Turning Tides

I've got the ocean on my mind lately. Spending a day on the shore will do that to you - that salt air and that constant low tidal rumble stay with you long after you've left. I live within a day's drive of the Northern Atlantic, but I still only get there once or twice each year and each visit is a cherished memory.

This year we stayed on Cape Cod and spent a simply perfect day on Martha's Vineyard. I love my mountains, but I'd leave them behind for a life by the sea in a heartbeat.

When I got home and turned my attention to my radio show, I found a feature story on a Maine woman who has made her living harvesting sea snails, known as periwinkles or "wrinkles", in a sleepy little northern town called Lubec. I've been to Lubec - it's not a tourist town by the sea, it's a working village where the people rely on the sea for their livelihoods. But according to the story I found, fishing is dying there. As one species after another is overfished, the economy crashes further and Lubec's people are struggling.

Julie Keene and her son got by harvesting periwinkles - not getting wealthy, but not starving. Then the rockweed which is essential to the periwinkles' habitat began to disappear.

Apparently rockweed, that bladder covered seaweed that proliferates along the rocky Atlantic coast, is valued by industry as an emulsifier. Commercial harvesters are cutting rockweed off the rocks, leaving a barren landscape of stubs and wiping out a unique habitat.

Julie Keene, a rough, independent woman, has traded her harvesting basket for a camera and has been photographing the devastation left by the commercial harvesters. She testified at the state capitol in hopes of convincing legislators to ban the harvesting of rockweed.

She's not alone. There's a coalition trying to raise awareness of the issue.

There is a pile of swirling garbage hundreds of miles across in the Pacific. There's another in the Atlantic. Industry is scalping the rocks for the plants that grow there. There are environmental emergencies all around us. And it feels too damned big to do anything about.

But Julie Keene is doing something. We can, too, even if it's only to learn more and spread the word.

New York Loves Love

Marriage Equality legislation passed the New York legislature last night - and Governor Cuomo signed the bill with a flourish shortly before midnight. Bam. We have a new law.

There's no question for me that this is cause for celebration. There was an entire group of people who were not allowed to make the same legal commitment to each other that other New Yorkers can because of their sexual orientation. That's discrimination. And it's so ironic that while the gay population is desperately fighting for the right to make those vows, the straight population is divorcing in record numbers.

I predict good things for the economy (weddings are BIG business!), a lot of VERY happy people and, naturally, a lot of challenges to the new law.

But what struck me most was the contrast between two Republicans. One grandstanded, speechified and insisted on changes to the bill that ensured religious protections. He went so far as to ask Twitter readers which way he should vote. The answer was an overwhelming "yes!" After getting the changes he wanted, his vote was "No."

It was a second, quiet, more contemplative Republican who has always been a supporter of civil unions, but couldn't support gay marriage who found himself in the pivotal role. At the eleventh hour, he said that with the changes in place, he couldn't in good conscience vote against equal marriage rights. And his vote, no doubt one that will anger some voters, made the difference.

Hats off to that rarest of animals - a legislator who votes his conscience, not what will get him re-elected. May he serve for as long as he wishes and may his colleagues learn something from him.

New Point of View

Greetings to you who stumble into this little corner of the blog world on occasion. We (sweetheart, visiting son, four fractious cats) moved in early June - and there is much to say on the topic, but I will save it for when the wheel slows just a little...

Be well!

I am Remarkably Slow on the Uptake

I choked up at the frozen food aisle when I was shopping tonight. I haven't cried in a grocery store in a very long time, but tonight I did. It was the frozen dinners.

My dad's been dead almost ten years now, but I guess even when you think you're done grieving, you're not. There's still lingering regret to deal with.

It was a rough time, my dad's illness. His actual illness was fairly merciful, for cancer. After seeing what my mom had gone through just a little over a year before, we were both grateful that dad wasn't in pain, wasn't terrified, just slowly dwindled until he drifted away altogether.

We were both still in shock over Mom, and I think he took some strange comfort in the thought that he wouldn't be apart from her long. I didn't have that - I knew I'd be left to deal with it all in a way I just couldn't deal with it as it happened. There was too much to do.

I was working full time, my kids were teenagers, I was an only child - there were no brothers or sisters to call on for help. So I raced through the days like a robot, trying to do everything that was needed and keep a brave face on for everyone. I did a lousy job, I know now, but I tried really hard.

Each night, before making dinner for the family, I walked across the driveway to Dad's apartment and made him dinner. I sat with him while he ate it and we chatted. I was the only company he had all day unless you count the nurses as he got sicker. He really looked forward to me stopping by on my lunch hour and spending a half an hour or maybe an hour in the evening. I didn't mind, either.

But I didn't really cook. I guess I did a few nights a week, but today in that freezer aisle I remember how he'd ask me to get a particular brand of frozen dinner because he really liked it. He'd ask for them a few times every week.

What he liked was knowing that it wouldn't taste bad and I wouldn't have to cook it. He knew I was running on empty. And today was the first time I realized it.

We didn't get along at all when I was growing up, my dad and I. I think maybe we were too much alike in all the worst possible ways - insecurity,sensitivity, neuroses. I didn't want to be like him. I wanted to be like my mom.

All the defenses dropped at the end for both of us, and we liked each other a lot. And I'm sorry, so sorry, now, that I wasn't able to make him amazing, tasty meals every single night.

But I was so lucky. The night before he died I had the chance to ask him, "Did I do alright, Dad?" And he said in the strong voice I hadn't heard in a long time, "You did great." I guess he knew I did the best I could.

I just wish I could have done better. He was a good man.

The Jesus Story

Easter was the day for Jesus movies. I didn't realize how many there have been. Mel Gibson's bloodfest was on one station, Max Von Sydow was on another. Jesus Christ Superstar was on, too, as well as well as Raymond Burr looking horribly awkward as the apostle Peter.

Charlton Heston was parting the Red Sea, too, as Yul Brynner wondered if maybe he should have held back the troops.

These movies are influential. There was a recent article talking about the masses who have become Christians thanks to Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings" - made before the talkies, and so more easily understood by non-English speaking audiences.

And for my money, there's no movie that hits the story of Jesus better than the 1961 King of Kings, with Jeffrey Hunter and those piercing blue eyes.



My parents were devout Catholics, and I used to watch King of Kings with my whole heart - sobbing until there was a lump in my throat when they killed him. I got teary, too, when Pilate screamed "Die if you want to, you innocent puppet!" in Superstar. It all seemed so unjust, so unfair. It was.

And I now see the story of Jesus differently - as an outsider, an observer. I now find religion to be a divisive force. And something struck me. We (I'm including me here, too - this is a human we) find something particularly powerful from the story of sacrifice for our sakes. God is willing to kill His Son. Jesus, despite his last-minute doubts, dies for us. And our response to that extreme attempt to finally shake humanity out of its selfishness certainly gets our attention. But I have to conclude that it didn't work. Humanity is selfish, with generous potential that it occasionally taps.

And I find myself understanding Judas' point of view. Whether Jesus' story is fact or fiction, it raises a powerful question. Was it worth it? Were we really worth it?

Recognizing Your Fairy Godparents...

I wrote a whining, self-pitying little soliloquy here earlier this week, ending with a plaintive cry for a fairy godmother to show up and - poof! - lead me to the land of happily ever after.

And within hours I got, as we almost always do, a version of what I requested. What the universe provides is almost always more interesting than what we ask for.

I've been feeling stretched out. Dried up. So brittle that the next morning's step out of bed might result in a loose pile of Susan dust on the floor.

Negativity's had the helm and it never steers toward anyplace I enjoy. But it just felt like too much effort to try to wrestle it back.

Then a friend called - surprising me with word of mouth about my book (that link's not a hint, Reader - that's to save you looking around going "What book?"). A woman I've never met contacted me to find out about other possible projects related to my stories. Two other people I know want to get together for coffee - just because they want to. My guy's finishing his album and not only didn't laugh when I wondered if bagpipes were what were needed on one rockin' love song, he tried them (jury's out but cool to hear).

What do all these things have in common? A nice treat for the ego, which really needs some love now and again. An assurance that I'm seen, I'm heard, my work has value, that I'm not just a waste of air. Don't you worry about that sometimes? When you get stuck in a routine, going through the motions and going nowhere, don't you wonder if you, the Individual You, even matters?

I woke this morning realizing each of these people could easily be pictured in shimmering gossamer, wand in hand and benevolent smile on beautiful faces. My fairy godparents are everywhere, and they've been stopping by for a visit.

I want to be a writer, she said....

It feels like a gray morning by the sea lately...I can't see very far ahead and instead of seeing what's around me, I'm preoccupied by the fact that I'm uncomfortable.

Changes are ahead, that I know for certain. Our home base will be changing. We have unanswered questions about how we'll accommodate our unique and particular work needs to the new space. My life in the 9 to 5 world continues to change and I cannot see where it's going.

All the lifestyle coaches tell us we can't get where we want to go if we don't name the destination. I want to write. Full time.

I've got a book out in the electronic world, a book I haven't got time or energy to promote, which is akin to leaving a birthday cake out in the street. Chances are it's not going to be appreciated if it isn't delivered to the right people.

I've become "the writer" at my place of work, which means I'm often editing other people's work. And I don't mind - it feels like at least an imitation of what I'd like to be doing. I write articles and columns for a couple of websites and publications. That's not bad, either.

But I'm losing energy for things I usually enjoy - some work that's usually a joy has become a chore. I circle around writing that is fun like a suspicious dog...sniffing but keeping my distance.

It's a spell, I know. It will pass, as these moods do, and a new feeling will take its place. But I read too many fairy tales as a child. I'm waiting for my own personal fairy to appear, tap me on the shoulder with her twinkling silver wand, and poof! I'm living happily ever after. Somehow after all these years, part of me still thinks that should happen.