Lost but never alone

We’ve just passed the winter solstice. It’s dark. Still, we all know the next stop will be spring. The path is clear, but we’re tired and the way seems very long. We also know the turn to spring will not be a solid stop. From there we’ll proceed to summer, through autumn, back to winter. All we have for sure is change. No one has been able to say the singular thing… Read More

Montana’s Red Lodge

Yep. On the road again.  This time listening to the wide stretch of country called Montana. Right now I’m sitting with the morning sun where it falls across this tooled leather couch and onto pine floors reclaimed from beneath years of inhabitants, each leaving behind their layers of linoleum, carpet and, in the bedroom where I’m sleeping — astroturf.  It took plenty of my friends Joe and Roxanna’s work to call these wooden boards… Read More

Mary Says, Mitt Says

My 19-year-old niece Mary is in Israel.  So is Mitt Romney.  Mary arrived almost 4 weeks ago to assist with rebuilding homes of Palestinian people that have been destroyed in the areas of the country historically populated by Palestinians now being displaced.  Many of those lands are occupied by Jewish settlers. These are complicated issues from the standpoint of local, national and international politics.  They are less complicated but more urgent and… Read More

Notes on Leaving

It is early morning in the middle of April.  I am on a bus leaving Oxford, UK.  I have kissed my daughter on the cheek more than twice.  We have hugged one another many more times than that.  Each embrace as if it were the actual goodbye – the one that would leave our parting fully signified and safe.  All through, we smile into each other’s eyes to fill the gaps between… Read More

Write Brain Change — guest blog by Dave Jarecki

Back in October I got a call from Dave Jarecki.  He had been assigned to me by the Lewis & Clark College Chronicle — the alumni magazine of the college where I’ve been a professor for well more than 20 years.  I was happy to know my school was pleased with the publication of 100 VOICES – AMERICANS TALK ABOUT CHANGE and wanted to have an article following its release.  Dave and I… Read More

“I have had a lot of change lately”

In a few days, when 100 Voices: Americans Talk about Change hits book stores, Marjan Baradar’s voice will be #91.  Back in 2009, Marjan spoke of her optimism alongside her fear of the polarities in the country – she mentioned specifically the violence that can come of that.  She spoke of the power of civic engagement and indicated her sense of such participation as a responsibility, a natural expression of being an… Read More

Moments in the Weave

It’s 9-10-11. I just landed in Washington DC National Airport.  Tonight my niece will be married on the banks of thePotomac– first of that generation.  Wow – turn-turn-turn and all of that – change, for sure! Constancy, too.  Expense, distance and daily matters of consequence set aside as all the family that can gathers.  This is what families do.  It’s one way we love each other, taking these opportunities to cinch up… Read More

Sister Story

There’s a spirit of listening – an inclination to learn – and for all but the most shy, a powerful desire to make social contact, to communicate, to hang out.  EX:Change and the 100 Voices book (www.loudmouthpress.org) turn out to be living records of this spirit.  I thought I was starting a project to learn about change – about what a popular word in a particular time meant to the people using… Read More

Missing Murry

I just got e-mail.  I’ve been writing e-mail back.  And crying.  My friend, Murry Owen, died last night.  His body just couldn’t manage to breathe anymore. Yesterday I started this week’s blog.  I called it “Big Changes.”  I wrote about how I got to spend time yesterday morning with my friend Jim.  Jim is the friend who found out 7 months ago that he has Rheumatoid Arthritis (EX:C blog, “Chronic Pain,” 6-4-2011). … Read More

Listening to Chronic Pain

I have a friend who lives with chronic pain.  He has Rheumatoid Arthritis.  The other day we were sitting drinking tea.  It was the first time he told me of the RA diagnosis he received last December.  “It hits like a train,” he said.  “But, man is it ever teaching me about making choices.” “Three things,” he said.  “First, it doesn’t feel fair.  It isn’t fair, and it is what’s going on,… Read More