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| One spring somewhere in Utah. |
My days are so full of gardening and planning a weekend get-away with my daughter and daughter-in-law to celebrate their two birthdays, that I hardly have time to slow down and blog. So, I am going to use a "writing prompt" to get some creative juices flowing and also offer you an opportunity to participate in the comments below. Come on...take a chance. If you want to write a longer response...just invite us on over to your blog.
Here is the challenge:
"In this world when you turn 18 you are sent an envelope with the name of one person on the planet that you must meet and get to know. Who is your person? How do you meet? What happens next?"
Since the list of those I might want to meet is so long I am going to qualify the challenge and say they must be living today.
I narrowed my consideration further by including women only for consideration since men have had all the breaks for hundreds of years in history.
I want someone not too quippy because I am 18 and going to pick their brain on important decisions in life and mistakes they have learned from. I will ask the most important thing they have learned. I will ask the most important relationships that they have made in their lives. I will ask what they say "no" to on many days. I will ask them about their most important success. I will ask them what they wish they could do over. I will ask them about their relationship with a higher being or what they use for spiritual guidance. I will ask if they think one can be successful in love and what are the keys to that. I will ask them what second career might they wish they could have followed. I will ask them what keeps them centered on their most difficult days.
How do we meet? Well, maybe I win some contest. We would meet on a hike to a mountain lodge or a walk to a cabin on a lake. NO one else, just the two of us stuck together for most of the day.
What happens next? This would be a challenge for me to try and apply some of what I learned to my own future career, marriage, and decisions on life in general. I would also hope we could keep in touch over the years ahead.
Oh, you want to know who I selected? Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No special reason as there were many authors, journalists, political leaders that I could have considered, and since she has her own exercise program I am guessing we could handle that gentle mountain walk. Perhaps a spring walk in Utah?
Now, your turn...if you like.
Can men take your challenge? I'd meet Amy Gutman, pres. of University of Pennsylvania, in part because she's not that old and will be around for a while. I'd like to find out what it's like to be a pioneer (one of the first female university presidents), what the real story is behind higher education, and what she thinks of young people today . . . and I'd hope she'd be more optimistic than most people I talk to.
ReplyDeleteOF COURSE!!
DeleteReally like your questions!!
DeleteMarie Krogh. I did a post about her once. Her husband got most of the credit; she did most of the work and thinking.
ReplyDeleteOh beautiful, somewhere in Utah, brilliant.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many. Perhaps Janice Kaplan, TV producer, writer, former editor of Parade Magazine. She could come to NOLA and i would take her out for coffee and beignets and i would pick her brains about writing and work and marriage and so many things.
ReplyDeleteFun daydream I loved her singing
DeleteShe has been in the news and on book tour lately, but I have always admired the very articulate Madeleine Albright. I would love to sit down with her over a quite little lunch and just hear about her thoughts and experiences.
ReplyDeleteI like her very much as she is both strong and smart My husband used to share a dentist with her!
ReplyDeleteThinking...thinking...and I like the photo too.
ReplyDeleteI always wanted to meet a Freedom Rider from the 60’s. I had that opportunity last year at a peace rally when she came up to me and said that she recognized me from somewhere. She was mistaken, but oh, how thrilled I was to meet her. Her story was harrowing, interesting, inspiring and I felt that I was in the presence of greatness. She was only a girl of 18 at the time when she walked alongside of MLK on the March to Mississippi in 1966. She is now a retired school teacher in a local district near me. She was never famous, just a brave young girl making a big difference in the world.
ReplyDeleteLove Spring in Utah
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ReplyDeleteA day hiking with Pema Chodrun - imagine! I'd ask her to explain how one does the things she is often quoted as saying. How does one "open one's heart" to people who drive us crazy. How do we "perk up and lean in" instead of running away from what angers or frightens us. If I'm only 18 and headed out into the big world, I need tools of emotional fortitude as well as things I can hold in my hand. Then the two of us would meet up for lunch with Mary Oliver... because why limit yourself to one seer when you can have two?
ReplyDeleteMother Theresa. I don't know. I'd just like to see how and why she chose her life and what led her to it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting choice! and questions after finding out who-
ReplyDeleteI yet can't decide who!
What an interesting post! As for who I would choose, I really don't know. If I had to make a choice immediately, it would probably be Mother Teresa... but she is not still living today. I have read some of her writings and love the person she was. And I would really like to know where she found her courage and fearless spirit. But looking back, if I was only 18, she may not have been the person I picked back then.
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