On Hypocrisy

I talk about climate change.

And I travel by car sometimes. Sometimes I walk, or ride the bus, but sometimes I take the car. Once in a while I even go by air.

Does that make my talk of climate change hypocritical?

I don't think so.

If there were viable alternatives, and if I were refusing to use them while talking about the need for them, that would be hypocrisy.

But there is nothing hypocritical about working to bring those alternatives into existence. And that's what I'm trying to do by talking about climate change.

So to all those who use the charge of hypocrisy to hinder discussions of climate change, I say: If it weren't for your obstruction of progress, we'd have better options by now. Low-carbon lifestyles would be readily achievable and accessible across society.

And someday, when those options are available, then hypocrisy will be an option, too.

Lake Arcola 2013

I happened by on the day that it peaked (Monday). I think there was really just that one day that the water ran much; mostly it soaked in. We still have some snow in the bush.

Don't try to save me; I'll just argue.

I am wandering in my studio apartment--studio: the name breathes beauty, creativity, and airy space--picking up clutter.  It is everywhere, teetering on every horizontal surface, of which this space has too many.  One of them is the glossy upper surface of my closed laptop, and the tiny green light of its charger stabs at me: "Go, the way is clear"; and my resistance rises to meet the invitation.  I toy with the "why" of it, but it is illogical.  Logic's supercilious voice says "you will get paid, and you will feel better," but I am feeling better putting things away--a roll of tape and a tea towel and one dish out of many in the rack and then--yes, I will practice the hymns for Remembrance Day.  I approach the chair at the piano, and from its seat I put away some guitar books, and displace the songwriting binder to a new perch, which I first clear by tossing some empty electronica boxes in the direction of their kin.

The amp bangs to life, and the piano flickers through its boot cycle while my fingers hover on the smooth surface of the keys--no clutter here, just a bit of grime.  Another thing to take care of, before I share these keys on Sunday.  There is an old upright piano in the theatre, but I don't trust it.  I don't know if they even attempt to tune it.  Each year for November 11th, I haul my own keys there and perch the folding stand on the sloping floor in the side aisle, adjusting one leg longer than the other, getting the keys approximately level and ignoring the tilt of my own bottom on the tilted chair, the compensatory distortion of my spine.  I wonder, if I opened up the old piano and sank my fingers into those yielding slats of ivory, would my braced nerves receive the expected jolt of dissonance?  Or would my breath flow out in a wash of astonishing harmonious pleasure?

The home screen appears, and I sink my fingers into the familiar resistance of the weighted keys, but the sound is faint.  The master slider is way down, and as I bring it back up, my right hand still holding a chord, the notes well up like the swell of an obedient choir.  I repeat the opening chord, move to the second, and the faint ache in my chest wells, floods, carries me.  "Let there be peace on earth."  There are more words, even that contentious phrase about "brothers," but I am in the music.  How many repeats?  It doesn't matter; I'll pencil a note in that day; for now I take them all, and then some, riding the swells of these sweet progressions again and again, each time feeling them anew.

Here comes my mind again, narrating, analysing: music turns my aches into sweetness, takes me back, no, lets the adult clutter fall away so that my okay-ness can surface, sail, and soar.  And my okay-ness smiles at my busy mind and leaves it behind.

But there is that buzz in the amp . . . just the one note? The low F?  No, it's there in that delightful accidental in the mid-range, too, turning its pleasant tension into something grating, turning the resolution into sheer relief that the buzz is gone.  The song has to start winning me all over again from that point.  I'm running my hand over the surfaces of the amp, repeating the trigger notes, searching for the spot where the buzz will stop under my hand, but it doesn't stop, and I go back to the song.  My mind is playing with the metaphor: things left untended, irritations growing into burdens that breed and multiply--but I'm tired, and I just want to play.  I tune out the buzz for a while, but the intimacy is ended.  I leave the piano turned on, untouched, while I carry a chair to the desk, flip open the laptop, and write.  I'm not getting paid.  I'm not feeling better.  I still don't know why.

Stipa in My Socks

As requested - the picture. Wish I had one of a coworker in flared leg knit pants similarly adorned - they were gorgeous!

Five Best Things about Stipa in Your Socks

5. Elegant decoration. I could have said "fashion statement," but with Stipa, you state that you wear whatever is beautiful, and inspire others to see beauty anew.
4. Healthy ankles and beyond. Stimulates circulation, exfoliates, draws attention to an often neglected part of the body, and may even stimulate some acupuncture points!
3. Botanical research. Back home, you can verify whether you were walking through stands of Stipa curtiseta, S. comata, or some of both. You could even analyse variability in awn length or sharpness, but you would have to consider possible collection bias.
2. Climate adaptation. If you remove the Stipa seed and drop it in a suitable site somewhat north of where you picked it up, you may be helping our beleaguered prairie vegetation to shift along with climatic zones.

And now, the ultimate good thing about wearing Stipa in your socks:
1. It feels so good when you stop.

How to Have a Messy House

1. Live alone and never have company to care how it looks.
2. Get lots of dishes, so you can cover the counter before you run out of anything.
3. Put off decisions about where stuff goes.
4. Work two or more jobs, and have some volunteer roles as well. Bring stuff home.
5. Have lots of creative ideas, so you can always start a new project rather than finishing an old one.
6. Move often. This will keep a lot of your stuff in boxes, get those boxes out on a truck periodically so you can clean once per residence, and keep you optimistic about a fresh start.

Unspoken

That slight smile that rests so easy, always there, from the corners of your lips to the depths of your eyes, always - and yet when you turn it my way, it seems only for me - mercy! Do you have an uncle?

Bare Hills

Last year in a graduate course in education, I searched for childhood memories of significant moments in nature. Trouble was, most of my memories were in natural settings - significant moments in cities or indoors would be the exceptions! I found myself writing instead about the places we frequented, our ways of being there, our rituals.
There was one special moment that became a treasured ritual. We waited for it in late winter, watching from the school bus for the first glimpse of a dark patch amid the snow on the crest of a steep ridge that we called the South Slopes. Then off we would go, down through the meadow and up, up, up the ridge, toiling through snow that rolled unhelpfully under every step.
Oh, the joy of that last step from the shifting snow to the bare, solid earth! We stood on it, jumped on it, danced on it. We shouted and laughed. We lingered, stilled again by its immense stillness.
When would that have been? Early March?
Today I walked again in sloppy felt-lined snow boots, down by the meadow and up the ridge. I toiled a little, but the snow was not deep. I reached the summit, took a picture of the lifting fog, and then, through my viewfinder, saw my feet on the bare ground.
Trouble is, this winter, the bare ground is commonplace. I bet I could have stood on a bare patch on that ridge every week. The novelty would be to see it blanketed in white.

Top Ten Things You Can Do for the Environment

It's the time of year for top-ten lists.  Here's mine:

1. Grow a garden.  Yes, you.  This has finally started to turn up on a few lists, long overdue, but it's usually way too far down the list.  Don't have a bit of land?  (Are you sure?  Think small, even a planter or a window box.)  Help a friend.  Get a community garden plot, and again, maybe go together with a friend on this.  The most important tip for a beginning gardener: start small.  It might seem insignificant, but you will be surprised at what you can produce.  And transportation of fresh produce is a big part of our ecological footprint, so a successful small beginning at gardening may have just as much impact as any other green project you could do. 
2. Take up hunting or fishing.  Yes, you.  Yes, kill something.  Do it close to home, and you will have to learn about the natural habitats of your own area, where they are, what sustains them, and what threatens them.  They need you.
3. Eat what you kill.
4. Eat smaller portions of meat: a piece about the size of your palm and the thickness of your pinkie finger is plenty, even with all that vigorous gardening and hunting you will be doing.
5. If your hunting and fishing doesn't fill your reduced meat needs, look for domestic meats that are grown locally in harmony with the natural habitats you learned about in #2.  In my area, that means range-fed beef, which uses self-guided cow-power to harvest and fertilize natural grassland instead of plowing it up and using fossil fuels to cultivate and fertilize grain crops.
6. If, after all this new recharge time you are spending in your garden, on the trail of a deer, or on the water with your fishing rod, you still feel the need for a holiday from your life, take it close to home.  Check out nearby parks, festivals, galleries - try your local tourism agency if you need ideas.  Try something different: a bike tour, or paddling lessons; a retreat to learn about the enneagram; a music camp where you can learn to play an instrument.
7. Buy less, but when you do buy, spend more.  Buy quality, to last a lifetime.  Help the economy shrink back so it fits within the biosphere instead of mining the Earth.
8. When giving gifts, show your caring through the time and thought you put in, instead of the dollars.  In my family, for the last couple of years, CHRISTMAS stands for Consumeable (or Cookies), Homemade, Recycled (if you're not using it much but someone else would, why not?)... and I have been trying to extend the acronym to include Indirect (a gift to charity), and then the rest of the letters make an excuse for buying something Specific to that person and Terrifically Magically Awesomely Spectacular... such as the lightweight plastic trombone we found for my Mom to help her continue marching in parades well into her 70s.
9. Don't have time for all this?  Do it anyway, and with the money you save, quit working.  Give up that second income, or the overtime.  Change jobs if you need to.  Take back your life.
10. Tell your local political representatives what you are doing, and why.  Destroy their argument that we can't make changes because the public won't change.  Change, and show them.

Lake Arcola 2011

My not-quite-annual picture of the "lake" in town, close to its peak (I believe) on April 12th, when I just happened to be in town to go with James to the music festival. He thoroughly impressed me at that, with a lively clarinet solo and a lilting duet with a flute player from the next town.

On the way home from the festival, we had to drive through water flowing over the highway between Arcola and Carlyle. I've never seen it flood there before.

The water in Arcola was very high as well, but I think it might have something to do with the new culvert they put in where there used to be a drainage ditch across a vacant lot. Now there is a very long culvert with a house on top, and that culvert just doesn't seem to be doing the same job that the ditch did.

Parsnip - unedited

Remember "Rootabigga"? I think this root is actually bigger. Mom and Dad have a great garden on a spot where they used to feed cattle. That fertile soil combined with the non-stop rain this year produced some sensational parsnips (and carrots, and beets, and lettuce that kept producing all season instead of bolting in July).

The boy is definitely bigger. In about a year he went from shortest in the family to tallest. I don't think there was anything special about growing conditions that year; it was simply time to grow.

I don't find the Olympics hopeful...

What if the athletes had to get to the games under their own power?

What if they played on whatever snowy slope or frozen lake was available?

What if people came to play instead of to watch?

In response to all this Olympic striving:

Life is not about being best.

It is about being you.

Daylight on the Bus Route

When I was in high school, I played the clarinet in "Division Band," which was a wind ensemble composed of students from schools all across the Arcola School Division. Or was it the Arcola School Unit? I remember something about Unit 10, and the office was actually in Arcola, housed in the old Land Titles Office, a wonderfully solid brick building with a brass elevation marker in the yard. The building has since housed a museum and gift shop, and more recently the offices of a trucking company. The school division has become much larger. Back then, though, we would wait after school on Monday for a bus coming from Stoughton and picking us up on the way through to Carlyle for band rehearsal. To fill the time and tide us over, we always had a bit of allowance money to go downtown to Chan's Cafe for a chocolate bar or a little bag of chips. Chan's Cafe stands vacant now, and my daughter works next door in the new "Michael's Cafe and Bakery." She played in Division Band for a while, but the bus was no more, and my understanding is that the band itself fizzled out a few years ago.

Little snapshots of memory remain, not of the music itself, but of scenes: our instruments in their cases waiting on the sidewalk by the gym; an older student silhouetted oddly in the hallway during a break; my favourite conductor Mr. Patterson's smile. We did get a standing ovation at one concert, for our performance of the William Tell Overture. But what I remember most was that particular Monday each winter when we would come out of rehearsal for the bus trip home and find that it was not yet dark out.

Back then it took a week's change for it to be noticeable, but back then I wasn't the bus driver with the watch. These days on my morning run to the school, I notice the difference in the sky from one day to the next, as I turn south or east toward the sunrise: how much brighter it is than when I passed this spot the day before.

Earthiness

I wonder if the acupuncture addiction treatment that Madcap was talking about could cure whatever keeps drawing me back to the ivory tower. She gave me a belly-laugh today, with a devilish edge to it. Please do go look at her definition of fundament. (Yes, before you read the rest of this.)

I just checked Merriam Webster online, and found her definition under #2, but #1 is intriguing: "an underlying ground, theory, or principle" - and oh, #3 could get me going: "the part of a land surface that has not been altered by human activities."

I am back home on the farm, for now at least, but my perceptual apparatus is tuned to the academic, the literary, the textual.

"Dirt is so 20th century," declares the slogan on the box Mom and Dad brought back from the city yesterday. I declared that I could write a deep analytical essay about all the societal attitudes and assumptions wrapped up in that slogan. Inside the box is Mom's Christmas present, an AeroGarden. I have been teasing her mercilessly, but I can appreciate her desire to have "her own" lettuce in February. And maybe the saving in trips to the grocery store in town would justify the spending on plastic baglet strips of precisely formed nutrient pellets. I just think I would rather use dirt, thanks.

Not that I have ever actually gotten around to it.

I was getting closer, when I (well, we) got those big windows put in. All I had to do was to get the construction debris out from under them and a shelf of pots in its place. Even one little shelf. Or table or stack of boxes or board on sawhorses or whatever. Something to hold the dear little green things (and their pots of dirt) up in the sunlight.

But now the sunny house is sheltering my kids and their father while I wander forth and not quite back, forth to further schooling, and now back to school-bus driving and seeking more lucrative short-term endeavours as a way of hovering nearby to be a little more present for those kids. Most dear, they are, and not nearly so little, but still needing me a bit closer for a while, or so I like to think.

I have been "home" since Christmas, all for the sake of the kids, but so far I have spent very little time with them. When I am not driving the school bus (cancelled for today because of the windchill), or chasing leads on employment and accommodations in town (closer to the kids), or attempting to impose some order on the debris of piles and boxes that one might (mistakenly) represent as my "roots" (though I would sure like to put them securely down somewhere), I am reading and musing and catching myself staring at some little phrase that captures my mind. Or sometimes I am just staring out the window at the sparkling frost on the winter-dried native grasses and wildflowers standing up through the snow. And thinking about something entirely different. I am sure it was a thesis topic, a fine one, but it's gone now.

There will be another. Or the same one disguised in another grand-sounding phrasing.

Yes, I am thinking theses. Further degrees. Yes, I am actually thinking about a PhD.

Of course, I am aware of the clever little wordplay that starts with a barnyard interpretation of the initials B.S. (ignoring the "c" in my B.Sc.), proceeds through M.S. (more, and never mind that mine was an M.A.) and concludes with the initials for "Pile Higher and Deeper."

Manure is good.

Although maybe not so good when too much of it is piled up in one place . . .

Not Forwarded but Shared

...because I refuse to forward such things but the prayer speaks to me deeply right now. It's not so much a prayer as a benediction, I'm thinking...

Saint Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be confident knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

Over to the Dark Side

Confession time. Oh all you homeschooling hard working real living friends of mine, please forgive me. I have applied to go back to school (again) and study (still more) to be a high school science teacher.

I figure it this way: I dabbled in growing my own food and making my home less dependent on gas and electricity and so on, but I didn't go far enough, and I didn't succeed in bringing my family along with me. Our kids seem to want fairly conventional careers - although Ruth is fascinated with "tiny homes" and may study architectural technology - so it doesn't matter how many vegetables I can grow in the back yard, when they will be needing money for tuition and accommodations. The marriage breakdown adds another layer of formal obligation, too, since the legal people will be looking at whatever agreements we come up with to see whether the children are provided for adequately (and I am sure they will be looking at dollar signs, not bushels of food). This teaching program is the fastest way I can see to get back onto a fairly lucrative career track while still making use of my science background, being able to work in my home area, and being able to cultivate a little more ecological awareness. I know, walk the walk. Well, at least I will have late afternoons and July and August for gardening.

Bring It On

Nobody ever told me that divorce is hell
until I made up my mind
and then I heard it twice in a week.

Well thanks for the advice but
how the hell do you know?

I have a saying for you too.

A change is as good as a rest.

The Path Leads On

I'm trying another little step here, to see if this blogging path is still right for me.  I have been keeping my head down for a while, wanting to sort things out for myself away from the din of other voices, other labels.  That and being very busy with a bunch of business that is nobody else's business, thank you.  Sure, I've still been up to lots of interesting remodeling and such, but that's not the stuff that rattles around my mind and demands to be written.

One thing that did get written was a song (surprise!), and in a circumspect way, it says something about where I've been.

The Path Leads On
© 2009 Laura Herman

Here's a hand
to help you back onto your feet.
Take my arm for awhile;
take my shoulder if you need it;
but once you're steady,
once you're ready,
the next step is yours...

The path leads on
from wherever you have fallen.
The path leads on;
it's a winding, narrow way.
There is no place
too far, too wrong:
starting just where you are,
the path leads on.

Here you are.
I know you think you should be there,
high above all of this,
and you're sinking in despair, oh,
but while you're hurting,
while you're searching,
you are on the way...

The path leads on
from wherever you have fallen.
The path leads on;
it's a winding, narrow way.
There is no place
too far, too wrong:
starting just where you are,
the path leads on.

Being "on the straight and narrow" -
what a sad, mistaken notion!
He said "strait is the gate" -
like Gibraltar to the ocean:
a narrow way that leads
to life
where your heart
and your horizons
open wide... open wide...

The path leads on
from wherever you have fallen.
The path leads on;
it's a winding, narrow way.
There is no place
too far, too wrong, too gone:
starting just where you are,
the path leads on.

Cultivating Our Roots

My Mom has published a beautiful book:



She wrote it from the perspective of a retiring seed grower, which means it can give the impression of a technical manual for a very narrow audience, but don't be fooled. I say, if you live in my ecoregion, you need to see this book.

Even if you will never grow anything, you might want to get acquainted with these plants. Consider this: they're your neighbours. They were here before you were, and likely will be long after. They might all look like "just grass" to you, but once you take a closer look, you may be astounded at the diversity in a tiny patch of unbroken prairie.

But here's the tricky part. Have you ever looked at a grassland in early June or late August and tried to find pictures in a field guide to match what you are seeing on the ground? Good luck. If you or anyone you know wants to learn to recognize some of the most common grasses and wildflowers of the mixed-grass prairies in the northern plains of North America, I say: start with this book. There are excellent photographs of multiple life stages of each plant, so you stand a good chance of recognizing your leafy new friend throughout the growing season - even when it's not so leafy. You won't have to wade through pages of obscure plants that you will never see, because there are only 62 wildflowers and 22 grasses included - only the most common species plus a few uniquely interesting species like buffalograss (rare in our region but common farther south in the short-grass prairie). As you learn the plants, you can also learn to recognize similarities among species in the same plant family, since the book is organized by families and includes identifying characteristics for each. That way, when you meet a plant that isn't introduced in the book, you may well be able to say, "You look familiar - aren't you related to..." and all of a sudden you will have a nodding acquaintance with hundreds of species.

And of course, if you want to actually grow these plants, whether as a seed business or just as a minimal-input alternative to a thirsty hungry lawn, you could benefit from the tips on planning and preparing a site, the illustrations to show you how your plants will look (even as seedlings so you can tell what not to weed out of your plot), the germination information, and tips and pictures to help you collect your own seed to get started.

I used to do inventories of the plant life on proposed oil and gas well sites. I worked with numerous floras and field guides, and through struggle and persistence, reached a point where I can look at most common prairie plants and just know them, no matter how small or shrivelled. But when I first started, and even in recent years when I was working very early in the growing season, I wish I had had this book.

Oh and did I mention that it's beautiful? People here were buying copies as Mother's Day gifts, just for the pictures of the their mothers' favourite flowers.

Yes, I'm proud of my Mom.

The Solar Thaw

I have been watching the south-facing snow banks along the street, wondering when the snow would begin to melt back wherever dust and dirt catches the sun. Today was the first sign of it this year. I think it takes a certain combination of sun angle, sunny days, and air temperature, so the date varies.  I have a picture of an advanced stage of the thaw from March 15th, three years ago,  here.