- Published on
from http://www.wfsb.com/
I love storms.
The smell,
The fizzle crackle in the air,
And the sound of rain.
But tonight I was nervous.
Warnings of flash floods and tornadoes across the state,
And being a grown-up in a place of children,
I felt a responsibility.
A couple of the campers I work with
Are afraid of storms,
And I came across one of my theatre babies
In the theatre,
Huddled over
Tense and barely breathing.
I sat with her,
Offered my hand
And she clasped it tight.
And every time the thunder roared
She held her breath and shivered.
We sat together,
And chatted through the storm.
I joked about singing My Favorite Things
It seemed appropriate.
And we giggled at the thought of becoming the cliche.
And to help her breathe
I told her breathing deeply would be like practicing diaphragm exercises.
If she wanted to play Elphaba, she’d better get practicing.
It made her laugh. She breathed, and trembled a little less with every thunder clap.
The storm passed.
I ended up sitting in the Music Shed with a couple of campers
And my friend with a beautiful wooden flute.
Occasional patters of rain danced across the roof.
My friend played his flute.
And I felt calm.
And I felt that this is what being a grown-up must be like.
To be put your own fears aside
And help the smaller ones around you.
The end.
The smell,
The fizzle crackle in the air,
And the sound of rain.
But tonight I was nervous.
Warnings of flash floods and tornadoes across the state,
And being a grown-up in a place of children,
I felt a responsibility.
A couple of the campers I work with
Are afraid of storms,
And I came across one of my theatre babies
In the theatre,
Huddled over
Tense and barely breathing.
I sat with her,
Offered my hand
And she clasped it tight.
And every time the thunder roared
She held her breath and shivered.
We sat together,
And chatted through the storm.
I joked about singing My Favorite Things
It seemed appropriate.
And we giggled at the thought of becoming the cliche.
And to help her breathe
I told her breathing deeply would be like practicing diaphragm exercises.
If she wanted to play Elphaba, she’d better get practicing.
It made her laugh. She breathed, and trembled a little less with every thunder clap.
The storm passed.
I ended up sitting in the Music Shed with a couple of campers
And my friend with a beautiful wooden flute.
Occasional patters of rain danced across the roof.
My friend played his flute.
And I felt calm.
And I felt that this is what being a grown-up must be like.
To be put your own fears aside
And help the smaller ones around you.
The end.
- Published on
I’m so proud of my kids tonight
For the past three weeks:
“Project! Articulate! Every word is important!”
Daily drills.
Feel your feet. Activate the breathe. Let go.
I’ve felt a bit like Mama Rose
“Sing out, Louise!”
Hoping I’m not nearly as crazy as she was.
But I get why she does it.
You can see the potential.
Hear the voice that’s dying to come out
And it’s just hidden by inhibition
Or from lack of ever trying.
And you sit in on the rehearsals.
And you work through the score.
And you stay up late
And you wake up early
And you hope that all the hard work will be worth it
And you get to show night
And suddenly there’s that extra element
That is simply not available in rehearsal,
The audience.
And your children lift their game,
And you sit watching their show
(It’s theirs now, they own it.)
And you feel like you’re in one of those TV shows
And you’re watching the show like a montage
Except you know every word
Every bit of blocking
And the director is sitting to your left
And every now and then you look to each other and laugh
Or worry about a delayed cue
Or a missed line
And you hear the audience go wild at the end
Cheering your kids
And you feel an immense sense of pride
In your work.
And you thank each and every actor
For all the lessons they have taught you.
The end.
For the past three weeks:
“Project! Articulate! Every word is important!”
Daily drills.
Feel your feet. Activate the breathe. Let go.
I’ve felt a bit like Mama Rose
“Sing out, Louise!”
Hoping I’m not nearly as crazy as she was.
But I get why she does it.
You can see the potential.
Hear the voice that’s dying to come out
And it’s just hidden by inhibition
Or from lack of ever trying.
And you sit in on the rehearsals.
And you work through the score.
And you stay up late
And you wake up early
And you hope that all the hard work will be worth it
And you get to show night
And suddenly there’s that extra element
That is simply not available in rehearsal,
The audience.
And your children lift their game,
And you sit watching their show
(It’s theirs now, they own it.)
And you feel like you’re in one of those TV shows
And you’re watching the show like a montage
Except you know every word
Every bit of blocking
And the director is sitting to your left
And every now and then you look to each other and laugh
Or worry about a delayed cue
Or a missed line
And you hear the audience go wild at the end
Cheering your kids
And you feel an immense sense of pride
In your work.
And you thank each and every actor
For all the lessons they have taught you.
The end.
- Published on
A little while ago
Gandhi said
Be the change
More recently
Annie Leonard said
We are living in an economy
That is toxic at every level
And she actively worked to make change
And made a movie called
The Story of Stuff
And uploaded it to YouTube
And it was very inspiring
And immensely popular
But she, and her team, didn't stop there
They kept investigating
"How do we make this place better?"
And now, in her new movie
The Story of Change
Annie Leonard talks about how to make the world less toxic
It's not just about changing our shopping habits
That's a start, yes. But action needs to be bigger.
It's about
An Idea + We + Action =
Change
It's about
We Can Make a Difference
We Can Make the World
More Livable
At the end of the film there is a quiz
What kind of
Change-maker are you?
And I took the quiz
And it said,
I am a
Resister
Which ironically, I resisted.
I'm not a resister...
I do want the world to be a better place
I want to live in a world that is not toxic
I want to be part of an economy that is not destructive
But aside from my own personal habits
Recycling, eating organic produce where possible, using natural products where possible,
I haven't spoken to any corporations
I haven't protested out loud
I haven't named names
I haven't stood in front of a CEO and said
Please stop what you're doing.
But perhaps now is the time for me to change
So that I may be the change
I want to see
The end. Or not.
Gandhi said
Be the change
More recently
Annie Leonard said
We are living in an economy
That is toxic at every level
And she actively worked to make change
And made a movie called
The Story of Stuff
And uploaded it to YouTube
And it was very inspiring
And immensely popular
But she, and her team, didn't stop there
They kept investigating
"How do we make this place better?"
And now, in her new movie
The Story of Change
Annie Leonard talks about how to make the world less toxic
It's not just about changing our shopping habits
That's a start, yes. But action needs to be bigger.
It's about
An Idea + We + Action =
Change
It's about
We Can Make a Difference
We Can Make the World
More Livable
At the end of the film there is a quiz
What kind of
Change-maker are you?
And I took the quiz
And it said,
I am a
Resister
Which ironically, I resisted.
I'm not a resister...
I do want the world to be a better place
I want to live in a world that is not toxic
I want to be part of an economy that is not destructive
But aside from my own personal habits
Recycling, eating organic produce where possible, using natural products where possible,
I haven't spoken to any corporations
I haven't protested out loud
I haven't named names
I haven't stood in front of a CEO and said
Please stop what you're doing.
But perhaps now is the time for me to change
So that I may be the change
I want to see
The end. Or not.
- Published on
Helene and I performing the Swedish frog song. Photo by Rene Macione
The camp where I work was founded by pacifists, people who had endured the horrors of Nazi Germany. Today our place of work is staffed by people from all over the world Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden... As a
result, we don't celebrate Independence Day, we celebrate Diversity Day. In the evening the international staff and international campers share their cultures, their music and stories and tidbits of information that make their cultures different to the American one. But even Diversity Day makes me uncomfortable. I feel anxious around displays of nationalism. And so, I wrote and shared the following.
Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. Allow me to explain. I am Australian. I am Spanish. I am descendent from Filipinos, Dutch, and Polish. I have blood relatives in Spain, Switzerland, England, America, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia. I speak un pocito Español. I grew up in Sydney, approximately 10,000 miles from this place. Where I come from we wear thongs instead of flip flops, the forest is called the bush. We eat lollies and not candy, and wear singlets instead of tank tops. We say it is hot outside, and not it is hot out. I call my friends on a mobile not a cell, We don’t walk upside down. Nor do our toilet bowls flush in the opposite direction... I don’t think. I never rode a kangaroo to school. I never owned a pet koala. I never met Steve Irwin.
I’m rather uncomfortable with declarations of nationalistic pride. I grew up in a country whose national day of pride is Anzac Day, which commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealander troops on the shores of Galipoli, Turkey, and were subsequently slaughtered in their thousands. Now we’re friends with the Turkish, and we eat their delicious foods and every year thousands more Australians congregate at Galipoli to remember the fallen from nearly a hundred years before.
I’m a raging pacifist. I don’t get war. I really don’t. Once upon a time the British fought the Americans. Then they decided to stop. Now they are allies. Now they laugh at each other from across the pond. Seventy years ago my country was shooting Turks, and Germans, and Italians. Seventy years later I grew up eating pita bread, pretzels, and pizza. When my grandparents were teenagers they were sheltering from Japanese bombs and fearing death. My grandmother now drives a Japanese car, we all eat sushi, and my class at school almost had more Japanese students than Australian.
I don’t get displays of nationalistic pride. They make me uncomfortable. I’ve spent the
last five years traveling the world. I’ve been to Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Wales, and the US of A. Now I may have only begun to scrape the surface of the metaphorical travel iceberg but here’s what I’ve discovered in my travels. No one place is better or worse than any other. America is no more the land of the free than Australia is the land of sunshine. In all those places I’ve seen people going about their daily lives. They wake up, they eat food, they go to the toilet, they spend the day making ends meet, if they’re lucky they’ll have time to play. At the end of the day they gather with their families and then they go to sleep. There are variations on this theme. Yes, many people have less other people. Yes, you have the occasional people that spend their days plotting the demise of other people who aren’t their people. But you know what? Most people just happened upon this here crazy planet, and they’re doing the best that they can.
Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. I care that you treat me decently just because. I care that I can be open to cultures and traditions and foods and that aren’t my own. It may be naive. It may be simplistic. But we’ve got to start somewhere. I hope you’ll care less where I come from. At the end of the day, let’s just exist on this planet together. Let’s draw on several thousand years of human history and share the foods that our ancestors ate. Let’s find a way to share life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness in all its rich diversity.
The end.
result, we don't celebrate Independence Day, we celebrate Diversity Day. In the evening the international staff and international campers share their cultures, their music and stories and tidbits of information that make their cultures different to the American one. But even Diversity Day makes me uncomfortable. I feel anxious around displays of nationalism. And so, I wrote and shared the following.
Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. Allow me to explain. I am Australian. I am Spanish. I am descendent from Filipinos, Dutch, and Polish. I have blood relatives in Spain, Switzerland, England, America, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia. I speak un pocito Español. I grew up in Sydney, approximately 10,000 miles from this place. Where I come from we wear thongs instead of flip flops, the forest is called the bush. We eat lollies and not candy, and wear singlets instead of tank tops. We say it is hot outside, and not it is hot out. I call my friends on a mobile not a cell, We don’t walk upside down. Nor do our toilet bowls flush in the opposite direction... I don’t think. I never rode a kangaroo to school. I never owned a pet koala. I never met Steve Irwin.
I’m rather uncomfortable with declarations of nationalistic pride. I grew up in a country whose national day of pride is Anzac Day, which commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealander troops on the shores of Galipoli, Turkey, and were subsequently slaughtered in their thousands. Now we’re friends with the Turkish, and we eat their delicious foods and every year thousands more Australians congregate at Galipoli to remember the fallen from nearly a hundred years before.
I’m a raging pacifist. I don’t get war. I really don’t. Once upon a time the British fought the Americans. Then they decided to stop. Now they are allies. Now they laugh at each other from across the pond. Seventy years ago my country was shooting Turks, and Germans, and Italians. Seventy years later I grew up eating pita bread, pretzels, and pizza. When my grandparents were teenagers they were sheltering from Japanese bombs and fearing death. My grandmother now drives a Japanese car, we all eat sushi, and my class at school almost had more Japanese students than Australian.
I don’t get displays of nationalistic pride. They make me uncomfortable. I’ve spent the
last five years traveling the world. I’ve been to Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Wales, and the US of A. Now I may have only begun to scrape the surface of the metaphorical travel iceberg but here’s what I’ve discovered in my travels. No one place is better or worse than any other. America is no more the land of the free than Australia is the land of sunshine. In all those places I’ve seen people going about their daily lives. They wake up, they eat food, they go to the toilet, they spend the day making ends meet, if they’re lucky they’ll have time to play. At the end of the day they gather with their families and then they go to sleep. There are variations on this theme. Yes, many people have less other people. Yes, you have the occasional people that spend their days plotting the demise of other people who aren’t their people. But you know what? Most people just happened upon this here crazy planet, and they’re doing the best that they can.
Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. I care that you treat me decently just because. I care that I can be open to cultures and traditions and foods and that aren’t my own. It may be naive. It may be simplistic. But we’ve got to start somewhere. I hope you’ll care less where I come from. At the end of the day, let’s just exist on this planet together. Let’s draw on several thousand years of human history and share the foods that our ancestors ate. Let’s find a way to share life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness in all its rich diversity.
The end.
- Published on
It's a very ancient saying
But a true and honest thought
That if you become a teacher
By your pupils you'll be taught
I've learnt that in spades these past few weeks
Every moment of jaw tension
Every freak out at "not being able to"
Every moment of self-imposed fear
I see myself in my students
Understand what they're going through
It's exciting to watch them make progress
It's frustrating when they repeat the same mistakes over and over
It's wonderful when they have their own "ah ha!" moments
They lead me to my own
Getting to know you
I'm learning
Me
Realizing everything my own teachers were drilling into me over the past year
The only thing holding me back is myself
How many times do I have to discover that?!
Again, and again, and again it seems
The strange relief of it.
It's not something I'm not getting
It's not something impossible and out of my reach
It's the voice in my own head that keeps saying
You can't, you can't, you can't because.
Because of X.
Because of Y. Because of Z.
It's all the same.
Tell the voice it's not serving you right now.
Focus on the work.
Do the exercises.
And trust, trust, trust that you'll get there
Eventually.
The end.
But a true and honest thought
That if you become a teacher
By your pupils you'll be taught
I've learnt that in spades these past few weeks
Every moment of jaw tension
Every freak out at "not being able to"
Every moment of self-imposed fear
I see myself in my students
Understand what they're going through
It's exciting to watch them make progress
It's frustrating when they repeat the same mistakes over and over
It's wonderful when they have their own "ah ha!" moments
They lead me to my own
Getting to know you
I'm learning
Me
Realizing everything my own teachers were drilling into me over the past year
The only thing holding me back is myself
How many times do I have to discover that?!
Again, and again, and again it seems
The strange relief of it.
It's not something I'm not getting
It's not something impossible and out of my reach
It's the voice in my own head that keeps saying
You can't, you can't, you can't because.
Because of X.
Because of Y. Because of Z.
It's all the same.
Tell the voice it's not serving you right now.
Focus on the work.
Do the exercises.
And trust, trust, trust that you'll get there
Eventually.
The end.