eve

Our family tradition on New Year's Eve has been to reflect on the past year.

When the girls were young, we would each commit to listing 10 highlights of the year. We would retreat to separate corners of the house and scribble away on yellow legal pads each making our own lists and then come together to share. In those days, our lists were pretty much the same because we spent our days together. Although it was always surprising to see what activity or event was most important to each of us.

Now our lives are more separate and our coming together is all the more precious. At dinner last night (they are off with friends tonight) we each shared one high point/surprise of the past year.

I like reflection so much more than "new year's resolutions" which imply that THIS year I will do the thing I have been unable to do in past years.

Better to set an intention; one thing you would like to lean toward in the year ahead. I have to think about mine for next year.

It is snowing and very cold. I sit by the wood stove as I write and wish you all the happiest of new years. Thanks for reading my blog. It's a mysterious, satisfying form of communication. I'm learning as I go. I am grateful to have you join me on the journey!

nyc trip: scroll down

product placement?

last week

It's hard to believe that it was a winter wonderland here last week. Here are photos of me and Eliza snowshoeing at a nearby field. Today it is 60 degrees and the snow is rapidly melting. Feels like March in New England. Maybe I'll be able to use the clothesline.... Hope not.

we love new york!

After a sound sleep at Carrie's place on West 109th Street, we had a hearty breakfast at Pain Quotidian, and set off with Carrie in the lead, researching each stop along the way and navigating the subway with ease. What a lot she has learned in her four months living there! Here's a glimpse of the girls on the loose!

e-card

Happy Boxing Day!

writing partners

I have often posted writing that I have done with my 96 year old friend and mother in law, Madelyn Phillips O'Neil. Here is a photograph of us, taken to put in the front of the book I assembled for her of our writings side by side. What possible title might we come up with?

The view from here: from 55 to 95

Two white chicks sitting around talking.
(name of a off Broadway show years ago)

Friends forever.

merry christmas

...and peace on earth.
We say this every year, especially at Christmas time.
Peace on Earth.
That will never happen.
But in the striving, we get closer to our ideals.
By setting intention, we know how to make hard decisions.
Setting an impossible goal shapes us every step of the way.
It begins with being kind to ourselves and those around us.
Peace can radiate out from there.
The arc bends towards justice.
I love you all,
Barbara

silent night

May we here find a still point in the turning world.
May peace be with us all.
A child has come forth to stand with star dust in his hair.
May the wonder of new life bless us all.
The visible and the invisible dance together on this night.
May the spirit of love in the world join us all.

This was the responsive reading in church tonight.
David, Carrie, Eliza and I were ushers and the place was packed!
At the end we all held candles high in a dark church.
It was magical.

The visible and the invisible dance together tonight.
Love,
Barb

christmas eve!

when you least expect it

We were in New York City last week. Eliza and I couldn't wait to see Carrie in her new world. Carrie had finished her last major commitment at Columbia and was ready for some fun. She knows the city now, taking us on the subway from Greenwich Village to Times Square and up to Lincoln Center.

I have been to New York fairly often over the years. I spent the younger part of my childhood in New Jersey and we often went into the city. A Brayton School field trip in sixth grade was to the Museum of Natural History. I visited the Cloisters with my Sunday School class. From my father's office on the 56th floor at Rockefeller Center, I looked down at the skaters below with the golden statue of Prometheus floating above them. We went to Broadway shows. The Sound of Music starring Mary Martin was a high point of my young life. I listened to the record over and over on the stereo system that my mother had set up in our living room.

Our family has continued the tradition by going to NYC for theater and museum visits. Les Miserables, Crazy for You, Phantom of the Opera, Rent. Last week the girls and I saw Arthur Miller's "All My Sons." I have taken courses at Bank Street College and made special trips there to buy books for the Atrium School Library.

But on this trip with my daughters, we went to two places that made me think of my parents. At Rockefeller Center among the reveling crowds who smiled for iphone photos, turning away from the glittering Christmas tree, I glanced up at the Art Deco building where Dad had worked for over twenty years and felt a connection to him in a way that words can't really capture.

Later that night at Lincoln Center, Carrie, Eliza and I settled into our seats in Avery Fisher Hall looking forward to hearing Handel's Messiah performed by the New York Philharmonic. As I looked down at the stage watching the musicians assemble and the conductor take his place, it all came back to me. It was here that mom had brought me to attend the now historic Young People's Concerts conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Sitting next to her in my scratchy dress and party shoes, we would listen as he demonstrated how the music tells a story. Singling out each instrument he'd let us hear it's special sound and illustrate it's importance as part of the whole. I especially liked the hot fudge sundaes that we ate after the performance at Schraffts.

Because so many of my blog readers are relatives, I indulge myself in these memories so that you may have a glimpse into the elders you may never have known. I am grateful for my parents. They believed firmly in the importance of education and culture and books and art. In their own ways they left indelible marks in the world, but most of all, on me. This is immortality.

snow

the mountains of nepal

fiji

mexico

UBUNTU

ok! thought you'd appreciate my most favorite idea and kind of unofficial life philosophy:

"Africans have this thing called UBUNTU. It is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world.
It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours.

When I dehumanise you, I inexorably dehumanise myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging". - Desmond Tutu

Thanks to Carrie for sending me the above passage.

Yesterday, I delivered canned goods that had been collected by various groups at my church to the Open Table in Concord. This wonderful organization provides a free dinner to who ever shows up, no questions asked, every Thursday night. They also give each guest a bag of food to take away with them. (I would say take "home" with them but you can't assume anything)

I showed up to make my delivery at the allotted time to a nondescript looking building. I knocked and opened the door. There were floor to ceiling metal shelves filled with food all sorted by category and volunteers of all ages talking and laughing and sorting donations. My bags were whisked away, contents distributed in proper places. They were also filling bags to give away later that day.

Here was a well run organization making a direct difference in the lives of the ever growing population of people in need.
I talked at length with Marilyn, the volunteer coordinator and was amazed at how the whole town appeared to be organized to help. Churches, schools, scout troops, moms, dads, kids all help in ways they can. The high school had a cereal drive, the Garden Club collected cans of vegetables. You get the idea.

A few donations of food from many people each week really make a difference. I told Marilyn I'd be back soon to help and I'd bring my daughters along.

Is there a food pantry in your town?

Pakistan

1968: International Year for Human Rights

It is recommended that in December 1967 the President of the General Assembly should issue a special message on the International Year for Human Rights, to be released on 1 January 1968. It is further recommended that the Secretary-General of the United nations, the executive heads of the specialized agencies, the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund and the executive secretaries of the regional economic commissions should issue similar messages during 1968 at the time they deem most appropriate, and that such messages should be widely circulated by all communications media.

It is recommended that the Secretary-General should:

(a) Make arrangements for the issuing of human rights postage stamps and first-day covers on 1 January 1968, and for special cancellations during 1968;

Summer on my Mind

I stumbled across this huts documentary video that does a good job at illustrating my nearly ineffable summer job.  The narrator is my good friend Iona, and the pictures are of my mountain home.  It's become my "happy place" over the past two years, a high paradise that lives in my heart and sustains me through winter.

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/hut_hiking/index.html

I'll be back in the Whites this coming summer, and always love visitors!

Thanks for letting me share.

Eliza

helvetia #2

helvetia

Helvetia is the Roman name for an ancient region of central Europe occupying a plateau between the Alps and the Jura Mountains. Helvetia corresponded roughly to the western part of modern Switzerland, and the name is still used poetically.
In the first century BC, a Celtic group known as the Helvetii migrated from Southern Germany to Switzerland. Eventually, they came up against the Romans. They were pushed back into Switzerland by Caesar's army in 58 BC. The Roman Empire founded its province of Helvetia in current Switzerland in 15 BC.
Helvetia was a peaceful and prosperous region for many years. Then, in AD 260, the Germans invaded and the Romans retreated. Helvetia passed hands between the Franks and the Germans for many years until the Swiss Confederation was founded on August 1, 1291.
Switzerland continues to use the name in its Latin form when it is inappropriate or inconvenient to use any or all of its four official languages. Thus, the name appears on postage stamps, coins and other uses.
(source: Wikipedia)

green

As promised, here is today's card. I'm having trouble with the photos. Gold foil paper just doesn't shimmer the way it does in real time. I'm having trouble getting the lighting right and close-up photography is new to me. Trust me, they look better in real life. More to learn! Mother Nature does a great job with green! The ultimate artist.