This war is different. Although many things are the same, such as
elder statesmen sending young people into battle, this time, for
the first time, we can’t say “sending young men into battle.”

The story of the daring Hollywood script rescue of wounded soldier
Jessica Lynch changed all that. The entire country has realized
that “women in the military” means more than making coffee for
officers and typing.

Now, granted, women have served on the front lines administering
to the wounded since Florence Nightingale, but I think this is the
first time American women soldiers are carrying guns and using
them.

Other countries call upon women to serve. Since the
establishment of Israel in 1948 all 18 year-old women are drafted
the same as men, although they don’t have to serve as long and
not in combat units.

Although Lynch was in a support unit, she was prepared for
combat.

I followed the story with fascination as it unfolded, surely to come
to us soon on the big screen. I read how she fought on even after
her wounds incapacitated her, even after her comrades were
dead, how she suffered mistreatment from the enemy and how a
brave Iraqi who couldn’t stomach what was happening went way
out on a limb to make sure she was rescued.

If any story convinced me of the evil of Saddam’s regime it was this
one of an ordinary Iraqi man who knew the nature of the Fedayeen
and knew what fate awaited a vulnerable, wounded woman in their
custody. He said, “It cut my heart.”

I still don’t like the idea of our country waging an aggressive, not a
defensive, war. I still agree with Jimmy Carter who said war is
always a failure. And I hope, with the fall of Baghdad, this is now
the end of it.

I’m struck with these young women fighting alongside their
brothers. I know the nature of women and there is an intense
fierceness there under the surface-just try threatening a
woman’s child.

It also gives me hope that the feminine characteristics of nurturing
and peacemaking, characteristics certainly not exclusive to
women, will come forward now. I was heartened by the news
coverage of our young soldiers gracefully accepting appreciation
from some of the Iraqis.

My heart bleeds for all the violence over there.
I have had trouble sleeping since the war
started. Pictures of wounded children and
death and destruction haunt me. It has been
a difficult two weeks, even from this far away.

One picture in particular has been
disturbing with it’s mixed emotions.
Two Iraqi children, little boys, stand smiling
at a huge American convoy passing by.
One is holding his fingers in the victory or
peace sign, the other is saluting.

I can only pray this is the end of it now.
I pray for all soldiers, both men and women,
I pray for the decision-makers and I pray for the
Iraqi people.

April 12, 2003

Oh, the power of women’s intuition and psychic connections.

One day last week I got up, got dressed and came in to work here at the paper. The two women advertising reps were joking about how they came dressed alike that day. Both were wearing black slacks and gray tops. Before I got there one said to the other, “Wait until Judy gets here. “Sure enough, black slacks and a gray top, nearly identical.

dressed alike with no communication

Now, we are all well past our teenage years and no longer call a girlfriend to discuss what to wear – we are just women on the same wavelength.

A coincidence? Maybe. But consider this: women who work or live together know that after a time their monthly cycles become coordinated. In Minneapolis I worked for Chrysalis, a therapy clinic and chemically dependent treatment center for women and children. We had a few men on the staff, brave souls that they were, but the workplace was overwhelmingly female.

Often we compared notes, as we couldn’t help but notice simultaneous PMSing. Gradually we realized that most of the 20 or so women were pretty much on the same cycle.

If this is not evidence enough of the unconscious connection between women, here is a story that cannot be explained any other way.

About 15 years ago, my daughter Cully, who was in college, and I spent time together on some beautiful woodland I owned in northern Minnesota. Although there was a half-finished cabin on the property, we always stayed there in a full-size tepee.

It was wonderful to sleep in this round structure with a cozy campfire in the center for cooking and beds arranged on the ground around the back, opposite the door flap. One night we were talking back and forth from our sleeping bags. Eventually I dropped off to sleep, but Cully stayed up and read for a time with a battery lamp. Eventually, she turned off the light and slept.

In the morning I awoke from the strangest dream. I began to tell it to her, a complicated and unusual story in which a man was trying to get a group of reluctant people to sing in a chorus. They avoided him by hiding in closets and other places in a house, but eventually the man began to have success as he brought the odd assortment of people into the open and helped them sing in beautiful harmony.

As I told this story, Cully’s eyes got bigger and bigger. “Mom,” she said, “that’s the story I was reading last night.”

We looked at each other in amazement. The book she had been reading was a Russian novel, recommended, as I recall, in one of her college classes. I had never heard of the book, much less read it. We opened the book together and she found the passages that were indeed, the same as the strange dream I had.

In some societies it is taken for granted that these unseen connections are real. I have a friend whose French mother knows when her children are in trouble or hurt, even though they are grown up and living far away. The family takes her abilities in stride.

My guess is many women (and probably men too) have these experiences, proving there is more to the world than we now know.

Science may eventually catch up. Ever wonder about that unseen phenomena when a man or a woman is available to date someone new after a break-up? It’s as if there is some sort of unseen advertisement that says, “I’m available.” Suddenly members of the opposite sex, who never did before, begin to show interest.

Biologists have found that humans, like insects and other animals, give off something called “pheromones,” molecules designed to attract a mate.

The human mind and spirit are vast and mysterious – nothing surprises me anymore.

Nov. 6, 2002

My favorite photo from my recent trip to Italy is the one in which a 14-year-old American boy is reading the new Harry Potter book sitting on a wall at the Sant’ Antonio Cloister in San Marcos, Florence. (see below)

I had spoken to him and he said he was within 30 pages of the end of the book only a few short days after its release. I smiled thinking of him there among all the glorious art and ruins reading away, night and day, while his family – nowhere in sight that day – did the regular tour. He reminded me that no matter how far to the ends of the earth one may travel, we take ourselves along – our quirks, our weaknesses and our loves.

On this first trip I felt obligated to see the Colesseum, the ruined Roman Forum and the Vatican in Rome, toss a coin in the Trevi Fountain to insure I would come back one day, and climb the 463 steps to the top of the “duomo” in Florence.

But I loved discovering, on my own, the church of San Clemente in Rome, described in the guide book as place where one can see the layers of Rome. There was a wedding in the Church (built around 1100) on that day, but one could still pay 3 Euros and gain access to a basilica beneath the church from the fourth century excavated in the 1800’s; then take steps down even further into dark and damp buildings of the late first century to a Mithraic temple.

It was a journey down into layers of the past – not just layers of the past there in Rome; but also layers of my human past to a place before Christianity, before anything recognizable, to a primal place of beginning. The book said Mithras was a god born of rock to be the bearer of salvation (life and fertility) to the world.

So this “holy” spot was built on over and over again, up to the present where, on the particular day I was there, a couple received a spiritual blessing of their union. Was that so far from the hope of fertility sought by the Mithraic worshipers? I love stuff like that. We take ourselves with us wherever we go. One thing that went with me, as completely as my body, was the ongoing process of grief over my Dad’s passing last winter.

As I walked along a street in Florence with cobblestones and little shops, I found myself behind an elderly Italian gentleman. From the back he looked just like Dad. Suddenly, tears sprang to my eyes and I had a few moments of deep grief once again. And perhaps, that is really the best lesson of travel. The wonders of the world do not compare to this love and kindness we find in each other. I was fortunate to be able to spend time with my oldest best friend, my buddy Michele from Minneapolis who joined me in Rome with her daughter.

I was also fortunate to meet again a new friend, Daniel and his wife Renae, who live in Rome and opened their home to us, acting as intepreters, guides and wonderful nurturers. It was Daniel who made sure I made it to the “best” gelati (Italian ice cream) place in Rome. When I told the owner that my friend said his was the best gelati, he replied, “The best in Rome or the best in Italy?”

When I told Daniel that he laughed and said, “That is such a typical Italian response.” I loved the Italian people, they are passionate, verbal, breathtakingly beautiful, and kind. They have cat sanctuaries in several places where cats are allowed to roam free, and are fed and cared for by dedicated animal lovers. They stop their crazy scooters and mini cars for pedestrians crossing. They make the most wonderful food – pastas and pizza like I have never had. And they put up with tons of tourists like me who haltingly try to speak and are frequently lost.

Yes, I had a good trip.

An American boy reads Harry Potter in Florence. Gibson sits down to an Italian dinner at Il Messere, a “trattoria” in Florence. (It was “aria condizionata,” translation: air conditioned). (sorry about the glitches on the photos -- don't know how that happened.)