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Grief

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  Life can be so beautiful sometimes...and it can also be so darn hard. This is an era when I have some of the most amazing everyday moments: walking down the hall discussing infinity with my group of kindergarteners in ESL, making music with a group of octogenarians (and beyond!), preparing for shows before the rehearsal season begins, sharing visits with friends from near and far. However, it is also an era of so much grief. I grieve for the world: there is so much hatred amidst this new nationalism, and ultimately we all get hurt. I grieve for the nation: we are in the middle of a new kind of civil war and Humpty Dumpty is cracking. I grieve for immigrant families: so many live in so much fear right now. I grieve for the trees and the air and the polar bears and the water and... I'm also in my 50s and am so lucky to have so many mentors and friends and family members who are a generation older than I am. But I feel the shifting of generations as, one by one, elderly icons of m...
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Personal Plan 2026

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 A friend said my Project 2026 was too intense and it would be better to go to the movies. So…. Here’s the Plan 2026 (personal not ideological)… MD four shows (My Fair Lady, Little Women, summer show at Camp Ruach and our school show) See Come From Away at the PaperMill, Stephen Schwarz at NJPAC, and probably some other good stuff! Read lots of adult historical fiction and middle grade mystery books Go to museums Visit with friends here and anywhere Teach amazing kids Swim, hike, and take gentle walks. Spend time with seniors Make music with choirs, friends, and alone Cuddle with cats Get to a few historical sites Compose a song in Esperanto … cause why not? Take some oral histories Write some good essays Consider putting periods at the end of my sentences Practice my new otamatone!
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My Project 2026

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  My Project 2026 Celebrate all people for the good they offer, the love they share, the hope of their existence. Encourage creativity, curiousity, generosity, bravery, adventure, diplomacy, and devotion. Inspire kindness in others; realize there is no real “other”, just beings and societies with different pasts. Pause to cherish the sun, moon, stars, wind, oceans, rivers, grass, pastures, mountains, jungles, forests, trees, twigs, nests, homes here on Planet Earth. Experience awe. Know there is so much out there that is beyond our ability to understand. Accept that we are simultaneously bigger and smaller than any soul can imagine. Cultivate connections, loving and true. Stop to look into one another’s eyes. Remember each adult was once a child. Recognize the wise old soul in each kindergartener and the innocent mischief-maker in each old soul. Respect animals. Listen for the spring peepers, the dancing crickets, the howling coyotes, the purring cats. Know there is so much to life...
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Missing

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  Missing: A country where we are innocent until proven guilty, A land celebrating freedom of speech, A haven for the harrowed and threatened souls needing a place to land, A realm where there is opportunity for all. If found, please return it to the people as soon as possible, before further harm is to be done.
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Topics I'd rather not have to contemplate

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  Topics I’d rather not have to contemplate: Mutually assured destruction Citizen deportations Attacks on Peaceful Protesters Surveillance State Weaponized judicial system Regulatory Rollbacks Racial profiling Hunger by the millions Walkback of civil rights Whitewashed Curricula Public Health Neglect State-controled media Ally alienation Erosion of Voting Rights Corporate Capture of Government Criminalization of dissent Support for Authoritarian Regimes Lost checks and balances Defunded Education … and the list could go on and on. When will the arc of the universe return its bent to justice??
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Symbolic Structures

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  Have you been to Manhattan? Major arts buildings were funded for the people by folks like the Rockefellers, the Carnegies and more. Wealthy people funded civilization and culture— not just for themselves but for others. Now, take a look at the debris of the White House’s East Wing. Consider the exorbitant and unnecessary ballroom for billionaires that is set to go up in its place. The current government is shut down. The Department of Education is emptying itself through layoffs. Public Radio has been defunded. Medical research and other health services are being chipped away at. But the White House Ballroom still rises. The president claims that it is private funds which are making the extravagance possible. If that’s the case, shame on the wealthy. I encourage them to look at the less-than-perfect, yet still generous philanthropists of the past. There are much better ways to leave a legacy than the destruction of something that wasn’t broken, something that belonged to the peop...
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Why I'm Still Hopeful

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  Yesterday gave me reason to hope, but I want to share with you ongoing reasons I am hopeful. At my parents’ continuing care community, a bunch of the vibrant seniors are doing their own postcard campaign. When I visit, they’re always exchanging bags of postcards and discussing the way they still can do their part. Many of them spend time each day calling congresspeople too. They may not all have the mobility I do, but they have much better handwriting! Another reason for hope is the people I know who show up every week in Flemington and Frenchtown advocating diversity and protections of minority people. There are people who show up in Plainfield when I call for help about immigrant families. So many people are doing their little bit every day, not just at the big rallies. There was a young man at the protest in Franklin yesterday who pointed out that many people are not informed. I’ll even add that they are misinformed. It’s shocking how many people hear that I help immigrants an...
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