This week in a dressing room in a well-recognized Seattle department store, I had a major melt-down. It wasn’t the I-look-fat-in-these-jeans sort of experience when I am sure that the mirror is distorted and comes from a fun house. Nor was it the where-in-the-universe-are-jeans-actually-$200 hissy fit. No, this was a I-cannot-decide-on-a-purchase-because-my-husband-is-dead flat out bawl. Paul…
First this: On Saturday evening, a beautifully coiffed woman outside the Seattle Repertory Theater clutched her phone in what looked like a last minute call just before curtain. She wore what appeared to be a darn good knock off or a real Channel suit, that kind with the short jacket, narrow shoulders, and tweedy weave…
Having an adolescence was sort of a new thing when I was growing up. I know that my parents didn’t have an adolescence. They went from school to work. In fact, more accurately they did them both simultaneously. It is possible that other people, perhaps the middle class, had those teen years as depicted by…
Reading in our culture has become so attenuated that all reading is now considered “good.” Children are admonished to read in general, as if all books are equal, but a brain bloated with truisms and clichés, with formulaic stories and simple answers to badly asked questions is hardly what we should aspire to. For the…
The worst injury is feeling you don’t belong so much to you – – Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American Lyric Several times this week, I heard friends and colleagues say that I looked calm and content. One added: “You seem really in the moment.” Given that I am getting through a bout of bronchitis, I…
A noiseless patient spider, I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. – Walt Whitman This poem gives me pause. When did I learn to stop or slow my casting…
Lover alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. – >William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 Communities share an identity of sorts. This identity is affected by intentions, beliefs, resources, preferences, and risks. Community identity is also affected by its stickiness, by its adhesion. We sometimes call…
I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember. – Countée Cullen (1903-1946), Incident This final stanza of Incident by Countée Cullen is remarkable on its own and the culmination of an outstanding poetic story told in 12 lines. Ever since I…
How ready are we to address the sources of racism, acknowledge the effects of racism, and change both for good? This past weekend, my friend Rudy laid out the history of race and racism is simple and elegant terms. He calmly explained the origins of the construct of race in the slicing and dicing that…
The person you long for – the answer to your prayers – is probably right in front of you. He just doesn’t look like the man of your dreams. It is time to throw away your list of must-haves. – Paul Mandracchia My late husband gave this sage advice to many people of all sexual…
Creating Community for Everyone 