Weekend in Tucson

Uzi and I spent the last weekend in Tucson at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) annual conference. What an extremely interesting group of people. I first heard of them a few months ago when I went to a symposium in Malibu about honeybees--possible research for my next book--that was sponsored in part by IONS. I guess I got on their mailing list that day, because in late April I received a catalogue for their June conference, "Toward a Global Shift: Seeding the Field of Collective Change." It looked like a potentially useful conference to attend in preparation for the book release, and also just an interesting phenomenon to check out. And we figured, Tucson isn't that far, and our babysitter just got back from Spain and can watch the kids for two nights--it's been years since we've gone away together for a weekend--so why not?

Wow. This was a pretty amazing conference. More than 1,000 people in a ballroom every day listening to everyone from corporate CEOs to Indian gurus to African community organizers talking about how everyone can help transform the planet into a more sustainable, compassionate, abundant place for everyone. The Institute's mission is to nurture the conversation between science and spiritual values, vis a vis funding scientific studies, supporting green initiatives, and creating curriculums of non-violence for schools. They're interested in the role consciousness plays in everyday life and if you believe in the power of intention, as I do, it's fairly incredible to sit in a ballroom with a thousand other people who do, too.

We heard a speech by Edgar Mitchell, the former Apollo astronaut and one of only about a dozen Americans who've been to the moon. On his trip back to earth he looked out of the shuttle window and saw the earth from a vantage point few get to see, and had a profoundly spiritual moment, realizing we're all on this little planet together in the vastness of space. In his own words, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes." As a scientist and engineer, he didn't have a framework to fully integrate the awareness that reality might be more subtle and mysterious than he'd bargained for, but he went looking for others with the same belief, and in 1973 they founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences. (The name comes from the Greek word "nous," which loosely means "intuitive ways of knowing.")

Mitchell has a book I just ordered called The Way of the Explorer. The Institute is at www.ions.org for anyone who wants to check it out.

Let the Sun Shine

So, Maya's last day of school was Wednesday, and the school's annual talent show always takes place that morning. This year (like last year) she did a hula hoop routine. She set it to "Let the Sun Shine In" from Hair, and dressed up in green harem pants, a white Indian shirt, a green suede vest, and a headband with a big white flower pinned on it. I wish I had a still photo to post here, but I was filming it on video and didn't have a free hand. Plus, it's a new video camera and I don't really know how to use it very well, so it took all my effort to get that right.

She was the last act in the show, and if you know the song, you probably remember that the first three minutes is a medley of different voices and even pieces of different songs, and the next three minutes is full of very melodic but also unimaginative lyrice--it's just "Let the sun shine, let the sun shine in, the su-un, shine in" over and over again. For the last two minutes she invited the whole show cast on stage with her and all the kids were dancing and singing together. It was a really beautiful ending to both the show and the year. Because I'm such a sucker for kids singing on stage of course I started crying, and trying to keep a videocamera steady when you're reduced to a blubbering mess, especially when you're using the camera for the first time (see above) was a real sight to behold, let me tell you.

The top two contenders for songs to hoop to were "Let the Sun Shine In" and "The Age of Aquarius"--which is an excellent song for hooping, by the way. We've been listening to the soundtrack from "Hair" in the car (minus the R-rated songs, which I nearly always remember to skip over) pretty consistently since returning from New York in April, where we saw the play on Broadway. I'd loved the music from "Hair" as a kid, and have vivid memories of dancing around like a dervish in our wood-paneled basement singing "The air, the air, is everywhere." The movie came out when I was 14, and set me off on a long and torturous path of relationships with every man I met who looked remotely like Treat Williams. No job? Even better!

Seeing the play on Broadway, 40 years after its original appearance there, yielded a couple of large surprises. One was that I realized I still knew all the words to all the songs, even though I hadn't heard some of them in more than 20 years. Another was that bringing two kids, ages 11 and 7, to see "Hair" is a much more questionable parenting decision than I'd initially bargained for. I'd sussed out the nudity part in advance, and had been assured that it was handled tastefully (which it was). Plus, these are Topanga kids. Naked neighbors in backyard hot tubs are part of their landscape; I wasn't terribly worried about that part. I'd completely forgotten how raunchy some of the lyrics were, though. A few lines into "Sodomy" Eden leaned over and loudly whispered, "Mom! What do all these words mean?" I told her, "I'll explain when you're older" and she seemed okay with that. But the F-word was omnipresent, and there was lots of sexual mimicry on stage, oy vey. I hope I haven't inspired years on therapists' couches ("And my mother? My mother took me to see HAIR!"). Nonetheless, the play was a joyous celebration of nonconformity, with dancing up and down the aisles, and audience members invited to dance on stage at the end, a wild, colorful, uplifting party of a play. And the inspiration for a school talent show hula-hoop routine. Who would have thought?

The Powers of Persuasion

When I was down running errands this afternoon, the girls wrote an argumentative essay trying to convince one of us to bring them to a movie this afternoon. "I didn't even use any comma splices!" Maya announced, as she handed me the two-page, typed essay, tucked into a plastic report cover. And done in five colors of type. Here you go:

Why We Should See UP
By: Maya and Eden

Maya and Eden are anxiously awaiting your opinion on the following. We would like you to consider us seeing the movie UP, in digital 3-D. In this essay you may learn why we want to see UP, what UP is about, and when and where it is playing.

We would like to see UP because it is superbly-completely-totally-entirely-awesomely-radically-bodaciously in 3-D. We would also like to see it so we don't feel left out in school. It would also be a great pleasure to us to see a 3-D movie. I heart the cute little glasses.

UP is about an old, grouchy man who wants to go on an adventure...alone! Unfortunately a fat boy scout tags along. They go on the adventure of a lifetime by flying in a house held-up by balloons. They travel to Paradise Falls (I think) a remote place with no humans. However, there is a talking dog. Please let us see UP!

UP is playing today in Santa Monica at: 4:30, 7:10, and 9:50. UP is playing in Woodland Hills at: 2:50, 5:35, and 8:15. Eden and Maya made a haiku and limerick about UP.

Haiku

UP is a movie
It has a house with balloons
It is in 3-D


Limerick

UP has balloons
UP isn't a cartoon
UP is about a flying house
UP isn't about a mouse
In UP they get stuck in a monsoon

We Hope You Liked It Muchacho

Suffice it to say: while I'm home for the next two hours packing for New York, Uzi is down in Woodland Hills sitting through the 5:35 showing of UP.
We're such suckers for a good essay.

Spelling and More Spelling

News has come down the pipeline that the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District is going to experience somewhere in the vicinity of a bazillion dollar shortfall over the next two years, and that all bets are off on what's going to have to be cut. At first we parents thought we were looking at our kids losing art and music instruction (bad, but not devastating) and were worried class sizes would go up (which they very likely will). Now word is that one of the three Malibu elementary schools might have to be closed. Whoa. This is serious stuff, folks, and a direct result of the California legislature's inability to vote on a budget for many months now, resulting in a $5.3 billion statewide reduction in education funding next year, as well as voters' clear message when defeating five May 19 ballot measures that education isn't going to be a priority in these hard economic times.

I really dread becoming one of those mothers who goes on ad infinitum about her children's schools, but this is serious stuff, people. The only comparison I can make is the austerity measures of 1970s school districts in New York, but even then I don't remember music and art getting cut. Here in our district, we're all in wait-and-see mode, wondering how big the axe is going to be when (not if, but when) it falls. Which should be some time this summer, probably while the girls and I are in Iowa, a state that actually does care about education funding. And legal gay marriage. If only it weren't so damn cold there most of the year.

In the meantime, the first-grade spell-o-rama of random high-school-level words continues. Here's Eden's list of words to study for the weekly test tomorrow:
1. store
2. more
3. before
4. corn
5. or
6. for
7. morning
8. afford
9. prehensile
10. arachnid
11. amphibian

First-grade spellers

Eden goes to public school in Malibu--a small, well-funded, really excellent public school. Her teacher this year is the same one Maya had in the first grade, who we were hoping she'd get because we liked her so much the first time around, and like her just as much the second. Very high-quality academics. Still, the list of spelling words she brought home last week was off-the-charts funny. It's like the kids got eight years of spelling quizzes rolled into one. (They're learning about the rainforest this week, but still.)
1. by
2. my
3. fly
4. cry
5. try
6. pry
7. multiply
8. predator
9. emergent
10. camouflage
I'm not even sure I spelled camo correctly there.

Dispatch from Amsterdam

We've been here two days, having tagged along with Uzi on his business trip for the girls' Spring Break. I haven't been to Amsterdam since 1989, when I was backpacking through Europe and staying in youth hostels, and though the city center hasn't changed much physically, I'm here under a whole new set of circumstances now. We arrived on Monday morning, and after a four-hour nap Maya and I walked over to the Albert Cuyp Market to pick up some food. It's about 6 blocks from our hotel, in the multiethnic, bohemian De Pijp section of town--lots of bright colors and noise and activity. The people are just as friendly as I remember from 1989, and everyone speaks English. Pretty fluently. There are thousands of bicyclists on the street at all times, especially during rush hour--people walk their dogs by bicycle, text message, even put on makeup--and cyclists seem to have right of way under all circumstances. Minding the bike lanes takes some very focused practice to avoid getting plowed over.

Yesterday we walked everywhere because the sky was clear, and that's a rarity here this time of year. We tried to start at the Anne Frank House but even at 10:30 a.m. the line was far too long...so we visited the Tulip Museum nearby, the Houseboat Museum, and climbed to the top of Westerkerk, from which we had a stellar view down on the annex where the Franks hid for two years. We ate pannenkoekem for lunch (the Dutch version of pancakes, which resembles ours only in shape), went to an Easter Carnival in Dam Square, and ended the day at the Van Gogh Museum. After a rest at the hotel we met my grade-school friend Kim (who's lived here for 7 years) for dinner at an Indian restaurant and collapsed into bed around 10 p.m. Whew.

A couple of random obervations. The stairs in Amsterdam houses are unbelievably steep. It's probably because houses here were taxed on their widths (a long way from Proposition 13) and aren't very deep, so to maximize living space people scrimped on staircase depth. To get to our guest apartment at the hotel we have to climb up two sets of the steepest, shallowest stairs I've ever encountered. The only appreciable different between them and a ladder is carpeting.

Except when riding bicycles, people don't use their cell phones in public--not while walking down the street, not in stores, not on the tram. It's a sad statement about the U.S. that I find this to be almost unbearably weird.

While the spoken language sounds a lot like German to me, I find the printed language hilarious. It combines letters you'd never see together in English, and often strings vowels and consonents in odd and fascinating combinations. Plus, the words go on forever. We amused ourselves this evening by selecting random words from the Dutch travel phrase book I brought with me. My favorite was voedselvergiftiging: "food poisoning"

Everyone in America talks about how the dollar is still doing poorly against the Euro, but once you deduct Amsterdam's 19 percent sales tax (which is included in sticker prices here) and add 9.25 percent (our brand-new state sales tax, thank you so much Arnold) to California prices, the difference is almost negligable on many items.

Some things here that are noticeably cheaper than they are in California:
avocados
strawberries
orchids
museum entry fees
wooden spoons

Items that are significantly more expensive:
Restaurant food
Shoes

Also, this city has the best coffee I've ever met, even though the portions are about half the size of Starbucks (haven't seen a single Starbucks here, blessedly). But there are two Chabads.

Coming Home, Take Two

This return from Belize was rockier than the last one, and I've been trying to figure out why. It wasn't that I wasn't happy to be back, or to see the family--I missed them terribly. And it wasn't just that I was reluctant to step back into the usual early morning/bus stop/errands/workday/dinner/homework routine/bed too late routine, although that was undeniably a part of it.

I've been back a week now, and here's what I think: that there's something to all the talk about how modern society is incompatible with living a spiritual life. After 10 days in Belize, where the pace is relaxed, the living is simple, the spirit world is an accepted part of daily life, and signs are everywhere and easily recognizable, Los Angeles was a startling transition. On the one hand, I stepped outside the airport with my bags and heard the familiar sounds and felt the inimitable Los Angeles night air and knew I was back home, a comforting feeling. On the other hand, re-entering the noise, the anxiety, the confusion, the chaos, made the window slam shut on all the spiritual openness I'd managed to achieve over the past ten days. Maybe not entirely, but mostly, it felt.

The real challenge for those of us who live ordinary lives in the U.S., I think, is not to find a spiritual connection, but to figure out how to maintain it in the face of all the distractions and responsibilities that clutter our days here. I'm not advocating abandoning those responsibilities, only musing on how to maintain a connection to the Higher Self when so many small moments of the day keep pulling us down to the mundane, lower vibrations that keep the city spinning.

In the meantime, while I'm trying to figure this out, here's a photo of some of the girls in Rosita's workshop in Belize. I'm the third one from the right.