Hodgepodge 81/365 - Travel Jitters

I don't have fear of flying. I usually book my travel with plenty of leeway in case I end up in an epic travel nightmare—though that has never happened so far. The worst that's happened is my luggage was delayed, once, in England, for three days, which was a nuisance, but I was in England and enjoying myself, and I'm somewhat used to wearing the same clothes for days on end anyway. (Shhh, don't tell anyone.) The last time I flew, my luggage arrived home fourteen hours after I did, which didn't matter: I was home. Once I was bounced from a flight—based on the price of my ticket, so so much for shopping for the cheapest fare—but they put me up in a hotel and I was home bright and early the next day: no big deal. So no: none of those truly awful experiences of sitting on the tarmac for five hours before being told the plane wasn't going and having to spend the night in the airport with snow hampering flights the next day etc. (knock wood). But even there: I'm more or less ready. I know it can happen.

The point being, travel doesn't really make me anxious. And yet: the night before a trip, I invariably sleep lousy. All the worries that might flit through my head during my time away seem to cluster in one bunch and peck at me. And at the moment, I've got a full plate full of deadlines and commitments that I'm stepping away from for a few days, so: plenty to worry about.

So . . . I'm trying to remember to breathe. Practice my meditation techniques. Which, if you've been wondering since my post on November 30, when I swore I was going to sit every day through the end of the year—well, best intentions . . . But I'm resolving to give it another shot. Not until I get back from Washington, but then? Sure. It takes time and commitment to develop a new habit. I guess I need to practice the commitment part harder. The sitting part isn't difficult.

In any case, in about three hours I'm heading out, stopping for some cash, picking up my friend Thelma, and then: off to SFO, where we'll avail ourselves of long-term parking. Four o'clock flight, and assuming all goes well, we'll be at Dulles at midnight. The adventure begins.

And now: to pack! And then, no doubt, fidget until it's time to go.

Hodgepodge 80/365 - Pussyhat

Today I received a fabulous surprise in my mailbox:

My Howler friend Kim made it, for me, for the March on Washington. Now I'm ready to go! Which reminds me: I should probably think about packing.

(You can read about the Pussyhat Project here and here.)

Hodgepodge 79/365 - Anna Deavere Smith

We've been watching Nurse Jackie. Tonight: the second half of season 2. Yep, that's six episodes. We like it that the episodes are only 28 minutes long. Makes binge-watching easy.

I adore Edie Falco, whom I missed in The Sopranos because, we didn't watch The Sopranos. Though I'd like to. Maybe one day I/we will.

A still from her TED Talk
Four American Characters
also part of On the Road (see below)

But even more, I adore Anna Deavere Smith, whom I remember from her ca. 1990 performances based on interviews. Like Fires in the Mirror, about the Crown Heights riots of 1991. Monologues taken directly from transcripts of interviews that Smith conducted with the people depicted in her one-woman play.  

Nurse Jackie isn't exactly frivolous, but it's entertainment. Fires in the Mirror was not meant to be entertainment. And what about Anna Deavere Smith, an African American woman, presenting the stories of a great diversity of people—including male Hassidic Jews? There's an interesting head bender. (One I agree with. How are we going to understand each other if we can't try to exercise some empathy? We may be not entirely right in our conclusions, but at least we try. We try.)

Anna Deavere Smith was bold. She was (is) just one person, shaped in her own way, so we may not agree with her interpretations. But I admire her chutzpah in taking on this event.

Here's the Wikipedia description of Fires in the Mirror:

Anna Deavere Smith's play Fires in the Mirror is a part of her project On the Road: A Search for the American Character. It is a series of monologues excerpted from interviews. Fires in the Mirror chronicles a civic disturbance in the New York neighborhood of Crown Heights in August 1991. In that racially divided neighborhood, a car driven by a Jewish man veered onto a sidewalk and killed a 7-year-old Caribbean-American boy who was learning to ride a bicycle. The accident and the delayed response of emergency medical personnel sparked protests during which a Jewish student visiting from Australia was stabbed on the street by a group of black youths. Days of rioting ensued, exposing to national scrutiny the depth of the racial divisions in Crown Heights. The rioting produced 190 injuries, 129 arrests, and an estimated one million dollars in property damage.

Smith interviewed leading politicians, writers, musicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals together with residents of Crown Heights and participants in the disturbances to craft the monologues of her play. Through the words of 26 different people, in 29 monologues, Smith explores how and why people signal their identities, how they perceive and respond to people different from themselves, and how barriers between groups can be breached. "My sense is that American character lives not in one place or the other," Smith writes in her introduction to the play, "but in the gaps between the places, and in our struggle to be together in our differences." The title of the play suggests a vision of art as a site of reflection where the passions and fires of a specific moment can be examined from a new angle, contemplated, and better understood.

Here is the link to Fires in the Mirror (a playlist of six videos). I am going to watch it again. I expect it will speak to our current situation, eloquently.

Hodgepodge 78/365 - Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday today (he would be 88 if he had not been assassinated), here is his "I Have a Dream" speech from August 28, 1963. You can listen to it here while you read along. Or just listen. (The speech is owned by MLK's family; it will enter the public domain in 2038.)

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. 

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification"—one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day—this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Hodgepodge 77/365 - Passports

I have had a passport since I was fourteen, when I spent a year in a German boarding school. Before that, I shared my mother's passport—a few times. I started traveling abroad when I was two. When I was ten, we moved to Japan for a while. I went to Jamaica when I was twelve, still on my mother's passport, and to Mexico as well around the same age. We'd accompany my father to conferences: he believed in showing his kids the world. It was a tremendous gift.

Here is a picture of all my individual passports, minus the current one. I don't think I've ever been without one.

And here is my visa for China in 2008.

And finally, a sampling of visas (minus the Soviet Union—although they sure held on to my passport plenty, it never got a stamp):

Hodgepodge 76/365 - Playing Recorder

When I was a kid, I played recorder every week or so with my mother's best friend, Libby Robinson. I had a soprano and an alto recorder. Still do, somewhere. The soprano recorder is, I believe, made of cherry wood (or maybe it's tulipwood); the alto, of European boxwood. I enjoyed sharing music with Libby, and she was kind about my lack of skill (as in, I didn't really practice). We usually played Elizabethan aires and suchlike. I may still have my favorite book of music that we worked from. Libby and a good friend of hers, Phyllis Levine, played recorders at David's and my hippie-esque wedding back in 1981. I have a picture of them, but it's too hard to get at right now. I'll keep an eye out for it when I get around to cleaning out my office closet, and hopefully I'll remember to post it here. I'll keep an eye out for my recorders, too—maybe try to find that music and play a little again. Stranger things have happened.

Hodgepodge 75/365 - Eggs

The two oldest boys of some friends of mine have gone into the egg business. They call themselves the Egg Men, fittingly enough (their real names are Sam and Ben). I went today to pick up a dozen and a half—which made for some serious arithmetic practice, since they're used to selling even dozens, $5 a box. I got a discount: $7 for 18 eggs. And what beauties they are. I did not know chicken eggs came in so many colors!

I of course asked to be introduced to the layers, of which they have about seventy(!!!), of many different varieties. That's a lotta chickens! Also three roosters. The boys' mom says they started out with a normal amount, about seventeen, but six months ago they decided to augment the flock. I wouldn't actually have known there were so many: it just seemed like a bunch of chickens. Nothing really overwhelming about them. Most were in the coop, with a few—including all three handsome roosters—wandering around outside.

The younger boy, Ben, held his 4H "show" chicken while we walked and talked. She is a little bantam and nameless. His mom explained that when she was in 4H she had a large chicken, and you have to stand very still for a long period holding your chicken, and large chickens get heavy—so the boys took her and the 4H leader's advice to start off with a little bantam. Ben asked if I'd ever petted a chicken, and it occurred to me that no, I probably never have. So I got to pet his. The prickly pin feathers were surprising.

The different colored eggs come from different breeds, of course. I just looked up chicken breeds, and man, there are a lot! One of my favorites today was the white-headed black Polish: they had two, one named Michael Jackson, the other Elvis (though both are female, but never mind). If I had one, I might name it Beethoven. Or perhaps Ludwigga.

Now I'm looking forward to eating these eggs. I bet they'll be delicious.