Experiments in Social Entrepreneurship

Not to compare our daughter with our dog, but both Briana and Augustina (our husky that was with us from 2001-2005) have been able to do much more for us socially than the fact that we have offered the free Viata Program to over 1000's of young people in this town over the past 10 years. The Viata Program rarely gets us acknowledged in this small community, but both Augi and Briana have brought numerous pleasant social encounters: conversations on the street, well-wishes, unsolicited smiles and chit-chat, shared snacks in the park and free fruit at the vegetable market. We used to talk about driving Augi around on the top of our car, just to melt the social ice that can still chill between us foreigners and the locals, and we're certain it would've been successful. Briana's lemonade stand this weekend was successful in just the same way.

Though there's probably a kid-run lemonade stand on about every corner in North America , I am certain no one has ever seen one here. Or anything remotely like it. So it was with great interest that we helped Briana proudly hang her sign on our fence (Homemade Lemonade for Sale - 5cents a cup) on Saturday and arrange her table, cash register, and cups in the front of our yard. When the first passerby approached, one of our neighbors, I coaxed Briana into approaching him and asking him if he'd like a glass of lemonade. At first he said no, I'm sure he was confused, and then he saw the sign and her little table and cash register and he somehow understood. He didn't have a penny on him so he promised to bring the money tomorrow, and appreciatively emptied his glass. I won't say the rest of the afternoon was bustling, but I think only one passerby declined, and the rest of our neighbors were great sports. We had at-length conversations with 2 neighbors we've only ever saluted, and one neighbor who had hurried by earlier in the day made it a point to come back later, after the stand had closed, insisting on buying a glass. And Briana made a killing when our 9 international volunteers showed up for a 4th of July BBQ (we weren't going to set our daughter up for complete failure...we knew she'd at least sell 9 cups that day).

It was great fun, a great learning exercise for Briana (she made the shopping list, watched videos on how to make lemonade, squeezed lemons, poured, learned how to give back change, eventually, and practiced customer-service, sort of) but most of all it was a great experience of social warmth and openness between us and our neighbors, something we don't take for granted.

Dana was trying to teach Briana the age-old adage: "If life gives you lemons..." "Make a lemonade stand," she replied. I'll drink to that.

Summer So Far

It is the eve of my 39th birthday and I just feel so grateful to be alive, to be immersed in love, to have all that I could want. Dana. Briana. And now this little bud that opens inside of me. So much more that I could say.

I wept hearing this song when I first learned I was with child. And now, it calls to me, tonight as the page turns into a new year, filling me with love and gratitude and calm.

"Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis"

"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest"

Benedictus. From Karl Jenkin's "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace."

Deja Vou

Winter is here. Again. After vacationing all of January, she decided to return. And we're glad.

The "dead" of winter -

Or so they say.

But winter lives

In her own way.

She leaves her tracks,

She shows us signs.

Not brilliant blooms,

But webs of lines.

Not sprout or splash,

But silver gray.

Winter lives

In her own way.

Icicles are winter's fingers
That form where freezing water lingers.
Icicles are winter's arrows
Pointing out the crows and sparrows.
Icicles are dragon's teeth.
They don't grow up.
They drip beneath.

Snow man.

Snow woman.

They are not real.

They are not human.

They cannot walk,

They cannot creep.

Except when humans

Are asleep.

Winter Eyes: poems and paintings by Douglas Florian.

Grace Comes and We Go

In December Briana and I said goodbye to our best friends in Lupeni, Monica and Bubu. In January we grieved, and sometimes I felt as if we should be wearing black, for we were in mourning. And then we were surviving. Sad, certainly, but making the best of our days and of the company of each other and those nearby. And then they came back.

Grace comes.

And we go.

We had already bought our tickets to be away for March and April. When we return we will have 10 days with them before they go again, perhaps this time for good.

Mourning will come again.

Our daughter's soul's home away from home is with Monica and Bubu. She would move in with them if we let her. I hope next time grace visits we won't have made other plans.

Love Is...

My Valentine's reading came from the Dorothy Day of the Orthodox Church, Mother Maria Skobtsova. Here she qoutes Ephrem the Syrian [ca. 306-373] as found in the Philokalia:

This is what "Thy will be done on earth at is in heaven" means: when we are united with each other in unenviousness, simplicity, love, peace, and joy, considering the furtherance of our neighbor as our own gain, and regarding his ailments, or failures, or sorrows as our own deficiency, as it is said: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others" (Phil 2:4).

Let us take care to acquire the eternal blessings promised us. Let us be zealous about it, before it turns dark, before the market closes. Let us make friends of the poor and destitute for our life there. Let us buy oil from them and send them there ahead of us. For it is here that the widows, the orphans, the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind and all the beggars sitting by the church door sell oil for our lamps there.

Mother Maria Skobtsova, Essential Writings, Orbis, 2003, pp. 51 -52

Cabin Fever 2 (for moms and kids in a similar predicament)

Our favorite musician, Bruce Cockburn, has a song "How I Spent My Fall Vacation." What follows is our rendition: "How We Survived Our Winter Vacation." My guess is that parents weren't part of the decision to grant kindergartners a week off just one month after Christmas' month off and smack in the middle of winter's slump. But here Briana and I were home alone, the weather turned our adversary and our friends turned elsewhere. We did the best we could, going some days without seeing another face but Dana's (thankfully he has a pretty face), and at the end of the week I was surprised that we'd not only survived, but actually had a really nice time. We were kind of sorry for the song to end.

"Dr. Ramona" giving a very pregnant Dana an ultrasound she created from our cat's scratching post. A lot of babies were born here last week.

Dana went for a 2 hour hike so he wouldn't have to smell any lotions or polish while Briana and I closed the door on the gray, lit some candles, drank warm milk with honey and ate fruit salad tub-side, and called it our "Su-sauna time."

Traveled to foreign lands: ate "chinese" food in our "japanese" kimonos. (Thank you Ma Ging & Janelle.)

Played indoor sports that eventually morphed into yet another concert. Briana loves making up new verses to this one: "I'll buy me a foldy-roldy,tildy-toldy, seek-a-double, use-a-cozza roll to find me. Roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll."

Unfortunately this is her favorite version,

while I prefer this one.

And that's how we survived our winter vacation.