Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Author Archives: dawnkinster


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It was a gift

Saturday night in Ann Arbor….for me that means the Ann Arbor Symphony.  And though weather threatened snow we made the trip down for an evening of music.  It was worth the drive.

They started out with Fratres for Strings and Percussion by Arevo Part, a contemporary composer.  This work was written in 1977 and showcases his minimalistic style with six bars of music repeated, slightly differently, throughout the piece.  It begins in the violins so softly you can barely hear and crescendos as cellos and finally the basses are added near the middle of the piece, then fades away again until you aren’t sure where it ended.  The sound is contemplative, meditative, soothing.

The symphony’s Concertmaster violinist Aaron Berofsky was the featured soloist and masterfully played Tchaikovsky’s  Concerto for Violin in D Major, Op. 35.  He has a beautiful sound, extraordinary technique and it was a joy to hear this melodic and technically challenging piece.  Mr. Berofsky spoke at the lecture before the concert and said he first began working on this piece when he was 15 and it has continued to teach him throughout his lifetime.  The audience was so moved that it burst into extended applause between the first and second movement.

After intermission we were delighted by Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op.13 “Winter Dreams.”  Though I enjoyed the full and lush orchestration (usually my favorite parts of any symphony) of the first, third and fourth movements,  I was caught off guard and extraordinarily moved by the second.  (It begins at 11:42 on the link I provided.)  Only a few minutes into it I realized my eyes were filled with tears and by the time the oboe and flute began their work together the tears were sliding down my face.  I wiped them away surreptitiously thinking surely no one else was so moved.  This piece is not played frequently and I told my Aunt after the performance that I could listen to it again right then.  She grinned and responded “Wasn’t that second movement wonderful?  I felt like I was floating.”

Symphony No. 1  has everything, the huge symphonic sound, the gentle tug on emotions, outstanding music for string, woodwinds, stunning horn work.  If you’ve never heard a symphony please take the time to listen to this one.  It’s worth every bit of the 44 minutes,  I promise you.   At least listen to the first two movements — I’ll bet you’ll be hooked and will stay for the rest.

Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1866, when Tchaikovsky was 25.  As we drove home I tried to remember what I was doing when I was 25.  I know I wasn’t creating something so beautiful that hundreds of people would sit mesmerized 147 years later.  The combination of Tschaikovsky and the Ann Arbor Symphony is amazing; so wonderful so powerful, so relaxing.  So beautiful that it defies description.

Last night the music was bigger than the hall.  Surely it could not be contained in one room.  Surely the music must have blown through the walls, burst through the ceiling and floated above the city of Ann Arbor.  Surely it must have seeped into the spirit of all who live there, been expelled on the breath of everyone walking by, mingled in the hearts of all within miles, given up to the heavens and received by God.

As we walked out into the night we were greeted with snow.  The holidays are upon us and the Ann Arbor Symphony had just presented us with our very first gift.

All I can say is thank you.

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Thanksgiving – the real deal

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What are your strongest and best memories of Thanksgiving?  Did your family gather, members driving across country, did they sit around big tables telling stories and laughing?  Did the food get eaten, leftovers put away, then pulled back out again later in the day?  Did your family wrap up what was left, send it home in plastic containers to be warmed up again later in the weekend?

Mine did.

Maybe you remember spending the afternoon watching football games with your family, cheering on favorites, groaning when plays didn’t go your way, munching on turkey sandwiches or stealing another piece of pie.  Maybe your favorite memories are of distant cousins, elderly aunts, grandparents, people you didn’t see all the time.  Maybe your family called far away relatives later in the afternoon for long conversations, catching up with months of news.

Mine did – and I bet a lot of your memories are similar.  The point is that many memories of a best Thanksgiving are filled with family.

Now consider what it would be like if you had to work on Thanksgiving — and not because you were vital to the safety of your community, not because you were needed to fight fire or save lives in a hospital — but because people wanted to shop.  They wanted to shop for stuff that would not change the world, would not further humanity, would not even make others particularly happy.  Just ordinary stuff.

Imagine that you have to work because retailers are looking for a bigger profit.  Profit over family, not a unique concept, but imagine you don’t have a choice, that it’s not even your profit; you’re just a pawn on their balance sheets.

Think about it.  The only way retailers can exploit their workers, force them to work on a day that should be all about family, is if we all rush out to patronize their stores on Thanksgiving day.  We don’t have to do that.  What in the world do we need that is so important that we have to buy it on Thanksgiving?

Really?

Nothing.

So here’s a thought.  Join the movement, check out the facebook page.  And how about we don’t go out to shop on Thanksgiving.  How about we don’t let ourselves be manipulated for the retailers good.  How about we don’t let ourselves get caught up in the commercialism of the holiday.  How about instead we look around and see the family members that we love so much, how about we slow down and realize what is important.  How about we sit down to a family dinner.  How about we spend the day in conversation with each other.  How about we value family.

And how about we let everyone do that, even retail workers for one day.  One day filled with family, conversations, laughter, stories, football and pie.

Now that would be the real deal.


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Finally Friday

Katie here.

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I would just like to say thank goodness it’s finally Friday because my Mama needs to stay home with me and stop going off wherever she goes every morning.  Geeze…I mean I was left at doggie camp for a whole week and now she’s abandoning me every single day!

She’s tired too.  I can tell.  She’s cranky and tells me ‘no bark!’  A lot.  Probably because I’m always spinning and barking and bringing her toys when she’s home.  Which isn’t nearly enough, that home part.

AND she says we can go to school on Saturday!  I can not wait!  It’s been forever since I got to go to school and present everyone with my beautiful-ness.  I’m sure they are all in Katie withdrawal.  (I’m pretty sure my Mama is not experiencing Katie withdrawal based on her latest ‘no bark!’ yelling which was approximately 3 seconds ago.)

So Happy Friday everybody!

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Two cups

IMG_5459A couple of weeks ago I listened to a report on my commute about the health benefits of wild blueberries.  I don’t, of course, remember exactly what the health benefits were, but I remember my reaction to the story.

I laughed out loud.

The report recommended a person eat two cups of wild blueberries a day.  Yes that’s right.  Two cups.   Memories of picking wild blueberries sprang immediately to mind.  I used to live in the Keweenaw Peninsula which is a part of Michigan waaaaay  north, a piece of  rocky, somewhat hilly land that juts out into Lake Superior.   It’s stunningly beautiful and a place I miss in a chilly yet warmly reminiscent sort of way.

One of the things people did in the summer up there was pick wild blueberries.  There was a field at the top of the mountain that rumor said had the best wild blueberries.  No one talked about where it was;  it was a secret held closely by the locals and I was not a local.  But eventually, after living there a few years I wormed the location out of a friend.

You drove up the main road, turned off on a little used side road and then turned into an abandoned driveway that wound through the woods until you got to a gate which you had to open, drive through and close behind you lest someone notice you were there and discover the secret.  Then you drove along the side of an empty field, parked near the back of the field behind some trees and you were there!

The first time I followed these directions I thought I had been played for a fool.  There were no blueberry bushes on this empty abandoned land.  I wandered a bit with my big pail looking for the bushes.  You know, the bushes you’d find at a blueberry farm down near the towns I once lived in.  The cultivated bushes, some as tall as a person covered in huge sweet berries, the bushes almost purple from the weight of the fruit.

Almost purple….hmmm….the ground near my feet seemed almost purple.  Could it be?  No way!  There were wild blueberry bushes under my feet!   They were not even a foot tall, the berries smaller than half my little fingernail.  Almost imperceptible.   They were everywhere and indescribably delicious, sweet and tart all at the same time.

It took me a couple hours to pick enough berries to cover, in one layer, the bottom of my bucket.  After that first visit I’d take a small cottage cheese container and was lucky to collect a cup at any one visit.    And those were the good days.  I picked much less than that the time I ran across a bear enjoying the fruit of my favorite shrub.

So when the researchers in the latest wild blueberry study recommended people eat two cups of wild blueberries a day I laughed out loud.  Obviously they have never picked their own berries; it would take half a day to pick two cups of berries.  And the season isn’t that long…so you’d want to pick extras to freeze for the winter months.

Seems pretty impractical to me.  But I enjoyed thinking about it, and remembering a simpler time from years ago when I spent some quiet time on top of a mountain hidden behind trees gathering the spoils of the earth.

That was a sweet and tart time in my life and I am glad the researchers took me back for a visit, if only in my own mind.

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Sneak attack by the trucking industry. Again.

The fight for safety on our highways never ends.  Always and forever we have to keep vigilant.  And we at the Truck Safety Coalition do that because our lives have been changed – always and forever.

Most of you know that I volunteer for the Truck Safety Coalition, working with  other victims to make change in laws surrounding commercial trucks and the impact they have on all our lives.  One of the things we work on is fighting the trucking industry’s constant attempts to get bigger and heavier trucks on our roads.

Their latest attempt is an amendment that has been introduced to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA, Senate Bill # 1197) which is under consideration by the Senate right now.  FedEx, UPS and others  are trying to get an extension to the current size of double-trailers which are currently 28 feet long.  The industry wants to lengthen each to 33 feet; on a double trailer that means the truck will be 10 feet longer.

What’s an additional 10 feet you say?  Well, there are several problems.  Here’s information from the Truck Safety Coalition intended to provide you reasons why longer trucks are not a good idea:

  • Truck crash deaths increased last year — AGAIN. Just released 2012 fatality figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show an increase in large truck fatalities for the third year in a row, including a 9 percent increase in deaths of large truck occupants. Last year, 3,921 people were killed on our roads in large truck crashes.
  • 98% of fatalities in two-vehicle crashes between a large truck and a passenger vehicle are the occupants of the passenger vehicle.
  • Truck crashes impose enormous economic costs on society. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the annual cost to society from crashes involving commercial motor vehicles is estimated to be over $83 billion.
  • Don’t believe it — Bigger trucks never result in fewer trucks despite industry claims. Over three decades of research and experience show that allowing bigger, heavier trucks will not result in fewer trucks. Increases in truck size and weight limits over more than 35 years have never, ever resulted in fewer large trucks on our roads.
  • Public opinion polls are clear and consistent — the public strongly opposes bigger trucks. The American public overwhelmingly opposes relentless special interest efforts to increase truck sizes. This new NHTSA data only validates the public’s fears about the dangers to motorists from oversized trucks.
  • 39 states will be forced to allow 33 foot trailers and fund expensive infrastructure improvements. Legislation permitting 33 foot trailers will preempt the existing truck length limits in 39 states. States will be forced to invest in expensive infrastructure improvements to accommodate these oversized rigs on interstates and upgrade freeway on-ramps and off-ramps.
  • Congress directed the U.S. DOT to study bigger trucks and their impacts on safety and infrastructure. MAP-21, passed with strong bi-partisan support, directed the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to conduct a comprehensive two-year truck size and weight study to provide data on crash frequency and the impact of large trucks on safety and infrastructure. No truck size increases should be considered while the Congressionally mandated study is underway.
  • Industry funded research making safety claims is neither objective nor unbiased. There have been no independent, peer-reviewed research and studies conducted on the operational and safety issues associated with the use of 33 foot trailers, only industry financed research. The motoring public should not be used as human guinea pigs to conduct this research.
  • Serious safety problems on state and local roads with longer trucks. As combination trucks grow longer and invade more lower-class roads, the danger of severe crashes rapidly increases because these roads often have narrow lanes, winding alignments, limited sight distances, and inadequate or no shoulders, and often have trees and telephone poles at the edge line.
  • Congress needs to improve truck safety rather than increase truck length. More than one in every five trucks that is inspected is placed out-of-service for vehicle deficiencies that prevent it from continuing to operate.

For More Information, contact the Truck Safety Coalition, 703-294-6404

So….we need your help again.  If you could contact your state’s Senators and give them a heads up that there is an amendment introduced in the NDAA that you oppose we’d appreciate it.  All you need to do is go to this website to find out who your senators are.  Call their office and ask to speak to the Transportation Legislative Aide or, if that person is not available, ask to speak to the Defense Legislative Aide.  Tell them you oppose the amendment that would allow longer trucks.  Pick any of the points above that you feel comfortable with.

It will take you a minute or two total.  Leave a voice mail if you have to.  Help us make a difference.  Help us maintain the current size and weights, keep larger trucks from our roads.

You never know whose life you’re saving.  But you can guarantee you’re saving someone.

Thanks.


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Re-entry

Larger than life

Larger than life

I have survived the first day back to work after being off for a week.  Can’t say that it was easy.  I felt as though I had been to another country and gone for a very long time.  I suppose that’s good, it must mean that the vacation successfully removed me from the stress of the office.

Even bigger

Even bigger

But being back in the cubicle was difficult today, too many emails, too many issues, too many people that needed something.  Too much to do in too little time.  I’m sure I’ll get back on top of it, get it back under control.

Relaxed

Relaxed

Meanwhile I hope you enjoyed a few more photos from last week,  photos I hadn’t had an opportunity to show you yet.  I didn’t take one of them, all the credit belongs to husband, but they remind me that there is more out there in the world than  my beige cubicle and that sometime, hopefully soon, I’ll be off on another adventure.

Tips of the mountains

Tips of the mountains

Far or near, adventures sure make things better!

Fly away

Fly away


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Weekly photo challenge -layers

When I saw the weekly photo challenge was ‘layers’ I immediately thought of a watercolor piece of art and how the layers of paint create the image.  But I don’t have a water color available right now to show you.

Then I thought of  the layers of clothing that runners wear now as the weather gets colder.  But I couldn’t think of a creative way to show you that.

I even thought about the bark on some trees I saw in California last week, the colors there were layered and the bark was peeling off.  Interesting and pretty but not exactly what I wanted.

Then I thought about the saying we use when we’re trying to get to the truth – to peel away the layers like an onion – and I knew what I wanted to do.

Off to the grocery store I went to collect some onions, many sizes and colors, layering in the texture and interest…with one large red onion cut to more explicitly express layering.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo there you  have it.  My interpretation of layers.

Time to make some soup now.


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Between here and there

It’s quite easy to see the beauty of the ocean or the giant trees; easy to see the photo opportunity in beautiful canyons or majestic mountains.   When you’re traveling you’re always looking for that outstanding photo, the one that tells the big story.  It’s easy to miss all the little things when you’re going from here to there.

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On this California trip the place between the big photos was mostly farm.  And just as I am at home I was drawn to the farmlands there.  The deep black fields, the orderly lines of crops or vineyards, the homesteads far off the road surrounded by acres of crops or by nothing at all.

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I want to go back and concentrate on the places between here and there, the places that aren’t so easy to photograph, the places not so glamorous. Not so obviously beautiful.

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I want to think about where our food comes from.  I watched cabbage being picked in a huge field, and though I only saw a moment of the action as our car raced by, I saw cabbage heads furiously being tossed by stooping men crowded close behind a trailer hauled by a tractor.

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I want to think about the true cost of our food.  Affordable fresh food comes to us on the backs of people hunched over in a field.  And what do these people get paid?  I don’t know enough.  Just like the fast food workers fighting to earn a living wage, how are these cabbage pickers living?

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I want to think about our food supply  I’d like to understand more.  And I’d like to show you how beautiful the places between here and there are, not from a speeding car, but more slowly, more carefully.

More thoughtfully.

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The long goodbye

On the beach

On the beach

We spent the day headed down Highway One saying goodbye to the Pacific yesterday, stopping to play among the waves and sand at several beaches.  The first was early in the morning at the deserted Ocean Beach, just north of the Vanderberg Air Force base. I had my shoes on so didn’t venture into the water.  It looked cold.

Ocean Beach...original name

Ocean Beach…original name

The second, and best, beach we visited was the Jalama Beach, a county park where we had to pay a $10 entrance fee.  Worth every dollar.  There’s a campground there that I’d visit again in a heartbeat, right on the beach.  Being November there were a lot of spots available.  It made me want to fly home and pack up the tent and Katie and head right back out here.  Though I think all the pounding waves, salt water and funky kelp on the beach might not be to the princess’s liking.

Anyway, this beach had a few more people on it, like the surfer…

Surfer dude

Surfer dude

…and the fisherman.

Fisher guy looked warmer than surfer dude.

Fisher guy looked warmer than surfer dude.

I played in the water here and got quite wet.  Turns out the ocean wasn’t as cold today as it was yesterday.  Or maybe I was just getting more acclimated.

Wonderful beach!

Jalama Beach – wonderful!

We stopped somewhere just north of Ventura to watch some people sailboarding.  The wind was strong and they were just flying across the water.

Almost flying

Almost flying

We ended the day watching the sun set at Malibu.  Amazing I know;  sunset on Malibu’s Zumba Beach!

We had no idea the beach is home to about a gazillion trillion seagulls.  Or more.

Some of the many

Some of the many

I found them quite fascinating.    They sat in massive groups…

Waiting for the next flight

Waiting for the next flight

…and then flew as a unit when anyone approached them.

Jogging at sunset

Jogging at sunset

I almost missed the sunset I was so interested in the birds.

Catching the last light

Catching the last light

It was a lovely day that ended in a lovely place with the moon rising over Malibu.

California moon

California moon

I can’t ask for more.  Except maybe more time in California.

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