P52 Week 46 -- Happy

I am happy when I sing or listen to songs. For a while I sang in choirs, but now, I mostly sing along to hits on the car radio, like Pink’s “Just Give Me a Reason,” Maroon Five’s “Sugar,” or Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance.” I’m especially happy, supercharged happy, when I ride with my daughter and we sing together.

Alternately, I warble in the shower. There, I turn back the clock: my playlist is mostly oldies, songs that I learned decades ago. Kermit’s “Rainbow Connection” is one of my all time favorites. I just love those whimsical lyrics and the melody seems to settle well in my voice range.

Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows?
And what's on the other side
Rainbows have visions
And only illusions
Rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told
And some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong wait and see
Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Other tunes I croon are Abba’s “I Have a Dream” – yes, I do believe in angels – and “I’ll Be Seeing You” which I sang when in the Cascadian Chorale. Janet Hansard, the talented choir director, wrote a beautiful arrangement for this 1930s classic.

Under the noise camouflage of the shower spray or the hair dryer, I haltingly hack at the haunting arias of Handel’s Messiah – “Come Unto Him” and “How Beautiful are the Feet” – pieces I learned when I took private voice lessons in my thirties. I have to ratchet the key way down – I can no longer reach anywhere close to the soprano register.

At times, when I feel especially sappy happy, I indulge in treacly love songs: “Love me Tender,” and “Some Enchanted Evening.” And why not go all-out mushy! I confess to warbling Shania’s “From This Moment” and Elvis’ “Hawaiian Wedding Song.”

I am also happy that I can Youtube any song I want, and can listen to it over and over to my heart’s content. What a joy to have such technological advances at my fingertips! I won’t regale you with all the songs I’ve searched for – that would take too long – but I do want to share that some of my most poignantly happy finds have been of some Aussie performers from when I grew up in Sydney in the 50s and 60s: Johnny O’Keefe’s “She’s My Baby,” Patsy Ann Noble’s “Good Lookin’ Boy,” and Col Joye’s “Oh Yeah, Ah Hah.” Happy reminiscences!

So, bring it on, Pharrell, because I’m happy!

♬ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♪ ♩

P52 Week 45 -- Perspective (a.k.a. Point of View)

This might be the hardest prompt I’ve dealt with, mainly because I don’t want to get into the media swirl of point of view, opinions, or beliefs.

There’s so much being front-lined in the news about political candidates, terrorism, racism, violence, gun control, undocumented immigrants, global warming – you name it. Everyone has a point of view. It’s hard not to get into the media foray and not have a concrete opinion. I can’t seem to get past the “breaking” and “latest” reports and articles. It’s all so over-examined. The viewpoints have been out there for so long and they are hardly “new.” They have become like fruit left out: they are rotten and they reek. Even my perspectives of world events seem a rehash of someone else’s. Really, do I even have a new idea “bone” in my body? Or am I just a reflection of my past, my environment, my biases and beliefs?

Our media is caught up in perspectives: I have a point of view; you have a point of view; never the twain shall meet. Maybe the problem is with the “point” in point of view. It is sharp and piercing. It wounds. It is narrow. It seems adversarial and restrictive. And yes, the opposite perspective, of course, is that it “points to.” The media would say that it zeros in on issues that need attention. But are they focusing on what will really transform society?

Of course it’s important to report on major events: the Paris attacks, disturbing environmental trends, racism, graft. A free press is critical.

Yet, I think that we as humans are missing something in our media communications. We are missing something huge.

What might it look like for the media to think outside its current, mostly turbulent box?

P52 Week 44 -- Strong Women -- Photographer's Choice

Week 44 – Photographer’s Choice – Strong Women.

Strong women. I have been thinking about strong women.

Recently, I heard about a new series, available on Netflix, called Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries. I perked up immediately as the program is set in Melbourne, Australia in the 1920s. My roots are in Sydney, and there has always been a rivalry between the two cities, but nonetheless I set aside my bias and watched.

Over the past two weeks, I have plowed through the whole three seasons. I am enchanted! Miss Fisher is a delightful flapper and a vamp. She’s smart, elegant, irreverent and sexually liberal. She pushes every social boundary.

I think of my mother, who pushed social boundaries in Hungary in the 1930s by being one of the first women to graduate from Szeged University – in the sciences, no less.

I think of my sister, who forged into the engineering profession in the seventies – one of a few – at a major aerospace company.

I think of how I was one of a wave of women who swelled the ranks of the medical profession in the 1970s.

I bow down to my daughter and daughter-in-law, both with bachelor nursing degrees. They work in complex, highly skilled areas – trauma and pediatric intensive care. They are smart, and independent enough to equal any physician. Perhaps they are even smarter in that they chose not to sacrifice their balanced lifestyle – as I did for a time.

I receive the magazine from my old school in Sydney. I read how robust the curriculum has become compared to when I was enrolled at Loreto Convent in the sixties. I relish how accomplished its students and graduates are. This week, one alumna became the first female jockey to win the Melbourne cup, the most prestigious horse race in Australia.

There is a new movie out that I look forward to seeing: Suffragette with Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan. Can you imagine, it’s only been one hundred years – in my parents’ lifetime – that women have had the rights to own property and to vote? Imagine!

There is no doubt that women have been strong through the ages, but now we are expressing our strength more fully. We are manifesting our dreams, breaking through barriers and entering into arenas that, in the past, have been restricted to men, and we are transforming professions that have traditionally been ours. There’s no question that we have a long way to go, but I celebrate what we have already achieved.

We’ve come a long way.

P52 Week 43 -- Photographer's Choice: Changing Water Into Wine

This morning, the story of Jesus’s first miracle – turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana – came to mind. It appeared out of the blue and it fit perfectly.

As a high school student, I had the good fortune of being taught by Sister Annunciata, a young, petite dynamo of a Catholic novitiate with a bit of a lisp. Sister presented her interpretation of the wedding at Cana from St. John’s Gospel with her usual spunk and insightfulness. I can see the scene as Sister presented it.

Mary, worried and wanting to avert a potential social disaster for the wedding party, pulls her son aside and whispers, “They have no wine.” Jesus, with a twinkle in his eye, replies, “You know, Mother, it’s not my time yet.” Mary softens at her son’s light heartedness and meets his subtle challenge. She signals the servants to do as Jesus says. He instructs them to fill the empty wine jars with water and then has them take a sample – now turned into magnificent wine – to the steward. And what a lovely end to the story – the steward admonishes the bridegroom for serving the best wine last. Ha, ha!

As a teenager, I was astonished to experience an interpretation that depicted Jesus as having wonderful human traits: humor and merriment that blended beautifully with a deep devotion to his mother. I was in awe that Sister Annunciata could draw all this out of a story told in just a few words, and I resonated with the vibrancy and potential significance of her telling.

So why did that particular bible story come to me in my meditation this morning? I, too, like Mary, have been fretting. I’ve been in a slump. I’m behind on my writing and editing. Like a bear, I have been endlessly foraging in the kitchen as if to build up fat stores for a long winter’s hibernation. I’ve been playing computer games – Bejeweled, Cubistry, and Solitaire, if you must know. I feel shiftless and disorganized.

In the midst of this funk, in my meditation, I see Jesus grinning, joking with his mother and I see her rising to the occasion, and I see them wowing the steward. Through it all, they are honoring the sacredness of the marriage ceremony. My body relaxes and my face softens.

I realize that I, too, can lighten up about my worries, make fun of my concerns, and take some different steps. I can fill up my “jars” with the basics: I can take the “waters” of everyday doings and transform them into life-giving, soul drenching “wine.” I can honor the sacredness of who I am by being playful, mindful and loving.

Thank you, Sister Annunciata and thank you Sacred Mystery!