Walking and Talking

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Politics, Relationships | 8 Comments

From Christie Healey’s perspective, going on foot could be just the cure for what ails us.

Its Saturday morning and the winter is coming to an end. Although here on the tundra we are wary of any irrational exuberance until May. The phone rang and I heard Heidi’s voice say, “Want to go for a walk?” I cannot think of anything I would rather do at this moment than join her and her beautiful sad-eyed dog Sara on a stroll around the Lake Como in the crystal sunshine.

My mum and dad would take a walk every Sunday afternoon. They talked quietly while my sister and I wandered along with them, playing make-believe games and seeing who could run the fastest. In the past few years I have become a walker again. There is singular joy in strolling along talking to my companions or, when I am alone, talking to myself. It seems as if walking frees the tongue and the mind. Difficult topics can be broached more easily; old hurts can be mended, secrets may be revealed, sadness might suddenly find release, and laughter often comes unexpectedly. Read more

The Weight of Age

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Politics | 10 Comments

Connie Stetson reflects on what shaped her views of democracy and what fuels her hope today.

With the passing of Teddy Kennedy, aside from feeling real grief at his loss, I am feeling, profoundly, the weight of my age. Not my chronological age, I just turned 58, but the age that has shaped my sensibilities, the age I am passing through. As I write this I feel like a trauma survivor, as though I’m watching my life pass before my eyes.

The year of my birth, 1951, Harry S. Truman was president, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected in 1956. The first presidential election I can remember was between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It was as hotly contested in our family as it was in the nation. My grandparents were staunch Republicans, supporting Nixon, and my mother was a Democrat, mad about Kennedy.

That first televised debate, Sept. 26th, 1960, at nine years old, made me a life-long Democrat. Those impossibly handsome brothers, Jack, Bobby and Teddy, whose passions fueled the passion of a generation, were the real standard bearers of hope and change, the very words I am sick to death of hearing politicians spew now.

It was late November in 1963, I was in my Home Ec. class (which was mandatory for girls then), anticipating the Thanksgiving holiday long weekend, when our school principal announced that Kennedy had been shot in a motorcade in Dallas. Read more

Independence

Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Politics, Reinvention | 11 Comments

Carine Fabius is making a dramatic change, a new affiliation that speaks to her head and heart.

That’s it. After being a lifelong Democrat, I am officially changing my party affiliation to Independent.

I like the ring of that word. One of its dictionary definitions is “capable of thinking or acting for oneself.” That’s a pretty accurate description of me. I wish I could be independent of any political party but I wouldn’t be able to vote in primaries; so if affiliation I must have, then I choose to belong to the American Independent Party.

But, Carine, that’s like throwing away your vote! If you’re thinking that, think again. I am not planning on voting Independent for any presidential candidate anytime soon because that would be a waste. For now. A president can only do so much alone, though; that’s how our system is set up. Without the lawmakers, it’s stagnation time. But the only time lawmakers pay attention to constituents is when they fear being kicked out of office. That point was driven home to me while visiting with my pro-Bush father recently when he kept asking me, But why do the people in Obama’s own party keep fighting him? Good question! Read more

Breast Cancer Bonanza: Stop the Greed

Filed Under All Posts, Cathy Fischer, Health, Politics | 22 Comments

Cathy Fischer is wondering how a month dedicated to something so important, could have become so irritating.

I don’t know what irks me more, being accosted by Christmas ads before Halloween, or being hit by the big pink tsunami that is…BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH.

Dancing reindeer or pink teddy bears? I’ll take the caribou, thank you.

The brilliant Barbara Ehrenreich, also a breast cancer survivor, is passionate about pink. In her new book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, she writes about how she’d rather get “hacked to death by a madman,” then suffocated by the “pink sticky sentiment” embodied by ribbon-wearing teddy bears.

I’ve noticed that I don’t’ wear pink very much. Not that pink doesn’t look good on me, it’s that I’ve had an aversion to the color ever since my diagnosis. A year ago, I voiced my not-so-rosy point of view in “My Big Pink Protest,” where I shared my dismay about October’s pinkness, and how threads of hypocrisy are woven throughout the fabric of many a “pink” product. These so-called charitable campaigns are about as authentic as a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake. Read more

The Dreaded Word: Race

Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Health, Politics | 11 Comments

The latest news about healthcare and race has Carine Fabius pulling out her passport.

Coming up with something devastatingly original and fun to write about would have made me feel edgy and special but it turns out I am not so outré. Alas I am just like many who write about the issues of our times—I can’t stop thinking about the pervasive issue of RACE. Ever since the healthcare debate began I have felt like one giant sigh. A sigh grown so outsized that it now drives my most desperate desire: to leave the United States for other shores.

On one hand, I am in the very attractive position of having dual citizenship—American and European Union—so it would be easier for me than most. But the bigger, more annoying question is always: What country doesn’t have gaping issues? None, I suppose; it’s just that I always expect more from America, foolish, foolish woman that I am.

Tales abound about how during the Civil Rights Era, officials in towns across the South chose to fill municipal pools with cement rather than share them with blacks, thus denying all their citizens the refreshing merriment provided by the pools on hot summer days. With Obama in the House, we thought we’d come a long way, but no, baby, things are so the same it makes me want to sigh some more. Read more

My Lovely Bones

Filed Under All Posts, Politics, Prudence Baird | 21 Comments

A doctor’s prognosis brings Prudence Baird face to face with her “inner old lady.”

I love my town. What’s not to love about a place where the local doctor goes by his first name (Dr. Walter) and hand-writes notes to his patients?

Recently, one of Dr. Walter’s letters arrived in the mail. I recognized the familiar scrawly handwriting that could only belong to a doctor.

“What’s in the letter from Dr. Walter?” asked my husband.

“I have no idea.”

“Shall I open it?” he asked, ripping open the envelope. “Oh,” he paused. “You have osteoporosis.”

Surely my husband wasn’t talking to me?

I quickly looked around for Sally Field.

Moi, osteoporosis? A flying nun’s disease? An old lady’s disease? How could this be? Read more

The Lovely Mrs. Stetson

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Politics, Relationships | 14 Comments

She nods, she smiles, and you really think she’s listening. Meet Connie Stetson, celebrity wife.

Towards the end of September, my husband Lee and I are off to New York City to celebrate his participation as John Muir in Ken Burns’ new documentary series on PBS, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. We are thrilled of course, to hobnob in the Big Apple with celebs, attend galas and attend as honorees, a huge concert in Central Park to kick off this amazing documentary. I simply cannot wait to get all dressed up, wear pretty shoes, put some makeup on my puss and transform myself into “the lovely Mrs. Stetson.”

My single most important function of this task, (that I’ve now performed hundreds of times) it seems, is to stand near my actor husband, smile, nod, beam, shake hands and occasionally mutter niceties like, “Yes, how interesting” or “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” For all occasions I’ve learned that the phrases, “How about that?” and “Isn’t that something”, can be inserted anywhere—even when you are concertedly not listening. Read more

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