Happy Homecoming!

I went to work today - I was feeling trepidation because I wasn't quite sure how I was going to feel all day, but I decided to go try it out and if I got sick again, I would just leave. I think one of the down sides to working more than 15 or 20 minutes from home is that I get kind of paranoid about being sick at work and trying to get home. One of my worst fears has always been getting a migraine in some faraway place and not being able to get home. It sort of happened to me once, so I know what I'm talking about. A one hour drive turned into about 4 hours of hell.

Anyway, when I got home at 7:00 pm, I found an amazon.com box and inside was a copy of Patti Digh's new book, "What I Wish for You: Simple Wisdom for a Happy Life"!!  For information about her Simple Wisdom book tour, you should check out her blog.  I'm so excited to start reading her book! It was the perfect gift to greet me after a long "I was sick yesterday but I'm going to work anyway" kind of day. (I'm feeling much better, by the way. Glad I went to work.)

Once I have been able to dig into the book, I will do a little review here for you. Also, she will be up in Seattle in May, so I am trying to plan a trip up to the reading/tour stop.  More on that as I know more.

Transformation (Reverb 10 Day 1 - ONE WORD)

Patti Digh is going to think I'm a stalker. I'm not. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?  I read her blog post today and followed her link to Reverb10.  I have been longing for a theme for a while and this theme resonated with me. Thank you again, Patti. (I'm not a stalker. I promise.)

This is a 31 Day challenge for the month of December.  Reverb10 posts a prompt for writers to reflect on 2010 and manifest in 2011 (see button on sidebar of this blog).

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?  (Author: Gwen Bell)


I chose the word "transformation" for 2010 because I feel like this year has been a year of growth - sometimes painful, sometimes difficult, sometimes joyous, sometimes against my will. My skills as an interpreter, manager and presenter have been transforming - some parts of me settling in, some parts dropping away - I feel more Jean than ever before. Transformation is not easy and it is not quick, but it is rewarding. (Frustrating, too.)  I have felt personally transformed this year as I explored creativity, reconnected with my desire to write, to explore means of expression that I had never considered and some that I never even knew existed. I have transformed in my reactions, in my expectations (some) and in my acceptance of my own idiosyncrasies.


For 2011, I choose the word "committed".  I have several goals - both personal and professional that I want to accomplish or at least work towards. They will require a high level of commitment and dedication.  I am also looking to grow and maintain my commitments to friends and family and myself. Health, friendships, family relationships all require some attention and nurturing and the commitment to make that happen. I hope that by the end of the year, I can look back with pride and feel a sense of accomplishment in these areas.


Not eloquent, but heartfelt. 



**Three posts in a day. What's up with THAT?? 

37 Days til My Blogoversary!

At 8:37pm, I opened up my blog and saw that it is 37 days until my 3rd Blogoversary! If you know me at all or have visited here, you will know that 37Days.com has been a source of great inspiration to me, as has its author, Patti Digh.  (I have even met her - more than one time!! hee hee)

While I am not going to commandeer Patti's number permanently, the appearance of 37 today seemed a little like kismet. I have been wondering if I should do a giveaway or something to lead up to the Blogoversary.  This helped me make an easy decision.

The first 37 people to comment on the blog between now and my Blogoversary will be entered into a random drawing to receive a copy of Patti's book, "Four Word Self Help: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives".  (If there aren't 37 comments, I will still enter all those who have left comments.  I have a small readership, so I'm dreaming big here, people.)

**Okay. Not funny. I opened the blog and it said 37 days. I went to take a screen shot because I thought it was so cool and it said 36 days now...The badge must count down in another time zone or country or something. :(  So I pulled up calendars.  If you start counting on Dec. 1 and don't count the ACTUAL Blogoversary, it is 37 Days. If you count Dec. 1 as over and you DO count the Blogoversary, it is 37 days.

Too complicated. Trust me. It said 37 days when I pulled it up. I don't understand what happened, but I'm not imagining it.  There are 31 days in December (counting today) and 6 days in January that lead up to THE BIG DAY. That is 37 days. (Why does this matter, you ask? It probably doesn't. I am having sensitivity to integrity, apparently.)

Happy Birthday, Kevin! and Other Friday News

Today, my friend and first reader of the blog, Kevin, is celebrating a birthday.  I don't know if he will stop by today, but if he does, I wanted to have a Happy Birthday wish as the main topic of my post this morning.

Kevin, Happy Birthday!  I hope you have an excellent day and celebrate all weekend! We need to get together so that I can celebrate you! :)



Another little tidbit, not birthday related, but important:  Patti Digh will be in Portland next week. Friday night at Cedar Hills Crossing for a reading and Saturday at Kennedy School for a writing workshop.  Read more about it here.  I will be at both!  Come join us!

Remembering 9/11/2001

Today is the 9th Anniversary of the 9/11/2001 attacks. Anniversaries of this kind are strange because some of them are harder than others. Obviously, the first few years are very difficult and then after that, it depends on what is happening in the world, in our lives, that might make the memories easier or harder.  This year, probably because it is election year, the anniversary has been more politicized.  I think that is so sad because this is not a political issue - at least not the part where almost 3,000 innocent Americans were killed.  This unites us all as Americans, as human beings. Just as the Tsunami united the world. Just as the earthquake in Haiti. Just as the floods in Pakistan should be.

I remember the morning of September 11, 2001.  I woke up and the first thing I did was check my pager. There was a "news" function and I would get these little pages with summaries of world and U.S. news. My pager said that planes had flown into the World Trade Center and they thought it was a terrorist attack. I was still in bed, barely awake and I couldn't really process that. I thought maybe it was wrong. The page had come in a couple of hours before, since I'm on the West Coast.  I ran downstairs and turned on the television and thus began the horror.

For the first couple of days, everyone waited with baited breath, hoping that some survivors would be found. I think there were only 2-3 people found alive. I couldn't tear myself away from the images. I can still hear that eerie sound from the streets of New York. I could only imagine how my friends there were feeling - devastated, frightened, worried.

In the days and weeks to follow, I read every newspaper article, read the list of names of people we lost in the attacks, read their obituaries, saved them. I found the website, Here is New York: A Democracy of Photos and poured over the images. I later had the opportunity to visit the Here is New York: Soho site in 2002. It was eerie and moving and I'm so glad I did visit to honor those who died, those who witnessed.  It was an incredible experience. 9/11 was the most documented tragedy in the history of the world at that time, so Here is New York became a way for professional and amateur photographers to share and process what had happened to them. All the proceeds went to the Children's Aid fund for the children of the people lost in the attacks.

For today, I remember all those people. I remember those scary days. I remember all we have lost since 9/11. For a list of the names of all the people who perished on that terrible day, you can go here.

Here are two images that I remember so clearly from that terrible, terrible time.  I remember seeing the first photo and it really impacted me. I couldn't imagine how people in lower Manhattan must have felt to be in a world that had become suddenly gray with ash, unrecognizable. The entire landscape had changed, not only in the skyline, but on the ground for the days and weeks to come. The photo was eerie and mesmerizing at the same time. Later, it turned out that the guy on the bench was the statue in the second photo. According to the article,  the statue became a shine to the victims of 9/11.

The photos are from here.

The other indelible images were the videos of the towers falling, the video of a woman who had been running from the ash and a deli owner pulled her into their shop, just as the plume of ash caught up to them and the sight and sound of that happening. One video was of a doctor who was headed to the towers to help when the first tower collapsed. He hid by a car wheel and kept his video recorder on. Overwhelming and moving - as soon as the cloud calmed, he was up and checking with people as he found them. Scenes at the local hospitals as they waited for trauma victims who never came.  Here is a website that provides a lot of information about that day - images, explanations about why the towers fell, specs on the buildings and the planes, photos from NOAA of Ground Zero, etc.

There are so many things I remember about that terrible, terrible day. I remember realizing that we had just joined the rest of the world - we had never been that safe, we had only thought we were impervious to harm. It was a big and scary paradigm shift - one I'm not sure we have come to accept as a nation.

In memory of lives lost and of the first responders, remember 9/11 today in whatever way you can.

Gift In the Mail

This week has been long and since I was sick in the beginning of the week, all my energy was sapped.

Happily, yesterday, when I got home, there was a package waiting for me.  It was this book accompanied by a little note from the author:

The artwork was submitted to Patti from artists around the world and is lovely. A sweet and wonderful little text for "those days". Nice way to come home on a late Thursday.