Just a Weekend

It's really just a weekend
One of fifty two
In any given year
Where women come together
On the banks of a river
In a place so rural
It truly really is
In the middle of nowhere.
It's really just an hour
When the bonfire burns bright
Drawing us in
Greetings exchanged
News shared
Conversation flows
Voices raised in rhythmic sound
Drums beat
Hearts lifted.
It's really just a moment
When you're handed o'er the drum
Your fear wants to say no
But you don't let it win.
You feel the power
That was always there inside you.
They saw, they felt, they knew
They drew it out of you
Into the air, into the night
Into your consciousness
Where it will sustain you the whole year,
That instant when
You
Made them dance!

The Reason For The Season

Axial tilt: My friend Benia brought to my attention that axial tilt is the reason for the season. Our earth revolves around the sun with a rotational axis that is akimbo to the plane of its orbit. This means that as we revolve, we have seasons. If our axis was perpendicular to our rotational plane, we would have a planet nicely layered with climates that ranged from hot at the equator to cool at the poles, a smooth gradient, and within each band, a uniform climate throughout the year. Each of our days would be exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Other than changing star patterns as we went around the sun, there would be no reason to note the passing of a year, one revolution. But we sit tilted, 23.44 degrees off perpendicular, so that during part of our rotation, up here in the northern hemisphere, we tip toward the sun and as we rotate, more than half of our 24 hours are spent in light, and less than half in darkness, so that the surface can warm up for longer than it cools down, resulting in warming temperatures. During the other half of our rotation, we are tipped away from the sun, with a longer period in darkness than in light, allowing the surface to cool. So we owe our seasons to axial tilt. The change in temperatures happens gradually, as the energy in the atmosphere accumulates, so that the temperatures lag behind the times of daylight. So even though the change has snapped from days getting to shorter to days getting longer, we have our coldest bleakest leanest time yet to come. Yet because the change to days growing longer HAS occurred, we know that it will indeed warm up on schedule. And past civilizations have known these colder seasons as times of less plenty, of dwindling resources such as green plants and plant seeds to eat and less game that is out and about to hunt. And so, people have recognized that the days got shorter, then again got longer, and watched carefully to count out those turning points.
The point where the days ceased to grow shorter and began to get longer again represented a sign of hope to people that the warmer seasons were going to return again, and food and warmth would be plentiful again. And so they marked that time with a festival. December 21 is approximately the day on which this turn takes place, and archaeologists and anthropologists and sociologists agree that nearly all societies scheduled holidays around this time of year. Indigenous Scandinavian peoples held feast to a goddess of fertility and sanity on the winter solstice; the Greeks celebrated a feast to Bacchus. We are perhaps most familiar with the Jewish Hanukkah and the Christian Christmas, coincidentally the same day that the Romans marked winter solstice. Many cultures begin their new year on this winter solstice date and celebrate it less as a religious holiday than as the marking of the beginning of another year. Most cultures celebrate with a feast with symbolic foods, many celebrate with gifts, such as in India where sweet treats and sweet fruits were and are exchanged. Many of the New Year celebrations give nod to the celestial nature of the passing of one year and the beginning of the next with some sort of tradition that involves light or the sky, such as flying kites in India, fireworks in China, and candles in Scandinavia. Celts and Druids and many others build markers so that on the exact dates, the sunlight would shine in alignment with some mark. Zuni, May, and Hopi marked this winter solstice as the beginning of the new year with plant and fire rituals and feasts.
Gifts are symbolic of our interdependence on each other and on the abundance of the seasons that are promised to us with the lengthening of days. Light and fire symbolize the sun on which the cycle and life depends. Foods and feasting celebrate the return of abundance as well as our relation to each other.
So whatever your religion, you probably celebrate something this time of year, whether a god or goddess or saint or spirit is honored, or it is a celestial event, the passing of one year to the next. But the giving of gifts, the lighting of special lights, the preparing and sharing of special foods are all ways that we celebrate hope for the future and recognize that it is in the lengthening of the days and the return of warmer seasons that will bring us abundance, but also in our dependence upon each other and our associations with each other that we find our greatest satisfaction and joy as people. Celebrate the season of the lengthening of the days in whatever ways you wish and treasure the people around you who make your life worth living.

Waiting

They tell you hopeful things, but they don't really know. They don't really know for sure what the problem is and they are waiting too. They want the news to be good. They want good stories to take home to their families and spouses and roommates at the end of the day. But they don't really know. The nurses are waiting for the doctors to tell them and the doctors are waiting for the test results to come back and even then, it is all a guessing game. But they find the good signs and they tell you about them and sometimes that is a good thing because it helps you not worry so much and makes the waiting easier. But sometimes, they tell you a good thing and it is a false sign or a transient moment and then when things go bad, the crash is worse. But they don't know that when they try to paint the picture in the best colors they can find and they mean well and when things crash, they crash for them too and when there is reason for joy, it touches them too. They don't really know, but what they lack for knowing, they make up for in wanting and caring too.
Photo: Mary McCarthy

You Owe Them Your Good Story

Not everyone in the ICU waiting room is going to have a good outcome. For some the outcome hangs in the balance. For some, a so-so outcome is the best they can hope for. For some, the possibility of a good outcome dwindles daily. Some are merely waiting for the moment of the inevitable bad outcome. When someone asks you about your story, no matter how late it is and how tired you are and how much you really want to get back to the hotel and just go to sleep, if your story is good, you should share it with them. If you are one of the lucky ones this time, they need your good news. They need to know there is hope. They need to know there are good outcomes. They need to know there are people who will go home better off then when they came in. If your story is good, stop and take the time to share it with them. Even if it means they will hug you!

Same But Not

In Minnesota with my sister and my mom, did a little shopping, talked and talked, ate too much at dinner, talked more until we couldn't keep our eyes open, doing my nails, eating fresh fruit, reading a magazine, even a little solitaire on the old laptop. It sure has a lot in common with the old days at Star Lake, on fabulously fun and restful annual vacations. Except this time it is different. We are in a different Minnesota town for a different reason. Rochester, in a hotel a pebble's throw from the Mayo hospital where she will have major surgery in two days. We talk, we laugh, we enjoy stories about the kids and relatives and current events. It is just the same as always. But different. Can you still have fun when you are scared? Is that an okay thing to be doing?

Shattered Rose

The day after the rain, the rose lies shattered against leaves and stems. Still, the sweet beautiful fragrance is there, and the pistils and stamens remain in the proximity of the separated petals, so it is possible, even likely, that bees and wasps and assorted pollinators will still find their way to this crushed beauty and others like it, and the flower's purpose will be fulfilled: A rose hip with seeds inside will develop from this apparent disaster and no evidence of any harm will be found. Too bad people are not as resilient in the face of unexpected disappointments. Or are we after all?

Promise of Blackberries

It was a long winter for me. It seemed like the earth would never green again. It seemed like the snow would never go away. It seems like this meadow now white with blossom was just a few weeks ago still covered in snow! I know it was at least a couple months ago, but it does seem that once the long long winter ended, things greened up awfully fast! And now, the earth is covered with lush green and the green in many case is covered with lush color of some delicate bloom. This frothy white is the blossom of the blackberry, a bramble with thorny burgundy canes and leaflets in fives. Soon, oh, soon, if they are pollinated by wasps (can you find one in the blossoms?) and bees, these flowers will give way to luscious deep dark blue-black berries that can be picked by the handful and eaten in the field. If you are lucky enough to be there in the morning, after the sun has been fully up for an hour or so. the berries on the top will be warmed by their exposure to the sunshine, and the berries below, protected in the shade of the leaves, will be cool. You can alternate warm and cool berry and taste the delicate nuances brought out by the temperatures and know that this is the very best the earth offers to us! For now, these blossoms are hope incarnate.

Primrose Farm

The Grand Opening was a week ago last Sunday. It has been a long time in the making. Primrose Farm is a working living history farm restored to teach about farming and farm living in the 1930's. It will be a good thing for the community. People need to know history.
They need to know about how agriculture shaped out land. They need to know where our food comes from.
They need to know about how people worked in earlier times. They need to know how people lived in earlier times. I worry that they will not understand this farm's place in history and therefore fail to understand what modern agriculture is like.
I worry that this farm will romanticize farming in an unrealistic way. I am happy that it might get kids outdoors. I am happy that it is open green space kept open and fairly green.
I am happy that our friend Kirk runs the place and that our friend Mary works there. Primrose Farm will be open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays and by appointment and for special events. The farm is located just south of Bolcum Road on Crane Road in St. Charles, IL.
What can you learn there? How can such a living history project help you live and make choices in the real world? What is the relevance of our history?

Visiting Friends

You know sometimes how you don't see some people for years and you get back together with them and it is all perfect just like you saw them last week and no time has passed? You know sometimes how when you talk to some people, everything they say is new and interesting and fascinating but at the same time, it is like maybe some of it came from your own heart? You know how some friends are so talented and smart and accomplished and yet they make you feel so comfortable that you actually start to think maybe you share some of those traits too? You know sometimes how you hang out with other peoples' kids and just love them and are proud of them almost as darn much as your very own? If you have friends like that, you are as lucky as I am. And you should not let the time go that long, like I intend not to again! And if you don't yet have friends this special, I hope you will someday!

Hot Air or Things Similar

My dad the corn farmer and his brother who was also his business partner were constantly engaged in a battle against the evil of the blackbird. They spent great amounts of time thinking about plots to destroy or avert the creatures. They read all the current farm magazines and followed every lead when the topic was mentioned. They invested in numerous advertised methods and rejected more than a few for concerns of compassion and environment. Poisons were ruled out as hazards to farm cats and things that also harmed other forms of wildlife were not considered. But the men were creative and inventive, often welding this or that to a tractor or digger or planter to enhance its performance, and so they did a great deal of thinking and tinkering in their spare time to discover ways to exclude or divert or chase the flocks of blackbirds from their fields. The dominant working method for most of my later childhood and teen years was 'poppers'. These were devices resembling cannons that ran off propane gas. The supply tank, the size used by a modern day barbecue grill, was attached to the popper by a hose. The gas feeding into a chamber advanced a timing mechanism and when the chamber was full, a spark was triggered using a flint common to cigarette lighters, and a great boom was emitted from the business end of the device. A summer ritual when the corn was mature enough to be damaged by the black flocks was to get the poppers out of storage and fill the tanks and adjust the timing. When that task was the order of the day in the farm shop, it was more than annoying to be home for that afternoon of frequent yet random booming . When the terrible flocks began to arrive and assemble, the poppers were distributed around the fields. The lazy farmer set them out there and left them, and the birds eventually acclimated to the regular repetition of the sound and rendered them useless. But the smart farmer turned them off at dusk and turned them on again in the morning, a chore that was often delegated to the teen who could drive. The acquisition of vehicles that could reach the parts of the field without access roads became a side hobby and ATVs and small motorcycles were common accessories in this war.

But still, having a workable functioning adequate method such as the poppers was not enough. No. They kept reading, kept sending away for brochures and articles and reports of scientific studies, kept asking around, and of course, kept tinkering and inventing. One summer, the great "big idea" that was going to solve this all was weather balloons. The brothers were going to fill them once and tether them at the edges of the fields and suspend various moving and reflective and noisy devices from them until the right effect was achieved. I am sure that they relished the opportunity for continued tinkering and adjusting and trials that this method presented. Maybe they secretly envisioned this leading to their fifteen minutes of fame as their invention caught on and saved countless farmers time and money. I remember the excitement and anticipation of the big day that we were going to Aberdeen to go to the airport to go to the weather department to talk to the weather people to attempt to secure a number of said weather balloons. And I remember the somber and sad end to that day, the quiet ride home, the disappointment that descended on the formerly lively group when it was learned that . . . it wasn't going to work. The very malleability that allows the weather balloon to be filled and rise and be resilient to bumping and bouncing in the wind also renders it soft enough that it continues to expand due to the pressure of the air inside, until it gets larger and thinner and eventually pops. Meteorologists take advantage of this expansion to allow it to rise as it displaces greater amounts of the air around it to sample and transmit data on various characteristics of the atmosphere at various altitudes and they take advantage of the popping in hope that at least some of the falling mechanisms will be found and returned to them for the gathering of more detailed data and for reuse. So even if the men invested the great sums in the balloons and tethered them to their fields, within a few days time, they would expand to the point that they would become thinner and thinner and eventually, pop, and drop that investment into an inelegant pile of useless thin rubber. Bad investment, messy disposal problem. Another dead end in the neverending always challenging world of cornfield blackbird control.

Maidenhair Fern

The bright light green color and the thin delicate leaf and the very fine black wiry stem makes maidenhair fern one of my favorites. The Garfield Park Conservatory has many kinds, but there is one kind that grows outdoors and is a native woodland plant. It is difficult to look outdoors in March in Illinois and trust that things such as this lie below the ground, promising to emerge in just a few weeks to green the world once again.

The Bridge Building Contest in Chicago

My son and his friend needed a ride to Chicago for the bridge building contest. Four entries from each high school in the surrounding area went.

The kids build bridges from kits of balsa wood supplied by the contest organizers. There were specifications regarding length of span and size and such. The bridges were then stressed by loading on weights until they failed at a contest at the high school. The four kids whose bridge load to bridge weight was highest went on to this regional event. Obviously, they had to rebuild the bridge for the regional event, as their original was destroyed, so they could apply what they learned from other bridges and from how theirs failed to make a better one. Usually that means beefing up the places your bridge failed and paring away weight from areas that held strong to make your bridge both stronger and lighter. The variety of entries was amazing, but the geometry gave them all an inherent beauty. It was fun to watch them be loaded and startling to hear them fail and just a great time to hear all those kids excited about a physics project. Smart kids can be so much fun and I had a great time talking to my son and his interesting and smart friend and to some of the other kids there. The camera is a great way to get to talk to someone about what interests them. I'd ask if I could take their picture because they were the first one to break their bridge in the contest, or because their bridge was especially pretty or some other little unique thing and they always said sure and always told me more and answered my questions. I had more fun than I thought I would and it reinforced my views that this generation of kids is pretty darn amazing.

Here is information about the contest.
http://www.iit.edu/~hsbridge/database/search.cgi/:/public/chicago/2009/announce_regional

Here is the page where you can click on links for the data on the bridges such as their weights and the load at which they failed.
http://www.iit.edu/~hsbridge/database/search.cgi/:/public/index

One Year Of Blogging!

It was one year ago today that I started this little blog. Gene said "You should have a blog for these stories you tell". And Chuck would say "That would make a good blog post. You should start one." Kathy always said "You should write about your experiences with your boys!" I told them they were silly. I am not a writer. My sister is the writer. But then, it was January, my hardest month. Because it is after the happy family-filled holidays but it is still cold and dark and winter. And cold. And dark. Because I lost my father, the grandfather to my precious children, in January. Because like many people, I get a little down from the lack of sunlight that leads to a lack of Vitamin D. Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) or Seasonal Affective Depression Disorder (S.A.D.D.) are the names for it. I guess that makes it a little easier, that enough people share in the misery that it has an official name. And I was visiting my mother who was recovering much too slowly from a surgery. A friend's mother was dying. It was many days of many degrees below zero. So I took the advice of Gene and Chuck and Kathy and wrote a few things down. The writings last January were sad. But I intended that each one would have a bright spot, a tiny shred of optimism. I read them now and see their mistakes and clumsy sentences. But they got me through, my little blog entries and the emails and phone calls to and from friends and family. Gene said "Write every day." This is my 366th post in a year. But I cheated. I went for a day or two or more sometimes with no entry and some days I made many entries. Some were just photos with no words. But I averaged one every day! Is that okay, Gene? I have a few regular readers and a few more who read in spurts. I have a few regular commenters and have had a couple from other countries! And I have people who can't handle the steps it takes to comment but email me or tell me in person. I write it for me and for anyone who cares to read. I try not to offend anyone, but still I have. I try to be honest but sometimes I make things up to make a point. Or to keep it a little bit anonymous for me and my family. And like those first days last January, I try to tell it like it is but I also try to keep a little bit of hope and joy and optimism in here. Life is like that. Things suck, but there is still beauty. Bad things happen and then good things happen after that. More good things than the bad things. And always family and wonderful friends to keep it all going. Keep readin' cuz I am gonna keep writin'!

Having Things In Common

We are Americans, those soldiers on the TV screen and I. Yet, we have so little in common. I would no sooner volunteer to join an effort that might ask me to kill a person than I would cut off my own hand with a utility knife. I would no sooner dress in the uniform and subjugate myself to absolutely obey orders than I would steal a car. We do not share in the idea of what freedom means or in the best ways to achieve it.
Those soldiers and I are supposed to be on the same side, yet we have so very little in common.
Soldiers on one side of a conflict just might have more in common with their peers on the other side. At least they signed up, trained in certain ways, live a certain lifestyle, and probably share a lot of the same tastes and interests. In fact, I bet the average solider has more in common with the enemy soldiers than they do with their own commanding officers, and those officers share more in common with the enemy officers than with their own men they command.
What if mothers like me got together with mothers on the enemy side, artists like me got together with artists on the enemy side, and the soldiers on both sides got together to play cards and drink beer and the officers got together to smoke cigars and talk history of military strategy? Let's stop the fighting and form clubs based on shared interests. It might work better than the war thing.

President Barack Obama

I felt bad that I was not going to watch the speech in real time. I followed the primaries and the election so diligently and watched campaign speeches on-line and was glued to the computer screen on election night. But today, we had to get back home from the lake house in time for the Boy Scout meeting and there was no time to waste. It would be there on-line to watch and savor later. There were tasks to be done in certain orders, like completing tiling in time for dust to settle to allow a last coat of varnish on the stairs before we left. So during the actual speech, I was cleaning mortar from between the tile on one bathroom in order to ready it for grout next trip, or slapping tile on the wall in the other bathroom. My husband and son were sanding the stairs or varnishing while I made a quick lunch. So I finally listened to the 19 minute speech just now, finally read the transcript, and I feel hopeful, confident, optimistic. This is a great country, founded on great concepts, and we now have a leader who will let us shine in that greatness that has been masked and stifled and suppressed for too long. We will see a brighter future for ourselves and our children and their children. This is the beginning of a return to greatness for us, the beginning of a new kind of greatness for us, born not of military might but of work and ideas and building and growing and making and fixing and thinking and talking and inventing and problem-solving and doing for and with each other. President Obama said ". . . it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom." What a great future we are in for!

Obama Day

It is finally here. The day seemed hardly possible back in November, when my computer screen showed he and his family standing in the lights on the stage on election night. He has not disappointed with his cabinet choices and his statements so far. A new age is dawning today.

Happy Barack Obama Day!