Saturday Speaks: Digging Holes

Okay, this week, the worst thing I've heard comes out of The Los Angeles Times. Such a lazy, one-sided response to destroying our planet, its resources, and making this earth a worse and worse place for our children...

To consider the thought for yourself, click here: BACKWARDS

The best thing I've heard this week comes from a bought of gorgeous, youthful honesty... my pen pal's daughter and I were greeting one another for the first time in several months. I hugged her and said that she had gotten so big. I caught myself. What a "grown up" thing to say. How lazy not to think of how it makes her feel, whether or not she can relate. Though she smiled politely, I smiled and asked her, "You hate it when people say that to you, don't you?" Cautiously, she nodded Yes. I kissed her forehead and said, "Yeah... I used to hate it, too. I'll never say that to you again." Slightly more than politely, she smiled.

Friday Sabbath: Day of Rest

I tell my yoga students in nearly every class to value their time of rest as much as their time of resistance. While I proudly and happily write in this blog daily, today is my day of rest. I had a rare opportunity tonight to have dinner with a particular assortment of my nearest and dearest. Considering lifestyles, career changes, and distances, I may be unable to reassemble this group for a very long time.

Heartfelt, humble thanks to my pen pal for inspiring this gathering... and to some of my closest friends who attended... Anya, Tristan, Jo, and Caro... and Baby Jude. Thank you for being the kind of friends who inspire such togetherness, that it's only out of sheer physical exhaustion that we pull away from our company.

Now, I'm going to go savor this evening as I rest.

Thursday Kitchen: Festival Favorites

I was really ready for that beer and hot dog after my own double header at the yoga studio (two and a half hours of standing in a 100 degree room). My cousins were eating peanuts, sipping lemonade, gulping on beer, and chewing on corn dogs. You could hear vendors belting out their wares... Cotton candy! Ice cold drinks! Cracker Jacks! You have a number of options for other goodies... I saw some funnel cakes, plastic miniature caps filled with Dip n' Dots (wonder if people who liked ice cream and couscous got together to come up with that one), and nachos.

It just reminds me of the foods in which we only indulge on special occasions because they're available in certain places. At the movies, for example, it's the only time I drink Cherry Coke. It's too sweet for me to drink regularly, but with a small popcorn (I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how some people actually survive the large tub of popcorn) it works in a once-in-a-while kind of way. My brothers always get one of those blue frozen sugar drinks... it's not a Slurpee... it's a Freezee? Or something like that. I also try to get Raisinets at the movies sometimes... without the proper setting, I'm with Roz ("I'd like to meet the idiot who came up with these... take a grape, shrivel it up into a disgusting little wart, and then cover it with perfectly good chocolate...").


With the Storytelling Festival around the corner, I think of people who take their lunches in Colonial Williamsburg. When else would you bother going into the taverns to try something called The Ploughman's Lunch, Peanut soup, and Syllabubs (well, okay... around the holidays, I guess Anya and I were known to have one or two for breakfast...)? I think my pen pal and I tend to go for The Cheese Shop's offerings where you can get interesting fresh sandwiches, tabbouleh salad, couscous salad, carrot salad, etc.

My favorite event of the year, The Fall Festival, is also coming up. There's often hot and cold cider... which just makes me so happy... it means Fall has begun once those smells and tastes of cinnamon, apple, and cloves rise up. One of the best indulgences is fresh kettle corn. It's popcorn sweetened in a large, outdoor bowl that's heated over a large fire... not that weird, preservative-y garbage from the grocery store. There's sweetened peanuts or spicy peanuts, too. You can also find caramel apples, but that's something I prefer to eat in the privacy of my own home (so messy!).

Starbucks is only a happy place in winter... when you get order really fun things like an Egg Nog latte, Peppermint Mocha or Peppermint Hot Chocolate, and, my favorite, a Gingerbread Breve. I think about caroling with Tristan and the old gang with a hot, steaming cup of one of these offerings or a mug of homemade Wassail. There is no other time of the year when these drinks make any sense... which makes them all the more tempting when they are finally available as we spend more time rushing outdoors to shop, visit family, go to special events, etc.

When school lets out and summer starts, I try to find a moment to go get an Italian Ice. The best combination is the classic Cherry Ice with a hot, soft pretzel... I'm just realizing that I missed out on that this summer. I'll have to make a point to go sometime soon before the weather gets any cooler. The Virginia Peninsula is manifesting seasons again! We haven't had a distinct fall or spring since I was a little girl. But this year, we definitely had a spring season... so, fingers crossed for autumn!

Any one place, one occasion specials that I've left out?

(Images from http://farm1.static.flickr.com, www.ionlitio.com, www.dianasdesserts.com, www.grit.com, http://a7.vox.com, and www.tranzillis.com.)

Wednesday Valuables: Beautiful Coincidences

As I have said before, I do not believe in obligatory, familial love. You know how in movies, in books, in your living room, you hear someone say, "Well, she's my [insert relevant relation], so, I love her and everything... but she's such a jerk..." or something of that nature? That just doesn't sound like love to me. There's plenty of room for a sort of... respect or affection, I guess... for people who have been in your life for a long period of time. But, honest "I like this kid" sort of emotion only exists if it does.

I'm thinking of this in light of an outing I have planned tomorrow night with my cousins. Our friendship is an example of one of my life's most gorgeous accidents. I have genuine feelings for them... we might not have purposefully hung out had we gone to the same high schools at the same time as strangers, but we seem to come together once in a while just to be together as though that had in fact been the case. Our parents don't hound us, our aunts and uncles don't drop us any hints. We just like to be together.

I remember one time I agreed to go to a hockey game to be with my cousins. For those of you who know as little about hockey as I did walking in... my cousins might be the only people who would not have to drag me with a team of horses to a game in the future. I was not in my seat for more than five minutes before a fight broke out on the ice. The stadium even has this "theme music" that they jam through the speakers every time one of these fist fights breaks out. I felt my IQ dropping just sitting there... and I was tempted to wait outside the stadium and pummel this idiot with a blow horn who seemed to feel he needed to blow it as often as the ice shaved under the players' skates.

But, for my cousins, I went. Corey got me a beer to smooth my nerves and Jaci and I rolled our eyes together during the adolescent punching sessions. Marc was kind enough to buy my ticket and drive us there. Whatever we do, we make a point to see each other whenever we're all in the same place.


This is not always as easy as that sounds. Corey is a marine biologist who drifts off to Florida for research projects every so often. Marc is in the Marines and currently takes classes at OSU. Jaci has been in Scotland for the past year doing administrative work. I'm the only one who hasn't left town since 2003... and even that was just one year... in Richmond, Virginia.


I won't say that there isn't something about being members of our family that drew us to be friends outside of our obligations. We have watched our parents interact, accounted for who is "always late," "always loud," "always rude," "always generous," etc. We know who our black sheep are and why. We hid Easter eggs from each other while talking about things we didn't want to discuss in front of the adults (they weren't looking since we were being cute and searching for those stupid, neon plastic eggs). We brought our dates casually into family get-togethers to see who could handle this group.

I've had the rare opportunity to have plenty of one-on-one time with all my cousins. We've gone to movies, coffee, had each other over for a beer or a chat, etc. Jaci is my most trusted babysitter for my cat and, in many ways, the little sister I never had the chance to have. Marc and I like to go to the ballgames together and share honesty. Corey and I are the "liberals" in the group (before you get excited, I'm not attached to that label... I'm a conservative liberal, if anything, and not devoutly so because politics depresses me for the human race... like hockey...) and we laugh at the same ignorant comments made by anybody.


I'm just so very excited about tomorrow night. We're all going to see the Tides play. Now, no one goes as a Tides fan because the team's any good. I think I have yet, in the nearly 7 or 8 years I've been going to this ballpark, to see those guys win a game. No one cares. You root for them anyway. You get your hot dog or peanuts and a beer and just enjoy the weather, the sport, the company. The four of us haven't been together in over a year since Jaci left for Scotland... there are other cousins, but the four of us, I'll be confidently presumptuous and say, are friends. I would call any of them if I really needed to for any reason at 3AM... which is saying a lot since I don't really call on anyone for help (I'm stubborn that way).

I don't see steadily into the future about most things, but I'm willing to bet, so long as they don't all marry a bunch of insecure control freaks, that we'll be friends for a very long time... the kind that can actually live up to the platitudes of real friends remaining so no matter how much time passes between meetings. We've got the history, respect, and love to stick together.

I'm just so fortunate for this beautiful coincidence. We don't choose our family... just our friends.

Tuesday Hobbies: Back to School

I've signed up to take one class at The College of William and Mary for the Fall semester. It's called "Life Writing" and there are about 12 of us currently enrolled. I think I have about 8 years on all the other students save one... a mother of two who seems to need a guided outlet as I do.

I can't lie... I mean, really. I've never been any good at it. Pretty much anything you need to know is written on my face. I admire our professor... she listened to some rough writing we all produced in class yesterday with no emotion on her face whatsoever. I am accustomed to measuring the temperature a person gives off as well as what's underneath the eyes... but to most people, she shared no bias, no opinion in her facial expressions.

I, on the other hand, struggled not to react. I'm not going to be a total snot and say that there was no originality in that classroom... there were sentences here and there that certainly echoed some human truths in practically all the writings... In fact, if I'm totally honest, I'm sure I wrote similar stuff at some point... But, in any writing class I've ever taken, I've been a little... critical. I express that as positively as I can. Public school writing classes are never the place to teach people lessons with tough love. I've had the crap kicked out of my writing by private readers and other professors, so, I know when I've written something that needs some serious revision. In these classes, however, everyone wants to feel "safe." I guess that's important, too. They can get the crap kicked out of them in grad school, by editors, at publishing houses. In this place, we need to encourage one another to get to a point where we're ready to share, which comes before we can have that work torn apart.

I remember, before I could write all the words I actually knew, I used to ask my mother to write out dreams or thoughts for me in this ugly, yellow, thin, Mickey Mouse blank book. My energy has been devoted to writing before I knew what I was doing... in my letters, cards, poems, school essays, etc, I've always tried pushing the envelope, tried to create something moving or interesting. Some of these people have lived very much the same way... some of them just wanted something fun to do in between required credits.

I'm suddenly reminded of something that Keri Wormald said... she was one of the best directors for the stage I ever had the privilege to work with... She would tell us, "If you treat people like artists and geniuses, they will be..."

There's a great deal of reading involved alongside the writing. We have a number of interesting texts with which to work including I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by the irreplaceable Maya Angelou, Mystical Poems of Rumi by Jalal al Din Rumi, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER by Barack Obama, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT by Norman McLean, and several other essays, stories, memoir excerpts. I'm excited to read and re-read some of these texts to remind myself of both great and not-so-great personal writings.

The idea behind this class is to write both about and through ourselves, I believe. While I definitely do plenty of that here in this blog, it will be useful and invaluable to have new stimulation. The professor will ask of us questions that I rarely find worthy to ask myself or that I simply would not have thought to consider on my own.

One of my favorite aspects of this class is the journal we've been asked to keep. Based on ARTISTS' JOURNALS AND SKETCHBOOKS by Lynne Perrella, we're supposed to write some reflection pieces on our readings, special reflections about our lives, and insert things that may matter such as photos of our families, postcards, etc. I've kept these sorts of journals before, but only for class. It's always amusing to look back on them... the only thing they all seem to have in common is my family and pictures of Marilyn Monroe.

I may or may not share some of what goes on in this class. People are entitled to their privacy as my classmates and I am very uncertain as to what sort of writing I'm going to produce myself. For today, however, I will share what I first wrote in last night's class when asked the question, Who are you?

I am the daughter of a daughter of yet another daughter who survived the horror of WWII. I do not come from a particularly popular group of war babies. My grandfather was not a Jew who escaped the hell of the camps nor was he a European hiding refugees in his basement. John R. Wagner met my grandmother, Tsuruko Okuma, in a place that very few people I meet have ever heard of... Okinawa. Most people ask, "That's in Japan, right?" and my heart sinks.


I am the daughter of a daughter ashamed of her ethnicity. While she largely accepted her heritage in adulthood (specifically after her second marriage), she struggled in groups of children influenced by leftover prejudices their parents passed down about Asians in America.


I am the daughter of a man who chose to be my father. His love for my mother, whose first husband left us when I was six months old, transcended the connection seemingly forged between a man and his creation. He led me to the discovery family inside and outside of my bloodlines in the truest and most spontaneous sense unfettered from any presumptuous obligations.


I am the daughter of a middle class family, swept courageously out of "only child syndrome" at the age of nine when my mother gave birth to twin boys. My interest in them was limited. I was mostly grateful for the distraction they offered my parents during a time in my life when I was ready to "do it all on my own, thank you very much." Once they turned five, I met two incredibly different people, from one another as well as myself, who introduced me to a friendship and love unlike any other I will ever know.


I am one of the many daughters who broke beneath the weighty desire for a true sense of belonging to a group of people. I am not unique in my fight for individuality and self love in the face of one of humanity's deepest rejections. I read the books, talked to counselors, wrote pages and pages dedicated to my anger and fear. To this day, my father's absence has been the strongest presence in making me who I am... mostly by battling to become better than a "girl with Daddy-issues from a broken home."


So, instead, I am the daughter of a line of women who wanted something better.
My grandmother kissed the dead and living Goodbye and accepted my grandfather's insistent proposal to fly from home to give her children and grandchildren a large, loving multicultural tribe. My mother made her own mistakes, found a true friend and companion in my stepfather, and provided her child freedom, completely lacking vicarious expectations, to be whoever I wanted to be.

And I?

I have ceased to offer my injuries to people who can't make use of them the way I can. I studied the loves that have gone before me and waited for companionship beyond the tender and insecure early twenties. I have rocked the boat in pursuit of authenticity and justice whether or not my passengers have a life preserver (I won't let you fall). I have pondered and pounded my heart to grains that have slipped through the fine details of my decisions, my actions, my search for truth, my words. My words have haunted me, comforted me, illuminated my darkness... they are all I have to know myself at all.

I am Geneviève, daughter of Jessica, daughter of Tsuruko, daughter of Tsuru...

Well, it's an in-class writing piece... I might not tweak it much more though... I like the roughness of it. Like I was caught off guard and answered the question the way I would have in that moment rather than this one, or in a new setting tomorrow.

We'll see how it goes.

Monday Review: Civil Disobedience

(from http://passionforcinema.com)

I realize that I am monstrously behind on the times... this movie came out when I was one year old... but I finally watched Gandhi over the weekend. I won't be silly and write a lengthy review since there must be thousands of reviews already in existence... but I did enjoy it, so, here goes!

I don't know enough about Gandhi's life to know whether or not this movie accurately portrays the life of this incredible figure of our world's history. However, even the filmmakers provide a very tidy disclaimer at the start of the movie... Something along the lines of the impossibility of capturing a whole lifetime of someone so influential. The same disclaimer said that this was merely an attempt to capture the spirit of the man we know as Mahatma Gandhi.

I could tell that the writers were very careful to include significant, recognizable quotes in the dialogue. You get to hear Ben Kingsley's heartfelt delivery of great sayings such as "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always," "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," or "There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for." I deeply appreciate details like this, particularly in my ignorance of his writings and the history. It makes it easier for me to identify with the emotions I have about what Gandhi might have been like.

Once I got over the fact that they painted Ben Kingsley various shades of brown for this film, I couldn't think of any other person to play the part. He deserved that Oscar, in my not-so-humble opinion. While the true Gandhi in my head has that strange, wide, sweet smile stretched across his thin face, Kingsley created another infectious smile in the midst of the audience getting dragged through emotionally intense moments. There was still a sense of calm, comfort, and wisdom in his expressions. I have liked this actor's performance in Twelfth Night (as my favorite Shakespearean character, Feste) as well as the Catepillar in Alice in Wonderland (I'm behind on his work, too). I really don't have all the words to say how moved I was by his performance... and it's great to be deeply moved once in a while.

The story itself is also so striking. I am pretty in love with this concept of civil disobedience... of Gandhi's stance on a non-violent lack of cooperation as a way for improving the lives of a country. The refusal to settle for the British rule, for the racism towards the natives of India, for the lack of humanity on the rulers of a foreign land... but doing all this not in the name of Gd, not with swords or bombs, but with a blunt, "No." In one great scene, while Gandhi was fighting for his kind in South Africa, the workers marched towards a group of aggressors on horseback with sticks, ready to bludgeon the workers to death. One man cried out that they should all lay down on the ground, that the horses would not trample on them. How terrifying... that you can count on a sense of humanity from an animal before a thinking homo sapien.

His struggle with teaching others non-violence is so impressive to me. These are hard concepts to ask of the masses to understand, accept, AND implement. It's one thing to preach in a crowd... people nod, say, "Amen," thank the teacher for sharing his wisdom... and then they go back to their insensitive, intolerant, petty ways once they go home. The fact that he convinced such large groups of people to allow for the violence of the British forces and to not fight back... I mean, with most men on this continent, you might as well tell them not to breathe as to fight by not fighting.

Of course, there's also Gandhi's willingness to fast in the face of his people's wrongdoing (just like a good, suffering Libra would do). The times when people took his words and twisted them to do evil, to perform violence against each other, Gandhi took it upon himself, as though he had done what the terrorists had himself, to enforce some self-punishment. Perhaps he knew he was popular enough by this point that people would want to go to any lengths to keep him alive... in another great scene, one of Gandhi's followers comes to see him during a particularly dramatic fast. Gandhi wants the Hindus and the Muslims to get along... no easy feat. When he sees this particular follower, he tells him that he's getting fat and should join him in the fast. The man laughs and tells him that if he were to follow Gandhi's example, he would die. No one is going to do crazy, new things to save him from death. In the end, however, it's not the fasting that killed Gandhi...

...rather, as most people know, he was assasinated. I guess it was a smart choice to begin and end the movie with the same scene. For those who do not know Gandhi, you learn why this person goes out of his way to murder a frail old man. For those who do, the emotions well up all the more quickly right at the start of this 3 hour epic.

Still, now I see what my professor was talking about... while I was undergoing my yoga teacher training, my Indian philosophy teacher remarked on this film. Overall, he liked it, but he feels that the filmmakers mishandled Gandhi's death. In the end, all you hear is "Oh Gd," over a black screen. According to the professor, upon his death, Gandhi said something in his native language that translates into something like, "Thank you, my Beloved." This was meant to indicate his relationship with death or with the Divine. He had no fear about encountering death, though most of us would have a passionate reaction to the way in which he was removed from the world. In a way, he was expressing gratitude to moving closer to Gd.

I really can only say so much. I have some reading to do. I should have read his works ages ago. He's an interesting person who states things that I have certainly thought about, but have been unable to relay these thoughts with such simplicity. Things like, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are nothing like your Christ," or "Yes. I am [Hindu]. I am also Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish." His idea of walking the walk... and doing so together, with all of us... one of the most recent Christ figures of our time. I never knew him... but in this moment, I miss him. Our world was better off with him in it.

Sunday Reflections: Photo Opportunity

Here are some pictures I thought to take while I was on sabbatical...

First, here's something interesting... some comparisons of my parents' trip to Mabry Mill with my most recent trip:

Mabry Mill, Autumn 1983

Mabry Mill, Summer 2009

Proof that my mother was there...

Pathetic proof that I was there... there's a gate now in front of the Mill itself. In this picture, I'm sitting on the gate, unable to get as close as Mom could in the 80s.

My family in the leftover wagon

Same wagon... sadder looking without me and my parents

Now some pictures of things I just thought were interesting while visiting this family landmark.

Just thought this duck couple seemed... comfortable?

Runoff water from the Mill mixing with leaves

A quilt I saw in the gift shop... it appears someone has attempted to capture the Mill's likeness in cloth pieces.

I saw this wooden car parked outside the gift shop as I was leaving... too cool to be allowed!

Here are a just two pictures of the beautiful winery I wanted to visit that was closed. They make wine in Virginia with an Italian flare... it's just so beautiful out there:



And lastly, the farmhouse in which I did my thinking, writing, and little picture taking:

The farmhouse itself... Four guest rooms, living space for the Innkeepers, a big kitchen, a dinning room, a sitting room, an outdoor pool, and plenty of porch space.

The pretty aisle made of bushes leading away from the house towards the brook


The room I slept in... The Pride of Virginia.


A chair by the brook where I did some writing

I already miss it just looking over these images... I think you've just seen the new rooms in my heart.