Working in Place

I work as a grant writer/technical writer at the College of Information Science & Technology at the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha. I've worked with scientists and engineers in private industry and academe for many years. My work currently focuses on helping faculty and students identify, write and submit research proposals. Most of our grant proposals are submitted to federal funding agencies, and the application process is challenging and very competitive. I also edit journal articles and other technical documents.

Although I'm not currently teaching, I'm working on a book and curriculum project through the Loren Eiseley Society that I want to dovetail with this class. (For more information on Eiseley, go to http://www.eiseley.org/). We've just published a reader of Eiseley's most notable essays. The reader will be distributed free to all schools and public libraries in Nebraska. As part of this project, we're working with teachers to develop curriculum to accompany the reader that will be available online. I hope to elicit some great feedback and participation from this class!

Where is here?

Where is here? Here, in physical location, is Omaha. Our small Dutch-colonial 1923 house is twelve blocks north of Dodge Street, near the UNO campus. We're on the edge of the Dundee-Memorial Park area. Our neighbors/friends to the east are from Canada, and our friend on the other side is from France. It's city living but with lots of old trees, a large backyard and a large wooded area across the street that obscures the houses most of the year. This is a place where we belong--even if, as someone once told me, everyone who lives in this part of town is a bit "quirky."

At the Isles of Shoals

It seems to me that the Shoals must be a magical place, a place whose granite rocks and sprays of salt can only exist in one's imagination. If this be true, then let me dream...

The Shoals are a small group of islands ten miles off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. In past centuries they were home to fishermen; now they are privately owned. Religious/educational conferences have been held on Star Island for more than 100 years. The stone chapel in the top left photo was built in the 1800s; candlelight services are still held nightly in the summer. The bottom left photo shows the Oceanic Hotel (built in the 1800s) and other cottages on Star Island that house conference guests. The photo to the right shows the White Island lighthouse. (I treasure my memories of going to sleep to the sound of the foghorn.) My family's history has been entwined with these islands since 1939, when my aunt attended a youth conference. I first came here when I was two. The Shoals inspired my master's thesis on Celia Thaxter (who grew up here and wrote about these islands in the late 1800s). What a wonderful gift my family has given me, for these islands are truly my spirit's home.

In Leon

In high school I was an exchange student in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, then a city of about 500,000 about 7 hours northwest of Mexico City. I lived with the family of Sr. Eliseo Herrera Lozano, attended Catholic school with my Mexican sister and participated in other family and social activities. I was there before Mexico became so self-consciously westernized. I saw abject poverty and tremendous wealth. It was a very influential experience. This photo is of the Arco de la Calzada de los Heroes in the city center.

Being in place

It takes awhile to grow into a place. I've lived here longer than anywhere else, and longer than I would have imagined, but I'm not "from" here. My roots are in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, south of Syracuse. I grew up on a wooded acreage at about 2000 ft elevation, with a sweeping view of the Apulia Valley and Route 20, with its little hamlets like Pompey, Cazenovia and Skaneateles. At night we could see the twinkling lights from Song Mountain, five miles distant. It was a carefree time to come of age, a time of idealism and turbulence, a time for contemplation, a time to just be, without most of the distractions we have today. We rode our bikes, took walks in the woods (delighting to find raspberry bushes or wild strawberries), read books, and dreamed a lot. We had no television until I was 12. (Mom always said that was one of the best parts of my childhood.) It was easy to be in place, to be emplaced...and still, I yearned to leave.