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Welcome back to fall! Back-to-school, cooler days, Labor Day BBQ's... but for far too many of us, especially those in Houston, Florida, the Caribbean, and México, fall has not been very welcoming. Four hurricanes and an earthquake. Big ones all, too.
What always heartens me is reading about all the small little stories of courage, bravery and simple decent kindness that ordinary people in all walks of life demonstrate in times like these. Their words—and actions—carry a lot more weight than those of certain politicians or the heads of certain very large churches.
The real heroes of this country, and other countries, are the people doing the real-life work of living real lives and dealing with real-life issues and challenges. This holds true not just in hurricanes and earthquakes, but in restaurants, schools and libraries, corporate offices, and today, increasingly, in the streets.
I realize all this sounds cliché, but when something is so profoundly true, it's repeated without end, and becomes a cliché, precisely because it is so profoundly true.
Last week I met one such hero. Chase Iron Eyes, one of the protectors of the sacred land of the Lakota People. Yes, the Lakota of Standing Rock. I sat for over an hour in a small auditorium in one of Silicon Valley's largest and most powerful technology companies—who had invited Iron Eyes to speak—listening to this young man share experience, integrity, and wisdom far beyond his years. A young man who is now facing fabricated felony charges for protecting the basic human right of clean water. (There's a petition on that site you can sign for those charges to be dropped, for him and the other water protectors.)
And so we come full water circle. In a painfully beautiful way, Chase's story, and the story of all the water protectors at Standing Rock, merge with the stories of everyone impacted by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and José. Water is our lifeblood and our force of destruction, our mythology and our everyday, our dragon and our lamb.
We, in fact, are water.
~ Birgitte
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The August issue never made it out. I apologize. It just wasn't physically possible. But I have an excellent reason for that. I took my first vacation in several years. At long last! Not a long weekend, not a few days off. A little retreat in the redwoods of California, at the Cazadero Performing Arts Camp.
The original intention had been to take my daughter, who's passionate about drawing, writing, and music. What better experience for a budding young artist than a summer camp in the redwoods that's all about the arts?
As for me, I was going to start my next book. I imagined timeless swaths of creativity spun from carefree afternoons sitting by the creek, iced lemonade (or maybe something a bit stronger) by my side. Surely, I mused, an entire week of such luxury would produce at least a few chapters.
Well, all that changed when I saw the class line-up. Yes, Cazadero is serious business. Taiko drumming. Voice for beginners. Dramatic scene study. Ashtanga yoga.
Out went dreams of idyllic writing sessions in the blissful quiet of the redwoods (there was no blissful quiet at Cazadero anyway... what was I thinking. It's a performing arts camp!) and suddenly my days were full, running from one class to the next while making sure my little one also got to her classes on time.
On top of all that it turned out that 3 out of the 4 classes I had signed up for were to have performances at the end of the week. Meaning, I had to memorize an entire scene from Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," learn a 2-minute Taiko drumming piece, and perform in a vocal piece with a group of samba drummers. Thank heaven for that Ashtanga yoga class... although that was no cake either. Where I wasn't sore because of drumming, our yoga instructor helped us make up for that in plenty of other places.
Crazy, intense, exhilarating, at times infuriating, but somehow it all came together that last day, and it was great. Here I am on performance day. (Last photo on that page; I'm in the back row)
But the most extraordinary moment, the one that made it all worth it a million times over, was when my daughter Aria Luna got up to sing at the Open Mic session. Here she is, her first solo performance.
She's my little Mini Muse.
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