Sabbaticals, Seahawks and Super Bowls

I took a picture yesterday as I was coming home from the harbor that got me thinking about the process of planning my sabbatical.  I have been thinking about the picture since then.  Ironically, I was not feeling awfully well the last few days so I have been listening to 710 ESPN Sports Radio and endless talk with about the BIG game that my favorite team is playing tomorrow.  The image reminds me of the common ground that exists between planning and having a great sabbatical and planning and having a great football season.

Moving through the fog in Sunnyland.

Planning my sabbatical learning has and continues to be lots of work.  I have been more than persistent in making contacts in Arizona, California and New York City to visit scholars and programs.  The itinerary is becoming clearer.  I am also quite clear about my goal:  deepening my understanding of the impact immigration has on families (parent-child relationships. parenting decisions, youth vulnerability, etc.).  I liken the clear sunny street to the trip we will embark on next Sunday.  It looks predictable and safe.  Seeing Mt. Baker in the background, clear and sparkling reminds me of my goal.  I think the fog that is hanging over Lake Whatcom is akin to what I will be finding my way through as I visit people and programs on the journey.  How can I best understand and communicate that back to my colleagues and teams and how can we integrate nuggets of what works best into our work in Washington.    You are getting a sense of where this blog is going.

So what does all this have to do with the Seahawks and what they face this weekend and what they have faced all season?  I am a big fan of Pete Carroll whose approach to coaching inspires me as a leader and team member.  He believes in building on the strengths of each individual member of the team and then bringing them together in a shared vision of what they can do as a team.  They support each other.  I love that they surround their practices with music and practice mindfulness to stay centered.  I heard Pete being interviewed this morning about how the secret to their preparation is to get everyone to believe and play the way they know they can and at their best level.  They practice lots, and they understand as much about the other team that they can - but basically they plan to come out and play their game.  I think the fog in the picture above represents the journey they face on the field and what exactly the Patriots will look like and do when the whistle blows.  They do not know. One of the great thing I have learned from watching this team over the past few years is that they make adjustments in how they approach the other team.  We all know they are a second half team because they evaluate what is happening and adjust their approach at half-time and as the game progresses.  Wow.  What a lesson for me.  If I am not getting everything I think I need from this trip, and I have prepared to the best of my ability, then I will need to adjust as well. 

So tomorrow, I will be watching the BIG game with my "boys", husband Mike and son Ben and I will be looking for lessons for myself as I set out on my journey.

GO HAWKS!

Thanks for reading!

Preparing for the Journey

I recently met with some of our Whatcom Latino team and allies to find out what they would like to know from my trip and what questions they would like me to ask while I am visiting programs in the SW.  They also helped me focus on creating the questions that I want to use in my interviews and visits.

Front row left to right: Janae Hodge, Bellingham Schools, Christina Ortiz, Fortaleciendo Familias (FF) facilitator, Sylvia Mendoza, Nooksack Valley Schools, FF facilitator and FF coordinator, Isabel Meaker, Bellingham Schools and FF facilitator and recruiter extraordinaire.
Back row: Sharece Steinkamp, Bellingham Schools, Manuel Padilla, FF facilitator and fathering advocate.

Here are a few of the questions they came up with and I edited for the purpose of my interviews:

For program staff and allies:

How do parents and programs deal with the fear of deportation/detention?  What do think could be done that is not? 

How do you talk to kids about immigration and the risks associated with it?

How do you talk to parents about drugs, alcohol, sex?  Internet safety? Bullying?

How do you talk to youth about the above issues?

How do you involve fathers?  How do you make it more interesting for fathers?

What are some models that we can use to support kids and families where they are at?  How can we best bring families to the resources?

With which programs/agencies/schools etc  do you collaborate to reach the families?

What do you see as the key protective factors for early school years: 5-10 and how you are addressing them?

What are the results of your programs and how are you measuring them?

And here are a few of the questions I created for scholars:

Tell me about your research and what you are finding that would have implications for serving immigrant populations.

What are the key issues around immigration that you think need to be understood in order to be effective in a community based program with Latino families?

If you were asked to address a group of community professionals that may have limited knowledge of what recent Latino immigrants are experiencing, what topics would you speak to?  Can you give me an elevator speech version of your top two or three points?

And two last questions - these are for parents:

What are your dreams and wishes for your children and your family?

What is the biggest challenge for you?  For your children?

If you are reading this and you would like to comment on these questions or have one of your own, please let me know via e-mail or FB or some other channel.  I do not believe I have turned on the comment function on this blog.  You could always try.  

One of the greatest privileges of the sabbatical is having the time to think through and to pack not just material things for the journey but also the tools to make the learning experience as rich as possible.

Thanks for reading!

Brief Detour to Houston

I took a whirlwind trip to Houston Texas this week to do training for a multi-state grant I am working on:  Promoting Healthy Eating and Activity in Low-Income African-American and Latino Preschoolers: A Family Focused Prevention Program.  The project is a coordinated effort between faculty at Washington State University, Baylor College of Medicine, University of Colorado and North Carolina State University.  Houston surprised me.  It is known for its urban medical center (and I do not mean one).  The medical complex is huge with beautiful skyscraper-like hospitals and medical education and research facilities.  I had a wonderful walk on Tuesday. Here are some of my the things I saw.

Mascot of Rice University.  I took a long walk around the campus which was very near where I stayed -I enjoyed the sites there and the imagery of the Rice Owls.  There was a clever campaign that reminded us that OWL is part of the word KnOWLedge.  Owls are also symbols of wisdom, to say nothing of their fame in the Harry Potter Universe.  I loved  it!

The football stadium in the background frames the site of these two bike riders on a training ride around a track that was cleverly built in the stadium parking lot.  It was good to see multi-use for this land.  There were people exercising all around the University.  Runners, walkers, soccer players, and more.  These bike riders caught my attention because my dear husband Mike is a cyclist and I wanted to have pictures to share.   He always asks me about what kind of bikes the people I see are riding.  I noticed after I took the shot (see my shadow?) that the rear rider has one leg.  He was doing an admirable job of pedaling.  I wondered how he lost his leg and thought how lucky he was to be in a place with so much support for medical technology and rehabilitation.

Another surprise in Houston (which my colleague who was born and raised there tells me that the county is very progressive).  This sign was in the window of a humble and interesting import shop near Rice.  I think part of my journey of this sabbatical is deconstructing stereotypes.  That happened to me last year when Mike and I traveled to China.  Perhaps it is the result of traveling with both eyes wide open.

This fellow was waiting for me at Houston International Airport.  Houston is of course one of the main NASA centers and I guess the cow is the representative of Texas. The cow looked tome like she belonged in a dairy herd in beautiful Whatcom County.  A Holstein in space????  This made me smile and made Houston seem more approachable.

I am excited to post more about my work and look forward to writing soon.

Thanks for reading.

Immigration and Inspiration!

I have been preparing for our Immigration Justice experience.  I am reading Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal by Aviva Chomsky: Beacon Press, 2014.  It is opening my eyes to the differential treatment Mexicans have received in our country.

Democracy Now! interviewed Dr. Chomsky in May of 2014.  I just viewed the interview and it is worth seeing if you are curious about her work.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/30/how_immigration_became_illegal_aviva_chomsky

Frankly I am shocked by the history of immigration policies and how they evolved.  Just today I heard on the radio that the US House of Representatives voted to overturn a number of immigration reforms recently proposed by the President.  Proposals that would have assured greater safety and security for workers and their families who are already in the country contributing to our economy.  The United States has created a new criminal class, illegal workers, mostly Mexicans, who are either deported or detained in the prison-industrial complex (aka Detention Centers) that have been built by for-profit systems.  We have one in Tacoma Washington, that has received a lot of press and now is getting scrutinized by our elected officials.   It is incredibly unjust in  my opinion.  I look forward to learning more from the book in preparation for visiting the border.  In her interview Dr. Chomsky was asked what surprised her as she was writing the book.  She states that the surprise came before she began the book when she took a group of students to the Mexican border and interviewed deportees about their experiences.  She had been studying and writing about immigration for years but had never visited the border until 2010.  I wonder what the impact of my border experience will be for me and the group I will be going with?  I am guessing I will no longer be able to intellectualize the immigration issue and that I will be even more skeptical about the current policies than I am today.

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Yesterday I had a lovely visit with one of my colleagues.  Diane Smith is a fairly new faculty member at WSU Extension and is based in Skagit County.  We had a little pre-trip catching up to do and after our meeting we visited the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum.  It was the opening reception for the new shows.  We were so honored to see work by Larkin Van Horn and Freddy Moran.  Larkin's show was stunning!  It was three years in the making.  Entitled, Night Thoughts, it evolved out of journaling she did right as she was drifting into sleep.  There are several themes that emerged and I urge you to visit the Museum if you are close or are traveling through.

Here is the link to the museum:

http://www.laconnerquilts.org/

Larkin was gracious enough to let me share photos of two of the pieces that related to the themes of my sabbatical:  Letting Go and Reinvigorated.

Letting Go by Larkin Jean Van Horn

Reinvigorated by Larkin Jean Van Horn

You can find more examples of her work at http://www.larkinart.com/.  Photos do not do full justice to the beauty of these pieces and others but you get the idea!  For me the inspiration is the universality of themes and the renewal I am receiving as I practice letting go.

Thanks for reading.

Challenges

I had startling and very sad news last night from my friends.  There was a multiple shooting over the weekend in Moscow, Idaho.  My friend Marilyn's brother, David Trail, was one of the victims.  My friend Laura wrote me that another victim, the shooter's mother, was friends with her husband Paul. Another innocent person also died, a manager at Arby's.  The shooter had at least 5 guns in his possession.  I am stunned and saddened.  Anytime I hear news of senseless death it upsets me.  The recent shootings in France also stimulated many feelings in me.  Many of you know my daughter Kate died in 2002 from sudden meningitis and the resulting encephalitis.  I have become friends with the grief process over the years and it becomes easier to recognize and flow with but it does not get much less intense.  Last night I lay awake thinking of Marilyn and her family and of the Moscow community where I have stayed many times.   I wish them peace and love.  I believe that we all share in these tragedies because we are connected and I worry for our world that so many think violence will solve problems on personal, family, community and society levels.

I write about this today because not only am I sad about this incident and all the senseless and destructive violence, but because I am thinking of the trip Mike and I will take into the Sonoran Desert with our Border Links/Immigration Justice experience. I know we will walk through the desert and see graves, possibly bones and other artifacts left by people trying to get into this country, to get to a better life for themselves and their loved ones.  It will be one of the hardest things I have to do on this sabbatical, to bear witness to the senseless destruction that immigration policies and world economic policies create.  And yet it is my task - to understand immigration and how it works currently (or does not work) and how it worked previously.  I hope and pray there will be some good news on this journey.  This morning it seems bleak because I am mourning with my friends and the people in and around Moscow.

Last night I spent some time finishing a quilt that I am donating to the Lydia Place auction.  (www.lydiaplace.org).  I am the past president of the board this year and my involvement is very rewarding.  I am grateful that my sister Betsy quilted the piece on her machine.  I was grateful to be able to have this wonderful quilt with a very happy pattern and soft flannel backing to finish and to know that someone will buy it and it will be source of warmth and comfort.  It was a source of warmth and comfort to me as I was working on it last night.  It helped mitigate the anger and the sadness I was feeling after hearing the shocking news.  This morning it has helped me to write about what happened and to express my feelings.  I was stuck as I sat down to write and found that the only thing I could write about to begin today's entry was the shootings.  I imagine that this blog may also be the way I make sense of what I see on the trip.  It was a good lesson.

I am posting a picture of the quilt. I call it Enchanted, named after the block pattern.

Thanks for reading.

Taking time to look around

One of the gifts this sabbatical brings is the gift of time.  I was reminded of that this morning in my yoga class.  My teacher, Susan, kept reminding us that we needed to practice letting go in order to allow new things into our lives.  I think that is what having time that is not dedicated to program administration and leadership will bring to me.  I am going to be using my phone/camera to record some of the things we see on the trip.  I practice noticing the world around me by taking pictures of what I see while walking around Bellingham with my dogs and with friends.  I live in a beautiful city that is filled with unexpected art.  I am often pleased by what I find and return to visit the places that inspire me to think about my life in metaphorical and realistic terms.  I am sharing some of these photos today as a reminder to myself that beauty surrounds us if we look for it.

The first set of photos are taken at a small breakfast place in the more industrial part of my neighborhood.  Each time I walk down to see Velveeta Jones (yes, that is the name of the chicken at the Home Skillet restaurant) I see something new and I walk away with a smile and a lighter step.

One of the things I want to ask myself as I visit Arizona and California and some of the places we will go to look at immigration issues is where can people go to smile and enjoy being alive?  I know not everything will be easy and fun either so I will want to capture the hard places too.  I know I will be visiting the actual border between Mexico and the United States near Nogales AZ and we will walk the border as part of our Immigration Justice journey.  I expect to see graves and lost parts of peoples lives and shed tears.  Where will the beauty and the hope be for me?  Time will tell.

A friend and I walk regularly in her neighborhood in Bellingham and I am always inspired by the garden art.  I thought I would post two photos today from that garden.

This garden always asks me the question, "How do I see the world?"  "What lens do I use to make sense of the world or to add beauty to life around me? " This garden is never the same.  I will think of it as I travel and consider the frames in which the people I encounter see the world.

I think I will start to write about the trip we are planning in the next blog.

Thanks for reading.

Drew

Unplugging

Today was a significant day for me.  I went to the office and filled a large, large bin full of old papers.  I made space for my colleague Tori who will be using the office while I am gone.

As I have been preparing for this sabbatical I have known that I need to unplug from the deluge of e-mail that comes through my WSU account every day.  I have faced that thought with a fair bit of trepidation.  I really enjoy e-mail.  I also know how much time it takes.  I felt like I was losing a friend (my inanimate e-mail) at first and then like I was losing many friends (my dear colleagues with whom I enjoy working with at a distance).  I got over that soon enough and realized that it was a privilege to give myself the space to do something new and different.

So, today I left an out of office message on my phone after a few unsuccessful tries.  I put the "on sabbatical" automatic response on my WSU account and then I went off-line for mail on that account on all three of my mobile devices - my laptop, my iPad and my iPhone.  Wow!  It takes a lot to disconnect.  Of course I still have this blog and I have a FB account and a personal e-mail or two (and text messaging).  I am going to have fun disconnecting with the plethora of e-ads I receive from LL Bean, Lands End, Nordstrom etc.  Part of the learning in the first week of this sabbatical leave will be the simplification of my electronic life!  I have already decided NOT to post news of the sabbatical on FB and hope that some folks will subscribe to this humble blog.

So the web will be less complicated for awhile but still there and when I do take a pause to check that account I will be grateful that I am not plugged in full time.

Cheers!

Happy New Year

Mike and I spent a lovely few days at Eliot Institute at Seabeck Conference Center.  Our theme speaker was Jack Gladstone, a troubadour from the Blackfoot Indian Nation who sang, told stories, and gently reminded us of how life for Native people has changed since the Doctrine of Discovery became the law of the land.  He linked his stories and music with the art of Charles Russell.  It was inspirational and educational.  He ended with his own words: "The purest gift is not of gold. But in the art that awakens the soul."  I am thinking of how much easier it has been for immigrants from European countries to come to this country than it has been for people of color.  I am pondering the forced immigration of the Africans and the now- prohibited immigration of Mexican farm-workers and other Central Americans who come here for a better life.

I am about to turn off my daily/real time e-mail on my WSU account.  I know it is an essential part of my sabbatical and will post the message on Monday.  Of all the challenges and gifts my sabbatical brings, I think this may be life changing.  I have been really wrapped in e-mail for a long time.  It is part of my career at WSU and I pride myself on being a good communicator via e-mail.  Now I will let go for awhile and pay attention to other things.

I will post some pictures of my quilts as I go.  This one is based on one piece of Japanese yukata.  The central block in each square comes from the same piece.  The message to me is that there are many ways to see the world.   What do you see?

New Year's Blessings to you!