Esperanza

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Our pockets and shoes are stuffed with snow, our eyes red from reports of ailing loved ones, world news and Michigan wind. Monthly retirement fund statements are piling up in unopened envelopes with gaping windows, teasing our fears. Dreams sputter above our night beds like deflated balloons. Though we're fortunate to even have jobs, before the first Monday morning meeting at work we heaved sighs along with the water dispenser as it released an air bubble. We are doing more work with fewer resources. The whole state feels it.

The drive home was brutal, and I almost got stuck in someone's driveway turning the car around to go back and shoot our neighbor's horses at feeding time. This is the same field as the photo at the bottom of my blog page CLOUDS ARE MY MOUNTAINS. I know you are tired of snow. I still love it, but I'm tired nonetheless.

This is another farm on the way home, shot exactly two years ago, but it looks just like this today.

After a week of busy work and unending snow, what can we do? Where can we turn to fill up again at the end of the week?

Chicks ready to hatch! Don brought home ten eggs in the incubator he had taken to school for the kids to watch. Two of them began pipping Friday, and one broke a tiny hole in the shell before the kids left. Last night here at home I heard the same chicks peeping through cracking shells, and when I got up to look, one was out, making a lot of noise and running around. But later, when I woke up again, I heard nothing, and I was too fearful to check and see if it was still alive. But there it was this morning, and the second ready to hatch. Now at 10:33am we have three hatched, with seven more working hard to break through.

I named this one Esperanza, which means hope. The name may change to Esperanzo if she turns out to be a he.

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In this photo you can see Esperanza's egg tooth, the part of the beak that helps chicks break through the shell - the tiny point on its beak. It will fall off in a few days.

Nature -Life - comes through again.

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happy feet

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Where have your feet been? I heard this week that through cell phones, our comings and goings are trackable, and predictable. We tend to go the same places in our daily routines no matter what our lifestyle is.

Look at Mikhail Baryshnikov's feet. Imagine if you could track his comings and goings. I caught the first shot of a recent interesting photo shoot Annie Leibovitz had with him now that they're both in their sixties after knowing each other 30 years (not the photo at left), and my eyes were drawn to his feet. If you go to that first shot link you'll see him standing on a black box in her studio on the right side of the photo, his toes overlapping the edge. Veins bulge from what look like bulky broad bald hobbit feet. They're beautiful. I believe in his feet. I remember the first ballet I went to, it was Nutcracker, and what do I remember most? The sound of dancers' feet hitting the stage when they lept and jumped. A person who weighs 130 pounds bears about 500 pounds of pressure with every step. So, extrapolate that to a leaping, jumping Misha who is just my height, 5'6" or so, but I think more than 130 pounds.

Now look at Annie Mullins' adopted feet. See her here wearing her athletic prostheses. She has different ones - realistic flesh-like legs for dresses and even hand carved boot ones with high heels. My friend Jean posted a TED video presentation of hers. I watched, stunned, as this model-actress-athlete who was born without shin bones and had her legs amputated below the knee when she was about a year old could electrify a huge audience to encourage kids to go where they want to go, not in spite of circumstances, but through them, because of them. She stood and walked around on the stage, her black jumpsuit fluttering around her legs, and I never would have known from the way she carried herself and her level of confident authority, what she was born without. I believe in her feet too. I think of that Emerson quote at the Princess Margaret Hospital by the chemo completion bell: "What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

I've learned not to judge myself by celebrities. I know these two are celebrated for extraordinary skill, training, and perseverance, sometimes through remarkable pain, and live up there in the stratosphere of accomplishment. But their feet interest me, because feet are normal. They touch the earth or the floor every single day. They are so basic that even though Aimee didn't have them, with help she fought to get and use them, even competing with athletes whose legs were born healthy. Think of Jake in Avatar and how he went nuts running around and jumping on his new avatar feet after being a human paraplegic.

I think of Don's feet going to and from the barn, up and down the barn steps, walking among his chickens. Or standing in his classroom several hours a day, five days a week. Or Susie's feet in her kitchen standing and moving from stove to sink to refrigerator as she prepares meals with love for her family. Or rauf's feet that run up and down the stairs to his sisters' apartments to look in on them when they're ailing. Or Loring's feet that faithfully march in peace to the stop-war beat. Or the feet of my students who walk miles in a week getting to classes on our huge campus. Their feet are part of their education. Or Lesley getting to work in Manhattan from Astoria, Queens - walking to the elevated train, then riding, hopping out on the platform, switching trains, then getting out, climbing the stairs to the street and walking in any weather to her office. I tell her she should wear flat shoes to and from work, but you know New Yorkers, shoes are part of the ensemble, and what would NY street life be without fashion? For something a little depressing if you love them, look at the effects of high heels.

Feet. There they are, at the bottom of my legs. One fourth of the bones of my body are in my feet. During my lifetime I will probably walk the distance from the earth to the moon. In between I'll stand, balance, lean, walk, dance, run, turn, pivot, squat, wiggle, dig, point, press a gas pedal, then quickly brake a pedal, climb stairs, descend stairs, stand on tiptoes to be taller. Martha Washington said,“Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle, and the dance...is a celebration of that miracle.”

Today I'm going to shuffle, skip and jump in a foot party.


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a birthday

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"She sat there filled with champagne.
She talked about hashish and its effects.
I said, 'I have known such effects without hashish.
I do not need drugs.
I carry all that within myself.'
At this she was a little angry.
She did not realize that I achieved those states
without destroying my mind.
My mind must not die, because I am a writer.
I am the poet who must see."

- Anaïs Nin, talking to June Mansfield,
wife of Henry Miller, in Henry and June

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Anaïs Nin was born in Neuilly, France,
February 21, 1903 (died January 14, 1977).
Her diary was her closest friend.

Power to diaries. Power to blogs.
Power to the word, to the poem,
and to a clear mind.
Observe, feel, tell the details.

See in · · · out · · · through · · · across · · · beyond · ·
· · along · · · around · · · within · · · underneath · ·
· · outside · · · past · · · into · · · behind · · · ahead · ·
· · onto · · · toward · · · until · · · upon · · · among · · · at · ·
· · over · · · on top of · · · inside · ·

No one else sees the way you see.

window on
rue des Barres, Paris
May 2006

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the bell rings for health

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Come in, please sit down, don't mind the bell, I'll tell you about it in a minute. Here, put this cushion behind your back. Now, let me introduce you to my friend Barry.

I first saw a crowd gathered around this fellow in January last year and moved in close to see what all the hubbub was about. Everyone was jostling and humming and then all around people started shushing. So we hushed. Then Barry told a story. After he was done, I thought, how'd he do that? His story was ordinary, just something about living in Toronto, or maybe it was some mystery in the woods he and his cutey black dog Lindsay found on their walk, or something smart his painter wife Linda said. I don't remember. But it really doesn't matter what the story was about. It was the man's charm, his humble view of himself as a sort of funny ordinary guy who faces life squarely and dutifully, that made me go back regularly with the crowd on the bluff and find something true, and lovely.

A couple months after I joined the Barry-listening crowd, we were all dealt a whammy blow. Barry was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. His narrative changed, but his humility, charm and humor strengthened - or maybe it was just that his true character was more exposed. We listened with hands to open mouths and welled up eyes as he told about scans and tests showing that his cancer had metastasized from the esophagus to his hip, ribs and spine. Even cancer cells crowded around, as if to listen for how his story would unfold. But everything in him and in us the crowd said No to that army. Barry has pulled out chemo, meditation, relaxation, a healthy diet - whatever he can to prolong his story telling days, and we offered him the best advice we'd heard too. He was willing to try almost anything, because after all, he loves the Living thing.

He's an explorer of life, this Barry. These last months he got to examine the deep dark side, and we got to listen, cry, pray, meditate and walk alongside him for his health. Thursday, this very week Thursday, February 18, Barry completes his chemo treatment at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto at 2 o'clock. There is a bell there. When Barry completes that last chemo treatment, he will ring the bell loud and steady, and throughout Princess Margaret Hospital people will cheer, applaud, whoop! That global crowd listening to Barry's story? We'll be ringing bells around the world and cheering and whooping too. At 2pm Thursday my cell phone alarm will ring in my university office. I'll stop what I'm doing - maybe a student will be sitting there, wondering what happened - and I'll close my eyes, thank the Universe for Barry, for his survival, for my friend Inge beating breast cancer, for my own life after melanoma, for all our loved ones who suffer through illness and disease, and ask if we could please be allowed to explore the world with Barry a while longer.

There is a little sign near that bell at Princess Margaret Hospital with a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us,
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Read Barry's plan for ringing the bell here. If you join the crowd and ring yours, it will be like D-Day. And oh, I have a story Mom told me about that. On the 6th of June in 1944, Mom and Dad lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. They were working in the tobacco fields to supplement my dad's pay as itinerant preacher. Suddenly on that warm sixth of June, bells began ringing all across the valley. Their neighbor came running out, "What happened, what happened?" My dad replied, "It's D-Day, the Allies have invaded Normandy!" The farmer retorted, "Oh, is that all, I thought the pigs had got out!"

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red·carpet·green·dress

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Jake Sully: [as he pleads for Eywa's help in attacking the Sky People] See the world where we come from: there's no green there. They've killed their mother, and they're going to do the same thing here.

While her husband James Cameron promotes understanding other cultures and saving the planet before it's too late in the mesmerizing "Avatar," Suzy Amis Cameron is advocating for global connections and ecology too. At MUSE Elementary School in Topanga, California that she founded with her sister Rebecca, kids get hands-on learning (following the Italian Reggio model, which respects children most of all) about many essential things - including respecting the earth. They do regular beach clean-up, raise and eat organic food, use non-toxic cleaning products, and in other ways model a sustainable lifestyle.

When "Avatar" was nominated for many awards including Best Picture, Suzy came up with a contest idea based on this theme: "Caring for the planet is always in fashion." Why not give designers a chance to design her dress for the red carpet at the Academy Awards and bring attention to the idea of designing a beautiful garment in a way that is kind to the earth, and be a fund raiser for kids to go to her school who wouldn't otherwise afford it? So she put the challenge out there to designers around the world for a dress created from organic or recycled materials, or raised in sustainable ways. Here is her video pitch. You might recognize her as a former Ford model and actress (in movies such as "Fandango" with Kevin Costner; postscript: thanks, Susie, for commenting that Suzy met Cameron on the set of "Titanic" in which she played Rose's granddaughter).

I wouldn't have known about this dress design contest if I hadn't noticed it when I opened my university's home page at work Thursday. It was there because the winner is Apparel & Textile Design senior Jillian Granz at Michigan State! This is from the press release:

When submitting her design, Granz recommended the dress be made from peace silk, which allows silk worms to complete their life cycle, rather than be boiled, as is the case with traditional silk. Granz also recommended a no-waste pattern, in which every part of the pattern is utilized and put into the final garment rather than being discarded.

She designed it in her special topics class: Innovative Approaches in Apparel Design, and submitted her entry along with 15 other classmates. Here is Jillian Granz on the phone when Suzy Amis Cameron called her with the news. They'll fly Jillian out for fittings with Suzy and the dressmaker, Academy Award-winning costume designer Deborah Scott (designed for "Avatar" but wasn't nominated for an Oscar this time), and then for a pre-Oscar party March 3 (the Academy Awards are March 7) where they'll unveil the dress. Imagine having your design career launched while you're still an undergraduate, wow. She must feel like the Queen of the World!

Michigan State University is an agricultural school and prides itself on being "green" with a great recycling program. Even our school colors are Green & White, and the name for its Reduce, Reuse, Recycle program is Be Spartan Green. Unfortunately MSU is also infamous for its tight relationship with Monsanto, developing genetically modified (GM) seeds for that company, which makes many of us angry. I hope our Green & White school will evolve into being more famous for sustainable practices, like this green fashion statement. After the reveal March 3, I'll try to remember to post a photo of Jillian's dress. I wonder what color it is?

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spring green & a tanka

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It might be the middle of winter and we've been dumped with a lot of snow in the last 24 hours, but a fresh green salad just lifts the spirits. I've always loved the simple salad with ginger dressing served at Japanese restaurants just before the miso soup, and finally I googled and found a recipe for it at allrecipes.com. The salad is just torn Boston bibb lettuce (also called butterhead, buttercrunch and Tom Thumb) and this light, fresh dressing.

Japanese Restaurant-Style Salad Dressing

• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 1/2 cup peanut oil
• 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root
• 2 tablespoons minced celery
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 4 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

In a blender, combine the minced onion, peanut oil, rice vinegar, water, ginger, celery, ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper . Blend on high speed for about 30 seconds or until all of the ingredients are well-pureed.

Tanka

(a form of Japanese verse in five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syllables
which is older than haiku;
below is my first and not very lyrical attempt;
find more samples by clicking on the word "Tanka" above,
and here for a little history of tanka)

green salad so cold -
winter should not be the time
to lay you on my
tongue; but spring, on vacation,
convinced me: 'wish you were here'

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On the drive home yesterday it took an hour instead of 30 minutes. These photos are from the first few minutes leaving campus, when I was stopped more than I was moving (um, I would never take pictures while driving). After a while my windshield wipers got crusted with ice, and there was no place to stop and snap them clean as the pavement got thicker with snow and we all crawled along at 30 mph.

The farm this morning:

Neighbor Bill plows our drive before also going to the University, like me.



The sunflowers might give Jean Paul Gaultier fashion headgear inspiration?




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New Yorker magazines

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i was going to lug them all to work
let the students take them
or professors
whoever
from the help yourself book table
because they appear in our mailbox at home
every week
and get stacked
in the hopeful piles
waiting to be read
and this morning i remembered being in high school
i used to go to the library at lunch
take the new yorker off the shelf
just leaf thru
look at the ads and the photos
images
cartoons
read the poems
and that was all
and so this morning
i thought
what if the main value to me is that -
get back to what i did as a child
just the images
and so i opened the new issue
and they just touched me
immediately
those photographs
poems illustrations
paintings drawings
even ads
just like then
it was a revelation
i have to get back to who i am -
you know?
have to keep reminding myself
whenever it was a couple of years ago when i was worried about
how i wasn't writing poems
i was obsessed with taking pictures
and in my mind they were separate
and suddenly
it dawned on me
they need not be separate things
they could connect
and that's when i started beginning with just
some visual
and letting it go inside
inspire
and then i could write from it
we all have to find what it is that excites
it might not be the same as anyone else
and some people it will be ten things
all seemingly unrelated
but in that one person
they are mixed and fused
in such imaginative beauty!
and we just stare
and wonder
how we didn't think of it
oh it just makes me weep
for beauty

sometimes a window opens
and it will be like we just

danced
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All photos shot near Holland, Michigan, May 2008
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complexity

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It was May 2006, and I was trying to make some sense of my hair in front of the mirror in a tiny Paris bathroom. I wanted to get to the Picasso museum before noon without my coiffure looking like a subject of Cubism.

Thankfully I don't have to contend with my hair frizz routine on a daily basis and only wash it every three or four days. Once I blow dry and flatten it with irons (one round, one flat) it's good until the next wash - smooth and shiny. The infrequency of hair maintenance is handy while traveling, like staying in Paris for a week. Of course hair presentability may not be of much importance on a camping trip to Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but I am not about to step foot onto the rue de Rivoli under a frizzy mushroom cap.

So, even though I don't have to torture myself often in the hair ritual, when I do, it is no Parisian bonbon to contend with my bird's nest in a foreign country. The voltage difference is fine for hairdryers since you can go from 110 to 220 with a turn of a switch and an outlet adapter. As for the iron, for the longest time I wasn't willing to lay out beaucoups euros for a European flat iron (last time in Ireland the price had come way down, and I bought one - vive la difference!), and so I was stuck blowing my hair out smooth - a skill I have never mastered. I have carpal tunnel syndrome for one thing, and a lot of hair for another. Standing at the mirror, arms up, holding an unwieldy dryer in one hand and a round brush in the other without tangling the frizz into a rat's nest for 30 minutes is enough to make me want to take a trip to the guillotine.

I hear you mutter that I should just let my hair do its natural thing. After all, aren't I Madame Nature Lover here on the farm? How inconsistent! How vain!

How true.

I imagine what you're imagining. A skull covered by luxurious curls and waves. A romantic maiden's locks you want to run your fingers through. Robert Graves' White Goddess bounding through the meadow, birds mimicking her flowing mane with graceful wings.

Wrong. Nada. Nilch. When I was a teenager, yes I confess my hair was to be envied. Long, wavy and lots of it. But toward the mid-centurion mark, as the face began to sag and languish, a desire for a maturely sophisticated do cropped it gradually until it is now chin length. Easy, right? Wrong again.

My hair is . . . complex. It is my supreme desire to homogenize it. To smooth out its complexities. The under, or bottom, third is hair to die for - thick and with body. The middle third is a little wavier, still fine. The top third, at the crown, is something on the order of Hermione Granger post-magic spell gone haywire.

You see, consistent with my hair, I am a complex person. And while I may value diversity of many kinds and in certain arenas, au naturale isn't acceptable to me here. I just wanna be pretty. Some people's frizz is fetching! Mine is wretching.

This spring's Paris fashion shows brought on the frizz! Some fetching, some, well, let's just say that this is the year I should walk Paris avenues au naturele and be the bomb!



Ohh I love looking at Haute Couture. I only got as far as Jean Paul Gaultier's rockin' runway show with soft Asian rhythms in the background. I still need to watch the rest. His models clearly had good Paris hair solutions: braids and hats (even if some of them are a wee bit mogul-ish). He doesn't need hair frizz to dramatize nothin'. Haute Couture is Art, that's it. Gliding, flowing, fluid, human body art. - -









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Picasso's Woman, Collection of Mrs. John Baker
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"They've messed with the wrong one now!"

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To read more about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, go here.
To read more about Rosa Parks, go here, or read her autobiography, Rosa Parks, My Story.
To see the story of the restoration of the bus, go here.
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