What seems to be an obvious solution to a situation sometimes proves to be unexpectedly challenging. Figuring out how to respond to unforeseen circumstances might require us to innovate in ways that feel uncomfortable. The stories, Pancakes, The Power of Words, Ten, reveal how unanticipated problems create opportunities to change habitual patterns.
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• World Tale What it Takes (Arab) 
• Pancakes
• The Power-of Words
• Ten

​Long ago and far away there lived a young woman named Lulua who spent many hours carefully tending her garden. Afterward, she played music on her rabab. When doves appeared she scattered crumbs to feed them.

​In 1966, I was teaching in a Head Start Program. When the director demanded we teach our students to read and write their names I was puzzled. My kids, like most of the others in the program, couldn’t distinguish between a circle, square, and triangle, nor could many count to ten or name colors. How was I supposed to teach them to read and write? The director gave no instructions as to how to do this but I noticed the kids in her class spent a lot of time sitting at tables with pencils in hand. I knew this was wrong. 3-5-year-olds need big motor activity, not sitting for long periods of time trying to do something they aren’t ready to do.

​It was a Wednesday in October, 1988, I had just returned from a routine visit to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Fredrick, MD where I’ve been going since being diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in 1985. Part of an experimental protocol using interferon to keep the disease at bay, my blood is tested every month. When the telephone rang, I answered the call from NCI, expecting a nurse to tell me, as usual, my counts were in the normal range. Instead, the oncologist I’d seen a few hours before spoke in a serious tone of voice. No bantering as he was wont to do. “I’m sorry I have to tell you this over the phone but your test results weren’t ready before you left.”

I love ice cream. It’s the closest I come to addiction. For too many years I couldn’t eat any because my digestive system no longer processes gluten, dairy, nuts, soy or beans. Perhaps you can imagine my delight when I discovered a brand of the only flavor ice cream I like—coffee chocolate swirl—made with coconut milk and no offensive ingredients. I eat about a quarter of a pint, okay, sometimes a third, every day, which means I buy a lot of it. Perhaps I should be embarrassed to write that when it’s on sale I buy six pints at a time, but at least I make sure to leave a pint or two for someone else.