Epicenter

It’s 5 am – maybe no one felt it but me – in my own Epicenter of my own quaking world.

My house is crumbling at its very foundation. Or my boiler is exploding. My boiler is exploding – those HVAC guys yesterday were right, said it needed to be replaced – 35 years old and way past its due. Could it explode, in summer? Shit, I’ll never make that bus to the Peace Corps now. I'll be dealing with the aftermath, the ever-expanding transition to-do list. No, the tree removal is starting – but this early? The poor old elms are coming down – and the massive trucks are rumbling down Park and getting into position.

Amazing what can swirl through the mind in the 10 seconds it takes for the tremors to stop.

They stopped. Surely someone else felt that. No one in bed next to me to confirm or deny, for better or for worse. I text Jake: Earthquake? I text Karin: Did you feel that? No response, too early. A dream image pops into my head: her parents, my legs, a syringe stabbing into the flesh behind my knee. Painful. Thankfully it fades as I try to make it out.

I crawl across my bed to the window: all’s quiet down below. The sky behind the trees is slate blue. The cars are all lined up neat as Matchboxes.

The trees are coming down today.

I Google ‘earthquake Washington dc July 16 5 am’ – I get back hits on Haiti. It’s been exactly 6 months and 2 days since their disaster - still suffering. I track ball around – meetings at the Press Club today on the Haiti quake. That was a 7.0.

What about mine?

The trees are coming down today. No one’s moved their cars.

I’m angry at this city for letting this happen. I feel the heat rising on my skin and throw-off the sheet. They could have treated the trees last year, two years ago; but instead they put all their energy into chopping. And three more old ones are being hacked to the ground today.

Yesterday, finally, after a year of waiting, then two months of panicked bitching, they injected the remaining trees, including the one in front of my house, a 45-year old – to try to save them. But I have a bad feeling – an entire limb of mine is dead and the leaves are brown and crumpled and falling from the sky, dropping the disease everywhere. Why did they let this happen?

Why did I?

Finally, 2 months ago, I panicked and called a block meeting. But it may be too late.

Chopping is easier than care and feeding. Or maybe it's like some treeman to me: just the cycle of life.

But I'm not ready to let go yet. I say...

> Somebody should be minding the store – our canopy of trees – their beauty, age, grace, carbon-dioxide, cool green shade.

> Instead of riding around on sleek Seguays with Thinkpads and fancy GPS software that maps our dwindling urban forest.

> Do something.

> People drive our majestic block, a cross-town thoroughfare – a gateway to Rock Creek Park on the NW corner of Mount Pleasant. People walk dogs and push strollers beneath our canopy – cyclists and runners zoom by.

> Now it’s becoming barren – the rowhouses on the hill exposed, blazing in the sun, naked.

> It’s been two years since the first elm came down on our block – and Dutch Elm disease has been a known killer for ages – a non-profit grew up in our city, Casey Trees, to address just this problem.

> Do something. Last year they came to treat and instead they chopped. Why, we don't understand.

> So as citizens, we have to watch and push, push, nag, call, meet, call, check, nag, worry, get pissed OFF.

> And finally they arrive and inject - some of the wrong trees - and leave the stumps to rot and spread their disease.

> With all this bumbling I begin to see: the somebody that should be minding the store is ME.

Now I wait for the trucks to come to begin their euthanasia – removing the disease limb by limb – on lower Park Road – the epicenter of my world.

Ah, the radio report. It was a quake, not the boiler or the trucks, or the worries in my head – but a 5.3.

There's a man in a tree with a chain saw. Now I hear the mulching machines sucking in the limbs and spitting them out as dust.

Clicking off Time

She used to compare herself to others, women in her age group, mostly, and in her younger years, junior and high school, girls in her grade. But now she competed only with herself; now that she was forty-something, the new thirty they said, but despite the rhetoric she knew she’d crossed a line. Was this softening competitiveness evolution, or avoidance?

She paced along the rocky perimeter trail, hopping a pine root that looked like a snake across her path; she had snakes on the brain from the moment she entered the forest and heard the animals scatter in the brush. That poem at last night’s reading planted the seed, stabbed snakes hanging from sticks. She felt her toe catch on the root and bobbled forward.

“C’mon, pay attention,” she heard herself say aloud, but softly, so not even the birds could hear. Talking to herself was also becoming a privilege of middle age, she noticed. A bright male cardinal darted across her path, and disappeared into the dense foliage; a washed-out rusty colored female followed.

She was her own coach now, encouraging herself to keep the cadence, relax her shoulders, and use the arms like pendulums, like the Foucault pendulum in the Smithsonian that swung tirelessly, forever their teacher said, on its own even, back and forth momentum, clicking off time.

Freedom Parfait

Yesterday we celebrated our freedom.

My dearest friends John and Peter had their annual 4th of July barbecue. As usual, I was the only female amidst a roomful of fit and lively gay men – a gender balance that, living in Washington, I find delightfully rare. But we had some new and diverse energy in the mix this time: a Venezuelan man I’ve been seeing for about a month, a naturalized American citizen, as well as my friends’ adopted son Issac, and Mate, an exchange student from Hungary who’s staying in Washington for the summer. As we gathered around munching chips with guacamole and waiting for the coals to heat up, it was this inquisitive young man clutching his video camera who asked:

What does this day mean to you?

It’s was a poignant question – I’m a sucker for a good question - and got a tiny instantaneous crush on this youthful mop-headed visitor.

Hot dogs, said Redhead Bill.

Singing Ethel Merman show tunes in bed, said his partner Neil. (Followed by a few bars of There's No Business Like Show Business!)

Freedom, I responded to Mate, taking a more serious tact. From oppression…to self-govern…to self-express. To go your own way – and a willingness to fight for it. (To sing show tunes in bed.)

It sounded all too patriotic - and all of us agreed to wave Issac's little American flags as Mate's camera rolled - though I contend we are anything but a flag-waving bunch.

It's just that Freedom has a very personal side to it – and that’s what’s on my mind these days – as I set off to join the Peace Corps mission in Mexico in just six weeks!

It's a decision that's been weighing heavily as I try to begin to let go of all I have here in Washington. Though I know how fortunate I am to be able to exercise my freedom to go – to make this shift in my life – to cross a border and be accepted into someone else’s country (not to have to swim across or scale a wall!) To be supported and encouraged by my friends and family. To know I’m leaving so much behind – yet trusting that it will be here for me when I return.
And yet, while I wouldn’t give up my freedom for anything, I feel the weight of it at times – the sense of obligation to do something useful and profound and liberating with it. And so I uproot myself once again and go to Mexico – because I CAN.

And why else? Perhaps I hope to discover some deeper freedom – a kind the forefathers have nothing to do with – some freedom from my own internalized oppression. Letting go of the old ‘supposed to be’ ways.
Hombre, if I could do this in the Peace Corps, if I could bring my best, most open and true Self to this adventure – I WILL be free.

Back to the Hungarian kid … born in 1990, not long after the Berlin Wall came down...I wonder what freedom means to him. He’s here in the USA for the summer, being welcomed into a loving if not unconventional American home, teaching film at a youth camp, and wandering the streets of Washington with his handheld camera.

What might he have to say about freedom by summer’s end… or just after he’s eaten his first bite of Bill's red, white and blueberry parfait?

Citi-Zen Engagement - America Speaks Up!

On a sweltering Saturday in June, 3500 Americans convened in 19 cities across the country to face the truth about our ailing economy and voice their opinions about the solutions. Just as most every household in America is engaged in a personal process of belt-tightening, so, AmericaSpeaks organizers and an array of budget experts contend, must America be.

Down on the floor in Philly, as an area facilitator, I was responsible for supporting 15 tables of citizens in their deliberation process. I zipped around the ballroom floor with my headset on, answering questions, trouble-shooting problems, and calling-in experts on the collaborative technology and complex subject matter, if and when needed. And I had a chance to witness democracy in action - not the staged 'town hall' antics that characterized the health care debate last summer. Not the screaming, arguing talking heads we see on TV on Sunday mornings bombarding us with ideology. This forum was the real deal - characterized by informational presentations, group discussions, argument, deliberation, differences, and ultimately, decisions.

The process was infused with rigor and neutrality: from the development of the Budget 101 guidebook posted on the website and distributed to each participant, to the comprehensive efforts to bring a representative demographic into the room, to the structured facilitation provided at the helm by Carolyn Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks Founder and President, and down to each one of the trained volunteer table facilitators. Even the care the organization took to generate funding from
diverse sources on the left and right allowed this to be a truly open forum.

Of course the attacks and skepticism still came - from both sides - liberal economists, Move-on, Tea Party - all protecting their rice bowls and the status quo.

But it didn't matter. These folks had work to do - and work they did - taking 8 hours out on a summer Saturday to hole up on ballrooms across the country and make hard choices about our country's budget. The paid politicians aren't even willing to do that! (Dr. Alice Rivlin, former budget director under Clinton, pointed this out from the pulpit, during an afternoon break, after I watched her work with Table 30 through their spending decision process.)

It was electric!

I watched enamored, almost tearful, as tables of folks of all ages and races and political persuasions conversed debated and ultimately thrust their hands up in the air to cast their votes. These were tough decisions with complex pros and cons, as evenly outlined in the guides. As a facilitator I was to remain agnostic - but I wasn't sure how I'd vote on the carbon tax or VAT if I had to.

When the day was done, and they had completed their work, the participants walked out of the room tired but energized and smiling, and each was handed a full report, hot off the press, documenting the decisions THEY made and ideas THEY generated that very day - thanks to the powers of brilliantly-orchestrated technology.

This process, in my opinion, was not about the economy; it was about something much bigger - change in mindsets - from jaded to engaged, from ideological to informed, from victim-hood to empowerment. This process helped citizens get a taste of what real democracy is like - and it starts with them.

I was so fortunate to be part of the experience. As an organization development professional, Our Budget, Our Economy was a chance to test the limits of collaboration and renew my belief that underlies my work: that the answers truly lie within the people. As an American, it was a chance to see what democracy could look like if our leaders actually had faith in the peoples - and the people had faith in themselves.

For more info on the findings, and to get engaged, go to: http://usabudgetdiscussion.org.

Ode to Spring: Hyjack to Invention

Spring is popping – the azalea out my back window, perched on the hill, is a hoary explosion of magenta – it might as well be parading in my back garden wearing a g-string. I have to pull my attention back inside, to my dining room table, to some ideas I’ve got blooming at the intersection of life and creativity.

If life is this thing we are inventing (and that’s the path I’m trying to navigate right now), we must focus on the inventing, not on what’s invented - on the being not the doing. I heard that last night at a seminar and thought, huh, okay, that goes for writing life too - focus on the writing, the creative process, versus what we are writing – that’s only the result.

As a change agent, I'm all about process - I can resonate with that.

But when I get an email from my editor that includes a couple pages of hard-hitting comments that I have to read four times before they sink in...that's enough to throw me right off my path into a ditch. I go into depression mode for about 24 hours - the ‘mechanism,’ the IT, the ego, my internal editor, call it what you will, ready for an all out fight. She's done with this story and ready to move on to bigger and better things.

But that’s just not so. What is so, the doctor tells me, and I reluctantly step out of my own way to agree, is that this is a ‘bigger work’ – it’s going to require some time, some deeper thinking, she says, and some darker revealing, if I’m going to make it what it’s supposed to be.

And after recovering from my amygdule hijack, I took a look and reluctantly admitted: this is where the learning is. It’s about the writing, not the result. I know this, deep down. Isn’t it nice how the universe provides the opportunity to teach us this same lesson – over and over and over again? (Says I, with a serene grimace.)

So I've set aside my beautiful Chapter 1 (well-honed and perfectly formatted after four or five rewrites by now) - and I start with a clean, blank page.

For two days I gulp coffee, fidget in my chair, grope, and after a restless night, an image comes into my mind, those favela boys playing around the dock…and I go with it…let myself slide into the groove, my SELF on the page – lucid, direct, concise…and a little bit messy.

I stand at the river’s edge feeling my heart beating in my thighs, the Sanuaua slithering past me like a serpent, opening its jaws wide as it bends and eases its way east toward the Atlantic – at this most Oriental Point in the Americas to Africa. The hyper-tropical ball of sun hangs hesitantly above the treetops of the green, tangled island on the other side. The heat sears my white cotton pants to my legs. Stars of light, like tie dye, burst behind my lids – and when I open again, three favela boys are hopping barefoot across the splintery boards of the dock, shaking my camera; so I steady it on the rail. They stretch-out, bony bare chests against the warped planks, and hang their heads over the edge, peering at the fish, listening to their voices echo in the space between the water and the wood.

I snap the boys, the yellow soles of their feet facing skyward now, their limbs playful as puppets’, arms dangling, fingers splayed and skimming the surface, the currents running between them. I shift and frame the jangada drifting past, it’s curved Tupi sail silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, and I know I’m not in Washington anymore. My camera’s kept me company on this trip, allowing me to capture in images what I can’t seem to put into words. The paradoxes, the beauty amidst the poverty, the saudades – that word Gigi taught me, which the Brazilians celebrate in bittersweet bossa nova melodies that sting. Looking back on happiness with sadness. I’m rediscovering my eye in Brazil, hearkening back to my high school days, to black and white film shot on the canal, scrolled blindly around spools in dark closets, and images that appeared in chemical baths under orange lights; the days when I carried secrets through the halls in my backpack, and couldn’t wait for what was beyond.

Hey, may not be perfect, may not be the final cut. I may and up tossing it out altogether. But it's so different from when my editor was in charge and the thing read like a article in Travel & Leisure – the truth hiding behind the scenery – and man, can I write scenery - and buried in 'too many notes.' (Calls to mind Emperor Franz Joseph to Mozart in Amadeus: 'Simply too many notes, my boy. Just cut a few and it will be...perfect.')

Now today, I’m back there again, at the desk, stuck as ever, manipulating text like I’m rearranging bricks in a wall and the cement is drying fast. My editor has taken over again, and again, and again. Protecting my Self from the truth, from some inevitable rejection…and all I can do, and it's a start, is notice.

Thank the creative gods, tomorrow is another day of invention.

Contained

She chose Elfin – sturdy Swedish metal racks she lines with bins and baskets, a versatile, expanding system of containers to keep life organized.

She hand prints labels. Finances. Work. Car. She fills them. Stuff pours out. She needs more compartments to hold it all. Travel. Social. House. A place for everything, everything in its place.

Clean boundaries. Past. Present. Future. This takes more thought.
That last sweet image of him climbing into the blue suitcase, contain him too. Where does that go?

Mom’s crying, the steering wheel is cold, the linoleum is shiny, the woman behind the counter kind. Dad’s hurting us. Some things take up too many compartments.

Love. Still empty.

Nite of Submission

The Park Road Writers were back in the incubator last night – my Park Road rowhouse where it all began three-plus years ago – the amalgamation of a few Writer’s Center, film, and meditation geeks looking to write their way to enlightenment. Our common desires were for accountability to someone other than ourselves and our laptops – maybe even some sense of community to assuage the writers’ blues. So last night we gathered for lentil soup, bottles of vino (for what is a writer’s group without our truth serum?), and goal-setting for the new year and new decade.

We have one writer who’s just started a low-res program at Vermont and is reveling in it – the insights and creativity and, most of all, the after-hours metaphor-laden discourse over beers at a pub by the campus. Another member has just applied to upwards of ten high-res programs, a brave exercise that spawned a few new stories, and will undoubtedly cultivate in her the art of rejection – though we have high hopes she’s accepted to her number one. Another member had a story published in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' magazine last year; and another has her book 'Ginger and Ganesha' coming out this June. Such talent.

And yet another member (me) has just applied to the Peace Corps! So what does this have to do with writing? Well, I had two essays to prepare as part of my application process, one on my motives for joining; another on my experiences building trust in cross-cultural environments. But my real answer is that writing is everywhere. Not just in MFA programs. With the daily writing routine I’ve cultivated, I picture myself on the ground, in Mozambique (or wherever I am posted) working on community projects by day, speaking Portuguese with the locals, tilling the soil for stories, and by night, in my mud hut by the sea, writing on my battery-fueled netbook. Que romantico! And perphaps rediculo - but it's good to imagine.

Let’s hope all these PRW aspirations are realized in twenty-ten. And yet another one we all shared, now that we are writing, is overcoming Resistance and Fear of Rejection by completing and submitting our stuff in the new year. And in the spirit of support, we agreed to a special Nite of Submission each quarter or semi-annually, where we come prepared to the meeting with a cover letter and the first compelling page of our submitted story to read aloud to the group – as we down glasses of Big House Red, of course, and toast to the god of prosperity or creativity or perhaps the god of just-get-it-out-the-door.

Here’s to submission in 2010!