Thanksgiving is still several days away as I write this. But the more I contemplate the fearful unknowns and the ugly knowns of my country, the more I feel like turning back into a third grader and writing my I Am Thankful For list. This is one is completely off the cuff; I’m not even wearing cuffs. Just letting my mind ramble over bright spots. Like…
–having a job where I get to work with interesting, supportive people, and to make stuff like this:
(Courtesy Stephanie Smith and Holly B’s Bakery)
–having friends to sing with at (very nearly) the drop of a hat:
(Photo: Anne Whirledge-Karp)
–being able to enjoy other people’s dogs vicariously, since we no longer have one:
“Which hand has the treat?” “Both?”
Road Trips to visit Cute Cousins (more on this later):
“Quick, hide their ice chest! Then they can’t leave!”
Will I be doing more of this in the coming months? Yes. Does it help? Yes. Yes. Yes.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Count whatever blessings you can, and be careful of one another.
Oh, and if you’d like to share some of your blessings here, I would love that.
I finally turned on the news today, a week after the election. I lasted exactly 11 minutes before turning it off again.
I know. I’m a wuss. I promise I’ll get tougher. But right now I want to stay in my bubble a little longer…a bubble I created, by scheming behind my husband’s back for six months.
…for a surprise birthday party, people! What were you thinking? Really! For shame.
Yeah, my Mate turns 70 in two weeks. I figured the only way to truly surprise him was to have the party two weeks early. Since that date coincided with a three-day weekend (thank you, Veterans!), my Evite received many Yesses.
I sent that Evite out first in May. I’ve been party-planning ever since. The triumph of the surprise, I knew, would be the arrival of Son One (all the way from Puerto Rico) and Son Two (from Vermont) And when election day blew up in our faces happened, the anticipation of that surprise kept me going like a warm stove in an otherwise frozen house. Like a light at the end of a tunnel. Like…oh, just pick a simile, would you? You know what I mean.
The only problem? I couldn’t share that anticipation with my Mate. Miserable as we both were last week, my misery was alleviated by hope and love, and his…well, his had to wait till Friday at 2 pm, when Sons One and Two snuck in the back door and said, “Hi, Dad.”
At that, my Mate entered the bubble with me. Finally.
I’ll get back to regular posting soon enough. I’m already hard at work on my writing, and the other components that make up the life of a baking ex-teacher.
We’ll think about the election tomorrow…or maybe the day after that…
But for now…I think I’d like to stay in my bubble just a few more days. Can you blame me? There was lots of love and lots of pie.
I’m not a fan of country music. I tend to stereotype it as being about–well, stereotypes. Easy to dismiss that ol’ achey-breaky-pickup-trucky twang as having nothing to do with my life.
But I’ll listen to anyone who is a) an excellent musician, and b) someone I went to high school with. Robbie Fulks is both. So when I saw that he was touring in Bellingham, a couple of hours away (including ferry ride), of course I went.
Robbie played with a fiddler friend, Shad Cobb, at the Green Frog, an appropriately grungy tavern, and did us middle-agers the favor of starting before 7:30 and ending at 9. Of course, he’s a middle-ager himself, having graduated three years behind me. His voice is as sweet as ever–think Willie Nelson mixed with John Denver–and his lyrics even sharper. Seems in middle age, Robbie has decided to take his lyrics back to Chapel Hill in the mid-late 70s. And there in the beery dark of the Green Frog, he took me too.
Robbie showed up my sophomore year when his dad took a job teaching history at Carolina Friends School. Picture this ridiculously adorable 13 year-old with long golden curls, crooked teeth and dimples. His dad took him along to the Upper School retreat at the start of the year, and on the last night Robbie played in our talent show. In a voice way, way beyond his years, he crooned that early 60s song, “Earth Angel.” “Earth angel…earrrrrrrth angel….please be miiine…my darling dear, love me all the tiiiime…” And my girlfriends and I fell madly in love.
OK–in crush. I mean, the kid was 13. And as we all grew older, Robbie became less of a phenom and more of a friend. I can’t say he was a close one of mine because, by the time he entered high school, I was a lofty senior, taking classes and running track at nearby Duke University and spending barely two hours a day on my old campus. I went with my friends to hear Robbie when he played at local clubs, but I all but lost track of him when I left for college.
One tie kept me in touch. One of my three besties, two years behind me in school, was close friends with Robbie’s girlfriend, M. When she told me that Robbie had gotten M. pregnant I wasn’t surprised. What was surprising to me, back in the early 80s, was that they decided to get married, at age 19.
Fast-forward now about 35 years. I attended a CFS reunion in 2015, and spent time with the woman who first married Robbie and had his son. M. and Robbie split long ago, but saw each other amicably at their son’s wedding.
I mention all this now not to gossip, but just as a backdrop, so that you know what I was thinking about when Robbie sang his new song, “Fare Thee Well, Carolina Gals.” Not only is it apparently about the time when young love changed his life and M’s forever, it contains details so specific that only someone from central North Carolina would understand: “the Airport side of Franklin Street”–the coolest hangout in Chapel Hill. “Northgate Mall”–less cool (and darker, if you listen to the song). And dear Tommy Thompson, founder of the Red Clay Ramblers and dad of our friend Jessie.
This song is about my people. And that means it’s about me. I may not have been one of Robbie’s “Carolina Gals,” but I’m still one. This hits close to home.
I went up and hugged Robbie after the show, small-talked for about a minute (while other folks waited in line), and bought his album. I’ve been listening to it. And now I can’t stop wondering…how many of those cliched country songs out there are animated by similarly specific, poignant, bittersweet reality?
Think of any genre of music you’re not comfortable with. Maybe it’s country, like me. Maybe hip-hop, maybe opera. But maybe, as I’m learning to do, if we listened more closely, we could feel that sweet connection of shared pain or joy. What but good could come of that?
Thanks, Robbie, from this middle-aged Carolina Gal.
I’m pretty late to the controversy surrounding the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. But now that I’m trying to learn more about it, I gotta say–Bravo, Mainstream Media. You’ve outdone yourselves. Even CNN is running a pro-project video as “news.” Their most recent story I could find on Standing Rock is titled “What’s Up With the Dakota Access Pipeline?”
Since that’s exactly what I wanted to know, I clicked on the video. It lasts 1 minute and 21 second–just background music with captions. Thirteen seconds of the video relate the objections to the pipeline (fears of leaks, attacks on Native culture). The other minute or so lists all the pro-pipeline arguments about jobs and oil usage.
Hmm. That’s strange. But when I read the script at the base of the screen, it said, “Source: Energy Access Partners.”
Anyone else see a problem with this? And this is CNN–not Fox.
Much more balanced was this story from Al Jazeera back in August:
The story is the protest, right? Whether Americans think the pipeline is a good idea or not, don’t we deserve to know why there’s a protest in the first place?
Why does it take a news company based in the Arabian Peninsula to inform me?
There’s not much nastier than a grimy old bathtub, right? Who wants to scrub up in something that looks like this?
It’s amazing what you can not-see when all you want is a hot shower…
Except when it’s YOUR grime, built up over (let’s not count how many) years, you kinda…how shall I say…fail to notice how grody it looks. It’s just, y’know–your bathtub. Hop in and soak your cares away.
But my parents are coming to visit. And even though Martha Stewart is NOWHERE in my family tree, parents still count as guests. And guests cause my vision to change. As in, “Oh, GROSS! Who bathes in THAT?”
So I re-caulked the sucker.
It was a messy job. As it happens, being deep in revisions of Book Three (of The Flying Burgowski series), I couldn’t help noticing the parallels between re-caulking and re-vising.
Here I am, for example, getting rid of some crusty old adverbs and parenthetical phrases that had built up through two previous drafts and were now gumming up the forward motion:
Away with you, needless exposition!
The old caulk fought back. “But I must be serving some purpose or you wouldn’t have kept me around for so long, right? If you get rid of me, you’re going to have to start ALL OVER! And who knows how many more leaks that’ll cause?”
Sound familiar, fellow writers? Those are the same protestations your words and paragraphs make under your editorial knife. That’s why Stephen King calls revising “murdering your darlings.”
Well, I murdered the heck out of that old bathtub grime. The new caulk felt silky as cake frosting beneath my index finger.
Oh, dear–now I need to bleach all the shower walls. Better, but a final draft this ain’t.
And I’m going to try and remember that smooth, fresh finish as I continue to peel away at built-up prose.
But I’m also curious–for what other activities does re-caulking serve as apt metaphor? Let me hear.
I am SO blessed to live in a community where I know my farmers. Now I’m wondering: how many of you could too? The Bounty Project introduces its community to the folks who grow its food through short interviews, gorgeous photographs, and mouth-watering recipes to put all that yummy local produce and meat to use. Are you a small farmer, or a writer or photographer who cares deeply about farms and eating local? Read about The Bounty Project, then consider how you might start one in your own community.
BOUNTY: Lopez Island Farmers, Food, and Community will be released at an event at Lopez Center for Community and the Arts on Friday, Oct. 21, 5-7 PM. The beautiful BOUNTY Photo Exhibit will be on view and copies of the book will be on sale.
Join the CELEBRATION! The photographers, the writer, and chef will be available to sign the book. The book will also be available for purchase at the LCLT Annual Harvest Dinner the following evening, Oct. 22 and at the Lopez Bookshop.
This 124-page book combines photographs, profiles, and recipes for twenty-eight Lopez Island farms and farmers to present an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of what it takes to bring food from earth to table on Lopez Island.
Okay, Hillsborough, NC isn’t exactly my hometown, but the farm I grew up on is halfway between Durham, my official birthplace, and Hillsborough, where I began my public school teaching career. Close enough.
And close enough for me to freeze between disbelief and horror when I heard about the firebombing of Hillsborough’s Republican HQ this past weekend.
Photo by Justin Cook for NYTimes
Hillsborough?! Home of Orange High School (go Panthers!) and the Village Diner, where my fellow teachers and I used to gorge ourselves on the salad bar during staff workdays? (Hey, if fried chicken has lettuce under it, it’s salad!)
this small North Carolina town, where residents, in the face of cultural change, have largely found an amicable balance between liberal and conservative, traditional and trendy, in the heart of a swing state that is one of the nation’s most politically and culturally divided.
Although I should be inured by now, acts of violence like this always shock me anew. My first response: WHY?! My second: Thank god no one was hurt. And now I have a choice.
I could let my horror sink deeper, adding to the sick sense I think most of us are feeling this election season.
OR…
I could focus on this sentence in the NYT article:
A group of Democrats created a GoFundMe page that had raised more than $13,000 by Monday evening for the Orange County Republican Party.
Or this one:
Evelyn Poole-Kober, the vice chairwoman of the Orange County Republican Party…said she was long used to living among Democrats and was friendly with many of them, including members of her garden club.
Election ugliness? La la la, I can’t hear you. I’m too busy focusing on Democrats raising money for, and growing flowers with, their Republican neighbors.
“Establish the culture and practice of voting as part of a desired civic lifestyle through integration of non- partisan election work, issue work, and culture work in a continuous cycle. Empower and train leaders and volunteers from our communities to be strategic leaders, messengers, and spokespeople for issues critical to equality, justice, and opportunity.”
Sound like good goals to you? I can’t think of anyone in any political party who would not subscribe to them.
So what if I tell you these goals are espoused by someone called Charlemagne Tha God?
This guy (courtesy twitter.com)
I just saw him interviewed on The Daily Show and came away feeling inspired by his inspiration to get folks to vote. I was so intrigued, I looked him up.
His real name (according to good ol’ Wikipedia) is Lenard McKelvey, and he runs a Hip-Hop radio show called The Breakfast Club. It’s the home base of Hip Hop Caucus, whose website can be found under respectmyvote.com
Those goals above? They come from Hip Hop Caucus. More specifically, this is what those folks do:
★Community Organizing: We organize 14 – 40 year-olds, who identify with Hip Hop Culture, and share values of justice, equality, and opportunity.
★Grassroots Leadership Development: We provide leadership training and real-world civic leadership opportunities for cultural influencers at the grassroots level.
★Communicate to Large Audiences: Through partnerships with artists, celebrities, and media we drive narratives about important issues through cultural channels reaching millions of people.
★Cultivate and Promote Thought Leadership: We source solutions for local to global challenges from our communities and advocate for them to decision makers and influencers.
You know what? Except for the word “influencers” (sorry, old English teacher here), there’s nothing about the above that I don’t celebrate for my country.
Why am I sharing this now? Because you know, as I do, that Hip-Hop culture is marginalized in our country. Many–perhaps most?–older white folks (like me) assume Hip-Hop is probably apolitical at best, anarchic at worst. But these guys? They’re downright Kiwanis.
My mind feels broadened, learning about Hip-Hop Caucus. And with all the stupidity of this election year, my heart feels warmed. Go, America.
“Let’s shift our collective consciousness and remember that we belong to each other.” So says Matika Wilbur, a fellow Northwesterner with roots WAY deeper than mine.
Wilbur is Tulalip and Swinomish, a member of two of the tribes closest to where I live. For the past two years, she has been traveling around the West, on a mission to awaken mainstream America to the fact that Native Americans’ vibrant lives have little to do with the “leathers and feathers” stereotypes of a vanished culture.
Since she’s a Seattleite, I’m embarrassed to admit I first came across Matika Wilbur in a Radcliffe alumnae magazine. She’s won awards, done a TED talk, and her work has been featured in museums. I’m just late to the party. But now I’m excited to share what I’ve learned about Project 562.
The name reflects the number of tribes recognized by the U.S. government in 2012, when Wilbur embarked on her project. (It has since risen to 567, according to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.) The photographs reflect the settings, hopes, and realities of everyday Native Americans, people we non-Natives almost never get to meet or see in any kind of media.
And the effect of Project 562? I could describe it from my perspective: heartening, heart-rending, joyful, painful, hopeful. But I would rather hear about its effect on you. Please look at Wilbur’s video and tell me what you think.
If you only stop by Wing’s World now and then you might not know my connection to the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, NC. I’m no biologist; I just grew up there. Literally. My sisters and I roamed the building back when no one knew about it nor worried about little kids roaming among the other primates.
See, I chose my parents wisely. Not only are they largely responsible for Carolina Friends School, my dad’s also the one who turned my hometown into the largest home for lemurs, anywhere in the world outside of Madagascar.
If you’re ever in central North Carolina, you can see for yourself–in a guided tour; sorry, no more roaming. But if you don’t get the chance, here’s a glimpse of how it all began, 50 years ago:
What else can I say? Congrats, lemurs. Congrats, Duke. Way to go, Dad.
BOUNTY: Lopez Island Farmers, Food, and Community will be released at an event at Lopez Center for Community and the Arts on Friday, Oct. 21, 5-7 PM. The beautiful BOUNTY Photo Exhibit will be on view and copies of the book will be on sale.
Wing's World 