Privacy and the wikileaks

I am following the wiki leaks stories in the papers and on NPR. There is such a voluminous amount of stuff and no sensible person could read it all. Actually, does it really matter?
I think about how the young people I know have to share everything every minute on their smart phones and other digital devices. It is the age of sharing every moment and there is so much data going back and forth(I am in this store, what do you think about buying this broccoli and where are you right this minute right now?)
In this age if you want to have any privacy you can think that there is so much data out there that in the sheer voluminous of it, you are anonymous. Actually, do you think that your parents would have the commitment to the drudgery of checking all those texts?
We live in a world of sharing every little thing thanks to the cell phone and instant computer communication. But I do believe that there are eyes out there watching us. Google Street view is creepy, I know that every transaction I make in a store is forever filmed. I take some comfort in the fact that anachronistically we live far away from civilization but I know that the fences are breached by Florida State vehicles because our land is in the public domain.
I have always been amazed as political scandals play out that the players just wrote on e mail or some other public connection about their actions. Doesn't anyone know that the only security is in face to face communication while in a walk in the woods? If you have such a huge data base for sharing information as the U.S. has had, it was bound to be breached. Probably not such a bad idea.
Believe in this day and age that everything you do is being watched by someone. So get those skeletons out of your closet. They will come back to haunt you.

What really interests me

"Do you think that this place is paradise?" asks my youngest sister as we are walking in the woods this morning.
"Yeah, it really is for me", I answer. "I cannot imagine another life." We are walking in a glade where the palmettos fold into the cypress swamp. I know this place well, I know what grows there and I can name the plants I see. My eyes sweep the scene from the forest floor to the tree tops and I am looking and looking, invited to that sunny glade, to that thickness of Spanish needles and perhaps a sandy place where I will see the footprints of all the critters who were there last night.
I am always asking the young people I know what really interests them. If one knows this, they can take it from there. No one asked me when I was young what I really was interested in. But a discerning person might have known that as a child I spent hours in the woods picking plants and looking at them. In all the places I lived, it was the plants I remember. I know when the snowdrops would appear by the side of the first house I lived in up north, where the hollyhocks would bloom. I fell in love with a man who cared about the magic of fiddle heads just emerging from the snowy earth and I fell in love with his mother who knew where lady slippers could be found in the woods in the spring.
In so many places it has been the plants I remember. From the trees in the parks of Rome when I was a child, to the mosses in Turkey, to the large forests of France, to the wonderful blonde landscapes of northern California, and the wooded trails we hike in the south east, I have examined it all with such interest.
So, as my sister knows, I am happy to be here, constantly doing my own kind of research on the plants that are here in paradise.
Follow your star.

Thankful

Here are kids at Lacoochee school preparing a Stone Soup meal. They are chopping and paring vegetables that will go into soup pots with some meat and seasonings and the stones, of course. Whoever gets a stone is lucky. The story of Stone Soup is well known, a sharing experience of how many hungry folks came together to make something all could enjoy.

Forty kids pared and peeled and chopped those vegetables I brought from our garden. While some kids did the prep, others were working on Thanksgiving cards, so everyone was busy.

I am amazed that the classes in this school do not celebrate holidays in the ways that connect school to home. They do not make sure that kids make gifts for their families. Nor do they decorate and celebrate for the usual American holidays. I am thinking about why this would be?

But I am thankful to be a volunteer in this remote school where I have learned so much about our culture. I am thankful to know so many wonderful kids who have taught me so much.

I am thankful that I have such a large and loving family who will surround the table tomorrow and eat the traditional turkey and salmon

Being Grandma

Quincy has just turned six and he's here for a few days while his mom studies for her law school exams. He's spent many many days with us over the years and he feels very comfortable here, building up memories that will take him beyond the lives of his grandparents. At six he's competent, observant, polite and funny. He really fits in here.

When we went today to a local nursery to purchase three memorial trees, Quincy and I walk into the office and the first thing we see is a large aquarium, kitty litter on its floor, and a large clean bowl of water. What could be living here? Quincy peers into a rock shelter and says, "Yellow rat snake!" Of course he's right and I feel so proud that he is beginning to know these things and recognize so many of the critters that live here. He knows the routes we take to get to things around here, and he knows the names and habits of many plants and human inhabitants. He's fearless about catching frogs and insects and as he flings his body around and gets scrapes and bruises I always cringe, and he always emerges from these accidents pretty much intact.

Now he wants to spend the night in his tent he's set up in the yard outside-the very last thing I want to do. So today, I hope that this idea will be forgotten as I tempt him into the house with the idea of watching "Charlotte's Web" before bed.

But tomorrow night I think I will have to be the grandma who really steps up to the plate. I will cram myself into the dratted tent (that I gave him for his birthday, what was I thinking?) and we will be more intimate than I'd want. I will curve my seventy year old bones into the back of this wiggly six year old, and we will listen to the sounds of the deer and the armadillos huffing and snorting in the yard. We will slap mosquitoes and I will tell Quincy the latest part of the story he finds so fascinating about how tools started.

We will admire the full moon and look at Orion. And then, finally, there will be total silence as he suddenly falls asleep in mid sentence. And I will be so thankful on the evening before Thanksgiving for all the blessings that are mine, even the shuffling of the armadillos and the lumps under my sleeping bag.

When will there be good news?

This is the view I see out the window over my desk. In this season the huge pink zinnias that grow in an old claw foot bathtub are covered with butterflies, relentlessly cheerful to remind me of the predictable repetition of the natural world.

And such a comfort that is in this last period when all the news was bad. My dear Friend, Nidia, died unexpectedly. She was sixty-one and there was so much left for her to do, so much of her joy to share. Her hundreds and probably thousands of friends are wild with grief. We gathered last evening for a memorial. So many hugs and tears and recollections of her life. Her three beautiful daughters and her husband and her Chilean family were magnificent, their faces so grief stricken and reflecting that strong beauty of this incredible mother who was so competent and generous to us all. The children in our school, where Nidia taught Spanish for so many years, wrote touching letters of condolence and decorated them with drawings. Producing these was not only such a gift to our community of Nidia's friends, it helped them- kids and friends through such a hard time.

So, today in the glorious blue of Florida fall, I took a long walk to look at the river and think about all Nidia meant to us, the person she was and how her life touched ours. It's going to take a long time for me to knit this knot into the fabric of my life. When someone you love dies before their time, it's so hard. And we vow to appreciate every day and every person more.

My daughter went to the memorial service with me. She knew Nidia well, and her small son was in Nidia's Spanish group. When he heard about Nidia's death, he cried and asked "How am I going to learn Spanish?" He drew a love heart for Nidia and I included it in my letter to the family.

I am realizing all over again how important it is for me to still stay connected and generous to family and friends. And the news will be getting better.

Cold Front

We are supposed to have cold weather tonight, even in the forties! Such a thrill for us here in the heart of global warming. The broccoli plants are heading up and the garden is bursting with all kinds of greens, peas, beans, chard, onions and salad greens. Right now there is no need to buy any vegetables except tomatoes and pumpkins.

The baby squirrels come out in the morning and play, running and chittering and wrestling like middle school siblings. The regular cardinals and titmice and wrens are at the feeders. The chimney swifts left shortly after the hummingbirds, so now we can make a fire in the fireplace tomorrow evening.

Steve the painter and his son are renovating all the teetering banisters and steps up to the porches. I am impressed with the high quality of the work and the careful attention to detail. These guys move everything, clean everything, put stuff back, fix things they see, and vote Democratic. They have a faithful group of people who want their work, but as with everyone these days, they are eager to be employed.

Such a lovely day after the heavy rains of yesterday that brought magic green to the pastures. I am always depressed on rainy and overcast days. And this week that brought irritating and hard things left me flat. So, this day of brilliant sunshine and blue sky and time to work on my latest quilt and walk in the fields was welcome.

I am coming to accept the reality of this election. There is either a mean spirit or a total lack of appreciation for helping those in our American society in need. Kind of feels like a selfish fear, a stoppage of moral feeling at the third grade level. Or probably ignorance.

This week in the classroom where I volunteer, there was a small skinny seven year old who had complained all week of pain in his back. Even in the midst of a lovely and exciting project he seemed wan. When he approached his teacher and said he wanted to go to the office and "check out", I said to him, "Can I look?" and I raised his shirt and saw raw scabs where he had clearly been beaten. (He said that his sister had pushed him.) Probably this child, who had complained of pain all week, was trying to make the best of a really bad situation. He may have cracked ribs, who knows? But this child's parents are probably illegal Mexicans with so many issues, who knows? I wonder if Rick Scott looking at these wounds on the skinny brown back of a seven year old, could in good conscience cut off funds for the American social safety net?

I want to believe that Americans, independent and cranky as we are, are good hearted. But as of this moment, I am not sure. What I am sure of is that the people who voted in the tea party candidates must be fearful and not thorough thinkers. Their lives are metered out in sound bites and tweets.
As I have said, the garden grows magnificently.