Nebraska

Here is the farm where my client Bill spent summers as a boy. It's up the fields from the original homestead. The barns and many other buildings blew down in a tornado 15 years ago.
Bill is writing a history of the homestead.



Bill revisits the chicken house, where he fetched eggs every morning. It was easier to look out the chicken door back then.




Clothes still hanging on hooks in an abandoned house on the farm.


The moldings are still intact.


Giving a good profile.


Head on stare.




These cows lead the good life.



A cemetery on top of a hill. The wind never stops blowing up here. I'll send more photos soon.

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting: What a Scene

Greetings from the Midwest. During the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, the Qwest Convention Center in Omaha, Nebraska morphs into a fabulous display center for Berkshire companies.

I wanted to get on the long-horn steer but they told me I was too old and, well, too big. This little girl came all the way to the meeting in her finery for this picture. I should have worn a dress and petticoats.


I could have sat on this but the line was too long.


The artist Michael Isreal painted a portrait of Warren on the spot--at 6 AM on Saturday. (Note his paint-spattered tux.) The portrait will be sold on eBay later this year--


to benefit a fabulous organization called Girls Inc. that encourages girls to be strong, smart, and bold. Here are a few members:


Fruit of the Loom is another Berkshire company. Some big grapes.


You can always tell when Warren Buffett is approaching--he is surrounded by no-nonsense body guards, with little curly wires in their ears, and photographers with huge cameras and boom mikes. I was able to take many pictures of Mr. Buffett but none with him, except this one, with his cardboard image. Incidentally, no photos or video are allowed within the meeting arena--or even of the video broadcasts throughout the Center.

Warren Buffett has written a chapter in the book I edited, Foods You Will Enjoy: The Story of Buffett's Store.

He and his partner Charlie Munger took questions from the floor for six hours at the Annual Meeting. Jon Stewart's writers couldn't have come up with better material. And these two guys were improvising.

Warren Buffett told about being so afraid of public speaking that he avoided college courses where he'd have to pipe up in class. He'd get physically ill at the thought. While at Columbia in an MBA program, he took the subway downtown to a Dale Carnegie program and wrote a $100 check to enroll. When he got back uptown he immediately stopped payment on the check. Eventually he forced himself to get over his fear and now he speaks brilliantly, with no script.

In response to a question about the current candidates Charlie Munger said something like: Politicians are never so bad that you don't want them back again in your lifetime. Buffett's response: Charlie's a Pollyanna.

Buffett also said: work for an organization or an individual you admire--many people become self-employed.

Your best asset in life is yourself, he said. Too often, our potential exceeds our expectations. So, go for it! And he said that those who can communicate well--speaking and on the page--have a huge advantage. Keep working on the writing everybody and have fun. Put on a CD from the The Quebe Sisters Band . . . and keep in touch.

Time to Think

The May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine carries an article by Frank Bures called, "Way, Way Too Much Information," about the overload we're all processing and about how he was inspired by an essay called "Thinking about Earthworms," by David Quammen. Published in the early 1990s, the essay encouraged readers to dwell with their own minds, to avoid the pull of global-mind, to think about things of interest to them and perhaps them alone. Turn off the television, etc.

Think.

So I think about how much harder that imperative is now, in the 21st century--with cells, texting, blogs, email, TiVo, etc. Bures includes staggering information about the amount of data we're churning out each year and then he goes on to talk about writers who cut themselves off from the world, live in remote areas where they aren't so constantly connected.

I can't live out there, but one of the many things I like about offering writing workshops--especially those where we write to prompts--is that during the precious writing time we allow ourselves to drop into ourselves and think, let bubble up what will on the page. We can follow our thoughts, without distraction. Meander on the page. Meander is my favorite word. The silence that falls over a room when people are writing never fails to thrill me.

I don't give out hand-outs until the end of a session because people will read them during that precious writing time. I tell people that when they're through writing they can just sit there and think. That too is a privilege.

All my life, I've craved, needed, time alone, when I can just sit and stare out a window or take an aimless walk--without cell or headset. It's hard to ruminate if a book on tape pounds your eardrums or even a friend's voice.

I loathed Quaker Meeting as a child. How boooorrrrriiinng,dreadful, to sit there . . . in SILENCE. For a whole hour. I so didn't get it, couldn't bear it. Put me under the front-yard privet and I could stare at the clouds, silent, for ages but at Meeting I felt like I was on steroids--wanting to jump straight out of my skin, through the ripply-glassed window and onto the green lawn beyond . . . where I would roll and tumble away from that place, forever.

Speaking of rolling and tumbling, I've got to go. I'm closing my computer and heading out the door for a walk--with birdcall, traffic, and the crinkling of breezy tree leaves for company.

And my own thoughts.

Coming into Bloom

I love working with writers, obviously. And right now I'm excited; as the season shifts and the ruminating deep underground work has taken root, buds are bursting into bloom. Everybody has been working really hard and beginning to reap the rewards. Three writers I've been working with have books coming out, five writers are appearing in newspapers, and one poet just heard that three of her poems have been accepted for publication. She's waiting to hear from several poetry collection contests. I'm looking forward to reading, this week, the final draft of another writer's memoir about which I have high hopes. And the collection of essays by women living in Qatar that I co-edited will also be published later this spring, in English and Arabic.

Those blissful six weeks in Qatar spoiled me. Being surrounded by only my own clutter was a rare gift. I could write at all hours of the day and night, my papers and research strewn everywhere--no one but me ever disturbing them. I worried about how I would write on my return, having to again share space, and my life, with others.

On the way home from the airport, my husband said, "The place looks pretty good right now."
When I walked into the kitchen, this is what I saw:


And our communal dining room table:




My spirits, and my resolve to write regularly, dropped several notches. No matter. There are no excuses for not writing--other people's clutter, not having a proper "room of one's own," commitments. In a client's cluttered house, I stumbled on a slim little wise volume that will bust your every excuse. Dip around in How To Write a Lot and I'll be surprised if you don't come up with a writing schedule you'll stick to.

And here's a rather lengthy closing quote about getting to the desk, from Vivian Gornick's essay collection: Approaching Eye Level

Work, I said to myself. Work hard.

But I can't work hard, I answered myself. I've barely learned how to work steadily. I can't work hard at all.

Try, I replied. And try again. It's all you've got.

The first flash of feminist insight returned to me. Years before, feminism had made me see the value of work. . . I saw what visionary feminists had seen for two hundred years: that power over one's own life comes only through the steady command of one's own thought.

A sentiment easy enough to declare, the task of a lifetime to achieve.

I sat down at the desk, as though for the first time, to teach myself to stay with my thoughts: to order them, extend them, make them serve me. I failed.

Next day I sat down again. Again, I failed.

Three days later I crawled back to the desk and again I came away defeated. But the day after that the fog cleared out of my head: I solved a simple writing problem, one that had seemed intractable, and a stone rolled off my chest. I breathed easier. The air smelled sweet, the coffee strong, the day inviting.

The rhetoric of religious fervor began to evaporate in me, replaced by the reassuring pain of daily effort. I could not keep repeating 'work is everything' like a mantra when clearly it wasn't everything. But sitting down to it every day became an act of enlightenment. Chekhov's words stared back at me: "Others made me a slave but I must squeeze the slave out of myself, drop by drop." I had tacked them up over the desk sometime in the early seventies, and my eyes had been glazing across them for more than ten years. Now I read them again: really read them. It wasn't "work" that would save me, it was the miserable daily effort.

So, yes it's in the (sometimes) miserable daily effort that the writing gets done. To all of you who are heading to the desk, congratulations. I'll see you there.

Word Into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East

This is an artist's book by an artist now living in Paris. Many Iraqi artists started working with artist books when it was no longer safe to go to their studios. They also wanted to be able to transport their work easily. We all remember the pillaging of the museums and libraries after the US invasion in 2003. The pages of this book are intentionally charred.

This artist's son is wrapped in Arabic poetry.

A refugee's suitcase, on paper. What would you grab if everything you took had to fit in a small suitcase? Text surrounds the silhouettes and appears in the suitcase.

This is a dictionary by a Palestinian artist, opened to the definition of "Philistine," surrounded by actual nails.

Phil·is·tine n. (fĭl'ĭ-stēn', fĭ-lĭs'tĭn, -tēn')

1. A member of an Aegean people who settled ancient Philistia around the 12th century B.C.
2. 1. A smug, ignorant, especially middle-class person who is regarded as being indifferent or antagonistic to artistic and cultural values.
   2. One who lacks knowledge in a specific area.

Another artist's book. You can see its accordian shape in the lower right hand corner--above the big head of that person sitting in front of me.


This is graffiti the artist saw and copied onto paper. It says 'the envious shall not prevail."


I went to a slide presentation--at the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Qatar--of this show; it's opening in Dubai and comprises art from the British Museum--better known for its mummies than controversial collections of Middle Eastern art, said the museum's Middle East curator, Venetia Porter. She's British but spend a good part of her childhood in Lebanon and is fluent in Arabic. After the presentation I told her this show should go to New York. The consensus seems to be that it's too controversial for the U.S.

All of the artists in this show work with transforming text into art--Linda Passman and I are fascinated by the interpaly of text and visuals. We play with a lot of ideas in the visual journal workshop we teach.

A full reception followed this free, open-to-the-public event--with falafel, hummus, chicken and vegetable pastries, grilled meats, dessert pastries, fresh fruit, fresh-squeezed strawberry juice. Quite a spread. "They always have these," my friend told me. Can you imagine such lavish spreads at a free slide presentation in America?

Not served--alcohol. This is a strict Muslim country.

The Secret Garden

Most spaces between the apartment buildings look like this.

The secret garden.


Palm fronds and grape vines shade the arugula growing underneath.



I have fallen in love with my compound. At first I was disappointed. Some of the people I know here in Doha live in more established walled-in worlds, with palm tress and lush plantings and attractive street lights. Here there are still unoccupied, forlorn units and when the wind blows, it carries not only dust and sand but also stray plastic bags and candy wrappers. I found the place, well, kind of desolate and at night, dark--not threatening, just unwelcoming.

When I first lived in Los Angeles, and walked up in the hills above our neighborhood, I was disappointed. Where were the bright leaves of fall, the bursts of bloom in the spring, the ice and snow of winter? Over time, I began to notice the seasons--they are subtle and, in their own way, stunning.

I'm now noticing more about my hood. Every afternoon, children from all over the world gather out on the streets to kick a soccer ball, ride bikes, and just hang out. They remind me of how American children used to be--unsupervised, bored, creating games out of . . . whatever. I hear so many languages coming from these straggly groups of kids. The other day two young brothers were running across a speed bump. The older in-charge one gave his squat brother a subtle shouldering, just as they crested the mound. The little guy went down hard--his tummy hitting the bump, his hands and arms badly scraped. An accident, the bigger boy told his mother, who came out to investigate the shrieking. He fell on the bump, the older boy pointed, gesturing. I couldn't understand the conversation but knew the story.

As I take my daily walks (several) around the rectangle and up and down the little side streets, I now notice potted plants in stoops and little postage stamp bits of greenery. I have a nodding acquaintance with some of my neighbors. Even if we wanted to chat, we'd be hard-pressed to find a shared language we were both comfortable with.

A desert cabbage!

The other day I discovered a luscious secret garden between two apartment buildings. I now walk up and down that path several times a day. One time I saw a woman staring at me from the villa across the way. I hope she didn't think I was stealing a cabbage or arugula (known to be an aphrodisiac here). I just like to look--have you ever really seen a growing cabbage? The broad-veined, big leaves wrap around the center and open out in an almost surreal pattern. I stare at the curlicued grape vines, inhale the summer-smell of the tomato plants and marvel that someone has cultivated this verdant garden plot, here in the desert.

A Space All My Own

The living/dining room. It's huge though you can't really tell here. I sit in that black chair and work at a small computer table behind it. The dining room table offers plenty of space for research materials.
I call this my yoga hall. When I lie on the rug and stretch my arms all the way out, they don't touch the walls. The kitchen is the first space to the right, my bedroom and bath the second right. If you come visit, you'll stay in one of the rooms to the left. Your bathroom is at the end of the hall.
My bedroom has vast closet space, shelves, and drawers. One reason I'm delighted by the 12 foot ceilings and huge rooms is that in the States, I live--with my husband and pets--in a shoe box. Overflowing with books, stacks of papers, magazines, and the other quirky stuff of life, our house doubles as office and workshop space--and a crash pad for our two daughters and friends, when they're around.

Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own. I've had a room but never a whole apartment of my own--with nothing in it except my writing and reading materials. And comfy couches, beds, and good table space. Nobody else's books, magazines, photos, trinkets, or clutter lives here.

Earlier tonight I was g-chatting with my daughter, Colette, telling her I heard people moving in upstairs. So far the quiet--I adore silence-- has been stunning, except during the call to prayer, which isn't getting me up every morning anymore. I still wake up but I go back to sleep, jet lag having faded away.

I wrote Colette what I was hearing upstairs--luggage rolling, loud voices speaking Spanish, and heavy feet on the tile floors. I have been so spoiled here, the only other occupant of this six-apartment building being a guy I never hear and have only seen when, as he opens his car door out front every morning at 7 AM, I sometimes peek at him out my window.

Colette said, "I wish I could see what your place looks like."

I decided to post a few interiors.

In Dubai

Jumeirah Park.
Indoor skiing at the mall
The tallest hotel in the world
Old fashioned dhows (boats) used to transport goods.
Men going to work.
This place is growing soooo fast. They're creating islands in the sand to house 300 skyscrapers. Here are a few of the creek that divides Dubai. The boats are still used for export--out to the Persian Gulf and beyond. Dubai will soon boast the tallest building in the world. Already it claims the tallest hotel, pictured above--it hovers out over the water. There are no rooms, only suites, and they START at 3 grand a night. The place is booked solid. More than 80 percent of the world's cranes are here, and in use. At the soon-to-be-tallest building, a floor gets finished in between 1 and 5 days. There will be 158 floors--and the building is constructed so that if another country gets competitive and tries to go taller, Dubai can add more floors, easily.

More photos

Mural.
Indoor mall
Indoor mall

Photos From the Car

This is half a billboard; the other side shows the Lincoln Memorial with Abe lying back, his head resting on a pillow. It's an ad for Qatar Airways, which I enjoy flying. Give me a plane over a car--any day. In Doha, plan to spend a lot of time in cars.
I don't know what this is about, but I really like the billboards in Doha--only wish I weren't always zooming by them in a car with a driver I can't ask to stop so I can get a better shot; we'd get rear-ended.
At a traffic light, two school-uniformed girls romp in the back seat. This one blows something like cotton candy out the window with a little tube. Her friend blows out the other window.
On a mini-break.
Pipes and cranes and rubble . . . everywhere.
Doha from a distance.
Most buildings are beige, not green.

Villagio Mall

I'm sitting in a red-walled wifi cafe (yes) in a Doha mall, called Villagio, known for its indoor canal and high-end shops. Cross up and over a bridge to get to the other side. Feel like a canal boat ride? Gondoliers are at the ready. Skating anyone? There's also an indoor rink, surrounded by shops. The mall ceiling--painted blue sky and wispy clouds.
Desert. What desert? SEE PHOTOS IN LATER POST.

Photos from Doha

This area will be full of residential compounds within 2 months. Work happens 24/7 and
the construction crews come from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries.
It's the call to prayer from this minaret on the left that awakens me every morning at 5 AM. I like the sound of the live voice--it's plaintive and haunting. There are three in hearing range.
This is the view out the front of my apartment building. Come visit me in my lavish quarters--three bedrooms, three baths, huge plush couches, 2,000 tv channels and, uh,
lots of them, well, not for children or prudes. I'm watching Al Jazeera's coverage of the primaries. Fascinating.
The view out one of my bedroom's windows.
This is the entrance to my gated compound, taken from a fast-moving car. Almost everyone living here works at Qatar University--we're a mix of Arabs from other countries and Ex-pats.

Hi Again:
Everything here is fab except for my computer access.
The Chinese would call it a broken day, at least in terms
of cyberactivity. Otherwise, a super day. Had the first
student meeting and they are wonderful young women.

An ex-pat American and an Egyptian boyfriend took me
to an Arab fair late this afternoon (we're 8 hours ahead here).
We drove over with a fully-covered woman (nikab) and her four-year-
old son. He took one look at me and burst into tears. I terrified
him.

I learned a bit about some deeper aspects of life in Doha.
Fascinating and just the tip. I'm in love with the relief patterns
on the stucco walls and with everything here. Maybe I was a
bedouin in a former life. 9:30 PM and I'm off to meet some of my
compound mates who have wireless! Yes. It's the first night
of the weekend here.


Keep in touch.

In the desert

I'm at Qatar University and only have one minute to post.
No Internet in my palatial apartment--but three bedrooms,
three baths, huge kitchen, dining, and living rooms.
Photos--of my apartment, views from the window
and a few other things--coming soon.

Snowed In With The Manuscript

I was supposed to fly out this morning but the airline cancelled the flight. I'll leave tomorrow
late afternoon--and it's a good thing. We've been working eight hours a day on the manuscript but definitely can use today and tomorrow to finish up.

Thank you blizzard.

In my last post I said stuff comes up while editing. Indeed. A cousin of the author's snailed some rich material that arrived since I've been here--a series of letters we hadn't seen, a diary from 1907 written by one of the characters in the book we knew almost nothing about, except that she died young, leaving five children behind. We also learned of another store employee who is still alive: Winnie Risk is 93. I finally reached her by phone and got a great interview. This needs to go in. The new material triggers changes in what's there. Oh, it's so much fun, editing. Really.

And as we read over the book--we sit facing each other (we both have hard copies) at a card table taking turns reading chapters--I see areas that need help. So does he. Yippee for the extra time.

The only bummer. The Patriots have to play today in this. But they're 9 - 0 in snow. Go Pats!
We might even have time to watch some of the game.

Shoveling Break from Editing

The snow is falling at a rate of about 3 inches an hour up here in Boston where I'm on an editing job. On my breaks I go out to shovel.

Editing and snow-shoveling have something in common, I begin to think, as I'm hurling the white powder off, exposing the grateful red bricks underneath.

The first time it's hard to tell where the sidewalk ends and the earth begins. I make a few swipes off the path, unearthing big slabs of green grass. The second shoveling, I can see where I have cleared, even though tons more snow has fallen. The job is easier. This last shovel shift I can see even more clearly because the snow is deeper still on the sides of the path.

So, something about this is similar to editing. Each time you come back and do it again the path is better defined.

Maybe I'm stretching a simile: editing is like shoveling snow.
Maybe, actually, it is a metaphor: editing is shoveling snow.

Here's what I do know: my back hurts and we're supposed to get several more inches.

And I just heard the city snow plow--it rammed a huge mound onto my paths.

That's like editing too. Something big happens. Suddenly there's much more
work.