To Be...Or...

The Wisdom to Survive

A Vision

If we will have the wisdom to survive,

to stand like slow-growing trees on a ruined place,
Renewing it, enriching it,
If we will make our seasons welcome here,
Asking not too much of earth or heaven.

Then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live here,
Their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides,
Fields and gardens rich in the windows.
The river will run clear,
as we will never know it,
And over it, birdsong like a canopy.

On the levels of the hills will be green meadows,
Stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest,
An old forest will stand,
Its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.

Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music risen out of the ground.
They will take nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting.
Memory, native to this valley,
will spread over it like a grove,
and memory will grow into legend,
legend into song, song into sacrament.

The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling light.
This is no paradise or dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.


--Wendell Berry

The Phone is Ringing...

This morning I am entering the Green Phone Booth for the last time. Running through the rain that just won't stop around here, my superhero cape is soaking wet, heavy, and dripping all over my spandex leggings hemp calf-length skirt and high-heel go-go boots worn-out Birkenstocks.

Continued here...

A New Beginning

From the time I was four or five years old, I kept a diary chronicling my days. At first, I wrote about my adventures with other children in the neighborhood. As I grew up, I noted what was served for lunch in the school cafeteria, and then for an unforgivable number of years about which boy attracted my attention, and then about how big a nerd I was--how alienated that left me from my highschool-full of beautiful and rich classmates.

When I entered graduate school in history and began writing advanced research papers based on primary documents, I panicked. Yikes! For so many years I had imagined my diaries as letters to myself. Now I suddenly realized that I had an audience, whether I liked it or not: HISTORIANS OF THE FUTURE.

I stopped writing in my diary. I burned the many volumes in one giant bonfire.

But I struggled: how does one evaluate one's life, one's days, without writing about them?

Blogging allowed me to return--only by making that terrifying elusive (and evaluative) historian-of-the-future into real live readers who could comment--ideally with lovely stories, interesting thoughts, and kind support, but also with swinging fists when they felt necessary.

When I started this blog, it was a knitting blog. What pleasure it was to talk about my fibery obsessions and also to share my finished objects with others! Luckily, the wonder that is Ravelry has completely supplanted that need.

As time has gone by, I have worked through some fairly intense personal issues (including the illness of my father) in the pages of this blog. I don't know how to thank my readers for the depth of compassion I have received during these times. But it wasn't just my readers' comments on and off the blog; just the fact that I had this place to write to sometimes made a difference, too.

For the last months, I have been part of a magnificent project: the Green Phone Booth. Here a group of five fabulous "green sheros" have talked about green-caped superheroic efforts--and also our normal everyday efforts--to address the environmental issues that confront this world. I am inspired daily by this amazing group of women and the acts they do. But I feel awkward every week when I try to imagine what piece of information I can pass on that will enlighten anybody. It turns out I have very little instruction or advice to give. (Who would have thunk it?! Poe could have warned me that the didactic is almost always heresy and waste.)

So my blogging isn't about teaching whatever I think I might know.

Blogging, for me, needs to be all about navel gazing.

Do I believe my navel is really of such great importance to the universe? If not, might the universe at least be reflected in my navel? Dare I even wonder if anyone cares about what I think might be going on in my own personal belly-button?

When I get too far from the goal of analyzing my own umbilicus, I start panicking about what other people will think: if they will be disinterested in my writing, dulled by what I think are insights, disappointed in my efforts, sick of it all.

Honestly? I am trying really hard to tell myself that I don't care, that I won't worry whether you are all so bored to tears that you'd rather watch the weeds take over our backyard than read what I am writing (instead of weeding the backyard). Whatever fictive/real "audience" is out there must be better than any imaginary future-historians I could conjure to write for. (And you are, dear readers, you are! You can't imagine what I can imagine.)

Sometimes this blog takes time away from living. I am both a homeschooling mother and a writer of academic books. And I prefer both knitting and reading to blogging.

So I will tell you that I am not promising to write more than about one post a week or so.

And these posts will be random. They may be about knitting, about parenting, about homeschooling, about environmental issues, about the books I read and the music I hear and the plays I attend. They may be about politics or the collapse of civilization as we know it. You know Edgar Allan Poe will never be far from my wings. Shakespeare will appear occasionally. The history of race in America informs everything, as does my weird Jewish-Atheist personal crises which recur constantly. Beethoven, and disability politics, and Suzuki violin--they might stick their necks in. My fencing son will insist on getting a touch in occasionally. And yes--there will be food and gardening, too.

I very much needed this sabbatical. It has been wonderful. But, like the end of all great vacations, I am ready to come home. I hope to have all of you with me as I pull the suitcase out of the car and up the stairs, back to this site.

I hope you will all join me.

This blog is On Sabbatical

...until at least June 1, 2009.

APLS in Eden: A Carnival of Nature

(Update: the carnival is now posted over at the Green Phone Booth)

Announcement:

Every month I look forward to reading the Affluent Persons Living Sustainably carnival. Topics in the past have ranged from the mechanics of buying locally to the ways we think about our children and future generations when we try to green up our lives. I've really been enjoying all the posts in the new January edition about the mind games we play as we try to live more sustainable lives.

I am honored to be the host for the February edition of the APLS carnival. The topic for the month will be NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT.

I think I must be the Last Parent in the World to read Richard Louv's excellent book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Louv's work is complex, thoughtful, and beautifully written. The author argues that a deep connection with nature leads to a calmer mind, a fitter body, and a more socially mature relationship with the world. Yet we are raising an entire generation with "denatured childhoods"--that is, childhoods where entertainment is more about electronic screens than it is about free play in the wild. Louv asked us to consider how these disconnected youngsters can ever become the good stewards of the land that we need in this era of environmental crisis.

I would love to see what connections you see between experiences in nature and your own efforts to live more sustainably.

What is "nature" in the first place? How is our experience of the natural world different in a place of awesome majesty (like the Grand Canyon), a place of more basic but still unstructured land like a local forest, and a more constructed outdoor space like a garden or park? What if we're just reading about an area we may never have seen, like a rainforest or a desert savanna?

What makes nature so powerful or meaningful? How has your experience with the natural world shaped your own environmentalism? Is love of the natural world an essential motivation for sustainability? Have you found ways to share a connection to nature with your loved ones, young and old?

To participate in February's carnival, please submit your posts to aplscarnival (at) gmail (dot) com by February 13. The carnival will be published at the Green Phone Booth on February 20.

Making Vinegar

My partner and our 9yo son went apple picking one gorgeous autumn day this fall. With their incredible harvest, we made crisps, baked apples, and apple sauce. We also dried hundreds of slices in the dehydrator. Some of them we packed up as holiday presents. Some we enjoyed as car snacks on our interminable winter drive to our families. And others we'll enjoy, cooked into pies, as the winter proceeds.

As we cut up the fresh apples in preparation for those treats, we put all the cores and skins and seeds in a big jar. When it was about two thirds full, I topped it up with water and then covered with a tea towel. The mixture stood on our indoor porch for a while, waiting for fermentation.

CONTINUED over at the Green Phone Booth

Eating Local on the Road

I've not been posting much recently about our efforts to eat locally, but that does not mean we haven't been doing it! At home, much of our diet is sourced locally--so much that we sometimes take it for granted. Quite often, we realize half way through a meal that all ingredients other than salt and pepper are local.

On the road, however, it is a little more difficult. Our two week vacation to visit our families has had a few local moments--including one of my favorite annual traditions: roasted oysters, gathered and prepared in coastal South Carolina where my parents are from. Delicious!

Begin It Now

Until one is committed there is hesitancy,

the chance to draw back,

always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.

There is one elementary truth,

the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans;

That the moment one definitely commits oneself,

then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred.

A whole stream of events issue from the decision,

raising one’s favor, all manner of unforeseen incidents, and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you do, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Begin it now.


--Goethe
(or not)

Living...as Quiet as a Mouse

'Twas the night before Christmas...

and in the hotel kitchenette, my partner David was cleaning out the coffee maker. After removing the (disposable) filter full of used grounds, he looked around and said, "Hey--where's the compost bucket?"

CONTINUED HERE

Happy Hanukkah!

May your windows and your hearts glow with light during this season.

Blackboard art by 9yo Son

Here Comes the Sun

Inspired by JessTrev, David and our 9yo son made a lovely bread to help us celebrate the Winter Solstice:



(Click on the picture for a full view.)

JessTrev includes the delicious bread recipe in her post. Check it out!

Son enjoyed making butter from scratch as well. We half-filled a pint jar with heavy cream, added a marble, and shook for about fifteen minutes.



The sun bread and the fresh butter seem to have done the trick. We woke this morning to watch the sun rise--and we're eagerly awaiting more light and more warmth to grace the coming days.

Ho, ho, ho!

Although our atheist-Jewish family does not celebrate Christmas, we have many friends who do--including this man, the farm manager at a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm:



I knit him the Santa hat from brilliant non-Christmas-oriented pattern for the Bearded Toque. (I think I am going to have to knit the regular one for a particular sometimes-bearded relative.)

I gave Bill the hat the day of a big dinner party. Many people tried it on that evening, and you can see some pictures of the various models here in a Flickr folder.

I'll include one shot of my favorite model (my 9yo son) showing off the hat here:



I hope all of you are having as much fun as I am preparing for upcoming holidays!

The Season of Giving

A day or two ago, I heard someone on the radio talk about volunteering to hand out sacks of groceries at a food bank, only to have the food run out long before the needy people did. The volunteer was profoundly moved when she faced the next person in line and had to tell her she would have to go home empty-handed. There was no more food for her to take home to her family.

Charities have been struggling during the economic crisis as more and more people need their services.

Interestingly, at the same time that so many people are suffering, many people are giving more than ever before. CONTINUED HERE

A New Me

?

I'm so sorry it has been so long since I've written. Sometimes I wonder if I'm ready to let go of this blog: to just live life, to post once a week (when I'm on schedule) at Green Phone Booth. I could read blogs again! I could read period again--books and the like!

I feel overwhelmed by the minimal demands of my day-to-day. Back when I was writing academic book after academic book, I had an excuse for not getting anything done. Now I don't. I sit at home watching my child grow up, watching my houseplants freeze in our cold home, watching the world go by, dreaming up new projects that I barely start because just bathing is enough for one day...

I feel guilty for not getting more done. I feel guilty for throwing away my Ivy League education, yada yada. I feel guilty for presenting a model my child probably has no idea he should feel pressured about. I feel guilty for presenting very few models other than a mother who blogs intermittently, knits obsessively, reads about the end of the world while sitting on the couch, and drinks red wine.

So yes, I am on vacation for a little while. More eventually.

Famine

courtesy of Lil Acorn Studio

Last spring I got very interested in foraging. My family took a hike through a local forest with a knowledgeable acquaintance who pointed out edible foods along our route. Our interest and confidence were both stoked by books such as The Forager's Harvest as well as the classic Stalking The Wild Asparagus.

What could be easier or more local than food that naturally grew in a place, with no labor from us?

During the early spring, my family collected quarts of dandelions and canned pints of delicious jelly. We picked purslane and sorrel which graced our stir-fries. And we eagerly awaited fall when we could collect acorns--and try everything from sugar-coated acorns to acorn-flour bread.

Last year, my young son and I collected zillions of acorns for art projects and pretending. We filled my backpack one afternoon as we waited for the bus, we picked them up on every walk, we heard their falls on our roof. Before I threw in a load of laundry, I had to pick acorns out of pockets.

But when was that, exactly? This year I waited, and waited. Still no acorns. Did we miss the season somehow?

CONTINUED HERE

Already sick of leftovers...

Local Thanksgiving

Although on Thursday we attended a friend's Thanksgiving, on Friday we cooked our own meal--all local and some of it from our own backyard garden.

* * *

For several years, we've split our celebratory meal into two. This allows us to have a full menu, not starve in the early part of the day, and not get too extraordinarily stuffed at the end.

For lunch, we served a salad of our backyard-grown arugula, local feta seasoned with Herbes de Provence (found at the farmers market), and a homemade maple-mustard vinaigrette.



We completed our midday section with a thick and spicy pumpkin soup. After roasting the tan pumpkin for about 45 minutes, I scooped out the flesh and added it to some sauteed onions and apples that I had going in the soup pot. Then I threw in some some vegetable-peeling stock, a bit of cream, pureed hot peppers, and a pinch of non-local curry powder. A warming preparation for an afternoon of cooking.



* * *

Dinner was more elaborate.

We acquired the local turkey from our Amish dairy supplier and served it with all our favorite sides.



Using corn we grew and ground ourselves, I made a skillet of all-corn cornbread, then crumbled it up and added mushrooms, onions, and some of our own backyard mustard greens. Throw in a couple of eggs, a bit of turkey broth seasoned with sage and rosemary, and then bake in a casserole for about half and hour. Surprisingly delicious. I felt quite proud eating what we had nurtured from seed.

Our main vegetable was roasted Brussels sprouts--an all-time favorite around here. There is very little that is easier to make. Cut the orbs in half length-wise, toss them on a baking sheet with oil, salt, and pepper, then roast until brown and slightly crispy. I throw them in with whatever else I am cooking, so the temperature varies--but ideally, try something around 400 degrees.

Because we could not find local cranberries, we substituted a thrown-together relish: cherry preserves I canned over the summer with some farmers-market horseradish. It was the same combination of sweet and tart--but it reminded me more of Passover than it did of Thanksgiving...

We also served two of our pickles, both canned with produce we grew ourselves. The green beans were spicy and garlicy, while the lemon cukes were sweet and mild. Great combo.



We drank a bottle of white made by our county's own vineyard. A bit sweet, which went well with the turkey.

* * *

To end our local feast, we made a sweet potato pie with a whole-wheat crust, served it with maple whipped cream, and ate it in front of a lovely fire.



We all were satiated and slept very, very well.

Blocking Dragons

David has been knitting dragon scarves recently:

a dark green one for our 9yo son, and this purple one (temporarily modeled by our son) which we wrapped up and gave to a young purple-obsessed dragon fan.



What a funny little pattern! Watching my partner knit it was amusing as he juggled three needles in order to create the scales.

The scarf was quite a hit. My favorite part is the round metal eyes we found in the button collection--a leftover from a 1950s sweater, perhaps?