Friday Five: Wind in My Sails

Sally, over at RevGalBlogPals, writes:
"... sailing is a family passion, we love the water and the wind, and take delight in the fresh air and quiet, but also in the competition, striving to do our best!
How about you?

1. Is there a sport/ hobby that is more of a passion than a past-time for you?
I've never been one for sports, although I do like salt-water swimming and Messing About In Boats and I adore a good game of Extreme Croquet.
My hobby/passion is the exploration of folk culture and traditions--especially those of the British Isles. (I come by this anthropological bent honestly-- growing up in a multi-ethnic family with three adopted siblings, intercultural study was simply a part of daily life, and provided a goodly portion of our family fun.) With some like-minded friends, we even started a nonprofit organization to support our folk culture habit, although it's in "sleep mode" while we finish building our house. The Piper and I have justified the purchase of many a CD and weighty ethnographic tome by saying, "It's all for the Ceilidh House library, of course--and we'll use these as reference materials when we teach our bagpipe and Gaelic language students!"

2. Outdoors or indoors?
Outdoors: festival-going, "ethnically-correct" gardening and orchard-tending with heirloom plant varieties, and staying close to the salt water that bouys my spirit and connects me to my ancestors. Indoors: delving into books, gathering with other folklore enthusiasts, swapping stories, and having great music session around the woodstove.

3. Where do you find peace and quiet?
Not sure right now-- it's been a hard year. I seek peace in the slow intake and release of breath, the comfortable closeness of my partner, the gradually-revealed beauty of our almost-finished house and the slowly-emerging health of our land. Quiet is easier to find than peace--I am thankful every morning and every night that I can begin and end my days surrounded, almost entirely, by natural rather than human-made sounds. (I'll relish the quiet more fully when I can find my missing whetstone and "take care" of a couple of extra roosters, if you know what I mean!)

4. A competitive spirit; good or bad, discuss...
A competitive spirit is like fire: a good servant, a terrible master, and dangerous to play with. I appreciate its ability to overcome inertia and get a person moving towards a goal, but I don't like the way others tend to be left in a person's wake. I should come clean and declare, right here, that I am a vicious card player, but fortunately my commpetitive streak is matched by a tendency toward distraction and terrible bad luck in the dealing of hands.

5. Is there a song a picture or a poem that sums up your passion ?
I've posted links to Richard Hugo's poem, Glen Uig, in previous posts. It captures some of the essential pain and joy of reconnection to one's past. Here's another poem from Cathal O Searcaigh, translated from Irish Gaelic by Gabriel Fitzmaurice:

A Portrait Of The Blacksmith As A Young Artist

I'm sick and tired of Dun Laoghaire.
Of my bedsit in Cross's Avenue,
A pokey place that cripples my wordsmith's craft
And leaves me nightly in the dumps
Scrounging kindred among the drunks
Instead of hammering poems for my people
On the anvil of my mind.
Almighty God! It's gone too far,
This damned silence.
If I were back in Caiseal na gCorr
I'd not be awkward, half-alive.

No way! But in the smithy of my tongue
I'd be hale and hearty
Working my craft daily
Inciting the bellows of my mind
Stirring thoughts to flame
Hammering loudly
The mettlesome speech of my people.

--found in Writing the Wind: a Celtic Resurgence: The New Celtic Poetry, ed. Thomas Rain Crowe.

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Friday Five: Game On!

Jan, over at RevGals, writes:
"In less than three weeks, my family, including children and their partners, will be gathering in Seattle, WA for 12 days...With nine adults (from almost 20 years old and up), I am thinking that we need to have some activities pre-planned--like GAMES! (Any ideas will be appreciated.) So this Friday Five is about games, so play on ahead..."

1. Childhood games?
A childhood friend recently befriended me on Facebook and shared a memory of playing "Wonder Woman" with me and a couple of other friends in our back yard. Poor guy-- I think we spent most of our time chasing each other and tying him up with the "lasso of truth."
In general, my childhood games were messy and elaborate and based on raids of kitchen drawers and my mother's fabric cabinet. There was much tent-making...also an alchemy lab under the lilac and snowball bushes, where we invented countless experimental potions and fermented-blossom "perfumes" that reeked to high heaven.

2. Favorite and/or most hated board games?
Hands-down favourite: "The Farming Game," which I used to play ad nauseum with my best friend as we were growing up. According to the box, the game was "invented on the seat of a tractor" by farmers in Eastern Washington State, and since my grandparents were Western Washington dairy farmers, I felt it was somehow a matter of loyalty to enjoy the game...considering how my life turned out, I guess I took it a bit too seriously! I loved going around the agricultural year on the board, rolling the dice for harvest yields, saving up for cattle and fruit tree tokens, and drawing the cards called "Farmer's Fate." The best one involved a true-to-life explosion of Mount Saint Helens, with all players rolling dice to see if their farm had escaped the cloud of ash. I bought a used copy--one of only three items I've ever bought on EBay--and tried to get The Piper & The Piper's Son to play it with me. Sadly, they were not as impressed...but I STILL love it!

3. Card games?
Best all-ages card game: MilleBornes, a racing game in which cards can be dealt to increase mileage or cause hazards. With a little explaining, it can be played with pre-readers, as the cards contain well-drawn visual clues.
In college, I loved playing the game, "BS," because none of my peers would believe that a pre-ministry student who still wore home-made dresses could bluff everybody under the table. I also liked "War," "SlapJack," and "Egyptian Rat Screw." Card games bring out a devilishly competitive streak in me that I find slightly disturbing, but fun.

4. Travel/car games?
Car trips were about equally divided between sibling squabbles and great game-playing in my family. There were I-spy games, like watching road signs to find all of the letters of the alphabet. We played "20 questions" and "Hink-Pink," in which a person thinks of a rhyming term and then gives out a non-rhyming definition, then has everyone guess the rhyme. (ex: "an insect outlaw" is a "mosquito bandito.")

5. Adult pastimes that are not video games?
We own neither a television nor a game console, as we recognize our own potential for time-wasting and addiction! To be honest, the work of farming, our off-farm jobs, and our community responsibilities keep The Piper and I too busy to indulge in much recreation of any kind. Our big outlet is music. The Piper plays not only the Great Highland Pipes, but also Lowland Smallpipes and the fiddle. She also knows lyrics to the most amazing array of songs, from shape-note hymns to bawdy English Music Hall bits and hard-luck ballads. We have friends that can play other instruments and remember or invent even more verses for our favourite songs.
My idea of heaven is a ceilidh: an evening of organic shared entertainment from singers, story-tellers, musicians, jokesters, and poets, with a bit of dancing and lots of good home-made food added in!

Bonus: Any ideas for family vacations or gatherings?
Share stories! Go around the circle and have everyone share "most embarrassing moments" or "a time when I felt really proud" or "the strangest thing I ever saw" or "the hardest thing I ever did" or "the outfit I wore that upset my elders most" or other good conversation-starters. It's good to do this while people have something to do with their hands: shucking corn, building sandcastles, scrapbooking, etc. so nobody feels too self-conscious.
Planning ahead, I'd encourage everyone to bring digital cameras and some old family photographs or albums. Pass them around and share the stories behind the images. Collaborate to identify places and people and dates, then write all this valuable information down. Asking for favourite recipes and family traditions is also a good idea-- get craftier members of the family to put these all into a book.
Preserve and expand your collective memory!

(Check back later--I'll look through the photo CDs my family had made, and post some great old family images from various generational gatherings!)

I'm Gonna Be an Engineer...

I grew up in a union town. Although our wee isle, with its farms and artisans, didn't boast a union hall, thousands of workers left each day for union jobs on the mainland. The ferryboat workers were union folks, too, and I was raised to respect all hard-working people. My dad was--and is--one of them.

He never talked much about the union. He didn't have to. It was just part of life in a regional economy dominated by timber, airplanes, farming, and fishing. We understood the risks and hazards of these industries. The news was full of stories: migrant workers poisoned in the apple orchards, women maimed in the fish-packing plants, men felled along with the massive trees out in the woods. I was thankful my father's job as an electrical engineer kept him safer than some. Every time we went to the mainland and drove past Boeing Field, I would look for the planes on which my father worked, and I'd feel proud--proud of him, proud of his job and the work that connected him to so many other workers, all around the world.

I only remember one strike. The details are hazy--I was pretty young. But even then, I knew the union was a Good Thing, like church was a Good Thing: a place where people supported each other and worked together for fairness and safety and health. Sometimes Dad would sing, "Sixteen Tons," and the joy of singing was due, in part, to the secure knowledge that, in our life, we did not suffer that hard. My Father's job was safe, his income was decent, and these were things we could pretty much count on.

The long commute and frequent overtime kept Dad away from his family, I'm sure, more than he liked. At home he was often tired, but still found time to share the workings of his engineer's mind. He took the time to explain electrical circuitry, taught me how to maintain an engine, let me experiment with his tools and play in his workshop. Never once did he tell me these things weren't for girls. He only explained the hazards, reminded me to wear goggles and gloves, asked that I use tools wisely and put things back when I was done. Together, we stacked wood, butchered chickens, fixed a succession of lawnmowers rescued from the dump, and played with model trains.

When I reached my teens, I bristled at his precise and measured ways. I often blazed back at him, in the midst of his careful explanations, "Dad, there's not JUST one right way to do things!" It must have been a relief to go back to work, back to drawing out schematics and troubleshooting wires and switches that hummed and clicked instead of talking back. Like most almost-adults, I was struggling to find my own place in the world, my own meaningful work. I knew I wanted to get my hands dirty, to work creatively with tools, but I also felt the early stirrings of a vocation to ordained ministry. All those big theological questions, mixed in with the soaring joys and terrors of late 1980s headlines... perhaps I was a bit jealous of my father's work, with its clarity and standardized forms!

Now I live far away from my childhood home. My parents still live on the same little island and my father still endures a long commute by car, bus, and ferryboat. Most days, I have no commute at all; my work begins at my own threshold. Yet my heart still travels. Every time I pick up a saw, I hear my father's reminders about proper alignment and angle and using the full length of the saw, not just a little bit. I feel thankful for his instruction every time I strip and splice wires, clean the underside of the mower before I put it away, or fix a leak. And I know these skills will serve me well even in ministry--name me a church no workers attend, in which the sound system never needs adjusting and the boiler never breaks!

Peggy Seeger once wrote a feminist anthem about a woman who wants to be an engineer. All the men in her life mock and discourage her. While I love the song--full of irony and humour--I've never lived it out. My father and mother both supported and encouraged me in all matters, both the practical and ethereal. If I had wanted to be an engineer, Dad would have helped me. My father taught me to dare, to practice, to try. (He may be surprised to hear that I actually paid attention!) To him I also owe the difficult lesson that there can be no successful adventure without the unglamorous work of maintenance, planning and preparation.

I grew up in a union town. I learned to respect all working folk, to pay attention to their contributions and their stories. I hope you know, Dad, how much YOUR work has mattered. I hope you know that your own story matters, and I appreciate everything you took the time to share. I hope you know how much I love you.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Solidarity Forever!

Photo credits:
woman engineer: Cascade Pass
union button: Syracuse Cultural Workers
women with wings: Seattle municipal archives

A Swine Pickle

The jury may be out on swine flu treatment & prevention, but here on the farm our Mothers of Invention have already taken some important steps.

You've heard the saying, "think global--act local." Well, thanks to my three adopted Asian siblings, I was trained early to pay attention to what was happening in other countries--especially Taiwan and Korea. My interest in my own heritage actually developed much later. (When I learned my first words of Gaelic and tasted my first haggis, I'd already been humming Korean folk songs and eating rice with chopsticks for fifteen years.)

Remember the Avian Influenza scare a few years ago? Scientists in South Korea found that kim chi, a potently-spiced Asian variant of sauerkraut, sped the recovery process for infected birds and showed distinct promise as an overall immune system booster.

So, in the service of public health, we offer this educational song:

THE SWINE FLU KIM CHI SONG
(sung to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean")

My bovines are giving me notions.
My livestock I must oversee!
For swine flu demands potent potions--
I'll feed all my critters kim-chi!

CHORUS:
Kim-chi, oh kim-chi, bring strong kim-chi to them--and me!
Kim-chi, oh kim-chi: feed kin, kine* and swine with kim-chi!

For centuries, Korean grannies
Have boosted their families' health;
With crocks of kim-chi they've been canny.
Now--can some and come share the wealth!

CHORUS

The scientists fed it to chickens
when studying avian flu:
They perked up and thrived like the dickens--
Guess we'd better try the stuff, too!

CHORUS

Shred cabbage, add garlic and ginger,
salt, scallions and hot pepper flakes.
We'll learn how to be kim-chi bingers--
Oh, what a fine pickle we'll make!

CHORUS

My sisters both came from Korea.
From Taiwan, a brother came too.
I love them--and their kitchen wisdom
Might just save us all from swine flu!

FINAL CHORUS:
Kim-chi, oh kim-chi: it's good for our critters, for you and me!
Kim-chi, oh kim-chi, a life-saving pickle, kim-chi!


(image sources: www.saemaul.com & www.asianrecipe.com.)
*kine=Scots word for cows)



P.S. Happy Birthday, Brother Zach!

Friday Five: Bucket List

SingingOwl over at RevGalBlogPals suggests that we offer our personal "bucket lists" for the traditional Friday Five. I never saw the Bucket List movie, so the words brought something different to my scattered mind:

"There's a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza..."

I loved that song when I was a child. It seemed endlessly funny, the way each problem on the ol' homestead sent Liza and Henry farther into the Slough of Despond...all 'cause there was a dad-blamed hole in the gosh-darn bucket.

Now that I live on a homestead myself, the song ain't so funny--just achingly familiar. In my life, a "bucket list" is likely to involve an actual bucket, and if'n it don't have a hole, well, the side may be split or the handle near to coming off.

Och, but enough whinging and whining. The sun's come out to warm the weary earth, and I shall plant peas in the garden today. This morning I said goodbye to The Piper's Son, who is headed off across the country to a new job and the unfettered freedom of young adult life. I'm thankful, today, for the extraordinary gift of his help this past year as we turned our old woodshop into a genuinely lovely little house. I'm also excited for him, fresh-faced and ready to discover his place in the world. Oh, and this morning, after he left? After wiping away a few sentimental tears, I got out the utility knife and the drill and put up the last piece of drywall in our bathroom, bringing the house that much closer to being done.

Now, about that bucket list:

1) Restore this old farm and open a Bed & Breakfast with a Celtic theme. I'd cook sumptuous Celtic breakfasts, all ingredients homegrown and/or fresh from other local farms. The Bagpiper would provide evening entertainment and, for those who request it, an unforgettable wake-up call! Instead of being isolated and exhausted by the hard work of farming, we'll be constantly invigorated by the stream of vibrant visitors who come to appreciate this farm's unique blessings and gifts. We'll hold Celtic Spirituality retreats for church groups, Farm Discovery weekends for armchair homesteaders, Writers & Artists retreats for weary professional women (BTW, I count caregiving of any kind as a profession, so just about all women would be qualified)...

2) Become fluent--or at least comfortably conversant--in Scottish Gaelic. (I started learning this beautiful, soulful language several years ago, but had to end my classes when I left for seminary.) Of course, to continue my studies, I'd need to spend a fair amount of time in, well, SCOTLAND! Ah, home of my ancestors and my Spirit's Other Home... Tir Mo Ghraidh! There I would sing with the seals, wander the moors, caper at the ceilidhs, wrap myself with the mountain mists and eerie, ancient peace of the isles...and the Bagpiper would travel along, sometimes choosing a different path for her own musical pursuits, but always joining me to bless moonrise and sunrise, to share our stories at the start and end of each day.

3) In keeping with #2: Make music such a central & powerful part of our shared life that it continues to heal & energize us. Ideally, it should also open opportunities for us to travel and make music in the places--and with the people--we most love. (Also, ideally, we would develop a corps of sturdy & steadfast farmhands, available to mind the farm when we depart on occasional musical jaunts!)

4) One other journey: to travel and explore some spiritual, as well as cultural roots. I'd like to see some of the Continental Celtic strongholds and archeological sites in Brittany, Austria, and Galicia. I also want to take a side trip to Ravenna, Italy, to see the church mosaics there--especially the one where there's a lifesize procession of the Church Mothers. I've been intrigued ever since I heard of these mosaics. In one, there's supposedly a woman with the title "bishop" above her head!

5) I've been a caregiver--to siblings and other people's children--much of my life. There has always been a bittersweet element of release in this work. The children always return to their parents at the end of the day, and my guidance and gifts have always been secondary. That can be a good thing--to leave the "hard part" to others--but still I'd dearly love the chance to "have a wee bairn or twa" all my own. There is so much joy and mystery that I'd love to share, as well as the shared work and earthly delights of this beloved farm. I'd like to raise up a child who sings freely, works earnestly, laughs readily, and lives fruitfully.

Speaking of being fruitful, ain't nobody gonna be fruitful around here if'n I don't get out to the garden and plant those peas!

Rock, Paper, Sisters

Soft warmth whispers from the smooth grey stone in my lap. I don't know the history of this stone--where it was formed and quarried and how long ago, how it was cut into the smooth hymn-book-sized rectangle, how many hands handled it and wore the corners down--but I love its weighty, enduring and immediate presence.

This small soapstone slab is a treasured fixture of our home, one of a small family of such stones that congregate on the woodstove, always ready for use. In warmer weather, they gather dust on that stove--like everything here gathers dust: blown in from the dirt road, drying and crumbling from the soles of workboots, sifting down from the crumbling horsehair plaster of our 1830s ceiling. The daily go-round with the broom and the weekly vacuum attack seem powerless to clear the dust from the stones' smooth, cool surfaces. But when the weather turns cold and the stove is fired up, the dust no longer appears. The fire-warmed stones come into regular use, set on the floor of a chilly room to warm our feet when sitting, or wrapped in raggedy towels and tucked under blankets to warm the sheets at bedtime. Today, in this achingly cold old house, the stone shifts between lap and desktop when the icy air stiffens my fingers and slows my typing.

I have always loved stones, smooth or rough. I have always loved rocks of every kind. An entry in my baby book describes a toddler reverie during a family trip to the Pacific Northwest coast, where all my attention was given to the gathering of smooth black stones I called "baby crow eggs." Such searches have always been a joyfully meditative pastime... and I fuss over each beautiful little treasure like a mother hen tends the dear eggs her nest.

Last Friday morning, I found a rare thing: an unwelcome stone. It was a bread-loaf-sized rock--we actually mistook it for an escaped loaf from the bag of "pig-bread" we glean from a local bakery. I noticed it near my car when our dog took me out for our morning walk. I made a mental note to carry it down and feed it to the pigs sometime later. My partner noticed it too, in her rush to start the car and head off to work. Then, she sat down in the driver's seat and discovered "the strangest frost pattern" on the windshield. Only it wasn't frost... and it wasn't a loaf of bread.

We were the fourth call to which the deputy responded. It seems some kids went on a midnight spree and we were one of the seemingly random "beneficiaries" of their little KristallNacht. We comforted ourselves with that randomness. We smiled a little wearily, but smiled nonetheless, when the deputy asked if there was anyone we'd argued with, anyone who might hold a grudge. No, sorry, not one--we two earnest community servants could think of nobody we'd angered or offended. The deputy nervously mentioned my "Celebrate Diversity" bumper sticker, but it didn't seem like a factor of provocation--since I always back my car into its spot, the sticker is never visible from the road. We later learned that a plant nursery had also been vandalized. That reinforced the apparent meaninglessness of it all. Why would anyone purposefully attack a place that grows hostas and heathers and daylilies for a living? They simply saw it as a grand place to smash a great deal of glass.

Well, the deed was done, and there was nothing for it but to file a police report, make an insurance claim, and look with despair at my checkbook. There was less than I needed to cover the deductible, and other than calling up all my friends and asking them to come over and buy meat and eggs today, I couldn't think of any way to bring in lots of cash in a hurry. We didn't want to use a credit card--not when we've been working so hard to pay everything down. With the morning eaten up by waiting and making our police report, my partner got off work for the rest of the day and we threw all our frustrated energies into a review of our farm accounts.

Mountains of receipts were scared up from various dark corners and assembled on the table. We sorted and tallied together: feed bills, new chicks, seed-starting supplies, glass to repair a barn window... like the old soapstones, these little slips of paper hinted at hard knocks and careful attentions. Stacked and tallied, they helped tell the story of our attempts at a well-rounded life. Even as we marvelled at the great outflow of money, even as we pondered and despaired over the national economic downturn and the dwindling income of my off-farm job, we found pride in the evidence of all that we'd done. I was reminded of Douglas Adams' wry observance in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "most of the people living on [Earth] were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

Receipts are useful records, but they do not change the situation. Stones give beauty and warmth, but not kindness. What repaired the fractured web of our windshield was not glass, glue and tools, but the people who knew how to use them--the two lads in the white van who did their job with sympathy and care, then stayed to scratch our dog's belly, admire the strolling bantams, and take pictures of our cows to share with their families. What repaired the web was the quick response and expressions of concern from neighbors and friends. What repaired the web was our church family's willingness to pray that the perpetrators cease their destruction and come to know some sort of peace and restorative justice.

What repaired the web was a circle of love and connection: farmers and tradesmen, deputies and ministers, brothers and sisters. Oh, and the little green pieces of paper may help too, according to the mysterious e-mail that reached us last night:

"Dear Representative of the Hard Times Corp

Let it hereby be known that Mr Scot Brievewit is checking his bank account to see if he has enough overtime money in it to cover the deductible on your windshield that was destroyed by Mr Random Violence in a collision. Stay tuned for further developments. The aforesaid Mr Brievewit learned of your mishaps this morning. He is considering the reward for your Perserverance, Hard Work, and Ability to stay Focused on your Mission. Also because you are his daughter.

The Financial Committee of the Brievewit Family Unlimited"

Well, it's starting to happen: the soapstone is beginning to lose its warmth. Time to put it back on the stove and tackle some other paperwork, so I'll be ready for tonight's church meeting and tomorrow's New Ventures class. In between the fiduciary fuss and encounters with the elements, as we move through this season of harvest and thanksgiving, let me offer up my "two bits":

1. I'm thankful for all who keep me connected.

2. My Parents Rock.