Did you have any success at all?
A. There was a ray of hope in the early 70's: an African American Nurse at my own hospital, Ethel Jellins, RN, sent a copy of my document collection to her cousin, John A. Williams, a WWII vet and author and journalist at The Amsterdam News, New York.


John and I had several telephone conversations before he published an article in the Amsterdam News disclosing the practice of the over-radiation of African Americans. But I did not receive one response.
And, as another hopeful sign, Ralph Nader was introduced to the issue by Dr. Karl Z. Morgan. Mr. Nader did his own research in several hospitals and testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, I think in 1971, to publicize the issue, citing my work. His statistics about the practice of over-radiation bore mine out.


The following day, several newspapers all over the country had Nader's testimony about the over-radiation of African American patients on their front pages. The stories included reference to my name and my work. David Perlman, Science Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed me on the phone for a half hour. The day after that the Chronicle ran the science editor's report.


The day after that I was given notice by the Assistant Administrator at Alta Bates Hospital, Richard Adams, to clean out my desk and be off the premises in two hours.


When I informed Mr. Nader of the consequences of his testimony he very kindly said that if I wanted my job back he would come out to California to help me. I refused his offer. I should have accepted it.
Thinking myself more than qualified to be a Chief Technician I was sure I would have no difficulty getting a job. But over the following year every hospital and private office I applied to turned me down, except one: Ross General in Marin County. I lasted not quite two months. I was fired when I protested that the Chief Radiologist was not permitting the technicians to have their coffee breaks.


Over the years, after I left the Medical Field (I became a professor at Saint Mary's College, where I served for 25 years) I continued to try to get a variety of relevant local and national authorities to act in some way on the issue of over-radiation of African Americans, but they all ignored those efforts. The only protest by a relevant authority came from an article published in the Black Muslim newspaper Muhammad Speaks. There was no reaction.


Enter Jack S. Mandel, PhD, MPH, Professor and Head Mayo Chair in Public Health at the University of Minnesota. In the mid-90's, I began receiving requests from Professor Mandel to participate in a study that was developing information about the effects of possible radiation effects on the health of former x-ray technicians.


I think I answered two different surveys before I sent a letter to Prof. Mandel, along with my collected documentation regarding the over-radiation of African Americans, and asked him if he was including in his study the fact that African American Technicians might have extra concerns because of the cumulative effects of their exposure as patients added to their exposure as x-ray technicians. He did not respond.


I persisted, demanding a reply, or, I said, I would go to higher authorities. I reminded him of the involvement of "scientists" and health officials in Alabama in the infamous and deadly Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where at least 400 African American men died, thanks to scientific research, funded by the same Federal Government that was probably funding much of his work.
I sent a copy of this letter and copies of my documents to a reporter for the leading Minnesota newspaper.


Finally, a reply came from the Professor, dated March 17, 1997, in which he said, "I have talked to many people at the National Cancer Institute and elsewhere about the issue you raised. I was not able to locate anyone who had any information. I spoke to people who are international experts in radiation epidemiology and health physics representing over three decades of research experience. None was able to recollect the Senate Commerce Committee hearings to which you referred or the issue of over-radiation of black patients."


I wrote back pointing out that I had originally brought the issue to his attention ten or eleven years earlier when I first received his questionnaire. I reminded him that I had documented the practice some 25-30 years earlier, that my documentation of the practice was verified and reported before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee by Ralph Nader, that, in preceding and subsequent public testimony by Dr. Karl Z. Morgan of Oak Ridge National Laboratories, after performing his own research, verified the ongoing practice and suggested that the death of approximately 300 African Americans per year was related to this over-radiation, that David Perlman, the Science Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle had interviewed me and published much of this information in the Chronicle. I reminded him that all of this testimony and documentation was public record. I accused him of willfully denying and ignoring the facts, facts relevant to his study of the effects of radiation of x-ray technicians.


I sent copies of my letter to many people. Dr. Mandel never responded. Of the governmental officials I contacted, only Representative Maxine Waters replied, to inform me she was relaying my letter to my own Representative, Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey, who contacted the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General's office - I have already described their letter and reasons for doing nothing - as well to 60 Minutes, the results of which I have already described.


I gave up.


Then in 2009, in a brief essay delivered on National Public Radio, reviewing my life, I mentioned (20 seconds in a statement of about five minutes) "... my attempts to stop the over-radiation of African American patients in hospitals 40 years ago...."


Over the next several days I received phone calls and emails requesting more information. I contacted the offices of the NAACP in Baltimore, Maryland. I spoke to Mr. Adam Lee who transferred me to Ms. Wendy Hamilton. Ms. Hamilton expressed serious interest. I suggested I send her copies of those documents I still had. She agreed. I sent the copies. I heard nothing. Is, was, this silence a repetition of the disinterest displayed by the NAACP in the '60s? But why? I sent Ms. Hamilton an email saying that I am now almost 86 years old and I would not be patient and considerate and indulgent any longer. Should I not hear from the NAACP in 5 days I would seek other routes for disclosure. I still have not heard.

Suggestion: if you are an African American - no matter your age, no matter your gender - think about what increased health risks you may now be exposed to because, and only because, you are an African American. Shouldn't we all, but especially the NAACP, be concerned?

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Senior Momentum: Lost in the Shuffle

Don’t know about most of you, but a lot of the older folks I’ve been talking with seem to share a concern about the fate of small traditions.

Of course, some traditions are so huge and so universal that they just steamroll along on their own, generation after generation. And even though they may morph into nearly unrecognizable events (historically speaking), they prevail. And, within our own small circle, we then work on keeping our personal spin intact.

But, it’s not Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s, and Thanksgiving – the glaring ones -- that seem to be at risk. (One way or another, institutions and commerce keep those biggies alive!)
I asked folks their thoughts or concerns about the preservation of small personal traditions. And, I got some interesting responses -- it seems that some grandparents and other seniors even feel a strange responsibility for what they think is being lost! As if they didn’t try hard enough to preserve some patterns.

There was a wide range of thought …
Respect for elders came up a lot: “I don’t like it when little children call me by my first name!” said a woman of 89, “Traditionally, we were taught to look up to our elders!” (And one way we showed it was by what we called them.)

“The integrity of the family unit? Ha! Have you tried to get your family to commit to Sunday dinner even once a month, for sure?” said a cynical Granny.

Concern for community and the needy? “Of course there are organizations! But what has happened to neighbors? I know some people who don’t even know who lives next door!” (A couple I met while walking.)

It was things like the family sitting around the table together for at least one meal a day, playing cards & board games on a Saturday night, (no TV in the background); a yearly family picnic; sandlot ball games (not just parent-driven leagues); and regular family reunions, that came up. Wow! I was really surprised at the passion -- and the sense of loss.

“ It’s the little stuff,” one older gent said to me, “it’s all getting lost in the shuffle.”
People talked about families who seem to … “disperse” -- have their backs turned on each other … young people moving through their lives at high speed, believing they have no time for relating, for pausing. “Just look around!” (a woman said) “Everyone is connected to some device! Children retreat to their rooms, stare at computer screens or TV, and have some gadget plugged into their ear while typing messages into their phones -- not even talking directly to anyone … it seems like we are losing our bonds for closeness! How can you possibly get them to participate in small traditions like sitting in the living room with the family, talking!”

Time forces us to make so many “no choice” changes as we age! It just doesn’t seem fair to lose things where we have all the choices!

I call traditions our family and community “glue.” They give us small, dependable things to look forward to; they help us stay hopeful; they are the very fabric of memories, and one of the bridges between generations. They provide the stories we tell (over and over … and over!) and pass down to the next generation, preserving the non-extraordinary family history -- the part that doesn’t get written down.

A part of aging is the challenge of isolation. It makes the loss of special-things-we-depended-on even more important; it puts a stinger into solitude.

I had a sense that for some of the people I spoke with, losing the yearly this, the monthly that, the phone call from a loved one every weekend, the hand-written thank-you note -- well, it’s large.

When one’s life is so darn over-programmed and over-loaded that fitting in those old family habits, and events feels like an annoyance and an intrusion, it may just be time to pause and take a wider (kinder) view.

For some, those small traditions are the main events.

Zoë Tummillo is a Business & Marketing Consultant/Trainer/Commercial Writer, dba COMMUNICATION CONCEPTS, in private practice since 1974. In addition to Commercial work, she writes “Senior Momentum: A Series of Situations”; and essay memoirs of growing up first generation Italian American: “Pieces of My Path”. To contact her -- email: writingservice@earthlink.net Phone: 707-869-1726

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Got Love? The POWER of LOVE!

Below is a collection of essays, poems, fond memories...all the elements of love. I'll be adding material that didn't fit into the print edition and - if you have something you want to add - please send it along to me at vesta@sonic.net. We have a lot of LOVE to spread around...'cause it FEELS GOOD! Several of our monthly columnists took the LOVE theme and added their unique perspectives - check it out!

Is it Love?
The Rule of 2 ½ Years

By Vesta Copestakes
If there’s a Universal Question all lovers want to know at the start of a romantic relationship it’s … is this “Real Love”? Bottom line…you don’t know yet. The old phrase, “Only time will tell,” is so very true, and that’s what the Rule of 2 ½ Years is all about….time.

In the Beginning…
Just falling in love puts everyone on their best behavior. You feel so good that bad moods slip away, there’s joy in your heart and sunshine at your back. This is not the “real” you and it’s also not your lover’s true self either. Each of you are in a state of enhanced you – the person you could ideally be if life didn’t have a million responsibilities.

This idealized you is why we love to be in love. It feels good, yes, but it also shows us our very best selves. If we could only stay this way through our everyday lives with all those ups and downs. But we don’t.

Which is one of the reasons why extending this enhanced state as long as possible is a really good thing. Just the joy of anticipation makes you feel excited about life. The flutter of compliments and appreciation boosts your self-esteem. “You’re so beautiful…I love being with you…let’s do (…) together, we both enjoy (…) so much, etc. etc.” Finding common ground is a total delight. We’ve found someone with whom we can share life. Wow!

Don’t get too real too fast. See what you can do to hold on to this feeling. It’s good for both of you. But don’t make any major decisions in this state – like living together – getting married – or getting pregnant. The relationship isn’t “real” yet.

Getting to Know You…
This one actually takes time. Once life starts returning to a state of “normal,” like going to work, paying bills, doing the laundry, returning to spending time with the other people in your lives, etc., you pull away from the enmeshed bond – but with the addition of this wonderful person. It’s almost like the fog clearing, letting in both sunshine and rain. This is when that cute little habit of his/hers can either stay cute or become annoying.

The time frame can be anywhere from two weeks to six months depending upon the kind of person you are. Some people literally fall head over heals, believe this is THE one – soul mate, the whole bit. Others take their time walking slowly into a relationship with great caution. No matter which kind of person you are, it still takes time to really get to know someone.

Why 2 ½ Years?
Because this is how long it takes for life to throw enough ups and downs, conflicts and conflict resolutions, etc. into the relationship so that you learn how you are together when you are at odds, when life throws you to the ground, when you are hurt and angry.

Does your mate support you with kindness or walk away and let you handle things yourself? Does your mate lash out in anger and hurt you with actions and words or do you agree to disagree. I could go on – but you get the idea. Time tells you how the two of you handle conflict and how you come out the other side.

If you come out feeling better than when you went in – your home. If you come out diminished in any way –bow out gently and with respect because you’re not home yet. And that’s the bottom line. Mutual respect lives hand in heart with mutual love. You’ll recognize it by the peace in your heart.

Experienced at This?
You’re mature - have been in love before and fallen to the ground in heartbreak. Do not despair! Love IS around the corner if you are open to the concept.

Whether you are new at love or have been in the soap opera of serial monogamy, there’s one basic rule that applies...be happy by yourself FIRST and you will be a better partner. Expecting someone to fill the holes in your heart is asking too much of anyone. You’ll suck the life out of them and won’t recognize the dear person once they are used up.

The phrase I used when I was determined to spend the rest of my life alone so I wouldn’t have to go through THAT again - was - the only reason I will be in a relationship is if it’s an enhancement of my already happy life. Well whataya know - here I am - eight years later with my partner who makes me feel comfortable, loved, accepted for who I am, bumps and all, and puts a laugh in my heart. I’m home.

I wish you all the same delight!
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Blood Love

By Nina Tepedino
It was 1982. It was my summer break from graduate school. It was my summer visit with my beautiful boy child. I was the visiting parent and he was seven years old. When it was our time to be together, we would often take a trip in my camper truck and travel off to our favorite nature spots...just the two of us. We were sharing and giving love to each other to make up for the long separations. Our bond would usually come alive quickly.

We would travel, sleep in a tent, cook outside, hike on the beach, meet some of my friends. We would be in this timeless capsule for as long as it lasted.

Spending time with his mother.....his real birth mother, I know put serious demands on his psyche and it wasn’t always easy for him to keep centered and comfortable in his little boy head. Both of us, abandoned from another life together, would let the joy really flow during our short ecstatic reunions.

On one of these occasions, we had hiked all day and stayed up quite late. We were packing up to leave early the next morning. from somewhere in the Sierras. Before I started up the truck, he hopped in, put on his seat belt and despite the early hour, cheerfully braced himself for a new day.

I turned to him and said, “You must be so very tired from the big day we had yesterday.”
He replied, “Oh, no, I feel ok. I am never too tired for loving!”

I was genuinely startled by his poetic expression. We exchanged a radiant look between each other. That happened almost twenty years ago.

Later, in that same year, my son was present at my graduation into the ministry. I was the last graduate to speak my ten minute homily. As I reached the closing, I looked down at my son from the pulpit. I broke away from my prepared text and told the gathered audience in the San Francisco Unitarian sanctuary, the story I have just told you. For a benediction and final blessing, I added, “I hope none of you will ever be too tired for loving.” My young son’s prophetic words were shared for all to carry away in their hearts.
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What is Love?

Love is what remains after
It’s been used for the umpteenth time
Like an old rag, rinsed out, squeezed,
And still gets it clean

Love is the hard work
The long haul
Long after the spit and polish
No longer retains it’s shine

Love is present regardless
Of recognition or thank you
Love is a lifetime
No ego, no strings, no conditions

Love is so easy when all is good
When the shit hits the fan
Love is what stays the night
Like a lighthouse guides you to a safe port

Love is only superficially
About physical attraction, about frivolity and joy
>Love is what sticks, it is the glue
That can mend the broken shards of this world!
--- Barry Latham-Ponneck

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We Miss You...LOVE

James I. Stevenson known as “The Wind Chime Man” for over 22 years on River Road passed on to the big jam session on Jan 6th in Hospice Care at Friends House in Santa Rosa.

James had many repeat customers and more and more customers would say, “ I came here as a child and now I want you to meet my children.” He always had a big smile for every one and often helped those in need with cash and gas. He kept a 5 gallon can of gas for those out of gas and would only accept refilling the can as payment.

Sometimes he would give credit to someone who was a wee bit short of getting just what they wanted and he was almost always repaid.

He loved waiting on people and setting up his elaborate display. People would tell him, “ I know winter is over when I see your beautiful colorful display.”
James moved to Santa Rosa in 1968 to be with his lady, Suzanne E. Roach, whom he met during Expo 67 in Montreal Canada.

Last summer he was unable to set up and sell as they were repairing the mountain across the street.

James had customers from all walks of life, judges, lawyers, working stiffs, tourists from around the world, and even returning important Bohemians.

Little known by most, James was an important jazz musician in Detroit, Las Vegas and ten years in New York City. He played string bass with many famous musicians and singers including Johnny Mathis, Chick Corea, Zoot Sims, Chico Hamilton, Archie Shepp, Tom Wayburn, and many more. He then learned the piano and had his own group “The Jazz Circle.”

James [Jimmy] Stevenson was recently included in book “The Jazz Loft Project” with a full page photo of him wildly playing the piano at his loft at 821 Sixth Avenue. The Lofts were “a scene” where internationally famous photographer W. Eugene Smith also had a loft and photographed and recorded the musicians that jammed there including Thelonious Monk, Roland Kirk, and Miles Davis.

James is mentioned over 20 times and was the youngest of the jazz players to be there regularly.
James is survived by his children, Beth Stevenson Bucanhan, James Christopher Stevenson, Sherry Roach, Jerry Roach. Zip Stevenson, Scott Stevenson, and Star Stevenson. He also has 11 brother and sisters and their spouses.

Any one wishing to make a memorial donation is requested to make it to smiletrain.org or the charity of their choice.

Suzanne Roach
ladywithart@gmail.com
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My Home, My Heart,
Are One and the Same.

By Susan Clark
I grew up on a 33 acre property shared with my parents, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, 5 cousins, and one grandma. There were 3 houses, a 100 year-old barn, a large chicken house, and plenty of elbow room in between. The property contained lots of hills and dales, thick forests, open meadows, sacred groves, mysterious ravines, a babbling brook, picturesque orchards, and a natural spring. The place was intersected with well-traveled footpaths, and gravel car and tractor trails. We had 3 kinds of apple trees, 3 kinds of cherry trees, peach tree, walnut tree, plum tree, almond tree, fig tree, and wild grapes. Over the course of the years we had dogs, cats, turtles, fish, pigs, horses, cows, and 10,000 chickens!

Spending ones childhood in such a place was the manifestation of the word ‘idyllic.’ My siblings and cousins and I had not a care in the world. To look back on it has always seemed like a lovely dream out of a fairy tale. Summer days were packed with adventure from dusk to dawn. Racing up and down the dirt roads on bicycles, building forts from apple boxes, swinging across the creek on the rope swing, forging trails through the woods, exploring the spooky attic in the barn, sitting high in a tree eating fruit until you were sick, collecting rocks, collecting eggs, riding horses, exploring the creek bed, climbing the water tower, flying kites, initiating clubs, pushing each other in the feed cart down the corridors of the chicken house, building tree forts, playing baseball, having rotten apple fights, staging contests, (such as: how many seedling cherries can you fit in your mouth at one time, and it didn’t count unless you spit out the seed. I think I still hold the record with 72!) sleeping in the woods and telling scary stories, sleeping in the tree house and telling scary stories, candling eggs, picking flowers, making tunnels and mazes in the tall weeds on our hands and knees, having water fights, climbing up inside the feed silo when it was empty, playing jump rope, hopscotch, and tetherball, wearing out the seat of our pants sliding down and off the edge of the roof of the outbuildings, riding the steer, (yes, we did.) It was never ending fun.

My love affair with this property never stopped, but it did slow down considerably in the 30 years after I grew up and moved away. In the years hence, another home was built here, and five years ago I was afforded the opportunity to occupy that home. I had always felt unduly blessed to have spent my childhood here, never had I imagined I would be so fortunate as to return! That is more than any one person deserves!

My family still owns all of the acreage, and my love has been renewed and enriched. My mother and my aunt are still here, an occasional cousin is here, and my brother is here. My daughter and my two sweet little grandchildren occupy grandma’s house, and now I get to share it all with my husband.

The property has rearranged itself of course. It is neglected and overgrown, but hauntingly beautiful. Thick vines hang from the trees, and there are hardly any open spaces left. It is almost like living in the rainforest! The cement walkways are all that remain of the chicken house, and strolling down them, thick with trees on either side is an otherworldly experience. The old barn still stands, now 130, and no longer safe upstairs. Nature is plentiful in all of its forms, animal, vegetable, and mineral. You could blindfold me and plant me anywhere, and when I opened my eyes, I would know exactly where I was. Rock collecting and tumbling, bird watching, photography, and hikes with the kids are now my pastimes. I can still barely contain my desire to be outside, exploring, always exploring. And now and then, I still find myself up in a tree, looking at my paradise from a new angle, and never forgetting to thank God for my good fortune.
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Goat LOVE...Chiva the LOVE Goddess
Chiva was loved by many - a testament to the joys of connection.

AN ODE TO CHIVA
It was easy to boast
About Chiva, our Goat
She was often seen
On Hwy 116
We loved her a lot
Her memory on the Hadley Estate will never be forgot
Standing on her surfboard, she never knew
How many smiles she grew
We miss you so much
Along with all the other hearts you touched
Goodbye, our sweet Chiva
1/09/2010

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READ “For the LOVE of Chocolate” the tale of David Gambill's marriage of two loves - in PEOPLE in the News category.
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Carol Sklenicka: Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life

Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life
Voted one of the 10 Best Books of 2009 by the New York Times.

at River Reader Bookstore Winter Events
16355 Main Street, Guerneville, 707 869 2240

Wednesday, February 17 at 7:00 pm

"Ten years in the making, this prodigiously researched and meticulous biography sympathetically and adroitly integrates its subject's work with the turbulent life -- marred by alcoholism, financial turmoil and family discord -- that brought it into being. Sklenicka shrewdly deconstructs Carver's fraught relationship with Gordon Lish, the editor who played an outsize role in the creation of Carver's stories, the most influential of a generation." --New York Times Book Review

LOCAL REVIEW:

I just finished reading Carol Sklenicka’s book on short story author Ray Carver. (Carol and her husband Rick Ryan live in the Jenner area. At first, I didn’t know how I was going to feel about the book as Ray Carver was unknown to me, but I have to say that once I started, I couldn’t put the book down. It is a fascinating biography and has already won prestigious awards. Stephen King did a lengthy review several weeks ago in the New York Times Book Review and gave it high honors.

Carol is going to be reading at River Reader in Guerneville on Wednesday, Feb. 17th. I urge all of you to put it on your calendars and attend. I also urge you to purchase the book. If you have any interest in modern literature, you won’t be sorry.

Brenda

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Homeless by Choice - Another Perspective

The Art of Surviving Homelessness

By Kerry Echo
On the other side of expensive vacation rentals, the ocean is an edge of darkness dotted with lights from invisible boats in the distance. Parked at the end of the continent, I am feeling the terrible weight of my stark life. No one can know, really, in all truth, how I got here. It has been worth pondering in therapy, but no answer to the problem is permanent even if I can make it through another week. Week to week. Day to day.

One foot in front of the other, I struggle to endure the daily routines that circumscribe my life; and, to be honest, I am tired and bored of the radius of financial confinement to which I am presently condemned. I seem to be married to it. I am heartsick at the way money has grown to a staggering importance for me, overtaking everything else, but mostly and rudely the things I love. I have lost my focus for poetry, for long afternoons at the beach, for planning anything beyond the next few hours.

Yet, oddly, and to my own amazement, I would not trade my present circumstance for any other reality. I am not even tempted to find a shortcut or detour. For one thing, I'd be suspicious if things got too much easier too fast. For another, I am proud and competitive and want to see this weird life-warp out to the end: I want the victory over the odds as much as I want a ward against this kind of warp ever happening again.

Yet, I admit I wonder if I have not found a modus vivendi, a make-peace, passive compliance, with the warp rather than the path to defeating it. For all my more-than-occasional desire to run --- run anywhere to get out of here (and one could well ask where here is exactly) --- I cannot seem to find any reasonable alternative to the daily dance of seemingly going nowhere. And run? Run backward into a past that no longer exists?

I do enjoy imagining a prize at the end, if there should ever be an end; but I often doubt these feeble attempts at hope. Hope is tricky. Hope, even a little of it, can plunge one into deeper despair. Like salt or sugar, it is best to go light on it, walk gingerly, but just keep going. I hope, but I am not bragging I have any. I'm not running like a child with scissors. I'm keeping my head down.

I imagine a lot of things. My imagination, though, is much richer than what the world seems to have available. I wanted some good gypsy company out here and hoped for it ---- a gal friend with whom to chat over a beach fire, roast marshmallows, share some silence. I have wanted to record her life --- their lives, for my imagination gave me several women friends with whom to share the coming cold evenings. I thought I might write about these women, hoot about their courage. their intelligence, their strength in pulling themselves through difficult times. They probably don't exist. At least, not the way I imagine them.

For instance, there is a curious gal who lives in a truck about as ugly as mine. She spends most of the day on the Bay in one particular spot, though I could not say where she goes to park and sleep in the evening. I see her very early in the morning as I am washing and dressing for work and if I visit the outdoor washroom in her area before dark.

She seemed friendly at first. I often saw her chatting with people who brought their dogs out for a walk or with someone from the Parks and Recreation crew. However, when I tried to chat with her some time ago, I was politely rebuffed. I was offering food. She said she was on a special diet.

I was unsure how to extent myself to her, and I made a patent mistake. The truth is (and I knew this) the homeless are individuals with a keen sense of dignity: no one wants her state of homelessness pointed out to her, not even obliquely through the offer of food. We hide homelessness from ourselves so that we can do that impossible dance every day. We settle for a lack of definition, a myopic haze that takes some of the sharp edges off, and just plain guessing as to who or what someone once was or did. That is certainly more fun, and that, of course, is the wrong word.

No one talks much to each other out here, which should not come as a surprise. There is too much of a chance of tripping over a live wire of dense feelings that have not been examined or were given up on as yielding nothing but pain if unraveled. We are careful, in other words. There are land mines, you see.

The other homeless, truck-driving lady and I tend to meet coming and going from the public washroom. One day a week ago, she asked if I knew who was taking all the toilet paper off the rolls, a daunting feat, really, when you consider how long it must take to swipe the paper from 12 rolls without leaving a trace, save the cardboard shells they came on. I know we both wonder how the thief is going unnoticed, by what means the toilet paper is being displaced, and how it is being transported from the washroom.

It's the aggravation of being surprised, the grim idea of having to trot back to one's vehicle for tissue or paper napkins to fill the lack, and the curse-laden relief of finding that the thief conscientiously left one roll with enough paper on it in the last stall. It is an ill-timed, five-second emotional roller coaster that no one would enjoy in the early morning, least of all the homeless who have to trek the great outdoors to get to the nearest toilet. It is one of those relatively-small things, like the housed who drop trash in the park or play their radios too loudly, that unite the homeless.

A few days ago in the washroom, this same woman wanted to know if she could ask a personal question. I should have said, "No." I am not that clear headed in the morning, and I was caught off guard. After all, I was dressing, and I will probably never get used to having company in my outdoor boudoir.

"Do you actually shower out here? I mean, do you take cold showers?"

It was all downward from there. I was only half-dressed and felt defensive about something that is really no one else's business. But I am polite by nature and tend to deal honestly with others. I answered the questions: Yes. Didn't I know I could use the Y for only $30 a month? And, oh, she hates being cold. She could never take cold showers. I must run warm. I must have a high metabolism. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

All that at around 6 a.m. My first draught of tea would be a half-hour and two miles away.

Her ignorance was deeply frustrating, even hurtful, as it bumped noisily against my fantasized gypsy girlfriends who would have known the secrets of the open-air shower: the exquisite sensation of cold water warming one's insides; the canopy of pines and palms filled with the sweet susurrus of birds; the high, star-studded, velvet sky overhead; and a privacy otherwise denied the homeless and about which the housed know nothing.

I cannot explain her--- the other truck-driving, homeless lady --- except to guess that she wanted to pretend she had choices and perks of which I might not have been aware. We might as well have been talking over our coffee cups at the fence between our backyards replete with laundry waving in the breeze, immaculate green lawns husbanded by men, and swing sets empty of children in school. There was always a standard histrionic quality to the middle-class housewife and her ability to spend, albeit wisely. That image of the other truck lady and myself persisted through the day, and it was a comfort of sorts, though another kind of fantasy that is far out of reach, existing as it does in another era.

Perhaps her fall from the grace of the middle class had been much harder than mine. It takes considerable time to embrace the notion that one has become part of that class against which the armies of the world protect the wealthy.

In any case, in my position, one can only do what comes to hand. I have a job. I have a vehicle. I amuse myself with crossword puzzles and New Yorker magazines I lift from the YMCA after yoga class. I write. I run in expensive shoes that were worth every hard-earned dollar I paid for them. I make friends.

Friends. They are of considerably more value than money alone. I am sitting now with my laptop aboard a sailboat that sways gently in its slip, lulling me as I pursue the educated idleness to which I am accustomed. The sound of a grand harp makes me curious enough to go topside to view well-dressed people gathering for a wedding about to take place on the grounds next to the marina. I return to the cabin on loan to me, the jazz music playing on the radio, and the appurtenances of the temporary world I have managed to eke out for myself, an accomplishment of the bare truth.

My truck stopped running in the middle of the freeway a few days ago, which means my world had come to an end once again. I had just received my new Triple-A card and had not yet paid the renewal fee, but I phoned anyway. The Highway Patrol pushed me off to the side of the road, and Triple A's truck showed up within the half-hour to tow me to the middle-eastern garage. That slow, sinking feeling of doom around not having a place to sleep for a night, a few days, a week, or worse began to swallow me. And what if the truck were, this time, beyond repair?

Despite having working solidly for six months at a new job, I had only a ten-dollar bill to get me to the end of week when I would get the first decent paycheck of my career there. That workplace deserves a few pages of its own, but suffice it to say that a vehicle breakdown at this time, while inevitable with an old truck, was nothing but bad luck after bad.

The cell phone, the necessity of which I have exhorted many times, was the one piece of good luck I had in hand. I phoned everyone in the area whom I thought might be able to help. I happened to reach a friendly couple whom I had met in yoga class who lived near my YMCA. I humbly stated my need, and they were more than willing to open their door to me.

Within the hour, I had a ride from the middle-eastern garage to the home of the most upbeat, offbeat, intellectual, and artistic couple I have had the pleasure of knowing in a very long time. Their simple, tastefully-remodeled beach house was filled with exotic sculpture Pattie had created and was a delight to my eyes. Bill, a former university professor and a keen, sensitive observer of human beings, had himself experienced homelessness. He seemed to know intuitively what I felt and what was needed. I was offered dinner, of course, but I was also offered a place to sleep and Bill would take me to work the next day. I could stay there at the house. Or on the boat.

The idea of sleeping on a boat was just too outre to pass up. So we packed me up and took me off to the marina where I boarded an old sailboat with the few possessions I could manage to carry away from the truck. Bill took me to and from work the next day, but, as though his kindnesses so far were not enough, Bill offered me the use of his vehicle so that I could drive myself wherever I need to go.

So it is now Saturday. I have barely left the boat all day, preferring the soft, back-and-forth motion on the water to going anywhere my legs could carry me. I sleep soundly in the prow of this little boat and feel rested in a way I have not in a long, long time. It is no wonder the history of modern man began in a boat. I am prayerful today, thankful for the blessing of new friends. I verge on feeling hopeful, but I know, too, that I dare every day, win or fail, to keep going, to keep doing the daily dance I think is going nowhere.

For more essays by Kerry Echo, visit http://artofsurvivinghomelessness.blogspot.com/

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Christmas Story - A Father's Gift

A Father’s Gift

By Alan Joseph

I can’t remember the first time I stood next to my father as he played the piano. The melodies were so familiar that it seemed I had listened to them all my life. And, indeed, I had. Every night as my mother cooked dinner, my father would sit down at the piano and ask softly, “Well, what would you like to hear?”

Of course, my favorites were all the songs he had always played, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue”, “Ain’t She Sweet?”, and “Sweet Georgia Brown” to name but a few. Tin Pan Alley was alive and well every night in our home. Melodies were played, voices sung out, serious toe tapping music. And it always ended the same way. My mother would poke her head around the corner and say, “Sounds great, you guys, dinner’s on.”

But as the years rolled on, my father played less and less. Still at his side as he would end a song early, I would ask, “What’s wrong, Dad? Aren’t you going to play?” He would smile and rub his hands and say, “They just aren’t as young as they used to be, you know?” It was true, his soft touch had grown increasingly stiff. To his knowing ear, it just wasn’t right, and more and more the piano sat quiet.

Years later I had gone home for Thanksgiving and was giving my Mom a hand with the mashed potatoes and gravy. From behind the living room door I heard the notes that struck such a familiar chord. I asked my mother if Dad was playing again. “No,” she said. “Honestly, he hasn’t played for years. Maybe you should go in while you have the chance.” Upon opening the door, those melodies wrapped around my heart again. And though a little stiff, the magic was still there. Same songs, same gentle phrasing, same laughter.

It was the last time I heard him play. The following Spring, I received a call from my mother telling me he had died in his sleep. But his music stayed with me in the most surprising way. A year later I was engaged to be married and I found myself shopping for a guitar. Well, if I was going to start a family of my own, I had to have some way of playing those songs before dinner.

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Eliza B.

By Cecil e Lusby

I first met Eliza B. in the mid-1980s at Santa Rosa Junior College when she was a student needing my help getting resources through the Enabling Services Department. I don’t remember whether her issues were neurological or emotional, but we always stopped and talked whenever our paths crossed. She was a brave, but fading hippie and I a part-time politico. She seemed happy with her classes most of the time, rarely venting any discontent. My son and I helped her move once, but we never understood who or what it was she needed to leave behind so suddenly. After she lost her job and dropped out of school, I didn’t see her for about a decade.

You wouldn’t know her now.

I began to volunteer at FISH, the Catholic Worker, and then the Interchurch Pantry. Every now and then Eliza would show up in line, get her food, and disappear. I believed she was having a tough time making ends meet. As the years passed she would grow flustered when she recognized me at the Pantry. Her blush has now weathered into a permanent sunburned ruddiness; the look of the outdoorsy Irish often resembles that of the chronic alcoholic or the homeless. Sometimes the pink lingers on even after sobriety. After decades as a food distribution worker, I still am not sure. With my father and grandfather both relentless drinkers, I am familiar with the pattern, but reluctant to jump to conclusions. I have never seen Eliza drinking or under the influence, yet she has always been vulnerable in a harsh world. I never witnessed her being impolite, not “clothed and in her right mind,” as James Baldwin used to say.

Last month I brought my recycled coffee cans to be refilled at Taylor Maid’s beanery.
As I approached the store’s entrance, I saw a green water hose move and a garbage bin shift on its wheels. Then I saw a woman against the wall, her hair now shining silver. She moved quickly, setting the bin at an angle to block my view, but I saw the bright blue eyes: it was Eliza behind the dumpster, not wanting anyone to see her scavenging. My old friend did not want me to see her. After a long fight, she has come to this. Perhaps she had not recognized me, so out of respect for her privacy, I left her alone behind the bin. Was I wrong? Was I missing an opportunity to acknowledge someone I knew? Or was I sparing her embarrassment after seeing that she had slipped through the cracks? All these thoughts ran through my mind as I bought my coffee. Stepping outside, I looked around, but she had gone, and now the memory of her troubles my conscience.

Eliza is still out there, still one of us. What separates us now is the awareness that she has fallen in a society that blames the poor for their situation. Because of my mother’s struggle as a working divorcee, I know that many poor people try hard, work hard and still have nothing to show for it. Sonoma County now is full of the formerly employed and underemployed. We are not so different.

Even though I was able to work, be a mother, get an education, and retire with a pension, not every life travels an upward arc. Some of our peers fall by the wayside, and witnessing them fills some of us with an anxious need to keep striving, while others realize how much we have to be thankful for. The next stage is responsible gratitude, remembering those still in need. It is a call and response. For our thankfulness to be effective, it is necessary to work together as a community to prevent more suffering, more hunger, and exposure. Once again, it is the dark, chilly time of year to remember the Food Banks and Pantries from the bright warmth of your home and hearth.

Please give to the Interchurch Food Pantry of Sebastopol; P. O. Box 579; Sebastopol, CA 95473

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Fast-Paced Novel of Navajo Culture and Canyon Country

by Juniper Bangs

Meet and Greet author Jennifer Kitchell on Saturday, November 7, between 11 AM and 1 PM as she chats with you about her new book, Girl with Skirt of Stars. This debut mystery is said to weave Navajo ethnography, sexual tension, political power, and the beauty of Grand Canyon country into a gripping story that fans of Tony Hillerman will appreciate. The event takes place at Copperfield Books, located at 104 Matheson St. in Healdsburg.

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The Cancer ~ Fighting Kitchen

The Healing Foods Free Lecture Series Presents: Rebecca Katz

Tuesday ~ October 27th, 2009
5:30 to 7:00 PM

Rebecca Katz, author of One Bite at a Time: Nourishing Recipes for Cancer Survivors and their friends.

The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen, Rebecca's newest book, brings the healing power of delicious, nutritious foods to those whose hearts and bodies crave a revitalizing meal.

Join us at:
The Center for Spiritual Living
2075 Occidental Road
Santa Rosa, CA 95401

It is free, so bring a friend!

"I want you to think of this book as a toolbox to help you or someone you love get through cancer." Rebecca Katz

Please RSVP: jo@ceresproject.org or 707.829.5833 x 3


Volunteer Needed with In Design

Experience!

If you have experience with In Design and have extra time to help The Ceres Community Project, please contact Margaret at margaret@ceresproject.org or call 707-829-5833. Our immediate need is helping with our cookbook layout over the next month. If you know someone who may be interested, please forward this information to them! Thank you.

http://www.ceresproject.com/

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Vagabond - Homeless Journal - Running for Life

I am running for my life.
By Kerry Echo

I am running to save my life and running away from it.

I come along the straight of the oval where the breeze off the ocean feels as though it is under my feet and lifting me. I always have that sensation of riding this stretch, although one would think the wind would slow me down. I run backward on the track, or clockwise, just so that I can sail this stretch while everyone else, for no known obvious reason, runs the opposite way. I am not trying to be odd. I just like the feeling, and so far as I know, there are no rules about which direction to run a track.

Besides, running the track clockwise gives me the widest, longest view of the ocean. The other side of the track, which one suffers in counter-clockwise motion, abuts the baseball field, out-buildings, and the score board; and the breeze is at one's back when one rounds the end of the oval and enters the straight I enjoy so much.

One cannot just count the laps and expect to be happy and to want to do it again. No. My wide-hipped female body with slender ankles is in poor ratio for running, which best suits more slender women. So the rebellion in my body starts almost instantly. My hips complain loudly of being pinched and compressed on all sides from the jolts they are sustaining with every foot fall, but I move my attention to the pleasure in my feet and toes and the room they have to spread out in my shoes. I can feel the small muscles there and all throughout my calves.

I was told by a good runner a long time ago to remember that my heart is moving me when I run, not my legs. Indeed, that entire engine in my chest is the force behind the locomotion. Pumping my arms, he told me, moving them in a C shape between my chest and downward only to brush the sides of my hips, back and forth, would give me the momentum I need and remind my feet to keep up. To think I only run four laps.

My shoes help. They are the race car of running shoes, Ecco Bioms made in Denmark of yak-hide leather. It is a light-weight shoe that molds to the foot. There is very little sole in the usual sense and no bounce at all in these shoes as a consequence. They simply -- no frills -- carry your foot, much the way a sports car rides low to the ground and one can feel every bump in the road, a sacrifice of luxury for performance. At the same time, the Biom is a natural shoe, like Birkenstock, which, after a while, conforms so well to your foot you don't feel it.

These shoes take some getting used to, though, and people accustomed to the cushiness of other models will initially think it categorically impossible to run in the Bioms. The other models of running shoe give you a start, a bounce if you will, because of the wide thick heels and rounded up toes. But my feet would come to hurt, and the shoes would feel more like concrete boots after a mile around the track. I would sprout blisters on the bottom of my toes and between them, and that darn big toe would need massaging if I wanted to sleep at night.

To get started in Bioms, one has to start by creating some artificial bounce at first to be able to lift the feet and initiate a running motion; but the entire foot is engaged. I have heard, of course, how many muscles there are in the foot; but I can feel all of them with this shoe as I put myself into the rhythm of the run.

It is here on the track that I lose the demons and the overwhelming sense that my troubles are insurmountable. Throw in some nagging remorse and sorrow over whatever portion of this suffering I brought on myself, a longing for the way things used to be, and the pall of thinking maybe things won't come right, after all, and I am ready for Bellevue. Really, nothing says things will come right. The hard-stare face-down I give my reality --- my way of preventing myself from entertaining delusions, the kind that brought me to this parallel universe of homelessness in the first place --- is perhaps necessary, but painful.

Therefore, I run.

Bellevue, the longstanding, proverbial household term for nut house, is a real hospital in New York City, and it is the oldest public hospital in the United States. It was founded in 1793 and still serves people of all backgrounds, irrespective of ability to pay. However, contrary to popular myth, Bellevue has never been only a psychiatric facility. Bellevue Hospital Center had the first ambulance service and the first maternity ward, hosted Nobel Prize winners in medicine, and was the site of the development of the Polio vaccine. It has been affiliated for a long time with New York University School of Medicine and is considered to be a training ground for leaders in the field.

I needed this cool factual break, though I must add that Bellevue here is Mesa Vista, a facility I intend to visit before I ever spend another entire week crying and disabled by grief.

The secret to running is not to think about it. Even while the compression and ache around the hips is ever-present, I notice how the run feels in the buttocks, calves, thighs, and so on. The secret to living my life right now is, similarly, losing the fixation on what hurts. But what hurts in my life is . . . well, everything. My life is the remnant of a life, and I am impaired by it. I am crippled, and maybe it is this with which I must come to terms. Perhaps I must see myself differently, not as I used to be, but as infirm and afflicted. Perhaps this is where my new life and all my thinking about it must begin.

Running may be only compensatory, a way to clear my head, a means to being too tired to think and worry. Maybe the Bioms are just a toy, something to distract and ease the mind. It is so hard to tell these days in the absence of things familiar and with living irregularly. Can I live this new life without thinking about it? Like a day at the track above the ocean?

Learn more from Kerry Echo at Vagabond http://artofsurvivinghomelessness.blogspot.com/

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Slow Dance - Live before you Die

This is a poem written by a teenager with cancer. I'm passing it on or two reasons. One is because her message is good for everyone. Two is because a very dear friend was taken to the hospital with heart problems today and the last I saw him was in an ambulance. He says he'll be OK and I pray that is true. He has lived his life fully, loved well, shared much and I know he'd have no regrets if he died today. That's a good way to live. - Vesta

Slow Dance

Have you ever
watched
kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to
the
rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a
butterfly's erratic flight?


Or gazed at the sun into the
fading
night?

You better slow down.

Don't
dance so
fast.

Time is short.


The music
won't
last.

Do you run through each day

On
the
fly?

When you ask How are you?

Do you hear
the
reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie
in your
bed< >With the next hundred chores

Running through
your head?

You'd better
slow down

Don't dance so
fast.

Time is
short.


The music won't
last.

Ever told your
child,
We'll do it
tomorrow?

And in your
haste,


Not see
his
sorrow?

Ever lost
>touch,

Let a good
friendship die

Cause you
never had time


To call
and say,'Hi'

You'd
better slow down.

Don't dance
so fast.

Time
is short.

The music won't
last.

When you run
so fast to get somewhere

You
miss half the fun of getting
there.


When you worry and hurry
through your
day,

It is like an unopened
gift....

Thrown
away.

Life is not a
race.

Do take it
slower

Hear the
music

Before the song is
over.

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Overcoming Disability: Inga's Story

PHOTO by Penny Wolin. http://www.pennywolin.com/

Inga’s Story
by Bianca Llamas

What Inga remembers most about waking up that day was the white. It surrounded her, but it was not the comforting white of billowing clouds or down comforters, but the cold stark white that spoke of starched ironed bed sheets and disinfectant.

It was a surreal setting where nothing made sense. All she could remember was who her family was and her job. She was told later that the accident occurred when she was celebrating with her boyfriend in downtown Vilnius, Lithuania. The holidays had passed and winter was raging on.

Inga Lizdenyte, 32, did not know where she was when she woke up. She had been in a car accident, but she didn’t remember it. The result was the loss her legs and the paralysis of her left arm.

Inga had no recollection of the accident. Later, she was told that the driver was speeding, at 100 miles per hour. The roads were slick with ice and snow. The driver lost control and careened into light pole. He died at the scene. At the time of impact Inga’s legs were sliced in half, just above the knee.

Her life seemed a blur. It was not until a few weeks later that her father told her that the driver who died in the accident was her boyfriend, Dalius. After hearing his name she understood.
“Dalius always liked to drive fast,” said Inga.

To most of us it would seem incomprehensible, losing both legs and a boyfriend at once. Yet now Inga reflects that she was able to handle the news fairly well, no doubt due to the morphine the doctors were filling her with.

After being released from the hospital Inga went back home to live with her family, but things were not the same. Like physical therapy, learning to live with a disability and the looks in the eyes of old friends who never knew what to say or do. It took about a year of being stuck in her room to be motivated to take hold of her situation.

“I couldn’t leave my room because I had to wait during the process of home modification. I made the request right away but it took about a year before anything was done.”

“I couldn’t take the humiliation of being carried down the only flight of stairs from the elevator to the ground floor…I only left the house for doctors appointments and rehabilitation therapy”. Life as she had known it seemed to no longer exist. Inga felt that she had lost the freedom she had rarely even given a second thought to.

But Inga was strong. Adjusting to her new life was not easy. She had been forced into a world that required her total dependence on others. Eventually with the combination of therapy and motivation, Inga decided to get on with her life.

“I wanted to live, not exist,” said Inga.

Things were looking up when an American prosthetic expert was able to create two prosthetic legs, enabling Inga to walk again.

But only for a year.

Her thighbone was growing back, a painful process some amputees experience. The pain made it impossible for Inga to wear her prosthetic legs.

There is no longing in Inga’s voice when she describes choosing to use a wheelchair. She is content and happy with her life. Inga’s pristine happiness is what sets her apart from most people and people who have suffered an injury resulting in disability. Part of this happiness is due to her job, Public Relations and Volunteer Coordinator at Disability Services and Legal Center also known as DSLC.

“One of the reasons I love working at DSLC is because this agency helps people like me to become independent and live their lives despite their disability. I have seen, smelled, felt, heard and tasted every emotion that these people are dealing with. I know what it feels like when you cannot live your life as everyone else only because you don’t have access or opportunity due to your disability. DSLC is the primary resource for people who have to go through difficulties as I did. I want the community to know that there is a place where they can get help if they or their family members have any difficulties because of disability. I can share my own personal story with them to hopefully inspire them to take hold of their lives.”

Anyone can find Inga in her office, dubbed “the fishbowl”, working away while listening to up beat electronic music.

Her upbeat attitude and energy is infectious. She admits that she may overwork herself by taking on too many projects but is always satisfied with their outcome.

Inga has a worldly presence and when speaking with her you can only think of how amazing she is. Fighting losing battles and overcoming her past, Inga may be the strongest person you ever meet.

“I could feel sorry for myself, but what use would that be. I am thankful for everything I had to go through, and what has happened to me has made me only stronger. I love my life and my job. I have a purpose and that is to help others like me”, said Inga.

If you have any questions regarding the services provided by DSLC call DSLC, 707-528-2745 or check out their website http://www.disabilityserviceandlegal.org/

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Vagabond - The Art of Living Homeless - Kerry Echo

Kerry Echo lives on the streets and has a blog for her essays. I appreciate her perspective on life so I am including one of her essays here - with a link to her web site so you can follow her journey. - Vesta


Love is Not All
By Kerry Echo
http://artofsurvivinghomelessness.blogspot.com/

Love is not meat or drink, but it can get very, very lonely being homeless without it.

Most homeless people have no roof whatsoever, and those of us who do are living out of a car, truck, or van, which barely provides enough room for one person. Assuming two people could get along under one small mobile roof, there is still the problem of lack of privacy with having to situate the "roof" on a side street or in a parking lot. Truly, I wish I had had a choice about listening to Sheila and Brian argue, break up, kiss, and make up every few days.

The homeless are up early and turn in early to avoid encounters with the housed and the police. There are just too many logistics to handle as it is, and the police can rattle your nerves even when they park next to you at Seven-Eleven. And I can live without the nervous, faux cheeriness of the housed when they have an unexpected encounter in a public washroom --- I only have my bra on so far and I'm brushing my teeth. Somehow, they want to chatter at such a time, perhaps to pretend that I am just like them. Except for the homeless part.

It is not that often, though, that I meet the middle- and upper-middle class housed. Most of the time the public restrooms are empty, and I can relax and enjoy the breeze coming through the open-roof structure and look out at the tree tops. One public washroom has dovecotes, whether by accident or design: instead of a single pitched roof, there are two pyramidal roofs separated by a breezeway, each with its own skylighted pavilion perched at the top. Doves can be heard flying around the empty, upper interior. They have taken over the roofs and nest on top of the walls separating the toilets, which places the humans doing their business on the first floor.

The birdsong of the mourning dove permeates my earliest memories, so having this particular, familiar bird attendant upon my toilette is a luxury and a joy. Even if the biggest problem with having birds in the attic looks nasty --- the excrement that has dripped down and dried on the upper walls --- it seems fitting.

One day while doing my toilette, I was surprised by two very well-dressed women, so well-dressed it was startling. They were in skirts and high heels, made-up, perfectly coiffed, and wearing expensive jewelry. There was a pleasant hint of perfume in the air that spread like an aura throughout the washroom. We exchanged greetings as they entered and each took a stall. I continued washing my face.

"You ladies are really dressed up for the public washroom this morning!"

"Oh," said one of the ladies as she left her stall, "We're Jehovah Witnesses."

There is usually an internal "uh-oh" response whenever I hear Jehovah Witnesses since they are generally so pesky, all but ramrodding their way through your front door and into your living room. But, of course, I do not have a front door or anything else resembling a house. I decided in that moment to be all the person I am, to be bigger than my reservations, and to stay open and honest.

By now I was brushing my teeth. It seemed a little awkward, but the ladies stayed a while to chat. Most of the chat was about their missionary work. I told them I respect their belief as I do all beliefs, which turned out to be an opening for one of them to ask what my belief was. I told them I am spiritual, that I have outgrown religion, that I love Jesus, but I want to be able to communicate with everyone on the planet regardless of their belief.

My answer elicited a pause; I think it impressed them because no one can honestly deny the need to relate to all people. They may also have been relieved not to have to defend their own belief, as I am sure they meet with plenty of diatribe against the JWs. At any rate, the two well-dressed women took their leave; and I have to say I liked them. My impressions of people include a disaster scenario and whether they could weather a storm with me. I do not want to hear, "I broke my nail!" when we all need to be bailing water. These women were tough on the inside. I could tell.

A few mornings earlier as I had just finished in the washroom, a car drove into the parking lot blaring the sound of the Beatles. So few radio stations play the Beatles anymore and, where I live, no one listens to them. It was unusual. Then my friend, Sheila, pops out of the car and runs over, as usual, lunging at me with an enormous embrace.

Unless by way of a well-honed internal guidance system, I never know how Sheila finds me. She behaved as though she expected to see me right there right then. Even uncannier is the fact that I am not staying out by the yacht club anymore where Sheila last saw me, but further south in Mission Bay.

Sheila's lover is still in jail, and she is pining away. She is pining so much she decided to go back to school to become a nurse, maybe to keep busy. But Sheila always sounds a little drunk, so I am hoping she succeeds despite her boyfriend and the addiction. Unfortunately, because she pops into my life unannounced, I usually have something else to do and must leave her company sooner than I would like. That was the case a few days ago. Sheila is no longer homeless, but she still retains some of the footloose habits that homelessness engenders; and I will see her again.

One of the subtle effects of homelessness over time is to make a person more truly herself. I have been given back to myself through this simple way of life, which has few distractions. I tend to be completely honest, even honest about dishonesty on the rare occasion that I must employ it. One of the most important features of this new integrity has been a progressive ability to be in the present moment much of the time and to make the best of my surroundings and everything in it.

I am no longer fixated.

It is remarkable when I review my life to see how often I denied my reality. I was always waiting for the perfect friend, lover, sister, brother, mother, job, apartment, exercise plan, vacation, and the list goes on. I was in the future and stuck in the past, unable to love what I had; and I am only beginning to enjoy imperfection as the capstone of things rare and extraordinary.

Letting go of fixations --- who can be my friends, who can be my lover or soul mate, who is interesting or not --- has allowed me to accept the things around me and experience them in greater depth and detail. The narrow romantic-love vision of the 1950's household of my childhood no longer applies under my present circumstances and may be, in fact, obsolete. Certainly, if one is looking to live life to the fullest and have the experience of joy, there is no other way but to leave oneself open to the excitement of possibilities and to a childlike fascination with what might happen next.

For example, bird visitations are a regular feature of the outdoor shower at public restrooms. One day, a silly gull perched on the shower wall was behaving just as my beloved, deceased dog would have and seemed to stand guard overhead while I washed. In fact, I came to believe my beloved dead dog was inhabiting a bird body. Fantasy? Magical thinking? Perhaps, but the experience was real and something I will never forget.

Then there are the elusive Bob, Steve "the Wonder," and my girlfriend, Sheila, exotic creatures in their own right. If I look for Bob or Steve or Sheila, I cannot find them. They just appear and our relationships continue, renewed and updated. These people have blessed my life with the richness of their personalities.

There is nurturance in relating to everything around oneself. There is a sense of belonging, a feeling of security, and love that comes with it. It is not just what one gives or what one gets, but the relationship itself, the in-betweenness, that brings joy to me. That third element is what I seek, that subtle energy of life between and among all living things, the gravitational pull that draws us into one strange, wonderful whole.


Love is Not All
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

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