Creative Chronicling

Oh! The Things I Saw: SBIFF in Retrospect

2012-02-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

For the past 10 days I received nothing but red carpet treatment, all for wearing a little pass around my neck recognizing me as a filmmaker.
Ok, ok, so perhaps I should first mention that these past 10 days, Santa Barbara celebrated its 27th Annual International Film Festival (SBIFF)...and then guess I'll have to admit that the pass actually belonged to my brother Ryan (who did have a film in the festival in the Local Shorts section). But I'm definitely not exaggerating about how much fun I had experiencing the SBIFF in true VIP style!

My SBIFF experience started with the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award, which was given to Viola Davis for her performance in The Help. This was Viola's first starring role in a film (although she was nominated for best supporting actress in Doubt with Meryl Streep), and after hearing her speak about how much time and effort and excruciatingly close attention to details she gave to all of her previous and more minor characters, it's not surprise that this amazing performance garnered Viola the nomination for best actress. It was a pleasure to listen to a true artisan of the acting craft discuss her passion and interesting path to pursuing her dreams.

A few days later, my little brother Ryan's film "Silent Heart" screened two days in a row in the "Local Shorts" section of the festival. He originally created this film for a UCSB movie festival called Reel Loud, where students create silent films, that are then accompanied by live music. You can check out his trailer here:

After we saw all 10 local short films, all of the directors came to the front for a Q&A. Here's Ryan discussing what it was like to direct "Silent Heart". To check out his other films and current projects, visit his website!

My two fabulous brothers! Kevan (left) and Ryan (right)

Somehow Mom didn't make it into the pictures, but at least Dad snuck in one!

Although Kevan had to leave for a limo job in San Luis Obispo, my parents, Ryan and I decided to go see another film that afternoon after Ryan's film screened. Ryan had heard good things about a documentary called "The Other Dream Team", so we decided to check it out, and I must say that I was MORE than pleasantly surprised. The film follows the extraordinary story of the 1992 Lithuanian basketball team, whose athletes struggled under Soviet rule, became symbols of Lithuania's independence movement, and - with the help of the Grateful Dead - triumphed at the Barcelona Olympics. After the film, we were treated to a Q&A with director Marius Markevicius, who talked about growing up in Los Angeles as the son of first generation Lithuanian immigrants a second generation, and how he came to make this film. I would recommend this film to EVERYONE!

The next day, we went to a screening of "The Artist", the silent French film that is up for 6 Golden Globe awards including Best Picture. After seeing it for myself, I found that all of the hype about this film was completely warranted: this is a MUST SEE! I was slightly skeptical at first, because the first 20 or so minutes of the film seemed to closely mirror the beginning of "Singing in the Rain" (and although I loved that film, I was hoping this film wouldn't be a copy cat). But then the film and its characters took many, many twists and turns that made it refreshing and an absolute delight to watch. Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo (the two main actors) were incredible, and I'm excited to check out the other French films that they've done together!

Later that night, Dujardin and Bejo were honored with SBIFF's Cinema Vanguard award at The Arlington Theatre. Although I wasn't able to attend, Ryan and my parents went and gave me a full report along with pictures (Bejo - above, and Dujardin with the translator lingering the background - below)

At this point I was feeling pretty good about my film festival experience...I'd only picked one film that was mediocre at best (if you're wondering, it was Alps, a Greek film that sounded promising, but ended up being downright depressing and left me wishing I could take back those 2 hours I spent watching it), but all the other films I'd seen were spectacular. So when Ryan invited me to see 2 more films, I was hoping they wouldn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak.

Quite the opposite, really, as the first film Ryan and I saw was "Samsara" which is a Sanskrit word that literally means 'a running together', but in Buddhist and Hindu belief, means the ongoing cycle of life, growth, death, and rebirth. If you can, try to see this film as it was meant to be seen, in 4K, which makes it look better and more crisp than life itself. This breathtaking documentary was featured as the Centerpiece Film and was shot in over 40 countries. Here are just a few still shots from the film to whet your appetite:

Check out this interesting interview with director, Ron Fricke.

Last, but certainly not least, Ryan and I attended the Closing Night film, "Where Do We Go Now?" This Lebanese film is about a remote, unnamed Lebanese village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians, which is also surrounded by land mines and reachable only by a small, nearly blown out bridge. As civil strife engulfs the country, the women in the village try, by various hilarious means, to protect their men and families from more violence. I was immediately swept up into the lives of these characters, sitting on the edge of my seat one second with tears pooling in the corner of my eyes, and laughing uproariously the next. This is the second film for director Nadine Labaki (who also starred as one of the main women in movie and is pictured on the above movie poster), and I can't wait to see her first film, "Caramel". "Where Do We Go Now?" is a film that I would love to watch again, only to fall in love with the characters and their stories all over again. Find a way to view this film...you will certainly not be disappointed!

On that note (after attending the closing night party of course), I bid adieu to the 27th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and look forward to next year's line up (of course my fingers are crossed that my talented little brother has another film in the festival, so that I too can again receive the red carpet treatment!)

Wine Country This Month ~ February 2012 Issue

2012-02-06T20:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a few years since I first visited The Roadhouse Grill in Santa Maria on my way home from one of my many sales trips along the Central Coast, so I was thrilled when I found out I would be writing a feature about this restaurant for the current issue of Wine Country This Month magazine, giving me an easy excuse to go visit again. The Roadhouse has always been both a local and tourist favorite, however recent renovations have rendered it an even cooler dining destination. Check out my article (below) to find out about these exciting new updates!

Wine Country This Month ~ January 2012 issue

2012-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to share the first issue of Wine Country This Month magazine of 2012! In this issue I wrote about Laetitia Winery, a personal favorite of mine for the delicious sparkling wine they produce. To read the article click the images below to enlarge the icon. Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

Alice laughed. "There's no use in trying," she said. "One can't believe in impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had enough practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I daresay that as I sat down to write my resolutions for 2011, had I known what else lay in front of me I too would have said "Impossible!" But, like the Queen, I try to believe in the impossible, because it is in those moments that true magic exists. Impossible moments like getting engaged beneath the northern lights in Alaska on a night illuminated by the largest full moon in 28 years. Or taking some incredible trips to New York, Hawaii, Alaska and Utah. Or writing a weekly column in Noozhawk.com, an online Santa Barbara newspaper, interviewing Catalyst for Thought speakers, as well as writing wine articles for Wine Country This Month and Touring and Tasting magazines. Or meeting 2 of the 3 people I'd like to meet before I die (Neil Gaiman and Steve Martin...I'm still working on J. K. Rowling).

And you know, the funny thing is that as long as I've been dreaming and wondering when I might get engaged or when my writing career would start, looking back on the year I can clearly see that I'm already there. So why was this past year different? Because instead of hoping and wishing that maybe, just maybe...I instead believed that in fact, these dreams will come true.

Neil Gaiman wrote on his blog for his New Year's post:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

To me, 2011 was a year filled with magic and dreams and good madness. And I did indeed surprise myself. Although I'm in a far different place as I head into 2012 than I could have imagined, I'm happy to say that it's actually better than I could have dreamed.

So thank you to everyone for all your support, and as I look forward to continuing to grow and dream and surprise myself, most of all I hope that all of us take the time to believe in impossible things.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from 2011...enjoy and Happy New Year!

Matt and I in Fairbanks, Alaska just moments after he proposed (it was -30 degrees F!)

A spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis. The lights are rated on a scale from 0-10, 0 being a faint glimmer and 10 being a mind-blowing display; they said this was a 1, but to me it felt like a 10!

Neil Gaiman reading a short story on Halloween at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. He performed with his wife, musician Amanda Palmer.

Steve Martin and I after his banjo performance with the Steep Canyon Rangers at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara.

A beautiful Maui sunset on our first night on the island. Matt and I attended our good friends, Kate and Blake's sunrise wedding on the top of Haleakala

Black sands beach in Maui, Hawaii

Exploring the tide pools in the lava fields on Maui

Matt swimming with the turtles in Maui

In January 2011, I attended the Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Writer's Conference in New York. Matt came with me and we had an amazing time exploring the city, however one of our favorite buildings was the Chrysler Building.

Touring and Tasting ~ Spring 2012

2012-01-01T18:18:00.001-08:00

Touring and Tasting is a beautiful magazine that only prints 2 issues per year, one in the spring and one in the fall. The most recent issue hit the newsstands in December, and my wonderful editor, Wendy Van Diver, sent me a copy of the magazine in the mail just before Christmas. Her editor's tour of Oregon's Willamette Valley offers great insight to some of the amazing wineries of that region. I had the opportunity to write about Yamhill Valley Vineyards, and I'm posting the article here for your enjoyment.
If you'd like to check out the entire issue, you can find the magazine at most major newsstands near you, or become a subscriber through their website...it's only $13/year for two incredible issues!
Cheers!

Wine Country This Month ~ December 2011 Issue

2011-12-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

I first visited the beautiful Alapay Cellars tasting room a few years ago, when my family decided to spend Thanksgiving in Avila Beach. Over the holiday weekend we cooked our turkey in the bbq on the rooftop of our rented condo, wandered along Avila's beautiful, sprawling beaches, and went wine tasting. Lucky for us, our condo was across the street from Alapay Cellars, and to be honest we ended up not tasting anywhere else because we had so much fun at Alapay!
Fast forward a couple years, and I recently had the privilege to write a feature article about Scott and Rebecca Remmenga, the lovely couple who created Alapay Cellars, for Wine Country This Month Magazine. Check out my article below and as you're shopping for that perfect wine to pair with your holiday dishes, make sure to keep Alapay Cellars in mind!

Wine Country This Month ~ November 2011 issue

2011-11-04T20:05:00.000-07:00

For the most recent issue of Wine Country This Month I had the pleasure of interviewing local wine legend, Ken Volk. Ken gave graciously of his time for our interview, and we ended up chatting for nearly an hour about his passion and pursuit of creating wines from the more obscure (aka "heirloom") varietals. Read on below to find out more about this wine entrepreneur!

Greatest Writing Compliment...Ever!

2011-11-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

Earlier this evening my mom posted this link on facebook to find out who "I Write Like", so of course I decided to check it out! This website prompts you to paste a sample of your writing...anything from a journal entry to a poem or chapter from a book you've written. So I posted the first half of the first chapter of my young adult novel that I'm working on, and when I clicked the button, much to my pleasant surprise, here was my result:

I write like
J. K. Rowling

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Needless to say...this just about tops the list as the greatest compliment anyone has ever given my writing (even if it's only the opinion of a computer program!)

Wine Country This Month ~ September 2011 Issue

2011-09-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

This month I had the privilege to speak with Gary Burk, winemaker at Costa De Oro Winery for a winemaker feature that I wrote for Wine Country This Month magazine. Gary is incredibly personable and a wealth and a wealth of knowledge about winemaking on the Central Coast. If you've ever driven on the 101 freeway through Santa Maria, chances are you've seen this tasting room, but if you've never actually stopped, next time make sure you do. Gary and his staff have turned the former strawberry fruit stand into a must-visit for wine and music lovers alike (turns out Gary is also quite the talented musician!)

Wine Country This Month ~ August 2011 Issue

2011-08-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

Much to my great happiness, my work as a freelance wine writer has continued to be steady since I started this past January. I'm now writing for 3 different publications: 2 regional Central Coast magazines (Day Trips, Wine Country This Month) and 1 national publication (Touring and Tasting). Here are my latest articles. Enjoy!

(to read the articles just click on the images below...they will open to a readable size in a new window!)

Touring and Tasting Magazine

2011-08-01T21:18:00.000-07:00

I've worked with Touring and Tasting Magazine in the past as an advertiser (when I was working at Carina Cellars). But as of the most recent Summer edition of the magazine, I'm now working for them as a writer! I'm very excited to post my first couple articles here...Touring and Tasting is a nationally distributed magazine with an amazing online presence and they only publish two magazines per year and I'm very excited to do more work for them in the future!

A good Fiesta recipe is great year-round!

Day Trips in Santa Ynez Valley

2011-07-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege to be able to write a handful of articles about local wineries for this new Wine Country publication. Created by the same company as Wine Country This Month Magazine, this publication is only published twice a year and is distributed throughout the Central Coast and Los Angeles at several high end restaurants and hotels.
The goal of this publication is to present the reader with a companion to wine tasting that will give them the inside scoop on each winery while also recommending how to organize your experience in terms of each Day's Trip. I really like how this magazine groups the wineries together by region, allowing you to put together your scheduled based on where the wineries are in relation to each other.
This new magazine was already a hit in the Napa/Sonoma wine regions, and so far as I can tell, it's already doing extremely well in our wine country as well.
Here are the winery profiles that I wrote. To view the entire publication you can visit the Day Trips wesbite. Enjoy!

Wine Country This Month ~ June 2011 Issue

2011-07-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

When I worked at part time at Sunstone Winery in 2006 and 2007, I worked under tasting room manager, Michael Cobb. He first fell in love with wine while working at Disneyland's Club 33 as the manager and wine buyer, and later came to work at Sunstone Winery with one of his good friends. It wasn't long before he yearned to start a winery of his own, and 2007 marked his first vintage, and only a year later in June 2008, he opened his tasting room in downtown Solvang.
Sort This Out Cellars is a pleasant diversion from your typical wine tasting experience and a must-visit on your next trip into Solvang.

A little more to Wine About!

2011-06-15T18:37:00.000-07:00

Here is the most recent July 2011 edition of Wine Country This Month, a wine publication that releases regional magazines for various wine regions. My story assignments are increasing, allowing me to keep my foot in the wine industry door. If you would like to read any of the following articles in greater detail, simply click the image and it will open as a larger file in a new window. Salut!

Something to Wine about...

2011-05-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

Friends! I know it's been a while since my last post, and I apologize. However, just because I have not been writing on here, certainly does not mean I've taken a break from writing. Quite the opposite...since the beginning of the year I've started doing some freelance writing for a few different wine publications, one of which is Wine Country This Month.
I started working with this publication on the advertiser side, while working for Carina Cellars. The team working at this publication is amazing, and I'm excited to say that in the most recent issue I had several articles published! I'm posting them here for your enjoyment...and hopefully you'll be able to check out some of these fabulous places the next time you're in Paso Robles, CA!

Stay tuned for some more articles...coming soon!

My Engagement Moon...Pt II of II

2011-03-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

As Matt and I stood together, bundled against the arctic wind and -20 degree temperatures, something magical happened. It started as a slight green haze off to the left of the northern horizon, but as we watched, that haze began to move and grow, and right before our eyes the sky became a magic show of color and movement. The best I can say is that it looked as though God opened the heavens and sprinkled pixie dust across the blackened sky. Matt and I began to jump about and dance and hug each other...all of our waiting had paid off! There we were, treated to our own private show of the great Aurora Borealis atop a hill overlooking Fairbanks, with the largest moon in 24 years glowing glowing proudly as it oversaw the whole celebration.

Unsure how long the Lights would last, Matt brought out his camera and tripod and began to take pictures. The process took a while, as the camera had to allow for a 30 second exposure to capture the lower lights, and afterwards there was a 30 second processing period. But each time the screen on the back of the camera revealed each shot, Matt and I would clap our hands and emit shouts of joy; each picture revealed a sky filled with greenish/blue light moving in magnificent strokes across the northern horizon. In a word: magical.

As the show continued, Matt stated we should take a picture together, so he set the camera on a timer and ran to take his spot next to me atop a snowbank, with the lights continuing on the horizon behind us. CLICK. Magical.

"Let's take another!" Matt shouted, after looking at the picture we'd just taken. So I remained atop the snowbank and waited for Matt to once again set the timer and run to stand beside me. Only this time, he tripped and landed on his knees next to me. Or so I thought...wait a second...he's on one knee...

"Will you marry me?" Matt shouted through his scarf, to be heard above the arctic wind. He revealed a box from between his heavily gloved hands.

"What?!" I shouted back. Is this really happening?

"Will you marry me?" The reality of the moment hint me.

"Yes!" CLICK. The only part of me exposed to the elements were my eyes, and in that moment I saw only Matt, the love of my life, kneeling before me and asking me to spend the rest of my life with him. The Lights must have continued to shimmer and shift across the sky, and the moon must have continued to glow, but all I saw was Matt. I dropped to my knees and we embraced, forgetting for a moment that there were scarves between us, we pulled those away and kissed, unaware of the cold.

"You can't even put the ring on my finger!" I held up a hand encased in a thick ski glove. So Matt gave me the shiny wooden box holding the most beautiful ring I've ever seen. I closed the box and tucked it safely away in a zippered pocket so that Matt and I could continue to dance and photograph the Auroras. Around 5:30am, about 1.5 hours after the lights began, the sky began to dim, and the brilliant hues seemed to fade away until we were left with only the moon and stars painting the sky above.

As we drove back to our hotel in the early morning hours, one of my favorite songs from the musical, The Sound Of Music was on repeat across my tired yet happy mind...what did I do to deserve all this?

The rest of the night/morning passed in a blur, and to read more about the rest of our amazing engagement moon (it's like a honeymoon, only better...trust me, it's going to be a "thing"!) visit Matt's blog here and here.

To be honest, the reason it's taken me several days to write this post, is because I've struggled to find the right words to express just how magical the whole experience was for me. But after listening to pastor Brian speak at Synergy church this past Sunday about the difference between communication and communion, I realized that's not the point. To be in communication is to exchange information, news or ideas, but to be in communion is to share thoughts and feelings on a mental or spiritual level. Brian argued that most of us only focus on communication in prayer, ever on a quest to find the perfect words to say what we want, so that we often forget to seek communion.

"Focusing on the right words in prayer, is like staring at a windshield rather than seeing through it," he said.

That night on the hill overlooking Fairbanks, I felt what pastor Brian was talking about. When you're in the presence of such amazing love, the true beauty of that moment is not something that can be communicated, but rather must be felt on a deeper level. In that moment I felt absolute communion with Matt and the world around me, and I was completely overwhelmed; but in the best way possible. As a writer my life is about searching for the perfect words to describe people, places, ideas, dreams. But in this case I'm truly speechless...and happily so.

My Engagement Moon...Pt I of II

2011-03-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

Wow. To be honest over the course of this past week I've had to pinch myself a few times to make sure that this is all really happening. Even now that I'm back home and telling everyone the story and showing pictures and stopping to stare at the ring on my finger as I type this all out, I still find it hard to believe that it's not some fairy tale, but my story and my reality! But I'm getting ahead of myself...the story begins last Thursday, St. Patrick's Day, at 3am...
WAIT! I'm getting ahead of myself again! I suppose the real preface should begin with the fact that Matt and I have been together for four and a half years, and last Wednesday I treated him to an amazing Italian dinner at Ca D'ario to celebrate his 28th birthday. Now throughout the time we've been together, Matt has come to learn that I love to plan; trips, parties, meetings, adventures, it matters not as long as I'm the mastermind behind the plot. So suffice to say I was disappointed when my secret birthday scheming to take Matt to Disneyland or go camping with friends had all come to naught. The birthday dinner was all I had planned for him, and although we had a lovely time, I went to bed that night with a tinge of disappointment that I couldn't pull off a more spectacular celebration of Matt's birth. Little did I know that Matt had plans of his own.
We went to bed a little after midnight, and I was certainly surprised and confused when only a few hours later I awoke to Matt kissing me and asking,
"Babe, do you trust me?"
"Trust you? What time is it?" At this point my mind is certainly not awake. I rub my eyes. "Sure...why not..."
Matt kissed me again, then said, "It's 3:30am and I'm going to need you to get up and pack, because we're going on a trip."
Most people might ask the usual questions: Where? Why? When? How? But instead I ask, "Does Meme [my coworker] know?" Matt answers that she does, and so without too many more questions, I begin to follow his packing list: underwear, socks, sweaters, long sleeves, bathing suit, snow jacket, snow pants, snow gloves, black dress, scarves, beanies, and ear muffs. An odd assortment to be sure. Now I'm really wondering where we're headed!
We hit the road a bit before 6am and a little way down the 101 freeway heading south, Matt hands me a couple pieces of paper and asks me to put the address into the GPS system. I look at the address at the bottom of the second page: Chena Hot Springs, AK
"AK? That's Alaska! We're going to Alaska?!"
"No-" Matt answers quickly, snatching the papers out of my hands." "AK is Arkansas. We're going to Chena Hot Springs, Arkansas."
"No!" I shoot back. "Arkansas is AR!"
"No it's not, AR is Arizona..."
"No! Arizona is AZ!"
At that Matt's silence says it all. AK is indeed Alaska, and that's where we're headed!
The first thing that flashes through my mind at the mention of Alaska is Aurora Borealis...the amazing phenomenon of the northern lights. It has long been a dream of mine to see these shifting colors cross the night sky, and to be honest it did cross my mind that maybe, just maybe, this trip will include a proposal. But, I put that idea out of mind quickly. This trip is extravagant enough, I remind myself, no need to place potentially false expectations!

So we fly to Fairbanks, AK with a brief stop in Seattle, WA, and eventually arrive around dinner time. After checking into the hotel we waste no time in heading to downtown Fairbanks to grab some dinner. The concierge at the hotel makes it sound like there are several fine dining options to choose from, but when we get down there, it's evident that most everything is closed. Obviously winter is not a popular month for tourism in Alaska! We eventually dine at Gabardella's and have another delightful Italian dinner, and even order a flight of wine in the spirit of St. Patricks' Day!
The waitress (and every other local we come across during our stay in Fairbanks) tells us that we should come back in September when it's much nicer. When we tell her we came to see the Northern Lights, she says:
"Oh you should have been here two weeks ago! Most amazing Aurora I've seen in my life. And if you guys are here next week the Lights are supposed to be great then too. But this week is supposed to be pretty low activity." We tell her that no, we won't be here next week, and I secretly hope that she, and everyone else, is wrong.
That night we head out to an overlook about 15 minutes from our hotel called Ester Dome. From our perch we can see the entire city of Fairbanks, glittering against a cold (about -10 degrees F), dark Alaskan sky. As we wait, the moon climbs higher and higher into the sky, glowing brightly in its nearly-full state. It's a sight to behold, and yet it's that moon that may be the true reason for our inability to see the Aurora. Usually you need little to no moonlight to see the Northern Lights, and unfortunately it just so happens that the moon will be at its fullest and brightest state in 24 years during our stay in Fairbanks. Yet I still remained hopeful that we would prove both nature and the locals wrong, and in fact see the Aurora Borealis that we came so far to witness.
We waited until 2am, then head back to the hotel. No sign of the Northern Lights.

The next day begins anew, and we start it by watching the beginning of a sled dog race downtown.

Afterward we headed to the North Pole, Alaska. Certainly something to tell the kids someday!

Santa's House!

Dancer? Prancer? Vixen? It's hard to tell them apart...

Not so much fun trying to open presents made of ice...

Next, we headed over to the Snow Park to check out the International Ice Sculpture Festival, and let me just say that I was absolutely floored by the amazing works of art that people all over the world were able to create from a block of ice. Even more fantastic to me, was the realization that none of these great works of art would be around in another month or so. All of those hours and hours spent laboring toward the creation of something so fleeting certainly takes a unique mindset and determination. We captured a few of the sculptures here, and even came back again that night to capture them in a new light.

Of course no trip to Alaska could be complete without hockey! So we were excited to check out the Fairbanks Ice Dogs vs. the Kenai River Brown Bears (the Ice Dogs won 3-0!)

That night, we decided to drive about an hour outside the city to try to find the darkest view we could of the night skies. Our drive out there was a slow one, as the road was covered in ice, and our little Kia Optima did nothing to help us get a better grip on the road! After that, we waited. And waited. And waited. As the moon climbed higher and grew more and more prominent in the sky, the stars above seemed to disappear, making it harder for us to keep our own hopes up of seeing the Lights.

It was very cold...about -15 degrees. We had a bet who was wearing more

...I won with 17 pieces of clothing!

We waited until 5am this time, then headed back to the hotel absolutely exhausted. No sign of the Northern Lights.

The next day we slept until 2pm and after grabbing a couple sandwiches from Safeway, we drove two hours south to Denali National Park. This beautiful park is the size of Maine, yet in the winter the rangers only clear the first three miles for visitors (we're only a few of the crazy ones who decide to come to Alaska for a vacation in the winter!) We hiked around the first three miles, saw a couple moose, took lots of pictures, and on the drive back to Fairbanks we witnessed the rise of the fullest moon in 24 years.

That night we drove out a different road, about an hour outside the city, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. Matt was falling asleep and I was growing more and more anxious and worried that if I stopped moving I too might succumb to exhaustion. So I got in and out of the car, paced up and down the road, stared up at the sky and prayed that the moon might grow a bit more dim. Nothing. Eventually we called it a night and decided to head back to the hotel at 2am. We were almost there when Matt missed our exit...let's just say that his mood did not improve, because those Alaskan freeway exits are few and far between! But as Matt drove on looking for a way to turn around, I continued to look out the windows in hopes of spotting the northern lights.
"Babe! Look, over there!" There was a hint of green behind us off to the left side of the car. Matt looked, admitted that it might only be a cloud but agreed that we should check it out anyways. So we headed up to Ester Dome, where we'd tried our luck the first night, and after parking the car and snow-suiting-up, we stepped out into an icy wind that slapped us in the face and gave us the jolt we needed to stay awake! Below us, Fairbanks glittered beneath the brightest, fullest moon of our lives. Although windy and freezing, the night was clear and we could still see a few stars glimmering in the wake of the moon's luminescence. Together, Matt and I hugged each other through multiple layers of clothes, and together we stared to the north, hoping to see a hint of that green shimmer I'd seen from the highway...

To get Matt's perspective on the first part of this story, make sure to check out his blog!

Bill Moyers: Recognizing the Hero Within

2011-01-25T01:20:00.000-08:00

I was first introduced to Bill Moyers by Joseph Campbell. Not literally of course, however much I wish that statement were true. No, I first became acquainted with Bill Moyers through his famous interview with the man of myth himself, Joseph Campbell. When I first started to read more seriously into world mythology and folkore traditions, the name "Joseph Campbell" continually came up throughout my research. So when I found out that Campbell's personal library was housed on the Pacifica University campus in Carpinteria, I was thrilled! So one day, nearly five years ago, I went to check it out and ended up speaking with the librarian there for hours about Campbell's oeuvre and collection. He showed me several of Campbell's older books with his neatly printed notes in the margins, and I felt I could have spent years amongst the collection of books filled with thousands and thousands of pages of stories passed down through time and space. During my interim I was blissfully lost in words and ideas about how people view the world and their place in it.

When I finally left, the librarian gave me a gift: an old copy of The Power of Myth, the transcript from Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell between 1985-1986. I graciously accepted, then rushed home to begin devouring the text, which is an extended transcription of the six, one-hour interviews that Moyers conducted with Campbell less than a year before Campbell's death. The essence of the interviews and therefore the book as well, was to discuss at length the importance of mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society, and the very first section I underlined came to be, to me, one of the defining section of the book:

Moyers

I came to understand from reading your books that what human beings have in common is revealed in myths. Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.

Campbell

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about, and that's what these clues help us to find within ourselves.

Moyers

Myths are clues?

Campbell
Myths are clues to the spiritual potentials of the human life.

When I reached the end of this book, I found and watched the actual interviews as well, and was transfixed by both men and their eloquent display of ideas and concepts about the importance of myth. Everything they spoke about resonated deep within me as true, and over the years both Moyers and Campbell's works have had a profound influence on my own writing.
Bill Moyers was born in Oklahoma in 1934 and received a BA in journalism at University of Texas and later a Masters in Divinity from Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later served as White House Press Secretary to Lyndon Johnson in 1965-1967, and went on to help found the Peace Corps, work as publisher of Newsday, senior correspondant for the documentary series CBS Reports, and senior news analyst for the CBS Evening News. He also produced numerous ground-breaking television series such as Healing and the Mind, The Language of Life, Moyers on America, Faith and Reason, and most recently Bill Moyers Journal. During his long career in journalism he's received numerous awards including more than 30 Emmys and recently the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and he's also written several bestsellers such as Listening to America, Moyers on America: A Journalist and his Times, and most recently Moyers on Democracy.
On Sunday I had the opportunity to see the prolific Bill Moyers speak at Campbell hall at UCSB. I went with my roommate Corie and her boyfriend Quentin, and when Matt asked me about the talk when he came home from work later that night, I tried to describe all the ideas and quotes and references Moyers brought up during his talk, and ended up admitting that I was having a hard time describing the experience. Corie walked into the room at that moment and summed up my difficulty perfectly.
"No one can sum up Bill Moyers but himself."
Despite the truth in this claim, I will try my best to relay what I heard, because it's a message that needs to be heard and shared with as many people as possible who will listen, and especially so with those who won't.

When I bought my ticket I had no idea what Moyers' talk would be about. After He opened with a story of being in a hospital waiting room, waiting for an MRI. He shared the waiting room with one other lady, and together they watched news coverage of the Tuscon massacre on the silent television; it was only two days after the tragedy. As they watched, the woman turned to Moyers and asked:
"Are you optimistic?"
Moyers responded. "About what?"
"About life, our country, this," she gestured at the television.
Moyers admitted that he didn't really know what to say and was relieved when a hospital attendant called him in for the MRI. But that woman's question stayed with him, and his talk with us ended up being the answer he wished he'd given the woman that day.
Moving his talk from the specific Tuscon tragedy to a broader scope on all humanity, Moyers admitted that our current society often has a hard time identifying with "the other", the problem being just that: you're you and they're "not you". This is where we've gone wrong, and Moyers referenced something Campbell said during their conversations:
"When you greet another, you're recognizing the divinity in them, that is the divinity in all of us."
In other words, we're all in this together. So why is it that we continually draw borders between one another; attack and persecute and kill each other; stand idly by as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Because that's what happens when we lose sight of that divinity that is within each of us. When that happens we're left with individuals looking out solely for their own self interest with a ruthless single-minded pursuit for their own good rather than the good of all.
Yet despite this war-torn, dark and dismal world that we live in today, Moyers answered the he is indeed optimistic. But why?
At this moment he told us to look to the person on our left, then the person to our right. "There exists within each of us, a hero. Today you are surrounded by heroes. When the truth 'love your neighbor' grabs hold of you, and you realize you will sacrifice everything for a complete stranger. That's a true hero." He gave examples of heroic efforts by firefighters and civilians during 9/11. Of those involved in the Tuscon massacre. Volunteers who rushed to aid those effected by Hurricane Katrina. All of these moments, Moyers argued, are grounds for optimism. In the darkest moments of our history, true and innate human goodness shine like a beacons.
Moyers then referenced the scene in Shakespeare's play King Lear, when Lear asks his blind lord Gloucester how he sees the world, to which Gloucester answers, "I see it feelingly." Moyers used that line to tear apart modern politics, all sides, because our current system is more closely resembles a "winner take all" attitude, rather than "for the good of the people". There is a lack of a desire to recognize the "other" as our neighbor, someone whom we should love and care for. This present system will not work much longer, because we need to honor our responsibility to each other and the greater good; we need to remember to love our neighbor and recognize in each other the divinity and hero within us all.
Moyers ended his talk by reiterating that his optimism for our future is justified, but warned: "Don't put your faith in princes and parties...put your faith in yourself, in your hero within, as well as with people who harbor kindred spirits." I couldn't agree more.
This past May 2010, Moyers broadcasted his last episode of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, and his special guest was writer Barry Lopez. For a truly beautiful and hopeful outlook on the world and all humanity, watch this episode. I promise it will be a rewarding 45-minute investment of your time.
Matt and I watched it last night over dinner, and I felt that Lopez brought home the point that Moyers was making in his talk the day before:

Every-- I think every person-- you know, you can go out here on the streets of New York, and walk down the street, pick anybody out of the crowd, and they'll tell you a story that'll break your heart. Anybody. It- this happens to all of us. Every single person, somewhere in their life, is driven to a point of despair, where they just want to quit. And they don't quit.

And why don't they quit? I think they don't quit because there is a capacity for, a desire for reciprocated love that brings you back to life. It-- you know, there is no complete love when you love somebody. It has to be reciprocated. What you're after is this antiphony. This calling back and forth. "I love you." "I love you." "I love you." That's what-- the possibility of that brings you back to life.

"I love my children, therefore, I will get up off my knees when the whole thing looks like it's going to cave in here." And, you know, I think that the capacity that people have to recover the sense of what they mean and to say what they mean by the way they live is-- that's why I have faith in humanity.

I believe it. I believe that there does exist a divinity and hero within each one of us, I believe we all have the capacity to see the world "feelingly", I believe in love and goodness and hope; I believe in all these things and therefore I too have faith in the possibility of a better tomorrow. So let's not forget what Joseph Campbell pointed out when he described the importance of myths: through it all I believe it's imperative that we share our stories, our life experiences, our myths with each other, because that is what it means to truly be alive.

Silent Night

2010-12-26T02:53:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe yet another Christmas has come and gone again...all the excitement leading up to this time spent with family and loved ones, people going out of their way to show kindness and compassion to strangers and acquaintances alike, the giving and receiving of gifts, the...everything! I love everything about the holidays and only wish that this spirit could be carried out in the hearts of all throughout the rest of the year. And as the year now races to a close in these next few days, what better time to pause to reflect.
Last night after an amazing Christmas Eve dinner, my whole family piled into the car and headed to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church to meet up with my Nana and uncle for a midnight service. The service was beautiful, but it was the last song that really moved me, and always does for that matter. As the first few chords of "Silent Night" began to play, the lights dimmed and the choir moved from the front of the church to stand around the congregation, each holding a candle.

Silent Night. Holy Night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon virgin mother and child

holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in Heavenly peace...sleep in Heavenly peace

The simplicity of the song and the message is what really moves me. Originally a poem written in 1816 by an Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr, when his friend decided to put the poem to music the organ at their church in their tiny Alpine village was broken, so he created the simple tune to be performed with only a guitar and voices. Ever since, "Silent Night" has remained one of the most popular Christmas songs, and as each of our voices came together in the church that night, a beautiful thing happened. Hands were joined, arms were brought around a neighbor's shoulders, and the entire church-choir and all-began to sway together as the song continued. I joined hands with my brother and dad and sang:

Silent Night. Holy Night

Shepherds quake at the sight

Glory streams from Heaven above

Heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah

Christ the savior is born...Christ the savior is born

It may sound cheesy to those reading, but had you been there, there was magic shared. That's truly what I love about the holidays: people taking time to look out and be there for one another, to reach out to those in need, to smile and laugh more. Regardless of what holiday you choose to celebrate, there's no denying the palpable joy in the air as people come together. That's the magic that occurred as we sang together, swaying in the soft candlelight; we moved and sang as one.

When I got home last night, I began thinking more about this togetherness, and what I realized is that it's just as the song says, "silent night, holy night". When you put the chaos and commotion aside, what is really important is what happens in the silence in between; what happens when you become silent and just listen. That's when the magic can be heard.

Earlier this year I came across a fellow writer's blog, A Year of Giving. The writer, Reed Sandridge, lost his job and decided for the next year, he was going to give $10 each day to one person and then listen to their stories. It's a simple gesture really, but it's amazing how rewarding it can be to both giver and receiver. Only recently did Reed come full circle, at which point he held a party and invited all the recipients over the past year to come together and celebrate a Year Of Giving-everyone from the homeless to businessmen to students and travelers-they all came together to celebrate. Isn't that what it's all about? Why not carry this beautiful spirit of love and cheer into the rest of the year?

Silent night. Holy night.

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from thy holy face

with the dawn of redeeming grace

Jesus Lord at thy birth...Jesus Lord at thy birth

And it's all there in that moment, everything that's important. As we come to the end of each year, we're given a new chance at redemption, the opportunity to start fresh. The dawn of a new year. We're given the chance to decide whether we want to look back or look forward, or maybe we should be looking right here, right now. All around me there are these moments, those of gestures and love and giving, of the silence in between. It's always been there, the togetherness, although sometimes more obscured than not by selfishness, greed, darkness.

As I write this now, I realize that if I could make one wish, one prayer for the world, it would be that we each take a moment to revel in the silence. In the church that night as the song came to an end and the last note lingered in the air, all the people remained connected-hands clasped, arms still around each other's shoulders. We want and need that sense of togetherness and love, and when it does happen it's a beautiful thing indeed. I believe that in each of those moments there is a light, and it's a light that, if we each chose to share it, could engulf the entire world.

I'm a mommy!

2010-09-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

That's right, we decided to adopt! Our beautiful baby is only 16-pounds, with crazy cream fur, floppy brown ears, and a quirky personality. This lovely little girl is named Ginger, and she's the newest addition to our ranch home!

Let me just say that I have wanted a dog of my own for a very long time. So much so that I have petfinder.com saved in my bookmarked websites so I can check to see if there are any little four-legged friends who need me to give them a good home (I can't help myself!) But so far I've held off on owning any pets because I travel quite a bit for work, and with Matt in school our schedules don't equate to us making very good pet owners. But that didn't stop me from searching...

Then one day a few weeks ago, Matt came home from work (he works as a vet tech at CARE animal hospital in Santa Barbara) and told me about this little dog he'd treated at work that day. He said that he first met her the week before when he was working the overnight shift...she had been brought in for surgery to mend the broken bones in her right front leg. He tended to her and she instantly bonded with him. Although he noticed she had been brought in by a representative from an animal shelter, he decided not to ask about her living situation.

A week after that, Matt happened to be on call again when Ginger was brought back in to have her stitches removed from her surgery wounds. This time, Matt decided to ask the representative about Ginger's story.

This piece on the Ventura news tells her story and shows Ginger in action (or lack thereof because of her leg...)

Basically, Ginger had been owned by a homeless gentleman living in Ventura, who had found her as a puppy in Arizona. They eventually made their way to California and had been out for a bike ride one day when a car swerved and almost hit the man, who in turn swerved to avoid the car. In the commotion Ginger's leg was caught in the bicycle spokes and broke. The man didn't have the money to pay for the surgery necessary to take care of her leg, and a representative from C.A.R.L (Canine Adoption Rescue League) in Ventura, saw the man at farmer's market asking for money to pay for the surgery for Ginger's leg. The woman told the gentleman that she could get Ginger's surgery taken care of, but he would have to sign her over to the shelter; which he did.

The woman told Matt that Ginger's current foster family was no longer able to house her, meaning she'd have to go back to staying at the shelter, but with her leg in its current state of healing, it would be best if she could remain in a foster home. Matt offered to have us be her foster parents, then came home and told me.

I was ecstatic! Normally Matt never tells me about any of the shelter animals he tends to, because he knows I would offer to adopt all of them; so I knew this one had to be something special.

Two weeks ago, my parents were in Santa Barbara helping my younger brother Ryan move into his new hose in Isla Vista for his senior year at UCSB. So after all the moving was finished, Matt, my parents and I drove down to Ventura to pick up Ginger at C.A.R.L, and it was adorable to see Ginger's excited grandparents (aka my parents) help purchase her first beg, collar, food and water bowls and squeaky toy!

Technically Matt and I are still her foster parents, but we'll be finalizing the paperwork this week to become her official owners!

Over these past two weeks, Ginger's presence has magnified my happiness ten-fold. Her whole body wiggles and she practically dances when Matt or I come home from work. She happily accompanies me to work at the tasting room, and instantly greets each customer who walks through our doors. And at night she sleeps in her bed on the floor next to ours, but somehow each morning she manages to sneak up onto our bed and cuddle between us. Needless to say we're quite the happy parents!

So enough blabber...here are some more pictures. I promise there will be many more!

Ginger's first day at Transition Ranch...in the days to come she met and befriended all the horses, their owners, the ponies, the bunnies, the ranch cats and dogs, and even our newly acquired chickens!

Hard at work: Ginger and her buddy Lily (my co-worker Meme's dog) take a break from greeting customers at Carina Cellars tasting room. I love how they've switched beds

Such a daddy's girl :)

One happy family!

I'm still here...and in need of YOUR HELP!

2010-09-01T00:34:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and faithful readers of this blog! I'm sorry I've allowed so much time to lapse between posts, but I promise I have some great blogs coming up regarding my adventures from these past two months.

But before I get to all that, I need your help. I've entered a writing contest at trazzler.com, and I'm competing for a contract to write more travel pieces, as well as 15 nights at any Fairmont Hotel locations! All I need you to do is VOTE!
Here's what you do: click on this link: http://www.trazzler.com/trips/209-state-street-in-santa-barbara-ca
Click the big green button that says Save, and once you create a trazzler account (this is painless, I promise), that will show as a vote for me!
You can only vote once, so if you can forward this link to your friends and have them vote for me that would be great!

Thank you again for all your continued support, and as a sneak peak into what's to come, here are some of the stories you can look forward to reading:
-being a counselor for children with cancer at Camp Okizu
-a look at the pursuit of pleasure
-Eat, Pray, Love...a Review
-Transition Ranch: Santa Barbara's Newest Historical Site
-adventuring with Matt in Portland, Oregon

Total ECLIPSE of the Heart

2010-06-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for the title of this post, but I couldn't help it...for some reason I could not get the Bonnie Taylor song out of my head as I was writing this, and it was too cheesy to pass up. Yet I digress...

Now let me first admit that when the Twilight series first came out, I wanted nothing to do with it. I thought the whole series sounded completely cheesy (like my blog title), and several friends whose literary taste I trust greatly had quickly sworn of all things related to Twilight and Stephanie Meier; and so I did too.

But time passed, and they began to make movies about these books, which had by this time become a global phenomenon. It seemed that almost everyone around me fallen under the Twilight spell, and when I found out that some of my guy friends had also read (and liked!) the series, I knew I had to read them myself to see what all this fuss was about. And so I did.

My initial impression: what is all the fuss about? I didn't love them the way everyone else did...I actually found myself wishing the narrator would follow one of the more interesting characters (like Jacob or any member of the Cullen family), because I found Bella to be insufferably melodramatic and quite annoying in her whiny persistence to become a vampire. I also found Meier's writing to be average, and some of her passages to be a bit long-winded.

HOWEVER...

I read through the entire series in less than a week and did find that I enjoyed myself despite the aforementioned complaints. Regardless of my dislike for Bella, I found Jacob and Edward to be interesting points of tension and enjoyed the vampire/werewolf history of hating each other, only to have them eventually join forces for some epic battle scenes.

I'll also admit that I was at the midnight release of Eclipse earlier this week, and was just as excited as the hundreds of other fans (note: I was also at the midnight release of New Moon). What can I say? I love being amongst the throngs of excited fans, hearing their collective "oohs" and "ahs" when a half naked werewolf or sultry, sullen Edward comes on screen (let's be honest, those werewolves' bronze bodies trump the pale vampires' any day!)

"How did I get to this point?", you might ask; from wanting nothing to do with the series to staying up til all hours of the night to watch the movie premier? It actually took a little help from my friend and Joseph Campbell, to help me understand what all the fuss might in fact be about.

After reading all the books I had a conversation with one of my girlfriends about my dislike for Bella and how I found myself unable to relate to her character.

"How can you not like Bella and Edward together?" my friend asked, incredulously.
"I think what they're experiencing is more of an unhealthy obsession with each other," I answered, simply.
"But haven't you ever been in love?"
"Of course! I'm in love right now, with Matt." Silly question, I thought.
"Then how is it that you don't understand the love they share? The earth-shattering, soul-changing love that so consumes you that your heart feels physical pain when the other is away?"
"I never saw it that way. They're just an angsty teenage couple, except one happens to be a vampire that sparkles."
She rolled her eyes at me. "Then look deeper."

So I did. This conversation took place a while ago, before the first movie came out, and at the time I was reading Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth". This book is a transcript of Bill Moyer's conversation with Campbell about mythology and its, well, power. In one section they discuss love and relationships, and I found his thoughts to be especially revelatory to the power behind Edward and Bella's relationship in Twilight.

Let's start with Edward. What is it about this vampire that has millions of girls swooning? Campbell says: "what we call monsters can be experienced as sublime. They represent powers too vast for the normal forms of life to contain them. An immense expanse of space is sublime.” It's true that vampires especially, have held a certain (sex) appeal over time. Even Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is a sensually charged story. It's no different in Twilight, with Edward's superhuman speed, strength and everlasting life enabling him to become an embodiment of the sublime; his existence is frightening to the point of spellbinding, and if the books' popularity is at all indicative, Bella is not the only one who is drawn to him.

Campbell goes on to discuss our attraction to the monster, this "other", in saying that "when the center of the heart is touched, and a sense of compassion awakened with another person or creature, and you realize that you and that other are in some sense creatures of one life in being, a whole new stage of life in the spirit opens out.” When Bella and Edward first meet in "Twilight", their attraction to each other is something completely out of their control; as my friend put it, they experienced an earth-shattering, soul-changing love for the "other". From that moment on they are one, even when Edward leaves in "New Moon", Bella is so connected to him that she is in physical agony in his absence, and throughout all of "Eclipse" they are practically glued at the hip after his return.

This was the point when I originally felt Bella was being her most over-dramatic, but when I put myself in her place, I realized that I too would be in agony if Matt were to suddenly leave my life. Suddenly Bella's plight no longer seemed juvenile, but very real and very painful. “The wound is the wound of my passion and the agony of my love for this creature. The only one who can heal me is the one who delivered the blow," said Campbell.

After viewing the Twilight series through Campbell's mythological lens, I'll admit that that was the moment I became a fan. Sure there are still some cheesy points, but at the center of it all is a love story, and great love such as this often comes at great cost. "Love is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. The stronger the love, the more the pain. But love bears all things; love itself is a pain, you might say-the pain of being truly alive,” said Campbell.

I understand the irony of this quote in light of the fact that one of our two lovers is the undead, however I do feel that the same principle applies. This "painful love" is worth seeking, and I believe that Meier has tapped into our desires for that same love in our own lives. This is why there are millions of Twi-hard fans all over the world, excitedly sharing in that powerful, life-giving love that makes us feel whole.

On Seeking...and Finding

2010-06-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

As a child, one of my favorite games to play was hide and seek. I loved the thrill of being the seeker-of having that keen eye and searching out my hidden comrades, and when I finally did find them, laughing excitedly at my discovery. But I also loved being the hidden one-finding a spot where I could still see the seeker, and being able to keep my eye on them without them noticing.

It hit me this weekend that whether we realize it or not, as adults we never stray too far from such childish games. Even as adults we are thrilled at being sought out-of being found-whether it be in a relationship, or by a friend or family member. We like to be sought, and in that same respect, we enjoy doing the seeking-of finding that special someone in the world who makes us feel more complete than we ever imagined possible. Perhaps as we grow older, we don't shirk childish games as much as we think we do.

On Saturday, I witnessed two very important ceremonies: Matt's graduation from UCSB, and my college roommate Melanie's marriage to her lifelong sweetheart Tim. Two rites of passage that involved walking down an aisle and into a new stage in life; three searching souls who found what they were looking for.

Matt spent the last nine years, and countless hours working and studying to achieve his dream of attaining a Bachelors of Science in Biology from UCSB-making him the first person in his entire family to earn a college degree. His entire family came into town to celebrate this momentous occasion, and they even surprised Matt by picking him up at school in a limo after his last final! At his graduation ceremony, there were about 30 people who came out to show their support-friends and family from near and far; they were all there for him. And as the ceremony went on and the students walked down the aisle and into their seats, 30 pairs of eyes eagerly scanned the crowd trying to find Matt; hoping to seek him out of the hundreds of other black-gowned graduates.

And when they did find him, the pride in their eyes and the joy in their smiles was so strong that in those brief glances, many tears of happiness were shed, and great cheers went up when he finally made his way across the stage. I felt so honored to be able to share in the love and happiness of this moment, for both Matt as well as his family. After all those years of seeking his dream, with his family and friends watching and encouraging him in his pursuit, Matt finally found his dream fulfilled.

After the ceremony, Kelley and I found Matt and many more tears and hugs and kisses and smiles were shared. But the time was short, because we had to get down to San Diego for another ceremony: Melanie and Tim's wedding!

Melanie was my roommate in college for three years, and although we haven't lived in the same city since we graduated in 2006, we've remained close. Melanie met her (now husband!) Tim during their freshman year of high school. Melanie asked Tim to the homecoming dance because she thought he was cute, and Tim said he would have to let her know! But that was the moment that sparked it all, and over the past ten years their relationship has grown and flourished, despite attending different schools in cities far from each other for college, and Tim's near death experience-they made it through it all and only continue to grow stronger.

So that night at the Botanical Gardens in San Diego, a small group of friends and family watched as Mel and Tim walked down the aisle, said their vows, and were forever bonded together in holy matrimony. It was so beautiful to witness this marriage because to me it represents a true testament of love-of finding that person to spend the rest of your life with in "sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, til dead do them apart". They have already been through more in their first ten years of dating than most people do in over 30 years of marriage, and their love has sustained them through it all. That's true love-the good, the bad, the messiness of it all. That's what makes it all worth while.

Melanie and Tim saying their vows

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Tim Allen!

I returned to Santa Barbara the next day (that's right, a graduation and a wedding all in the same day!) and threw a party at my house for Matt, Braden and Corie, and all of their family and friends. And as the party was under way I paused for a moment to look out at the crowd who had gathered on my front lawn to celebrate the accomplishments of these three amazing people, and I couldn't help but feel that I too had found something I'm always looking for-moments of great love that are worth coming together to celebrate.

Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

2010-06-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

My article was printed in The Daily Sound today!

oso band members (fom left): Tim Beutler, Phil Taylor, Nick Coventry, Andrew Fedders look forward to releasing their new album Harm Reduction, at their CD release show at SOhO (1221 State St. Santa Barbara) tonight at 9:00pm!

Four talented musicians plus six years of dedication plus one unicycle, equals the band oso. But in this equation the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the x-factor of the crowd and the energy at their performances, is the factor that allows them to transcend to new levels of music.

Individually, they are each great musicians-better than great in fact. Nick Coventry (violin, slide guitar, vocals) comes from a family of musicians, and began playing the piano at age four, then quit and picked up the violin shortly after. Phil Taylor (guitar, vocals) was given a guitar by his step dad at age thirteen, and credits his music with keeping him out of youthful trouble. Tim Beutler (drums, accordion, vocals) began playing drums at age twelve, while Andrew Fedders (bass, vocals) who began by playing piano, then trombone in fourth grade, later traded his guitar for his brother’s bass in high school. The result is years of experience in creating a musical force to be reckoned with, and today they’ve reached a denouement with the release of their fourth album, Harm Reduction.

Harm Reduction showcases the diverse musical style of oso and each of its members. Their music has been described as math rock world music meets gypsy jazz with Eastern European influences, but the best way to understand their music is to experience it at a show.

Their sound seems to reach out to our deeply human need to hear music that moves us; and not just a tapping of toes or a swaying of hips. It reaches much deeper, past titles and genres, to a place of oneness and connection; whether to the band, those in the crowd, or ourselves it matters not. It's a feeling that wells up and as the music is played it is only natural to respond by listening.

The lead singer, Taylor, usually begins each show by riding his unicycle, wildly picking the guitar, and singing streams of lyrics with words that wash over each other in a rush of energy and emotion. As Fedders begins to play the bass and Beutler starts in with the drums, it's a bit like feeling another heartbeat-one that beats in time with the cadence of the music-sporadic yet exhilarating in its momentum.

Once you hear oso live, it is easy to understand the x-factor: the energy and connection between performer and listener. It is a symbiotic relationship that is best felt, rather than described.

“If you don’t see us live at least once or twice, you won’t get it,” said Fedders. “The most consistent thing about this band is the response from people. We’ve been in farmer’s markets in New Mexico or pubs in England and Scotland, all sorts of demographics of people; and it seems like everybody can be touched by it. We seem to have appeal across certain boundaries.”

Whether performing in various venues in Santa Barbara, nationwide or worldwide, the crowd often becomes a mirror that reflects back the energy inherent in the music, creating a synergy that is consistent at all their performances.

“At some point we’re just operating as a vessel for something that’s kind of mystical and unexplainable that takes over,” said Taylor. “It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s those moments where I’ve experienced that feeling, and there is some charge in the room, that it’s really hard to logically grasp what’s happening. Those are the moments I live for. Those are the moments that inspire me to get better, to be able to tap into that more, because it is kind of an elusive feeling.”

That chemistry comes across on Harm Reduction. Recorded at Certain Sparks in Lompoc, it is their best collective effort yet: musically taut and stylistically cohesive, at some points aggressive, while others softer and more contemplative. Yet the energy is consistent throughout.

“I like playing with people who you’ve played with enough that you can trust them completely and you can just transcend the music without thinking about what musically comes next,” said Coventry. “I like the raw, sheer energy of it.”

The release of Harm Reduction also marks the beginning of an extended break for the band. While each member is heading in a different direction, they will continue to develop and hone their music individually, with the intention of coming back together soon. Although the Santa Barbara oso may be done, this is certainly not the end.

“It’s foolish to say that anything’s over with music; it’s not like anything else,” said Coventry. “Our music is still out there, and to a lot of people it will still be growing and its very real.”

To experience oso for yourself, come to the CD release show tonight at 9:00 p.m. at SOhO (1221 State Street). Admission: $10, over 21 only. Call 805-962-7776 or visit www.clubmercy.com. For more information about the band visit www.thebandoso.com.

Let there be Light!

2010-05-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

How often do you look up? And when you do, how often do you really think about you're seeing? Is it a bright blue sky with wispy white clouds, or an arched cathedral ceiling draped in colorful tapestries? What about a swirling mass of multi-colored jellyfish drifting lazily high overhead in a hotel lobby? Don't believe me? Then you have yet to experience the wondrous work of art by Dale Chihuly that is the piece de resistance of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

This is the first place I came into contact with Chihuly. Not only that, but it was on my first trip to Vegas. The Bellagio was the first hotel I set foot in upon arriving on "the strip", and fountains aside, my breath was taken away by the magnificent ceiling in the lobby (above). Over 2,000 colorful pieces of hand-blown glass adorn the ceiling, which I recently found out cost almost $2 million! The effect is worth it-the sheer magnitude of the installation is mesmerizing. Pieces like this are part of "the norm" for Chihuly: since the beginning of his career in the 1960's, his work continues to gain recognition world-wide, from Vegas to Venice, and innumerable place in between.

Chihuly grew up in Washington state, and attended college at the college of Puget Sound and earned a BA in interior design. He followed with a Masters in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin, and in 1968 won a Fulbright Fellowship to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. By the time he graduated his career was off to a great start, and in 1971 he founded the Pilchuck Glass school in Washington, an international school of glass design.

Cruel irony struck only 5 years later. While Chihuly was traveling in England his car was struck head on, causing him to fly through the windshield as shards of glass tore up his face and caused him to lose vision in his left eye. The very substance upon which he was building his career, was in fact the same substance that cost him his vision. He eventually recovered, only to severely dislocate his shoulder while bodysurfing a few years later. This injury compounded with his loss of vision, almost forced him to retire from glassblowing entirely. But not quite.

Chihuly discovered that although he could no longer hold the blow torch, he could still instruct others to create the visions he saw in his head. So he would paint elaborate drawings of his ideas, and working intimately with a team of glass blowers, he instructs them in much the same way that a composer instructs an orchestra; measure by measure, note by note. And slowly the glass takes form.

Chihuly's work is featured in numerous galleries all over the world, with new installations popping up all the time. He has received almost 10 honerary docterates from universities all over the world, and his list of additional awards and accolardes covers over three pages, single spaced. But the press he's received is probably the least impressive part of his oeuvre: it's his sculptures that truly shine.

Experiencing one of Chihuly's glass pieces is a truly amazing experience. I love the constant movement of Chihuly's artwork, especially his lighting. The glass gives the illusion of floating, of twisting and twining throughout itself, giving life to an otherwise static fixture. His work has a dream-like quality to it, an explosion of surrealistic thoughts and colors and images; poetry in 3D.

I find Chihuly and his work to be fascinating a several levels. On a very basic level is work is breathtaking, and has a way of shifting and changing upon each viewing, while never actually moving an inch. But on another level I'm fascinated by Chihuly's dedication to his craft. His physical limitations could very well have caused him to chose another career, but instead he persisted, and merely approached his work in a different way. He said in an interview that: "Once I stepped back, I liked the view" and pointed out that it allowed him to see the work from more perspectives and enabled him to anticipate problems faster. He also described his role as "more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor."

This morning I decided to change the quote that is part of my signature for my work emails, and I found it to perfectly match my sentiments toward Chihuly and his career. It is a quote by Helen Keller, the queen of tenacity and persistance in her dreams: "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do." Preach on, sister. Preach on.

So why do so many of us hold back when it comes to our dreams? Why do we let subtle pits in the road stop us from continuing onward? Dreams can be fragile and frail things, as easily broken as one of Chihuly's glass sculptures would be when dropped. But dreams can also be filled with strength, taking the shape of infinite glass jellyfish floating above thousands of passersby; they are both strong and fragile. I believe that dreams are all the more beautiful because they are both.

The Mad Hatter

2010-05-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I have an obsession with hats. I always have, and undoubtedly always will. Ever since I was a little girl and tried to start a summer fashion revolution by turning a plastic bucket upside down and placing it atop my head...I was hooked.

Over the years my taste for head-ware has given way to a slightly more refined palate, allowing for my hat collection to flourish considerably. Despite the fact that I'm unable to resist trying on every hat I come across, I'm very picky in my purchases. It's not just any ol' hat that earns the honor of adorning my beautiful crown! My hat collection is eclectic, and some may even consider it eccentric. Which brings me to my most recent purchase...a fantastic red and purple wool hat I found at my new favorite store: a consignment store called Punch in downtown Santa Barbara-a collaborative effort of 13 women displaying their found treasures.

The second I laid eyes on this hat, I knew we were a perfect match. For one, it was unlike most hats you see in most stores, which means you won't see a hat like this atop most heads bobbing down the street. And when I tried it on, I experienced that feeling you get when you put on one of your power outfits-you know those clothes that make you feel like a million dollars everytime you put them on? This hat made me feel like that, and I knew I had to have it. I was thrilled to hear that it was only $15! Sold.

Matt was with me when I made the purchase, and as we walked out of the store I turned to him and asked, "Do you think they'll let me into the Red Hat Society with a hat like this?" He smiled and nodded his head, "Sure, babe, why not?"

That got me thinking...I don't really know anything about the Red Hat Society, except the fact that they wear red hats, and usually are quite a bit older than me. So I decided to look into it, to see if I too could be a part of the Red Hat Society.

Turns out the Red Hat Society is a fairly recent phenomenon. Founded in 1998 by a woman named Sue Ellen Cooper from Fullerton, California, the society began when Cooper gave a friend a red hat on her 55th birthday, and in the card wrote the opening lines from Jenny Joseph's poem "Warning", as an explanation: "when I am an old woman I shall wear purple/ with a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me..." Many more of her friends asked that she give similar gifts on their birthdays, and the phenomenon snowballed from there as an organization for women approaching 50 and beyond. Nowadays there are over 70,000 registered members in over 24,000 chapters in the US and 25 other countries. That makes the Red Hat Society the largest women's social group in the world!

The goal of this society is to bond with other women as you travel through life. They even have official stores where you can purchase red hats and other society paraphernalia!

And get this: In 1996 "Hats! The Musical" made its debut, telling the story of how the Red Hat Society started, and how it came to be what it is today. Needless to say this musical is now on my list of must-sees.

At first I was a little disappointed that I'm only half way there to being eligible as a member of this awesome society of red-hat-and-purple-clothes-wearing women, but then I learned that they have an additional society for women under 50, and they wear pink hats with lavender attire. These color options are not nearly as appealing, but then I figured that since the primary purpose of the Red Hat Society is to promote "fun, friendship, freedom and fulfillment", I'll be able to fenagle my rights to wear my red and purple hat.

I'm seriously thinking about looking into joining my local Santa Barbara chapter...honestly any club that promotes wearing eccentric hats and living life to the fullest is a club I want to be a part of! And for your enjoyment I've posted "Warning", the poem that started it all, in its entirety.

WARNING by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

So I figured...why not start now?!

Sherlock's Last Case

2010-05-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

On Friday night Matt and I ventured out to the Circle Bar B Ranch and attended their dinner/show "Sherlock's Last Case". We drove up the coast along the 101 freeway, paralleling the ocean, and watched the waves sparkle in the afternoon sun. When we reached Refugio Beach, instead of turning left we turned right, and headed up a winding, pocked stretch of road into the mountains. We passed several orchards and ranches until we reached the sign with cowboy silhouettes indicating that we'd reached the Circle Bar B. Rows of stables and corrals lined the road as we drove in to park, most occupied by horses gobbling mouthfuls of oats for dinner.

Built in 1939, visiting the Circle Bar B Ranch is like taking a step backward in time-almost 100 years worth of steps backward, to a time when those 60 acres were part of the original Ortega-Stokes 1843 Mexican Land Grant. The ranch was built to be a retreat, and the rooms originally went for $3.50/night! Nowadays it's a bit pricier than that, but if you're looking for a rustic retreat nestled away from civilization, the Circle Bar B is a perfect getaway.

As we wandered through the main lodge and its surrounding rooms, we heard a "How y'all doing" come from behind us. Turning we saw a young man, standing in the doorway of the kitchen with an apron on, grinning at us.

"Did y'all go for a ride this afternoon?" he asked. I looked down at my skirt and heels and shook my head. The man smiled and continued on anyway. Josh, as we quickly learned, was from Ohio and had moved out to the ranch to work as a cowboy only a few weeks prior. He also works in the kitchen on theatre nights, helping prep and serve the tri tip, chicken and chili. He told us about how he loves to ride his horse Elvis everywhere-as a trail guide, on his commute to and from home, and how he wished he could ride him into town, but that he was afraid some animal rights activists might yell at him. We also learned that he loves hamburgers, cola and granola bars (the horse that is, although I'm sure Josh loves all those things as well!)

Me with the burger-loving Elvis

We continued to wander the grounds, and eventually headed into the high-ceilinged lodge- a room decorated with mounted deer heads and other cowboy paraphernalia. To keep with the cowboy theme we bought a bottle of 2008 Gunsmoke Red from Masked Rider Winery in Sonoma- a delightful, medium bodied blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petite Sirah.

We enjoyed our dinner of chicken, chili, tri tip, garlic bread and salad outdoors seated along picnic benches under a canopy of majestic oak trees, basking in the last sun rays before it dipped below the mountains.

After dinner we followed a dusty path down to a barn-the theatre. When they first started doing these shows over 40 years ago, the audience sat on bales of hay. However I'm happy the latter installation of plush theatre seats that are quite a bit more comfortable, and not at all itchy. It was an intimate and cozy setting, with room for about 50 viewers. Being that our shows title was "Sherlock's Last Case", the front half of the barn was decorated to transport us back to 221B Baker Street in London in the late 1800's.

After everyone was seated, the show began. The cast was delightful and the play had more twists and turns than a California Highway, leaving us wondering what would happen next at the end of every scene. Throughout the show gales of wind rustled the trees and agitated a group of frogs in a nearby creek. The cacophony of nighttime sounds from the world outside offered an interesting juxtaposition to the London sleuthing inside, but the actors did their best to keep the audience within their world, inside the little barn.

When the show ended, we braved the wind and made it back to our car to head back out along the narrow dirt road. The surrounding orchards cast wavy shadows about the land, and the moon glowed high over head. Raccoons, field mice and even a couple foxes darted across our path until eventually we reached the highway and headed back south toward Santa Barbara-leaving behind a rustic retreat that I'm sure will pull me back in another month...when "The Girl in the Freudian Slip" graces that cozy barn stage.

The Tale of the Fig Tree

2010-05-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." ~Hacidic Proverb

During the past few years I've become increasingly interested in local history, so much so that I'm now a docent with both the Goleta and Santa Barbara Historical Societies! (nerdy, I know) I love learning the stories about the people whose names adorn street signs and buildings; I love visiting historic sites and wondering at how life once was "long, long ago". These relics add layers and depth to a city already rich with history, and I've fallen in love with discovering the answers to these questions.

So many visitors to Santa Barbara clamor to visit State Street, the Mission, Courthouse, Zoo, Botanic Gardens, or any number of other obvious tourist attractions. And while those are certainly worth visiting, few are aware of this wonder, let alone its story. It greets all who arrive in Santa Barbara by train on a daily basis and although it is the largest of its kind in the country, it is surprisingly unnoticed by most. This wonder is the Moreton Bay Fig Tree at the entrance to the train station on Montecito Street, and its story rivals that of Jack and his famous Beanstalk.

"The Fig Tree", as it's called by locals, had quite the journey to get to its home in downtown Santa Barbara. Hailing from Moreton Bay, Australia, the seedling made its journey from the land down under by being carried in a tin can by a sailor in 1876. Once the sailor reached Santa Barbara's sunny shores, he gave the seedling to a local girl who planted it at 201 State Street. At this point both the sailor and the girl disappear from our story: the sailor eventually sailed away, and a year later the girl moved away. in 1877 her friend Adeline Crabb and her mother Hannah transplanted the tree to the park where it resides today. At the time it was said to have been as "high as a walking stick".

But over the years the tree grew, and quickly. Now, over 134 years later the fig towers at 80 feet tall, with branches that span over 167 feet. It is estimated that at high noon, the Fig Tree would provide about 21,000 square feet of shade - enough to cover 16,000 people! Over the years it has drawn some attention from tourists, but has mostly served as a place for the homeless to sleep. It is actually rumored that one homeless man built a mailbox and used 100 W. Montecito as his mailing address, because he was interested in voting and needed to prove his residence.

These are only a few of the stories that surround this great Fig Tree.

The life of the Fig Tree amazes me - it grew from a scrappy seedling in a tin can, into the largest fig tree in the US. Next time you visit Santa Barbara, you may want to pay a visit to this great tree - every time I walk beneath its great branches, I secretly wish I could read its thoughts, and be able to learn about all that it has seen during its long life. I can't help but think of Shel Shilverstein's "The Giving Tree". To me, the Fig Tree is living proof that even the smallest of dreams can oftentimes grow into something even greater than its dreamer ever intended.

I found this really cool website while trying to find out more information about the history of the Fig Tree. Check this out to see other amazing trees around the world!

Hip Hop Kids

2010-04-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

"You gotta stop actin' figurative and start actin' literal!"

Pure Imagination?

2010-04-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

"Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination

Take a look and you'll see into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin traveling in a world of my creation

What we'll see will defy explanation"

~"Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

A couple weeks ago I was having dinner with a friend and I told him about an audio book I was listening to, a biography of C. S. Lewis.
"Wasn't that guy on a lot of drugs?" he asked.
"No, I think you're thinking of Lewis Carroll, the guy who wrote 'Alice in Wonderland'. C. S. Lewis wrote 'The Chronicles of Narnia'." I pointed out.
"Right, well both of them must have been on drugs. There's no way they could have imagined those stories without drugs. There's just no way."

I pointed out that neither of these men were under any sort of influence when they conceived of these stories-it was pure imagination. It didn't matter to my friend that I told him the real stories behind these men and the creation of their stories; he refused to believe that they could have done it without some sort of psychedelic aid. This baffled and bothered me, and I later went to my journal to try to write out why this was so. Why is it that people believe that creative genius' like that of Carroll and Lewis could only create masterpieces like "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" with the aid of drugs?

Perhaps some people feel that the only way they can 'tap into' or 'release' their creative side is by taking drugs. Otherwise their own mind's own rationality limits their creative impulses. Perhaps the left side of their brain is holding the right side captive, and drugs are the only way they know how to release it. Being a very right-brained person myself, I'll admit that I don't know how a person whose life is dominated by the left side of their brain might think, but I'll at least recognize that our ways of viewing the world will offer different perspectives. While I see magic and adventure, my friend sees rational explanations and linear logic. While different, both perceptions are completely acceptable. Why is it then, that a world viewed through lenses of creativity and whimsy, isn't viewed as achievable with only the power of one's imagination?

For those of you who aren't familiar with how the timeless children's classics of "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" came about, I offer you the non-drug-enhanced truth:

Lewis Carroll (born Charles Lutwidge Dawson)

In college I took a children's literature class and came to read "Lewis Carroll in Wonderland: The Life and Times of Alice and Her Creator" by Stephanie Lovett Stoffel. Stoffel's book tells the story of Carroll's life, and how the story of "Alice in Wonderland" was created. It all started when Henry George Liddell was hired as dean at Christ Church College and Cathedral in 1855, the same year that Carroll began his career as a mathematics professor there. Carroll was fascinated by photography and on April 25, 1856 he was roaming the grounds taking pictures when he met the wife and three daughters of the dean. The youngest daughter, Alice Pleasance Liddell, would later be immortalized as Alice in Wonderland.

Carroll, himself a bachelor, came to spend much of his free time with Liddell's wife and children. He loved children, and especially enjoyed playing word games, riddles and puzzles with them, as well as photographing them. Having no children of his own, Carroll cherished these times, and he came to form a strong bond with Alice. One of his favorite pastimes was to rent a boat and take the family out on a float down the Thames, then picnic at Nuneham estate, about 5 miles down river from Oxford.

On a beautiful sunny day in June 1862, Carroll had arranged to take the Liddell family on one of these outings. While paddling to their picnic destination Alice demanded that Carroll to tell one of his marvelous stories, and so he began to tell of Alice and her journey down the rabbit hole. This was only one of many tales that Carroll created during these outings, but Alice enjoyed this one so much that she asked him to write it down for her when they returned. And so he did, and thus we have "Alice in Wonderland".

C. S. Lewis (born Clive Staples Lewis, but went by Jack Lewis to friends and family)

Today I finished listening to the audio book, "The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis" by Alan Jacobs, a brilliant and insightful look into Lewis' life and work. A significant amount of attention in this biography is paid to the creation of "The Chronicles of Narnia". As chair of Medieval literature and fellow at Magdalene College at Cambridge, Lewis spent much of his professional life publishing papers on this subject. As a newly converted Christian later in his life, much of his personal life was spent on writing works such as "Surprised by Joy", "The Screwtape Letters" and "Mere Christianity".

Like Carroll, Lewis was a bachelor (until his 60's when he married Joy Gresham) and never had any children of his own. As a child Lewis loved to read, and especially loved the animal stories of Beatrix Potter. He and his older brother Warnie also created the imaginary world of Boxen, inhabited and run by animals. Carroll was also a great friend of J. R. R. Tolkein's, and in their writing both men agreed that they enjoyed writing books that they themselves would want to read.

And so later in life, in between 1949 and 1953 Lewis wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia". Despite his conversion to Christianity, Lewis wrote in one of his journals that "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" came to him first in a series of images: a faun carrying a package; a white witch on a sledge; a wardrobe in an empty room. From these images Lewis wrote the type of children's book that he himself would have enjoyed reading as a child. Some people believe that Lewis wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia" as a way to proselytize children to Christianity, with Aslan the Christ-figure at its center. But in fact, the image of Aslan did not come to him until he was half-way done with the first book. And he noted that once the lion entered the picture, the rest of the story fell easily into place. Although the story wasn't originally intended to be a religious allegory, Lewis allowed the images he saw, and the characters that sprang to life from those images, to tell their own story.

In looking at these men and their stories, I believe that in a way, the waking and uninhibited mind is as powerful a drug the world has ever known. It's a fact that we only use a very small portion of our minds as it is. There lies so much untapped potential within each of us, that we could spend the rest of our lives lost in the depths of our own minds and imagination, and never run out of things to surprise and astonish us. The imagination is a wild and often unpredictable thing filled with uncharted territory. It is there within each of us, waiting to be explored.

A Year of Altruistic Giving

2010-04-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

"Hands Open" by Amrit

I love NPR. Not only because I think they have amazing programming, but because of the quality of their stories. On no other station have I been exposed to such a vast array of stories with such high quality reporting; stories of war and conflict and government, but also stories of happiness and hope and love. I have to admit that my favorite ones would probably be considered the "smaller" stories, but to me they're the ones that carry the greatest meaning. Today the story that captured my heart was about a 36-year old man named Reed.

Reed lost his non-profit job near the end of last year and found himself unemployed for the first time in his life. But unlike many others in his position, he decided that beginning on December 15, he was going to give $10 a day to one randomly selected person, then tell their stories on his blog. After listening to his story I immediately went to check out his blog, and I think he summed up the goal of his project perfectly:

"My goal is not to change the lives of those with whom I come in contact. Let’s face it, $10 dollars is not going to change someone’s life in and of itself. I do believe, however, that the act of giving will hopefully inspire others to pursue the ideals that the French philosopher Auguste Comte envisioned when he coined the term “altruism.” Whether that comes in the form of someone who reads this blog and wants to embark on their own Year of Giving or someone who uses the $10 to help someone else out, the specific results are less important than the overall good that we can achieve together." ~Reed

The act of giving should never be about one's self-it should be about the other, the receiver. And it's not about what you give either. There's a section on Reed's blog for favorite quotes, and there's room for people to add their own favorites to the mix. One woman wrote in with an Arab quote:

"If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart."

How simple. How beautiful. How so very easy to do. And yet so few of us take the time to give.

On my way home I stopped at a gas station in downtown LA, and a gentleman came up to me and asked if he could wash my windows in exchange for even the smallest amount of change. He needed bus fare to get down to the welfare office. I felt bad because I only had a handful of change, maybe $0.64 total, and my car is admittedly filthy-not exactly an equal trade. But the man, his name is Titus, said that any little bit helps. So we chatted as Titus washed my windows and I waited for my tank to fill. Before parting I gave him a Starbucks gift card along with my change. It wasn't much, but after all everyone needs a little pick-me-upper from time to time, right? We shook hands and went on our separate ways. Would I have given Titus the money even if I'd never heard the story of Reed's "Year of Giving"? Probably. But it never hurts to be reminded of how simple an act the act of giving really is, and how great a ripple it creates through the hearts of both giver and receiver.

Check out The Year of Giving blog

Lost in Madeline L'Engle

2010-04-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

"Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth." ~Madeline L'Engle

I just spent the entire day reading, and I honestly can't remember the last time I've allowed myself such a luxury. It was lovely really, to wake up on my own, without an alarm sending blaring alerts to awaken my peacefully slumbering self. And when I did finally awake (around 8am...yes that's sleeping in for me!) I immediately began to read Madeline L'Engle's book "Camilla".

Now I should preface this post with a note that I recently had the pleasure to meet my brother Kevan's new girlfriend Lindsey, and I knew we would get along famously when she suggested a book swap. I gave her some Neil Gaiman, T. C. Boyle and Laurie King; she in turn gave me three Madeline L'Engle books. Prior to today the only one of her books I've had the pleasure to read was "A Wrinkle in Time", the first of five books in her "Time" series. I loved it, but had failed to make a further foray into her work. Until today.

Today began with "Camilla", a beautiful story about a young girl's discovery of self, and in so doing learns the joys and pains of love, and that her parents are not gods but merely people themselves. I found myself completely caught up in Camilla's self discoveries, feeling that she was speaking directly to the 14-year old Carolyn I once was. Yet it also spoke to present-day Carolyn too, and I imagine that if I were to reread this book 10 years from now, it would speak to me still. By the time I was to go give volunteer at the Stow House, I had finished the book and wanted more.

After giving tours at the Stow House for a couple hours I returned home, to find that I still had my quaint ranch home to myself. I thought about cleaning or answering emails or any number of arguably more productive projects I could have started, but I found that all I wanted to do was continue to read; and so I did. The other 2 Madeline L'Engle books Lindsey had given me were part of a series, the Katherine Forester series that is, and "The Small Rain" came first. After reading L'Engle's introduction I learned that this was the first book she ever wrote, and that in between writing this book and its sequal "A Severed Wasp", there passed 37 years and 29 books. And so I found the latter part of my day absorbed in the world of Katherine Forester, a young girl whose parents are both distinguished musicians, and who finds herself caught up in a struggle with her own inner artist after she's sent away to boarding school. The story follows her journey through childhood and the loss of her mother, and consequently her journey to figure out who she is.

In reading these two books back to back I found many easy parallels to draw between the two female protagonists along their journeys to self discovery. But I also found myself still surprised by the tiny subtle differences in their respective experiences, and found both stories moving and captivating. I found them to be in a similar vein as Judy Blume's lovely books "Are you there God, it's me Margaret" or "Blubber", that I had loved as a young girl, and loved even more after recent rereads.

A day lost in the worlds of Madeline L'Engle is a day well spent indeed, and for those of you who have not yet had that pleasure, please be sure to indulge. Although she is best known for her children's literature and young adult fiction, do not be fooled into thinking that your adult self will not be able to draw anything from these stories.

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." ~Madeline L'Engle

Evidence of Angels

2010-03-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

I do love a day with a good, strong theme running through it; weaving itself in and out of my daily happenings like a beautiful spider web. I think every day has a theme (and oftentimes more than one) running through it; it's just a matter of whether we're aware of it or not. Most of us aren't: we go through the quotidian motions in autopilot, oftentimes writing off the tiniest of miracles as mundane. Maybe it's because I've been working on my novel more fastidiously in these past weeks, causing me to see the world around me as an entire network of stories waiting to be told; of themes and characters waiting to be brought to life. A spider weaves its web in the night, nearly invisible to the naked eye, only to be revealed the next morning by tiny beads of dew clinging to each thread; the web is always there, you just have to know how to see it.

These past couple days I've noticed that the theme is loss, and yet as I followed the threads to the get a better view, the web that was revealed was actually surprisingly beautiful and fulfilling. A couple days ago I was reading Jane Yolen's blog and she'd written a touching entry about the 4 year anniversary of her husband's death. That same day I found out from my mom that one of my dad's college roommates lost his battle to cancer. I found myself thinking a lot about my loved ones the next couple days, and how I would deal with that loss; I didn't get far because even the thought was overwhelmingly heavy.

But there was something that Jane Yolen wrote in her blog that stuck with me. She talked about working through the grieving process, and posted one of the many poems she wrote during that period. She posted one titled "Grief is not", and I found the last stanza to be especially poignant:

Grief is not unwelcome here

for it reminds me of how much I've lost,

and how blessed I was

to have so much to lose.

Yesterday afternoon I happened to finish my day near the San Francisco library, so I went in and wrote in my journal for a bit. On my way out I noticed a little cart selling used library books, so I took a moment of course!) to sift through the piles. I ended up choosing to buy 2 children's books (see pictures below)-one of which was a story of a woman who lost her husband and was able to work through the grieving process by reaching out to her guardian angels. Those angels revealed to her that she's not alone in her grief and loss-that many others around her share that same burden. And as the author began to share in her grief with those around her, a miraculous thing happened: the weight on her heart lifted and she realized that the beauty of the whole situation was that she even had her husband to lose, and that she was not alone.

I'm not sure why this particular theme of loss has become so prevalent in my life as of late, but I'll have to agree with Mrs. Yolen that I'm just happy to be aware of how blessed I am to have so much to lose.

Red, White and Snow!

2010-03-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

"If I can do this, I can do anything!"

Me at the top of Bald Mountain at Deer Valley!

It has been an exhausting and absolutely wonderful past few days, and now that I'm home and have had time to reflect, I feel so blessed to have been a part of such an amazing fundraising experience!

I just returned from Park City, Utah, where I poured Carina Cellars wines at Red, White and Snow...one of the biggest fundraisers for the National Ability Center (NAC). Founded in 1985, the NAC enables individuals with physical and cognitive disabilities to develop lifetime skills by providing sports and recreational experiences in a nurturing environment. In their mission statement they boast of promoting "the concept of ability through integration, public awareness, and education," and over the past few days I have come to experience what great work they do first-hand.

Red, White and Snow is a 3-day long fundraiser that brings winemakers from California out to Park City to pour wine at numerous events in order to raise money to fund the various programs they offer. In 3 days I poured at 2 tastings and 2 dinners, and had the privilege to meet a variety of people from all over the country (chefs, vintners, athletes, para-olympians) who came together to make this event possible. And I even learned to ski!

And yet the biggest lesson I learned was this: to feel. I know I'm not alone when I admit that there are times when my mind is going a mile a minute, and is so overloaded that by the end of the day I just crash; mentally exhausted. In learning to ski, I'll admit that the past couple times I've gone, it's been a rather terrifying experience because I wasn't able to control myself; the whole time I kept thinking about how I could fall that might hurt the least amount or how to slow myself down. This time though, my teacher Sally Tauber (president of the NAC and a skiing legend), gave me the simplest piece of advice: allow your body to feel which way the skis want to go, and which way your momentum takes you. It took a few runs to change my mentality from panicked over-analyzation to be solely in the moment, but once I cleared my mind and allowed my entire body and mind to simply feel, I no longer struggled. I did fall several more times, but it was ok because I allowed my mind to realize that it's ok to fall; that's part of the learning.

I know I tend to over-extend myself and try to do too much: to take on too many work projects, to try to accomplish too many personal goals in an unrealistic time period. At times I become so over-loaded that I know I'm not completely present in what I'm doing that very moment. So in life, as in skiing, I've realized that I need to allow myself to stop thinking, to clear my mind, and feel what my next move should be. And after this weekend I know it felt right to be supporting such an amazing organization, and I look forward to allowing my momentum to take me where it will.

Pouring the 2003 Carina Cellars Iconoclast at the library tasting at The St. Regis at Deer Valley

"Wine on the Mountain" tasting event on the terrace at the St. Regis at Deer Valley. Posing with my new wine friends: Rory Lynch of Terra Valentine, Erin Eagan of the NAC, Brandon Webster of Young's Market, and the Schweiger team!

Jenn Atkins of the NAC with my Dad and I at the St. Regis

My amazing parents: Lynda and David, who came out and supported me at all of the events!

Kitschy Kitchen

2010-03-04T00:27:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl, I remember spending hours in the kitchen. Unfortunately I can't say that I was following my mom around and learning how to cook (although I certainly consumed as much cookie dough and brownie batter as was allowed). I recall discovering the wonders of the kitchen from a different angle: pots and pans became drums and wooden spoons my drumsticks. Tuperware became the building blocks for plastic cities, and toothpicks stuck in the carpet became villages (note to younger self: do not leave toothpick villages on the stairs unattended). Not entirely unusual, but when the melon baller became a flute, I'm sure that's when my parents began to wonder.

While I can't say that this early love of kitchen utensils led to a career as a chef later in life, I will admit that I still love playing with kitchen utensils. And with companies like Williams Sonoma, Pylones, Zak!Designs, and The Greens... I'm happy to say that I'm not alone.

For those of you who may (or may not) share my passion for playing in the kitchen, here are a few of the companies I've discovered over the years, whose goals are to make mealtime more fun.

The first in my collection, this Happy Spoon is created by Zak!designs. The cool thing about this company is that they've been creating clever cookware since 1976, and are dedicated to going Green and community service.

This Williams Sonoma spatula was given to me by my parents for Christmas last year. I've always loved this company, and their products last forever! They carry mostly conventional-looking products, but occasionally they create fun items such as this.

I discovered The Greens Boston Warehouse at a kiosk in a mall in New York a couple months ago. These products are not only clever named, they are also made of recycled plastic and wood, and can be recycled themselves when you're done with them! Allow me to introduce you to Mayor Corey Green Apple Corer.

I also discovered this company during my recent trip to New York, in a store in Soho. Pylones began in France in 1985, and their only stores in the US are in New York...however hours can be passed browsing their creations online! It took me a while to decide which item to take home, and eventually I chose the Nonna Cheesegrater, and this squid whisk (which Matt and I decided to rename a squidisk).

The Fringe Benefits of Failure

2010-03-04T00:25:00.000-08:00

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

One of my favorite writers, J. K. Rowling, gave the above commencement speech at Harvard, and I felt called to post it here because it is so beautiful and poignant and speaks about a topic that all of us can learn from: failure. Rowling is an inspiration to me in both her work as a writer, and in her tenacity to for living life and following her dreams at all costs. When I studied abroad in Scotland during the summer of 2005 I visited the Elephant Cafe in Edinburgh, where Rowling wrote the first parts of Harry Potter on napkins...when Harry Potter was still just a dream. And as I sat sipping my tea in that cafe, I remember thinking how wonderfully odd it would be to one day sit in a similar cafe and look back at my writing career with the same awe and sense of accomplishment; to know that I never gave up my dream.

Of course now Harry Potter is beloved in homes all over the world, but to get to that point, Rowling walked a long, hard road fraught with failure. In listening to this speech, it was those points that allowed her to learn the most about herself; where she discovered her ability to persevere. I find it utterly fascinating and heartening to be reminded that even my writing heroes have had their off-days, but their passion for the craft drove them through it.

Currently one of my favorite quotes is something that Henry David Thoreau said: "I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time." A helpful reminder that the only person whose happiness you have complete control over is your own. Simple? Sometimes more so than not, but for me it's a much-needed reminder to strip away the inessential, to realize who I am and what I'm capable of doing. To truly live life, to love the people I meet, and to share my dream and empathy, with all those around me.

"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality". As Rowling says, we touch other peoples' lives simply by existing, and each of us have the power within to change the world...and to imagine better.

As Time Flies By

2010-02-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

I spent this past weekend in Santa Cruz with 8 of my college roommates, a group of girls known as Bramasole (in Italian, "to yearn for the sun"). These women have helped shape me in so many ways, and it's always amazing to me that despite where we are in life and the world, we are still able to come together and it's as if no time as passed at all. Yet when I look back on pictures of us from Freshman year through this weekend, it seems to me that time is just flying. Four years of college spent together, learning, growing..and four years after college spent apart, trying to figure out our places in the world. Yet those moments when we come together, no matter what's happened in between, we're still those same 10 girls who randomly met during their Freshman year at UCSB, which makes those moments when we're reunited all the more beautiful and amazing.

But why is it that as we get older, time seems to move faster and faster? I mentioned to one of the girls that I felt like there just wasn't enough time in each day to accomplish all I wanted to do, and that each year seemed to be moving by more quickly than the last, and she said that she "didn't really interact with time that way." I thought about what she said, and wished that I had her wisdom for interacting with time in such a way to make it act more like slow, malleable putty rather than quicksand, but I don't (not yet anyway). And then I heard an interesting story on NPR that looked at this phenomenon and interestingly enough, it has a lot to do with how we experience things for the first time vs. how we experience things on a daily basis. Turns out that when we experience something for the first time, it feels as though time as slowed, but once we've experienced that same moment multiple times, that interaction time appears to pass much more quickly.

Watch this beautiful video of people having novel experiences, and read the NPR story in its entirety.

I feel so blessed to have such beautiful friends to go through life with, and to share in all of my experiences, both novel and quotidian. So here's to my Bramasole sisters and many, many more years to come!

Mel's birthday 20th birthday at Acapulco in Santa Barbara, October 2003

UCSB Graduation! June 2006

Bramasole Reunion, Santa Barbara 2007.

Bramasole Reunion in Santa Barbara at La Cumbre Peak, January 2009.

Bramasole Reunion in Santa Cruz at The Blue Dolphin, February 2010.

A Timeless Teller of Tales-part 2

2010-02-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

I was trying to get a link to work between my article on Neil Gaiman and my blog, but it wasn't working so I pasted my article here in its entirety. Enjoy!

Neil Gaiman: A Teller of Timeless Tales

by Carolyn Turner

(published in The Daily Sound, February 3, 2010)

There is a sense of magic in the telling of a good story. A truly good tale will outlast its teller and persist into future lifetimes only to be told and retold, enjoyed and passed along. As children we learned to enjoy stories for the shear wonder and sometimes terror of each twist and turn, and although as adults we may diversify our spectrum of subjects and genres, we never lose our desire for a good story.

International bestseller Neil Gaiman embodies the art of a well-told tale. Stephen King has referred to Gaiman as a “treasure house of story”, and he has the résumé to prove it: from the early success of his DC Comic series “Sandman” and bestselling novel “American Gods”, to the more recently celebrated film adaptation of his children’s novella “Coraline” by director Henry Selick and 2009 Newbury Award winner “The Graveyard Book”, Gaiman’s work refuses to be confined to any one age group, genre, or medium. His craft is dedicated to creating characters and worlds that invite us to become part of something greater than our own realities. As a master of mythology and legend, Gaiman draws upon stories from all over the world, often interspersing elements of the macabre. “The Graveyard Book”, for example, tells the story of a young boy who is raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his parents are murdered, and although originally rejected as being too scary for children, went on to spend 63 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List.

“I think in good children’s fiction there’s been a tradition of being willing to scare children; of knowing that children like to be scared. And that fear in books is a good thing,” Gaiman said. “Like those people who take small doses of poison to build up immunity; a little fear in a book, in a safe place, is probably something that may help you be braver.”

Gaiman is currently working with director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) on a live-action film adaptation of “The Graveyard Book”, the most recent of his works to make a medium shift; novels such as “Stardust” and “Coraline” have already graced the screen, “The Wolves in the Walls” was made into a musical, and there is talk of creating “Stardust: The Musical”. When asked about his level of involvement in the adaptation of his work, Gaiman expressed that “I like to be involved…[but] you don’t want something transliterated, you want it translated”. The most important aspect to focus on is the essence of the story.

Yet there are also those projects that require no translation at all. Gaiman is also looking to once again partner with Stephen Merritt, who wrote the music and lyrics for the stage adaptation of “Coraline”.

“I’m working on an original [musical] about The Grand Guignol Theatre, the French theatre of terror,” said Gaiman. A first draft is in the works, and is perhaps three years away from being on stage.

Although best known for his fiction, Gaiman’s newest novel will be a non-fictional work based on his travels to China over the past three years. This idea came about partly when he realized that “I knew nothing about China and all of my expectations were kind of wrong.” The other part was the unique connection he achieved with people when discussing Wu Cheng’en’s “The Journey to the West”.

“I knew it was based on a real story, but was absolutely fascinated when I learned the scale of what a real life monk had done in the seventh century, and how that led, one thousand years later, to this amazing work of literature,” said Gaiman. “Then there’s me, five hundred years after that, off in China doing a very peculiar journey where at one point somebody tried to sell me a human elbow.” But that’s perhaps a story best saved for another time!

Yet in spite of his rigorous travel schedule, continual collaborations, and personal projects, Gaiman somehow maintains near transparency of his life and work through his blog, only further endearing him to his expansive fan base.

“I love traveling and I love meeting people and I love talking to people…and I would love to clone myself,” said Gaiman.

This Wednesday evening at 8:00 p.m., the one and only Neil Gaiman will discuss his life and work at UCSB’s Campbell Hall, a place he remembers fondly from the beginning of his career nearly seventeen years ago.

“These days there are university courses on “Sandman” and courses on graphic novels. People study Neil Gaiman in children’s fiction, people study him in fantasy, but in 1994 nothing like that was happening,” said Gaiman. Around that time a UCSB professor, the late Frank McConnell, took it upon himself to invite the up-and-coming writer to speak to his class about a different graphic novel each year.

“Frank McConnell was absolutely the most inspiring, funny, swearing, cigarette ash-bedecked, boozy, wonderful people I’ve ever run into,” recalls Gaiman. “One of these amazing, larger-than-life guys.” UCSB was the first place Gaiman ever gave a talk, and “it was terrifying to me, but it was made easy by Frank.”

Now all these years and countless works later, Gaiman continues to enrapture audiences with his stories, and although they have yet to outlast their teller, they are already being told and retold and will continue to be enjoyed and passed along into future lifetimes.

Tickets are available for $20 general/ $15 students, and may be purchased at www.artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu or by calling 805-893-3535. Books will be available for sale, and there will be a signing after the show. To read the entire interview visit www.thedailysound.com.

O Garmin my Garmin!

2010-02-05T22:03:00.001-08:00

I spent quite a bit of time in traffic yesterday. I had to drive down to LA for a few meetings, and my drive there took me 4 hours (when it should have been only 2), and the drive back took equally as long. I knew too much time had passed when I started hearing the same stories on NPR repeated once, twice, three times. Then I really knew I was in my car too long because I had time to compose the following poem on my way home!

A little preface: I received a Garmin for Christmas from my parents (a little GPS system for my car), and have been delighted by its presence. I changed the voice to a woman speaking in French, and I must say that her calming, accented voice helped me to keep my road rage to a minimal. Not only that, but when I asked her to help me avoid traffic on the 5 freeway, she took me on quite an adventure through a network of surface streets that saved me about 30 minutes! She even helped direct me to a lovely Creperie for lunch.

So as I sat, unmoving on the 5 freeway on my drive home Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain my Captain!" sprang to mind (I think Seth or Matt must have said something about it the night before). So I looked up the poem on my phone and read it a few times, then promptly decided that I should write a poem to my newfound-Garmin-friend that mimics the style of Whitman's famous poem. Although his poem is really an extended metaphor about the death of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, I feel that my version addresses an equally heavy subject: what happens when your Garmin's charge runs out and you're lost in LA?

O Garmin my Garmin!

O Garmin my Garmin! Our fearful trip is done,

The car has weathered every mile, the drive we took was fun,

The exit is near, the horns I hear, the people all are shouting,

While glaring eyes the turning wheel, the vehicle speeds while swerving,

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the dimming screen of lights,

Where on the dashboard my Garmin lies

Fallen dark, no sights.

O Garmin my Garmin! turn on and hear the honking;

Turn on - for you the finger is flung, for you the brakes squealing,

For you road rage and colorful language, for you the traffic a-stopping,

At me they shout, the irate crowd, their angry faces scowling;

Here Garmin! dear Garmin!

This hand upon your screen!

It cannot be, please not right now,

She's fallen dark, no sights.

My Garmin does not answer, her soothing voice is silent;

My Garmin does not sense my touch, the traffic grows more violent,

I park the car now safe and sound, its journey nearly done,

From fearful trip my vehicle sits, no accidents, not a one;

Exalt O commuters and sound your horns!

But I, with bewilderment pace

Hopelessly lost, while my Garmin lies

Fallen dark, no sights.

Neil Gaiman Interview

2010-02-05T07:02:00.001-08:00

For those of you who may be interested, I'm posting the transcript from my interview with Neil Gaiman from a few weeks back. He was a delight to speak with...hope you enjoy!

[Carolyn Turner] With the success of works like Coraline, and more recently The Graveyard Book, do you think these books would have been popular 40, 50, 60 years ago? (The Graveyard book was initially rejected because it would be too scarry). How, if at all, have the ideas of childhood and children’s literature changed over the last century, and what do you believe the major agent for those changes to be? Is this a reflection of our society, or more a reflection of childhood and what it means to be a child?

[Neil Gaiman] Yes I think that they’ve changed hugely, but I think that they haven’t necessarily changed in the ways that you’re imagining. Go back 100 years, go back 150 years and you have children’s stories that are absolutely nightmarish. Perhaps the most perfect of those is always der Struwwelpeter or “Shockheaded Peter”, where you have these German poems about if you suck your thumbs then men with scissors are going to come in cut them off. If you aren’t paying attention then you’re going to die. It’s this amazing sort of shockheaded Peter tales, a nightmare. You’re telling kids things aimed at troubling them, giving them nightmares in order to sort of persuade them to behave.

You go earlier than that and you’re in the territory of Hansel and Gretal, in which it’s perfectly ok for a father and another to basically ok (or at least obviously ok to put into a story, but not necessarily approved of behavior). For a father and a mother to say “we don’t have enough food”, and to take the children out into the forest to abandon them-because we’re nice people and don’t want to kill them. But we can’t feed ourselves and them. And then you get the things of abandoning them in the forest and them being picked up by an old lady who is some kind of cannibalistic serial killer who fattens and imprisons the boy to try to make him fat enough to eat, feed him food….and she (the witch) is eventually murdered by the girl by being burnt to death. That, in terms of subject matter, that’s definitely something that would not have been approved of in the 1990’s.

But I think in good children’s fiction there’s been a tradition of being willing to scare children; of knowing that children like to be scared. And that fear in books is a good thing. Like those people who take small doses of poison to build up immunity; a little fear in a book, in a safe place, is probably something that may help you be braver.

But, having said all that, it’s also very true that over the last…there was definitely a period in the 50’s, 60’s, well I guess the 70’s onward, particularly the 1980’s and early 1990’s, children’s fiction got very bland. And there was some kind of idea that it had to be good for you. In England, where I grew up, there was definitely a period in the mid 80’s where a lot of the books that I was getting from publishers to read were considered important children’s books tended to be about kids on counsel estates whose dads had run away and the elder sister was on heroin. And that was the story-there wasn’t really much of a story there. There were things that felt like they were good for you, in some kind of healthy kind of eating of vegetables kind of fiction. One of the things that I think (not to in any way underestimate the importance of awesome people like Diana Wynne Jones, who were writing amazing, cool, readable fiction for kids all the way.) But I think that the biggest thing that J. K. Rowling did was draw attention to the fact that kids like stories, and that plot was important. And the moment that plot becomes important, and the moment stories become important again, then subject matter becomes a free for all. Because what matters and what you’re giving importance to, is the story.

[CT] You’ve had several of your works adapted to film over the years, and more recently I read that Neil Jordan will be adapting The Graveyard book to a live action movie…is this true?

There’s a saying that a piece of art no longer belongs to you once you release it into the world-it now belongs to everyone. When someone is adapting your work, do you feel that their adaptation should be done in the same spirit of your original, or are they creating a while new work of art based on their interpretation? At what level do you like to be involved in the adaptation of your work?

[NG] I like to be involved all the time, but I’m definitely a firm believer in the idea that a film is a film and a theatre work is a theatre work, and what you want is a really good theatre work or a really good film. You don’t want something transliterated, you want something translated.

[CT] Are there any of your works that you would like to see adapted to film? Any that shouldn’t be? What about the theatre? Can we expect Sandman The Musical anytime soon?

[NG] You may not be able to expect Sandman The Musical anytime soon, but there’s definitely noise out there about Stardust The Musical, for example-partly because I control the rights, and because people came to me and said this is our vision for it, and I really liked them. And I’m actually working on a musical with Stephen Merrit right now, whose work I love. It’s an original thing, about The Grand Guignol Theatre, the French Theatre of Terror. So it’s a musical about theatre.

When can we expect something like that?

If I can get it together and write the first draft, then we’re probably about 3 years away from getting on stage.

[CT] You’re known for your fiction, but right now you’re currently working on a non-fiction book that is based on your travels to China and a 7^th century monk…can you tell me more about that project?

[NG] This began with me going to China 3 years ago, and realizing that I knew nothing about China, and that all of my expectations were kind of wrong. And that was half of it. The other half of it was feeling like everywhere I went in China, I was able to have translated conversations with people, and they would always ask at some point “You’re a writer, have you ever read any Chinese books?” And I’m talking from the lowliest janitor and guide up to the most important party official or university. I would tell them what I’ve ready, and I would always include “The Journey to the West” by Wu Cheng’en, to which they would say “who was your favorite character?” So I would be talking monkey and pigsy and Sandi and the monk ______ and the white horse and the adventures that they had. And that was absolutely fascinating to me…just the work of literature that united people. So I started investigating it more and I knew that it was based on a real story, but was absolutely fascinated when I learned the scale of what a real life monk had done in the 6^th/7^th century: defying the emperor, and how that led, 900-1000 years later, to this amazing work of literature.

Then there’s me, 500 years after that, off in China doing a very peculiar journey where at one point somebody tried to sell me a human elbow.

[CT] You didn’t take it did you?!

[NG] I didn’t. Well I figured the Chinese get grumpy enough-you’re actually forbidden to take real antiques out of China. Although I was in a museum where they tried to sell me some real antiques, and I said to them “you’re not allowed to take real antiques outside of China”, and they said “Ah, we’ll give you a certificate, saying that these are modern reproductions and fakes.” Which I thought was hilarious and funny and strange, because they probably were modern reproductions and fakes, and that was almost definitely what they were trying to sell me. But I loved the fact that they were offering me a certificate guaranteeing that it actually was a modern reproduction and a fake. In the assumption that that would actually convince me that this is actually an antique.

[CT] Obviously your works are inspired by world cultures and their mythologies-how do you decide which mythological systems to bring to light? Are you a student of mythology, or does it stem from your travels, or both?

Are there any mythologies that you haven’t focused on that could be the subject of a new book?

[NG] It’s been a lifelong passion. I remember when I was 6, 7 years old and reading “Tales of the Norse Men” by Roger Lancelyn Green, and then spending my own pocket money on “Tales of Ancient Egypt”, age 7 just going ‘I love this stuff…this is important.’ And I loved myth and I’ve loved story ever since. I loved story before then.

[CT] There are obviously numerous benefits to being an internationally bestselling author…but what’s the world thing about it?

[NG] Less time to write, because everyone is always disappointed. It would be wonderful to be able to clone myself, and one of my would stay home and write, and the other me could do stuff like this. The downside to appearing at UCSB is that I’m not at home writing. The downside to going an spending a week in New Zealand and the Phillipines and Poland, all of which are places that would very much like to see me, is that I’m not spending that time writing. And writing time starts to become precious. But on the other hand I love the traveling and I love meeting people and I love talking to people.

Writing is so antisocial. I remember when I was working on “American Gods” I barely saw another human being for 18 months. By the time American Gods was over I’d more or less lost all social skills. My life consisted of getting up in the morning, driving out to a little cabin, writing, and that was it.

[CT] Do you find that you’ve discovered a good balance between the writing and the social?

[NG] I need more time. And also a lot of that comes from the Newbury. The Newbury year demanded a bunch of stuff that people ask you to do and I go ‘yeah I should do that’. Another example would be that I’m an Honorary Chairman for National Library Week, which I’m really excited about. I support libraries, I mean libraries are incredibly important things; they’re important to the fabric of community, they are the depositors of information, they are places that you can go to plug into everything. I love and adore and want to support libraries, but that’s a week I won’t be writing, because I’ll be on the road. It’s never perfect, but on the other hand it makes me feel happy…And I would love to clone myself.

I mean I could make personal appearances for the next 2 years, but then people would start noticing that they haven’t read anything new by me in the past 2 years.

[CT] In all of your works (thus far) to which of your characters would you most liken yourself? (most people would say Dream of the Endless, but would you agree?)

[NG] Pretty much everyone in “Sandman” is me, but I’m every bit as much Pumpkinhead as I was Dream in that. And I think I’m funnier, and have slightly better perspective on most things. In them, the only characters who I really sort of just based on me very, very solidly would be little Charles Rowland in the middle of “Season of Mists: in a huge school he was left alone at a school (although I was never really left alone at a school), but he was pretty much me at that age.

And other than that you steal from yourself, just as you steal from lots and lots of other people when you write. That moment when you start writing, that person that you’re writing becomes the character in the story, so even in those places where….

Probably the nearest I’ve come to writing about someone is actually 100% me, was a story called “The Price”. It’s about a black cat who turns up at night and saves a family. And that’s my house, and I really have that cat (although I didn’t actually see him fight the Devil one night).

[CT] In your opinion, who is the most underrated author of all time?

[NG] Out there writing right now, I would probably point to Gene Wolfe as the finest, smartest writer in American who is not on the giant, critical, “these are the most important people out there” radar. I keep waiting for the world to say “Ah, Gene Wolfe, most important writer out there”, and I’m starting to come to the conclusion that maybe it’s going to occur 20 years after Gene’s dead. Or maybe Gene will just remain this writer that people love. There was an amazing article written by Michael Dirda of the Washington Post, where he says ‘We have our Kipling and we have our Dickens and it’s Gene Wolfe, and no one’s ever heard of him’.

[CT] What was your favorite book of 2009? Favorite movie?

[NG] Does it sound really wanky if I say Coraline? It wound up having this huge crate of emotional baggage for me that no other movie actually did. There were other movies that I liked in 2009, but Coraline was the only one that, every moment of it had my heart, because I knew what it had taken Henry Selick to make it and to put it on that screen. And because it was Henry’s movie and I was so damned proud of him, I would definitely say Coraline.

Favorite book, probably Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis really fascinated me, because taking a text that everyone is so familiar with, and telling it very, very straight and somehow by doing that-in setting it in a Middle East that would have looked kinda like the Middle East-rendering it human and dealing with people as they should have been dealt with. It’s made so that it’s like you’re reading something very big and very important.

[CT] Have you ever been to Santa Barbara before? If so, what do you like most about it? If not, what are you looking forward to most?

[NG] I have, I’m really excited about coming out to Santa Barbara because back in the days…well these days Universities like me to come and talk, and these days there are university courses on Sandman and course on graphic novels; people study Neil Gaiman in children’s fiction, people study him in fantasy, but in 1994 nothing like that was happening. In 1994 the first time I was ever invited to speak at a university it was in St. Louis and I remember the English department boycotting because the Art department actually brought me in, and the English department boycotted it because the art department brought me in and that needed to be disapproved of. And that was true everywhere except Santa Barbara. UCSB had professor Frank McConnell, and Frank McConnell was absolutely the most inspiring, funny, swearing, cigarette ash-bedecked, boozy, wonderful people I’ve ever run into; one of these amazing, larger-than-life guys. And Frank used to have me in to UCSB, and honestly I would come once a year and he would teach a graphic novel of mine-one year it would be “Game of You”, one year it would be “Mr. Punch”- and he would teach these things and I would come in. And I never really knew if he taught them just as an excuse to have me come in, and teach his class at the end of the year. I think it was really just an excuse so we could have dinner. But there was also a level where he took enormous pleasure being essentially the only person in the entire of acadaemia who had noticed me and wanting to show me off. I have enormously fond memories. Of course the late Frank McConnell who died much too soon.

[CT] So with your upcoming trip what would you say you’re looking forward to most?

[NG] Actually mostly just going back to UCSB because I really do have such fond memories of talking there and it really was the first place that 17 years ago it was the first place that I went and talked. It was the first talks I ever gave, and it was terrifying to me, but it was made easy by Frank. So that’s what I’m looking forward to.

[CT] Thank you so much for your time, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you. Congratulations on your engagement to Amanda Palmer…what a wonderful way to begin the year!

[NG] I’m so happy! (straightening up and grinning madly…only moments before he he’d been slowly sinking from view of the Skype Cam in his great, black swivel chair) I’m the luckiest man in the world!

A Timeless Teller of Tales

2010-02-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer engagement photo by Alan Amato

Yesterday Neil Gaiman came to speak at UCSB, but this story really begins back in August, when I first heard he would be coming to speak. I had just returned home from WorldCon in Montreal, where I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Mr. Gaiman speak several times, and was completely thrilled that he would be coming to my hometown only months later! So then I had the idea to see if I might be able to write an article about his UCSB visit, giving me an excuse to be in dialogue with one of my favorite writers. I asked Jeramy Gordon, editor of The Daily Sound, and he said "go for it".

So I emailed Neil a few weeks ago, and almost immediately his assistant Lorraine responded and said that she could set up a short phone interview for me the following week (last week), and so I set to work coming up with questions. The night before the interview Matt and I sat up in bed, well into the night, coming up with questions-some good, some pointedly awful, and some downright silly (I ended up asking him only those questions that I considered 'good'!)

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to interview Neil over Skype, and we chatted for about 30 minutes before he had to go. It was such an honor to be able to speak to someone whose writing and imagination I have admired for so long; talk about a dream come true! (For those who may be interested, I'll post my article and the entire interview transcript here tomorrow).

I wrote the article and sent it to Jeramy, and it ran yesterday. I showed up to the talk a bit early, and was thrilled when I ran into a couple friends who said they'd seen the piece and enjoyed it!

Needless to say his talk was enthralling-he talked a bit about his creative process, read a couple stories (one of which he said he'd never read before, a piece called "The Thing About Cassandra"), then he answered some questions we'd written on flash cards. A couple of the questions elicited some very funny responses, such as "Do you write your characters or do they write themselves?" To which Neil answered, "I'd love to live in a world where characters wrote themselves so I could just sit back and drink tea and shout at them from time to time 'go, write yourselves, write faster!'"

Another question was "Did you chose writing or did writing chose you?" to which he answered, "I'd love to live in a world where I'd be walking down the street, with someone following behind waiting to choose me."

Afterwards there was a signing and the line snaked through Campbell hall. Matt and I waited for about 2 hours before we reached the front of the line, and re-introduced myself to Neil as the girl you did a skype interview with a couple weeks ago.

"Oh that was you!" Neil exclaimed. "Come 'round and give me a hug". And so I did, then I gave him a gift I'd put together (the article I'd written, along with a bottle of my wine and a thank you card). He loved it, and happily signed my couple books, and we chatted for a bit then moved along. The line was still long when we finally left at midnight, and I'm guessing he was there until almost 1am signing every last person's books. Just one of the many reasons why Neil Gaiman is so wonderful.

On curiosity, wonder and jumping off cliffs

2010-02-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

"First you jump off a cliff, then you build the wings."

~Ray Bradbury

This weekend was a wonderful blur-I attended my first SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) Conference-my reason for coming out to New York in the first place, and I now feel filled with a renewed sense of purpose. The people I met were fantastic and each one of them had such passion and energy for their writing plight-agents, editors, writers, illustrators-that I knew I was with the right group of people. The words the keynote speakers shared with us resonated at my core, and I knew that this feels right, and I took it all in with childlike wonder and curiosity.

To be surrounded by people who share my same passion, my same search for that story that touches our hearts and makes us experience the world around us in a new way; our love for words and the way we delight in their meaning and cadence. One of the speakers talked about making sense of life through books, and offered the following quote:

"When we write, we should write for the children we were."

~Madeline L'Engle

And it's true. No matter how the times or technology changes, at its core childhood and the experience of being a child remain the same. So when writing for children, we must go inward and remember what it was like for us as children. The adults I was surrounded by this weekend all maintain that youthful, childlike curiosity of the world, and they're constantly seeing magic and wonder, where so many others may only see the mundane. I think that's a really important life lesson-regardless of whether you're a children's writer or high powered executive, never settle for complacency; always challenge yourself with the unknown.

On the subway leaving the conference, I shared the platform with only a few other people who were all slumped against the wall. I was lost in my thoughts, in-taking everything I'd just learned at the conference, and not really paying attention to the others around me when a guy near the center of the platform caught my eye. He walked away from the wall to stand at the edge of the tracks and looked down. At first no one did anything, most likely they didn't even notice. But he continued to look down, and eventually a couple of the people near him walked to the ledge and looked over too, causing the people near them to do the same. Eventually everyone on the platform (myself included) had walked to the edge and was peering down at the tracks below to see what was so interesting, at which point the first guy walked back to lean against the wall. All I saw were some dirty coffee cups and bits of torn trash strewn about, but it amused me that this one guy and his gesture had piqued the curiosity of everyone around him.

It's there, our childlike curiosity and wonder, but I think we sometimes let our rational thinking self believe there's nothing there, so why bother to look over that ledge? Often there will be nothing but strewn pieces of trash, but we may miss something if we don't look.

I'm excited because I've found my people-people who play with words and language and ideas-who are quite possibly crazy because they spend their time talking to imaginary people they create, trying to figure out who they are and what they're doing, where they're going. This conference showed me new ways to put words together and I listened to beautiful speeches that in essence were telling the same story of hope and desire and dreams, and the knowledge that we, that I, can make them happen. I'm excited to jump off that cliff, and learn to build my wings as I go.

The hilarious Jim Benton, creator of Happy Bunny and countless other cartoons and books, and was called "the most visible cartoonist in America" by people magazine (chances are you've come across his work and you don't even know it!) Here he talks about the Compulsive Creator, while drawing a cartoon of a platypus falling in love with a blender to create a blended family!

Jacqueline Woodson spoke to us about the importance of writing in today's world, and did a beautiful reading of her children's book "Show Way".

Jane Yolen has written over 300 books for children and young adults, and is still going! She wrote "The Devil's Arithmetic" and "Owl Moon" (amongst others you may have read as a child!) and gave us her list of 20 Writing Tips to Live By...the most important of which was merely...to write.

The conference took place at the Grand Hyatt, which sits above Grand Central Station. After seeing this place in so many movies and shows, I figured I had to stop and pose for a picture!

On my last night in New York, Seema and I had a lovely dinner together, then came back to her apartment and went up to the roof. She has a stunning view of Manhattan (you can see the Empire State building), and that night was a full moon too.

The next morning we awoke early to catch the sunrise, and here is that same view from the roof only hours later in the early morning twilight...a bit of a different feel but equally beautiful.

People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening

2010-01-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

In a city with such diversity, so many people, so much going, it's easy to find yourself being swept up in the hustle and bustle of everything; the sights, the sounds, the...everything. Although I believe that the whole is oftentimes greater than the sum of its parts, I think it's important to recognize what each of those parts is, and the role they play. I can easily say that I had a fantastic day, and you might assume that what caused it to be so is the fact that I'm here in New York; and that's part of it...but only one part. Looking back at my experiences as I write this, I realized that the best way to tell about what made this day so wonderful would be to depict a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds, of people and thoughts. I find that by being present and aware of what you're experiencing, you may be amazed how much joy you can observe just be paying attention to each moment you're in, rather than letting it all blur as you speed by.

Which is why whenever I travel to a new place, I find the best way to experience it is by walking, especially in a city as big as New York. It really is easy to hop on a train or take a bus or even a taxi, but you might miss those proverbial roses. So when my parents gave my a deck of 50 walking tours of New York City, I was thrilled! I spent most of the plane ride over reading all of the cards, and picking the ones I wanted to do most, then prioritizing those. I decided that I most wanted to see Central Park and the New York Public Library, and I deviated from there.

I happened upon St. Patrick's Cathedral on my way to check out the MOMA, and although you can't tell by this picture, the this is only the facade-the building takes up almost half of a city block! I was also amazed to come across such a pristine piece of history (built in 1858), as the buildings surrounding this church are all modern and fairly blah sky scrapers. The Catholics never cease to amaze me with the choice of gothic architecture for their places of worship-just look at those spires reaching toward heaven!

On my way to lunch I noticed this little park and decided to explore. I came across this bridge, and so I began to cross, pausing briefly to peer over the side and take some pictures. As I was doing so, I noticed a cute couple smiling and hugging, and although it made me miss Matt, their happiness made me smile too. Then the guy dropped to one knee and proposed, and the girl, momentarily stunned to silence, recovered quickly and began to jump about and cry "yes!" I almost ran over to congratulate them, but then thought better of interrupting their moment, and so quietly continued on my way.

After picking up lunch at Wholefoods, I took the subway over to Central Park West, having decided to dine at the Belvedere Castle, the highest point in Central Park. As I was jostled out of the train by a crowd of people, I heard a tune being played on the pan pipes, driftingfrom somewhere above. Walking up the stairs I realized the tune as Simon & Garfunkle's "Sounds of Silence", and as I reached the landing there was the guy, with his pan pipes playing as people hurried by. He really was quite good, so I stayed to listen to the end of the song, then continued on my way. As I was leaving the station I heard a couple people whistling "Sounds of Silence" absentmindedly, and I thought of how beautiful and ironic it was to have that tune be carried along into the noisy city above.

This picture is the view from my seat at Belvedere Castle (it really wasn't much of a castle, but more of an observation tower, but it's still cool to say that I dined at a castle!)

This is the part of Central Park that I feel like I've seen in most movies...The Mall. I can only imagine how pretty it must be in the spring when those trees are filled with leaves and blossoms, and people idly mingling on benches.

One of my walking tours mentioned that there was a Literary Circle at the far end of The Mall, so I knew I had to go there! Literary Circle is made up of 4 bronze statues: Fitz Greene-Halleck, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and William Shakespeare. The first one I'd never heard of, and I found that funny because he was the only American in the bunch-2 are Scottish and 1 English. I would have thought that we had plenty of Americans we could have chosen to depict on this Literary Circle, but that being said, I do quite like the work of Burns, Scott and Shakespeare (pictured: Robert Burns)

Since my whole reason for coming to New York in the first place is for a children's writing conference, I found it only appropriate that I head to the Alice in Wonderland statue. Although I loved the statue, the best part of my experience came when I asked a nearby girl to take my picture.

"Do you like Robert Pattinson?" she asked. I told her I did, which prompted her to tell me how he's the whole reason she came to this statue.

"How's that?" I asked.

"His butt was on that mushroom, and now my butt has been there too!" I smiled and said that that bit of information has now enhanced my enjoyment of the statue too, and had her take a picture of my on that very same mushroom.

The New York Public library was every bit as wonderful as I imagined it to be. The first place I headed to was the children's section, and I was delighted to find the original stuffed animals that A. A. Milne wrote about in "Winnie the Pooh". Shown here are those very animals, that Milne gave to his son Christopher Robin. Christopher gave the animals to Milne's American publisher, who eventually donated them to the library where they stay on permanent display.

No trip to New York would be complete without a visit to Times Square, and so I walked the couple short blocks from the library and took this very touristy picture. The coolest part about my short jaunt here was the Toys 'R' Us that had a gigantic ferris wheel in the middle of it! (you're right Alisa, it IS cool!) Although I didn't ride it, I enjoyed watching the giggling children go 'round with their parents.

Start Spreading the News...

2010-01-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving today

I want to be a part of it

New York, New York!

Last night I stayed up much too late, to the point that I almost didn't want to go to sleep for fear that I might sleep through my alarms and miss my flight! (I have good reason, if you have not already read about my last flying experience...) At any rate, I was one of the first people at the Santa Barbara airport this morning, to catch my flight at 6am that would take me first to Salt Lake City, then to New York. I'm happy to report that I had a relatively unexciting flight, except for the fact that Joan Rivers and an entourage that consisted of very well dressed British people, was on my flight. Actually my entire flight (with the exception of Joan Rivers and her entourage), were all young, nicely dressed professionals leaving the Sundance Film Festival. To be honest I would not have even noticed that Joan Rivers was on my flight, except that a random flight attendant passing through the lobby saw my sitting quietly and reading my book, and must have thought that I looked like someone who might be interested in this celebrity spotting. It turns out that there was a documentary made about her life (Joan Rivers, not the flight attendant), and it premiered at Sundance. That most certainly was the highlight of my flight.

I arrived in New York around 5pm, and was immediately thrilled by the chill in the air...although it wasn't as cold as I was hoping, it certainly felt like winter! I had planned to meet my friend Seema, and so hopped on the Light Rail from JFK, then took the Subway into Manhattan to meet her. Now I love public transportation...nothing thrills me more than being able to take a subway or train when traveling in cities. I'm delighted by the network of tunnels twisting and twining their way above and below the streets, zipping people here and there; these places are especially wonderful for people watching, and New York is certainly not short of characters. During the 45 minute subway ride, I enjoyed two guys playing the bongos, which had even the most steel-faced businessmen tapping their toes.

My stop was the World Trade Center, and as I exited the subway's toasty interior I was blasted with a sharply cold wind that caused my cheeks to rouge and my nose to sniffle. Walking the few blocks to meet Seema I came across City Hall, which I took a picture of because the park in front of it with the lights and the full moon and the tufts of snow on the ground, just seemed to capture my vision of how New York would be.

Shortly after Seema and I met up, and although we were supposed to watch a movie that an organization that she works with was showing, we decided instead to skip it and go to dinner; after all it had been a few years since we'd last seen each other and there was much to discuss! And so we made our way over to Soho, and enjoy a meal of butternut squash pasta and hazelnut kale. We shared, ordered a couple glasses of wine and although we quite enjoyed our lovely french meal at the quaint Cafe Select, as soon as we paid our bill we walked across the street to a hip little taco stand and had dinner #2! This place was absolutely packed and was about the size of a small school bus inside with a heavy black door and bouncer at the back. Every few customers would head to the door, wait for the bouncer to find their name on a list, then allow them in...Seema explained that there was a nicer restaurant below.

We ended up taking our tacos back to Seema's cute apartment where we quickly devoured them and induced an almost immediate food coma. Not a bad first day in the Big Apple!

Vote NOW, please!

2010-01-26T21:07:00.001-08:00

Although a slight diversion from my usual musings, I feel that the following bears equal importance!

My little brother Ryan is an amazing filmmaker, and he has worked incredibly hard for over 4 months to try to win this film contest. There are only 5 more days of voting left (voting ends on January 31), and you can vote ONCE each day...so if you can take a moment and click the following link and vote for his video, I would be much obliged!

http://www.vadofilmcontest.com/entry/view.aspx?id=25

It is a parody on the vampire genre, and I think it's quite clever. At least watch it once and please do vote!

It was Quite Necessary

2010-01-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Alisa and I in front of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in Santa Ynez!

I just spent an absolutely delightful weekend with a friend from childhood that I have lost touch with since we graduated from middle school...she went to a different high school than I, and same with college. Yet nowadays, with the wonders of Facebook and social networking, we reconnected before Christmas and planned for her to come visit me this weekend; and so she did. I love rediscovering the wonders of friendship years later, and being reminded of why this person was so close to me as a child. That friend is Alisa Lai, and it's so exciting to hear about her journey since we parted ways after middle school: of her going to college in Monterey, becoming a law assistant in San Francisco, applying to law school. We also spent a great deal of time reminiscing about memories of girl scouts: of visiting teddy bear factory, and of collecting cow pies in order to fuel the kilns for a pottery class we needed to earn some badge or another; of our roles in our 4th grade class production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; of playing in a handbell choir at our church; of overnights in the Sierras to "pan for gold". What time was left in between was occupied by adventures throughout Santa Ynez Valley, and watching Michael Jackson music videos.

Perhaps it was the lingering nostalgia I felt after spending the weekend with an old friend, or maybe my curiosity just finally got the better of me. Whatever the reason, on my way home from dropping Alisa off at the train station I decided to pull over and explore the antique store down the street from my house, and what a find! I have always had an affinity for aged items...I love perusing these relics for their antiquity, as much as I enjoy imagining the past times from which they came. Books and hats are my Achille's Tendon, and I happened upon a treasure trove of both! So after much consideration, and equal amounts of input from various sales ladies, I settled upon this hat:

And this book:

And spent the rest of the afternoon curled up on my couch, wearing my "new" hat and reading my "new" book. The book, "Molly Make-Believe" by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott bears this inscription in the front cover:

To Millie from Ed.

A momento of a beautiful Easter Sunday, 1912

It may not be Easter, but this Sunday afternoon could not have been spent with a better book, and for anyone who is looking for a quick, whimsically comic romance, you would very much enjoy Mrs. Abbott's first novel. Although I certainly did NOT need another hat, nor another book, I have taken such great pleasure in both that I assure you (and maybe I'm more assuring myself)...both were quite necessary!

On Finding Earrings

2010-01-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

I began this year with the desire to clean out all the clutter and unnecessary stuff that seems to accumulate around me when I'm not paying attention. This desire usually crops up just after Christmas, when I return from spending time with my family and friends in the Bay Area with armfuls of new gifts, only to realize that I have no where to put them! Thus my winter cleaning spree began.

But this year I did not stop with my own personal belongings...my cleaning fever spread into my work life, and I attacked the tasting room with equal vigor and fervor (I work at Carina Cellars, a winery in Santa Ynez Valley, CA...www.carinacellars.com). During these past two weeks I emptied our storage closet and cleansed it of all obsolete objects, reorganized our entire inventory, moved furniture around, set up new displays, repainted walls, and my crowning glory...finally finished our bar (which had remained in a temporary-fix state for 6 years!) It's amazing what you'll find when you're not really searching for any one thing in particular. For example I found the original paint used to paint the tasting room, allowing me the simple pleasure of a perfect match, and thus being able to touch up, rather than repaint all of our walls. We needed a new "Open" sign...I discovered we had two! When finished, we (my coworkers and I) took great pleasure in the fresh, new feeling created by my physical cleanse of the tasting room, a feeling which spread into a brainstorm of new marketing ideas, sales tactics and event ideas. These slight renovations breathed new life into our whole approach to our jobs, allowing us to feel excited about our work once again, rather than stuck in the slump of the "another year, another dollar" mentality.

But I didn't stop there; I couldn't! I was on a roll. All of my physical clutter-cleansing lead me inward, to go through old computer files and delete those unused bits of information to create room for new ideas and new files; I did this for both my work as well as my personal files. I finished with the work files in relatively no time at all - but the personal files took quite a bit longer. I found countless beginnings to stories that had yet to find their endings, snippets of ideas and thoughts waiting to be fleshed out, characters waiting patiently to be given tales to inhabit- all forgotten by me over time. I was excited to find that some of these lost thoughts actually fit perfectly into the novel I'm currently working on, and I even finished a couple of the poems!

But it was the last file I opened that I found to be most interesting. It was titled "Writer's Block", and once opened it contained only one paragraph, which I will share with you here:

Feb. 25, 2008: To me, writing is like dropping an earring on a carpeted floor. Immediately you bend down to look for it, but what do you find? A tangled mess of hair, renegade dust bunnies, a cheerio or two? Not willing to admit defeat just yet, you continue your search, widening the parameters and expanding your discoveries: a previously lost bracelet, an old ticket stub, another cheerio. Each of these newly recovered treasures elicits memories previously forgotten: grandma giving you a bracelet on graduation day, the movie you saw on your first date with your middle school crush, the bowl of cereal you shared with your best friend as you talked her through her first break up. You are temporarily distracted by the warmth that comes from these memories, and you stay and bask a while. But distractions aside, you eventually press on and begin to use your hand as though it were a metal detector, brushing blindly over the carpeted expanse until your eye catches something; a glint under the bed. You take a few moments to maneuver yourself under there amidst the cobwebs and dust bunny colony until finally you feel its tiny metal body back in your hand again. Nothing beats finding that earring that you had secretly thought gone forever, but don't forget that that's only one possible ending. Never become so caught up in your search for the earring, that you neglect the other treasures you find along the way.

What is Enough?

2010-01-13T07:06:00.001-08:00

I read a lovely little book last night by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a woman I first became acquainted with a few years ago when I was looking into an MA in Mythological Studies at Pacifica University. Actually the degree would have been an MA in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology, as this university centers its education around the philosophies and ideas of such thinkers as Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. For those of you who are asking, "What does a degree in mythology entail?" I'm glad you asked...and I think the Pacifica website does a pretty good job of summing it up:

Pacifica Graduate Institute's program in Mythological Studies explores the understanding of human experience revealed in mythology and in the manifold links between myth and ritual, literature, art, and religious experience. Special attention is given to depth psychological and archetypal approaches to the study of myth.

Although I eventually deciding not to go forward with the degree, that hasn't stopped me from my quest to become knowledgeable of all the writers and thinkers on the Mythological Studies reading list, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes is one of them.

Mrs. Estes is a Jungian-trained psychoanalyst, an award winning poet, and the founder of a human rights organization that focuses on broadcasting stories over the radio to trouble spots throughout the world. She grew up in a family that told many a story, something which later fueled her love of the oral tradition and her passion to share that with the rest of the world. My kind of woman!

I went a little crazy on www.half.com last week and ended up ordering quite a few books, most of which are on my reading list, and a couple of which were not. While Mrs. Estes and her book "Women Who Run With Wolves" are on the reading list, I ended up ordering a different book of hers that was not: "The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What Is Enough". I'll eventually read the former, but the latter was the one that really caught my attention. Actually it was the synopsis that made me push the BUY button:

"Stories that instruct, renew, and heal provide a vital nourishment to the psyche that cannot be obtained in any other way. Stories reveal over and over again the precious and peculiar knack that humans have for triumph over travail. They provide all the vital instructions we need to live a useful, necessary, and unbounded life-a life of meaning, a life worth remembering."

After reading that I thought to myself, "I could have written that...that sounds like me!" Yet when the book arrived yesterday, I'll admit I was a little disappointed; what I had assumed would be a lengthy and in-depth analysis of the nature of Story and its importance in our lives, was in actuality only slightly bigger than a 4x6 picture with only about 30 pages between its two covers. But sometimes the most powerful gifts come in small packages, and the story she told in those 30 pages was exactly as she had promised in her title...it was enough.

I'll resist the urge to paraphrase her lovely story, but I will say that this is a book that I think all would enjoy. The question posed at the beginning is simple: "What is enough?" Take a moment to think about your answer; what does "enough" mean to you? If you had to leave your life right now and go out into the world, what would you take with you? Would it be something tangible, something meaningful yet transient? At first my answer was my journal-I would be devastated to lose my collection of ideas and writings, but I have so many journals...would I be able to take them all? Then I thought, my computer. My computer can hold all of my thoughts and ideas and musings, and it's also something that can connect me with friends and family all over the world (provided I have an internet connection!). But then I thought about it some more, and I realized that although I would be sad to leave those behind, I don't need a journal or a computer to harbor my thoughts and ideas and stories; those I can carry within me. The ancient people certainly didn't have computers and emails to connect them...they simply had to walk and pay that person a visit, and when they told their stories, they did so by gathering together and sharing them aloud.

So I read the book, and her answer was so simple that I knew it to be true for me too (hint: it's also the name of a chart topping song by one of Britain's most popular boy bands) Answer: All you need is love. If you were stripped of everything you owned love will remain, and with that comes the power to connect with others and start anew. When you really think about it, she's right...it really is enough.

Auld Lang Syne

2010-01-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a wearyfoot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

Auld Lang Syne, a poem written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788, is often sung on New Year's Eve to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Poised at midnight on the cusp of December 31 and January 1, we pause to reflect on the year we just completed and anticipate the year we're about to begin. Whether 2009 was a good or bad year does not seem to matter at this moment, because 2010 beckons eagerly with promises to be better; resolutions are made to improve and grow, and the resolutions made this time last year seem far far away. We drink to happiness and health - and all across the world people celebrate the promise of new beginnings that can only come from another year's conclusion.

Last night the full moon shone brightly above as Matt, Veronica, Dave and I spent a quiet New Year's Eve at my house. As we watched on television as Dick Clark celebrated the ball drop on Times Square in New York, I thought of my resolutions for 2010 and I realized that they were the same ones I made last year: to complete a manuscript for my first novel and publish it. That has been my resolution since I learned to write as a child, and each New Year's Eve I resolutely declare that this year I will accomplish my goal. So again last night, I made the same vow only this time I realized that although my resolution is made in initially unwavering determination, I seem to lose that mindset somewhere in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. My ability to maintain the resolutions that I set out each New Year's Eve are only as strong as my own resolve. I know I'm not the only one who seems to face this yearly conundrum, and I find that it's easier to take strength in the knowledge that there are people all over the world fighting their own personal battles of resolution. It's the promise of a fresh start that brings us to try again another year with renewed vigor and hope.

Auld Lang Syne literally translates from old Scots verse to mean "old long since", or in more idiomatic English "long long ago" or "for old time's sake". A simple song reminding us to remember the times of "long ago", should "old acquaintance be forgot", and I realize that I've been looking back at each past year as a failure to accomplish the dream I set down at each New Year's Eve, when really I'm forgetting that each of those moments has been leading up to the moment when I actually will achieve that dream. I'm so focused on the ending-the resolution-that I've failed to recognize the time that's passed as essential to the journey towards the resolution. These times of "long ago" are what give us the vantage point at each New Year, to be able to see with renewed hope of the times to come, and a simple change in perception is all that is needed for me to realize that each year has in fact brought me closer to my dream.

A good ending is only as good as the story leading up to it, and so I proceed into 2010 with renewed hope and anticipation of my continued growth in my journey toward my dream.

Miracle at LAX

2009-12-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around." ~Love Actually

Yesterday morning Matt and I were scheduled to leave on a plane from LAX to Salt Lake City at 10:15am. The night before we were up late packing and didn't go to bed until near 3:00am, and although we needed to be out of the house by 6:00am to drive down to LA, we set our alarms (6 separate alarms to be exact) for 5:00am and fell asleep. I awoke with a start at 7:45am, and in an absolute panic because our plane would be leaving in exactly 2.5 hours and we hadn't even left Santa Barbara yet!

We threw on clothes and our bags into the car, and were on the road by 8:00am. Matt always gives me a hard time for being paranoid about missing my flights, but this time my worst nightmare was coming true. This trip was to be my Christmas present to Matt- a 5-day getaway to snowy Park City for lots of R&R, and we were about to miss it. On a good day-no traffic, good weather, etc-it takes about 1.5 hours to drive from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, and that morning it was pouring down rain and we were leaving at the perfect time to hit all bad traffic conditions. But we decided to try, and so the adventure began. Several times Matt would cringe in the passenger seat and remind me that getting into an accident would not help us make out flight, and my response was always, "Babe, I'm going to drive fast, but safely." And I did.

We made it to my Uncle Brad's house in Santa Monica in 1 hour, and his roommate Aref was out on the curb waiting to hop in and drive us to the airport so we wouldn't have to pay for long-term parking. I'll admit that I was anxious by how slow Aref seemed to be driving, but I happily conversed with him about the upcoming film Invictus, and he told me how that was actually the name of a religion in Rome in the 4th and 5th centuries; it was a welcomed distraction from my growing anxiety.

We pulled up to the Southwest terminal at 9:45am with exactly 30 minutes to get to our gate, and the crowd outside could not have been anymore chaotic and packed. Matt ran to the end of the curbside check-in line, and I dashed inside to check out the baggage check line in there; both had well over 100 people with at least a 2 hour wait. So I asked the nearest security guard if she could help us, and she that we would miss our flight and that our best bet was to wait in the line to try to change our flight to the next one out. My heart dropped, but I still wasn't willing to admit defeat. So I ran back outside and was on my way to Matt at the end of the curbside check-in line when I stopped and realized that although the security couldn't help me, it never hurts to ask the people who are already in line.

A wonderful girl named Sam allowed us in line with her to check our baggage, and in 10 minutes our baggage was checked. The line to go through security would have taken us at least 2 hours to go through, but with the help of blonde woman and a dark haired businessman we made it through the preliminary boarding pass check in 5 minutes. By appealing to one of the security personnel we were sent to a different security line upstairs for people who need to make it through faster, yet that line would have taken us at least 30 minutes had it not been for the kindness of a Swedish gentleman and a dad traveling with his son; we made it through in 10 minutes. It was 10:10am by the time our carry on items made it through the xray machine and Matt and I grabbed everything and ran toward gate 13 (which happens to be the farthest gate in that terminal). Our stockinged feet slid over the tile floor and I could hear people laughing as we raced by, but we had made it this far and there was still a chance. We arrived at the gate and as we gave the security guard our boarding passes he told us that we made it with only 1 minute before the gate was to be closed. As we walked onto the plane, people looked at the shoes and belongings in our hands and our flushed faces, and we received several congratulatory "You made it!'s". We had done it: somehow we had managed to get from my house in Santa Barbara to our plane in LAX in 2 hours 15 minutes!

A couple days ago I wrote the opening quote from Love Actually in Christmas cards to my Bramasole girls, and as I wrote it down on each of their cards I thought about what kind of love each one was experiencing, and the quote meant something different as I wrote it for each one. But I hadn't given any thought to what it meant to me, and after yesterday I now know. Ironic that my realization also took place in an airport? I don't think so. Love is all around and when tested, will rise to greatness. When Matt and I arrived at the airport and realized that there was no way we could make this flight alone, we turned to the people and asked them for help, and they willingly gave it to us when they had no reason to do so. As the plane took off I thought about the humanity and grace of these complete strangers and felt a warmth spread over me. Then I realized that that warmth was not just inside me, and I looked out the window as the plane broke through the cloud cover and above it was a bright blue sky with a brilliant sun. And it occurred that despite all of the evil and sadness that is spread like a gray veil over the world, there will always be those moments of grace shining through. And although it may not be particularly dignified or newsworthy, love actually is all around.

The snow covered mountains as Matt and I drove from Salt Lake City to Park City, Utah.

What I thought was a real bison turned out to only be a statue...but a very real looking statue!

We awoke this morning to white world covered in pristine snow. What a wonderful world.

Just one of those weeks...

2009-11-13T19:43:00.000-08:00

The kind that starts in Vegas...and ends in the mud.

"Ah," you say, "It was one of THOSE weeks..."

It all began with an 8 hour drive from Santa Barbara to Las Vegas with my brother Kevan, in order to join several Castro Valley friends in celebration of 25 great years of life for Kelly and Jessie Farquhar. Born on Halloween, I have been friends with both of them since middle school, so besides the birthdays we were celebrating the reunion of a fantastic group of friends.

Here we are at the dueling piano bar in Caesar's Palace...

I am fascinated by the very existence of a place like Las Vegas...this mirage of adult fantasies...I've always figured that this is what happens when you find yourself with an overabundance of imagination, ego, alcohol and of course oodles of money. This was my third trip to Vegas, but the first 2 were for business, so this was my first "pleasure" trip...and I am always amazed by the brilliance of the lights and cacophony of sounds and costumed people parading about (those working and those just there to play). What a marvelous playground for adults to completely indulge their inner...adult!

The guys decided to get in touch with their football-loving selves, and splurged on these 50 oz footballs. By the end of the night the score was not looking as good as it did when this picture was taken...Guys-2 (Kevan and Ryan rallied!) Football-4.

Chillin' out back in the pool...they let you eat AND drink wherever you go! Secretly I'm glad that you're not allowed to wander around with open alcohol containers in most places...although bringing our own Budlights to dinner was definitely classy!

Poster for the Express fall lineup: Carolyn and Katie are modeling the same sexy dress in red and black, while Jessie exhibits the skirt.

That was only the beginning! I returned home from Vegas on Sunday, and after spending a couple days at home in Santa Barbara, I headed back down south to...another realm of fantasies: Disneyland! I had attained a meeting with the head wine buyer at Disneyland, a delightful woman named Joy. I spent an hour with her as she tasted the Carina Cellars wines, which is about 50 minutes longer than most people have, and in the end she decided to bring on a couple of our wines at the Napa Rose (one of the premier restaurants on the Disney premises).

After a hard day's work the wonderful Teri Ross (Disney's food and beverage manager) treated me to dinner at her restaurant in California Adventure, the Golden Vine, then set me loose on both parks! This was my first time at California Adventure, and although I only had about an hour to explore before it closed, I really liked the park and especially loved the Soaring Over California ride. I spent the rest of the night wandering around Disneyland, and was thrilled that there were NO LINES for anything!

Walt Disney and I share the same birthday...December 5 (just around the corner!) I wished him an early birthday, and made sure to say hi to Mickey as well. I love how the Magical Kingdom glows in the background...

Jack Skelington had taken over the Haunted Mansion...it was frightfully delightful!

A quick mention of another cool part of my Disneyland sales trip...I did an event the following night at Azo Vino Wine Bar in Covina (awesome wine bar if you've never been!), and I happened to park next to Snoop Dogg in the parking lot! He had rented out the photography studio next door to the wine bar to do a shoot for Playboy. He was quite nice :)

I was in Santa Barbara for only a day to catch up on some work stuff, and perhaps a little sleep as well, before infiltrating Matt's Invertebrate Zoology fieldtrip to Morro Bay and Montana d'Oro for the weekend! On Saturday we drove up to the mud flats in Morro Bay...and found ourselves waist deep in some of the thickest, gooiest mud ever!

Playing in the mud is always fun...especially when your class requires it! Matt's sifting through the muck to try to find ghost shrimp, clams and other cool things.

Please note the class struggling through the channel...the girl in the middle is up to her hips in mud!
There was a brief moment when we thought Matt wasn't going to make it. He was up to his hips in mud, and the more he struggled, the more he sunk. But after his brief battle, Matt emerged triumphant, if not a little muddier.

That night we headed a bit further north to the UC Reserve in Cambria. I had no idea that the UC system has over 90 plots of land throughout the state, that they use for research purposes (us English/French majors have no use for them I suppose). So we found ourselves camping on the bluffs overlooking a beautiful cove, with rolling hills and Monterey pine forests behind us.

After a night of beer hockey, kings cup and campfire capers, Matt and I and a few others took a nature walk around the Reserve with caretaker Don. Then we headed back down south to Montana d'Oro in San Luis Obispo to play in the tidepools!

I've always loved tidepools, but after experiencing them with a bunch of biology nerds I have a newfound appreciation for this delicate ecosystem. And I also discovered that one of my new favorite creatures is a nudibranch!

Sea amenone...err anemone

Sea cucumber!

Matt was thrilled to find this starfish!

And so the week came to an end...and upon arriving back in Santa Barbara I took a wonderfully hot shower, threw on some sweats, and watched UP. Yup, it was just one of those weeks...

The Monster Mash

2009-10-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

This may well be the funniest thing I've ever seen! This is an old classic Hallowe'en song, but with a new dance that will be all the rage this Hallowe'en weekend!

Do the Monster Mash!

Nike Women's Marathon

2009-10-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I ran 13.1 miles before most people had even begun to awaken and open their eyes to the new day...and during that 13.1 miles I experienced magic greater than any one man could create. This race marked my fourth time running the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco, and I must say that with each time, that magical feeling has increased.

I first ran this race in 2005...it was my first ever race and I completed the full 26.2 mile marathon in just over 5 hours. When people ask me about it, my first response is that it was one of the most difficult things I have put my body through, but it was also one of the most amazing events I've had the privilege to be a part of. The run benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and throughout the course there are people holding signs for loved ones who have lost their battles with cancer, and those who are currently in combat. Runners have pictures of the loved ones they're running for, and the course is littered with signs encouraging each runner to "run one more mile for the cure". I would bet that each and every runner has a story of how these diseases have affected their lives; for me it was for my grandpa, who died of lymphoma in 2001, and my boyfriend Matt, who survived leukemia as a 7-year old. Regardless of each person's tale of sorrow or triumph, each of the runners who ran through the streets of San Francisco this morning were there to celebrate hope and life and change.

It always amazes me to see all of the different people who come out for this race...there was an old man using a sporty walker to keep pace with his elderly wife; a 7-year old boy running alongside his mother; brothers and boyfriends and husbands either running alongside their women, or cheering them on from the sides. Running with these 20,000 people made my heart swell with happiness and pride for the capacity of greatness that is within each of us. There is a magic in this togetherness...and although one person running a marathon may not be the reason for a cure, together these runners raised over 14 million to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma society find a cure.

I'm reading John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" right now, and yesterday I came across a passage where one of his characters makes the observation that the world is filled with two types of people: those who are content to live in harmony within this world, and those who are anxious to change it. I had been thinking about that passage quite a bit, and it came to me this morning, as Kevan and I waited in Union Square amidst the crowd of 20,000 women (and a few good men) for the start of the race. The world is filled with these two types of people, yes, but they both reside within each of us. Each person at this race, regardless of their own walk of life, came out because they know that by coming together there is hope, change, and maybe even magic.

Just about to cross the finish line...13.1 miles in a little over 2 hours!

Kevan and I displaying the finisher's t-shirt

My wonderful and supportive mom at the finish line

The runners in the family...Kevan, Dad and I

Even Rike Suave came out to cheer us on!

I ran 13.1 miles in 2 hrs 6 minutes 58 seconds and finished 1,906 overall (out of over 20,000 people!) This chart shows that I averaged a 9 minute 45 second mile pace.

Oh so Oso

2009-10-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

Listen to Oso

I first came to hear about Oso when I was at school at UCSB, but it wasn't until a year after I graduated that I finally made it to my first show. Matt and I experienced Oso for the first time together a couple years ago, and since then have made it a point to bring as many friends as we can to hear them play. As Matt says, "being at an Oso show is a slice of life".

The energy and soul at each show never wavers or wanes...watching them is truly an experience. The lead singer Phil always starts each show riding his unicycle while playing the guitar. The set begins acoustically and will often graduate to becoming electric, as it did last night. As his unicycle rocks back and forth, Phil wildly picks the guitar and sings streams of lyrics with words that wash over each other in a rush of energy and emotion. As Andrew begins to play the bass and Tim starts in with the drums, it's as though I've been given another heartbeat-one that beats in time with the cadence of the music-sporadic yet exhilarating in its momentum.

They are each great musicians in their own respect-better than great in fact-but the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts, and there's a unique fusion that happens when these 4 musicians take the stage together. Their sound seems to reach out to our deeply human need to hear music that moves us; and not just a tapping of toes or a swaying of hips. It reaches much deeper to a place of oneness and connection; whether to the band, those in the crowd, or ourselves it matters not. It's a feeling that wells up and as the music is played we all respond by listening.

The band finishes its last song, and responds to the crowd's chant of "encore" by moving to play in the center of the crowd; their crowd. Nick begins to play a haunting riff on his violin, and Phil responds on his guitar with a rapid succession of notes as his fingers fly over the fret board-it's like watching an overexcited child attempt to explain his first trip to the zoo, by trying to recount each animal he witnessed simultaneously. Then Andrew starts in on his upright bass, creating a beat that grows like the rhythm and hum of a hive of bees. As they play I close my eyes and allow my body to feel the music, and I let my mind go free and my thoughts are swept away in this tumultuous stream of music...and I let them be taken where they will. A My mind is filled with Phil singing "no home...no home...no home....no home", and I find that in that mantra is that oneness and I smile as I sway my hips and tap my toes and join my voice with the rest of the crowd.

Andrew on the electric bass

Nick on his slide guitar

Stories set in Stone

2009-09-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

If ever there was a perfect ending to our trek throughout this red-rock land, it would be to hunt for petroglyphs (meaning "stone carving") and pictographs (meaning a "painted image") on our way back to Park City. At this point we had already hiked over 20 miles in 4 days, but all members of the party were up to the challenge. During our stay in Moab, we learned that the Ute Indians lived throughout the Colorado plateau around 700 BC, and some of the rock art dated back to then! It's amazing to think that these images and stories, painted or carved in these stones, have survived thousands of years and are still here for us to enjoy. What a testament to human consciousness and creativity, to think that those stories told eons ago, are still alive today...

I just can't get enough of this horizon...looking up at the La Sal Mountains.

We found these petroglyphs out on Potash road, about 5 miles outside downtown Moab (sorry they're a bit difficult to see). They date back to around 1600 AD, because the Spanish introduced horses to North American in the 16th century, so the images of horses in the Ute rock art didn't appear until then. The Ute practiced a hunting/gathering lifestyle, so many of the images depict humans with shields, and bison and mountain goats.

These pictograms date back even further, probably to around 2000 BC. We found these about 45 minutes north of Moab in an area called Thomas Springs. We had to drive through a ghost town, and down a long dirt road before finding them. But they were worth it! The images were more archaic and although slightly eerie in their alien-like depictions, it is speculated that these pictograms are more anthropomorphic.

These pictograms were on a stone wall across the canyon from the ones above, and were not as naturally protected from the elements. Regardless, these drawings probably date back to around 2000 BC as well, and again may be depicting an anthropomorphic tale.

The sun was brilliant as we drove back through the desert, and we experienced yet another breathtaking sunset only a couple hours after this picture was taken.

We dined in Price at a quaint Italian restaurant, and finally arrived back home in Park City, only to fly back to Santa Barbara the next morning. I cannot wait to come back and explore more of this fantastic land!