Summer of Photos from the 1970s: Lulu and I in the Backyard Sunshine

In the 1970s, I had a dog named Lulu who would sit with me in the sunshine, chatting about things. I'd tell her stories, and she'd nod in approval. Sometimes we'd quietly observe the adults, and their strange and mysterious ways. They'd be doing things adults did that we didn't really understand, like using can openers or paying the electric bill, and we'd collaborate on how baffling it all was. 

Here I am in my cowgirl dress, complete with a bandana and a 1970's retro-style Goody brand red plastic bow barrette placed squarely on my head. The morning sun would lay soft on suburban green grass that looked a whole lot like the shag carpet in the house. Lulu and I would sometimes spend time together before I was placed in a car seat and off to church. While coffee hour with humans can be nice after church, a pre-church social hour with your dog is the ideal way to spend the earlier hours of a Sunday morning. 

Lulu's face showed she was already pretty old by the time I was born. She had probably seen the 1960s and the 1970s both, and considering all the social upheaval of the time, that was a lot for a dog to take in. Sometimes we would watch Walter Cronkite deliver part of the nightly news and then we'd wander off to see what toys we had left lying around the backyard earlier in the day. She seemed like a dog who understood everything. She had been around long enough to see the ridiculous vanity of the human situation, and at the same time, all the beauty, love, and humor of it. Being an old soul myself, there was a lot of camaraderie between us. 

In my earliest of days, her soft little ears were always there for me to hold gently in my hands. Her affirming looks showed me she knew I was small and that she needed to watch out for me. Her black coat was ever-huggable in the warm sun; her golden eyes were wise. Here's to every Generation Xer who remembers a dog from their growing up years, may we find them again on the other side. 

I loved her so.  Lulu and I.  

(c) 2024 by Chloe Koffas - All rights reserved 

Summer of Photos from the 1970s: Blue Photo Albums and Backyard Bliss

It's the Collective Experience....

Ever since I started blogging about Generation X in 2011, I deeply hoped to make my way back to the photos of my early childhood. It took a long time to find my way back to them. Posting pictures of your growing up years illuminates the collective experience you have with your generation in a very real way. It's the details, the pop culture things that are framed in the picture, the album in the background by some one hit wonder band you forgot and then lovingly remembered once again, it's that kitchen with the avocado green General Electric stove in the background and the comforting smell of dinner baking inside. You see some detail in one of your photos, or in someone else's photo, and a flood of emotions goes over you. If you are Gen X, the things in your childhood photos, like the toys you played with, or the books that were on your shelf are a part of my story, too - I would have played with some of those same toys as a tot, I would have read some of those same books as a child.

The Eclipse

Last spring, I went to Texas to visit my father. He invited me to go see the April eclipse, and I had this intuitive feeling that something lost would be found during that visit. I was shocked and overjoyed when old 1970's photo albums emerged from a shelf in a closet - I spent an afternoon opening the pages and taking digital photos of analog ones. Emotion came over me like a hard desert rain. I hadn't seen some of the photos since the 1980s, I hadn't seen some of the pictures since the 1970s, and some I had never seen. We will remember 2024 as a year of a big eclipse in America, and it's incredible the way that sometimes what was lost can somehow be found, yet that's how eclipses work - there is a darkness, and then parts of the universe are brought out into the light. So while the sun shines, this will be my summer of posting 1970's pictures that are from my childhood. And we will begin with a picture from summer, and a checklist of official funny things 1970's tots did.... 

While the above list mentions a few things floating around in the pool, like my Fisher Price Little People car - the red one I am holding in my hand in this picture - I should also mention a few more things that are worth noticing just for the humor of it all:

1) The random blue metal barrel in the background my father brought home from work as a backyard toy: a tunnel for me to crawl through or hide in

2) If you look closely, you'll see white styrofoam peanuts that I was borrowing form a neighborhood friend - these are drifting across the water because I needed to check if they could float!

3) My slowly emerging chipmunk teeth really add to the photo.

4) The kiddie pool, which was purchased at the same store as the pink sparkly ball (Grand Central - which was later bought out by another retail chain) and the funny, random mix of animals on my pool: fish and elephants?

Fresh Cut Green Grass and Blue Sky

And while there is so much to laugh at in this picture, there is something so beautiful and sacred about it - I loved that backyard so much, it was my little paradise - the sun, the puffy clouds moving gently above me, the sweet simplicity of being young and life being easy for a while. I am one of those rare people whose memory goes back to being a baby. I remember this moment of toddlerhood well, my father took the photo, smiling and laughing my desire to drink up every fun moment life could offer. How incredibly sleepy, and happy, I felt in that moment. I didn't want to miss a thing - the cool water on my toes, the New Mexico sun warming my back as it hung there in the bluest sky. There was the sweetest of smells: fresh cut green grass mowed by my father, the wafting scents of the flowers planted by my mother, and that extraordinary, electrical, earthy smell of a desert summer rainstorm slowly rolling in over the horizon. I loved that backyard. 

There was the orange of the marigolds in our yard, there was the pink of the desert sunsets. There were the open, starry nights. Bend the sunlight toward me and let it warm my shoulders, send me a New Mexico thunderstorm to give my soul the strength it needs to go on, give me a moment to feel that bliss once again, when life was new, when hope was full.  

Here's to believing what was lost can be found again, here's to dusty old blue photo albums of the 1970s that hold our collective memories. When I have seen others Gen Xer's pictures from the 1970s, not knowing that I would ever find my own 70s pictures again, I would look for myself in their pictures - my old toys, my old books, my own story. Now that I finally have made my way back to my old pictures, if you want to, you can look for your story in mine. 

                                                              (c) 2024 by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved

How Gravity Bends Light

"We have not even to risk the adventure alone

The Pillars of Creation - (c) NASA - public domain

for the heroes of all time have gone before us. 

The labyrinth is thoroughly known...

we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. 

And where we had thought to find an abomination 

We shall find God. 

And where we had thought to slay another

we shall slay ourselves. 

Where we had thought to travel outwards 

we shall come to the center of our own existence. 

And where we had thought to be alone we shall be with all the world." 

-Joseph Campbell

(c) NASA - public domain photography

Campbell was a scholar, teacher, and thinker from the GI Generation whose wisdom has gone far beyond the years in which he lived. His writing on the hero's journey has influenced books and movies throughout the decades. Campbell felt his Catholic childhood gave him a higher vantage point from which to view history and to see the commonalities that exist across religions and cultures. Like the silver threads woven into the fabrics of altar cloths, his liturgical experience gave him an ability to look across the timelines of history and see what stitches all of us together. 

He once spoke about the first full image of earth, the first one humanity saw collectively of the Earth as a whole that was taken in the 1970's. This image, The Blue Marble went into circulation during the more formative years of Generation X. It may have given our generation a deeper sense of the collective experience of humanity when we were still impressionable in a way we maybe were not even conscious of. Campbell said, "Our world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which God's love is reserved for members of the in group: that is the world that is passing away. Apocalypse is not about a fiery Armageddon and salvation of a chosen few, but about the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end."   

2024 includes a partial eclipse on March 25th which will create a collective experience for most of North and South America. This year also includes a full eclipse on April 8th, which I am planning to go see in Austin. I am not sure what colossal shift might take place for us collectively April 8th, or what light-bending experience will happen for me individually. The path the Sun will take on that day is essentially the journey my ancestors took once they landed on the shores of the US and slowly migrated, over generations, to Texas. I will be thinking of their journey, along with my own journey so far, and where to go from here, between the light and the shadows. For a few minutes of totality, the brightness of day will become one with the darkness of night. 

How does gravity bend light?  It's a complex physics formula, so for those of us who'd like to look at it for a moment in simple terms, we could say it's the way stars sometimes appear in the wrong place....

Einstein, who was from the Lost Generation, hypothesized that gravity is a warping of time and space - an impact to the 'fabric' of the universe. He believed a large object like the sun could distort spacetime enough that gravity could bend light. While he published his General Theory of Relativity in May 1916, it was during the eclipse of May 1919 when scientists observed that some stars appeared in the wrong place based on previous measurements of the universe - showing evidence of Einstein's theory. 

Maybe every generation gets at least one moment to graze the surface of the sun. 

How do we, as humans, who find ourselves and our world in so many places of darkness, bend the light toward ourselves, and toward others? Maybe this is anything that takes something terribly wrong and makes it right. Maybe it is overcoming the obstacles that block us, maybe sometimes its fighting for something, and other times it is letting go of the fight and finding our peace. 

(c) NASA - Silent Generation Buzz
Aldrin's footprint  on lunar soil

To have survived a pandemic means we have made it through quite a labyrinth, as Joseph Campbell would have called it, a necessary and grueling chapter of a hero's journey that leaves scars on your skin and grief in your soul. History has its cycles, and generations do as well; your ancestors, as they found themselves in generations leading up to yours, saw eclipses, and pandemics, and went through immense struggle, and pushed on to wake up to another day on the planet until their time was over. And we, like living miracles, walk across the earth, not realizing each footstep is silver, each breath is golden. 

(c) NASA - Aurora Borealis
St. Patrick's Day 2015
image credit:Sebastian Saarloos

How does gravity bend light?

Einstein explained it with his theory of relativity. 

Joseph Campbell explained it by showing that when the hero or heroine comes home from the journey having found the answer - and the answer is always in some way rooted in forgiveness and unconditional love.

Some silver thread keeps us bound to this earth, for a time, and that thread is woven into the tapestry of the whole human story. Each religion, culture and generation may be, as it turns out, more alike than different, though we can only see this when we can see a much bigger picture. 

If we are in the modern Western world, we see time as linear. If we can bend the way we see time, even just for a moment, we can bend light as well, and this is where we can get a glimpse of the eternal beauty -- the reality that all of time is one. And when we know this, both in our mind and in our heart, we know that anything that has gone wrong can be made right again. 

This is how gravity bends light. 

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(c) St. Patrick's Day 2024 - Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved

Sources:

The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell 

ncronline.org/blogs/earthbeat/eco-catholic/joseph-campbell-earth-heavens

science.nasa.gov/eclipses/history/

NASA photos are public domain

And a piece about the 2017 partial eclipse as seen from Northern California, with thoughts of the Lost Generation: 

The Turnings of the Universe

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A Charlie Brown Christmas and the Glow of Colored Lights

Each year, during the month of December, my daughter and I have a tradition of watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with a cup of hot chocolate. We take apart the Charlie Brown diorama that has been set up for fall, and replace it with a winter scene - the one in the holiday special where they go to shop for their Christmas tree. 

While I've yet to find a mini Charlie Brown Christmas tree to scale with this scene that would work, these bottle brush trees seem to capture the colors and images of the tree lot scene well, and we'll just say Charlie Brown is staring off into the distance with a smile, seeing that sparse little tree he wants to buy at the other end of the tree lot.  

A full moon brightens up their way and the glittered background reflects light to make it look like the Milky Way in the Christmas Time night sky. 

These are beautiful, though Charlie Brown sees a tree that is much more real in the distance,
one that is a little beaten down by life like he is

Linus and his blanket at the Christmas tree lot 

Linus shows his support like a good friend should, and brings his blanket to the event, as always. Maybe being misunderstood is bearable when you have at least one friend who is willing to go with you on the journey. Who doesn't want to turn around and see this guy smiling at you? 

It has been such a long, hard year. It has been such a long hard few years, for myself, for all of us on a planet that has been through a pandemic that has forever changed our lives. The marathon continues, and there are a hundred things to do before 2023 turns into 2024, but before this year gets away, I wanted to just have a few peaceful, creative moments, to take a few photos and write a few words....

There is something powerful about the collective experience a generation shares, and there is something amazing about how the smallest of things can help us make that connection. When I would watch Peanuts holiday specials as a kid, I would get this sense that all my problems would go away for those 30 minutes, and I loved the feeling I was watching it with all the other kids in America at the same time.   

I went downstairs this afternoon, tired, holding an empty laundry basket, clean clothes just dropped off in an upstairs room, and as I walked toward the lights of the Christmas tree in our living room, I was thinking of everyone I have loved and lost. I was looking under the tree to see if I had forgotten to put anything there. I was thinking of how I ran out of time to do all the things I meant to. I was thinking of Gen X Christmases come and gone, thinking of how I need to get dinner on the table and of the suitcases I need to pack. I was thinking of all the problems I have that still did not get solved in 2023, of how much work there will be to do in the new year, and all the things I still need to sort out in my life, and said to no one in particular, "I feel lost in time and space." 

And my daughter walked up to me and whispered in my ear, "You are right where you are supposed to be." That might just be about the most comforting thing anyone has ever said to me. 

As hard as all of this is, as bleak and cold as this collective dark night of the soul has seemed, maybe we really are right where we are supposed to be - and there is a hope in that.

Merry Christmas, Generation X, 

to you and to the younger generations you share your holiday specials with.

How we made this diorama

box for scene: painted wood crate purchased from a craft store

moon and sparkly night sky: scrapbooking paper

trees: dyed bottle brush trees, some with snow flocking

ground: white felt

snow drifts: cotton 

fence: purchased unfinished from a miniatures store and painted white 

Linus' blanket: a piece of my old blue tee shirt

tree lot string lights: battery powered colored fairy lights attached with white electrical tape

And for one of our favorite hot chocolate recipes: 

Hot Chocolate and a Charlie Brown Christmas

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(c) 2023 writing and photos by Chloe Koffas

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and the Glow of Autumn Lights

Gen Xers grew up with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving as a mainstay TV special every year just before the big Fall holiday. I loved to watch it decades back as a kid with a bowl of popcorn. If it was snowy or a little stormy that night, that was even better.

Below is the wood crate diorama my daughter and I put together many years back. In the actual story, the Thanksgiving meal takes place outside on a sunny day. We tried capturing this, though it just seemed to lack something - like it was missing the kind of magic the pumpkin patch had in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. So this turned into a different interpretation - more of a late in the day scene. Maybe this is how it would look if the meal got delayed until evening....

Lucy is mostly unseen in this special, maybe everyone needed a break from her - we put her over in the shadow in the corner. 

Three inch tall friends gather around the table for a late in the day Thanksgiving dinner -
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is served! 

What was supposed to look like falling Autumn leaves in this scene looks more like wall paper. And now that I think about it, the scrapbooking paper beneath the table that is supposed to look like grass actually kind of looks like 1970's green shag carpet. Strangely, all of this actually works for circa 1970's interior design when  A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was created since all these colors are in earth tones....this outdoor scene accidentally became an indoor scene, true to its era! Sometimes things don't turn out exactly how you thought they would, and sometimes it ends up being better that way. 

One piece of toast emerges from a tiny toaster.

Snoopy's feet can be seen on the left, as he was in charge of making toast for the special occasion. On the right is a bowl of popcorn (in this case, broken up mail packaging pieces).

We took these pictures way back in 2018, they were forgotten about and just recently found, just in time for Thanksgiving 2023 which is perfect since this year is the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. The original broadcast was on November 20, 1973. From then until now, this is one of our truest touchstones as a generation.

Years back, my daughter drew jellybeans and pretzels on paper and we taped then onto Calico Critter plates. 

The handles of the wood crate look like windows, the Autumn garland and lights show through on the other side, although sometimes the purple lights look hot pink, though we'll just go with it. 

Woodstock cuddling with Snoopy behind a plastic bread loaf as they look at the Thanksgiving table

My daughter took this picture to make it look like you are looking inside at the cozy warmth of a table of gathered friends while the frosty purple glow cast down by the moon gives you the chilly feel of an Autumn night.

While I truly miss the collective experience of watching this holiday special at the same time as everyone else did when it came on traditional broadcast television, it's now on Apple TV+ and can be streamed anytime. This means you can watch it at your convenience after you've made toast, popped your popcorn and picked up pretzels and jellybeans from the store. 

Thankful for those who've been reading this blog since it started in 2011. Happy Thanksgiving. 

You can see the diorama we made for the Great Pumpkin here: It's the Great Pumpkin!

                                                                                               (c) 2018, 2023 Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved

The PEANUTS characters and related intellectual property are owned by Peanuts Worldwide, LLC

Schoolhouse Rock 50th Anniversary

In 2015, a Gen X friend came from out of town to visit and we had the chance  to go see Schoolhouse Rock Live. We had so much fun, and back then, we were closer to the 40th anniversary of the initial episodes. It's hard to believe it's been 50 years since the very first episode aired in 1973. 

If you missed the Schoolhouse Rock 50th Anniversary singalong earlier this month on ABC, be sure to go back and watch it on Disney+, or be sure to watch whatever your favorite Schoolhouse Rock song was on YouTube. 

Not to let out any spoilers if you're late to the party like I was, but I'm not sure how you could pack more Gen X retro pop culture into three minutes than when the Muppets themselves cover a Schoolhouse Rock song. 

On another note, the adjectives song sometimes gets stuck in my head and goes on repeat play for hours at a time while I do dishes, laundry, and try to get stuff done. The only thing that makes it stop is if I play some 1990's Nirvana. By design, these songs were supposed to get stuck in your head (how else would we have remembered our multiplication tables?) so just letting you know how to fix the problem if the same thing happens to you. 

In case you were wondering, after all these decades three is STILL a magic number! I love that Blind Melon covered this magical song years back and that Black Eyed Peas played the song for the 50th anniversary show.   

 

My daughter and I have watched many of the original videos together over the years, and we usually enjoy these with root beer or Creamsicle floats... 

she recently asked an important question, "Why is Interplanet Janet okay hanging out on the sun (she says it's a lot of fun) but then she says that the planet Mercury is too hot (the mercury on Mercury was much too high)?

 That's a good question.... 

And a really interesting segment on NPR: 

NPR's Fresh Air Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Schoolhouse Rock

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(c) 2023 Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved 

Remembering Gen Xer Richard Shannon Hoon, lead singer of Blind Melon (1967-1995) 

Thank you, Richard, for singing a magical song from the childhood of Generation X   

Becoming a Warrior

Cover for Catherine's new book:
image used with permission

 If you have childhood memories of reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, or if you saw the movie more recently with Mindy Kaling, Oprah, and Reese Witherspoon, you share a love of the story with multiple generations. Catherine Hand, a courageous, creative, and beautiful person, spent 50 years working to produce the movie and is currently launching her new book, Becoming a Warrior - My Journey to Bring a Wrinkle in Time to the Screen, which tells the story of her hard work and struggle through those decades. In this memoir of joy and grief, she shows us how to make a promise to ourselves that can be kept no matter how difficult the obstacles. I interviewed her about her journey of faith, love, and not letting go of a dream. 

Chloe: A Wrinkle in Time is a story that has been significant to Boomers, Generation X, and now younger generations. You wrote in your memoir that the movie was about giving others a chance to create a new narrative for their generation. As the producer, you chose Jennifer Lee, a Gen Xer, to write the script, and in the movie, the father (played by Chris Pine) stands out as distinctly Gen X because of the pop cultural references he makes. The heroine in the story is Meg, a Generation Z girl (played by Storm Reid) who has a beautiful mind and a big heart. Would you say this is a story that connects generations? 

Catherine: Absolutely! The enduring wisdom of A Wrinkle in Time is that we are all on a journey to discover who we fully are and our place in the universe. I think everyone wants to believe in the power of love and Madeleine reminds us that love is action, not just a feeling. My hope is that Gen Xers will find something familiar in a memoir told from a Boomer's point of view.   

Chloe: My own reference point for Wrinkle is that I remember seeing it on the desks of my elementary school classmates in the mid-1980's. I was intrigued by the way the book seemed to have a mysterious or even mystical presence to it, so I checked it out from my school library and experienced the story for myself. Not only does the story fit into the sci-fantasy genre, it also covers the spiritually esoteric concept of tessering ('wrinkling' space and time). What would you say initially intrigued you most about the book when you first discovered it as a child in the 1960's? 

Catherine: I wasn't a great reader before a I read A Wrinkle in Time. I wanted to be outside climbing trees or playing kickball. I never knew books could inspire in me the desire to find answers to so many questions. Who were Euclid, Michelangelo, and Buddha – all mentioned as fighters in the story – and what did they have in common with Jesus? I was also very excited to discover that a girl – even a girl who was trying to get rid of her faults – could be a hero. Most significantly, the book gave me hope when President Kennedy was assassinated. 

Chloe: Even when we have some of the connections to help us achieve a dream, we still have to work incredibly hard and forge through roadblocks to make our dreams tangible. In your memoir, you write about your journey of becoming a fighter, a warrior, in a way that can help others do the same. Someone with a dream they are working toward could read your book and use it to help them as a sort of roadmap to overcome their own obstacles. Can you share your thoughts on this? 

Catherine: No two journeys are the same, but hopefully reading about how I overcame my obstacles will inspire others to find ways to overcome their own. I found great wisdom in Robert Louis Stevenson's quote, "It's better to travel hopefully than to arrive." My hopefulness was my guide that sustained me, I think one other thing to remember is that a dream is a living idea – it will evolve as you evolve. Mentors and supporters can be found in the most unlikely places – no one achieves a dream on their own. As you build your team, learn from others, and let your dream expand with new insights to make it better!

Chloe: What was the best part about reading A Wrinkle in Time as a child in the 1960's, the best part of producing the movie (2018), and what was the best part about writing your memoir which you are now launching? 

Times Square when the movie was released - and a beautiful moment in
 the heroine's journey of Catherine Hand (Image used with permission)

Catherine: The best part of reading A Wrinkle in Time as a child in the 1960's was the excitement I felt when I discovered that a young girl could do something her father couldn't, and learning that the darkness I felt after President Kennedy's assassination could be overcome. The best part of producing the movie was seeing the Disney logo come up on the screen. It was such a meaningful connection to the promise I made to myself 50 years prior. The best part of writing my memoir was to discover why I spent those 50 years trying to bring my childhood dream to fruition. Why did I do it? I feel very satisfied with what I found and hope readers of my memoir will too. 

Chloe: Because many of the readers of this blog have a strong interest in generational issues and the historical events interconnected with those issues, I wanted to mention how fascinating your life story is. You found yourself right at an intersection of American politics and culture through the decades of your career. Your father worked for LBJ, you met Reagan, and you worked for the Obama administration – you were present for events and conversations that affected history. And because you worked in Hollywood with Norman Lear, helping to shape the sitcoms that became the backdrop of politics and pop culture of both the Boomer and Generation X experience, you have a deep understanding of the fabric of American culture. If you could boil down the wisdom you have gathered from all of these experiences, what advice would you give?

Catherine: Wow – that is a tough question. I would have to say the simplest and best advice I received from Norman Lear, Madeline L'Engle, and my parents – in different words, but the same meaning is this: You can go through life two ways – seeing the glass half empty or the glass half full. I have found seeing the glass half full provides a richer, more meaningful life. We cannot give up on our country – ever. There were many people throughout history who never gave up on a more hopeful future. It's our turn to do that now. Seeing the glass half full gives us the hope we need to find the common threads that can bind us together. 

Chloe: Readers of this blog are primarily Generation X, so it is especially appreciated that you chose a Gen Xer, Ava Duvernay, to direct the film. She has an impressive portfolio including the amazing Selma, and the stunningly beautiful video, Black America Again. What wisdom and perspective did Ava bring to the project that you want to make sure people learn from? 

Catherine: Ava's vision to hire a diverse cast and crew brought the story into the 21st century and it was the absolute right vision for the time in which we live. She brought such passion to the project and really cared about telling this story through the eyes not just of a young Generation Z girl, but one who is also biracial. Her vision matters and will impact young people in ways I can't even imagine. Who knows? Maybe there is a ten-year-old girl – or boy who sees the film and is inspired by Ava's vision as much as I was by Madeleine's in 1963 and creates something remarkable because of it. 

Chloe: In your book, you talk about how the connection between Ava and Oprah was like the one between you and Madeleine L'Engle – can you tell us more about that? 

Catherine: It was wonderful to see how much they admired and respected one another and very apparent how proud Oprah was of Ava. I had the same kind of support and encouragement from Madeleine which made it even more poignant for me to watch them interact with each other. Madeleine was a great mentor in every sense of the word. I feel very grateful to have had her in my corner and I'm sure Ava feels the same about Oprah. 

Chloe: My daughter and I recently watched the movie together and loved it. For Christmas this year, I plan to give her a copy of A Wrinkle in Time and a copy of your memoir along with it. As women, it is so important for us to make promises to ourselves that are kept – to have dreams we commit to. Your book discusses feminism and the ways you experienced the glass ceiling you had to break through to accomplish your dream. As we look at the work that women of your generation did, and continue to do, to lay the groundwork for women in the future, what advice would you say that Gen X moms should give to our Generation Z daughters? 

Catherine: The Boomer Generation had more opportunities, because of the hard work of the women before us. I was amazed at how much had changed and for the better when working with the Gen Xers on the film. There were more women in roles of authority and responsibility. When we were looking to hire a screenwriter for Wrinkle in 1980 there were no women screenwriters with any kind of track record. In 2018, Jennifer Lee, the screenwriter for A Wrinkle in Time, had just come off Frozen, one of the most successful films in Disney's history and she won the Academy Award for her effort! Don't let setbacks set you back. One of my mother's favorite sayings has become mine, too: When God closes a door, he always opens a window. You will have challenges just like the generation before you and when you think a door has closed, look for the window. 

Chloe: Because Madeline L'Engle was from the GI Generation, she had a lot of wisdom from all she experienced throughout the 20th century. She was born in 1918 at the time we last experienced a pandemic, and experienced the Great Depression and lived through multiple wars. She was one of the greatest minds of our time both in science and theology, and she was the person who gave you spiritual direction through the transitions and hardships of your life until she passed in 2007. What advice do you think she might want to give us at this point in history in which we find ourselves? 

Catherine: I can't possibly know what advice Madeleine would give us. However, there are two words she often spoke about that came to mind when thinking about your question: free will. I love something she once said to me and I share it in the book: "God created us with free will so that we do have a say in our own story. It's not taken away from us, we are not manipulated, and it's not pre-ordained. If I have to say what I believe about God, it is that we are called to be co-creators. God didn't make a universe and finish it!". We do live in troubled times and we have the free will to change that. 

Chloe: You have moved through the journey of your life with a calling and a divine spark. What struck me most deeply about your memoir, as you made your way through life-altering loss, is the prayer you prayed: "Help me find the light within." Was this a prayer you created yourself or was it one you learned from someone else?

(c) Tony Powell - image used with permission

Catherine: When I was a very young child I loved the song This Little Light of Mine and the idea of a light within was born! When I read A Wrinkle in Time, I loved reading the description of Jesus, "And the light shineth in the darkness," because it was something I had heard in church. After my husband died, I'd walk or run a mile every day to the place where I had scattered his ashes on a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I'd close my eyes and all I could see and feel was darkness and the weight on my heart of a 20-foot-thick steel door that was forever shut. I had three little children and needed to figure out how to open that door to let the light in. It took several years of saying that prayer, "Help me find the light within," until that door finally opened for me to feel the warmth of the love that comes with that light from within.

There is the heroic journey Jennifer Lee took to believe in herself as a screenwriter, the heroic journey that Ava Duvernay took from a journalist to an activist filmmaker. There is the heroic journey of the main character in Wrinkle who finds love as the ultimate answer, and there is the heroic journey of Catherine Hand, who did not give up on a dream through the course of five decades. In the struggle of those years, and on the journey of staying true to herself, she found an infinite and eternal light. 

Whether you are on a hero's journey, or a heroine's journey, may you find the light within both this holiday season and into the new year. 

Catherine's memoir is now on sale on Amazon: 

Becoming a Warrior

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(c) 2022 all rights reserved - interview by Chloe Koffas

All images used with permission from Catherine Hand

"Life at best is a precarious business and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe." 

-Madeleine L'Engle