The Big Fish

I know, I know, this is not a photo worthy of a food article. But I just wanted you all to have a small vision of this lovely eleven pound red snapper (snapper Veracruzana) we had for Christmas dinner. What you don't see is the four men it took to hoist this lovely thing from oven to table.
Years ago, I got the idea for this from my Chilean friend, Nidia. She described the green rice that should accompany it, and the dessert flan. I held this idea through those English dinners of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and plum pudding and all kinds of other puddings, most with sauces or gravies. Along the way I had become a 'half' vegetarian and ate no red meat. So, this year we went for the red snapper, the Mexican Christmas dinner. We did not have a platter wide enough for the green rice (made with cilantro, spinach and parsley) so it was served on the side. We also had collards and salad from the garden and the sinful chocolate pecan pie that Anne made. That dinner was just the best. All ten of us helped in some way and we loved the event.
Ten of us sat down for dinner. Our ages were from four to seventy. The four year old, my grandson Quincy, was excused early to watch a new video, and the rest of us truly enjoyed the fish and all the fixings and each other and the ideas swirling around the table. The college student who had just returned from some months in Cuba had stories to tell of his experiences, and the scientists among us talked of turtles and other environmental issues.
After dinner everyone pitched in to clean up the kitchen and get that first load into the dishwasher before going to sit on the screen porch with the armadillos rooting in the ferns and the five dogs alert, and continue the conversation.
I love these gatherings of friends and family. It's a good thing that I do because the next night, we had another and different ten guest dinner. This time it was a lot more ad hoc. I made Hoppin' John with the black eye peas and rice and everyone else brought stuff. Again, we had collards. And again, everyone loved them and they were all eaten.
Here's the recipe. You'll love it!
Take about 15 big collard leaves. Cut out the center ribs and roll up the remaining leaves and slice them thin and then cut those slices into small pieces. Leave those on the side. Now, in a large skillet or dutch oven put a medium sized diced onion and a LOT of minced garlic ( about five cloves) with a couple of spoonfuls of olive oil. Fry these until softened and beginning to brown, about two or three minutes. Add the collards gradually, and then about a cup of broth (chicken, or water or vegetarian). Add a little bit of salt now. Bring to a boil, cover, and stirring occasionally, cook for about 25 minutes on low 'til greens are tender. Remove the lid and turn heat to high and stir occasionally while the collards are cooking down. The pan will be almost dry. Take the collards off the heat and stir in some lemon juice, a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Your guests will rave!
Other than food.. So many wonderful friends have been here for the holidays. We have taken many great walks through the woods and fields. Our local sand hill cranes bugle noisily every morning (louder than parrots!), and we hear the deer barking at the edge of the fields. The cardinals devour the seeds in the feeders each day. We are all enjoying the warm weather after some days of frosts. The vegetable garden has been feeding the multitudes, and the orchids, hardy plants they are, are in great bloom. Even the rye grass we sowed under the clothesline looks perky and green.

Happy Christmas

Though it has been in the eighties today, the landscape is sere and brown from previous frosts and freezes. The vegetable garden is lush with broccoli and greens.
This Christmas Eve of this amazing year is to us quite modest. Tonight we packed the traditional stockings that earlier had been laid out on the hearth by four year old Quincy, now soundly asleep after a hearing of 'The Night Before Christmas'. Sox, toothpaste, wood putty, rubber bands, nail polish, a squeaky toy for the dog. No diamond tennis bracelets, no keys to a sports car.
Christmas pulls me back to my early Christian heritage and I love to hear the Nine Lessons and carols beamed from some cathedral or other.
Sixty years ago when I was a small child with an even smaller soprano voice, the midnight mass was a big deal. Those of us in the church choir gathered in the sacristy proudly wearing our freshly starched collars over our scarlet choir robes. Some of us wore our gold crosses we had earned for perfect attendance at choir practice and church services. We were issued our candles, and reminded again by the choir master to heed the important rest in the cantata. We were ready for the processional around the church behind the cross bearer. This was magic to me. The church was dark except for all the candles on the altar and the ones we carried. As we processed to the strains of 'Oh, Come all Ye Faithful', I was amazed to see the packed church this night. I can still smell the candles and the whiff of snow and cold brought in by the churchgoers.
We processed, finally, up the center aisle, by the creche in front of the altar, and took our places in the choir pews.
The mass seemed to take forever as I recall it now. I was thinking that back at my house we had already hung up the stockings, and was Santa already there? We got through the cantata and no one jumped the rest. By the recessional I was so sleepy and glad to jump into my father's arms and be carried home in the snow and put into bed.
I love this legacy from my parents. I grew up and became an agnostic, unable to give my own children and grandchildren any certainty in religious faith. But at Christmas, I shamelessly have all the trappings, mostly secular. I will not be going to any church, but I look up at the bright stars tonight and hope for humankind that we will prevail and care for each other in these hard times.

Masters of the Universe

This morning I drove up to attend the monthly community action committee meeting at Lacoochee School. (Oh, horrors! Community organizing!). As I went along Cummer Road towards the school I noticed the many Christmas creches in front of the houses. I slowed down right after the railroad tracks to look at a peeling vivid green block house surrounded with tan beaten earth. A dirt colored pit bull was chained out front, out of range of the creche that was carefully arranged in front and surrounded with hay. Somehow, this Christmas presentation, so tasteful even on the bare ground, so brave and affirmative, brought tears to my eyes.
The meeting of folks dedicated to helping this small rural community and school reported on their progress in establishing a boy scout troop, a football program, how the Girls and Boys club had a Christmas party the night before. The food pantry needs, needs, needs. A group of volunteers opens a daily office to help people get their food stamps and sign up for unemployment.
The school principal, a woman whose real talent is community organizing, affirmed all the participants. A tour de force, she has her heart and mind firmly set on what will be best for those 600 kids in her Title One school where over 95% of them are on free lunch and breakfast.
We volunters do what we can, and it is never enough. Here are kids who have never even been to Tampa! Some of them are always hungry and they don't even have the basic necessities. On the principal's wish list are sweat suits from Walmart so the kids can be warm!
After the meeting we were served a fine lunch with many many pecan pies. I took my plate and sat down with "Miss Lily", a huge black grandmother. She's huge in the community and is the mother, grandmother and foster mother of many. She's a person one listens to. I just loved her stories and I hated to leave.
Back home, I stretched out on the porch couch with the dog to read the New York Times. On the front page was an article by Louise Story about the compensation of the Wall Street wizards, the masters of the universe. We have known about these excesses for a few weeks but in today's story it was so detailed and spread out in front of me I leapt up in outrage!
I want to know a few things about this greed. Did these people grow up with no values, i.e. knowing right from wrong? Were these people so entitled from day one they didn't have to think about anyone but themselves? Did they go to Brearley or Choate or any of the other super expensive schools and then to an Ivy college and think they could just continue being oblivious to general human kindness and consideration? Did they think that having corporate jets and personal yachts and multiple homes and expensive cosmetic surgery and Patek watches was o.k.? Did they ever think of the concerns of such places as Lacoochee? ( One tennis bracelet would fund a field trip for ninety kids) No, they were concerned with the silliness of having the correct $500 stroller for their child, and to make a small bow to the vast unwashed, they spent a few of their many millions at charity balls.
There are a few vastly rich people who have made incredible difference in our society. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet come to mind, and there are others. But still, one wonders how many hundreds of thousands of others were the backs on which these titans walked.
I think it is going to take a long time for our society to correct itself. I still do see many Americans, like the folks in Lacoochee, who truly do know how to do the right thing. Maybe our models will have to come from the bottom up. Certainly, our models have not come from the financiers. We will all have to speak out when we see that the emporer has no clothes. We really knew that many people could not afford those mini mansions and we really knew that those New York people were fakes. But we chose not to see.
I remember one time that my husband's boss said in an economics discussion, "Everyone wants to be comfortble." Yes, sure. The thing is, though, we have to make a society where everyone can be comfortable, have a home, food, work.
I'd like to have these masters of the universe, those failed Wall Street financiers, these cynical multimillionaires have to spend some time living among the homeless under the bridges of America.
We are all responsible and we can't escape that. We can blame it on Bush, but we let this disaster happen because we were all too comfortable. I can't wait for Obama!

Pundit Fatigue

We saw the movie "Australia" today. The first two thirds of it was a predictable and lovely western and the last third was suddenly about WW Two. Such handsome actors, and you never thought for a minute that everything would not turn out o.k., and as a bonus you laughed and cried and loved the scenery and that wonderful kid. We were there for three hours and out of our normal time. As we drove home we said to each other that we needed more time away from these everyday concerns. We should take a vacation where there were no newspapers or NPR or TV. We need a rest from the news articles, and especially we need a break from the pundits who constantly explain and opine. But we are addicted.
There is a full moon tonight and as the moon was rising huge and yellow, four deer were cavorting on the edge of the woods. I think anxiously about the state of our American society. Are we heading toward the bottom of everything? Who are you out there on Face Book? I know you do not even know what an incredible mind Thomas Friedman has, or track any of the other commentators who think seriously about the American predicament. You only look at short comments on the "wall", or communicate in short text and twitter messages.
Be aware. The world is changing. It will not go back to the old times when it was necessary or automatic to be frugal. And this recession will change us.
You young people have an interesting time ahead of you. Materialism seems to be doomed for now and it won't come back as we have known it for a long time. Talk to each other, slide ideas past each other and don't be afraid to take the high road of doing the right thing, whatever it seems to be at the time. Be not afraid to think seriously about our hard problems. I am not so sure that our economic crisis will have the happy ending that "Australia" did. We could all be shot in the back. We've got to be serious, and serious does not come in tiny Face Book wall items and Fox News bites.

Christmas House Tour

My new friend, Chris, invited me to accompany her on a tour of houses decorated for Christmas in her upscale gated community near here. I leaped at the chance, being the nosy person I am. I have driven by this development thousands of times as I make the commute from our ranch into St. Petersburg. It's a golfing community but I never breached the gates since I do not golf.
I met Chris in a quilting class in our little town. She was clearly the most accomplished quilter and artist in our midst. One day we decided to have lunch together in a little shop next door. She was an Obama supporter, a rare bird in this place. She's lovely, thoughtful, community minded.
So I was glad to be invited on the Christmas house tour.
I arrived at the Club House, after signing myself in at the entrance to be official. Chris was waiting and we began the tour. We were to go to six places and it seemed they were identical. There were several models of houses (the Tradewinds, the Naples, etc.) While we are tooling from place to place I am trying to figure out who Chris is! Clearly, she's not a person who decorates her house with plastic accessories in every nook and cranny. Her house was not on the tour but we went by it (fast).
After seeing these houses I was left with a feeling of sad creepiness. Who are these people who have such perfect homes, recently purchased, that not a stray pubic hair could be found in the entire place? They obviously must ingest food, yet there was not a hint of anything edible or tracks of food on anything.
A theme of the tour was that every couple seemed to have some collection. In one house there were tiny lit up ceramic houses, salt and pepper shakers in another, really dreadful fashion sculptures in another. My favorite was the golf balls with applied glitter, or maybe it was the Christmas tree decorations made from shells with applied stickers. I loved this! I loved talking to these devoted couples who wore complimentary outfits. They were all recent occupants of these amazing houses. They had been police chiefs in Long Island towns, military men (I thought I would have to restrain Chris when she wanted to go on about her brothers in Iraq), CPA's, and whatever. But, now they were proud to live in this incredibly sterile and squeaky clean place, now decorated in overwrought Christmas.
There were some great surprises. One couple had some really nice paintings. Another couple had a really old mother carefully placed on a couch. I talked to her as the tour was taking a spin in yet another opulent bathroom. She looked stunned to be here and told me about her origins in Ireland.
In some strange way, I really connected with these people who are proud of where they have landed. They speak of how much they love their new community and their neighbors. To be retired is scrappy. You've got to figure out what to do with all these empty days. You can play golf. It looked to me like the women had a better grip on their lives. After all they had quickly decorated their homes for the Tour. The men had "offices" in their opulent homes that were maybe reminiscent of the offices they left when they retired. Everything now paper and dust free, maybe purpose-free as well. There were no books anywhere to be found but huge t.v.'s everywhere.
The bathrooms! All the couples were so proud of these,( we dutifully inspected them all), large enough for a square dance, and enough of them to service a posse of women with bladder disfunction.
Who are these people, my fellow Americans? Where are their compost piles?
Anyway, I loved doing this. Fodder for the mind. My new friend, Chris, has a lot of moxie to invite such an eccentric as me to go with her.
My grandson, Diego, has a lovely on line art exhibit. Go to tampabay.com/nie and click next to the XpressPluggedIn logo.
The photo above is my house, no connection to the Christmas house tour. We actually have a Christmas tree, in a pot, so we can plant it later. Not fake, and it has decorations made by a four year old.
I am so blessed, though idiosyncratic and certainly peculiar!

Jay

Thanksgiving, 2008. Here is Jay, my brother-in-law, preparing the turnips for the feast. This is a scene played out all across America on Thanksgiving with everyone in the family and all the friends contributing to a ritual so familiar to everyone. On no holiday is the choice of food so consistent and predictable.
Jay may be doing the predictable with those turnips that were just that day plucked from local Florida soil, but his amazing appearance in our life was anything but. What a lovely and profoundly decent man!
It was a second marriage for both my sister and Jay and in many ways they had been bruised. As we came to know Jay we began to think of him as a true pearl embedded in the layers of our life. We saw what a wonderful match he and my sister have come to be. He soon became the beloved grandpa to Maria's four grandchildren and the beloved Uncle Jay to our youngest grandchild, Quincy. No one can have too many uncles.
Jay, a professor of anthropology, really connects with kids of all ages, as they say at the circus. He can talk like a duck, he's funny, and he really pays attention to kids, something very few adults do. While the meal was being prepared, Jay and Quincy, who's four, sat at the big table and really talked. Kids don't know very many adults who truly want to hear what they have to say. Quincy is on a "penguin unit" these days, and Jay was really interested.
Jay is a little bit odd; he knows that every person he meets has a good story and he's not reticent about ferreting it out. Sometimes he's a little bit oblivious, a trait I can relate to, and then he'll appear on the spot, a gallant knight who knows exactly what's on your mind. He listens so intently and with such empathy your defenses melt and you find yourself feeling a lot lighter somehow.
Jay is just one of those serendipitous happenings in my life. I am so fortunate to know him and I truly believe he and Maria are perfect for each other. You don't pick your in-laws and mostly you make peace with them and put up with their foibles. Once in a blue moon you get a pearl. Jay's one of them.

Too early for winter

It is not the end of November and we are in for yet another night of freeze warnings. I cover the salad beds with old sheets and hope for the best. I leave the collards out to fend for themselves. Frosts and freezes so many nights have taken their toll on our gardens. In all other years we never had cold weather before New Year's. We live on the edge of a major swamp wetland! And it is dry, all the creek beds are overtaken with dog fennel, that first harbinger of micro climate change.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are having a whole passel of folks, some family and others. We'll have the turkey and the vegetarian alternatives and all the fixings we traditionally serve. We'll dig turnips and pick collards and lettuce for the meal. We'll put the big kitchen table out in the hall to accommodate everyone and the turkey will be browned and lovely.
This year, 2008, has been amazing! Much to be thankful for. People I love are alive and some have passed on to a better place. Children have been born. In our family there have been many milestones: Dan and Inia will be getting married next summer. Inia is well on her way to her doctorate and Dan is making his way with distinction as a science teacher. Elizabeth is in her first year in law school and Quincy,her son, now just four, is in his first year in Montessori. Maria and Jay and I have all published books this year. Andy and I stopped flopping around as retirees and now have some purpose. My niece, Grace, has just been accepted at Evergreen College. Lots of good stuff to be thankful for.
But the Big Thing to be thankful for this year is the election of Barack Obama. We are waiting and eager to see how he will handle this enormously difficult time. Never in my lifetime have I had such hope for the future, and never in my lifetime have I ever experienced the prospect of such a change in circumstances for us all.
Now, it is definitally a winter season. Spring will come as it always does. Meanwhile we can all be thankful for what we have.

Shay Lynne

Shay Lynne, pictured here with her family, is a sturdy eleven month old who was adopted two months ago from China. Their story is an amazing American odyssey.
I first met Jocelyn when she was a parent in my school. Tyler, the oldest boy, is now twelve. Then, he was no more than seven and his brother Ben was a toddler. Jocelyn and Mike, her husband, were the kind of appealing parents a school director loves. Their child was wonderful and interesting and both parents volunteered at school. I was aware that this family wanted another child and that Jocelyn suffered many miscarriages. Then I heard that they were trying to adopt a Chinese child. Everyone at school was most supportive. Tyler grew older and moved on to middle school and Ben came to our school. Still no baby. The difficulties of an international adoption are formidable but Jocelyn and Mike persevered. Jocelyn had attended a wonderful Chinese-American elementary school in San Francisco so she was inclined to include a Chinese child in their family.
It took three years to happen.
Mike is a policeman and Jocelyn is a nurse. When they moved to Florida they bought a house in one of these awful developments such a commute from anything. Everyone was unhappy. "It was toxic," says Jocelyn. They moved to funky Gulfport, put Tyler in SunFlower School, and their life drastically changed for the better. Jocelyn's mom, who still works as a mental health therapist, lives in an attached apartment and she gives a lot of time to help out with the kids.( I am envious of this arrangement in some ways. I would love to have my own grandson on hand more.)
In early September the call finally came. Their baby was ready and Mike and Jocelyn had to go to China to pick her up. They left Tyler and Ben with Mamaw, met up with thirty other parents-to-be, and flew to China. The group was divided into three, and each group proceeded to the place in South China where they would receive their children.
Jocelyn and Mike described this so vividly. They noticed right away how polluted the air was. One could hardly see anything. Barely over jet lag, their group of eleven couples went on a bus to an orphanage in Hunan province. They sat on one side of the room and on the other side were eleven "nannies" with children in their laps. One by one, the families were called to receive their new daughters. Mike said he recognized his child immediately. He had studied the photograph so intensely he caught that tiny little discrepancy in Shay Lynne's eyes. Jocelyn said she couldn't tell.
They picked up their new children and each family was given a packet of the clothes their child wore when left at the orphanage. Then, for the next three weeks, these families lived in a hotel while the visas and other paperwork was completed. They went on bus tours and all around the area. And all the time they had their new babies in tow. For some of them, this was their first child. These families were issued labels they could wear in public so that Chinese could know that these Americans were adoptive parents. Mike and Jocelyn said that so many people were friendly when they saw these.
When it looked like the Chinese adoption would really happen, Jocelyn began to think that she should get ready to breast feed this new baby. So she took the hormones to make her milk flow and began to pump. Her milk came in and she froze a supply. She continued.
By the time she and Mike had their new little girl fresh from the orphanage, they realized that something was very wrong. In fact all these newly adopted baby girls were very sick. They were not urinating at all, except for blood on the diaper.
Jocelyn called her American pediatrician. This was the moment of the emergence of the melamine problem in Chinese formula and milk products and Shay Lynne was certainly affected. Shay Lynne loved the pumped breast milk, and gradually over the next couple of weeks, the bloody urine stopped. When they got back to the U.S. they did all the kidney function tests and Shay Lynne was healing! She is now perfect, plump, dimpled and extremely cute. The doctors think she'll be just fine.
This American family came to visit us today. We walked in the woods and fields, Shay Lynne being passed from person to person. She loved the cows and the leaves. We sat down to a homely dinner of chili, good salad, and home made bread. Shay Lynne really wanted to crawl around the house and pick up specks to mouth. Ben and Tyler wanted to go outside with me with flashlights and look for wildlife. Mike really wanted to go out with us too.
I can see that those boys are going to be very good brothers. This gentle family who came to visit today seems to have the right values.
What a lovely family!

Those McMansions

For the last eight years or so our area in Central Florida seemed to change daily. Those huge developments, all named to memorialize the stuff they wrecked, ( Eagle Trace, Seven Oaks, Panther Run, etc.) crept relentlessly over the hills and wetlands and into our suburban neighborhoods. We objected and went to hearings and signed petitions. We weren't really thinking about the houses, though. We were focused on NIMBY. Yes, occasionally we wondered at who could possibly afford to live in that really huge one with the five car garage, or that other one with massive gables, squinched in close to the next huge house. And we just marveled at how many people could afford them. This was Bubble America when anyone could have anything they wanted. No down payments, put it on the plastic.
We weren't thinking straight. The secret was that hardly anyone really could afford them. I remember when we bought our first house in 1968, a run down row house in downtown Washington, D.C. The price was $17,000. We scraped together the 25% required down payment from a couple of thousand our parents gave us and our savings. We fixed it up mostly with our sweat. Our friends were doing the same. We dug the dead rats out of the walls, steamed off the old wallpaper and became members of the million gallon paint club. And, as we lived there and raised kids, we were very happy with this house of ours. It was affordable, close to work and schools. It didn't have granite counters or even a garage. We had the habit of living within our means, and as we moved on, this didn't change.
Somehow a lot of us got off track thinking we could have everything, no effort required. We gave our children too much in a material sense. We didn't save anything because we couldn't, and besides, there is always the credit card and tomorrow. We didn't show our kids how to save. Everyone wants to have a house, a home.
And now, the chickens have come home to roost. America is in deep housing trouble. Just keeping on bailing out mortgage companies seems to me an avoidance of the real problem. If a family bought a house that was wildly NOT affordable, or maybe just within reach if both spouses worked full tilt and then some, and please, god, don't let me lose my job, how is restructuring their mortgage payments a little bit going to help right now? These people are in a mess! They are dispirited. We are in deep recession and if one of those family members loses her job, she is not going to be inclined to figure out all the governmental paperwork, stand in lines, spend time on hold. Better just to walk away from that insanely wonderful house that is now in need of major maintenance anyway and go live with the in-laws.
But Americans are resilient and 'can do'. What we need is a lot more affordable housing. Imagine converting "Panther Trace" into affordable housing. Lots of it is already built. Those huge garages could be modified for living. Those huge gourmet kitchens could be halved. People could enjoy living in more of a town house situation, close to their neighbors, kind to the land. Architects and builders, the most creative of American artisans, could be put to work and ripples would spread. This affordable housing could be for sale or rent.
We already have a glut of housing stock (but mostly it is in these out-of-control developments). Let's use what we have. A new day is here and we must think creatively!
What do you think?

Little Kids

Here is Quincy at dinner with his grandparents. He loves to visit us, and we are happy that he comes often. He's been doing overnights since he was eighteen months old. Now these visits are easy; he loves knowing the ropes and where everything is. He notices every little change from the time he was last here. He knows where the best blackberry bushes are and where the gopher tortoise burrows are, and wants to harvest the vegetables he personally planted. I explain that the carrots are too small to eat yet but he persists and we pull up some 'tiny baby carrots' that he adds to the lettuce and peppers he carries into the house to Grandpa who will make the salad. Today's salad must include the first oranges from our annual harvest. Quincy is an orange lover and he is pleased that he personally went out and picked the fruit, made juice, and was the major taste tester of orange sections that went into the salad. By the time I get into the kitchen the baby carrots are long gone and the peppers too.
Tonight, in the dark, dishes waiting piled in the sink, Quincy and I went outdoors with our flashlights. Hand in hand, we looked for turtles and spiders. We looked at the gibbous moon and the stars above. "See, Quincy, look up there at that zigzag bunch of stars. That's Casseopia. And see that very bright one. That's Venus, the evening star." He loves his flashlight. Then we go in to take a bath and do all the bedtime routines.
As we lie close together on his bed, after having read his current favorite book, "Oxcart Man", he scrunches his face close to mine and says, "Granma Molly, I'm happy."
This could not have been a more perfect week and I am happy too. Every time I think about it, I am in awe of what America did in voting in Obama. For the first time in many years I am rejoiced and renewed to be American. It's going to be a long haul, and many sacrifices will be required, but I have hope we can do it!
I am so glad this happened in my lifetime! I could not possibly have imagined as a white person how incredible this is! Though I lived and demonstrated through the era of the civil rights movement, I never really really knew. Though I have spent my entire career as a teacher and school administrator agonizing about race issues, I never really knew.
So now we can go forth with hope and confidence in this very gifted new president. We will do everything we can to help him forge a new day for the United States of America. I notice already how many of us are speaking to each other, not being fearful.
Our little kids rely on us and we can be proud and hopeful that this new world order will celebrate their useful, not greedy, lives. It's up to us. Yes, we can do it!

Frost!

This has been the earliest in my memory of such an early frost- in October! We hated getting out of bed with our dog warmer who runs hot at our feet. This morning there was a white glaze over the pastures and steam coming up from the pond. The beans, tomatoes, eggplants and basil are toast. The collards, broccoli, cabbages and lettuce are loving the cool weather. Peppers are peaky looking, but might pull through. I think this blast of cold will color up the oranges before we pick them starting in November.
It's cold in my studio but I need to work on quilting homework for my class in traditional quilting. I still hate it; it makes me think of Legos, and I never liked them. I have been making quilts for many years but they are wild and definitely not traditional. Now I am learning the elements and the cutting and measuring and pressing. At first I was completely lost, but now I can cut and measure like crazy. But it's not me.
I went up to Lacoochee Community School today for the monthly community action committee meeting. By now I know so many of those kids and adults. Way more families are now on Title One Lunch, close to 100%. People are hungry, crime is up, money is scarce, everyone needy. These folks are all Obama supporters, hopeful for change. I signed up to read to kids and help with an afterschool drama project.
As I left off a huge box of fired and glazed clay pieces left over from the summer program I run here, a staff member told me that I could get a grant to use a van for next summer's program. A day like this makes me aware of how many people in this country just keep on doing little things to help out. They feed, teach, drive, do useful things.
I think I will just die if Obama is not elected! I have been canvassing, sending money, anything. I so hate the lies that McCain puts forth to the naive voters. Obama is so amazingly idealistic, American, and intelligently thoughtful.
Folks, vote now!

Silvio's Birthday

Here we are, our family, celebrating a birthday for one of our middle grandchildren. I am aware as I take this photo that our family is now the modern one. Seated around our table of sixteen people we have people of all colors and ages; we have gays and lesbians, single parents, step-parents, adopted people, and lots of different languages. We are firmly family and love these events. Everyone cooks and lends a hand. Dan fired up the grill for steaks and fish. Antonio caught many fish in our pond and everyone ate them with great relish, I made the birthday cake, and Maria made an excellent flan. My son Ben, made the loaves of bread, Andy made the potato salad and Diego, our fifteen year old grandson, moved all the tables together and set everything up so we could eat in unison. Pablo found waterlilies to grace the table. Tory helped all around. We picked greens from our garden for the green salad. We sat down together, replete with food and love.
This is Sylvio's day and I want to make it perfect. He hasn't been here in months and I have missed him so much. After dinner I announce that we must all go outside in the dark and play a raucous game of "Watcher in the Road", a traditional family game that involves running up and down the dirt road, lots of hugging, and 'strategy'! Silvio loves this, and so does Quincy, the youngest grandchild present. After a couple of rounds of this we walk back to the house and look at the stars so brilliant overhead and all of us feel replete with the good food and fun and love for each other. My husband and I hug each other in the dark, so blessed with this family that is nowhere what we ever thought it might be.
Later, I go with Silvio to the guest house where he is staying. He wants me to tell him a ghost story. We hunker down and I begin my yarn only to realize what a little guy he is, and I have to backtrack and say this is only a story, NOT true. But we have a wonderul conversation about how people make up stories. By the time I leave his eyes are closed and he is cosy under his covers.
How I love these grandsons! Pablo, the middle one, looks uncannily like Obama. His oldest brother, Diego, is my favorite because he is the oldest and the first under my heart and everyone knows this. But I am so blessed with them all!
It has been a few days of not being so obsessed with politics so it seems like a vacation.

My new book is out and you can order it online at Orders@xlibris.com. All proceeds will benefit SunFlower School in Gulfport, FL.

Days of Global Warming

We spent much of this last month talking talking and listening to many people - scientists, philanthropists and others who are greatly concerned about global warming and what it means to all of us who live on this planet. I believe that this issue is paramount in our considerations about life here on Mother Earth.
In Vancouver, B.C. we met with more than a thousand people from around the world who are working on this problem. As you can see from the photo, taken from our hotel window, we are an urban and technological people. It was strange to be in such an environment, even for a few days, when we rarely saw the light of day in that convention center in the bowels of the drab earth. It seemed like the future, and we hated it enough to leave a day early to get back to our life in the sunshine with lizards and our food garden and flowers and the frass that is now falling from the caterpillars in the hickory trees. In every session we heard about the dire condition of our natural places. We also heard about many projects going on worldwide to mitigate these.
After the sessions, Andy and I talked our heads off like we were in our twenties. We thought about our own life and how we could keep on smallifying our footprint and making a difference. We spoke of actualizing our desire to put in more solar power and include our neighbors.
Coming home on the plane I sat next to a couple of old women from Venice, Florida who had been to Las Vegas on a few days vacation to gamble and take in the shows. My head was so full of huge issues we must all pay attention to, I couldn't think of a single thing to say to these people who are only concerned with what's fun now.
These are strange times. Like so many, I have been consumed with politics, and my view has changed over time. I still passionately believe that we must have a change in direction, and Obama is the clear choice. But I now understand that people must have something they can 'hang onto'. For most, it is the compelling issue of personal economics and their fears. One issue voting must take a back seat to the issue of having food on the table and a way to put your kids through college. Gay marriage and abortion are small issues by comparison. I am still alarmed to think that a serious candidate, McCain, would be so cynical towards women to have selected Paylin as a serious person for his running mate. I hate to see all the lies and sort-of lies in the t.v. ads. I'll be glad when all this is over and we can get on to what is really important- the state of our planet.

The Emperor's New Clothes (not!)

O.K. I can deal with "Eye Wrack" and "Eye ran". But I cannot deal with more years of "Newcular". We've been there too long. Gov. Palin was just pitiful last night. Certainly, she did have energy, and certainly she is beautiful and buff. But, that said, this woman has no business being a heartbeat away from the presidency. And this is clear to anyone with even one clicking brain cell.
A few columnists and editorials in major newspapers have questioned her preparedness and knowledge, and many have refuted her claims of this fact or that. The thing is, Sarah Palin just doesn't know squat about presidential politics or history or science or anything else. What she does know is that the base of the Republican ticket wants celebrity, emotion, snarkiness, and a lot of references to god stuff and the lowest common denominator of American culture.
As a woman who came up in the seventies, determined that our daughters would have every opportunity, I was deeply offended that she played the "Mom card" so inappropriately. Yeah, we are all soccer moms, or have been. Now, there are even soccer dads! Yeah, we all have been in those shoes. But right now, we need someone who gets the nuances, has done the study, and had the experience. We don't really want or need to have a vice president (or god forbid, a president) whose experience and expertise is so constricted. The emperor has no clothes on. We all need to speak up.
Enough on that. The last couple of days have been glorious- cool to cold in the early mornings and verging on hot in the middle of the day. We Floridians all comment on the wonderful weather. Yesterday I bought myself a new bike, a cool powder blue old lady type cruiser. I am loving it as I pedal along the dirt roads enjoying the sights and sounds of the country. As I swish by in front of the house I see the giant mutant cosmos in full throat, covered with butterflies, and then I pedal on by the cattle pens and around the pond. I can already feel my thighs protesting so I slow to watch the sand hill cranes squabbling in the pasture.
The vegetable garden is producing huge quantities of lettuces and herbs. My small grandson, Quincy, planted a row of beans when he was here over the weekend and I see that they are poking up. The grasshoppers have been eating the chard so I put major effort into screening the chard beds. The cardinals and grosbeaks crab at me for doing this. The hummingbirds have gone back to Mexico as have the chimney swifts. At dawn we hear the migratory whipporwills, in contest with the resident barred owls. The huge golden orb weaver spiders who festoon our porches are almost at the end of their ropes, so to speak. They are plastering their egg sacks to the eaves, in readiness for the spring. These ladies are tired, their webs look disheveled and ragged and they are ready to hang it up come the first really cold spell. We hear the coyotes howling most nights and when we are in bed and close to sleep we hear the small scufflings of nocturnal creatures outside.

Freckles

Here is a photo of Freckles, our most notable cow. She is at least twenty-five years old and was here on the property before we owned it. She is the most intelligent in the herd and certainly the most assertive. Her calves are always the most trouble. Freckles was always the one who got into the yard and left copious nonverbal negative messages for us to step in. She is always the first to gallop up to the feed and when we go out in the truck she's the one who gets close enough to slobber on the windows, and she's always dragging her kids behind. Our farm manager says she has 'dying rights' here, and he's never going to send her to the knacker.
Andy built a beautiful blanket chest of wide cypress boards and I am painting Freckles' portrait on the top of it. As I paint I think of Sarah Palin and her similarities to this loud, smart and assertive beast.
I am trying really hard to learn and be understanding and not so crazed about everything political and economic. Yikes! What a week. More McCain signs in the neighborhood, but all is cool with my lovely neighbors who do NOT wish to speak to me of politics. They haven't a clue about the fall out of all these events on Wall Street. And I hardly do either, though I do know that our worth is considerably less than it was last week. We have all had to be quick studies on practical economics. Before now I had never thought about short selling and leverage and such.
So, now, in addition to reading all the political coverage in the New York Times, I have to read the economic coverage- and even the Wall Street Journal editorials. My nap times on the couch with the dog have become two hour economics tutorials. No time for crap reading!
This next week we are hosting a Nature Conservancy meeting and seminar on climate change. I am looking forward to this event. I love being in the company of these scientists and environmentalists. I know that many of these guests know so much more than I do about our natural world, and I also know that many of them are folks who live much more opulently than we do. As a person afflicted with 'hostess syndrome', my instincts are to clean everything up, gild the lily, think of every little thing. But we aren't doing that. We'll take a group out for a long walk in the woods, and we're not taking down the fist sized golden orb weaver spiders that span our doorways. We'll put the telescope and binoculars out on the front porch and invite our guests to enjoy the deer and turkeys and cranes they'll see. We put fresh batteries in the flashlights and maybe some folks will be interested in exploring the pond life after dark. Our house is a fairly modest and idiosyncratic place, no Subzero appliances or media rooms. Spiders will have to be it.

Keeping Going

Here is a photo of a coral snake I found in my studio a few days ago as he (she?) slithered across my feet while I was checking e-mail and blogs about Sarah Palin. I shooed it outside where it disappeared under a flagstone. I am loving these natural happenings I see every day. They keep me sane in a time when I think I could go beserk!
My neighborhood out here in the boondocks has sprouted many McCain/Palin yard signs. Every day there are more of them. I had downloaded a program of registered voters in my neighborhood and I meant to stride right out and talk to them about their voting choices. I stopped by the Obama office in town to pick up a few yard signs of my own but they had none left, so I departed with a stack of fairly meaningless fliers with a cute photo of Obama and one of his kids.
I am absolutely terrified of these people I should speak with! So far, in the twenty years we have been coming here, and where we now live full time, we have only spoken about farm things: rainfall, the price of fertilizer, when hog hunting season begins, our gardens, what to do about cows with swollen bags, tractor issues, and such like.
So, when I see our farm manager drive up in his truck to get cow feed from the barn, I dash out of my studio, give him a hug and ask."Are you mad at me?" We always say this to each other when we haven't had a conversation for a time. A few days ago I left a bunch of butterfly plants in his garage and he tells me that he's planted them, thank you very much. We are always leaving things - fresh peanuts, zipper peas, baby squash, newly caught and cleaned fish, tomato seedlings- for each other. I love this funny grizzled old guy and I would trust my life to him. I love my other neighbors too. They have been there with chainsaws to cut up fallen trees after storms. They fix our broken motors, clean our house, pass along used clothing for our grandchildren. They fish in our pond and help extinguish that pesky invasive weed, soda apples. They pick our blackberries and in holiday season we exchange cookies and savories.
I am beginning to get it. My experience, education and sophistication puts me on the moon by comparison. My rural neighbors have closed minds, they only watch Fox news, they are not at all interested in or want to understand the issues. We are the only family here that gets the NYT.(not to mention the Wall St. Journal). Their lives are pretty much going along O.K. I am pretty sure that race is a key issue, but they assure me it is not. "I just like the way McCain talks." I press this lovely guy too much. He says that Obama wants to raise taxes but McCain does not. I think about how to address this and I patiently explain. It's no use, he's decided, and so are the others, they are an invincible tribe. We differ.
This does not seem to be a "one issue" campaign. These neighbors of mine, blue collar workers, do not seem to be talking about guns, abortion, gay marriage, god, or suspicion of science. Yes, they want cheap gas for their pick-up trucks, but they do seem to respect environmental issues. They haven't a clue about economic issues. They do know about greed.
I think I will go out on Thursday to sign up Hispanic voters.
It's a full moon, so bright outside, and I can see bats flitting around. I can hear that breathy thwack of deer voices. The stick bugs are copulating on the screens and the love bugs have arrived. The golden orb weavers are huge and just about ready to construct their egg cases to be ready for spring.
I am cleaning my studio in preparation for a new project - painting the top of a new chest Andy made of lovely ancient wood that had been immersed in water for decades. I am still feeling so accomplished at having finished my book this summer. Stay tuned, friends.
Next week we are hosting a group of environmentalists/scientists for a couple of days of talking about climate change. We will take them on a long walk in our forests and I hope we'll see the wonderful fall wild flowers and maybe even some greenfly orchids.
Life is great and I'm working on being more mellow about this upcoming election.

So Alarming

I am still hanging in there as a political junkie. I stayed up to watch 20/20 last night - the interview with Ms. Palin. I do not think that she has values opposite of mine so much as that she just doesn't have any well thought out values at all. She's a small town gal and was mayor of a town smaller than Dade City, Florida, where I live! It was embarrassing and pitiful to see her so out of her depth, but trying with her scripted remarks. She was not snide last night as she has been on so many occasions before. But she doesn't have a clue about the very important issues we face as a nation. She slides through some ethical issues (what she said about the bridge to nowhere, using state funds as a per diem so she could go home at night, etc.) And she told us yet again that she has experience in dealing with the complicated issues with Russia because she can actually see Russia from an Alaskan island. That's what my fifth graders might say.
As an older woman who could be Sarah's mom, I just want to tell her, "Honey, you just do the best job you can as governor of Alaska. And, honey, think carefully about the ethics of government, the privacy of your family, and for god's sake read the New York Times every day. Don't be beguiled by your fifteen minutes of fame."
McCain and Palin would be a disaster for this country I love. They are all about personality and seem to have left any issues behind. I am terrified that Palin does not understand the reality of why we went to war in Iraq. I am terrified that McCain understands and yet lets Paylin mouth those words at her son's deployment. I am appalled with the cynicsm and lies that fall so fluidly from his mouth. I used to respect McCain, but not now!
Is the general electorate so dim that they cannot hear that Obama's tax program will benefit them as never before? Do they not hear that Obama's healthcare program will benefit them as never before? Do they not hear that Obama's educational proposals will ensure that every kid can aspire to college and afford it?
Obama is not for taking away people's guns, he's got proposals for repairing this economy of greed, getting jobs here in America and he's a truly thoughtful and experienced person. Talk about family values: McCain abandoned his original family and Palin has subjected her kids to the exigencies of politics. Obama has a straightforward family he adores.
How can there be any choice?

Are We Talking About Class?

In the last weeks I have become a political junkie, the grandma who reads several newspapers cover to cover. After lunch I stretch out on the couch with the dog and we read everything the New York Times has on the political season. I love the letters to the editor and some of the op ed pieces. I watched both conventions with great interest (I only napped through Mitt Romney.) I have gone from appalled to depressed as I have tried to understand this great umerican country of ours. Everyone has an opinion, and that's great.

I am appalled because the great mass of Americans, it seems, just smile and clap mindlessly as the candidates snidely deprecate each other. Is no one interested in real issues? Do they even know what the issues are? Has no one taken the time to check into each candidate's proposals on the economy, health care, the war, and the very important issue of climate change? There is so much prevarication.

Sarah Palin, many think, is electrifying. For me, she is on the opposite side of everything I value. John McCain has sold his values for a passel of drek. Yes, I know that campaigns are tough and lots may be said that will never, fortunately, be remembered. I think, though, that this concentration on the 'real' America, hockey moms, Walmart moms, is born of a deep envy and resentment of class. So, the republicans say that this election is about personalities. There is talk of the 'privileged elite', the insiders, and who wants lawyers (smirk) who went to Ivy League colleges, (smirk) and god forbid if they were gifted enough to make the Law Review? Come on!

I want my candidate to have 'class'. I want my candidate to take the high road. I want my candidate to be really really smart and thoughtful, as the best educational institutions can educate their graduates to be. I want my candidate to be idealistically American. I want my candidate to be respectful enough towards his family to say THEY ARE OFF LIMITS.

It was unconscionable for Sarah Palin to take her kids on the road, floppy baby and all. Where is that mother's tenderness for her children's privacy? They have been trashed for political expediency. (I speak from experience in having a brother with cerebral palsy and an unwed teenage mom in the family.) Yes. These things happen. But I want my candidate to soar above and lead our country when the issues are dire and new to us.

I whine. Why are we so celebrity driven? Why can't we think clearly about the issues? My neighbor is a one issue person; he loves guns. A teacher I know is a narrow issue person; she is opposed to reproductive choice and gay marriage. These people will vote only on their chosen issue and nothing will dissuade them. They have blinders on. They think not of health care, the environment, not the economy, not the world their grandchildren will inherit. These issues are about class, and we as a society must talk about it; it isn't something nasty. Hey, we got over sex and mostly over money. We can do this. I still believe.

Catching Up

We've been away visiting the grandkids in the Pacific Northwest and tending to family and friends here. We come back to the remnants of tropical storm Fay and the incredible growth of everything green. I had to cut back the vines on the door to the vegetable garden just to get in! Andy mowed the yard today and it looks nicely manicured. But all the gardens are in sore need of attention.

This rainy season when it is too hot and steamy to work outside I have been working on my book, a memoir of my life as a teacher. A former student of mine has been my summer editor, and she was a hard taskmaster! Other former students have contributed drawings and editorial input. My daughter has scanned many artworks for the project. It feels like a community effort. I will be done with this project in less than a week. Presumably, the book will be out before Christmas.

In the coming month I will reduce the biomass (weeding!) and make all the gardens look great. I have my new seeds for the salad trays and the compost pile has cooked all summer, ready now to be dispersed into all the garden containers. Right now, I am enjoying the magnificent blooming of the orchids.

Next week will be the 48th anniversary of our marriage. I think we shall continue on with it! I am so appreciative of my spouse right now. He has been so supportive to me this summer as I spent hours and hours working on my book and just surfaced for wonderful dinners he made for me. We walk and talk every day.

My girl posse, for whom I made the quilts, are now at college and I have had photos of their dorms. I am wishing them well.

This week I took photos of my daughter and her son, Quincy, on the day they both started school. My daughter, beginning law school, was dressed in a tailored suit, and her son was in shorts ready for preschool. I suck in my breath and hope for the best.

Rainy Season

It's rainy season here in central Florida, and for those of us who are acclimated to the steamy life, it is a glorious time to be here. Stuff grows as you look at it. While showering outside on the porch this morning I was entangled in grape vines so aggressive that Andy had to come to my rescue with the clippers.

All the bald patches and armadillo holes have healed over and the Boston ferns we have everywhere for ground cover beneath the live oaks are wildly prolific. The zinnias in the old claw foot bathtub outside my studio window attract huge numbers of butterflies and hummingbirds. I find myself staring at them when I look up from my table.

It's too hot to do much work in the garden after about eight a.m. Today, I pushed it and was working getting the hay mulch on the vegetable garden before the weeds completely take over. Andy has constructed another wonderful lettuce table and I will grow the other stuff around the sides of the enclosed garden.

Our vegetable garden has tall sides of chicken wire to keep out the deer. Over the years this fence has grown a bountiful amount of Virginia creeper, gourds, and morning glories, so it feels rather like a secret garden. I don't weed much, but continuously apply hay mulch kindly donated by a neighbor. On the paths I use wood shavings from Andy's furniture shop. When I plant anything, I just clear away the mulch, add some great compost from our pile, and those new plants or seeds are good to go.

Right now, in the hot rainy season, nothing much grows. I still have some tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, those of tropical heritage. The lettuce gave up, but the okra looks promising. Basil is terrific and we eat a lot of pesto. Over the years I have learned how to control the worms that would love to bore into just about anything. I have yet to find a way to discourage the stink bugs that keep damaging the tomatoes.

I read in the Wall St. Journal today about the silly rich people who engage landscape architects to make vegetable gardens for their houses at $50,000 a pop. What I know is that you have to be there full time to grow a decent organic vegetable garden. You have to cruise by every plant each day to check for the dreaded( and beautiful!) tomato horn worms, the stink bugs, the powdery mildew on the squashes and cucumbers, and the tell-tale signs of armadillo action or rabbits or squirrels. You have to spend some time reducing the biomass, otherwise known as weeding. And you have to be able to spend some time just being there taking in the wonder of it all. The hummingbirds are there diving into the native red sage and the butterfly plants I allow to grow next to the fence.

I am so hot! I mop my face so I can see and my feet are filthy. This is not Scarsdale and we will not have our guests have hors d'oeurves in the garden. But we will have wonderful meals from what we grow.

In rainy season we plan for the next garden that will begin around Labor Day. I am ordering seeds for interesting lettuces you cannot find in the grocery store. I am looking forward to those huge wonderful rosettes of collards and I can even think again about beans and broccoli and carrots.

Why I never attend reunions

Every time I turn on my email I get those that want me to join reunion sites. I have gone to a few college reunion gatherings, but none of the people I really wanted to connect with were there. I thought I was immune from the high school events because I went to high school in Beirut, Lebanon, and at that time the political situation was so violent none of us actually graduated. The families had to flee to the hills or to other countries. I never heard from those friends again. I assumed that the Arabs are probably all dead by now. The others must be scattered around the Middle East and Europe and the United States.
I loved being a student at the international school in Beirut. It was exciting to be in a politically volatile place. But, mostly, the nut of it was a school with way higher standards than the one I had left in the U.S. And I loved it! My friends were trilingual in French, Arabic, and English. I loved being in the homes of these kids, eating strange food, but delicious, to me, and hanging out in Arabic where the language changed by the second. My parents were pretty loose and never asked what I was doing. They trusted me, but they had not a clue what we did.
What we did was to explore every cranny of Beirut and enjoy a lot of it. I especially remember nights on the Corniche, the esplanade along the Mediterranean, where everything was possible and beautiful. We often went out as a 'posse'. We talked for hours and we took some risks as kids this age do. To this day, I think that some of what we did will be kept 'secret'.
A few days ago I got a query from my best friend from this time: Najla. It has been fifty years since I have heard from any of them. As we evacuated from Beirut, I was sucked out and into college life in the U.S.A. and then into my long lovely life as I know it.
I did not immediately respond to this voice out of the blue, but finally I picked up the phone (Reunion! Warning!).
It was a wonderful conversation for both of us. We have so many memories in common and we each have three children, born at the same time for each of us. We could remember so many things about that time for each of us.
Then my friend said, "You must know about Dirk?" My ears pricked up. Dirk was my steady boyfriend in my senior year. Honestly, I had barely thought about him in the ensuing years. But now I remembered him. We snuggled the entire way through Egypt, we walked the Corniche many evenings. Dirk was very smart, an athlete with great pecs. He was a boarder at the school: his family was in Germany. Dirk was an international kid.
There was something kind of stiff about Dirk, and towards the end of my time in Beirut, I gradually gravitated towards another young man, an Arab student at the university. Tannus was my first real true love and Dirk was left in the dust.
I left the Middle East, hastily evacuated with my family that summer before college. And then, I never looked back. I never knew how to contact those people who had been so important to me in high school. These were the days before e-mail. And I went on to lead my life.
So, now, a voice out of the past informs me that Dirk, my best boyfriend, murdered his wife, and is now in prison for life! (Can I believe that I actually at one time...aargh!) So, naturally, I look all this up on line, and it is true!
So, this is why I NEVER go to class reunions. They are too fraught for me.

Irene!

My sister, Irene, from Vashon, Washington, has been visiting me for the last few days here at the ranch. Irene is a known artist and tile maker. She's supported her family with the tile business for many years. There must be thousands of people and businesses who have Irene's tiles for their backsplashes and swimming pools and libraries and companies. I feel artistically humble in her presence.
We are having a tradition, a few years old, of the two of us coming together in my Florida studio for several intense days of making art. We just feed on each other's minds. We don't know what will happen. Often, we collaborate, and we share our best. I have every sort of art supplies and fabric to use. Sometimes we make quilts on the wild side, we sometimes make purses, and sometimes we paint. We have never made ceramic things, though that is what we really do best. Our creative sisterhood seems to be about making stuff we don't ordinarily do. My sister, the professonal, never diminshes me for my artistic dillentantism.
Irene and I are 'can do' women, especially in crafts. We got it from our mother. We can sew, quilt, weave, paint, knit. We are always extending anything we try. And we love to do it!
Irene has spent the few days she was here painting a floor cloth, larger than this photo. In about ten minutes she had the canvass measured and hemmed, and was ready to paint. We only had to make one trip to get more paint, no worries, and then the days were spent in the early mornings taking long walks and swimming, and then-back to the studio to work on "The Project".
All the while we talked non-stop about us, our family, politics, and the incredible wild world outside the studio. Irene worked on this floor cloth painting and I made preliminary drawings for an oil pastel painting and made forays to tend to ranch maintenance. Sometimes I would creep back to my computer to work on a writing project.
One night when we were working in the studio we got to thinking about a family scandal (recently, my first cousin was indicted for murder), and we started looking up everything about this on line, then moved on to looking up many other relatives. We decided that we should write a book called "Skeletons!" about this amazingly weird southern family. But, then, aren't all families weird?
I am looking at the finished floor cloth. It amazes me! I have witnessed the facile creativity, the sense of fun and vacation.

Early summer

The Cabbages are about gone and the tomatoes are ripening , though I have to pick off the stinkbugs every day. It is the start of rainy season and I will have a breather on the gardens not having to be watered every day. It is too hot even at night for more tomatoes to set fruit.

It is glorious and cool here in the mornings. We walk the mile to the mailbox where we pick up the three daily newspapers. Most days Lola, our mini daschshund walks with us, looking totally funny flopping along behind us. We sometimes see wild pigs or sand hill cranes. I am realizing more and more that this place here in the middle of nowhere is truly home. And I am more happy than anyone has a right to be.

For the last few days our daughter and her three year old son, Quincy, have been visiting. Quincy is really interested in this place he calls The Farm. He loves coming down to the barn where he climbs up to pretend drive the tractor. He opens the little tool box on the side and gets out various implements to "fix" things. Sometimes we swim in the pool or go out to the Pine Island field to pick blackberries. Last night we had enough berries to make ice cream.

I love having him here. He accompanies me on errands. Today we went to pick up a quilt from my collaborator and then we stopped at Farmer's Feed to inspect the baby chickens, turkeys and rabbits, always a fun Saturday thing. I bought a few hot weather plants- eggplants, okra and sweet million tomatoes-to fill in spots in the garden.

I am loving beyond imagining this life I have. At the moment I am aware that I have not surfaced from down in my studio for hours. This room of my own is my place for ideas and creativity. I have been working on my book today, and I have finished binding the best quilt I have ever made. I still have 'hostess syndrome' as my best friend Marie calls it. I am always trying to make sure that people in my area are having a good time. But sometimes, like tonight, I feel somewhat o.k. to hunker down and do exactly what I want to do. As I have said to my daughter, I have deficits to address after all these years.

This morning while I was cleaning up after breakfast, our daughter was playing the piano for Quincy. When she was in high school she played all the time and I loved hearing that music. As I took out the compost today I heard the Canon in D and it made me feel that all was right with the world and I looked up at the morning glories splayed over the fence and I rejoiced.

Tomorrow is Fathers' Day. The Dad in this house is stellar! He's the main cook who will address any dietary needs, he has been an incredible bringer of the bacon, he loves his kids, he's fun and handsome, and he's always thoughtful and interesting. He's not MY father but I salute him as he best dad in the world.

Berry picking with Grandma

We went out on this breathlessly hot afternoon in the golf cart to see if the blackberries in the pine island field were ripe. We were squished together- Grandpa, Quincy, the three year old, Lola the dachshund, and me, Grandma. When we got to the large patch of berries we could see that most of the berries were still an unripe red, but we looked for the few dark and juicy ones. Blackberry patches are full of thorns and we cautioned Quincy to look out for the stickers. We found a few and gave them to Quincy, a most adventurous eater who loves to eat anything that grows. He reached out his little plump hands and scooped them into his mouth. "Delish", he pronounced. And then, "Bears like blueberries!"

As we went on, I asked Quincy if he knew the story of 'Blueberries for Sal'. He said he did, that's how he knows that bears like blueberries. I am rejoicing that this child who never said a word until recently can carry on a conversation about books! You learn a lot in berry patches.

As we proceed across the pastures I think about the many other wonderful berry picking experiences I have had with my small relatives. I remember being in the garden with Dan, my nephew. I noticed and rejoiced in seeing his small plump hands picking the fruits off the vines.

I remember going to a u-pick place in Washington with my grandson Silvio who at the time was having such a hard time as a three year old who could barely understand the terrible troubles of his family. The two of us threaded between the rows with our containers to fill. We were in the thrall of the lovely sunny northwest sunshine, and this was as peaceful a time as this dear little boy had had in a long time. Silvio ate as many berries as he picked and his chubby cheeks were purple with the juice and his chin dripped. When our containers were full we checked out at the kiosk, ready to make a blueberry pie.

When our oldest child was small enough to be in a backpack on his father, we had wonderful days collecting those incredible tiny wild New England blueberries. The sun was hot on our backs and we were in love with each other and life and we fed our son those sun-warmed fruits.
I especially remember the tiny hands reaching out to these incredibly succulent fruits of warm earth, and his eager mouth lapping up their sweet tastes.

Everyone should pick berries with people they love.

Growing Food

What I am really interested in these days is growing food for us to eat. I am interested in this, of course, in a political and ethical way. I want to eat locally and diminish our carbon footprint. I want to eat foods that are organically grown and are environmentally correct and taste great. And right now we are harvesting from our small garden all the vegetables we need. We never have to buy anything from the supermarket except meat and toilet paper and detergents and milk. We get eggs from a local person (four years old).
Every day I go out and tweak the vegetable garden. I nip off the suckers from the tomatoes, peel off the leaves from the brussel sprouts, and water the lettuces I want to keep on producing into the hot weather and check the beets. I cut many broccoli sprouts and heads, pick the beans and swiss chard, examine the collard leaves for the dreaded caterpillars and squash them into the ground. I marvel at the many gourds climbing the fence and already fruiting. I look up to enjoy the morning glory blossoms in all colors threading through the cucumber vines and the hummingbirds at the feeder and I look down to pull a few weeds and throw them into my weed bucket. And the tomatoes! I have at least thirty plants, mostly heirlooms I grew from seed. They are all potential right now but they are robust and have no bugs or blight. There are several interesting holes in the earth- not armadillos, thank god. These small holes belong to the black racers and the toads and those interesting bees who help pollinate the squash and gourds and tomatoes.I know this because when you have time to be quietly weeding and tweaking in the garden you are not alone and can see and enjoy these creatures as they emerge. Heaven!
I love to grow flowers as well, but vegetables are king to me, always an interesting challenge. I think that an abundance of home grown organic vegetables are so tasty! I love to bring a basket of this day's produce to my husband, the cook, and he uses what's there today. Admittedly, we have to eat a LOT of broccoli right now, and then a LOT of green beans, and then I see beets and brussels sprouts on the horizon. I can hardly wait until the tomatoes kick in. They are in blossom.

It appalls me to think that environmental science would be "controversial" in our public schools. Probably not in Oregon, but here in Florida, where we are still debating whether creationism should be taught in science class, educators must step softly. (or not at all) There are always the rules and procedures and rubrics and limited time for everything. The FCAT tests drive everything. Does no one have passion or ideas? Does no one love these amazing kids who will inherit the earth?
I am a volunteer in two public schools, and sure, I am not there every day and I do not know everything.. But I observe.
These public schools were built twenty years ago when no one thought anything about carbon footprints. They are dismal buildings in glorious settings of rural Florida. There are no windows and few walls. In warm weather the air conditioning is blasting away so that everyone can wear a sweater. In the few days of the cold season, the rooms are too warm. Everyone whispers.
I would love to be alive when one of these principals calls in her fifth graders and presents to them the challenge of how they can make this school energy efficient. The kids will come up with goofy ideas, and some good ones. Whack out some of the walls and put in windows that open. Put solar panels on the roof. Install a wind turbine. At the very least, turn down the a/c several degrees. Have outdoor classes, plant trees, install a pond, grow a vegetable garden for the whole community. And the kids will be learning science all the while because it's real and because their very lives depend on it.
The science fairs are generally crap. Kids do poor science about what hair spray or diaper is best. It would be a whole lot more effective if these good kids could be involved in the life ahead and start out doing real things and thinking critically about what their world will be. For openers I would love to see kids outside lying in the grass observing bugs with magnifying glasses, getting used to the sense of wonder in the natural world.
Last week when my grandchildren were here we walked out in the night woods and saw the thousands of fireflies in the palmettos, and echoing them, the stars in the sky. We held hands and were amazed at the beauty of this world we inhabit. It's a step.

Earth Day

I feel kind of like Andy Rooney with my curmudgeonly objections to so much packaging that comes with everything we buy. But here's a suggestion for everyone to try on Earth Day. I do it all the time. At the check out counter, remove unnecessary packaging and give it back to the clerk. You don't need those plastic hangers that come with cheap clothing we all wear. You don't need shoe boxes with the crumpled tissue paper and toe fillers. You don't need the boxes containing the toothpaste or the ibuprofen. Toiletries are the worst. You certainly don't need that dangerous clamshell rig on the batteries you buy. You don't need all that ingenious Chinese packing foam that comes when you buy a small lamp or electronics. Be real now, you'll never have to return it, and if you did you could never figure out how to get it back in the box (if you could find it).
Food items are harder. You don't want to go out of the store with breakfast cereal stuffed in your pockets or bald fried chicken in your purse, but you can eschew the plastic or paper bags for those nifty ones sold everywhere for under a dollar. Each one can contain what would be placed in FOUR plastic bags! So much easier.
I know you are thinking about the loss of jobs if we reduced packaging. There's no end to political correctness, is there? But even from a selfish view of closets, we know that less packaging means more room for what we already have. Not to mention the dreaded carbon footprint.
Today I went to a website www.catalogchoice.org , and canceled with ease all those catalogs that clog my mailbox. It's easy, it's free. You know you don't need that catalog about cattle insemination products, or the fifteenth one about 'window treatments', especially if you don't have any curtains and prefer it that way. Lighten the load to the recycling center (You DO recycle?)
And, last but not unimportant, try growing some of your own food. Fill containers with herbs and salad greens. For us tonight we have enough fresh broccoli, green beans and swiss chard to stagger sextillions of infidels, not to mention the guests.

"We go home now"

When we took Quincy on the historical trolley ride in our small town yesterday, he was enthralled by it all. He sat in the window seat next to Grandpa, taking in everything the guide said. I enjoyed watching him from the seat behind, his chubby cheeks pink and his red hair flying in the sun. It was a ninety minute tour of historical homes and landmarks and even I, the grown-up, was getting antsy, wishing I could put the pedal to the metal and get on with it. Quincy, however, was the dignified and polite three year old, occasionally commenting on cats or trucks he saw. He very much liked when the guide reached up to pull the trolley bell. He knew when that would happen and he reached up in imitation. He leaned over to Grandpa and said, "We go home now! Time for lunch!"
Yes! Time to go home. And what a home we have! This evening, the three teenagers and Quincy have gone to their real homes and I have a few hours all alone except for the small dog. The moon is almost full and the fireflies are out in full force. Coyotes are singing.
I am working on the last quilt of my project of four. I knew this last one would be the most challenging. For all these years my husband has dragged a large woodcut I made when I was very young from place to place as we moved. And now, I want to print it again on this quilt. It is the first stanza of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and I was in love with it at the time. It is perfect, I think, for the young person who is to receive this quilt. The large wood block is old and dried up (as am I!), cantankerous and not wanting to receive the ink as I want it to. I am wetting it down constantly and pulling trial prints. I am not discouraged that the ink won't adhere as it should in my mind's eye. I am thinking of changing the fabric, maybe dyeing muslin and using that instead of the fabric I had originally planned. And there is plan B, and C, probably D too.
What is fun is to have the time to do this. Also fun is having a collaborator quilter nearby who will actually quilt the three pieces of the sandwich together on her long arm quilting machine. We spend hours deciding on the thread colors, the design of the quilting as it embraces my quilt tops.
I never thought I would be this happy as a retired person. I loved my work as a teacher and school director. But the time came when I knew I needed to get out of the way and let others do it. I was tired of telling kids what to do, and I still don't want to do this anymore.
Kids are still a large part of my life. I am loving the role of being the wildly idiosyncratic grandma person to many kids. I think of last night with my teenage grandson when we put in hours processing the amazing photos he made while he was here. It was just so easy and companionable being with this creative young person I was teaching in a low key way. No agenda beyond the task at hand. Fifty three years difference in age we are, but no matter! The students in the school where I volunteered today were the same: we had a project to do and we got right down to business. (After hugs, of course.)
The nagging little dog is warming my bed, waiting for me.

My Space

My space has been invaded by my grandsons, especially the fourteen year old, who love having a building (my studio) where they can make art, use their computer, and just hang out all day. I can easily take this for a couple of days, and we are compatible in my space. Diego is making collages (to die for), and I am completing a project of four quilts. Everything hums with activity, and we are even fairly o.k. with the music we listen to.

But I find that I cannot really do my best thinking and creating with another person at my elbow. Tonight I have one hour alone in the studio, and then I have promised my appearance at the evening card game in fifteen minutes.

'My Space': do kids today really know anything about having their own space? Are we all to become Japanese type persons having to share tiny spaces, never being alone? Is 'My Space' only to be something online? For me, my space is in my studio, alone with my thoughts and art, or outdoors walking in the woods and fields. I appreciate that my wonderful grandsons truly love the freedom they have here, the space to create, think, and just be themselves. What a gift for us all.

Still hoping for public schools

They were doing the FCAT in the public school where I volunteer. It took two weeks and they did not want volunteers there for the duration. I took a trip up north and worked in the garden and thought about those good and patient children who were filling in the circles with their number two pencils.
I reappeared today to cries of welcome, and "What are we going to do today?" They are eying my satchel for clues of what art materials and what food goody I have brought this day. I have brought a big bag of greens from my garden for the teacher and two large bags of peanuts in the shell for the kids. After the 'pancake' fiasco I have vowed never to cook in that classroom again.
As usual, the teacher is hunkered down at her laptop and her database of kids' scores and attendance and what else I have never been able to figure out. What I know is that these tasks take up all her time. She is a shy woman and I have gradually warmed to her and now appreciate her shards of humor. After all, she did ask me to be a classroom volunteer and she knew right from the beginning that I would not be Ms. Plastic who put up bulletin boards (all canned). She weathered the pancake incident, after all, and she pretty much gives me free reign to do what I want with the kids.
She told me today that she had an encounter with the principal, who wanted to know why in the world she would let a volunteer-me (!) do clay with the kids when the FCATS were pending?? My projects are messy and fun and noisy and the fired and glazed products are wonderful to my mind.
Earlier this week I went back to my old school to visit for a few hours. As I walked into the school my eyeballs popped at the riot of colorful paintings lining the halls. In the background I heard choruses of recorders playing in the distance. Little kids pulled me along to look at the small cottages they were making out of craft sticks. There was so much STUFF there! Other kids showed me their writing. Five minutes before the end of the day everyone, kids and adults, went into action to clean everything up. They are responsible for their everyday environment and they take doing their jobs seriously. In the public school the janitor does all this.
In my old school the kids also take standardized tests. They do not spend every school hour preparing. What they do is produce a Shakespearean play or go on a trip to study marine science in the Keys. And on the tests they do very well indeed.
Today I wanted to start a small group of ten students writing their own books that we'll compose, illustrate, edit, and bind. They seemed excited about it, though there is never enough time. These kids seem starved for adult interaction. They wanted to tell me so many things! They wanted to talk to me about the books they are reading, and what they used to read. I am thinking about the many years when I read to ten year-olds "To Kill a Mockingbird", and how this book was the most important thing they addressed. A few kids sidle up to me and ask, "Have you read the second book of "A Land Remembered"? This is the book they are required to read (Sunshine Standards), a fictional history of Florida. I read it months ago and was appalled by the expurgated edition and promptly got the original. The kids wanted me to somehow get them the real edition. I hedge.. I am already in trouble with this school.
I think that I may just begin reading them TKAM. It could be the best thing they learn.

Making Decisions

You would think that a person of my age would have a better handle on living the life I have. But, two years into retirement from compelling work, I am still flopping around trying to be grounded in a purposeful schedule. When I was working, teaching and administrating, life was full of that bulge of close to ten hours each day being on the job. I squeezed in exercising before the first light of dawn, and social life was relegated to the margins of the weekends. At that time, family was remote, and we visited back and forth on carefully calculated dates.
In the last couple of months I have had to deal with complex and hard family problems and my free time has been taken up with the truly gritty stuff of being a hands-on grandma. I love that little guy, but it's intense.
I am glad to be retired, no question. It has been important to me to leave my work life to younger people and I am glad every day not to have to be telling people what to do, glad to be through with staff meetings, and the everyday details. I am loving having time to do some of the things that have always lapped at my artistic soul. Wallowing in dilettantism. Volunteering.
My husband and I still struggle with having two homes. More and more, the town house in the city fades away in our interest. It's a lovely thing to have that place for one or two nights a week when we want to see friends there, attend board meetings, or go to the theater. We have finally really finished that place that needed so much renovation. Now it's pristine, hermetically sealed in perfect air conditioning, and quite lovely and stylish.
But, after the brutal commute back from town, we sigh a deep breath of joy as we drive the mile from our mailbox to the farmhouse. I look at the resurrection ferns on the oaks to see how much rain there has been. I see a flock of turkeys running crazily in front of the car at seventeen mph. Home! First thing, I check the vegetable garden, then the flower beds and the orchids under the pool screen. Then I open my studio after checking the container gardens of lettuces. I have to walk around and look at everything, even if it has only been twenty-four hours since I was last here. While the computer gets going (321 messages), I walk out behind the barn and look at the footprints of deer, hogs, coyotes, turkeys, and hear the rustling of armadillos. I check for new wren nests, and I rejoice at my good fortune.
The main house is to us such a wonderful place. Sometimes I just twirl in the central hall and look in all directions. One way you see out front to the porch and the vines full of hummingbirds, and beyond that the beauty of rural Florida with deer, sand hill cranes, hawks on the ghost tree and maybe a gopher tortoise lumbering across the pasture. In back there is the spacious screen porch where everyone gathers and where dogs lie in the sun rays. There is the fragrant farm kitchen on another arm of the house looking out to the vegetable garden. And, opposite, there is the public space: on one side, the study and fireplace room (chimney swifts nest in the chimney there from March through October, kindly leaving us time to have a few fires in the cold season). On the other side is the music room with the piano and instruments and t.v. In every room there are the dogs and I try mightily to vacuum up their hair and scrub down the surfaces of the couches. We have several bedrooms upstairs and a playroom in the hall there with lots of toys left over from our kids and grandkids.
I think I am describing a home? It's where we live.
I guess what I am describing is our real home and maybe we should be perfectly content. But there is still that niggling at us (our mothers' voices? Our friends in the city who chastise us ever so gently about rusticating here?).
I am also trying to make the decision about this blog. Shall I just let it die? I began it because I wanted to try something different and public- a real departure for a shy person. I have learned a lot from doing it, no doubt. But it may be the time to get a grip on my real life.