maybe you’ve noticed

These last few weeks have been no exception to a sea of changes that seemed to coincide with the start of my blog, January 01, 2011.

You may recall that my youngest graduated from the 8th Grade less than 2 weeks ago. You may recall that I am peri-menopausal, if not outright menopausal (don’t hold your breath, you have to go a WHOLE YEAR without a period before you are considered good enough to be fully old, crone-like, ancient menopausal). You may remember that we had 2 cats get killed within 6 months of each other. You may also remember that Hubby and I celebrated 21 years of marriage recently.

Completing 8th Grade in a Waldorf school is a BIG DEAL, I have stated before. I mean to write a nice, long, lovely post about this, but in some way I am uninspired.

To be honest, as yours truly is want to be, 20 years, and now 21 years of marriage, has been a monumental time of change for me and Hubby. We have always striven to make our relationship better and stronger, to dig deep in when things haven’t worked, but some remnants of old stuff have been getting in the way so Hubby and I find ourselves delving again, deeply and fundamentally. Why do I tell this here? For one, it’s a cultural taboo to talk about these things, at least until you’ve earned about 40 or 50 years in. Then, everyone is all ears about how do you make a marriage work and how did you do it and what is your best advice to young newlyweds.

Sometimes I think my poetry has dried up, but it’s not true, I write quite a bit. Sometimes I think I’m a bad mom. Sometimes I think that the garlic scape growing out of the compost bin is the loveliest thing in my life. Not only because garlic scapes are beautiful curled green things, but because there’s some accident there—I did not plant garlic in my compost bin.

I want to post poems here, I want to save them, I want to gnash my teeth. I want to scream at the poetry that gets published in respectable journals, I want to shout fuck you to name-dropping authors who are full of themselves and whose essays barely touch the surface of human experience.

I wanted to tell you about the ladybug that hitched a ride on the top tube of my new bike yesterday, my virgin ride on it, how I felt blessed, but how I was just trying to find an excuse that the world makes sense.

I did want to share about my cracked rib, but I didn’t want to divulge how it happened. I told a few people as the subject came up, but I hemmed and hawed with most people who asked.

I am not shy, so let’s say it involved a massage table, which has a very hard surface after all, and let’s say it involved sex and let’s say I’m being honest.

My right side has been feeling pained, deep intense pain like when you get the wind knocked out of you.

the solar plexus

When I was a little girl, in preschool or maybe kindergarten, at the little private school I attended for kids with high IQs in a suburb of Detroit, I remember getting the wind knocked out of me and going to see the nurse. Her name was Mim, we called her that at least, and I remember a white nurse’s hat and pink stripes, maybe even white shoes; somehow I associate her with the color pink. I loved her. I remember a stick of ammonia, smelling salts. I remember lying down in the nurse’s room more than once. How much I loved her and now, when I think of that time, how small I see myself, tiny and sad of heart.

I will write again. I will post poems, but maybe not my latest poems. I will save them for the waters or maybe for paper.

Sometimes poems reveal things and sometimes poems hide things and sometimes the time for either has not yet come.

This is me, one of the first photos I ever took of myself in a mirror (I found another one from earlier, when I still lived in the dorms at Kent State). This photo is from October, 1983, in a house I rented with 4 other people, Lake Street, Kent, Ohio. We found out my father had cancer in August 1983. One of many beginnings of growing up too soon and also one of many times when I wasn’t ready to let go of that tiny girl inside.

Remember to pay attention. You might miss something otherwise.

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swamped!

Yo! My youngest is in the midst of her last week (ever) at her school. Completing your 8th Grade year is a Big Deal in a Waldorf school. I am swamped with all manner of details and loose ends, not to mention that I went to not one, but two (YES, TWO!!!), poetry readings already this week (only one was an open mic; the other, I sat dutifully and listened).

I want to share so many things with you, dear readers, but it will be a few more days before I can catch my breath.

I leave you with this perennial favorite for any end-of-the-school-year. This is the same as the version I had on my very own 45. Now get out your invisible mic and belt it out with Lulu:

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Thankful Thursday–wool installation, wool, silk long johns, new cat, and advent calender photo update

Above is a photo of some of the sheep at my daughter’s school. You can’t really tell, but behind them (and all around their enclosure) is wool embedded into the chicken wire fence. It is an installation by a local artist, Nancy Milliken, called Walling In. All the while it was going up onto the fence I thought, “hmmm…..now isn’t that interesting and not altogether attractive?” But I will tell you: I drive from the south side of Bay Rd (the road that used to take folks from points west to the Bay, in Boston) and as the road bends, the fence is fully visible as it spills down the hill. It’s beautiful. I love it.

You’ll find a better photo of the whole fence on Nancy Milliken’s website. You’ll also find a photo of a rooster from the school. This rooster. Isn’t he pretty?

Look at the chicken wire up close:

You know I don’t love wool. I used to not be able to wear it at all–the itching and coarseness. When we moved to the Pioneer Valley, it was almost sacrilege not to wear wool, let alone to not like it. Try taking that a step further from the bubble of the Pioneer Valley into the even smaller community that is our local Waldorf school. Wool in our Waldorf school is to clothing like manna is to food. It’s practically heaven-sent and good for anything that ails you. In fact, it is probably edible in some form or another, just ask the Handwork-slash-Ag Arts teacher. I used to hate wool. I sort of still do. Slowly, over the last 11 years, my body seems to have adjusted to it a little: I can wear some wool-blend socks, as long as the percent of wool isn’t too high. I can wear my wool coat because it has a thick polar-fleece lining. I cannot wear a wool scarf directly next to my skin, even the Smartwool kind. I do have a lovely pink and black polka-dot hat that is merino wool and I can wear that.

Maybe it doesn’t matter so much, all of this wool. It’s the Solstice, December 22, and it’s raining in New England. I am sure up in the hill towns and in the mountains there is some snow. Rain in December. What happened to our climate? You probably don’t need wool in New England until January nowadays.

Silk is the other natural fiber one must acquaint oneself with in New England. My initial reaction when told I must wear silks in the winters here was to turn my nose up. The nerve! Me, who was somewhat “tactile defensive” as a child (they just told you to behave or slapped you when I was a kid, no such thing as tactile defensive). I remember a particular episode when I had to wear tights and how I screamed my head off in protest. I did eventually learn to wear silk long underwear and I fell in love with the warmth and softness and the not-overwhelming level of heat that they keep in (unlike a lot of synthetics which can make me too warm unless I’m outside and not moving).

I love new kitty SO MUCH:

Here is the latest photo of the advent calender:

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Thankful Thursday–colored chalks, Marblehead, Chris Smither, new cat (!!!)

I woke up this morning with all good will. Let’s start with that….

The use of color at a Waldorf school. Witness the chalks that the teacher uses to create….well, just that, to create:

My first visit to Marblehead, Massachusetts (yet another wealthy New England town that made its fortune on shipping, ie, trade in spices, cloth, rum, tobacco, sugar cane, and slaves (as if humans are the same as the rest of the things on this list, but that would be another post entirely, wouldn’t it?)

Chris Smither, who we saw in Marblehead on Friday night, at the Me and Thee Coffeehouse

old enough kids (old enough for me not to be in the thick of motherhood, but young enough for me to still be in the thick of motherhood)

8,000 blog hits which I reached TODAY in spite of having a blog which features a. poems (who reads poetry any more? and most of them weren’t even about sex) and b. gratitude, o, cynics, and c. not photos of naked women, or naked women with large breasts, real or silicone-d, or naked women with small breasts, or posts about Justin Bieber, Radiohead, &c.

I just used &c instead of etc. I have never done that in my life. How cool is that?

So, I know that 8,000 is a relatively low number for blog hits and it’s sort of measly, but I like it. In fact, I love it!

I have been blogging for almost a year and I only wanted to throw in the towel once (about 2 weeks ago) for about 3 days and I love that, too

new cat

What’s that twinkly? Yes, you heard right. New cat, who remains as yet unnamed (we think Strider, but eldest daughter protesteth). Here she is, retrieved from the vet that was fostering her for Dakin. She’s a beauty, but was in pretty bad shape from her previous owner and probably from the stress of living in a shelter down in Springfield for 2 months…she had fleas, earmites, nausea. She’s scrawny and has lots of matted fur and a distended belly. She’s around 2 years old and gets up and eats every time I go in the room where she’s staying for now. We love her already

You know what happened by this evening, right? This is what I found out at about 4 pm…

While I’m glad that I called and emailed the White House (oh, yes, so grateful for that), I really want Obama and the entire Democratic party to grow a pair. So I guess I’m not thankful. But trying to stave off ranting by being grateful for all the other stuff.

I better stick to beauty…

and smart, talented men:

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Thankful Thursday–the advent of advent and my amazing daughters (including a long history of my ethno-religious background)

Howdy, loyal friend. I’ve had a rather busy day and a bit of a sad day; this is in part why this post comes quite late. Not my favorite thing, such a late Thankful Thursday.

But, you know, I’ve come up with quite a lengthy post. Can I get a witness?

My youngest daughter made an advent calender for the family this week. It is amazing. She is amazing. I am amazed at her mind and hands. Her abilities to think through projects and to create things of sense and beauty. Both of my girls have amazing abilities. I think part of this comes from their Waldorf education. Maybe some of it can be attributed to them having inherited good brains. Maybe some of it has to do with good parenting. I’m not really sure, but I’ll take it. I think most children are exceptional, so it’s not that mine are necessarily more exceptional, but they are mine, so I notice and I rejoice.

I didn’t grow up with Christmas in a traditional way, mostly because my father was Jewish and my mother, who converted to Judaism but not really (that’s another matter altogether) would not have Christmas in our house out of respect for my father. She had grown up with Christmas as a young girl in Germany, but it was during the war and she had a childhood-from-hell (I kid you not and am not exaggerating in any way, but that’s another story and perhaps not mine to tell). To further boost the eschewing of Christmas, both of my parents were atheists. We did have Hannukah for a few years when I was young, but because my father didn’t give a flying !@#$% about it, it didn’t stick either. My father, in spite of growing up in an Orthodox household in Hungary (maybe it was Reform and I’ve got this wrong), was basically a hands-off religion guy. He just didn’t care about it. I now am so thankful for this, but it wasn’t always easy growing up as the only kid who didn’t have a religion per se. Now where I live, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting* someone who’s at least a quarter Jewish, let alone half-Jewish, let alone a goddamn atheist. So FINALLY, for the last 11 years of my life, I fit in!

We never had a Christmas tree at our house when I was growing up. We did, however, go to Germany when I was 4 and there we had a real German Christmas. I even remember live candles on the tree. And a fish in aspic which I thought was gross and scary.

We also celebrated Christmas at some friends’ in Canada after I was about 7. These became our life-long family friends who are more like cousins and aunts and uncles to me, especially since I came from a very small family and half of my relatives live in Germany. So, our family friends in Canada became family, period, and we did Christmas there for many years. Now isn’t that a kick in the nuts considering all I just said about Christmas?

Anyway, I have a long history of feelings about Christmas, but my children took to it with gusto. My youngest is still very enamored of it.

A few years ago, maybe 5 or 6, I guess we started to get the girls advent calenders. This was foreign territory to me and somewhat distasteful–too Christian or something, unlike certain parts of Christmas which I had been able to enjoy more easily and to separate from anything religious. There are certain things that are clearly pagan and so I could justify allowing and including and enjoying them even as a non-Christian, half-Jew. I think advent calenders aren’t really religious or pagan anyway, but something about them smacks of religion for me. Maybe the sparkly white kids and angels who are usually depicted all over them.

So, my Annie is away for the week at a class field trip to study geometry. She left the advent calender that she made for us so we could open a little tab and see a new picture each day. In spite of a troubled mind and a troubled world, in spite of death and sadness, I am especially happy that I have such amazing and beautiful daughters. And I LOVE the advent calender. SO MUCH.

Here it is. It is simply lovely (not too fancy) and organized, quietly beautiful and elegant, sort of like Annie herself:

I am most impressed by the way she had to measure it all out, line things up and use 2 pieces of paper in the planning and the way she drew a different secret tiny picture for each little window.

This is it, people, this is the satisfaction of being a parent. I feel blessed and filled.

See you soon I hope….g’night!

*An announcement from the management: Don’t tell anyone, but it’s Friday morning–so wrong since this is a Thankful Thursday post. But the management was up thinking about the phrase you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a (insert noun) for a good part of the time she should have been sleeping.

You know what I love? I LOVE folk expressions, not just idiomatic, but old-timey idiomatic phrases rarely heard any more. Heck, they are so rare that I only know about 3 of them. In any case, because I love cats and because I loathe the mistreatment of animals, that phrase is actually quite offensive. But it’s also rich and bewildering AND gets its point across like no other phrase I can think of. Can you help me? Is there another idiomatic turn of the language that accomplishes that meaning? And can you forgive me for using a string of words that is offensive? What if I do it again? Like this: you can’t swing a dead cat in the Pioneer Valley without hitting a massage therapist.  Not only am I half-Jewish, but I’m a massage therapist to boot! I now think I can retire that phrase. God is it offensive! What would the Dakin people think?

 

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Thankful Thursday–first day of school, more fungi, an exciting spam in my inbox, and Dolly Parton rockin’ the autoharp

My daughters are both back in school. Yesterday was monumental in that my 13-year old was in the annual Flower Ceremony at her school. The tradition at a Waldorf school is this: each 8th Grade student is assigned a 1st Grade student with whom they will spend time doing special things together throughout the year. On the first day of school, the 8th Grader (and at our school, a 12th Grader as well) gives a wildflower to her 1st Grader. At the end of the year, when the 8th Grade students graduate, the 1st grader then gives a rose (symbolic of a student progressing from wild to cultivated) to the 8th Grader and so on each September morn and each June afternoon for the first and last days of school respectively.

On the heels of last week’s Thankful Thursday, I took some photos of a few of the mushrooms that continue to emerge in my yard:

and

and

Aren’t those interesting?

This week, something else sort of special happened. “Best Penis” made a deposit into my spam inbox. I know we all get lots of spammy emails, but as you can imagine, this one had special appeal. Who doesn’t want a correspondence from [the?] Best Penis? Is it the best penis in the world or just in the USA? How can it write an email? All these questions…

In the same vein, one of the ways someone found last week’s Thankful Thursday was by searching for the following information:

can you trip from a phallus rubicundus?

I am sorry that someone out there did not get an answer to that question on my blog and I hope that person is sensible enough not to consume any unauthorized fungi in search of a great hallucinogenic experience.

All of this makes me think of the song, Wildflowers by Dolly Parton. Well, the toadstools and spam don’t make me think of it, but the flower ceremony does. I also predict that my pal pt dismal will be telling me all about Mama Maybelle Carter rockin’ the autoharp, too. Am I right pt?

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May Your Never-failing Treasury Be Filled with Boundless Stores of Grace: Beekeeping and the Class of 2010

On the last Friday in May 2010, I was able to accompany and photograph Hartsbrook’s 8th Grade students during their final Agricultural Arts class.

It is customary for each Hartsbrook class to begin a study of Beekeeping with Nicki Robb in the fall of the 8th Grade year.

Beekeeping is a complex art, combining ancient farming techniques and the science of keen observation with a deep understanding of what is natural to the bee. The beekeeper must become a steward of nature in order to reap the benefits of the hive in the form of that most sensuous and mysterious of substances, honey.

The weather on this particular day was the best of the week, not as hot as it had been earlier, but sunny with a slight breeze. The beginning of beekeeping class found the 14 students donning their bee-proof Tyvec suits. After this somewhat elaborate ritual, they followed Ms. Robb to the hives at the back of the campus. The 8th Graders were instructed to be as still and quiet as possible and to approach the hives only from the back in order to avoid interfering with the flight path of the bees. In groups of 3 or 4, the students carefully removed the cinder block weights from the tops of the boxes. Having been taught to listen to the sound of the bees’ humming in order to assess the mood of the hive, the teenagers were transformed from chatty and excited to quiet almost immediately. Next, they carefully pried up the frames to observe the combs: to see if there was honey, to observe its color and quality, and to notice if any chains had been created. After their observations were complete, the frames and boxes were put back in reverse order. A final “bee check” with a brush was performed on each student and the space-age suits were stripped off with happiness and relief.

Having never been near a living hive of honeybees, I was in a state of awe for the 45 minutes or so that we spent there. Time was suspended in the sunshine and whispering breeze of the morning. The frames oozed with a liquid, golden light. I was never afraid of being stung, but rather soothed by the hum and buzz all around us. Nicki stood in front of the boxes and I was astonished at the hundreds of bees flying halo-like around her, to and from the hives, both as if none of us existed, but also as if they were there simply for our pleasure and beholding.

After I removed my own bee suit, I spent some time in the Great Room looking over the class’ final work displays—the material “honey” of 8 years of a Hartsbrook education.

I spent about an hour paging through Main Lesson books, poring over poems about the animals of Africa, reading about the properties of light and atmosphere, drinking in the splendor and colors of dozens of watercolor paintings, and admiring the wooden toys and handmade dolls. I was amazed at the material declaration of knowledge and beauty and at the incredible amount of industry that went in to each child’s work. It is more than I can contain in my mind at once even now.

When I ventured back to join the class, they were gathered in the shade of a huge tree, listening dreamily to Ms. Robb. Once her lecture was complete, Nicki asked the group which of Hartsbrook’s resident farm animals they would most like to visit for the remainder of the time. The resounding answer was, to my surprise, “THE GOATS!” The 8th Graders rarely, if ever, have a chance to visit the animals during the school day and this was obviously a final gift from their teacher.

In the presence of the goats and our resident donkey, Francesca, the class was transformed from a group of sophisticated teenagers into young children again. I watched as their hearts lightened. Tenderness and joy overtook them as they fed, petted, and played with the goats and Francesca.

Hartsbrook’s 8th Grade Class of 2010 had an educational path that was forged by not one, but three, different Class Teachers. This provided them with unusual and unforeseen challenges but also opportunities for flexibility and growth. Ultimately, the situation allowed the class to become intensely bonded to one another and to have a strong spirit of perseverance in the face of external pressures. I thought about this during my final time together with them. This class did become a hive unto itself, as any of its teachers could tell you.

The day was certainly blessed and I knew it was a gift to be in their presence as a group for the last time. While I overreach to apply metaphors, I still have this wish for them: May your days forever ooze with golden honey as you fly from the geometry and industry of your Hartsbrook hive and venture into whatever awaits you.

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