Time for an update. Since the wedding I’ve been doing paid work, I have been busy with grant applications and putting together board recruitment and fund development strategies. I’ve also been working on my gap year book with mixed results. Some days I feel like I have useful and interesting information to convey and other times it just seems so boring. I keep reminding myself that it’s a messy process and I’m learning as I go. As Dory says, ‘Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!’
I’ve also been enjoying the leaves starting to change color. I’m doing some art with the leaves I’ve found as well as getting out for hikes to soak up the gorgeous colors.
I’ve been looking after Rosco in San Rafael the last couple of weeks. His mom first went to Boston to row on the Charles River with her rowing group, and was only back a day and a half before heading out on a trip to Morocco. I went to an open artist studio and was completely inspired. The artist makes paintings by using scraps of paper from magazines and newspapers. From further back, you see a coherent picture and then when you get closer, you can see the individual pieces of paper, it is so dynamic. I love the colors and words and everything going on in her paintings. I bought some cards of my favorite pieces and a print she created of the Mill Valley Lumber Company which brought back memories from childhood.
I got to see Hari Kondabolu perform one evening, he was the kickoff for the first annual Walnut Creek Diwali festival. He was fantastic, a great combination of political and regular humor. Annemarie looked after Rosco for me while I had JNE meetings in San Francisco. There was a beautiful dawn one morning on my drive into the city. I also got out for a kayak with my sister.
Another day my mom, my sister Christina, Annemarie and I took the SMART train from Larkspur to Windsor for lunch. It was a fun, relaxing trip. The seats are comfortable and there are beautiful views in the more rural parts of the trip, going through places that you can’t see from the highway. I think my sister, my daughter and I were about the only paying customers on the train. The train is free for anyone under 18 or over 65 so there were a lot of older folks on the trip up to Windsor and on the trip back, since it was after school hours, there were a lot of students.
A couple of days ago an event that my sisters and I have been planning for months finally took place. We threw a surprise early 90th birthday party for our mom! And it was truly a surprise, we were so happy that nobody spilled the beans. I’m sure the large group of church friends that mom sees almost every day are all very happy they don’t have to remember to keep it a secret anymore. Even setting up the community center (what we used to know as the TVIC Hall when we were kids), was a blast. It was almost like a mini version of getting ready for my son’s wedding. There were lots of moms friends from church, old family friends, many of our childhood friends who felt mom had played an important role in their lives and even a few family members from Kentucky. It was a a fantastic party and I think she really felt the love.
After all the planning and execution of the many family events we’ve had over the last couple of months I’m feeling a little melancholy. It’s been wonderful having Annemarie here but she’ll only be here for about another six days so I’m already feeling a little sad about her leaving. When she stayed with me at mom’s house she made dinner several times, which we both appreciated very much, and she really enjoyed. When I walked in the house last Friday after my meeting I could smell dinner being cooked and could hear Annemarie and mom chatting away in the kitchen as they got dinner ready. That felt like such a treasure. I’m trying to bask in all the wonderful things that have been happening in my life.
For the New Economy MBA one of our recent assignments was to get an understanding of what kind of goods and services are produced in the bioregion where we live, then consider the things that are not produced there and the impact of that gap. I hadn’t thought about what bioregion I live in before, in fact I didn’t even know what that term meant! I discovered I live in the Central Coast biooregion, which is quite a large one encompassing the entire Bay Area and going all the way down to parts of Ventura County. It includes areas of mountains, forests, coastline and grasslands, where we produce a fair amount of fruits and vegetables and wine. It got me thinking about all the ways that I could purchase items that are manufactured within the bioregion and avoid purchasing things that come from far away, especially out of the country. In terms of food and beverages I can go to farmer’s markets, join a CSA, go fruit picking (I remember doing that several times when the kids were little then canning much of what we picked). It inspires me to eat more seasonally and be more observant about where things come from. One of the supplemental materials for this week was a video of a woman in West Marin whose wardrobe consists of only clothes made within a 150 radius (except for things like buttons and zippers). She did a lot of research and started making connections with people who grew different kinds of materials, such as wool and hemp and then others who weave and sew. It was just fascinating. I’m really enjoying learning about the economy from a different point of view, finding alternatives to the extractive economy.
Kieran sent me a link to the wedding photos, which are just fantastic. Some of them make me laugh, others make me cry because they are so sweet. They really captured that wonderful day. I think he’s glad that we are going into the rainy season, which means he’s not going to have to work Saturdays very often, if at all, for a few months. After all the busyness with planning the wedding and him working very long days and most Saturdays, it’ll be nice for them to take things a bit easier for a while.
I’m doing more research and chatting with folks about foundation work, getting a better understanding of the changing foundation landscape, with everything that’s happening with the current administration. I’m especially intrigued with an initiative the Marin Community Foundation has called Community Power, where they have given substantial three-year grants to a variety of nonprofits. These are general operating grants and don’t have the same, often arduous, reporting requirements as other grants. One thing I have seen up close in my positions at charitable nonprofits is how much work fundraising is. I see how much money in terms of staff time that nonprofits have to spend in order to bring income in, whether it’s through grants, contracts, putting on fundraisers or looking for donors. The administration of all of those different things is so time consuming. It’s especially frustrating because these nonprofits are providing services that in my opinion, should be provided by the government. The government provides lots of subsidies and funding for businesses that already make money, in some cases a lot of money, and yet, there’s limited funding for supporting families that are struggling to survive. Nonprofits have to spend so much time justifying what sometimes amounts to small amounts of money. It’s crazy. There’s got to be a better way.