September 22 is International Organic Food Day. The date was selected to occur near World Peace Day and the fall equinox. In honor of the date I am reprinting a post I wrote as I meditated on what it means to seek out fruits and vegetables that have not been sprayed or treated with pesticides. – Jadi
I just made a salad for lunch that had a cornucopia. “Ooh! ‘Ow lovely!” you exclaim. I thought so too at first. Cornucopia conjures up autumn bounty.
The word makes me think of a table covered in baskets full of vegetables, bowls of late summer berries and fruits, and vases of showy fall blooms. Oxford Dictionaries define it thus: “A symbol of plenty consisting of a goat’s horn overflowing with flowers, fruit, and corn.”
Merriam-Webster goes Oxford one better, “a curved, hollow goat’s horn or similarly shaped receptacle (such as a horn-shaped basket) that is overflowing especially with fruit and vegetables (such as gourds, ears of corn, apples, and grapes) and that is used as a decorative motif emblematic of abundance — called also horn of plenty”. Vocabulary.com puts it in more simply. “A grocery store with a large selection of fruits and vegetables could be said to have a cornucopia of produce. A cornucopia is a lot of good stuff.”
A cornucopia salad must be tasty, right? Keep reading….
I often buy produce at a family store with greenhouses a few blocks away. She sells a large variety of lettuces and a sign claims they’re all ‘eigene ungespritzt’ or grown in-house without using sprays or pesticides.
I know from experience her salad greens need washing, and when I got home I set the lettuce in a bowl of water to soak. A few minutes later I returned to the kitchen to drain the water. I discovered a cornucopia floating on top of the bowl.
Three drowning slugs.
The sight got me curious about slugs and their particular animal family. Had I included them in my The Animal Kingdomblog thread already? In the course of research I discovered that in the Animal Kingdom a cornucopia is the British term for a family of slugs or snails. [1] I also read that most fresh water slugs and snails are hermaphroditic. Further, “[s]ome species regularly self-fertilise. Uniparental reproduction may also occur by apomixis, an asexual process.” [2]
I’m just glad I’d already eaten.
I’ll skip a photograph this time. But I can assure you: the salad was delicious.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out. Books make great gifts!
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
I first published this post almost a decade ago. I reprint it as a prayer for our world. —Jadi
The anniversary of 9/11 is here.
I was back in the States when the attack occurred. When I returned to Germany a few weeks later, I was in turmoil. I felt all the contradictions of my life. I’m a resident alien on another continent. I’ve been the target of instant hate when someone found out I’m American. This only has to happen once to convince you that prejudice is awful. What the hell was I doing so far away from my own country? What was going on in the world, and could anywhere feel safe? It seemed like everything was getting sucked into a swirling vortex. My identity as a US citizen, as a foreigner, as a human being, came crashing down.
A few months later my epidemiologist friend Elena came to Europe for a conference. I took an unplanned trip to Amsterdam with her. Maybe 2 days away would give me a break from how heavy life felt. Below is the account from those 2 days and how they affected me:
Friday planetary post, Schwedagon Pagoda, Yangon Burma
“I people-watch as we travel to Holland. On a German train near the border, the train car is full of local residents heading home. An African couple talk over their baby. Another young couple sit by me with their own child. The wife’s exquisite black scarf frames her face. Her husband reads from a small leather bound Koran. Both of them keep an eye on the baby carriage. The rest of the car is full with the usual students, professionals, commuters.
An old man goes into the WC. Later the door slides open without his realizing it. He stands helpless, then fumbles at the door. We all see the prosthetic leg strapped to his upper thigh. Everyone looks away. The door slides open again and he looks up, stricken. I rise and go to the door and close it. When the door inevitably opens again a few minutes later, the man with the Koran closes it for him.
A cell phone rings. The African man pulls out his phone and answers, then switches to English. I realize they’ve understood every word of the conversations Elena and I have been having about global health issues, world politics, and travel.
The woman in the headscarf looks at me steadily. When she finally catches my eye she holds me in a gaze of tenderness and our connectedness as human beings. We see one another for a few minutes, and then the train stops and they detrain.
The train reaches Amsterdam. I’ve been here before and always feel as if I’m coming home to an old friend. We walk along the canal streets, and brick building facades reflect in the Amstel as it flows under the bridges. The Egyptian bellhop at the hotel asks where we’re from. “I love this city! You meet people from all over the world,” he declares.
In 2 days Elena flies back to the US. Later that morning I stand waiting to catch the tram from our hotel. A dark-haired woman at the street bus stop carries a backpack. I offer her my tram pass; I won’t need it beyond the central train station. She thanks me, but says she’s heading home. She’s an Israeli airline stewardess, in Amsterdam for a few days’ holiday.
“I live in Tel Aviv, and I’m afraid to go out of my house,” she tells me. “Everyone is scared of more terrorist attacks there. The situation is out of control.” I listen to her and say, “The rest of the world says, ‘just make peace!’ If only it were so easy.”
Once I’m on board my train I read a Newsweek, then dive back into a novel. The quiet man next to me asks in English if this train stops at the Frankfurt airport. I offer him the magazine. We begin to talk: he is Iranian, in Germany for an international banking and finance conference. He lectures at the University of Cardiff. His wife is a dentist, he tells me. They live in Britain and go back to Iran, to their home in the northeast by the mountains at the Afghani border, each summer for vacation.
He lifts the suitcase at his feet and sets it on his lap. Opening it, he pulls out framed photographs of 2 smiling boys. “These are my children.” We discuss their names, their ages, their personalities. At the airport station he leaves for his flight, and I wish him a safe trip home.
The woman sitting across from us changes trains with me in Mannheim. We stand shivering in the evening air on the platform. She is a Dutch physical therapist, doing an apprenticeship in Munich. She asks what I think of Holland. We talk about the coffee shops. I mention the small scale that guides decision-making in her country. I give her my leftover Dutch coins and she buys the tram pass from me.
Late that night I finally arrive home. In the space of 48 hours I touched on what seemed to be the entire planet. And I didn’t learn the names of any of the people who talked to me.
Travel isn’t just seeing and exploring other countries and cultures or the threads that weave those peoples’ histories with the present. Travel is the journey we make every day into other people, other lives, other ways of being and thinking and feeling.
Travel is about the interconnectedness of us all. Each person with whom we interact leaves behind traces that can change the world. Travel is about holding onto hope.
A part of me remains in every place I’ve ever stood. My image was impressed in a snow angel I made up in the Arctic Circle, which vanished years ago. But who can say if some part of my spirit still wavers there like the Northern Lights? Or in my interactions with all those people on the trains between Stuttgart and Amsterdam? I don’t know…. but we should live as if every act matters, as if choosing to love and be open to the rest of the world and each other can transform us.”
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
I was interviewed recently by Adam Atkinson at North Country Now. He wrote a beautiful article. Click on the link to read about one of the most remote and serene places I’ve ever spent time in.
This is my last post of South African meals, because I’ve run out of photos…. If this subject thread hasn’t made you want to climb on a plane and head to restaurants in South Africa, you either eat at McDonald’s on a regular basis or had your taste buds excised.
carpaccio 3 ways: kudu, crocodile and beefeven the bread is freshly made and lovingly presentedmaster architects put these meals togetherIt was a wonder we didn’t lick our plates after every mealI remember the speckled item as an indescribably delicious puree of vegetable infused with seeds
For everyone else, the cooking in South Africa is beyond delicious! Uwe and I are still raving about the meals we ate every single night we were there!
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
We all have those special friends who make the world a brighter and better place. I first met Terri Bartell-Cafazzo way back in the 1970s when we were both college students. She’s always had boundless enthusiasm and a lot of energy. We’ve stayed in contact through all the years since, mostly with irregular emails and the annual Christmas card wrap-up. Along with treks and kayaking, teaching yoga and Zumba, Terri’s last Xmas letter mentioned that she cooks for a local women’s shelter in Prescott, Arizona.
On my last visit to the USA I was stunned by the tents and tents and tents and tents of the homeless EVERYWHERE I went on that trip. Programs to assist the needy had been gutted. And this doesn’t include the women trapped with their abusers thanks to COVID, or the job options they’d lost in the lockdown. I was beyond appalled. Clearly, people are suffering.
Then I remembered Terri’s letter. I asked if she’d let me interview her about the work she does at the shelter. She agreed, and I hope my readers will feel as inspired as I am by Terri’s work. We should try to be part of the solution.
What led you to cook for a shelter? I was introduced to providing meals for the local Women’s Shelter over a decade ago when the Prescott Unitarian Fellowship needed volunteers for their commitment to provide a dinner one day per month.
Providing a warm healthy dinner for women and children in need was a huge draw as I love to cook. I believe ‘you are what you eat’ so bringing heartfelt prepared food for individuals needing a sense of comfort in their life is exactly where I want to contribute to my community.
My continued involvement comes from a deep reward in the demonstrated appreciation from the residents of the shelter. I feel these women and children benefit in experiencing our contributions as positive role models in how community extends help to those who need it. That in itself is a strength which helps build the inner attributes needed to create a solid foundation in their lives.
How did you learn about the position? After becoming a round robin shelter meal volunteer through the Prescott Unitarian Church, it came to my attention that there were other days in the month when they had no coverage on a regular basis. I left the occasional Unitarian monthly date and became available for those holes in the meal schedule. I’m contacted at the end of the previous month about the dates and sign up for those that work in my schedule.
How great is the need for Women’s Shelters in your area? The need is great. We’re the only one of this kind providing temporary and emergency shelter in about a 100+ mile radius. First, women must apply. Once admitted to the program they’re given temporary overnight accommodations (4:00 pm-8:00 am) for 90 days with warm meals. They receive life skills resource case management to help them transition into a more permanent setting.
Did your interest tie in any way to the awful increase in homelessness in the USA? The increase in homelessness has grown. This shelter is a wonderful leg up to help women and their families move into a better lifestyle. Helping make our local communities a better place to live is the seed that it takes to grow a greater world. It starts in our own backyards.
In Prescott, many of these women and their children find themselves on the street or living in their cars for various reasons: lack of funds or job, physical &/or mental health issues, unforeseen life changes, domestic challenges, etc.
How many women can the shelter support? The shelter has a dormitory with cots and bunk beds including bedding for 19. Also, they have an annex for women who have young boys 12 years old or older. This organization opened February 2009, serving over 3,000 women and children, providing more than 105,000 bednights with an 81% transition rate to permanent homes.
Is the shelter funded privately or through donations? The Prescott Women’s Shelter is a non-profit backed by United Way, and many significant corporate and private donors with countless individual/local charitable contributors. Local realtors have stepped up to assist in helping find affordable housing for the women in the program.
Who owns the property? I’m not sure how the property is held in title. It has an active Board of Directors with an amazing committed paid and volunteer staff. It’s in a well-kept residential home that has been greatly remodeled to meet the needs of a shelter. During COVID, a variety of landlords donated the use of their rental homes to help create necessary separation while the shelter’s organization continued to serve our women and children. During that time, as Meal Providers we brought sealed store-prepared foods at a greater expense, dropped them off on the doorstep, and left after ringing the doorbell to alert the women the meals had arrived.
Do you have to work in secrecy? Women’s shelters are often at undisclosed addresses to protect women from their abusers. Discretion is key but there is a Facebook page and website with its location and services. It takes a cast of 1,000 to make this place happen on a daily basis so it is no secret. Men aren’t allowed in the facility without special clearance. Security measures are in place.
How often do you cook for them? I fill in the dinner schedule anywhere from 1-3x per month. Menus are affordable, balanced, and baked/presented in something recyclable/disposable so we don’t have to chase after our kitchen ware. We prepare food in our personal kitchens; this gives us the liberty of designing a menu, shopping and purchasing out of our own pocket for 20+ people. Meals are delivered by 5:30 pm that day. Since they don’t have onsite cooking facilities for liability reasons, everything has to be brought through the door ready-to-serve. We are considered an invaluable large portion of their services.
What do you cook? I try to share a main entree, salad, fruit, and dessert. Italian and Mexican cuisines seem to be what many Meal Providers bring. I like to mix it up in the summer with hoagie sandwiches, chips, pickles, coleslaw, jugs of apple juice, a clearance sheet cake from the bakery and watermelon when they are in season. Let’s not forget Swedish meatballs/pasta, Hungarian goulash, and sweet-n-sour Chinese stir-fry/rice. For a fun Saturday party splurge, I’ll make chili cheese fries with everything on them!! Watch out for the holidays as I like to add special napkins and seasonal favors. My list goes on…
How is the food donated? At times, friends have handed me a grocery gift card they won in a raffle. I’ve been gifted a giant bag of extra veggies from someone’s freezer. After a big potluck, people load me up with food to share with the shelter. I talked Walmart into gifting a sliced ham one year when I was in charge of Easter Dinner at the shelter!
Is your work connected in any way to a food bank? Most Meal Providers come from churches and philanthropic organizations. They bring meals from their own cupboards. Storage is paramount for my contributions. I have an extra refrigerator/freezer and shelf unit for can/dry goods in my garage that I’ve devoted just for the shelter meals. I purchase when I can get the best deals or buy something on clearance. It’s so worth it seeing the transparent looks of awe on so many of their troubled faces when these great smells and volumes of food come pouring onto the big community table. It noticeably makes their day a little brighter. You’re showered in songs of sincere ‘thank-you’ and ‘bless you’ as you leave through the door.
I can’t think of a better way to spend part of my time in retirement.
PS:Terri also taught classes at Yavapai College. She was recently honored at a catered gala for her 15 years of service!
Click here to read my post Food Bank about Food For Lane County [FFLC] in Eugene, Oregon.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
A brand new literary magazine has begun: Epistemic Literary. You can read an excerpt from my newly finished novel The Taste of Your Name, Food is Love, in their first issue.
I’m honored my work was chosen to appear in this magazine. It’s free, and a labor of love. I hope you’ll all subscribe and support the work of Kristin Houlihan & Melissa Rotert.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).
The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Peter Benenson was born Peter James Henry Solomon on July 31, 1921 in London, England. Poet WH Auden was his private tutor as a boy. Benenson was a cryptographer during WWII and later worked as a lawyer.
He founded Amnesty International in 1961. Here, in his article The Forgotten Prisoners are the grounds for creating the NGO: “Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a story from somewhere of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government… The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, something effective could be done.”
To that end, AI supporters write letters and focus public opinion on governments to stop repression, torture, and the denial of human rights.
Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 and the UN’s Prize in the Field of Human Rights the following year. Beneson refused all personal honours; his family convinced him to accept the Pride of Britain Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001.
More than 10,000,000 members around the globe work for “a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments.” In his honor and that of prisoners of politics, religion, or conscience all around the world I am reprinting a post I wrote visiting the surreal North Korean pavilion at the 2010 World Expo held in Shanghai, China. – Jadi
We were heading to China, and the World Expo was taking place in Shanghai that year. Oh man, did I ever want to go. When I was a kid, my family made the trip to the World’s Fair in New York City. I still remember the excitement of the Space Park, the talking, moving Lincoln robot statue in the Illinois Pavilion, and the Bel-Gem Brussels waffles smothered in strawberries and whipped cream that we all ate for the first time. [1]
Expo in Shanghai! Surely we had to see it. But there was just one teeny problem: all the on-line sources for tickets had been sold out for months. I wrote my friend Weiyu in Beijing and asked her, could she get us tickets? She checked in the capitol… all the ticket options there were sold out, too! But, ever resourceful, she called in a favor from a friend who lived in Shanghai, and he managed to secure two tickets for the time period we’d be visiting.
With passports in hand (your passport allowed you to skip the unbelievably long lines in front of most of the pavilions and enter your country’s VIP door), we headed out early in the morning.
That Expo was terrific. Some countries had put incredible thought and creativity into their presentations. And visiting Expo was a way to glimpse certain countries in places that I feel pretty sure I’ll never visit in real life.
Like North Korea. North Korea is shrouded in permanent mystery. I don’t know if their pavilion at the Shanghai Expo cleared up many of the mists, but it was an eye-opener in other ways.
I had no idea that Jeff Koons designed their central fountain, for instance. [2] Frolicking naked cherubs (minus the wings) showed off their muscular buttocks. They held hands in a circle as they released a bird. Cherubs and bird all gazed up into the heavens…. I have a funny bone that gets amused by kitsch, and from the second I saw that fountain my funny bone began to tickle. I started laughing and couldn’t stop.
The colored lights were an especially thoughtful finishing touch
The selection of literature for sale was slim on choice but heavy on message. Who can forget that classic of North Korean literature, “The Immortal Woman Revolutionary”?
Who doesn’t know and love The Immortal Woman Revolutionary
The dour saleswoman didn’t crack a smile. Maybe humor doesn’t translate as easily as I’d hoped. Or maybe she knew there’s nothing in North Korea to laugh about.
In memory of Peter Benenson, 31 July 1921 – 25 February 2005
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
A few months ago I submitted The Trail Back Out for a book award. The San Francisco Book Festival and its affiliated book festivals have been around since 1999 – the cost to enter wasn’t outrageous – and my book had already placed for five other book awards.
There was one major drawback. The festival doesn’t have a category for short story collections. I had to submit my book as General Fiction, and that meant it was up against novels, romances, mysteries, chick lit, thrillers,
and pretty much everyone else….
Imagine my shock when The Trail Back Out WON. I was named WINNER in General Fiction!
I wrote the festival administrators, asking for information about the honor my book had just received. They don’t give out figures on the number of entrants, but did tell me that fewer than 5% of the books considered ever place in their festivals. I did the math and figure The Trail Back Out was chosen as the best book in a field of more than 600 books.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).
The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
The brilliant Robin Williams was born on July 21, 1951 in Chicago. In honor of his birthday and his incredible gifts, here is my original post written at the news of his death. – Jadi
Feste the Fool: “This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.” —Shakespeare King Lear, Act III, Scene 4
Robin Williams is dead. He killed himself.
Both of these statements shock and sadden me. Put together, they are almost unbearable. Since his passing the nights have been cold indeed, and it’s taken days to reach a place where I can try to write about him.
Caren Miosga is an anchor for the major evening news program in Germany, and German journalism is a serious business. Caren reported the news of his death, barefoot and standing on top of her news desk. “O Captain! My Captain!” she recited from there. There is no more fitting way to salute him.
I remember when he burst onto the world stage. He was incredibly funny, his wit like lightening. His brain and mouth moved so fast that it still takes repeat viewing (and listening) to catch up to him. And even then you wonder how he could improvise like that. He would recite Shakespeare – and play all the roles himself.
A good word to describe him is irrepressible. Robin seemed impossible to hold back, stop, or control. And he embodied the next meaning of the word: very lively and cheerful. But like all clowns he knew the flip side of laughter is sadness. He was a fiercely observant social critic and he spoke about what he saw. As our greatest court jesters have always done, Robin told us the truth.
During the 1980s I lived in San Francisco, and I remember going with friends to the newly opened Hard Rock Café. As we sat there, a murmur rippled through the big room. Robin Williams, two women, and two very young children had just been seated for lunch. As the news spread, people stopped eating and turned in their chairs to stare.
Robin was a guy who’d simply come in for lunch, and looked uncomfortable with all the attention. But he signed autographs and smiled. I was struck by how youthful he looked, and how shy. He didn’t have a glamorous aura. I tried to figure out what was remarkable about how he looked. In the end, I was startled by a sense that he was terribly vulnerable.
And that is the secret to his magic. Robin Williams didn’t just make us laugh. He made us feel the absurdity of our prejudices and fears, and yes, our hopes and desires, too. He reminded us at all times of our humanity. He was searingly honest about his own short comings and dreams. He turned himself inside out with a candor and lovingkindness that made his humor a healing force.
Our world is a sadder place for his passing. It’s a better place for his having lived and shared his immense gifts with us.
He is already greatly missed.
In memory of Robin McLaurin Williams 21 July 1951 –11 August 2014
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Ah yes, more photos of our meals in South Africa last November.
all details edible and perfectly alignedeven the tiniest feathery bits are precisely placedanother dish almost too pretty to eat….if only these chefs made house callscould these BE any prettier??
“I intend that my last work shall be a cookbook composed of memories and desires.” ~ Alexander Dumas *
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.
Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
For everyone else, the cooking in South Africa is beyond delicious! Uwe and I are still raving about the meals we ate every single night we were there!
