ELDER POETRY INTERLUDE: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

By Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This is one of Thomas's last poems – an elegy to his dying father. I have never agreed with it – at least, not for me as a prescription for old age. I want to die in my time at peace with doing so. When it comes up for discussion, I am usually alone in this feeling.

Thomas didn't make it to old age. Born in Wales in 1914, he died at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City in 1953 at age 39. It is said that his last words, spoken at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village were, "I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's the record."

Here is Dylan Thomas himself reading Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Jacklynn Winmill-Lee: My Mom was NOT Old

Older Than My Old Man Now

EDITORIAL NOTES: If anyone has been waiting for me to answer an email for more than three or four days, it is probably to do with spam filters at your end.

I have been getting a lot of returns of sent mail lately and my email provider tells me they are not blocking it. Sorry, but I've spent all the time I possibly can on this problem now.

It's been awhile since I last received a submission for Where Elders Blog, but there is now a new one from Karen Zaun Kennedy which you can see here. And here are instructions for submitting your own blogging/computer space.

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Peter Tibbles usually handles the music around this blog on Sundays, but I'm taking on this new album from Loudon Wainwright III, Older Than My Old Man Now, because it is entirely concerned with getting old.

The album interests me not so much for the music - although that's part of it, of course – but for my curiosity about how an artist who is a contemporary of mine, approaches “my” subject.

The answer is, with a lot of melancholy, mixed feelings and woe for everything that has gone wrong in his 65 years. It is deeply – and often literally - autobiographical, these 16 songs, wherein Wainwright covers family, marriage, divorce, kids, health, sex, regret, guilt, mortality, death and just plain getting old.

And he does it all with some sadness, a good deal of humor and an occasional bit of wisdom. The title tune, Older Than My Old Man Now, begins with a reading of words about his own life written by Wainwright's father, a respected columnist and editor at Life magazine.

♫ Loudon Wainwright III - Older Than My Old Man Now

There is a second recital of Loudon Wainwright, Jr.'s writing on his own a aging as the introduction to The Days That We Die.

Among the singers who accompany Wainwright on various tunes are all four of his kids, a current and a former wife and Ramblin' Jack Elliott who takes opposing verses on a lovely song, Double Lifetime.

Not all is serious and melancholy. My Meds is what you would expect – a humorous litany of the long list of prescription drugs some people our age are stuck with keeping track of.

And I Remember Sex is a duet with Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries) that is labeled “explicit.” Actually, the lyrics are both true and funny. Here's a sample:

I remember sex. That thing we used to do
Where you'd lay down and usually I'd lie on top of you
Sometimes you'd lie on top of me. We tried that out a bit
But it didn't work as well, I guess something just didn't fit

I remember sex. We had it at night
A few times in the morning and then after we would fight
And on special occasions when we'd had too much to drink
Once in a Morris Minor, a convertible, I think

Although no one would call me a fan of Loudon Wainwright III, I've enjoyed him from time to time over the years and I think he's done a nice a job here with a large number of the kinds of things we ruminate on as we reach the upper decades of life.

He has a darker view of his life and old age than I do but then, he's been writing autobiographical songs for nearly half a century so undoubtedly has better reminders of past events than I can dredge up.

The album is available in all the usual places. At Amazon, the CD costs (currently) about US$13. You can download it as MP3s for only US$8.99 (or 99 cents per song) and with that you'll get an extra that is not on the disc, No Tomorrow.

I don't know for how long it will last, but as of yesterday afternoon, you can stream the entire album at the New Yorker website.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Lyn Burnstine: The Blue Schwinn Bicycle

What to Do With Your Ashes

If you would rather be buried in a casket, this post probably is not for you. But after Saturday's Interesting Stuff item about James Doohan's ashes being carried into space last week, I wondered about the ways people deal with ashes of loved ones.

Some urns, like my father's, are buried in cemeteries or mausoleums. Burial at sea or, at least, on water, is not uncommon these days. My mother was a member of the Neptune Society and we scattered her ashes off Marin County just under the Golden Gate Bridge.

My stepbrother Joe's sailing club friends took his ashes 30 miles out into the ocean from San Francisco near the Farallon Islands. In Joe's case, he loved the sea above most everything else. My mother (I suspect, but cannot be certain) was just being practical and she loved the San Francisco area.

Of course, ashes can be scattered on land too. If it's your property, no problem. If not, you need to check local regulations and get permissions.

Many years ago, a friend rented an apartment in Greenwich Village in which a box of human ashes sat on the fireplace mantle. I have forgotten the details, but a woman whose name was Charlotte had been murdered there many decades before and by deed, her ashes were required to remain with the house. (I don't know if that's true, but it's my general recollection.)

Remember last year when I told you about a book by Gail Rubin, A Good Goodbye, with lots of excellent information on planning funerals? In checking out information for this post, I ran across a recent article Gail wrote about the top ten things people can do with ashes (Oops. I think I'm supposed to say “cremated remains” but I draw the line at “cremains.”) Here is the abbreviated list:

1. Scatter on land
2. Scatter on sea
3. Scatter by air
4. Bury in a cemetery
5. Bury at home
6. Keep an urn at home
7. Place in a columbarium
8. Share with family
9. Create a reef
10. Build a monument

Of the last idea, Gail writes,

“Pros: Speaking of mixing cremated remains in concrete, why not make a monument? You can set it up on your property, or even make it a centerpiece at family reunions!

“Cons: Some family members may not be amused.”

No kidding. You can read what Gail has to say about all ten options here.

A trip around the web led to hundreds, if not thousands, of styles of urns including this one that left me speechless:

“Now we can create a custom cremation urn for ashes in the image of your loved one or favorite celebrity or hero, even President Obama!

“...Personal urns can have hair added digitaly [sic] for short haired people, as in the sample of President Obama.”

Do you think the president knows about this? Like I said, I'm speechless.

There is, apparently, a growing trend toward wearing dead relatives as diamonds made from their ashes. The diamonds can be quite pricey ranging from about $4,000 to $25,000 depending on color and size.

As to the purpose, as one company explains, diamond pendants or other jewelry are “a way to embrace your loved one's memory day by day.”

Uh-huh. I can hear it now: “Why, Jane, what lovely earrings. Are they new?”

“Yes, they're my late husband, George.”

“Oh, what a lovely gift.”

“No, they ARE George.”

Even if your loved one prefers burial to cremation, you can still wear him or her as jewelry. At least one ashes-to-diamonds company will make a gem from a lock of a loved one's hair.

I have definitely opted for cremation and have long made arrangements with a young friend to scatter my ashes in what I consider my real home, New York City - specifically along Bleecker Street between 6th and 7th Avenues saving a little to leave in front of my long-time home on nearby Bedford Street.

What about you?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Mary B Summerlin: Best Laid Plans

Welcome to Summer

Well, for friends in Australia, New Zealand and other places in the southern hemisphere, it's the beginning of winter. Nevertheless, where I live, today – Memorial Day – is the unofficial beginning of the summer season.

It's a three-day weekend in the United States and with all the family gatherings, backyard barbecues, beer and all, I wonder if sometimes we don't pay enough attention to what this holiday is for.

On Friday, Vice President Joe Biden spoke to a group of Gold Star Families - those who have lost a loved one in war. Poor ol' Joe is often chastised for speaking out of turn, of putting his foot in his mouth, of being a reliable gaffe machine. But not on this day.

Biden's extraordinary speech, in the words of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, was "raw and emotional" and, I would add, personal and wrenching and true and good.

As far as I can find online on Saturday (when I am writing this), Maddow's show is the only place where Biden's speech was broadcast in full, if at all. Please watch. It's only about five minutes and you will be glad you did.

This video is also posted at The Elder Storytelling Place. The publication of daily stories from contributors will return there tomorrow.

ELDER MUSIC: Telemann

This Sunday Elder Music column was launched in December of 2008. By May of the following year, one commenter, Peter Tibbles, had added so much knowledge and value to my poor attempts at musical presentations that I asked him to take over the column. He's been here each week ever since delighting us with his astonishing grasp of just about everything musical, his humor and sense of fun. You can read Peter's bio here and find links to all his columns here.

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GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN would have been the most famous composer of his era except for a certain Mr Handel who was hanging around at the time. This didn't worry Georg as they were really good friends, and besides he was raking in the money as well.

Also around then was Johann Sebastian Bach. He was also a friend of Georg's. So much so that Georg was godfather to at least one of Johann's sons. Indeed, at the time he has considered a superior composer to Bach. Time has put paid to that notion but he's still pretty good.

Georg was a self-taught musician, teaching himself to play the violin, flute, zither and various keyboards by the age of 10. You don't hear the zither much these days, not since Anton Karas left the scene.

Georg later taught himself flute, oboe, chalumeau (no, I didn't know what it was either; it's a forerunner of the clarinet), viola da gamba, double bass, and bass trombone.

Hmm, no mention of the bagpipes or the kazoo. Perhaps his friends suggested he eschew those instruments.

His family didn't approve of this music caper and insisted he enroll at university to study science and languages. While there, he formed the student Collegium Musicum and they gave many public concerts to great acclaim.

The family finally caved in to the inevitable. After graduating, he soon left town (Leipzig) as the music bigwigs disapproved of him because he was too good and showed them up. Besides he had used students in his concerts thus usurping the places of established musicians.

He got a job as Kapellmeister to Count Erdmann II in Sorau (now Zary, in Poland) but that didn't last long as the Swedish army invaded the place. The Swedes! They’ve changed a bit.

He eventually ended up in Hamburg where he remained for the rest of his life (apart from visits to Paris and Rome and elsewhere). The years spent in Hamburg were the most productive period of his life and boy, was he productive. It wasn't all plain sailing as the church condemned some of his operas for "inciting lasciviousness.” Nothing has changed.

He was offered the position of Thomaskantor (whatever that is) back in Leipzig but turned it down. The next person in line couldn't take it due to an existing contract so they had to make do with the third best candidate, J.S. Bach. You have to wonder about the folks selecting these positions.

The orchestral suite was Telemann's forte. Georg once claimed that he had written 600 of them. About a quarter of that number have survived that we know about, so maybe he wasn't fibbing.

Here is part of one of those, the second movement of his Suite for Viola Da Gamba in D Major.

♫ Telemann - Suite for Viola Da Gamba in D Maj (2)

Here is a cantata about a cat killing and eating a canary. Old Georg knew how to take on the serious topics of the day. The person who commissioned this work is long forgotten but I presume he was a pet lover. The pet being a cat rather than a canary, I imagine.

The baritone is the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the cello player is Irmgard Poppen, Dietrich's wife who died in childbirth in 1963. This is the Canary Cantata. I would have thought that he’d call it the Cat Cantata but what do I know?

♫Telemann - Canary Cantata

For a complete change of pace, here is a piece for a single instrument, the violin. It’s the Fantasia No 10 for Solo Violin.

♫ Telemann - Fantasia No 10 for Solo Violin

Georg’s personal life was a bit troubled to say the least. His first wife died only a few months after their marriage.

He married his second wife, Maria Textor, to gain citizenship so he could work for the Prince of Bayreuth. This marriage didn't work very well as she had a bunch of extramarital affairs and ran up a large gambling debt before leaving him. It can't have been all bad because they had nine kids.

Telemann's friends organized a collection to pay off her debts and keep him from bankruptcy. Maria outlived him and ended up in a convent in Frankfurt. Hmm.

Georg died at the age of 87 of some sort of a chest ailment and his position was filled by his godson C.P.E. Bach. Georg was one of the most prolific composers of all time with more than 3000 compositions that we know about.

He was a major link between the late baroque and early classical periods. Of importance too was that he published his own works, setting a precedent for regarding music as the intellectual property of the composer.

I’ll continue the violin music with the second movement of the Concerto for 3 Violins in F Major.

♫ Telemann - Concerto for 3 violins (2)

While in Paris, Georg wrote a number of quartets that these days are collectively called the Paris Quartets. Let’s play the first movement of Quartet No. 4 in B Minor, probably the most famous of them.

♫ Telemann - Quartet No. 4 (1)

Georg was quite fond of the overture; he wrote a bunch of them. To me, an overture suggests the beginning of something or other. He treated this form as another extended piece of music with several movements. Perhaps the overture concept changed over the years.

This one has eight movements which really wouldn’t leave room for anything to follow it. Here is the first movement from the Overture La Changeant. It was pretty radical at the time as each of its movements was in a different key. You won’t hear that though, as I’m only playing one of them.

♫ Telemann - Overture La Changeant (1)

And now another cantata. Like most composers around that time, Georg wrote a bunch of them. This is the first movement from Seele, lerne dich erkennen, a cantata for soprano, recorder, and basso continuo.  The soprano is Monika Mauch.

♫ Telemann - Cantata TWV1-1258 (1)

Georg also seemed to like the trumpet somewhat as he wrote quite a bit for this instrument but then, he wrote quite a bit for every instrument. I’ll finish with the third movement of the Sonata for Trumpet in D Major. It’s not a sonata as we know it today, it sounds more like a trumpet concerto to me.

♫ Telemann - Sonata for Trumpet (3)

INTERESTING STUFF – 26 May 2012

THE ULTIMATE BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY
When James Doolin who played Star Trek chief engineer, Scotty, died in 2005, his will specified his desire to have his ashes sent into space. Two attempts failed for various reasons.

Finally, last Tuesday,

”The unmanned Falcon 9 blasted off at 3:44 a.m. EDT (0744 GMT) from here at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying the Dragon capsule filled with cargo bound for the International Space Station.

“Also packed aboard the rocket was a secondary payload carrying remains from 308 people, including Doohan and Mercury program astronaut Gordon Cooper, according to ABC News and Reuters.”

Here is a video from NASA of the liftoff. Beautiful.

SENATOR POTTY-MOUTH ATTACKS ELDERS (AGAIN)
Surely you remember when former Wyoming senator and cat food commission co-chair Alan Simpson referred to Social Security as a “milk cow with 310 million tits,” among his other – uh – colorful descriptions of people he doesn't like, mostly old ones.

In April, he reacted to a flyer, produced by the California Alliance for Retired Americans, against his deficit reduction plan. From his letter to the organization on his official ex-senator stationery [pdf]:

”What a wretched group of seniors you must be to use the faces of the very young people that we are trying to save, while the 'greedy geezers' like you use them as a tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap. You must feel some sense of shame for shoveling this bullshit."

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) president and CEO, Max Richtman, issued, in part, this response [pdf]:

”I know this letter is likely an exercise in futility. However, I'm writing to you today with one simple request – please cease and desist with the mean-spirited, denigrating and hate-filled personal attack on America's seniors.

“Sure, some in the press still love the profanity laden poison-pen letters and insulting soundbites, but it only denigrates the serious policy work many honest and caring people on both sides perform each and every day...”

Former Senator Potty Mouth is the sort of elder who gives the rest of us a bad name.

A WONDERFUL QUEBEC POSTCARD
After her visit here in Oregon Norma, Peter Tibbles' assistant musicologist, moved on to the east coast of North America and sent me this postcard from Montreal:

The description on the card says: "Designed in 1999, this 5-story, 3-dimensional, trompe l'oeil painting tells the story of Quebec depicting the seasons and showing many famous quebecois artists and writers."

As I've indicated on these pages in the past, I love being fooled by all forms of optical illusion – most particularly, trompe l'oeil – so I tracked down more information about this wall painting online.

You can see larger photographs of it and close-ups of many details of the painting at the website of Cite Creation which has made many such paintings on buildings throughout the world.

And here is someone's short tourist video of the Quebec trompe l'oeil:

AN AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH MOI
Many months ago, my online friend Cynthia Friedlob interviewed me about “reinventing yourself” for her podcast, Experience Talks Online. If you're here before 8AM Pacific time today, you can read about the interview at the podcast website.

There is a link on that page to the Listen Page where the program will be available after 8AM or, here's the direct link to that page.

And look at this terrific bonus for readers of The Elder Storytelling Place. One of that blog's newest contributors, Lia Hirtz, is also interviewed on the show.

Thank you, Cynthia, for an interview that was a pleasure.

CONCERTS AT THE WHITE HOUSE
I think one of the coolest perks of being president of the United States is that you don't have to leave home to see the best musicians in the world. Pretty much anyone you ask shows up.

Obviously, it's an exclusive, invitation-only event when these performers appear at the White House but the videos, now posted regularly for the rest of us, are a good substitute. This is Stevie Wonder from the evening he was awarded the Gershwin Prize on 26 February 2009.

You can watch full concerts or selected performances at this White House website.

MOST AMAZING ACCEPTANCE SPEECH YOU'VE EVER SEEN
I ignore all sports so I had never heard of Sophie Gustafson until the Nikki, who blogs at From Where I Sit, sent this video to me last month.

Sophie is a professional golfer from Sweden who, earlier this year, was given a Ben Hogan Award from the Golf Writers Association of America. She also has a severe stutter which, in the past, kept her from doing media interviews.

This time, however, she taped the speech for playback at the award ceremony. It is a beautiful exercise in courage and an inspiration to others, particularly kids with her affliction.

RETIREMENT JOBS
In Needham, Massachusetts, there is a company called Vita Needle Factory. It employs a lot of old people – the median age of workers there is 74 and at least one is a centenarian.

”Vita Needle’s business model is based on a workforce of part-timers,” writes marketing expert Erin Read Ruddick. “That means elders and teenagers and everyone in between. The factory has workers born in almost every decade of the last century.

“At the North Hill program last week, you could see the obvious friendship and respect. And you could hear them laughing frequently, together, with humor that cut across the ages.”

The “program” Read refers to was the recent launch of a new book, Retirement on the Line, by anthropologist Caitrin Lynch based on her five-year study of “eldersourcing” at the Needham needle factory. Employing elders is a win-win for the company and the workers:

”Many of the workers told Prof. Lynch that outside of Vita Needle they are unrecognized or even invisible. Many old people feel that way. 'Old people just want to matter,' said Lynch.”

There needs to be a lot more of this kind of information about elder workers. You can read more here.

LEGENDARY VIDAL/MAILER FEUD ON CAVETT
I started my first job in television as a lowly production assistant at the late-night Dick Cavett Show in December 1971. During my first week of employment, I witnessed up-close-and-personal a program that would become infamous.

It involved an ongoing feud between writers Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer. Both men were booked on the show that night along with Janet Flanner, the well-known writer, under the pen-name Genet, of the Letter from Paris column that appeared in New Yorker magazine in those days.

You don't get that much intellectual star power on today's late night talk shows and it certainly was a high glitterati/literati moment. Or, rather, was supposed to be.

None of these people, including Cavett, was a shrinking violet and the program turned into a deliciously vicious exercise in high and low wit that I doubt has been achieved on a talk show since that night, 2 December 1971. Here is a short clip:

A few years ago, Cavett wrote about the show in his occasional New York Times column. It's worth a read.

BEAUTIFUL BRAND NEW KITTENS
Nothing to know here. Just watch their wonderfulness.

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Interesting Stuff is a weekly listing of short takes and links to web items that have caught my attention; some related to aging and some not, some useful and others just for fun.

You are all encouraged to submit items for inclusion. Just click “Contact” in the upper left corner of any Time Goes By page to send them. I'm sorry that I probably won't have time to acknowledge receipt and there is no guarantee of publication. But when I do include them, you will be credited and I will link to your blog if you have one.

How Spending Changes in Retirement

We were speaking of retirement earlier this week and when I ran across a news item I had saved, I decided why not go whole hog in one week on this topic.

According to a study by the Employee Research Benefit Institute (EBRI), overall spending drops on average by about 20 percent after retirement from a median of $39,945 annually in working households to $31,365 in retirement households.

EBRI found the only major expense that increases after retirement is healthcare. In the working, 50-64 age group, health expenses account for about 9 percent of income. After age 85, it has doubled which, of course, makes sense.

Here are the EBRI survey results and how I stack up with them in the other five major expense categories:

HOUSING is the single largest expense for people of all ages, says EBRI.

”Home-related expenses represent 47 percent of all costs for people ages 50 to 64, which declines to 44 percent between ages 65 and 74.”

I've never spent that much. With a mortgage, homeowners insurance and property taxes, I was spending about 25 percent of income on housing before I retired. I have no mortgage now but counting homeowners association dues, ever-increasing property taxes and insurance but much lower income, I spend about the same 25 percent on housing.

TRANSPORTATION costs drop dramatically in retirement especially without a commute – from 14 percent of income for 50-64 year olds to a low of 8 percent for those 85 and older. Couples often can get by with one car in retirement rather than two.

I hardly notice auto costs. Especially during winter when I don't stray far from my town, I fill up the car with gas about once every six weeks. With insurance and registration, I spend about four percent of income on auto-related expenses.

EBRI says the amount spent on FOOD AND CLOTHING doesn't change much in retirement – 12 percent and 3 percent respectively. I know that with dry cleaning and my shoe fetish I spent a lot more than 3 percent on clothes when I was working. Nowadays, 3 percent or less sounds about right.

Food, however, is where I indulge myself. I eat out about twice a week and cook all my other meals. In the past eight or ten years, my grocery costs have been down because I hardly ever eat meat, but fresh vegetables and fruit prices have skyrocketed just in the past two or three years. It evens out, maybe, with the fact that varieties of good fish can be found frequently for only four or five dollars a pound.

I don't know the percent of my income food and clothing account for, but I don't feel constrained in spending for what I need and I don't feel deprived of either.

Without giving a percentage, the EBRI study says that GIFTS AND DONATIONS increase a great deal with age – for indulging grandchildren and because people “may decide as they age that they don't need all that money.”

It's hard to believe that the $31,365 average income of retired households is “all that money” to anyone. During my last few years of employment when I was trying to pay off some high medical bills and then the interim years following when I was scrimping by until eligible for full Social Security, donations were out of the question.

Well, if you don't count the no-kill pet shelter for which I squeezed out money. Now, I can better do my part although I often wish I had more to give.

The EBRI study reports that the amount of money spent on ENTERTAINMENT stays the same in the first few years of retirement and then declines with further aging. It starts out, they report, at about 9 percent of income.

I think it all depends on what you count as entertainment.

”How retirees choose to fill their new-found hours of leisure time can make a big difference in their retirement security. 'They can either spend this time on activities around the house that reduce overall spending, such as doing more home repairs yourself, preparing more meals at home, doing your own cleaning rather than getting someone else to do the cleaning, and going out and looking for deals and smart spending opportunities, or they could spend this time traveling or entertaining - and that takes money,' says Rohwedder. 'It very much depends on what people do with their newly gained time.'"

Cooking at home, house cleaning and DIY projects may or may not fall into a given person's idea of entertainment. In my case, “going out and looking for deals and smart spending opportunities” is a fairly close definition of hell. Aside from food, I despise shopping.

Some of us have a wider definition of entertainment that these survey folks: books, magazines, movies, television, blogging, classes, volunteering, gardening, etc. Some of these cost money, some don't. I suspect entertainment costs vary widely depending on definition and from person to person.

So I wonder how spending has changed for you in retirement. And if you are not retired, how you expect it to change. You can read the full EBRI report here [pdf] or a shorter overview from U.S. News here.

ADMINISTRIVIA: Some readers who have emailed a message or information to me may be waiting for a response. Thanks to a vicious spam blocking service called Spamcop, my responses are sometimes returned to me because your ISP uses this service to try to keep spam to a minimum.

It doesn't matter that I don't send spam. If too many others on the same email service I use are spamming, everyone is blocked (forever or shorter, but no way to know which) and the “service” pretty well refuses to remove anyone unfairly blocked.

So if you've been expecting an answer from me and have not received it after three or four days, I've probably received a refusal to deliver from Spamcop. Sorry, but I do not have the patience to try to undo this – reports all over the web say it's nearly impossible, as does my email provider.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Lia Hirtz: To Belong