Tag Archives: Dominique Browning

May Is Clean Air Month

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in environment, health

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May is Clean Air Month, and when Women’s Voices for Change asked me to profile Dominique Browning, co-founder and Senior Director of Moms Clean Air Force, I was more than happy to do so.

MomsShirt

I’ve also been busy covering Showtime’s new series on climate change, “Years of Living Dangerously.” You can watch episode one online here, and read my posts about it here.

As Dominique told me,

Climate change is an overwhelming, unhappy subject, but it’s really important to understand that we can beat this—there are answers.

So, in honor of Clean Air Month, please check out, “Dominique Browning: Making a Difference in the Air We Breathe.” And then, do something important for all of us and support limits on carbon pollution.  

Thank you!

Grounded Clouds

06 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in aging, environment, friendship, inspiration, marriage, pets, travel

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Foggy field

When the weather goes from cold and snowy to warm and rainy, the air becomes thick with moisture as though the clouds have dropped to the ground.

Walking through the mysterious murk, we heard voices before we could see their source. Dogs popped in and out of the grounded clouds.

cloudy walk 1

cloudy walk 2

Last January, I claimed the word “focus” as my New Year’s vow, and some things are sharper today than they were back then. Yet I’m viewing the year ahead through a soft-focus lens. The changes and events to come are as foggy as these woods. I’m okay with that uncertainty.

Broken Branch

Red Berries

If I learned anything from my year of increased focus, it was that the best, most memorable experiences came when I just let them, when I stayed in the moment and swayed with the wind of life rather than fighting it. My trip to Morocco is but one example.

Of all the New Year posts and articles I’ve read these past weeks, it is Dominique Browning’s words that I keep repeating over and over in my mind. She was recounting her year, “It was a big year. But every year is a big year,” she wrote. And then she said,

 Every day is a big day. That is what we realize when we are older. That we are lucky enough—and that is all it is, plain dumb luck—to be here makes it a big day, a big year.

So maybe my “resolution” this year—if you want to call it that—is to celebrate my life and luck every day. I’m going to burnish my love for my family and friends until it is a beacon they will return to over and over again. I’ll make every day a big day.

Armchair Traveler

21 Monday May 2012

Posted by in aging, inspiration, meditation, mid-life transition, travel, writing

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Yep, it’s a pretty slow day here at the homestead. We’re just sitting around and thinking, cogitating, mulling things over, chewing the fat with ourselves. You get the picture

When I find myself stuck in the mental doldrums where there is both everything and nothing to write about, I look for inspiration elsewhere.

I didn’t have to look far: This morning two beautiful pieces about traveling crossed my screen almost simultaneously.

The first is by my long-time friend Martha Nichols. In her piece, “Why Travel?” she describes what travel does to her “inner landscape.”

“When you go to a new place, you’re more vulnerable,” she writes. “It’s as if a crack of light opens in the clouds, illuminating your inner landscape as well as what’s passing outside.”

This piece reminds me that no matter how far I roam, I can never escape myself. Martha explains why the hard parts of travel are also the most valuable.

Then, over at Lost in Arles, my new friend Heather Robinson tells the story of how she came to live in Arles. She says it’s a story that bears repeating and I say it’s a story worth sharing.

“Inside an abandoned church, we looked at the work of Harry Gruyaert’s ‘Rivages,’ ” she recalls. “We turned ourselves towards beauty and that stirring surged up into tears. We knew. This was where we were ready to be.”

Indeed, Heather’s entire blog is a celebration of the beauty she finds in the landscape, villages, and food around her. Every one of her posts is un petit cadeau dropped into my inbox.

And then, because I also needed a bit of bucking up, I reread a favorite piece by Dominique Browning. “Go where the love is,” she advises.

“That means not only doing what you love, but being where people love you–where they understand what you do, and, more important, where they have an affinity for who you are. Where the wellspring of creativity can be nurtured.”

And that’s what I’ve been doing these past couple of years as I search for new ways of working. Her post reminds me that if I keep planting the right kind of seeds, something satisfying and meaningful will eventually take root.

And finally, I leave you with this video of fearless young women cruising down la Sierra de Madrid. I may have a middle-aged body, but my spirit still soars like a twenty-something’s and I can feel the wind in my face and the road vibrating under my wheels as I watch them sail down the mountain on their longboards.

Is it Time to Disrupt Our Inner Climate?

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in adult children, aging, environment, inspiration, meditation, mid-life transition, pets

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It has been a week of changes here at our little homestead.

On Monday, our son Karsten left for his Peace Corps assignment. He will be living and working in Morocco for the next 27 months. He had been staying with us off and on since June, and was here full-time for his last six weeks in the states.

The house feels pretty empty. Not that he was loud or took up a ton of space, but his presence — the smell of his cooking; the sound of his voice as he practiced his Arabic; and the buzz of excitement as he greeted the dog every time he walked in the door — is suddenly gone.

Karina still listens for him, jumping up and barking every time a car door slams. One night Paul found her alone in the dark, at her favorite post, waiting for him to come home.

But our collective melancholy over Karsten’s departure is more than matched by our excitement for him and his new adventure, his new life.

Then it was Wednesday, my birthday.

And we were in the middle of a freakishly warm week. This photo of our back yard, taken on March 21, 2012 provides a snapshot of what Dominique Browning, cofounder and senior director of Moms Clean Air Force calls “climate disruption.”

First, we have chunks of our ancient willow trees littering our lawn. This was the work of Hurricane Irene, which severed an entire trunk of one tree last August, and the heavy snow from New England’s “Halloween snowstorm,” which brought down several large branches.

These trees are so old, they touch the sky.

Then we have the daffodils. I was born within a day of the spring equinox, yet I don’t remember ever seeing daffodils bloom on my birthday.

Change inside. Change outside.

I was thinking about all of this when I woke up on Friday and opened my email to find this question from Seth Godin.

Did you wake up fresh today, a new start, a blank slate with resources and opportunities… or is today yet another day of living out the narrative you’ve been engaged in for years?

Funny, because with Paul’s semi-retirement, and both sons launched, and then this week re-launched, our conversations are full of ideas for changing our narrative as a couple. Where do we want to live? Where can we live? What work will we do? And what do we want to accomplish in the years ahead?

But Godin is talking about changes within ourselves, and I think his advice is particularly relevant for people who are in their fifties and sixties. As he observes,

The truth though, is that doing what you’ve been doing is going to get you what you’ve been getting. If the narrative is getting in the way, if the archetypes you’ve been modeling and the worldview you’ve been nursing no longer match the culture, the economy or your goals, something’s got to give.

… When patterns in engagements with the people around you become well-worn and ineffective, are they persistent because they have to be, or because the story demands it?

Change is everywhere. Change is hard. And creating internal climate disruption — re-examining old habits of perception and decision-making that persist because that is what we have always done — is the hardest change of all.

This isn’t about hunkering down for a session of self-blame or questioning every decision we have made since our 18th birthday. Not at all. It’s about opening the doors and windows of our mind, letting in fresh air and light, and viewing the world through a different lens.

Because when we clear away old baggage and take another look, we make room for new growth.