Stuck Or Amused?

I spend time each day reading other people's blogs. Here are two blogs I enjoy a lot -two very different ones. One is Ted.com and the other is DailyDroool. Ted.com is by smart people getting together discussing anything from computer technology to science and enlightenment - with fascinating lectures about ways and wishes to change the world for the better. The problems of the world are defined, and interesting solution presented.

Daily Droool on the other hand, is by one smart Mom in Seattle, who is stuck at home with her baby. She has a funny, self-deprecating, honest way of writing about it all. Her blog is to the point, and not cluttered with product reviews for the "shop untill you feel better" crowd. It's about the husband who is a vegetarian, the dog who is well, a dog, and the baby, who is endlessly fascinating, frustrating, adorable, and inspiring unique insight, with Mom on the emotional roller coaster. There are the useful restaurant reviews and the funny video clips about sex while "married with children".

This young Mom's blog is interesting because it is a great peek into how difficult this spiritual path of motherhood is - especially in the beginning, ... middle and end. What end? It is the ultimate heart versus brain battle. The smarter you are the harder the battle. It's hard to admit you feel stuck at home, and bored and frustrated with your child when you are, and there truly is an art to writing about it. There are very specific antidotes to feelings. The antidote to feeling stuck is to feel amused. Maybe this is why this Mom's blog works so well - she does on some level always end up being amused by it all.This blogger gets it off her chest in a way that lets you know how much she loves her husband, baby and dog. As the posts accumulate and you read them in a row it is great to watch how things get resolved - sometimes seemingly by themselves.

The grass grows by itself.

Dream Of A Phone Number

Next month we start our work at San Francisco State University where over the next five years students will be offered a three day workshop to help them recognize their inner resources and use them more effectively. This is a preventive approach to address the problems we face regarding violence and suicide at our nations schools. The workshop is both a study as well as a gift to the students in hopes to make a difference, even while the workshop is still being evaluated as a useful tool. We have already done a pilot study before this one, that has shown extremely promising results.

The workshops were developed at the Wise Wishes Institute which was founded by Dr, Cherie Safapou who has made it her mission in life to reverse the current trends of meaningless suffering. It is said by the wise ones, that suffering because we love is worthwhile, but suffering because we hate is a total waste of our lives. We need to learn to bear and transcend the suffering that is a by-product of growth in love, and we need to learn how to avoid the useless suffering we inflict on ourselves and others because of hate and fear - and we need to learn how to know which one is which.

Dr Safapou invited me to develop the meditation and art section of the study, as well as the workshop that we will be conducting in collaboration with SFSU. This all came about because one night, Dr Safapou had a dream with a phone number in it she didn't know who it belonged to. The next day she dialed the number - frightened enough to hang up the first time I answered. The second time we talked and agreed to meet to see why she might have dreamed my number. I told her all I had to offer was mediation and a children's book to help people find their inner treasure.

Life is very mysterious, and I have very mysterious friends.

Lowly Spouse

I was 24, had just a few month earlier given birth to my second child, and was invited to attend the 1982 Stereo Review Best Record Awards in New York City with my husband who was the publisher of Stereo Review Magazine at the time. This was the kind of "date" where you don't see much of your sweetheart until you meet up again in the limo going home. Your "date" is actually working, and you are invited to have fun, make him look good when he needs you to, and above all, don't embarrass him by being a shy and uninteresting spouse. There are always many of those at business parties and as the wife of the publisher, aka head-spouse - I considered it my role to make these poor souls feel comfortable, engage them in conversations so we could all overcome the awkward feeling of well, being "just spouses".

I felt vulnerable myself, that night, because I was still nursing, and away from my baby for the first time, and in a room full of celebrities, superstars and business people. After a while, I noticed this poor, shy spouse standing off in a corner with no-one to talk to and looking rather uncomfortable - for way too long. My maternal instincts in full gear I headed straight over there and introduced myself, ready to sacrifice myself to a lengthy and boring conversation. He was male, too - and being a shy, uncomfortable male spouse at a business party in those days, was twice as embarrassing. Nobody was paying attention to him, and his wife, or whoever had brought him, did not seem to be anywhere in sight. He looked completely out of place.

Taking care of him took care of me, too, and so we talked and talked. He had an accent, could hardly look at me for longer than a shy minute, was a composer of musicals - talk about a dreamer with no future - and when he told me that the musical he was working on right now was going to have all the actors on roller skates, I really started feeling sorry for this guy. Spouses often have these "at home, but writing a book, screenplay, musical"- stories. I patiently let him explain everything and we had a nice long conversation. He did seem grateful to have me there - pretty much for the duration of the party. I don't remember talking to anyone else during most of that evening. Suddenly it was time to go home as indicated by a wink from across the room by my husband. I said Good Bye and Good Luck to my lonely, sweet friend and hated to desert him there in his corner. But, I was starting to leak and needed to get back to my baby, too.

Relating my Mother Theresa story to my husband in the limo, he looked at me and said: " Honey - that was Andrew Lloyd Webber, the guy who wrote your favorite musical."

He continued writing my favorite musicals... and then, there he was on American Idol last night - and I was sent back to that evening I had almost forgotten. He's still shy...

And as for that roller skaters musical....

Starlight Express (From Andrew Lloyd Webber's Website

Starlight Express started life in 1975 as a sort of Cinderella story which I hoped would be an animated movie.

It never got off the ground. Then in 1983 I rewrote it for my children, Imogen and Nicholas, in the version that opened in March 1984 in this theatre. Nine years later we revisited Starlight whose new music was dedicated to my son, Alastair. Starlight was always meant to be fun, hopefully an entertaining piece of live theatre for a new audience.

Everything in Starlight is played and performed live, though the orchestra is invisible under the stage. We are all proud that Starlight not only because the second longest running musical in London theatre history in April 1992, but also has spawned a new generation of theatre-goers who perhaps never considered going to the theatre before and who may have gone on to other (perhaps more conventional!) things.

Andrew Lloyd Webber
From the 1992 London production programme

Find out more about Starlight Express