What Roots Us

I sit here typing with very dirty nails.  I spent the week-end returning to gardening projects, and as a result, I'm feeling somewhat more rooted than I have been.

A few months ago, my spouse spent a week planting many things in pots and containers of all types.  We've tried the old-fashioned gardening where we put seedlings directly in the ground, but we haven't had much luck with vegetables.  We've got very sandy soil and a variety of pests.  Container gardening works better.

So far, we've had great luck with lettuce, so we've been having more salad.  We don't have lots of lettuce, so we've been experimenting with composed salads, with a bit of greens, some herbs, and additions from elsewhere:  hardboiled eggs, grated cheese, sauteed onions, pickles, olives, marinated beans,  other veggies like tomatoes and carrots, those kinds of things.

This week-end needed to be the week-end that we transplanted the tomato seedlings.  We had one huge pot with at least 30 seedlings--they needed more room.  And so, we spent the week-end providing that.

On Saturday we went to the Home Depot to get more dirt.  I often think of my grandmother's rich dirt.  Before she had to move, she lived in her house for over 40 years, and she dug her kitchen scraps into a plot of land by the huge shed in the back yard--old-fashioned composting.  As a result, she had amazing dirt.  How I miss that dirt.  She would shake her head in astonishment that anyone has to resort to going someplace to buy dirt--dirt, of all things! 

We've been composting too, ever since we bought the place in 1998, and we have nothing that resembles that dirt.  Sigh.

While we were at the Home Depot, we bought some mint plants.  They cost just under $4 a plant, which would also make my grandmother shake her head.  She's from a time and place where you planted a tiny sprig of mint, and it took over your yard overnight.  She'd be shocked that I'd pay for mint.

I've been looking for seeds, but I've had no luck in finding chocolate mint seeds.  So, when I saw healthy chocolate mint plants, I bought two.  The peppermint plant was an impulse buy.

Yes, some women buy designer shoes or handbags on impulse, but I buy mint plants unplanned.  That fact tells you much that you need to know about me.

That fact, and the fact that I'm going to work with very dirty nails.  I'll work the dirt out as the day goes on, but I like the reminder that I'm rooted.  Even before I plunged my hands into dirt yesterday, I had dirty nails.  Our creative worship service yesterday had an arts project with colored modeling clay which stained my nails and fingers; for more on the fun project, see this post.

Yesterday afternoon was perfect for transplanting:  warm, but in a temperate way, not a muggy/hot way, and overcast.  We gathered every pot we have and figured out where to put all the seedlings.  We're aware that some of them will not survive.  If they all do, we'll need more pots--what a wonderful problem to have.  We've got the new mint plants in pots too, and I'll be happy if they take over.

I don't have time to do the kind of gardening that my spouse does, but I'm happy to be part of the process here and there, and I know he likes the company.  And we both love the idea of being a bit more self-sufficient by growing our own food.

Don't get me wrong--it's not cost effective to grow our own vegetables.  I know that factory farming saves a family a significant amount of money, at least now, while it's still subsidized in so many ways.  But it's good to plunge our hands into soil, to remind ourselves of what roots us.  I love salads that contain food grown just outside the door.

But more than that, I love that I remember my grandparents when I help with the gardening.  I remember my grandmother, who did her version of composting, even when she no longer had a garden.  I remember my grandfather who spent time in the garden each morning to monitor the health of the plants and to do a bit of harvesting.  I remember the gnarled fingers of okra, the corn with its silky hair, the ribbons of beans.  I remember snapping those beans with my female relatives on the porch.

My spouse has similar memories, and it's good to share them as we plant.  It's good to dig our hands in the dirt and remember the generations before our grandparents, generations that also grew gardens.  It's good to get dirt under our nails as we dream about the future.

Recommendations for the Day of the Golden Globes

Will you be watching the Golden Globes get awarded or not awarded tonight?  I will not be--I'm rarely an awards show kind of person:  too many commercials, too many similar speeches, too much pop culture that only marginally interest me.

I predict that Argo will win big--but that's mainly because I've seen so few of last year's movies.  Argo is a delight in so many ways and so well-done.  It manages to be a nail-biter, even when we know the ending.

I thought of the movie again when I read this story in The Washington Post.  By now, we know that Tony Mendez, the main character in Argo, was a spy.  But how many of us know that he was also a painter?

I love the story because it reminds me of how many people have a day job to go along with their creative work--and the story stresses that the two can feed each other.  It doesn't have to be a zero sum game:  "Art was often Mendez’s cover story, and in the annals of quirky covers, his was novel in that it was both a deception and a reality. He set up a studio wherever he traveled, painting when he had time, often capturing scenes he saw on his missions."

The piece also talks about Mendez's wife and son, who are also artists who share work space and gallery space.  How neat to read about families that get along and seem to really like each other.

But maybe you need something lighter to watch today.  Yesterday, in preparation for my spouse's Wednesday surgery, we went to the library to load up on DVDs.  One of the benefits that comes from not making it to movie theatres very often is that there's almost always something we want to see which we can check out for free from the library:  10 DVDs per card that we can keep for a week.

Last night we watched Baby Mama.  I'm not sure why I was resistant to watching it when it first came out in 2008.  But in the intervening years, I've really come to appreciate the work of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler; Parks and Rec is one of my absolute favorite shows, and I've loved 30 Rock in similar ways.

Baby Mama had lots of laugh out loud moments for me, which I find rare in movie comedies.  In fact, most movie comedies (as opposed to say, TV comedies) bore me.  I worried that the Amy Poehler character might be tough to take, but that was not the case.  As long as I didn't expect the movie to be a realistic analysis of work and class and the lives of women, it was great.  And I suspec that if I trained my feminist scholarly skills on the movie, I could argue that it deftly skewers sexist assumptions. 

But not this morning.  This morning, I'm just going to enjoy the laughs the movie brought me.

Far Side of Midlife Potential

I've been catching up on blog reading, and I came across this post of Historiann's, which talked about the death of Gerda Lerner and the importance of her life.  Lerner was among the first historians to look at history through a feminist lens.  Lerner was instrumental in making women's history a respectable focus for historians.

What interests me even more, however, is that she didn't even begin her graduate work until she was in her 40's.  That means that her important work as a historian came when she was on the far side of midlife.

I've decided to note these stories as I find them.  Several months ago, I wrote this post about Phyllis Tickle, who did several important things after age 45.  Like many women, she spent her earlier years raising a family, and then she turned to other fulfillments.

Lerner spent her earlier years working in Hollywood, writing scripts and working on movies.  She was also active in many social justice movements.  And then she went to school and then she wrote her most important work, work that looked at women's lives on plantations in the U.S. South before the Civil War and work that looked at patriarchal society through ever larger subject areas.

Why do I treasure these stories of women who did their most important work at the far side of midlife and beyond?  Well, on some level, it's obvious.  I'm 47, and I need to believe that I'm not a washed-up husk of my former self.  I look back and say, "I had potential once."  I still have potential.

We live in a society that beams images of youthful achievement, and it's tough to stop paying attention.  It's tough not to feel that if one hasn't achieved major accomplishments by age 22, one is finished and done.

I sometimes look at all the things I thought I would do by now and feel despair.  Of course, if I had a list of what I thought I would accomplish, a list created by my 18 year old self, it wouldn't include some things I've done:  my Ph.D., my chapbooks of poems, my presence as a blogger at multiple places (some of which pay!).

When reading Phyllis Tickle's book, Prayer is a Place, which is an autobiography of sorts, I'm struck by the directions she went that she would never have dreamed of when she was young.  I don't want to be constrained by 18 year old Kristin. 

It also makes me wonder what 68 year old Kristin will think when she looks back on these blog posts.  I've been in the beginning stages of a time of discernment.  It seems improbable that the field of higher education can support me to retirement.  That leads to the question, "What next?"

Right now, I feel both hope and despair.  On my despairing days, I can't remember any other aspirations I ever had.  On my hopeful days, it's hard to choose the next path.

It's good to remember that we don't always have to be the super-active agents of change in our lives.  Sometimes, all we have to do is to remain open to possibilities as we see what comes our way.  There are some changes that we can't have prepared for; we're just the right people at the right time, the ones who say yes to intriguing directions.

Lerner shows us that we can follow our interests, and the world will follow, even when it doesn't seem an obvious outcome.  If we went back to 1960 and talked about the importance of women's history, people would look at us blankly or scoff.  Yet that's where Lerner led us.

For those of us at midlife now, I wonder where our lives will lead.

Friday Joys

--Yesterday, I wrote a poem that I wasn't expecting to write when the week started.  On Wed. night, Kathleen Kirk wrote this Facebook post:  "Cleaning my office. Have just labeled a box, 'The past is a bucket of ashes.'"  I thought that would make a great line in a poem.

--But on Thursday morning, I woke up with these lines in my head:

     She thinks the past is a box of ashes,
     safe in the back of the basement
     where no one need be bothered again.

--The ashes reconstruct themselves into skeletons with new flesh that dance with her children.  I am so pleased with this metaphor, which I'd have never created without that Facebook prompt.

--Later Kathleen wrote, "Carl Sandburg said it. And my dad. All of the time."

--There are many reasons to dislike Facebook, but I've found many reasons to like it and to continue to check in.  I like knowing what people are doing, in the minutiae, as well as the big stuff, of their lives.  Most of us are too busy to write long e-mails and letters.  But many people can find time for a quick sentence on Facebook.  Hurrah for that.

--And some times, I get a poetry prompt.

--It's been a week of getting my eating and exercise back on track.  That feels good.  I've spent the last 6 weeks eating like a woman who will be executed in the morning.  That too feels good at first, but then a certain greasiness sets in.

--My friend and I made an amazing barley salad out of the simplest ingredients:  barley, celery, fresh dill, pomegranate seeds, olive oil, vinegar, and fresh parsley.  So fresh and clean tasting.  Delicious.

--What a treat to cook with friends, to feed ourselves, to be nourished on multiple levels.

--It has been a typical first week of the quarter at school, full of technology failures and people reporting to the wrong rooms and misunderstandings and endless e-mails.  Yesterday, we found out that the CARS (the computer system that we use to build classes and student records and all sorts of important stuff) was self-generating e-mails to random students here and there telling them that their classes had been changed and they needed to see their advisor to get a new class.  But their schedules hadn't been changed.

--I'm lucky that I can write this kind of e-mail, and my boss and colleagues will smile:

"When I write my memoir, I’m calling it Ghost in the Machine. But maybe I shouldn’t, since that title was already used by the Police for my favorite record album of theirs. Theatre of the Absurd Machines, perhaps will be the title.


OK, back to regular life . . . once I come up with a good name for the mandolin punk band I plan to form when CARS goes truly wonky and won’t let us do our jobs at all.

I’m just kidding, of course. I already have a page full of good names for various punk bands I might form."

--At home, we've been lighting candles all week. I love Christmas lights, both the ones on trees and the ones outside, and they're one of the things that I miss the most in the post Christmas season. It's still a dark season, even though we get a minute or two more of daylight each day.


--I especially love our Swedish glass candle holders in the shape of a cube that my spouse puts on the window sill--all sorts of lovely reflections in the dark glass.

--We continue to light our candles against the darkness in so many ways, but the ways that our creative efforts light the world bring me the most joy.

The Work of Immigrants: Richard Blanco and the Rest of Us

Yesterday, I heard that Richard Blanco had been selected to be the poet for Obama's inauguration.  I thought, that name is familiar.  I knew our paths had crossed somewhere down here in South Florida but where?

In the fall of 2007 (or was it 2008?), Florida International University offered a workshop with Blanco that was open to the community if we paid $50; I assume that MFA students could attend for free.  Back in those days, my school had money for professional development, and so, my poet friend and I went to the north campus of FIU, where the creative writing program is housed.

This morning, I looked through some folders, but I have nothing left from that workshop, even though I remember that Blanco gave us handouts.  My memory, which may be faulty, is that the workshop was to be about how to put together a book-length manuscript.  I remember Blanco talking about poetry presses that publish books, about contests, but I don't remember concrete advice.

I vaguely remember that we were supposed to bring our own poems.  Did we do any workshopping of poems?  Workshopping of poems would not have been as interesting to me as getting insight about book-length collections.  I remember a fierce conversation about the use of fairy tales in poetry--was it in response to my friend's Sleeping Beauty poem?  I'm fairly sure that we each brought a poem.  I don't remember the poem that I brought, and I don't remember anyone's responses.

I remember my friend and I leaving the workshop and driving north; I remember us being a bit shaken by the assertions by a young, female graduate student who was very derisive and dismissive of the use of fairy tales and feminist themes.

I remember that the workshop attendees were an even mix of grad students and those of us teaching college classes in community colleges and for-profit schools (my friend and me and maybe one other person).  I remember being impressed by the optimism of the grad students who assumed that the world would notice every poem that they wrote.

Richard Blanco was a graduate of the MFA program at FIU, and it was not lost on me that his work life at the time came about because of his engineering degree.  I think it may have been lost on the graduate students, although I suspect they've learned that life lesson by now.  Poetry is wonderful, but it rarely feeds the bulldog.

I remember being impressed with Blanco's ability to speak to all of us in the audience.  Some people competed for his attention, but he was good at making sure that everyone had a chance to participate.

My overall impression was of kindness and encouragement from Blanco and from most of the workshop participants.  I remember being impressed with Blanco's work.

But most of all, I remember feeling a sense of wonder that I had come to be at that place, in that time, surrounded by so much diversity.  In some ways, I remember that late afternoon workshop as a tale of multiple immigrants.  There was my friend who immigrated from India and her poems that are so deeply entwined with both western and eastern mythology and fairy tales.  And then there was Richard Blanco and his biography that is so much an archetypal story of the Cuban diaspora.  There were the grad students, immigrants of a different sort, who would soon be leaving on new immigrations of their own.

And then there was me, also an immigrant of yet a different sort, a monolingual woman who left the U.S. South behind to come to a part of the country that is so much a part of a different South, whose work has been informed so richly by all of those juxtapositions.

A Tribute to a Feminist Foremother Who Was Born Today

Today is the birthday of Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote the masterpiece The Second Sex.  In many ways, no other feminist writer has influenced me as deeply, since she paved the way for the feminist writers who would come after her.

Today is also the birthday of Richard Nixon, an unlikely feminist hero.  Still, he shepherded important legislation, most famously Title IX, that would change the world for so many of us.  But that's a topic for a different post.  Or maybe not.

I've read The Second Sex only once, back in 1985, when I was just about to turn 20.  I knew it would be the kind of book I'd read only once, so I underlined carefully and took notes.  It's intriguing to go back and read it now; in many ways, I meet my younger self on the pages.  It's clear I was worried about marriage and motherhood and career.  As I look at the book again, those passages still feel relevant, even though I'm not sorting out as many of those issues these days.  I've put some quotes at the end of this post; see if you agree.

I was always impressed with the way that de Beauvoir and her lover, John-Paul Sartre, set up their lives.  They lived apart, but saw each other daily.  They supported each other as writers and philosophers.  I suspect that they'd have written less important work if they hadn't had each other, although of course, I cannot prove that.

Simone de Beauvoir matters in so many ways, but her idea that we're formed more by our culture than by our biology seems her essential contribution to me.  We can continue to argue that point, but The Second Sex makes so clear that culture forms us in so many ways, many of which we don't even perceive.  It's a brilliant work.

I wish I could say that culture has changed and that her book seems dated as it discusses the western culture of the mid-20th-century, but I can't.  We're still sorting out these issues, if we're lucky enough to live in an industrialized nation.  We may have a few more options when it comes to career and/or childcare, but many of us don't--or the new options that we have are no more appealing than the options de Beauvoir had.  As always, class trumps race and gender when we look at these issues.  If I'm a woman with money, I have all sorts of options that women with much less money don't have.

And of course, women who live in non-industrialized nations face even grimmer choices.  I cannot get the case of the young Indian woman who was murdered by gang rape out of my head.  Her fate shows that the world will not always take kindly to women taking hold of more choices.  But we must persevere.

The world is different now, to be sure.  It's not as different as I would like it to be--but there is worldwide outrage over a young woman murdered brutally by gang rapists.  The sorrow and outrage and demand for change in response to a brutal hate crime--that response will hearten me, even as I feel profound sorrow over the fact that we're still having to do this education, that we still have to make clear that it's not a rapeable offense to be a woman out and about after dark.  Being born a woman is not a rapeable offense--a fight we're still fighting in so much of the world.

So today, as we enjoy aspect of our lives that de Beauvoir would never have imagined possible, let us say a thank you to our feminist foremother.  Let us resolve that we will not rest until all women enjoy a plethora of choices, and that they're safe to make those choices.

Some quotes from The Second Sex, to give you a flavor of de Beauvoir's writing:

On love:  "Genuine love ought to be founded on the mutual recognition of two liberties; the lovers would then experience themselves both as self and as other:  neither would give up transcendence, neither would be mutilated; together they would manifest values and aims in the world.  For the one and the other, love would be revelation of self by the gift of self and enrichment of the world" (p. 741).

On work:  "It is through gainful employment that woman has traversed most of the distance that separated her from the male; and nothing else can guarantee her liberty in practice.  Once she ceases to be a parasite, the system based on her dependence crumbles; between her and the universe there is not longer any need for a masculine mediator" (p. 755).

On embryos and children:  "It must be pointed out that our society, so concerned to defend the rights of the embryo, shows no interest in children once they are born; . . .  society closes its eyes to the frightful tyranny of brutes in children's asylums and private foster homes" (p. 542).

On religion:  "In modern civilization, which--even for woman--has a share in promoting freedom, religion seems much less an instrument of constraint than an instrument of deception" (p. 691).

Life Lessons: The Lego Edition

I've been thinking about Legos, both as an industry and as a toy.  Longtime readers of my blog might say, "Of course.  You always think of Legos when you've been spending time with your nephew."

That is true.  He loves Legos, and we often spend time building things with them.  And I certainly never would have made the trip to Legoland, if he hadn't been part of my life.

While we were at Legoland, my brother-in-law and I had an interesting conversation.  He mentioned that the patent on Legos had expired roughly 40 years ago.  But the company has created interesting approaches to marketing and packaging.  Now, in addition to a big bucket of Legos, you can buy all sorts of kits that come with directions which allow the purchaser to create very complex objects.

I thought about this, as I watched my nephew decide what kit to buy at Legoland.  He and his father decided that they shouldn't buy something at Legoland that they could get outside the park at a discount store like Target (ah, the joys of teaching budgeting to an elementary school child).  They bought a kit that would allow them to make both a helicopter and a vehicle--and then my nephew, my brother-in-law, and my spouse spent hours constructing the helicopter.

Luckily, the kit came with very good instructions.  Watching them follow the directions with no problems--none!--at all put me in mind of a project that I used to do in my writing classes, which has also put me in mind of how much life has changed since the last time I did this project.

I divided the students into small groups, although I was always conflicted about this, since I hated working in small groups in school.  At first I had to do it; I could only afford so many Legos, even though I used cheaper imitations.  Later, as I had more Legos, I gave students the option of working alone.

I gave each group a bag of Legos.  They had to create an object, take photos, and write instructions so that a different group could take the bag of Legos and following the directions only (no pictures consulted until the end) make the object. 

Why didn't I let them consult the picture?  I was teaching writing classes, so I thought the focus should be on the written words.  Now, I might have a different approach.

This project works well in Composition classes; it's a process essay.  I adapted it from a friend's project that she did when she taught Technical Writing.  I've even done it in Business Writing classes, because some of business writing involves giving directions.

I thought about this project as I watched the construction of the helicopter.  Each step had not only written words, but a drawing of the step.  I'm guessing that neither one would work as well by itself.  If I did this project again, I might encourage the use of more visuals.

Of course, we could do that these days.  Back when I was first doing this project, students had to bring a camera from home to take the pictures, and then they had to get the film developed.  Now most people have a camera with their phones or some other kind of cheap, digital camera.

I don't remember any Lego kits when I first started doing this project in the mid-90's, but they may have been there.  It would be interesting to study the directions from today's Lego kits as a piece of writing itself.  I'd use the basic question that I always use when I hand out a piece of writing:  what makes this piece of writing work?  How can we do similar things in our own writing?

I think of other pieces of process writing that we encounter often in modern life, like the modular furniture that needs assembly or recipes.  I've been exploring the Smitten Kitchen site and pondering buying the book.  I know one of the reasons that Deb Perelman, the author of each, has been so successful is that she writes directions which are clear and easy to follow and leave us with food that we're expecting.  I hate those cookbooks where the food will only look the way that it looks in the book if we have a team of people who do all the arranging and photographing.

As people who teach writing, I've often thought that we should spend more time focusing on process writing.  But maybe I think that because I'm surrounded by so many people who can't give simple directions.

As a human being, I've often wished that people had more practice communicating in clear, precise ways, the way that we must when we're doing when we write a set of instructions.  Can writing the process essay help us get in touch with our true emotions?  Perhaps I really want us to have more psychological training, not just training in the writing and giving of instructions.

Or maybe I just wish that I had more time to play with Legos in any given day.