Endless Knots

"Every day there is an egg to catch"

Most Sundays, Daughter #2 and I discuss a single column in The New York Times. Not infrequently, our inner snarks emerge as we eviscerate "Modern Love," the 1500-word essays that appear in Sunday Styles. We haven't had the chance to compare notes yet on "Raising a Princess Single-Handedly," but I'm guessing she, along with you, will choke up a bit and cheer its warmth and evident devotion.

Simon Van Booy and his four-year-old Madeleine are busy making life appear normal after the sudden death of his wife/her mother last year from Marfan syndrome. I don't think it's because my best friend, Linda, died of Marfan's that this piece causes me to pull my laptop into the garden and post in these few moments when it's not raining.

This tender reflection, circling the simple gesture of making breakfast, manages to draw in everything from Sleeping Beauty to the trick of buying store-brand cereal and pouring it into the colorful boxes of crap that children prefer to World War II in one effortless stream.

Witness this from the guy with the funny hat, cane, and mustache, who also takes a bow: "I think it was Charlie Chaplin who said that close up, human life is tragic, but from a distance, it’s funny."

Or how about this capture of a certain aspect of the secret life of children:

We don’t have television, so Hannah Montana entered our lives on a DVD purchased because Madeleine had somehow found out about her through that underground toy-smuggling and gossip network also known as nursery school.

Turns out Mr. Van Booy is a writer of some repute, with books in print and in the pipeline: his new story collection, Love Begins in Winter, is just out, joining The Secret Lives of People in Love (I swear I didn't see the title until after I'd written the line about the secret lives of children); coming soon, Why We Need Love, Why People Fight, and a few more. Prolific to boot.

Do the clickeroo. You'll thank me and we'll both thank Simon and Madeleine. The title of this post, taken from the piece, is self-explanatory.

"It takes a lifetime to change the world"

I'll leave it to you to figure out who among them is the godchild (disgusing that person's privacy even further) but a moment like this cannot pass without record.

On Friday morning in a drenching rain at a school that experienced the kind of tragedy just a few months ago that most institutions would shun mentioning at a celebration, Concord Academy held its commencement exercises.

As the festivities began, we were all holding our breath, I'm sure, because of the death of one of the students' classmates in February at a party (dozens of tributes here).

I would guess that many institutions would have mentioned this only in passing at graduation but from the very first speaker on (the chair of the Concord Academy board) the awfulness was acknowledged. When horrible things are met at the front door, it allows everyone to come in. Jake Dresden, retiring head of Concord (we're all going to miss you and Pat, Jake), continued, also talking frankly about what happened ...and so it went until the commencement speaker, Eric Lander, came to the podium. His son was graduating too.

Need I mention the anticipation of ho-hums that always accompanies the moment before the graduation speaker begins? More platitudes in the offing, we all think, worried that the person might have read all the other commencement speeches online and threaded them together, thinking that would be new.

But Eric did something different. He talked about the future for these kids against a measure that they could perceive. His refrain:

It takes a lifetime to change the world.

It was a beautiful speech, delivered with passion, drawing on his own experience as a very accomplished scientist -- and a parent.

Here are some notes from my little notebook that's always in my purse:

What is 50 years?

It's the time it takes to change the world.

In 1953, Crick and Watson published their first ONE PAGE paper on the double helix.

Fifty years later, the Human Genome project was completed.

A lifetime is enough to change the world.

What is 50 years?

It was approximately 50 years from the time Vannevar Bush first proposed the idea for memex, the precusor to hypertext, aka what we now know as the web.

About 50 years passed between the Montgomery bus boycotts and the election of Barack Obama.

And only 40 years have passed since the Stonewall riots, arguably the night the fight began for equal rights regardless of sexual orientation, and when the first same-sex marriage rights bills were passed in state legislatures.

It's not entirely an accident that it takes a lifetime to change the world.

And he also offered this very sage advice:

Your life cannot be planned in advance but will be assembled from pieces of your passion.

The projects of a lifetime come in all sizes.

The single greatest project of a lifetime is having children.

And...it's utterly impossible to plan in advance how it will all play out.

Well said, Eric. And good luck to the godchild.

(Tiny itty bitty disclosure: Daughter #2 graduated from Concord Academy, providing her with an unparalleled education during her last two years of high school and launching her on her career as an artist.)

Go, e-Patient Dave!

Globe Staff Photo / Suzanne Kreiter--thanks!

He comments here on occasion and has made headlines of late when he discovered that his medical records contained, shall we say, a few inaccuracies when transferred to Google Health.

Today, e-Patient Dave, the person/blogger who passes in the real world as Dave deBronkart, is featured in Elizabeth Cooney's interview, "The excellent patient," in The Boston Globe (which, btw, continues to arrive in the driveway). Congrats, Dave, and thanks for all the good work you're doing on behalf of patients, reminding us all that our best advocates are ourselves.

A very good(man) day

Every year, Freedom House holds its Champions of Freedom event where outstanding people who make great contributions to the cause of freedom receive awards. I've been on the Freedom House board where Gail Snowden, known for her innovative community banking approaches while at BankBoston and Fleet (remember them, Bostonians?) now serves as CEO. Gail's parents, Otto and Muriel Snowden, founded Freedom House in 1949 and its mission, to educate kids and inspire them to do things that might cross their minds but for which they don't have the resources, continues. That's my interpretation. Here's the official mission statement:

Our mission is to promote economic selfsufficiency and social justice for residents in historically underserved neighborhoods through targeted educational development, increased civic and political engagement and progressive cultural advocacy.

Tonight's celebration honored a variety of people, the first award given in honor of Carolyn Goodman, for whom an award has been named. I've written a-plenty about Carolyn and the Goodman Family here. This year's Carolyn Goodman Award went to Margot Stern Strom, President and Executive Director of Facing History and Ourselves.

Earlier in the day, a small group of Facing History staff hosted a luncheon for Carolyn's son (and my long-time friend) David Goodman, to which I was invited. Quite a privilege to be included. Photos by Facing History-er Jeanine Zurkus (thanks!)

David Goodman and Adam Strom

David and Margot Stern Strom



Front row: David and Margot
Back row: Moi, Michael Durney, Adam Strom, and Marty Sleeper

A tale of two Pauls

Something's been going on around the country--and in other countries too--where instead of people behaving in predictable ways as the economy has worsened, they're choosing to use their creativity in service of humanity. The media loves this and there are segments on nearly all the news programs about people stepping outside the bounds and "making a difference," as the NBC Nightly News calls its now-regular segment.

My friend Paul Levy, who's shown up a time or two before here, has found himself in the limelight as a result of the choices he's made as head of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where revenues are off $20 million this year, which translates into 600 jobs. Paul's written plenty about this on his blog; if you click over there, you'll be able to follow the whole story.

Because of his approach to "running a hospital," he took the problem to the people and naturally they responded. After a series of town meetings where Paul laid out the problem, the hospital opened an online forum where people could anonymously post suggestions. They got tons (detailed data on his blog about all of this).

Long/short, through voluntary salary reductions from the top to deep in the organization and some other cuts, like suspension of 401(k) matches and removing payments for people's beloved Blackberrys, they've whittled down the number of jobs at risk to about 140, maybe fewer (I'm losing track a bit).

Enough of the story. Point is that the national press caught on and last night, the hospital was featured on that very NBC segment, Making a Difference, and tonight, it was featured on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer as part of a longer piece reported by Paul Solman. Afterward, Paul S. asked Paul L. to record a bit more, a six or so minute piece where the hospital guy tells the TV guy how the whole wonderful thing came down and how anyone else could replicate what he'd done in four easy moves: be transparent; provide a forum for participation; be respectful; and explain decisions logically, in plain, straightforward language that people can understand.

Every bit of this is worth your seeing and reading, every bit. Please spread the word.

[Special note to those who know my strange life on trains where I meet all manner of people: A couple of years ago, I was getting off the train in New York when I realized Paul Solman was right behind me. Although we hadn't crossed paths since we both had written for the long-gone Boston After Dark in the deep dark past, I cheerily introduced myself. One thing led to another and next I knew, we were sharing a cab, Paul on his way to visit his 93-year-old father still living in the apartment where Paul had grown up on the Lower East Side, just a few blocks from where my grandfather had lived, and me on my way to my jewels in Brooklyn, aka daughters and son-in-law.]

Roland at the Fiction Book Club

In the pocket of secrets that fill our lives, threads fray. While most sew them right up,  an unusual few take certain strands and pull them in just the right way that they make what is normally private more public.

Such was the great luck of the Fiction Book Club yesterday when Roland Merullo visited us. That we were fortunate enough to have a few moments with Amanda, wife of, and Alexandra and Juliana, daughters of, was its own gift.

In preparation for our special Saturday session, we read Breakfast with Buddha, the novel of Roland's that's been nominated for the Dublin International Literary Award (and which he's discussing today as the book chosen for its first "Wayland Reads" program). As a bonus book, we also agreed to read his latest, Fidel's Last Days, which most in the group also read and loved.

We asked a lot of questions: Why did he write the book? How did he write it? Does he plot out his novels in advance? Why did the characters do this or that? When did he start writing? What did he do before he wrote and/or when he was waiting for his books to be published? What is he working on now? What in Buddha is real, what imagined?

While I could do a very long post now, jotting down all that Roland said, commenting on it and suchnot, instead I'm just going to report what everyone agreed:

"This is the best book club we've ever had."

And how the two-and-a-half hours with Roland affected us:

It was another four hours before everyone left, during which time we had perhaps our most profound conversation as a group about where we are in our lives and where we're thinking of going.

I doubt that was Roland's intention as he is hardly a person who tries to get others to do things or influence them in ways that seem right to him.

What caused this to happen, I think, is his openness, his "straightforward" way, as one book club member said.

I count myself as extremely fortunate to have met Roland when I did, at a point in my writing career when I needed someone to stand behind me and point in different directions, which is precisely what he's done. Unexpected has been his unstinting generosity, which I've been the beneficiary of in so many ways, including his taking time yesterday to sit with our book club and open us further to possibilities.

"...so that all our children could fly"

Speaks, make that, sings (see Amy Dixon-Kolar) for itself, posted for all veterans of the Civil Rights movement, for my parents who called themselves "integrationists" in a segregated Pennsylvania town where that word was hardly understood, and for all of us, still shaking our heads while looking ahead:

Inaugurate: to make a formal beginning

Why Barack won't break our hearts

Sitting in the warmth of my home, a fire burning, a house that's been here since 1723, since before there was a United States of America, miraculously watching Barack give his address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Mac on my lap, hubby with his machine on the old pine chest, watching the TV...and thinking about the future.

We all share the concern that the aspirations we hold at moments of change will run into reality, float away in anger and dust. We're all in love with the future (when it isn't frightening us) but there's a way for this relationship with possibility not to end in heartbreak.

How? Because it's up to him, of course, to do what only presidents can do but it's never been more up to us. Without going all preachy on you, I truly believe that this is our time, our moment to do everything we can. To perform our own jobs as if they are the most important in the world, to come up with new ideas and execute them as fast as we can, and to help everyone we know who's hurting as much as we can. (Anyone need a house or office cleaner? I have a great referral for you!)

There are these inflection points in history, brief moments when grand vistas appear before us, ours for the decorating with our great visions.

What's yours?

From Ritesh in Chennai, India

For the past three years, we've been working on OrgScope with Ritesh Rajani, a brilliant software developer employed by ProdExNet, which is headed by our colleague and dear friend, Sujatha Bodapathi. The story of our collaboration with Ritesh -- across distance, organization, timezone, language, culture, hearing impediment, and age -- deserves its own post. But this is about what happened last week.

Ritesh is in Chennai, India, 640 miles southeast of Mumbai, and on the opposite coast. Distance aside, our hearts have been with Ritesh and his colleagues, the people we know best in India, ever since the terrible attacks. Jeff Stamps, who's worked extremely closely with Ritesh on OrgScope, wrote to Ritesh and today we received his very heartfelt reply, along with those that followed, posted here with his permission.

Jeff, Thank you for standing by us in these turbulent times.

Though the real intention of these acts is to destroy the harmony and spread social chaos; in some ways, inadvertently, it is bringing the people of the country and the world closer and united against terror. At this point, we hope that the anger and grief of the people is channeled constructively, in the right direction to bring about the change and awareness required in us, and our leaderships to deal with these new-world crises more effectively.

I also got quite a few emails with similar content...

- Ritesh.

I replied, asking Ritesh if I could post here (he's a great reader of this blog), and he came back almost immediately with this note:

Hi Jessica,

Sure, you can post that on your blog (but there's no need to put my name :-)

Well, since I was not in Mumbai I cannot give any personal anecdotes, however, most Indians (including us) were glued to their television sets for 3 days throughout all the events unfolding. The media had a minute to minute coverage of the sites (they were also criticized later, since this might have been helping the terrorists).

A surprisingly good account of the entire episode can be found at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks> Also you can see sections: Criticism of politicians and resignations, and Nationalism among the Indian public

Best Regards,
Ritesh.

Then came this one:

I also got quite a few emails with similar content...

- Ritesh.

Dear friends across India and the world,

We're all feeling the shock of the awful attacks in Mumbai. All our hearts go out to the victims and their families.

The attacks were aimed at our people, our prosperity and our peace. But their top target was something else: our unity. If these attacks cause us to turn on each other in hatred and conflict, the terrorists will have won. They know that hatred and chaos feed on division. As radical extremists, their only hope of winning is by turning the rest of us against each other.

Let's deny them that victory. We're launching a message to extremists on all sides and all our political leaders, one that will soon be published in newspapers across India and Pakistan. The message is that these tactics have failed, that we're more united than ever, united in our love and support to each other, determined to work together against terror and call on our leaders to do the same. If millions of people sign it, our message will be unmistakable, click below to sign it and please forward this email widely:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/india_undivided/98.php/?cl_tf_sign=1

It's time to speak out, let's do it together.

Thanks