Category: Frivolity

3 Graces

We just left the Woodard Lane Cohousing Community to come to Italy. As we moved in, others who’d moved out told us their take on who’s attracted to Cohousing communities: First, there are the extroverts, the folks who would love to live communally under all kinds of circumstances. Perhaps these are the folks that thrive in communes, hostels, barracks, etc. They might happily live under a ping pong table so long as someone else was involved. Secondly, there are the introverts, the folks who love community under certain conditions. Perhaps these are the folks who enjoy their private space but also enjoy a structured environment to discuss the merits of turf (at length) with people they’re not related to. Who does that leave? Extroverted golfers?

As an unapologetic member of the first category, I particularly enjoyed the dinners our cook teams prepared each week, not just to eat but also to throw my weight around a bit. Known fact: bantering about religion, politics, or community gossip helps prep vegetables efficiently. Subjective Observation: Heated discussions about the role of colonialism and the rise of Wahhabism (Jim: look it up!) occasionally yields mixed culinary results but certainly keeps things lively!

With everything cooked and ready to eat, we gathered in a circle and shared some kind of blessing, reflection, poem or hokey pokey before digging in. Upon arriving at WLCH, my sociological analysis is that members of the second camp had unduly influenced a version of a popular grace I remember growing up. It went:

Thank you for this food,
This food, this glorious glorious food,
And the animals,
And the vegetables,
And the minerals,(!)
Who made it possible.

MINERALS! It’s PEOPLE! PEOPLE who made it possible. Suddenly grace was reduced to a guessing game! I mean, sure, some folks are pretty into crystals and the like but when did a mineral ever harvest your lettuce?! Or berate you about Wahhabism? In a rather uncouth manner I began to loudly sing my version each time we did that grace and attempt to pull more people into my camp. Most sung it way they’d always done.

thiscollectivelife5
This is a comic I made while living collectively in North Carolina. I’d say the same concept applies to lemon bars left in the common house.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from (watching other people in) community, it’s that you rarely influence people over the long term by force and your best bet is being a good example. Folks set an incredibly kind and loving example for us in cohousing, and we’ll always remember it fondly.

By request, I was asked to record some of the other graces I learned growing up in Waldorf schools and here are 3. I’m sure my versions are slightly more bombastic and overbearing than those you’ll find on Rudolf Steiner’s Greatest Hits, but take them and share them in memory of me.

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Watching the World Cup in Castel Volturno

This is an unpublished post edited from a first draft I wrote in 2010 while living in Italy during the World Cup.  I’ve been reflecting a lot on the situation of immigrants here, especially as Europe experiences deep economic crisis and Italian xenophobia is ever-present and particular poignant for me as a privileged outsider.  We are currently hosting an intern from Burkina Faso at the moment at the farm, and his occasional comments about the challenge of living here, as well as the strange position I’ve been thrust into as his kind of supervisor, really reminds me of this experience a few years back:

Though I couldn’t be considered a real soccer (sports) fan in any respect, I’ve always really enjoyed the World Cup.  Teams from all over the world, different playing styles, strange loyalties.  I’m into it, and at least the last three tournaments have punctuated interesting moments in my life, times when I’ve been involved in crazy situations on the brink of entering new ones.  I sense this might be another and when I’m far away from home I feel at least 6 times more patriotic.

We all know about Italians and football, though I’ve been hanging out around a crowd who don’t really care much for it.  They care enough to disparage the US and its poor sporting reputation, but as the former champions eliminated in the first round I got the last laugh on that one this time.

I got to watch us sputter and go out on Saturday night surrounded by 200 Ghanians [Ghana eliminated the US 2-1 in overtime].  Now, to be fair, I don’t know if every man was from Ghana.[my privilege speaking again] I certainly did not identify myself as a US fan hoping to get a feel from the crowd.  Fede and I were visiting a town in the South of Italy, near Naples, called Castel Volturno.  Mention its name (or better yet, your travel plans there) to most Italians and you will get  post-Katrina New Orleans tooth sucking reactions.  It’s considered a lawless, Mafia-controlled toxic waste dump full of illegal immigrants.  Many immigrants come to the semi-apocalyptic resort town because of its reputation for extra-governmental legal systems, empty houses built as tax shelters and the like.  One could consider this either a draw or the result of being turned away at every other turn.

While we were there before the game, I spoke with some of the guys who described their three day trips from Libya across the sea to Sicily, only to be picked up and sent to camps called CPTs.  They’re held at the camps for various lengths of time until they’re just dumped, without any legal status, into the Italian wilds.  That’s how it’s been described to me.  Even for those not living in Castel Volturno, life as black or Arab immigrant seems very tough here.  Right in Federica’s valley near Forli there are a huge number of immigrants working low-wage jobs at the local chicken factory.  Even though this seems like a country paradise to me with white skin and easy legal status, most immigrants are clearly very marginalized and isolated here.  No halal butchers posting their wares.  No visible immigrant support center. (I found it by accident while making a visit to the local provincial offices.  One part time, and very kind, Italian women works there.)

As the World Cup game wound down and the US was clearly not going to win, the crowd started to slowly disperse. Night fell and the parking lot with a projector screen set up in it became more empty every time I looked around.  By the time the game was over, the subdued celebrations were only obvious for a few minutes before folks left entirely.   I was struck by how I might have reacted as a fair weather fan if we’d won.

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A Californian Vision

It reached 80 degrees in Cazadero on the ranch!
It reached 80 degrees in Cazadero on the ranch!
Federica and Lila with burning wings on Ocean Beach, San Francisco
Federica and Lila with burning wings on Ocean Beach, San Francisco

I reconciled myself to having a different attitude about California about 5 years ago, when I drove my newly purchased 1982 Yamaha Vision to San Francisco from Olympia. At the time, my attitude about California was that it seemed shallow and consumer-driven. Contempt prior to investigation.  It was an interesting period for me, right about the era I began this blog in preparation for a trip to Palestine and my heart warmed a little in the sunshine and landscape I saw.  I was struggling on a personal level, trying to figure out my life purpose, and the motorcycle was “witness” to that period in ways I’m still only just understanding.

I sold the Vision as I reached the Bay to an old friend living in the hills of Western Sonoma County. My friend Frank was looking for just that kind of motorcycle, and at the time I didn’t feel so attached or appreciative of it.  Almost 5 years later, he passed away unexpectedly recently and at his memorial his family suggested I come back to pick up the bike. He was such a kind man, and his love of mechanics (especially marginal ones) meant a lot to me as I thought about him and that vehicle.  As Federica and I prepare to travel to Italy for 5 months and my job wound down, we had some time to make a visit.  I didn’t know what condition the motorcycle was now in, but regardless our main interest was taking a kind of honeymoon and visiting our many friends (grieving, recently moved, old and new) down there.  If all went well, we’d motor home on the bike along Highway 1 as our return trip.

3 lambs were born in the week we stayed in Sonoma County, these one's are minutes old.
3 lambs were born in the week we stayed in Sonoma County, these one’s are minutes old.

We have spent the last two weeks wandering San Francisco’s Mission district full of murals and encroaching gentrification, burning a new friend’s artwork on the beach with her for a film project, traveling into the hills to live entirely off the grid, catching rides all over backcountry roads, and connecting with the restorative power of community.  We have not been riding a motorcycle. While Persephone, as I now remember I called her, may one day ride again, at the moment she will bask (languish?) a bit longer in the warm Californian sun.  She now holds a more complete story of origin and a myth for me, as a point of reference in the last 5 formative years of my life.   We did a little ceremony at the ranch to appreciate the tools in our lives for the service they provide us, and I reflected on how a tool can serve a purpose we didn’t plan for it at all.  Persephone now carries a little bit of Frank for me and she’s fired inspiration and driven me places without even starting to leave the driveway.

 

by Categories: Family, Frivolity, Italy 1 Comment

A much needed break

Palm Springs Evening

I had the very pleasant opportunity to spend the last 3 days in Palm Springs, California. The Education Department at the Tribe recently received a new grant, and the kickoff training for grantees was rescheduled from its usual place in DC to sunny SoCal. I must say I had some doubts about the whole thing, like whether I should go when my status as an employee is still unclear, but those doubts melted away in the desert heat. I bought a ticket for Federica to join me, and both of us really enjoyed the opportunity to hang out by the pool, see some good shows in the evening, and generally escape the daily grind for a few days. We came back last night to pouring rain. We’ll have to keep the memory of sunshine alive in our hearts. I think some of the planning and mental space we gave ourselves in Palm Springs will also have lasting positive effects.

Weather in Olympia

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Procession of the Species 2012

Procession of the Species 2012

A fitting return to updates.  Somewhere I heard that well over 3/4 of all personal blogs are not updated regularly. I helped build the float that the kids are sitting on, repurposed from several parts of greenery, unwanted mushrooms, and decorations in Earthbound productions studio. I had a great time, a beautiful bookend to my first stint with TOGETHER!  

 

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Easter

I’ve decided I really enjoy places that show their seasons. Being from the Northwest, which does have distinct seasons but doesn’t always display them nicely, the dormant/cold to lush/warm cycle I first discovered in North Carolina has become a spiritual ritual for me. I travel so much I miss it by default but this year has been awesome.

I arrived in Italy this time from the cold in Washington, only to find an even colder and barer landscape. Everyone was hunkered down for the winter and by arriving in January I almost feel like I disturbed their hibernation. In the Villagio della Gioia, we shuffled through the mud because we had too. Arriving in Israel I could see they were just breaking free of winter, the tail ends of rain for them brought another meter of snow in Italy I missed completely.

Now I come back and it’s Gorgeous. Spring is gorgeous. Villafranca, the area around the villagio, is full of orchards now in bloom. Cherries and apples and many things I don’t recognize. One of my favorite things is to see the pruned branches blooming in the grass below the riot of blossoms above. It reminds me of the image of Christ, cut from humanity but still with us in spirit, expending all His earthly energy in Love.

I ate rabbit for an easter meal today. It’s part of a balanced Romangolo diet; they think more about doves than rabbits at this time of year. I enjoyed it, symbolism be damned.

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Happy International Women’s Day

I was quizzed first thing this morning about what day it was and what that meant to me. Blank stare. Bad answer. All three of the Italians in the apartment, including the man, gave me shameful glances.

Sitting in traffic later in the day for the big rally in the square downtown, I realized just how out of the loop I am. Again. As I wondered through the throng, backpacked and blond, as covered and uncovered women waved banners and took pictures I felt a lot of gratitude for being along for the ride. Later, in our Friends gathering, a local matriarch spoke passionately about her experience of our faith and apologized profusely for questioning how we have been involved over the years.

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A New Year

I’m sitting in my grandmother’s house listening to the heater vents blow.  I feel so appreciative of this sound.  I know it is surrounded by warm carpets and the art and knick knacks I’ve grown up around in short visits and dark spells of retreat.  These objects of family and warmth and history are more stable than any of the other physical places of “home”  I’d like to hang onto.  I have my family around me here. Now.   I have my love visiting from far away.  I’ve shown her  around my hometown and now feel ready to take off with her into a new adventure.

I’m appreciating memories and moments of love because there has been such darkness in my life this year.  As I sat with friends around a circle of candles in the darkness on Solstice eve, or stared into the depths of a fire in the woods on the night of, I thought about how tough this year has been.  My night has been my own.  I’m just wrestled with my head and heart so much this year.  Talking with my mom as I drove down the slick highway, I had to brake harder than I wanted to as I was lost in the punctuation of describing how much has changed for me.  I don’t see her much so she notices the big things that shift for me more than the small.  And she says she sees a difference too.

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On the road again

I’m about two weeks into another journey here, using a day with the flu as a good excuse to catch up.  The last 24 hours aside, I’ve had a great time.

Most importantly, I’ve had a chance to share time with an absolutely excellent woman who graciously suffered through long bus rides, my snips at my mother and other inconveniences for the last 10 days.  Federica is a beautiful fascinating woman and I love her.  I’ll be leaving here in a few days to visit her farm in Italy briefly before returning to the US.

When the sun's not been in my eyes I've been smiling costantly
When the sun's not been in my eyes I've been smiling costantly
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Direct from the Pubs of Manchester to You- for Copetón and Sila

"Just at home betwixt graduation tassles and christmas ornaments as the open bush, the Gloucester Canary produces a beautiful song" -Bird Fancy

“So I found meself in the Irish hardware store the other day and I overheard a conversation at the counter. A customer wanted to know if the store sold yellow paint.

‘Of course,’ said the man behind the counter ‘in the paint section on aisle 3. Are you looking for a particular shade?’

‘yeah, it ougtha be canary yellow. I need it to paint me bird.’

‘Oh?….. And why on God’s green earth would you need to do that?’

‘Well, y’see, he’s a budgie really but he’s got the voice of angels. I want to enterim in a canary singing competition, win meself a pint. He’s gotta be a canary’

‘You’ll kill’m by painting him!

‘Nah, I won’t’

‘A tenner says you will’

‘You’re on’
and the costumer strode off.

Week or so later I’m back in the store and sure enough, here’s the same lunatic with the budgie walking in.

‘Hey!’ says the keeper “What happened to your budgie?”

‘Aw, he died’

‘I bloody well told you! Where’s my tenner?’

‘Naw, twasn’t the paint that killed em,’ said the man “was the sanding between coats that didm in’

-Courtesy of Don Chalmers, immediately following my 6th defeat at racquetball. Penalty for threatening my birds: keel hauling,  ( + the occaional loss at racquetball.)

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