Chance = Change

I sit in a moment in time right now that is 3 hours ahead of everything I have ever associated with this special day ...it is only 5:35 here in San Francisco, and that's in the A.M....whereas I would be fixing a fresh pot of coffee and warming up some delicious muffins at home in VIrginia right now, propping up my many bed pillows to get ready to consume the above while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, snuggled next to husband and puppies, I am instead, sitting, perched on the soft comfortable bed in Paul and Stephen's guest room before the sun lightens the San Francisco sky, and I am writing of Thanksgiving Days present and past, while Peter and the pups are probably all snuggled down getting ready to watch the Parade without me! This makes me only slightly sad, since I do love and miss them, but am also incredibly happy to be here , in this amazing CIty with two people I do love so, celebrating a time - a few days - of sheer freedom from the humdrum of my daily existence. Here I have one of the precious things that my normal life lacks: OCEAN - and I cannot tell you all what the sheer walking beside the glorious waters of the Bay and Ocean here have done for my soul. So, I am only slightly sad to be not snuggled down with hubby and pups on this Macy's Morning.

In my mind, I am snuggled with Peter, Sally and Cyrano.....and of course, even saying the word "Sally" in my mind, brings back many memories of my Momma Sally, with whom I spent so many of these particular mornings watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. (I wonder how many people are either writing or saying those 4 words this morning: " Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade"??

Odd that one annual event - a parade of people, marching bands, twirlers, clowns, huge floats filled with hot air, - should so define a life......has so defined the life of a nation - a common memory running through all our lives - childhoods defined by all eyes focused on TV screens, tiny or enormous, depending on the decade , at the same morning times, waiting and watching for Santa to arrive to announce that our time for celebration has arrived.
Our time for joy, our time for allowing for peace and goodwill.....a spiritual state determined , permitted, announced, by the arrival of enormous plastic and rubber floating popular icons, and lines of horn-blasting, colorfully uniformed youngsters, brass buttons glinting in the 5th Avenue morning sun, parents bursting with pride as they watch their exhausted high schoolers walk the famous street , all hard-worked fund raising bake sales having handsomely paid off !! Macy's Parade has made all sorts of memories in all sorts of ways. And here we are at another one....me on the West Coast, most everyone else in my life on the Other.

THis lovely Pacific Heights apartment smells of all the fine cooking that has been going on over the past few days, and the day promises to be another in a line of wonderful days here.

Of course I am thankful for all of that.

I am grateful that my sense of the largeness of the world has been restored. My memories revived of a world of possibilities that tend to recede into the background when I am focused on the usual tasks at hand. I am grateful for so much that awaits me, here and back East, as my tired, well-lived life enters another year defined by a Parade: but I will eternally be that little girl, waiting for Momma and brother RIchard and Daddy to come and sit and watch the Parade with me, and I know that no matter how many years fill my life to its completion, if a Parade is heard in the distance, I will always be waiting to watch it, be fascinated by its shiny things, and possibly, be willing to follow it. After all, why stand still, when the music is playing?

And that , in a nutshell, is why I am on the West Coast right now instead of at home: there are horns blasting and , and shiny buttons gleaming, somewhere in the distance, and they are taking the Beach Road route.

Have a perfect, blessed Thanksgiving TIme, everyone. I send love to all.

Right at this moment, I am sitting in the coffee shop area outside the Flight Gates here at Tr-CIties Regional Airport, and my flight takes off in about an hour to Atlanta. From there, I catch another plane that will be int he air some 5 and half hours, but when it lands, I will be in San Francisco - future home of our dreams.

Paul and STephen are so thrilled that I am flying out to see them and their favorite city, that Stephen has already started cooking for the Thanksgiving Holiday, and I can almost feel Paul's blood as it thrills to my arrival: he and i still have this wonderful need to see each other, even after being married, divorced, and dear dear friends for over 35 years. I am excited to see him too...and to be free of my busy daily life here, at least for a while.

More soon.

Sometimes I think I was put on this Earth to simply appreciate the fine work of others. As much as I have enjoyed the work I've accomplished throughout my career (and this morning it feels like a very very very very looooooooong one), it's when I sit at the feet of true art masters that I feel most fully alive...most free from my own harsh ego concerns and most joyously thrown into the release -the warm ocean - that only great art seems able to provide me.

Case in point: Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel: THE LACUNA...when Peter and I went to have our Sunday coffee and NY Times time at Zazzy'Z yesterday morning, I saw THE LACUNA on sale at 20% off on the shelf (after all she is our local celeb, and Zazzy'Z our only small bookstore)...then I happened to read the glowing and analytical reveiw it received in the very same NY Times I had just purchased, and that immediately made me want to own and begin reading the book, so Peter bought said book for me...i plunged directly into it, and have yet to come up for air...it is MAGNIFICENT!

It's the story of young American boy growing up in Mexico with his morally loose Mom (she goes where the monied men are), and how he comes of age into manhood through adventures in the Diego Rivera/Frida Kahlo household, among other historically enthralling situations that present themselves....it is subtly artful, detailed and compelling...for the life of me, I cannot even begin to understand how someone can write such a book...how anyone can write anything so intricate and human...and the title THE LACUNA is a metaphor for so many things in life...a resonant, meaningful title...getting the right title alone is such a miracle to me...and this book is large...it's like diving into the deepest part of oceans to read a book this skillful...because it's an entire world of its own, with totally believable yet fantastical creatures...until you realize that that is how LIFE itself is: filled with the fantastic....WE are that complex...our stories are all that odd and wonderful....but then someone has need (and the gift, let's not forget) to write some of it down and it's like a magic wand is waved and we see it all through clean clear underwater goggles!

A story is a story is a story, after all....but a truly gifted writer ( and humankind is blessed with many) tells it in ways that defy explanation...because their experience shared is mysterious...true experience needs no explanation...it just requires that you enter its world and give over to it...and for me, entering the world of a gifted artist's making, is the most wonderful thing possible....every so often I do stop and say out loud: how did she do that? How did she know that? Where did that come from in her? How did he or she KNOW to write that ? And of course, that's the art part...the Muse, if you will..the true creative thing: it simply comes...because it is supposed to come at that moment to that person who has laid out the WELCOME mat for it....who has created the world for it to enter into.

Barbara Kingsolver has always entertained me and made me think....but with THE LACUNA, she has me in thrall and I am following her anywhere she wishes to take me.....I am enslaved and want to build pyramids to honor her. Get and read THE LACUNA.

I need to go my office, but first: one more chapter!

.....reading over yesterday's entry it dawned on me:

A single person can be a "mob"...

Hello everybody....here I am, back in the writing mode...on a rainy and chilled November 1st morning , snuggling in bed with husband and puppies... no sweeter cuddle can be found. And we gained, with no effort on our part, an extra hour to this day, which makes it even sweeter: it is now officially Fall 2009!!

We have earned this morning at rest because Peter and I just completed a two-day gathering at our Board of Trustees Retreat at the lovely Eastman House in Kingsport, Tennessee, at Bays Mountain, and everyone involved worked really hard! That alone was enough to impress me, but there were so many other things about this gathering that impressed, that I felt moved to write about it a bit...so , here we are.

People in groups can be many things: exciting (think of political rallies), INciting (think of pep rallies), scary (think of mobs), terrifying (think of lynch mobs), inspiring (think of really attentive theater audiences), awake ( a large class led by a brilliant professor) or asleep (same class led by a pedestrian one), happy (large weddings), stupid (think of bad versions of all of the above) and brilliant (a rally for an idea who time has come!),
comforting (a community after a disaster), or hurtful (mobs usually are).

I can honestly say that, except for stupidity, this past weekend's Board Retreat had elements of all of the above possibilities, and it was enthralling! This Board is a truly good gathering of people from all professional walks of life, with the only thing binding them together being an interest in this particular arts institution. So , you'd think that leading them to discussion and useful conclusions (which was wonderfully done by professional named David Mallett) would have been an impossible thing to do. But just the opposite turned out to be true: this group contracted and expanded, agreed and argued, laid down points, then backtracked and replaced points when necessary, kept to the disciplines gently put in place by the facilitator, and ate together, laughed together, met together, talked together in such a way that all voices were heard. All voices contributed.

Much like the brief time I spent being a Broadway Equity Deputy on AEA Council, I came away from this gathering very moved by the possibilities of human beings meeting together with a common goal. It was at times shocking how kind the group was, how concerned about the well being of others...i felt like I had been given a very large and loving gift to ameliorate the effects of certain tensions that entered the room at certain points...we have close-knit Staff, and i felt we were all taken well care of in this room we all shared....it is a loving Board of Trustees. And a damnably smart one as well! Such marvelous minds, from companies and industries all over our region...i loved getting to know so many I did not know before, and it helped restore my faith that people do care abut this particular arts organization...it became a wonderful example of people applying their specific expertise to areas I had always considered "arts" areas...my view was definitely widened , or should I say "views", since so many of my points of view went through deep change throughout this day and a half in a room with all these people.

I am honored to have been a part of it.
And I look forward to knowing these people better.

Labels: Barter Musings