Category Archives: The Examined Life

The unexamined life is not worth living.

My life in healthcare information technology

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The most pleasurable thing in the world for me is to see something and then to translate how I see it.
– Ellsworth Kelly, American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

John, me, and Jack practicing our "author poses" for our book jackets, The Orange Grove, Syracuse University, May 1990.

John, me, and Jack practicing our “author poses” for our book jackets, The Orange Grove, Syracuse University, May 1990.

When I’m not blogging on weekends and weeknights, trying to work on my novel on vacation time, and being a mom, wife, chauffeur, cook, housekeeper, and errand runner, I write about healthcare information technology (IT). It is, as they say, my day job. I’ve been writing about this industry since 2003, when my good friend Jack from grad school co-founded his business-to-business publishing company and asked me to leverage my experience working for a major health insurance carrier to write about the IT that insurers deploy. I free-lanced for his company, interviewing and writing articles about an industry that was initially new to me, for the next seven years.In 2010, I joined the company, now a media company, full-time. The previous year I had worked on a big project for a major client of ours, writing numerous case studies and a lengthy executive summary. It was a baptism by fire, as I’d never done a project of this magnitude before and it was crossing from the familiar territory of editorial to the uncharted waters of marketing. We took on more projects of this nature, and I became the sole custom content writer for these special projects. I had moved over, as purists scornfully or jokingly say, to the “dark side.”

My company mugshot.

My company mugshot.

As journalists, your interviewees, PR people, marketers, and the like do not see what you’ve written until it’s published. The separation of church and state is protected and preserved. What I write, however, is edited, reviewed, and approved by as many as several departments. They are our customer, after all. On a high note, a well-known industry visionary from a major global company merely added one sentence to my white paper and told his marketing director that I was his new favorite writer. On a low note, I’ve had a client redline what I’ve written to the point of non-recognition – in other words, if I had a byline, it would have to be deleted because it was no longer mine. Sometimes, you just never know, which makes each project somewhat of a blank slate. It’s my way of living on the edge, professionally speaking.

Why healthcare IT is important to you and me
Pressure and uncertainty aside, I enjoy what I do. Healthcare IT is an important industry that touches everyone because we are all patients – most if not all of us have been in a hospital and gone to the doctor’s office. Two major pieces of legislation to come out of the Obama administration that impacts all of us is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), of 2010. Within ARRA is the HITECH Act, which essentially contains a number of incentive programs for the adoption of healthcare IT, especially electronic health records (EHRs) and health information exchange. ACA includes provisions that are more easily achieved through the adoption of healthcare IT, which is by design.

My company's back East, and I'm out West. I work at home, which enables me to wear such things as vegan leather pants at my office.

My company’s back East, and I’m out West. I work at home, which enables me to wear such things as vegan leather pants at my office.

I have seen the shift in both my primary care physician’s office and my kids’ pediatrician’s office from paper records to electronic records. Our pediatricians carry around their tablets and enjoy pulling up apps with their stylus pens. Gone are the shelves upon shelves of paper records in file folders. It is disruptive technology, for sure. EHRs were originally developed as a documentation tool so physicians could properly bill for the services they rendered in the traditional fee-for-service, or fee for volume, reimbursement world. Today, we are asking EHRs to document care, aggregate relevant patient information, and deliver the right information to the right clinician at the right time in order to improve the quality of care, clinical outcomes, and patient safety in a more streamlined, cost-effective manner. (We are also trying to shift to a pay-for-quality reimbursement model.) There are naysayers who want to eliminate EHRs and all healthcare IT because they are expensive, disrupt clinician workflow, create more work, and don’t do what they claim they will do. Privacy watchdogs warn of greater risk of data breaches. The technology has to continue to be re-engineered and vendors have to develop robust, reliable, and user-friendly technology (not just sell a bunch of software licenses that lock healthcare providers into long contracts with bad technology that clinicians don’t want to adopt). And policy has to continue to be refined so as to protect patient information.

A plum-colored sweater gets a boost with a Missoni scarf and bold Pam Hiran necklace (Anthropologie).

A plum-colored sweater gets a boost with a Missoni scarf and bold Pam Hiran necklace (Anthropologie).

We are getting there. It’s a painful growing process. Legislation was put into place to speed the inevitable. The healthcare industry is woefully behind, if you look at how the banking and financial services and retail industries have embraced technology. Consumers will demand it in healthcare. They are already demanding to communicate with their healthcare providers across various channels of their choice and wanting to interact in a way that is more convenient for them. According to the Pew Internet Project, 45 percent of American adults have smartphones. According to an industry survey, 53 percent of clinicians use smartphones and 47 percent use tablets in their healthcare work environment. Medical schools are incorporating healthcare IT into their curriculum. So, really, it’s only a matter of time before we achieve the same state of IT adoption that we enjoy in other industries. And it’s only a matter of time before you can be in another part of the country far from home, end up unconscious in the emergency room, and the physician who is treating you can pull up your EHR, see what medications you’re taking, what allergies you have, and what other health conditions you have, and therefore know what medications he or she can or cannot give you based on that critical information. That’s why I take pride in what I write. This is important stuff. Admittedly, some topics are more engaging than others. Vendor neutral archive, anyone? But my job is to make the topic engaging. My job is to entice healthcare executives, managers, and clinicians to read what I write. Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, a short story or chapter in a novel, or a blog or case study or white paper, I have one goal: To find the narrative and tell the story in a clear, concise, and engaging way.

I work at my home office, but I still dress up as a way to be disciplined and to take myself seriously while working.

I work at my home office, but I still dress up as a way to be disciplined and to take myself seriously while working.

Cocktail party topics
In my research, I learn so many things. For example, RAND Health reported that approximately 133 million Americans had a least one chronic illness in 2005, which is astounding to me. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, every year, chronic disease, which includes cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, causes 70 percent of deaths in the U.S. and comprises approximately 75 percent of medical care spend. Our healthcare costs comprised 17.9 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2012, and it’s expected to climb to 18.4 percent of GDP in 2017. And yet, up to 80 percent of chronic diseases can be prevented – mostly with lifestyle changes. The solution is both simple yet exceedingly difficult.Here are more interesting data. Did you know that persons aged 65 years or older numbered 39.6 million in 2009, which is 12.9 percent of the U.S. population or one in every eight Americans? By 2030, the number will grow to approximately 72.1 million older persons, or 19 percent of the population. The proportion of the global population over the age of 60 is projected to double from approximately 11 percent to 22 percent – from 605 million to 2 billion – between 2000 and 2050, according to the World Health Organization. Imagine the implications on our societies and economies to have countries with inverted pyramid populations?

Fun accessories complement the sequined birds.

Fun accessories complement the sequined birds.

In the U.S. we haven’t yet figured out how we are going to build a sustainable healthcare delivery system that will allow us to “age in place,” or grow old at home and not in an institutional setting. We have to look to other models in other countries. In Hong Kong, for example, instead of dispersing more funds to care for dependent citizens, the government is adding incentives to the same allocation of money if the patients’ functionality – which is the operative word – improves. We need to identify and support necessary enabling technologies to ensure a person’s maximum functionality so he or she can live productively within the community. Evidence exists that enabling an older person to stay at home saves money. Global aging, therefore, should be approached as both an opportunity for business and for improving the quality of life, rather than just a challenge or a burden, advocates argue. Now that’s exciting stuff to me, especially as I grow older.Writing about these challenges and paradigm shifts and potential technological solutions and visionary policies is an intellectual exercise for my brain. I’m learning so much; you could even call me a SME (subject matter expert), which is what I call my interviewees, in a number of topics. I have also had the opportunity to hone my presentation skills in webinars and before groups of healthcare professionals. Would I rather be writing novels and blogging? No doubt. But I’ve become a more thoughtful and careful writer and I have a better eye as an editor of my own writing through my industry writing through the years. I just need to clone me thrice to get everything done – something healthcare IT unfortunately can’t do. For that, we would have to turn to science fiction….

Have fun mixing black and white graphics. Throw in Carmela Rose vintage Lucite earrings, clear chunky bracelet etched with fun words from Anthropologie, MoMA 3D ring made of plastic (NYC), ruffled booties, skinny patent belt, and glossy red book bag from the Fickle Bag (Berkeley, CA).

Have fun mixing black and white graphics. Throw in Carmela Rose vintage Lucite earrings, clear chunky bracelet etched with fun words from Anthropologie, MoMA 3D ring made of plastic (NYC), ruffled booties, skinny patent belt, and glossy red book bag from the Fickle Bag (Berkeley, CA).

Celebrating the Monday Moms

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If you aren’t nurturing your self, what kind of mother can you be, anyway?
– Sandra Scofield, American novelist and essayist

When I was pregnant with my son in the spring of 2000, David and I signed up for a birthing class. We thought we were all set until a good friend of mine asked me if we were going to have a doula present for the birth. At the time, I had no idea what a doula was, let alone how to spell it, but instead of admitting ignorance I told my friend that we had decided against having a doula. And then when I went home after our lunch date, I quickly looked up the definition for doula, which is a labor coach. As all pregnant women discover, you are quickly inundated with both solicited and unsolicited advice. Natural birth/no drugs versus epidural, home versus hospital birth, vaginal versus Caesarean section delivery, disposable versus cloth diapers, bottle versus no bottle, mom’s milk versus formula, and the list goes on.

Six of us get together in the summer of 2003.

Six of us get together in the summer of 2003.

One piece of advice I took that I am still benefiting from is joining a mom’s group. In response to her experience as a first-time mother, Sherry Reinhardt founded Support Groups for Mothers in Berkeley in the late 1970s. As you prepare to welcome your new baby into the world, nobody tells you about the enormous life changes that leave you overwhelmed and isolated. You’re supposed to be overwhelmed with joy, not with exhaustion, uncertainty and ambivalence, and even sadness. I recalled a conversation I had with one of the moms, Stephanie, in my birthing class who was the first one in the group to deliver. We had been parked in our gliders, nursing our sons for what seemed like an eternity. My uniform of t-shirts and sweatpants never changed. We needed to get out of the house, and so we signed up for one of Sherry’s support groups.

Celebrating 10 years of the Monday Moms in 2010.

Celebrating 10 years of the Monday Moms in 2010.

We met at Sherry’s house for an hour, once a week on Monday afternoons for eight weeks. There were 10 of us. I remembered feeling intimidated – both by Sherry and some of the other moms, who had strong personalities and opinions to match. We talked through nursing issues, differed on vaccinations, and anguished over trying to get our babies to sleep through the night. One of the most ferocious fights David and I ever had was when I had to miserably listen to my son wail for what seemed like hours while David kept me from dashing out of bed and down the hallway to the nursery to rescue him. After three nights, my son began sleeping through the night. When our eight weeks were up, Sherry encouraged us to continue to get together regularly.

After a Sunday breakfast at Fat Apple's in Berkeley, December 2012.

After a Sunday breakfast at Fat Apple’s in Berkeley, December 2012.

And we did. We called ourselves the Monday Moms, though we met on a different day and took turns hosting the meetings each week. We created an eGroups account for group messages. We had potlucks for the entire families. The more adventurous and proactive in the group set up various activities such as trips to the Lawrence Hall of Science, the El Cerrito community pool, and Lake Anza. We swapped babysitting, so couples could go out to dinner without having to pay for a babysitter. We shared advice on daycare and preschools as some of us returned to full-time jobs outside of the house. We welcomed siblings into the mix.

Ready for Sunday breakfast with the Monday Moms, March 2013.

Ready for Sunday breakfast with the Monday Moms, March 2013.

When our kids entered kindergarten, we took a parenting support class with a licensed professional on Thursday evenings for six weeks. It was a huge change for the kids and us, and we had plenty to talk about in that class. I remember being very frustrated that my very well-behaved son was getting accolades in his kindergarten class but at home was throwing tantrums at will. Our facilitator explained that kids want to do well in their new, very structured surroundings because it’s expected of them. When they come home, however, they fall apart because they’ve expended their energy keeping it together all day. More importantly, they feel secure enough to act out, knowing that we love them unconditionally. While it was still difficult to deal with my son’s tantrums for the next few months, understanding the situation brought greater patience.

The horse t-shirt gets a polished look with a lace skirt, heeled booties, and a textured handbag.

The horse t-shirt gets a polished look with a lace skirt, heeled booties, and a textured handbag.

Along the way, we began to lose members of our tribe. After the first year, Marsha left. Her husband was on leave from his academic position at Brown University, so we knew they would be gone by the end of the year. It wasn’t a surprise, and yet it was still jarring to be minus one mom. And then Michelle moved to Colorado after finishing her doctoral program in developmental psychology and founded her own company based on a signing program for young children. Kate and her family moved to upstate New York, where their kids would be closer to both sets of grandparents. There were leaves of absences throughout the last 13 years – Fiona to New Jersey when her husband taught at Princeton for a year, Renu to India for a year where her husband’s company had a large office, and Sandy currently in Hong Kong for a second year where she’s teaching at an international school.

In 2010, we celebrated our first children’s 10th birthdays. We are entering our 13th year together, dealing with middle school, adolescence, assertions of independence. We’ve tried to meet monthly a few times the last several years – searching for that ideal day and time. The irony is that Marsha, whose in-laws live in Berkeley, is the person who gets us together when her family visits during the winter holidays and in the summer. We are trying again.

Carmela Rose vintage Lucite honeycomb earrings, vintage bracelet, Sundance stackable rings, and In God We Trust (NYC) ring.

Carmela Rose vintage Lucite honeycomb earrings, vintage bracelet, Sundance stackable rings, and In God We Trust (NYC) ring.

The thing about a mom’s groups is that you don’t choose who is in your group. It’s based on when your child is born, as it makes more sense to deal with developmental issues when the kids are the same age. We all have vastly different lives, live in different cities and our kids go to different schools, and our personalities and temperaments are varied. We started out as strangers having one thing in common – our first babies. Thirteen years later, I marvel at the bond we have formed, given the fact that we likely would not have gravitated to one another. Through the years, we have comforted one another over the deaths of our parents and our in-laws, and supported one of our moms who triumphed over cancer. The last time we got together, two Sunday mornings ago, instead of a free-for-all discussion, Mimi asked that we go around the table for a check-in, which was nice. It helped us to focus on one another and offer solicited advice. We are rapidly approaching those milestones – graduating to high school, graduating from high school, moving away to college. As scary as they are, there is a certain comfort in knowing that we have known each other since our kids were babies. That even as our kids have become less familiar with each other in the group and are growing up and onwards, we are still the Monday Moms.

Mixing textures again: horse t-shirt and lace skirt (Anthropologie), black booties, and Kate Spade textured handbag (Urbanity).

Mixing textures again: horse t-shirt and lace skirt (Anthropologie), black booties, and Kate Spade textured handbag (Urbanity).

Making A Place at the Table for everyone

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The one who moves a mountain, begins with removing small stones.
– Chinese proverb

My father lived through the Great Depression and in many ways he never outgrew some of the habits he had developed out of necessity during those lean years. He saved everything – repurposing envelopes from solicitations that came in the mail, washing and reusing Ziploc bags until they no longer closed, turning scraps of paper into scratch paper, and straining old cooking oil to use for frying the next meal, just to name a few things. He never wasted anything, especially food. Any leftover food on our plate, if we couldn’t be forced to finish it or didn’t push it off onto our father’s plate without my mother seeing, was fed to the dogs. My father tended a huge vegetable garden behind our house, and what vegetables he couldn’t fit in the freezer he gave away to relatives and friends in the neighborhood. My mother, her family, and her community in the mountainous Baguio City endured food shortages during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, and one of my mother’s siblings died of malnutrition during World War II.

I took a lot of photos of my father in his garden while taking a photography class in 1982.

I took a lot of photos of my father in his garden while taking a photography class in 1982.

My sisters and I got it from both sides – you will not waste food. Period. Their habits were ingrained in us. Except for reusing old oil, I picked up a lot of my father’s Depression-era practices. I really hate to throw out spoilt food (I should say that I hate letting food get to that state), regardless of the fact that we can now compost all food materials, not just vegetables and fruit. Trying to teach my kids to be grateful for the food on the table is difficult when they have never had to go without food, shelter, or clothing – and as parents, that is our goal. That is what my parents strove for – having their children never wanting for the basics. It reminded me of a post-interview conversation I had with a Latino executive for a SHPE Magazine (Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers) freelance assignment. He had related his experiences of being the only Latino in his first job at a corporation, save for the janitor who was cleaning the offices at night. He and his generation paved the way, faced all these obstacles, so that their children would not have to experience discrimination. The paradox that the first-generation immigrants inadvertently create, however, is that their children are far removed from and therefore cannot fully appreciate the struggles and the barriers that their parents and/or their grandparents endured and tore down, respectively.

Celebrating finishing the AIDS Walk in San Francisco, 1992.

Celebrating finishing the AIDS Walk in San Francisco, 1992.

Being thankful every meal
One tradition that we engage in before eating our dinner as a family is to acknowledge the cook, thanking mom or dad for making the meal. Now that they are both going through growth spurts, they are hungrier leading up to dinnertime and ask me every evening when I’m preparing the meal: “What’s for dinner?” Oftentimes, they are excited, telling me how much they love that dish, although my daughter is very finicky about her food. Lately, I feel as if they truly appreciate the fact that they eat flavorful, home-cooked meals and that we eat as a family about 95 percent of the time. That said, I still feel as if I could do more to drive home the point. (My idea of having my family serve Thanksgiving dinner to families in need has to wait until my daughter turns 12 in order to participate, according to a local food bank.)

A Place at the Table
Reading the Sunday paper two weekends ago, I came across an interview with Top Chef Judge (and Chef and owner of Craft restaurant in New York) Tom Colicchio, whose wife had co-produced and co-directed A Place at the Table, a documentary on hunger in America. The film was opening in Berkeley for one week only, and its engagement across the country is limited. I immediately knew what we as a family were going to be doing that Friday evening, so right after my son’s batting practice we hightailed it to the movie theater for the premiere. I was disappointed that there were no lines to see the show (we were at the second of three showings that night) and that the theater was maybe a fifth full, though the review in the Chronicle had just come out that morning.

I already knew many of the stats that the film presented. The already wealthy agribusiness industry reaps millions of dollars of subsidies for growing corn, soy, wheat, rice, and cotton, while social programs such as Women, Infant and Children (WIC) are vilified for being “welfare handouts.” The overabundance of corn and soy, which are found in most processed foods, make those packaged foods cheaper than healthful vegetables and fruit. This has created the paradox of obesity and hunger being prevalent in lower socio-economic communities. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my son two years ago as I drove him to his weekly physical therapy session at Children’s Hospital in Oakland. At a stoplight in one of the neighborhoods where a handful of men were hanging out in front of a convenience store, he stared out his window and asked me why poor people were fat, with the subtext being if they don’t have money to buy food they should be skinny. It was, as they say, a teachable moment for the both of us. I told him that poverty and obesity are complex issues but that they are inextricably linked, thanks to the prevalence of processed, packaged foods and the unavailability of healthful foods – either because the local stores simply don’t sell them or they are too expensive to buy.

The film addresses this issue time and again. In one particularly poignant scene, a fifth-grade teacher in a rural community in Colorado delivers bags of groceries from a food bank to families. As a child, she had experienced hunger or “food insecurity” – coined in 1996 by the World Health Organization and defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the state in which nutritious, safe food is unavailable or inaccessible. The teacher nonetheless struggles with the dilemma – and irony – of handing out food that, for the most part, is processed and therefore full of the bad kind of carbohydrates – starches and refined sugar. Her resolution: Processed food is better than no food.

My old company, Miller Freeman, participating in Christmas in April (now called Rebuilding Together SF) by fixing up a Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood home, 1993. That's me in the lighter blue baseball cap.

My old company, Miller Freeman, participating in Christmas in April (now called Rebuilding Together SF) by fixing up a Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood home, 1993. That’s me in the lighter blue baseball cap.

As I mentioned, many of the facts were well known to me. A few, however, were not, such as the behind-the-scenes negotiations for the Healthy Start Act, which was introduced to increase access to and participation in the School Breakfast Program when Congress was in the process of reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act. The National School Lunch Program is supported by the purchase of USDA commodities, which explains the kinds of food we parents see coming out of the school cafeterias – even my kids have no desire to eat school lunches. The nickel and diming of the so-called bipartisan legislation ended up amounting to something in the range of six cents extra per child. The documentary shows the triumphant authors of the bill, supported by kids waving plastic school lunch trays, hailing the new legislation and pointing out that no new taxes were implemented to fund the program. What you don’t know, and what is ubiquitous in all pieces of legislation in terms of funding, is that the six extra cents came at the expense of cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which was formerly the food stamp program. It’s another instance of irony in the film and a typical Congressional act of “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

I also didn’t know that Actor Jeff Bridges had founded an organization called End Hunger Network back in 1986 and has been working tirelessly with this issue since then. In the documentary, he declared, “If another country was doing this to our kids, we’d be at war.” Indeed. Bridges, as were many of the people interviewed, were passionate and well spoken, including the many faces of those living with food insecurity on a daily basis, but the person who really made an impact on me was a young single mother of two from Philadelphia named Barbie Izquierdo.

She brought up the well-known research on the benefits of families eating dinner together on a regular basis – kids do well in school and are less likely to be involved in substance abuse. The irony for her was that while she could sit at the table with her kids, there was no food on the table. She said, “I feel like America has this huge stigma of how families are supposed to eat together at a table, but they don’t talk about what it takes to get you there. Or what’s there when you’re actually at the table.” When she gets a job after a year of unemployment – working for a hunger coalition group – you rejoice with her, as she describes feeling important, visible, and literally having a spring in her step as a result of finally becoming employed. And then three months later, we find that she makes too much money to qualify for SNAP, and her kids are deprived of breakfast and lunch on a daily basis.

Feeding our kids should not be a bipartisan issue. As one federal official said in his testimony to a Congressional subcommittee, only one-quarter of young adults aged 19 to 24 are physically fit to join the military, which is a national security risk in the making and an issue that should compel hawks to address hunger and obesity in this country. Children who are deprived of food even for a short period of time during their early years are at risk for cognitive impairment and face a higher risk of myriad emotional and physical ailments, which ultimately impacts the ability of nation to be a global leader. The cost of hunger and food insecurity to the U.S. economy is $167 billion per year. What is infuriating and yet what provides great hope is that hunger is curable. It happened in the 1970s through federal programs, and we have the means to eradicate it today.

Captain (wearing the red t-shirt) of our company's Christmas in April crew in 1994.

Captain (wearing the red t-shirt) of our company’s Christmas in April crew in 1994.

As the film was winding down and I wondered how it would end – hopeful or depressing – at first I thought there’s no real silver bullet save for an overhaul of federal policy and legislation and an overhaul of our national perception of poverty. Those who want less government want faith-based and other organizations in the community to take up the cross, so helping local food banks seemed to be playing into that philosophy. Disrupting and changing policy seems insurmountable. I ended up being hopeful. As a spokesperson for the Witness to Hunger program, Barbie gave a speech that fittingly ended the film. The program, which provides a platform for low-income women to tell their stories, was founded by Mariana Chilton, a professor of public health at Drexel University. I found Barbie’s speech while researching the film for my blog, and I present it here:

“‘You are where you come from.’ It is a quote that is said very often, if your mother was a single mother you will be a single mother. If no one in your family was a high school graduate you will be the next one to follow in those footsteps. Have you ever been surrounded by the people you love, like your children, but feel completely alone? Have you ever been in a home with open doors but feel trapped? Have you ever been in a neighborhood with constant yelling, screaming, gunshots and fighting, but are so accustomed to it that it puts you to sleep? I know what it’s like to have your children look at you in your eyes and tell you that they’re hungry and you have to try to force them to go to sleep as if they did something wrong.

Take time and learn a little from each of us because you never know where tomorrow can take you. Remember us. Remember people like us that are here in the United States that need help that are not receiving it adequately. If we switched lives for a week could you handle the stress? If we switched salaries for a month will you be able to live and still keep your pride? Are you aware of my hope and my determination? Are you aware of my dreams and my struggle? Are you aware of my ambition and motivation? Are you aware that I exist? My name is Barbara Izquierdo and I do exist.”

Celebrating the end of the 60-mile Tour de Cure ride along the rolling hills of Napa with friends, David, and my cousin, Janet, May 1997.

Celebrating the end of the 60-mile Tour de Cure ride along the rolling hills of Napa with friends, David, and my cousin, Janet, May 1997.

A Call to action
When the film credits rolled, I turned to my daughter, whose eyes were glassy and red. The film made her feel sad. I told her it was an opportunity to feel empowered and a call to action. When we got home and the kids went to bed, I looked up what we, as individuals, families, and communities can do, and there are a lot of things to do. A Place at the Table’s website leads people to many avenues of activism. At the grassroots level, we can look to Ample Harvest‘s core mission of leaving no food behind. Ample Harvest connects home and community gardeners with local food pantries, so extra harvests can be donated and consumed, rather than thrown away or used as compost.

Share Our Strength‘s Bake Sale for No Kid Hungry is a project to help individuals, companies, and organizations to host bake sales in their communities, with the proceeds going towards ending childhood hunger. Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry 2 Action Center is an online resource center geared for young people who want to address childhood hunger issues in their communities. The center provides tools to help young people, parents, and teachers to lead volunteer and advocacy efforts to raise awareness and find solutions.

At lunch the next day, we talked about what we could do in our schools and communities. I can’t say that my kids will run with any of my suggestions or theirs – my daughter wants to grow a garden and share the produce – once the passion runs its course and we get back on that hamster wheel that defines our daily lives. But I feel as if we have already started down that path of understanding, which is the necessary foundation for action. Part of living the creative life, and part of being a writer, is to try to understand the human condition and to uplift it with the gifts that were given to us and to do so in the best way that we can.

Get involved, however small or big, with an open heart.

Getting involved in school: Setting up and then chairing my kids' after-school enrichment program, which brought chess, flamenco, gardening, guitar, Shakespeare for Kids, and junior detective and archeologist classes to our kids.

Getting involved in school: setting up and then chairing the after-school enrichment program at my kids’ elementary school (2005-2012). The program brought chess, flamenco, gardening, guitar, Shakespeare for Kids, and junior detective, and archeologist classes, among other classes to our kids.

Lunafest: Celebrating women

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When we get up from our seats and we walk away, we’re changed a little bit and hopefully for the better.
– Kit Crawford, CEO and co-founder of CLIF Bar and Company

In the past several weeks, I have been thinking a lot about violence against women in our communities, in various societies and countries, and everywhere, really. Of course, this has been going on forever, but my despair over the recent cases in New Delhi and South Africa seemed to demand a response from me, for which I had none. What else could I do as a person, a woman, and a mother beyond raising my son to respect women and raising my daughter to be empowered and have healthy self-esteem so that no person would ever take advantage of her and no situation would be beyond overcoming?

A few weekends ago, as I was walking my dog Rex, I came across a poster on a local storefront and read about Lunafest. I recalled receiving annual e-mails from the mom of my daughter’s classmate. Being overwhelmed and stressed during my busy work seasons, I never opened the e-mails, I’m embarrassed to say. What’s done is done, but I thought to myself, I would definitely go this year. In fact, in a serendipitous moment, I declared that this was my first response to my question to myself of how to respond to violence against women: Celebrate women and their creativity and achievements.

A mid-weight Zelda coat from Personal Pizazz (Berkeley, CA), comfortable walking boots, and Monserat De Lucca crossbody bag from Sundance is a perfect outfit for a film festival in early March.

A mid-weight Zelda coat from Personal Pizazz (Berkeley, CA), comfortable walking boots, and Monserat De Lucca crossbody bag from Sundance is a perfect outfit for a film festival in early March.

Lunafest: short films by, for and about women was established in 2000 by LUNA, makers of the nutrition bar for women, to connect women, their stories, and their causes through film. The traveling film festival also serves as a fundraiser for the many communities that host it across the country. Lunafest’s main beneficiary is the Breast Cancer Fund, whose goal is to eliminate the environmental causes of cancer. The selected beneficiaries of El Cerrito’s Lunafest showing were the El Cerrito High School’s Information Technology Academy (ITA) and World Neighbors, an international development organization established to eliminate hunger, poverty, and disease in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. ITA, a small learning community within El Cerrito High School, prepares students for post-secondary education and careers in networking, database management, digital art, and web design.

Reception before the show
The East Bay Lunafast Organizing Committee held a VIP reception prior to the film screening at one of the committee members’ homes, which was just around the corner from the high school auditorium, where the films were going to be shown. I had the pleasure of meeting the evening’s emcee, Karen Grassle, whom many of my contemporaries will recognize as Caroline Ingalls, the mother on the television series Little House on the Prairie (1974-1982). I also met two of the featured film directors, who were slated to participate in a panel discussion with Grassle after the screenings. It energized me to hear them talk about their passion for their art.

Sharon Arteaga, Karen Grassle, and Jisoo Kim at Lunafest 2013.

Sharon Arteaga, Karen Grassle, and Jisoo Kim at Lunafest 2013.

Jisoo Kim, who studied animation in her native South Korea, is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts MFA program and currently works as an artist for Disney Interactive. Her animated short, The Bathhouse, is a beautiful and lush audiovisual experience in which the bathhouse is the transformative venue for women of all shapes and sizes to achieve this uninhibited state of serenity. I appreciated her ability to move us all in our theater seats from feelings of exhaustion and stress to calmness and then vigor. I also appreciated the cultural reference for this transformation. It’s the same transformation I undergo when I lie down on my acupuncturist’s table, falling asleep while listening to soothing music in a warm room with a lavender pillow over my eyes and then waking up refreshed and ready to tackle the world again.

Sharon Arteaga hails from Austin, where she earned her bachelors in film at the University of Texas. Her short film, When I Grow Up, chronicles a morning in the life of a Latina mother and daughter who sell tacos on a route that takes them through refineries in Corpus Christie and ends at the girl’s school. In the panel discussion, Arteaga revealed that the film was an homage to her mother. As a daughter of immigrants, I very much appreciated how she depicted the conflicting views of the two generations without judgment or bias but with quiet generosity, and her understanding of how the immigrants’ dream enables their children’s dreams to be much grander and yet attainable.

Karen Grassle with my friend, Lisa, and her starstruck daughter Savanna, both of whom are fans of Little House on the Prairie.

Karen Grassle with my friend, Lisa, and her starstruck daughter Savanna, both of whom are fans of Little House on the Prairie.

Honoring nine films
The nine screened films, which were chosen from more than 900 entries around the world, were as diverse as they were impressive. You can see the trailer and more information on the films here. I enjoyed all of the films, but the one that was close to my heart was Canadian filmmaker Andrea Dorfman’s Flawed, which told in drawings the story of a woman who has a big nose and feels conflicted when she falls in love with a plastic surgeon. It reminded me of my own perceived flaws and the teasing I endured as a child for having a flat nose and full lips, which are typical Filipino traits. I recalled the times when one of the boys in elementary school taunted me by saying, “I’m going to hit you and give you a big nose. Oh wait, you already have a big nose,” or “I’m going to trip you and give you a fat lip. Oh wait, you already have a fat lip.” Never mind that he had pretty full lips, too. I contemplated, as the protagonist did, having a nose job as an adult. It also made me think of the time when I found my sister in the bathroom rubbing lemon juice and pulp into her face to lighten her skin, which she had learned from watching Jan Brady in the television show The Brady Bunch, who was trying to lighten her freckles. I was horrified because even as a child I understood that she was trying to erase who she was. In the same way the film’s protagonist learned to accept her big nose, I came to embrace my dark skin, my big nose, and my full lips as part of who I am, as part of my heritage.

I also enjoyed Amanda Zackem’s short film about Georgena Terry, who triumphed over childhood polio (I wanted to know more about this) and whose curiosity and tenacity led her to build bicycles that are custom-fit for women. Rebecca Dreyfus’s short film, Self-Portrait with Cows Going Home and Other Works, peeked into the life of Sylvia Plachy, a well-respected contemporary photographer whose Academy Award-winning son Adrien Brody wrote the original music for the film. Plachy has an amazing eye, and thus, an amazing portfolio of black-and-white photographs. New Zealander Louise Leitch’s Whakatiki – A Spirit Rising chronicled the rebirth of a silenced and disenfranchised wife after she takes a plunge into the waters of her youth. I was moved by the woman’s transformation toward emancipation. As she emerged, water dripping from the thick folds of her skin, she shed more than her clothes and regained a lightness of being in exchange.

The other films included Sarah Berkovich’s Blank Canvas, Sasha Collington’s Lunch Date (Great Britain), and Martina Amati’s Chalk (Italy). Blank Canvas celebrates a uterine cancer survivor’s decision to have her bald head beautifully decorated with henna. The humorous Lunch Date pairs an unlikely couple – a young woman who gets dumped by her boyfriend, who uses his 14-year-old brother Wilbur as the messenger – for an unexpected picnic in the park. Chalk chronicles the rites of passage of a young gymnast.

I came away feeling a rebirth of sorts myself. I was definitely invigorated. How can you not stand up and be excited to determine one’s next steps in addressing women’s issues after being empowered by the beauty conceived by nine amazing women filmmakers? All women, go forth and create beautiful things, and let us all celebrate all of our achievements. Only then can we all be uplifted.

P.S. If there is a Lunafest event in your community, get a bunch of girlfriends together and make it a fun, celebratory evening.

Dark-rinse jean leggings get a boost with a lot of texture: paisley and brocade, Carmela Rose reclaimed vintage chandelier earrings, my own vintage pin (1980s gift from my college roommate!), butter-soft chocolate leather, and gold-studded accents on a crossbody bag.

Dark-rinse jean leggings get a boost with a lot of texture: paisley and brocade, Carmela Rose reclaimed vintage chandelier earrings, my own vintage pin (1980s gift from my college roommate!), butter-soft chocolate leather, and gold-studded accents on a crossbody bag.

Turning 51, with gratitude

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I will go anywhere, provided it be forward.
– David Livingstone, Scottish medical missionary and explorer

Mixing textures with faux fur, faux suede, creamy lace, patterned tights, vintage brooch, and red leather boots!

Mixing textures with faux fur, faux suede, creamy lace, patterned tights, vintage brooch, and red leather boots!

Yesterday I celebrated my 51st birthday, which was no less momentous than the milestone of reaching 50. This is a new mode of thinking for me. At a certain point in adulthood, I didn’t think much of making a celebration of birthdays. Not that I was thinking of getting older at that time. It was more a feeling that birthday celebrations were for children. When I had my own children, that philosophy was validated, as I focused more on their yearly milestones – the parties, the presents, getting excited for them, and sharing and basking in their genuine happiness.

With the vintage Weiss brooch as the main attraction, keep earrings and rings simple.

With the vintage Weiss brooch as the main attraction, keep earrings and rings simple.

When the 49th birthday came and went, fear set in, and you know the rest of the story (if not, you can read my blog bio and my first post, “Welcome to the Dress at 50”). Celebrating birthdays has taken on a different meaning since last year. I face a new year, grateful to be alive and healthy and to have my family with me. I also return to the two things that motivated me as a child and young adult – tapping my creative juices and being inspired by other peoples’ creativities and visions, and opening up my heart and unleashing generosity for the greater good, for social justice. I look to them as presents to receive and give with each birthday.

Variation on the lace dress: different-colored faux fur scarf, canvas drawstring jacket, vintage-inspired lace-up booties, flowery tights, and vintage Weiss earrings and brooch.

Variation on the lace dress: different-colored faux fur scarf, canvas drawstring jacket, vintage-inspired lace-up booties, flowery tights, and vintage Weiss earrings and brooch.

Birthday weekend
My birthday celebration started on Friday when I finalized an interview earlier in the day with two amazing women for the following afternoon in Los Altos. We ended the evening with a casual dinner out with good friends of ours and their kids, who are friends and classmates with our kids. It was a busy, deadline-driven week at work for me, so winding down after dinner and sharing a bottle of wine and David’s brother’s homemade beer in front of the fireplace with friends was very welcome.

Toughening up the lace dress with yet another faux fur scar, snakeskin print leather jacket, industrial-looking brass and crystal necklace, and chocolate textured tights and booties.

Toughening up the lace dress with yet another faux fur scar, snakeskin print leather jacket, industrial-looking brass and crystal necklace, and chocolate textured tights and booties.

When I had found out that my interview on Saturday was going to be in Los Altos, I contacted my old college roommate, Susan, who lives in Los Altos. Being spontaneous was never my thing (back in college a former dorm floor mate was trying to coax me to go out dancing one evening, and I begged off, with the excuse: “I’m not spontaneous!”). To this day, I try to be more spontaneous, which is still a work in progress. Happily, Susan was available for brunch, and she suggested a terrific very child-friendly, farm-to-table restaurant called Bumble (145 1st Street, Los Altos, CA 94022, 650.383.5340), which is housed in a quaint 100-year-old cottage and serves meals – very good ones – made from organic, locally sourced ingredients. The owners, a married couple, both came from farming families. (I think this concept would be well received if some enterprising entrepreneur could find a venue with character and execute on the concept. Hint, hint, local entrepreneurs!) What was really nice was to be able to sit back and eat and catch up in a leisurely fashion. This is a rarity for me. It was a gift to allow myself to not clock-watch (it helped that we had given adequate time for getting together before our respective appointments).

What to wear after the horse ride: shades of gray and comfortable pieces to relax in.

What to wear after the horse ride: shades of gray and comfortable pieces to relax in.

After brunch, I met two women who have known each other for 40 years and who were introduced to me via e-mail by a good friend of mine whom I’ve known since 2005 through my work in the healthcare information technology world. You will read about their very rare and beautiful friendship, as well as their inspiring and tireless philanthropic work, in March. I only hope that I can do justice to their story through my writing. What they’ve gone through and what they’ve done in their lives to this date compels me to want to be as big-hearted as they are. The evening ended with dinner at another good friends’ warm and bustling home and enjoying my friend Raissa’s homemade chicken curry – the best, hands down.

Favorite cicada necklace from Lava 9 (Berkeley, CA), Carmela Rose earrings, and Sundance rings.

Favorite cicada necklace from Lava 9 (Berkeley, CA), Carmela Rose earrings, and Sundance rings.

On my actual birthday, the only things I was anticipating was David’s Sunday special, his breakfast sandwich and protein drink, and my daughter getting up to join me as I walked Rex in the morning. It was a beautiful, sunny albeit cool day, so doing something outdoors was a given. Nothing came to mind immediately; I only knew I was not going to clean or do work. This was going to be a day to enjoy with my family. My daughter, who has been fancying horses and horseback riding for more than a year now, was lobbying for a horse-themed activity in Walnut Creek. We owed her a horseback-riding family event in lieu of a party with her friends, which was at her request (from this past December). Though horses are not my thing, I voted to contact the riding stable near Point Reyes, upon the suggestion of the Walnut Creek horse ranch that didn’t have any openings for us on such short notice. Hey, I was being spontaneous again.

My horse drinks water while the rest of the family mounts their horses.

My horse drinks water while the rest of the family mounts their horses.

So we drove the 1.5 hours to Olema on the winding Highway 1, listening to Morrison Boomer‘s CD, Down the Hatch, which we had purchased after listening to them play at Pikes Place in Seattle a few weeks ago. For all my driving of late, I have had the pleasure of enjoying their music while on the road. We ended up at Five Brooks Ranch (8001 Highway One, Olema, CA 94950, 415.663.1570) and we took an hour’s ride through the coastal woods. When we had to command our horses to trot or gallop, I erupted in laughter, not unlike the laughter that lets loose when I try to scream on the roller coaster and instead laugh with my mouth frozen wide open. I couldn’t stop laughing because I was bouncing around so much. As I mentioned, I’m not a horse person, but my daughter was in heaven, and my son had a good time. To have her hug me long and hard made all that bouncing around and walking bow-legged for a few minutes upon dismount worth it all.One of our family traditions is that on our actual birthday, the birthday person picks a restaurant of his or her choice for dinner. I had originally hoped that we could attend the Academy Awards party at the Cerrito Theater (10070 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, 510.273.91020), but the show was sold out. I deferred my birthday dinner until later in the upcoming week, as I usually don’t cook on weekends and do cook on weekdays. And for me, one of the perks about having a birthday is not cooking. We toasted to family and health over dinner while watching the Oscars, but not before granting my son’s wish to play a game of Monopoly.

My disheveled western look, accented with brass and crystal necklace, and studded belt and crossbody purse from Sundance.

My disheveled western look, accented with brass and crystal necklace, and studded belt and crossbody purse from Sundance.

Engaging in family activities that my kids requested on my birthday was a gift to me. It warmed my heart to see them so happy, to see them enjoying themselves in such a carefree way. It was my gift to them. Being with friends and spending leisurely time with them were also priceless gifts. Meeting new people, learning about their goodness and being inspired by them were wonderful surprises and unexpected but gratefully accepted gifts. It is not so much the material gifts that are given to me that I value, though I appreciate their thoughtfulness, but it is the family and friends, their love and their friendships, as well as the experiences, that make birthdays memorable and worthy of celebration. Welcome 51 and beyond!

Transitions and Transformations: Kate Peterson Designs and Adorn & Flourish

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Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
– Michel de Montaigne, French Renaissance writer

Kate Peterson arranges beautiful jewelry in their display cases.

Kate Peterson arranges beautiful jewelry in their display cases.

When Adorn & Flourish (7027 Stockton Avenue, El Cerrito, 510.367.8548) opened its doors in May 2012, Proprietor Kate Peterson described the greeting given by the neighborhood as “so receptive, so happy, and welcoming,” which, in turn, describes her artistically appointed shop. Adorn & Flourish features the works of 20 mostly local artists, including Kate Peterson Designs – Kate’s jewelry business – and is home to three other artists who work in studios in the back. Ever evolving, the shop, prompted by requests from customers, will offer classes beginning in March taught by resident artists.

Adorn & Flourish's inviting storefront in El Cerrito.

Adorn & Flourish’s inviting storefront in El Cerrito.

Creating a community of artists
This unique shop concept developed over time, with its genesis in Kate’s early and therefore difficult efforts trying to get her jewelry into retail shops around town. At that time, she wished she could just “buy a little piece of property” in the stores to display her work. That opportunity presented itself in the form of an art gallery, where she sold her jewelry in a large shared retail space. When she left the gallery, the “biggest internal message” she came away with was: “It’s not just about me.” Kate wanted other artists involved. She wanted support and a community. Just as important, she wanted to help people. “I needed that [support from a community], but I didn’t get it when I was at that place and had nowhere to go,” she explained. “I wanted to create a friendly environment where we could give people an opportunity to show and sell their art.”

Cozy but nicely appointed and curated.

Cozy but nicely appointed and curated.

It wasn’t until she moved into her current location that she was able to transform her vision into reality. Kate pointed out that many artists are shy and introverted and therefore find marketing a challenge. Her business was originally next door, sharing a smaller storefront that was home to a little gallery, but when the larger retail space was available, Adorn & Flourish grew into its current model. Kate calls the five small studio spaces “a bonus.” Artists rent display space for $35 to $40 a month and retain 100 percent of the profit from selling their goods in the shop. “I’m not trying to make a living off of the rent I’m getting at the store,” Peterson said. “It’s really a labor of love.”

This three-strand KPD necklace, a Christmas present from David three years ago, can be worn as three separate necklaces.

This three-strand KPD necklace, a Christmas present from David three years ago, can be worn as three separate necklaces.

In return, the resident artists flourish and offer advice and support in this community, as opposed to, for example, working alone in a garage studio or paying high rent for studio space. One benefit of Kate’s business model is that she doesn’t have to buy or change out inventory, or mark down products to move them out. “I have no overhead as far as products,” she said. The artists change out their wares, weekly or monthly, and bring in new work based on customer response.

Statement earrings pop against a frothy maize-colored ombre skirt or olive mesh-paneled maxi skirt.

Statement earrings pop against a frothy maize-colored ombre skirt or olive mesh-paneled maxi skirt.

Kate has been fortunate to not have to seek out artists and their creations. “They find us by word of mouth,” she said. Though many are local to the Bay Area, a few hail from Southern California or other parts of the state. Kate and her assistant and fellow artist, Marika Munkres, set up a jury process for selecting artists. Their goods can be in the same category, such as jewelry and scarves, as products that are currently being carried in the shop, but they need to be different so as not to compete. Kate and Marika are looking for unique handcrafted goods, quality workmanship, and a style that fits in with Adorn & Flourish’s aesthetics, which Kate describes as “simple, elegant, and contemporary, but also with a rustic edge.”

Peterson relaxes in front of Adorn & Flourish on a sunny winter day.

Peterson relaxes in front of Adorn & Flourish on a sunny winter day.

All artists are subject to a three-month trial period. Some artists have come and gone; either their products didn’t sell or they were expecting greater foot traffic, which Kate admits is lacking on the two blocks of retail nestled in a residential area. While Stockton Avenue doesn’t produce the foot traffic of, say, Solano Avenue in North Berkeley, Kate asserted, “We consider ourselves a destination.” That notion seems to be working for many of the artists who have been selling their work at the shop since the beginning.

Kate never considered opening her shop in Berkeley. Having grown up in Kensington, one town over, and residing in El Cerrito, she was committed to her hometown and looking for a location close to where she lives, in a nice, friendly neighborhood. Kate has relied primarily on word of mouth to position Adorn & Flourish as a destination point; however, she is continually marketing the shop via social media such as Yelp and Facebook, and hosting trunk shows and other events.

The artist at work in her studio.

The artist at work in her studio.

Peterson as jewelry designer
Kate is thrilled when people tell her Adorn & Flourish is “a wonderful idea” and thank her for being in the neighborhood and helping the community and artists. “It makes me feel good,” she enthused. “I can go home at night and feel that I contributed and participated.” That said, Kate is juggling running her shop, maintaining studios, and creating her line of jewelry, the latter of which has become a monumental challenge. “I would really like to have more time to be more creative and experiment with new things and materials,” she said. “KPD is evolving as well.”

She is concentrating the next two years on expanding her jewelry design business website and etsy presence, and then having Kate Peterson Designs carried in boutiques across the country. “It’s important to get my brand out there and get my jewelry seen online,” she explained, of her strategy and priorities. Meanwhile, most of her creative time is spent designing commissioned pieces. Kate thrives on people appreciating and loving how her jewelry makes them feel and how special it is to them. “I’m blown away by the feedback that I get,” she said, with wonderment. “It’s really amazing and it makes me feel wonderful that I’m doing the right thing.”

Shimmery dupioni blouse in shades of blue and blue-green are the perfect backdrop to pale green gemstones.

Shimmery dupioni blouse in shades of blue and blue-green are the perfect backdrop to pale green gemstones.

“Doing the right thing” was having a “breakthrough moment” realizing that her massage therapy business wasn’t fulfilling and that her retail management career was not defining who she was and wanted to be, and not getting her to where she wanted to go. Kate sought to be true to herself and find, as she describes it, “the thing that feeds my soul while helping others.” She got – and continues to get – a lot of support from her family, especially her father, along her journey. Over time, serendipitous events unfolded, and she “opened” herself up to those opportunities. A self-described part healer and part artist, Kate sought to bring those talents together to join with the community and to support local artists.

Marika Munkres, Peterson's assistant and fellow artist, arranges the center display.

Marika Munkres, Kate’s assistant and fellow artist, arranges the center display.

Adorning and flourishing
It’s only fitting that her shop borrows from Kate Peterson Designs’ tagline – “adorn and flourish.” When you adorn yourself, your body, and your home with something that is meaningful and self-healing – whether it be an image, word, color, symbol, talisman, or gemstone – you flourish and become “the best possible and authentic you,” she explained. Kate has always loved stones and shells, which she collected as a child. “They brought me peace, calmness, and authenticity to myself,” she said. Now, using those stones in her designs, she is creating adornments that her many and loyal clients are proudly wearing. In setting up her shop, Kate is helping the community of local artists and the community at large to flourish.

Adorn your pajama blouse with simple yet elegant jewelry - earrings from Abacus Gallery (Portland, ME), Kate Peterson necklace (El Cerrito, CA), purse from Japan that was given to me by my sister, Lava 9 Lucite ring (Berkeley, CA), and cuff and rings from Sundance (Corte Madera, CA).

The green gemstones of this Kate Peterson necklace draw out the green patterns in this J. Crew pajama-style blouse and fabric crossbody purse from Japan.

Peterson's dog, Belle, is a fixture at Adorn & Flourish.

Kate’s dog, Belle, is a fixture at Adorn & Flourish.