In Case You Missed It...

A few weeks ago I posted about the delay in the online journal Sugar Mule #41: Women Writing Nature. Now it is up and ready for your reading pleasure. Two of my poems, "Star Coral" and "Come Sing" were published in this volume.  Just download the pdf and find the table of contents. Each name is a hyperlink that will take you directly to that person's poems. As well as my own, there is a cornucopia of wonderful writing by other women. Enjoy!

Continuing Journeys of The Sneaky Observateur

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

Outside Hampton Court outside London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

Drepano, Greece, June 2012

Drepano, Greece, June 2012

Nafplio, Greece, June 2012

Syntagma Square, Nafplio, Greece, June 2012

Ancient Greek Theater at Epidavros, Greece.  June 2012

The Fish Market, Athens, Greece, June 2012

Agamemnon's Tomb at Mysennea, Greece, June 2012

Sugar Mule Delay

I just got an email from the editors of Sugar Mule saying that they are having technical difficulties with the Women Writing Nature issue.  Stay tuned for an update on when the journal will be ready for reading.

Poems Published!

My poems "Star Coral" and "Come Sing" were published in Sugar Mule, an online journal.  The theme is Women Writing Nature.  

Download the PDF and enjoy. You can find my work on page 197! Check them out.

The Greece I Saw, June, 2012

Of course I could write about postcard Greece: the pebbly beaches, the sky stretching out clear, dotted with clouds at sunset. Or the blue, blue sea, the bluest water I have ever seen, unlike any other place in the world. Or about the sun beating down hot and demanding as I walked down the small road from our tiny rented apartment to the beach. Or the food – black and green olives, anchovies and tiny whitebait fish served up crisply fried. All this is what I would expect to see – and to write about. The Greece everyone wants me to tell them about – because isn’t that what we all desire when we go on vacation?

But that wasn’t the Greece that touched me most deeply.  Instead, there was the Greece I could not ignore, the one with the brave face with terror barely hidden underneath. 

The Greece I saw was filled with row after row after row of empty buildings lined up on the road spreading out from Nafplio, a small town on the Peloponnese Peninsula. The lovely town square was filled not with tourists but locals.  I heard someone on the street comment that it should have been crowded in mid-June.  Instead many shops in the surrounding streets were shuttered and closed, and shopkeepers in those still open were desperate for any sale we might give them.  One salesman told us no one was coming to Greece now and certainly very few people were spending money. 

The Greece I saw was the Greece of political rallies before their June 17^th election with an edge to the air, a palpable uneasiness, so few smiles but instead nervousness about their future.  The streets of Athens dingy, graffiti-filled with much of the neighborhood around my hotel closed and empty with signs saying “For Rent” - but who would possibly open a business now?  And the cafes stood half empty, the roof garden of my hotel with chairs to spare when five years ago I had to fight for a table. The night our Greek friend, T. tried to find us a restaurant to eat in – one after anther gone, gone, gone – and her quiet unease at showing us what must be a daily occurrence to her, this woman whose job has been reduced to four hours a day.

Signs of protest were splashed everywhere – raised fists and slogans painted on walls, the whole place showing peoples' anger and frustration with their broken government.   This was the Greece of high unemployment rates, especially for young people. 29.6% of young people in Greece are unemployed, according to NationMaster.com. What can they feel about Greece's future?  Where will their lives lead? 

What about those who have worked their whole lives only to find their savings or pensions gone?  When D., a retired teacher, told me in his broken English, “We are very poor,” of course I thought about what I would feel, being reduced to this after giving years to teaching. His few words were filled with so much weight, leaving me with many questions - really none of my business - but I wanted to know where his teacher pension has gone, how he makes do, what this all means for education in his country.  But his English was not good enough for him to explain, and I know only a smattering of Greek.  I am left with only those few poignant words.

That was not necessarily the Greece I wanted, but it was the Greece I feared so much that I almost didn’t go - the only time I have come close to cancelling a trip abroad.  But I decided that I wanted to be a traveler and not only a tourist, to experience more than just the highlights of a country.  So I went.

A Bowl of Words

Today I bought a bowl created by an artist in Swaziland.  It is made out of magazine pages stitched together - a bowl of words.  This lovely and practical piece of art gave me a wonderful idea.  Why not start my own collection of words to put in my bowl?  Maybe a magazine article or a wonderful turn of phrase from one of my students?  Even snippets of conversation I hear while sitting in cafes or riding BART or fortunes from fortune cookies.  For some reason the idea of a bowl full of words gives me great pleasure.  If they are words I simply collect instead of write myself, there will be less pressure for me to be brilliant.  Since I seem to be going through a rather dry writing period right now, perhaps my bowl of words will shake something loose in me.  I like the idea that those words will have their own physical life in their bowl home - a more tangible presence than if they were written in a notebook.



I think the first words I will put in my bowl are the beginning lyrics to the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."  Remember that band from the 1980's? Today when I was driving home with my bowl, I heard this song on the radio.  It's one of those songs that I turn up full blast whenever I hear it.  It has become "mine" because it always conjures up the memory of a pivotal moment in my life.  I listened to it while packing for my first solo trip to Europe.  I was 30 years old, and the opening line "Welcome to your life. There's no turning back..." hit me profoundly.  Those were the kinds of words that meant a lot to me when I was 30 and scared to death about what life might bring me. 

See, the bowl is working already.

Teachers Can Never Tell...

Today I learned that a young man I taught about ten years ago is the current reigning heart throb on a Philippine television show titled "My Bonondo Girl"  This exciting news tidbit came to my attention when a news crew from a local Bay Area Filipino television station showed up to film at Ben Franklin Intermediate, our little Daly City, California middle school.


When I was his 7th grade teacher, I knew him as Alex Lim.   My memory could be faulty (after all, I've taught 10 more years since Alex was in my class!) but I think of him as being rather artistic.  He was a sweet boy with a good sense of humor. Nowadays he goes by the name of Xian Lim, and he is quite the good looking young man!  Check out the photos on his website to see how dreamy he is now.  No wonder he's a heart throb.

All this just goes to show that teachers can never tell where their students will end up.  We spend our days together for nine months in a very intense relationship which ends abruptly when they fly away in June. Sometimes my students stay in touch with me, but more often than not, I never hear from them again.  What a pleasure to find about a former student who has made a success of his life.  Of course, I'd like to take some credit for that success; after all, teaching him English must have had some effect on his ability to act!