2/2/2018

Year of the big ride

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?”

― Ursula K. Le Guin

Less than a dozen days ago my favorite novelist, Ursula Le Guin died.  I dedicate 
this letter to her.

Happy Groundhog Day: the day we set to contemplate how much longer we will be 
stuck in the cold,  but  also that point where light has begun to return and now life also 
pokes up its head.

Wheels of utopia.

The most remarkable thing in my life this past year was the 6 week trip that included 
a bike ride from Sandusky Ohio to Fort Lauderdale Florida and then a week in Cuba.  
This trip is covered in our travel-blog https://sites.google.com/view/biketrip/blog . If 
you have time to read just a few posts, look at day 20, 25, 26,& 28 and for our trip to 
Cuba, day 39 . Beth deserves the bulk of the credit for the blogging.

Nourish the body, change the world.

The connection between meat and global  climate change is important but too often
overlooked.  I know the health benefits of plant-based nutrition,  I've read the 
research and seen results in patients and friends. This past year I have been working 
on writing a book about vegan nutrition continuing explorations I began the year 
before.  Writing this book may be a several year project, so don’t hold your breath.  
On the other hand, I’ve started to work on a related project this past month. I will be 
producing some youtube videos,  book reports discussing books about vegan 
nutrition. The first videos should be posted in April. Here is my page address:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1HCek2YnIBQ8Wv-2Yx8YQQ?view_as=subscriber 
consider subscribing.

The homefront moves forward.

Zev has been accepted to the University of Michigan where we are fairly certain he 
will go.  If the adolescent years are about challenging parents norms, Zev 
occasionally does this, but with love towards, and reassurance for the parents. In 
case you're wondering, his politics are if anything to the left of mine. Teo meanwhile 
as a high school sophmore is taking honors calculus at the University of Michigan.  
He is involved in robot club, I tease him that this is the path to the dystopian 
singularity, when machines take over the Earth.  And then we have deep 
conversations about the nature of consciousness. Teo also treats the parents with 
loving kindness.

Dinner parties and nights at the movies.

The big news about Heiwa Coop is that the mortgage has been paid off.  I hope that 
this will translate to the ability to create more cooperative housing space in the next 
few years. The Heiwa community has just grown in sweetness this past year, this 
constantly morphing group has grown closer and has deepened their ties to us during 
the past year or so. Also delightfully, the senior couple around the corner from Heiwa 
house has been building ties with all of us, inviting us over to watch movies and 
bringing by their day old New York Times to share.

The search for transformation.

2017 started with Beth and I seeking a political home, we visited various 
organizations, we even hosted a series of political potlucks, then the year wore on 
and we had not found a way to regularly engage in the collective response to the 
politics of authoritarianism and hatred epitomized by the white house.  I tabled once 
for citizens climate lobby and I did do a small amount of petitioning for the ballot 
campaign to stop the way political districts in Michigan are gerrymandered. As I look 
to 2018 I will continue to look for my niche in the struggle, My goal is to find a political 
home.

Love to all of you,

Gaia Kile

“Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to fulfill my proper 
function in the social organism. I'm going to unbuild walls.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin

Annual Letter 2010 Halloween 10/31, Day of the Dead 11/1

Sunday, October 31, 2010

  (as life & politics overlap)

Dear Friends,

As many of you know I try to send an annual salutation on or around Ground hogs day. Events this year put off my late winter effort. Groundhogs day falls between the winter solstice and the equinox, Halloween is also between solstice & equinox so this year I’m writing at the other end of a cycle. Halloween is also celebrated as the Day of the Dead, an opportunity to connect with departed loved ones. So call this my “day of the dead letter”.

The great sadness in my family’s lives is the death of Beth’s father. He died on Groundhogs day February 2nd 2010. He had cancer 3 years ago which was removed followed by chemo, but about a year ago it came back. With the cancers return his options were more limited.

Beth’s father Mel was a doctor and teacher. He was passionate about many things in his world. He held professional achievements; he stood up on the good side of many issues. He defended the little guy. I know this because more than once when he felt that I was getting a raw deal he would express outrage on my behalf. He had a creative mind and was a life-long learner. But what really matters is the love you leave behind. Mel was loved by his patients, his students and others he touched. But none were touched so deeply as his family.

I am lucky to have Mel’s daughter as life partner. She is a pillar of strength and integrity, kindness and love, intelligence and humanness.

His Grandsons Zev and Teo each carry some of Mel’s beauty in them. Zev is thoughtful and engaged in the political issues of the world, he likes listening to NPR and he gets Mother Jones Magazine which he enjoys reading. Teo loves math and has recently completed the calculation of 13 factorial (that’s the multiplication of all the numbers from 1 to 13) Both boys are interested in the unanswered questions of the universe. For instance Teo is presently working on a project about black holes. Both boys find their own ways of creativity. Zev is writing a fantasy novel and has already written over 30 pages.

There were several others who’ve touched my life who died this past year, I’d like to honor them all, I’ll just mention one here. Liz Johnson was my beloved friend in Portland, one of the founders of Hei Wa house, we were activist together with the progressive student network and we worked together at the Soy Plant cooperative. She died of ALS this fall. A great sadness is that she was mother of a boy named Will who is about Teo’s age. She was an activist and a part of the cooperative movement; she worked in several collectives and workers cooperatives. All of my friends who have passed away lived good lives.

Reflecting on my own life and its purpose I have found some touch stones for now.

Last fall and winter I was looking at my many and eclectic engagements and interests I got insight into some key areas where I would like to focus my professional clinical studies and expertise. I am interested in the health implications of plant based nutrition. Eat your vegetables! I am intrigued by the question what can be done to promote longevity (hint: eat your vegetables.) I want to learn more about the health implications of environmental toxins as well as ways of helping individuals recover or maintain health in the face of toxic exposure (the broccoli family, cilantro, garlic & onions in particular). Finally, I have come to realize that I am passionate about addressing mental health issues by non-pharmacological means. That all said my main job involves a good bit of endocrinology and a lot of work with food allergies.

In January I identified some larger project oriented goals for my life in the coming year. I find that when I set clear goals that I am passionate about I tend to move forward in my life. They included: 1) a goal for professional productivity which I met before I had initially intended to, 2) running for the board of Ann Arbor’s food coop, and now I am on the board, 3) some specific markers regarding the building of my co-counseling, emotional support community, also essentially met. 4) Finishing the initial processing of a collection of over 5000 books which are becoming a peace library in a space carved out of my garage. These books belonged to Rich Ahern a friend of mine who died in 2004. This also is approaching conclusion. I had a grand opening in August and only have a few more books to go.

There was a fifth goal; I had wanted to build an extension on the back of our house with an eye to extreme energy efficiency. This will give us a larger bed room and it will allow Zev and Teo to each have their own bed room. In the end this goal has been postponed to next summer, something to look forward to.

Now let me offer some thoughts on my views of life and death in the wide world:

One area where I have been pleased with Barak Obama where he has gone farther than I thought a sitting president could go, is around the issue of nuclear weapons. Articulating a goal of a nuclear weapons free world, signing a treaty reducing the US nuclear stock pile by one third, reshaping our nuclear policy to promise no use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non nuclear nations who are adherents to the nuclear non proliferation treaty, publicly disclosing the number of nuclear weapons we have. All of these are commendable major policy shifts unprecedented in the history of the nuclear era.

Reflecting on these actions around nuclear weapons I was emotionally moved. I remembered the many things I did during the 1980’s to oppose nuclear weapons. This was when both Barak Obama and I were young men, each in our own way shaping our political world view. As I marched, met, organized, protested, and resisted the arms race in any way I could muster Obama was exposed to the milieu that I was helping to create. I feel great pride in this, but I don’t say this to boast, rather to remember that small acts by many add together to create the context where change can happen, sometimes only by planting seeds for 25 years later.

Now back to remembering the dead: Americans continue to kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Estimated of the victims of the war on terror [or rather the war of terror] range from over 100 thousand to near one million. While most of those deaths were in Iraq, as many as twenty thousand may have been killed in Afghanistan. Those numbers will climb as long as the US is there. Mr. Obama must take responsibility for those killed abstractly, but killed in war and assassinated are two different crimes. Drones and kill lists brings the charge of assassination to the office of the president.

Trading the risk of nuclear destruction for the new weapons of the empire is not enough. I should like to plant seeds for real world peace,

The other death count we should start is that of climate change victims. The Pakistani flooding this summer had already claimed 2,000 lives by August. It’s counterpart the drought in Russia is now threatening a global food crisis. This is just the start. A UN report on probable human refugees from global warming suggests a magnitude of 700 million. That’s 1 in every 10 people on the planet!

What can we do? Many things. On an international day of action (October 10th) the participation Ann Arbor organization focused on front yard gardens (local food requires less CO2 for transportation, and what could be more local than your front yard.) I was fortunate to have a volunteer give me a hand digging up my front yard and over 100 gardens were made that day.

Ann Arbor is not the only place where gardens are a sign of hope. This summer the US social Forum was held in Detroit and Beth and I got a chance to learn about the greening of Detroit. For years Detroit had become almost synonymous with despair, post industrial decay, skyrocketing unemployment even before the recession, high crime rates. In Detroit devils’ night was the name for the night before Halloween which was known for its rampant arson, but from those ashes come gardens, hundreds of them on vacant land throughout the city, and among the gardener’s mutual aid and cooperation. Now the urban gardening movement throughout the country is looking to Detroit. From decay comes rebirth.

So amidst some sadness and loss I’d like to wish you hope and a happy Halloween.

2009

Monday, February 2, 2009

a groundhogs day leter (the personal is political)

02/02/2008

Dear Friends

February 2nd comes around again, so again I am writing my annual Groundhogs day comments. We a re already a month and a half from the solstice, and equally far from the solar calendars marking of spring.

This letter will include a bit of my life, and then my thoughts on the world.

My life:

A year ago I started a new job, working with a doctor with a holistic practice with a focus that I usually refer to as nutritional medicine. The basic approach of what we do is two fold. We identify and try to eliminate nutritional problems such as food allergies, microbial overgrowths, and poor dietary patterns and choices. We also recommend natural and generally nutrient based supplements that support our patients' internal biological processes. This approach is often called functional medicine. We are an integrative practice, meaning that we also use conventional medications when it makes sense. OK that's not all that we do but it gives you an accurate general picture. The job has been a thrill in terms of all I have learned and am still learning.

My family is strong. Beth and I work well with each other and our love continues to deepen. The struggle is finding time together alone. Teo is now in first grade and Zev is in third grade, they both attend the city's "open school". It's not exactly Summerhill, http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/ but the students do get to make choices about their studies, and generally our kids like it. As the boys grow their personalities also flourish. There was a time when I couldn't tell if differences between them were just related to differences in age, but more and more I appreciate their unique personalities and interests. That said, they are still such good friends, and they both amaze me some times with their kindness to each other and to others.

I continue to enjoy my close association with the cooperative house next door. We share cooking and meals, and meetings, and community. Coop living reminds me that utopia is a constant dinner party. I often live close to utopia.

My year was punctuated by what are becoming somewhat regular events. I had the good fortune to attend 3 co-counseling workshops including a trip to New York and a trip to Vermont (co-counseling http://www.cci-usa.org/ is a peer based emotional support process that I have been involved with for several years now). In November our family went to the demonstration against the School of the Americas http://www.soaw.org/type.php?type=8 at Fort Benning in Georgia. This is an annual action to try to close Americas military training camp for Latin American military personal who too often go on to commit atrocities against their people. Since my parents and sister live in Atlanta the trip is also a good opportunity to visit them.

I went to seminars in San Antonio, in Pittsburg. If I'm going to tally up all my travels, I was in Toledo on Election Day, helping Obama take Ohio. This year included more travel than typical for me.

I was modestly involved with the Obama Campaign, in addition to dragging a couple of friends to Toledo to knock on door, I registered a handful of people to vote, shuffled some papers for canvassing packets and did some door knocking in Ann Arbor to clarify where likely Obama voters lived.

This fall I've found my way a bit more on to the internet. In November I started to blog http://gaiaonpolitics.blogspot.com/ I'm trying to post something every week or so. The energy the blog takes probably exceeds the influence it has, but it's a good way to work on my writing. I always enjoy when people comment on my blog, so if your there leave your two cents. I've also started playing around with facebook. (if your on facebook but not connected to me, please look me up)

The World:

Things are not really improving yet but at least the potential for things to improve has improved.

I worked (to the extent that I did) to get Obama elected so that we would again have a US president who would listen to progressive perspective, and so that grassroots political action would again have some force.

In this first few weeks of the new administration some good thing have happened perhaps most important an order to close Guantanamo and the secrete CIA prisons. But the order hasn't been carried out yet. We will get plans from the generals regarding withdrawal from Iraq, and a man known to successfully negotiate peace is now the US Middle East Special envoy. Again encouraging but still peace is not yet here. It's hard to imagine that the US will change it's relationship to Israel, last year funding the Israeli military at 2.4 billion dollars. It's scheduled to increase to 3.1 billion in the next 10 years http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf . At least a more engaged policy will likely cut down of the violence. Some bad things have continues, for instance, drone planes attacking Pakistan, this being particularly troubling because it continues a policy of preemptive attacks. War is the greatest moral scourge that we face.

At what point does a recession become a depression? And how much can a stimulus packet do? I am glad that there are some funds for green energy, medical record technology may improve the quality of care, and certain infrastructure work is probably worthwhile. I'm not in favor of lots of road work. We need to be moving away from our car and long distance transport oriented culture. While financial approaches to help forestall the mortgage crisis will help people in need, I'd rather see legal approaches to preventing foreclosures. However one chooses to describe our economy it represents the greatest immediate challenge that we face.

I still hold to the understanding that in the big picture the two biggest problems we humans face are the running down of liquid fuel related to peak oil production http://www.postcarbon.org/ and global climate change. As we pass the point of maximum oil production most of the assumptions of modern society will need to be reworked. It is hard to imagine that we will be able to have an economy that continues to assume unlimited growth (and in turn ongoing profits from that growth) since cheep fuel has been the lynch pin for perpetual growth. Those expecting profits will try various destructive strategies. They will try to extract more from the poor, those least able to defend themselves, and to turn to all other energy sources including coal. Coal, of course, contributes to global warming (if clean coal technology is anything more than science fiction it is still costly, and no strategy for profit maximization.)

Solutions may be available, the question is implementation. For instance wind power is an increasingly hopeful alternative energy source but present global production of wind energy amounts to about 1.5 percent of the worlds total electricity production. It has increased by about 30% every year for the last 10 years. By one scenario 50% of the world electricity could be generated by renewable sources by 2017 http://www.wwindea.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=224&Itemid=40 . And then there is the need for an electric vehicle fleet…

Politically the capital of the US is not the only place were progressive governments are on the rise. Two days ago Bolivia approved a new constitution by popular vote re establishes water access as a right, and gives national control to natural resources (Bolivia holds over half of the worlds lithium, needed for lithium ion batteries). Amazingly, Obama has congratulated Bolivia for the passing of this constitution.

Yesterday I went to a meeting of grassroots community activists discussing the situation in Gaza. What was inspiring about the meeting was the sense that again there was space for activist movements to grow.

There are also structural forces that oppose change, but even they are changing. Chaos can be the prelude to an emerging, at first hardly perceivable system that is growing up along side the collapsing monolith. Change can some times happen quickly. Problems persist, but we can begin to vision a better world, yes another world is possible, increasingly more possible, and in that things look much more promising.

With love and growth,

Gaia

The Year of Permaculture Annual letter 2/2/15

Dear friends and family, 

As you may know I have a very multidimensional life. I often struggle with how the various parts of my life fit together. Lately I've been thinking that permaculture might be used as a thread that can hold together the patchwork quilt of my life. Permaculture is a complex concept that is interdisciplinary enough to cover the array of activities that make up my life. A quick definition of permaculture is an effort to create an ecologically sustainable culture. Although much of permaculture is oriented towards agriculture, I’m particularly interested in the urban and social dimensions of permaculture. Here are some patches from my life this past year.

Permaculture

This past spring I took a 12 week online permaculture design course taught by Geoff Lawton, one of the world's foremost permaculture teachers. Part of the course involved developing a permaculture design or a specific site. I developed a 21 page design for my home and Hei Wa House, the co-op next door. This coming year will begin a 10 year development process for that plan that is geared towards making my little home maximally sustainable. Stay tuned.

Cooperative culture

I continue to be active with my local food co-op as the president of the board. This has often taken more time than I had thought it would. For instance, for a couple of months this fall I had to meet weekly with a temporary general manager. As president, I spend a lot of effort trying to build consensus on the board. For all the time and effort, I find it a valuable experience. I continue to learn and grow, and I have opportunities to use my best communication skills.

This past year I have been working with small group of folks who are trying to start a cooperative assisted-living facility. We would like to create a cooperative organization that provides housing and assistive services and support for tasks of daily living such as dressing, bathing, and preparing meals for elderly and disabled. We would like for the staff and the residents of this organization to be the owners of it. We are currently looking at a 12 bed facility that is for sale. I’m not clear that we will be able to pull this project off but for the moment we continue to try. The next big challenge for the organization will be getting funding. We may be pursuing micro-financing strategies. If this project sounds interesting to you, and you might consider making a small loan, contact me for more information.

Bike culture

A thrill for me this past year was the hundred mile bike ride that Zev and I took to get to his summer camp. Our day started out with rainbow in the sky.  The roads were good and our spirits never sagged. We completed the ride in 11 hours. Lucky for me, my beloved Beth came up by car with Zev’s luggage and was able to bring me and the bikes home the next day.

Later in the summer we took a vacation in Montréal. Montréal is a beautiful city for biking. Our hotel was on a street that goes through the downtown with dedicated two-way bike lanes. Unlike most bike lanes I've seen, these lanes were partitioned off from the street with a solid meridian. Imagine these lanes teeming with bicyclists, most of whom speak French. The down side of the trip was that we got a bit of rain.

Vegan culture

Sometime this year, I stumbled on something that claimed that if you read an hour a day in your field of interest in seven years you would be an international expert. I don't know if there is any validity to that claim, and I haven't reached the one hour a day mark, but it inspired me to take up reading more medical literature. Specifically, I've been focusing on reading about the health benefits of plant-based nutrition. I’ve only very recently taken up reading about the ecological side of the vegetarian issue. Most permaculture advocates see a place for integrated livestock. However, animal agriculture generally has a tremendously destructive environmental impact. Perhaps under optimal conditions my permaculture friends are correct and perhaps they are not, but as Michael Pollan says, “eat food, mostly plants, not too much”.

Medical culture

I continue to work part time as a nurse practitioner in a holistic clinic. I would like this little practice of mine to be about sharing information, listening to my patients, and helping them find more balance in their lives. It doesn’t always go this way, but once in a while I’ll get a clue that I’m doing something right, like a note from one of my patients: “thank you for helping me get to the health I am in today . . . . No other place I have been to actually takes the time to listen to patients and doesn’t try to rush them out.” 

Activist culture

There was a period in the fall where I seemed to be traveling every other weekend. One of these trips was with Zev and two friends of mine. We went to New York for the Great Climate Justice march. For about four hours we stood in a tightly packed crowd adjacent Central Park, two hours after the march has officially started our section started moving. Demonstration demographics are never precise but 300,000 is probably a good approximation. I was glad Zev was at this historic demonstration; it seemed well worth the day of school he missed.

On one of the weekends during that period in the fall when I was able to stay in town there was a reunion of activist friends of mine from my undergraduate college days. We had been involved in a number of political issues, including the struggle against militarism and weapons research. It was a great joy for me to reconnect with these comrades. And it was nice to see that each in their own way continue to struggle for social justice and a better world.

Kid culture

Zev is growing up to be a fine young radical. His reading list includes, Emma Goldman, Karl Marx, Noam Chomsky, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Alpert and Frederick Engels. He is also in an extracurricular program called mock trial, where he's developing his argument skills. One of the sweetest things in my life is when Zev and I get a chance to talk political philosophy.

You might wonder that I wrote about adventures I went on with Zev, but not  Teo. Teo is more home oriented than his brother, so I’ve spent more time with Teo than Zev this year. The big adventure that he and I collaborated on this past year was constructing a 10 foot tall model of the Empire State building as a school project.  After getting  three or four years ahead of himself in math, he now has to do the work to prove what he knows through a series of online classes. Teo has taken up the Rubik’s cube. He has gotten quite fast at solving this colored puzzle. His best time is something like 33 seconds.  Teo also enjoys playing the violin.  He has a skill for listening to music and figuring out how to play it. To me this is just amazing.

In patching together the subcultures in my life I continue to try to live in a way that is sustainable both for me and for the world.  Wishing you all a sustainable and sustaining life.

With love,

Gaia

The Year of Contemplating the Big Picture and a Few Big Parties

Dear friends,

This past year I’ve been thinking about the big picture, the really big picture, the unfolding of the universe, the story of evolution, the nature of consciousness, our human place in it all, the future of our beautiful planet both in the near term of decades and hundreds of years and longer in terms of millions and more, big questions.  I have been reading in the science and philosophy of evolution and consciousness.

Evolution is a process, but it is also a set of epochs with important distinct characteristics and periods that set the stage for future action. I grew excited about the story of the Cambrian explosion of about 500 million years ago, when life developed limbs and really began to move.  Then around 250 million years later the great Permian extinction (the biggest of 6 mass extinctions) seemed to threaten life itself, with over 80% of all genera wiped out. I admit to sadness at the loss of all those life forms, but at the same time this die-off created the conditions for the future worlds that include our own. Some small reptile made it through and gave rise to all our ancestors.

And at some point somewhere consciousness, self-consciousness and symbolic representation each emerged. While symbolic representation is the tool that has given humans so much of our power, I think that subjective experience of consciousness is the most important achievement.  Subjective experience is the great mystery, while we may be correlating it to more and more specific brain functions, subjectivity by its nature always stands outside of (or perhaps inside of ) third person objective descriptions. While I embrace the truth of material science, reflections on consciousness bring me back to the mystical. Subjective experiences leave us with questions that just may be outside of the realm of the answerable.

In the short term we face the 6^th mass extinction event.  Current species extinction rates may be as much as 10,000 times the average rate. That’s bad news. Humans and our machines are behind this disaster.  Habitat loss, invasive species (largely human introduced), over-fishing, pollution, and global climate change all play a role.  Ethically, that’s really bad news. But humans still could do a lot to mitigate this disaster.

This happens against a background of human relations out of balance.  One percent of the people on the planet own nearly half the assets of the planet, and with wealth comes power.  In spite of a general trend towards more democracies on the planet, other trends stand to undermine those democracies, overturning of election finance reform by the supreme court in the “Citizens United” case, trade agreements like the pending TPP treaty that threaten to undermine local laws. In Michigan, civic sovereignty is being dismantled by the governor’s appointed managers. It has taken courageous whistle blowers to expose the extent of surveillance, the lack of oversight and lack of transparency that large governments (notably our own) will try to get away with.

But here is a glimmer of hope, the truth can be uncovered, resistance is possible, organizing makes a difference. I once asked the historian Howard Zinn, who was going to win this race? and he pointed out that it wasn’t a race but an ongoing struggle. One person can make a difference, but I think it takes social movements to change things.

My own efforts in the struggle have increasingly turned towards the strategy of building democratic economic institutions through the cooperative movement. I have been the president of the food coop’s board this past year, I am engaged in an effort to organize a home care business to be run by a workers cooperative, and I am involved with a network of coop activists trying to build this movement. I also continue my efforts to promote the peer listening movement known as co-counseling, and the compassionate communication movement called non-violent communication or NVC. 

One other effort that I’m involved with that I wanted to mention is a fund-raiser.  Some friends of mine and I will be hosting a fundraising party to raise funds for a community center building for the Dancing Rabbit eco-village. The building will be a model of sustainability, built to the standards of the Living Building Challenge. To date only 6 buildings worldwide have been able to meet this high standard. We need examples like this.

Speaking of parties, this past year was marked by three important ones for my family. In May we celebrated Zev’s Bar Mitzvah. Zev and Teo participate in a spiritual education program that is described as “Jewish Roots and Interfaith Branches”.  The ceremony involved, among other things, Zev reading and interpreting a passage from the Torah. Zev is articulate and bright, a natural speaker. I was proud of how well this presentation went, and I was proud again when several people well experienced in Bar Mitzvahs told me it was the nicest Bar Mitzvah that they had ever attended.

In June my brother got married to a woman he had known in high school and then reconnected with through the internet. I had the honor of being the best man.  While I enjoyed the whole project of thinking about how to best support my brother on this important day of his, I particularly enjoyed making a toast. The wedding was in New York City.  While there I also had a moment to reconnect, in my case, with my best friend from college Eric Soloff who I hadn’t seen in nearly 30 years.

The third party was my mom’s 80^th birthday this January.  My dad organized a surprise party, and our family traveled to Atlanta, that was the first surprise.  That evening the second surprise was a party with some 80 friends of hers!  The party included dinner, a slide show about my mom’s life, music and speeches and it concluded with group singing. During our time there we attended a demonstration and an awards ceremony for a peace essay contest that my mom organized. On the morning of her 80^th birthday my mom swam a mile.  Way to go, Mom!!!

January this year also marked the 20^th anniversary of my relationship with Beth. We considered another party but decided to put that off until the 25^th .  Instead we went out for dinner and a walk through the snowy streets of Ann Arbor. And we reminisced about our relationship. I can’t imagine a better life partner for me. We share in common the things that are important to share, and we complement each other with many of our differences.  The longer I share relationship with Beth the more I find that I love her.

Teo cares deeply about equality and fairness, so although he won’t have a Bar Mitzvah for more than a year, I should say something about him.  I’ll mention his passion of equality.  As part of a class project he did a presentation comparing wealth inequality in Sweden and the US. He picked this topic with no prompting from his politically left parents. Teo continues to thrive in Math and he enjoys playing the violin.

The other big event for us this past year was a sort of classic vacation.  We took a train to Glacier National Park and spent a week camping, hiking in the mountains, horse riding and river rafting.  Although global warming is certainly taking its toll on the Glaciers we were able to hike to ice, the boys had fun sliding on it.  This brings me back to the start of this letter. Although Glacier National Park is sparse of fossils it is about 200 miles south of YoHo park in Canada. YoHo is the home of the Burgess Shale, the fossil rich mountain side that gives us the core of our understandings about the Cambrian explosion half a billion years ago. Looking in the other direction there are the issues we face now, and in the big picture, a few billion years from now we will have to address big time solar global warming as the sun expands out to where we are. If we make it that far I’m guessing we’ll manage. It’s always something.

With love,

Gaia