It's been a whirlwind, with barely a moment to breathe, but now that I am on the airplane it is time to catch up on the last few days. Last you heard from me I was overwhelmed by the most beautiful hotel in the world, the Broadmoor.
It continued to amaze me for my entire stay,particularly my room:
and the only unfortunate thing was that I did not have enough free time to enjoy all it had to offer. Here is a picture from my window:
and another:
The weather was incredibly cold, breaking all records. They tell me that Colorado Springs is usually mild, often in the 40s and 50s in the winter. Well, let me tell you- it was cold, reaching -16 degrees F at night and "warming up" to 10 during the day. The cold weather actually prevented me from going into the outdoor Jacuzzi, even though the first day I was there I saw a couple of kids in the water,
I was not brave enough to go outdoors after exercising at 7 AM either morning. I thought about it but beat a hasty retreat to my gorgeous bath
where I soaked and thought about Mu, my grandmother, who used to take a bath every single morning.
I think this was the first time in my life that I bathed in the morning. Aside from working out in a fully equipped exercise room (no better than the Y in Ithaca- and without those great bikes!) and taking a bath, I had virtually no free time until 10 PM each day. I have promised myself that Mike and I will definitely come back- if not to the Broadmoor (which I understand runs around $1000 a night in the summer) then to the area, which is absolutely beautiful.
Actually, the person who put the conference together was so excited by the response that she is beginning to make plans to do an annual event. I promised her that if she keeps it at that location, I will come for sure!
The conference was rather interesting. It is still hard to know what to make of it. It was smaller than expected, because of the extreme weather, massive school closings and icing on the roads, but there were about 40-50 people there every day. Many of the folks were military and first responders. The Colorado Springs area is a strong military area, with a huge base, Fort Carson (36,000 soldiers + families = approximately 60,000 people on base. A small town, indeed. I gave two presentations
which were very well received, as did Ruthy and Danny, my two colleagues. We were the keynotes- the invited experts. We had to be present inside the conference room for the entire two days, and there was no internet connection. You can imagine how hard that was for me! The other speakers, aside from myself and my two colleagues were for the most part quite interesting. We made a few good contacts, that we will now have to follow up on and see where that goes.
Last evening was the most interesting part of the conference. Major General (two star) Graham and his wife Carol, flew in from Atlanta to speak at the closing banquet. Here is a pic of me and the two star general:
They have a tragic personal story. They lost a son to suicide, and seven months later they lost their second son to a roadside bomb in Iraq.
This happened in 2003-4 and since then they have taken their tragedy and turned it into a mission to talk with people about suicide, mental health, and prevention. They are remarkable people. Very humble, very approachable, very human. They talk openly and frankly about very difficult emotions and experiences. You can see a very strong connection between the couple that is quite remarkable. It gives me a lot of food for thought about the role of creating meaning out of loss and tragedy, and the whole concept of post traumatic growth. It was an honor to meet them, and to be seated next to "the general" at dinner. We had quite an interesting conversation, with me telling him about the experience of having children in the Israeli army, and him sharing with me about his life in the US Army. Interestingly enough, after 31 years in the Army, he doesn't know what is next. He is not sure whether he will be promoted up, or retired out. All this will be decided in the next few months. I guess living with uncertainty is part and parcel of army life, worldwide. And here is a picture of me with Selena- the lady who put the conference together:
This morning we took off from the hotel before the crack of dawn, literally, at 5:30 AM to arrive in Denver Airport, with not much time to spare for our 8:30 flight. And that brings me up to the present. The plan for today is to arrive in LA, take a cab to the shul where I am meeting three rabbis, to talk with them about our soldier project, with an eye to having them host a group of soldiers. I will spend Shabbat with the Rotters and Saturday night with Peter and Josefine Loewenberg. I fly out at 8:30 AM on Sunday morning to Kennedy with an 8 hour layover there. Hopefully I will meet up with Zina Rutkin-Becker, an old friend of mine for a few of those hours.
Much love to all- shavua tov and hodesh tov.
but now it was
