Tuesday, the storm came.
I never saw such turmoil 
on the sea--
dark water snarling at us
and grabbing whatever it could
in the white claws
of its waves.
                               from:  Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles
                                                        written by Shari Green
                                                        Pajama Press, Inc. 2016

    My older daughter spent her 21st birthday hunkering down in the midst of Tropical Storm Josephine. Winds reached a peak of 70 miles per hour (the mildest hurricane clocks in at 74), and we were scared. We don’t have hurricanes in Ohio.
    We have tornadoes, though, but that’s a topic for another day.
    Hurricanes are formed by a complicated mix of climate and weather variables. Warm waters are a key ingredient to fuel storms. And the Atlantic Ocean is at its warmest in September, after a summer full of warm/hot weather. But hurricanes are also influenced and steered by massive global trends, like el Nino and others, that are hard to predict. Temperature differences between the surface and the higher reaches of the atmosphere also play a role. 
    While predicting the number of hurricanes per season is more accurate than ever, what is much harder to predict is how fierce the winds will blow and how fast or slowly the storm will travel. Seems like, on average, storms are getting fiercer and slower (wetter). Scientists do not agree that this has reached “trend” status, though.
    Our climate is changing. Even those in the highest government office reluctantly admit that. Here’s a quote from 60 Minutes last Sunday (10/13/18): "But it [climate change] could very well go back. You know, we're talking about over a million ... years.” 
    But he won’t admit that any part of it is man-made. Even though NASA’s website says:
        Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1               show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree*: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.                                                                          https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/  
    The answer “from the top” is "You'd have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda.” (from the same 60 Minutes broadcast)                    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/14/politics/trump-60-minutes-interview/index.html 
    So I say, “What political agenda?” 
    Mobilizing FEMA to provide shelter, clean water, and rebuild destroyed power lines and infrastructure? Puerto Rico is still suffering from last year’s storm. Many parts of mainland US have not recovered yet, either.  
    Getting the government to provide more tax dollars to help people rebuild damaged property and damaged lives? So voters will support candidates who appear caring and helpful? 
    Supporting the coal industry with regulation roll-backs allowing more noxious pollutants into the air? The United Nations issued a “dire climate report last week urging a drastic reduction in carbon emissions and phasing out fossil fuels to limit catastrophic global warming.” 
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-climate-scientists-political-agenda-2612537150.html
    We’re at the tail-end of Hurricane Season. It runs from June 1 through November 30 each year.
    But we are not even at the beginning of being able to work together to solve this “huge” world problem.
    We need to stay in the Paris Agreement. We need to talk and write to our congressional legislators. We need to be our own advocates, and each other’s. 

                                         —-stay curious! (and actively involved)

Olivia would love my idea
and even if she didn’t
she’d be happy
I had one.
    from: Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess
    by: Shari Green
    Pajama Press, Inc., 2017
    2018 winner: Schneider Family Book Award 
         (“…honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.”—ALA)

       Where do ideas come from? It’s a question I’m often asked and one I regularly ask myself.
       Roseanne Cash, Johnny Cash’s daughter, thinks ideas are living entities. She quoted her friend Steven Pressfield in a 2014 interview with Krista Tippett on NPR's show On Being:        https://onbeing.org/programs/rosanne-cash-time-traveler/
       Roseanne says Pressfield “wrote a great book called The War of Art, and he has this great line in it. He says, ‘You have to show the 
Muse you're serious.’" She goes on to say that if your Muse knows you’re serious, she will send you ideas. 
      I think she’s onto something.
      Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic is inspirational. She describes an idea as a living being, a life-form of its own. She says ideas are out there looking for someone to give them substance. The form can be art, music, literature, or poetry, but the idea looks for the person. I think she’s also onto something. The idea can be straight-forward, complicated, profound, or unexpectedly universal. You can watch Elizabeth's interview with Krista Tippet here: https://onbeing.org/programs/elizabeth-gilbert-choosing-curiosity-over-fear/
      If Roseanne and Elizabeth are right (and most of the time I suspect they are) allowing an idea to find you takes a person with willing awareness. The awareness to see an idea in the first place and the willingness to entertain it.
     A third component, bravery, is probably the most important of all. Acting on an idea, giving it substance is the point on which all ideas pivot. Ideas are the instruments of change, after all.
     When I’m at my best, I like to think of myself as a person with willing awareness. If I keep my mind, my heart, my ears, and my eyes open, I’ll find those ideas floating around looking for me in many places:
    the news, mostly NPR
    frozen moments, a writer I know says to mine these from your childhood memories
    overheard stories/conversations, and ones I participate in, too
    kids’ comments, mine and not mine (the kids, not the comments!)
    historical events
    radio stories
    biographies
    books and magazines
    dreams, on those few occasions when I remember them. 
Much ends up here in this blog. 
      I keep paper handy so I can remember the ones I hope will be good ones. Not all of them are. Some are pesky. Some nag. A few come to life. 
      Mom used to say, “Keep your eyes peeled.” 
      Gram used to say, “Put your eyes in your hands and look.”
      Other people say, “You find what you expect to find.” 
      They’re all right. Roseanne and Elizabeth, too. Some people are better at spotting ideas than others. Some people are better at receiving them. I expect ideas are out there. We look for each other and when we find each other, life gets more interesting. 
      Even the idea for *this* idea must have been out there looking for me. I’ve heard it before, but this time I listened, and acted.
                                                                  -—stay curious!