Clare Consultation, LLCOpen Letter to LOUD MOUTH
2011-2011-2011-2011-2011-2011-2011 Well…open-ish. Excerpts really. There’s a small publishing house with a very cool name (Loud Mouth Press http://www.loudmouthpress.org/). The editorial staff has been in touch about possibilities for turning the EX:Change material into a book. Nothing has been agreed to or signed, but it’s gotten me thinking. And since, from the beginning EX:Change has necessarily been a ‘group’ project (what with the 100 voices, the embarrassment of riches in the form of… Read More
Intersections
Walking south on NE 28th Ave. under my new umbrella (the other one blew out in yesterday’s storm), I came to the corner at Flanders St. A man in full raingear – the heavy orange plastic stuff – stood on tiptoes behind an enormous canvass sign. The sign was as orange as the man. Although a square, it was situated as a diamond to warn oncoming traffic of the roadwork ahead. The… Read More
Only a Person
Yesterday evening I walked into the little Whole Foods in my neighborhood. It was actually more like late afternoon on a typically chilly, misty and too-soon-dark December 1 in Oregon. But, I needed B vitamins and am always looking for a motive to get a bit of walking. I walked into the warmth of the store, headed toward the supplement area and turned a corner to see an older Tibetan man adorned… Read More
Taxis, TSA & the Imprecision of Communication
Tuesday night I was in a Taxi in San Francisco. My companion and I sat in the back seat comfortable after another in a two-day series of divine dining experiences. Earlier in the evening we had walked downtown sidewalks under a sky defined by elegant angles of glass and steel reaching to frame the gibbous moon and Venus where they glittered in their particular harmony. We were looking for the Mexican fusion… Read More
Just Listen
Yesterday I came home, grabbed the blue nylon bag I use for light trips to the grocery store, and took off in search of … well … Rice Dream. Really – borderline hippie; soy, dairy and gluten free. It’s my latest answer to the love song of my sweetest tooth. To walk to the grocery store, I take the back steps and follow the sidewalk around to the front of the house. … Read More
Stories on the Night After the Election
Jarred the grocery store guy told me a story last night. We were talking about his work – he’s something of a mid management type with responsibility for ensuring the identification and obstruction of shop lifters. “Yeah. I can recognize them because I’ve been there. I wasn’t there long and I’m not proud of it, but that’s a big part of how I know them when I see them.” Jarred is in… Read More
Gay Teen Suicide: Yes, Listening is a Matter of Life or Death
I’m from Texas. I haven’t lived there for 22 years, but I am from Texas. And I love very much about the State. There are also things – particularly things political, educational and environmental that get me a little crazy about my homeland. Then this week I found a you tube video that made me so very proud to be from Texas – proud of the elected member of the Fort Worth… Read More
Columbus Day: Do You Know Where You Are?
Yesterday I sat again across a small table from Dr. Dapo, one of the 100 voices of EX:Change (EX:C blog, “What’s in a Name?” 4-13-2010). We had seen one another on Multnomah Ave. several weeks earlier. I was walking fast toward the Max Station and Dapo was driving in the opposite direction. He honked and we stopped traffic for long enough to promise to find yesterday’s tea and coffee. Dapo (as he… Read More
What the Land Holds Up
Just home to Portland from a week in the Texas Hillcountry. I did lots of my growing up on the land that stretches out either side of the Guadalupe River. This week I returned to that river and those hills to see friends I hadn’t seen since all of us were 15 years old. That’s a long time. There’s a word used to describe this aspect of human systems – equifinality (thanks… Read More
Because I Knew You Then, I Can Listen to You Now
I spent the last week with a friend I had not seen since we were both 15 – a friend I met when we were 6 and in elementary school in Sweetwater, TX. By the time we were 12, serendipity of some wild Texas variety had turned circumstances so that we both showed up in Mrs. Southerland’s English class in Peterson Junior High School, Kerrville, TX. His family had moved to start Gibson’s, an early version of discount stores now dwarfed… Read More