Cherry Blossom Blessings

If you break open the cherry tree

Where are the blossoms?

But in springtime they bloom!

                             ~ Ikkyu, 1394-1487

Every one of us stores away indelible images from significant events in our lives. For some people, those memories are sounds – a song or particular piece of music. For others, it may be the awe of touching a soft newborn’s head or the smell of lilacs in the spring. For many, visual cues bring back a flood of memories that when you close your eyes, you are right there - as if no time has past.

For me, cherry blossoms are engraved in my mind. Pink clouds of beauty surrounding once bare trees, their petals drifting downward as lazy as the first soft snows of winter. Even though it has been decades since I lived in Washington DC, cherry blossoms bring back a cascade of memories from the city that so transformed my life. In my mind’s eye, I see places on the mall such as the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington Memorials, the National Gallery of Art, and the Capital, which evoke further memories of this fascinating city.

When we brought our first-born home from the hospital, the famed cherry blossoms around the Tidal basin were in full bloom. They are reminders of my giving birth for the first time. Within a day’s time, I had become a parent. But more so, these flowering trees of beauty are symbolic in many ways of who I have become as a person.

Washington’s cherry trees are an expression of friendship between Japan and the United States. For a century, these beautiful clouds of spring have called us to the enduring need for peace in a troubled world. That living together in our diversity of cultures requires more than international borders, resolution of immigration issues, and peace treaties. It is friendship that the world needs most.

The first cherry trees arrived here from Japan in 1912, before either country would be drawn into war with each other. The trees endured the terrible years, when dropping bombs from the air became defining factors determining who we are as a people for the first time. When we dropped those first atomic bombs, we altered the face of Japanese culture. Just as our culture was permanently changed, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And Nagasaki and Hiroshima became forever burned into the history of the world.

It took a long time for our two countries to restore their friendship with each other. A decade after the war ended, little boys in my country were still drawing pictures in Sunday School with the words “bomb the Japs” written across planes raining terror downward. While the Japanese had used the symbolism of the cherry blossoms to stoke nationalistic fervor during the war – even painting cherry blossoms on planes before bombing missions to symbolize the intransient nature of life.

For the Japanese, cherry trees have meanings embedded deep in the Japanese psyche. Meanings going beyond the symbol of friendship that Washington’s trees represent. Images of cherry blossoms are woven through throughout Japan’s poetry, especially its haiku and waka forms, as well as its art and music. After Buddhism was brought to Japan from China in the 700’s, images of cherry and plum blossoms reflect its subtle themes. No one word describes their meanings. Ephemeral. Impermanence. Beauty. The reality of our mortality. And more.

The custom of hanami (flower-viewing) in the spring and picnicking under the blooming trees began long ago in the 700’s - or perhaps even earlier in the third century with celebration of cherry blossom festivals. Today when the cherry trees bloom, Japanese people flock to temples, shrines, and gather with friends and family for flower-viewing parties.  One Japanese woman, tongue in cheek, described it as a time for men to gather together under the trees and drink too much sake.

Japan is a long archipelago of islands. Cherry trees begin to bloom in southern Okinawa in January, reaching Kyoto and Tokyo by the end of March or the beginning of April. Hokkaidō, the northern-most major island, begins to see its cherry trees bloom a few weeks later. The dates are not exact and are dependent upon weather, so the Japanese meticulously track their progress with cherry blossom reports after the nightly weather forecast.

When I went to Japan a year ago – one century after the first cherry trees were planted in Washington DC – I did not expect to see cherry blossoms. The timing of my trip wasat least  two weeks too late, after tender young leaves would have replaced the pale pink blossoms. But much to my surprise and delight, it had been an unusually cold and lingering winter for Japan. This very late spring meant the trees bloomed while I was there!

Osaka-Kobe is an industrial city and a large seaport. The air was grey with smog – yet cherry trees had exploded in full bloom along the Okawa River. I drifted down the river by boat with Japanese families full of excitement. Walkers were everywhere along the river. People sat talking among the trees as if they had not a care in the world. It was hanami at its height. Forgotten were the realities of heavy industry and sea-faring ships. Forgotten were economic concerns of the world. Flower-viewing meant being present in all this beauty. One of those time-standing-still moments of my life.

Later I traveled southward to Nagasaki where time had stood still in the horrific moments when we unleashed nuclear bombs on Japan – a postscript to a war that already had ended. At Nagasaki’s Peace Park I wander among monuments from various countries and pondered their meanings. At one end of the park, multi-colored origami peace cranes hung in chains, thousands of cranes. For centuries, cranes have been considered sacred symbols of good luck, long life and love. Folding paper cranes has become one more way to surmount the losses suffered during this war of the world.

A massive statue dominates the other end of the Peace Park. The figure points one arm skyward, signifying where nuclear devastation streamed down. Its other arm extends horizontally as a promise and hope for peace. I ask myself if I could have found such hope if it had been my country, my city that was so utterly destroyed.

Despite what the park signifies, it is a serene place. It provided space for me to reflect on my questions about why humans struggle for world dominance, using increasingly sophisticated weapons of war. This Peace Park was another world away from happy families celebrating the legendary cherry blossoms. And the friendship offered by Japan in such another time. The gift of cherry trees that ring the Tidal Basin in Washington.

As I stood there, I looked up. A solitary crane flew overhead. Since cranes mate for life and are never far from each other, I wondered if it was a young crane not yet mated – or an older crane grieving the loss of its mate. Paired with my fresh memories of clouds of cherry blossoms, the crane was a fitting blessing of my experience in Japan.

Brave New world

There is no such thing as privacy in a globalized word.

                                                 - Joan Chittister

Whether you believe Edward Snowdon is a hero, a traitor, or a naive idealist, his situation has pointed to much broader questions about transparency and privacy.

Picture a six year old bouncing through the house. He notices a set of car keys lying on the table and decides to go for a ride. Why not? He has watched the grown-ups in his family driving the family car. He know just what to do and heads down the street, manning the driver's seat.

Not kidding! Occasionally a child does just that. I remember a little boy who drove 16 miles from one northern Minnesota town to another before he was "apprehended."

We humans are in much the same situation with our use of powerful digital devices. Pick up your cell phone and text someone halfway round the world. With the Internet, your computer gives you the opportunity to order items from multiple companies across the country (or out of the country). We watch events happening elsewhere in the world while paying our bills - without searching for a stamp or a US Postal mailbox. Many of us use social media sites and have conversations with lots of people simultaneously. We hear the verdict of a trial in Florida and the number of Tweets rises into the millions soon after the jurors announce the verdict. I write this blog and readers from every continent read my words (except Antarctica - at least up to this point).

In turn, your computer is watching you. Ads proliferate that are tailor-made for your preferences. Your personal demographics are public property. Sophisticated commercial use of data about you exceeds the capacity of the Federal government to track you.

The printing press has been said to be one of the greatest inventions of all time. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, books became available for people, who previously were excluded from reading words printed on paper. Until that time most of the people in the world learned exclusively via oral stories, stationary messages inscribed on rocks, or in Western Europe, stories portrayed in sculpture and paintings affixed to  great cathedrals. The books that did exist were laboriously produced by hand, one book at a time. Even if we understand cognitively what it might have meant to live in an illiterate world without books, emotionally it is difficult to imagine all of its ramifications. 

We live in a similar time. Can you really remember what it was like when communications were limited to letters and phone conversations - and long distance was used only for emergency purposes? A time when you had to go to stores to purchase any item you wanted or needed? When news was limited to newspapers in large cities, but not available in small towns?

The difference between printing presses that produced one book at a time and the digital capabilities of today is that a person could observe the press itself and see how it worked. Today, computer chips are non-observable miracles. And my new computer is so thin that it sits on my desktop - and has no little slot for discs to enable me to download software. Instead, everything is on-line. What next?

We have been handed powerful tools that few of us understand their inner workings, much less fathom their multiple capacities to engage the world. We are six-year-olds with the keys for the family car. It's easy - we have seen others clicking away at keyboards. We can do it too.

Should we be spying on other countries? Because other countries are spying on us, should we be spying back? What does national security mean anyway? It has not taken many decades to move beyond the time of bugging rooms with secret microphones and recording conversations on reel-to-reel tape recorders. 

I have no words of wisdom to contribute to this transparency/privacy spying debate. Nor do I know where all this digitization will take us. The Dick Tracy of my childhood used this marvelous wristwatch to communicate with his sidekick - all fantasy of course. Now look at us - electronic devices that already are obsolete when we walk out of the store.

Oh, gotta go! My cell phone is vibrating . . .

The Pain of Connection

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - 
and sings the tunes without the words - 
and never stops at all.

                                 - Emily Dickinson

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
 Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 
                                               - Martin Luther King, Jr.

It was mid-April and I was about to begin a new essay to be published here - the theme of that essay I have now forgotten altogether. Real life intervened. The Boston Marathon bombing took center-stage. Like many people, I watched it happen. I followed the real time search for the bombers, until the capture of the younger brother in the boat into which he had crawled. I was stunned, shocked, and at a loss for words.

When I was ready to go back to my writing, another tragedy occurred. And then another, and another. The chemical plant explosion in Texas. The escape of three women held captive for years. Three women's murders in the city where I live and extensive searches by so many people to find their bodies - one is still missing at this time. The growing horror that Assad's war against his own people included the use of chemical weapons. Wild fires in the SW and repeated storms pounding the NE and the Midwest. The protracted winter here with snow falling still in early May.

I was puzzled at my reactions to all of these events and my inability to write about them - my usual way to work troubling things through. And I was puzzled by the seeming lack of connection between all these events - other than violence, both human and from the natural world.

Then the huge tornado ripped through Oklahoma City and I had my answer. I have four members of my extended family living there. This event was very personal for me. It was with much relief when the instant connection of email and texting got word to family here that everyone was all right.

Connection. This world in which I now live is linked instantly to my life. I can watch events around the world on the Internet and TV news while these events happen.

In one way, this shift has been gradual- so subtle that unless I push back my memories to ten or twenty years ago, things are simply as they are now. But remembering the succession of shared party lines on telephones to reliance on letter-writing to answering machines to email to smart phone texting has changed my life and the lives of millions of other people.

Our means of connection have been altered in radical ways. Now I sit at my computer and write, then post that writing on line to be read by people stretching all over the globe. If anyone had told me just a few years ago that people in Russia (and elsewhere) would be reading my writing, I would have had to take care not to laugh outright in that person's face.

Coupled with this magic of technological connection, global travel has altered our cultures dramatically. Whether you actually travel to once-foreign places or enjoy stories of others, who have been blessed to travel - this is not our grandparents' world! Nor the world of my childhood where going to the next town 28 miles away to shop for school clothes was a major event.

The isolation of my childhood small town has been transformed into connections non of us once dreamed possible. No longer am I concerned only with the death of a neighbor just down the street or celebrations of weddings and baptisms with people close to me Now I listen to screams of children in a grade school as a tornado collapses their school. I watch marathon runners and spectators whose limbs are torn off their bodies. I bleed for the violence in Syria. And suffer with families who search for loved ones.

Would I want my old world back - and live in a town of 3000? No way! But this present world in which I live demands a re-balancing within myself. How do I live with the pain that confronts me daily - without it destroying me? How do I stay informed in a global world - without isolating myself from its horrors? How do I make decisions about the ways I can support others in need - without stretching myself to some breaking point?

And most important of all - how and where do I find hope and joy in a world that at times seems to have gone mad?

Yesterday I was invited to a neighbor's high school graduation party for his eldest daughter. Cars were parked up and done the block. The table was laden with food. The were more small children than I have seen in a long time. When I asked the daughter what she would be doing next in her life, she shyly said she was going to a state university to study nursing. Oh, and did I mention everyone there had immigrated from Ethiopia?  There lies hope.

Earlier I celebrated a birthday with my granddaughter who has just finished her first year of college. A week ago her older brother helped me make the transition from a PC computer to a Mac - before he heads off to graduate school in a distant state. Both of them with their dreams for the future. There lies hope.

I shop at a grocery story that has food from many places - not the meat-and-potatoes diet I grew up on. I take a continuing education class with people who have traveled all over the world. Every day I encounter people who have come here from elsewhere. And from my own traveling "round the world" I know that almost everywhere I have gone, I encounter people from here who have chosen to live somewhere else. There lies hope.

And the ubiquitous smart-phone! After I crossed the hurdle of learning to use it and discovered for myself how texting creates another connection for me, I watch people with this little device making connections never before possible. Some people argue that our devices have distanced people from each other. Yes, that is a risk. BUT calling people from wherever you happen to be is a connection that did not used to happen. In the not so old "olden days," you had to have that umbilical cord attached to the wall - and long distance was only used for emergencies.  There lies hope.

As Joan Chittister says, There is no such thing as a private life in a globalized world. To paraphrase Huxley's phrase of a brave new world, it is a strange new world in which we live. Whatever lies ahead, we will suffer the pain of our connections - and celebrate our hopes for the future.

                         

Breaking the Rules

Computers are like Old Testament gods;

lots of rules and no mercy.

                              - Joseph Campbell

Integrity has no need of rules

                           - Albert Camus

Hell, there are no rules here -

we are trying to accomplish something.

                                   - Thomas A. Edison

When we are young, we are introduced to the world of civil rules. Like, don’t spit on the sidewalk or on other people. Don’t push everyone out of the way in order to be first in line. Don’t talk with your mouth full or throw food. You know the drill.

When I was in high school, I once babysat three young children. Their regular babysitter wasn’t available, so they called me. I said yes — but when I returned home, I vowed to never again care for these children. I was an old hand at baby-sitting, but I’d never had such an encounter. I still can close my eyes and see three uncontrollable little boys running naked over the furniture, using their little male equipment indiscriminately. And their daddy was a preacher!

It taught me that the other end of the spectrum from rigid, strict discipline was just as damaging as the physical disciplinary methods parents used when I was growing up. Some rules are necessary if we are to live with each other in families and in our communities.

There are other rules we need to learn to function in the adult world. As one of my advisers in grad school put it, showing up on time, respecting your supervisor’s requests, and other such decorum was just as important as learning the latest psychological theories. I don’t know if he thought that this grad student (me), who had been a traditional stay-at-home mom, needed to be coached. So, I didn’t roll my eyes and remind him I’d worked for years at the NIH before having my first child.

However at work, we do differ in terms of a tendency to raise issues or to not ask questions. The world needs people who follow directions. And the world needs people (like me) who are forever asking why. There are two interesting scales on the California Psychological Inventory. One is Achievement via Conformance and the other is Achievement via Independence. You can guess how I scored! Even in high school, I knew that I would not have done well to aspire becoming a secretary, one of the three acceptable occupations for a girl in those days (teaching and nursing being the other two). Being a secretary then meant a lot of yes-sir and no-sir.

Living in Washington DC during the sixties turned my world upside down. At the same time that I kept the rules at work (mostly), I picketed the White House carrying my first-born. And my husband walked in the March on Washington. Rules said that black people were not equal to white folks. But these rules needed to be broken in order for them to be set aside. If there had been no protesters, the status quo would have continued.

Later protests across the country against the Vietnam War meant questioning our government’s decision to engage in this action. A war so unlike the WWII war, which I’d been taught had two clear sides of good and evil. But I'd been taught a version of American history that had no grey areas, only a black-and-white version of how things were in the past. A conformist version of history in which America could do no wrong.

When do you follow the rules and when do you not? There is balance each person needs to decide for themselves. As well as each person deciding how one breaks rules perceived to be unjust, unfair, or just plain wrong.

One of the psychiatrists, who supervised me in my internship, specialized in working with teen-age boys. He taught me an important lesson. If a parent takes on every issue with a teen, they will be engaged in constant warfare — and everyone will lose. Rather, he advocated a parenting approach that meant picking your battles wisely. A clean room may not be worth the energy expended to enforce it!

And don’t go after behavior that you can not effectively counter. For example in today’s world, that means dealing with thorny issues such as children’s access to the Internet ranging from FaceBook, pornography, or violent video games. Issues I never had to face as a parent.

This week the Supreme Court heard two cases relating to gay marriage. No matter what you personally believe about marriage, the current discussion in this country and the resulting legal issues are about whose rules are to be followed. In the second case heard, Federal and state laws had created an entangled mess that cost EdieWindsor more than $363,000 in estate taxes when her partner of forty years died.

And the catch? New York recognizes legal same-sex marriages that are performed elsewhere. Living in New York, the two women married in Toronto, two years before her partner’s death. But the Federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) did not recognize their marriage. It meant the IRS could collect estate taxes from Edie that a married person would not have had to pay.

Here is a woman who took her case all the way to the Supreme Court and became a public person challenging legal and cultural rules. For years, Edie was terrified about anyone knowing she was a lesbian. She finally had the courage and support to take this step in her life. Standing in front of the Court at a microphone, she declared who she is to the entire world. Breaking rules of silence and rules about leading hidden lives.

A new Pope has been elected in the Roman Catholic Church. From the moment of his election, Pope Francis has been breaking rules right and left. He got into an actual argument with the man in charge of dressing popes for public appearances — and made his first appearance on the balcony over St. Peter’s Square wearing a simple white cassock. The next morning he slipped out of the Vatican and hailed a cab to go to the place where he had been staying in order to pick up his luggage and pay his bill. Having been in Rome, a city of fast-moving traffic, I love this image! While those security personnel charged with protecting him are fit to be tied.

For some people of course, his rule-breaking is not welcome. Traditionalists are upset because of his movement away from the Latin Mass and all of the pomp that Benedict promoted as ways to return the Catholic Church to pre-Vatican II days. And wouldn’t you like to be a little mouse in the corner at the Vatican, listening to those who love their perks in a Church that has become corrupt at its core.

In this Holy Week, Pope Francis is reminding us of a Jesus who was a rule breaker. The Gospels have a whole string of incidents when the Jewish Jesus broke with the religious rules of his time. It earned him the enmity of those who had the most to lose, until a reluctant Pilate turned Jesus over to be crucified as a common criminal. The inscription said to be on his cross, proclaiming him King of the Jews, could well have said instead: Jesus the Rule-Breaker.

Good luck and prayers, Francis! In a single moment, the last vote that was cast electing him Pope, has the potential for turning the religious world into a power to be reckoned with in a world that is struggling so much with so many crucial issues.

Breaking the rules? I was raised to be an obedient first child. Becoming a writer and a poet — with opinions would not have fit that script. I was supposed to blend in and not call attention to myself. To go on being a good girl.

Some of the rule-breaking in my life has cost me dearly. Other rule-breaking has been a contribution to my daughters, my granddaughter, and other women, who have opportunities I could not have imagined during the first twenty years of my life. And some of my rule-breaking has given me great joy!

My balance between adhering to cultural and legal rules and breaking rules has changed over the years. And the culture I live in has changed. I no longer am consigned to live in my husband’s shadow. I am a person in my own right.

But perhaps the best change of all has not been any conscious decision on my part to break with tradition and custom. Learning to listen to my inner-voice has allowed the mystery of written words to find expression and to speak my truth. But to do that, I first had to break a lot of rules.

Should She Go to India . . .

                    Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.            

                                            —  Helen Keller

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

          — Yogi Berra

Some time ago a woman wrote to one of the advice columnists in the newspaper. She had been given some money from her parents —  who wanted her put the money toward her retirement savings. The question she was asking the columnist was if it would be alright to instead use the money to fulfill a dream. This woman always had wanted to go to India, but her income had not been sufficient for her to save enough money go.

Responses from readers were fascinating. Usually when an emotional question elicits a lot of responses from readers, a few are printed — and then the column moves on from there. In this case readers have continued to respond to the question of whether the woman should use the money to go to India.

One group of people believes the woman would be foolish to use this small windfall. The most recent response suggested the woman could perhaps experience the essence of India without leaving home. And that the woman would come to regret using the money for travel and then find herself unable to retire at age seventy.

A second group of readers says “go for it, woman!” They see the money as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And that the woman will have all of these memories of her experience to savor in her later years. One person did the math and computed the number of years the woman would have in order to adequately fund her retirement —  and still use this unexpected money to fulfill her dream.

The columnist said it was interesting that all the people who advised the woman to stay home had never traveled themselves.

It was this statement that caught my eye. It would seem the original question divided people into those who travel and believe that travel has a value far beyond the dollars invested. Those people with a more conservative perspective valued opportunities to protect their security, especially during the elder years.

As Ben Franklin says:

We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour

each day making choices . . .

Each choice is made in the context of whatever

value system we have selcted to govern our lives

The illusion that we control our lives is just that —  an illusion. The reality is that all of life is filled with unexpected circumstances. Even so, we alternate between periods in which we believe our decisions give us security and times when our lives are turned upside down.

Our best decision-making strategy needs to recognize we can not control the universe! There is a fine balance between the wisdom of caution and daring to take advantage of opportunities that walk right into our lives. A lost job, a death of a loved one, betrayal by someone we trusted, economic turmoil affecting our retirement plans, or a catastrophic loss to our home —  the list is long.

We can use hold those circumstances close to our hearts and try to devise lives that protect us from future events. Or we can acknowledge that we do not get to save ourselves. And turn our losses into opportunities. Even as we may grieve what has been handed us.

Should she travel to India, this woman with a dream? Some people do not want to risk leaving the comforts of home in order to travel. I certainly can testify that traveling is not for the faint-hearted! We may sleep in beds that do not comfort our bodies. Strange food confronts us. The prospect of trauma from difficulties that we may encounter is always a risk. Culture shock is real —  both in going to new places as well as coming home from such places.

However, I would not have traded any travel-experiences I have had for the security of my familiar home. Travel has formed and transformed me in ways I could never have imagined.

I think of some of those events. Last April we set sail for Japan and the north Pacific only to encounter sea ice driven south from the high Arctic. When the ice floes became so frequent that our ship could not pass through, our ship had to return to Japan to find another route to Alaska. I had the experience of a lifetime because it is not likely I will ever travel by ship through the Arctic that lies above Canada.

A trip to Bangkok was on hold until just weeks before —  due to protests in the streets. In the current news, we watch street protests in Athens happening in the square in front of the Parliament building - just outside our hotel window where we stayed several years earlier. 

A window between violence in Kenya gave me another experience of  high adventure in Africa. There I watched a female lion drive her adolescent son out of the pride because it was time he made a life of his own. Three male lions with big manes watched the whole drama along with us.

Crossing the north Atlantic, we sailing through rough seas with forty foot waves — and then hid out from Hurricane Earl as it moved north and we sailed south. We were just 100 miles from its eye. Or being unable to make landing in the Falkland Islands, when fog was so thick you could not see your hand in front of your face. The twenty-foot waves would have made the two-mile trip to the main island (in the equivalent of a lifeboat) unwise and a bit too much.

Not all of my travel experiences have been those of high adventure. The wonder of being in places that once were only dreams. Conversations in cafes with folks at the next table and wandering cities like Paris and London. Watch a wedding procession while sitting at a sidewalk café in Seville and sharing vicariously in the celebration with all the guests, bride and groom. And matriarch of the family brought up the rear in grand style, a woman about 4 foot 6 with a magnificent mantilla upon her head that must have been at least a foot tall.

Or being part of history in the making. Being in what was Eastern Germany a year after reunification. And hearing stories of people in Northern Ireland about what the Troubles had meant to them.

Some of my collection of memories were camping high in the mountains and eating the gift of a neighbor’s just-caught trout. There were the important times that we shared with our children as they grew up. Memories now embedded in my bones of the beauty of high mountain passes, blooming deserts, red rock canyons, and endless solitary ocean beaches.

If we had saved “all that money” we spent on travel, we certainly now would be living a grand life of ease. Stock markets gyrations and the politics of sequester and fiscal cliffs in Washington would be much less of cause for concern. But we would have the same issues of health that all of us face as we age - ours and friends. We would still face the likelihood that one of us will die before the other. And I noticed that a freak hailstorm this November that meant a new roof did not discriminate among the residents of our neighborhood! 

To the woman who dreams of India I would say go for it! And not just because traveling to India is one of the places I have not yet figured out how to make happen in my own life.

Our dreams can sometimes become realities in such unexpected ways.





On Being a Cat

Dogs can be taught almost anything for a reward.

Cats look at you as though you have lost your mind,

then walk away to do their own thing . . .

I must have been a cat in a former life.

After my colleague-husband and I finished our latest book, Conversations • Images and Poetry, it was time for a breather. The process had been exhausting, with some glitches that  we previously had not encountered with earlier books. What I needed was a little rest and recreation to re-energize my writing voice. A road trip to North Carolina was just what I needed! There we visited friends and walked the sand beaches of the Outer Banks.

However, this breather stretched into a longer period of minimal writing. I waited — and waited — for the next project to appear. Previous projects always had announced themselves without much effort on my part. Sometimes they would even show up during the final stages of proofs and printing a book. This time nothing tweaked my curiosity or imagination.

Months went by. I was totally uninspired. I began asking myself what was going on within me. Writing Conversations had been like climbing Denali or Mount Everest, a culmination of years of writing and photography. Maybe this pause was about some transition in how I wrote or what genre' I chose.

Perhaps — but no jolt jump started my writing. No seeds of re-definition sprouted like the fragrant Sweet Annie herb that appeared in new places every spring in my garden.

Then an epiphany arrived — at the same time as the Epiphany of the liturgical year. A gift arrived from some unknown place. The great aha for which I had been looking. I was following around a rutabaga at the end of a stick. 

A rutabaga? You know — rutabagas, those rather homely tan and purple root vegetables that you pass by in the grocery or farmers market every fall. Now, rutabagas are not a vegetable of which I am not particularly fond  — and my husband refuses to eat them. Thus, no rutabaga never had crossed the threshold of our lives!  

A carrot I could understand — dangling at the end of a string tied to a stick, coaxing a horse or donkey to get in gear and move forward. I am fond of carrots. But this foreign vegetable? Wherever this image came from, it persisted in my mind. What in the world might it be trying to tell me on my writer’s path?

For non-published folks, there is bit of an aura of mystery about writers of books. They believe writers lead somewhat glamorous lives. However, writing is not that alluring image. Writing and finding an audience for one’s work is nine-tenths hard work and one part luck of the draw.

I had put in my time pursuing success as a writer. I had several books to my name, took writing classes to hone my writing skills, attended conferences to network, published op-ed pieces, taught at several literary centers, did public readings of my work, marketed my books, created two blogs, and belonged to several writing groups. And among all that activity, I did manage to find time for writing. It was be fair to say I’d accomplished my goal of becoming successful as a writer.

But following a rutabaga, this earthy commoner? I might not have noticed a carrot, but this unattractive vegetable caused me to do a double take.

It dawned on me that the gift of this metaphor was about the external motivators in this decidedly unglamorous profession. Motivators that somehow had captured me and were running my writing life.

I stopped looking for that next project. Instead, I spent time reflecting about how I’d come to be a writer. Neither writing nor photography were things I’d ever dreamed about doing. In fact earlier in my life, I’d have laughed out loud if someone has suggested such crazy ideas.

When I did begin writing in earnest, it was because I felt called to this strange occupation. Hours of solitary time when the goal is communicating with others. A low-reward system with sparse feedback — other than the thrill of holding a completed book in my hands, seeing my name in print, or an occasional person who tells me my writing has meant something to them. An often laborious process of re-writing and editing. And unruly words that frequently take me somewhere unintended.

But in the process of becoming, I traded my calling for a profession. I realized I needed to stop following all these skills I learned. Not stop doing them (because they still were necessary), but stop traipsing  around behind them as though they were the raison d'etre of writing. I had to return to writing from my heart and soul. Writing what I needed to express — before any consideration of whether I was writing something that would “sell” or speak to anyone else.

My internal reflection broadened beyond writing. What motivates any of us to do what we do? Of course, external demands of our time and energy determine much of our behavior. We don’t say to a boss that is not what I feel called to do today. A certain number of things need doing, in order to keep our lives working — from buying groceries and filling the car with gas to ensuring we have clean bodies that won’t offend others.

The externals in our lives coax us onward. They can appear to be what motivates us to take up a cause, express our opinions, do kind things for others, or spent precious energy on issues that may or may not end in success. And those external motivators may be what keeps us going — especially on those days when we’d rather roll over in bed and sleep in or forget about accomplishing a thing.

There are no easy answers. What answers that exist are unique to each of us. I can’t tell you what to do with your life — your one wild and precious life as the poet Mary Oliver describes it. I can’t even answer the question for myself half of the time.

Becoming a writer was never a career choice for me. Writing took me over, not the other way around. Gradually, playing with the music of words and how they interact with each other captured my attention and led me deeper into the literary world. I’ve always loved Pablo Neruda’s lines in “Poetry” where he says:

                      And it was at that age . . . poetry arrived

                      in search of me. I don’t know. I don’t know where

                      it came from, from winter or a river.

                      I don't know how or when,

                      no they weren't voices, they were not

                      words, nor silence,

                      but from a street I was summoned . . .  

But here I am! It was not that I’d lost my writer’s voice. I just had to quit following that blessed rutabaga around, concentrating on doing all those things writers do to become heard. I needed to trust that in good time, words again would flow from within me.

It is the way it always has been for all of us. Sometimes we are not fortunate to have work that chooses us. The work that we do may be out of sheer necessity — to support ourselves, our families. Or we become parents when it was not our intention at that time in our lives — and we had to embrace a different lifestyle than what we intended. Or we may live somewhere we’d rather not be.

But if we can distinguish the rutabagas from the small insistent voice from within us, the universe will find the means for expressing our unique calling in surprising ways.

Remember . . .  I never set out to be a photographer or a writer.

If I Were Hillary . . .

The difference between what we do and

what we are capable of doing

would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

                   — Mahatma Gandhi

Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in the world. In a few short weeks, she will resign from her position as Secretary of State. She has said only that she plans to relax, sleep, and recover after an arduous four years during which she has used her gifts and influence to effect change in the world for the better.

We could generate a long list to describe this remarkable woman. But mostly she is known simply as Hillary. The world has watched and prayed for her recovery from a fall — and waited for her to announce what she will do with the next chapter of her life.

Hillary Clinton is in a unique position to promote new respect for women. Prohibitions limiting women are not new. What is new are the current public protests being raised against those who would keep women in subjugated positions.

If I were Hillary . . .

I would use for women the accumulated goodwill and vast network I have cultivated among world leaders. Women's issues have been a passion of mine that has shown through so many difficult situations that I have tackled during my term on the cabinet. 

I want to continue working for women in countries around the world from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Egypt and Indonesia to African countries such as the Congo and Sudan. The need is great and perhaps, just perhaps the time is right.

I believe there is much that I can do. I have heard women's brave voices around the world expressing outrage and concerns about their lives in so many different places. I want to use my influence to further their causes.

I watch India aflame with protests over the horrendous rape of a woman on a bus and her subsequent death. In India's contradictory society, where women have held responsible political and professional positions, a highly patriarchal culture still prevails. Now I hear women and men demanding change.

In the troubled nation of Pakistan, the Taliban continues killing girls wanting to be educated, along with women teachers and medical aid workers. While heroic Malala recovers in England from the assassination attempt on her life for being outspoken about girls' rights to an education, other voices continue her crusade. I want to add my voice, because education is key for women in today's world.  Educate a woman and who knows what can happen. And perhaps that is why schools are so feared by so many men.

The extreme sects of the Taliban and al-Qaeda are spreading rumors that vaccinations are a western plot. Their activity is preventing women from bringing their children to clinics to save them from diseases we once thought were nearly eradicated. Or even worse — families are fearful that the Taliban is right. Children everywhere deserve the best chance they might have to live fully, their bodies not crippled from disease — or be condemned to death from preventable diseases.

Wars in undeveloped countries still target women, who do nothing more than try to feed their families. Women, who have not lifted a single gun to fight back against terrorist activity, watch their children starve to death. In Sudan, women are raped as breeding animals to dilute their culture. and the stories of horror faced by women in the Congo are unbearable beyond description. No one, no one should be treated this way.

Recently, an Indonesian town banned women from being passengers on motor scooters unless they ride side-saddle — and the town prohibited them from wearing pants while riding, in order to "protect" them. "We wish to honor women with this ban, because they are delicate creatures." This ban and the reasoning underlying it would be laughable — if it were not so serious and one more step to control women's lives by a distorted interpretation of Islamic law. And I would hardly call myself a delicate creature!

If I were Hillary . . .

It is not just in developing countries that discrimination and violence toward women exist. Women in my own country need to continue to push back against a culture that sees them of secondary value.

During the feminist movement of the 1970's, my generation fought hard to give women opportunities many of their mothers did not believe they should have. The culture at the time wanted to keep us "in the home," while men ran the country, dominated the professions, and much else. Changes during my lifetime have been immense. I am who I am today, because of these many women's voices and actions.

At the same time, the discrimination  faced by women today is more subtle. Women still are  sex symbols, evident if a person watches much commercial TV. We count the number of women elected to Congress, just as we count the number of nonwhite legislators. At least one positive sign is the male politicians who lost elections this past November for comments about "legitimate rape" and the assertion that a woman cannot become pregnant if raped.

I want to continue to model for women in this country how they can serve as leaders and create change. I want our daughters and granddaughters, who have grown up in times of greater opportunities, to see the work that needs to be done and to learn how to take leadership roles. Because my generation sought change. 

******* 

Hillary Clinton's gifts mean she can take on issues that most of the rest of us cannot. For myself, I have waged my own efforts during my lifetime on behalf of women. Empowering women is something I strongly believe is important. Sometimes women have used their influence well. At other times, they have emulated the very males who would limit them. Hillary has the wisdom to do otherwise.

In the voices being raised today, I see hope for a better world for all of us.