The Graduate

 

My granddaughter, Makenna, has just graduated from high school. Not that long ago, she graduated from pre-school. I did a lot of childcare for Makenna and her little sister Sophia at our house in those early years. 

Sophia decided she'd wait awhile to start talking, leaving the conversation to a very chatty Makenna. Coincidentally, I was an active and prolific blogger during that period and I dedicated a few blog posts to Makenna's imaginative ramblings.   

High School graduation night

Pre-school graduation day

From June, 2011, Excessive Personal Service

Since becoming the treasurer for my homeowner's association, I'm spending more time at my local bank than I did before. I recently took Makenna on a banking excursion with me; hopefully an exciting prospect for her.

"I'm just going to deposit a check," I told her. "Won't take long at all."

Immediately upon entering the bank, Makenna and I are approached by an earnest-looking young man in a perfectly fitting, dark suit. He is eager to help us, and leads us to his intimate little banking table. There's no line at the tellers' window but the bank guy is apparently looking for something to do.

While I'm digging in my purse for the envelope with check and deposit slip, the bank guy starts a conversation with Makenna. She tells him she's nearly five, she tells him about pre-school and how it's hard to listen to the teacher, and then about some of her misgivings concerning kindergarten. The young man is charmed and seems to forget me entirely. He calls over a fellow banker person to bring round the basket of lollipops. Makenna is clearly impressed that banks carry lollipops. She comments that her favorite flavor is pink, and that her little sister, Sophia, can not have lollipops because she might choke.

The bank guy is finally ready to take my deposit, and he now makes the trip over to the teller himself presumably to save me the long walk. He doesn't wait for the teller to do this simple procedure, but comes back to the table and pulls up our HOA account. He begins to advise me about things I already know regarding required signatures and such. Slow day at the bank; excessively personal service. I do have a question about online banking and we take up bank talk.

Makenna decides it's time for full disclosure.

"She's not my mother," she informs the bank guy, "She's my grandmother." Makenna is not sure he understands, so she appeals to me, "Tell him I don't live at your house; I live at my house."

The young banker is fully in banker mode now and doesn't comment on this surprising news. He remembers to take the long walk back over to the teller's window and pick up my deposit slip. My won't take a minute bank deposit, turned comprehensive banking experience, is over and we're out the door.

"Well," I said, "Now you've been to the bank."

"Yes, but there were no fish in there."

"You were expecting fish?"

"You know, swimming around in tanks."

"I'll take it up with the bank guy."

Makenna with fish at the zoo

From October, 2010,  Highbrow Halloween

On a recent drive home to Makenna’s house, she informed me that she wants to be an opera singer when she grows up. She followed her announcement with a logical question.

“What is an opera singer, Grandma?”

I’m probably not the right person to ask. I don’t properly appreciate opera myself, but I did attend the opera for two seasons at one point in my married life because my husband had always wanted to go. I thought it might at least be interesting to see what the moneyed class was wearing to the opera, but instead of getting to flounce about in the lobby, I spent every intermission in a very long line for the ladies’ bathroom. I did enjoy the flashy arias that even common people like, but the rest was filler. Hence, in response to Makenna’s question, Nessun Dorma, an aria from the final act of Puccini's opera Turandot, immediately came to mind.           

I did my best opera singer impression, trying for that shaky voice quality, vibrato, which of course, is always done at top volume.  

Makenna’s assessment, “You are a terrible opera singer, Grandma.”

I admit to her that I am a terrible opera singer. I’m also thinking that she’s just had an early childhood experience that might forever ruin her ability to appreciate opera. Apparently not; she says she’s going to be an opera singer for Halloween. I’m relieved that she hasn't lost her enthusiasm, but I thought she was going to be a cat. The idea of an opera singing cat costume was probably my suggestion. 

I’m inspired to launch into Nessun Dorma again, this time substituting meow for lyrics I don’t know anyway. I did keep the volume down as a concession to Makenna’s sensibilities. She doesn’t like this performance any better than the first but is nevertheless getting more and more excited about being an opera singing cat for Halloween. She can’t wait to tell her mother. I leave it at that; let her mother sort it out. 

Ready to sing the aria

Opera Singing Cat

O

The Nuns Tell Their Stories

Sister Lesley is a Catholic nun of the Carmelite contemplative religious order. Our friendship goes back many years to a time when we were both very enthusiastic, newly-minted Buddhists. Our seriousness about the practice was a reflection of our teacher, B. Alan Wallace, who was at the time a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Lesley and I not only sat arduous meditation retreats but we both volunteered to be on the board of directors for a startup retreat center. While anyone can have a go at meditation, relatively few are persuaded to join board meetings of any sort. We were dedicated.

My sharpest and fondest memory from that time, however, is neither the comradery of the retreats or the board meetings, but the time when Lesley and I very inappropriately got the giggles together while attending a scholarly lecture on the jhanas. This was a solemn and elevated discussion of the stages for the development of Right Concentration which is one of the eight parts of the Eightfold Path, the path taught by the Buddha for reaching enlightenment. No one else was laughing.

In my experience, a giggle fit is an uncontrollable force of nature; contagious and unstoppable until it plays itself out. Lesley and I could only stifle our laughter into silent, body-shaking spasms while attempting to be invisible. I may have indefinitely postponed my understanding of Right Concentration and the Eightfold Path, but Lesley just took a different direction altogether.

Following her conversion to Catholicism, Sister Lesley lived in a Carmelite monastery in the UK for twenty years. She recently returned to live in the States because of health issues and to be closer to her family. A circle of old friends periodically springs her from her Catholic retirement home in pursuit of adventure.

Old friends, Anna, Sister Lesley, and I on an ice-cream rampage

Our latest outing involved taking Sister Lesley to visit the nuns at a local Carmelite monastery in Seattle. Carmelite nuns spend most of their day, and their lives, in silence but the nuns were obviously delighted to play host to a sister of their order. They had taken great care and effort with the preparations.

St. Joseph Monastery sisters

St. Joseph Monastery grounds

We are ushered into a large room with chairs and table trays set up in a semi-circle. Sister Lesley, good friend Anna and I are the guests of honor and we are seated in the middle of this arrangement flanked by fourteen sisters of the order. Off to the side is a buffet table draped with an elegant white tablecloth and laid out with cheeses, an assortment of desserts, homemade ice-cream, and coffee.

Initial conversation is somewhat forced. It feels a bit like joining a large table of strangers for dinner conversation on a cruise ship. Contemplative nuns are not gregarious, glad-handed extraverts as a rule, but the sisters are eager to make this a pleasant experience, and they genuinely want to hear Sister Lesley's story. Sister Lesley actually is an extravert and she is at ease recounting her convoluted path to God and sisterhood. When she finishes, there is a lull as we collectively wait to see where the conversation might go.

Sister Lesley seems to be a natural at leading dinner table conversation and she's looking for ways to keep things lively. In that spirit she turns to me and asks me to share my story. This is a completely unexpected and alarming turn to the conversation and I can't imagine how my life story is going to fit this occasion. I begin rambling about my early childhood years with no idea where this story is going or how to end it. I am telling the sisters about my first year of teaching when I was hired to teach in a parochial school in the Mission district of San Francisco. Having been raised in a small farming community in Ohio, I'd had little interaction with Catholics before this act of immersion into the culture and I was intrigued by Catholic ceremony and religious spectacle. I added a few fragmented elaborations on the experience, and having brought my entire life story up to a point in my mid-twenties, I just stopped there.

My story may have gone a bit off the rails but Sister Lesley is undaunted and I'm beginning to imagine her as a cruise ship social director on the road not taken. She's now inspired to ask the sisters to tell their stories about how they found God and made this life choice. There is a momentary pause and I'm wondering if the sisters might be reluctant to disclose their intimate history. But the sisters are quite willing and it touches me deeply as I watch their faces brighten and shine with the chance to testify and relive their often circuitous paths to this calling.

As if preordained, the sisters finish telling their stories just in time for Evening Prayer. The sharing circle has been a great success and we move toward the exit in good humor like old friends briefly reunited.

Their stories run together now in my mind and I remember only snippets. One sister played the French horn for years in professional symphonies in Denver and Louisville and finally in Seattle where she made her surprising leap to monastic life. Another sister was an accountant in her past life; her story heightened by a confrontation with authorities at the Canadian border over visa problems. Each nun had given up all material comforts to join the mostly silent, monastic life but curiously, I was most moved by the sister who spoke so quietly about leaving her dog behind.

All of these stories must have had a familiarity to Sister Lesley as she'd surely heard similar tales from the nuns in her monastery in the UK, but I was unexpectantly quite moved by our visit. Anna and I had been welcomed into a normally closed world not accessible to the uninitiated. I think this particular adventure for Sister Lesley was even more poignant for me than it was for her.

Government Spending & MMT

The Truth about Money Can Allow Us to Spend More Federal Dollars to Help People Post-Pandemic – Without More Taxes

by Vandana Whitney

In 1971, President Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard. Fifty years later, the members of Congress seem convinced we’re still on the gold standard and they are not alone in that mistaken belief. While going off the gold standard made radical changes to our monetary system, the national conversation about how money works barely changed at all.

Under the gold standard, the federal government was very restricted as to how much currency it could issue because dollars had to be backed up by a certain amount of gold. If the public or other trading countries started demanding gold for the dollars they held, then the gold reserves would drop, and the government could issue even less currency to spend into the economy. There was a finite number of dollars that could be issued and be in circulation at any given time depending on gold reserves.

Since going off the gold standard in 1971, we have what is called a non-convertible fiat monetary system, meaning you can’t trade U.S. dollars (USD) into the government for anything other than new dollars. Eliminating the need for the government to defend its gold reserves also means that there is no financial constraint on how much money the government can issue. Congress remains steadfastly, if somewhat erratically, unaware of the change.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to authorize spending, so Congress determines how much money is created and issued in a fiscal year; that is the power of the public purse. But as we have all witnessed once again this year, while Congress has no trouble whatsoever in authorizing and creating the money for the bloated military budget, the members insist that there is only a finite number of dollars available for domestic spending. The public is frustrated with Congress and suspects that something is terribly amiss with this budgeting process, but like Congress, the public has been educated to believe that we’re still on the gold standard.

Economists in the field of Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT, are working diligently to educate both Congress and the public to an entirely different understanding of our money system. Over twenty years ago, this group of economists began an analysis of the Federal Reserve’s accounting system, and the Federal Reserve’s interaction with the Treasury. Their research contradicts the standard narrative about our money.

Professor Stephanie Kelton became the public face of the MMT economists because she is exceptionally good at explaining complex economic issues to people who have no background in economics. Kelton’s book, The Deficit Myth, was published in 2020 and immediately became a New York Times best seller. Kelton also knows how to talk to members of Congress. She served as chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee for the Democratic staff in 2015 and as a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders in 2016.

The first myth, or mistaken belief, that Kelton addresses in her book is that the federal government should budget like a household. It is irrefutably true that the federal government is the monopoly issuer of our currency, the USD. The government is the currency issuer while everyone else is a currency user. That is a very important distinction that is obviously true but is hardly acknowledged. State and local governments have to tax or borrow before they can spend. Households and businesses must earn or find the money before they can spend. The federal government does not have to find the money before it spends because it creates our money. The government must spend dollars into the economy before the rest of us can get dollars, so it plays by an entirely different set of rules than businesses or households.

When Congress authorizes new spending, the Federal Reserve, acting as the Treasury Department’s bank, creates new digital dollars on its computers. Digital dollars are known as bank reserves, and since we live in a digital age, most of our money is just numbers on a spreadsheet that exist on computer hard drives in electronic bank accounts.

The hardest myth to overcome is the mistaken belief that taxpayers fund the government. The taxpayer money mantra came about in the 1980’s during Ronald Reagan’s administration in this country and Margaret Thatcher’s administration in the U.K. It was deceptive by design and because it was repeated so effectively, we now have most people believing that the public funds the federal government. That was never true; it is exactly the reverse.

As a point of logic, a government that issues its own currency must spend before it taxes, or else there would be no currency to collect. In accounting terms, when the government spends, it’s crediting or adding to bank accounts. When we pay taxes, the government is debiting or subtracting from bank accounts. At the federal level, our tax dollars are just deleted; they don’t fund anything.

Even though the federal government is self-financing, taxes are essential to the monetary system. If the government continued spending dollars into existence but never drained any dollars back out, it would have a definite inflationary effect. So taxing dollars out of the economy removes those dollars from circulation and helps to control inflation. This is an important point because MMT economists maintain that while the government is not financially constrained, there is a real restraint to spending: available human resources, natural resources, and inflation. Additional reasons for federal taxation are 1) that it creates a demand for dollars as the government will not accept any other form of payment, 2) it can be used to alter the distribution of income, and 3) it can modify spending behavior through tax incentives.

Another glaring misunderstanding of our money system is the idea that we have a national debt that must be paid back. The annual deficit is just government spending in a fiscal year minus taxes taken back out of circulation (we normally spend more than we tax) and by law the federal government must issue Treasury securities (bonds) to equal the difference. We are told that the government is “borrowing” money when it issues bonds which is very misleading terminology. The government has no need to borrow in a currency that it alone issues.

Our so-called national debt is nothing more than Treasury bond money held in what are called securities accounts at the Federal Reserve. They are functionally identical to savings accounts at commercial banks. At maturity, the bond money is moved out of savings into Federal Reserve accounts (checking accounts) with added earned-interest dollars. Those Treasury bond dollars are never used or needed as a source of government revenue, and the earned-interest dollars are not a problem as the U.S. can always create the dollars in its own currency to cover all debts or obligations. The U.S. has no debts in a foreign currency.

Under our current system, if the federal government doesn’t run deficits, then the public doesn’t have Treasury bonds. Treasury bonds are only issued in response to deficits. So, while members of Congress unite in their fear and loathing of a federal deficit, everyone loves Treasury bonds. If you’re an investor, U. S. bonds are safe, they’re liquid, they’re free of default risk. Bonds help you diversify your portfolio, and they pay interest. It’s a false narrative dilemma that is completely illogical but persists because of our collective ignorance about our fiat monetary system. Stephanie Kelton is working to change that.

Based on her own interactions with lawmakers in Congress, Kelton estimates that roughly one-third of Congress is now MMT conversant. By that she means that they could articulate—in very general terms—that the federal government is the issuer of the currency, that its budget is not constrained like that of a household or private business, and that inflation, not solvency, is a real constraint on spending.

Right now, all new bills in Congress must pass a review by the Congressional Budget Office to check for whether the bill will increase the deficit. (Non-spending bills obviously don’t need a CBO review.) MMT economists say this is totally wrong thinking and that we have government agencies that could instead calculate the inflationary pressures associated with any new bill. Government agencies do have tools to help control inflation.

If the public clearly understood how our money system functions, members of Congress would, in fact, be put in a far more uncomfortable position. Such knowledge would not help the corporate interests that push to privatize all public services. As we know, corporate PAC money funds a high percentage of congressional campaigns. It is much easier to declare that the government can’t afford to fund public services than to hold more relevant debates as to whether such spending would be inflationary.

Rep. John Yarmuth, current House Budget Committee Chair, is one of the few members of Congress who publicly uses MMT talking points. Yarmuth said recently in an interview that MMT’s influence in Congress is greater than its visibility. “There aren’t many people who are willing to be out front about it because it doesn’t resonate with what the average person thinks,” he said. Educating the average person is key to changing a political system that is clearly not working for the American public.

Fallen Ancestors

 

The Ancestors

The sculpture called The Ancestors stood on a hill in a wooded area on the University of Washington campus at Bothell. The carved cedar pieces are ten feet tall monumental figures that evoke the human form. A year or so ago the wooded area was eliminated to make space for a new building and the sculpture disappeared. I've been looking for them and recently I found what feels like the dead bodies of the fallen ancestors. They've been dumped into the wetlands area, still tagged with individual numbers presumably so they can be reassembled.

As the fall rains set in, the wetland ravine takes on an eerie atmosphere. The sculpture pieces are separated into sections but taken together it evokes the disquieting scene of a massacre. There is a power in the silence of these artfully sculped figures whether huddled together or lying asunder. 

A Swift Demise

 

I was walking the wetlands trail and came upon a very dead crow in the middle of the path. Not long dead but the eyes were gone as they always seem to go first. Not much damage to the body and didn't look to be the work of a predator. 

The trail was quite boggy from the recent rains and I soon turned back and retraced my steps to the main path. A second dead crow was lying beside the trail where I had just passed twenty minutes earlier when there had been no crow in sight. This newly dead crow was completely intact, not even the eyes were missing.  

One side of my brain had the yellow crime scene tape out and was thinking like a detective from the bird homicide division. No sign of a predator, or a weapon, or cause of death. 

That was conflicting with my inner philosopher/poet who wanted to write an ode to the fallen bird that must have been bewildered by its swift demise. Earlier this morning the crow was most likely flying about doing a routine search for food with a band of fellow crows. This afternoon, its heart stopped and it unceremoniously landed here in the sun. And of course I was confronted, as we all are, by how dropping dead unexpectantly can happen to all living beings. 

Ecstasy Not Included

The revelations from the universe that I have experienced when ingesting psilocybin mushrooms were not gentle. I was hoping for the ecstatic we are all one moment, or my other favorite, the losing all fear of dying that I've heard reported. But alas.

At low doses, my experience can be both pleasant and interesting. I take walks and am more intensely focused on my surroundings than on the usual bombardment of thoughts. My ego, my personality, loses its entrenched hard edges and becomes more diffuse. There are fleeting moments when I lose all sense of a human form consciousness for something "other." All quite predictable and by the book for any self-respecting alternate state of consciousness adventure.

At higher doses, it becomes considerably more unpredictable but for my two forays into deep mushroom territory there was a pattern. I get somewhat nauseous which is unpleasant but can be ignored. The sensations in my body are more disagreeable and can't be ignored. The visuals are distorted which is a given. My ability to express my thoughts to other people seems little impaired. 

Emotionally for me it was a confusing and negatively charged space that just persisted, a wait it out situation. On the other side of that state was an intermediate place; not fully normal yet and highly reflective in nature. On my initial trip, I was confronted by fear and sadness. I had chosen my companion well and was with a long time friend who allowed me to shift into what felt like a therapy session.

My second high dose experience was by accident. I had intended to take a milder dose but miscalculated. Again the negatively charged state; wait it out, and then an intensely introspective state of mind followed. This time I was alone. I was sitting next to the fireplace watching the fire when I was besieged by a series of memory clips; times when I had felt most alone and abandoned. Memories so painful I could hardly bare to relive them even in brief. From there I jumped to thoughts of my two granddaughters who have both been emotionally struggling and in the next leap I was experiencing the collective pain of all beings. 

In my normal non-altered state I'm a political junkie and I spend far too much time on social media sternly judging and criticizing those beings who run the world in the most corrupt manner possible. In my altered state, I saw them differently. I saw that their raw pain matched my own, and that their actions were varying degrees of unskillful and deluded attempts to escape that pain, and to be loved and admired. My casual meanness toward them on social media is equally unskillful and deluded. 

The epiphany was not entirely new; I've had similar insights in meditation. The mushrooms demanded of me not just an understanding but a deeper participation. It was, I suppose, a we are all one moment with a twist; ecstasy not included. 

Orphaned Sculpture

While taking a walk in the wetlands on an overcast, rainy day, I found what appeared to be a giant wood-carved mushroom lying on its side at the edge of the water. My first impression was that a beaver had inadvertently ingested some part of a psilocybin mushroom and was recreating its vision. But that seemed unlikely. 

I dragged it to the bench for a better look. Definitely not a naturally evolving piece of driftwood either. At least temporarily, with my intervention, the orphaned sculpture is now a table companion to the bench.

Nobody Dies Anymore

Tiny Rant

Nobody dies anymore. They do, of course, more gently and euphemistically just pass away. Even pets don't die. The harsh reality cannot be born, so pets too just pass away. 

The transformation in language is not quite complete however. We will know that moment has come when from the pulpits we hear that Jesus passed away on the cross.  

The Psychedelic Society

 

I was a hippie era bystander in the San Francisco 60's. I loved the counterculture and liked to join in at Goldengate Park, the Filmore and the Avalon Ballroom, but I couldn't do the drugs. Hippies dropping LSD had no guardrails; no guides watching over you, no guarantee of product or dosage.

No Guardrails

I tried to get all those safety features in place, but it didn't happen. When President Nixon passed the draconian anti-drug laws, I gave up the pursuit of a psychedelic experience. Fifty years later, we're getting a gradual thawing of those drug criminalization laws and in Washington state, I now have another chance. A friend and I joined the Psychedelic Society meetup group. No actual drug taking is allowed at these meetings, but we can talk about our experiences, or lack thereof, and get acquainted with others who share our interest.

The first meeting we attend is set in a large, darkened room that has a distinctly seance atmosphere. It's a gathering of around twenty people, most look to be in their 30's and 40's with a small minority of senior citizens. The topic for the evening is death. As we go around the circle, each person gets a turn to talk about whatever the topic of death brings up for him or her. I'm surprised by the seriousness of the sharing, people telling their intimate stories, a therapy group of sorts. The seance atmosphere is not about contacting the dead but contacting a deeper level of ourselves.

One man in our group does see dead people in his room at night. He tells us stories about being a child in a country that was in war torn chaos, where death was everywhere and all around him. He tells about being separated, lost in the jungle, and being led back to his village by a woman guide that no one else could see. His life has been a black hole of despair. He remains separated, not from his village now, but from other people no matter what village or what country. He is the last person in the circle to speak.

We are good listeners in this psychedelic society. Sometimes one of us asks a question or makes a comment, but mostly we give our full attention to each person's story. It creates an instant bond with people who were complete strangers to me when I walked in the door.

The next meeting has a quite different atmosphere and feel. We're meeting in a building that was an old schoolhouse with large, magnificent cross pane windows and ancient, smooth wooden floors. The lighting is turned up several notches this time and the seance atmosphere is erased. My friend and I come early this time and spend the first half hour doing group breathing exercises led by a young man who accompanies our breathing with drums and crystal singing bowls.

Our topic at this second meeting is to talk about insights we've had when taking psychedelics. Several people in the circle are alcoholics who've used psychedelics to help them recover and their stories reflect their varying degrees of success. A few people report life changing insights, but the majority report experiences that are quite transient and less exciting. The man who sees dead people in his room at night is once again the most interesting to me. He has had some very fruitful psychedelic sessions since our last meeting and is coming out of his total despair position. He is seeing that he is always going to be "different" but it doesn't have to mean that he is completely separate; that maybe it's okay to just be different and live with it.

I have no psychedelic experiences to report but I tell the group about my insights when on or coming out of anesthetics during multiple surgeries. I went to a different plane of existence and thought I lived there. The light was like the golden light of our fall season. There was a feeling of remarkable harmony with very low to nonexistent threat of violence. I was in a cottage with a room full of convivial people when the back door opened and I was catapulted out.

"You can't stay here," they told me, "You have to go back now." I had no memory of another place and I begged them to let me back in, to let me stay. They showed me an image of my husband. "He'll be fine," I told them, "He can find somebody else." They showed me an image of my son who was still a minor and it was over. I had to go back to that place I was beginning to remember where violence and immense suffering pervade. I was reluctantly going home.

Waking from another surgery, I was filled with unquestioning acceptance and love for all beings. My hospital room was a swarm of people coming and going and I saw beauty in everyone and everything. Each individual seemed perfect just as they were. That beatific state of mind continued for several hours before I went to sleep and woke up in a more judgmental, unfortunately more normal state. I could see that it's possible to cultivate that desirable state but I haven't managed it.

Belonging to the Psychedelic Society means that I have opportunities to meet people who can facilitate a psychedelic trip for me. I'm in no hurry, I discover. Coming out of covid isolation to explore compelling topics with kindred congenial companions is perfect.

Previewing a Cashless Society

 

"We don't accept cash," the monorail ticket lady informed me. "We only take credit and debit cards."

I'm incredulous. I am traveling light without my bulky wallet as I've just completed a political action march from downtown to Seattle Center, and I have only cash. Definitely an inconvenience for me but I'm immediately thrown into a reflection about how millions of people who have no bank accounts, and no plastic cards, will deal with a futuristic society that won't accept cash. 

This sober concern for the future possibly gives me a more dejected look than I realized as I make my way back down the ticket line. A young woman steps in front of me holding up her credit card. 

"Jump in line with me," she says, "I'll pay your fare."

I'm momentarily dazed by the kindness of strangers but manage the presence to join her in line. The ticket lady does not look happy to see me again as if I'm making her life unreasonably difficult. 

Now standing on the monorail platform, I offer my benefactor the cash I owe her. She waves it away. In a generous mood, she's not accepting cash either.

Almost Famous

Zoe Kravitz walking to train platform. 

I have just completed my breakout role in a major Steven Soderbergh movie. The movie titled Kimi stars Zoe Kravitz. 

I was hired as an extra, which can lead to exciting possibilities or to editing extinction. Extras are seemingly assigned to background roles randomly, and I joined the passengers waiting for the train group, or Company Peach. Names of colors were the organizing tool to move large numbers of people in a chaotic setting, much the way kindergarteners have buses designated as the Bluebird or the Goldfinch bus. 

Movie making starts early as even extras are subject to wardrobe, hair and makeup calls. Even though we were told to bring outfit options, a high percentage of us were redesigned anyway by the wardrobe people. I regretted having obediently dragged along a small carry bag with alternative clothing as I was deemed perfectly outfitted on my first try. Everyone, however, passed through the hair and makeup department with no changes and nothing added which left us with several hours to wait patiently for our action time. Normally it would be entertaining to chat with fellow extras during this down time, but covid favors introverts and we were separated by a mandated space that made conversation difficult. The required masks not only discouraged idle conversation, but made it almost impossible to understand all the shouted orders by organizers. Humans are highly adaptive. If our leader waited for us to do something, we formed a line; otherwise, we politely stayed in place.

There were twenty of us in Company Peach; most of those twenty people looked to be well under age forty. There was a dearth of senior citizens in the entire gathering which surprised me. When the mostly young Company Peach was called to action, we headed down to the train station platform. Five of us would board a train car with Zoe, the only movie star involved in the scene. Several more would board adjoining train cars. The rest of us were relegated to milling about as passengers waiting for the next train. As we practiced all the variables of milling about, another woman and I were motioned over to the up-bound escalator. Halfway up the stairs beside us was Zoe, the movie star, waiting to descend.  

At the given signal for action, my new best friend and I are seen going up the escalator as Zoe passes us on her way down to the trains. We repeat this action at least seven times before Zoe gets it right. My companion and I were perfect on the first take. 

My Patty Hearst/Tania Moment

Chase Bank is the world’s largest funder of fossil fuels — it’s loaned the fossil fuel industry $196 billion since 2015. Unacceptable! That’s why we’re visiting all 44 Puget Sound branches today to tell Chase to stop #BankingOnClimateChange! 

On April 10th, 2019 activists in twenty-two cities shut down branches of Chase Bank across the country. Seattle activists temporarily closed forty-four bank branches, and my team, EarthWindSolar, visited six Chase banks. 

EarthWindSolar Team gets ready to hit the banks. 

Cold day and we are wearing many layers under the fat suits.

Photo credit to guy walking by with his dogs who agreed to take our photo if we held the dogs. 

We think it looks like an album cover and are considering releasing first album by EarthWindSolar, featuring the sound of wind turbines and solar panels.

  

This felt like my Patty Hearst/Tania moment as the bank managers reacted as if we were carrying automatic weapons into their banks, possibly because the young man with solar panels is wearing a mask. 

We personally visited six Chase Bank branches. Managers all seem to have no sense of humor or whimsy. 

Ironically, CEO of Chase Bank, Jamie Diamond, was spending the morning at a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee to explain why the mega banks have continued to engage in frauds against the investing public since the big bail-out in 2008. 

Night Guests

My husband woke me. His eyes were open and he was pointing to the foot of our bed.

"Who are these people?" he asked, "Do you see them?"

I did not see these people.

He lowered his arm and turned to focus on the space beside him, then cautiously reached out. He told me that he was seeing two women, and that the young woman he was attempting to touch had stepped back, then both women vanished. Curious for both of us, of course, but we had read neurologist Oliver Sacks's book, Hallucinations, and were feeling well-informed and reassured. Hallucinations are more common than most people realize. Neither of us had trouble going back to sleep.

The following night my husband was again visited by the young woman beside our bed. He didn't wake me this time, but tried again to touch her. He reported to me in the morning that the figure again disappeared when he attempted contact. Some concern is creeping in though not fear or alarm. The night guests might become an unwelcome nuisance.

The pale young woman returned for a third night; my husband is prepared. She stands beside the bed with a new guest. This time she brought her dog.

"Who are you?" my husband inquired, "Is that your dog?"

The young woman looks directly at him and smiles slightly. There is no other response. She faded and was gone. My husband does not aspire to continue the paranormal research and begins to think of possible mundane causes for the nightly visitors.

The most mundane yet terrifying information anyone can read is the list of possible side effects to any drug he or she might be taking, whether prescription or over the counter. My husband thought to check online for all possible side effects for a new drug his doctor had prescribed.

• confusion, trouble concentrating, hallucinations, unusual thoughts or behavior

My husband contacted his doctor who said the hallucinations constituted an allergic reaction to the drug, and he was to taper off immediately. And just that fast, it's over. 

I miss the apparitions, their stories, their dog. My husband does not.

Who are you?

Missing Mary

I worked with Mary for about a year at a prestigious law firm in Seattle, but only got to know her in the six years we spent together as friends on Facebook. She died of cancer four months after announcing her imminent death to her large collection of followers and Facebook friends. She was as shocked as we were by the totally unexpected diagnosis. Many of those followers had never met her in person, but it wasn't necessary. Mary was a writer. She was a storyteller and included us in her daily adventure; her online friends were family.

Offline, Mary's closest friends were her dogs and her cats; with people she seemed to be a friendly but determined loner. Online, she was open, always interesting and amusing. For the last four months, I have been part of the online family's grieving process as we tried to tell Mary how much she has meant to us; how much we will miss her stories, her bright spirit.

Mary loved to travel the city with her dog and her camera, and report back. That ended abruptly with the pain of late stage cancer; Mary did not go out anymore. In response, I begin to take photos on my daily walks to share with Mary as she was still able to spend brief periods online with us. My walks became more lively and more poignant; I began to see again instead of listening to the constant chatter of my mind. I will continue to see and take the photos on my walks, but it's not the same. I am missing Mary.

Photos for Mary

Reflection of Leaves in Water

I cannot properly describe Mary. It is more appropriate for Mary to describe herself as she did in this Facebook Note from February of 2009.



25 Random Things by Mary Witter

February 2, 2009 at 5:03pm


1. I caught a fish as a child and when its eyes met mine, I threw it back. I’ve never fished again.

2. I believe that nothing can take the place of wood-pulp books and papers—the feel, the sight, the smell, the sound of turning pages. Same with snail mail letters with doodles in the margins.

3. I have never quite learned when to quit or to wait until the flag drops before plunging in, but I’m working on it.

4. Eager to believe, I listened when they said it’s never too late

5. I went back for four more years of school at nearly 50 years old. Graduated with honors, awards and massive debt.

6. One of my greatest pleasures is to plan, nurture and watch a garden grow from my window, complete with birds, hummingbirds and butterflies. Wish I had one now.

7. I’m going to stop smoking for good tomorrow...third time is the charm. I started again when Sadie died…I was lost and didn’t care.

8. As a very young child, I once sat on the dusty earth under an enormous wasp nest and poked it with a long stick. I thought the wasps were rushing out to say hello…didn’t occur to me that they were angry. I didn’t get stung.

9. I have a sense of curiosity and adventure that sometimes lands me in trouble.

10. I enjoy intellectual pursuits--obviously. :~)

11. I believe that poets, writers, artists and actors serve their countries and humanity better than all the militarizes in the world.

12. My favorite film director/screen writer is Sally Potter.

13. The Sally Potter film I love most is “Yes”. I was so caught up in the storyline and visuals that it wasn’t until the second time through that I realized the dialog is written entirely in iambic pentameter.

14. I am an only child. An orphan who has been up for adoption for some time now. We problem children are notoriously hard to place.

15. I have painted my toes gold every summer since 1976. Before that, I was a hippy-chick flower child and it was not allowed.

16. I am a romantic to the core.

17. I'm closer to online friends than anyone I’ve met since returning home to Seattle seven years ago. We’ve been through a lot of stuff together –births, deaths, jobs, health. Online friends feel like family.

18. I believe that rough edges are immeasurably more interesting than cut and polish. Diamonds in the rough have gotten a bad rap.

19. When I was 9, I secretly signed and mailed in a form from the back of a magazine belonging to my mom’s spooky friend. The form was to add my name to a list of people to be taken up by aliens. I didn’t hear from them, but I’ve kept one eye on the skies ever since.

20. I once worked for a circus and married the Ringmaster.

21. I saw a ghost when I was three, but didn’t tell anyone. He was an old-time Native American man who didn’t notice me. I’d never seen anyone dressed like that before. The image has remained, causing me to keep an open mind about such things, even though I don’t really believe in ghosts.

22. I drove a long haul truck in the 80s (field trip!) and lived like a gypsy in a bubble, flying across the open road. Had a little dog, microwave, great stereo, TV, bookshelf and so many blooming air plants it looked like a floating greenhouse.

23. My mom was an immigrant from Austria with an 8th grade education, my dad had a 6th grade education—both had immeasurable wisdom and compassion. I was the first in of either side to go to college.

24. The one thing that turns me off is obscene wealth. Greed is not a virtue.

25. I am cracked up by life and all its glorious variety and I'm sure the Tricksters roll on the floor laughing at mine. (Or is it the aliens? see # 18)