For The Love of Cooking

Julia Child's kitchen in the
National Museum of
American History 

I love to cook.  As for cooking shows, well, there has been a lot to love and hate.

Years ago, the enormously likable (and a little wacky) Graham Kerr, "The Galloping Gourmet," and Jeff Smith, "The Frugal Gourmet," entertained and informed my culinary interests thanks to public television.  Both men stood on the shoulders of Julia Child. 

Julia's early television efforts not only demystified French cuisine for American cooks but highlighted her lovable, self-effacing approach to making mistakes while cooking.  She educated without being stuffy. 

All three chefs portrayed a stress-free, lighthearted kitchen where goof ups happened as a matter of course.  They offered sweet relief for home cooks charged with the everyday chore of meal planning and prep.  

Graham Kerr would cook in front of a live audience and invite one of them to feast with him on the freshly prepared meal at the show's conclusion.  He would sometimes include footage of a visit to the country where a recipe originated.  And of course, the British accent made it better.  At 84, he continues to instruct in small gatherings near his Seattle home.  

Some critics noted Jeff Smith had a haughty way about him, but I never found it so. I enjoyed his show until charges of sexual abuse ended his television career. He died the same year as Julia - 2004.

While my mother, grandmother and aunt - my Italian Kitchen Trinity - inspired me to cook, the welcomed ease of these early television chefs gave me confidence.  Inspiration and confidence: what more could a neophyte home cook ask for?

I can tell you what I did not ask for - the hyped up, competition based, tense music, and dramatic lights of many 21st century cooking shows.  The explosion of offerings such as Top Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef, Final Table and most anything with Gordon Ramsay as host has created a culinary hysteria that kills my cooking buzz.  I understand mania runs the day in many restaurant kitchens. Replicating that tension for television feeds an audience that is hungry for more.  But for more of what? 

Life outside my kitchen bombards my overworked senses enough each day.  Cooking is my respite - a creative and delicious outlet.  Seeing chefs and chef wannabes tensely rushing around a kitchen fearing failure under a militaristic barking (I hear you Gordon Ramsay) or being given a surprise "mystery ingredient" all under the sound of harsh music and stark spotlights ultimately leaves me uninspired.  

It's the difference between "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and "Jeopardy" - both are fun quiz shows but one injects dramatic hype (again with the lights and music!) while the other showcases each contestant's intellect and strategy (wagering before final Jeopardy answers are revealed - brilliant!) Plus "Jeopardy" gives the home viewer so many more opportunities to answer questions from a wide category spectrum, making us feel smarter or perhaps less smart.  Within the walls of my kitchen, I choose instructional over intensity. 

With an appreciative nod to Rachael Ray, Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Nigella Lawson, Giada DeLaurentis, Carla Hall, Alton Brown, Lidia Bastianich, and Mollie Katzen as well as chefs with no television show i.e. Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Michael Solomonov, Steven Cook, Marc Vetri, here are some of my favorite food shows: 

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat with Samin Nosrat on Netflix:  Four episodes so beautifully filmed and executed that I floated along inhaling every visual morsel.   Samin  has the culinary chops from her work at Chez Panisse and understands how the four elements of food prep in her show (and cookbook) title are foundational to flavorful, satisfying meals. Also, she mostly chooses local female chefs as her culinary partners. I must become Samin's friend. I must cook with her.  (Hear that Universe?!?)  My daughter gifted me Samin's cookbook and had it personalized after attending a Brooklyn book signing, so this clearly puts me three degrees closer to meeting her. Amen. 

The Great British Baking Show (all the varieties): Bloody brilliant. Peacefully delicious.  Even when the baked goods fall apart, Mary Bell, Prue Leith, and Paul Hollywood keep perspective and support the contestants. They seek quality results always with a kind approach.  The show's persistent civility shocks my American senses.  The Welford Park setting creates an insulated, pastoral oasis framing the irresistible gentility taking place under the big white tent.  And, yes, I am sucker for the contestants' British, Scottish, Irish accents and colloquialisms.  I have cried because the heartfelt tone comes through each episode.   Stunning bake!

Chef's Table: I initially avoided this show solely based on its title thinking it was another intense cooking competition. How wrong I was.  The first episode of Season 5 with Christina Martinez contained everything appealing to my sensibilities: a compelling personal personal story, cuisine birthed from culture and tradition, glorious filming.  It is instructional in both culinary choices and life lessons.  We are immersed in the country of origin and each chef's specific journey while glorious visuals celebrate the food.  If "smell-avision" ever becomes real, shows like Chef's Table will be perfect.  I am now binge watching all previous seasons. 

Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown: More travelogue than cooking show, every episode is an immersion because of Bourdain. He seeks cultural experiences born of genuine curiosity. He is the perfect visitor because, for all his bravado, he listens. Bourdain absorbs the setting and locals all the while persistently searching for authenticity in food.  His love of language is a bonus. From West Virginia to Manila, he instructs through experience. Of course he is intense, but it is not gratuitous.  I checked out my library's audio book of Kitchen Confidential last year and found the best time to listen was while I prepared dinner.  Bourdain's high velocity chatter and bottomless restaurant tales were often head spinning, yet I listened because this chef offered himself 100%.  I also listened because I wanted to hear that voice once more. Sigh. 

Doorknock Dinners with Gordon Elliott: In 1999, these little PBS shows were my favorites. Elliott would select a neighborhood and, with a film crew and chef in tow, knock on doors to ask if he and his merry band of food folk could prepare a meal in the owners home using only what was in their refrigerator/freezer.  He hit on the day to day conundrum of most home cooks: what do I have to make dinner?  Elliott's humor disarmed the homeowners while the chef liberated them with easy meal prep and delicious results. This was one of the smartest shows for anyone who makes meals. 

If you enjoy cooking, who inspires you? 

Between the Lines

I lock the bedroom door behind me and perch at the end of my bed as I am filled with tingly expectation.  I have invested in this moment for the last month. The well timed payoff is tonight.  I feel more and more like myself as I watch the clock inch closer to the prearranged start time.  This will have been worth all the effort- I know it!

It is the early 1990s.  In those years I have changed employers, been promoted, moved twice, married, bought my first (and only) home, and given birth to a sweet baby girl.  In hindsight, this whirlwind of change seems less like who I know myself to be. Yet, Life's goal lines move fast as a thirty-something woman and I'm determined to meet every single one. 

In those days, an hour-long daily rail commute into the city usually finds me doing work reviewing resumes of potential job candidates. (This is way before algorithms usurped the task.)  The quiet, uninterrupted block of train time is perfect for this effort.  It is a better choice than using the gorgeous exhale of eventide after I put my infant daughter to bed.  

Yet, I yearn to read something more for myself - the Me who is not someone's wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, employee.  I rediscover my love for reading books. 

Reading has, for as along as I can remember, been pure pleasure.  Summer days in the late sixties, early seventies were spent reclined on the hard plastic cushions of my parent's front porch iron glider as I gently rocked to and fro, a book resting on my tanned stomach.  Our restless little street of compressed row homes bursting with kids and pets faded away on this screened-in roost once I cracked open those blessed pages. 

Whether I was transfixed by Mario Puzo's The Godfather (before the film release) or entertained by the mindless fluff of Coffee, Tea or Me? (and its sequel) I did what most readers do - willingly offered myself over to an author's invented or real world. 

(Fun fact: I seriously considered becoming an airline stewardess (not yet called flight attendants) because of the fictional hijinks of characters Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones and completed applications to a few airlines in my senior year of high school.  Airlines could incredibly still ask for such personal data as birth date, height, weight, hair color, eye color.  My work as a corporate recruiter years later would see this type of job application as folly (and discriminatory) but at the time, I was all in and, sadly, rejected due to my age.)

Back in my adult bedroom, filled with anticipation, I turn on the radio to my local NPR station - 90.9FM WHYY - and its inaugural book club radio show.  This predates Oprah's infamous book club.  Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife is on the docket. I have gleefully devoured its rich story and am poised to hear what others think as well as listen to Ms. Tan field questions, share her writing experience, and inhale the intimacy of her responses.  I stare at the radio during the hour long show trying to conjure an image of the author as she describes her story's intention and her complex relationship with her mother.  

Fellow listeners/readers call in with questions.  I comment aloud to them.  It is more interactive than I could have imagined and ends much too swiftly.  This, I murmur, this is what I have been missing! This radio book club becomes my literary life raft as I navigate the world of adulting. 

Several years later a friend kindly invites me to join her book club.  Two decades after this sweet solicitation, this precious book club sustains the reader, writer, inquisitor alive within.  While we fellow readers navigate Life's relentless drumbeat of births, miscarriages, divorces, raising kids, jobs, second marriages, and the crushing death of a beloved friend/member, we hunker down for the essential purpose of gathering - to discuss the book.  

This is no wine club posing as a book club. We enthusiastically do a deep dive into the authors' efforts, parsing themes, imagery, plot, symbolism and character development as well as criticizing what failed to resonate.  We read passages aloud that have touched or deepened our understanding.    

Biographies, autobiographies, poetry, short stories collections, science, fantasy, classics;  all genres come calling each third Thursday as the host chooses that month's literary selection.  My preference for fiction has been forcibly pried open as some books take me to uncharted territory.  

I have learned to trust the diverse process because whether or not a book fully satisfies is secondary to what I will learn in conversation with my fellow Book Babes.  Discussion always ignites something my reading failed to consider. It is sweet reward, a jackpot moment where context broadens and interpretation sparkles. 

Visitors from the Netherlands, Poland, and Australia have enjoyed membership to our group adding rich worldviews.  Our Aussie friend, Vicki, travels to our town several times a year for work. She stays up to date on what we are reading so she can literally jump in on the discussion.  It is magnificent. 

We have met in the Poconos, at the shore, and on several patios by candlelight during  dreamy, warm summer nights.  We've enjoyed a poetry evening where everyone arrives with a memorized poem because, as our then 90 year old guest host, Mrs. Van Pelt, noted, "Everyone must have at least one poem ready to recite from memory in their lifetime!" She would regale us with her favorites: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and The Walrus and The Carpenter.  

Every so often a member hosts a couples night where our 'special someones' join in the conversation.  This gender mixed gathering consistently produces some of the richest discussions.  Even food sometimes plays a silent role in our discussion when we nosh on meals or morsels contained in that month's narrative. 

As a bonus to all this goodness, Joanie, an original member, consistently emails a discussion recap to the group so those who missed the evening can still share in the conversation. I am grateful for all of it! 

In the Fall, one of our members will see her original work published! This feat amazes. We will enjoy another first - the member/author of our monthly selection will be at the table to take questions and share her process.  Look for A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity by the talented Nicole Valentine later this year! (published by Lerner/Carolrhoda Books)

Let me close this love letter to reading with conversation openers I've used for all these years. They are questions I love to ask and be asked.  I hope you'll reply: 

 "What have you read lately and what did you think?"  

Note: In 2014, we were featured in an on-air book club discussion of Karen Russell's Sleep Donation. Here is the link to the post I wrote about that experience: https://asubjectforconsideration.blogspot.com/2014/07/on-radio-whoaohhhhhoh.html

                                

                  Some recent book club selections

 

“Some books are tool kits you take up to fix things, from the most practical to the most mysterious, from your house to your heart, or to make things, from cakes to ships. Some books are wings… Some books are medicine, bitter but clarifying.”  Rebecca Solnit

Read more about Rebecca Solnit and how books saved her life on the always interesting brain pickings website:  “https://www.brainpickings.org/

Things I Learned in 2018

The School of Life continues to be in session and these are a few of 2018's lessons:

Being an armchair citizen who votes in every election is not nearly enough. 

I am an excellent dog sitter, especially when the dog lives in Oahu.  

In the very long list of colossally unfair things that Life tosses at us, childhood brain cancer ranks very high.  https://thecurestartsnow.org/donate

Anger is Fear's voice. (I learned this a long time ago but relentlessly struggle with it)

Fear is a beast. (Ditto on the above struggle)

My daughter's gift of a Restorative Yoga class has made me reconsider yoga.

Saying my age and being grateful for Life are difficult to hold separately but when I pair the two, they support each other.

Locking car keys in the trunk while on vacation opens up the world of Sunday bus transportation schedules along with the loveliness of strangers willing to help.

Wedding officiating rocks.

Standing and screaming at Broad and Ritner in South Philly while the Super Bowl Champion Eagles stop in front of us to ingest all of the love is difficult to top.  

High-fiving "Poet Laureate for the day" Jason Kelce in all his Mummer glory comes close. 

Little crocheted wreath pins bring joy and my Grandmom Elizabeth's magnificent spirit continues to inspire me.  

Six-year-old kiddos get me. 

Watching my brother deliver a story at a Moth Story Slam takes my breath away. 

Audiobooks in the authors' voices are incredibly satisfying.

Nationalism is 'white speak' for racism. 

Origami is one more creative outlet pour moi.

A grand nephew is, among other things, a bundle of reassurance about this world. 

My "death row meal" is a bottomless bowl of steamed crabs resting atop homemade pasta with white wine and anchovy sauce enjoyed at the shore in August with loved ones.

Liz Gilbert, Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown, Cheryl Strayed, Jesmyn Ward, Ruth Bader Ginsburg always have an open invitation to dinner at my home.  My fantasy table is already crowded and I delight in the increasing boisterous assemblage of women. 

I am stealing this from another's FB post because I love it so: I am donating any of my body's organs to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, even if I am still alive.

A 90-minute, no intermission, a whisper of a show can win the 2018 Tony for Best Musical. Here is the finale to the glorious, "I would see it again and again" The Band's Visit.  It is a gorgeous plea for connection - my sweet spot. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXrwqtztFtU

 

 Thank you for reading this year-end vanity project.  

Your kindness is felt and treasured.

Comply, Lie, Deny

I attended Catholic grade school, high school, a Jesuit college, and took graduate courses at a Catholic university.  I taught CCD in my parish.  My daughters each sang in the church choir, the oldest until she graduated high school.  My dad sang in the St. Philomena Men's  Choir for years (they even recorded an album which he proudly reminds anyone when conversation about choirs arises) and he served as cantor at that same church for 20 years. Both of my brothers were altar boys.  When I was in eighth grade, I was chosen as May Queen for my parish's annual May procession.

All of this background is offered to simply say I was raised and educated in the Catholic faith mostly in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.  

The recent Pa. Attorney General's grand jury report on the sexual abuse of children in six Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses has little to do with faith and everything to do with power.  It sickens me.  

I ache for the survivors' stolen childhoods, all lost sense of safety, and the abhorrent memories they grapple with as they navigate life beyond. The mob mentality of diocesan and Vatican hierarchy in covering up the abuse and protecting pedophile priests who continued to have unfettered access to children speaks to a deplorable fealty to power.

Power - the great corrupter. 

And who are the powerful running the business of religion? Men.  
Who protected the priests abusing children?  Men.
Who abused the children?  Men.
Who tried to stop the publication of the grand jury report? Men.

In the spring of 2012, the Vatican, then under the papacy of now retired Benedict XVI, chose to reprimand Catholic nuns in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for "serious doctrinal problems." An American bishop's report concluded that the nuns' social works flew in the face of church teachings. 

Specifically, the report noted the group's support of the health care overhaul under President Obama after the American bishops opposed it in 2010.  While the differing beliefs on health care was the surface issue being addressed, the language and intention of this reprimand is what received the most attention.

The report took issue with the nuns who "disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”   It further noted the sisters had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

My first thought was, "Oh my goodness - they are going after the nuns!" While reports of a long history of priests abusing children flooded the airwaves, the Vatican took a ruler and figuratively cracked the knuckles of women who have faithfully served the poor and needy without a whisper of the horrors wrought by pedophile priests. 

As for "authentic teachers of faith and morals," I cringed at the audacity of that statement. 

The contrast was stunning. The Greek proverb - Physician, heal Thyself - immediately came to mind. Voices rose quickly in disbelief and rebuke as those of us taught by nuns saw the unbalanced reprimand of these ardent social workers for Christ. I saw it as corporate run misogyny. 

At a reunion of my grade school classmates, the Immaculate Heart of Mary sister who taught us in eighth grade was also in attendance. We spoke about this reprimand and she smiled and said how surprising and heartwarming it was to see the public's vocal response in support of the nuns. 

These women have served fiercely without a pinprick of the stain made by pedophile men serving as priests. And yet the reprimand was made. Heal thyself indeed. 

In college, I wrote a paper supporting the need for female priests for a theology class. The young Jesuit who taught the class struck up a conversation with me about the topic. He noted Biblical doctrine and tradition as the basis for this male only "calling" which was/is consistent with the Church's steadfast adherence to the male only club today. Christ chose the Apostles - they were all men - end of story. 

I recall thinking that if these are the rules, then these are the rules. It was a tidy conclusion. The child abuse documented over seven decades moved me to forego attending Mass years ago. I no longer trusted the hierarchy. The unimpeded protection of priests in power crushed my spirit and enthusiasm for Catholic ritual. 

There are well over 1 billion members of the worldwide Catholic church and women are not represented in decision making or leadership roles. This imbalance is untenable. It is absolutism. 

Men have wrought and supported the child abuse disgrace. What makes us believe they can fix it? Where is the substantive resolve to change the backroom machinations that supported 70 years of these crimes? Seven decades!

The corporate church continues to be reticent to change because it has so much to lose in money and membership.

I believe in the singular message of Christ - love one another.

The rest of the rules are man's attempt to figure out how to run the business. Until women play a substantive role in church hierarchy, until female voices are included in the running of the church business and decision making, I'll take my faith and my femininity elsewhere.

Link to PA Attorney General website re: grand jury report 8/14/18

https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/press-releases/attorney-general-shapiro-details-findings-of-2-year-grand-jury-investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-by-catholic-priests-in-six-pennsylvania-dioceses/

Link to article re: Vatican reprimand of nuns

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/us/vatican-reprimands-us-nuns-group.html

Link to PA grand jury report

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/report-on-pennsylvania-church-sex-abuse/2319/

Link to Vatican reply to the grand jury report

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639491434/vatican-responds-to-pa-grand-jury-report-on-abuse-of-children-by-clergy

Depression's Fame

NOTE: This post mentions suicide.  Please call 988 - the suicide/life crisis hotline in the US - if you need/want help and you will be directed to a local crisis center.  

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/

Anthony Bourdain.

Kate Spade.

Robin Williams.

Famous.  Successful.  Beloved.  Depressed.

They represented so much of what I love about life- food, style, humor. They showcased themselves on a grand scale, brought artistry into my  'not so grand scale'  life, and enriched it without ever knowing me.  Sure, it made them rich but it made me rich too - rich in appreciating how they saw life's beauty.

Their suicides are crushing.  

Why, oh why, does it happen?  For now, social media spikes with suicide prevention information and reminders of how we are all loved and needed in this unrelenting, difficult world.  Information about depression floods media coverage.  In their isolated deaths, these artists offer one more universal gift: awareness.

Of course, famous folks are not inoculated from depression.  We all carry it.  We all struggle with it.  The weight of it unevenly fractures our thoughts.  Most of all it isolates even the most exposed of us. And that is what makes it so frightening.

The subtext of their singular deaths is, that if it can happen to them, with all of their resources, then it can happen to anyone.  Indeed.

As my grandmother would say, everyone puts their pants on the same way every day.

Their fame makes them known to us in a way that is, after all, unnatural.  It is a false connection that strangely reassures us.  Let's face it - we work years on cultivating personal relationships, enduring the pitfalls of connection as well as the rewards.  We invest in and love our families and friends with ardor knowing it is a challenge.  But, as a dear friend would always point out when you consider the alternative, there is no other choice.   

So why do we allow famous strangers to inhabit this sacred life space? I think they help fill a universal desire to feel nourished, beautiful, and happy.  Their positive offerings to the world resonate via their notoriety and fuel their own life's purpose.  It can be the quintessential win/win because we each get something from the experience.  

This is what makes their suicides so jarring.  If we are supposedly winning in the give-and-take of talent, how can this happen?  I don't pretend to know the answer, but I am strangely grateful for the reminder these humans leave behind:  depression is everyone's demon.  Whatever tools we need to keep it from taking the steering wheel of our lives must be readily accessible.  Depression doesn't care if we are loved or not.  Depression just wants the steering wheel.  

Depression has taken my steering wheel countless times and in differing degrees: after an unspeakable betrayal by an old flame, after a house fire, after the death of a younger, robust friend, after my daughter turned 17, after motherhood felt anemic.  Sometimes I walked out of it.  Most times I crawled out with help. 

I don't think we can eradicate it.  Authors (and goddesses) Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert each reinforce the belief that we need to learn to live with depression.  Their non-fiction writing is one of my go-to strategies. They have taught me that depression gets a seat at our emotional table along with the more desirable guests of kindness, joy, empathy. (sort of like Trump at the G7 meeting, but I digress.)

Depression gets a voice but not the microphone.

  

Our very human work is to love without rules, without fear, and to listen. To reassure everyone that they matter.   I don't know that I do any of these really well.  But I am thankful for the unbalanced, unfair, excruciating reminder these deaths blast home, yet again.

I'd love to kick depression's ass.  I will settle for shoving it into the trunk, muffling its voice, and taking the goddamn keys.  

The Book Lady

The front license plate on my car reads "Peace  Love  Books."  The order of importance often changes but the trilogy's intrinsic value remains steady:  I wish for peace, I insist on love, and I cherish books.

License plate

When I read that Dolly Parton was recently at the Library of Congress to celebrate the delivery of her Imagination Library's 100th million book, I felt all three of these imperatives. Her program has put children ages birth to 5 and books together since 1995. This amazing milestone shows how Dolly leads with love.  

Dolly's impact was minimal in my world until a few years ago when my friend Susan asked if I would join her to see a concert at the Mann Center in Philadelphia.  Such an invitation would usually have a 99% acceptance rate by me.  But, I had to pause when she noted who was performing: Dolly Parton.  

Hmmmm.  Country music was not atop my list of preferred music genres.  I knew only two of Dolly's songs:  "Jolene" and "9 to 5." (And yes, I knew she wrote/sang "I Will Always Love You" but it is the more infamous Whitney Houston version I kept on my playlist.) I tried to let Susan down gently.  

As a lifelong Dolly fan, Susan would not back down.  She grew up in Missouri listening to Dolly's albums at home.  The music not only helped her navigate the pain of a challenging childhood, its message offered motivation for what one can achieve through persistence regardless of your life's circumstances.  She was not going to be pushed aside by my glib indifference. 

Susan persisted.  I am forever grateful that she did.

The evening held so many satisfying moments:  Dolly's pitch perfect voice, her self-aware humor, her musicianship (she played at least 8 different instruments) her deep catalog of songs, her homespun sincerity, her laughter  - oh the list is long.  The wide age range of her audience also reinforced her vast, enduring appeal.  

Scenes from Dolly Parton in concert at the Mann Center
.Philadelphia, PA June 2016

But what slowly, endearingly drew me in was the overwhelming warmth and kindness this petite bedazzled country girl sent out across the audience from the  moment her stiletto heels walked into the spotlight until she waved her final goodnight y'all.  

Dolly's glamorous exterior makes it hard turn away. I realized it is an intentional ploy to catch our attention.  Once she has it, she is masterful in keeping it with her profound talent and unbridled love.  In that large concert venue, she managed to spread her love to each of us (even skeptical me.)  I cried at the sheer tonnage of its impact. 

This month, Dolly did it again when she sat in front of pre-schoolers and read to them in our nation's library.  She made headlines for her impressive non-musical efforts to ensure young children have consistent access to books.  She continues to lead with love. 

What began as a county wide effort in her rural Tennessee home has grown into this magnificent national outreach where she is called The Book Lady.  Dolly affirms her role by working with local libraries, government agencies, and other non-profits to put the world into children's hands to help set them up to become lifelong readers.  "I think that if you read it can give you wings to fly,"  Dolly noted to reporters at the DC event.    

It was much too easy for me to dismiss Dolly as some glittery country singer before I saw her in concert.   I sadly believed her overdone look made her unimportant. Her Imagination Library's amazing multi-million book moment reinforced what a fool my pre-concert self had been to judge this amazing book by her cover. 

On this International Women's Day, it is a joy to celebrate Dolly.  

Link to the 100th million book event at the Library of Congress:
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/01/589912466/dolly-parton-gives-the-gift-of-literacy-a-library-of-100-million-books

Things I Learned in 2017...

On my random trip down memory lane in 2017, I learned...

*The walk to and from 1st and 2nd grade recess often results in the best of little ones' comments and conversations and hand holding.  It is a deliciously mixed meditation.

*I aspire to the creativity I see in Instagram stories. Oh heck, I aspire to all creativity.

*Felting is fun.

*A baby's entrance into a room makes everyone's vocal range go up an octave. 

*Seeing my daughters experience possibility spurs me on to do the same. It's harder than it looks.

*America's underbelly holds the keys for now; America's saner self has the power to change that.

*A 9-person writer's workshop is some pretty sacred space that I thought I had no business entering.  I was wrong.

*In the last 24 hours, Sonos, Alexa, and Spotify came into my life. Yes, I am late to the party. 

*People named Alexa must need a name change in order to sanely live in a home with Alexa voice service.

*Wedding officiating is a gift to the officiant.

*In this year of musical legends passing on, seeing John Prine and Roger Waters perform at Newport Folk Festival filled up my heart and tear ducts.

* Women are lit up. We must stay lit!

*A total solar eclipse is a HUGE event that takes us way beyond ourselves and, somewhere in all of it, our star souls are revealed.  

*Being able to see and hear family in South Africa and Hawaii while sitting in Pennsylvania is the finest Christmas gift.

*The Force continues to be strong with Star Wars. 

*This quote from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society set me back on my heels b/c it takes a platitude and turns it into a harder truth: "Life goes on.  "What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't.  It's death that goes on."

*And speaking of platitudes, while I understand the kind intention within offering "thoughts and prayers," we must become better at saying what we really feel behind those words instead of slipping into safe phrases.  We owe the grief stricken at least that.

*Dule Hill is first a song and dance guy! Who knew?!?!

*Parents and children who are in pain have much to teach me.

*No matter who we've become, childhood friends know our unfiltered selves.  

*Music is a powerful connector  (I know, I say some version of this every year) so I will end with this video of folks inspired by the Tony award winning show - Dear Evan Hansen. It is gorgeous and reassuring.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFZmT-LRMBM

As my lovely friend Eileen H. often remarks, "thanks for riding along" with me as I indulge myself and post (albeit infrequently) on this blog.  I appreciate the company! Wishing all a safe, satisfying, empowering 2018!