early bird

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5:30am

It's Monday, and you slept in an hour because you have no student appointments today. The only thing calling you to the university is answering emails. You shower so your hair can start air drying and in your long heavy gray winter robe you pour your first cup of coffee, add vanilla soy and a blip of half and half. Stir with a long thin sturdy plastic spoon from Ireland because plastic is quieter than steel against the ceramic, important when someone else is sleeping.

You add a log to the wood stove and open the vent. It will take a few minutes for the orange embers to burst into flame and be visible through the creosote dimmed door. You hear a tick-tick-ticking just before the log ignites. It won't be light outside for another hour and a half, you see two or three stars shimmering between clouds. There is just one dim table lamp on. You wonder when you first began to like getting up so early, feeling robbed if it is already light when you awake. Your mother who got up early too would by now have already prayed on her knees for every world country's leader by name in her morning routine. With the smell of coffee and wood fire in your nostrils, you plop into your chilly red leather chair, covering your lap with a fleece blanket, and your laptop.

6:30am

You pour your second cup of coffee, and a cup for Don who is now up. Where did that hour go? Oh yes - besides gmail, a little quiet music, Facebook and blog comments, you also read some news stories, especially the one about hating Obama - that if you do you are likely to be white. Thank goodness your mother and father taught you not to hate blacks. The family room is toasty.

7:30am

Don has left for school, and it's light now - though gray and wintry, a light breeze bobbing the yellow tipped bamboo. This makes you think of President Obama again, because he's in China today (or is it tomorrow? he was just in Japan, when does he sleep?), where there is apparently deep cultural prejudice against blacks. After an essay by Ann Claycomb* about feeling like a terrible mother, you open the latest digital New Yorker - more palatable than the hard copy sitting on the kitchen table because you can read it without holding anything but your coffee cup. (You would not be able to read it online if you didn't have that subscribed copy on the table though. Ironic.) You used to think that people who got up early were the ultimate non-lazy people - industrious and worm-catching. You've changed your mind, and you realize your mother has flown up somewhere into the stratosphere of your esteem.

You read the article on the Michelin restaurant rating system from start to finish as hungrily as if you were eating a meal at a 3-star restaurant in Paris, which you've done thrice, unbelievably. The Michelin restaurant inspectors are anonymous and work long days, not paid too well, but wouldn't that be a great job, except for those long forms you have to complete after each meal, taking an hour. You know you are nowhere close to high society, you live on a farm with rustic outbuildings and chickens running in the yard, you and your husband have modest salaries in your thank-goodness jobs, and yet you have been served the food of the gods - once at Taillevent and twice at Le Grand Véfour. You contemplate blogging about those experiences and think better of it. Too much work to fire up the Paris blog again with old photos to process, and so many beggars in Mumbai and mine victims in Kabul with one leg or arm lurking in the vestibule. That would take more energy, better writing and less conscience than you feel capable of today.

9:30 am

You are still on your arse, with a warm machine bringing heat and information from around the globe onto your lap. Half-way through the Michelin article you have seven additional Internet tabs open: one on force feeding ducks for foie gras, the second the Michelin site Famously Anonymous, the third a list of 138 of Jean-Georges Vongerichten's recipes (if you were industrious you could attack those the way Julie did in "Julia & Julie"), the fourth - wikipedia.org open to the word Kairos after Montag mentioned it at his blog (the man must read incessantly) - meaning among other things "the time when God acts," the fifth - Facebook where you had to post the salon.com article you read about Obama hatred from the rightwingnuts (not that anyone will read it), the sixth a Huffington Post piece about the irony of Sarah Palin's new book title Going Rogue, and the seventh is your work email because you just decided you're going to stay home by the fire and answer emails here today. This is after you already spent two perfectly good weekend days at home with nowhere to go.

You convince yourself that because you want to write about what you take in, and this morning's worms were too plump, tasty and plentiful to leave for another morning, you need a whole day just to digest them. And that deserves 3 stars.

* This post was inspired by the form Ann Claycomb used in her piece at brevity titled WQED, Channel 13: Programming Guide. I was so taken with her form, that I imitated it. Thanks to Montag whose comment triggered the conviction that I should rightfully link it here - not that he was guilting me!
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stars and stripes

When we moved to the farm five years ago there was a flag in the basement, which we were not inclined to hang. We didn't have anything against displaying the American flag in the holder on the front porch. We just weren't flag wavers.

Tonight after watching the inauguration, we decided it's time. For the first time in a long time the American flag feels like a symbol of unity, not division. So we dug out the flag with its little eagle at the end of the pole, and I trudged out in knee-deep snow at 8pm and mounted it in the bracket, near the snow-covered spirea bush. We turned on the porch light, since you're supposed to have a light on it if you leave it out at night.

But there was already a light on it, a 'star.' You can see the planet Venus in the western sky behind the flag, the planet named for the goddess of beauty and love. 

Inauguration Day: for the eyes

A photo-booth shot of John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, possibly taken during their honeymoon, in 1953. From the John F. Kennedy Library.

I am a visual person. So much so that I think it trumps every other sense a lot of the time, making me vulnerable to the beauties of cinematography, paintings, a sunrise, an ornamental chicken, and photographs.

The advertising industry knows many of us are in this same boat. Gorgeous images of beautiful people sell products. The Marlboro Man - simultaneously macho on his horse and romantic in the great wild West - sold lots of cigarettes, including to himself: Wayne McLaren, leading to his death from lung cancer at age 51.

In politics, being handsome and charming sure doesn't hurt. In the famous debate between Nixon and Kennedy, Nixon's chances to win might have slid into thin air, like the sweat off his ski-jump nose - partly because of that visual.
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We'll never know how much of the Kennedys' Camelot was based in visual appeal, but it has to be a lot. How do you not stare at Jackie and Jack's faces in the photobooth image, above, and then want them to be your mom and dad, or leaders (king and queen)? Anyone with such genuine gorgeous smiles has to want what's best for me, right?

VF Feb. 2007 cover, one of 20 different covers for the Africa issue, guest edited by Bono, photograph by Annie Leibovitz

When I found Vanity Fair's slideshow of their Presidential portraits over the years (all the photos here are from that gallery), I felt the power of the visual image. Even this cover of Rice and Bush, above, conjured sympathy and even some affection for a man I have found little of either for these long eight years. It's a brilliant stroke, actually, that we will always have Liebovitz' portrait of Bush for the Africa issue, since his contribution to raising funds and awareness for the AIDS epidemic in Africa is a true legacy. How many lives have been, and will be saved and improved because of him? That is a strange question, and my insides do somersaults around it and the conflicting answers. But I can't deny this, and if I were one of the saved ones, I might gently hand him my shoes, gratefully.

photograph appears here, by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson

Our new President takes office Tuesday. People have compared his wife Michelle to Jackie visually, and not all favorably (yeah, Ann Coulter). The new First Lady's style is of utmost importance to some: she wears sleeveless dresses like Jackie, what does it mean? (There wasn't a portrait of Michelle in the Vanity Fair gallery, so I didn't include an image of her here.)

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As for Himself, there is so much going on in images of him, that I have to keep checking my emotions with hard facts to keep myself from hoping too much. He's handsome, tall and lean (my instinct is to follow him), African American (a hallelujah FIRST!), has a genuine-looking smile (I want to have a cup of coffee with him and tell him about myself), dresses well without flash (I don't want to see a man dress with too much attention to his clothes), walks with a confident - almost cocky - gait (he reminds me of guys I didn't like who thought too highly of themselves), puts his hand on people's shoulder - including President Bush's (making me think that he feels a little sorry for him too), wears baseball caps and cargo shorts (he's like me), has impressive abs (not like me), scowls at the press when he isn't left alone at times of grief (cool, he's real and doesn't always have to be Mr. Nice), looks people in the eye (nothing to hide), wore shoes during the campaign that had holes after already being re-soled (a sense of thrift and recycling), and puts his hand on his wife's knee, snuggling with her during TV interviews (he respects his wife and genuinely loves her, but maybe too much PDA - public display of affection? Nah.).

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Decisions, policies, crises, mistakes and thousands of mundane details that lie ahead for this President will be communicated to us in more ways than during any other Presidential term, from the puppy the Obamas bring to the White House, to protracting the war in Afghanistan. Visual images will help me relish them or cringe, but I'm going to try to balance them with the facts the best I can - that is after curling up on the couch watching Tuesday's Inauguration, relishing the visuals of a million people crowding Washington's mall and Mr. Obama being sworn in on the Bible with his wife standing behind. And will she be wearing a hat?

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Jan. 20 12:34: You can read the text of President Obama's inaugural speech here.

White House Victory Garden

Over at Slow Food Nation I found this Eat the View campaign to get the Obamas to model something good for the nation: devote a portion of the White House grounds to an organic edible garden. You can vote for it here:

Pygmalion, Cinderella & Guess Who's Coming to the Ball?

Isaac Mizrahi's design for Malia, Michelle and Sasha Obama

While Women's Wear Daily published sketches of designer ball gowns for Michelle Obama to wear Inauguration night (she will likely choose a different designer, what WWD and the designers did there was just for fun), a U.S. businessman named Earl Stafford was conjuring up his own inaugural ball. Prompted by the Washington Marriott's $1 million Build Your Own Ball offer, he decided to throw a People's Inaugural Ball for 1,000, one third of whom will be homeless folks, battered women, disabled soldiers, and terminally ill patients. Stafford heads the Stafford Foundation, which is committed to the underserved, marginalized and distressed.

The people will be pampered in a luxury hotel for 3 days, and provided with tuxedoes and ball gowns, hair dressers and beauticians for the event.

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It's easy for me to start an argument with myself over this.

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"Balls are silly."

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"Yeah, but this is an important milestone in history, and it should be marked with a grand celebration."c-

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"Michelle will make a statement with the designer she chooses."
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"Who cares?"

"Me, maybe."
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"There are better ways to spend $1million (not these). And how will those people feel going back to their misery?"
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"Well, Mr. Stafford does head a foundation to help them. Maybe their lives will improve with his help, beyond 3 nights. And wouldn't you love a chance to do what Earl Stafford is giving these people a chance to do?"
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"Um, I dunno, wearing an uncomfortable dress, and having to talk to people I don't know for 3 or more hours?"
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"Yeah, but maybe Michelle and Barack will stop by." -

Mr. Stafford said: The People's Inaugural Project offers the underprivileged in our society a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come to our nation's capital and join in the watershed inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. It's a historic investment for our foundation.

Illustration for Charles Perrault's Cinderella from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye(1697). Gustave Doré's illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les Contes de Perrault. Second of three engravings (from wiki commons)

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Today's ornaments:


Lesley and Peter made these from yellow construction paper when we lived in İstanbul in the late '80s. The yellow has faded in these past 20 years, and some glitter has worn off. Like Turkish carpets, they have grown more valuable with age.

letting out a sigh for these centuries

“We ain’t what we ought to be, and we ain’t what we want to be and we ain’t what we’re going to be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr., quoting a former slave, as quoted in Kristof's piece last night

This election was not about race for me, but today, this is what I'm relishing and crying and gushing about. I'm not blind, I know he isn't perfect, and I know the ship of our country might have only turned a degree or two last night. But it's an incredible moment that I have to mark here, almost 400 years after a Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food on our shore in 1619, and I can't help but weep, along with ". . . the souls of black folk, living and dead, [who] wept – and laughed, screamed and danced – releasing 400 years of pent up emotion."

From his victory speech last night:

That’s the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight’s about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

You can read his whole speech here.

Obama on campus Thursday: UPDATE

click image to enlarge

Thursday, Oct. 2, 4:00pm: I'm back from the rally, and it was electrifying! The man can speak and fire up a crowd of thousands of college students. The crowd was projected to be 20,000, but all I know is, it was BIG.

And I just heard that McCain has suspended his campaign in Michigan. What?? He's announcing that he's given up Michigan to Obama? Is that a smart political move? What is happening here?

Hillary was in my small home town last Saturday at a rally for Obama, and tomorrow the man himself will be here on campus at MSU, just a short walk around Circle Drive from my office. I'm planning on taking the student who is here for an appointment at 2 (if she comes!) over to Adams Field to hear him speak. It's supposed to be chilly outdoors, but I think this campus will give him a warm welcome. I know I will! I'll try to post pictures after the fact - at least of the crowd. Michigan is an important swing state in the election. We're expecting several more visits by McCain and Obama in the next month until November 4.

addressing race

After Barack Obama's race speech, below on YouTube, people are talking about the race issue again. He acknowledges anger among Whites and among Blacks. Whether you want him to be President or not, to listen to a man who is a viable candidate for President of the United States who has relatives of practically every race, address the issue of race head on, is remarkable. He is the son of a White woman, apparently descended from slave owners, and a Kenyan father. His wife Michelle is descended from slaves and slave owners.

I am descended from slave owners. But my parents raised us to treat people of all races with utmost respect. Before I was born, my father was a poor Baptist preacher in the South who told the story of the Good Samaritan with the Good Samaritan as a Black person. You know the story. A man is robbed and left for dead, all the "good" people like priests walk by him, avoiding him lying there on the road. I suppose it was about the blood they weren't supposed to touch. Along came the Samaritan (Jesus' audience in this story, the Jews, hated Samaritans) who tended the man and paid for him to be nursed until he recovered. Ok, so my dad told the story from the pulpit with the Good Samaritan as a Black man, in a little rural church in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. After the church service, the Elders came to him, saying, "Rev. Hart, we'd appreciate it if you'd please only preach the Bible."

In the 1990s I got a seven-year education in American race relations when I worked in a University office in which I was one of two White women. The rest of the staff (10 or so people) were either African American or Latino. I learned that my friend Sheree, a beautiful AA woman of 35, felt discriminated against every time she went to the mall and the staff stayed close by her and left White women alone. I learned that there was deep anger between African Americans and Latinos. I learned that some African Americans felt superior to Whites because they believed they would never degrade other humans through slavery. I learned that even after 140 years, Whites can't necessarily expect that African Americans are ready to "move on." I learned that I basically have nothing to say as a White person, about what an African American or Latino person might feel or should do.

This is the first 9-minute segment of Obama's speech two days ago. You can download segments 2-4 from the sidebar at YouTube.

perspective

Listening to presidential hopefuls and starting to write short fiction this week have me thinking about perspective, and perception. Oh, and two posts ago hearing your differing opinions about Zaha Hadid's modern aluminum and glass architectural concept in a row of traditional brick university buildings.

Barack Obama is our savior. Barack Obama is no different from any other politician. He could transform the image of America. He will not change anything.

Eckhart Tolle said that if you were born into precisely the same circumstances as another person, you would make the same choices they have made. Well, you could never prove that one, could you?

What creates our perspective? How much of it is conscious choice? How much is default reaction based on how we were raised? How much is based on educating ourselves, being exposed to someone else's perspective?

If I could zoom in on one little piece of the canvas in this evolving life, I'd like to work on taking myself less seriously while being more open to someone else's perspective.

How can I take myself too seriously when yesterday I:

• made coffee - water in, grounds in - without putting the pot in its spot: yeah, coffee overflowing onto the floor
• getting ready to color my own hair last night, instead of mixing the activating cream with the TINT, I mixed it with the CONDITIONER, in other words, a waste of seven bucks and an hour's time

It was a full moon yesterday. Does that change things?

The Oscars

It’s almost time to watch the Oscars, and I am looking forward to it. I love clothes, and seeing what the women are wearing is lots of fun. I also enjoy hearing what the host (Ellen DeGeneres this year), presenters and winners have to say. I especially await the comedy, to see if the host and presenters can make me laugh. I think Ms. DeGeneres is pretty funny, and her deadpan persona usually cracks me up.

I think that this year I’ve seen fewer nominated movies than ever before. I couldn’t even tell you what’s nominated, even though I have a list somewhere. I know Helen Mirren and “The Queen” have lots of nominations. I’ll be plugging for her.

It’s a glitzy week, with the Democratic Presidential candidates gathering in Beverly Hills for fund raisers. All the hoopla about what Barak Obama’s fundraiser Geffen said about the Clintons. All the wealthy celebrities, and who they will support. I heard that just for California each candidate needs $20 million for their campaign.

All this money being waved around, the million dollar Swarovski curtain on the Oscars stage, the millions spent for a presidential race (it will be billions before all’s said and done), well, you can’t help think about that, can you?

Remember what I wrote about global climate change and the idea of carbon offset programs a couple weeks ago? I’m still researching it, and I don’t know what is legitimate and what isn't. But I think I’m going to do something as a starter. Carbonfund.org has a campaign to raise money for carbon offset (developing renewable resource energy options) as a way to send a message to the Oscars this year, supporting Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is nominated for best documentary. If you donate to this carbon offset program, they’ll send a message to the Oscars about the campaign.

Remember last year when many stars arrived in hybrid vehicles instead of limos? It might seem like a gimmick, but gimmicks get people’s attention. And lots of people wait for someone else to bring attention to issues before they wake up.

Is this about allaying guilt? Will I feel better about myself watching all that glitz if I do something helpful? I dunno. I think it's about balance. Every choice I make has an effect.