LIFE – Page 7 – Don't Gel Too Soon

The Normal Heart – a Kick in the Gut

Of course there’s no such thing as time travel. Of course not.

The Normal Heart though, for anyone who was in New York in the 80’s, comes about as close as you can get. We watched it after the Emmys. I had avoided it, knowing how troubling it would no doubt be, but it felt wrong to not look. Too many people had done that 30 years ago. Here’s how one New Yorker described, to the New York Times, Manhattan in May of 1987:

‘Going to funerals has become a way of life,” said George Getzel, a Hunter College social work professor who counsels AIDS patients as a volunteer. ”People in their 70’s and 80’s experience this but here people in their 20’s and 30’s are visiting the sick at homes and in hospitals and burying the dead. Some are themselves sick. It’s become a regularized aspect of the lives of gay men and others like myself who are involved.

The Normal Heart slammed me back to those days:

The day, when I worked at the TODAY SHOW, that my friend Susan Weaver did one of the first AIDS stories that included a live guest in the studio. There was fear in the air that morning. A couple of studio crew members asked to be replaced and people debated in advance whether to shake hands with the young man who had the courage to show up and talk about what was happening to him, to New York and, we know now, to all of us.

The day that Allison Gertz, who succumbed to AIDS in 1992 at the age of 26 (and who spoke at many high schools to very effectively remind teenagers that for her, AIDS came from a single encounter with an infected man and that heterosexual sex was anything but safe) spoke, with enormous impact, at my own son’s high school.

The day that our sweet friend Stephen left us.

The day one of my oldest friends told me that of his entire book group, he was the only survivor.

The day Elizabeth Glaser, wife of actor Paul Michael Glaser, stricken through a blood transfusion during the birth of her daughter Ariel, who also contracted the disease, showed up at a Georgetown party lobbying and fundraising simultaneously. Ariel’s illness drove Glaser to form the Pediatric Aids Foundation, later renamed the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation in her honor. She was everywhere, from Georgetown to Hollywood to endless television appearances, raising money and awareness until she died in 1994.

The day we watched Mark Harmon, the loveable, mischievous Dr. Caswell, walk away alone from the brilliant St. Elsewhere, his own AIDS diagnosis and certain death drawing him to an AIDS hospice to provide care until he died among his patients.

For everything here came days and weeks worth, years worth of deep melancholy and, for so many, pain, death and grief. Because New Yorkers live so close together, ride mass transit, hang out in public parks, buy food from hotdog carts on the corner and, even if they’re really really rich, can’t stay clear of strangers, we all knew it, felt it and feared it.

Of course, AIDS is still with us, a terrible epidemic in the developing world, and still present in the West. Here the reality is different today, if not entirely.

So yes, The Normal Heart was time travel; the gift of a perfect document reminding us, and portraying for those who came after, of a terrible, terrible time.

Ferguson, Bloggers and Race in America: Even if We Think We Know, We Don’t

One of the bloggers I admire most is Kelly Wickham, who writes Mocha Momma. I “met” her online 7 years ago because she was a reading specialist and, as the parent of a dyslexic child, I was so grateful for the committed, loving, determined way she wrote about her work. I kind of stalked her in comments until we met at BlogHer in 2007. (Actually I also stalked her after that, too, but at least by then she knew who I was.)

She writes, with honesty and rage, about race. About family, and love, and education and whatever else occurs to her, but also about race. I’ve learned a lot from her, including how much I didn’t know. As the years have passed, and more women of color have joined BlogHer and Kelly’s Facebook feed, I’ve learned from others, too. The BlogHer community grew and widened, and with it the gut understanding of the whole community. On our blogs we tell the truth, and the different truths shared by the bloggers who are now a part of my life have been an immeasurable gift.

Of course it is beyond wrong that, in 2014, we still have to seek diversity, to go out of our way to learn lessons we should have learned long ago, and that those most in pain still experience so much that we haven’t figured out how to learn.

The trouble is that there hasn’t been nearly enough intersection between us and those experiencing the harshest emotions that emerge in response to American racism.

I remember once talking with author Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, who said to me “Don’t you see, we black mothers must be lionesses to protect our sons.” I thought of her statement often as I was raising my own.

I remember a colleague describing to me, when we were both pregnant, her fear of the first time someone called her not-yet-born child a “n*$%#&r” – of what she would say to him, what she would do.

But despite having African-American colleagues and friends, I’m not sure I ever, until these past days, completely heard the depth of anger and despair that lives within so many.

It’s not that I didn’t know; most people I know care about and have seen plenty of racial injustice and have worked, in our own ways, to change it. But that’s different from opening someone else’s door and walking in. It’s on fire in there. And it should be.

Listen to these:

Everyone can’t stand up the moment something pisses the off and we’re all different in how we react. Some people shut down because they don’t even know where to start. Some people just need a nudge to be emboldened to speak. Some people need to know they’re needed before they speak.

Well if you need that nudge, here it is. If you’re afraid because you don’t want to say the wrong thing, push past that fear. Because right now, your silence about the continued devaluation of Black lives is wrong. Your lack of acknowledgement is not ok. If you need tips before speaking out here’s 3: don’t blame the person who was killed. Don’t say you’re color-blind. Acknowledge the racism at play.

Speaking up when it matters is usually when it’s also the hardest. When your voice shakes, that’s when you’re standing in truth. But that’s usually when it is most needed. And when you do it, someone else might be encouraged to do the same. Do not be silent. Awesomely Luvvie

I am outraged but I do not know what to do with my outrage that might be productive, that might move this world forward toward a place where black lives matter, and where black parents no longer need to have “the talk” with their children about how not to be killed by police and where anger over a lifetime of wrongs is not judged, but understood and supported. Roxanne Gay

Black bodies matter. Black bodies matter. Black bodies matter. Say it with me: Black bodies matter. This isn’t a question. This isn’t a euphemism. This isn’t an analogy. This is a fact. Black cis and trans boys, girls, men, and women and non-binary folks, they all matter. Until that fact becomes a universal truth due to the precise liberty and justice the Constitution of this country promises, I won’t stop fighting and neither should you. Jenn M. Jackson

But it wasn’t what I could see and hear as Ferguson residents fled and were pursued into residential areas that gave me chills. It was what I couldn’t see. Because behind the walls of those smoke-shrouded homes were parents comforting their frightened children. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there. They could have been me. They could have been my children.Kymberli Barney for Mom 2.0

This is what I need, dear friend.

I need to know that you are not merely worried about this most tragic of worst case scenarios befalling my son; I need to know that you are out there changing the ethos that puts it in place. That you see this as something that unites us as mothers, friends and human beings.

My son needs me, as much as yours needs you. Sadly, my son needs me more. He needs someone to have his back, when it seems that the police, the men he’d wave to with excitement as a little boy, see him as a being worthy only of prison or death.

I need you, too, because I can’t do this alone. Keesha Beckford “Dear White Moms” on BonBon Break

This is where the story gets tricky. This is where our son paced up and down the stairs—in his under shirt, gym shorts and crew socks—telling us about the police who came to our door and handcuffed our son and pulled him outside. “Why?” It was the only question I could come up with — “why?”

His hands ran over his face and found each other behind his head. I knew this look too. The one of lost words—of previous trauma—of discouragement.

“I don’t know. There’s some robberies in the area? I guess? And they saw me here—I don’t know. They thought it was me. They thought it was me and wouldn’t listen. They didn’t believe me that this was my house.”

He shook his head and looked at me. “It didn’t even matter that I had a key, moms.” Elora Nicole

For each of these there are dozens and dozens more. No more to say.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/20/white-people-black-people-michael-brown-death-ferguson

How Did I Miss “The Giver?”

The movie is coming. I saw the trailer. But it wasn’t the story I thought it was; it turns out that all these years the book I remembered as Lois Lowry’s The Giver was in fact Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s The Keeper!. Which is pretty embarrassing given that I reviewed that one for The Washington Post. And The Giver? I hadn’t even read it.

Yesterday I did. I so wish I had been 14 when I found it, but it was published in 1993 and won the Newbery Medal in 1994 so that’s past not only my 14th birthday but that of one of my son’s! It’s very gripping and beautifully written, but there’s been so much YA dystopian fiction since then that it’s hard to imagine the punch in the gut it must have been when it appeared.

As a veteran of the Divergent trilogy and The Hunger Games (and, ok, the Twilight Series but they don’t count) as well as countless post-nuclear–holocaust novels and a ton of cyberfiction, I’m an old hand in this neck of the woods. Even so, the intent of The Giver is a little different. There’s no hunger, no war, not even any pain. It’s a twisted version of John Lennon’s Imagine.

Except, of course, it isn’t.

The “sameness” that rules this world has murdered color and music and laughter and love. Oh – and babies, too. One person, “the Giver” is the sole custodian of all memories of the bitter, the painful and the sad. We know this will not stand. And that’s the point.

We had a sign up in my college dorm – a banner across the front porch: “Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.” — William Faulkner, The Wild Palms Those are the words and feelings of young people and artists. And it is the battle against nothing the Lowry offers her young readers. As she told the New York Times: “Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world.”

When the Giver helps our young hero Jonas decide that beauty and emotion are worth the terrible prices we pay to be fully human, we are all empowered to imagine that we can — no must, join him. Take a stand. Change a mind. Solve a problem. Correct an injustice. Fall in love. Break our hearts or someone else’s. Be alive.

And that’s the power of The Giver, as the rest of you have probably known for years.

Thanks to the Man Who Sent Me to BlogHer ’06 and Now It’s ’14 and I’m Still Showing Up

In 2006, I was working with David Aylward and the National Strategies firm. He doesn’t know this but there’s a story (If you know me you know there’s almost always a story.) We had a client who wanted to reach parents. David hired me to help and I had this big idea about making a parent website to promote them. Well.
David sort of said “What about these blogs I keep hearing about? Would that be better?” I knew so little about blogging that I had to go look it up online. I found a story about this little conference in San Jose called BlogHer, meeting for only its second year. David and I convinced our client that I should attend this mysterious event and off I went along with fliers for our product and real curiosity about who these women were and what they were up to.

Here is what I received – from BlogHer 2006 and every one since:

1. Access to an entirely new world of remarkable women (and men too.) Including ( a little bit of a yearbook list) Elisa Camahort Page and Lisa Stone and Jory Des Jardins and Morra Aarons-Mele and Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann and Liz Gumbinner and Kristen Chase and Asha Dornfest and Jennifer Burdette Satterwhite and Mary Spivey Tsao and Danielle Wiley and people I haven’t mentioned here (Sorry – some I’m not completely sure who I met in 2006 and who later.) Feels like I’ve known you all forever as well as Sarah Granger and Kelly Wickham and Jill Miller Zimon and Joanne Bamberger and Stacey Ferguson and Cynthia Liu and Anita Sarah Jackson and Jenn Pozner and Cheryl Contee (and and and) And that doesn’t count the new (to me) folks like Sharon Hodor Greenthal!.

2. An entirely new way to communicate and create.

3. More fun than a barrel of groovy blogger women knew they could deliver. And – here’s the reason I’m writing this post at all:

4. Another decade at least of being part of and participating in the new parts of the world – online and on screens, instead of watching from the bleachers.

Lots of boomer women have joined me and the other early birds each year and I am certain they feel the same way (I’ve asked several and besides they’ve written about it.) At a time when many of our friends are settling into a more and more peer-centered life, we have the gift of having broadened, rather than narrowed, our world and hearing the voices of women we never would have known about, much less known for real. So David, thank you for the gift of my entry into this universe and for the imagination and vision that opened your mind to its possibilities. It’s a beautiful place to hang out and I’ll always remember who sent me through the door.

Hail and Farewell: Leaving Camp Seabourn

They all marched down the center aisle of the salon to echoes of No Day but Today, the lovely song from Rent . They’re all young, and from more than 30 countries: engineers and stewards, restaurant staff and destination coordinators, Captain and cruise director, performers and crew.

It was the last night of the trip and we’d just left Petersburg, one of the world’s loveliest cities.

The drama of its grim history, combined with its beauty, left all of us with full hearts. The emotion and the fact that in the morning our floating dormitory would deposit us and all our worldly goods in Stockholm and end the magic journey left us vulnerable. Watching these young people, who had been so deeply involved in our lives, slammed us up and over the top, leaving nearly 300 of us moved and weepy.

For a bunch of worldly travelers, who’ among us had been everywhere from Antarctica to Burma to Saigon, we were pretty sappy. The staff would welcome new cruisers hours after we left, but this artful end to a perfect trip, so much like the last day of camp, really, was sentimental and perfect.

Petersburg and the End of the Road

This is the Petersburg (we World Travelers have learned NOT to say “Saint Petersburg”) monument to the heroes of the World War II siege of Leningrad. For nine hundred days, the city was surrounded by Nazis. Many were evacuated before then, but those who remained lived in cold, fear, and near, sometimes overpowering, starvation. What they suffered was unimaginable.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment. (Wikipedia)

It is this story that the monument is designed to honor. Unlike so much Soviet art, the statues are human and lean – no giant muscles and super-strong Soviet Realism here. The glory went to the suffering instead. The museum itself is underground, below the wall where these statue stand,.

It holds with panel after panel of the names of those who died, somewhat reminiscent of Yad Vashem. There are relics of very human moments and a film that’s almost too hard to watch.

Even so, the day we were there, like every other weekday, groups of school kids, many quite young, came with their teachers to hear the story. Russians are very proud of the courage and strength demonstrated in those days, and determined to pass the story on.

We in the West have always been so preoccupied with the European Front, with the dramas of Normandy and the Resistance, that the other two fronts, in Russia and the Pacific, have gotten far less attention.

Besides, the Iron Curtain that surrounded Russia for so long made outside praise for or even commemoration of the Russian sacrifices less likely. It’s impossible to come here, though, and not be stunned by the reality of what happened.

The drama of the memorial is intense, but there are small memories too.

We visited one of the pillbox defense structures that held the final line around the city. It is being refitted to be an exhibit and hadn’t been open in a very long time. We were fortunate enough to be there when the workmen were cleaning out old trash and dirt, and able to go inside.

It eerie to imagine people, desperate with hunger, waiting in there in shifts to prevent the conquest of the city.

That’s just part of what was a remarkable day that ended in the Hermitage. Gorgeous and thrilling, but a little like too much gooey candy all in one place. It was tough to absorb, especially after the grim realities of the siege.

The beauties of Catherine’s Palace and the Synagogue and museums and churches and cathedrals will appear soon. For now, this sober and very moving set of memories will stand alone.

Life and Death on the Coast of France REDUX

It doesn’t look at all real – I know that. But it is. It’s also a place I’ve wanted to see for as long as I can remember. And here we are. Here we are! The sweet, formidable beauty of this place is matched only by its astonishing history – as a monastery, a prison and a target, from ancient times to the carnage and suffering of D-Day.

Mt-Saint-Michel has, for more than a thousand years, stood atop the rock upon which is was built. Its timelessness is much of what attracts people, I suspect, along with its ice-castle beauty and the awesome commitment of its inhabitants: the sacrifices made by these men on the mountain top, alone, virtually silent, with nothing to do but pray and take on their assigned chores, meditate and live out their lives in as holy a way as possible

SMEglise ike diorama crop — Ike sends US troops off to the D-Day invasion of Europe that helped win WWII.

Nearby, the small town of Saint-Mère-Élgise and its museum await the summer celebration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day and its remarkable exercise in vision, courage and grit. This diorama of General Eisenhower’s last visit with the men he was sending to fight and die is a moving one. Anyone who has ever seen his 1968 conversation with Walter Cronkite knows how well the General understood that half of those he sent out on D-Day would never return.

SMglise resistance — Resistance Armbands

SMeglise death book crop — Prayers to say if death is near; provided by the military

One group of special heroes and heroines represented at the museum were the Resistance – women and men who parachuted behind enemy lines, worked with local opponents of the Reich to complicate their war and, at great personal risk. transmitted by hidden radios everything they learned about their German enemy.

Aside from their real-life-spying, they also served in special, high-risk, low profile operations, commemorated in history, in films and in novels. I often used the Resistance stories and the children running messages and doing other support work as a way to engage our sons in history when we traveled. The drama and courage, and relevance, was and still is irresistible.

What you see here another of the profoundly moving exhibit items at the museum. Look carefully; it’s a page of prayers to support young soldiers dying in the field. Breathtaking as you stand among the photos of these young men and see how wise it was to offer them this comfort, and wonder if today’s military is inclined, or allowed for that matter, to provide similar comfort.

In all, the life of the monastery and loss that surrounds the beaches of Normandy really are bookends to how we live our lives. Life and faith, war and peace, courage, sacrifice, defeat and victory. It is the greatest gift of travel when these things present themselves and we remember how fragile, and how wondrous, the privilege of being alive and aware really is.

NOTE: This post was first published on May 8th, the day we made this trip. But today, on the anniversary of D-Day, it seemed right to offer it once again.

Farewell to Friends

This is me with my new sister Ramona. We met when we were looking to share a car to Mont-Saint-Michele and she and her amazing husband decided to join us. We have had the best week. Remarkable how quickly relationships form in a travel environment.

Now she is returning to her home in Beirut with her husband to await a new grandchild due within days of ours. We had a wonderful time with them. Thanks my friend! And send pictures.

“There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.”
― Jim Henson,

Welcome to the End of the World

It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and we’ve just returned from a trip to the barren cliff of Sagres, which was, until the 15^th century, the end of the world.

It was there that Henry the Navigator, the third son of King John of Portugal, sent the explorers he trained and financed out to explore what lay beyond the lands they knew.

It’s an inspiring story – a charismatic royal, never to be king, transforming Portugal and, really, the world. Sadly, all this wonder emerged despite, not because of, our guide. It’s tough to overestimate the power of a guide on a bus full of eager learners. She can seduce, enchant and mesmerize, or she can issue rote descriptions, lecture on the virtues of diversity to a crew of people who are on the trip because it’s what they already value, and, eventually, become toxic force within the community. And that’s what she was. Which wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that by the time we left the bus we were so bummed we were sniping at each other. Agitated and angry, disappointed and dismissed. OH and she forgot to show us where the statue of Henry was and wouldn’t turn around the one roundabout between us and his lovely presence pointing out to sea.

When you travel, every day is a jewel to be burnished, full of potential experiences and lessons and joys to share. So when someone violates the trust of leading this crew of nomads, it’s a grave offense, particularly painful in such a bleak, beautiful, Wuthering Heightsish landscape.

Fortunately, we rallied, went into the Portimāo for lunch, met some cool expats and saw trees wearing granny squares,

some crazy ceramic benches with one tale of the history of Portugal illustrated on each one and a couple of really interesting political posters. Tomorrow: Lisbon!

Remembering Ed Bradley: Fini Bi Bi One More Time

Ed was part of a 60 Minutes piece reported by Wynton Marsalis on Sunday. I thought again of his gifts and his wonderful self, and decided to republish this piece, written on the day he died.

Ed Bradley died today – of leukemia. He was not a usual man — not at all. Good, funny, gifted, fierce, loving and decent, he was a gentleman to the core. For two political convention seasons in the 80s I was his CBS News floor producer. In the midst of one of them, his mother had a stroke and was very ill in Philadelphia. She wouldn’t let him miss work though – insisted that he be on the convention floor every night. The convention was in New York , so Ed drove to Philadelphia after we were off the air each night, sleeping in a limo on the way to Philly – spending the night and morning with his mother and then returning in the limo the next day. He was there for her — and for his work, as she insisted that he be.

If you saw him on 60 Minutes, interviewing Aretha Franklin in the kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder, chopping while they talked, or jamming with Aaron Neville, you saw another, wonderful Ed — no pretense, no baloney. And if you saw him with his godchildren – daughters of the wonderful Vertamae Grosvenor, you saw yet another part of this remarkable man.

Somehow though, when I read the CNN Alert just an hour ago — what I remembered at once was that night in 1975 when Saigon fell. I was just back from maternity leave and alone on the overnight for the foreign desk at CBS. As a long-time CBS correspondent in Vietnam, Ed was the last guy out — or just about. What I can’t get out of my head is his account of walking down the deserted embassy hallway — where almost all the lights were out except one far down the hall — and his description of thinking of “the light at the end of the tunnel” — and then – as he signed off for the last time from Saigon – ending with the words of Saigon hookers “fini bi bi.” I’m not sure I can describe the sensitivity and sadness of this report – but I do remember sending him an email “Ernie Pyle, move over.”

The thing is – he was at least as wonderful as he was gifted and as talented as he was dear. It’s just so sad to think of him gone and of such a miserable disease. He’s leaving a beautiful legacy but that doesn’t make it OK. Not at all.