Back to the Earth?

My brother Emeric thinks I'm a hippie.  The other evening, after washing his hands in our kitchen, he asked where the paper towels were.  We don't have any.  Mid-thought, though, he checked himself, and, drying his hands on the kitchen towel I have hanging by the sink, recalled, "Oh yeah.  You're a hippie."

We aren't that weird.  At least I don't think so.  But then, it tricky to gauge one's level of "hippieness" when most of those folks are my parents' age.  The only hippies I've known seem to have missed the boat somewhere and ended up thirty years late in my high school years - they had toothpaste-induced dred locks, wore hemp necklaces and baggy corduroy pants, and played hackey sack, so they looked like hippies, but there seemed to have been some of the philosophy missing.  They seemed disestablishmentarianist, but then, they still came to school.

I recall at the time admiring them for their search for open-mindedness, but unfortunately, much of it went up in smoke with their weed.  So I picked the lesser of two evils and hung out with the stoners and "alternative" kids, even though it mixed me up in that drug culture by name (thankfully, never by deed).  My other choice involved enduring the kids who were looking to impress with clothes and appearance and studying to the test, but spent much of their energy on that, rather than real thought.  Unfortunately, it seemed that all the heart- and brain-power of those teenage years was spent in maintaining some sort of image, rather than delving into the mysteries of life.  So I was sort of stuck in the middle, not having the money to buy into really any image-group, and not having enough of the peers to really explore anything interesting in mind-land.

Boo, consumerism.

Now, living in the city, I buy organic food and wear old ratty jeans, but I don't really think I'm a hippie.  I'm still in between those city-ites who have electronic nail files and those truly granola friends who compost their nail clippings.  In the city, it's easy to get caught up in the tide of ease and convenience - I must admit I've eaten out more in these past few years than in all my previous years combined - the pace of life is much faster and it's tricky, even if you choose a slower pace, to actually maintain regular home rhythms.  For instance, how can you have a vegetable garden if you live in a third-floor walk-up?  There a people who do, through roof-top gardens and potted tomatoes, but then again, most of those people don't have small children and a roof access that involves a potential 40-foot drop.  There is no way I'm taking my kids up on the roof of our rickety building.

Which is why I'm excited about our upcoming move.  The more I live here, the more I appreciate the potentialities of a "country" life.  It's an interesting shift - in high school, I couldn't wait to get out of my little town.  So I moved to the city.  But, just like those friends in high school, so much energy was being spent on one extreme or the other that there was very little balance to be found in either place.  In the "country," there was limited mind, but in the city, there was limited heart.  Where can we find the middle way?

After a life-long education in both the rural and urban environments, I'm looking forward to a brief respite in the country.  I've had my fill of city life and culture, and need a break and a garden.  I think that is where the balance can be struck - through education.  Each environment must appreciate the value of the other.  The city friends must appreciate the work of the farmers whose lifeblood goes into growing the food conveniently bought at the grocery store - that is, they must understand all of the people and steps that it took to bring that head of lettuce from farm to table.  And the country friends must appreciate the value of culture and thought and diversity so vibrantly created in the city - the beauty of art and dance, of a well-formed insight, of a garden rich in world hues, only available where many people of varying backgrounds meet.

Ideally, every apartment will have it's garden plot, and every farm girl will go to college, but that's not for a while yet.  We won't find that out until we've maxed out the amount of people we can fit in a high-rise or the amount of water we can waste in the desert.  Silly us.  We're so enmeshed in trying to perfect our image that we've lost the root of our being - the ability to think and dream and connect to the Divine.  We're like little boats without rudders, and sooner or later we're going to hit a rock and spring a leak.  Some of us already have.  But, fear not - there will be those who are ready, with a life-boat:  vegetable gardens full of tomatoes and houses full of love and thought.  If you want, stop on by, and we can have a good talk - and a good meal.  We won't get back to the earth - we'll realize we're already there.

The Bossy Farmer

While visiting family in Ohio, I took the girls to my favorite local haunt - Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm.  As a child, I had taken summer nature classes there each year with my cousins.  We tromped around in marshes and ponds and in pine forests and prairies, and spent time on the working farm there, making egg salad and butter.  It was wonderful and memorable, and each time I go home, I try to stop by and let the girls run around!

During this visit, we saw, among other things, a new litter of piglets.  Well, not brand new, but new enough to not be full-grown yet.  I love piglets, mostly because I love bacon, but I don't tell that to my children.  What is mutually apparent is that piglets are cute (being small), and generally cleaner than full-grown pigs, and they have long eyelashes.  What's not to love?

Our pigletty friends, from left to right: normal kid, normal kid, bottom of the bully, runt, normal kid, face of the bully
(P.S.  That's not a fire - it's a heat lamp)

Among this group of piglets there were some clear-cut characters:  the overachiever (being the biggest and a bully), the regular kids (medium-sized ones), and the runt.  I have always loved the runt - I think he must be an American icon, as we love to root for the underdogs - and I could identify with this straggly little thing, having once been a straggly little thing myself.  He was the cutest and the wiggliest.  It was feeding time, and there was a mad dash for lunch, and the bully decided that he needed to not only eat, but exclude everyone else - particularly the runt - from eating.

My mother bear instincts immediately flared up.  I didn't object to the bully eating, but when he specifically bothered the little one is when the umbrella came out.  My umbrella.  I gave that bully a firm poke and hollered at him to leave the little one alone.  Twice.

I later remarked to a friend that I would make a bossy farmer.  She replied that most of the farmers she knows are pretty bossy. 

I suppose they stand in their fields and say, "Grow!  I command you!"  Maybe not, but I think that there is some level of bossiness when growing things.

Even children.

Snow

Dear Readers,

First off, let me state that I may just be the only person in the Chicagoland area who likes winter.  And my four year-old, Olivia, may be the only one who LOVES it.  There is something so delightful about bundling up and trekking out, being able to see where you've been in the crisp snow, and making a general mess of things with ice and twigs and grass and boots when you tromp back into the house, and then cozying up with a blanket and a warm drink.  Ideally a fireplace, but I think those are against code in our building...

We've been learning about the year and the equinoxes and solstices, and so every day when Olivia looks out and sees the snow-covered ground she asks, "is it solstice?"  A.k.a. Is it winter?

No, it is not officially winter, but I think we should petition that, with negative windchills and blowing snow.  My goodness.  If snow does not a winter make, what does?  I love the softness that a snowfall brings - the thought that the world is still within a snowglobe of flakes - and the pace of life must necessarily slow down.  And blizzards aren't that bad, either - they remind us that we are much smaller than Nature, even with all of our lovely technology - and they make us appreciate the warmth of the hearth and the company of friends.

So I suppose my only caveat with winter is that it has to snow.  A lot.  A Metrodome-roof-collapsing lot.  Which it, unfortunately, despite our northerly latitude, does not.

My mother will send me weather bulletins about blizzards and the worst storm of the century and I won't even read them.  It is too depressing to me, who loves snow, to read with anticipation the doomsday forecasts of 1 foot of snow to see it tapering off as soon as it hits this lake.  "Lake Effect," which to most implies more snow than normal, doesn't apply to us, except in that it usually sucks the moisture right out of the air and then jettisons it across the lake to western Michigan and northern Indiana.

Sometimes I think we live on the wrong side of the lake.

Olivia, however, is too young to be embittered by years of promises broken.   She LOVES the snow, and any sign of it is heartening for her.  Our first snowfall happened before this so-called "blizzard" that just swept through, right on time immediately after Thanksgiving.  Here are some of the fruits of our outside labors.

Brr.  I hope you are warm and cosy seeing these!

One of life's big questions

Where to live, where to live?

It would be wonderful if I could flip through a real estate catalog and take my pick.  Or, better yet, close my eyes and plunk my finger down on a part of the globe that would determine our next place of residence.

But, of course, there is much more involved in the decision than a simple guess!

The factors to consider are quite numerous, and, like many big decisions, require the proper alignments of the planets before anything can be decided.

The first factor has pretty much decided itself.  We are a family of four living in a one-bedroom apartment.  Although, dear reader, I think we've done a pretty fine job of it, and also considering that I'm the one who is here most of the time with the girls, I can certainly see that we will need some more room soon.  But, to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced!

Which leads me to the second factor, which is cost.  We moved from Chicago to Evanston after Olivia was born for several reasons:  Nathan would be closer to work and would have a shorter commute; there were more trees; and the place we found had a bigger kitchen for only a little more of the cost.  Also, our apartment was the least expensive of all the ones we saw, even though it was also the most ghastly.  When we first came for a showing, the walls were painted bright red and yellow and the bedroom was purple.  Not lavender or lilac - purple.  And the best part was that the paint only went as high up the wall as the person could reach, and so the roller marks stopped about a foot from the ceiling.  Of course, they painted before we moved in, and we further plastered and painted over the cracked walls and had a lot of other work done, so I think the place is in much better shape than when we first began living here.  But, the work was a trade-off for the rent, which, even so, has gone incrementally up in the four years we've been here.  Even now, it's a bit tight for our non-profit, single income budget.  But, then again, the work is a trade-off for the pay - I'm not working for pay on purpose and so subsequently am working much harder at home with my girls.

The trickiest bit is finding a larger place for the same or at least a similar cost.  And, the more settled we've become here, the longer my list of house requirements grows.  Every scenario I've found online has sacrificed one important "must-have," such as a small kitchen with those ghastly oak cabinets (ours are a cheap white, but I like white - it seems so clean - and is easy to clean, to boot), or carpeting (which won't work with my asthma, even new stuff), or too far from the train line (which Nathan uses for work), or not within walking distance to a grocery store (for the days when Nathan takes the car).  Pretty much "not our current place." 

I think that, at this point, dear reader, you may sense my reluctance to leave where we are.  But I also know that change is necessary - a new place would bring it's own exciting challenges.  Not to mention the purging of accumulated junk that happens when one moves.  And the next year may bring big changes for our family in terms of income, and so we may end up needing to move more than just within city limits.

Oh, dear.

So, at this point, I really just have to plan several scenarios for the coming year:  staying in our current place, staying in Evanston, staying in the Midwest, and staying within the U.S.  I suppose I could also plan for international travel, but that is a bit out of my brain range right now.  It's hard to plan a garden in Boston, but who knows!?  As the year progresses, and our lease comes to an end in April and Olivia's school comes to an end in May, I'm sure we'll have a better grasp on things.  But I hate waiting!  And not knowing where you're going to live is rough!

This will be a winter for patience, I suppose.  And counting my seeds and paring our personal belongings for a more-than-likely move.  Wish us luck!

Two things that are amazing...

...if you are under five.  Or 30, like me.

1)  Netflix on the television.  This one might require a bit of technical explanation.  First of all, let me explain that we don't really watch television, because we don't have cable and since our converter box broke, we can't get any local channels even.  So our computer is solely for those DVDs that haven't met Elsie and been scratched into oblivion and the occasional video game. 

A while ago, a family of generous friends gave us their Wii (woo-hoo!), which is Nintendo's recent family video game console that works with one's television.  We can all play it - even Elsie and Olivia - because it relies on gross motor skills to operate, rather than joysticks.  Anyhow, we've had it for several years now, and have enjoyed it periodically, but mostly during parties when friends are over.  However, Nathan mentioned the other day that the Wii could do more than simply play video games - it could connect to our wireless internet and we could check the news and weather and even watch Netflix - which, for my Gramma, is an online movie service, where you can watch movies and television shows on the computer. 

So we labored last night and figured out how to connect everything and - voila! - we are now able to watch those movies and shows on our television, rather than our computer.  Which is a bit convoluted, I suppose, but it is really exciting for all involved, because, dear reader, it means that I can write this post, because my little person is watching Wonder Pets on the television rather than this computer!


2)  COUCH-BED!!  To add to the excitement of Netflix on the television, we've recently had a line of overnight guests, who have been treated to our guest room - read: living room with our couch converted into a bed, courtesy of IKEA.

This lovely little couch folds out into a queen-size bed, and Olivia and Elsie and I all scramble to make it as hotel-y as possible, with clean sheets and wool blankets and feather (and not) pillows.  But no mints, which I would really like for the pillows.  The funnest part is the folding out, during which both little girls clamber onto the couch part and "ride" while I fold it over and down.  Couchbed is the best thing since sliced bread.

We had it ready for a houseguest last night, who ended up delaying his arrival for another day, and so we had the room all tidy and the bed all comfy for - US!  And we enjoyed every minute.

(In fact, Olivia and I - the early-risers - are currently enjoying both out couchbed and Netflix on the television right now! ;)