MaryAlice Musings and More

I spent part of the afternoon wandering along Clement Street - this is the "other" Chinatown in SF...we decided we would walk until we saw a restaurant we wanted to eat at....we were not so far from UC-SF and my colleague knows his chinese food. We couldn't resist the Happy Something Restaurant, I have named it happy hunan dim sum, they serve dim sum all day. The turnip cakes were delicate and delicious, the shrimp dumplings, yum. Way too much food, but I am still smiling. I feel that each time I travel I am just an advertisement for eat, eat, eat. Enjoy, eat well, give thanks.

I wanted to blog about the closing of our conference.  It is good to be inspired, to be acknowledged for our passion and commitment to our work, to be reminded of what is important.  Hope, truth telling, and curiosity.  I appreciate when we are enfolded in the philosophical and world of our own faith in our humanity.  So I smiled big when in closing Reinhold Niebuhr (American theologian who studied Christian faith and the reality of modern politics and diplomacy)  was quoted from one of his most famous books: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own,; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness."  R...

I love the lights of SF at night, the hills, the compactness, the row houses, and diverse styles.  It is good.  After an entire day and a half of meetings, it feels like I could be anywhere.  Hotel conference rooms have two temperatures, no matter what time zone:  freezing and getting too hot.  I am suffering greatly as I have no anti-freeze left over from this winter.  I have lots of layers on and I am still cold.  The outside is a fading reality as we all move from one room with out a window, to the next cold windowless room.  Good things there are engaged, insightful, talented presenters.  All doing good work to try to reach the tipping point from poverty to greater interdependence to independence and control for people with disabilities who want to and do work!   It is good to see lots of new faces and reconnect with those of us who have been doing this work for 15+years.   Tomorrow, I move over to across the bay to Oakland, then onto Sonoma County for some down time....meanwhile I...

I am on the west coast, and I continue to be pulled by the difference in our time zones.  It is way early in the morning, when I talk to my friends on the east coast.  My colleagues have gone home from work, when I find a moment to talk to them, and I woke friends up when I called to check in at the end of my day here in CA.  This is another advantage that I feel as a midwesterner, we are in the middle, it is not more than 2 hrs. ever to talk to people in either coast!  I have much that I want to share, but I can't figure out when to do it.  It is days before I find myself back home, to my comfort zone.  Meanwhile, I will struggle with time zones and appreciate all that I am enjoying right here in Northern California.  And it is only a matter of weeks?  Months?  and MN will provide the #60 senate vote to override a filabuster by the republicans!  A good thing no matter what time zone you are in.

Grandeho's Kamekyo Sushi Bar was recommended by concierge when I asked for a casual japanese sushi bar....so I walked four blocks down Beach Street to the end of the Hyde/Powell Street Cable Cars.  Alcatraz was lit up in the dark and the houses were twinkling up on the hills.  Then I found Kamekyo --- the sushi was great, the restaurant was painted melon like colors and lots of fresh wonderful flowers.  Sake was poured until it flowed over and over - wishing them and me very good luck.  SanFrancisco - windy, very cool and totally inviting.

Oh the joy of being with your "best friends" and family on your birthday.  Any birthday is good with family and friends, but watching Myah with four of her friends celebrating her 9th Birthday, just a great thing to witness.  Myah and her friends along with Mom, Gramma, and one of Mom's "best friends" went off to American Girl.  Oh the dolls came along too.  Crafts, games, a princess chair for Myah, presents, and lots of lots of good big laughs and fun.  How remarkable and precious to be able to be the Gramma who gets to come to parties,  read books to my grandkids, and see them as they grow.  Such a gift to be a part of their lives.  I was in the room when Myah was born, and am so grateful that I could be there smiling, laughing, loving with her as she celebrates as she continues to grow into who she is and who she will be.

One of the things that speaks to me deeply in sufi poetry is how it so resonates in my life for today.  I have really tried to keep listening closely to what President Obama says.  How he continues to carry a message that carries the belief in the integrity, worth, value of us all.  He does believe, so as I read the poem below this morning I was struck by how in unison the times of our beloved Persian (that which is now Iran) Sufi Poets carries a message as vital and as provocative as it was in the time they were living.  Words live in one, and the heart continues to be ignited!   NOW IS THE TIME   Now is the time to know That all that you do is sacred.   Now, why not consider A lasting truce with yourself and God.   Now is the time to understand That all of your ideas of right and wrong Were just a child’s training wheels To be laid aside When you can finally live With veracity And love.   Hafiz is a divine envoy Whom the Beloved Has written a holy message upon.   My dear, please tell...

Baltimore had many very good learnings.  Good connections with colleagues, provocative questions and listening, a very quiet hotel room, green grass, flowering  trees, and hard shell crabs.  I learned how to "dress" a crab.  It was wonderful.  I spent several hours with one of my colleagues eating shellfish under the stars on a beautiful night in Baltimore.  It was such a great reminder of the absolute vitality of really sharing food and conversation.  Next stop find a "u-tube" video so I can keep up my newly found skills when I find the next opportunity to have freshly harvested hard shell clams.  Next stop, SanFrancisco - no lack of good connecting with friends and eating simply wonderful food!

This is the start of a month of travels from coast to coast and places in between.  I checked out the buds on my bushes and green shoots coming up in my beds.  I know they will grown and change while I am away.  I want to be able to remember how they were and be able to notice how they have grown.  Kind of like me as I step into new adventures, be with new people, and learn in new ways.  I hope the fine spring days travel with me as I go....Bags packed, dishes done, bed made, sun shining, ready to go!

Minneapolis is the twin of the twin cities,  the city that was not the official site of the RNC, and it is my home.  My first move to live here was preceded by Madison, WI and Chicago, IL - for me it was bigger than Madison that always felt like a very very small and great city (but not a real city) and most definitely NOT Chicago.  It has taken a long period of time for me to truly feel like this city is my home.   It wasn't that I had a large list of complaints (I have some!) it was more about what resonated with me, where were those physical sites, the congregation of people, the community "stuff" that l would not leave me with wanting more.   I  am glad to say that those I am not at home feelings seldom show up any more, and today when I opened the paper I had another good laugh at my home!  The Minneapolis City Council Regulatory Committee had a hearing about keeping BEES in the city!  It was f ront page news !  I can just imagine the cast of speakers: the professors...

 Cassandra, who I have met through colleagues and friends, has a blog - I have a link to it on my own blog.  She has been putting quotes that are on bottles, cups of coffee on her site lately.  The first one, was about commitment and I read and re-read it several times,  wrote it out.  On Monday she had another one:   " The bad news: there is no key to the universe. The good news: it was never locked."  Swami Beyondananda I just smiled so big when I read it, I did again just now as I copied it out.  The bad and the good news.  No key.  The bad and the good news.  Here we are.  Glad this day in the universe started with a big smile, and a very sweet giggle.  Hope you find a giggle on a bottle for yourself today!

Such a week, this past one,  a week full of honoring of ones beliefs.   Passover and Easter both carry such significance.   The continued unfolding and birthing of spring.  There is such a constant testing of my faith; will the sun ever really warm my cheeks,  is there something more that I can do in this stressful time,  how do I find the positive rather than hang onto the negative, the fear, doubts?  As I listened this week to the sermon of a wonderful episcopal priest, I was struck by how she was able to honor the reality of faith in the divine.  She talked of God, I translated to the Divine,  of the reality of  faith and how it allows me to be less sure, to be amazed, humbled.  She reminded me that the message was, "Do you love me?"  not "do you believe?".  Conviction is not faith, she said, it is self righteous indignation!  How comforting to be reminded of the mysteries of my life,  of how when we can let go of being certain, being sure, certitude, it is then ...

Jewish Sun-Blessing Day.  Ancient Jewish tradition (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 59b) teaches:'Whoever sees the sun at its tekufah (transformative cycle-marker), the moon in its powers, the stars (or planets) in their orbits, and the signs of zodiac in their orderly progress, should say "Baruch oseh ma'aseh v'reshit. Blessed be the Doer of Deeds of "In the Beginning (Creation). 

I wish I could talk about something unrelated to weather, but it just keeps coming up!  I have had a significant change in my weight since my surgery for sleep apnea.  I know don't have sleep apnea so I have lost 20+ pounds and I am 5'4" on a good day.  I am challenged by my rather loosely fitting wardrobe, and jostled with the sales clerk at gap about what size jeans would fit me (she was right!), and I am cold, especially at work.  I work in a new building, you would think it would have a good heat/air staging system, not the case.  There is a lot of cold air blowing around, and I have a number of shawls in my office just in case I cannot get warm any other way.  So here it is the second week of April, and it is in the 20's when I wake up in the morning, and  not even 50 when I come home from work, and I have lost all of my anti-freeze.  Come on sunshine.  I am ready for the warmth on my cheeks and flip flops on my feet!

How fun to wake up and still have a smile on my face.  My guy,  (I think I should insert the background music,  "My guy, my Guy, talking 'bout my guy,  ohh ohh) Kevin won the DFL endorsement on the second ballot yesterday!  There was a motion to endorse unanimously and it passed.  Jose was 1st class as a candidate and as he coped with not winning the endorsement, but making many new friends and pledging to support Kevin in the race.  Doran really rallied his supporters, and he will continue his work with us all in Windom Park.  It was a good day, and it was not until I knew the numbers of the second ballot that I experienced all the feelings for me in volunteering and commiting myself not only to this race, but my community, my neighbors.    I did start the T-Shirt Rug at the convention, lots of knitters did a few stiches or rows, and I am looking forward to giving it to Kevin for his kitchen.  It was fun to have a "green" project to work on and share.  I had a great...

The early morning is the most inviting pinks and purples, and the dawn light is shooting up in streams.  Good way to start this Ward 1 DFL Convention.  Neighbors just keep talking to neighbors, listening, learning, sharing....We are all ready to go wild as Kevin speaks to the entire convention for the first time today.  I visualizing as I watch the sky change that Kevin will be endorsed by the delegates today.  Hoping that 60% of the delegates will make the decision to endorse Kevin.  Meanwhile,  I have my volunteer job that starts in a little more than an hour: I am smiling.  Finding out about what people care about, and asking them to consider endorsing Kevin. Being Helpful.  Tracking numbers.  Showing people my "green" knitting (I am knitting a rug from old T-Shirts!).  The color is all gone from the sky, it doesn't look very spring like out there,  it is cold, and supposed to stay that way -- these are good weather conditions to get people inside on a saturday.  So to...

I believe I am just starting to keep an increase in the symptoms of no blogging --- worry that I have run out of the number of written words I have to share,  increased anxiety that I have lost the ability to just stay present in the moment (is it gone forever), questioning the relevancy of an activity that I have committed to for the past seven months, heightened volume of the internal critic, decreased sense of humor, overall malaise.   You get the picture.  Work has been amazing opportunity in just about everything!  People are working really hard,  good results are occurring and the Governor wants everyone to take 24 days off a year with no pay, and just keep doing all their work (what is wrong with this picture).   That is a whole blog in and of itself --- it is getting harder and harder to understand bailouts when the fabric of so many people's lives just grows thinner and thinner and the worry is when and how will it break!   So that's work --- it is a big plate,  all of...