Master of the Universe

Dear Mr. Wiener,

Sorry I'm late to your pity party. I've been slogging through the fourth draft of my hour long speech for the National Speakers Association. I'm still an academy member, not officially a full fledged member, until I give 20 paid speeches. You probably have hundreds of paid speeches in the bag. I just gave my first - sort of - since I didn't have the speech memorized but I did give a semblance of a speech on my topic: Retirement Is Not An Option: Act 3. It sounds like a speech you might want to hear right about now. Or you can joined me Monday nights at the West Hollywood chapter of Toastmasters. I got first place on Monday night for giving an impromptu speech on, "What are the two most important characteristics of a true champion?" You might have learned something. I reflected that the two important traits of a champion were having an attitude of gratitude and recognizing vulnerability as an asset instead of a liability. That moment felt about as good as getting the academy award for best actress in a documentary. You might have used one or two of my points in your resignation speech on Thursday. It didn't sound like you had a lot of gratitude going for you.

It feels almost like a sin not to blog about you, Anthony. May I call you Anthony, Mr. Wiener? I know I'm a week late on this subject, but forgive me because I've been busy.

Anthony, your antics give us women so much fodder for the subject of men behaving badly that it's seems a shame to waste a good journalistic moment. At fist I didn't care about what you did; that is to say, share your private part with random women. I really couldn't figure out why I didn't care and it bothered me - not about what you did but why I didn't care about what you did. Should I really care that a guy was objectifying women for his own self-agrandizement? Seen that done a hundred times before. Nothing new there. Hey, look at my penis! Isn't it great? Don't you just adore it? Of course, you love it! It's a penis! All women love penis, don't you know. (I refuse to use the plural of penis. My significant other and I always argued over the plural of the word. I called it peni.)

First, not all women love penis. Why in the name of Zeus do men think we all love penis? That's an assumption that I can prove just walking down Hollywood Blvd. And if we did love, okay, dick, why do you think we want to see it on Twitter or a cell phone. That picture is just bad photography. No, dude. You love your penis and I don't love your penis. You love it most of all. All men love their dick most of all.

Anthony, when I first heard about your penchant to get the attention of random women by exposing yourself, I knew you had a psychological problem. So it was easy to distance myself from what you did. I mean, who does that besides 25 year olds who don't know any better or someone with a sexual issue or even with a random self-esteem issue. I mean talk about your adolescent behavior. I mean, talk about your narcissism, your borderline personality, your hypo-manic attention getting neediness. And your behavior had been going on long before you married, Anthony. I mean, didn't you think you had a problem. You've been displaying this behavior for 4 years prior to your marriage. Oh, excuse me, you didn't think at all because you love the thrill of the hunt; you love the risk, you risk-taker, you. You felt like you were master of the universe. Or, maybe as some people are saying, you wanted to get caught. In front of TV cameras? In front of the world? Big balls you have, Tony.

I know that most everyone was more angry at you for lying than your actual behavior. Some were more angry at you for your rank stupidity. And I kind of get it why you lied - embarrassment, of course, lost of status, of course, your wife would find out, of course - but even as you told the lie you had to know that one or more of those tattle-tale girls would want their five minutes of fame. Girls just can't keep their mouth shuts now-a-days. They love to kiss and tell or in your case, just plain tell. By the way, the dialogue between you and some of the girls was pretty sophomoric, Anthony. Do you really talk like that in bed? Time for a script doctor. So lying had no upside for you except more haters came out. And being stupid in action and deed was really beneath you because you had a rep for being articulate and bright on political issues. You really do seem to think with your dick. How cliched! That's basically why you seek therapy. Then maybe you'll get enlightened and write a book about the "penis factor." I have no idea how you are going to redeem yourself. I have no idea how you get your marriage back on track. This whole episode is pretty tragic because a fall from grace is never good. In a sick way, it would have been better just to have a commercial exchange like Spitzer. Payment for services rendered. It's cleaner even though his trick was a blabber mouth, too. I think that's an ethics violation on the behalf of his favorite call-girl. We all understand commerce even though we don't condone cheating. Morality is a sticky issue under any circumstances. You, my friend, didn't even get laid. There was no commerce; there was only behavior unbefitting an adult. No perks there.

Maybe I still don't care, Tony, that you let yourself and your wife and Congress, I mean the Democrats down. Maybe I don't care because by now I'm conditioned to expect the worst in men's behavior. It doesn't phase me. I don't even feel sad about it. I don't feel anything about it except you are a Democrat; even so it seems your job wasn't even that important to you and you let down your constituents . And the women who participated in your charade, those who hung on to your twittering longer than one second, not only played a role in your downfall, but also behaved like twittering females. The minute one of those women kept the sex game going , so dying to hold on to the pathetic five minutes of attention you gave them with your immature behavior, they also became complicit. Hey, Tony, is it my imagination or are more common today to see women behaving badly as well.

Look, Anthony, I'm not a prude in matters of sex. I like it as much as the next straight female. But I prefer intimacy in matters of sex, principally in the prone position, and I don't approve of public displays in which all of us get caught up in someone else's distorted vision (i.e., your wet dream) of what appropriate sexual conduct is about. Do you realize that there are now little imitators of Anthony Wiener's bad behavior floating around iCloud? Now more men than ever will think it's okay to show their penis because you did, and these guy also won't think they'll get caught. Darling, Tony, everyone gets caught in some fashion. Everyone pays the price. Why, oh, why, darling Tony, did you think that somewhere in your redundant mind, you thought that if men behaved in a risky manner, women would be turned on. We don't get horny that way, dude.

Here's a history lesson for you, Tony: In days gone by, man's conquest over his sex drive gave him superior powers and many virtues. It was a sign of honor not to flagrantly display the male member all the time because keeping the penis in check was a way to demonstrate a strong mind/body connection. That was true self-mastery. Today, it's just reality TV and we are all sucked into the vortex of other's people's perception of their reality.

Namaste

Joan

Writing As If No One Is Watching

Hi, Boomers,

Writing is a solitary ritual. We think of rituals as something stemming from religion But the truth is that anything can be a ritual: dancing, playing music, working out, meditation, yoga, praying, taking holy communion, paying bills, cooking, getting ready for bed at night. Even funerals are rituals.

I love rituals. They are mostly performed alone or with like-minded people. As a young Catholic girl, I adore all the rituals of the church. From the nuns getting out of the cab every morning at St. Raphael's Church and school, to standing in line for confession every Friday, to the line up in the school yard for Sunday mass. Everything remained the same inside and outside the church. When we practice rituals we are comforted by their sameness. Most of us want to know what is expected of us and we are jolted out of our naturalness when there is variation or change. Change is challenging. Change is mostly not to our liking. But if one doesn't like the ritual, one can leave it without fanfare and without regret.

I love many things about my life and I cherish and have gratitude for my gifts. Of the things I am passionate about are my yoga practice (a ritual), dancing Argentine tango (very much a ritual), teaching, and writing, all of them are ritualized. I love the sameness in the context of what I do. But within the confines of my rituals, there are nuances and differences. Therein lies the creative process.

Sometimes it is fun and rewarding to work with others. Collaboration in any art form can be productive. Theater people do it all the time; so do writers and musicians, songwriters, and dancers. Painters go it alone. Sometimes teachers collaborate. Whether alone or together, the artistic process is always special.

When I began to write screenplays after attending American Film Institute, I wrote my first screenplay by myself. My mentor and significant other insisted I write the film by myself before I left film school, and I would learn more about writing screenplays than anything else I could have done. My mentor encouraged me to create the story - from one of my own ideas - and this would be a calling card for me after graduation. It came to pass that my writing partner turned out to be my life partner and we wrote together, sitting side by side in front of a typewriter for several years. And then I began to write the first drafts by myself and he came in after or during and made suggestions when I got stuck with story. He was fabulous with story and I was better at dialogue. It worked like a charm.

More and more I began to rely only on myself when it came to writing in any form or style. I loved the solitude of the process. I still do today. I get my inspiration from reading, research and from my really smart friends whom I listen to with great gusto. Writers pay attention to details, to the nuances of human behavior. And most important, writers listen.

I used to say that I was a better re-writer than a writer. First drafts have a lot of information in them, but they are not very well organized. I tend to over-write. But then I go back into the manuscript and dig out of the mess I made. I have to do this anywhere from 5 to 10 times for the piece to take shape. If I am lucky and have a writing coach, then I really pay attention to what the coach is telling me. The problem with most writers is that they don't really hear what someone is telling them. Re-writing is listening and that's difficult because writers fall in love with their words and ideas. That's dangerous territory to get wrapped up in your own words. A writer has to be open to suggestions and a good writer will know when the coach is giving a really good idea. A writer has to be able let go of what is not appropriate for the written work.

I've been challenged for the last 3 months by writing a keynote speech for the National Speakers Association. Speech writing is a different process and I am still learning about it's structure and the way in which the message is delivered. Two drafts later, my coach suggested I outline the speech, take a look at the message again and clean up the organization. I love to outline. One thing Catholic education taught me was the art of the outline. As early as the 4th grade we were learning how to outline and I couldn't get enough. It really paid off in college taking notes and organizing a paper. When I created my outline, I learned so much about what I was kind of baggage I was carrying in my speech and what was standing out. It was a great exercise and it will probably help me memorize the speech with less effort.

There is a saying in dance that is an internal reflection about movement: dance as if no one is watching. I look at writing in the same way: write as if no one is watching. There can be a self-consicous aspect to the arts, the kind of "look at me, see what I'm doing, I'm important." But this conceit is narcissist to say the least. This means that everything the writer writes is reflecting back on him/her instead of reaching out to an audience. The human perception that what we do has weight to it or is a reflection on self-esteem or provides us with some cache is just a bad idea. Writers have to maintain distance from their work just as any artist does. Whatever one does in the field of the arts, if it is done with truthfulness, is a private meditation whether it comes from one person or several people. In the end, artist endeavors come from the heart, out of love and true emotion.

Namaste

Joan

A Hard Day's Night

Hi, Boomers,

I've been absent from my blog. I apologize. It hasn't been because I don't love blogging. It's because I've been in the midst of thinking about and then changing my life's work.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and ask myself, "Why am I making my life so complicated in my 60s? I could just as easily not have tackled a career change and cruised along teaching yoga, dancing tango, and visiting my family in Vegas."

Keep your routine, Joan. Keep life simple. I hate it when I complicate life.

It all sounded so simple when last December I decided to attended a keynote speaker's conference sponsored by the National Speaker's Association in Las Vegas. I was curious about what a speaking career entails. In November I had made a number of inquiry calls to the local NSA chapter and met a really wonderful woman who was a member on the local NSA chapter and she was encouraging and just plain fun.

"Why not speak?" she said. "You'd be great."

That's all I needed to hear to get my mojo going. I had no idea what I was going to speak about, however. I usually jump into turgid waters without much thought as to whether I could swim my way out to safety. I've done that a couple of times in my life.

I love jumping off a cliff without a net. Does that make me an adrenalin junkie? I do love change and challenge. Perhaps this is what spurred me on to investigate becoming a speaker.

I thought it would be a good idea to use my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer, as a point of departure for a speech. In the narrative of my book, a personal memoir, I discuss many topics about living a full and joyful life in my 60s. I refer to the complexity dealing with adult children, the emotional roller coaster of being a grandmother, the disappointments of dating and trying to find some semblance of a relationship with a man, the sadness of taking care of an elderly parent, returning to therapy, the joy of following your passions, the fact is that retirement is not an option, and much more. Even though I didn't have a clue about writing a speech, I certainly had some information I could use from my book.

The NSA keynote speaker's conference was a revelation. Although I wasn't certain I wanted to complicate my life with public speaking, I was wowed by the quality of speakers and the first rate information presented by top speakers. This was a brave new world, and as usual, I was coming in to this new world with a very late start.

I've always been a late comer and a late bloomer. I'm not sure why that is but it's happened a few times in my life and this last Johnny come lately even surprised me. I don't even know when the interest in speaking hit me. I wish I could remember because it might make a good story. It just kind of materialized.

After the conference, I was supposed to start writing a speech. It took me two months to figure out what to write. By then I has secured a speech coach. I saw him in Vegas; in fact, he lived in Vegas so it was convenient for me to see him when I visited my family. It took him awhile to accept me as a client because these top notch guys don't just take anyone one. Being a speech coach or a coach to anyone is a real pain in the neck. It's probably not worth the money they charge a client for all the pushing and cheerleading they have to do to motivate a potential speaker. Somehow I convinced my coach that I was worthy. I gave him my book and then we strategized a topic. Then we changed the topic and then I wrote a draft for my one hour speech, and then I threw it out after I met with my coach.

I started to watch videos of speakers. I was trying to get the sense of how to deliver a message to an audience, to make a promise to them that what I will propose are actionable steps to change their lives. I just finished the second draft and sent it in to my speech coach.

This speech writing has been all consuming. I feel like a junkie. I feel like I'm on speed. It's like when I used to write screenplays. I'd stay up all night and write when I got an idea and I wouldn't stop. I'm manic.

Why did I complicate my life? I complicated my life because something inside of me is compelled to speak to audiences about living happy, wild and free when the job is over, or a career burns out, or when depression sets in, when the body is too fat and lacks exercise, when relationships are over, when there is no more joy in life.

Maybe I feel that I can motivate people by sharing my experiences with the benefits of yoga and living my passions and telling stories about people who have changed their lives because they have let go of resistance and judgement.

Maybe it's just a dream, but it's my dream and I'm jazzed and motivated by the thought of doing it some day. This might just be my Act 3.

Namaste

Joan

I've Got The World On A String

Hi, Boomers,

Do you remember when Sinatra played Madison Square Garden in 1974? He was singing in the middle of a boxing ring. Howard Cosell introduced Frank. The place was packed, alive and exciting. The great man's voice was golden. He was in his prime and he never hit a false note. Those were the days. At least, those were some happy times. Frank never failed to stir my emotions.

When I moved to Las Vegas in summer of 1964, I landed in a frontier desert town covered with a hodgepodge of sage and cactus. It was not only sparse but land had no visual appeal except for about three long blocks on the Las Vegas strip where the fancy hotels were built: the Sahara Hotel, the Frontier, the Dunes, the Sands, the Desert Inn, the Stardust, the Flamingo. The El Rancho Vegas was gone by the time I got to Vegas, but I remembered it years before when my parents took me to see Sophie Tucker perform. I got her autograph that night. I was a big deal to a kid of 10.

In those days, the downtown area was small. Binion's Horseshoe Casino, the Golden Nugget, and the Four Queens were the biggest places, but there were five or six smaller casinos - where the locals and Greyhound bus traffic frequented at all hours of the day and night. It was a seedy section of town in the mid-60's. There were several downtown banks, a court house, some office buildings, Penny's, Sear's and one very small art house movie theater. That was a place where I used to hide out when the sterile environment became overwhelming for me.

And there was a kind of university off the strip - I say kind of because there were only 3 buildings and a library. It was called Nevada Southern University when it was first built. I hadn't finished college yet when I arrived newly married so finishing college actually became an option. But not until I worked all that summer at the Sahara Hotel as the secretary to the catering director. He never found out that I didn't take dictation and never had a course in short hand. I got the job from a friend of my ex-husband's who knew the president of the Sahara. I think he was a mob guy.

The frontier aspect of Vegas made it easy pickings for mob control, and in the late 50's ad throughout the 60's, Vegas was run by the mob. It was a fairly strange existence because every body had friends in the mob. The Jews and the Italians split control over the hotels and casinos. And somewhere in the mix there were the teamsters. The mob and the teamsters had a cozy arrangement. Everybody greased everybody's hand.

What runs in my mind every time I see clips of Sinatra and the rat pack was that I was there, in Vegas at the Sands Hotel and I bore witness to their mythology. Frank, Dean, Sammy, Joey Bishop and once in awhile Peter Lawford. They were the rage in the mid-60's - the height of their popularity. The whole experience of living in Vegas during that time was one of excitement mixed with bewilderment. During that first summer I worked at the Sahara, I met the most popular comedians and singers of the day. During that first summer, my ex-husband studied for the bar (as in law) and I wondered how I ended up in a city where entertainment and gambling were the major recreations. It set the tone and style for many years to come.

In those early years I had a tenuous hold on my world. It was difficult to rectify leaving Berkeley in the 60's for Vegas in the 60's. No two universes were ever so far apart. I felt like I was wandering in the desert looking for the promised land, which by the way I had just left for a marriage and an uncertain life. I was never quite sure how I got there. I actually don't remember make such a life-changing decision.

But Frank always made it better. I'd listen to his music, see him when he was in town, and somehow those tunes would put me in a better place - a place with some kind of hope. And it actually worked out in some kind of rational way because I went back to school, got lots of degrees, had years of teaching experience from high school to college - several years after I got my first degree, the university changed its name to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas - and I co-founded and was the artistic director of Nevada's first legitimate year round theater. To top that off, the mob was my best fund raising arm. The donor plaque in the theater lobby had a list of who's who in the Las Vegas mob.

I ended up by having the world on a string and it lasted for 18 years. Some people think I did time during those years, but I don't look at that way. I remember a girl of 19 who was present at the Sahara Hotel when the Beatles landed on the roof top in a helicopter, bore witness to Elvis's comeback at the Hilton, saw Bette Midler's first live show at Caesar's Palace, and was insulted by Don Rickles. I remember having the best lineup of friends, the most loyal theater customers, the best education (after Berkeley, that is) and saw most of the greatest 60's foreign films ever made in that little art house around the corner from the Golden Nugget.

In the city of dreams and illusions, I grew up, became an adult and fulfilled most of my dreams. I became and educator, a seasoned actress and a theater entrepreneur. What more could I have asked for. And while I lived in Las Vegas that desert town with no visual appeal morphed into a bigger, brighter, thriving city with plenty of neon lights and glitz and glam.

We all made the best of it once upon a time in Las Vegas, and now the irony is that my sons and their families live and work in Vegas and they are making the best of it. Strong survival instincts are alive and well in our family's DNA.

Namaste

Joan

Boomers R Us

Hi, Boomers,

You are on my mind lately. I'm trying to write a speech about you/us. I'm not technically a boomer. I'm three years ahead of that curve, but I identify with the zeitgeist because who wants to be associated with hamburger casseroles and green stamps.

The desire to write a speech about the boomers was a direct result of mounting demographics. The first group of boomers turned 65 this year. We're 18% of the population. We've invaded social security and medicare and we are taking the lion's share of entitlements before the next generation even turns 40.

But what have we left on the table? What was our contribution to the world?

We were once the golden generation, advancing the American dream by leaps and bounds. We created a mythology that still prevails in clothes, music, literature, finance. We were the most educated, the most socially hip, the most literate, the most able to advance the cause of good government and social causes. We were the best and the brightest, the most entitled and the most betrayed when Vietnam became up close and personal.

Then we lost our way. We were deceived by Vietnam. It was a brutal war, and we lost too many lives, and it lasted way too long, and it took us years to recover our lives and our economy and our reputation. And some of us never did. We outed post dramatic stress disorder.

Boomers had guts and fortitude and stamina and we roared back by working hard and living good lives. Yet, there were some who were lead astray by America's materialism and forgot the message of the American dream. Peace and love turned into greed is good. What happened to the best and the brightest? We may have amassed great fortunes but some forgot spirit of generosity and fair play. And some forgot how to run a government who serves the people.

So what's up with us now? Some of us have even been dealt another blow. Some of us lost a lot of money in the market during the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression. Some of our retirement is seriously compromised. The possibility that we can retire wild, free, and happy might not happen in a timely manner. The Pew Research Center tells us that we are a seriously depressed generation. No wonder. We had it all but when the going got tough, our mythology started to implode and our star quality began to fade. After some serious decades of success, all those victories appear pretty hollow.

So what I want to say to the boomers in my speech is to take a journey back to the beginning - the that was then part of your life - and see where we are in the present and where we might be going in the future. Got any ideas about what that future would look like?

I love the idea of giving back, getting involved in the green movement, health and care-taking, ecology, teaching in disenfranchised neighbors, tutoring youth, the Peace Corps, Global volunteers, soup kitchens, meals on wheels, helping seniors manage technology. Get off the couch and get involved whatever needs fixing in our communities. We've got so many useful skills and and so much personal power that can change little corners of our world.

Boomers, this is the most exiting time in our lives. We possess more positive potential for growth and transformation at this very moment in our lives that we ever thought possible. This time around we can create another peaceful revolution but one that is deeper and more profound.

Remember Timothy Leary? Tune In, Turn On....

but don't drop out. Maybe we could re-arrange our lives to be more productive and useful at the same time.

Well, we'll figure it out.

Namaste

Joan

When the Journey Begins

Hi,Boomers,

I talked about you all weekend at the Tucson Book Festival. It was the first time I appeared in public with my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer, except for my book signings. This was a big venue - the fourth largest book festival in the U.S. I had a booth all to myself, next to the CareMore Unit with a group of the most fun guys (they took blood pressure and established glucose levels) and a couple of ragtag men left over from the Stanley and Livingston scientific expedition in the Congo. I didn't quite get what kind of books they were selling but I loved their authentic costumes.

My booth was bare with just a table and a chair. But they had put a sign above the booth with the title of my book. I loved that sign. I had no cover for my ugly table so I went hunting for a table cloth. As I weaved my way around the booths that were setting up at 7:30 Saturday morning, I saw in the distance the end of a sign above a booth: Venice, CA. I got terribly excited and ran over to the booth to meet a fellow yogi from Santa Monica who wrote children's books. It was an incredible beginning to my two day adventure. Etan was a light that shone bright during the weekend. While were talking, a very nice man came by wheeling his boxes of books. He told us that for some political reasons he lost his booth. Something about a conflict with other people who were selling cookbooks, and he wondered if Etan wanted to share his booth. His cookbook was a visual feast of mouthwatering pies.

Here was a moment out of so many memorable moments that touched my heart. There was a silent pause as I waited for Etan's response. Etan wrote a series of children's books that were sensational and he had energy and salesmanship that rocked the festival. Etan was thinking.

He worked mostly alone, but I was a newbie an I didn't know the territory or the politics of book festivals.

"Let me think about it," Etan said. "Come back in a few minutes."

Stan, the baker of pies, was totally cool. He smiled and walked away with dignity. Etan and I continued to talk about yoga and I bought a few of his children's books for my grandsons. And then Stan came back to us. Etan looked up as he approached. I was just about to tell Stan that I'd be glad to have company in my booth. It seemed awful bare in there. Then Etan said it was fine if he took the corner table. In a way, I was disappointed because I felt I wanted to be generous, but Etan looked happy and so did Stan. So all was good.

I asked Stan if he had an extra table cloth. He gave me some blue plastic, and I went on my merry way to my empty booth. I gazed at my box of books with tape still across the top and decided to set the books on a table. The morning sun was heating up and bearing down forcefully on our row of booths. Out of some nervousness, I kept futzing with the arrangment of books because I had no signage, no flowers, no decorations. I took out my IHome speakers and played tango music. The day was beginning.

I met one of my neighbors. Penny published books and she was a competent and confident single woman who had an incredible handle on the publishing business. She became one of the most important people I met during the weekend. And there were many women who came up to me to introduce themselves and to take me by the hand to other people at the festival who were going to play a significant role in my future goals.

And the books sold, and the people came up to talk to me about the boomer generation, what was it like to live during the beatnik generation in San Francisco during the early 60s. There was dialogue about existentialism, Sartre, Camus, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Vietnam, the greed, hubris, and total disregard for those who were hurt by the U.S. financial markets. They were also very concerned about the lack of urgency to preserve our natural environment.

What I found interesting was that there was an equal number of men and women who approached my booth to discuss my book. I'm sure that at the outset they were attracted because of the title. It certainly wasn't the decor that attracted people to my booth. They found sixty, sex, & tango three words that required some discussion.

I began to think that the speech I was working on, the unbundling of the boomer mythology, was a topic that was very interesting to our generation. Everyone 60 and over wanted to dissect the various movements and social currents and psychological effects that the boomer generation had experienced and are still experiencing today. I found women to be more optimistic than men. But I found men to be more vocal about the economic nuances of what happened to our economy and how our generation would play out the next couple of decades. "What happens to us?" they asked.

What also surprised me was how many young men and women came to my booth to ask questions that related to the historical context of the boomer generation. Some were even curious about the meaning of being "beat." Of course, the sex part of the title was titillating to most everyone, but there wasn't much discourse on that. There was tango conversation to be sure, but most of the talk tended to be more pointed toward the quality of life in later years and what they should expect.

The question of what happens to us boomer now is an area that I want to try to answer in this speech I was writing. It turns out that the connectivity I had at the book festival with its most interesting and intelligent attendees were the key to my conceptualizing the answer. And I'm still working on it.

But what I take with me from this book festival is a sense that a representative population of Tucson are caring and generous and outgoing. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a great deal about the tone and style of boomers in a particular section of our country.

Namaste

Joan

Life is an Action, Not a Thought

Hi, Boomers,

There should be no excuse for a spiritual moment. I'm having one. And this moment comes courtesy of my internal angst and incessant thinking. Will that "monkey mind" ever cease and desist?

F. W Robertson a nineteenth century preacher is quoted as saying:

Truth is given, not to be contemplated, but to be done. Life is an action, not a thought.

We are so much in our minds. We think and think and mull and go over and over our thoughts as if we they were so important and then it leads to...yep, more thinking and less action. So much time is wasted in thought instead of emptying our minds and finding the space inside ourselves to connect to our inner self - to just Be. Thinking happens when you want to become somebody instead of just staying who you are. Thinking objectifies - from the thought to the object and then to the emotion. Thinking doesn't help us discover our soul; it helps us mask ourselves.

I remember studying existentialism at Berkeley in my theater classes. We had to read Sartre's Being and Nothingness. One of my teacher's said, "You are what you do." That stuck with me ever since. I wanted to be that woman who is her action. That's great. That's part of the collective unconscious of my being. But as I'm identifying with my action, while my life is my action, I can get caught up in the thinking of the action and instead of doing the action.

We all have this kind of loop going on in side our heads. "I am what I do." "I identify with what I do for a living, as a father, a mother, a brother, a sister." The actions gets confused with the being.

So much of what we do is self-serving. Our days are about us, what we think about people, places and things, references to the past, to the future. Where is the present and where is the truth in our lives? It occurs to me that we might be losing our souls to thought?

Sometimes I believe I might have been doing just that in the last couple of weeks so caught up with the need to make decisions about my future and thinking of taxes and my operation and recovery. Where is the present in all of this so-called life I live. I'm passing the present by. It's eluding me. I can't find it.

Easy to lose the sense of self, the honest connection to others when I'm preoccupied with being preoccupied. Time becomes more important than it should. Time runs my life. Racing. Racing. I'm racing from one class to another and not taking the time to live my life as an action. I'm simply reacting in this context.

I don't want my life to be just a series of thoughts. I want to go deeper and get to know my soul, my divine being. I know, as a person who studies yoga, that I want to return more mindfully to meditation, to letting go of my thoughts and creating space to be present for myself and those that I love. I think that's called consciousness raising.

I have a fifty year high school reunion coming up and I have reconnected with my elementary and high school friends and I want to stay present for those whom I've loved in the past and still feel that love in the present. I felt I was giving lip service to my recent connections even though I was feeling joyous about our returning into each others' lives. One of my friends is very ill and I am tremendously concerned about her. My oldest friend since we were two years old and I were expressing our concern about our mutual friend and it occurred to me that not only was I not living my truth - my life was just a series of thoughts and that did not make me particularly free - but I wasn't creating space for myself in relation to my ills friend and to others in my life. Here goes the thinking again. I have not been creating space for action, the truthful living experience that allows for connection and real intimacy.

A path to self is to get out of the way of self and behold the path - or another way of saying this is to follow our Tao, our truth and our journey. I'm going to try to get out of my way, get out of my mud, and do That which is free to experience and just let It be, keeping full attention on and directing my mind to the now. I will know the truth.

Hope that wasn't too heavy for anyone. However, what triggered my awareness is likely old high school friend who has Rheumatoid Arthritis and lives in pain. She consistently shakes up my sense of self and help me to stay in the present. My old school friend and I are planning to visit her in June. I'm so happy about this. This moment is my truth, my deeper and more profound experience that arises out of just plain old Being.

Namaste

Joan

Pity Party

Hi, Boomers,

When was the last time you were in a hospital, either overnight or for a few days or just an out patient center? I bet it wasn't an experience you'd like to have again. I know my seven hours in the UCLA out patient center was definitely not a walk in the park.

The good news is that I didn't need to use my last directives. You know, that form indicating how you would like to be treated at the end of life should something go wrong. Some doctor by accident nipped at your gall bladder while trying to find your appendix and you went unconscious and you explicitly desired not to end up on life support for more than a day.

I entered the UCLA out patient center at around 11 am on Friday morning. I had not eaten anything nor had a drink of liquids since 8 pm the night before. I was scheduled to have the laparoscopic operations around 1:30 pm. At about noon, I was ushered into a small room to strip and put on a gown. I got my Cleopatra book out and began to read. About 12:30, a male nurse came in to check me and ask me the same questions that were asked me upon admission. He stuck a needle into the top of my hand and my vein collapsed. Then he stuck a needle into my arm and tried to draw some blood.

"I'm dehydrated," I said weakly. "You won't be able to get much."

"Really? Why is that?" he asked without a trace of irony.

"Because the last time I had water was nine last night? It's now one o'clock. I usually drink water all day to hydrate."

"I can't seem to get any blood," he replied.

"I just told you I'm dehydrated and now my blood sugar is falling."

The nurse took the little bit of blood in the vile out of the room. I waited about fifteen more minutes and walked into the hallway. The nurses were all talking around the station.

"Hello," I called out to anyone who was listening. "Can I talk to someone, anyone?"

A nurse came over and I told her I was dehydrated. I went back to bed.

Several minutes later, a nurse came into the room with an IV hookup. On her heels came the anesthesiologist all perky and oblivious.

"Hi, how are you? I've just got a few questions?"

"No questions. I've got low blood sugar and am going to faint in a minute," I shot back.

It's very difficult to use my nice voice when I feel I have been ignored, and especially when the operation was to have taken place at 1:30 and it was now 2 pm.

"Where's the doctor? He's late." This time I was using my hostile voice.

"Well, you don't want the doctor to rush through his last operation. I was just with him and it took longer than expected. I'll get you some glucose." He wasn't smiling now.

I became sullen. Suddenly, I felt totally alone. I wanted an advocate.

Next came a barrage of other questions - the same questions asked me many times before by many other people in the hospital.

"How long is it going to be?" I asked the anesthesiologist in a slightly more polite voice.

Another half hour or forty-five minutes.

My head was about to explode. The once faint headache was not becoming a thumper. No food or water for almost eighteen hours.

"My ride is coming at 6. He can't come later. I have to be out of here at 6, downstairs ready to go. You have to put me in a cab if I can't get out of here at 6.

My doctor walked into the room. He was full of good cheer.

"Hi, how we doing?" he asked but didn't really want a response.

The anesthesiologist told him I had to be out by six.

"We can do that," my doctor responded. "My last operation was similar to what wer're dong with you. I'm having plenty of practice today."

Did he really say that?

I don't know what happened after that because I think the glucose was laced with anesthesia.

I woke up at 5:15 in a room without a nurse in sight. Where was my doctor? Where was my advocate? I was completely alone. It was having a pity party.

It was pouring rain outside when the nurse wheeled me out of the entrance. Water was hitting me in the face. The nurse had no clue that I was getting drenched. I spotted my ride, my savior, my knight in shinning armor.

"How did it go?" my wonderful friend asked.

"I dont' know. Never saw the doctor afterwards. Never saw a nurse. Don't know." I started to cry.

As soon as I saw my apartment building, my mood changed. I was never so happy to be home. I practically crawled up the stairs to my apartment in the pouring rain and realized that for the first time that day I wasn't lonely, for the first time I didn't need an advocate. My pity party was over.

Namaste

Joan

Back to the Basics

Hi, Boomers,

Remember that first career you started when back when in the late sixties or early seventies? Maybe some of you were in law school (the men) and some of you were studying to be school teachers (the women and some men) or nurses (only women) or doctors (mostly men). It seems like eons ago. But recently I revisited my first love, my first career in the theater.

I was a kid who knew what I wanted to do in my life from almost the moment I was born. In all the years through elementary school and high school and university, I wanted to be an actress in the theater. I never doubted my path. My mother spotted a little talent and put me through my paces: dance, piano, speech and drama in high school. She was a stage mother who hid behind the scenes. I went off to college to study theater, to be that actress and then to reach for the higher academic success as a college professor.

As with all plans so meticulously ordered, there was a glitch. I got married and ended up in Las Vegas, Nevada, far away from the hallowed halls of Berkeley in the 60s. I went to work at the Sahara Hotel in in the sumer of 1964, went on a belated honeymoon for a month in Mexico and ended back in Vegas, baby, Vegas and took to my bed for 3 months. I read every book that I had wanted to read in college and got fat. By January, I knew my isolation was on overdrive and I went to some place called Nevada Southern University to finish what I thought was my last semester of college. Alas, they didn't have a theater major - I had actually completed my major - and I had to start all over again with another major. So theater became my minor and history became my major with an emphasis on education. A year and a half later, I graduated with a teaching credential, fully credentialed in history and theater and went off to teach drama in high school. I was back in theater minus the PhD.

I had a wonderful career in Las Vegas. From high school teaching, I then taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (name changes do wonders for the institution of higher learning), received a masters in Education and Theater and wrote two textbooks on acting. I acted in summer rep for years at the university and even ended up at the Kennedy Center one year to participate in the top ten theater productions around the country. I taught acting and stage movement as an adjunct professor. And then I reached the glass ceiling. There were no full time female professors in the theater department at the time and there wouldn't be for many years to come. There was no way to get a permanent position in theater, and so I went down the street and opened up my own theater. And for the next five years, I was ran a professional equity year round theater. It was what I had always wanted to do. Those were most difficult years of my life but the most joyful and fulfilling.

When my marriage was over, the theater was over. I left town and pursued acting in San Diego (kids in tow) and worked professionally for two years more. And then the party ended. I no longer felt the need to wait back stage for my cue. The year was 1982 and I went to Los Angeles and changed career directions and ended up in film school (American Film Institute) and never coached an actor or directed a play until two weeks ago.

The Jewish Women's Theatre is an organization that gives voice to Jewish writers, actors and artists. I was asked to join the board of advisors last summer. I'm not a joiner. I don't like groups without men. I like the mix of male/female hormones in a room. Women's groups creep me out. The matriarchs comes out in droves. Women get a chance to show power and get their mood swings validated without men watching. I said yes because I liked the idea of the format. Four evenings of salon readings. I pictured it like a reader's theater program. I like the idea of working with narrative material. My evening was to be called "Jewish Women Do Men." At the time, I wondered if Jewish women had a separate and unique take on men or had different relationships with their men that every other culture and/or religion didn't possess. I suspected that there is a universal context for relationship between men and women.

The director of the theater and I went through lots of narratives material, plays and poems. We selected the material and we shaped the evening. It wasn't fun. I wanted it to be fun but I was the new kid on the block and what did I know? I was used to working in the theater in collaborative relationships that were joyful and not stressful. Going back to a theater concept was suddenly angst. What was going on? Ever heard of mano a mano? This so-called collaboration had aspects of a dictatorship. I was mostly on the losing end. But we toughed it out over the material and I was reasonably pleased with the selections but not perfectly pleased. My eyes and ears were not her eyes and ears. I don't think we ever came to a full understanding of the material.

The director is supposed to casts the evening. I wasn't allowed to do that. Someone else picked the actors. We waited two weeks for a "star" to accept a role. Never happened. I finally brought in an actress that I knew would do a wonderful job. Then, I didn't have enough rehearsal time. That was standard operating procedure with this group. Nothing ever looked polished. Was I really in charge of directing or did I have a someone next to me to give me notes? I wasn't in full charge.

I was to do the first two pieces. The first piece was about how I know men through the lens of Argentine tango. Then my friend and I danced tango. My second piece was a reading from my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer. I was back on the boards again, back in front of audiences. Piece of cake, I thought because I am in front of my yoga students daily. I "work" rooms of 60 students. I free-flow ideas and sometimes crack jokes and create an atmosphere in which joy prevails.

After several tough days with the person in charge of the theater, I was determined to go back to a theater experience that made sense to me, to get a sense of the actors, to rehearse more and to get a rhythm of performance going. I knew how to do that; I had done it for twenty-five years once upon a time in my past and I still had the chops to do it now.

I wondered: is what we once chose as a profession always available to us? Was I born with the capacity and the love of theater and was it true that I could never lose that feeling? Was it in my DNA?

"You really know what you're doing," the theater founder said to me one night at rehearsal. "I can learn a lot from you."

Years of classes on acting, acting styles, writing, directing, performing, organizing, setting plays for the seasons, having an eye for what is good and what works, for the tone and style and rhythm of a play or an evening - how do you learn that in one or two nights of watching someone direct or coach an actor. It's passion with a high degree of education and it's in your blood, your heart, your mind and it never leaves you, ever. That's what I learned through this experience and I never knew beforehand that it was possible to still possess the knowledge and skill of once upon a time having all of that inside of me.

The three evenings went very well. We all got better each night and by the third night we could have done a week of performances. A group consciousness had been built and joy came into our work. It was an ensemble and we were hitting our stride. It's what we do in the theater. It's what we love about the theater.

Namaste

Joan

To Twitter or not to Twitter

Hi, Boomers,

I just had my third tutoring lesson in twittering. How's that for alliteration? I'm feeling stupid, or so, stupid and ask me if I care. I care not. I don't feel any wiser about social networking either. I'm still stuck in the meaning of "hash." I think of corn beef hash every time I say "tweet" with my tutor. Actually, tutor is my website designer @chessleyn (that's a tweet) and every time I get up the nerve to twitter, he emails me, "that's wrong, Joan." I get a pit in the bottom of my stomach and want a cigarette.

I'm exhausted marketing my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer. Yes, Dave, I always get my plug in. I'm exhausted sending emails for my book signing, which by the way, if any of you are in L.A. on the 17th of February at 7 pm, come to Book Soup, the ever cool bookstore on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood and join a fun evening. I've got my shills coming, too. I still can't figure out how I scored that one.

Oh, I don't mean to whine about all this social networking gig, but I did want to take a brief nap this afternoon before I go out tango dancing tonight and then I thought about how I haven't blogged in days. Yes, days, and I need rest because I'm still teaching 7 yoga classes a day and trying to think through my trips to Vegas to be with my family, and how to get to Portland to dance tango with my favorite guy, and when to rehearse my salon theater group with the Jewish Women's Theatre, and when I'm going to find the time to memorize my part. And it seems I've got too much on my plate my mind is splintering. Not very yogic, is it.

Yet, it's totally cool that when I decide I'm going to meditate, I can do it. I can stop the madness. I can stop trying to figure out how to tweet, I can put aside the fight I had with one of my sons and I can even continue to procrastinate starting to write my keynote speech.

I forgot to tell you that last week I was in Vegas for a day and a half to attend a conference sponsored by the National Speakers Association on keynote speaking. Here's how good I felt about this conference: Let's say I wasn't even interested in writing a keynote speech; let's say I thought this conference looked interesting on the surface of things. The information presented to me by the superstars of the speaking world was unbelievably useful and helpful to me just as a human being. There were lots of open hearts on stage willing to teach, to mentor, to be friendly and patient and honest with everyone. I'm not saying it was a Tony Robbins kind of thing. I'm just saying it was a human moment among people of all walks of life who were learning how to refine their messages, to present new material, to communicate with a higher level of expertise, to move audiences emotionally. It was an amazing moment.

I guess I'm in a learning curve and when I'm in a learning curve it's difficult to sort out the obvious. Being overwhelmed is, well, just that - I've got too much information and I need time to sort it all out. I'll get there. What I think is inspirational at the moment, however, is that I'm learning something entirely new in my life and experiencing going back to school in an out of the box way that is thrilling. Whenever those negative thoughts of "how can I do that?" "when can I get this done?" "I have no time to nap because I'm overwhelmed!" I kick it up a notch in the positive zone. I put one mental foot in front of another mental foot and continue the journey. It's a blast, dude. I'll keep on tweeting.

Namaste

Joan

Time Out

Hi, Boomers,

I've been a work horse all my life. It almost seems like I'm not living if I'm not working. It could be actually working like in an office or writing as in a screenplay or marketing my book as in Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer (I'm throwing that in for my friend who needles me about my endless plugs for my book) or taking care of children or grandchildren. But I'm always working at something.

The question has been: is it ever possible for me to actually relax and enjoy doing practically nothing or actually nothing. There are those who have no problem with that; I'm not one of them. At least, I haven't been up until recently.

Last week, on my vacation to Curacao, an island in the Caribbean that is close to Venezuela and part of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao), I became a believer that relaxation was possibility in my life. Maybe it was the company I was keeping on the island or maybe it was the island itself - the small isolated beaches that were practically empty, the sound of the water lulling me into a mindless stupor, the birds endless singing in the palm trees, the warmth of the Caribbean waters - maybe all of that was the reason why I was actually chilling. Or maybe it was the cherubic smile that was always on the face of my companion. But I gave up my control of my universe. I surrendered all thought, all anxiety, all sense of thinking that I was missing something elsewhere in the world. I relaxed fully and joyfully. Of course, it's always nice to have some help.

I love to travel. I feel like I can have full range of motion on with my life. The journey away from the comfort of my home and the routine of my life is therapeutic. I may fight my way into my time away from Los Angeles; I may not want to really go a week before, but when when I settle in on that plane to somewhere, I know I am in the right place.

Perhaps it's the seduction of wanderlust. It engulfs me from time to time and when I am away from home, I am truly away without much thought to what is going on back at the ranch. And I think I have become partial to islands because I felt the same way in Bali in August. These island cultures sweep me away with their indigenous populations and particular habits and behaviors. Their cultures fascinate me and I dive head first into the history of its land and people. There is so much to see and so much to learn. Judgments are limited and perspective enlarge.

We stayed at a place called The Scuba Lodge. It doesn't look much different on the outside from the other buildings in the block except for those buildings that are being renovated, and they, too, will eventually become little boutique residences for tourists. The buildings are all in the neo-colonial architecture style, each with a different brightly painted color. And if you know anything about Curacao, the locals love color. It's the most colorful island of all of the Caribbean islands. However, behind the gate of our choice of residence, we found the most charming atmosphere. A married couple from Holland (they moved to Curacao thirteen years ago) own and operate the Scuba Lodge and they also run a diving school. There is no sandy beach behind the building, but there are steps to the warm ocean waters where the divers enter. The scene is so serene, especially when we sit at the bar and look out over the ocean at sunset. The Dutch youth who work at the lodge are personable, bright, funny and way good looking. They make espresso and serve breakfast in the morning and if you want a late snack at night, they can whip up a tuna sandwich that will knock your socks off. The lodge is clean and well kept.

My friend and I practically had the run of the place. We arrived a week before the season officially began and we parked ourselves at the bar or danced tango in the big room surrounded by scuba equipment and wet suits and blasted our tango music. During the late hours of the morning, many people dropped by to socialize and catch up on some local gossip. We met people from Finland and Holland and Germany. The place reminded me of what Key West might have been like when Hemingway visited. People of like minds, travelers, writers, ex-Pats, gather in a place to commune with one another in an honest exchange of ideas and opinions. We can all discover the history of a place, it's origins and culture and present mood, but it's the people one meets on the road to that discovery which makes the experience come alive. During the days, we snorkeled at the various small beaches and saw live coral and so many types of fish that I lost track of them all. I can still smell the salt water and taste it on my mouth. Glorious days of floating and swimming will live on in my memory. The stillness in the water was incredible.

I am now sitting in my son's kitchen in Vegas babysitting three of my grandsons and looking forward to spending more of my vacation time with my family. This will be yet another way of letting go and surrendering to the present and not returning my thoughts to my home. Bodies and minds in motion - it's a wonderful place to be.

Happy holidays to everyone. A joyous and peaceful new year to all.

Namaste

Joan

Going Along with the Zeitgiest

Hi, Boomers,

Question: Is going along with the zeitgeist always the right thing to do?

I'm conflicted. Today I got a twitter account and I feel sick inside. Ready to vomit up every bit of social networking I have done in the last year. First, I swore I would never text message (see my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer and my new website which will be up in a few days). I've been text messaging like an addict for a month. And then I vowed you would never catch me twittering. And I'm twittering. I can't believe my wonderful, delightful friend and website designer opened an account for me today faster than I could say, "No, never, not me, don't do it! I don't want to go along with the crowd! Leave me alone!"

I wrote my first twitter to Chesley and I learned some of those signs. Hash. What's that word all about? Now I have to go to T-Mobile and open something called a twitter account so I can twitter on my phone. "Twitter once a day," Chesley said to me as he was putting the finishing touches on my website. "Remember, this is the way you are going to market your book." Twitter one a day. Right. Meanwhilem I'm trying to find time to blog twice a week. Who has all this time? I have a day job.

"If you want to sell a book, you've got to twitter. That's the social networking zeitgeist," I said to my friend John at our Saturday sushi dinner before our milonga.

He looked at me blankly. "Zeitgeist?" he sheepishly asked. "You know darling, I didn't go to Berkeley in the 60s so I never learned that word."

"Didn't you ever watch Woody Allen's old movies, back in the 70s and part of the 80s when he was really a relevant film maker? "

"No, darling, do tell," he prodded me with a smirk. "You must know all this stuff because you went to...."

I cut him off. "Don't be smarmy, darling. It's really simple. When Woody made "Manhattan" or "Hannah and her Sisters" or "Annie Hall," he was humorously reflecting back to his audience a moment in our culture when our emotional and psychological relationship were paralyzed by anxiety. We were a country full of angst ridden people who were never truly honest about relationships. His characters tried to hide from each while they were trying to have relationships and everything got irrational, and, of course, it was funny. But we were really laughing at ourselves. And we all ran to therapy to solve our problems. Woody's characters and their situations held up a mirror to that particuar time in which we lived."

"Isn't that what we do all the time?" he smartly asked.

"Yeah. But today we lie more than we used to. At least Allen's characters were trying to be honest."

"But you know Woody Allen is really not a very good film maker today. He's not what he used to be. That "Vickie, Christina, Barcelona" story was really, really insipid and self-indulgment."

"Well, I guess if you keep pounding the zeitgeist to death, you get smello-drama," I said. "Like social networking is getting to today. Too much of anything flattens out the living experience."

And then I saw "60 minutes" tonight. Zuckerman, the founder of Facebook was talking about combining email and messaging and some other relating concept into a giant pimple that was to be inserted into people's brains and we would all become social networking godzillas. Believe me, this 26 year old dude will find a way to consume Google and Yahoo and every other information portal until finally our world will truly be flat.

This whole social networking concept turns human brain matter to mush. Everyone begins to mutter the same banalities. Thinking is reduced to one liners and log lines and trivial pursuits. Chesley told me that when I twittered, I was to be brief. No more than three lines. Even Arianna Huffington from the Huffington Post twitters. I saw her one line today. OMG! She is someone I thought had some form of higher intelligence. Even Arianna has succumbed to a social marketing pressure.

And sadly, so have I. I hope I won't go to hell for this.

Namaste

Joan

It's Thanksgiving Every Day

Hi, Boomers,

It's that time of year again - the beginning of the holiday season. Off to Vegas tomorrow at 5 am for the weekend; only this time there will be only one son in attendance and none of my daughter- in-law's side of the family. I like a bigger crowd on this holiday. It's easier to embrace the joy when there is more to spread around. So it's #1 son, my daughter-in-law and the three grandsons - oh, and did I mention my ex-husband. He'll be along, too. "Back together again." Not really. He has no place to go since his wife has Alzheimer's and I always head east when there is a holiday. I'm not brave enough to face Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or Christmas alone. Single is great but not around the holidays.

I was reading in my Yoga Journal today about gratitude. We yogis know that gratitude is a natural companion to a yoga practice. In every class I teach, I we take a moment of gratitude for all of our gifts, especially the gift of yoga. It's is as natural as breathing to take that spiritual moment to be mindful of cultivating gratitude. Gratitude is also important for health implications, including better sleep, fewer ailments, and a greater ability to cope with stress and anxiety. Gratitude elevates, energizes and inspires. It can also transform a human being into a kinder, gentler spirit because it fosters a greater level of awareness. Gratitude helps us stay present.

Gratitude is an attitude of realizing what is in our present - what is real and what we surround ourselves with in life. The contrary of gratitude would be to grasp for something that is not there instead of embracing what is. One of the things that helps us connect to what is real is to embrace the interconnectedness of all beings as a path to gratitude. In a sense, gratitude is interactive every minute of the day if one is consciousness and mindful of everything that goes on in our waking hours.

It is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and my burg was full of endless lines of cars. I pulled out of the drugstore parking lot and thought it would take me a half hour to drive two blocks. I had to cut into an inlet to make a U turn, and while I waited for the car in front of me to go, I saw that the man driving the SUV had not jammed into the intersection to block us from making a left hand turn. Could it be, I thought, that this man might let us pass in front of him? I absolutely couldn't believe it when he let the car ahead of me and even myself go before him. I had such gratitude for his kindness and I felt such a connectedness to this man I will never know, that I waved to him, mouthed a thank you and drove off feeling uplifted. It was a moment in time, so brief that I could have quickly jumped to the next thing. But I couldn't. It was too important to cherish the moment.

Gratitude is the path of yoga and gratitude is the way in which we ground ourselves in life. Cultivating daily gratitude gives us the ability to transform and appreciate joy.

Gratitude comes in big and small packages. It's everywhere. It's in an email from a friend I don't always hear from on a regular basis but embraces my life with joy. It comes in a phone call from a friend I really wanted to hear from. It comes with knowing I helped my client this morning find inner peace in her practice even though she is almost in her ninth month of pregnancy and is looking past her discomfort. It's expressing joy that my law school yoginis have been searching for an alternative room so that we can practice in the winter quarter and keep our class going. It's embracing a friend who has been working so hard the last couple of days to feed the homeless at St. Matthew's parish in the Palisades and finding joy in her efforts. It is organizing a dinner to say farewell to a dedicated yogini who is moving in a week. Gratitude is everywhere. All it takes to cultivate it is practice.

I am grateful this year for my growing family - two more grandchildren added to the bunch - for the tenacity and dedication of my sons in their professions and in their roles as fathers and to their supportive and loving wives; for my incredibly loving brother; my devoted yoga students; for the opportunity to continue to teach yoga; for my tenacity to once again publish a book that I had no idea would find an audience; for the new friends I've made and the old friends I cherish; for the ability to forgive; and for the ability to embrace my universe unconditionally with surrender and acceptance.

Happy Thanksgiving, Boomers.

Namaste

Joan

A Tug of War or is it Divine?

Namaste, Boomers,

"The divine in me recognizes the divine in you." Namaste

I was passing a picture on my bookcase of my parents the other day and it a strange feeling came over me. I wanted to talk to my mother. I wanted to hear my father's laugh. And they were not around. My mother died in December of 2009. I missed her very much. My father died nine years ago.

I felt my inner child coming into my consciousness.

I wanted to tell my mother what was going on in my life; I wanted to talk about the publication of my book and I wanted to tell her that I was single and happy and not to worry about me. At that moment my grown up/adult woman met my inner child. It was a lovely moment, a moment without conflict or drama. It was just a moment of inner contentment.

I talked to a friend of my family today and he told me how proud my mother would be that I had arrived at this state in my life where joy met contentment.

I don't have to be at war with my inner child. My inner child is no threat to me even though I am an adult. It's okay to want to be near and close to my mother and father and to have them by my side again even though I am all grown up and taking good care of myself. I am well aware that any serious attempt to grow psychologically and spiritually involves some pain and sadness. As one of my tango friends wrote to me, "that's when stuff surfaces."

It's probably therapeutic to have some discourse with our inner child. The inner child can come out to play in the most unexpected moments, like dancing tango or practicing yoga or even in meditation when the mind is clear and allows emotions to rise to the surface. Of course, sometimes it can be frightening to experience my inner child take over my adult mind for several minutes. It can be disconcerting to our adult state. 'What are you doing to me, inner brat. I want to say, "Leave me alone. I'm find. I don't need you mucking up my present moment."

But my deep breath brings me peace and I let that inner child be and I find that I am no longer afraid of the emotional connection. I know it's okay to feel like I want to go back into the womb or to retreat to age of five when my mother was always there to help and comfort me. I let spontaneity reign free! I allow the inner child take over go with the emotional flow. I laugh and play and love freely.

I think my inner child helps me better understand my adult spontaneity and my creative impulses and allows me to rediscover the past clearly in terms of love rather than fear.

I was dancing tango the other night at a Wednesday milonga and my partner of the moment was telling me that my nose was cold, like a cat. I thought the remark was so playful and childlike and I made a meow sound during the tango. He laughed and I laughed. After the dance was over, he told me how nice it was to hear the meow sound and I put my hands over my face like a child would do in embarrassment and I thought how childlike I felt. The moment felt new and old at the same time. It reunited the child with the adult and my emotion, my joy, felt pure.

I often feel this kind of childlike freedom when I dance tango. It's reminds me of how I felt in therapy when my therapist told me that he wanted me to keep my inner child alive - he called it my inner pony - because that childlike energy was a part of my adult energy.

When I'm practicing yoga, I often feel like I'm flying high on a trapeze above the ground with pure joy without one iota of fear in my body and, without any mental resistance.

Tango and yoga are fearless experiences and effortless constructs for me. They somehow get near my inner child and touch the deepest part of my soul.

That's where my mother and father reside, too, in those deepest parts of my unconscious. When I bring that love and need into my conscious being it is a divine moment.

Namaste,

Joan

Doing It Alone

Hi, Boomers,

Sometimes blogging is downright difficult. You'd think that someone with my verbal acuity would never be at a loss for words or for ideas. But lately, I've been mentally preoccupied with my new book. Shamelessly, I mention again: Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer.

When I began to write my book about turning 60 and all that it entailed, it seemed a way to keep my creative juices going. During the day, I grabbed and hour here and there to write something, and at night, I was a maniac writing way past my bedtime. My computer was my friend; my words were comforting and cathartic. Writing became my pacifier - a way to self-sooth my wounds and losses and to use my humor for good and not for evil.

The process of writing reminds me of rehearsing a play. I loved rehearsals because it was the creative engine that drove the creation of a character that was someone else, not like me, but possessed bits and pieces of me. Everything had to be real on stage, had to be believable. The rehearsal process was the most truthful way of creating a character. The subsequent performances on stage were pre-determined and set and they weren't as much fun as rehearsals.

Writing is like that but more so because writing is solitary. There is no community of writers or actors around. The "aloneness" factor creeps in to the process and quite literally engulfs the writer. I love it. I love that the silence is only broken by the sound of my fingers on the computer keys.

Writing my book encompassed about two years in my life. After the first year, Sixty, Sex, & Tango was at an literary agency. I signed with the agent for six months, but she was unable to find a publisher. I had no illusions that a publisher was going to snap up my book. I was an unknown entity; I was writing a memoir. I had no national or local platform. I spent another two months deciding what I was going to do with the book after my contract expired.

Those two months were a revelation. I stood outside myself and took a long look into my soul. Why did I write the book? What did I want from the book? What would happen if I just put the manuscript in the closet with all my other screenplays that were getting moldy? What would happen to me if I did publish the book? Scared of success? Scared of failure? Those are fairly universal fears.

I sat with the situation and didn't do anything. I didn't judge the situation. It was what it was at the time: I had a manuscript that maybe or maybe not wanted to be a book. It needed editing, more organizing, more honesty, less anger. How deeply did I want to explore? From today's vantage point, those two months of isolating thoughts seem a dream. As December ended and the second month turned into the beginning of a third month, I got more detached from the book and wouldn't even pick it up.

Then right after Hanukkah, without any thought or reasoning, I found myself looking for self-publishing houses. I remembered that a friend of mind used a particular self- publisher for her book and I liked the way her book was produced. So out of the blue one day, without thought or emotion, I went rummaging for her book to find the publisher and I called iUniverse. I spoke to a wonderful, honest man who was so kind he disarmed me. He was supposed to be a salesman and he was more like a shrink. We had a long conversation about my book and what I wanted to do with it. He didn't try to sell me on any package or push me. He just listened as I talked. And when I was finished, he said, "So what do you want to do?"

It felt so right to finally say, "I want to publish the book." It was a relief because I realized that I had finally allowed myself to take responsibility for publishing the book. I was hiding from making a decision because I was refusing to draw inside myself to engage my feelings. During that time of contemplation, I had spoken to no one about what I was feeling or how deeply I resented having to make a decision regarding the final outcome of the book.

My decision to publish happened just before the Christmas holiday. The new year was ahead and it felt good to have made a new year's decision prematurely. On new year's eve day, I got into my car and drove to San Diego to a tango festival and felt gratitude to be able to think with a clear head for the first time in months. Life was good and I was going to dance tango for the next three days. The new year started splendidly.

Namaste

Joan

Time After Time

Hi, Boomers,

Frustration mounts. I'm trying to build a website for my book, Sixty, Sex & Tango-Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer - on IWeb on my Mac and I literally want to throw my beloved Mac against my wall. On what planet does IWeb help think I live on? It takes me twenty minutes of staring at the instructions about setting up a hyperlink and I still don't get it. Just by accident, however, I solved that problem and now I hate the homepage. I'm hopeless. Some lovely creature at the UCLA bookstore helped me yesterday, and no, I didn't bat my eyes and get all girly with him, but he was simply interested in the technical aspect of building a website from IWeb, and he played with it for half an hour and got me started. Then I got home and the information vanished as quickly as it came into my pee brain. Hopeless. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is my website. Unfortunately, it's only 4:00 o'clock and I am eagerly awaiting 5 o'clock because that's cocktail hour. However, one can argue, and I have many a time that it is 5 o'clock somewhere in the world. But I will refrain because I'm on a tear about age at the moment. My parting words to my tech genius before making an appointment with him on Monday at 3 o'clock was, "I wish I had been born in the computer age so I would have the vocabulary to go forth and do the damn website myself." He laughed at the old lady stomping off.

While I am on the subject of age, I was recently invited to be a member of the Jewish Women's Theater in LA. Through a friend of a friend kind of thing, I ended up meeting eight other women this morning for brunch this morning at a home in the hills over looking the Pacific Ocean. It's one of the most spectacular days in southern California in a long time. I had a splendid several hours plotting and planning the next year's work with the theater. The age skewed to fifty-five and older - me being the oldest, of course, and I'm tired of that status, by the way. After a little champagne and some organic orange juice (what else in SoCal), I was listening attentively to all the women make contributions to organizing and planning a fund raiser, programs, salon readings, developing a literary arm for new material and all the while I kept thinking how lucky I was to be in the company of some of the most intelligent women I have ever met - all over 55 years of age.

The group revitalized my dormant theatrical bent. It's been dormant for a very long time, since the day I left the Old Globe theater in 1984 and trekked to Los Angeles to become a producer and writer. I was off "the boards" for good - until this moment at 66 and I became interested in a group with a mission to tell stories of Jewish women in the modern world. The Jewish Women's Theater is a virtual theater - changing venues from salons to temples to art galleries, and the organizers are laying the groundwork for a very interesting mission. These women are writers, rabbis, producers, filmmakers, lawyers, accountants, commercial producers, with so much talent and energy they could possibly defy gravity. They've been doing this work for two years and that's not a long time in the theater world. I ran a full time legitimate equity theater for 5 years and I can confirm that the road to finding an audience is rocky and long. But these women have tenacity and commitment and the group reminded me of decades ago when I forged my theater with my partner and my associate and we did it and we succeeded and we completed our mission before moving on in our lives. I can feel the excitement building and I can feel the youthful vigor I once had begin to percolate as I tap into things I want to do with the group.

It's amazing the emotions and feelings that are reawakened in my 60's. I feel this excitement offers an array of possibilities that I hadn't even thought about. It feels like Berkeley in the 60's again when everything was possible and the future was bright.

So age is only a number, they say. The Buddhists say that you are only as old as the health of your spine. And I say that passion and commitment and involvement is the key to staying vital and young.

Is it 5 o'clock yet?

Namaste

Joan

It's A Girl

Hi, Boomers,

Well, finally, after thirty-eight years of trying, my family came is about to produce a girl baby. It's a miracle! And it was random, of course. My oldest son and his wife gave birth four months ago to a perfect baby boy, Jude Love. It was their third boy. Oh, there was the usual, "Are we ever going to get a girl in this family" remarks, but everyone was happy because Jude was a healthy and a happy baby. My youngest son produced a male heir the first time. And now: Here comes the girl.

My last blog was about being a grandmother and its miraculous joys. It's still a mind-bender to me. However, it brings me around full center to living in my 60's and finding surprises and unexpected moments.

I was speaking to the marketing consultant from my publishing company this morning. The call was by way of introducing himself to me and getting my ideas on how to market my book, Sixty, Sex & Tango. Now, if I had to choose a marketing mentor for me vis a vis my book, it would not be a forty year-old male. And yet, the voice of this forty year-old male captured my attention. He actually was familiar with the themes in my book about living joyfully in the decade of the 60's, finding passion in life and love, and was going to recommend my book to his mother-in-law.

I posed the question to him about his interest in my book's topics. He thought that life brought a variety of experience to each decade and it was always worth reading about what other's have gone through.

"I get your book," he said. "While it is not specifically a self-help book, it is a book with experiences of a woman who has lived fully in her sixties and has insights and opinions and experiences that might help others."

Wow! Did he really say that. He's forty; he's a male; he's so far away from my sensibilities.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you," I was raised with three older sisters."

How did I get so lucky today? I can't wait to hear his marketing suggestions and work with him after the book comes out. Mr. Marketing Consultant was fun, humorous, intelligent and randomly assigned to me by the publisher. It's a good thing no thought went into the selection.

On the bad news side: I just found out that my beloved therapist made so much money investing in a prostate cancer drug that he is retiring. When I say so much money, I'm referring into the 20 to 30 million range. He bought the drug at $2.00. I had a chance to buy stock in Dendreon, the company that brought the drug to market. But what would a schlepper beatnik/hippie yoga teacher do with a millions of dollars? I actually contemplated that thought in my 7 am yoga class this morning. And I actually couldn't think of how I wanted to alter my life. Sad, but true.

Namaste

Joan