Clare Consultation, LLC48 Hours
2-8-2009 Thousand Oaks, CA JUST OFF HWY 101 — ANOTHER COFFEE SHOPPE Wow, these hills. And then there’s the narrative running its marathon through my head. I’ve now pulled off the road because I can’t go another mile without some kind of brain dump – that crass-ish new-mil term that seems oddly consistent with the sound of the word blog. In the past 48 hours: I’ve spoken with a single mom –… Read More
Cattle Trail
2-18-2009 Kerrville, TX SCHREINER UNIVERSITY CFO’S OFFICE (MY LONG-TIME BROTHER-FRIEND, FRED THE VP) The interstate from Albuquerque, NM to Kerrville, TX is … well … long. On either side the land is vast and mostly empty. Exception springs from the brief chorus of rush hour and billboards in Las Cruces and El Paso – fraternal twins of Mexico and the Territory of New Mexico (what we’ve known as the state by the same… Read More
Trees, Minerals, Water and People
2-13-2009 Albuquerque, NM THE CORNER OF CENTRAL & TULANE This morning I had the great privilege of spending time in interview and conversation with Margaret Randall. http://www.margaretrandall.org Her thoughts on change rose and fell from the deep well of her 72 years of living the word. As a prolific writer, a passionate activist, an American and a woman of the world (having lived in Cuba for 25 years, and also in… Read More
Fresh Picked Oranges
2-11-2009 Tucson, AZ SWAN ROAD, TUCSON “The rise over there to the left – hazy in the distance,” Rudy Suwara pointed out the window. “Yes, I think I see them,” I said. “That’s Tijuana. That’s Mexico. And over there about midway up the horizon on the right; that’s where the original mission was. Oh, and right there behind the parking structure – see it over on the university campus? That’s where the plane… Read More
The Buzz of LA
2-9-2009 Irvine CA ON THE ROAD BETWEEN LA & SAN DIEGO The buzz of LA comes in part from its paradoxes. There’s the manic aggression of drivers on the roads that drape the curving hills – the drivers competing for time and space, the roadways dipping and gliding like strains of Strauss’s Blue Danube. There’s the local sheriff who is proposing gun control measures to resistant citizens of a county considering cutting… Read More
Wake Up Call
2-4-2009 Walnut Creek, CA I’m standing at Mike’s Autobody in Walnut Creek, CA. This wasn’t in the plan. Yesterday there was a road that, as roads go, qualifies certainly as beautiful. Highway 97 drops out of Klamath Falls, Oregon and onto the long northern shoulders of Mt. Shasta and the state of California. The blue sky was seamless and the mountain, thus unburdened, revealed every inch of its majesty and power. Shasta is… Read More
Groundhog’s Day
2-2-2009 Ashland, OR SLIGHTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT Tonight the stars in Ashland, Oregon swan dive earthward through blue-black air. Orion looks hotter than ever, his warrior vibe spangling the night. The Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and all the others whose names I’ve known and forgotten too many times, glisten beyond the capacity of any descriptor. I stepped out of my car a few hours ago and looked up. The magnificence overhead, a small finale on… Read More
Ex:change – Change has come to America
1-21-2009 Portland, OR One thing is for certain. We love the word. Change. It so captured our individual and collective attention that record numbers stacked up at polling booths around the country. No matter whose name we selected on our respective ballots. Change, by whatever connotation, got our vote. Then, the evening it was all decided, the word became a sentence. Change has come to America.