Bless Zeus!

It was the weather that made it possible. On Friday May 18 when the Olympics was scheduled to happen I flew out to Cincinnati where my brother was getting married the next day. It was a homemade affair and came off miraculously, wonderful weather, food, accomodations and company. But I guess the weather in New England wasn't so lovely and the Olympics were rescheduled for the following Tuesday. The children of the Fifth Grade class at The Waldorf School, (my dears in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Grade) probably don't know what a blessing it was for me to be able to come to their pentatholon. But I was able to take photos and preserve my memories of these gorgeous creatures I was once priviledged to teach.

Hello folks!

I have spent the last few hours trying to create an invitation I can email to friends and family to our going away party. Well, here it is!

Come celebrate with us our move and great changes:

Elephant Walk www.elephantwalk.com

Cambridge

2067 Massachusetts Ave.

Thursday May 31 at 6pm

We will have drinks and cocktails and lots of excellent conversation. Come hear about Art of Living and Care for Children and help us meet our intention to sponsor 10 children.

Why isn't anyone saying it? Doesn't this ring a bell folks?
Am I the only one who thinks that the boy named Cho who killed 32 in Virginia was a mirror? Showing us ourselves? Showing the world the agony of being cut off from society because he didn't buy in or was in need? Did anyone reach out to him? He was alone. And now everyone is ignoring the lesson that the "madman" has given us. We want to own things. We are an "ownership" society and yet, we do not belong to each other any more. We are alone in our cars, with our i-pods or our cell phones or our macs or our media players or our blackberries. alone. This is the most agonizing pain of all. To be completely alone and to be forced to live side by side with those who do not see you, do not know you and now who see you as beneath compassion, an animal.

I did not know any of the victims. They looked like happy people and I am sure their loved ones will miss them to the end of their days. But it is easy to like happy successful , good-natured people. It is hard to love people who are "cold" or unpopular or disagreable. But regardless, it was the young Cho who was suffering to the end of his life and not the happy young people, who lived good productive lives to the end, (or so it seems).

It seems that compassion is a quality that young people of privilege do not always possess. Perhaps that was the one thing that these young people had "billions" of chances to show to young Cho. Perhaps some people will step forward and tell another story so that we can begin to heal this wound. Making Virginia Tech "safer" does not mean creating another gated community. The US is becoming one big gated community and the more walls we build the more violently those on the outside will tear them down. If we can make people feel that they belong and they are safe inside their hearts as well as outside we may come to a more peaceful place in our schools and places where people work and learn together.

ANOTHER BLACK MONDAY
This stormy morning the alarm woke us up at 4 am so that I could drive Mr. D to the airport to make a 6 am flight. Unfortunately, after checking the status of his flight he was informed that it was cancelled so I fell back asleep until 7 am. He would take the train with me into the city and catch another flight into North Carolina at 10 am.

Once I was at work Mr D. began to call me with bad news of a long delay. AFter four hours of waiting at the airport and no sign of the flight actually taking off I told my colleagues.

"Poor Hemanshu has been stuck at the airport for hours!"

One of my Shambhala art production comrades replied, "At least he isn't at Virginia Tech."

It was then I learned of the killings at the hands of a lone gunman who was finished being invisible.

Later in the afternoon, after bonding with post Boston Marathon T riders I sat with my husband, who had given up trying to leave Boston, at a restaurant above the Alewife stop. Sitting on a large bench waiting for take out were 4 nine year old girls and someone's mom staring up at the tv which was broadcasting the relentless coverage of the shootings. How does one explain?

Yes, darling girls, in other "less priviledged" countries there is famine, civil strife, AIDS, and a crippling war. There are girls your age forced into prostitution and babies being sold or stolen for organs. Here in the United States we don't have any of this we have something else.

It is a sickness of the mind that makes us believe we must have what we want or else. It is a sickness that makes us grow more and more detached from others and depressed. This loneliness stems from our inability to feel for others or to make a sacrifice for the love of another.

Our country is afflicted with the most deadly disease of all, ENTITLEMENT.

There he was, on page 71 of The New Yorker, staring wet-eyed at me. Here was my hero, my Krishna, Puck, back in the limelight again. Accompanying this full page picture was a review of a show by Sasha Frere-Jones. This show took place in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas? Hell on earth? The place where prostitution is legal and the motto is "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."?

Actually, I would go to hell (if I had a round trip ticket) to see Prince. His songs still splash out into my mind and it is no wonder that artists still cover him.

Someone should have been on it lately to sing the seasonally appropriate, especially for this year,

"Sometimes it snows in April.
Sometimes it feels so bad.
Sometimes I wish that life was never ending.
But all good things they say, never last."

Except perhaps love sometimes
and PRINCE :)

This is regrettable. I have not posted since January and left February 07 in the dust as if it didn't exist. Here my friends are confiding the most intimate details on their blogs regularly and I am acting as if NOTHING, not even a strangely shaped bowel movement, has occurred in my life.

Well. It isn't true.

Husband has moved to Sauselito, (town above San Francisco) and we have been engaged in a rather challenging long distance marriage with plans to reunite, i.e. live together again, in SF area permanently.

Today I write this blog from lovely Sauselito, a town not unlike the one I in which I lived during high school, Chatham, Massachusetts. I am sitting in the "floating home" my husband is renting, overlooking other house barges as I like to call them. Many people refer to these abodes as house boats but they are NOT boats. They have cement foundations and do not have engines and are not mobile. At least not the ones around here.

This particular community is quiet and restful which has been a relief on this trip mainly because I have been sick since I arrived with a particularly strong respiratory infection and flu. We have cancelled all kinds of plans and poor husband's fantasies of taking bikes up to the Marin Headlands or more realistically, over the Golden Gate Bridge have been dashed unromantically onto the mudflats these houses sit on during low tide.

One of the goals of this trip has been to find an appropriate neighborhood in which to live. There are no appropriate neighborhoods (within our budget ) in which to live so we will be relying on a miracle to help us to secure housing in May/June. Perhaps we will squat in an abandonned floating shanty. Or slum it in the corporate-stepford-style housing that is plentiful on the penninsula. I will be personally petitioning the Goddess Laxshmi and Lord Ganesh to assist us in this plight as I see them as more reasonable than the housing market in California.

Staying here on the house barge really isn't an option. Soon our little glorious child will come and the ten minute walking commute from the parking lot to the "boat", including the impossibly steep and precariously railed-ramp will be out of the question. This is, alas , not a child friendly community but one consisting mostly of peace-loving older artists who may occasionally entertain grandchildren but spend most of their time painting/writing, gardening or on floating home improvement

naked.

Has anyone seen Annie Sprinkle?

It really is lovely. But only a temporary sanctuary. sigh.

I just wanted to share with you the amazing DSN course I took recently in Chicago. DSN, which stands for Divya Samaj Nirman means creating divine society. It is also known as Don't Say No. This is yet another incredible course brought by Art of Living.

http://www.artofliving.org

Art of living was founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 25 years ago and celebrated its 25th anniversary last February in Bangalore, India. If you check out the website above please check the silver jubilee.


Art of Living carries several service projects throughout the world ( Care for children, 5H, Prison Smart, Youth empowerment, and Rural Development to name a few) and has a strong presence in over 140 countries.

Hemanshu and I want to hold a party to share our experiences with our friends nearby, but we would like everyone, near and far, to know that something good is happening in our world.

We have committed ourselves to getting some sponsors for the "Care for children" and it would be great if other friends looked into the part one course.

http://www.artofliving.org/seva/care4forchildren.htm
http://www.artofliving.org/download/videolinks.htm

What is heartening to us is to know is no matter where we are there are people who want peace (within themselves and in the world) and are willing to do something about it.This makes us feel at home in the world despite what the media tells us.

Two new additions before the new year (felted slippers and leather moccasin-boots).

Things to look forward to in the NEW YEAR:

A new job in San Francisco for the manshu that may mean a move (EXCITEMENT, CHANGE AND CATHARSIS).

DSN in Chicago and visit with longtime friend.

Shambhala, my good looking job.

More fun projects: SHOES, CLOTHING AND BREAD so stay tuned.

All told, Christmas was lovely, except for the missing nephew and the preoccupied sister.

The children, as always, made it feel like CHRISTMAS.

There was a little trouble with the irridescent angel who was listing a bit from the top of the tree.

And for the first time in Hatch history I am sad to say the tv was on to check the football score. Why does this fill me with grief.

Also historic was the green surroundings of our Maine family dwellings. The weather, again, proved unseasonably warm.

This was the first Thanksgiving we ate outside for the feast!

The weather in Ohio, where my brother and his fiance live, was unseasonably warm. We decided to eat out and enjoy the sunshine.

There was alot for which to be thankful. The other things will have to sort themselves out in time and space.

FRESH POND!

The Manshu and I walk here almost every day with other people and their dogs, babies and tractors. Today I got a ride on a Caterpillar from a friendly Works employee. Its that kind of day.

HOME OH HOME SWEET

Boston has been on my mind. Actually, New England. Because the possibility of having to leave makes me notice what I have before its gone. How can people think lightly of where they live?

I know how it feels to live "away". I lived in Chicago for ten years. It was a big party, but not home.

I don't mind the pushiness at rush hour. I've been to India and NYC. Bostonians are daarlings.

ALL four seasons! The bright leaves against crisp blue skies in Fall. The solemn drop of snowflakes on bare branches in the grey half light. The hope of spring and the sudden surprising gust of salt air from thawed oceanside. The freedom from the opression of clothes in summer. Halter tops and sandals at outdoor cafes after long hikes. The Ocean! The Mountains! The History!

My family has lived here since the 17th century . Two famous houses in New England (one in Gloucester on my mother's side and one in Marshfield on my dad's) were built by my ancestors. Sarah Messer, the author of The Red House, grew up in the one built by and inhabited by my father's family- The Hatch Family in Marshfield, Massachusetts. She writes about growing up in this house. It is a wonderful book full of historic details and Hatch/ Messer Lore. The other beautiful house below belongs to Lucette White and her husband who have also honored my family history by keeping and maintaining the house built by my great grandfather, Judge Edgar J. Sherman, the house on Bass Rocks in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Lucette, incidentally, is a magnificent and world reknown painter.

The house I grew up in is in Norwell, Massachusetts on River street just across the river from the Red House. This house was built later, in 1900, but was a wonderful house in which to grow up with a large swath of woods in the back and Stetson Shrine road to the left, where we roamed freely. My younger siblings Sarah, Rebecca, Joshua and Joel were 8,6,4 and 3 when we left the house in Norwell. I was 13. Jonathan was 14. And Marcy left to live with our biological mother in Chatham Massachusetts when she was 16, 2 years before.

Many of my siblings now reside in Maine. The last frontier of New England. But I am the only one back in Massachusetts. I feel like this is where I belong. I hope to stay.

Deewali!

Deep jalow! Deep jalow!

Aaj Diwali re

Kushy kushy saab

Husty ow

Aaj Diwali re!

In response to head set/head phone users everywhere who are virtually not really here among us:

Well, I’ve done it again: Alienated yet another person because of my discomfort with driving and cell phoning. The argument that when driving 7 miles an hour one is more available to multi-task or, This is the ONLY time I have to talk, or “If I can talk to someone in the car with me why can’t I talk to you on the phone?” isn’t lost on me. I understand, really I do. One tries to be efficient. One tries to stave off boredom. One thinks, “Let me do this while I remember.”

However, the way I see it is, “Let me avoid being here now doing what I have chosen to do, which is, namely, sit in my car by myself with thousands of others who are sitting in their cars by themselves, or with their kids who are also plugged into the t.v. or cd player or some screen entertainment or listening to their drivers yammer on their cellphones. I wonder what those infants are thinking while mommy is talking to someone somewhere, “Is she talking to me?” But what is really sad to me is

everyone is going in the same direction and yet everyone feels alone.

I take the train to work now because I can. When I am on the train many people enhance the experience by reading, (which I do sometimes too), working, listening to music. And some people talk. Amazingly, some people choose to be on the train and be with the people they are with! But really, in defense of the people reading/working/ spacing out with music is that they are focusing on just one thing.

This is what I aspire to. I would like to be focused on the task at hand, be it working on the computer, riding my bike(without head phones), walking around the park (should I wear the head phones or listen to the birds/tree leaves rustling etc?),or talking on the phone to a sibling somewhere private.[1]

This brings me back to my original point. Should I prohibit others from phoning me while they are driving, or caring for their children (or yelling at their kids in my ear), doing housework, or moving their bowels? Maybe not. Maybe I should just let them know how I feel being relegated to the equation; talking to me = or < "task"[2]

Instead of trying to assert my belief system onto them perhaps if I just share my feelings and leave it at that I can avoid alienating them. If I just stay in the moment of how I feel today maybe when I say, "I am not comfortable with you driving and talking to me at the same time." Their response won’t be, “O.k. I’ll talk to you next year.”

[1] There is something really intimate about talking with one’s siblings, at least for me there is. I say anything and everything to my brothers and sisters and I really don’t wish to share that with anyone .
[2] If talking to me was more important than a task like driving somewhere, you would pull over. And if talking to me was the same as driving somewhere, you would do both. But if talking to me has less importance than the driving, the driving somewhere happens regardless of whether or not the talking does. It all depends on your priority in the moment.

Alewife,

We received our I-600A approval from the Department of Immigration one week ago today. One more year to go.

Oh Ale,

Did we know in high school it would come to this?This name,

this ALE -WIFE, LIFE,

this AAAAOOOWWWIIGHHE?

This was my first week at my new job as the Permissions Coordinator at Shambhala Publications , Inc. I take the train from here to Park, change to the green line and take the E train to Symphonie Hall.

The last time I saw you was here, at the end of the red line, with Ella in your arms, small in almost every way except the bright light in her eyes. To my great surprise she mirrored even the most subtle expressions on your face, (as young children often do with the adults to whom they are lovingly tied). And what she mirrored was love.

We waved good bye here, at ALEWIFE, at end of the red line.

Or the beginning, as it seems to me.

ALE.

On thursday September 21, husband and I went to River Sing! on the Charles presented by the Charles River Conservancy and Revels, a non-profit performing group responsible for many seasonal celebrations but most known for Christmas Revels at the Sanders theatre in Cambridge. My favorite and most goosebumb inducing songs were Siyahamba, (We are marching in the light of God), and Fan-ga, (We welcome you with open arms and no weapons. We welcome you from the north, the south, the east, the west. And so be it.) There was less call and response this year, (I was told by Piper's mum, Lisa) but as this was my first River Sing! I was glad to be there and proud of my town, Cambridge.

Hello Bombay? I mean Mumbai? Can you hear me? I have been thinking things over since I returned from your excellent 13 million plus population city and I know I wrote that poem, “Bombay, I love..” but I have got a few things to say now that my Mehta paranoia has subsided and the first is, well, What Kind of Show Do You Think You Are Running Over There?? I mean what does a person have to do to get a good cup of coffee? You call yourself civilized? And nobody likes to be stared at as if they were growing huge eyeholes, not even Caucasian women, despite the rumors you have heard on your local broadcasting network regarding their status in the honor department. We are people too you know, even if we do like to rent elephants and while smiling and exclaiming, ride them down your streets videotaping.

Here I am married to one of your locals and I had the good manners to come to your fine metropolis and meet his family- your own people for Ganesh’s sake and you can’t even sell us a decent sandalwood statue without making us feel somehow un-local. You don’t treat people this way! And the peeing by the side of the road! It has to stop!

Didn’t you notice me eating with my hands? Wearing the Salwar Kamees? Giving Prasad at temple and showing respect to your myriad of Gods? Is that not worth something? And where do you suppose the white girl is going to go for her daily walk with all that staring and lip sucking? I mean really!

Do you expect to be admired on the basis of your cheap labor and ensuing influx of wealth without offering anything to the foreigner except non-resident rates, arrogance and a stomach infection? You will have to do better than that let me tell you. Yes you will. Good gracious even our mafia here has the good sense to dress well and keep their doings private, while your “wealth redistributors” continue to dress Bollywood actors like Patrick Swayze and then overwork them like Judy Garland. It is the year 2006! Wake up! The dance moves in Never say Forever showed your complete lack of understanding of American contemporary dance. Yes we are annoying! Yes we discourage littering, (which you treat as a joke because to you everything outside your house is a garbage dump anyway). Yes we are responsible for Global Warming! But do we treat you the way you have treated us? No! We haven’t! Not us Americans! Uh-Uh!