Thanksgiving in Ireland

Hi everyone,

Today is Thanksgiving and we have much to be Thankful for. It is also a hoot celebrating and American holiday in a foreign country. We invited a group of friends and neighbors over for dinner (7pm here) and are enjoying cooking the first turkey we have cooked since we sold the big house three years ago.

It is odd and yet personally confirming to celebrate a holiday when no one else knows it is going on. Not that most here haven’t heard of or know of folks who are celebrating Thanksgiving, but it makes it so much easier when the whole country isn’t competing for the turkey let along standing in long lines as they will at Christmas. We got a bird that was fresh (as in butchered yesterday with some feathers left half in). What we couldn’t get were pumpkin pie makings (I guess they don’t eat that here) or onion soup mix for the dip. We gave up on the pumpkin but were able to cobble together some facsimile of the soup mix and successfully made the dip. The Irish call dressing stuffing – not so odd - but what they sell for stuffing is not breadcrumbs but rather a hard wheat type pellet with great spices. Two packages of the mushroom herb + one of cinnamon apple made a great mixture and I look forward to comparing it once cooked.

In true Irish fashion, it turns out that we will have two potato dishes (smile).

I spent hours this afternoon sending Thanksgiving cards to family and friends, via email – very civilized to get them all off with little fuss. We also got the fountain that was stolen earlier this summer replaced, so our front garden is complete once again. The dogs (especially Shadow) think that they have died and gone to heaven – they think feasts should come everyday. They may not be so happy when they learn that they will be sequestered in the basement for the main event.

Wishing everyone in the world a fabulous day – full of gratitude for the blessings of love, life, health and happiness.

Budapest spas

Budapest is a wonderful holiday spot because of the spas. I will remember most the glorious luxury at the end of the day to lounge in a Turkish or Romanesque setting, enjoying the hot waters. On a relaxed day, as an example, we woke late, did yoga and took off in the van provided by the hotel to the city. After a brief hour catching up on my classes (great to earn a living while on vacation!) we hopped on to the Metro and got out at the Parliament building (shown below). During the day we visited the museum of ethnography to catch up on current photography and ancient Hungarian lifestyles. After a lovely Italian meal we headed off by Metro to City Park. A few short minutes later we were deciphering the sign at the spa.

We visited three spas while in Budapest. The Rudas is a recently reopened Turkish style building. The Turks loved their numerology and the symmetry of a central courtyard with four adjoining rooms. This translates in the spa world to a central pool, where small bits of glass let in shafts of light, surrounded by smaller pools of differing temperatures. What I loved about the Rudas was tripping from very hot to very cold waters.

The Gelheirt is probably the most famous bath on the Buda side of the river. A huge underground cave, segmented into a mens and womens area, the Gelheirt allows both sexes to join in the swimming pool, where they are surrounded by Romaneque columns. I confess to liking single gender bathing more than mixed gender as the commaraderie among women who are strangers seems more comfortable. I also loved the very hot steam (50 degrees centigrade) followed by the cold plunge. By the time I left I could survive in both temperatures creating a very powerful exuberance after dunking in the cold.

The bath in City Park is altogether different from the others. Large and Romanesque the bathers are primarily sharing large pools out of doors. One is a perfect 38 degrees centigrade with crystal clear water. On the other side of the swimming pool is the pool with bubbles and jets. Metal plates in the floor of the pool release jets of water and people vie to occupy one of the plates when the jets are on. There are two 3/4s circle of 1 meter tall tiled walls in the center of the pond with powerful jets on the outside walls. These set up a whirlpool effect that sucks the unsuspecting bather into a wild ride around the wall. Most go laughing and screaming a few times around before battling the water at the entrance to get out. Not everyone is successful escaping the ride on their first time. From amusement to complete comfort, strolling between the two pools, Margie and I watched the sun go down.

Writing a textbook

Blog on writing the textbook
Two and a half years ago now, I was finishing the first cohort of principals and teachers using participatory action research (PAR) to study issues of children experiencing homelessness or high mobility. I remember how proud I was of their efforts, of what they had learned and how much I wanted the world to hear and embrace their stories. So, being me and always being ready, if naively, to go for the top, I looked up the writers proposal guidelines for Sage Publications and sent off a quickie proposal to them.
Naïve is the word, although I am still very new to this business of books, at least now I know that this first proposal had no chance of being accepted. I hadn’t done my homework: I didn’t know that Sage is mostly the side of this business that produces textbooks, nor did I realize that this book had little chance of selling big numbers and therefore needed to be published by a publisher for whom little numbers would be fine. In other words there was never a match between the idea and the publisher.
The universe still supported the move, not by publishing the book as suggested, (later self published on the web by the company I worked for at the time) but rather by helping me birth my dream of becoming a writer. I received a call from an acquisitions editor (didn’t even know what her title meant at that time) who told me that Sage produced textbooks. She was calling, actually to ask if I would like to write one on PAR? She had some books she with which she wanted to compete. With this call, although I would not know it at the time, a new life for Margie and I was born.

Time zips ahead in chunks:

• During the first chunk Margie and I go to Dillon reservoir, having read the competition, and plot a textbook that makes the most of what we feel is important adding bits we don’t see in other’s work. With the help of a research assistant I craft a new proposal for Sage.
• During the second chunk I finish my dissertation and start the web based side of this work.
• During this segment I write the whole PAR process out for the first time. While I was proud of it, this writing later proves to be a really bad draft.
• Right after we move to Ireland I re-sort those bits of writing and send off three chapters to Sage for review. The reviewers varied widely from loving it (can’t think why in retrospect) to hating it. I redraft the first three chapters, learning a lot from the reviewers as I go.
• This last summer was spent drafting chapters 4-11. It was a good thing I didn’t know many people in Kinsale because I did not feel put out as I watched them play on the lawn while I wrote. Fortunately we had lots of visitors from the US so life was not completely dull.
• After two months rest, I picked up the final reviewers comments and started the final edits. This process began about a month ago and I expected to be done by the time we went to Budapest (where I am now writing this piece).

As the reader may have guessed, the book is not quite finished, but thanks to Alan Bucknam, our third author and the artist who did all the diagrams and figures we use, we have a timeline and are checking off items. The book will be in finished form to the publisher by Dec 7th. This means we are months ahead of the editor’s schedule, the timetable pushed up so it can be adopted by classes for the fall of 07.

This blog though is not meant to be a rehash of events, but more a discussion of the personal evolution during writing. Early on this summer, after receiving the first reviews I faced the idea that I had nothing to say, and felt totally inadequate to the task at hand. It seemed a miracle (it still does) that Sage wanted this book from such "a nobody" like me. After that phase came a bit of revival and I realized that I do have opinions (when have I ever not had opinions???) and that there were things that I wanted to say. The challenge there was that I was still trying to marry what others have said to those ideas and the output was garbled.

During this last push I have re-edited my first chapters and listened, with a fresh ear to the comments of my reviewers. Bless them; they had two consistent messages, which are probably the messages of all reviewers at some point. First they told me I ramble when I don’t know exactly what I want to say. Better to put the energy into knowing exactly how I want it to look and what I want to say at the beginning. And second, they told me that the whole needed to be crafted so that the reader knew at all times where they were in the book’s progression.
As we explore Budapest during our not quite celebratory vacation, I am beginning to plot my next couple of books. One is the story of our lives taking us those few years from the US to Ireland. Simultaneously I am looking at a self help book for people who want to reinvent their lives. Perhaps they are two books, perhaps one.

I am reading about proposals, and editors, and the process and learning in hind site how lucky I was all over again. And I am listening to the basic messages of our first reviewers. Don’t lose the forest for the trees, or the trees for the forest. This one is difficult because I have always loved knowing the whole and then wanted to shift to understanding the miniscule variations that make up the complexity that is that whole. The middle ground, the trees, is not the level to which I naturally attend. Perhaps this is the message of writing for me: to translate the way I see the world into a form which is accessible to others.

Loneliness

I had a hard time adjusting to being in Ireland when I came back from three weeks in the US in September. Even now, after more than a month to process my discomfort I can’t identify all its components. The US is a highly stimulating place, plus when there I cram every instant into seeing family and friends, working or learning (this time a yoga conference). By the time I arrived home in Ireland I was tired.

But I did not expect reentry to be hard, yet it was. I couldn’t easily relax into enjoyment of the beauty around me. There was too much work to catch up on, yet that work wasn’t satisfying. Nothing was really satisfying. After three weeks I realized that I was lonely. The awareness was pre verbal, and so distressing it was not easy to share. By the time I could say I was lonely out loud the tightness in my gut was dissipating.

Family and friends then came to the rescue, each with a story or a comment which helped me piece the learning out of the distress. First my nephew Brian commented that his friend Michael had felt foreign, or not at ease, in the Philippines for almost five years when he returned there after growing up in the US. My friend Alice asked what I looked for in the friends I wanted to make. After all I could not replace the years of history with people, but I could be cognizant of the qualities I sought in the new friends I wanted to make.

Curiosity, a wide sense of the world, an unconditional acceptance of people the way they are, a caring heart, and a stable demeanor these are the qualities that come to mind. I see that I have already found those in a number of people: Kate with her caring nature and unconditional acceptance or Louise with her curiosity and understanding of the cultures around the world are great examples. Louise’s glamour and entertaining qualities give her friendship an extra plus. Our neighbor Chris who is interesting and astute and adds stability and helps us sort out the world of living in Kinsale, along with Nora who does the same thing in different ways both also contribute to the sense that we are not alone here.

Kate mentioned that she too feels that dissatisfaction, and she is surrounded by people she has known all her life. Folks aren’t living lives where anyone can just call and say "Let’s go and do something right now." Our complex lives require pre arrangement. So this leaves me looking at how I have let my social life down by not feeling comfortable enough to prearrange things with people.

Coming into the holidays this will get easier. Already on our calendars are a Thanksgiving feast at our house, a Christmas party for Tidy Towns, a luncheon with the St. Multose friendship club, a gathering with Kate and Marion. We look forward to a games night and perhaps a crafting afternoon in the New Year.

All of this reminds me of the Girl Scout round: Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.

Age and Disintegration

Age and disintegration

What a nasty title this one is, not quite 55 and the decay is obvious. For me age deters my ability to walk long distances, and travel through Europe brings with it more reason to walk long distances than I ever had while living in the US. For one thing public transport is good, therefore travelers can get to their destination without the worry or stress of navigating (first on one side of the road and then on the other) in strange locals with different driving rules. We are now in Budapest, and I find that because we did not rent a car I feel more like a tourist than I ever do when I am trying to drive.

But with the joys of public transport comes the extra miles of walking – from where it lets you off to the museum or public site and back again. Not to mention getting lost, as we did yesterday in Budapest. Who would have thought that one of their famous shopping districts, along the Riva U. would be echoed by a major thoroughfare north in the city Riva UT? This was doubled by the difficulties of changing from one map, scaled very close, to one scaled to cover the whole city. Presto! We walked an extra mile or two. One mile took us to where we discovered the Budapest public housing area and another took us back to where we could catch the metro.

Thank heavens that in Budapest we finish each long day of walking with the baths. We have now visited two, both Turkish, both very old. In one, women and men are separate except for the swimming pool, in the other one gender or the other is banned except on weekends where everyone wears swim suits. Actually we found that on the women’s side of the Gerheirt baths most women wore suits. The older European women who followed the tradition of nude bathing were the minority with younger Japanese or Chinese women balanced with younger Americans making up the majority.

After getting lost but before the baths I could not take a long striding step, but rather balanced the pain in each leg through smaller steps. After the baths, although not without sensation, I could walk fairly normally. This was sufficient the first day when I took a Tylenol PM, had a good nights sleep and felt fine for the second day. The third day in a row was over the top for my body and even a Tylenol PM did not let me avoid the pain in my hips enough to easily sleep. Nor when I woke this morning am I "good as new."

This condition brings up two thoughts: my Mom and Dad at my age, and what I learned at the yoga conference. My Mom and Dad were comparable to my age now when I was in high school – so I saw things first hand that now translate to an understanding of the body I inherited. Only who was to say I would get the worse parts of both?? From my Dad I got varicose veins and poor joints. I remember him stretching himself out on a counter top in our kitchen, and hobbling around the house after his veins were worked on. From my mother I inherited hormones that lose the ability to regulate hot and cold, therefore always throwing open windows (she would say it was "stuffy in here") and another set of bad joints. Touch wood my hips stay whole, but there you have it.

This leads me to what I learned at the Yoga Conference in the States this fall. Bare in mind that the last time I attended this conference these same teachers (then in their late 40’s and early 50’s) seemed to be saying "Do yoga and it will keep you young forever." This time the message (or was it my ability to hear the message?) changed. Now they are saying (I am hearing) "The body decays – get used to it. If you do yoga the transition is easier."

So it goes.

Ode to the author

While I intend to write more about my first experience with authorship - the following poem from Margie lifts my spirits and perhaps yours as well :))
Alana

ODE TO THE AUTHOR

When sitting so long might your bones get all tight
And yoga indeed will help relax your joints right

So walk beyond your desk prison and inner doors
To be nurtured and loved from she who adores

The time comes night to depart for Budapest
And you my dear love, deserve a break and rest

Nov 3, 2006

Hi everyone,

One of the joys of living in this house is having so many places to work. I like to work for the university upstairs in the loft. This morning it is gorgeous. It is now 7:45 am and the sun is just rising. Pink and gold nestle the green hills and brown cliffs at waters edge. The water is silver grey, lightly lapping the shore with shallow horizontal waves. On the other side of the peninsula the boats in the marina are docked in what looks like glass. The sound of seagulls breaks the stillness, which is also punctuated in my private world with the drone of fingers on the keyboard.

Our morning routine is to be up by 6 – into the hot tub with tea and coffee. Margie stays but a minute as she goes upstairs and meditates with the cat on her lap – I stay for 20 minutes or so and work through the kinks that tighten my legs into morning pretzels. Then it is up to the main floor for yoga. One week we strengthen, work on yoga relaxation over the weekends to flip flop to yoga that increases concentration. This practice expands our lung capacity and is geared to take us gracefully into our sunset years. As Margie points out it is amazing how good it feels – so good that we rarely want to rebel and forget it, and when we do we have the other to remind us of how much better our days go when we feel strong and flexible.

OK – I have been distracted by the beauty long enough. I think of my friends in the US – now asleep of course, and wish everyone well. May we all find beauty in our days and love in our lives!

Love to all,

Alana

bits n pieces #1

Sometimes a memory sneaks up on me and hugs me tightly. I smile and rest in the images that emerge. The teeny snug apartment, our last home in Denver, conjures up such a hodgepodge of pictures--the big mahogany bed that dominated the crowded living dining/sleeping space--our sheltering blue armchair and gold fabric rocking chair for nights of reading & relaxing--the regular escape to the efficient size kitchen, thankfully separating us from the smothering, licking labs due to the blessed dog gate. This cramped, stifling but homey space had us falling over each other daily--we five made the chosen space our home even though we seemed to move as one big blob in the tightness throughout all "our stuff". Grumpily getting dressed at 5am in the office/dressing room/closet/storage room, with the dogs dancing on my toes, reminds me to recall and to chuckle this downside of an otherwise cozy little apartment. Renaissance art prints, earthtone colors of walls and floors, three overspilling bookcases and the JoRai altar, all speak to the eclectic style and mood of the Jamenkiewicz HOME--a comforting pattern that tells a bit of who we are and our shared need to create a safe and sacred dwelling that we intentionally clain as our own.