And . . . home, again
February 8, 2013 § 1 Comment
I’ve remained on the quiet side the past couple of months, but guess why? Because changes galore have been happening. I like to take a little while to settle in before I start talking about it.
Remember when I went to North Carolina? Well. I’ve come again, with all my belongings and my dog in tow. We mean to stay.
I’ve faced transitions enough times that I feel something of an old pro at them (I no longer let all the uncertainty and newness pile up until I can do little more than burst into tears, for example). One of the best things about putting yourself into precarious and/or unfamiliar situations is that you learn to adapt, reach out, and trust. You fear risk less, because even while it sometimes makes things quite uncomfortable and even unpleasant, on the other side of risk you might find something wonderful. And you trust that the universe (or, for me, God) will catch you. In this overly-independent society you actually learn to accept help and to cultivate gratitude. People like to help people, did you know that?
I’ve been caught again and I have fallen into what seems to be a very good place. I’m so excited to be working in the farm and gardens at a year-round camp in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Here in Orange County we have many, many small sustainable farms, fantastic food co-ops, winding roads, and horses galore. Two and half hours east, we reach the ocean. Two and half hours west, the mountains. Everyone has been so kind and inviting; southern hospitality is not a myth. Tassie is thrilled to have new friends, and so am I.
We went walking with one of our new friends and her dog the other day, and since I am currently camera-less (two broken ones), here is a first shot of us in North Carolina, courtesy of Leah Maloney:
Pardon the messy hair; some days, like those where the only things on the agenda are a long walk and a lot of reading, it just seems all right to let it stay a bit wild.
So. We are going to become southerners. Hold on tight, y’all. I can’t wait to find the stories that are here.
Breakfast at Home
December 22, 2012 § Leave a comment
The cow is milked. The chickens and ducks and sheep and steers are fed. So is the dog, after she and I romped around in the snow for a bit. She feels better, now that we went to the vet and got the tick diseases diagnosed (sigh) and got her on some antibiotics. There is a time and a place for them, and this is one of them. It’s good to see her old spirit back. And so – happy Saturday!
There is something about a late(ish) breakfast after morning chores. It makes me want to eat healthier, to crave things like, today, kale and eggs and fresh milk (in my coffee). Back in Colorado, when I worked at the horse barn, I would grab a granola bar for my pseudo breakfast at 6:45 a.m. – which didn’t really count, in my mind, as anything more than enough fuel to get me moving for a few hours. I’d go out to the stables to feed and move and turn out horses, and muck stalls, and then around 11:30 or so I’d head back home to my real meal, a substantial and fantastic brunch complete with meat and/or eggs and almost always greens (especially when I was also working at the organic farm several days a week). Yum.
There is surely a mind-body connection here. The physical effort plus the great outdoors seem to send little signals to the brain that we need nourishment! and nourishment that is natural, real, from the earth and its animals as directly as possible! So as much as I love a little pastry or tart as much as the next girl, this isn’t the time for it.
And I think that is part of why I crave this farm-life so much. It builds health up from, out from itself, in so many ways. Done well, it perpetuates health – health for humans, animals, land. And, in my opinion, communities.
I’ve been reading the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes – and, lest you be misled, this is not simply about lucky suburban stay-at-home-moms who are financially comfortable enough to be doing what they do, possibly with a nanny in tow, and possibly eco-friendly in the I-can-afford-it kind of way. (There is nothing quite wrong with that, but it isn’t a reality for most of us, right?) So, if you aren’t in this position, and it seems that you have to go to work, whether you like it or not, this book is probably equally if not more so for you. Hayes explores how the home has functioned past to present, how the choices we make are driven by and/or affect our communities and society as a whole, and how many families are assessing the current trends in career and home life and making deliberate deviations in the pursuit of health and happiness. The book is full of examples, quotes, and real people that make you think, “Huh. I could do this if they could.”
So much of what Hayes says here makes sense to me. It explains why, for so long, I wrinkled my nose at nearly every reasonable career option out there. As I read through the book, so many times I thought (in my melodramatic way) Oh my heart! Yes. This is the life I have wanted. Thank goodness the sustainable/environmental movement came along, where I could find a few more folks with my kinds of ideals, and find jobs therein. That said, as a (still) single girl, it’s challenging to think about how I can focus on home and how I can create homegrown community without a partner in this divine crime, this subversion of commercial, corporate society. But I mean to try.
Here’s an excerpt:
When women and men choose to center their lives on their homes, creating strong family units and living in a way that honors our natural resources and local communities, they are doing more than dismantling the extractive economy and taking power away from the corporate plutocrats. They are laying the foundation to re-democratize our society and heal our planet. They are rebuilding the life-serving economy. (57-58)
Read the book! And eat kale for breakfast, at a table, leisurely, like you deserve it. Your body will thank you.
A Lake Superior Poem
December 19, 2011 § 2 Comments
My graduate school and poet friend Amy just chased her heart north, to the North Shore of Lake Superior. I am so glad for her, especially because this place is one of my homes, too – never a place I have lived, but I place I have known myself to belong to, to be somehow intangibly (and yet, so very tangibly) connected to, smitten with, inspired by. It is a place I crave.
The summer after I graduated from high school, my family took a trip up to the Lake of the Woods, into Canada, and down along the North Shore Drive. When we reached the lake we had been in the van bickering and bored for too long, and then we’d gotten out at a rest stop and stumbled upon a trail. Suddenly we were all in better tempers, as the water reached blue into the distance and the breeze whisked its way around us.
And there was a moment when I stood on the rocky shore and felt my chest fill so terribly, wonderfully full. And I felt my heart know I belong here. For a long while I outlined my plans for the small house I would have where the waves rush and fall against the rocks and the pines.
I have since then known that same feeling in other places, though not so many as to make this one decrease in significance. Instead I am glad to find them, to gather them like precious stones. A few years ago three friends and I went up to ski at Lutsen, and I got to see my lake in winter. Several weeks later I wrote this poem.
—–
askance
at winter’s edge of shoreline, Lake Superior breaks into glass,
shards that creak and clink when we step softly across.
white-blue sky reaches down to the distant blue-black
where ice gives way and water moves free. now and then,
a rumble and groan. we keep close to shore. hold a stillness.
listening, it is, for beginners. only common sense in asking
the lake if we might cross its cracks and heaves, if
we might find the rare structures of winter on water.
—–
Kinds of Honey 