The Mall

Day 8 of Fun-a-Day. I chose blog-a-Day for the month of January.
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Today, during an empty half hour before my farm business planning class started, I decided to take a tour of the local mall, just next door to Montpelier and down the street from the Extension office. I wandered into a bookstore on its last legs, closing at the end of the week, and asked about this suburban oasis. She said, We call it the Hall, referring to it's walkway design. I also think she might have been referring to its emptiness.


There were maybe 40 people there. I walked down the hall and looked in at a vast mattress showroom, almost completely empty of people. I saw one salesman, turned away from the entrance, balancing on one leg as he held his blackberry. He looked as precarious as this mall felt.

There was a Walmart and JC Penney anchoring the hall, and a couple of other chains sprinkled in between local shops. All were pretty much empty. There were some folks eating food, or walking strollers down the hall, but the emptiness, the sense of failure was palpable to me. I did not stay for lunch, or buy anything.

When I was a teacher, the trip to the mall was one of the most popular for the students. Whole busloads of young consumers would pile into the mall, wanting to just get away from the campus that housed them as boarding school students. I couldn't blame them, but wished there was somewhere more real they could go. I would sponsor trips to Ethiopian food and movies in Philadelphia for a taste of freedom and reality. Not the mall.

As I walked out, I had this sense memory of all the hours I clocked in Rhode Island and Warwick Malls in my day. Yes, there were two malls in the town where I grew up, or rather next to the town where I grew up. Before I got my driver's license, these were the places I went with friends or romantic interests. I remember that the mall was the first place where I got to go alone. Maybe I was in 7th grade the first time I went to the mall without an adult? It was so exciting, so exhilarating to be alone with a boy or girl I wanted to kiss, to find a private spot to grab a smooch. This was where I got my ear pierced. This is where I first started to see how void-filled life can be.

Rhode Island Dead Mall
from deadmalls.com

I walked out of there, remembering being a pre-teen, and was struck that this was a dead mall in the making. If you haven't seen this site, it is well worth checking out.  This model of enclosed economically derived community is bankrupt in many ways, and this site documents the places where the mall has died, and what has been left behind.

One of my old stomping grounds is on the site, too. Closed in 2011 because of flooding, at the end the Rhode Island Mall only had 4 stores. I guess what they say is true. You can't go home again.  Thank God.

Maryland Dead Mall
from deadmalls.com

Really, the dead mall is an emblem of both what went wrong and what is right. What is wrong is developing an enclosed and exclusive space for shoppers, where freedom of speech is not allowed--the mall IS private property-- and where music, atmosphere, and all are controlled centrally, and reflect a completely fabricated reality.

But the dead mall is also a symbol of what is right. These photos offer valuable images of the completely unsustainable model and machination that is the mall. They also appeal to the post-apocalyptic in me. They create a palimpsest, where nature is writing over the decay and uselessness that is the mall.

Needless to say, I will not be visiting the mall again.

Belonging

Day 7 of Fun-a-Day: the ArtClash Collective's amazing art-piece a day commitment for the month of January. I chose blog-a-day.

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Here I sit in my living room on another frigid day in East Montpelier, Vermont. My partner and son are in the next room playing. I spent the day free of parenting, visiting with friends, reaching out to find mentors and advisors for this farm and community project we are starting here.

It's hard to reach out, as I have mentioned in another post. But, I do. I take risks, I reach out, and the results are not always satisfactory. And sometimes they are. That is the work. To risk. To try. To keep on keeping on.

My son has started at a new childcare center today, and when we arrived there this morning, it felt like walking into a friends living room. This small farmhouse sized school, with 15 children a day, has the same 6 staff members, and is rooted in a community of artists and musicians. The sense of comfort is palpable. It takes my breath away, in the transitional moments when I am leaving or coming. I feel as if I am leaving a safety when I go, which honestly is such a relief for me as a parent. And when I come back, it feels like stepping into an old remembered hallway. And my son is there.

But it wasn't easy to get into this school. Norman wrote to them in spring, and when we got here, there was no space at the inn. We ended up at another school, maybe 10 times its size, with a lot less closeness, a sense of emptiness in the halls. I didn't like leaving Forrest there, though they were very helpful around medical procedures and taking Forrest on for more days in the fall.

How did I find room in the inn? Persistence. I continued to experience discomfort with the previous school, so I kept on emailing this one. Suddenly, in December, the director said, we might just have a space for you! I jumped on it. We visited a second time, Forrest loved it, and two weeks later he started.

We have a name for our farm, now. It wasn't an easy process, but we've come to it: Open Way Farm. This name comes from a Quaker concept of way opening. My understanding of this is that when things are rightly aligned, or rightly ordered, that the way opens, and we enter the kin-dom of God(ess).

Well, maybe not all the time, but this idea stands as a central part of my lived faith experience. The ways in which way has opened in my life, the openings of faith through experiences that seemed to present themselves like so much ripe fruit, ready to be picked, is truly miraculous, when I think about it. I also know that a lot of those experiences are tempered by my privilege and place in society.

And I have also worked for these opening ways. The rose colored memory glasses might tell me that things opened easily, but that is not always the case. And the opening stands side by side with the work, like the easy transition to the new school that took months of communication.

As I share my vision for this land and farm and community and healing place, sometimes I might sounds like a pie-in-the-sky fool, with nothing but some hot wind coming out my orifices. But I know that the work and the vision need to stand, side by side, for way to open.

I believe that God(ess) is present in most things, people, beings. You might call me a panentheist. You would be right. But this does not mean, therefore, that we are passively part of an All that leads to the pearly gates. My faith, my experience shows me, teaches me that we must work for the kin-dom, and when we work, She comes rushing up to meet us, in all the glory and realness that is the world.

This belonging isn't easy, but it feels true to me. I pray for the strength to continue the dance of try and opening I find myself in, and pray for partners in the dance. Welcome to the dance, if you are willing. Welcome to the Open Way.

Snow Day

Day 6 of Fun-a-Day: the ArtClash Collective's amazing art-piece a day commitment for the month of January. I chose blog-a-day.

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Today my partner was home from work. This was a great gift from the Barre School District gods, though I guess it takes rain in winter in Vermont to call it a snow day. Temperatures soared to 43, rain and sun and rain again made the roads slick and dangerous. Although we made it off the land in the afternoon, the morning was miserable, to be sure.  It was a good day to not go to work.

We could have done work on the next phase of this farming and community adventure-- begun the long process of cleaning out the barn. This barn, like many old barns in these parts, has not been used for agriculture in many years, and is now home to stored memories, and not some small part trash, of past residents. There are some current residents of the furry variety, as well.

And honestly, it's not really a barn. It's a large shed that at one point had a couple of horses, and some very extensive gardening happening out of it. It's pretty perfect for our size for now. If we grow, that will be another issue, another blog post.

But instead we made pancakes and sausage after sleeping in, hung out with our son, and noticed a rainbow during a break in the weather. It was pretty perfect.

This project is at once so clear and so overwhelming. Starting a farm is something that I have dreamt of doing for many years, and the fact that we have made it here, and the wheels are turning, is quite something.

In the fall we planted garlic. We hand turned 352 square feet of bed, pulled sod out of old pasture, tried to make a good home for it in this very acid soil. I managed to plant it all by October 30, the day after the first snow here. As Aunt Janet says, Nothing like a little snow to motivate you to finish that fall project!

Garlic is something one orders all the way back in January, to be delivered in the late summer or early fall. Garlic has this amazing reversed-ness, that makes it appealing to grow, and something one can invest time and energy in the fall, and hope for good results the following summer. I ordered it as a promise to myself that we were actually doing this, though I hadn't given notice, we hadn't confirmed with the house. I just needed to do it. And I was right.

Now, we plan. I am so grateful to be in Vermont, where there are so many resources for farmers. I am taking the Building a Sustainable Business class with the UVM Extension, and it is giving me many tools for business, marketing, and infrastructure planning. I am also grateful that there are so many farms in this region. Farmers' markets are robust, even in winter. I can stop and chat with someone about kale in the coop, and likely they will be a grower of some type. And we are surrounded by farms on this land, in this neighborhood. Directly next door is an herbalist. On the other side of a neighboring aunt is a beef cattle and maple syrup farmer. Down the street is the dairy coop. And on and on and on. 

We have arrived in a rural place, designated as Agriculture and Forestry Conservation in the local zoning law. The land is ripe and ready for next things, after many decades in pasture and small gardens. We will start small and build on the good basis of pasture, garden, barn. We will build out, with season extension, beehives, chickens. Our goal is to self-sustain, and share the harvest with those who are interested. 

But it's more, and the Snow Day lends me to dreaming, remembering the vision of community and faithful opening ways of space, land, food, healing. Though I know we have a barn to clean out, a budget to set, and seeds to order, I remember the good and big thing we do, wedding ourselves to this land, committing ourselves to a ministry of healing and growing, in so many ways. And I know that the big things are made of the small steps we take-- to work, to connect, to love, and even to sleep in, in good time. 

Shaving My Head, Dying My Hair, Part 2

Day 5 of Fun-a-Day: the ArtClash Collective's amazing art-piece a day commitment for the month of January. I chose blog-a-day.

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Yesterday I wrote about the freedom to express myself outside of work that led to my shaving and dying my hair in June. When I got to Vermont, I thought I would stop it, settle into life and the important work at hand. 

I also was worried about what hair dying might do to the baby growing inside me. Though we didn't quite plan it, I got pregnant while on the road. We didn't not plan it, either. We have been wanting to have another child for about a year, and the stressors of leaving work and travel made it seem impossible. But, somewhere between PA and NY, via Woods Hole, MA, the next one got hatched, and we moved to Vermont with the plan of growing this baby, this farm, this family and community, together. It was exciting and terrifying. Another mouth to feed, another letting go of any control of body or hormone or anything at all. It's own revolution.

It's a big deal, being pregnant and having a child. It changed my life, and will continue to as I parent. 

And so, a month passes, and I'm nearing the end of my first trimester. I find a more than competent midwife, and go in for an initial appointment. We don't check the baby's heartbeat, because I am doing so well and having all the requisite nausea, smell sensitivity, fatigue, and moodiness. 

The next week, I start spotting. This also happened with my first pregnancy, so I was not too worried. But I went in to the midwife anyway. She couldn't find a heartbeat. 

The next three days were full of ultrasounds and appointments, and at the end of it, I had a D and C procedure because I had a missed miscarriage. The baby didn't make it past week 8. I didn't find out until week 13. 

via youwall

We wanted to bury the baby on our land. The week after the procedure, I went and got my head shaved and bleached, and then came home for the burial. We walked out to the woods, and buried her under a yellowing tree. 

I made a film about it, for the Sloppy Film Fest, and it seemed to help make it more real. I've been  living into this reality ever since. I've written about it, cried, walked, jogged, slept, hid out, screamed, had anxiety fits, cried some more, laughed, remembered, mourned.

And some of that mourning has been embracing dying my hair and shaving my head. For me, the color of my hair is a yes to my life, my wholeness. For me, shaving my head helps me feel free of the constraints of femininity that can feel so affronted by this loss. I am able to hold onto my self-determination, and this feels really important as I also hold onto the powerlessness and unknowableness of this reality. 

So that's my story.  My hair, my looks, all of me, are more truly about me than any other time of my life. This feels like a real success, as a feminist and a person who values freedom and self-determination so much. The loss of this pregnancy sits in the middle of my hair, and is nurtured and caressed and loved through green and blue and purple strands, sitting atop my head. Maybe it won't matter so much, in time. But until then, I dye, I shave (and bought a great clipper set, too!), I live as I imagine myself to be-- free and easy on a colorful wave of light. 

Shaving My Head, Dying My Hair, Part 1

Day 4 of Fun-a-Day: the ArtClash Collective's amazing art-piece a day commitment for the month of January. I chose blog-a-day.
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This will be a 2-parter, friends.

So I'm 40. A mother of a three year old, a white middle class bisexual ciswoman committed to a cisman, renting a sprawling family house on 23 acres in East Montpelier, Vermont. I have 2 higher ed degrees, have worked and lived in city, suburb, community, apartment. I'm not working outside the home right now. I am working on planning this farm and community project, but it's not paid. Who gets paid for birthing, well, anything?

And I shave my head and dye my hair. I've done this since I left my job in June.

Why, you might wonder, would a middle aged mom be interested in having unnatural hair color and shorn locks? Aren't I done with that childishness? Aren't I worried about how my son will be effected? Aren't I concerned about how my new business will be viewed?

Well, I am, a bit, concerned about what folks think. Depending on the day, I can feel embarrassed by the differences you see on my body, or my body in general. Or I might be afraid for being judged for not working for pay, or read as uneducated or unemployable. Lots of stories I can tell myself. I'm creative in my neurosis.

But there's a lot in this head shaving and coloring. I am not to speak for anyone else who does these things. I don't want to, and wouldn't try. I will speak through my own story.

I am aware, because of my social location and privilege as a white woman with resources to not do paid work, I get to make these choices, that for many are never allowable. I feel gratitude for this moment which allows me to explore my appearance with relative freedom.

The job I left in June was the first, and hopefully last, attempt at working within an institution. It was, as institutions go, a pretty loose one-- a Quaker boarding school with lots of quirky traditions and romping play space for young and old committed to building a learning community based in Quaker values. But, as time progressed (I was there 6 years), and the institution continued to evolve and shift and respond to economic crises, things became rapidly more complex. I have written about my experience  here and here and here. I found myself shutting down there, as the ethos of the school, and the direction of the program that I was leading, was shifted out of alignment with my skills and calling.

In short, I spent too long trying to fit into a context that did not fit me. It took one of my students actually saying to me-- You are a non-conformist, why would you want to be in a place that requires conformity? for me to really get that my decision to leave was the right one.

And once I was finally, after so many years, without a job at all, and coming from a space of what felt like real constraint on my person, and real rejection of my gifts, I exploded with relief and joy. This was, and is, the first time I have not had a job as an adult. And more, it's the first time I am not even looking for a job. It was a revelation.

And so, the hair. At the school, there were strict rules about natural hair color. I had to not only abide by, but also enforce rules I did not believe were necessary. But I did it. My refrain often was-- These are the rules for now. Believe me, when you get out, you will have so much fun.

And so, the hair. I think I have been wanting to do this since I was a teen. But I started working summers at 16, and never looked back. I have always been acutely aware of appearance for jobs. No longer.

So, the hair. I started with blue. I went to a salon, after calling a number of times to get reassurance that yes, they shaved heads, and yes they dyed hair blue. I sat with a 20-something woman who knew a number of my students, and I did it. It was so much fun, and the perfect road trip hair.

I shaved my head in mid-July, with the help of dear Quaker farming friends, because I was too annoyed to keep on dying it, and it had faded, which I had no idea would happen. I planned to let it grow out from there, see what happened. The amazing and dear Stefanie Canadia and Raur came to visit us when we first landed in Vermont and brought along a gift of blue hair dye, which expanded to green and purple through the mail-- but I wasn't planning on using it. It was a whim, it was passed. Time to settle down and focus on the work at hand.

But that was not to be. More tomorrow. Until then, stay real, short, and colorful.

Cold

Day 3 of Fun-a-Day: the ArtClash Collective's amazing art-piece a day commitment for the month of January. I chose blog-a-day.

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So I am sitting in my living room, it's 8:30 p.m. at night. The temperature is -6 outside. I am cold.

There is a raging wood stove fire burning right in front of me, maybe 6 feet away at most. I am cold.

I am wearing a winter hat, long johns, and a poly fleece. Oh, and Smart Wool socks. I am cold.

Moving to Vermont, I knew that the first winter would be both exciting and terrifying. The extremity of weather, the rural spaciousness, the multi-generation families (of which we are becoming one) on the same land, in the same houses-- all of this is totally new to me. I've survived, thrived even in the vast space around me. I have not felt lonely very often these past four months. I am busy with parenting, farm planning, unpacking, and the welcome of neighbors and family has been stellar.

The experience of the depth of family has been intriguing and educational. I am unlearning my suspicion of biological families (see my post about my experience). I am seeing the slow arch of traditional family that I can learn a lot from, and do. Hell, I've got dead matriarchs talking to me.

realtime photo, complete with wood ash and humidifier--
winters in Vermont are dry

But the weather. I grew up in Rhode Island, a southern state in this New England. Although I have memories of cold that whipped my legging-clad teenage body into a frigid frenzy, I have rarely experienced a cold that seems to seep through the walls like this.

Well, maybe. Now I am remembering a winter-- 1996, living in Boston, the snow was brutal, the cold creeping into every crevice. I was living in a group house on Belmont Avenue in Somerville. It was freezing because the landlord never insulated the house. We sat, wrapped in blankets, watching Mystery Science Theater 2000, trying to ignore the fact that the best and warmest way to sleep was not alone. Luckily, at that time, there were 5 cats who chose to sleep with me. I survived that winter.

But this house is different. An old beaut, circa 1860s, it has been added to over the decades with care and correctness. And the aunt whose care this house has been in for the last 20 years had a vision of energy efficiency and self-sufficiency that led to really wise insulation and retrofitting choices.

The household item that has become so much the center of our life this winter is the wood stove. It is a small thing, but mighty. Aunt Sally chose both for efficiency and for aesthetic, not wanting it to dominate the room.

Most mornings my son and I stumble down the stairs and plop ourselves in front of the stove, where I rake the coals and add a log. A good morning is when the wood lights, and we are golden warm. We eat breakfast and lunch in front of this stove, some days. I sit and write here, for now.  I am learning what I read about in college-- the primacy of the hearth, the warmth that makes it all okay, when the outside is not so friendly.

I am reminded of Hestia, goddess of the hearth. I get her, now. I don't think I could have until I felt this gathering warmth, daily.

But now, I am cold. In the same room as this mighty mini, is the front door. Like most old homes, the front door is rarely used. But it does show the cold. In this photo, you see that our living room HAS SNOW GROWING ON IT. This is our threshold, and this big hunk of granite is conducting the cold from the steps into our living room.

I know that this winter isn't even half over yet, but it's feeling like a lot to handle, just this moment.  The weather feels so much like a person that I have to get to know-- a prickly person with whom you might not want to work, but that you have no choice about knowing on a daily basis.

Hello, winter.  Nice to meet you. Please don't hurt me.

Mise en Place

Day 2 of Fun-a-Day: the ArtClash Collective's amazing art-piece a day commitment for the month of January. I chose blog-a-day.
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On New Year's Eve we hosted a small gathering of members of the Adamant, Vermont community. Truly, this was a success for me, as I am not the best at reaching out. Although I value closeness with people, developing friendship and caring, mutual support and connection, there is a grumpiness, a mistrust, perhaps even a curmudgeon I carry with me. Is it from youthful rejection? Burnt outness? Fatigue? Whatever the source, I know I need to resist the resistance, and reach out.

And the folks in Adamant are good folks with whom to connect. I went to a women's gathering recently at one of our invited guests house, and she is a new transplant here, too. She told me that Adamant is the closest thing she's seen to a matriarchy she has ever seen, and that she is really lucky to have found this place. There is a community club, a music school, a coop/post office with outpost library books, ponds and small waterfalls, and farms surrounding this hamlet. And for all these reasons and more, the most interesting, eccentric, and genuine women and men have migrated here.

photo evidence

So I mention to a new friend, why don't we get together for New Year's? She and her partner are early sleepers, so we both were not interested in late night escapades. And she suggested, well why not invite a few other folks? And I agreed. We hosted at our place because of our set up-- casual couches and low table for putting plates on. A warm stove right there. Easy buffet in the kitchen.

I volunteered to make a recipe that came to me by accident. As I was opening a French cookbook that my partner's mother gave me, an index card fell out onto the counter. Unknown to me, this index card has been traveling with us from Boston, where we got the book, to Pennsylvania, and now back, to where is started, in East Montpelier. This recipe was typed on the card in 1972 by Polly Holden, the matriarch of the house we now live in. Polly died about ten years ago, but I tell you she was talking to me through this index card.

It's for maple syrup cake, and she typed it from a recipe she read in 1932. I figured if she had this recipe for 40 years and then decided to type it up, it must be good. It called for a number of things I had never done before, but I was game. I like cooking and baking.

example of mise en place.  from
everyday minimalist 

On new year's eve, I spoke with my new friend on the phone, checking in on her planned quiche lorraine (so delicious), and she started telling me about mise en place, as I described the joy of orderly preparation and work.

Mise en place, as I understand it, and as she described to me, is the sign of good cooking, and a phrase used in professional kitchens for having everything in it's place. All the resources needed to both follow the rules, and to break some, to innovate and create with the things you need, are there because of the chef's forethought and care.

We got off the phone, and I called my partner down to help me both boil the maple syrup and pour it into my whipping egg whites for a miraculous maple icing. He was mise en place for me.

I noticed the wood stove needed stoking, and easily grabbed wood from the closet-- mise en place.

And I wonder, now, thinking about this year of transformation, and our current moment, maybe I am working at being master chef of my life, seeking to be mise en place for the work that I so want to do.

I imagine my choices as chopping, my garlic planting as sauce making. I wonder when the steps, the pieces, will come together, and the creation can start. When will the everyday work of living become the community building and farm and spiritual healing space in our dreams?

Maybe it already has. Maybe the first sign of this being ready, being ordered, was when Polly's recipe fell out of the cookbook. At the gathering on New Year's Eve, I cut her a slice, poured a shot of scotch, and put it on our solstice altar with a candle. Welcoming her to the new year and honoring her lessons, no matter from what distance they come. Mise en place.