Wait a minim.....

Tonight, we rented the new film, "The Fabelmans" and loved it.  Incredible performances, screenwriting and story-telling.  I especially loved the fact that Steven Spielberg got to co-write and direct his own story. 

Cinephiles and historians, I need you to give me a reality check on something in the film.  I am not intending this as a spoiler alert (for those who haven't yet seen the film my question revolves around the first 10 minutes of the movie).

We open on a winter exterior shot in line at a movie theatre and over that visual there is a screen card that comes appears, "January 10, 1952." Next are shots of Burt and Mitzi as Sammy is about to see his first real movie on a big screen.  I am fast forwarding now to the family ride home as Burt is musing on how to find their house amidst all the houses with holiday lights; while Mitzi asks what Sammy wants for Hanukah.  Later that night after Sammy goes to bed he awakens Mitzi with his squeals of delight at deciding what he wants for Hanukah after all.

The next scene is the entire family presumably in the early evening preparing to light the first candle on the menorah; and then scenes for the remaining seven candles and presents.

Here's my confusion:  The references to it being the start of Hanukah comes right after seeing the movie  and matches with the Christmas lights in the neighborhood. Soooooo, why did the opening screen card show January 10th?  Hanukah and Christmas would be over by then.  In fact, research tells me that Hanukah in 1952 began on December 12th-- which would jive with the subsequent menorah lighting scenes that appear to be after they went to the movies.

I am asking those of you in the know: Was there a typo on that screen card that no one else caught?  On the web, I found a copy of the script and it states the same opening date,"January 10, 1952."

Surely the creative team for this film wouldn't have erred on the chronology either in the script or the editing.  So, what am I missing?

The film starts in 1952, so 'splain it to me Lucy.

Baby Zoomers

“With the way things are going, we are going to be known as Baby Zoomers 

instead of Baby Boomers." Carol Winicur, R.Sc.P.

It was after a recent Zoom session with a fellow practitioner, Carol Winicur that she 

off-handedly noted that since we are changing how we socially and professionally connect and communicate with one another, it might be time for a change to our generational nickname, from "Baby Boomers" to "Baby Zoomers" to reflect the popularity and widespread use of the virtual meeting software, Zoom©.

This is not to say that young people aren't using Zoom as well --of course, they are.  Hundreds of thousands of us are flocking to the virtual meeting software applications as a way to work and or stay connected during these times of mandated social distancing due to COVID-19.  

It is highly plausible that the yet-to-be born children of the COVID-19 lockdown will become the literal Baby Zoomers because they will be the actual progeny of this enforced seclusion for many couples.  

Similar to the way the .com monicker became associated with all things to do with the internet boom, I believe my friend Carol has presciently coined the latest entry into the permanent lexicon that will be attached to the COVID-19 history page along with the phrase, social-distancing.

Zoom being the current frontrunner of this virtual video meeting platform also stands to join the lexicon list of now famous proper names to become as long-lasting as Xerox© is to photo copying and Kleenex© to facial tissues.

That being said, as a Boomer-Zoomer myself, I know that how we proceed through this paradigm shift will indeed influence the generations that are to follow.  In my humble opinion, the way we were doing things, living and working in the current world environment was not working very well and hence, came to this screeching halt.  I’m hearing how many people want to get back to "normal" asap and many others agree with me that "normal" was an outdated term and screaming for updates.  Personally, I want to actively work towards co-creating and revealing what new operating system would be best for an ideal world.  
And why not?

"I am constantly preoccupied with how to remove distance so that we can all come closer together, so that we can all begin to sense we are the same, we are one." David Hockney

I was born into this generation with the current world view and conditioning only to think and function as if this were the one and only mode of desirable operation.  Sure, there would be improvements, updates and higher standards but basically this was it, folks. Or is it?

What if we proffered that this COVID crisis is Mother Nature's way of rebooting the world's operating systems? After all, the seemingly impossible holes in ozone are closing up. What if each us now get to contribute to a new coding system of how our world could work at its best?

We don't typically think of technology as bearing human traits such as compassion and love. Yet, with this pandemic we have had to toss out so many of our behaviors, concepts and actions. Why not re-vamp the idea of technology being a separate linear tool and let it become part of our personal bandwidth and connection?

Image by Gerd Altmann -  Pixabay

Our tech devices are here to stay and will always exponentially evolve, expand and express, and could be cultivated and utilized to better connect us, unite us and be of greater service to us all.

In both nicknames, the first word 'Baby' which originally represented or implied the generational offspring during a time intended for flourishing after the war.  As we globally survive this health pandemic and economic crisis (and we will), my hope is that we as a global family who will have shared this common ground will actually pay heed to what positive ideas have evolved from having to tap into a collective consciousness of our innate creativity and humanity to change things up for the better, for our future.

"The next evolutionary step for humankind is to move from man to kind." Unknown

Home-Schooled

Home-Schooled

“I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school, and our life the classrooms.” Oprah Winfrey
“Change is the end result of all true learning.” Leo Buscaglia

Spiritual students take heed. This necessary retreat we’ve been on since March is unprecedented in our time; and hence, is ripe with opportunities; and yes, even lessons that we don’t want to miss.

This enforced incabination is also something that has given us a common ground as never before.  We are all sharing this imposed seclusion; it has levelled the playing field. Never before in history have each of us, all of us had such common ground. I have great compassion for individuals not on a spiritual journey because they are now being thrust into an awareness of experiential Oneness that surpasses any new-age rhetoric.  Interdependency has taken on new and critical meaning.

By the time most of us read this, we will have been hibernating, marinating or for some, gestating within our private cocoons towards a personal and hopefully, global transformation.

That is why it is imperative that to the best of our ability, we treat this period of time with the same delicacy as one would any chrysalis state to welcome the emergence of new life.

This time is a call to truly identify one’s own spiritual beliefs and practice. It may be different than you thought it should be. Evolve the trust that is necessary to evoke the thunder of silence Joel Goldsmith wrote about.  In my humble opinion, the answers we seek to this global conundrum will only come from our own,  individual inside answers.

We are actually having the pop-quiz before the lesson is complete. Pay attention to the details. We cannot afford to play hooky. Do your homework.  Choose your electives wisely.

City Slackers

No, I did not misspell the title of this post.

Yes, I was playing off of the comedy film title, "City Slickers" about a bunch of mid-life guys who take a vacation to a dude ranch.

You see, I am in mid-life but not a guy.  Moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, it sometimes feels I am living in a ranch-like existence with glorious open space skies, biggest puffiest clouds on earth and cactus.  And tumbleweeds.  And typical animals expected for a terrain such as this but not expected by this city girl. 

What prompted all this for me was a report from our neighborhood email digest and photo  about a bobcat on a someone's porch last Sunday morning.  Okay, we had been warned about the coyotes.  Then came the emails about coach snakes (blessedly, non-poisonous) that sometimes look like a dead tree limb on the path.  Followed by a newer email post about a different bobcat that has taken up residence in someone's backyard and attacked and injured their cat.

WTF????  Bobcats that don't seem deterred by property or human interference? We have a cat (indoor, thankfully) and a small dog that we often let out to the backyard to 'do her business' in-between the morning and evening walks so this is not something to ignore.

On last report, animal control would not address this so the neighbor is approaching the Fish and Game Warden to see if they can help safely trap these animals to keep the community animals --that includes we humans--safe.

When I let our dog, Chai outside to our backyard, I am a bit more cautious and if she is out longer than typically she needs, I go outside to look for her as our cement walls are not very high.

Happy to co-habitate with the cute little lizards and I have seen real bunny rabbits that really do have cottontails. Yesterday, on the paved path there was a rather large beetle looking creature that stood up on it's hind legs and looked as if it was malevolently rubbings it's hands (?) together in delight as we passed by.

Now when we take our long walks on the lovely trails that surround our community, I have to be extra attentive to what might be lurking under those big bushes.  I take my iPhone more for security reasons but I no longer answer calls or texts while walking lest I ignore what our dog sees or sniffs.

This City Slicker can no longer be a City Slacker.

Kaleidoscope

A group of butterflies is officially called a kaleidoscope, 

although they are sometimes referred to as a swarm. 

Years ago, I recall reading that even the slightest flutter of a butterfly's wings could alter the world as we know it. At the time, it sounded like poetic quantum physics. Yet when applied to immediate reality, it is interesting to me that despite not having not seen certain family members for years, upon learning of their passing, I found myself fluttering.

My niece messaged me on Facebook last night(yes, Facebook has its merits) that my estranged aunt Sunny was rapidly declining and going into hospice. Oh, and by the way,  sorry to tell you that Aunt Donna died yesterday. What??

We exchanged a few more hasty texts in-between work calls to arrange a time to speak directly and I find out that her father, my sweet uncle Mike (whose real name was Don--but I digress) had passed away in December, 2016.

A myriad of emotions as I felt the swarm growing.  Confusion? Grief? Guilt?   Yep.

Let's add to this mix that only a few days after the new year, I get an email from my distant cousin telling me that a man who joined the same ancestry site had joined contacted her saying his DNA shows they/we are probably maternally related. She requested permission to give him my email address to reach out to me, too because ... (wait for it) ...  he thinks he might even be the birth son of  Aunt Sunny.  The timing and the irony does not elude me. Including the fact, that I was crafting an email to him today.  Now my email will be very different.

It's not 100% confirmed that he is her son as the adoption information did not disclose names. Yet it seems the ancestry DNA says it could be true. He wasn't trying to impose himself on Sunny but was curious what I know about her and/or any other living relatives.  I think some of my delay in responding to him immediately was because I have been so used to being an only child with no family to speak of that I was uncertain what to say.

I was raised an only child who craved having a real family. You know, like the ones I saw on TV or that my friends had.  The fact is that I did have a family -- a very dysfunctional, estranged and uncommunicative family--that again added to my growing up different.  I spent decades in denial about all of this--not having a father or siblings of my own--let alone, the diverse aunts and uncles who were offspring of a woman who married at the age of 14 and had 22 children.  Now I am wrestling with the fact that I have fewer of the people I didn't think I had in the first place.

Not having all the details yet in place, I know I don't have the full picture. But I can feel that there is a big healing for me that is taking shape.  From that healing, I know that my sadness and madness will transform into something wonderful. Kinda like a butterfly emerging from an overdue cocoon.

"They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own
Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover's eyes
And I can only stand apart and sympathize
For we are always what our situations hand us
It's either sadness or euphoria

So we'll argue and we'll compromise
And realize that nothing's ever changed
For all our mutual experience
Our separate conclusions are the same
Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity
Our reason coexists with our insanity
But we choose between reality and madness
It's either sadness or euphoria

How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we don't fulfill each other's fantasies
And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives
With our respective similarities
It's either sadness or euphoria."

"Summer, Highland Falls" by Billy Joel

BFF...

Hemingway once wrote, "There is no friend as loyal as a book."  He understood even then that BFF = Book Friends Forever.

Hi, my name is Duchess and I am a bookaholic.

As a self-professed biblioholic, I have loved and devoured books since I was two years of age.
It's true. I began with Golden Books but quickly moved to Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. In the process, I somehow missed out on "kids books" from  Dr. Seuss or Winnie the Pooh until I became an adult.

Every year when I try to do some spring cleaning I approach the difficult task of culling through my books--in theory-- to weed out some of the excess. Then there have been the numerous and painful times when I was moving from one home or city to another and felt forced to reduce the number of boxes of books to transport.

There are still not enough shelves in my current home to accommodate all my friends.  I have books stacked on their sides, on top of each other and in nooks and crannies all over the house.  Yet, that doesn't stop me from frequenting bookstores and thrift shops for books. I don't always expect to buy anything but like the proverbial 'cat lady' if I see a special book lingering on the shelves, I buy it--even if I already have a copy...or two.  Hardbound books are my favorites. Owning several first editions gives me glee. And I have a great fondness for used books that have notes, highlighting, and inscriptions in them.  Somehow, seeing someone else's comments in a book along with their name and date they got the book gives me such a sense of connection and intimacy that I can barely contain myself.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." 

George R.R. Martin

Then imagine my delight when last week while taking an extended walk on the trails in our housing complex, I saw a newly built lending library in a tree house.

Screeech! Stop the presses.  

Someone in the homeowners association proposed this idea, it passed and some angel built this castle  for all our neighbors.  (Insert squeals of delight here).  What a divine idea.

When I opened the doors, I was first greeted by the smell of freshly cut wood mingling with the scent of books.  Books of varying sizes and binding; varying topics and conditions.  Oh my.  I tried to quell my first initial response of longing to be the local librarian in charge.  After all, that is what I did with all the books I had as a kid.  When other kids were outside playing, I was creating my own card catalogue for each of my books along with the pleasure of stamping each person's card with a title and date as I loaned them the books out at school.

Suddenly, I was like a kid uncovering a treasure and I carefully walked over and opened the little glass doors.  It was true--there were books inside that I could take if I so chose.  Then the concept hit me--and I could bring books to leave here for others to read, too!  No more random abandoning the books to some sub-par thrift store experience, I could bring books here to this sweet little custom library.

I was suddenly giddy with the idea of not only donating some of the 'excess' bookage, but choosing one or two special books and leaving them inside in hopes that someone extra special would notice. That special person would see the book I left (for them) and scarcely contain their glee that something so wondrous could be waiting just for them to find. Not to mention the added plus of taking longer walks each day to see what books remain or have arrived.

 Kindle? Harrumph.

"No two persons ever read the same book."

Edmund Wilson

That was the week that was...

As per Wikipedia, “That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satitical television programme on BBC Television in1962 and 1963. An American version by the same name aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, featuring David Frost.

The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go...") sung by Millicent Martin referring to news of the week just gone. “

It was also my childhood recollection of a very funny news program that “the adults” loved to watch every week. As a kid, I didn’t always understand the news items or the parodies but I could sense the show was witty; and it began my love affair for all things British. I reflected on TW3 as I witnessed the events of the past week in eager anticipation of it all being over soon.

"O' beautiful, for spacious skies

But now those skies are threatening

They're beating plowshares into swords

For this tired old man that we elected king

Armchair warriors often fail

And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales

The lawyers clean up all details

Since daddy had to lie..."

("The End Of The Innocence"by Don Henley)

The Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend this year was particularly poignant as several other significant historical facts happened: The Obamas said farewell to the White House, there was a big spectacle on January 20^th that caused dyspepsia for millions of people; and then on Saturday, January 21^st, an enormous anthropological and sociological event took place known as the Women’s March on Washington.

The Women's March centered in D.C. but active around the United States and the world was a collective action to ensure parity in civil rights for women and minorities. 

"In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore." -- Women's March on Washington

It is no coincidence that the originating 1893 march was planned to coincide with that inauguration (along with subsequent inaugurations) this year's march is on the heels of the divisive election and what feels like a very different inauguration.  This march may raise fists along with flags. Some attended this as a protest march, a show of solidarity and resistance.    My philosophy also teaches me to endorse and choose to be for something or someone; instead of being against something (or someone).

I happen to be a woman who was raised by a single mom working two and three jobs to survive. Although I am white, neither my ethnic brothers and sisters, nor I have equal rights or equal pay.  I am sure there are some folks shouting, "Hey, at least you have the vote now."   What about civil rights, basic decency and safety for African-Americans, Latinos and my LGBTQ brothers and sisters?  

Yes, I realize that despite “alternative facts” and figures, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are celebrating this new president.  My sadness and emptiness will perhaps seem odd to them. Those who share my grief and concerns may be considered as part of the problem to which the electorate voted to dissolve. Either way, I am weary and eager to get back to figuring out how to live in some semblance of civility.

"So many of us have stood up for the marginalized, but never expected to be here ourselves. It happened to us overnight, not for anything we did wrong but for what we know is right. Our first task is to stop shaming ourselves and claim our agenda. It may feel rude, unprofessional and risky to break the habit of respecting our government; we never wanted to be enemies of the state. But when that animosity mounts against us, everything we do becomes political: speaking up or not speaking up.  Either one will have difficult consequences. That’s the choice we get. With due respect for the colored ribbons we’ve worn for various solidarities, our next step is to wear something on our sleeve that takes actual courage: our hearts."

(Excerpted from The Guardian essay, November 23, 2016 by Barbara Kingsolver)

On the web and throughout social media, along with all the divisive diatribe, available are countless editorial posts and pieces offering words of solace and guidance.  Because of "my day job", I will be called upon to offer my own thoughts of hope and light to my spiritual community. My philosophy and faith reminds me that there is a Divine Order to all of this.  I know that we didn't get here by accident. Yet, I am scrambling to find my balance and clarity to find the deeper understanding I need for healing my head and heart.

Along with many whom I admire and respect, I am baffled, appalled and feeling unsafe because of the elected leader of the free world and the cabinet he has selected. Yet, while walking through my disbelief and uncertainty, I am weary of reading ad nauseam essays, reports and Facebook posts to prove how awful all this is.  I get it. Yet to remedy this we have got to stop preaching to the choir and start looking for how to heal the division that this election unearthed. Angry or violent retaliation is only going to exacerbate the pain and separation.  What we resist persists, and I personally, do not want the tone or the effects of this administration to persist.

Even though I have a personal moratorium in place to not read about Trump, yesterday, my husband sent a Facebook post link with an essay that he knew would help assuage my concerns.  Not only do I share this link here with you, I encourage you to read this editorial by Peter Leyden, as one of the most articulate and inspirational editorials I have seen in print since the election:

https://shift.newco.co/https-medium-com-peteleyden-why-trumps-inauguration-is-not-the-beginning-of-an-era-but-the-end-72a86833f0a3#.izo4bxoow

Let me quickly add that I don't intend to be passive nor silent. This ‘state of the union’ calls me to action more than any time in my personal history.  However, I prefer pen over placard. Trusting that the Constitution will remain intact, the proverbial pen (or keyboard) is still mightier than the sword. Creative arts and creative spirituality are my weapons of choice. My style is more in keeping with Carrie Fisher's advice that when there's a broken heart --make art.

We didn't get here by accident. There is a collective consciousness that created this administration. How anyone responds to what this administration is or does, is up to us as individuals.  No longer can anyone can rest on their complacent or holier-than-thou laurels---no matter what party allegiance.

Can't we all just get along? 

Apparently not...yet.

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