To George

When I am calm in crisis, wise in advice to family and friends,

George - mediator of disputes, source of strength - guides me.

They told me I learned to read on his lap with newspaper before us

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When pitchers and catchers reported, we assessed the Phillies’ perennial prospects.

Dissecting each trade and position, he would declare that this was their year.

Running in the Dark

The days are growing shorter, and it is dark when I set out for my morning run. I avoid the jogging path. I am afraid of snakes that might be slithering there. I don't want to be attacked by very small insects that fly around the path before the sun rises. 

I run around the apartment complex, past the parked cars and the buildings where most of the windows are still dark. Each lap of the complex roughly equals one lap around the jogging path (about 1/2 mile).

I pass people with jobs that start early as they walk to their cars. Middle and high school students head for the bus, their internal clocks at odds with the too early class start. 

Then there are the dog walkers. There is one cat on a leash that takes an early morning saunter around the area. A woman usually walks the cat; this morning, it was a man. The second time I lapped the cat and its owner, the cat was curled up on the branch of a small tree. The man stood looking up, the cat's leash in his hand. I said: "Looks like you have a cat up a tree." "Yes," he said, with a slight smile. Strange.

First Coaching Client

I am my first and best coaching client. Whenever I give advice to clients, I am also reinforcing that advice for myself. 

I believe in the possibility of change because I know that I have changed. Not at the fundamental personality level, of course. I have moved out of my comfort zone in many ways, strengthening traits and behaviors that make me a better person and managing those parts of my personality that get in my way.

We are all works in progress.

The Twenty-One Balloons

My first idea for cover art for my poetry collection was a hot-air balloon. I liked the idea of traveling through space-time without much direction. It seemed a good metaphor for my life, at least from my perspective, which gives great weight to serendipity. Family and friends probably think I have charted a more deliberate course. 

So it seemed fitting when I was asked to help Gisela with her reading assignment, The Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pene du Bois. The protagonist takes off with a giant hot air balloon after 40 years of teaching arithmetic to boys. He is certainly looking for a leisurely escape from routine and time to read on the porch of the little cabin suspended from the balloon. 

I have read about half the book at a quick pace. I find the style both disconcerting and charming. It combines fiction with fact, which is not unusual. The central event is the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in 1883, with a great loss of life and property. I haven't reached that part; let's see how a book for 5th - 6th graders handles a cataclysmic event.

That's Really Funny!

I am in awe of the winners of The New Yorker's cartoon caption contests. The cartoons have at least two actors (sometimes human, sometimes other species), with one actor clearly the speaker. A funny line never enters my mind as I scan the latest entry.

Sometimes, the cartoon is set in prehistoric times, featuring cavemen commenting on a situation, perhaps a painting on the wall of a cave. What if the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira were actually cartoons, and cavemen (the women were probably working and not seen fit to take part in this intellectual challenge) were trading captions near the fire. That would be really funny!

Vote By Mail

My absentee ballot arrived yesterday. Since I began working on campaigns in Florida, I have voted by mail. I spend early voting and election days making calls and knocking on doors to get people to the polls. That is important, but I miss showing up at the polling place myself.

Perhaps, other people miss it, too. I don't mean the standing in line and, at times, confusion. I do the miss the sense of community: we are all in this together, and voting keeps our democracy strong for the benefit of all of us. There are many reasons for the drop in voter turnout in the U.S. I will not attempt an in-depth political/sociological analysis. I believe that one reason is a decline in the sense of community. That makes me really sad.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

In my childhood, the telephone was attached to the wall in the kitchen, used primarily to check in with family. With time, a princess-style phone took its place on the night table in my parents' room. Always the outlier, I didn't talk much on the phone as a teenager.

From those old movies with people on the farm placing calls through Matilda, the local operator, to today's constant TV ads on the many wonders of the iPhone, something strange has happened. The phone has changed from a tool for bringing people closer to an instrument accused of creating alienation. Digital natives use the phone for texting, taking professional quality photos, sharing videos, and checking Facebook feeds. Actually talking to someone seems a rare event, at least on the ads.

Reversing the trend, I've been making calls. I'm inviting neighbors to meet local Democratic candidates and party officials at a house party next week. The 2016 election cycle has started, and I am reaching out to touch fellow warriors in the fight for social and economic justice.