I can’t place it, but I know that today is something other than the day before my birthday– and then I remember: Pearl Harbor—and then Michael Moore posts from Hiroshima on Twitter, saying:

In Hiroshima 2 day. Coincidentally, it’s Pearl Harbor Day. I hear from back home the pundits beating the drums again 4 war. Nothing changes.

His discouraging words bring me back to President Obama’s speech at West Point last month.  I listened to it  from my facebook account at the doctor’s office where I can snag some high speed wifi.

“Is that live?” another patient asks overhearing the President’s voice. I explain that it’s not, and that I’m just getting to it now because I don’t have television reception at home.

The doctor asks the receptionist to leave her office door open so that she can listen to. “I caught part of it in the airport,” she tells me,  “But I’d like to hear more.”

“I love the sound of his voice,” says another patient.

In response, I complain that as much as I want to pay attention, speeches always put me to sleep.  As an educator, it occurs to me that politicians might be able to make these moments more participatory.  They could split everyone into pairs and have them ask each other:

What would you do?

Obama could call on a few people to share their wisdom afterward, and take a survey of hands to see who agrees.

After the speech, my politically astute teen gets word of the increase of troops to Afghanistan and confides to his father on the drive home from school that he’s worried about the draft. He’s only 14.   But I think about it too.  We’ve never even let him play with guns.

I no longer hold full responsibility for the world my beloved child inherits as  his choices have begun to define it too.  An older classmate is in Afghanistan right now.  My son asks about the “action” Joseph might get to see.  He figures times of peace must be pretty boring for soldiers.

I think back to a conversation on war I had with some women friends.  One, a documentarian, suggests that we simply bring all the soldiers home and see what happens.

“But that won’t address the hunger some have for fighting,” I offer, saying that  I think we need to find other channels for that warrior energy.  I wonder how it might look if our armed forces directed the youth’s need for action into combating other threats– like disaster, environmental degradation, poverty.

But what of the thirst for killing, I think?  This week a 17 year old boy was tried as an adult for the murder of his ten-year old brother.  The parents didn’t attend the trial, but they supported the conviction at which they lost a second son.  The boys had been wrestling and the teen strangled his younger brother in a hold– to satiate a desire to kill.

Is Michael Moore right?  Has nothing changed?  Will nothing change? I don’t know, but I do know that we cannot collapse into defeat.  As quoted from Gandhi, We must  be the change we want to see in the world—and that begins in our own hearts.

My memory turns toward a tiny park on a hill in the Berkshires of Massachusetts—where my own  troubled mind was filled with the hope of peace.

I sit on a bench beside a young Japanese woman named Seiko.  She and I are among 25 students training to be YogaDance instructors at Kripalu’s Healing Center in Lenox.

We have been assigned as partners with the task of supporting each other with our journey at Kripalu by taking a walk together.

On the path through the woods, Seiko tells me that she has been unable to find the song, “Over the Rainbow.” She asks if I can sing it for her so that she can practice the dance prayer she has created for our class.

I laugh at the thought of me singing while she dances, but I agree, especially because Seiko is a ballerina and I’d enjoy the treat of watching her move to that beautiful tune.

We come to a tiny park with a single bench under the shade of a thickly trunked tree.  Before we begin, I tell Seiko that there is something I must say.

There among the mountains, I turn toward my new Japanese friend, and timidly offer,

I want to apologize for dropping the bomb on your country.

Seiko is taken aback by my unexpected words.  She asks me to repeat myself.  And I do– with tears stinging my eyes.  Although I am twenty years her elder, Seiko responds to me with a the tenderness of a mother,

You don’t have to apologize for that, Kelly.  You and I weren’t even born.

“I know,” I say, “but it’s important to me to say these words to someone from your country.”

Tears fill Seiko’s eyes as she says in a whisper,

No one has ever apologized to me for that before, thank you…

I begin to sing, and Seiko begins to dance under the broad branches of a firmly rooted tree,

Somewhere over the rainbow…

Kelly Salasin

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“Budgets are the new black,”

USAA Financial Magazine Cover

Kelly Salasin

Before I ever used a budget, I had many (conflicting) notions about them:

They were only for people who had “extra” money.

They were only for people who really struggled financially.

They were for boring people who led rigid lives and preferred to dwell in the nitty gritty.

They took too much time.

They cramped ‘your style.’

Now that I’ve personally experienced budgeting for over a decade, I can say that all the above are:  TRUE– to some degree–and FALSE, to quite another.

My biggest surprise around budgeting is that it lends FREEDOM rather than takes it away; But not on the surface–which is where many assess their lives.

On the surface, budgeting does take time, it does dwell in the details, and it does put containers around your spending “style”, but what it gives in return–PEACE of MIND–is worth every ounce of your resistance.

I didn’t start budgeting until my income was crunched so tightly that I began to rack up a credit card bill on groceries.  That budget, however painful, let me sleep at night.  Later, when our finances expanded, that same budget grew with us, allowing us to prioritize that which was most important to us–namely continued peace of mind, family vacations, increased charity and new shoes.

When we were again faced with an income crunch in the form of unemployment, that same budget stood by our side, supporting us through 2+ years of sanity without accruing credit card debt.

In return for what the budget gives us, we  give back to the budget in the form of a weekly financial meeting that keeps us “current” and “proactive” which helps avoid the stress of continual financial “surprises.”

The Holidays are a great time to “play” with the idea of using a budget. Focusing on this one aspect of spending is simple– and rewarding–and what better time of year to enjoy the true peace of mind that a budget can offer!

In the New Year, you can choose to expand the “practice” of budgeting to other areas of spending–and in the process nurture a friendship that will stick with you–through thick and through thin.

(To schedule a private holiday budgeting tutorial in person or via phone/internet, contact Kelly. For information about the upcoming Holiday Budget Party in Southern Vermont on Sunday, December 6, click here.)