A Scattered Mind Gathers No Moss

Theme song: Like a Rolling Stone

Things have reached a fever pitch here in Colibriville, as they have each year for the past three years at this time. It feels kind of like sledding -- exhilarating and yet slightly too gravity-controlled. I'm almost getting the feeling that I've started to get used to it, but something tells me that by the time I feel, truly, that I've "got this," it will have mostly slipped through my fingers like a handful of sand. That's what time does, right? It scatters.

Here's what's cookin':

School's Out -- Almost

My bright and beautiful boys will finish, respectively, 4th and 7th grade this Friday, which means end of the year outings and projects, extra meetings, teachers' gifts -- and infectiously excited children.

Baseball!

It's rewarding to watch children strive and succeed as their lives and pursuits change over time. This year, both boys' teams made it to the playoffs and the older one was invited to join the All-Stars. This means even more excitement, more trips through traffic to Treasure Island, baseball parties and children who are yet more infectiously excited.

The San Francisco Green Film Festival

For the past three years I have volunteered at the San Francisco Green Film Festival's Video Story Booth. In fact, I basically am the booth.

This means taking short films of audience reactions for 10 or so films and events and uploading them onto social media. It's a wonderful and exciting event that just happens to coincide with one of the the busiest times of my year.

I encourage you to go next year if you haven't already checked it out. It's one-stop shopping for environmental education and activism -- plus an opportunity to meet like-minded greenies.

Here's a sampler of what inspired me this year:

• Damnation. This film looks at the history of dam building in the US, the environmental and cultural impacts, and what's being done to remove dams now. Witty and personal, this film is an environmental must-see.
• Project Wild Thing. This film was exceptionally interesting from both the parenting point of view -- as it's about how to get children out from under their screens and into the wild word -- and the marketing point of view -- as it chronicles one man's attempt to become Marketing Director for Nature (Darn! I wish I'd thought of that. But I am going to reach out to the filmmaker and ask if I can join on as the Associate Director of the San Francisco Office of Nature.) and shows just how much goes into building an international brand.
• Il Était une Fôret/Once Upon a Forest. This gorgeous film combines animation, the science of forest growth, and the thoughts and feelings of a 65+ French botanist. Beautiful.

Of course there's far more to see, and the festival is not quite over yet. Check out the Facebook page if you'd like to see some of my videos or find out more about the work the festival is doing.

Work

Well, you know, when I'm not kidding or volunteering, I like to work. And I've got some great clients and projects going right now. I'll be telling you more about these as the months roll by, but this is an exciting time for me professionally -- which means taking time out from scattered thoughts and lots of motion, and thinking deeply. Sometimes the transition from watching an emotional film to looking into the beautiful face of a happy 13 year-old to methodical thinking, careful planning, and quality implementation is a tough one. I find steaming cups of green tea help.

Chloe Time

Finally, and sadly, the busyness never quite erases from my consciousness that the beginning of June marks the time, 15 years ago now, that my daughter, Chloe, was born and died.

This year, after a full day of filming, I shed my tears sitting in Luna Park with So Yeon.

I consider So Yeon a dear friend, though our friendship is new, and yet I'd never mentioned Chloe to her.

So, you see, the past, especially my pains, has a way of blurring at times. Of melting and becoming at times indistinct.

It's true, too, that as I described my daughter's death, the horror of it came back to me quite sharply -- quite forcefully.

At moments like these, I do wonder how I survived the impact of her death. I feel sorry for the woman in the hospital gown who beheld, with shock and disbelief, the small dead creature in her arms -- the blue and silent body that had so recently awakened such love and gratitude. I feel sorry for that woman who surely wasn't me.

Life, as they say, is a rich tapestry. Tragedy mingles with sitting in traffic and watching the man in the blue truck spread his arms wide and sing, opera-style, "I love traffic!" It's turning to him with a big, wide grin of understanding and feeling connection with a stranger.

Novels could be written about what I've described, above, in one small blog post. One Bob Dylan song sums up the epic, forests are born and die, marketing campaigns are launched, children grow. And that, as you know, is just the smallest bit of what life is. And can be.

Your Turn

Friends, I encourage you to live your joy and your chaos -- your past, present, and future. Go to it!