The Best Mothers Day Present: When Your Kid Becomes Your Colleague–and You Still Like Each Other

Posted on May 10, 2015 by gretchenwing

My Mothers Day started with a three a.m. bike ride, and it was Son Two’s idea.

He’s just been hired to work part-time this summer at Holly B’s Bakery (“Holly’s Buns Are Best”) where I’ve been working for the past five years. He’ll mostly be working the counter and, later on during high season, baking at night. But this Mothers Day, a slot came open for assistant morning-baking. Son Two filled it.

“Can we ride in?” he asked. Now, I know your average almost 23 year-old is not his/her best self at 3 a.m., even when pulling some kind of all-nighter. Asking one to wake up then, bundle up and bike 11 miles in the dark, well…I wouldn’t have asked. But since he offered? Hell yeah! Let’s ride!

Son Two’s reward: getting to spend the next nine hours having his Head Baker mom tell him what to do. He did fantastic.

Making croissant dough: roll, butter, fold, chill, repeat.

He messed up not once (which is more than I can say for my first ~~disastrous pan of brownies~~ assistant baking shift). He made beautiful food. And on our ride home, he told me he appreciated my showing him how to do things right.

Young Man With Macaroons

Breakfast in bed is great. So is going out for brunch. But my best Mothers Day present EVER is the realization that my younger son is someone I would hire or sign up to work with, even if I’d never met the kid. I mean man.

Like mother, like son? I should be so lucky.

Mothers Day stories, anyone? I love hearing from you!

Healing Words

Posted on May 7, 2015 by gretchenwing

Who does not have need of some healing in his/her life? Who would not benefit from a day to find that healing? I meant to share this earlier, in time for interested folks to sign up for my friend Iris Graville’s Write to Heal workshop. But since I dropped the ball, why not learn about this cool event now? Then you can be ready to sign up for the next one, whenever it arrives!

Iris Graville - Author

A few months ago, the cuticle of my left middle finger reddened and swelled. I bandaged and soaked and poked and fretted at the festering spot. For days it throbbed, then the pain eased after a week of antibiotic ointment. Gradually the lump and the red hue disappeared, but the fingernail puckered and pulled away from my flesh as a new nail crept out from the cuticle. The infection had cleared, but the healing skin and nail remained tender.

Emotional healing progresses in a similar way. You may try many approaches to identify the cause and use a range of remedies to ease the pain. But even when the initial ache subsides, the full process to restore well-being can, and usually does, continue for a long time.

Research psychologist James Pennebaker is among many who has found that writing about traumas or upheavals (what he calls emotional writing) enhances the…

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Baltimore: In Need of a Laugh, Or at Least a Smile?

Posted on May 4, 2015 by gretchenwing

What’s there to smile about in Baltimore? Good question.

Baltimore saddens us–not just because what happened to Freddie Gray fits a sickening American pattern, but because the reaction to his death continues to remind us of the disgusting disparities in American socioeconomics. Last weekend felt like 1968 all over again–yes, I was just a kid then, but I vividly remember those riots, that televised hopeless anger. Our lack of progress is as sickening to me as Mr. Gray’s death.

In North Carolina that same weekend, I had spent time with an old classmate who now lives in Baltimore, and several of us immediately emailed to express our sorrow over what was happening in her city. But Rachel’s reply was heartening:

Wow, thanks everyone. We’ve been untouched other than a cancelled doctor appointment. And of course having our hearts broken and filled like everyone else here. Holding hope it can be the start of a break from the patterns that led to it. Not sure how much the national media are covering all the little moments? The drumline and step dancers at the central spot. Everyone sweeping and cleaning together. Street corner and basketball court conversations between elders and young people. The symphony playing outside at lunchtime.

That statement about the national media touched a nerve. Not only are they generally playing up the worst of the situation while missing those smaller human moments–let’s face it, flames and looting make for more titillating coverage than street-corner conversations–they are, apparently, having trouble distinguishing the individuality of Baltimoreans themselves.

Comedy Central’s John Oliver weighed in hilariously on this topic during his latest episode of Last Week Tonight. The YouTube link was blocked, but I’ll let The Daily Beast take over from here, quoting John Oliver:

“It has been a delicate situation handled by the media with all the deft, not-at-all racist touch that they’ve become known for,” Oliver said. “Please watch as Geraldo Rivera greets someone as Russell Simmons who is absolutely not Russell Simmons.”

Yes, the man marching with NBA star—and Baltimore native—Carmelo Anthony is none other than Kevin Liles, who bears only a very slight resemblance to Simmons.

“Geraldo, you do realize that when African Americans stand together as one, that does not mean they’re all literally the same person, right?” he continued. “Geraldo Rivera is supposed to be a journalist, and I suppose we should all be thankful that at least none of his colleagues made the same mistake.”

Oliver then cut to a clip of CNN reporter Brian Todd, who also mistook Liles for Simmons—and not only that, kept harassing him about it, proclaiming, “I’m not sure I believe you. We think this is Russell Simmons, Wolf.”

Then Oliver got serious. “This week has shone a serious light on the disparities in Baltimore between the community and the police force—disparities that were highlighted when six officers were arrested on charges in Gray’s death, and were then released on bail,” he said.

He threw to a news clip announcing that the six officers charged in Gray’s death had bail amounts ranging from $250,000-300,000.

“That sounds like a fair amount for such serious charges, but juxtapose that with the bail set for people involved in the protests, like this 18-year-old who helped smash in the windows of several cars, including a police car. How much was his bail?” asked Oliver.

The young man in question is Allan Bullock, who allegedly was captured on film bashing in the windows of an unmarked police car with a traffic cone. And his bail was set at $500,000—more than for any of the officers charged with Gray’s death.

“Five hundred thousand dollars for breaking car windows!” he said. “To put that in context, even Robert Durst had his bail set at just $300,000 after definitely not killing that guy in Galveston, Texas. That amount of money makes absolutely no sense! That kid’s crimes were misdemeanors, he turned himself in—in fact, the only explanation for his bail being set that high is that, just like Geraldo Rivera and that guy from CNN, judges in Baltimore can’t look at black people without seeing millionaire Russell Simmons.”

I salute John Oliver for pointing out this hypocrisy. I salute the strong citizens of Baltimore who are out there cleaning up their streets and safeguarding their young people. I salute any politician at any level who is doing the necessary work to address the income gap in our country which has turned cities like Baltimore into powder kegs.

(Copyright Shannon Stapleton/Reuters, Newsweek.com)

If I could vote right now to raise my own tax rate to deal with this appalling inequality, I would. Failing that, right now, the least I can do is to send a check to help restore the Baltimore neighborhood foundation building that fell victim to the riots. And publicize whatever there is in Baltimore worth smiling about.

An American Naturalist in Costa Rica (Shared By His Proud Mom)

Posted on April 30, 2015 by gretchenwing

I’m not just being lazy here, sharing my son’s new blog. Consider this an invitation to the jungle, to the world of 20somethingness, to adventure with a moral to the story. And…consider it my celebration of a kid well launched into the world. A pretty funny kid, if I do say so. Enjoy Pura Vida Stories!

Third World Problems.

My Sister the School

Posted on April 25, 2015 by gretchenwing

This week I’m back in my home state of North Carolina to celebrate something special: the 50th anniversary of my alma mater, Carolina Friends School. But I’ve been telling people it’s a family reunion, and that is not a contradiction.

North Carolina in the early 1960s was as segregated as the rest of the South. When my parents moved here from Caand started a family, they could not stomach sending their kids to all-white schools. Along with a handful of other Quakers from the Durham and Chapel Hill Meetings, they decided to start their own Friends school–Friends being the name Quakers call themselves.

CFS’s beginnings. (All photos courtesy Carolina Friends School)

After a year or so of helping to run a pre-K at the Durham Meeting House, my folks donated the land across from our pond for an independent campus. So CFS was born, amidst pines and beeches and poison ivy, with a creek running through her.

Lower School students doing some creek work.

I’m the youngest of three girls, but I consider CFS to be my younger sister. She’s the only one I got to watch grow up behind me, from Lower School (a traditional-looking red brick building) to Middle School (classic 1970s open-classroom structure) then to Upper (imagine a cozy ski lodge with science labs).

On rainy days, we used to play “seat soccer” in this big room, before there was a covered sports facility.

Today CFS comprises three Early Schools–the original one in Durham, one in Chapel Hill, one on the main campus–plus Lower, Middle, Upper, and an array of sports fields so extensive I’m still adjusting to them. My, how she’s grown.

Upper School students removing Ivy from a tree at Duke Gardens

But at 50, CFS is exactly the same bright-spirited child she was back in 1965. She’s still focused on community, on service learning, on justice, on creativity, on a harmonious relationship with the land. Academics are perhaps more pronounced now than they were back in the hang-loose 1970s when I graduated, but hey–I got into Harvard, OK? So even then they were no slouch. But no one will ever mistake my sis for a prep school, is what I’m saying.

Upper School students marching with the NAACP to protest NC’s restrictive new voting rights legislation

Upper School Students For A Working Democracy presenting to the Friends General Council on Legislation in DC

Since my older sisters and I do not intend to return to NC, my parents (still quite vibrant, thanks) have willed their farm to our sister the school when they pass on. So who knows? Someday this scruffy farmhouse I grew up in might be classrooms, or even housing for retired faculty. Or a day care. Or an even bigger school farm, helping to feed the surrounding community as well as itself. I love imagining the possibilities. And I know that, however much she grows, my lil’ sis will always welcome me home again.

What you see? Pretty much what you get. She’s not flashy.

Happy Birthday, Carolina Friends School. I’m so proud of you.

Early School teachers and students starting their day in Quaker silence.

If you’re interested, I hope you will click on the link to learn more about CFS. If you’d like to hear more about Quakerism and Quaker education in general, please click here to visit Iris Graville’s excellent blog on those topics.

Yep–that’s my sis.

Attention, Tired Authors: Put Your Audience to Work

Posted on April 19, 2015 by gretchenwing

Sometimes my teacher training pays off (or maybe just my social-butterfly personality). When I applied to do an Author Event at Third Place Books in Seattle, and their application said, in essence, “Don’t even think of just standing there and reading; what do you plan to DO with your audience?”, I put that training (and that personality) to use.

I made my audience do all the work.

First, I made everyone move to sit next to someone they didn’t know. They had to introduce themselves to their new seatmate.

Next, I made each pair play Fast Fingers. “Put your right hand behind your back. With your partner, count to three. On three, bring your hand out showing anywhere from zero to five fingers. First person to call up the total number of fingers showing wins that round. Best of three. Go!”

Five seconds later, my whole audience was laughing. Thirty seconds–relaxed, and ready for the next step…

…where I passed out discussion cards. I had four, and after each one, the paired discussion was followed by whole-group discussion led by people who wanted to share what they and their partner had talked about. Since my books feature a heroine who can fly, these were my questions:

Have you ever had flying dreams? If so, describe them. If not…do you wish you had? Why/why not?
If you could fly, what would you do with that power? (Seriously!)
If you could fly, what would you worry about?
How might flying help solve any problems you have,or how might it have helped you in the past? How might flying create more problems for you?

Sure, after that, I read a couple of scenes out loud, and then I answered a few questions. But the main part of the Event was made up of a bunch of grown-ups enjoying the hard work of thinking and talking about “What if…?” No matter what a book is about, whether fiction or nonfiction, if you wrote it, you can easily think of dozens of thematic questions to pull an audience in. And you get to sit back and enjoy the discussion! Win-win.

So, that’s my tip for other authors, should you be one, or know any. Don’t let those nice folks just sit there looking at you–put ’em to work. (And then reward them afterwards with treats. 🙂 )

But while I have your attention: who says good audience questions have to limit themselves to a book store? How about answering some of those questions above?

Picture a World of Obese, Diabetic Hummingbirds…

Posted on April 11, 2015 by gretchenwing

…or at least that’s what I’ve been doing lately, seeing all the hummingbird feeders at friends’ houses this spring. When I see (or hear) one of those tiny creatures buzz past, my aesthetic senses say, “Aw, a hummingbird. How beautiful. How awe-inspiring. How sweet.”

But my brain is saying, “Whoa now. Those lil’ guys are sure sucking down that sugar water! They couldn’t possibly get that much sugar from natural flowers, could they? So aren’t they kind of bingeing? Are we loving hummingbirds to an early death by obesity or diabetes?”

Turns out I have a lot of company in this ponderous ponder. Luckily for us, the internet contains useful sites like The Straight Dope (“Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 (It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought”). Its take on hummingbird nutrition is full of earnest questions and myth-busting answers, most of which appear to be authoritative enough to pass the smell test (i.e., referencing articles from the Smithsonian).

(orig. image courtesy Wikimedia)

So, still worrying about whether or not you might be contributing to your neighborhood hummingbirds’ physical deterioration? Click on The Straight Dope link and find out. Then take a moment to marvel at the Information Age, which heedeth even the fall of a hummingbird.

Meanwhile, do you have your own bird-related idiotic questions to ponder publicly? Don’t worry–on the internet, for better or for worse, you are never alone.

John Oliver, Edward Snowden, and Us: Why Does a Brit Seem to Care More About American Freedoms Than We Americans Do?

Posted on April 8, 2015 by gretchenwing

Quick: Turn to someone near you and tell them who Edward Snowden is and why he matters to Americans.

If you’re like the folks Comedy Central’s John Oliver interviewed on the streets of Manhattan, you will either a) draw a blank or b) confuse Snowden with Julian Assange, the “Wikileaks Guy.”

Hopefully you’re not like those folks. But if you suspect you might be, watch this breathtaking interview conducted in Moscow with what Oliver calls “America’s most famous patriot and/or traitor.” When I say breathtaking, I mean that literally: breathtakingly bold, breathtakingly honest. Oliver asks Snowden the questions most of us would want to ask.

But in so doing, he also turns the camera on us, in effect asking Americans, “Why don’t you care more about the real effects of the Patriot Act? Why don’t you care more that your government has been proven to have the capacity to spy on you?”

A quick warning, before you watch this episode from Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight”: if you’re offended by casual profanity and excessive references to male body parts–don’t. This ain’t the New York Times, remember–it’s Comedy Central.

But in my opinion, it still deserves a Peabody Award.

So, you watched? Is John Oliver brilliant or what? Tell me what you think.

The Final Four and “Religious Freedom”: Why I’m Grateful to Indiana

Posted on April 5, 2015 by gretchenwing

If you’re a fan of neither basketball nor equality, you won’t be interested in this post. But if you’re a fan of either, or like me, both, read on.

Dear Hoosier Legislature,

Thank you for passing your state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would, in its current form, allow Indiana businesses to refuse to serve LGBT citizens.

Thank you for doing so exactly when the nation’s sports mega-spotlight is trained on Indianapolis for the Final Four.

Thank you for bringing to the fore the moral fibre of folks known usually only for their defense patterns. Folks like the coach of defending national men’s basketball champion Connecticut, Kevin Ollie, who is boycotting the Final Four. Granted, Ollie was following the directive of Connecticut’s Governor Dan Malloy’s executive order banning state employees from traveling to Indiana on state money. But Ollie made it clear he was doing more than “caving” to his governor’s demand (as the Connecticut Post put it).

UConn’s University Herald states,

“In support of Governor Malloy’s travel ban to the state of Indiana, Kevin Ollie and other members of the UConn men’s basketball staff will not travel to Indianapolis for the NCAA Final Four and events surrounding it,” UConn President Susan Herbst said in a statement. “UConn is a community that values all of our members and treats each person with the same degree of respect, regardless of their background and beliefs and we will not tolerate any other behavior.”

Given the expected attention to himself and his program at this year’s Final Four, Ollie’s boycott carries great weight.

Another unlikely hero: University of Southern California’s Athletic Director Pat Haden, who announced he will boycott a national football meeting in Indiana in honor of his son.
To quote the Washington Post,

Pat Haden, the athletic director at the University of Southern California, will skip a meeting of the College Football Playoff committee this week in Indiana because of the state’s recent passage of a controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“I am the proud father of a gay son,” Haden announced on Twitter. “In his honor, I will not be attending the CFP committee meeting in Indy this week. #EmbraceDiversity”

All this attention is now turning to pressure on Indiana to do the right thing. In fact, Governor Pence, who signed the law while insisting it was never intended to discriminate, is right now working with the Legislature to rewrite Indiana’s RFRA and–one can only hope–rein it in.

(Orig. photo courtesy Mike Mozart, Flikr Creative Commons)

When my Mate used to teach Constitutional Law, he helped his students remember the acronym RFRA by referring to it as “the noise made by a small, angry dog.” There are a lot of small, angry dogs in our country, apparently: people who feel themselves persecuted because they don’t happen to be taking part in the great national shift toward tolerance of LGBT rights.

I, personally, am grateful to the Indiana Legislature for highlighting that small-mindedness on a national scale, and forcing even those who would prefer not to have to take a stand to do just that.

Road Trip V, Days 38-41, June Lake, CA to Tacoma (aka Almost Home!): Top Four Reasons to Road-Trip

Posted on April 2, 2015 by gretchenwing

1. Discover America. More specifically, discover hidden treasures no one ever thought of telling you about. Here are some of our faves from this trip.

Caprock Canyon State Park, south of Amarillo, TX. (In a previous post I mis-labeled it as Capstone.) can’t wait to come back with more time!

I’m coming back!

Secret Canyon near Page, AZ. Nothing like as crowded as its famous cousin, Antelope Canyon, but just as breathtaking.

More, more!

June Lake, CA. It’s the cute, low-rent version of Mammoth Lakes, which caters to skiers and hikers. We loved its understated beauty and lack of Starbucks.

Like a mini Lake Tahoe!

Mono Lake. This one’s a bit more famous, having been saved by activists in the 1990s after thirsty LA had drained it down to a dustbowl. But The Mate and I had never taken the time to get off the highway and explore its incredible “forest” of tufa formations.

The shell of an ancient freshwater spring into the saline lake. Really.

Bizz Johnson Bike Trail, Susanville, CA. Susanville?! What the heck is there to do in Susanville? Ride this amazing rail-trail, that’s what: 16 miles through a wild canyon, complete with multiple river crossings, huge Ponderosa pines, flowers, and even some tunnels!

Best bike path yet!

LaPine State Park, just south of Bend, OR. Here the Deschutes River is serene, and you can wind along its banks without having someone blow past you on a $2,000 mountain bike like they do in Bend.

Would’ve loved to have camped here, but it got down to 19. We’re not that tough.

2. Renew ties with family members and old friends you might not otherwise see. Last year we visited with a newly-met cousin in Indiana. This year we checked in with some other cousins whose twins are 18 months old–such a precious, fleeting age! We potlucked with friends we made back in 1981 when I took time out from college to be an intern at a little mountain school. And, of course, we got together with our Tarheel Tribe to act like idiots, watching basketball and eating BBQ.

3. Get closer with your traveling partner. My Mate and I joke that any couple contemplating marriage ought to be sent on a 6-week road trip to find out if they’re truly compatible. I call our annual road trip “marriage glue.”

The Mate and I in the NC mountains

4. Fall back in love with where you live. I have enjoyed every single day of Road Trip V. But on our penultimate day, as I visited a waterfall in the Columbia Gorge, within sight of my home state, just the smell of wet fir trees was enough to choke me up.

Ahhhh…welcome back to Ecotopia!

Those are my reasons. If you have others, I’d love to hear them. But for now, travel-blogger Gretchen turns back into regular ol’ blog-about-whatever Gretchen…until next year!