Eleanor Vincent's posterous http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com Most recent posts at Eleanor Vincent's posterous posterous.com Wed, 19 Jan 2011 05:05:02 -0800 The eyes of Christina Taylor Green http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/the-eyes-of-christina-taylor-green http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/the-eyes-of-christina-taylor-green Last year in this country more than 6,500 grieving families said yes to organ donation. For 2011 we know many thousands more will give the gift of life. Among them: the family of Christina Taylor Green, the youngest person to lose her life in the Tuscon shootings. Only nine when she was killed, Christina came to see her congresswoman Rep. Gabrielle Giffords because she wanted to learn more about how government works. As President Obama said in his eulogy for the victims, Christina saw the world with the innocence and hope of a child. Thanks to Christina's parents' decision to donate, two other children have had their sight restored. John Green, Christina's father, says the knowledge that Christina's corneas were able to help other children in need has been a great comfort to the family. Donation is a powerful act of generosity that affects donor families as profoundly as the recipients of their gifts. When the unimaginable happens - a child dies - families who are able to donate can find a powerful sense of meaning even in the most senseless or tragic death. Knowing that something positive has come from your loss changes the course of grief. That's been my experience in the wake of my daughter Maya's death almost 19 years ago. In our case, because she was in an irreversible coma and declared brain dead, Maya was able to donate solid organs as well as tissue (including her corneas) and bone. Ultimately, our gift saved the lives of four people, restored sight for two, and may have helped upwards of 50 people with bone and tissue grafts. Maya lives in our memories. She also continues her physical existence through the many people helped by our gift. I have been fortunate to meet two of those people - the man who received Maya's heart, Fernando, and the woman who received her liver, Patti. Over the years, knowing Patti and Fernando has brought comfort, inspiration, and a very special bond of friendship. Both of these extraordinary people had young families at the time of their transplants in 1992. In my darkest hours, knowing that those children could still grow up with their parents soothed my heart. A few years after Maya died, I imagined what it might be like for the two people who had received her corneas to be looking at the world through her eyes. Learning about Christina's gift of sight brought back the feelings that inspired that poem. Here it is. New Eyes 1. The red squirrel darts across a pine branch, pauses, flicks its tail this way, then that. The December day is clear and fine. I describe this to you, although I don’t know if squirrels or weather interest you. Why tell you about your sister or Christmas, the clothes I still keep under my bed? As if speech could stitch the living to the dead. We are here, you see.  Our eyes still wander over the everyday, gulping it down. 2. I imagine the gloved hands of a surgeon, a touch delicate as snow; Stainless steel carving sight out of you grafting it to new eyes. When she came to did her eyes leap to catch the world as it ran at her? Or, looking in a borrowed window, do strangers fall into the dark of you? 3. The Hebrew word for heaven means “another place.” Daughter, I think of you in alternate space, a membrane so thin I could reach across our worlds running side by side, invisible tracks, a delicious passing or the squirrel’s flick of tail, first on your side, then on mine.

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Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:41:08 -0800 Lazy Girl's Healthy Turkey Pick-up http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/lazy-girls-healthy-turkey-pick-up http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/lazy-girls-healthy-turkey-pick-up With a nod to my grandmother Eleanor Cotton who used to use turkey leftovers to create a yummy dish known in our family as "Turkey Pick-up," I created a new healthier version. Grandma used stuffing for her version. I've substituted brown rice and added sauteed crimini mushrooms. Plus a dusting of shaved parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs on top. Delish! Vegans or vegetarians could substitute Tofurkey and leave out the cheese. Ingredient list: 2 cups brown rice cooked (follow instructions on the bag) leftover turkey cut into cubes 1/2 onion diced 6 - 8 crimini mushrooms sliced 1 c. Whole Foods mushroom gravy and/or turkey gravy 1 tbs parmesan cheese 1 tbs breadcrumbs salt and pepper and thyme to taste How to assemble: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a casserole dish with canola spray or use olive oil, if preferred. Spoon in a layer of turkey cubes, cover with a layer of brown rice and season to taste. Saute mushrooms and onions in butter or olive oil until carmelized. Spoon mixture over rice. Pour gravy (or other type of sauce if you are a vegetarian) over mixture. Top with cheese and breadcrumbs. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes until bubbly and browned on top. Serving suggestions: I added my homemade cranberry sauce with orange peel, pecans, and cinammon. This adds a bit of tang and sweetness to the dish. In addition, a leafy green veggie like swiss chard is a great accompaniment. Or try a salad made with apples, goat cheese or feta cheese, and pecans with a homemade vinaigrette dressing. Easy and delicious. Happy New Year and good eating to all!

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Mon, 27 Dec 2010 22:19:45 -0800 New poem http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/new-poem http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/new-poem Hieroglyphs for Meghan I bob and weave in the winter-laden street retracing the hill I climbed each night to bring on labor. When I step back and squint I see the rooms that sheltered us exposed to raw December. Pale and clammy, our house has shrunk. The siding’s gone shabby, dark blue shutters an afterthought. Or have I grown Gulliver-like? Decades ago a hot August day swallowed me whole. The midwife coxed me open to admit your blue face expelling you into light. Breath flew into the room. The porch I thought was huge sits ten feet from a Lilliputian street not wide enough for two cars to pass without scraping paint. I see the neighbor’s drilled holes in his walls, dun-colored polka dots for blown-in cellulose. Good, I think. Someone is keeping things up. Insulation works on memory too. Our tiny bodies in motion in a past that abides in the town where we left it. 12.27.2010

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1212921/eleanor_004.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hesvEMoXpjYTM Eleanor Vincent eleanorvincent Eleanor Vincent
Sat, 23 Oct 2010 05:40:36 -0700 When children die http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/when-children-die-0 http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/when-children-die-0 In the last 24 hours I have learned of two families who recently lost young children - their tragedies came at me out of the blue.  I find myself wishing I could sit with the parents and listen to their stories. Since my 19-year-old daughter died suddenly in 1992, I've learned many things. One is how sorrow can hollow you out and make space for a new life, one you might never choose for yourself, but one where you miraculously reweave what was torn apart. The other is that telling our stories is a profoundly healing act. And these two things are inextricably linked. It was through telling my story over and over - writing it down and rewriting it again and again - that I learned to live with Maya's death. When your child dies, the world ends. It literally stops. You don't believe you can ever be part of ordinary life again. And for a while you can't. I was as close to insane as I ever want to be for the first two years after Maya died. I sat in therapy sessions and grief support groups and Compassionate Friends meetings wondering how I would be able to draw another breath, let alone heal and move on with my life. The sight of a blond head moving through a crowd made me search frantically for my missing child. For years. I simply could not believe she was gone forever. I tried to imagine how I could live the rest of my life without Maya, and back then I couldn't see a way forward. Now I've lived through the grief and told the story and I know it is possible to survive. I wrote my way to recovery, making the unreal real. When I hear of a mother or father who has lost a child I want to sit down next to them in a quiet place. I want to extend comfort and hope even when there is none, even when each moment seems so fathomless, and the loss a bottomless pit you can never climb out of. Every bereaved parent travels this road in his or her own way. At our support group meetings we used to say that there is a word for a child who loses its parents - an orphan. But there is no word for a parent who loses a child. In our culture, we don't like to imagine what the death of a child feels like because it triggers all of our worst fears. I understand why we shy away from such a profound loss and yet I wish that grieving parents found more support in their daily lives. Swimming with Maya is my attempt to extend that support. I can't sit side by side with every grieving parent who may read my book, but I hope somehow that it brings comfort, and shows how it is possible to survive and ultimately live a new kind of life. I've also learned much from parents who have never lost a child and yet who choose to read the book. They say it's taught them to treasure the ordinary moments with their children, and to be more present even in difficult times. This makes me deeply happy. The children in my life now - my granddaughter Lucia, my neighbors Lily, Edim, and Logan, my great nieces and nephews, the children of my colleagues, even children in supermarkets and on airplanes whom I will never know - remind me that life goes on. There are always children to love in this world, spunky, unpredictable, lively little characters. Whether they are ours or not, we can honor their lives and the struggles and joys of their parents through the stories we listen to and the stories we tell.

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Mon, 10 May 2010 05:26:21 -0700 In hot water http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/in-hot-water http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/in-hot-water Up to my chin in 105 degree water,  suphur pricked my nostrils as I bobbed in velvety fluid.  I felt as if I had returned to childhood when play and exploration were the focus of my days. My flip flops slapped the wooden deck as I padded from the mineral baths to an Adirondack chair to bask in the sun. Heaven! Billed as "a sanctuary for the self," Wilbur Hot Springs is that - and much more. Nestled in a secluded valley of the California Coastal Range on the banks of a sulphur creek, this healing spa has been welcoming visitors since the 1860s. After two days of soaking in the hot mineral pools, hiking in the lush valleys and meadows, and cooking in Wilbur's amazing communal kitchen I returned to Oakland more relaxed than I could have imagined. [caption id="attachment_32" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="View from the hill above Wilbur Hot Springs"]
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[/caption] I unplugged completely. No TV, no computer, no cell phone, and no obligations.  Like most humans in the developed world, I spend way too much time in front of screens. I believe this literally narrows my view of the world. Watching the constellations wheel across the night sky, coming face to face with a deer and her fawn, gazing at a hillside studded with brilliant blue lupine, wandering along the creek bed as it wound through the meadow - all this, and hot pools too! But the kitchen - oh my heavens - a communal mish mash of gourmands and inveterate snackers eddying around admiring each other's eats. Picture an old farm kitchen with a massive stove and a huge hanging pot rack and every kitchen tool immaginable, except a microwave or a toaster. Now picture it filled with people in bathrobes, sarongs, sweatpants - and even one guy in a kilt - all cooking up a storm. The smells could knock you to your knees. One guy produced a gorgeous plate of tapas and then proceeded to cook pork loin in apple and onions. People were in there roasting chickens and whipping up risotto - it was as far from summer camp as you could get - even though the coreographed chaos was remarkably similar. Miraculously, we danced around each other, but there were no collisions. I owe this experience to my dear friend Karen Hester who suggested we go and kindly made the reservation. Karen is my "go to" pal for all varieties of fun from ping-pong matches to long hikes to spur of the moment concert tickets. A community organizer and event planner, Karen not only knows how to have a good time, she knows how to relax. I was more than happy to follow in Karen's wake, although I confess when she went out birdwatching at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, I opted for tea and toast instead. This morning was overcast so Karen and I sat in front of the oil heater and played scrabble, filling the board with neat stacks of letters - plenty of the double and tripple score variety. Karen whupped my behind, as usual, while giving me kudos for my best word play - "quieted" being one, since using a Q is a major achievement on a lazy Sunday morning. [caption id="attachment_31" align="alignnone" width="491" caption="Karen and Eleanor at Wilbur Hot Springs"]
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[/caption] We played and chatted and watched people breakfast on waffles and scrambled eggs. One guy from Calgary - I swear this is true - spent 45 minutes cutting up fruit. He sliced strawberries with slow precision, and then pitted and sliced cherries, topping this ballet of fruit with creamy yogurt and granola. When I commented on his creation he explained that he was from Canada where there was still snow on the ground so fresh fruit was a novelty to be savored. Mellow and soggy, we bundled into the car at 2:30 this afternoon and began our journey home, singing along to Kate Wolf and Laura Nyro so that the green hillsides whizzed by. Suddenly, we were crossing the Carquinez bridge and the refineries in Richmond came into view. But in my mind's eye, I could picture the Japanese style gate leading into the hot pools, and my skin still smelled of sulphur. Even at 70 miles per hour, my body clock was set to s-l-o-w. [caption id="attachment_33" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Gate leading to hot pools"]
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Tue, 04 May 2010 04:48:04 -0700 Take a walk, save a life http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/take-a-walk-save-a-life http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/take-a-walk-save-a-life Everyone seems to tap friends for money to cure AIDS, leukemia, or breast cancer - or in my case, cystic fibrosis.  Lately, I've been raising funds to support a walk-a-thon sponsored by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Why CF? Because my 22-month-old neighbor Lily has it. When I come  home from work, if Lily is playing outside with her mom, Lara, she blows me kisses with her chubby little fingers. She runs at me as if on the verge of falling she's so eager to see and do everything. Like a magpie, she loves any shiny object I happen to be wearing. She has blonde flyaway hair and a plastic tea set she points to excitedly any time I come to visit. I love Lily! When Lara told me that Lily had CF, I bit back tears. "I'm so sorry," I said. Words would never be enough. I was determined to do something. CF is a cruel killer. Typically, its victims are young. Over time, mucus builds up in the lungs causing infections that are ultimately fatal. The defective gene that is responsible for CF can also affect digestion and cause the pancreas to malfunction. I knew one family that lost two daughters to this disease, one in her teens, the other in her early twenties. They are buried side by side not far from my daughter Maya at Oakmont Cemetary. Maya died of an accidental fall from a horse, not CF, but once you have lost a child you realize - deep in your bones - it doesn't matter how your child dies. What matters is finding a way to survive  and be there for your other kids if you're lucky enough to have any. Eventually, I rebuilt my life. But I hate the idea of  other parents having to join the fraternity - or of children dying before they have a chance at a full life. That's how I found myself with a white T-shirt displaying an iron-on decal saying "Team Lily" emblazoned on the middle of my chest walking along the San Francisco Bay with a ragtag group of friends and neighbors last Saturday morning. Our team wasn't the biggest - we couldn't match Team Genentech - but we weren't the smallest either. In the group photo, about 40 of us crowd together behind a row of strollers and dogs at East Beach in Crissy Field. We set off on our three-mile walk in high spirits, quickly separated by the hundreds of other walkers, and dozens of strollers, wagons, and canines that promenaded up to Fort Point in a colorful and unruly mass. Lots of teams were named after kids that parents are desperately hoping will be saved. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, funded by the generousity of walkers and their supporters, has already helped to find treatments that can extend life into young adulthood - age 37, on average. I'm sorry. That's just not good enough. I want Lily to live to be an old lady - one that dusts off her plastic tea set and brings it out to play with her grandchildren. I want her laugh to last longer than three decades. I want to see her run into her future as confidently as she runs up the sidewalk toward me with mischief written all over her face. Last I checked, "Team Lily" had raised more than $7,000. Multiply that by the dozens of other teams at the "Great Strides" event and you've got a serious investment in hope, in healthy kids, and in parents who can breathe a little easier knowing that they are not alone in this fight.
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Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:39:56 -0700 Haircut http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/haircut http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/haircut "You're too vain," my mother scolded everytime I'd obsess over a new hairdo I wanted to try, carefully copied from the pages of Seventeen magazine. I never looked liked the models, but that didn't stop me from trying. I slept on brush rollers, pink sponge rollers with plastic clips, spoolies (anybody remember spoolies?) and - the ultimate dent in the scalp - orange juice cans. Ouch! For many women, me included, hair is the pinnacle of vanity, the Everest of appearance. I hate admitting I'm that shallow. But when I own up to my hair fetish, it helps me acknowledge I'm human. I care how I look. "Don't cut the back too short," I told my hair guy John at our 5:30 appointment this afternoon. "It makes me look like a Planter's peanut." He laughed. John Sasso has been cutting my hair for 20 years. By now, he's heard it all, but I love that I can still make him laugh. John has a studio in his home, a ten-minute walk from the Glen Park BART station in San Francisco. Every five or six weeks I show up on his doorstep practically panting I am so eager to get my  hair cut. My hair is super thick and it grows really fast. For the first two weeks after a haircut I literally feel like a Planter's peanut with an ungainly neck and huge ears. Then for about 10 days, it looks perfect, until suddenly, mysteriously, it's gone gazinga! Until the next cut, my hair is completely out of control - shaggy, unruly, obstreperous. I look like the cartoon character Jughead. Every morning when I squint into the mirror, there's a big pouf on the top of my head. Only generous dollops of hair gel and way too much hairspray keeps it semi-manageable. John has a poster on his wall with a guy wearing an Elvis-style pompadour. It reads, "The higher the hair, the closer to God." I tell you, by the time I ring John's doorbell, I am experiencing Sartori. Today, I decided it was time for my spring hairdo - shorter, perkier, a little more daring. I'm still after that Suzanne Pleshette look, although it continues to elude me. I gave John careful instructions, including the part about not making it too short in the back, and away he went. We listened to Patti Smith, and Carole King. We talked about movies - we both loved The Ghostwriter and agreed that no matter what you think of Roman Polanski, the guy sure can make movies. We talked about travel, the last time we were each in Europe, and the geography of Switzerland relative to France - is Basel north of Paris? Yes, I insisted. Before I knew it, an hour was gone, and my lap was full of reddish brown clumps of crowning glory.  So much hair! Where does it all come from? John wrapped it up in the crinkly material of the cape that covered me, and whisked it away. Then he spent five minutes sweeping up more of it off the floor. I felt light. I felt free. I ran my hands through my hair. I felt - oh my God - naked. "I look like David Cassidy," I said. My hair is short, people. Walking to BART, I was surrounded by women with long, lush tresses. Pageboys. Ponytails. Flowing, blowing, feminine hair. Not an Audrey Hepburn or Suzanne Pleshette in the bunch. Just me, a gamine wannabe. I know it will grow back. I know probably no one will notice. I know that's what I said I wanted. But gosh, I feel like a shorn lamb, or an ungainly guber with Dr. Spock ears. Or just a woman whose sacred perogative is utter dissatisfaction with her hair.

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Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:20:25 -0700 It was a dark and stormy night http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night http://eleanorvincent.posterous.com/it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night Standard wisdom for writers is that cliches are always bad. But I'm not so sure. If a cliche revs you up enough to start typing words on a blank screen, is that really a bad thing? I'm in favor of whatever primes the pump. Oops. Cliche. Seriously, it is a dark and stormy night in my adopted city, Oakland, and we chai-latte-sipping-sunshine-loving Northern Californians are outraged by our fickle spring weather. It has dropped below 68 degrees and that is just not supposed to happen in April. The wind is lashing the Mexican weeping bamboo on my deck, and thunderstorms are forecast. Pity the poor hummingbirds who can't even make it to the feeder yet manage to survive the elements that send we humans cowering in abject terror to our netflix mumbling the Serenity Prayer. Hey, nothing against netflix. Or the Serenity Prayer. Both are useful - the former for distraction, the latter to bring us face to face with the reality that we control so very little. Except for how we respond to the avalanche of stimuli bearing down upon us. And by those responses we build our worlds - hell or heaven at the flick of a neuron. "The courage to change the things I can..." It takes many hours on my meditation cushion to observe the cacaphony of my inner life. Maybe courage is built that way too, one breath at a time. Bounded by Lakeshore, Grand, and Mandana Avenues, the neighborhood where I live is known as Grand-Lake. I am a five-minute walk from Lake Merritt, Arizmendi Pizza, Peet's and Trader Joe's. From my deck I can see the Oakland Hills dotted with red tile roofs and palm trees interspersed with redwoods. Just below my street is an extension of Lakeshore Avenue with a small park where little kids jump, dig in the sand, and grab toys away from each other. It's reassuring to hear their hoots and hollers and yelps, background music while I do the dishes or check my e-mail. Life is going on out there, I think, and like my old cat who loves to sit on the deck and watch the world, I am an observer of life. It washes up against me from the vantage point of the hill where I look out, as if from a tree house.

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