My (post) sabbatical adventures

Let's hear it for the boy!

2012-01-13T11:22:00.006-05:00

(See how tall he's getting?! This was on New Year's day, walking at one of our favorite local parks.)

Each day at our house, we experience another reminder that we now live with a TEENAGER. And each time it's a bit of a surprise. (I wonder when/if this realization will stop being a surprise--his adolescence really kind of snuck up on us, despite the fact that, clearly, we've been living with this child every day since his birth!)

Sometimes it's a bit of Drama, punctuated by a phrase like "You guys just don't understand!" or "You guys never listen to me!" Sometimes there are tears involved, and we parents remember how heartbreaking it was when we felt excluded or confused. Sometimes it's just hearing his voice--it's so deep now that it sounds unfamiliar to me in some moments; people who call us on the phone occasionally think he's his dad!

Yesterday at the dinner table a new sign made its appearance: eye-rolling! My goodness. And last week, after a family dinner in our little downtown, he ditched us to hang out with his friends on First Friday (when the shops are open past 5 or 6). He was part of a roaming pack of teenagers! (We sort of observed at a distance for part of the time and hoped, when they were out of sight, that they were behaving nicely.)

This is all enough to unsettle me from time to time. I catch myself thinking: what happened to my little boy? Wow, that went by way too fast!

(On New Year's day, the post-sleepover scene was all about the xbox (his Xmas present).)

So, in addition to noting the surprises and occasionally difficult bits, it's also good to remember the wonderful parts of being the parents of this particular teenager. One of the things that's remarkable is that he loves music. Okay, yes, I loved music when I was a teenager, too, and it became a way to rebel (gently) against my parents. But our son is rebelling in a very interesting and unexpected way: he loves classical music.

(Here he is at a recital in October 2011--his first, as he just started private lessons this week. Why so orange? Well, it WAS a Halloween concert!)

(On the cello, here & above, is our friend Jonalyn, who is one of the best teachers I've ever witnessed. She leads a bunch of kids, Dexter included, in a string group that accompanies her advanced cello students. Such a good learning experience!)

(Here's the violin section...)

(At summertime rehearsals--actually, most of the year--shoes are optional...)

(... and otherwise Jonalyn's students have good taste in footwear!)

He's been playing violin at school for some years now, and he sings and hums all the time. He makes up songs about our cats and sings to them. He plays music by his favorite composer before bed. He's even become a bit of a music snob: he thinks the strings class at school should be playing more classical music (instead of the pieces they do play, which he thinks are corny).

(Here he is with some of his wacky musician friends after a Christmas 2010 concert at a local church.)

(Here they are playing at a nursing home, Christmas 2010. It's a lovely thing. One of my proudest moments as a parent happened in July 2010, when our normally extremely shy boy played the violin for a dining room full of patients, including Grandpa, at the veterans' hospital in South Dakota.)

(That's him in the middle. I swear I can't get a good photo of him at his concerts... I have dozens of out-of-focus ones like this! no flash + far away seats + moving people = bad photos!)

So parenthood still teaches us new things every day, and seeing the world through our son's eyes is still an adventure, even as he becomes more and more independent. Amazing.

May you enjoy a surprising change today (only the good kind)!

Cheers,
Karen

Addendum

2011-12-09T08:52:00.002-05:00

Last week I went to a funeral for a colleague; she had been battling cancer for years, and it had finally come back and taken her.

As I was sitting in the back of the church listening to the words spoken by ministers and friends, and thinking about what a dear person she was, and what a dedicated teacher she was, my chest hurt. I was feeling physical pain at the thought of her not being in the world anymore, and how much she'd be missed.

And seeing all the people there, and knowing there were hundreds and hundreds of students whose lives she touched, I thought about the web we make when we live in community. I thought about how, even as we go about our personal, daily lives at work or with our families, seemingly tending to our own needs, we create threads of connection with others, and join our lives to theirs. We make a big giant web of interrelated beings. And so that's why it hurts when one person is taken out of that web.

And yet I wouldn't have it any other way. I would much rather be part of that web, vulnerable to pain when it is torn, than be truly alone. That web is beautiful and real and alive, and I'm glad to be part of it and to be making new strands in it every day.

Mitakuye oyasin! May you build the web today.

Karen

Thoughts of the season

2011-11-11T13:20:00.004-05:00

(Prairies and woods at a park near us showing the fall palette; the colors of the dying year are so beautiful...)

At the risk of sounding morbid, I have found myself pondering the subject of death lately.

I've had a lot of problems, in the past, around death and the decay or degeneration or even sometimes just injury of the human body. For a while it was dang near impossible for me to go into a hospital--just the smell of the place when I walked in the door would make me tense and nervous and feel like running out the door. This is not a good thing! Especially when I'd be trying to visit a friend or have a test done...

Lately I've felt like maybe this is finally shifting, that it's getting easier for me to think about death, and about when the body breaks down. I think middle age has become a shift from thinking, in my 40s, "gee, I might die someday," to thinking, as I now approach 50: I am definitely going to die. (Of course, I have known this to be true logically and rationally, but I'm finally feeling that it's true.)

Perhaps it's the season that has prompted these thoughts lately. Some spiritual practices/traditions hold that this time of year--more specifically, around Oct. 31 to Nov. 2--is the time that we remember the dead. (Here's a nice explanation of some of the practices and history of the Day of the Dead in Mexico.) In the Celtic tradition, the veil between the worlds gets thinner and we are able to communicate with our beloved dead.

And of course, we have Halloween; as co-opted as it's been by American merchandisers, it's still a pretty special holiday, I think--I don't know of any other where grownups will wear crazy outfits, even in my conservative small town!

And today is Remembrance Day, which became Armistice Day, which in turn became Veterans Day.

With those holidays, and those traditions, think of all the souls who are being honored and prayed for and thanked this time of year! What a powerful thing.

I also have particular, more personal reasons to be thinking about death. In January of 2011, we lost Patrick's dad, and in July of this year mourned him. That loss is still pretty new, and still pretty strange to us, someone that close who is no longer here.

In October, with the love of friends to support the work of remembering the dead, I attended a wonderful Ancestors workshop. So many great ideas and activities... one of which I brought home with me: we wrote letters to our beloved dead and burned them in a fire out back in our new fire pit.

(My ancestor candle; I light it and give thanks...)

Some of my academic work lately has been about bones--about how Native American authors write about the project of repatriation, returning human remains that have been kept in museums to their tribes, where they can be properly buried. (Even now, with the advent of NAGPRA, that process does not always go smoothly...)

And there's one thing that hits real close, you might say, under our own roof: our cat Peaches is getting along in years, and she has had some serious health challenges this year. This year, we have had to face the fact that she is not going to be with us forever. She's doing fine now despite her illness, and I'm thankful she even still wants to play occasionally.

She has started this new behavior in the last few months. Sometimes when she is napping, she puts her head down and she falls into such a deep sleep that even when you call her name, she does not wake up. It's the strangest thing.

(Here she is, communing... on the Hello Kitty blanket, no less!)

So my theory is that, when she does this, she is talking to the people on the other side. They are getting her ready for the next journey she's going to take, embarking on the path to the next world. Every day I pray to be a good human steward to her and to help make that transition the most graceful it can be. I bet she's going to teach me a lot about death, and about how to find love in that process.

I hope you have a chance to hug your loved ones today, and hope you will tell the ones who've left that you still love them. They like that.

Karen

I'm worth it

2011-09-30T11:39:00.006-04:00

Of late I have been confronted by the question of what I am worth.

This has been happening at several levels, both literal and metaphorical. On the literal level: I had to call a university office so they could straighten out a mistake with my paycheck. It was easily fixed, thank goodness, but for a few hours it looked like my recent promotion was going to result in a pay decrease. Not a good feeling, to say the least.

Over the past few weeks I've been engaged in the process of being evaluated for a raise (half the faculty is eligible each year; this happens to be my year). And this comes at the end of being up for promotion for four years. It's another process that has definite bearing, in the end, on how much money I bring home every month for doing my job. But there's more to it than that.

Part of the process involves writing a report about myself that updates a university committee and the provost about my recent activities. Perhaps this is crass, but I always feel that when I write this report, I'm answering the committee's question: "what have you done for us lately?"

Writing this report is somewhat excruciating--at least for me, a person who was taught to be modest and humble whenever possible and who suspects that just about the time you start tooting your own horn, you're going to fall on your face. And get a horn imprint on your head.

So it's not a form of expression that comes natural to me. Add to that the various neuroses I've developed over the years (thanks I'm sure to an awkward teenagerhood, a mean pseudo-step-parent, and the horrors of graduate school). Stir all this up, add a publication record with a huge gap in it, and you've got a bit of a mess. It's definitely been an effort for me to develop a writing voice in that report that is simultaneously graceful, informative, and non-defensive while also arguing, in effect, that I am fabulous.

Then there's another thread of worth that I've been thinking about since visiting a pow-wow with some students a couple weekends ago. While there I ran into a couple I know who are Sun Dancers at the ceremony I go to in South Dakota, General and Ute Grant. (They live in North Carolina, so meeting them in Ohio was unexpected!) It turns out that General is a silversmith; one of the precious materials he works with is wampum.

You've probably heard of wampum; it was a bead material, usually white or purple, made from clam shells. Back in the dinosaur days when I was in school, I was taught that it was used among the tribes in New England as money. I have a small pair of earrings that I bought at a pow-wow a couple years ago, and when I wore them I would remind myself that I have worth, I have value, that as a human being I am intrinsically worthy.

(These are the wampum earrings I bought a few years ago.)

But there's more to wampum than that. Belts made of wampum were used to seal treaties, as a kind of text to document the agreement and remind the two parties of their promise to each other. (Here is a discussion of a particular wampum belt that may have been used to seal Penn's treaty with the Delaware--scroll down for the image and the story of what happened to its match, kept by a native chief... Scroll down to pp. 6-7 of this excellent document for more about wampum from a Haudenosaunee point of view.)

Before European contact, wampum seems also to have been used to record significant stories and give the storyteller a physical representation of the event he or she would tell others, something like a Lakota winter count. (Here is a nice account of the various functions of wampum.)

There's a piece of contemporary art I read about in the National Museum of the American Indian magazine a couple years ago whose image and purpose has stayed with me: Alan Michelson's Third Bank of the River. The ginormous glass work--almost six feet tall and forty feet long!--evokes the image and feeling of the two-row wampum belt that was used in the 17th century. Installed at the border between Canada, the U.S., and the Haudenosaunee nation, the piece brings to mind issues of borders, agreements between nations, history, and land; I find it almost haunting. I'd like to see it in person someday. (I wish I could show you a photo of it in my blog, but I don't have permission. So instead I'll say go here and read this excellent article about it by Kate Morris, "Art on the River: Alan Michelson highlights border-crossing issues." There's also a description there of another of his river-centered works, Mespat, which I was lucky enough to see at the NMAI this past summer.)

Michelson's work, I think, is a beautiful example of how contemporary native artists use the forms of the past and adapt them, creating new pieces with new materials to say something important about current events and situations while also bringing the past--history and ancestors--into the conversation.

(My new wampum earrings.)

And in his craft of silversmithing, I think General is doing something similar. He uses shapes and settings that are modern, that you'd see at jewelry shows; but he also uses very old, traditional shapes (as seen above). I've seen a 19th-century photograph (in Women of the West, Luchetti & Olwell) of three generations of Nez Perce women who are all wearing earrings in this shape, made out of shell.

General taught me something new about wampum: that it was used all over the east coast, not just in the northeast. People of the nations in the south, including his ancestors the Cherokees, used it as well. His teaching about wampum is that it is used to signify, in part, the interconnectedness of all life, the idea that all of us in creation are connected with everyone and everything else. It's a kind of embodiment of the Lakota idea of Mitakuye Oyasin--all my relations.

I was so grateful to be reminded of this idea. And how fitting that that reminder came from someone I am connected with in far-away South Dakota, and that I saw him and his wife so unexpectedly. We had a beautiful conversation about the Sun Dance ceremony, and about the concept of worth, and how that feeling of worth has to come from within, never from without, and how that feeling derives from knowing we are a part of the creation, a gift of the Creator.

It was an apt reminder, received just at the right time.

(Bathroom mirror, Sept. 2011. I am worthy, and I am a relative.)

Mitakuye oyasin!
Karen

Apropos of nothing

2011-09-19T08:15:00.004-04:00

It feels kind of silly to be putting this up after the previous entry. But I also feel like I want to move that entry down--a kind of spatial way of noting that life goes on, as awkward as that feels. (But that's part of mourning, too, right?) So here goes.

The other day I was thinking about chickens. Specifically, about rooster feathers. You see, early this past summer, I saw two young women on campus who had a distinctly non-central-Ohio look to them. They looked like they were from New York: chic, edgy, daring. And they had something in their hair, little wisps of something that looked kind of stripey. I found out through some sleuthing that it was FEATHERS. And immediately I wanted some.

(Apparently the popularity of these things is causing the sport fishing industry a lot of anxiety: they have been used for fly fishing, and now that people are wearing them in their hair, the price has skyrocketed...)

As we traveled east in June, I spotted some of these accessories at the beach, but I kind of hesitated getting them (there was a line of young women in front of me, and I didn't feel like waiting). And then as we traveled west in July and stopped by a big mall in Minneapolis (the big famous one), I looked for these feather things, but didn't find any I liked.

Now they have them in our little town (at the bead shop)! Wonder of wonders. So why am I not down there right now getting some put in my hair?

First of all, I have to figure out how to tell the difference between *real* feathers and the synthetic ones, and the synthetic ones are what I want. (Apparently roosters are killed just to harvest these feathers... This seems silly and wasteful; I'd rather have the cruelty-free option.)

And then there's the other part: I'm feeling a bit self-conscious. You see, some of my students are now sporting the feathers-in-hair fashion. (It has finally made it to central Ohio.) And the LAST thing I want is for my students to think I am trying to be like them, or fool someone into thinking I'm younger than I am, or that I am trying somehow to act like a kid.

I rather enjoy life as an adult. I just want to wear feathers in my hair because I like the way it looks.

Which makes me then think of this woman I see on History Detectives (on PBS), Gwen Wright. She is probably about 60, and an academic in addition to being a tv history detective (of course), and she is SO COOL. She has this punky hairdo, and brightly-colored glasses frames, and she wears knee-length skirts and Doc-Marten-type shoes sometimes, and her jewelry is always interesting, and she never forgets her lipstick. And of course she is smart as heck. She is just so fabulous. (Here's her web site; go check her out!) I hope I can be like her. Instead of worrying about aging gracefully, I want to think about aging fearlessly. Actually, maybe I want to do both.

So then I realized, as I was thinking about this, that I'd gone from chickens to hairdos to aging. Brains are wonderfully strange sometimes, eh?

Hope you have a wonderfully strange day!

Cheers,
Karen

P.S. Here's a NYT article in which someone in fashion says he can take seriously a woman at a business meeting wearing feathers (if it's done subtly, not a la Stephen Tyler). Good to know.

Today

2011-09-11T23:13:00.003-04:00

I didn't think I was going to post anything today: I didn't know anyone who died on that day 10 years ago, I was not in harm's way (though I feared such) living just outside of Atlanta. What right do I have to write about September 11th?

And yet there's something I want to note here--maybe so I can help myself believe and hope.

At my house we started the day by watching footage of what happened in New York, much of it filmed by regular people looking out the window of their Manhattan apartment or stopping in the streets on their way to work. I was astounded at how quickly it brought old feelings to the surface.

Last night at dinner we talked to our son, who was too young to remember the day, about what we experienced and thought and worried about, how we walked through that day, and what we felt about what happened afterward.

For part of the day today I was pretty unhappy, thinking about the direction our country seems to have taken of late--so much fear and suspicion and distrust, so many people dismissing others' humanity with a single word or label, so many people not listening to each other, not being gentle or kind.

But then, this evening, Dexter and I went to a memorial service at my school. One of the speakers was a freshman, the daughter of one of the people killed on that day. Lots of students--many more than I thought--showed up to listen and sing and pray, and dedicate a tree in memory of the loved ones lost. The chaplain and the president told of inspiring service projects, some created by students or alumni in memory of those loved ones: houses repaired, a school for girls built in Afghanistan.

And then we all lit candles and walked to the fire station near campus and brought our first responders loaves of bread, made by our students from cultures and faith traditions from all over the world. (There was so much bread that much of it will be taken to the food pantry in town.)

I hugged my kid--in public--and for once he let me, without protest. He even held my arm for part of the time.

And I kept repeating something I fervently believe and want to believe:

Love wins. Love always wins.

May it be so.

One of life's eternal questions...

2011-08-19T09:29:00.002-04:00

Last night as we were driving home from dinner, we saw a red chicken about 20 feet away, crossing the road perpendicular to ours.

(Sadly, I did not pull out my camera fast enough to get a picture, but it looked like this one.)

Dexter alerted us: "It's a chicken! It's crossing the road!"

I rolled down my window and yelled, "WHY ARE YOU CROSSING THE ROAD?"

But it didn't answer. And so one of life's eternal questions remains a mystery.

May you ponder a good question today!

Cheers,
Karen

Quick knitting post

2011-07-19T18:06:00.006-04:00

I'm in summer vay-cay mode: getting a little bit of work done on things like planning my courses and reading and writing, but doing other things a lot more than I usually do, like hanging out with family, watching teevee (dudes, the TOUR DE FRANCE is on!!), and knitting.

The Yarn Harlot has written about how important it is that a Knitter (capital K) consider carefully what projects to bring on the road. You have to think about portability (small projects are best), but you also have to think about variety (a simple project for a car or plane ride, plus a more challenging/interesting project, and maybe a variety of yarn types or colors...). And when you're a gazillion miles from home, you don't want to run out of yarn or not have the right needles--especially because you can't count on finding a yarn shop in these post-recession times. Careful planning is required!

I've been really happy with the projects I brought with me this time. One is a baby socks & hat set out of this wonderfully entertaining colorway:

(blue! pink! brown! green! red! Perhaps I am easily amused...)

I've finished one set and have started a second. (There seem to be a lot of people having babies lately; I wonder what's up with that!)

The other is a baby blanket (pattern here, on knitty.com). If you're not a knitter, you might consider skipping the next paragraph lest your eyes glaze over...

The excellently clever thing about this particular blanket is that it's got miter squares but there ISN'T any annoying stitching-squares-together process at the end. When you finish one square, you pick up or cast on stitches for the next. It's so cool!

(You can get a sense of the construction from this photo...)

And while I'm using very practical, washer-and-dryer friendly yarn, the colorway is important: turquoise. A bunch of references to turquoise have been coming up for me lately.

One is LeAnne Howe's discussion of the color blue-green in the Choctaw language. (If I'm remembering correctly, you can find it in Miko Kings, one of my favorite novels.) When a word has this root in it, it means the thing you're talking about has life. Blue-green is the color that means something is alive, has spirit. Wow.

And of course there was all the turquoise I saw while traveling in the U.S. southwest recently. I picked up The Anthropology of Turquoise there and have just started it:

And here's the FO (finished object) in its new setting:

(Front porch still life with blanket, driftwood, and potted plant...)

I'm giving it to a friend for a giveaway he's doing at a pow-wow this weekend in South Dakota. I'm hoping it will help a family celebrate the new life of their baby, and set that baby on a good path, one of listening to spirit. Mitakuye oyasin!

May you find a color that fascinates you today!

Cheers,
Karen

On the road again...

2011-07-18T16:05:00.006-04:00

We've been on the road, traveling to some of our favorite places... (As far as posting goes, I think I'm going to be in intermission from the Four Corners posts for a while; I'm still figuring out how to process some of that trip!) (And for the robbers out there: a) there's not much in our house worth stealing, and b) we have house-sitters.)

Things we love about Minnesota and Minneapolis

Two of our favorite bookstores in the world live in Minneapolis--Birchbark Books and Wild Rumpus. We visited both this year. If you're there, you should go! Birchbark has a great selection, and it's a bookstore run by writers. Plus there's a cafe next door. Wild Rumpus has a great selection of books for kids and young adults, plus there are CHICKENS and other animals in the store as well as the traditional bookstore cats. For real.

Here's Dexter at the door to Wild Rumpus:

(There are two doors there--the grown-ups' one and the purple kids' door inside it...)

Would you believe, when we first started going there, that he fit through the little door? I always duck through it even though I'm too big, but this year the difference was that it embarrassed him. :( I think I redeemed myself, though, when I picked up one of the chickens and held her long enough for him to pet her.

We usually stay at an inexpensive hotel (relatively speaking) near the Mall of America; my favorite thing about that place is the amusement park rides in the middle. And this year Dexter and Patrick declared this one to be the best:

(whee! In the middle you go through a cave where Paul Bunyan tells you something... but we could never make out what the heck he was saying.)

We went on it several times just to be sure.

Another great thing about Minneapolis? REAL public transportation!

(Another one rides the bus...)

The tricky thing on this particular bus ride was that there was a guy in the back very loudly telling some, um, very colorful adult-situation-laced stories.... but hey, on the bright side, Dexter gained a little worldly knowledge, right? And what better place than public transportation to experience that, right? Right? (sigh)

In addition to hitting our usual favorite places, on this trip we explored a bit and went over to St. Paul, a great place for writers, like these two:

(Don't they look great together? Like they've just come back from lunch or something?)

And we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota, which we enjoyed thoroughly. On one of the decks outside, we were able to see the Mississippi River...

... and enjoy the view. This was one of my favorite pieces in the museum:

(Dang--I can't find where I wrote down the artist's name; I'll add it here later if I can find it!)

It's a mechanical creation where, as you push the button and make the gears go, the tiger types, the top of his head opens to reveal a fish swimming round inside, and the piece of paper emerges from his typewriter with the word "fish" repeated on it. I thought it expressed something true about writing...

As we drove toward South Dakota, we stopped and had a picnic lunch; look who joined us!

(Sadly, we did not have any peas or corn.)

And we stopped overnight in one of my favorite places on the planet, Pipestone National Monument.

(Prairie + creek + sacred stone = happy me)

We were able to walk on most of the trail the day we arrived, which turned out to be good because that night there was a thunderstorm with enough rain to flood the bridges and trails the next day.

It was hot as heck, and humid, and there were plenty of mosquitoes, so we didn't linger in any one place very long, but it was a really good evening walk.

Later that evening one of our party found something right near our hotel, on the courthouse square, that made him quite happy...

(That is one happy boy!)

He has been studying WWII and could tell us lots of things about this particular tank. It's a machine of war, so I was wary (as always), but it was nice to find something along the way that Dexter was so engaged in.

Well, the library is about to close, which means my wi-fi access is going bye-bye for the day. (There's no wi-fi at Grandma's house; heck, there's no microwave there, and there IS a rotary wall phone. It's like stepping back into 1972!) I'll post more soon about South Dakota and our continuing adventures on the plains.

Hope you are enjoying a good summer!
Karen

Intermission II: in which we learn I might be a security threat...

2011-07-01T13:42:00.008-04:00

Hello! We are just back from a quicker-than-we'd-have-liked trip to the east coast to see some sights and visit some relatives. (Mostly I wanted the boy to see some of his kin--and for them to see him and how fast he's growing!)

Anyhow, one of the highlights of the trip was spending two days with my brother, who took us to see cool stuff, one day in D.C. and one day in Harper's Ferry.

In D.C., before we went to the NMAI (I wanted to see an exhibit there and relished the chance to share with my loved ones what I love about that place), we decided to tour the Capitol visitor's center. It didn't exist when I was a kid; if you wanted to see the capitol, you just walked in; maybe you opted for a tour, but you could just wander about and look at stuff if you wanted to. Of course, in a post-9/11 world, that is right out the window. The new (opened in 2008) visitor's center is a resplendent underground building filled with statues, artifacts, and exhibits on the history of the capitol.

But before you can go in, you have to go through security.

I had something on my person that was apparently a threat:

(cotton washcloth in progress... sorry for the blurriness)

Yup, that's my knitting. Yup, right there on the security sign it said that pointy objects, like knitting needles, were not allowed in. Pencils and pens were okay, but NO knitting needles.

I was annoyed. I refrained from pointing out to the guard that pencils are just as dangerous as knitting needles. Instead, I asked if there was a locker or someplace I could store it while we toured the building. The younger guard suggested I put it in the trash. (I am not kidding. I wanted to smack him. I think the fact that I did not shows great restraint on my part.)

I looked around, and there was definitely no place to put it. I decided to stash it behind a wall--not exactly hidden, but sort of. I thought to myself: okay, I'm leaving it to the gods (and the kindness of strangers); if it's still here when we get back, that's great, but if not, I won't be upset.

(Here is my knitting project in its "hiding" place...)

So we went back in, and this time went through the security gate. And I was denied entrance, this time for something buried in a pocket of my purse:

(offending item #2)

Here's a photo of it in my hand, unfolded, for scale:

(national security threat = I might snip someone?)

I carry this tool around in my purse because it's handy, not because I want to hurt anyone. I was quickly going from "annoyed" to "incensed" to "pissy," especially given the fact that I've been through airport security a bunch of times with knitting, and even once with these scissors (I forgot they were in my bag until after the trip!). But my brother pointed out, rightly, that the guards at the capitol have been assaulted and hurt in the past, so they're being extra careful nowadays. I grumbled and moaned, but got myself back to civil with a super-quick walk to the car and back to stow my threatening items.

After which I was sweating like a horse. (Ask someone who knows D.C. to tell you about the humidity... The place was built on a swamp!)

But then when we got in the statuary hall, I saw an old friend and that did wonders for my mood.

(I love how this statue suggests movement! You can also see how my hair & eyes suggest humidity... erg.)

This is Sarah Winnemucca, native activist and writer of My Life Among the Piutes. As Patrick took my photo, another family paused to wonder who this person was, and I went into "professor" mode, telling them a little about her life and writing. Patrick said you could really see how excited I was about seeing this statue, and about teaching others about her.

So probably my FBI file is a little thicker from this adventure, but I had a good time. Here are some other pictures from that day:

(King Kamehameha of Hawai'i)

(replica of Freedom, the statue atop the Capitol dome...)

(Here she is full-length.)

(Better keep an eye on this group of suspicious-looking characters...)

(One of my favorite things about the NMAI: it's a giant building that, in some ways, is very unobtrusive!)

(There was a group doing Polish dancing! We only watched them for a minute or two--in a hurry to get to dinner--but it was kind of cool.)

(Mr. Pointy Head; or maybe he's doing his impression of a unicorn?)

I hope you avoid doing anything that makes your FBI file thicker today...

Cheers,
Karen

(Intermission) Blogging: U R doin it wrong...*

2011-06-15T15:07:00.004-04:00

I have conflicting goals in my head for this here blog... One is to post more often. The other is to post beautifully rendered, fully conceived essays that hold together from beginning to end and say something Profound and Meaningful. Oy.

I think I'd like to work on goal one and ignore goal two for a while. So here's something short and sweet for today.

On Facebook this morning I announced that it's International Karen Does Nothing Day today, and that my plan was to be lazy.

(a sign I ran across recently)

For the first time in weeks, today my calendar lists NO appointments. And I decided on Monday that the to-do list was making me feel overwhelmed and a bit glum, so I'm trying to hold it at arm's length for a while--you know, only getting stuff done that really could not be put off, keeping those appointments that I had already made weeks ago, and generally doing as little as possible otherwise, taking things a bit more slowly.

I had some advice recently that really hit me as True and Useful: instead of doing stuff from a place of "should," start paying attention to what brings me joy and do that instead. I'm trying that, and I must say, I feel a lot less glum and overwhelmed.

(Baby sock in progress, for a colleague who's preggers. The yarn is keeping me entertained--such interesting colors!)

The to-do list is still there, but it can wait. Just for a little while, I'm trying this new way of moving through my day, and taking note of those little things that make me happy... like knitting pretty things, eating blueberries, reading in my pjs. And writing on the blog! Well, whadaya know.

I haven't decided yet whether it's funny or pitiful that I had to schedule a day to be lazy. I'll think about that tomorrow. (Or maybe some other day...)

Ciao,
Karen

* The title means a) that I'm taking an intermission from describing my four corners trip, and b) I'm making a reference to LOLcats, who r doin it wrong sometimes.

Adventures in the corners (part one)

2011-06-04T15:33:00.016-04:00

I have just returned from a trip to the Four Corners region of the U.S.; I was on a research/scouting trip to a) figure out what's out there for our students to see next year (those who will be taking the Four Corners Course Connection), and b) learn about the region. I can say I did both. A lot!

I've been hesitating to post this entry because I'm not sure yet quite how to sum up this adventure. All I have is my words and my photographs from my little camera to try to convey the awe these places inspired. Okay, here goes.

(Rather than showing you place by place where we went in this post, I'll share some themes. But here's a list of the featured stops: Albuquerque, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Mesa Verde, Anasazi Heritage Center, Hovenweep National Monument, Natural Bridges National Monument and Cedar Mesa, Edge of the Cedars, Monument Valley, Navajo National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Acoma Pueblo, and back on around to Albuquerque again. It was a whirlwind adventure!)

Theme one: out the window.
I think I took several hundred photos of the view out the window of the car. (My colleague Barbara and I drove from Ohio to Missouri the first day, then Missouri to Albuquerque, then all around the Four Corners; by the time I flew home that added up to about 2700 miles. Barbara did 99 percent of the driving. She is intrepid!)

I know that "out the window of the car" is not an ideal situation for photography, but I kind of feel like when you're out there, you just can't help it. Or at least I can't--I grew up on the east coast, and the topography of the Four Corners looks like another planet to me.

Here are a few of my photos out the window:

(On our way through Missouri, we passed a famous landmark... it was shiny!)

(Driving from New Mexico to Colorado, we saw the first of many interesting land formations...)

(Near Durango we passed by the southern tip of the Rockies. Wow!)

(At Mesa Verde you can see evidence of a forest fire some years ago. It's kind of eerie to come around a corner and be in a patch of dead trees.)

(This is near Mesa Verde. The landscape out there is just breath-taking. I love how you can see for miles and miles...)

(This is in southern Utah, where the rocks are red and the canyons are many.)

(Utah again, following Jim's truck to Bluff, where we ate dinner... More about Jim and his truck soon...)

Theme two: made by hand
On this trip I learned a lot about the Ancestral Puebloans and their culture. Twenty years ago, when my brother and I came through this region on our way out to California (that's a whole 'nother adventure), the story was that the people who lived at Mesa Verde and other cliff dwellings throughout the region were the Anasazi (a Navajo word that means "foreign ancient ones"), and that they had disappeared for mysterious reasons and left no descendants.

Today the park rangers tell a different story: that the cliff dwellers left because of drought and resource decimation (for example, wood--it takes a lot of wood to build kilns and fire pottery!), and that they spread out and mingled with the people who would later become the various Pueblo cultures throughout the region. I think this is a better story--one that emphasizes survival and continuance rather than a kind of romantic vanishing--so I'll be passing it along to my students next year.

We saw everywhere we went the evidence of their living: their houses...

(This is a series of doorways at Aztec Ruins (which has nothing to do with the Aztecs, by the way).)

(At Mesa Verde. You see T-shaped doorways at a lot of dwellings...)

(At Aztec Ruins. That is a 900-year-old ceiling, my friends, still intact.)

(Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde. What an amazing place!)

(This is at Hovenweep, one of my favorite dwelling sites...)

... and the things they made for everyday use that are beautiful as well as functional.

(On display at Mesa Verde.)

(I enjoyed seeing the ladles and pots and mugs...)

(I can't even tell you how much I love this seed jar...)

(This portion of the Edge of the Cedars museum includes an original ladder--foreground--and a display of pottery that has been seized from looters/collectors; sadly, it's a huge collection, and not even a fraction of what people have taken from dwelling sites.)

(This is a bag of woven cotton on display at Aztec Ruins. They had cotton! They were spinners and weavers!!!)

Check out some photos of a sandal here, and some mugs here. They made lots of mugs!

And, like us, they liked to adorn themselves with beautiful things.

I was inspired by these beautiful things. Even though the people worked very hard to survive, spending most of their time doing the work of procuring and preparing and storing food, they took time to make the things they used beautiful and meaningful.

Theme three: Karen finds yarn (fiber) everywhere she goes
When I became a knitter a few years ago, my family started joking that if you plop me down in any city/town in the U.S., I will find the yarn shop there. Now that I'm a spinner (and learning how to weave as well), this has meant that on my recent adventures I find evidence of spinning and weaving--humans using plant and animal fibers--everywhere I go.

In their spinning and rope-making and weaving, the Ancestral Puebloans made use of yucca, cattail, cotton, and other (more unusual) fibers...

(Hey, I have a nearly endless supply of hair... I wonder if I could learn to spin it??)

They even made blankets of yucca and turkey feathers (can you imagine how soft and warm that would be?). (I thought I had a photo of one, but I can't find it in my file--?)

... and they wove using MACAW feathers!

(The museum tag for this piece reads: "Object: Macaw Feather Sash. Date: A.D. 1150. Location: Canyonlands National Park. Materials: Abert's squirrel, macaw feathers on yucca cord, leather ties." The maker must have been a very valued and important person in the village!)

Of course, when we were in the Navajo nation, there was LOTS of yarn in evidence, as the Navajo are famous weavers, spinners, and dyers. Here are a few photos along the way:

(Yes, that would be a WALL OF YARN at the gift shop at Canyon de Chelly. I am proud to say I controlled myself--but only because I realized the brand of yarn is one I can get online.)

In Albuquerque I was really excited to see this in a restaurant where we had breakfast:

(Sorry the labels are not readable!)

It's a kind of chart of how the colors in the weaving are derived from natural sources--mostly plant parts--with a tiny loom in the middle.

(Here's another one, this time at the museum at the Anasazi Heritage Center. You can also buy one of these at the gift shop at Monument Valley.)

There was a full-size loom displayed at Mesa Verde, just around the corner from beautiful rugs for sale:

(Also at Mesa Verde: loom and...

... yarn and spindle!)

And and the Anasazi Heritage Center, there was a hands-on loom with directions about how to weave the Navajo way:

(This was meant for children, I think, but OF COURSE I gave it a try...)

The upright loom is very different "machinery" from the rigid heddle loom I'm learning to weave on, but the concepts are the same. I loved the feel of the well-worn beater--it seemed like lots of hands had polished it. The Center had lots of interactive displays and ways to learn, so I would recommend it highly if you're out that way...

This is a long post, dear readers; I'd like to continue describing my adventures in another post--one where I tell you about how I did stuff I was scared of doing, and about the rock art I saw in various places, about seeing iconic western landscapes, about the privilege of visiting sacred places, about being in another nation... For now, here's one more photo out the window:

(These are the mountains on the edges of Albuquerque, over the wing of the airplane home!)

May you enjoy some beauty in your adventures today!

Cheers,
Karen

Milestone

2011-04-25T21:53:00.003-04:00

I'm in the middle of end-of-semester craziness, but couldn't let this day pass without noting it.

Today's milestone has been sneaking up on me--more quickly this year (at least it felt that way), and especially quickly in the last couple of weeks.

This is me and my son reflected in the bathroom mirror; we're both standing in our stocking feet:

The photography is not so great (well, I was on my way out the door to a faculty meeting and in a hurry), but the thing to notice is that he is as tall as me. At 12 years old! I didn't expect that to happen for a few years yet!

I'm glad he's healthy and happy and growing well. And, of course, this is also a bittersweet moment.

Hope you feel tall today!
Karen

Another thought about re-entry

2011-04-02T10:46:00.004-04:00

When I posted "Re-entry randomness" just after our trip to South Dakota, I was still trying to figure out how to sift through what I experienced, and definitely trying to figure out how to do something I'm not very good at: integration.

I don't know if you've ever had this problem. Here's the way I feel it: after I've had an amazing experience away from my everyday life (especially away from the deadlines and schedules of my job), and it has tapped into parts of my brain or self or soul that I don't normally interact with on a daily basis, I want to hang onto whatever it is I've learned as I go back to my everyday life--my family relationships, my friends, my job, my students. I want that wonderful or sad or moving thing to have some effect on my life, to press on it in some way, to shape it a bit differently. I don't want to leave behind completely the self I was as I made it through that experience; I want to bring that new self forward. I want to ask that new self to take part in the everyday choices I make, and the interactions I have with people, and the way I teach, and even the way I treat myself.

But it's hard.

Routine is such a trap, maybe a temptation. Sometimes it seems like it would be so easy to fall back into those routines and just do as I was doing before. Because it was working well enough, I was getting by just fine.

Except the gift of a "disturbing" or moving experience--one that makes you feel like you understand something in a new way--is that it makes you realize what seemed good enough just isn't, it doesn't fit anymore.

And for sure, what we experienced, just like each year I've gone to Rosebud, was moving--it moved us away from where we were, and to a new place of understanding or even confusion. It changed us somehow. And in order to honor that experience, we can't go back as if it didn't happen. That would be tragic, really, a waste of something precious.

We worked to help the Lakota people who are saving their culture and language and lifeways; we learned about oppression and despair and courage; we laughed and shouted and sang and cried. We opened up to what was in front of us, and to each other.

Surely that matters. Surely we can bring that forward into our lives back in Ohio.

My daily task, now, is to figure out how. And to support the other people who took that trip with me as they do the same. And, as it happens, to support Patrick, who has recently had a similarly moving experience and done some hard work and is also trying to integrate it into his life. Wow.

May you experience something that moves you!

Wishing you courage,
Karen

The late-winter, early-spring struggle

2011-03-30T23:07:00.007-04:00

It snowed today. Real snow, with accumulation (though luckily it did not stick to the streets and sidewalks).

(This is the trunk of my car as I was brushing it off before my drive home.)

(I wish I had taken the time to really focus in on some of those snowflakes--as annoying as they were to see, they were also beautiful!)

Everyone's been talking today about how they're not happy about the snow.

I've been watching carefully for signs of spring, signs that I'll finally be able to put away my winter coat and turtlenecks soon. When we went walking at Deer Haven a couple weeks ago, I was disappointed to find that there were no buds on the trees (that I could see, anyway). There were just the papery-thin leaves on one kind of tree, making a rustling sound in the breeze.

(The leaves looked a bit like butterfly chrysalises--chrysali?--hanging in the trees.)

(Um, Dexter? That's kind of a giant walking stick...)

(woohoo!)

Lots of browns, greys, and gold all around us, and though I find winter colors beautiful in their own way, I'm kind of looking forward to everything around us greening up. Within a couple days of our walk, it snowed overnight, complete with ice to scrape off the windows. Drat.

But then a few days after that, the temperatures snuck up ever so slightly, and I spied a couple things that made me hopeful: crocuses in a neighbor's yard!

(Just as I took these photos, the neighbor whose yard this is arrived home; we traded enthusiastic appreciations: finally, color in the garden!)

And the next day: our very own crocuses opened to the light!

(Here are our first happy yellow flowers, poking through the winter-drab flower beds...)

And that day I saw a sure sign that warm weather must be coming: the turkey vultures are back!

(Their wobbly wheeling in the sky made me smile out loud!)

Our daffodil and tulip leaves have been growing, and finally on Monday, the first few (on the east side of the house) started to open up.

On my walks home the past two weeks, the weather was pretty chilly, but I was seeing sure signs of spring here and there. Monday afternoon I found some tree buds:

Beautiful and hopeful! And brand new! So today's snow was a bit disappointing.

I had to remind myself of a couple things. First, there's the saying I've heard repeated in Ohio each spring: after the forsythia bloom, we have three snows. Today's snow is the second, so there's just one more left. I can hang on for one more, right?

And, because I've been reading Reya's posts on spring, I am reminded that birth is a struggle, like a chick having to peck its way out of a shell, as she points out, or a shoot breaking through a seed cover. (Reya didn't mention this, but childbirth was sure difficult, too! And it's really, really hard on the person being born!) So even as I'm cheerfully noticing signs of new growth, I can also give respect to the effort that process takes, and wait patiently for it to happen as it's supposed to.

Hang in there! Spring is coming, despite the snow.

Cheers,
Karen

Re-entry randomness

2011-03-16T22:09:00.011-04:00

On Saturday night, quite late, I got back with the spring break group (doing service work and learning about Lakota life on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota); since then I've been walking around somewhat zombie-like. I'm too tired to write a coherent, flowing post, but I have a lot of scattered thoughts that I want to share... so here goes.

Something I like: it was still light out at 7 p.m. tonight.
Something I don't like: we're getting up in the morning in the dark. Again.
Even worse: In addition to losing time to Daylight Saving, I lost another hour driving from Illinois to Indiana, so I feel like I'm jet lagged. To the point of feeling ill. Yuck.

Something I like: pictures of the prairie, apparently. I have a ton of them. To add to the ton I have taken every other time I've gone out there. It's just so amazingly beautiful!

(These were all taken from the van at various points in the trip... You can see that the weather got warmer as our "going home" day approached. Dang.)

Something I don't like: Ohio, in addition to being dreary and grey, seems to have a lot of homework in it. Hm.

Something I like: taking students out to one of my favorite places on earth, especially when those students are ready to learn and engage with what they find there.
Something I don't like: when it's time to leave.
Something I LOVE: when the students love it, too.

Something I like: playing hand games.
Something I find troubling: even though it's the third time I've been taught, I still am not good at this game.
Something I really don't like: not being able to understand the scoring rules. STILL. Perhaps the universe is trying to remind me of what it feels like to be a beginner...
Something I love: hearing this group talk SMACK during our games. It was hilarious!

(Ben getting fancy with hiding the bones...)

(Can you see Caroline making the call in this pic? Despite the serious faces, there was a lot of laughter and fun that night! Gabby was a great teacher...)

Something I love: the Heritage Center at Sinte Gleska University and the museum at St. Francis, both full of treasures of Lakota art.

Something that's even more awesome: having Steve explain the significance of the designs, materials, and construction of the pieces to us.

(This is a beaded talking stick with winter count images on it. Beautiful, and a new way to think about Lakota writing... You can see a photograph of Sinte Gleska (Spotted Tail) in the background.)

(Here's a detail from that talking stick...)

(I took this picture of the duck flute for Dexter... You can also see a tinpsila braid on the left.)

(Beautiful Lakota designs on a beaded pipe bag...)

(A painted buffalo hide. It was so big I couldn't really get it all in the picture, even from about 10 feet away! The shapes represent what the spirits would see if they looked at the chief who wore it from above--his bonnet of feathers denoting the honor and trust bestowed on him by his people.)

(A beaded cap that reminds me of Linda Hogan's story "Making Do"...)

Something I like: being in a room full of people who, inspired by those works of art, that evening learn how to make tiny moccasins.

(I was so proud of the way that everybody tried--in some cases in spite of never having sewn a stitch!)

Something I'm very grateful for: that Steve and Gabby and C.J. were so patient with us and willing to teach us and share their culture with us. What an amazing gift!

Something else I like: people so excited about making dream catchers that they buy supplies at the bookstore on the way out of town and make them in the van. Inspiring!

(Alyse used embroidery floss in the colors of the four directions and made a kind of medicine wheel dream catcher. Cool!)

Something I like: seeing the moon above lodge (tipi) poles.

(Can you see it there? on the right?)

Something I like: seeing the Missouri River. When I cross over it, I know I'm in the land I love.

(Here's a view of the road over the Ft. Randall dam.)

(On the way out there we saw hundreds of geese over one particular field...)

Something I like: traveling in a flock, each of us contributing to the group effort.

It was really a great trip. I feel very lucky to have been a part of this group!

I hope you feel a sense of belonging today.

Cheers,
Karen

A new aphorism

2011-03-04T08:24:00.008-05:00

I was thinking the other day that we could have a new aphorism to describe February. You know, like the one we have for March: in like a lion, out like a lamb.

Well, based on this year's experience, my new aphorism for February is: in with an ice storm, out with a flood. Or maybe: in with an ice storm, out with a thunderstorm.

Not as symbolic, but descriptive, don't ya think?

The night of Feb. 27 we had torrential downpour rains, complete with thunder and lightning and even a little hail. There were more power outages and a few downed trees (nothing like the ice storm, though). It was impressive.

Here's a couple photos of the creek on my campus; first, here's a photo of what it normally looks like, a pleasant babbling brook:

(Notice especially the stone walls that make its banks...)

And here's what it looked like at noon on the day after the thunderstorms:

(The water is up to the top of the stone banks! That's at least 3 or 4 feet higher than usual!)

(Over on the left, you can see where the stone wall has been breached and the water's overflowing the banks...)

(I'll try to put in a little fimlet I took of the roiling water, but I'm not sure if it will work; see the bottom of the post...)

It was downright scary!

Several friends reported flooded basements--like, really flooded: a foot or more of standing water. We were lucky to have only puddles. Another friend's car got flooded because it was parked on the street near a blocked storm drain. She's going to have to replace it. Woah. And lots of schools had to call a delay or cancel school altogether because of flooding and power outages.

The day before the Big Flooding Rains, Dexter and I took a walk around the block; it was sunny and not so cold, and this time of year those days don't come often. Everywhere we went, we could hear water dripping and flowing, down gutters and downspouts, down the street. The snow was melting. Hurrah!

(Lots of water running along the curb... and of course the sticks & strewn things the snow leaves behind...)

With all that snow on the ground, then the torrential thunderstorms, it's no wonder there was flooding!

I've been distracted the past couple weeks with getting ready for our big spring break trip to the rez. I'm gonna miss my guys like crazy (they don't have spring break yet) but I'm excited to go! And it's such a great group of students this year, just like in years past.

How did I get to be so lucky?!

Wishing you sunshine and some signs of spring SOON,
Karen

Icepocalypse!!!!

2011-02-11T10:20:00.009-05:00

When the biggest winter storm in 60-ish years came through our part of the country in the first few days of February, it manifested as a mix of ice, freezing rain, and snow. I'm usually pretty intrepid when it comes to snow--heck, I walked to school last year when we had our version of snowpocalypse--but this was different.

Tuesday morning wasn't horribly bad--it got warm enough for me to chisel my way into my car with a potato masher. But it got progressively worse... And I had an evening class to think about. I hemmed and hawed about whether to cancel class, which I hated to do--that's the group I only meet with once a week.

(This is what my car looked like on Tuesday morning... before things got really bad...)

I went out to move my car from the far parking lot to the closer one at 4:00, and what would normally be a 10-minute errand took me half an hour. On my way back into my building, I slipped twice on what looked like perfectly fine walkway. That scared me. When I e-mailed students to ask about how things looked on their side of campus, I kept getting reports of people falling. And this was *after* the university buildings & grounds staff had already been working all day on clearing & salting the walkways. So I relented, canceling class and heading home a little after 5.

Boy, was I glad to be home that night! As the rain/sleet/snow continued to fall, Dexter and Patrick and I had a nice, comforting dinner of leftover curried chickpea stew with rice, made some popcorn, and sat down together in front of the teevee to watch some episodes of King of the Hill (which Dexter recently discovered & likes; we have to be a little bit careful, though, about which episodes he watches!).

Every once in a while the lights would dim or flicker, and I'd worry. Our stove is electric, so if the power goes out, we're in pretty bad shape. The only thing that would still work is the hot water heater.

And as the evening grew into night, the noises outside started: sounds of branches and trees, loaded with ice, crashing to the ground. It was awful.

Our next-door neighbor has lots and lots of tall, thin trees growing alongside the fence between our back yards. And one by one, about half of those trees (or significant pieces of them) came down. At 8:00 it got really bad, and one tree came down just inches from our back window--the one next to the couch where we were sitting. All three of us jumped up and darted to the other side of the room!

Bedtime rolled around and the crashing was still going on outside. It was scary. We hoped for the best and went to bed.

The next morning, thankful that our power was still on, we looked out the windows at the things we'd been hearing all night. Trees down everywhere. Wires down at various places on our street. It was amazing.

(This was our first view out the back window upstairs; that tree isn't usually there!)

Even before eating breakfast, I pulled on my boots and took my camera outside and took about a bazillion pictures. It was so unreal, so strange; I think I kept taking picture after picture in part because I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing...

(Our little magnolia lost a major limb...)

(We were sitting next to that window on the right!)

This tree, amazingly enough, did not break, but it sure made a lot of noise as it arced itself toward the ground... and its neighbors' branches came down on our roof.

(Trees & branches down along the fence line...)

(In a couple of places, the branches that cleared the fence kicked back when they landed & put holes in the bottom of the fence... woah!)

I think one of the things I wasn't prepared for was how stark the broken-off tops looked on the trees that were still standing.

(Survivors...)

Another palpable sign that this was a Truly Bad Storm: my school was closed. (Only the 2nd time that's happened in the eight years we've been here!)

(There was ice everywhere AND the power was out... the storm gods were definitely not in favor of marching on as per usual!)

(The ornamental grass, normally almost as tall as me, was lying down...)

(A thick layer of ice coated absolutely everything... kind of eerie!)

After lunch we ventured out a tiny bit further to the yards adjacent to ours, sticking to walking on the ice-covered snow, pounding footholds in with our heels as we went along; it was just too dangerous to walk on the other surfaces.

Every neighbor had trees and branches down.

(across the street...)

(neighbors out back... check out the icicles on the steps!)

(Dragging branches to the back yard--we'll be doing lots more of this when it warms up a bit!)

(This injury looks painful...)

And later we ventured out to see if we could sled on this mess. Turns out we could--it was FAST once you got going enough not to break through the top layer!

(Dexter stomping through the top layer...)

(We had to put on the "emergency brake"--foot out to the side--when we got to the tree line!)

(Our poor garden gnome...)

(Not sure this is much better...)

And as the day went on the temperatures started to drop. On Thursday, school was back on (at least for me), and because of the bitter cold, my car was frozen absolutely solid. Patrick tried for a half hour to scrape, chisel, and water his way into it to get it started & warmed up, but no go. I decided to walk.

This was probably not the smartest decision, I figured out later. I should have called friends to see if I could get a ride with someone; but I figured that everyone else was in the same boat, and that now that classes were on (along with the power), I'd better cowboy up and get myself there on foot.

The prospect of walking to work (about a mile and a third) on ice filled me with dread. I got snippy and cranky that morning, only later figuring out that it was because I was truly scared. I was afraid I was going to fall down and really hurt myself--damage the hardware in my left arm, perhaps, or break the right one, or maybe break a leg.

As I left that morning, I was nearly crying. About a hundred yards into my trek across the back yards (to avoid walking on the streets & sidewalks), I remembered to stop. And breathe. And ask for courage.

As I continued on, all around me I saw signs of devastation, but started to think about them as signs of survival. I had to stop a couple times and relax my shoulders and back--I realized that it was as if I were trying to hold myself up in the air, as if that would discourage gravity from pulling me down. And I looked at the strange beauty around me. (But only every once in a while--had to keep an eye on my footing!)

(When I got to school, there were ducks on the creek... it was a comforting sight, somehow.)

Thursday's classes were fine, and by Friday even the local schools were back to normal.

So we made it through the storm. And this weekend it's supposed to get up to 40 degrees, which will feel balmy after the past couple days (yesterday our front porch thermometer told us it was BELOW ZERO as we were getting ready to go to school!).

Next time we have an ice storm, I might get a ride with someone. Or cancel a few more classes. But all in all I appreciate the experience, I suppose. Can't say I enjoyed it, but I appreciate it.

I hope you enjoy warmer temperatures soon where you are!

Cheers,
Karen

Edited to add: I should mention that the whole time, our power stayed on, and we were really, really grateful for that. We had friends who'd had to spend the night elsewhere, whether at friends' houses or hotels, because they had no heat... We lost cable and internet access for a couple days, but our neighbor let us borrow her wifi. We were very lucky!

New year, new adventures...

2011-01-28T10:48:00.009-05:00

On the first weekend of the year we decided to take a little field trip--both as a way of taking advantage of the last couple "Christmas break" days and as a way of setting the tone for the things we want to do as a family this year. (One of our goals is to take trips, even short ones around Ohio, to places we like and places we've been wanting to see...)

So our first trip of the year was to the Great Circle Mound in Newark, Ohio. Did you know that central Ohio has some of the oldest and most important mounds built in North America? I sure didn't, at least before a few years ago. (Just a mile down the road is the Octagon Earthworks, which has been made into a golf course. Don't ask. The most amazing discoveries are being made about that place--about how it aligns not with a solar calendar but a lunar one... I'll write about that another time...)

(Here's a view from one section of the wall that people are allowed to stand on top of, near the entrance...)

The Great Circle Mound is gigantic. Its entrance is aligned to the east (just like many native structures through time, down to today), and at its center is a mound shaped a bit like an arrowhead or cross with its arms tilted down, so that the center mound points east.

(This oak stands near the center mound...)

(I like to look up into its branches!)

Nowadays there are trees inside the circle--my favorites are the gigantic oaks--though archeologists say there probably would not have been when it was in use. There's lots of discussion and disagreement about how the Great Circle Mound functioned--a meeting place, a place to do ceremonies, a place to trade, etc. And the archeological findings are ambiguous. No one right story seems to be emerging about it.

(Another view of the walls... Some people speculated at first that the structure was for defense, but that doesn't make much sense with the trenches on the INside...)

And yet when you're there, you feel its power. It was an important place. And is.

Several groups are trying to have the Earthworks added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites--as a way to protect them and increase awareness about their significance. (The Ohio Historical Society has charge of caring for several of the nominated sites now, and of course, like most other things Ohio, their budget has been decimated the past few years.)

We always take tobacco with us and make an offering on our way in. And then we walk around in it. And something odd happens with time and space...

I think I've read somewhere that you could fit four football fields inside the circle. The earthen walls that form the circle must be a least 12 or 14 feet high. The place is absolutely giant. It dwarfs the giant oaks. And it was built by hand.

(Okay, to see how giant this oak is, look for me on the bottom left, giving the tree a hug...)

(... and yet those same trees look small in the circle... here's a little section of the curved wall...)

I noticed on this trip that when Patrick or Dexter would walk out on their own, within what seemed like only a few seconds they looked tiny, far away.

And time just sort of disappeared, on this visit. The world seemed to fall away from our attention. The Great Circle is surrounded by highways, and yet you can't hear the cars when you're inside it.

It seemed like we were in there for maybe 10 minutes, just walking around and saying hello to the trees, looking at the sky, exploring. And when we emerged, we found that an hour had gone by.

(There's a small "garden" there of native Ohio plants; this one is milkweed, whose stems provided the ancient people with fiber to make string and rope. Is it a surprise that I seek out--and find--fiber sources everywhere I go?)

One of my favorite memories of being at the mound was when I attended a conference about the similarities between the mounds in Newark, Stonehenge, and the Great Pyramids in Mexico. A group of Aztec dancers came, people who dance as a form of praying at the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon in Mexico. We danced with them, and the heavens opened and poured down rain on us, and we kept on dancing. I talked with a man who's danced inside Stonehenge at the solstice. It was a magical time!

So our little family started the year at a magical place, giving thanks for the people who have walked this land before us, asking for strength to face our challenges and mindfulness to notice beauty and peace.

I'm sure we'll be back before too long. May you find magical places where you live!

Cheers,
Karen

Rest in peace, Grandpa

2011-01-07T13:36:00.008-05:00

(Alice & Don, 1986)

We are mourning the passing of Patrick's dad, Don.

He lived an amazing life. He was orphaned in the 1930s in South Dakota. He had older siblings (the closest one was much older and had a family of her own), but the Depression hit very hard there, and families literally could not feed one more person. Don told us stories about living at the orphanage for a while, then a sibling's house, then the orphanage; it was a difficult life. A couple summers ago we went to his hometown and he told us stories about being there, about working in a factory making wooden boxes when he was about the age my son is now. (I marvel at the strength it took just to get by back then.)

(Don & Alice during their dating days)

When he reached adulthood, he served in World War II in Italy and North Africa. He developed a talent in photography, which served him well after he came back home; he went to college, and then went to work for South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks. He eventually became the state parks manager. Patrick tells stories of his dad creating parks (like the one at Sandy Shores), and of taking the family out to take photos for the brochures that would promote the various state parks.

He and Alice were married for more than 60 years, and together raised four kids.

(The Allen family in 1963)

I met him when he was retired, and was lucky enough to go on a few hikes with him and Alice (my mother-in-law) at Farm Island, near Pierre, South Dakota. And I use the word "hike" advisedly: the first time we went with them, I thought I was going to be taking a lovely stroll with this retired couple and that I'd have to be patient with the slow pace. But when we got out there, they were moving FAST and I had to work to keep up! Don could identify every tree and every plant we came across. When I picked up a feather that was lying on the trail and wondered out loud what kind of bird it came from, he knew right away what it was.

I'm sad for the fact that he will not see Dexter as he grows into a man. But I'm also grateful that we managed to go out there every summer for the past few years, and that Dexter knows his Grandpa and Grandma so far away.

And I'm really sad for Alice. She and Don were inseparable for more than 60 years. They were each other's best friend. They understood each other in ways no one else could. In the end, she knew it was selfish of her to want him to stay--he was having difficulty breathing, and was really working hard and was tired. But she couldn't imagine him not being here.

(Gone fishin', August 2010)

And I suppose that's the other part that's hard to deal with: He is just not here anymore. He will live on in our stories and memories and photographs; but we will miss him.

Please hold us in the light, friends, and help us pray for his crossing.

Love,
Karen

Holiday report

2011-01-04T10:31:00.010-05:00

I've been remiss in sharing our holiday update--partly because it was a mixed bag this year. Various personal issues plus the crazy weather meant that we didn't get to see family, and other personal issues made the holiday kind of difficult. Without going into all the details: it was not all sweetness and light this year in our household.

But we survived, and there were some sweet moments as well as funny ones, so that's what I'll share. Sit back and enjoy the photos, 'cause here they come!

First off, I didn't post anything about Thanksgiving... I have such conflicted emotions about that day. I have always wanted to go to Massachusetts to participate in the National Day of Mourning, a protest staged every year by the United American Indians of New England (a controversial group, to be sure). But we stay home, our time off and traveling funds being limited, and I teach my students about our Thanksgiving myth being a myth, and at home we talk about the realities of early American life and intercultural relations. I definitely engage in some myth-busting.

And yet I am also glad to have a holiday where we get to realize that we are truly thankful for the good things we enjoy. This year, one of those things: Dexter helped prepare the meal. Woohoo! Here are the cranberries he made:

(They were delicious!)

Dexter also brought us Christmas joy with his violin-playing. For the second year, he joined our friend Jonalyn's cello choir and they played the nursing-home circuit here in our town, where everyone taps their toes and sings along.

(You can't really see the musicians in this shot, but I rather liked experiencing the evening this way...)

(Here are some of the musicians; bad shot, but you get a sense of how large the group is!)

(Here's a smaller subset at another nursing home. There were some GOOD singers at this place! Plus, they fed us cookies afterward--score!)

(And here's a smaller subset still, after their short performance at the Presbyterian church. They are awesome and goofy and made my day.)

As per usual, we got a real tree this year. The place where we get it had Holiday Goings On that day; I didn't get a photo of the Grinch & Max, but here's something neat:

(Ice sculptor! Noisy but impressive!)

As we were looking at this one tree, Dexter noted how crazy the top looked with one spike sticking way up, and BINGO, that was our tree.

(Here it is, perhaps in a nostalgic mood? We couldn't fit the topper on the top, so it's kind of hanging off the side there.)

We went to the Big Malls, which we typically try to avoid. These two, a father-and-son duo playing Celtic tunes, were definitely the best thing about Easton on the night we shopped there:

(Easton has faux streets, but at least real street musicians...)

With finals and grading, violin rehearsals and performances, and whatnot, everything seemed to be on the last-minute schedule this year. I finished my shopping on the 23rd, and finally baked cookies (my favorites) on the 24th--we had to have cookies for Santa! (I tried to get Timbits when it looked like the cookies might not happen, but Timmy Ho's was closed!)

(The first couple dozen; we ended up with at least 8 dozen, I think.)

And Dexter decided that, in addition to cookies, Santa probably needed something healthy. Plus a beer.

(I think this is actually a nicely balanced snack for Santa...)

We all enjoyed our presents, including the cats...

(Pirate unwrapped his all by himself!)

(Peaches can play with two at once!)

... and it was cold out, so Baby Jesus enjoyed the extra straw, I think...

(I've had this manger set for years! We always give Baby J. extra straw at the end of Wigilia, our traditional Polish dinner on Christmas Eve.)

... and what could be better than new Wii games AND a psychedelic snuggie?

The guys spent much of the break flying planes (Blazing Angels) and I even got into throwing things at the teevee (Boom Blox).

(It's hard to fly a plane with a cat in your lap...)

And, apropos of nothing, I'm pretty sure these are the best $10 New Year's Eve shoes EVAR:

(I enjoyed wearing them!)

I have a bunch of Christmas Weirdness photos from around our little town that I'll post separately soon. For now, I'll end this post with one of my favorite Dexter presents from this year:

So cute! And yet so gross! (Which is, incidentally, the perfect combo. for a 12-year-old boy...)

Hope your holidays were good, y'all!

Cheers,
Karen

Preservation

2010-12-26T17:05:00.005-05:00

The park system in our area is called Preservation Parks. I always used to think that the thing being preserved was the land--small bits of it being set aside from the rampant development that appears everywhere north of Columbus.

A farmer friend of ours explained why many of the farms end up as housing developments or strip malls: the farmers here spend a lifetime just getting by, and when retirement age comes, they have the choice of either living on not enough money or selling their land to developers and not worrying about who's going to take care of their financial needs (chief among them being health care). Faced with those options, I'm not sure I would be able to do things any differently than those who sell.

But a couple of families near here were lucky enough (I have no idea how) to be able to donate the land to the Preservation Parks system. And boy am I grateful!

Lately, I have decided that it's more accurate to say that the land is preserving me. We walk out on these trails--most of them easy enough for kids, but if you walk two or three you can usually go for a couple miles--and I am so thankful for the access to woods, and creeks, and fields. I think there's something in me that needs to be with the trees and grass. I'd rather not camp, no (especially at this time of year!). But I need to go walking out there.

(A creek winds through Deer Haven... we must have crossed it at least three times)

The most recent park to open in our system is called Deer Haven; we went for a walk there during Thanksgiving break and I took some photos...

(Even the sidewalk between the parking lot and the nature center has leaf shapes pressed into it... cool!)

(This big old tree was leaking sap...)

(See?)

(Family plus one, walking quickly because it was chilly, noses running...)

(We kept having weird warm spells in November, but it had finally gotten cold over Thanksgiving--cold enough for us to spot the first ice of the season, a delicate edging around a puddle or two...)

(late fall palette... and an accidental self-portrait... I can't even explain how beautiful these colors are...)

I LOVE this place! I am hoping for a walk again at Deer Haven soon--when it's not quite so cold out as it is today. After a rough end to the semester, the busy-busy of Christmas, and some other unnameable stresses, I feel the need for some preservation.

I hope you find a place near you that soothes your soul!

Cheers,
Karen

No! Sleep!

2010-12-08T22:16:00.003-05:00

Til Brooklyn!

This is what I've been thinking of in my head for a week and a half as I face down the last week of classes this semester.

It's a challenging time: the last week of classes means it's time to return all the papers I collected just before & just after Thanksgiving break as well as teach the last few texts of the semester and review for final exams. The committees & groups I'm in are trying to have one last meeting or two before the end of the semester. I've got senior portfolios, and freshman paper revisions come in soon. On the assessment committee we're doing the university writing assessment (part one earlier this evening, part two next week, both multi-hour meetings).

Add to that a partner whose final exams have been moved up this year so that we're both super-pressed for time at the same time. PLUS Christmas--shopping, planning, concerts and rehearsals for the boy...

It's all a bit overwhelming! Not necessarily in a bad way, of course--I'm proud of Dexter, and the Christmas songs are wonderful to hear, and I'm excited to be finishing the work of teaching a class (or three), and it'll be good for Patrick not to have exam week hanging over him during the break. It's just a bit much when it all comes at once.

So I haven't been sleeping as much as I need to. Thus the Beastie Boys, shout-singing with me:

NO!

SLEEP!

TIL BROOKLYN!

(Brooklyn being a metaphor here for the Promised Land of the day grades are turned in? Whatever it stands for, it feels right.)

I posted this video on my FB status today (and I actually get a kick out of it, but only if I overlook the silver-bikini-clad dancer). Other songs that have been appearing in the playlist: "I'm a Survivor" (by Destiny's Child) and "2 Legit 2 Quit" (by M.C. Hammer).

I've never owned any of these songs, so I have no idea why they're coming to me, but I'm grateful. Their inspiring and affirming choruses have been drifting into my consciousness, lending me a little boost, I think. Thank goodness! Plus I'm a sucker for a good beat. (Does anyone else out there remember American Bandstand?)

Hope you're getting some good sleep this week.

Sweet dreams,
Karen

Dream a little dream...

2010-11-22T11:59:00.004-05:00

So, full disclosure: my spiritual beliefs are pretty... well, what some would call "woo-woo." I believe in ghosts, and that there are spirits all around us. I believe, like many of the authors I study, that the trees and grass and wind and sky and all living beings have a spirit. Given this worldview, perhaps it's no surprise that I would think of dreams as being special.

Except I've never been one of those people who has deeply symbolic, rich, or prophetic dreams on a regular basis. To be honest, most days I can barely remember my dreams within five minutes of waking up. I'm a bit envious of folks who have rich dream lives and who can talk about their dreams the next day.

A few years ago I did an exercise: as soon as you open your eyes, start writing what you remember of the dream you've just had, and keep writing until you feel your consciousness kick in. Once you stop, put that piece of paper away and get the next day's blank sheet ready. At the end of the week, look at what you've written.

It worked amazingly well--each day, I had something to write down, and I was able to tell when my consciousness would wake up and make itself felt, usually in the impulse to edit or correct punctuation or something like that. And at the end of the week? I could barely recognize my dreams as my own. They sounded like some strange fiction someone else had imagined. With one or two I could remember the image I woke up with, but these were hazy; it felt like I was trying to grab hold of fog. It was amazing! I'd like to try it again sometime...

For the most part, I think those of us under the influence of western thinking tend to think of dreams as being a key to our psychology: if we just interpret them correctly, we will understand something of our deeper (sometimes darker) thoughts. A dream becomes a key to unlock something--a utilitarian tool, really.

But I kind of like the idea of dreams as prophecy, as vision, as second sight. Sometimes I wish for that kind of dream...

Recently I remembered a ring that we bought for me years ago, when we really couldn't afford it; it's a round opal in an unusual setting, pretty as can be. Back when we bought it, I'd heard it was bad luck to wear an opal if it wasn't your birthstone, and it's not mine, but I'd just had a baby in October, and I figured I'd earned a special dispensation. I loved that ring, but was afraid to wear it for fear of hurting it. And just recently I decided that we didn't buy it so it could spend the next 10 years hidden away somewhere.

But where was it?

I looked in the jewelry box, the other jewelry box, the sock drawer, the bowl of treasures; everywhere I could think of to look, I searched twice and three times, emptying everything out, to no avail. I even checked the dresser we moved to the basement years ago. Nothing.

So I decided to ask for a dream to help me. As I fell asleep one night, I asked whatever spirits might be able to help to show me some clue to finding the ring. I woke up seeing a gold coin purse--the one my grandmother had given to me some years before she died; it had belonged to her mother, and she was giving it to me. I kept a pair of earrings and a pin in it that my grandmother had worn, and that I'd been given after she died--they were just costume jewelry, but they reminded me of her, and so they were precious. I hadn't seen the coin purse in my searches, either; where was it? I was given the idea that the ring and the coin purse were together; time to take one more look.

Back into the closets and the places I'd already checked. Except this time my eyes laid on a little drawer I used to keep on top of my dresser (before we'd had our remodeling). I opened it, and there was the coin purse. I took out its contents, thanked my grandmother again--for the best hugs in the whole world, and for letting me know she was looking out for me. But where was the ring? I had nearly emptied the little drawer of its contents when I finally spied it. Just as promised, the ring was with the coin purse. And I'd dreamt it. Cool.

Thanks, Grandmom!

(knitting and reading; what could be better?)

I'm wearing it every day now, taking it off sometimes (to wash dishes and such), but really enjoying it. I was never much for pastel colors, but I love the way it seems pink sometimes, blue sometimes, green sometimes. I love the way the white surface just barely covers all those colors waiting underneath, the colors that come alive when you look at them...

(Can you see the setting? I was having trouble zooming
and taking a photo with my left hand...)

May you find something lost, and may you have interesting (in a good way) dreams!

Cheers,
Karen

Scatterbrained!

2010-11-15T09:59:00.009-05:00

I've been feeling lately that I want to post to the blog, but don't have something sustained to say. I have a million thoughts running through my head on a daily basis, and every once in a while think, "oh, I ought to write about that on the blog." But then what I have to say only turns out to be a couple sentences. Not so much a post.

So I was wondering this morning: what's up with my brain? What seems to have caused this lack of ability to sustain a complex or deep thought?

I came up with a couple possibilities: I've been grading a lot. My students' papers, depending on the class, do indeed contain deep thoughts, but I have to move on relentlessly to the next paper, not dwell on anything for too long.

The more likely culprits seem to be Facebook and Twitter, and web-surfing in general. I have been nearly compulsive lately in checking FB & Twitter--and for no better reason than "what's new since the last time I checked?" I'm not even sure I enjoy it anymore. So they're going in time-out. Or at least in slowdown mode--I'm going to try to make a point not to check them more than once a day. I have a lot of reading that I had put aside because it's hard to read anything long during the semester (I'm usually reading boatloads for homework); perhaps it's time to give that material some attention. Sustained thoughts, sustained ideas--that feels like what I need right now.

In the meantime... here are some scattered photos from the past week or so, and some scattered thoughts to go with them.

Out and about
Recently we went to two events at my school that we really enjoyed: one was a fundraiser for the Bodo Initiative, part of Education for the Future Foundation. My dear former student Lydia Spitalny created Bodo after she spent a semester abroad in Kenya; Lydia is inspiring, and her work is changing lives. Here is a picture of a drum circle, at the end of the evening, that Dexter actually got brave enough to participate in. More cowbell!

And here is another evening in the same space just a week later: the annual Culture Fest. In this piece, our campus group Wafiki wa Afrika were presenting a song...

... and there was also some wonderful dancing from Pakistan and India!

(My photos are bad, but the events were fun.)

At Dexter's school, the students presented a Veterans' Day concert that was quite nice. My favorite part was where they invited all the veterans in the auditorium to stand up, introduce themselves, and tell what branch of the service they were in and when...

(This is the stage before the kids arrived.)

I'm as liberal as they come, and yet events like this get me every time. After we got home, Dexter called Grandpa, Pop-pop, and Great-Granddad to thank them for their service.

Closer to home
Dexter must have had a growth spurt; either that or we haven't bought him clothes in a long time (distinctly possible). It seemed like he grew out of everything at once. So I've set aside the too-small stuff to take to the rez when I go back in March. Pirate has decided that Dexter's old socks make a lovely nest:

He's a sock pirate!

And speaking of happy, here's my teacup, complete with bloom:

Such a nice way to be greeted at breakfast time!

Let's talk about...
The weather here lately has been really weird. Warmer than I ever remember fall being, with three-ish-day spots of cold every now and then. And dry as a bone. Every time we get a little rain, with that warm weather, a couple flowers in the garden come back. They look confused.

Anyhow, here's a tree on campus that one day seemed to drop nearly all its leaves at once:

I was happy to catch sight of it before the leaf-blower crew came by, to have a chance to see the carpet of yellow leaves that belonged to that tree.

Look who I found in our driveway!

I can't remember whether a wide middle stripe means a long winter or not. And: is this wider than usual?

I have no idea...

Back out again
And, lastly, we are indeed turning toward winter, despite the weird warm temperatures. We went walking in a local park that features some meadows--places where the park folks are working on establishing some tall-grass prairies. I liked the splash of red we saw every once in a while among the blonde stalks:

Isn't this a beautiful color palette? We pay so much attention to the trees, but this field, it seems to me, was celebrating fall, too.

I hope you have a chance to celebrate fall, and to gather your thoughts.

Cheers,
Karen

Edited to add: the group's name is Rafiki wa Africa. I am a doofus.

The more of life

2010-10-26T12:59:00.005-04:00

(My messy desk)

I have been feeling guilty about not getting a huge load of homework done this past weekend. And I've also been trying to balance that guilt with the knowledge that I was out of my routine for some really good and wonderful reasons. It was appropriate for me to take time away from homework to take advantage of these good opportunities that came my way to learn new things and bond with people I admire. And yet the guilt lingers.

Yesterday I came across a quote from Amos Bronson Alcott (famous 19th-century reformer and father of Louisa May): "The less of routine, the more of life." So I am walking around with that sentence in my head, repeating it as a mantra and trying to dispel that lingering guilt, trying to affirm that what I did this past weekend was live life! Life offered me some amazing gifts, and I said yes to them.

Here's some of what I lived (and that gave me joy):

A one-day fiber workshop with Judith Mackenzie...

(Here I am with Judith at the end of the workshop.
Do I look crammed full of good info?
Judith is the most patient teacher I know... plus she's a certified fiber goddess.)

(Before and after the workshop I finished spinning some of the Bison roving Judith sells. It is so soft and smushy!)

A one-afternoon visit with Tom Weaver...

(We took him hiking at Gallant Woods, one of the Preservation Parks near town. It was a lovely afternoon!)

(We admired the trees and sky...
and I talked to the horses...)

(there was an event going on that day, with wagon rides...)

(... and we admired the butterflies; this one is a Buckeye, Tom said.
He knows a LOT about our plant, tree, and animal relatives!)

Tom also met briefly with the student team I'm going with to the rez in March of 2011. He taught us a couple Lakota prayer songs, one of which I recognized and had been wanting to learn. It was also good to just hang out with him in our kitchen, cooking some food and talking about families and getting to know each other.

It was a good weekend. Even if I am behind on my paperwork.

Hope you have a chance to experience the more of life soon!

Cheers,
Karen

On not celebrating Columbus Day

2010-10-11T21:24:00.003-04:00

All day today I kept remembering and then forgetting that it was Columbus Day. When I was a kid, I associated the day with parades in Baltimore and the Little Italy section of the city (and great ethnic food that wasn't the kind my Polish family made). Not that we were all that into celebrating the day--we were Polish, after all, not Italian, when we expressed our ethnic selves.

(a replica of one of Columbus's ships, docked in Columbus, Ohio)

But now the holiday means something different to me. I see Columbus's landing as the beginning of an American holocaust, and the biggest event in modern times: the meeting between the people of the Americas and the people of Europe. (Of course, shortly thereafter, the people of Africa were taken here against their will to replace the native slave laborers who'd been killed off in droves in the Caribbean islands, including Haiti/Hispaniola, Columbus's original landing place.)

Nowadays I tend to focus not on a celebration of a "discovery" (what an incredible misnomer!), but on thinking about what we lost when millions of people were killed--by disease, famine, war, and colonialism--in the Americas. I think about the knowledge we lost: what the indigenous people knew about this land, its animals and plants, its waterways, its seasons, its hundred-year rhythms. I think about the songs they sang, the stories they wrote, the art they made, the stars they mapped. I think about how they understood their place in relation to the universe--Mother Earth, Father Sky, the divine all around us, the divine within us. I think about how they had everything they needed to create a good life in this place, on this land, with the people they loved.

And I mourn. Because the people who were my ancestors didn't know how to listen, and because so much was lost.

And I remember, too, that native people are still here, still singing songs and telling stories and making art and mapping stars. (For example, listen to poet Margaret Noori read her beautiful and compelling poetry in Ojibwe here.) Native people are still teaching those who will listen how we can be in relationship with the plants and animals and waterways here, and with the land itself, and with the divine spirit that lives in this place.

I want to remember and listen. I am ready to learn.

Peace,
Karen

On not writing poetry

2010-10-08T00:14:00.005-04:00

Every once in a while, I get what I think is a good idea for a poem. Only I don't write poetry, so I haven't a clue how to begin, and mostly I think the results would be bad. So those ideas just sit somewhere in my brain, not realized but still there. And they haunt me a little bit. They don't really evaporate, but nothing really comes of them either; it's kind of like they're in limbo.

Maybe someday I will write short essays about them. But really, they're supposed to be poems, I think.

Here are some ideas that I think would make good poems...

-- The kid across the street from us has grown into a high school senior. When we first moved here, he was a little younger than my son is now, and kind of gawky, definitely a little kid though on the tall side. He went through a rather goofy-looking young-teenager stage, and now before our very eyes, he has become an adult human, tall and poised and more graceful than he used to be, but definitely still a teenager. He drives a car and has a girlfriend and is visiting colleges. He's still a little shy. I look at him and I wonder about my son's next 8 years, wonder what he'll look like and how he'll move and what he'll spend his attention on and what will make him laugh and what will make him angry. I see this kid across the street and I wonder about my son and who he'll become as he becomes an adult.

(Here's my boy, by a lake in Minneapolis, his totem animal just over his shoulder.)

-- There's an art installation in back of the NMAI called "Always Becoming," by Nora Naranjo-Morse.

It features structures--smaller scale--that represent traditional native buildings; they're all made from materials that are designed to disintegrate. The art is supposed to dissolve, be impermanent.

And it's in sight of the Capitol. (Here's a photo that shows you the juxtaposition.)

The contrast is there, sure, but it's almost too easy, and repeats some comparisons that people have been making for centuries. (In my classes we talk about the rhetorics of "civilized" and "savage" that has facilitated the processes of colonization for the past, oh, 500+ years...)

What strikes me as more interesting, and probably a more provocative idea, is that the piece also tells us about endurance, survival, perseverance. Those native living structures mean, for me, that native people are still here, in the place that seems to have nothing to do with them, and in fact was the site of various violent plans to wipe them out or benevolent plans help them to leave behind their "benighted" ways, and all of those plans disastrous. The poem would have to include some play on the word "house"...

-- The sky on the prairie. It makes me feel small, and yet it makes me feel a part of the earth, a part of the sky, connected and observing. It's wondrous, and I'm a witness. Here are some photos...

... though of course my camera couldn't capture what it feels like when you've got sky in 360 degrees.

-- And the prairie grass. Someone needs to write a poem about the prairie grass...

... how it's like the sea, how it whispers on a windy day, how it shows you where the wind is going, how it smells...

Once upon a time, when I lived in San Francisco, my friend Jane told me about her attempts to write a poem about what it sounded like when she heard a whale surface and breathe. Yes, it's like that: trying to say something that you know is important and deserves the best, most beautiful language possible.

I hope you find all the words you need today.

Cheers,
Karen

A couple things...

2010-09-29T10:45:00.004-04:00

... because I can't stand to go another day without posting to the blog!

1. I just handed in a report (late) that took hours and hours of my time, and on top of that exacted an emotional toll--in part because I needed it to be well written despite the fact that it won't have its intended effect. (Sorry to be cryptic here, but I don't feel comfortable saying more!) Suffice it to say it was a drain on my time and effort, and felt like a waste of time, but I couldn't get out of doing it. I let myself be angry and frustrated about it for a while, and now I'm looking for the silver lining, looking for a reason to feel at least a fraction of the experience was a useful exercise. This photo I took recently seems to capture the feeling it left me with--a piece of a wing, but clearly one that has been chewed on (!)... (I spotted it on my walk to work last week.)

(Vanity moment: that same day the sparkles on my skirt caught the light as I walked by a shop window, so I snapped a pic... Can you see them? That was a warm day, probably one of the last this year I'll wear non-covered-up legs!)

2. We have been having adventures of the small-town variety this month--the Horse Parade, the county fair. I haven't uploaded the fair pics yet, but here are some of the parade:

(Miniature horses are always a big hit with the crowd...)

(John Wayne made an appearance!)

(Aren't they beautiful? Look at the curve of that neck!)

The horse parade and the county fair, with its emphasis on harness racing (including the world-famous Little Brown Jug), mean that the whole town gets a horsey theme for the month of September--something my little-girl self gets really happy about. Here's a window at the local teacher-supply-and-kid-lit store:

It would have made the 11-year-old me quite happy!

3. We had what I think is summer's last gasp last week--record-breaking warm temp.s--and all of a sudden a million of these guys were showing up outside, in the house--everywhere, it seemed. They are called stink bugs, which means I respect their space, but I think they are beautiful and fascinating and I do try to look at them close up:

As long as they don't eat my fiber, I'm okay with them being around.

We usually have a LOT of praying mantises in our front yard, but this summer there were fewer. There's a particular shrub they like to hang out in and lay eggs in; I hope more come around next year. They've become kind of our family totem insect over the past few years!

(This one was waiting for us on the porch
when we arrived home one evening.
There were plenty of moths to choose from that night,
so I hope she/he ate well!)

By the way,

Have a good one!
Karen

Migraine tales

2010-09-06T20:00:00.005-04:00

Sadly, I lost a good two to three days this weekend to a migraine. This one was a baddie--I felt the usual pain (like three nails being driven into specific places on the right side of my head) but also had a good bit of nausea. And I still haven't gotten rid of the muscle tension--it feels like the right side of my back, from the middle to my neck, needs the world's most intense massage. Or maybe shock therapy.

I've been having migraines for about 20 years now, and I would like to be done with them.

For the first 15-ish years, I just focused on getting rid of them. I was astounded how much doctors and scientists don't know about headaches. (They know a bit more now than they did 20 years ago, but still, it's amazing to think that headache is still so rampant...) I signed up for whatever medication seemed like it would do the job.

That worked fine for a while, and when it stopped working there was a new medication to try. When that one stopped working--around the time that I got my tenure-track job--and my headaches got more frequent, the only thing that was appropriate for me was a pain-killer: one on board, with a nap in a dark room, and the headache would leave, sometimes. It felt like the medication would break the pain-fear-tension cycle long enough for my body to stop hurting. I could always feel when the stuff would start to work: it felt like all the joints in my body were un-coupling, loosening and floating, and soon my head would follow.

After a couple years, the day finally arrived when I had a bad headache, took a pain pill, experienced no change, took a second pain pill, and still nothing happened, no relief. I looked down that road and didn't like what I saw. A couple weeks later, a woman I had met at the UU fellowship in my town gave me the business card of a local acupuncturist. I figured it was a sign.

I was a bit skeptical, but I also thought that the practice wouldn't have been around for thousands of years if it didn't work at least part of the time, and I was excited that it didn't have the chemical side effects of taking medication (and especially of being addicted to pain-killers), so I tried it.

Acupuncture has worked wonders for me. I am not cured--obviously. But the frequency of my debilitating migraines has gone way down. (Because I live in Ohio and not someplace on the west coast, I've had to pay for all of this out of pocket--yet another aspect of our health care and health insurance systems that makes no sense to me...)

I'm still pursuing treatment; I'd still like a cure. But in the meantime, I try to think about the lessons available to me as a person who can be laid flat by signals in her own body. I try to think about pain the way mystics did centuries ago: as a teacher, or a test, or even a gift. (I have to admit, that last one is too much of a stretch for me just yet.)

I am trying to learn to surrender, to know that doing nothing for the better part of three days is the task I have been given to do and not worry about the things that aren't getting done during that time. I am trying to learn that asking for help and being waited on aren't things to be ashamed of. (It was so much easier for me to learn and practice that concept when I broke my arm a few years ago--a traumatic injury excused it more convincingly, somehow. Trying that with a chronic illness seems harder.)

Sometimes, when I've survived a bad one and the weather is gorgeous after a storm (like it is today, the storm having arrived with the pain), I feel like maybe this is what it's about: notice this. Notice that the sky is blue and crickets are singing; notice that the wind in your face feels like motion; notice that the air smells dry and your legs feel strong on the walk home. This is the gift: the mundane things I might take for granted all seem new, and precious.

(This tree, on my way to campus, stopped me in my tracks today...)

I think I'm on the other side of this one now; I've woken up two mornings with pressure, but not pain, in my head, and have been back at work for a day. I'm catching up on whatever I can get to without sending myself back into that dark territory of hurt. And in the meantime, I'm listening for what else I'm supposed to learn...

May you feel good today,
Karen

Assorted bits

2010-08-27T13:22:00.006-04:00

Once again I've got a bunch of short stuff I wanted to share here. At some point I need to write an entry or two about My Cowichan Adventure (!), but that will come later...

We survived the first week!

We all (in my household) survived the first week of school. For a minute there on Wednesday morning, it looked like Pirate was not going to let Dexter leave...

But then he did.

According to Dexter, another way to think of SSR, which is supposed to stand for "sustained, silent reading," is "sit down, shut up, and read." We laughed about that one, but you know, I think he's right. Reading without distraction is a practice everyone needs to develop. I hope my students are good at this. Maybe at the university we should come up with another acronym that includes "turn off your cell phone and/or internet and/or FB" as part of the reading process... ("SSTOYCPIFBR"?)

Dinner was a bit sketchy last week, but I'm learning to accept that the goal was eating food, not necessarily eating well balanced meals made from local, fresh ingredients. *sigh* We did fine, thanks to Patrick coming to the rescue with spaghetti, but I sure hope I have more energy for meal prep in the next 14 weeks than I did last week.

Signs and wonders, part eleventy billion

On my way in to campus one morning last week, crossing the bridge where I enter my workplace, I saw this in the creek:

It was hard to make out at first, even in person, so I'll tell you what you're looking at: That is a SNAKE eating (swallowing) a FISH!!! The fish was about as big as two decks of cards laid end to end, so pretty big. The snake was huge.

When I was able to ask Denny, a retired science professor friend, what it might have been, he said he would bet, just from my description and the situation, that it was a Northern Water Snake, who are fish-eaters and have that kind of pattern on them. I was a-feared it was some sort of exotic pet set loose in the sewer, but he said no, it's local, and quite belligerent. You can't handle one of these, Denny said, without getting bitten; he said they have a sort of "Make my day" attitude. So I'm glad this one was busy with the fish. I thought also that maybe it had died because it was so still, but it was gone the next day, and Denny assured me it was just working on the fish.

Being a literature person, a story person, OF COURSE I have been thinking about the symbolic richness of this image. What message is available to me, having witnessed this event? Is it: Don't let the semester swallow you up? or perhaps: Don't bite off more than you can chew? Hmmm...

Writing Friday

For the first time since I was hired eight years ago, I am not teaching five days a week. I finagled having class-free Fridays, or what I'm referring to as Writing Fridays, in my schedule this semester.

I will keep my practice of having meditation/prayer/quiet time for a couple hours. (I've been leaving Friday mornings blank on my calendar for a few years now for this reflection time. It was really hard to do at first, and even hard to imagine--a couple hours in my schedule not available for work or appointments?? Thank goodness my friend and teacher Sage convinced me to try it. I think it's had a really good effect on my sense of well being, and certainly on my health. I still work about 60 hours a week, but for a couple hours every week, with the house to myself and plenty of quiet, I get peaceful, go inward, and breathe...)

I have set aside the rest of the day for writing--and not just any writing, but working on pieces I could eventually send out to be published or that I could present at a conference. I'm working up the courage to take those sorts of risks again, and excited about what I'm writing, so that's at least a good step. And on my first Writing Friday, I churned out five pages. Which I'm ecstatic about. They may be five rough pages, and very spotty in places where I need to look up or reread or investigate something, but they're five more pages than I had the day before. Huzzah!

I took an unusual route to school on Thursday, and saw this on the way, which I'm definitely taking as the best possible sign ever:

The neglected garden surprises me

I've been wondering lately if I should just give up on the whole veggie garden idea. (I made a raised-bed box for the veggie garden last year, which I chronicled here in a post about UnFinished Objects--some of which, I'm sorry to say, are still UnFinished!)

I usually don't get my plants in until late in the season because I can't manage to do anything with it until school is really done (usually around Mother's Day, which happens also to be commencement day. Every year. Happy Mother's Day to me.). We go away for as much as three weeks at a time in the summer, and our house-sitters are fine with watering the garden, but not really into weeding it and whatnot.

And while we're at it, I'm not that great at keeping up with the weeding. I hate weeding. Yes, it's one of those jobs where you can really see you've made a difference (I like that in a household task), but my goodness, by the next week you have to start all over again. And sometimes it's nasty work--especially when the ill-mannered dog next door has decided your raised bed makes a good pooping place. (Don't get me started...)

This year one of my tomato plants had a blight, so the yield has not been great--more discouragement. So just when I was thinking about not having a veggie garden next year, I went out there just before lunch and gathered these:

Beautiful. Maybe I'll do this again next year after all...

You'll notice that I did NOT provide a photo of the garden itself; until this afternoon, it was overrun with weeds, and the basil is so big it flopped over onto one of the pepper plants, and the tomatoes really overwhelmed the bamboo sticks that I tried in place of cages this year (good info. for next year). So it looks like hell, definitely not worthy of a photo. But it's still bringing me happiness--especially when I eat the teeny "sweet 100" tomatoes, which are really quite good.

I hope you make a pleasant discovery today!

Cheers,
Karen

A prayer of sorts (I think)...

2010-08-18T14:11:00.002-04:00

O, day filled with meetings,
thou rearest thine ugly head before me.
I can see thine eyes, looking at me as a target,
and thy lips, curled so I can see all of those sharp, sharp teeth.

And behind that head lies a long body,
made up of fellow meetings,
stretching out beyond what I can see,
into December's cold,
unimaginable in the heat of August.

And alongside that body lies another
filled with classes to teach--some delightful, some frustrating,
some that will leave me questioning,
"Just who do I think I am?"
It has scented me, and will turn toward me in a moment.

I may not feel ready,
but I am strong and brave,
and I stand straight before thee,
and stare right back.

(I kind of wrote this in my head last night when I couldn't sleep. I was thinking of a pair of dragons, and myself as the little person in front of them, impossibly outgunned but standing my ground anyway. Fall 2010 semester, here I come!)

May you feel strong today,
Karen

My tipi story

2010-08-09T15:13:00.005-04:00

(Note: All the images in this post are from the web, as I don't have photos to post from the Sun Dance grounds... but I looked for ones that kind of looked like our tipi.)

While we (my partner & son & I) were in South Dakota last month, we had the opportunity to camp on the grounds of the Hollow Horn Bear Sun Dance, and a friend of mine even said that if we wanted to, he'd arrange to get a tipi there for us to stay in. WOW, YES! I took him up on it.

So on a Tuesday we went to the grounds and met the tipi man there--Peter Gibbs. He's originally from England and still has the accent, but he lives on the Rosebud Reservation (has for years) and teaches at Sinte Gleska University. He brought our tipi, and we helped him set up ours and a couple others.

Setting up a tipi--or, more properly, a tipestola (the Lakota did not call them tipis, but the name stuck once outsiders kept referring to them that way)--is a lot of fun. You first put four poles in place, tie them together at the top with a special knot, and lift up three of them--the tripod. Then you put all the other poles in the tripod, placing them in a specific place on top. Then the rope is wrapped around them, the final pole with the canvas is put up, the canvas unrolled and wrapped around the poles, and the bottom staked down. It's a really neat process, but I kept remembering that WOMEN were the ones who put up and took down the tipis back before the reservation days. I think they must have helped each other; I don't see how one person could do this. Also, they had to have been STRONG!

So on Tuesday night, we slept in our tipi. We had arranged for some modern accoutrements--a cooler, plenty of water, a couple air mattresses, a couple flashlights--to make sure we were comfortable. I am not very good at camping; typically, I don't sleep well on the ground, which means I'm cranky all the next day, which means everything seems annoyingly difficult and frustrating. I asked my friend: was it okay, kosher, to use these things on the Sun Dance grounds? Oh yes, he said, lots of people do what they need to in order to sleep comfortably.

(This is fancier than our stuff; wouldn't you like to stay here?)

So, technically, I should have slept like a baby, comfy on my air mattress, surrounded by my small family and looking forward to Wednesday's activities. But I didn't. I felt like a little kid being told I had to sleep at Disneyland or something--it was just too exciting to sleep!

And it was so beautiful inside there. I looked up toward the top, and the circle of the tipi, with the poles coming down, reminded me a little bit of a spider web. It was awesome, and something I'd never felt in a tent. It was like there was an organic shape around me and I felt happy in it.

Wednesday, Tree Day, was beautiful and moving. (I'm writing about that in another venue, and will share something here once I get it in share-able shape...) And then it was time for Patrick & Dexter to head back up to Pierre, to Grandma & Grandpa's house; after a small dinner and some rearranging of stuff, I visited with some other campers I'd met and then got ready for bed. It was incredibly peaceful in camp that night, and there was a real feeling of community. I felt at peace. And tired. So I fell asleep easily, and soundly. Then...

BOOM! A thunderstorm blew in, the wakinyan spirits visiting us, at almost 1am. And it was really raining! My waking thoughts were pure fear: what if lightning strikes one of these poles? I'll be incinerated!

Then, as the thunder and lightning calmed down, my concern (less panicked now) turned to the rain. My friend had explained the physics of the tipi in weather; he had stayed with some kids in a camp where it was 20 degrees below zero, and they'd been okay (though, of course, they had to sleep in shifts so someone was always awake to tend the fire). I had closed the smoke flaps before turning in for the night, and I'd done a good job--no water was coming in there. And nothing was coming in in the middle of the poles--they were nice and tight, and the water was running down the poles. I'd opted for the liner, so when the water dropped from the poles, it was behind the liner. The physics of the tipi were working perfectly.

(Here's a tipi with the smoke flaps closed. But front door open.)

Only I was getting wet. After an hour of hard, hard rain, the canvas was just saturated and started to drip in several places. I had my flashlight on, inspecting where the drips were coming down, moving stuff and rearranging stuff and putting things I thought shouldn't get wet out of the way... I tried to go back to sleep. But it kept getting worse. And the tarp on the ground was starting to make puddles. My pillow was wet. Ugh.

When the rain finally slowed down, sometime after 2, I gave up and headed for the car; there was no way I was going to be able to sleep in the tipi. I moved the "important" stuff--stuff I wanted to try to keep relatively dry (or not let get more wet)--into the car with me. I sat in the driver's seat, reclined it as far as it would go, turned on the heater for a while, and then turned off the car and dozed somewhere around 3am. My tipi was set up close enough to the circle to be able to see the Tree, even through the thick fog that was beginning to settle over the grounds. The Tree stood strong and straight and steadfast. It gave me a really good feeling. Despite all of that mess in the middle of the night, I felt good.

And then at 4:30 am, the anpo ilowan (dawn singer) started to do his thing, and it was time to wake up and get ready for the dancing, which would begin just before sunrise. On the one hand, I was thinking: well, so much for my good night of sleep. On the other hand, I gave thanks for such a beautiful song. (Florentine Blue Thunder often comes to that Sun Dance just to sing the dawn song for everyone; he has one of the most beautiful singing voices I've ever heard...) And I gave thanks for the tree, our relative, standing in the circle and waiting for us.

After the fog burned off that next day, I spread everything out on my rental car--my "war pony," as my friend called it--and managed to dry it out. The sun was incredibly strong, and the day turned warm after all.

That was my last night in the tipi, as it turned out. (I had to leave after the first day of dancing to go to Moon Camp--see below. :) ) But I loved sleeping in a tipi for a couple nights, and living in one for a couple days. It was much easier than staying in a tent--more roomy, and you can stand up in it. It also felt right, somehow, or appropriate, or... peaceful? I'm not sure what the right word is. But I can't wait to be able to stay in a tipi again. Maybe next year.

May you enjoy where you're staying today!
Karen

Getting in my own way

2010-08-03T18:38:00.003-04:00

I've been wanting to post to the blog, but having a problem. I'm having one of those crisis-of-confidence times that I suppose many writers do. Every time I sit down to write something for an audience, I think: Why would anyone care what I have to say about that? Why does what I want to say about that matter? I'm pretty much nobody; why would I think I should say something in public?

That negative voice is also talking about my other writing--specifically, two essays I'm trying to write about being at the Sun Dance ceremony. I keep becoming discouraged and thinking: what's the point? I'm just some white girl who's done this a couple times; I'm no expert. I don't know nothin'.

But today, as I was journaling (thank goodness that's still working), I had a small moment of reprieve. I remembered: it's not about me or who I am or how deficient I might be; it's about the subject. There are plenty of other people who are more knowledgeable, more experienced, more clever than I, sure. But this experience means a lot to me, and there's something about it that wants to be expressed, wants to be shared. It's too important to keep to myself. I need to get it out there for its own sake, not mine.

(this is a sculpture on the Mall in D.C.--a silver tree... beautiful!)

And as for the blog posting? It's more mundane, a bit smaller. But I can share it with my friends and family and they will hear my voice and I will connect with them in that way, and that's worth it. And if all else fails, at least my sister Keet will like it. :)

So stay tuned for what I think will be a post about how I slept in a tipi. (Spoiler alert: I loved it! Despite the howling thunderstorm on the 2nd night that meant all my stuff got soggy...)

May you enjoy a moment of reprieve today,
Karen

Plan B. Or something.

2010-07-25T01:34:00.002-04:00

So... One of the worries that I didn't mention actually happened. At the end of the first day of dancing at the Sun Dance, I discovered that I had to leave the ceremony. I packed up my camp and left the grounds, and I won't be returning until the tree is taken down tomorrow.

In the meantime, I am in MOON CAMP. Where there are only WOMEN. (I'll wait for a moment while you do the math...)

At first I was so disappointed, even heartbroken. One of the things I love about the HHB Sun Dance is that it feels like everyone is in a community, working together to pray and support each other and cry and laugh together and make good things happen. And I had to leave that community. I cried and cried that night.

But then, as I unpacked my stuff, I discovered that I felt calm, and actually grateful.

Moon Camp has turned out to be a peaceful place for me to pray, to connect to Mother Earth and Spirit, to read and write and nap on a blanket in the sun, to rest and heal, to listen to the dragonflies buzzing around and wind sighing in the pines and horses nickering to each other. Apparently, this is what I needed this year.

And today, two people from the Sun Dance came by (at two different times) to thank us women in Moon Camp for doing the work we're doing there, holding that space, embodying and expressing female energy. That acknowledgement felt really good.

I miss the Sun Dance so much. But I am so grateful to have discovered Moon Camp.

May you be at peace with where you are today!
Karen

Nervous

2010-07-20T17:18:00.003-04:00

I'm on the rez, visiting with friend Steve and driving around with my partner and son. Things are going just fine and dandy.

But I am nervous.

Starting tonight, if everything goes well, I will be staying on the grounds of the Hollow Horn Bear Sun Dance, supporting the dancers at the ceremony through the end of the weekend. We will participate in Tree Day, doing the work to bring in the tree that will stand at the center of the circle. I'll stay there for the dancing while Dexter and Patrick head back up to Grandma & Grandpa's house in Pierre. For four days I'll pray and witness the sacrifice of the dancers, listen to the singing and drumming. It's a beautiful thing, and I've been waiting all year to come back to this.

But I am nervous.

I have been finding myself worrying about various things--what kind of food should I bring? will I be able to sleep out there? The friends I made last year won't be there this year; will I be able to make new friends? Will I feel sick? Will it be too hot? Will it rain? Do I have enough stuff? Do I have too much stuff?

And, deep down, I know that all of these worries are behind one Big Worry, the real source of anxiety around all of this: I am offering myself--my time, my effort, my spirit--to this ceremony and the people who participate in it; will I be enough? Am I enough, just as I am?

Only the week will tell.

May you feel calm today!
Karen

P.S. I wrote a post with photos about Mankato, Minnesota, last week but for some reason the photo placement wasn't working AT ALL. I might fiddle with it some more; if it doesn't work, I might post it with the photos in all the wrong places. :P

Short takes

2010-07-06T08:02:00.006-04:00

I've been writing other stuff lately--course syllabi, journal entries, even an essay or two--but I can't seem to come up with a proper blog topic--one that will yield an extended but not-too-long musing on a particular topic. All I seem to come up with are these short bits that aren't related to each other. So I finally decided to gather them together. And inflict them on you.

On the joys of using our solar-powered clothes dryer

Although doing laundry does not generally make me happy, I am impossibly delighted by doing laundry when I can hang the clothes out on the line. Although laundry's not the worst chore in the house, for sure, I don't really look forward to it. But when I hang the clothes on the clothesline, I am genuinely joyful. Nearly giddy.

Why such a huge difference? Maybe because I delight in NOT using electricity to do something that needs to be done. Maybe because I can hear the birds singing and the squirrels chattering to each other (and scolding me because I've come too close to their feeders). Maybe because I'm doing this zen-like process, repetitive and order-creating, and listening to what's around me and feeling part of it. Who knows. But as long as the weather's nice, and as long as we've got dirties that need cleaning, I'll be out in the back yard. I feel sad for those folks who live in places where you're not allowed to have a clothesline. They are missing out!

On bicycles. And obsession.

This is my bike: a one-speed Trek Woody with coaster brakes (i.e., the on-the-pedals kind we all had when we were little), purchased about five (?) years ago after we moved to our little town and bought a house only 1.3 miles from my office. I use it to get to work sometimes, but not often enough, thanks to the complications of coordinating clothes, weather, and errands on roads that are scary on a bike.

I love my bike with a mighty, mighty love. Its one speed is definitely limiting, because any other power has to come out of my legs, and my legs are not as powerful as they used to be! (I am contemplating trading it in for this bike, which has gears but is also styley.) But my bike gets me around under my own steam, and that's very satisfying. Especially when I think about the Gulf of Mexico these days...

Anyhow, I am also a huge fan of the Tour de France, which is on RIGHT NOW. (Here's what I wrote about the Tour last year.) My caring-about-what's-on-teevee level has gone way, way up. My concern about whether the Versus channel will be available as we travel west (very soon!) has gone way up. For goodness sakes, I signed up for Twitter so that I could get all the latest updates about what's going on with the riders. This is a new level of obsession for me. (I'm actually kind of feeling weird about the Twitter thing; I had been feeling fairly smug and superior for not knowing anything about Twitter, and here I am using it to feed my one sport obsession. Not so superior, I guess!)

So there's this guy at the bike shop who's really into professional racing, and I think I'm kind of bewildering to him. I'm interested--very interested--in the Tour, yet I ride this impossibly huge, heavy, one-speed machine. That has a bell on it. I don't ride every day, and I don't subscribe to Velo News, and I wouldn't recognize serious pedals--the kind you fasten yourself into--if you plunked them down in front of me. I barely know how a derailleur works.

Plus: I am a girl.

And yet I love to be around other people who get that the Tour is a big deal. I have opinions on how the race is going, or who's in it this year. (He's over the whole Lance thing, I'm sure, but I am not, even as I root for the younger riders as well.) I know what the word "Tourmalet" means to bike racers, how it inspires awe and terror. As I said last year, it makes no sense. (I thought of another reason it doesn't make sense, at least for me: there are no women in the Tour de France. None whatsoever.) And yet there it is--I'm totally obsessed.

And I love my goofy, non-Tour-ish bike.

On playing with my camera in public.

(Another version of me--taken in D.C. but haunted by S.F.)

When I was on the rez last year, I got into the habit of carrying around my little $100 camera to take pics for the blog so I could show everyone that far-away place. After I came home, at first I thought that probably I didn't need it with me all the time. But then Reya's blog really inspired me. She does these amazing things with images, and she must have her camera with her all the time.

So I began re-thinking my camera use. Lately, this has led to playing with it a little more intentionally and obtrusively than before. I'm not sure my dinner partners are always thrilled by my whipping out my camera in public places, but it has yielded some interesting results...

Clouds above an umbrella over our dinner at a restaurant in early June...

And here is old-fashioned Dexter in sepia tone. Eating a roll, but maybe haunted by pancakes?

Here he is in black and white!

And finally in whatever-it's-called--cyanotype? cyan? anyhow, BLUE.

And here is something I thought I would never be able to catch with my little camera: the moon, in the middle of the night, out our back window...

I was stunned with the beauty of the sky, and just had to try to capture it. I don't think this is exactly what I saw, but I love what these photos do...

May you enjoy the world around you today!

Happy musings,
Karen

On reading (and teaching) grown-up novels

2010-06-09T14:49:00.006-04:00

I'm thinking about my Fall 2010 syllabus for Native American Literature, and wondering whether I should replace Erdrich's Love Medicine with her novel The Painted Drum. Either one would be excellent, but here's the thing: I feel like the latter is a novel for grown-ups.

Yes, my students are in college, and so they are, technically, grown-ups. Most of them, however, have not had a situation or event that challenged them. You know, the kind that shake you to your core, the kind that make you wonder if you're going to survive. The kind that, if you do survive, you feel like that thing has taken a bite out of you, that you're not the same person you were before it happened. I feel like a person who's been through that will appreciate The Painted Drum. And most people around age 20 have not had that experience yet.

Oddly enough, by the time I was 21, I had. In December of 1983, my step-father was in a near-fatal car accident. Technically speaking, I suppose it was fatal since he died on the way to the hospital. They revived him in the helicopter (after having cut him out of the car, the Ford station wagon I had learned to drive on that was more like a tank). He went through hours of surgery, weeks of being on the brink, months of hospitalization, and years of recovery. He survived. In the fall of 1984, not many months after my step-father came home, we found out that my mother had a massive brain tumor. Again, there was surgery, hospitalization, recovery slow and scary. She survived. Both of them even went back to work for a while.

When we (in my family) tell the story about that year, people commend us on our strength, on getting through one hell of a time. It's true that we had to become stronger in order to cope, that we had to face incredible loss and grapple with horrible fears. And even though we may want to put a happy ending on that story--everything turned out fine, we all made it through and are better for it--while all of those things are true, the fact remains that we all were wounded by it in some way, too. It is true that we are stronger; it is also true that we were all damaged. You don't go through something like that and not have it scar you somehow.

But I have to tell you, I noticed a difference, after that year, between me and other people my age. I felt older than everyone else. I felt like I'd seen Trouble. I felt grown up. Other people my age acted, mostly unconsciously, like they were going to live forever; I knew I could die tomorrow. That knowledge led me to make some changes--I changed my major from computer science, the practical thing with job security, to English, the thing I really loved; my boyfriend and I broke up.

When I was 21, I would have appreciated The Painted Drum, with its characters dealing with trauma, incredible personal loss, regret, survival. I'm just not sure how many of my students will be in the same place this fall...

May you be at peace today with your grown-up life,
Karen

One of the perqs

2010-05-24T10:47:00.011-04:00

One of the best things about working in academia is that I get to see writers reading their work in person. We have a number of writers who come to our campus each year to give readings and answer questions--about their subject matter, about their process. Going to hear them is like enjoying a little oasis in the usual routine of classes, meetings, e-mail; it's a little island of creativity and ideas and language. It reminds me of why I aimed myself toward this career in the first place: I love the written word, and I love hearing stories.

Just recently I was able to go hear a reading at another campus down the road apiece (Ohio State) in the big city (I felt like such a country mouse!).

(There was even traffic! Oh my!)

I made a point of clearing my calendar for the afternoon so that I could make the trek down there because this reading was being given by the person who wrote one of my all-time favorite novels:

LeAnne Howe!

She showed a few minutes of Playing Pastime, a documentary she created with James Fortier about baseball in Indian Country, read from Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story (the novel), and answered questions.

In addition to writing poetry, fiction, drama, and documentary, she is also responsible for theorizing one of the most compelling ideas in American Indian Studies, to my way of thinking: tribalography. (Is there anything this woman can't do? She even has a blog. And has appeared on The Daily Show.) For a complete exploration of it, you'll want to read her chapter in the book Clearing a Path: Theorizing the Past in Native American Studies (ed. Nancy Shoemaker), but one of its foundations is that the way we tell a story about something or someone shapes how we understand that thing, and that, because of this, storytelling makes things happen. Wow.

(Okay, I cheated a bit: this is a photo of her reading back in March at another university, but I was so busy listening & taking notes during her reading that I didn't take any photos 'til later...)

In the Q&A period at the reading, she focused more on explaining another thread of tribalography: that it is more inclusive than autobiography and history, that it includes people from the past and present, Indians and non-Indians, working together to make and understand the world. It's a compelling vision of how we all work together, through the endless varieties of our creations, to tell a story of who we are...

One of the things we asked her to clarify at the reading was something she called "my fictional life, or my life in fiction." She said that everyone sees himself or herself as a fictional character, imagines the self in a story, but that this is especially true for writers. She said that when she finishes a writing project, she executes the self she was during that project; she will never be that person again. With the next project, she has to rebirth herself, continue the process of finding out who she is. (This theory reminded me of reader-response theory, only from the writer's perspective, and a lot more intense!)

My big disappointment was that I didn't find out about her second talk of the visit (the next day) until my calendar had stuff on it I couldn't rearrange. She presented new work on mounds--what they mean, how they function, what they tell us... Having been to the Newark Earthworks Day events the past few years, and living now in an area of the country where these sacred structures are all over, I'm keenly interested in this topic. I guess I'll have to wait, like the rest of us, until her new work is published!

Okay, now here's the non-intellectual part of this post: I was thrilled to meet LeAnne and chat with her.

(Could my smile be any bigger? I don't think so..)

Miko Kings is one of my favorite novels of all time. Why? Because I fell in love with the characters, and my heart breaks and soars with them; because I believe the woo-woo parts**; because it includes journal pages and marginalia (written by a character) and newspaper articles from the early 1900s and a song by John Lennon and quantum physics; because the characters--all of them, Indian and non-Indian--seem like people I might have met; because it makes me feel like I'm in Oklahoma in 1907, a setting I hadn't given much thought to before; and because it makes me feel like we are all making a world together and everything matters--baseball, mathematics, songs, stories, language, weather, all of it.

I love LeAnne Howe's work and was thrilled to meet her because I feel in my bones that she is telling the truth about us. She is onto something.

May you experience something true today!
Karen

** In academic circles, this is more properly known as magical realism--you know, stuff about ghosts and whatnot. But the term is controversial, in part because it implies that the more magical stuff that happens in life is not, in fact, real... which some of us might argue with...

P.S. Most college campuses have readings and lectures all the time, and most are free and open to the public, so if you'd like to experience an oasis of creativity, check out your nearest college campus and make some time in your schedule for something to feed your soul!

Happiness hangover

2010-05-10T22:08:00.000-04:00

All day today I was kind of tired & buzzy in my head. I frantically finished the last of my grading (with hours to spare, don't know why I was frantic), had lunch with colleagues at the annual "we made it through the year" lunch (that's not what it's really called, but that's what it feels like), and met with a colleague to talk about her assignment on the committee I chair. I got lots done, but I felt a little run down, a little toasty-crispy around the edges, all day.

I think I had a happiness hangover from all the hugs I got and gave between Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday afternoon I went to a couple graduation parties and met the families of a couple of my students. That was a HOOT! And on Saturday night "the boys" and I went to the Baccalaureate service at school.

Where I won a big-deal award.

The Religious Life division gave me the award for faculty member of the year. I was kind of stunned when I got the announcement (the week before): I do not belong to a church; I do not profess Christianity; and I do not engage in my spiritual practice at school. But as it turns out, that didn't matter. What mattered was that I brought my spirit-self forward into my work-self. I do not, by any means, talk about my beliefs in the classroom; but my beliefs inform how I behave, how I conduct myself with others, the seriousness with which I take my task and the compassion with which I treat my students, my subject matter, my self.

(me with Amber, fabulous student and speaker at Baccalaureate)

And I think partly they thought of me for this award through my work with the spring break trip to the rez. Which I would gladly do, forever and ever, if no one ever noticed. It means so much to me, and feeds my soul, and I get to see the students learn and change before my eyes. Amazing.

(Kristen, another fabulous senior, and Dexter, who thinks she's the coolest babysitter)

And then there was graduation on Sunday. I had reason to give hugs--the graduates I'm so proud of and am going to miss so much. But others were hugging me, too, hearing my news.

So there were lots of hugs, and handshakes, and hearty congratulations. And I think it kind of wore me out a little. But that's okay; it's a nice hangover to have.

Hope you experience a nice hug today!
Karen

The return of the mojo?

2010-04-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

So, a few months ago I was spinning and/or knitting every day. Every single day. Even if it was just 10-15 minutes a day, I was working with fiber, and feeling very happy about it.

Then something happened and I just stopped. I still haven't figured out precisely what it was; it's like something just kind of faded, or broke, or disappeared. It was right around the time school started. I finished a project for a baby shower, and then I just stopped knitting. The only time I pulled my spinning wheel out of the corner was a few minutes in March--I showed my spring break team how it worked. And I used the spinning wheel I keep in my office to show my students in Early American Lit. how to spin. All of my fiber time, added up, probably amounted to no more than a half hour.

Did I get too busy? Well, maybe; but school hasn't stopped me this drastically in the past. Did I stop liking fiber? NO. I still love the colors, the feel, the way it seems like magic when you make something out of it. I just didn't want to make anything out of it.

As near as I can figure, something about it felt sad. In fact, there have been parts of this year that felt pretty dang sad, and for no good reason. And somehow knitting and spinning made that more visible, more apparent.

Even as I've been highly aware of the blessings I enjoy every day, I've also felt something lost, something changing this year. I've begun (just barely) reading about "the change," and I think this has something to do with my feelings.

Middle age is not for wimps. Just sayin'.

I'm writing about it now because I'm feeling a shift--ever so small, ever so subtle, but a shift. I've picked up my knitting several times in the last couple weeks. I finished Dexter's Christmas socks (poor kid!) just in time for the weather to get too warm for socks (sheesh; at least I made them a little big so he can wear them in the fall & winter).

I made a washcloth: last week I pulled out the one I started on the spring break trip when I was teaching a couple of my team members how to knit, and tonight I finished it. I've knitted a few rows on a lace scarf I started back in January. I'm even thinking about getting out the sweater I'm 3/4ths finished and seeing if I feel like tackling the second sleeve.

Just today, my wheel looks like an old friend I'd like to catch up with sometime soon.

Baby steps. I'm not pushing it, just listening inside for what feels right and going with that.

My knitting and spinning mojo was gone. And I mean really gone. But I think I feel it coming back.

May you feel some good mojo today!
Karen

What I saw this morning

2010-04-15T17:49:00.000-04:00

Streaks on the windshield where the dew gathered itself and trickled through the pollen dust.

A carpet of dogwood petals.

(These phrases formed in my head after I listened to an NPR story on poetry on my way to work this morning; the link here doesn't include the piece she read that blew me away, but it's got good stuff nonetheless...)

(And I feel compelled to offer this disclaimer again: I do not write poetry.)

I hope you have a moment to see the signs of spring around you!
Karen

On becoming un-stuck

2010-04-14T21:04:00.000-04:00

Since our spring break trip I've been thinking about what happened on our first night, and what it might hold for me, for my thought processes.

We got stuck. We were staying at a house at a Methodist camp in the piney woods of Wisconsin. It was late, and dark, and rather cold. We took the wrong road, went past the back of the house instead of the front. And headed straight for the lake. Yikes!

(This is another time we got stuck--on our way out of S.D.!)

The first van stopped on the sandy shore. Sand is not so great a surface if you're trying to back up a rear-wheel drive van. The second van stopped further back--on solid ice. We tried all sorts of things to improve traction in both places: kitty litter, sticks, someone's coat. We dug and we pushed, we rocked the vans. Nothing worked; in fact, things seemed to get worse and worse with everything we tried.

(Maybe the kitty litter will work this time?)

I was not feeling so great, my head filling with anxious thoughts: Both vans are stuck and we're MILES from anywhere. Does Triple-A come out here? Will they have to call a special industrial-strength tow truck because the vans are big? How the heck would such a tow truck get down here without getting stuck as well? How much will it cost? Will we be up all night trying to figure this out? How are we going to tell Triple-A (or whomever) where we are, since we got a little lost on the way here? Have we damaged the transmission already with another 500 miles to drive tomorrow? Are we totally screwed? I need to fix this, I'm one of the "grown-ups" here; what happens if I don't know what to do?

I'm not a person who does really well in situations like this. I wish I could say I am resourceful and calm, a good problem-solver, but the truth is that I'm only occasionally like that. More often, I get nervous. I get scared when I feel like my safety is at risk. And for some reason, that's what it felt like that night.

All that put together meant that I was really talking myself down from a good freak-out. I kept hanging onto being grateful that no one was hurt (yet), and that we would figure out something.

Then somebody thought to call the camp director, who arrived in a few minutes. I thought, okay, at least he will know which tow company to call. But when he arrived, he came ready for ACTION!

He was driving a pickup truck full of good stuff--chains, shovels, a sand spreader--and was wearing a head lamp. Moments later, his staff arrived (staff? I thought nobody was here; it's practically still winter here!), about a half dozen young men and women with Wisconsin accents. And then we witnessed the true miracle of the evening: they were cheerful.

They were not freaked out at all. They were the opposite of freaked out. They kept telling various members of our group, "Oh, this is nothing. We've seen worse. We've seen MUCH worse!" They used the chains, they dug, they coaxed and cajoled and pushed, and in not very long, one van was out--up the hill and onto pavement.

And the whole time, I noticed that no one cussed. Okay, maybe that was the Methodist influence... but they weren't even cranky. No one snapped at anyone else or expressed frustration. No one even implied how pitiful (or worse) we were for getting two vans stuck in the first place. No one had a cross word to say, or even a negative thought, it seemed. They were confident and capable; they were laughing and joking. I was astonished.

(The piney woods of Wisconsin)

Around that time our student leader--who is definitely a problem-solver!--started planning for the next day. I was assigned to sleep so that I could drive the first shift in the morning, which was going to come really early. So I put away my anxious thoughts, and said some prayers to the four directions that the second van would be okay soon and that everyone would emerge from the adventure in one piece.

As I was soothing myself to sleep a while later, I heard a huzzah and knew the second van was out; we were going to be okay. And so I slept.

(The next morning; turkeys crossing the road...)

Every once in a while I think about getting both vans stuck, and I think about the other ways in which I feel stuck sometimes--in my academic writing, in my migraines, in my teaching or learning, in my relationships. And I wonder if I can stop freaking out (or nearly freaking out) and instead pretend I'm one of those people in Wisconsin.

I think about the cheerfulness of our rescuers, how they came in the cold, dark night and not only helped us get the vans out, but helped us feel better.

Is this what it means to get un-stuck? Is this what's possible?

I hope you feel free today,
Karen

Finding the words

2010-03-25T20:58:00.000-04:00

So, the plan to blog from South Dakota? That didn't work out. And when I got back I was immediately overwhelmed with piles of work. (I'm still behind, almost two weeks later!)

And then there's the issue that came up in tonight's Celebration of Spring Break event, where the teams that did service work in various places all get together with some other folks and present some thoughts on the week (in addition to a fun slide show): there's just no way to put it all in words.

As Kelly said tonight, when you come back from a week like that and people ask, "How was it?" and you know they want the 30-second version, it's impossible to express how it was. Even the five-minute version isn't adequate; I'm not even sure the one-hour version would do it. It's hard to find the words to explain how one week on the rez can make you feel like everything's different. How the heck did that happen?

But last week the folks at the chaplain's office who put together these projects asked me to speak tonight, so I started thinking just how I would write about it, what I would say to try to give a feeling of what it was like and what we came back with. Here are my remarks from tonight, which almost kindasorta came out in a near-poem (once you get past the introduction part). (At first I added photo captions, but then I took them out because they seemed disruptive. And at some point I'd like to add in some photos that others took...)

Thanks to Donna and Russell Masartis (the amazing folks who run Tree of Life) and my teammates, who are the inspiration for this: Maria Fullenkamp, Stephanie Heiser, Chris Mickens, Liz Spragens, Matt Hill, Sam Chonko, Linh Nguyen, Becca Salinas, Briana Gunter, Abby Dockter, and Kristen Scott. They are all AWESOME, and I feel privileged to know them.

Hope you enjoy it,
Karen

Mitakuyepi, Karen Poremski emaciyape ksto, nahan eyuha cante wasteya nape ciyuzape.

My relatives, my name is Karen Poremski and I come to you with a warm handshake and good feelings in my heart.

I am one of the co-advisors of the Lakota Nation trip; we worked for Tree of Life, an agency that provides home rehabilitation, a thrift store, a soup kitchen, nursing home visits, school visits, and various other forms of support to the people of the Sicangu Lakota nation (known by the federal government as the Rosebud Sioux tribe). We worked for Tree of Life during the day, and in the evening were visited and taught by various elders and leaders on the rez: Dolores Kills in Water, Albert White Hat, Butch Artichoker, Steve Tamayo, and Mike Marshall (and, sort of accidentally along the way by Shane and Noella Red Hawk).

I’m going to try to tell you what our experience was like…

Mitakuye oyas’in!

That means “all my relations,” or “all my relatives.” And on our trip to be with the Sicangu Lakota, through what we did and what we witnessed, we learned just what that can mean.

-- Before we even got to South Dakota, we learned that it means someone will come help you when it’s dark and cold and BOTH vans are stuck by a lake in Wisconsin. And these someones, these strangers who are your relatives, will be intrepid, brave, and actually cheerful!

-- We learned that the staff at Tree of Life—people who practice Christianity and people who practice traditional native ceremonies—can work together to make something good on the rez.

-- We learned that it means when you go to work on a house and the family has nothing—and I mean nothing: mud for a front yard, with four dogs and a cat wandering around; a two-bedroom house for your extended family, and part of that house is condemned because of the snakes; grime covering your food containers; and no sheets on the bed—when you go to work in this family’s house, they will offer you a Sprite. Even though they have nothing.

-- We learned that it means when you have nothing to give, you can give a smile, or make someone laugh.

-- We learned it means that the elderly man you just met today in the nursing home will want you to write to him; and the elderly woman who plays a mean game of bowling is going to ask you at least three more times this afternoon, “Are you coming back tomorrow?”; and the elderly woman whose father-in-law was Black Elk tells you a bizarre story about a skunk and you both laugh so hard you’re crying; and the young woman there who was paralyzed in a car accident ten years ago, a descendant of Red Cloud, will want you to call her.

-- We learned that it means that everyone is a relative, even the person at the Indian School who discourages you, who tells you that what you’re doing here is meaningless, won’t change anything, won’t help anyone; even that relative will teach you, in her frustration and heart-brokenness, what it means to face inconceivable obstacles.

-- We learned that it means visiting your relatives the prairie dogs, and trying to call your relatives the buffalo, and maybe sneaking a little lunchmeat to the cats hanging around the back door, who are also your relatives.

-- We learned that it means carrying sheetrock and carrying doors and carrying lumber and sorting screwdrivers and drills and tape measures and gloves and figuring out how to build a cabinet.

-- We learned that it means going back and working on the tile again, even after you’ve discovered you hate working on tile.

-- We learned that it means sharing your frybread. Even when you don’t really want to.

-- We learned that it means when you make a mistake you’re forgiven.

-- We learned that it means responding to three suicide attempts in one day, and praying to say the right words that will give all three of those young people hope.

-- We learned that it means mentoring two middle-school boys—showing them how to make dream catchers and regalia and how to play hand games—and knowing that, even if their parents don’t seem to take notice (because they’ve never bothered to meet you), and even if it’s just two boys and so many more are going to be lost to drugs and alcohol and hopelessness and maybe suicide, still, you’re doing a good thing because you’re their relative.

What we learned seemed sometimes a bit mundane, or small, or maybe unimportant or unnoticeable. But I’m here to tell you that it has the potential to change. Because it can change your heart. And that’s the only way to change the world, isn’t it? Isn’t that the place we need to begin?

Mitakuye oyas’in!

Doing things I'm afraid to do...

2010-03-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

My very wise friend Nina gave me some advice, through an inspirational quote, recently. It says, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... Do the thing you think you cannot do." (Eleanor Roosevelt said that.)

Well, I am taking that advice to heart, and here I go doing SEVERAL things I previously thought I could not do, and that I'm in fact afraid to do... we'll see how it goes!

First of all, we are having people over to dinner tonight--including us, there will be 20 for dinner. !!!!! I cannot even tell you how much of a panic this would have had me in a couple years ago. Where will we put all those people? Do we have enough bowls, spoons, etc. for everyone to be able to eat? Here's how I'm talking myself out of panic: It will be fun. It will be like an indoor picnic. We will mingle in smaller groups and move between rooms and people will talk and laugh and it'll all be okay. They will not think I'm Martha Stewart, but really, I don't want to be Martha.

The folks coming to dinner are the students I'm going to be traveling with for the next week, my co-advisor, and the co-advisor's family. Which brings me to the next thing I'm doing, and it's pretty scary.

I'm going to the Rosebud Reservation with this group, and we'll be there to do service work in the daytime (doing home rehab, serving in a soup kitchen, helping at the thrift store) and then in the evenings we'll learn about Lakota culture from elders in the tribe. It's a fantastic experience. I've done it before (with two previous groups), and this is the place I stayed at for a month last year on sabbatical (the originating inspiration for the blog!). So there's a lot here that's familiar. And in fact, in some ways I feel like I'm going home. (A part of me comes alive west of the Missouri River, doncha know.)

The trip is a challenge in part because it forces me to confront strong feelings while I am with students. There's a pretty good chance I will need to cry at some point, and there will be a group of ten students witnessing that. In years past, this would have immobilized me with fear. Now, I figure they'll see I'm a human being having an appropriate reaction to the conditions we will be witnessing, both difficult and beautiful. I no longer have to be the one who's in control in front of students all the time. If for no other reason, this trip is valuable for that piece of growth!

So here's what's new: I have been making lists, packing, and running errands for several days now, and ordinarily I would be beside myself with the idea that I might forget something. I would be checking and double-checking and making calls and running more errands, stuffing things into my bags "just in case"...

But not this time. This time, I'm going to do my best to remember to take what I need, and NOT get upset if I forget something. I will learn to live without it for a week. I'm trying to "go with the flow" a bit more, trying to be a little more relaxed about some of the eight thousand details in a trip like this. The important stuff? Okay, that's worth making sure I've got...

Money, checks to pay for things, and insurance forms? Check.

Clothes to work in? Check.

Tobacco for the elders? Check. (It's for ceremonial use!)

Donations of coats, boots, and various wintery things for the kids on the rez? Check. (I have the most kind-hearted friends a person could know!)

Tobacco ties that the group made to take with us & help us pray? Check!

I'm also taking a little bit of school work, some sweat lodge clothes (I hope I hope I hope I get to do the sweat lodge this year), my laptop (hoping to blog while there), and other stuff.

We've even got a bag for each of the vans--stuff we might need on the road.

But whatever's not packed later tonight will stay home, and I will not be upset about it. Dinner will be chaotic and wacky, and I will be happy. Woohoo!

May you do something brave today!
Karen

My trusty steed

2010-03-01T14:35:00.000-05:00

Recently I noted on Facebook (my new obsession) that I had just filled up my car's gas tank for only the 2nd time this year. I was quite proud that I'm trying to contribute as little as possible to the profit of the oil companies. Of course, unlike most people in this country, I have the option of NOT driving to work, so that makes it lots easier for me. (Perhaps I shouldn't be too proud!)

I have a funny relationship with my car. Even though I like not having to use it much, I also love being able to use it when I need to. From the time I was a teenager, feeling absolutely STUCK in the suburbs, at various points in my life a car has meant freedom to me. So in that way I'm pretty typically American. But I also have found it really difficult to spend real money on a car.

My first car was a used 1982 Ford Escort, which I nicknamed my little burro. When I lived in the city (D.C.), I left it at home and used Metro to get to work, but it got me to my horseback riding lessons quite nicely. It got me and my brother all the way across the country in the summer of 1990 without much trouble (a broken hose somewhere along the way, but that was it). After living in San Francisco for about a year and finding that--thanks to excellent public transportation--the only time I drove it was to move it for street cleaning, I decided to sell it. It scared me at first to be without a car, but I realized that if I really needed one, I could rent one. It ended up being a good decision.

Fast forward a few years to Atlanta, a city in which you definitely need a car. We had one, but after Dexter came along and Patrick had a full-time Monday through Friday job, we needed a second car. I looked into taking Dexter to daycare on the bus and then going from there to school, but it turned out that the 3-mile trip, with transfers, would take about an hour and a half. Crazy, right? So we bought a 1991 Honda that a friend of a friend was selling.

And that's the car I'm still driving! Here it is:

Every year, I think maybe I'll get one more year out of this car before it's time to donate it... I used to think about selling it to a student, but they drive MUCH nicer (and newer) cars than this one! Its various plastic parts are starting to break (the most recent was a door lock); it's got a mysterious problem with the dashboard fuses that will take too much money to investigate and fix. And I'm afraid the rusty bits are growing (as you can see in the photo). It's practically a rezmobile. But it's a likely little machine, it gets me where I'm going, and it's a Honda, so it's hearty.

Some days, I'm a little bit like Philbert when he decides to buy a "pony" from the junk yard... (Go here and have a look-see. :) ) My car's dings and booboos endear it to me, somehow. Maybe it's a metaphor for how I'm trying to appreciate my own aging self...

May you enjoy some mobility today!
Karen

Read 'em and weep

2010-02-21T15:38:00.000-05:00

I have in front of me today a collection of things I need to read that's so disjointed, disharmonious, dis?? that it's hard to wrap my head around. The individual works in and of themselves make perfect sense; it's the mashing them together that's kind of wacky.

First, there is the homework for my Early American Lit. class: excerpts by Cotton Mather, noted Puritan theologian/historian (and witch hunter). We're reading part of his magnus opus Magnalia Christi Americana (approximate translation: the magnificent works of Christ in America) and a brief bit from Wonders of the Invisible World, in which he explains his use of spectral evidence in the witch trials. At the same time, I have been downloading some world music onto my new toy (the iPod Touch, which I have nicknamed my iCrackmachine).

(I feel like this activity might have made the time-space continuum a bit wobbly...)

Then, there's the purely practical: a chapter on report-writing from the textbook Business and Administrative Communication; I'll be covering this chapter on Tuesday. I need to say two things about this book. First of all, it's extremely useful. There is ALL KINDS of good info. there for people who are writing all the genres we encounter in the world of work--letters, memos, proposals, etc.

But, secondly, I must also note that it is sometimes dry. As the Sahara. Or the Gobi. Or the Mojave. Imagine the special torture it is for someone who pursued a Ph.D. in literature (a most impractical endeavor) because she loves to read, and now this is what she reads every spring so as to teach a course that students want to take. Pity me, my friends.

And, as a treat, I get to read one of my favorite Louise Erdrich novels:

... and on Wednesday I get to talk about it with one of my favorite students, who is taking an independent study with me on Native American women writers. I love this novel with a mighty, mighty love. I haven't read it in a while, so it's wonderful to be enjoying it again. It's like eating chocolate mousse. Or soaking in a hot bath. Or feeling the breeze on your face on a 75-degree day. Just wonderful.

It almost makes up for having to read about how to write business reports...

May you read something wonderful today!
Karen

Accidental magic

2010-02-19T21:18:00.000-05:00

One of those days last week when I was walking to work, I saw my reflection, all suited up for the snow and cold, in the window of a shop downtown. It reminded me of the images I've seen (and very much admired) on Reya's blog, so I took a photo.

When I saw it on the little screen on the back of the camera, I thought, "okay, cool," and went on with my day. I liked the way it showed me all bundled up and puffy; I posted it on Facebook and called it my Intrepid Arctic Explorer disguise. A few minutes later, when I saw a bigger version of it, I realized there was something else going on in the photo that was Very Interesting...

It looks like there's a plant growing up my legs and toward my middle...

I hadn't even noticed the plant when I took this shot. But now when I see it, this image reminds me that, even in the deep of winter, in the snow and cold, the plants are making plans to come back to life soon. Life is persistent; it will come back. And that gives me hope...

May you see something magical today!
Karen

I'm so bored with the s.n.o.w.*

2010-02-18T20:39:00.000-05:00

After that first snow it snowed again, and I took more photos, and I was going to write a blog post about it.

(I thought our shrubbery looked like something out of Dr. Seuss.)

(Cherries under snow, on my way to school...)

(Pirate got brave enough to visit the porch; since then, he's been all the way out IN the snow!)

(Miracle of miracles, the sun was coming out... a welcome sight...)

(... and here I tried to catch the way the sun was casting a gold glow on the snow, making sparkles appear. It was beautiful!)

(A wee snowperson outside my building at school)

(a bicycle on campus, obviously abandoned long ago)

Then we went sledding at a specially built sledding hill at a local park, and I took more photos, and I was going to write a blog post about it.

(check out the steepness of that drop-off!!)

(These guys really enjoyed themselves...)

(... even when they were falling off their sleds!)

(the trail to the sledding hill... but I wouldn't recommend going down it head first!!)

One thing to note here: on what I had already decided was going to be my last run down the sledding hill, I went over a big bump and had a dramatic spill off the sled, tumbling and getting snow up my sleeves & down my boots; the sled even bonked me in the head. And apparently I hit my tailbone on the bump, because it STILL hurts (now 4 days later--sheesh!).

Then it snowed yet again--for more than 24 hours--and I took a few more photos and was going to write a blog post about it... only by that time, the novelty of looking at what everything looks like in the snow had worn off. It's official, I guess: I'm tired of the snow. Or rather, I'm tired of talking about it.

(Here's one of our little mini-snow-plow-brush thingies toodling around campus late that last evening (Feb. 15), trying to stay ahead of the quick-falling snow.)

(Twilight on the cherry tree lane, hushed and darkening...)

(This is the next day; I wish I'd been quicker with my camera--the OWU kid who ran past me was wearing shorts! brrr!)

(everything's lumpy)

It still looks pretty, and sometimes otherworldly, but I want to talk about something else now. Like maybe how it feels to WANT to wear a short-sleeved shirt...

May you have something non-boring to talk about today!
Karen

*(The title is a sort of sideways reference to an old Clash song... and if you click on that link there's an extra song for ya. :) )

Cabin fever... I haz it.

2010-02-08T22:15:00.000-05:00

So... staying inside and doing all that work? Not so much.

The snow continued all night and finally slowed down around 10 on Saturday morning. Shortly thereafter, I headed out--on foot--to my hair appointment. (Luckily, my hair person also lives within walking distance!)

The snow was beautiful, if hard to get through in spots. The temperature was perfect for walking--about 25 degrees. And, miracle of miracles, the sun came out!

It was a heavy, sticky snow; you can see here that it stuck to the trunks & branches on all the trees.

On some streets the snow was stuck on the north side of the trees; but here's the odd thing: on other streets, it was stuck on the EAST side. Our weather doesn't come from the east unless something weird is going on. Hm.

(Here's a photo, outside the window next to my desk, that shows the east side of the trees in my neighbor's yard.)

(Here are my neighbor's dogs, keeping an eye on folks as they trek down the street...)

I thought we only got about 6 inches total, but other folks have said it was more like a foot. A friend about 20 minutes away said she got a foot and a half! Sadly, because it started on Friday afternoon, no snow days were to be had.

Snowhio part II, coming our way tonight and tomorrow, may yield one!

I don't know if other places do this--is it an Ohio thing? a Delaware county thing?--but here, in our downtown, the plows shove all the snow to the middle of the road:

(looking north)
(looking south)

I was really motivated to keep my hair appointment; I wanted to feel spiffy for a special day. And it looks like someone else in my town (the owner of the theatre) had her special day around the same time!

And here I am in my spiffiness--the red stripes restored back to the shade I like best, the blonde stripe (not shown) touched up, and a new purple stripe!

O vanity, thy name is me!

I hope you're feeling spiffy today,
Karen

Snowhio, Feb. 2010

2010-02-06T08:26:00.001-05:00

So the big story, from here to the east coast, is the snow. I was amused at the Facebook updates from my DC friends that people were panicking--empty shelves at the grocery store, a run on all things snow-removal-related at hardware stores, everything closed or closing before it even started snowing... Such silly, silly people. And I bragged that, here in Ohio, we really don't get freaked out by snow the way people do in DC.

To an extent, I'll stick by that story--and I have proof that it's valid, at least in some cases! My Mom was here visiting one winter when we had snow. It was a typical Ohio storm, with just a couple inches predicted, the kind of thing we got EVERY WEEK the first winter we lived here. Schools went on as usual, and it wasn't even a very prominent story on the news. In fact, the news was so quiet about it that my Mom was shocked. In her neck of the woods, it would have been the top story on every channel; here, it was just "okay, here's what's happening" during the weather segment. No big deal.

Just as I was bragging on Facebook about how we take these things in stride, I started to hear some rumors... and then see evidence of freaking out... The university was still open (because we NEVER close--all our students live on campus or close enough to walk, so...). But some prof.s had canceled classes and were getting the heck out of Dodge. The roads were really slippery; one of my students said her car spun out on her way to class. (Why was she driving to class? That's a whole 'nother story...)

(This is the view from my building around 6 pm)

I walked to school yesterday, so I hadn't experienced the driving conditions, which actually were dangerous. (Patrick said he drove home at about 30 mph and still slid.) The walking was fine--a little slippy in spots, but quite lovely temperature-wise.

(We were on our way to the gym for the game when I took this one.)

So we decided to keep our plan to meet at a downtown restaurant for Friday dinner and go to the women's basketball game. Dinner was fun (one of my students was our waiter!), but the game was canceled. We walked home in the snow, had some interesting conversations (this Q from Dexter: do you think cats think in English, or in pictures?), and all was well.

(Here's our street as we arrived home.)

It's still snowing, so I imagine we'll be staying put for a day or two. I've got homework to read and a stack of papers to grade, so I won't be lacking for things to do. It's pretty to look at. And we'll be out and about again before long.

Enjoy the snow, if you've got it! And be careful out there!
Karen

A poem in honor of St. Brigid's Day

2010-02-01T08:28:00.000-05:00

I'm participating in the great (Silent) Poetry Reading for Brigid! (Here's what I wrote about it last year.)

I typically have a hard time with the dark of winter. I make a point of noting the solstice--the day when it is most dark, but also, technically, it starts to get light out again. And I give thanks every St. Brigid Day (also known as Groundhog Day); that's the day when I can really tell that the dark is subsiding. We've made it halfway to spring!

I probably won't be the only participant posting this poem. I was going to go hunting for something else, but then yesterday, as I was walking to school, a really big flock of geese flew over, honking, heading south. My first thought: isn't it kind of late, guys? My second: oh, I guess I'm supposed to post that poem then. (Signs and Wonders, you know.)

I once saw something unbelievable: on the way to South Dakota, my 2nd trip to the rez with students, we saw thousands and thousands of geese flying. I couldn't even begin to estimate how many there were. They filled the sky for as far as we could see. I've never seen so many animals in one place at one time. It made me cry; I knew that I was witnessing something special.

May you hear their harsh and exciting voices today!
Karen

"Wild Geese," by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

An anniversary

2010-01-30T15:39:00.000-05:00

A year ago today, I arrived on the rez for my month of study at Sinte Gleska University.

I miss being there. I miss being a student. I miss hearing people speak Lakota every day. I miss my friends and teachers. I miss the bluffs and buttes. I miss the horizon.

I miss hearing the Lakota birthday song on the radio every morning. I miss the way people joke and laugh with each other there.

Tunkasila, hoyewaye! Unsimalaye!

Pilamayaye,
Karen

Two encounters with The Man...

2010-01-26T22:40:00.001-05:00

So for various reasons (one of which is the fact that I teach early American literature, which includes the Puritans), I usually have my radar all set to receive Signs and Wonders--things that, if they happened in a novel or a movie or a dream, the audience would go "woah, that's gotta mean something." Recently I had two encounters with figures of Authority--with a capital A--that made me think Someone is trying to tell me Something.

The first involves me at a party. Now, I'm not one to go partying all that much these days, especially when it requires driving down to Columbus, not to mention wearing something other than jeans. But this was a DJ Hero party, with a karaoke machine added in, and all manner of 80s songs were likely to be played. I just happened to be on a New Order jag--playing their songs on YouTube and finally downloading some onto Patrick's ipod--so the chance to dance around a friend's living room to some awesome music was too tempting to pass up. I put on my 80s duds--orange crushed-velvet leggings, a big t-shirt (like the Frankie ones, but this one was about Ed Meese), my purple Doc Martin boots, and my biker jacket--and put my hair up and I was out the door. It was a risk, dressing like that in front of colleagues, but they appreciated my getting into the spirit of the party.

(Here's a link to a YouTube video of my current obsession...)

Sadly, no New Order tunes were available at the party. I was pretty bummed. So to make up for it, I joined in on the karaoke fun with a couple other people. That's when it happened...

Just as I launched into a song (I can't even remember which one it was), red and blue lights started flashing outside the window I was facing. The cops! Holy crap, I'm going to get arrested for being too loud! At my age!!!

Luckily, it wasn't a noise complaint; there was a car (mine, as it happened) parked in front of the house, which was the WRONG side of the street to be parked on. So I grabbed my jacket & keys and moved it. I wondered if the cop was a bit taken aback by my outfit, but he was perfectly kind and didn't give me a hassle. Or a ticket.

The next incident happened last week. A government agent came to my office to interview me about a former student who was seeking security clearance. He showed me his badge and then began to ask lots and lots of questions, some of which I could only vaguely answer (the student graduated about 4 years ago and we haven't been in touch since then). I was happy to tell him lots of positive things about this person--one of the first students I got to know and admire on a personal level in my first year in my job. Then he got to an interesting line of inquiry: he wanted to know if the student had voiced any subversive or anti-government thoughts.

I felt kind of like Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes), when he's flown off his swing and is flying through the air upside down, with a totally blank look on his face, and says "Houston, we have a negative on that orbit trajectory..." In my head, I was saying, "well, hell yeah, buddy, of course that student had subversive thoughts! She was a double major in English and Women & Gender Studies! She took two courses with me! If I did my job, she would HAVE to have subversive thoughts! and maybe even be critical of the government! and other institutions of power! It's called critical thinking!!!"

Luckily, what was in my head stayed there. What he meant was: is this person likely to become a terrorist? And the correct answer to that, in my opinion, was NO. But first I engaged him in a discussion of what we meant by "subversive." "Did you see the poster on my door?" I asked.

So we had a little chuckle at the different ways in which we were using this word, and the interview continued.

Those were my two Signs and Wonders moments, each one inspiring me to think about my relationship to Authority. It's interesting to me that, although both of them involved encounters with people in power (and a LOT of power, at that), neither one was particularly confrontational... hm... I think I'll be working out those details for a while.

I hope you see some Signs and Wonders in your own life!
Karen

The calm before and after the storm

2010-01-18T01:12:00.000-05:00

Well, week two of classes is about to start, and already things are hopping. Last week, I had three meetings, and I already have a bunch of "extra" stuff to do (writing recommendations for a couple students, writing an evaluation of a colleague, organizing some meetings I will be running this week, etc.). This semester has sure ramped up fast!

So I'm particularly glad that, last weekend, I took a little time out to enjoy the quiet, the calm before this particular storm. And in a way, coming after some weather we had, it was also the calm after the storm. We kept having snow every single day for at least a week. It was never enough to cancel school, much to Dexter's consternation, but it was really pretty. And seriously cold. There wasn't a single day where the high got above about 23 degrees for more than a week!

(This was the view from my desk...)

I went to a friend's house to talk fiber, and we bartered some things that I wanted & she wasn't using anymore for some things that she wanted & I wasn't going to use. I got a bread machine out of the deal and made a loaf of whole wheat beer bread--woohoo! It was a little heavy, but tasted good, and it made the house smell good. Every once in a while it would make a noise or two, and we'd wonder what was going on in there. I kept checking it by shining a flashlight in its little window; you know, making sure it was making bread in there just in case it decided to do something else.

I got to work on a knitting project with a deadline. (Today I barely finished that project in time for the baby shower it was intended for. Yikes!) Here's a photo of what my desk looked like a week ago--you'd think it was a fiber workstation, not a desk:

One of my favorite things about the day was the color of the air and snow and trees and dried plants in the fields as I drove to & from my friend's house. We have such gray, dreary skies most of the time in Ohio in winter, and on that day the sun came out. All of a sudden, there were colors visible that hadn't been there on the gray days. It was kind of like being in an Andrew Wyeth painting. My mood lifted despite knowing I was about to walk into the chaos & challenge of the spring semester. No matter: I was surrounded by beauty.

(Here's the sun just going down.)

We were back to gray gray gray today, and that was hard. But it's nice to remember that, when the sun comes out, I'll have all these colors to look forward to.

Hope you see some good colors today!
Karen

Good for what ails me

2010-01-02T10:53:00.000-05:00

During the last couple weeks of the semester, things tend to get rough. That happened for me this year; and, possibly because I hadn't been through that particular ringer for a while (what with being on sabbatical in the spring and all!), it was particularly rough this past December.

So on the weekends I took some time to take care of myself, putting work aside for a day or half a day and indulging in the things that make my inner self sigh with relief, and even sing.

I played with yarn...

(This is the heel of a sock I knitted for my Secret Santa recipient.)

(I made a pair of wrist warmers for a friend who has helped our family this past year.)

(These are gift card holders--cute! even if I do say so myself.)

... and, thanks to a friend who let me come visit them, I played with these guys:

My friend warned me, "They'll be in your face. You might decide you like them better from the other side of the fence." She was right about one thing: they were certainly in my face. But I LOVED it! They nipped my scarf and my hood and my hair, sniffed my face repeatedly, bumped into me with their noses, and one (the younger one, on the left) even tried to steal my mitten right out of my pocket! It was great.

It was hard for me to get good photos because they wouldn't pose--they were too busy checking me out, and way too close for me to get them in the frame properly...

(Notice the coon hound getting into the act too, as she dashes by in the background!)

But, in the end, maybe these photos do a better job of reminding me what it was like to be with them... There were a few quieter moments--moments when they were a little more serious (or maybe just less goofy) and I stood next to them and listened what they had to tell me. I didn't understand a lot, but I got one message from them pretty clearly: the earth is strong and solid and will hold you up just fine.

Whew! It was nice to be reminded of that.

And then, after a moment of being profound, they'd go back to nipping my scarf.

Here's my favorite photo because it's the view I got the most often:

Sniff sniff, everyone!
Karen

A Merry Christmas indeed!

2010-01-02T10:40:00.000-05:00

We had a nice holiday break here--a little bit of resting, a little bit of straightening up the house and doing chores, a little bit of visiting with friends, a little bit of visiting with family. It's been a nice mix of doing some of the things we don't normally get to do when we're busy-busy with work.

(Here's Dexter playing at a holiday concert--one of three he played this year!)

We instituted a new practice at mealtimes in 2009: we hold hands, and each of us says what we're thankful for in our day. We used to do this only on special occasions--Thanksgiving and Christmas, mostly--but I realized that if I want us to be aware of what we have and what we should notice and be grateful for, perhaps we needed to articulate that more than twice a year.

The side effect that I like the most is that, on a bad day, when we're cranky or frustrated or sad about something, this activity makes us find something to feel good about. It's not that the bad stuff goes away or problems are solved, but we realize that they're not the only thing that's visited us that day; we've got something to be thankful for every day, something that stands on the other side of the balance, and we have to at least notice it and acknowledge it. That's a really great thing, some days...

Anyhow, with gratitude being a more visible presence in our life, it was easy to see this year that Christmas presents were the icing on the cake--something we definitely didn't need, but something we were happy to enjoy. And I have to say, it was especially magical this year that each of us got something we really, really wanted (the thing at the top of the "dear Santa" list) and something we really were happy to get even though we didn't expect it (something not on the list but definitely right for us).

I didn't get photos of everything, but here are some highlights...

Patrick has some helper-friends who are very cute--one new, one an antique.

This is one of my favorite gifts--a mini Turkish spindle, hand made my Ed Jenkins. It's a thing of beauty all by itself, and then it makes beautiful yarn as well!

Here's another of my faves:
Bobbins for my spinning wheel! Yay! My gifts seemed to have mostly followed the fiber-and-chocolate theme this year. Awesome!

Speaking of fiber, we didn't have any hay for the baby Jesus's crib this year, so we gave him some wool roving:

(Every once in a while, we come down in the morning to discover that someone has "rearranged" it...)

Even the cats loved their presents!

(Apparently, the kitchen table is a popular place for toys to try to elude their feline predators... but it never works.)

Poor Dexter--he was the one person whose knitting gift I did not finish in time. Here's how far I got by Christmas morning on the socks he specially requested & picked out the yarn for:
He's being patient, thank goodness. I've started the 2nd sock by now, but even if I went by the "Christmas has 12 days" rule, I don't think I'll be finished in time. Oh well. He seems to be sufficiently distracted from this shortcoming by playing "Spore," a computer game in which you evolve from a single-celled being to a space-exploring civilization (I use the term loosely).

All in all, it was a fabu Christmas.

I hope you enjoyed some unexpected gifts,
Karen

On discomfort

2009-12-20T14:57:00.000-05:00

In the last week before Thanksgiving break, I was called on to present something about my work to my department colleagues. It's a new event that we've opened up to students as well, hoping to build community among faculty and students and share our scholarly/research work with each other. I put together a presentation called "Wounspe Lakota" (sorry I can't reproduce the proper diacritical marks there), or "Lakota Lessons," explaining some of what I learned on my sabbatical adventure--what it taught me about Lakota culture (inside and outside the classroom) and how that has changed my work as a teacher and/or scholar.

I had presented much of the same information near the beginning of the semester at a brown bag lunch for faculty from across the university, so I was ready. And the talk for faculty had gone amazingly well. It was great material, and I did a good job of presenting it. In fact, it was one of the few times in my life when I can remember thinking "wow, I'm doing good! I'm hitting this one out of the park!" (That kind of confidence is not my usual m.o., sad to say.)

(Here's the image I used, with "Wounspe Lakota (Lakota Lessons)" plus my name and whatnot printed in the cloudy sky, as my "title page" for the talk...)

So when I was presenting the talk for the 2nd time, in November, to a packed house, and things were NOT going all that well, I was a bit surprised. During that talk, I remember wondering why the same material was really not making a dent in my audience at all. It was awful--no one was smiling or nodding or anything. (Well, two of my colleagues were, but that's it.) It was as if I was presenting the material to a wall. I've since figured out a few key differences:
-- in the earlier presentation, my audience was faculty colleagues--mostly my friends, really--at a lunch; they were all interested in the topic for various reasons (it touched on their research, or they were interested in learning more about Native American issues);
-- in the November presentation, the room was packed, but mostly with students, most of whom I did not know;
-- in the earlier presentation, people were there because they wanted to be;
-- in the November presentation, most people were there to fulfill a requirement (a professor had told them they had to go for part of a class assignment); they had little, if any, real interest in the topic.

And, truth be told, I think I did a better job in the earlier presentation, mostly because I felt like what I was providing was really worth something to my audience; they cared about what I was saying, and so they interacted with me. In November, I felt myself getting nervous, and talking faster, and saying things in a less sophisticated way to try to reach my audience, try to make them show me they were hearing me. I didn't do as good a job, quite frankly. And I knew it.

I also faced some criticism from a faculty colleague whose opinion I respect. She has given me a challenge to re-think my position that I can't publish about this material because I would be intruding on Native American intellectual property... She thought that the way I went about my study was different from what literary scholars typically do, and that I need to think harder about how what I did may offer a chance to re-theorize about how someone like me (a white woman) engages in scholarship on Native American literature. It was a lot to think about, and I'm excited about the possibilities, and I'm thankful to her for pointing out my faulty logic. But it did sting a little.

So I was really uncomfortable with how things went, and unhappy. I felt I had let people down (including my department chair, and the people with whom I studied at Sinte Gleska). I let myself have a good cry about it that night, and reminded myself to try and separate my feelings from my performance so that I could figure out how to do a better job next time. I felt so uncomfortable that I had that "gotta run away" feeling, a taste of the flight part of the fight-or-flight reflex.

As I calmed down, still feeling extremely uncomfortable, I reminded myself, too, that discomfort is what we need in order to make a change. If this thing made me really uncomfortable, that meant that it would help push me toward doing something different.

And then something really weird happened. Over the four days following the November presentation, I got sick. Except I really wasn't all that sick. On the worst day (the 3rd day), I felt run down and had a sore throat, like I was coming down with a virus, and I stayed on the couch all day in my pjs, taking REST as my main job for the day. But the virus (or whatever it was) never blossomed; I got better instead.

(Here's a photo from November, the little creek on the edge of campus reminding me to let it flow...)

I'm really thankful that I didn't have the flu (like many of my students did), and that I never did feel worse than that Saturday, but it also made me intensely curious. Was I just worn out from working too much? Was that fatigue that made me feel sick? Or did it have something to do with that all-over discomfort that I'd had after the presentation? Did my disappointment and discomfort with my performance make me physically sick?

In the end, it may have been a number of things that made me ill. But I can't help but wonder about the links between how we feel emotionally (or spiritually) and how we feel physically. And I can't help but think again about the things I've been learning as part of my spiritual studies for the past few years, including a class called "Lakota Teachings in Health" when I was at Sinte Gleska for a month. Perhaps this incident was another way of helping me learn that our physical well-being can be inextricably linked to our spiritual well-being, that how we feel has everything to do with how we feel, so to speak...

So I'm taking this as a signal to try to take better care of myself on all fronts--emotional, spiritual, and physical. This is not easy to do in the season of hurry-scurry, of course! But it's certainly worthwhile to try, and it's certainly better than ignoring the "information" I got from my body and spirit that week.

I hope you find a moment to take care of yourself this week,
Karen

Wheels that are turning

2009-11-08T10:57:00.001-05:00

Wow, nature is sure letting me know that time is indeed passing!

For about two weeks, we had absolutely gorgeous leaves on the trees. We have a lot of silver maples around here, so the colors were brilliant reds and yellows as I walked to & from school. Temperatures have dipped and then gone back up again. Twice. We even had an overnight frost already!

There was a day, about a week or so ago, when it was very windy, just after a day of rain, and those two days brought down almost all the leaves around here. (The photo above: a Golden Rain tree, quite beautiful! It held onto its leaves a little longer than everyone else.)

Everyone is raking or blowing or mowing the leaves now, and the trees are just about bare. It's almost shocking to really take in the bareness of the branches. There is SUCH a difference...

And of course, with the time change, it's darker now way earlier than it feels like it should be. The sun really starts declining in the west around 3 or 3:30, and that's just a little unsettling. (Here comes the dark! Get your chores done and get inside!)

But it's more than just the number of daylight hours that's different... it's the quality of the light, the way it feels, that I've really noticed. Maybe "declining" is a good word for it. Like the leaves, the sun is showing us the dying of the year, showing us our movement toward night and death and quiet and sleep. Not necessarily a comfortable place to be, especially when I've grown up in a culture that fears and shuns death and decay...

Death is awful. It takes something or someone away from us; it brings pain and regret and grief. (Is there any emotion more painful than grief?) When death takes something away from you, one of the worst feelings is that you can't fix it, no matter what you do. It's awful.

But this year I realized something: that the beauty of the fall leaves and the reminder of death came together. I actually thought, as I drank in how beautiful the sky looked, and as I now enjoy swishing through the leaves on the sidewalks, that this is death--this, too, is what death means. There's beauty here. Maybe this year I'm on the verge of learning something new about death...

And it helps that at the same time all this was happening, I was teaching Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" to one of my classes. He has such beautiful and heart-wrenching things to say about death. (I'll copy here a photo of "Uncle Walt" toward the end of his life...)

In the 6th section, where he says that the grass seems to be the "beautiful uncut hair of graves," he ends that section with this, about the dead:

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

(I just love that poem... I'm glad I get to explore it again every couple years with my students...)

For us, the living, the turning of the wheel of the year means that we'll be able to see the ways in which life quite literally continues even after everything seems to die. We'll witness the miracle of re-birth in the spring. But for now, I'm happy to contemplate death in a way that's not scary, that makes room for mourning but also appreciates its unique beauty.

I hope you have a chance to linger over something beautiful today!
Karen

P.S. In other news of wheels that are turning: we had a march on campus & through a part of our town in support of SOCIAL JUSTICE, and in support of our faculty colleague who was handcuffed at gunpoint at his office. It went really well--it was a great turnout, including faculty, staff, students, and even some community members & children of faculty/staff. The speeches were really good, and the feelings among the group were great. I hope it turns out to be a raising of energy and strength so that we can all continue working on behalf of social justice, continue speaking out when something goes wrong... As several people said there: this is just the beginning; our work has just begun.

P.P.S. As far as I can tell, there haven't been negative repercussions from my letter. Most of the feedback I got was quite positive! No matter what, I'm proud that I worked up the courage to say something out loud about how I felt... Here's hoping I can keep that up!

Speaking out... even if my voice shakes...

2009-10-07T16:03:00.000-04:00

My usual m.o. here at the university is to try to fly under the radar. I figure if I work my butt off, teach the heck out of the stuff I'm here to teach, and keep my head down, everything will be fine. If the administrators here hardly know my name, that's okay with me; I'd rather not be the subject of discussions, opinions, etc. I don't like the idea of people saying negative things about me, of course, but I also think it would turn my head too much if I knew they were saying positive things about me.

(A side note: I almost feel that way about student evaluations as well. They are certainly more useful to me in terms of knowing what's working in my classes & what's not, so I pay attention to them. But I get really uncomfortable being evaluated. Unlike my colleagues, I have never checked my reviews on the "rate my professor" web site.)

I'm working very hard--and have been for some years now--to develop that inner knowing that Emerson writes of (I'm teaching some of his essays this week), that voice that tells you whether something is good or not, true or not, and doesn't need to listen to the opinions of external voices. It's hard for anyone to develop this skill--that's why Emerson had to argue for it!--but I think it's especially hard for women, or at least women of my disposition and my generation, to turn off the voice that says "don't do that, it might make people upset/unhappy/angry."

So today is a big day for me because I'm stepping out of the shadows, stepping into the public square to speak my mind, and it scares me a bit. I've written a letter to the editor of our school newspaper, which covered the story of my colleague's incident last week (the incident I described in my last post). Maybe in a future post I'll share that letter; suffice it to say it's critical of the actions of the police, both during the incident and since then.

Have I just made a huge mistake? Maybe. Will it come back to bite me? Maybe. But those things are less important to me, at this moment, than doing what I think I need to do. I'm drawing strength from my guardian angels (ignoring, of course, the question of whether they're there; I need them, so they have to be!), walking carefully forward, and doing the best I can. And if it was a mistake--if I have to deal with a mess later--then I will ask for help and walk carefully then, too.

Tomorrow I might have different advice, but today it's this: Stand tall! Walk strong! Speak out, even if your voice shakes!

Karen

Gone fishin'?... and a pressing issue

2009-09-18T09:28:00.000-04:00

So... I've been writing every day--lesson plans, journal musings, memos, e-mail messages. But blog entries? Not so much.

I've actually had ideas about entries, things I want to write and communicate about, but find myself stymied because I want to include a photo; every blog should have good photos, right? And the process of uploading stuff from my camera to my computer seems like such an insurmountable task these days. Maybe I'll find some quiet time tonight--I wonder if I could spin or knit while my computer is crunching away...

School is intense, particularly after having LOTS more unscheduled time recently. I keep looking at my calendar and thinking, "who put all this stuff on here? I need to fire that person." :)

Life has brought me some beautiful and intense things to process the last couple months. We went to South Dakota in late July, and I was able to go back to the rez and visit, participating as an observer/supporter at the Hollow Horn Bear Sun Dance. I have no photos of it (it's not allowed; and anyway, you wouldn't take photos if you were participating in a ceremony in church), and it meant so much to me that it's difficult to put its impact into words. But I'll give it a try... soon...

For today there's something else on my plate. I've got a little time to meditate before heading to school, and quite frankly, I need it. A friend/colleague of mine was the victim of police threats the other night, a gun pointed in his face while he was working late in his own office. IN HIS OWN OFFICE.

You've probably heard of DWB, "driving while black"; this seems to be a case of WWL/H, writing while Latino/Hispanic. I'm astounded, and feeling a jumble of sadness, outrage, and disgust. I'm worried about the place we're bringing up our son. I want to take to the streets and shout about how I am not going to put up with this kind of crap in my town and on my campus. And at the same time, I feel called to send healing to the whole thing, to muster any kind of energetic powers I can to help my friend and his family, my colleagues, our students. We're all so shocked and hurt by this, and in obvious need of healing. (Maybe even the cops involved need some help--certainly, some clear-sightedness about what they did...)

I think maybe the next few weeks will be a balancing act of sorts--learning how to carry the fire of fighting for social justice while also carrying the waters of healing. (I am an Aquarius; carrying water is my job, right?)

I'm off to do that work.

May you find peace today,
Karen

I'm hopelessly addicted...

2009-07-11T20:34:00.001-04:00

... to the Tour de France!

My family and I have been watching it every year for about 6 years now--the year before Lance's (supposed) retirement. It's definitely not a sport that U.S. Americans typically pay attention to, but I love it.

The experts say that perhaps Americans don't watch because it's too complicated--you keep track of an overall winner, but also pay attention to who wins each individual day's race. Riders compete on a team, but in the end only one guy gets the big prize. There are points to be gained for climbing hills best, or sprinting best... But I don't exactly buy the "too complicated" theory; I'm able to grasp how the Tour works, but the ins and outs of (American) football escape me.

Maybe it's because the sport is just too European. The big prize (besides the money, of course) is the right to win the maillot jaune--the yellow jersey. Srsly? wearing a yellow shirt is all that? As my sister says, only the French would think that was a great prize. :) Bicycle racing has a long, much-known history in Europe--people there can tell you who Eddie Merckx and Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain are/were, just like people in the U.S. can tell you who Joe Namath, Joe Montana, and Jerry Rice are. Thanks to Greg Lemond (the first American rider I remember having noticed, years ago) and especially Lance Armstrong, Americans at least know that the Tour exists. Of course, we know a LOT about Lance Armstrong.

But my family and I actually watched the Tour, with much excitement, in the years Lance was retired. So it's not just the privilege of watching Lance that hooks us--though that is pretty riveting! There's something about this sport that we find compelling.

Perhaps it's the fact that these guys are really athletes. They are racing for three weeks with only two rest days, and they're going incredible distances in the heat and rain, up and down the Pyrenees and the ALPS, for goodness sakes, enduring a lot of pain for the love of what they do. Yes, the past few years have seen some awful and embarrassing doping scandals. But, in fact, I actually admire that the Tour organizers, and racing officials in general, are on top of this problem. If a rider even refuses to take a test, they're out of racing, banned. How different the stories here in the U.S. about baseball players...

So. We love the Tour. I am hopelessly addicted to it. If I didn't control myself, I'd be watching both the live broadcasts in the morning (I love the play-by-play by Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett) and the evening re-cap (especially for the commentary by Bob Roll)--that would amount to at least six hours of tv-watching every day. That's just not okay for a mom who limits her kid's tv intake.

This year it's especially exciting; I know everyone is talking about Lance, and that he's sucking up all the attention in the media, but really, people. He has been retired for four years, and he's been in the TOP TEN in this year's race SINCE DAY ONE! That just doesn't happen in other sports... and in this particular sport, these guys are in amazing physical shape, and he's 10 years older than a lot of the riders, probably most of the pack. A lot of people have Expectations about Lance, but I'm just impressed as heck that he's in the top THREE right now. Amazing!

When I see myself getting caught up in the Tour--craving for news (and, more often than not, not finding any--the American media stinks at providing info. about it), getting excited about a breakaway (who's in it? how far ahead are they?), and YELLING at the tv as the riders get closer to the finish--I'm kind of shocked. As anyone who grew up with me will tell you, I am not a sports person, either as a fan or a participant. I did not grow up "doing" sports; I was kind of clumsy, and those were the days before every kid was on a soccer team. I was more likely to be reading a book than running around outside (sad to say) or playing a game. (Just ask my sister; I'm afraid this annoyed the heck out of her when we were kids!) I wish being active was a more regular part of my day--I could stand to lose 20 pounds right now. (Truly. I'm not just saying that.) The only sports I've followed in the past are the Three-Day Event and Figure Skating--oddball choices, certainly.

So no, sports and I have not been chums over the years. But here I am, in my 40s, absolutely addicted to the Tour, even hoping to get to France some July so I can experience it in person. Will wonders never cease!

I hope you find something to be excited about today. Maybe try the Tour! :)
Karen

P.S. Though I would not be able to handle even one tenth of a stage of the Tour de France, I am a participant in the Tour de Fleece. But I'll write about that another day!

P.P.S. I was hoping to include a fabulous photo of some of the racers in this entry, but I am wary of violating copyright laws. If you want to see some great photos, try going here or here or here!