I remember my first classical music concert, my mother had made a point of taking me. A beautiful theater in Anchorage, not too big, but with upholstered velvet seats that had musicians and a conductor.

I wanted to swallow it.

One of the things about classical music concerts is the motion. The stringed instruments bob, and the bows have their own synchronized dance. They are all together, but each expressing the passion of the player. The player sits with rapt-voluntary regimentation- focus on the center.

The Conductor, the leader of the dance. And old man in this case–in most cases–elegantly suited and waving his arms and hand. He leans, bending forward and swaying back.

I haven’t even talked about the music yet.

The music. That was why we’d come. The program, which I’d read intently, talked about the different pieces they’d be playing, and how some of them were named–pastoral–and was meant to invoke a specific scene. Some were abstractly named a number, and were  not meant to direct the audience’s interpretation but to be left to our own response.

I had a responsibility, as an audience, to have these described reaction. I was supposed to have certain kinds of imaginations and interpretations.

I listened, and then I looked at the faces of the musicians. And I listened again. Then I felt the seat beneath me, the velvet slick and rough depending on how I stroked it.

The music filled the world, and yet there was still room for more. I felt my mind wandering to different thoughts, sensory experiences in the room, and ideas.

I tried to shake them off and pay strict attention to the music. THAT was supposed to be the important thing.

It was years later that I remembered that struggle. Because it happened again, like a particular flavor experience of the mind. I was listening to a lecture, a wonderful thought-provoking lecture, and my mind kept flying off to the different ideas that the lecturer presented.

Pay attention!

Oh wait, no. No.

This is the point. This is what thought provoking means.

Inspiration.

Experience gives us thoughts, and thoughts become action, which make art and changes to the world.

It’s What We’ve Got

It takes a lot. I write this blog I don’t know if anyone Really cares.

Well, I do know that people care. I get people telling me they like it. But it is it’s pwn little island

I just read that Monty hall of let’s make a deal fame Did something very similar while he was looking for work.

He was first looking for work in New York City and still living in Montreal, He was trying really hard to get meetings with executives. He describes that he was getting nowhere. He was riding a one page Saying and mailing it to these people he called it Monties memo

Eventually one of the executive had lunch with him because they liked his writing.

He wanted a TV show. For me the writing is itself the outcome. I find this story encouraging

I asked Veronica if she wanted to come Vote with me. She got all excited and said she wanted to go on the boat.

whoops. No, I had to explain to her with new words that we were going to vote, she would get a sticker. And voting is how we pick the people that were in charge. The president, congress senators, governors…and she’d get a sticker.

I told her she had to be a big girl to vote. ‘I’m a big girl.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m four”

“You have to be 18 to vote. That is fourteen years away.”

The people inside were very friendly, no surprise. I showed her the signs in different languages. The offered her a sticker right away, and then greeted her in spanish, vietnamese and chinese.

Ni Hao!

She pressed the inka dot for me, and the poll worker let her put the ballot into the machine.

She said goodbye to everyone, and carried my sample ballot home.

So I have found some overused themes in my life.

There are ways I react to things and hang on to things that i don’t want to do anymore.

I want to do it different.

There are times, and i’d been living through a LOT of times where the difficult things, the things that would make me react didn’t come from me.

There were, shall we say, circumstances. And I had REASONS to have these reactions.

I would think about the reasons, and again and again I would have the painful reaction.

How am I supposed to get dry and warm when I am on a beach, it’s raining, and the tide is coming in?

wave after wave

And yet. I knew that if I thought about it differently, even if the waves didn’t stop, it would be better.

If only I could get dry, I could have the wherewithal to rethink the story

To quote a favorite song:

You’re never gonna quit it if you dont stop smoking it

I tried to quit it. And it really began to pour. I wasn’t hit by waves, I was IN the waves.

But I found the story. I found the big story about me, and I started to tell me.

the water receded. As I kept practicing the story of me, the waves stopped

There are still memories though.

To take it out of metaphor land, there are people that I have to learn to live with. To learn to live with the memory of what happened.

It really happened. I have a REASON to feel the way I feel.

I don’t like the reason, but it the past can’t be done over.

..or can it? What if I pan the camera to the right?

How could I retell the past to myself that lets it be okay?

I have a lot of editing to do

Right now Veronica is really into Richard Scarry’s Storybook dictionary.  Scarry knew what he was doing when he wrote a book.

The dictionary is full of story after story, all vignettes of this peopled community. I can’t possibly read the whole book, so I tell Veronica she gets to pick a letter. Some letters are longer than others. She prefers the long ones.

These animal people have a lot of interactions. Brambles Warthog takes a lot of care in his grooming, and Veronica always says “He is handsome.”

Mama Bear is always burning her cooking, and Dingo Dog is always crashing his car. I can’t help but think of Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas as I read all of their activities.

Then, we encounter the Three Beggars. Poor guys. Wolfson the wolf, Hahaha the hyena and Babooby the baboon. These guys are all waiting for Godot.

I can’t be the first to think this.

There have been days and weeks in a row of satisfaction

Things are better.

The cloud has lifted.

In a family, no one vomits alone

Introducing myself to a new friend at work, he asked where I was from. I said, “Technically I am from Alaska…”

“Technically? Either you are or your aren’t!” he enjoyed twisting me on the spit. Ahhh….this was why he was my new friend. Verbal sparring.

Of course, I am from Alaska. I even write books about it. And I remain conflicted about Alaska.

This weekend, I visited with someone from Alaska. She moved here from Fairbanks 5 years ago. She says “Of course I miss Alaska, but it is so nice to walk under the trees in the warm sunshine in October…”

I do not miss Alaska. If I think of the little I do miss, it is the cold. The fine crystalline bite of the cold telling everyone that the sun is only for decoration and if you want to stay alive, you better get yourself a coat.

I remember the clouds in summer casting huge shadows on the mountain (and there were always real mountains in my sight, not like Fairbanks), dappling the sides in calico: dark and light with the underlayer of the trees. The trees are green, but then comes the fall when they speckle yellow through the green and slowly take over the mountainsides in primary yelling yellow.

Sounds great. It is great. That part was great.

But. But! There are so many people there I would cross the street to avoid. Some of them…I would cross the street at a dead run.

Not everyone. There are nice people there. Nice people who would nod as I tried to tell them about the stuff that gets me excited. They would nod, and change the subject.

When I tell people I am from Alaska, and I try to explain why I didn’t like growing up in such a legendary place I say, “It’s a great place. If you like fishing. If you like living in a cabin in the woods with no heat or electricity.” As their jaw slackens with realization, I know they have a peek. And I know I took the easy way, and didnt’ tell the real reason.

HERE is why I can’t be there: Alaska is for men. There are huge big things to do there.

For Men.

I don’t begrudge the men their big jobs managing the pipeline, crab fishing and commercial fishing and drilling for new oil. Good for you.

What is for me?

In Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger joins their set of friends out of nowhere. He knows he is the only one. It is quite obvious to everyone else that he is the only one. Tigger declares that to be wonderful!

In the book, he gets hungry. Pooh offers him honey.

HONEY! WONDERFUL HONEY!

Pooh loves honey, and it is a regrettable sacrifice to share his honey. When Tigger tastes the honey, he says

YEEEUCKKK

After many attempts, the friends in the hundred acre woods discover that Tigger likes Cod-liver oil best.

CODLIVER-OIL! Nobody likes cod-liver oil. It’s nasty.

Except Tigger. He said it, “That’s what Tiggers like.”

You know what I like? Doing Stuff. Big stuff. Hard thinky, complicated, years-in-the-making stuff.

And on no provocation at all I will talk about that stuff. I will talk about the global networks and supports systems I set up in one, two, three different companies. That stuff is the jobs I was able to do

ONCE I LEFT ALASKA.

Alaska is the biggest state in the union, and the least populated. The fewest roads and the smallest scope for MY HUNGER TO DO STUFF.

I know that those mountainsides in Alaska feed other people. Like Tigger, I’m the only one. The only Murphy.

Alaska does not have food for me. I spent a lot of hungry years there. And I remember the pangs when I go back to visit.

So I don’t go back. And no, I don’t miss it.

But I’ll write about it. Alaska has always been good for stories.

This little light of mine
It Flickers and it burns
It does not go out
Shine
Shine
The darkness will never conquer
My light will show me the path to take

Follow the light
Walk in the light