I’m in the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids (Jerry Ford’s hometown), waiting another three hours for my flight to Newark. There’s not much in Terminal B — six gates, one bagel shop, and a corridor snack/magazine kiosk. C’est tout. Long stretches of blank wall, everything in the same tone of gray-green.
Funny place, West Michigan. When I arrived on Friday, the person I was supposed to meet had been delayed, so I asked the woman at the Travel Information desk how I could get to Calvin College. She immediately called the college's conference center, and got me added to the shuttle bus list. I thanked her, we talked, and I said that I’d grown up in Muskegon but had never been to Calvin College. “Oh, gravy!” she replied.
That’s really the tone of the place now. Kind, eager to help... but always just a little uncomfortable with how the 20th Century has turned out. Never is heard a discouraging word. A place where “Oh, gravy!” is a strong oath.
Back when I was growing up, West Michigan was an industrial place, full of hard-living third-generation Irish and Poles and Italians, people who brawled and drank and smoked and laughed. But the industry is largely gone in favor of management and finance, and the blue collars are also gone. Their habitat is now claimed by shiny young JayCees, evangelists both secular and Calvinist, men on the make. Smiling, shaking hands and making friends, always moving forward, always ready to claim another convert/customer. It’s the home of multi-level marketing, dreams of greatness, relentless self-improvement. Willy Loman would recognize Grand Rapids.
I went out to meet the shuttle bus, and waited far past its appointed arrival time. I carried my bags back in to the info desk, where the same sweet, grandmotherly woman was still on duty. She didn’t recognize me at first —as with all salespeople, she’s fully attentive with each client but carries little of that into long-term memory — but I explained what had happened and she remembered and was shocked that the shuttle was so late. “Oh, my heart!” she said. Not as in clutching your chest and exclaiming, “Oh!!! My Heart!” but in the way you’d say “Oh my goodness.”
OMH!!
There’s something brittle about that kind of living. I once read, “A person without humor experiences life like a wagon without springs, unpleasantly jolted by every bump in the road.” Business self-help books and motivational speakers are part of that life, constantly reminding yourself that you can be great, that greatness is your due, that hard work will unfailingly be repaid tenfold. From Good to Great. The Purpose-Driven Life. The CEO of YOU. They don’t advise on how to deal with the bumpy road; they promise instead that the road will soon be pearly smooth.
And it won’t. And they’ll always be a little surprised, a little shocked that imperfection is still allowed. Oh, gravy.
One of the unstated goals of liberal education is that it creates another population distinct from the blue and white collars. A community of people able to absorb change, and to help frame it. A community with enough historical perspective to have some humor about the current world while simultaneously being serious about making it better while simultaneously knowing that other people have competing (and yet reasonable) definitions of what "making it better" would entail. It doesn't matter whether you're studying English lit or architecture or agricultural engineering — good education has larger and more crucial outcomes.
But that IS a third community, with its members drawn from but no longer fully at home with their working or the professional class roots. This Grand Rapids, and my own Muskegon, are both foreign places now.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Little Fish, Big Fish
I'm about to go to bed at 10:00 in order to get up at 3:00 to catch a 5:50 flight to Cleveland and then on to Grand Rapids. That's Grand Rapids, Michigan, The Furniture City. The 69th largest CSA (Census Statistical Area) in America.
When I was growing up in Muskegon Heights, forty miles away from Grand Rapids, GR seemed like an unimaginably large place. Sitting in the back seat while my parents were driving through it at night, I remember freeway ramps stacked (what seemed to be) four and five decks high, like a gargantuan roller coaster. And it was brilliantly illuminated, after having driven for an hour through the corn and potatoes and darkness. In Muskegon, the freeways were on the ground, as was everything else. It's an architectural truism that the tallest structures around tell you what people value. In some places it's cathedrals, in some places it's financial high rises. In Muskegon, it was smokestacks. (Now it's highway signs to escape to Grand Rapids...)
Since I left my hometown, I've subsequently lived in the 10th, 11th, 39th and 48th largest CSAs; I've spent at least a little time in 13 of the top 20. And poor Grand Rapids, so gigantic to my child self, is starting to feel like flyover country, just as ignored by the rest of the powerful as Muskegon Heights was ignored by Grand Rapids. Little fish, big fish, giant fish, shark.
I divide my time between Boston (#10) and Middletown Springs (there isn't even a number to describe Middletown Springs... let's just say we're two hours away from #199). The intellectual and emotional whiplash is enormous, most weekends. And lest I whine too much, Nora has three of them — #1, #10, and #whatever MS is. She used to navigate New York with aplomb, but now it's draining and alien; Middletown Springs is home. (She's still plenty confident in Manhattan, though. I know where about six things are; one of them's an ATM and another a pool hall. Nora knows where everything is, and what lane you should be in to get there.)
I'm looking forward to being in Grand Rapids, even though it will remind me of all the reasons why I left West Michigan. It'll be clean, though. People in that part of the state mow their lawns with tweezers. (But, as I was reminded by a high schooler from a similar place, never on Sunday.) In New York and London, the Ponzis are based on finance; only in West Michigan would a pyramid scheme be based on home cleaning products. It's big Santorum country this year.
The Furniture City was built on lumber shipped from The Port City, Muskegon. Logs floated down the Muskegon River from Roscommon... "value added" by the sawmills in Muskegon... further "value added" by the furniture factories in Grand Rapids. Ever wonder why Herman Miller and Steelcase and Haworth are all in Grand Rapids and Holland? (Of course you didn't, unless you're a commercial interior design geek.) It's because their predecessor companies, and lots of craftsman knowledge, were all in The Furniture City in the 19th Century. And pity the poor guy up in Roscommon, felling trees and building log rafts to float the harvest downstream for a buck a day if he was lucky.
Still the case, of course. The Vermonters work 14 hour days tending their 80 cows, selling milk for pennies a pound to better-paid dairy processors who at least get to work indoors, who sell it for triple that to even better-paid grocers who don't have to lift hundred-pound pails, who send their proceeds to fantastically well-paid corporate grocery managers who don't do anything more strenuous than type. Social class, it's said, is related to the size of the muscles you make your living with. Your back, your legs, your arms, your hands, your fingers, your eyes. When Mitt was at Bain Capital, he probably didn't even have to type much – he just scanned his eyes across his domain and uttered his mandates.
Small places, big muscles, small money. Big places, small muscles, big money. Twas ever so.
On my way to Grand Rapids, a very laden place. Will it be draining and alien, or will I navigate with aplomb?
When I was growing up in Muskegon Heights, forty miles away from Grand Rapids, GR seemed like an unimaginably large place. Sitting in the back seat while my parents were driving through it at night, I remember freeway ramps stacked (what seemed to be) four and five decks high, like a gargantuan roller coaster. And it was brilliantly illuminated, after having driven for an hour through the corn and potatoes and darkness. In Muskegon, the freeways were on the ground, as was everything else. It's an architectural truism that the tallest structures around tell you what people value. In some places it's cathedrals, in some places it's financial high rises. In Muskegon, it was smokestacks. (Now it's highway signs to escape to Grand Rapids...)
Since I left my hometown, I've subsequently lived in the 10th, 11th, 39th and 48th largest CSAs; I've spent at least a little time in 13 of the top 20. And poor Grand Rapids, so gigantic to my child self, is starting to feel like flyover country, just as ignored by the rest of the powerful as Muskegon Heights was ignored by Grand Rapids. Little fish, big fish, giant fish, shark.
I divide my time between Boston (#10) and Middletown Springs (there isn't even a number to describe Middletown Springs... let's just say we're two hours away from #199). The intellectual and emotional whiplash is enormous, most weekends. And lest I whine too much, Nora has three of them — #1, #10, and #whatever MS is. She used to navigate New York with aplomb, but now it's draining and alien; Middletown Springs is home. (She's still plenty confident in Manhattan, though. I know where about six things are; one of them's an ATM and another a pool hall. Nora knows where everything is, and what lane you should be in to get there.)
I'm looking forward to being in Grand Rapids, even though it will remind me of all the reasons why I left West Michigan. It'll be clean, though. People in that part of the state mow their lawns with tweezers. (But, as I was reminded by a high schooler from a similar place, never on Sunday.) In New York and London, the Ponzis are based on finance; only in West Michigan would a pyramid scheme be based on home cleaning products. It's big Santorum country this year.
The Furniture City was built on lumber shipped from The Port City, Muskegon. Logs floated down the Muskegon River from Roscommon... "value added" by the sawmills in Muskegon... further "value added" by the furniture factories in Grand Rapids. Ever wonder why Herman Miller and Steelcase and Haworth are all in Grand Rapids and Holland? (Of course you didn't, unless you're a commercial interior design geek.) It's because their predecessor companies, and lots of craftsman knowledge, were all in The Furniture City in the 19th Century. And pity the poor guy up in Roscommon, felling trees and building log rafts to float the harvest downstream for a buck a day if he was lucky.
Still the case, of course. The Vermonters work 14 hour days tending their 80 cows, selling milk for pennies a pound to better-paid dairy processors who at least get to work indoors, who sell it for triple that to even better-paid grocers who don't have to lift hundred-pound pails, who send their proceeds to fantastically well-paid corporate grocery managers who don't do anything more strenuous than type. Social class, it's said, is related to the size of the muscles you make your living with. Your back, your legs, your arms, your hands, your fingers, your eyes. When Mitt was at Bain Capital, he probably didn't even have to type much – he just scanned his eyes across his domain and uttered his mandates.
Small places, big muscles, small money. Big places, small muscles, big money. Twas ever so.
On my way to Grand Rapids, a very laden place. Will it be draining and alien, or will I navigate with aplomb?
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Mew-sings
The cats are anxious to go outside into the garden on another sunny morning. Ed mews and whimpers and Simon flies from the floor to whatever surface is in front of me in hopes that in seeing him there I will understand that there is something he wants. He is less demanding, but more "in my face" as it were.
Meanwhile I have responded to the more silent call of the computer which seems always to need attention though it neither calls nor dances in front of me. H and I sat with some new friends over dinner recently, and the men and women divided into encampments. The men seem to have talked about sports (according to what H told me later), and the women talked about working from home. They talked about finding themselves in their janmmies at night, having gone to their computers to answer email in the morning and realizing at 3:30 that they were still not dressed. "It hardly seemed worth it at that point, so I just stayed in my jammies until night when I had to change because my daughter brought home her boyfriend." It was entirely too familiar though I tend to dress early enough to pass muster if someone drops in. But the email monster has considerable hold on me, and the computer calls in the middle of the night. I woke this morning thinking of a word from Barry Lopez' book About This Life that I read in a rare lunch break yesterday with a book rather than a keyboard. (The word was "adumbrations" which seems to mean foreshadowing).
The Atlantic published an article last year asking on its title page whether "Google is making us Stoopid" and it lies beside my bed where I read it at one of those 2-in-the-morning wake-ups with my head full of things that needed doing but too cold to get out of bed. (H and I call that "churning" but it is probably better described as "cramps".) Anyway, the article resonates as does the considerable concern about the epidemic of obesity that results from people checking their email in the morning and remaining at the desk til night.
An old friend, Mary Sojourner has written a dark piece (available here) on the idea that the endless upping of the ante for women has resulted in over-stressed over-committed women who long for "the great sleep". While that may be slightly over-the-top, I don't disagree with the principle as I sit here typing, while one cat mews and the other walks across the keyboard.
She wrote:
I woke this morning thinking of the work I have to do. I woke this morning thinking of the lunch I have to prepare which will interrupt my day at the desk. Lunch rather than dinner. An interruption rather than a pleasure. I woke this morning thinking of the students that have not turned in the work they need to do and thinking that I need to write them an email reminding them that they are late. I woke this morning thinking that I ought to take a walk but there isn't the time. I woke this morning thinking about the proposal I need to write for a small consulting job where my gender is one of the things that makes me attractive. (She'll work for food!) I woke this morning thinking about what I need to do. More accurately, I woke thinking about what I haven't done.
" What could it mean if we began to refuse to comply?"
Ed is pawing at the door.
I think I will take the cats for a walk.
Meanwhile I have responded to the more silent call of the computer which seems always to need attention though it neither calls nor dances in front of me. H and I sat with some new friends over dinner recently, and the men and women divided into encampments. The men seem to have talked about sports (according to what H told me later), and the women talked about working from home. They talked about finding themselves in their janmmies at night, having gone to their computers to answer email in the morning and realizing at 3:30 that they were still not dressed. "It hardly seemed worth it at that point, so I just stayed in my jammies until night when I had to change because my daughter brought home her boyfriend." It was entirely too familiar though I tend to dress early enough to pass muster if someone drops in. But the email monster has considerable hold on me, and the computer calls in the middle of the night. I woke this morning thinking of a word from Barry Lopez' book About This Life that I read in a rare lunch break yesterday with a book rather than a keyboard. (The word was "adumbrations" which seems to mean foreshadowing).
The Atlantic published an article last year asking on its title page whether "Google is making us Stoopid" and it lies beside my bed where I read it at one of those 2-in-the-morning wake-ups with my head full of things that needed doing but too cold to get out of bed. (H and I call that "churning" but it is probably better described as "cramps".) Anyway, the article resonates as does the considerable concern about the epidemic of obesity that results from people checking their email in the morning and remaining at the desk til night.
An old friend, Mary Sojourner has written a dark piece (available here) on the idea that the endless upping of the ante for women has resulted in over-stressed over-committed women who long for "the great sleep". While that may be slightly over-the-top, I don't disagree with the principle as I sit here typing, while one cat mews and the other walks across the keyboard.
She wrote:
"No matter the results of your self-exploration, please remember this: with any addiction, there is a dealer getting rich off the addict’s misery. Who has so many of us in their grip? Who is profiting off our frantic efforts to stay ahead of impossible expectations? What could it mean if we began to refuse to comply?"
I woke this morning thinking of the work I have to do. I woke this morning thinking of the lunch I have to prepare which will interrupt my day at the desk. Lunch rather than dinner. An interruption rather than a pleasure. I woke this morning thinking of the students that have not turned in the work they need to do and thinking that I need to write them an email reminding them that they are late. I woke this morning thinking that I ought to take a walk but there isn't the time. I woke this morning thinking about the proposal I need to write for a small consulting job where my gender is one of the things that makes me attractive. (She'll work for food!) I woke this morning thinking about what I need to do. More accurately, I woke thinking about what I haven't done.
" What could it mean if we began to refuse to comply?"
Ed is pawing at the door.
I think I will take the cats for a walk.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Hey Kids! Let's Put On a Show!!
Nora and I have toyed for several months with the idea of starting a magazine, but haven't pushed it very far yet. For the past week, though, I've been doing some early diligence on markets, costs, etc. It's VERY preliminary, and closer analysis may find all kinds of amendments to be necessary. But I'm optimistic, perhaps simply because I'm too dumb to know better.
The big question, of course, is how many of these things can we sell. I've managed the expenses side of organizational budgets for a long time, but the INCOME side is where the magical thinking happens. It's the shoeshine and the smile.
Here's a matching quiz. Match the magazine title with the December 2011 paid circulation. Correct answers at the very bottom of this entry. No prizes, 'cause we can't see if you're cheating (you know you'll peek...)
B. 425,786
C: 3,040,013
D. 99,463
E. 25,000
F. 195,164
G. 2,083,854
All we have to do is have subscription rates equal to about 1% of Sports Illustrated, and we'll have a very healthy budget.
If you'd like a copy of the prospectus, e-mail us in about a week, and you too can be a media critic!
(My favorite moment so far in web searching is the advertising guidelines for Backwoods Home magazine. "We do not accept advertising from or for any person, company or other entity which contains any type of pornography or any hate, bigotry or other stupidity." We're definitely adopting the "no stupidity" guidelines for advertisers.)
Answers: 1(D); 2(B); 3(F); 4(C); 5(E); 6(A); 7(G)
The big question, of course, is how many of these things can we sell. I've managed the expenses side of organizational budgets for a long time, but the INCOME side is where the magical thinking happens. It's the shoeshine and the smile.
- Sure, our organization can grow to 20,000 members.
- Sure, we'll sell $50,000 of advertising per issue.
- Sure, that investment will triple in value over six months.
- Sure, we'll get 9,000 billable hours next year.
Here's a matching quiz. Match the magazine title with the December 2011 paid circulation. Correct answers at the very bottom of this entry. No prizes, 'cause we can't see if you're cheating (you know you'll peek...)
- American Cowboy
- Audubon
- Cat Fancy
- Cosmopolitan
- Orion
- National Geographic
- Martha Stewart Living
B. 425,786
C: 3,040,013
D. 99,463
E. 25,000
F. 195,164
G. 2,083,854
All we have to do is have subscription rates equal to about 1% of Sports Illustrated, and we'll have a very healthy budget.
If you'd like a copy of the prospectus, e-mail us in about a week, and you too can be a media critic!
(My favorite moment so far in web searching is the advertising guidelines for Backwoods Home magazine. "We do not accept advertising from or for any person, company or other entity which contains any type of pornography or any hate, bigotry or other stupidity." We're definitely adopting the "no stupidity" guidelines for advertisers.)
Answers: 1(D); 2(B); 3(F); 4(C); 5(E); 6(A); 7(G)
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Looking for friends in all the right places!
 | |||||||||||||||||
| The map of our "hits" for this week |
 | |||
| The map of our "hits" for the month |
Come join us and invite your international friends!
We could use a few more friends from Iceland and Greenland, more parts of South America, Africa, the Middle East and China!
But still it is WAY cool!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Small Places, Large Lives
The place where I come from is a small town.
They think so small, they use small words.
They think so small, they use small words.
But not me; I'm smarter than that, I worked it out.
I've been stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out.
Peter Gabriel – Big Time
I've been stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out.
Peter Gabriel – Big Time
In Nora’s post about small-town values (Traditional Values, March 7), she wrote about how the kids of rural schools are given opportunities to be “nice” rather than
powerful; to live small town lives rather than larger lives. And I get that. But here’s another version, with another
resonance.
We think of Vermont as a small, rural state, but Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula is a quarter as densely populated (half as many people on twice as much
land). Fewer than 40% of the UP’s
residents live in towns of 2,000 or larger, whereas Vermont, with its long
village history, is closer to 75% town-based.
And nearly half of Vermont’s current residents were born outside the
state – I don’t have the analogous statistic for the UP, but I’m guessing it’s
closer to 10%. Since 1960, Vermont’s population has grown by 60%; lots of arrivals
of folks who have chosen to opt away from city lives by choosing smaller cities. Over that same 50 years, the UP’s population has
shrunk by 2%; low birth rates coupled with very few immigrants, whether
domestic or international.
Instead of artisanal cheeses, the UP has prisons. Instead of dwindling dairy farms, it has boarded
mines. Both have forests, but because
the UP’s are mostly coniferous, there’s not much fall-colors tourism, though a
fair bit of hunting and fishing tourism and paper-pulp logging.
I have a master’s student this semester who’s from a small place in
Upper Michigan, a town about the size of Middlebury VT. (In both Vermont and the UP, a place that size
is metropolitan in comparison to most of its neighboring villages.) She came to Boston to get her
M. Arch, after going to the local state college for
undergrad and then working as a carpenter in good weather and a bartender in
bad weather.
She described the experience of telling her friends that she was leaving Michigan for Boston and grad school. Her fellow students cheered her on, happy to see an example of endeavors rewarded. Others tamped down her enthusiasm, telling her that architecture was a) dying, b) too hard, c) for boys. But the experience that struck me was the night she got her acceptance letter, and went to work at the bar.
She described the experience of telling her friends that she was leaving Michigan for Boston and grad school. Her fellow students cheered her on, happy to see an example of endeavors rewarded. Others tamped down her enthusiasm, telling her that architecture was a) dying, b) too hard, c) for boys. But the experience that struck me was the night she got her acceptance letter, and went to work at the bar.
That night I went to work bartending as always and told my boss that I would be leaving him and Michigan in a few months. He burst into tears! It was awful! My best friend that I worked with burst into tears! It was a huge crying fest, even some of our regular patrons joined it! They were proud of me but wanted nothing more than to see me stay and work there for the rest of my life.
"They were proud of me but wanted me to stay." How many rural or working class parents have felt that, and sometimes said it, when their kids have done well? You become a different person when you're educated, not just the same person with answers to more Jeopardy questions. And that different person doesn't hold their original shape in the family or community compositions.
So when she becomes an architect, where will she practice? They’ll pay her well in Boston or Chicago or Minneapolis. But those places already have architects, and plenty of them. The UP doesn’t. And it’s Ontonagan and Ishpeming and Escanaba and St. Ignace (and Rutland and Poultney and Castleton and Fair Haven) that need attention to their town centers, need aging buildings to be renewed and revitalized, need the kind of community renaissance that good architects can help to spark.
So when she becomes an architect, where will she practice? They’ll pay her well in Boston or Chicago or Minneapolis. But those places already have architects, and plenty of them. The UP doesn’t. And it’s Ontonagan and Ishpeming and Escanaba and St. Ignace (and Rutland and Poultney and Castleton and Fair Haven) that need attention to their town centers, need aging buildings to be renewed and revitalized, need the kind of community renaissance that good architects can help to spark.
So it’s likely that, in the end, she'll become another data point in
the story we call the brain drain, another small-town kid off to metropolitan life.
And Upper Michigan will be deprived of one more smart person. How can we design an education that prepares
our young people for vigorous intellectual and civic life, while not
simultaneously telling them that those lives are only available to those who
leave their homeplaces?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Men are from Mars...
It's been 18 years since John Gray wrote the book that got so much press attention: "Men are from Mars,; Women are from Venus." I never read it, but I know the premise. One of the online reviews says,"Here Martians (men) play Mr. Fix-It while Venusians (women) run the
Home-Improvement Committee; when upset, Martians "go to their caves" (to
sort things out alone) while Venusians "go to the well" (for emotional
cleansing). " Certainly some of that may be true, but there are ways in which both of us blur the distinctions. Last night, I was in my cave and H was running the home improvement committee. At least that's where it started.
We sat at dinner last night with our close friends, and we fought the noise, to shout at each other over a meal that should have been better. It was way too hot and by the time we left, I felt crippled with a sore back and hips. I would have preferred a couch and some takeout, but we were celebrating her birthday and it seemed more appropriate to do it on the town. Herb noted that we had spent 4 hours and 15 minutes there and he was sleepy and hot. I noted that I was sleepy and hot. We felt lousy when we left, but we were glad to have had the time with our friends, and they had shifted our mood considerably from where we were when we began the evening. We always wind up talking about work and politics and economics and international relations and family when we are with them. We usually agree, but there have been times when we have had long attenuated disagreements about the state of education or government. We love each other like crazy and now twenty-five or so years after I first met G, and after they have patched me together through a number of crises, there is little we don't know about each other. I have watched them handle some crises as well, and know that they are handling some difficult times.
But it made me think of the nature of friendships, and of the differences between women's friendships and those of men. And how the nature of friendship has changed since we got married. As H and I fell asleep on the inflatable bed in Mom's apartment, I wondered aloud whether our friendships are different than those of others. We seem to have a lot of people in our lives who are confronting life challenges; I know very few people who come home to watch TV and live "unconsidered lives".
When I am troubled, there are several women I can call; there are several women (and a man) who call me. But my h.h.h.h.husband doesn't seem to do the same thing. There is his closest friend and his work colleagues, but I never see him pick up the phone to find out what they are doing. He calls one friend when he wants to play pool, and there is email of course, and he texts, but it isn't the same thing as sitting stiff and sleepy and hot with people you can argue with.
Last night, I asked him what he had heard about Ben and Neoma's pregnancy, thinking she must be well overdue by now. I was a little worried.
"Oh she had the baby and we did a Gmail chat last week," he said. I was stunned. "A boy. They named him 'Roan' after Roan Innish in Ireland."
"How is she?" I asked.
"Fine."
"How was the labor?"
And so it went.
He had had a long on-line session with his friend Ryan a few months ago, and one with Lindsay more recently. He and Julio have been playing telephone tag for a few days. And while we have had occasional dinners with a few of our colleagues in Boston, those meals are usually work related conversations and I know little about their personal lives. But when we have dinner with our friends here, we talk and talk and talk. And as architect Christopher Alexander would say, there is something important about seeing the people you love in person, and about revealing yourself in all your eccentricities to each other. We see our Vermont friends in person too. Alexander says that we need four "intimate" friends that we see each day if we are to stave off social anomie. So friendship is important not only for the friends, but for the health of the community. We are a long way from seeing four friends a day and revealing ourselves in all our eccentricities. Imagine what that would be like if four friends revealed themselves to four friends who revealed themselves to four friends who..... But as we have written elsewhere, in Vermont, it is possible to drop everything and run up the hill when a friend's friend dies. It's different than IM'ing. And washing up after a shared meal is different than eating in a restaurant. I know where G and H keep their salad spinner, and they know what goodies we will like when they come to visit from New York. I know where she buys her kielbasa because I have been there too. And the friend in New York knows that our friend in Vermont lost her best friend.
So as I began to think about the struggles of our friends, I wondered if there was something different about those we know in person. Are we more aware of their eccentricities and challenges? Are we more able to be there when they are confronting life decisions? And are women who are more capable of expressing affection openly, of "going to the well", more able to both support and be supported by their friends than are men?
Sometimes I feel that we are in a vortex, and bumping into those with whom we are sharing the storm. We only have a moment to catch onto each other before we are blown apart.
I said to H this morning, that I want to take some time soon...to get away from the vortex. I want to go to the "Oh!-Look-At-That" place where we can really look around rather than concentrating on what's on the pavement just ahead. I want to go to a place outside the vortex where we can sit long enough to get stiff, and to argue about education and the state of politics. I hope we will find you there. I am working on building up my group of intimate friends. The neighborhood and the nation need it.
We sat at dinner last night with our close friends, and we fought the noise, to shout at each other over a meal that should have been better. It was way too hot and by the time we left, I felt crippled with a sore back and hips. I would have preferred a couch and some takeout, but we were celebrating her birthday and it seemed more appropriate to do it on the town. Herb noted that we had spent 4 hours and 15 minutes there and he was sleepy and hot. I noted that I was sleepy and hot. We felt lousy when we left, but we were glad to have had the time with our friends, and they had shifted our mood considerably from where we were when we began the evening. We always wind up talking about work and politics and economics and international relations and family when we are with them. We usually agree, but there have been times when we have had long attenuated disagreements about the state of education or government. We love each other like crazy and now twenty-five or so years after I first met G, and after they have patched me together through a number of crises, there is little we don't know about each other. I have watched them handle some crises as well, and know that they are handling some difficult times.
But it made me think of the nature of friendships, and of the differences between women's friendships and those of men. And how the nature of friendship has changed since we got married. As H and I fell asleep on the inflatable bed in Mom's apartment, I wondered aloud whether our friendships are different than those of others. We seem to have a lot of people in our lives who are confronting life challenges; I know very few people who come home to watch TV and live "unconsidered lives".
When I am troubled, there are several women I can call; there are several women (and a man) who call me. But my h.h.h.h.husband doesn't seem to do the same thing. There is his closest friend and his work colleagues, but I never see him pick up the phone to find out what they are doing. He calls one friend when he wants to play pool, and there is email of course, and he texts, but it isn't the same thing as sitting stiff and sleepy and hot with people you can argue with.
Last night, I asked him what he had heard about Ben and Neoma's pregnancy, thinking she must be well overdue by now. I was a little worried.
"Oh she had the baby and we did a Gmail chat last week," he said. I was stunned. "A boy. They named him 'Roan' after Roan Innish in Ireland."
"How is she?" I asked.
"Fine."
"How was the labor?"
And so it went.
He had had a long on-line session with his friend Ryan a few months ago, and one with Lindsay more recently. He and Julio have been playing telephone tag for a few days. And while we have had occasional dinners with a few of our colleagues in Boston, those meals are usually work related conversations and I know little about their personal lives. But when we have dinner with our friends here, we talk and talk and talk. And as architect Christopher Alexander would say, there is something important about seeing the people you love in person, and about revealing yourself in all your eccentricities to each other. We see our Vermont friends in person too. Alexander says that we need four "intimate" friends that we see each day if we are to stave off social anomie. So friendship is important not only for the friends, but for the health of the community. We are a long way from seeing four friends a day and revealing ourselves in all our eccentricities. Imagine what that would be like if four friends revealed themselves to four friends who revealed themselves to four friends who..... But as we have written elsewhere, in Vermont, it is possible to drop everything and run up the hill when a friend's friend dies. It's different than IM'ing. And washing up after a shared meal is different than eating in a restaurant. I know where G and H keep their salad spinner, and they know what goodies we will like when they come to visit from New York. I know where she buys her kielbasa because I have been there too. And the friend in New York knows that our friend in Vermont lost her best friend.
So as I began to think about the struggles of our friends, I wondered if there was something different about those we know in person. Are we more aware of their eccentricities and challenges? Are we more able to be there when they are confronting life decisions? And are women who are more capable of expressing affection openly, of "going to the well", more able to both support and be supported by their friends than are men?
Sometimes I feel that we are in a vortex, and bumping into those with whom we are sharing the storm. We only have a moment to catch onto each other before we are blown apart.
I said to H this morning, that I want to take some time soon...to get away from the vortex. I want to go to the "Oh!-Look-At-That" place where we can really look around rather than concentrating on what's on the pavement just ahead. I want to go to a place outside the vortex where we can sit long enough to get stiff, and to argue about education and the state of politics. I hope we will find you there. I am working on building up my group of intimate friends. The neighborhood and the nation need it.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
All Ours
I had the same car for 14 years.
I bought a 1994 Ford Aspire straight off the lot, brand new with 18 miles on it, and drove it until it got to about 120,000 miles. Cute, purple, easy to drive, great gas mileage, never had to worry which car in the parking lot was mine.
But I was going out with Nora, driving back and forth regularly with Ed the cat from Boston to Vermont, and I thought, "It'd be nice to have a car with air conditioning, a little stronger engine to be able to get over the hills of the ski areas easier..." Nothing I really NEEDED, you know, but it just became this little urge. And Nora said, several times, "You live responsibly, you've been responsible for many many years. You deserve to have a car that you enjoy."
I wasn't going to go berzerk. I didn't need the complete mid-life-crisis car, the Maserati Gran Tourismo ($118,000) or the Mercedes McLaren SLR (about $430,000) or even the Corvette Z06 ($76,000). Although if somebody offered me a Koenigsegg CCXR, I wouldn't turn them down.
 | ||
| And neither would you. Even though the insurance is probably more than my salary... |
In the end, I settled on... a Honda Civic??? Really?
Well, yeah. Honda makes a version of the Civic called the Si (Sport injected), which has more motor and tighter suspension and better seats and a six-speed transmission and sticky low-profile tires. Around town, it's just a Civic, albeit one that's a little harsh over potholes. But get it out on the highway, or on the various back roads throughout Vermont, and it just turns into a different animal altogether. I have yet to find a situation in which I've asked a lot of it and it didn't just comply. Now. It feels like it was engineered by the Air Force.
I can't tell you how fast it'll go, since I don't live in Montana and thus have to at least pretend to comply with speed limits. (I do have a radar detector, a Christmas present from Nora a couple of years back, but I feel like a criminal just having it in the windshield. I know what to look for, though, so if a Porsche goes by me at 95 and HE's got a radar detector, I'll happily stick to his license plate for 40 or 50 miles...)
Anyway, in January 2009, I bought a 2007 Si coupe, used, with 14,400 miles on it. (The prior owner's wife had a baby, and he couldn't load the kid into the child seat in the back with a two-door car.) I put up about 40% and borrowed the other 60% on a 42-month loan, set up for automatic bank withdrawals on the 30th of each month. At some point, Wachovia Dealer Services sold my loan to Wells Fargo Dealer Services, but the amount remained the same.
A couple of weeks ago, I was doing my checkbook, and kind of on a whim, I said, "Y'know what? I'm just going to pay it off. There's only five months to go, what the hell." So I went online, and transferred the payment from my bank to Wells Fargo. And today, I got a letter from Wells Fargo releasing their lien, and assuring the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles that I have clear and unencumbered title.
 |
| A 2007 Honda Civic Si, in Habañero Red Pearl. Just like ours. |
(Nora adds: we'll give it to Ed when he turns 16. And we'll get one of these:)
 |
| Nissan 370Z Roadster. And NOT gray. |
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Traditional Values
Vermont is a state that clings to its traditions.
People survive (barely) on agriculture, though now the growth industry (if you can call tiny agriculture "growth"), is artisanal cheese making. And in the 12 years or so that I have lived here that's gotten pretty good. Maple syrup is still made here despite the diseases that are attacking maple trees. The old fashioned sugaring requires the gathering of hundreds of 5 gallon buckets of sap by hand and decanting them into a container pulled by horse or tractor through the woods. There can be three or four buckets on each tree and they need to be emptied twice a day. That sap is then boiled down at a rate of 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup. Most farmers around here now use gravity to draw the sap through long plastic tubes to a tank. The boiling is more often done with propane or gas than with wood, but some still cling to that tradition as it is far cheaper than the price of oil.
There are more local people tending bees in Vermont these days despite colony collapse disorder that describes the bees' inability to find their way back to the hive, and the mites that are killing them in large numbers. And there are still some stubborn farmers that milk cows in herds of under 300 rather than producing milk as a commodity on factory farms with thousands of steroid pumped bovines living on plastic bedding who never see the light of day or a blade of grass.
Vermont has other traditions that continue despite threats of the modern era.
The first Monday of March is town meeting and the first Tuesday is the vote. I wanted to be sure to be in Vermont for both and I sat knitting through the three hour town meeting that was pretty mellow this year though other years have required the presence of the constable to quell the town wackos.
Many people have written about a tradition that has people so invested in both the large and small issues that affect not only their spending for the coming year, but the quality of life. I sat in the front of the Firehouse on a metal folding chair with friends I have known since I moved here, but I probably knew about half of those in attendance by sight or by having shared a table at a local potluck. While voting I had short chats with a half dozen people I knew. I knew all the town officials who were running the polling place and I also knew all the other voters who walked through while I was there.
There were 32 articles on the town government ballot and eight articles on the school ballot. One of those included the expenditure of $1,934,623.00 for school programs in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. (There are 72 elementary school students and 49 secondary school students at a per child cost of $15,988.) That did not include the cost of a proposed study of the viability of combining the five tiny local schools in some administrative or educational way, nor the $10,000 for a .2 FTE (one day a week) language teacher. The school board presented their ideas with a power point, projected on an ancient pull down screen, and there were comments from the principal, the school "moderator", the head of the "Supervisory Union", the budget manager and others. There was less anger this year and fewer challenges, though it wouldn't surprise me if it were voted down again, as it was in the last two years, necessitating some serious scrambling and a small roll back of costs that amounts to little other than some muscle-flexing by a community that has little choice, as long as it has to bus its secondary school students to other private schools in the area that charge what they want to. The town has to pay what they ask. (FLASH: This just in: the school budget passed. The foreign language teacher did not.) But what surprised me were some of the ideas that reflected tradition in a place where I frankly think it is wrong.
The principal (beloved from what I understand) did a rather awkward job of presenting the school's successes. His ability to convey the students' scores in reading and math on state-wide tests, were... unconvincing... even troubling, coming from the chief school official. While he repeatedly told the town citizens that "good things are happening here," programs that he pridefully identified included wood working and doll making (as Jerry Seinfeld would say, "not that there's anything wrong with that").
I am a great believer in the power of craft to center us, and the opportunity to build skills early is important. But wood working and doll making instead of language skills seems problematic in an era of globalization - even in Vermont where those artisanal cheeses are competing for attention with the best French cheeses. And taking pride in programs that make our kids cooperative rather than intellectually competitive seems to put them in the slow lane for the rest of their lives.
It reminded me of an earlier conversation with a bright and talented woman in this town, who is also the mother of two young boys. And it reminded me of the friends that Herb and I have, that are considering home-schooling their kids. And if there are four families in our immediate friendship network who are considering this, there must be something more than that in the country at large (though we COULD be outliers).
OK, it is a return to tradition. I get that.
It is a reflection of the very bright kids of the very bright people that we tend to hang out with. I get that.
It demonstrates the very real failures of cash-strapped schools to address the needs of kids at the extremes on the spectrum - gifted and troubled. And of the broken schools in even big cities. I get that.
But what I don't get, is why at this moment in time, we are curtailing the opportunities of kids to engage intellectually and socially with other kids in real ways that don't involve technological mediation (though there is far less texting in a town with no cell towers!). And I don't get why talented smart women are opting out of the mainstream to raise their kids at home rather than making change in the world, in careers that we (old woman that I am) fought for access to. [Pause] OK, so I get that too.
The economy makes it both necessary that there be two wage earners in the family, and the economy makes it impossible, with fewer and fewer jobs outside the fast food or service industries. (There is a powerful movie on working class women in the fast food industry that was made in 1992 but is probably still pretty accurate. An excerpt is available here). And Herb's post back in the mists about the Breatharian economy underlines that the smartest of women are working in adjunct or low wage jobs that give them no sense that the work they do matters. I recently read an article by a full time faculty member at a decent school that said she was broke-- a combination of student loans and a lack of a family nest egg that could have helped her with the basic expenses of getting educated while raising kids. And I read one about a woman who took a job in a knitting store because at least it made her feel that she had some value in the world though she measures her value in the comments that the customers make rather than in a livable wage. These women are not alone. I am wondering how we measure our value.
And I worry that we are perpetuating the divide between the kids who are being educated for success and those who are educated in rural schools by well-meaning and caring people who want the best for them, but don't have access to the resources of the larger institutions e.g. language instruction. The principal talked about his goal of making cooperative kids, and I was reminded of the phrase I heard when I taught at the local college: "The students are very nice." We are supporting a generation of kids who are being taught to be nice. In an economy that isn't nice.
So maybe my big city values are showing. And surely I have no grounds to speak on this since I never had kids. But I DO have friends who grew up here, and are struggling to make viable careers and viable lives. They are struggling to survive. The real dirty secret is, so am I.
One final note... A friend recently sent me a magnificent video of women in art. You can see it by clicking here. I watched it mesmerized until I realized that all the women had their mouths closed except for four that had coy smiles. I wonder when we are going to start speaking out again-- for what we believe. And I wonder when that will have some value.
People survive (barely) on agriculture, though now the growth industry (if you can call tiny agriculture "growth"), is artisanal cheese making. And in the 12 years or so that I have lived here that's gotten pretty good. Maple syrup is still made here despite the diseases that are attacking maple trees. The old fashioned sugaring requires the gathering of hundreds of 5 gallon buckets of sap by hand and decanting them into a container pulled by horse or tractor through the woods. There can be three or four buckets on each tree and they need to be emptied twice a day. That sap is then boiled down at a rate of 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup. Most farmers around here now use gravity to draw the sap through long plastic tubes to a tank. The boiling is more often done with propane or gas than with wood, but some still cling to that tradition as it is far cheaper than the price of oil.
There are more local people tending bees in Vermont these days despite colony collapse disorder that describes the bees' inability to find their way back to the hive, and the mites that are killing them in large numbers. And there are still some stubborn farmers that milk cows in herds of under 300 rather than producing milk as a commodity on factory farms with thousands of steroid pumped bovines living on plastic bedding who never see the light of day or a blade of grass.
Vermont has other traditions that continue despite threats of the modern era.
The first Monday of March is town meeting and the first Tuesday is the vote. I wanted to be sure to be in Vermont for both and I sat knitting through the three hour town meeting that was pretty mellow this year though other years have required the presence of the constable to quell the town wackos.
Many people have written about a tradition that has people so invested in both the large and small issues that affect not only their spending for the coming year, but the quality of life. I sat in the front of the Firehouse on a metal folding chair with friends I have known since I moved here, but I probably knew about half of those in attendance by sight or by having shared a table at a local potluck. While voting I had short chats with a half dozen people I knew. I knew all the town officials who were running the polling place and I also knew all the other voters who walked through while I was there.
There were 32 articles on the town government ballot and eight articles on the school ballot. One of those included the expenditure of $1,934,623.00 for school programs in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. (There are 72 elementary school students and 49 secondary school students at a per child cost of $15,988.) That did not include the cost of a proposed study of the viability of combining the five tiny local schools in some administrative or educational way, nor the $10,000 for a .2 FTE (one day a week) language teacher. The school board presented their ideas with a power point, projected on an ancient pull down screen, and there were comments from the principal, the school "moderator", the head of the "Supervisory Union", the budget manager and others. There was less anger this year and fewer challenges, though it wouldn't surprise me if it were voted down again, as it was in the last two years, necessitating some serious scrambling and a small roll back of costs that amounts to little other than some muscle-flexing by a community that has little choice, as long as it has to bus its secondary school students to other private schools in the area that charge what they want to. The town has to pay what they ask. (FLASH: This just in: the school budget passed. The foreign language teacher did not.) But what surprised me were some of the ideas that reflected tradition in a place where I frankly think it is wrong.
The principal (beloved from what I understand) did a rather awkward job of presenting the school's successes. His ability to convey the students' scores in reading and math on state-wide tests, were... unconvincing... even troubling, coming from the chief school official. While he repeatedly told the town citizens that "good things are happening here," programs that he pridefully identified included wood working and doll making (as Jerry Seinfeld would say, "not that there's anything wrong with that").
I am a great believer in the power of craft to center us, and the opportunity to build skills early is important. But wood working and doll making instead of language skills seems problematic in an era of globalization - even in Vermont where those artisanal cheeses are competing for attention with the best French cheeses. And taking pride in programs that make our kids cooperative rather than intellectually competitive seems to put them in the slow lane for the rest of their lives.
It reminded me of an earlier conversation with a bright and talented woman in this town, who is also the mother of two young boys. And it reminded me of the friends that Herb and I have, that are considering home-schooling their kids. And if there are four families in our immediate friendship network who are considering this, there must be something more than that in the country at large (though we COULD be outliers).
OK, it is a return to tradition. I get that.
It is a reflection of the very bright kids of the very bright people that we tend to hang out with. I get that.
It demonstrates the very real failures of cash-strapped schools to address the needs of kids at the extremes on the spectrum - gifted and troubled. And of the broken schools in even big cities. I get that.
But what I don't get, is why at this moment in time, we are curtailing the opportunities of kids to engage intellectually and socially with other kids in real ways that don't involve technological mediation (though there is far less texting in a town with no cell towers!). And I don't get why talented smart women are opting out of the mainstream to raise their kids at home rather than making change in the world, in careers that we (old woman that I am) fought for access to. [Pause] OK, so I get that too.
The economy makes it both necessary that there be two wage earners in the family, and the economy makes it impossible, with fewer and fewer jobs outside the fast food or service industries. (There is a powerful movie on working class women in the fast food industry that was made in 1992 but is probably still pretty accurate. An excerpt is available here). And Herb's post back in the mists about the Breatharian economy underlines that the smartest of women are working in adjunct or low wage jobs that give them no sense that the work they do matters. I recently read an article by a full time faculty member at a decent school that said she was broke-- a combination of student loans and a lack of a family nest egg that could have helped her with the basic expenses of getting educated while raising kids. And I read one about a woman who took a job in a knitting store because at least it made her feel that she had some value in the world though she measures her value in the comments that the customers make rather than in a livable wage. These women are not alone. I am wondering how we measure our value.
And I worry that we are perpetuating the divide between the kids who are being educated for success and those who are educated in rural schools by well-meaning and caring people who want the best for them, but don't have access to the resources of the larger institutions e.g. language instruction. The principal talked about his goal of making cooperative kids, and I was reminded of the phrase I heard when I taught at the local college: "The students are very nice." We are supporting a generation of kids who are being taught to be nice. In an economy that isn't nice.
So maybe my big city values are showing. And surely I have no grounds to speak on this since I never had kids. But I DO have friends who grew up here, and are struggling to make viable careers and viable lives. They are struggling to survive. The real dirty secret is, so am I.
One final note... A friend recently sent me a magnificent video of women in art. You can see it by clicking here. I watched it mesmerized until I realized that all the women had their mouths closed except for four that had coy smiles. I wonder when we are going to start speaking out again-- for what we believe. And I wonder when that will have some value.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Koyaanisqatsi
As might be evident from our past month or so of posts, we seem to be juggling quite a few disparate things in our lives right now. Health, family, work across three states and four institutions, side consulting projects (off to Grand Rapids to work in three weeks and Baltimore in two months), friends in various states of crisis, accreditation visits, lawyers/doctors/accountants... and that's just the personal things. In the larger world, we have a winter that never got started, a never-ending series of lunatics asking to run the country, public schools and unions and minimum wages and 40-hour work weeks and retirement plans being dismantled. You know how planes fly faster from west to east because they're in a 140 mph jet stream? All of our individual dysfunctions are being hastened along in a general jet stream of social madness.
The Washington Post, years ago, ran a contest to make a new word by changing one letter in an existing one, and then to create a definition for it. My favorite was the Dopeler Effect, which is the tendency for bad ideas to sound good when they come at you really fast, and you can only see that they're stupid once they've gone by.
So is it any surprise that right about the time I started writing this, water began pouring through my bathroom ceiling?
Julie, the tenant upstairs, was running her sink disposal when I heard a bang. I thought something had fallen, or perhaps someone had thrown a bag of trash onto the porch, which, because this IS Medford, can happen. But within about a minute, water was streaming down all four walls of the bathroom and then through the seams in the drywall across the middle of the ceiling. I called Julie, then called Mike, our landlord and woke him up (it was about 10:45). He was here within about 15 minutes, diagnosed the problem as a broken fitting, and called his friend Ralph the home repair generalist. (Can you think of a more ideal name for a home handyman than Ralph, by the way?)
So tomorrow, I'll be staying home from work and waiting for Ralph, who's going to tear the ceiling off my bathroom to work upward into the plumbing for the upstairs unit. I have sufficient work that I can do from home, so no great loss, but another side route along the great highway of intentions.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the great film Koyaanisqatsi, the collaboration by Godfrey Reggio, Ron Fricke and Philip Glass. You can watch it here, if you've got an hour and a half, a great computer monitor and terrific speakers. The title is taken from the Hopi language, and is said to translate more or less as:
Do something slowly today.
The Washington Post, years ago, ran a contest to make a new word by changing one letter in an existing one, and then to create a definition for it. My favorite was the Dopeler Effect, which is the tendency for bad ideas to sound good when they come at you really fast, and you can only see that they're stupid once they've gone by.
So is it any surprise that right about the time I started writing this, water began pouring through my bathroom ceiling?
Julie, the tenant upstairs, was running her sink disposal when I heard a bang. I thought something had fallen, or perhaps someone had thrown a bag of trash onto the porch, which, because this IS Medford, can happen. But within about a minute, water was streaming down all four walls of the bathroom and then through the seams in the drywall across the middle of the ceiling. I called Julie, then called Mike, our landlord and woke him up (it was about 10:45). He was here within about 15 minutes, diagnosed the problem as a broken fitting, and called his friend Ralph the home repair generalist. (Can you think of a more ideal name for a home handyman than Ralph, by the way?)
So tomorrow, I'll be staying home from work and waiting for Ralph, who's going to tear the ceiling off my bathroom to work upward into the plumbing for the upstairs unit. I have sufficient work that I can do from home, so no great loss, but another side route along the great highway of intentions.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the great film Koyaanisqatsi, the collaboration by Godfrey Reggio, Ron Fricke and Philip Glass. You can watch it here, if you've got an hour and a half, a great computer monitor and terrific speakers. The title is taken from the Hopi language, and is said to translate more or less as:
- life out of balance
- crazy life
- life in turmoil
- life disintegrating
- a state of life that calls for another way of living
Do something slowly today.
Friday, March 2, 2012
The little things.
We have not posted in a week... That may be the longest period that we have gone without words since we began this process. Both of us have been whirling, and there has been little time for the sedentary task of posting our thoughts, much less thinking . But today, after traveling from Vermont, to Boston, to New York, to Boston, to Vermont in a matter of days, I have returned to my desk beside the wood stove, with snow on the ground for the first time this year. It is only about three inches rather than the predicted ten but there is something meditative in it, something that I need. There are sap buckets on the trees across the street as well. That is a sign of Spring, and it comes paired with the first winter we have had on the land. Neither will last long. It is supposed to be in the 40's in the next few days - good for the sap but that too will transition, and the snow too will melt.
These are little things.
These are the little things that make up our lives.
I sat with our friend Emmett today after he ran the snow blower. Then he taught me to do it and as with most men, they show you how it's done, and then when you want to try, they let you try, but take over to finish the work themselves. It is an infernally noisy thing, but it works. A little thing. It saves our backs - well truly Herb's back when he shovels. I have been known to let the snow accumulate beyond the point of safety. Like mowing the lawn, and raking the leaves, there are values to be upheld, and I don't do it very well, shocking the neighbors though they don't say so. It seems a little thing.
Emmett and I sat at the kitchen table, and one thing led to another as our talk always does, and he noted that he traced his career in the military to having taken a typing class in high school. He signed up for the Navy a few days after his 17th birthday. He had always wanted to serve, but there was a draft then, and he didn't want to be a grunt in the Army. He had always liked ships, probably since his grandfather took him to the working marinas near where he had grown up. He loved machines and wanted desperately to work on jet engines but instead they set him to work on helicopters with reciprocating engines. Instead he was offered an opportunity to work in electronics. Not what he wanted. They read him the list. "Public Affairs." Could he type 35 words a minute? He had taken a class in high school when most people thought you were gay if you took that class. But his penmanship was poor and he knew he'd have to fill out reports. If he could type, he reasoned....A little thing.
His career was repeatedly blocked by lack of a college education. When they opened up "limited duty" positions as officers, he was able to qualify as a Limited Duty Photographer. He couldn't drive a ship, but he could work at what he wanted to do. He had a shot at that because he had already worked at Reader's Digest and the New Jersey papers and as a teacher in college. One little thing leading to another.
I am teaching in one school because I was invited to do so by an ex-student who now chairs the program many years later. She became one of my closest friends. A little thing I did 20 plus years ago.
Herb and I met because of a little thing his colleague in grad school did when he shared a paper I had written with Herb. "You may find this of interest." A little thing.
I am living in Vermont because of a little thing I did many years ago in making a call to someone about potential jobs or research we shared an interest in. She was a hot shot at a hot shot technical and engineering university in New York, but when she was applying for tenure, a colleague in the Economics Department said they weren't about to start letting women in now. A little thing. Shortly after that she took a position as Provost at a small school in Vermont and invited me to apply for a job that I took. I left after a year but that was 12 years ago and I never (really) left Vermont again.
As I was leaving Boston yesterday, to drive in prodigious snow to a place of little snow, I realized that for the first time in my substantial life, I am married to someone who makes me feel at home. For me, home has always been in the woods and the mountains here. I am not sure when the transition happened. It wasn't on the day we got married. There were no kazoos, no ringing of bells. It was a little thing that happened when we were driving to work, and when he made an orange slushie for me when I got home after a long trip, or when he called from the ambulance and said, "I don't want you to freak out, but..." Maybe it was in the story that I would hear again and again for the rest of our lives- we call them lullabies. Now, home is with him (and the cats), and the woods and the mountains here. And it is his home too.
The Hallmark greeting cards would have us believe, "It's the little things that count." I think that's true. I am enormously grateful for the little things that mom's friends do to help - three wontons for dinner and a photo of her at an art opening; a movie and dinner and the washing up of dishes with another friend; the uncountable escorts to difficult visits with medical practitioners; the phone calls and emails and touch on the arm....
We are blessed by the little things. We don't know where they will take us.
I think I will go for a walk on my snowshoes purchased last year, and check out a sap bucket or two, and see where they take me.
These are little things.
These are the little things that make up our lives.
I sat with our friend Emmett today after he ran the snow blower. Then he taught me to do it and as with most men, they show you how it's done, and then when you want to try, they let you try, but take over to finish the work themselves. It is an infernally noisy thing, but it works. A little thing. It saves our backs - well truly Herb's back when he shovels. I have been known to let the snow accumulate beyond the point of safety. Like mowing the lawn, and raking the leaves, there are values to be upheld, and I don't do it very well, shocking the neighbors though they don't say so. It seems a little thing.
Emmett and I sat at the kitchen table, and one thing led to another as our talk always does, and he noted that he traced his career in the military to having taken a typing class in high school. He signed up for the Navy a few days after his 17th birthday. He had always wanted to serve, but there was a draft then, and he didn't want to be a grunt in the Army. He had always liked ships, probably since his grandfather took him to the working marinas near where he had grown up. He loved machines and wanted desperately to work on jet engines but instead they set him to work on helicopters with reciprocating engines. Instead he was offered an opportunity to work in electronics. Not what he wanted. They read him the list. "Public Affairs." Could he type 35 words a minute? He had taken a class in high school when most people thought you were gay if you took that class. But his penmanship was poor and he knew he'd have to fill out reports. If he could type, he reasoned....A little thing.
His career was repeatedly blocked by lack of a college education. When they opened up "limited duty" positions as officers, he was able to qualify as a Limited Duty Photographer. He couldn't drive a ship, but he could work at what he wanted to do. He had a shot at that because he had already worked at Reader's Digest and the New Jersey papers and as a teacher in college. One little thing leading to another.
I am teaching in one school because I was invited to do so by an ex-student who now chairs the program many years later. She became one of my closest friends. A little thing I did 20 plus years ago.
Herb and I met because of a little thing his colleague in grad school did when he shared a paper I had written with Herb. "You may find this of interest." A little thing.
I am living in Vermont because of a little thing I did many years ago in making a call to someone about potential jobs or research we shared an interest in. She was a hot shot at a hot shot technical and engineering university in New York, but when she was applying for tenure, a colleague in the Economics Department said they weren't about to start letting women in now. A little thing. Shortly after that she took a position as Provost at a small school in Vermont and invited me to apply for a job that I took. I left after a year but that was 12 years ago and I never (really) left Vermont again.
As I was leaving Boston yesterday, to drive in prodigious snow to a place of little snow, I realized that for the first time in my substantial life, I am married to someone who makes me feel at home. For me, home has always been in the woods and the mountains here. I am not sure when the transition happened. It wasn't on the day we got married. There were no kazoos, no ringing of bells. It was a little thing that happened when we were driving to work, and when he made an orange slushie for me when I got home after a long trip, or when he called from the ambulance and said, "I don't want you to freak out, but..." Maybe it was in the story that I would hear again and again for the rest of our lives- we call them lullabies. Now, home is with him (and the cats), and the woods and the mountains here. And it is his home too.
The Hallmark greeting cards would have us believe, "It's the little things that count." I think that's true. I am enormously grateful for the little things that mom's friends do to help - three wontons for dinner and a photo of her at an art opening; a movie and dinner and the washing up of dishes with another friend; the uncountable escorts to difficult visits with medical practitioners; the phone calls and emails and touch on the arm....
We are blessed by the little things. We don't know where they will take us.
I think I will go for a walk on my snowshoes purchased last year, and check out a sap bucket or two, and see where they take me.
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