#doodleaday: Who doesn't dream of being Diane Keaton?

I have been dreaming of leaving the country. It's all versions of the same dream I've had since 2007, the day I returned to American soil after a year away. The dream evolves over time. Now I'm dreaming of a bustling, vibrant place, somewhere I can walk for hours, then hole up and write it all down: all the smells, all the colors, all the sounds. Today's doodle is inspired by that.

2014: Year of doozies

2014 has been a year of doozies--in my life and around the world. Here are a few special moments, captured:

Married my favorite person in the world. Photo credit: Natalie Jenks.

Got promoted. 

Celebrated the life of my wonderful grandfather Fred Jackson, who passed away the day before Ryan and I got married. We continue to feel his spirit.

Shared in the joys of friend weddings, with the best man in the world.

Honeymooned in Mexico.

Spent quality time with my wonderful grandmother Saralee Halprin, who passed away peacefully in her home in November 2014. I wear her lipstick every day. Learn more about her amazing life at saraleehalprin.org.

Bonded with my best lady friends--women I have known all my life. I love you all.

Collaborated with a wonderful group of writers, actors and curators with Play On Words, our burgeoning literary movement. Here are some shots of us at our Lit Crawl premiere in October 2014. Learn more at playonwordssj.wordpress.com.

Visited my dear friend Dumi in Spokane and learned to paddleboard. Verdict: #fuckingawesome.

Spent quality time with my new extended family. I'm so insanely grateful for them all.

Amidst all of these big life changes, there was the news:

  • ISIS
  • Robin Williams
  • Michael Brown
  • Eric Garner
  • ebola
  • Ukraine
  • CIA torture report

Sometimes I wonder where all the empathy we feel goes. My experience is not the same as anyone who lost their lives or civil liberties this year, and I fully acknowledge that. My instincts and feelings are more raw and alive than ever. There is a level of doozy that surpasses what I can imagine and it is my hope that we can recognize, own, and recover from cycles of injustice and violence. I'm ready to educate myself and be educated by those whose voices we most desperately need to hear.

This year I've learned that we have a real choice in the way we approach not only the doozies in our life, but all the moments between them. Those life-shifting, anxiety-producing events make us value the quiet, the mundane, the sweet and the content. Making dinner with Ryan. Having friends over for dinner. Listening to Schubert and remembering the way my grandmother sat at the piano. Discovering new books. Hiking Mission Peak by myself on my birthday. Long runs and bike rides out to Alviso, where the water is quiet and the sky is endless and you can see where the Bay begins.

2015: We're here, universe. We're ready to work. And we're ready to play.

Cinco Cosas Mas

It's Monday. Shit's feeling real, especially in the news. That's why I'm sharing five more fucking awesome things--people and experiences and movements that I think are actively making the world a more ecstatic and intelligent place. Here goes:

Art Party

  1. Emma Watson and the HeForShe campaign:

    We all knew that Hermione was the brains behind Harry and Ron, right? Emma Watson, the young British actress that took on the famous role for most of her adolescence, has been appointed the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, and as such, delivered a dynamite speech on what it means to be a feminist in 2014--and why it's time to involve young men and women in the solidarity movement for gender equality.
     

  2. Anne and Mark's Art Party

    The Art Party is an enormous event dedicated to art of all kinds at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose. The main exhibition is a huge warehouse full of visual art--paintings, sculpture, performance art and music--though there are multiple outdoor tents, bars, food trucks, and a separate building known as the Spoken Word room. We attended the opening gala on Saturday and were lucky to catch the Flash Fiction Forum, as well as readings by local poets and journalists. There was a film series, a cupcake truck, and art cars decked out like ladybugs. In other words: proof that the art world is alive and thriving in Silicon Valley.
     

  3. Emma Sulkowicz and "Carry That Weight"   

    Emma is a senior at Columbia University, where she tried twice to report an incident of sexual assault to campus, and once to the local police--to no avail. In an effort to shed light on the weight and impact of sexual violence, she has transformed this crime against her into a performance art piece by carrying a standard-issue dorm mattress around campus with her, everywhere she goes. As the weeks pass, she has elaborated on the "rules of engagement," which state that she is not allowed to ask for help, but she can accept help when it is offered. I can only imagine the effect that this has on a small liberal-arts campus in the middle of New York City; here, men and women are forced to witness as a young woman takes on a heavy burden. I have been following this story and am increasingly impressed with this artist's perseverance--both to herself and to a growing global movement. Go Emma.
     
  4. Alison Bechdel, 2014 MacArthur Genius 

    So if you've never read Fun Home, you really need to. I loved Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For for years before I discovered her memoir, which is beautifully illustrated. Movie lovers might recognize the "Bechdel test," three criteria named by one of her cartoon characters that determine a film's real depth. Namely: does the film have at least two women in it? Who talk to each other? About something besides a man? Bechdel is 21st-century artist/writer (you might be sensing a theme here) whose work is honest, funny, and relevant.
     

  5. Ed Damiano and the Bionic Pancreas 

    Ed Damiano is a biomedical engineer affiliated with Boston University--and he's also the father of a son who lives with type 1 diabetes. Damiano and his team are testing a medical device that is still seeking FDA approval--a "bionic pancreas" that consists of three major operating parts: a glucose sensor, a display monitor and a pump that delivers insulin. The machine tests the diabetic's blood sugar 288 times a day and makes minute adjustments to insulin dosages--attempting to mimic the day-to-day patterns of a functional pancreas. As I write this, I'm wearing a continuous blood glucose monitor and an insulin pump--two parts to this equation--but what Damiano hopes to achieve, before his son goes to college in 2017, is a device that is able to detect and treat all the highs and lows that diabetics experience throughout the day. Talk about fucking awesome.

ALS, JDRF & Rushdie

In 2006 I lived in a housing co-op in Isla Vista called Biko and shared a bedroom wall with Nu Driz, a master's student from Holland who was in Santa Barbara researching his thesis on Salman Rushdie. This is important. Nu cooked big house meals and fully committed to house party themes--and, if you were interested, would break down American literature for you, lickety-split. I had somehow been ignorant of Rushdie's exile until Nu sat me down and explained how entirely vital The Satanic Verses is and was and continues to be. This is all relevant.

I visited Nu and his husband Remy in their Leiden home a year after I graduated college, after spending the better half of a year in Spain. I was broke and took an overnight bus from Berlin to Amsterdam, spent a few hours at the Anne Frank House, scoured a few Dutch record shops, then hopped a train to Leiden, where Nu and Remy set me up in this gorgeous guest bedroom, which was (unsurprisingly) decked out in beautiful comforters and books, glorious books in various languages. I'll never forget how well I slept there, and how beautiful and kind they were, as were all their friends.

This week Nu posted his version of the ALS Challenge online. In lieu of dumping ice on his head, he took a note from Patrick Stewart and chilled some wine on ice, preferring instead to share an important fact: that eating fatty fish decreases the chance of acquiring ALS by 35%. To honor the fact, Nu shared a dinner of herring with Remy. He also took the opportunity to donate to another deserving charity, the Tuloy Foundation, a charity that helps street children. In his post, he suggested that I write something about another health cause--perhaps another foundation that needs attention.

I've written a lot about living with type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition that is diagnosed in roughly 30,000 Americans a year--JDRF estimates that 3 million Americans currently live with it. The United Health Group reports that type 1 diabetes accounts for $14.9 billion in healthcare costs in the U.S. each year. And that's assuming the people who need treatment are actually getting it. One of the first things you learn as an American with type 1 is that it is an expensive disease--and one currently lacking a cure.

In October, my family and I will be participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk to Cure Diabetes for the thirteenth time. There have been years when I did not want to participate--not out of disrespect for the cause, or disloyalty to our supporters--but because fundraising walks can sometimes feel like an endless exercise, charging toward a goal we can envision but we can't yet touch. You start to wonder what impact it all actually has, and wish that curing a disease were as easy as snapping your fingers. Or, say, dumping a bucket of ice water on your head. When you test your blood sugar several times a day and take insulin every time you eat, it's impossible not to measure your life differently, at least on occasion.

But here's the thing: The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has made a tremendous impact already--if not in immediately finding a cure, in raising awareness, in letting the world know that hey, sometimes truly shitty things happen to truly wonderful people, and there are small things we can all do to, you know, make things better, if not now, then perhaps someday. The JDRF Walks have not yet cured diabetes--but if you've ever seen those little white shoes up at drugstores, or seen a flyer for diabetes camp, or witnessed a mass of families in white t-shirts flocking around the California Capitol on the first Sunday of October--you'll know that every step has the potential to shift cells. If not now, later.

So - in an effort to embrace Nu's challenge, I'm doing a few things:

  • My family and I are walking in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes in October. (You can join us or donate by going here and searching for TEAM MALIBU PUMPERS.)
  • I'm splitting my ALS donation in half--$50 to ALS and $50 to JDRF. Because, hey, we're both worthy.
  • Nu, I'm going to finally sit my ass down and read The Satanic Verses. Because you told me to 8 years ago, and it's still on my list.

When in doubt: eat herring, drink wine, and donate to the charity of your choice. Because life is short.

 

 

 

 

 

5 Happy Things

There's a lot going on in the world right now. It bowls me over sometimes. Why not, then, share a few truly awesome things? Because Upworthy and Buzzfeed are cluttering our life with lists, and I want to share a few things I've become obsessed with because they're fucking awesome.

  1. Put Your Hands Together
    PYHT is a weekly comedy show at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles hosted by Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher (who, incidentally, are two of the smartest, wittiest, most politically engaging comics I've ever heard). I've never been to the live shows but I subscribe to their free podcast feed, which features up-and-coming and established comedians, many of whom are likewise fucking awesome (read: Maria Bamford, Kyle Kinane, Jordan Morris, Beth Stelling, Ron Funches, etc.).
  2. Jungle
    I stumbled across this British musical duo and have been listening to their debut album nonstop. Not only are their tunes groovy and great to write to, but their music videos are so stripped-down, featuring some casual yet complicated choreography, occasionally on roller skates. "Busy Earnin" starts with a group of dancers in an empty auditorium--so still they seem unreal before bursting into life. "The Heat" is a beautifully shot illusion, the camera zoomed in close on two dancers who appear to be floating before you realize that they are on skates. My current favorite is "Time," which stars two middle-aged male dancers dancing in their living rooms before challenging each other to a slow artistic duel. I sent a link of this video to my dad and father-in-law, with the hopes of inspiring them to dance:

3. Boyhood
While Ryan was at Burning Man, I decided to do something I'd never done before, and had always wanted to do: I went to the movies--alone. I chose Richard Linklater's new film because I was intrigued by his cinematic process, and had read that the actors had not seen any of the footage filmed over 12 years until the movie's release. I went on a Friday night and the theater was crowded--I was lucky to find a seat. More than anything I was impressed by how very real it felt. Authentic. Watching the relationships unfold and the actors age, I was flooded with a sense of nostalgia--nostalgia for a life I'd never lived, yet one that felt honest and possible, and in some ways, inevitable.

4. Castle Rock State Park
About a year ago, my friend Michelle introduced me to this great park off Skyline Boulevard in the Santa Cruz mountains. One of my favorite things about living in Northern California is that you never have to go too far to go far enough. Castle Rock is about 45 minutes uphill from where we live--a popular place for rockclimbers and backpackers alike. There's also a leisurely loop that Michelle and I have done that sports great panoramas with four or five different shades of green. I've since gone back with Ryan and at times by myself, enjoying the quiet, the smell of the trees, even Skyline's windy back roads, which turn auburn come October.

5. Snap Judgment
...is a badass NPR show and podcast created by Glynn Washington, based out of Oakland. Think This American Life meets RadioLab meets the Moth meets hip hop--and then turn up the volume. I've been a loyal listener since its inception in 2009, and I've gotta say, it's amazing how consistently Glynn and his team churn out fascinating, unusual, personal and compelling content. Most recently, their live San Francisco show featured a heartbreaking story about a man who lived next door to Xiana Fairchild, a young girl who was kidnapped in the late 1990s--followed by a hysterical how-to piece entitled "How to Set Up Your Mother's Profile on JDate," by Josh Healey. For someone who spends most of her day obsessed with stories, Snap Judgement always keeps me guessing--keeps me learning.

There are other fucking awesome things in life these days, many of them specific (my husband, my Amah, that completely quiet hour before bed when you can hear the sprinklers on outside and you just made low-fat sugar-free cookies and everything smells good), some of them in-progress (Play On Words is coming to SF! Fuck yeah!), even more of them still waiting to be discovered (No matter what you say, I plan to read Lena Dunham's book someday; I still need to read the latest Lydia Davis collection; Bread Loaf has an audio archive of all its conference lectures; wherever you go, there is art). I think it's important to end the week with a reflection of all the truly fantabulous people in the world, out there existing, doing cool stuff. What a relief.

Summer news

Between plane crashes, violence in Israel/Palestine, and surges of anti-Semitism in France, I think the world could use some good news this week. Here's what's new in my life:

Play On Words will be performing at LitCrawl, a special event during San Francisco's weeklong literary festival, LitQuake, on October 18. We could not be more excited and will be revealing our lineup in the coming weeks!

I was thrilled to see A Practical Wedding repost "Grampa and the Book of Wishes" yesterday. APW is a wonderful resource.

I'm also excited to read a few 100-word-stories at San Jose's Flash Fiction Forum on August 13. It makes me so happy to be finding more and more writers that live in my neighborhood!

Ryan is finishing his second week as a fellow at the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. He is one of 35 teachers who were selected to learn the latest approaches to multimedia journalism--as well as methods for passing on this knowledge to their students. He's produced a few great pieces in the last 10 days, and yesterday their group uploaded a video entitled "The Purpose and Value of Scholastic Journalism." It is inspiring.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit Amah--and to share wedding photos (like the one below, taken by Natalie Jenks).

When I spoke with her last week, we were discussing how long it can sometimes take to achieve artistic goals. She ended the call by saying, "But guess what? After almost 92 years, I've finally quit biting my nails!" There's hope for all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

Grampa and the Book of Wishes

About a month before we got married, I started a journal I call the Book of Wishes. My friend Christina had brought me back a beautiful notebook from Jeju, an island off the coast for Korea which is famous for its female divers. One day on my lunch break I started a list:

  • I'm going to finish a book
  • I want to train for a marathon
  • A Dog! We need a dog!

And, highlighted in big letters at the very top:

  • I wish that my grandparents are well enough to enjoy my wedding day

On Thursday, June 19, Ryan and I packed our car and drove to our wedding venue to get ready for the big day. I got my very first French manicure. Before we left our condo, I slipped two postcards in the mail for my grandfather Fred. We'd gotten the news that he wasn't able to travel to join us, so I wanted him to know that we were thinking of him.

The sky was glorious. My parents came bearing food, decorations, candles, framed photos of my grandparents, in-laws, friends and family--and a big, beautiful chuppah. My big brother flew out from Hawaii and got right to work creating block prints with our initials on them. My in-laws hosted us all at their beach condo and we ate pizza and watched the sunset over the ocean. Our dear friend Judi showed up with a car load of amazing decorations for the big day--green and blue mason jars, shells, burlap, vases, jewelry for me to borrow. Ryan's brother and sister-in-law were there too, and my sister-in-law Shelby was already on her way to join us. It was Thursday and I felt a new, wonderful sense of peace. So many of my favorite people were already beginning to gather. Our lives were buzzing with love--and not just our own. Since getting engaged I've begun to notice how quickly love multiplies, and what a relief that is.

Friday morning, June 20, we got straight to work preparing for the rehearsal dinner: decorating, cleaning, coordinating food and people. Our dear friends started to arrive, starting with Laurel, my best friend since womb, this wonderful woman who had collected all the dog doodles I'd created over the years and created a huge, beautiful, life-size dog out of cardboard--a dog bearing her own, cardboard insulin pump. Tiffany and Dumi arrived soon after, best friends, sisters really, both armed with shot bloks and secret stashes of flowers and confetti. I was walking over to the Lagoon House to join them when my parents pulled me aside quietly and shared the news: my 91-year-old grandfather, Fred Jackson, who had for the past year been planning to join us on the big day, had passed away that morning.

We stood under the shade of a big tree. Grampa had not been well for some time. He had a sturdy and proud disposition; he was an engineer. My grandfather was a man of clear and direct expression. Ryan and I got engaged on Christmas Eve 2012, and I remember when we shared the news with Grampa Fred, he smiled, but didn't seem surprised. As the night wore on, I started to wonder if he'd really heard what we'd said. And then, a few hours after dinner, while all of us cousins were in the dining room, he walked in and approached Ryan, speaking (nearly shouting), "Ryan, I'd like to see you in my office." We all watched as Ryan followed him down the hall and they shut the door behind them. I was astonished--and, I have to say, flattered. Their private conversation made our big news seem more official--more important.

Grampa retired the same year I was born. I knew him as an avid traveler. He and my grandmother Alice went to Australia, Europe, Central America, Canada. They went all over the United States. I got a birthday card from them one year that had a photo of them on a zip line in Costa Rica--in their 70s. For 20 years they made annual fishing trips to Alaska, pulling in 140-pound halibut well into their 80s.

Grampa was a gardener. He kept the most thorough fishing logs in the world--tracking weather, water temperature, bait, tackle, time of day, tides. He took beautiful photos and filled his home with pictures of the Canadian and American Rockies.

When Grampa lost Gramma, the woman he called his "peach," his wife of 66 2/3 years (his calculation), he said once that he would never consider meeting anyone else, because he knew that when he saw her again, "she'd know."

The thing about planning and executing a wedding is that time is premium. You spend months (in our case, 18!) planning, troubleshooting, coordinating, and then the weekend arrives and you realize that the hours will not slow down for you. You have to soak in what there is--feel the sun on your face, kiss your partner, your best friends, your parents, your in-laws, your cousins and their beautiful children.

That night, at our rehearsal dinner, my cousins, aunts and uncles were all together, alongside Ryan's family and friends. When my dad announced the news of Grampa's passing, he told us that when it became clear that Grampa was too unwell to travel, he had devised another way to join us in spirit.

When our big day dawned, and the fog lifted off the ocean, I thought of all my grandparents. My sweet Gramma Alice, who died a mere month after my brother's wedding in 2011, and who used to email me when I was in Spain simply to say, "Whatever you do, keep writing. Keep traveling." My darling Amah, who was unable to join us in person, but who got to watch our wedding videos (filmed by my sweet cousin Jeff Wayland), and who recorded the wedding processional for us at the tender age of 91. They were all there with us, in their own ways--Ryan's grandmothers too, in spirit. In many ways, I got my wish.

There are so many more things to say and feel about our wedding day itself. I'd like to broadcast them but in truth, they are private feelings, special things, dear to me and my husband, to my parents and in-laws, my best friends and cousins, to all of those who we love. We are reliving it all in the days that follow, and we are full of love.

I post this now in memory of all of you -- you who made it possible -- and with special thoughts toward my kind and wonderful grandfather Fred, who we will remember every year, on our anniversary. We love you, Grampa.

 

 

 

 

Amah's Haftorah

I'm pleased to announce that my essay, "Amah's Haftorah," has been published in COLLAGE Magazine, a gorgeous, multilingual, themed magazine edited and created by Marta Moreno and Lorenzo Hernandez. You can read the text, and see images of my beautiful Amah here. Flip the page and you'll see a piece written by my soon-to-be-husband, Ryan Alpers. We both sat down to write something inspired by the theme "memory," and independently submitted essays about our grandmothers--and each other. It is fitting that COLLAGE is being produced now, a mere 16 days before we get married.

Still We Rise

This has been a week of feelings. 

The shootings in Isla Vista last Friday night are still reverberating through my system. There's a lot I want to say, but I'm not even sure where to start. Instead I'm going to post this wonderful poem, "Still I Rise," from the one and only Maya Angelou, who we lost this week. It seems fitting.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

1978

With love and compassion to Veronika Weiss, Katie Cooper, Christopher Michael-Martinez, Cheng Yuan "James" Hong, Weihan "David" Wang, and George Chen.