Adventures with Jenny Goodguts

It’s been a while since I last wrote to you. Some worldly events have taken place in the meantime. Elections, shenanigans, recounts, upticks, cancelled plans, people behaving badly, people behaving goodly, etc, and so on. I’m sure I’m missing things, to be honest I haven’t felt at the top of my game this month.

I started to write to you around the time of the election. I started to write to you before Thanksgiving. I started to write to you on Quantum Friday. Now it is December 5th. Only a few weeks left according to the cultural story of a ‘calendar’ that puts numbers on days and organizes them into blocks so that we can have a shared reference. We call this large block of smaller blocks 2020. And we have a few of the smaller blocks left until we say we are in a different larger block called 2021.

It was supposed to be an important year for the global commons. Big meetings were to take place all year to set ambitions for international climate policy, for protection of biodiversity. A culminating year and a year for new commitments. When the Convention on Biodiversity, for example, says: By 2020 we will… They then meet in 2020 and say, well did we? And what next?

I remember in January driving back to Alexandria from Alabama and thinking about this 2020 year which there were such high hopes set upon from the perspective of a global agenda (E.g., We’ll end deforestation by 2020!) And I thought: Lady, it’s 2020. It’s time. I don’t know what I meant, but I felt that there wasn’t time anymore to dilly dally. For me, for us. I wanted to channel some of the energy of the hope or the intention and use it to move me to something. To my small part in something.

I obviously don’t need to tell you what happened in the meantime to my hazy, yet well-intentioned visions of 2020.

I’m not going to expound too much on this, and I know 2020 has not been anything like anyone expected and there has been a lot of difficulty for all of us, much more for some than others, and absolutely no one is untouched. I feel a lot of frustration, though, with the ads or the memes or the storyline about how much 2020 has sucked. To me, those stories carry a message of how things are ‘supposed’ to be. But there is no supposed to be. This is what is, just like every day we are alive, and it might get better and it might get worse and we keep doing our best. There is no promise it will get better or that we are owed something different in life. That this is some aberration from clean and neat and controllable. Clean, predictable, controllable, in many ways, are an illusion we were sold.

What I am writing for, today, is to share something that is bringing me some joy and peace and showing me something that feels like possibility and hope here in the final weeks of what we call 2020.

On December 1st, I sat down with a large piece of paper. I did not purchase a special piece of paper that was just the right size, I found the largest piece of paper I had at home. I could have taped some paper together. That would have been good enough. I got out a pencil and a ruler. I sat down with Maggie and Sam. I showed them how I could measure the paper and use division to figure out how to divide it evenly to make 25 rectangles organized in rows of 7. A calendar. I wrote the numbers 1 to 25 in the boxes. An Advent calendar minus the chocolate or doors to open. No doors to open. We will make our own doors.

I had asked them, after Thanksgiving and on a day when they were talking about things they didn’t have, to make a list of things they were thankful to have. I asked for 5. Later that day, the focus on not having continuing, I asked them to make it 10. They wrote their lists.

With our grid in front of us, we looked at the lists. I explained my idea: We will choose one thing we are thankful for. And then we will find a way to share that thing with others who might not have it. We have a budget of $10 each day for 25 days to share something. What should we share first?

Of course the first big question was what about the chocolate? Won’t we get our chocolate. Yes, I said. We can still have chocolate. But in what form? What will the chocolate look like? When will we eat it? Fears were put to rest and it was emphasized: we have so much. We have so much. Let us use this month to think about sharing light. Spreading light. And I promise we will also eat some chocolate.

On the first day, it was a roundabout process and no one including me quite understood what we were doing. We had been for a walk in the woods the day before, Maggie had climbed a tree, she had a lot of insect bites. They were itchy. Somehow we started to talk about malaria. On our first day, the children decided they wanted to give malaria nets to protect children. Google time. We found an organization called Nothing But Nets. We read some of the stories of refugee families, families where the father had had malaria 300 times in his life, where children missed significant time in school because of malaria. The kids saw that $10 provided nets for 2 children. I said: our budget each day is $10, but if you want to do a job, like sweeping the deck, that can be a $10 job. We could give 4 nets. They swept the deck. That was also a learning experience about teamwork and project management. Sam especially wanted to read the stories and see the pictures of the people who now had nets. We decided, after the fact, that that day we were giving thanks for our health by sharing health with others.

On the second day, the kids chose to be thankful for our dog, Otis. We decided to support the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria and looked at their wishlist on Amazon. The kids wanted to send a dog bed and some baby food (they use it to feed the dogs medicine) but the total for these items was way higher than our daily budget. They mopped the kitchen and the dining room, they cleaned the kitchen cabinets, the bathroom vanity, the stairs. We read about raccoon rescue, hungry squirrels, we saw the photos of dogs and cats for adoption. We all agreed we’d like to find a way to volunteer there once it was possible again.

Here’s a thing. I always want to help. But I don’t know what to do. What is the BEST thing to do? What organization is working to solve the REAL problem. Teach a man to fish. Etc. That baby food I bought was made from chicken that was definitely not free-range.

I don’t have the answer. I don’t know the best, absolute most useful, perfect solution to whatever. Okay. But four kids who are alive on the Earth right now are going to sleep beneath a net and not get sick. One living creature who has probably not had a super amazing time in life so far will have a more comfortable night of sleep and take his medicine. I can share imperfectly. And as I do, I will learn more. I’m already learning more.

On the third day, the kids both came up with being thankful for trees. All on their own. We thought we would plant some trees. We found One Tree Planted where they say $1 given = 1 tree planted. We read all about what trees do for the atmosphere, for providing water, for livelihoods, for erosion, for habitat. We read about restoration in Haiti (where I told the kids my brother had spent some time helping people) (when the kids asked why the people in the photos in Haiti were frequently not smiling, this led to a very interesting conversation), we looked at how restoration in the Pacific Northwest is helping protect Orca whales, we looked at California because the kids knew about the wildfires, we looked at Appalachia because that’s closest to where we live, we looked at the Andes because Dave spent some time doing fieldwork there. The kids wanted to plant a tree in all of these places, and on the website you can choose to plant 2 trees here and 2 trees there.

As usual, we talked about what we could do with our $10. Two trees in five places. The kids washed all the sinks in the house, emptied the compost (a job they are not fond of) and we planted four trees in all five places.

This was an exciting day for me. It’s not hard! (I thought.) I want to plant trees for everyone! (I thought.) This is the best project I’ve ever done! (I thought.) We are learning so much!

Day 4 started off tricky. The kids could not agree about something to be thankful for. Eventually they chose Food. Let’s give to a food pantry they said. So we talked for a bit. What is it about food that you are thankful for, what do we want to share? Healthy food. We are thankful that we have healthy food that is grown in a healthy way that is good for us and also for the farmers and the Earth (we have recently watched both Kiss the Ground and The Biggest little Farm so this is on their minds). So we went to The Farmlink Project where they say $1 donated equals 10 pounds of food that, in part because of Covid, would not get to market otherwise, would have to be thrown out (and food waste is also a significant contributor to climate change, excellent comic about this link here) and here there are so many more people in our country without enough to eat right now. So $1 = 10 pounds of food = 8 meals. We did the math. The kids are a bit tired from all of the chores lately. With our $10 budget we can give 100 pounds of food (!) and 80 meals (!!). Okay, they said, let’s stick with $10 today. Well, I suggested, what about one small job. If you earn $2 extra that is 20 more pounds of food, 16 more meals for people who need food. They chose to do $8 worth of jobs and then when we sat down to make the donation they decided to give $1 of their own money each to round it up to 200 pounds of food and 160 meals.

I just found out in finding the links for this note, that today is World Soil Day, so clearly I will make a suggestion to the kids based on that fact. Otherwise, they have talked about giving thanks for toys next.

This project has been so interesting and has helped to put me into a very different frame of mind. I’m excited every day to see where the conversation will go, what we will learn together, what questions they will ask, what will spark their interest, what is being done in the world, how we can help, in a tiny way, but a way that feels concrete. I like that we can say: 4 nets, 20 trees, 160 meals, one dog bed. I know some of this is a bit of a fundraising gimmick. But I am not going to let the cynic in me win today. I am not going to not give because I don’t know the best place or because I am not sure which option is the most efficacious.

What if we all planted trees for each other in December? What would that be like? What would the world be like?

What if we all supported farmers and found ways for excess produce to get to the people who are hungry in November?

One dollar equals one tree. One dollar equals 8 meals.

Sam said to me after one conversation: If many people do one small thing, it becomes a big thing.

In hopefulness,

Jennifer

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Hi! Thanks for reading! I’ve also written a book! (The Rise and Fall of Jenny Goodguts). You can learn more about my current work, including The Stuffed Project, or subscribe to the blog to get new posts directly in your inbox.

Oh my friends…

Here we are. September halfway gone. 2020 nothing like we imagined when we thought to ourself on New Year’s Day: I’m going to make 2020 the BEST YEAR EVER.

I left my home today (an incredibly rare occurrence. Since March 13th I’ve been out of the house on my own five times, and three of those times were to Trader Joe’s). This afternoon when homeschool ended I was feeling bold: a trip to the post office (to drop-off prepaid packages, no waiting in line) and then to the bank to get some cash, “just in case” (not exactly prepper cash, just enough to finally pay the kids their allowance rather than continuing to borrow their allowance out of their own wallets so that I have $2 to give them while also giving them a note, or adding on last week’s note, I O U $4 $6).

I brought a jar of change to the bank. While otherwise life bubbles along smoothly, our nation is undergoing a coin shortage. I thought to myself: today, I will be part of the solution. So I put the jar of change into the car in case I could turn it in at the bank and be a hero. But when I arrived, I found that only the ATM and drive thru were open, and usually they don’t take coin deposits through the drive thru (I didn’t check, truth be told). But all of these errands had only taken about 15 minutes and I was loving life out there on the open road. What to do? A flash of brilliance: I will go to the Coinstar at the Giant and turn in all of my coins. Why? Because heroes endure. So I drove to the Giant, quite excited about this new turn of events (mostly because it had occurred to me that I might write about my adventure). I arrived. Parked. Saw an older man get out of his lovely vintage Mustang not wearing a mask and walking towards the automatic doors splashed with a large sign: Masks Required. My brain asked questions. Maybe I’ll even walk in and buy some Claussen pickles, I thought. And then I walked into the store — well, first I tried to go in through the OUT door but that was embarrassing and then I walked in through the IN door, saw the “out of order” sign on the Coinstar machine and immediately circled to the OUT door at which point I knew that Mustang man thought I was insane. Walked straight to my car. Felt like crying, but did not.

Sitting in the car almost crying after failing to make an insignificant and questionably useful contribution to society reminded me of the other time, two weeks ago, when I finally loaded the car with the items, accumulating since March, deemed no longer necessary to our ‘new normal’. I drove to the Goodwill only to be turned away (mine was the second car turned away, the car two in front of me was successful in her quest to simplify) because there was no room left for additional donations. I did cry on that August afternoon.

After no more than a teacup of tears were shed I reminded myself that this is hardly front-line work. I can survive an unsuccessful trip to offload my excess shit. It just felt overwhelming, like nothing in this whole crazy world is working. NOT EVEN A GOODWILL DONATION?

I came home and ate some chips and hummus.

I still haven’t had the guts to try to return my overdue library books. I hope they meant it when they said fees are waived. Unless I can pay with the change….

***

I wrote this two weeks ago (but didn’t post) as a means of introducing you to the two newest members of our family:

Hello friends!
It’s been a couple of months since I last posted to the blog. Contrary to how it might seem to almost everyone I’ve ever known but haven’t spoken to since March, I and my family still exist. I told someone that I hadn’t seen a friend, in person, between March 13th and August 25th and that person seemed shocked. Which, in turn, shocked me. Wait, isn’t that what people are doing (I thought to myself). Haven’t we all been sitting inside or outside, but alone, I mean with only our spouse and children and dog, and possibly our parents or sibling, for the last six months?? Am I the only one who has left the house (except for minimal exercise in the form of very brief walks with the dog when guilt occasionally overcame me) three times since March (all three of those trips being to go to Trader Joe’s)? Am I the only one who wore the same pair of navy blue sweatpants every day for the months of June through August?

It turns out the answer is maybe. Perhaps I was just looking for a reason.

Summer is at an end. What have we done to prepare for at least one, likely four, and possibly an eternity of all living in very close proximity while all trying to … something, I don’t know, remind me what it is we are trying to do other than not read the news and make sure to eat (and not just chips and hummus)? So, in preparation for the new homeschool year, we have two new pets. I realized, after the fact, that assuming responsibility for two additional lifeforms, plus the dog, two kids, a non-traveling spouse, all here together in our American-small home was — it was not a moment of clarity.

Our neighbors had a suckerfish. Suckerfish eat other fish and our neighbors acquired some other fish so the suckerfish needed a new home. The daughter of the neighbors (she herself being a neighbor) knocked on our door and (through the mail slot because we are trying to fully ingrain one unnamed member’s antisocial behavior into all living creatures at our domicile) she offered me the fish. I didn’t know what to do. Oh no, I did know what to do. I told her: we don’t have a tank. Oh, we have an extra tank, she said. Okay, um, we don’t have any food. We have extra food. Well then, I thought, tank and food, sure, we can keep this thing alive for a while. How hard can it be?

Short story long, they didn’t have a tank. And a suckerfish has to have an oxygenated tank (why doesn’t a goldfish? I don’t know) so another neighbor went to the house of yet another neighbor who had some old aquarium equipment that turns out doesn’t all work together, it’s a hodgepodge of bits and pieces from a range of aquatic environments but would not serve to keep “Flippy” alive. So the father of the child who offered us the fish purchased a lovely aquarium after realizing that “Flippy” was going to be leaving his house to come to ours. So, hey, free aquarium and suckerfish. Flippy seems super happy here. He sleeps all day and hides and we never see him because he blends in to the back of the tank. I don’t know how much food he needs. We just sprinkle some in sometimes and I’m told he can also eat the algae that grows on the tank (well, it was a 7-year-old who told me) and is sort of self-sufficient. Stay tuned. I think his official name is “Flappy” (Sam had the honors) but I call him Flippy because that was the original proposal and also: Oh, have you met our fish, Flappy Hole?

All this happened because Maggie has been full court press for a hamster for the past two months. Why? I don’t know. But her father told her she could have one. So they chose a cage and a wheel and the little house and the food bowl and the shavings and the healthy seed mix and got it all set up and then went and purchased Sir Galahad last Friday. He is still alive which I wasn’t really expecting. (Update: He runs every night on his hamster wheel, which for the first two weeks was immobile due to excess of bedding material. It sounds like Rolling Thunder, all night. At least at any point in the night when I’m conscious and then again first thing in the morning. Where is he going? Why? Should I feel bad?) I’ve watched a few more YouTube videos than I would have preferred with a very knowledgeable young lady who seems to care a lot about hamsters. I do have some questions for her wardrobe team though. I don’t know who all these people are watching her videos (she has what some might consider an unwarranted number of followers). Is it all people who have hamsters? Or do some people just like to watch her talking about hamsters dressed in her crop top with the cleavage peep-hole? It’s confusing to me.

In summary: hiding from the world. Spent part of the summer in Alabama. Please don’t be offended that I didn’t call you while I was down there. I thought that was what we were all doing.

Not going to mention anything about the world circus.

Oh, I did see something I really liked: The Farmlink Project.

Remember when we were reading about all of the farms that couldn’t get produce to market so it was all going to waste? And then all of the people who needed food? Well, a couple of college kids started this project, supporting farmers, getting food to people. Thank you Farmlink Project.

What else? I’ve submitted 18 pieces of writing for publication. 13 rejections. 5 outstanding.

I’ve written a lot since February (I know it is not obvious based on the regularity of my blog posts).

I’ve started taking piano lessons again. Remotely of course. I think it is probably the best thing I have ever done for myself in my whole entire life.

I’ve also been writing haiku recently.

squirrels wear no pants
living free from questions like
when they were last washed

***

played Patience tonight
don’t care much for Axl’s voice
splendid whistling though

***

thank you for reading
Summer is gone and we are
all still in my house

Dear friends,

Last Friday was my children’s final day of school for the year. Sam finished first grade with a class-wide game of Bingo via Zoom and Maggie with a 30-child Zoom followed by watching a movie together (on Zoom). She opted to leave before the movie so I can’t vouch for how well that went. Given that our internet connection was dropping on and off throughout the day/week/month, it was probably for the best (Comcast has sent us a new modem, we received it on Saturday, the day after school ended).

I had a few COVID stories to share, maybe I’ll start with those as a way of reminding us of a simpler time, three weeks ago, when all we were doing was trying to avoid spreading germs, wondering what we were going to do with our children all summer long, and worrying about an economic depression, with November, and Joe Biden’s health, looming like a terror in front of us. Remember the good old days?

And now we find ourselves worrying about white supremacist groups posing as ANTIFA on Twitter and instigating a move from the cities to the suburbs while we have conversations with friends and relatives about preppers and whether we were naive to never buy a gun.

I have never watched the show “Doomsday Preppers” but note that my spellcheck automatically changes ‘preppers’ to ‘peppers’ — so if you are amongst those who started watching the show because you thought it was about an end-of-days food, it would be understandable. Apparently the show, a platform for conspiracy theorists with potentially violent ideologies, was cancelled in response to a Change.org petition arguing that it was irresponsible for NatGeo to continue to air a program promoting “the extreme views of individuals on the fringes of society.” According to the petition, with 26% of American adults suffering from some form of mental illness, the risk was too great that a future episode might inspire violent action. The show was cancelled at the peak of its popularity in 2014.

As I write this, outside of my window the sun is shining. The trees are still, no breeze. The birds sound way happier than seems appropriate. The mountain laurel is blooming like nobody’s business and all that kale we planted what feels like only weeks ago is everywhere, as predicted.

So, before we move on to more distressing topics, I’d like to share a few bright spots.

First: Maggie, after reading My Side of the Mountain, has decided to move in to the large tree in our backyard. She wants to burn out the inside but we told her she has to wait until we are sure it is actually dead (this could take years, but I have not brought this to her attention). She has outfitted herself with several crackers, a pyrex container full of water (no, not a water bottle, an open pitcher that birds can share with her, yes, health issues), a bird book, a journal, a flashlight, and a few other odds and ends. She has spent the past two days outside, well past dark, when, for one reason or another we have been compelled to ask her to come in to sleep. She claims that she fell asleep in her ‘shelter’ the first night but with the possibilities of Lyme disease, West Nile, the Plague (I think that’s what fleas spread), and any other parasite-spread disease we told her she could try again but in a tent. Yesterday morning she insisted that she would collect all of her food for the day from the yard. She ate dandelion greens and mint leaves until about 2 o’clock (in addition to a few of her crackers) when she accepted a gift of hummus and chips that I left in a basket at her ‘door’.

She invited the rest of the family to a dinner party at her new home. She served us from a table she had made with a square of plywood and two pillars of bricks underneath. The meals were served on large leaves and consisted of a selection of mint leaves (this was the appetizer and dessert) and another leaf containing dandelion leaves and a few cherry tomatoes (these she had taken earlier in the day from the kitchen). Her brother raised the question of their provenance but happily ate his share. It was actually one of the nicest moments in the last three months, sitting in the backyard at the homemade table eating off of leaves. I think she is still wearing the same clothes and we probably need to do a serious tick check. But she was so happy out there, writing in her journal. She learned a lot about chipmunks and which birds we thought would actually be edible. She and Sam were hunting together with homemade spears (no animals were harmed in this adventure but had she unexpectedly caught a squirrel, we probably would have cooked it).

Second: I also wanted to tell you about Sam’s teacher visit. For context, we have been relatively isolated at our house since March 13. The kids have gone for bike rides with Dave. And we have gone hiking in quiet areas and socially distanced several times. I have not been the store once. Dave goes once a week and he also had to go the dentist when his crown fell off. Otherwise, we have not left, we have had no visitors, we have occasionally greeted neighbors as they passed our house. We have been fortunate that we can hole up here (get it, Hole up??) and contribute to decreasing the overall number of interactions in our local area.

So that means that my seven-year-old son has not had an in-person conversation with anyone but our family since March 13. And on Saturday, the day after school ended, his teacher asked if she could stop by our front yard to say hello. On Saturday morning, before she arrived, Sam ran upstairs to prepare. He selected his favorite Lucky Dog t-shirt. It’s green, with a picture of Snoopy holding a four-leaf clover (Sam was born on St. Patrick’s Day). Wearing his shirt he came downstairs: Mom, do you know where my tie is? He has this little blue clip-on tie, a hand-me-down from our neighbor. If my heart could have melted, it would have. Sam has a Corona-hawk haircut, two huge front teeth that are descending to take over his mouth and shift his face from my little boy to my not-little boy, and there he was in his Snoopy t-shirt with a tie clipped to the front to mark how special this occasion was to him.

Third: I’ve mentioned that my family has been reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. We finished the third book on Thursday, the night before school ended. I think it took over ten minutes to make it through the last two pages. Dave would get halfway through a sentence and as understanding dawned, when it looked like what was about to happen was about to happen, they would interrupt: Wait, is Frodo…. Horrified. I thought you said…. I want Frodo to get married (etc etc). It was an emotional moment for all of us. But I was again reminded that naming my son after Samwise Gamgee was not a mistake.

Speaking of names brings up the reason for mentioning the books again. After we told Sam that we partially chose his name for Samwise in these books, he started referring to himself as Samwise Holegee. And then Maggie became Modo Baggins. In case you are not familiar with Middle Earth, Frodo is the hobbit whose task is to carry the ring of power to Mount Doom and destroy it and Samwise is his trusty sidekick in this errand. And in case you didn’t see what we did there, Samwise HOLEgee is a change from Samwise Gamgee and Modo Baggins is putting an “M” for Maggie in front of the name Frodo.

Of course at some point the question was raised over dinner, who is dad? It was pretty rapidly decided that he was “Dad-dalf the Grey.” Gandalf is the wizard, a valor, an angel-type who comes to Middle Earth to fight evil. He’s definitely the chief, all powerful good guy, wise and strong and fierce. They also occasionally considered ‘Dad-ragorn,’ this is the Viggo Mortenson character. The warrior/healer/king.

Oh, me? You may have rightly guessed that this whole reading adventure was my idea. That I’m the one who brought the books back from Alabama, who pulled them out at the beginning of the lockdown thinking this would be an enjoyable pastime while home together. What did my doting family immediately suggest in terms of a role for yours truly?

If past experience was any predictor of what was to come, I should have been prepared. But know that I was truly, and I mean this, wounded when the first suggestion, by my beloved children, was “Mollum” — that’s Gollum, a disgusting hairless large-eyed fish-man who is the story’s most pitiful and sad character. My spouse, love of my life, my darling heart, next suggested “Mauron” (pronounced Moron). He felt very proud of his cleverness. Again for those unfamiliar, Sauron is the big baddie. The supreme evil that doesn’t even have a form, he’s that bad. A giant menacing eye of doom. Of course the kids loved this. “Moron, Moron” they chanted at the table. My husband smiled and announced to all that I would probably be blogging about this later. Perhaps in recognition of this eventuality he quickly suggested that I could be Marwen. Does this guy even know me?????? ARWEN?? Sexist asshole. Arwen doesn’t do shit. What, I get to stay back in Rivendell hoping everything turns out and then give some jewelry to Frodo after he saves the world??? Thanks but no thanks. He said the name of another, more powerful, fairy woman who is at least super wise. No dice, Dippin.

I dubbed myself Mom Bombadil. Though I personally think I’m the Gandalf in this outfit. Since the initial conversations I have also been called the “Malrog” (evil fire creature), “Mimli” (at least a good guy but the only dwarf, kind of a brooding cave-dweller), and a “Mork” (the bright side of this being that “Dork” is funnier so Dave is occasionally relegated to bad guy status).

So that’s been happening around here.

And now we come to it. 

I wrote a poem on Sunday night.

protect them, I pray
from each other
or from themselves
help us to know how
to plant seeds of healing
help me find courage
if I lack the courage
not to hide in the safety
of oppression

The air is still and cool
here, quiet
I supplicate to the air
but help will not come
from breath
it is time

I read an article by Corinne Shatuck: 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice. I did the first two things on the list. (Google to see if my local police department outfits on-duty police officers with body-worn cameras, it looks like the answer for Alexandria is yes. Google whether my city employs evidence-based police de-escalation trainings, it looks like the answer is yes but not for everyone, but I did not do an in-depth search).

Then I joined a book group that some folks at my children’s school are starting to read and discuss the book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

I don’t know enough and I have not educated myself. Last winter I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates. I highly recommend reading this, it is beautifully written and definitely shifted my way of seeing the world around me and to better understand, from a rational but also from an emotional viewpoint, the realities of life for people in America with skin that is pigmented differently from mine.

It is not acceptable that people paid to protect us all should not be held accountable, and should not know they will be held accountable. At the same time, I remember reading about the rate of Covid infection in the NYC Police Department. This sticks in my mind too.

From what I’ve been reading this week it seems that we have to fix the police accountability situation, the systemic racism situation, the police obtaining surplus battering rams from the military situation, the 50% of a municipal budget being for police situation, the whole Trump situation, the gross economic inequality situation, the white supremacy situation, the fact that people are afraid to give comment to the newspaper because of fear of reprisal situation.

With all of that said, in the wake of the past few months and all of the horrific news I’ve read and been more awash in than usual, I find America to be a beautiful place. Look at what we did. We stayed home to protect each other. We wear masks out of respect for each other. We walk next to each other to say that this cannot continue. We want a functional country, we are willing to give things up, to undergo hardship, to help each other, to take care of each other. We lack some kinds of leadership, but we have other kinds in droves. So many people thinking and working for good. Together. Trying to share strength and find solutions. We can help those people. We can be those people.

We don’t know how or when or where things will lead. So we have to find a way to live in hope, and not only in hope but in action and connection. Maybe that means that today you sit at a table in your backyard and eat dandelion greens that you are pretty sure your dog urinated on to help another human being learn the pleasure of giving and self-reliance. If you aren’t going to walk today, you can still listen and learn. You can reach out to anyone. Help anyone. In any way. It all adds up. The more we help, the more we listen, the more we share strength and compassion… Some say we are moving towards a new age of unity and these are growing pains to get there; last, groaning efforts to keep us from that future. Some say we are nearing the end-of-days. I don’t know. But you carry the ring to Mount Doom one step and one day at a time. You fight for what is good one small bit at a time, not knowing what is ahead, but knowing who you are and what you value. What has value. You work together with others to share your vision of what the world can be, and you share that through how you live, the choices you make, where you put your love and attention.

Today, I am putting my love and attention into sharing this with you.

With love,

Jennifer

My mostly abandoned bullet journal tells me that today is Corona Day 26. I think that means it is the 26th day my children have been home from school. I have remarked to several folks lately that time has changed to being marked by either awake or asleep, and coffee time, twice daily. Though the second is never as satisfying in reality as in imagination.

I felt uncomfortably aggravated today. A woman I know sent around a text message I have deleted that ran something like this: I know we are all crazy with Zoom calls and homeschool and (etc., etc.). Reading her message I thought, this sounds exactly like something she wrote a month ago (I know we are all crazy with carpool and soccer, etc., etc.). NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I refuse. I REFUSE. I’m not gonna do it. You cannot force me to be manic during my quarantine with your stories about how hectic everything is and how manic we all are. About doing it all and having it all or whatever expectations. NO. Also, if you sent me an email about a recipe exchange or an uplifting women’s empowerment exchange or any kind of email exchange where somebody is going to send me 25 somethings, I’m not doing it. I’m sorry I didn’t respond. (Thank you, very much, for being my friend.)

I also saw this a couple of days ago:

Later in the day I went online, to AmazonSmile, to frantically try to purchase something to put in an Easter basket. I’ve got nothing. No eggs to dye, no candy, no cute bunny-themed trinkets, no seed packets, no spring-themed books, no bubbles, no furry-animal covered pajamas. My kids were engaged in some undetermined and unusually/suspiciously quiet activity, and I was furtively trying to find things to put in my shopping cart that would arrive no later than Friday.

And as I looked at the sweatshop-sewn pajamas, having just watched John Oliver talking about fast fashion the previous night, this aggravating rainbow meme came to my mind. I took the items out of my basket.

This is a part of normal that is not worth rushing back to. I ordered each child some ‘grown-up’ watercolors, like mine, and a new sketch book. We have some plastic eggs in the attic and I have a few bits of candy leftover from Valentine’s Day (and yes still from Halloween) that I can put into the eggs. We have not been able to obtain white eggs, we will dye the dozen brown eggs we already have. We will use them to make deviled eggs afterwards but will not be able to share them with Libby’s family this year. The children have enough. And we will take the money we would have spent for the bunny-themed trinkets and use it to feed people or ease suffering in some way in the world.

I can’t change the world. I can’t make it the way I wish it would be. But I don’t have to follow the script. I can do it differently.

I drafted a letter from the Easter Bunny to my children. I have done nothing with it but here it is.

I’ve written a bunch of poetry this week (no poems are yet titled). Here are three poems:

#1

Opening the door to the built-in dining room cabinet
the one a realtor says gives character to an old house
with cracks in the basement
and a fireplace, still full of six-year-old ash,
a feature of such potential when first we imagined
our cheerful family
a baby and toddler, then,
round the glowing hearth

I remove, one by one, the Waterford goblets
a matrimonial gift, heavy and crystal,
the candles reflect like water on a sparkling day
on the one night each year we set them on the table,
half-filled with a cabernet franc or a zinfandel.
They glimmer there next to the Wedgewood, hand painted,
from my great-grandmother’s table,
the sterling candlesticks, carefully polished once each year
by my father for just this occasion.

I think it is their weight,
and also that they were store bought,
not parricide, grandmatricide, treachery,
a regret
a reminder of naiveté
a token of guilt
or a glint of anger.
What was the script?
An old-fashioned sitcom
that never looked anything like the truth?

Love purchased the Lismore nouveau,
wrapped them in thick white paper with a silver ribbon,
sent them to my parents’ house
from which they traveled to a multitude of apartments
and finally, the seventh packing,
to these cabinets
where most days they rest, shining decor,
unobserved, perfectly safe.

But on days like today
with no quiet moment,
when there is no space
and so much undone
I imagine holding a goblet
heavy, smooth, and cold
and one by one
my arm raises and, with all my strength,
they burst upon the limelight wall
no jubilation, but subtraction
one. crash. less. crash. thing.

I sweep them up,
shards in the trash.
I wait all week for the truck to come.
The bin is empty.
The cabinet more bare.
My fury spent.
Two hundred shelves
sixty-eight drawers
thirty cabinets
and four closets.
Only hurling crystal
the large bowl on the fragile stem
will bring pleasure
like biting into flesh, hard.

Not today,
I walk to the sink instead
the lunch dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.

---

#2

Not yet evolved from feeling thirst, my mouth or lips seek satiety.
The origin of what I need second only to oxygen, a mystery.
I was not born here and even back home
never thought to ask, where is the source of my life
which was then the Cahaba and now the Potomac.
My lips or tongue or cheeks,
when I am aware, infrequently,
send the signal and my hand moves a lever,
a brief sound of rushing and then relief
mixed sometimes with fear
of chemicals with names I cannot pronounce
or don’t want to.
After a day at the river’s edge we tell the children:
use soap.
I didn’t know they were bathing in the same water
we were trying to rinse off
where the snow melt and the stormwater
carry all of the other molecules,
not the two Hs and one O
but the other letters,
the ones we employ to keep going on like this.

---

#3

Tonight, loading the plates
medium face in on the left
smallest face in on the right
large in the back face in on the left
bowls behind the medium plates
I thought about Charles Dickens, father of ten,
served breakfast each morning at his tidy desk,
Mark Twain’s wife.
I thought of Jane Austen,
childless,
relieved of household duties by mother and sister,
of Charlotte Bronte
George Eliot
who based on the arrangement of their facial features
were provided educations superior to women of their day
when their fathers assumed they would never fulfill god’s intended destiny for our sex
instead they would teach little boys who might rise in the world
who, rich or poor, would not cook a meal
would not wash the dishes
would walk out with the other men
smoking a pipe
while the women, hidden and silent
slower or faster
bled to death

They cut my first child out, upside down and maybe it would have killed me at a different time, but not now.
Not quickly.
Not slowly either.
I have a dishwasher, and I don’t have to churn my own butter.
So what?
I’ll need to be my own fairy godmother
find my pumpkin
bake it into a coach.
And then what?
Intending no harm, Nick shared
goddam Bertrand Russell
“By death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice of duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made for us, and that, however beautiful may be the things we crave, Fate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, when misfortune comes, to bear without repining the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. This degree of submission to power is not only just and right: it is the very gate of wisdom.”Fate will forbid
Fate does forbid
Fate has forbidden
But not all.
So, back to the ball
I get there,
full of my own power
that grew the pumpkin and baked the coach
that sheltered the mice and the lizards and kept them from the poison in the water
my dress is gentle armor
woven from thousands of blossoms that
I’ve tended with soil I’ve nurtured
with egg shells and coffee grounds I’ve collected to nourish this dead clay back to life
At the ball so much sparkles and shines
look what we can do what we’ve done
what we make what is possible
I pick up a lyre
I’ve learned how to play and I sing a song
with my lined eyes and imperfect complexion
the bits that bulge that haven’t always
and the bits that flop that didn’t used to
In the song we see the tables so full
and the glistening candelabra
the latest coaches
the fastest horses
and we figure out
what
we figure out
how to stop
to stop
and
slowly
quietly
lovingly
care-fully
to start.

I don’t lose a slipper,
I never needed one in the first place
just to find a way
uninvited for so long
still not invited, but maybe allowed
to get to the ball
to pick up the lyre
and,
without losing my head
by blade
or by ancient script,
to sing

---

In other news: I cut matching mohawks for Dave and Sam over the weekend. Maggie’s hair is also now ‘boy short’ (she wanted a mohawk but Dave convinced her otherwise. I was not far from a mohawk myself, let’s see how long this thing lasts). Otis is eight months old and weighs sixty pounds. He has taken to sleeping at the foot of the stairs during the day – I think this is so he can be as close as possible to as many members of the family as possible. We are reading The Fellowship of the Ring with the kids at night. It’s the best part of the day (after coffee). Dave is teaching the kids how to bird watch. We are getting some new perennials for a few garden beds we expanded over the weekend (we won plants at our school’s auction the weekend before the quarantine began). The kale we planted is going gangbusters. Other seeds have been ruthlessly abducted or disturbed by cheeky squirrels who don’t yet know how frequently we plot to eat them.

My friends, we’re doing the best we can. Please take good care of your gentle hearts, which may be hurting a lot right now. It won’t be like this forever and someday we will hug each other again. Read something beautiful, breathe outside, chew your food, and do your best to stop reading so much news. Love to you all.

Hi friends,

I hope you are healthy and at least in a stable holding position in the new normal. I was planning to make crawfish étouffée for last night’s dinner. We are trying to consume aged freezer contents first, and the very strong aroma upon opening the bag of crawfish suggested to me that the eight months past the sell-by date was something to take into consideration (Dave having asked me, very specifically, just yesterday afternoon, not to give him food poisoning). Our black bean étouffée was surprisingly good.

I wrote a new song a couple of days ago in response to the current world situation. As with the last song I shared, this is a rough version. Maybe I will figure out how to share more polished versions, for now I am very happy to be able to share this way : )

I’ve also put together a resource page for Life at Home. It seems useful to have various ideas in one place so, since I have a place, I’m collecting info there.

I laugh to think of myself providing any words of wisdom. I was thinking about this yesterday morning at 4:30 AM as I lay there listening to the rain, trying to let it relax me, knowing I would not fall back asleep. I woke up and came downstairs and tried to be quiet. Sam woke up early too and we made homemade apple turnovers because I found some old puff pastry in the freezer and thought the space could be better used for frozen fruit or veggies, assuming we can get some.

In case you are curious, the Jenny Goodguts/Jennifer Hole Homeschool has no curricular expectations. I’ve read and heard people worrying our children will “fall behind” scholastically. God didn’t decree a certain set of academic benchmarks from on high. We set what is “behind.” If every child in the country is home for two months, the expectations are adjustable. I think creating stress about “falling behind” is literally insane at this juncture.

Current mantra: Expectations are adjustable. They are made up. We can change them.

A few notes on cohabitation in a time of global crisis:

I wrote a bunch of other words of wisdom and just erased them. What the heck do I know? I do feel that it’s really important that we try our best to show kindness to the people we are living with right now. That might just be ourself. It might be our spouse and kids. Our parents, some other random people. I know you are stressed, maybe you felt like hysterical crying last night while watching Monsters, Inc. Your cohabitators may be annoying you. They are making bad choices. They are not helping enough. They have germs. Whatever they are doing, do your best (try, I know it can be very hard) to be kind to them. At least civil. Not nice. Not bubbly or romantic or clean. But kind. Acknowledging their humanity also. Meditate. Go for a walk. Ask for help. Call someone. Talk about it. Say what you need. Being unkind is worse for you than for them. And it is worse for all the others around you. You likely feel justified in treating them and yourself this way. But try to find a way through. Or don’t but then you and the people around you will be miserable.

I think we should stop with the child abuse jokes. I think we should have real conversation about what is hard. And what is making us laugh.

I think we need to expect more from our children. Our children, even the little ones, do not need to be entertained and distracted all day long. They need to participate and to be taught how to contribute to taking care of something. They need to understand that in order for a home to work well, or a business, or a community, or a world, that we all participate, that we participate kindly, considerately, without eye rolling, without shouting.

I think about Little House on the Prairie. They had no screens, few books, and pretty much no neighbors. For long periods of each year they sat in that house all together and made it. They had one school book and one slate each (if they were lucky). And the kids were helpful. Yes, they used corporal punishment and yes they believed in a stern, punishing God. But they had to make their own butter. They did not have electricity. No clothes washer. No convenient grocery store. I feel like with all of the conveniences we have, we should be able to figure out how to have the time and energy to raise strong, independent, considerate human beings who don’t think they are the center of the universe.

At the Jenny Goodguts homeschool, we are making sure that we know how to fold and put away our clothes, how to make our own lunch. That we understand that this is a time to be helpful, and that being helpful is caring for others. That we are staying in our own home to keep others safe. That we are thankful for the food we have to eat, whether we like it or not, because not everyone has food. And that we talk about ways we can help those without food.

The (current version of the) Jennifer Hole/Jenny Goodguts/Ingalls-Inspired Corona Parenting Plan

1. Children are given a list of daily chores which they are expected to complete. These chores alternate between children on a weekly basis.
2. Homeschool “requirements”: I am looking for things my kids can do that require less supervision and that are less screen intensive and don’t require me to figure out a lot of frustrating (and frequently slow) technology. Bird watching lists, book writing, journal keeping, reading good books, practicing an instrument (I’m teaching Sam to play piano). These take a lot of time (for them, and less for me) and teach some of the same things they are working on at school. I will use what the teachers are sending when it is helpful and not too technologically challenging for me and I am limiting the amount of time Maggie spends remotely learning via a computer. (So far even this approach has been a pretty full-time job.)
3. Children are given free time to entertain themselves.
4. Children may continue to have free time (screen-free) for as long as they are able to play quietly. Arguing with one another leads to
5. one question: it seems like it might be time for a job? lack of acquiescence or other non-desirable behavior leads to
6. Job time! I have a list of jobs they know how to do (different from the chores listed as their responsibility which should already be completed): dusting, washing surfaces, cleaning baseboards, washing floors, bringing down/folding laundry, sweeping patios or walkways, carrying things to the basement. I usually start by assigning one job and if someone complains it becomes 2 (and so on and so forth). Each job is relatively simple usually, 5 mins or less. Good reset, I ask if they are ready to have free time again. Yes? Back to free time.
7. My other secret weapon is separation. Child 1 is assigned to one room, Child 2 to another. If you can play quietly, you can play. Otherwise, jobs it is.
8. Children are served breakfast and dinner according to my schedule, I plan it, they eat it (no choice given about options but i know what they like and try to balance it so no meal is wholly abhorrent). We also have a regular and long-standing breakfast schedule because I got tired of complaints (four years ago). M-F breakfast is consistent week to week. Lunch they make themselves but they tell me a plan in advance: one fruit, one veggie, one protein, one starch and then we can be flexible but no sugar. If they eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a reasonable amount of time, without complaining (I unofficially allow one small complaint and a reminder), there is dessert available, the only sweet of the day, and sometimes dessert is plain yogurt with fruit. Or fruit alone. But right now we are being a little more loose with post-dinner dessert. (We made carrot cake for Sam’s birthday.)
9. If children make it through the day being helpful and doing what they are asked without rolling their eyes or being otherwise disrespectful, if they complete all of their Life Skills training, they receive ONE ticket for the day (again, i try to help them get the ticket every day, i give a small reminder if i anticipate they might be about to grump at me: not a threat, a reminder, “you’ve done a great job today and I really want you to get your ticket for the day so please make sure you are thinking about your answer, do you need a minute?”). Three tickets = 30 minutes of video games. We also have video games on Friday nights. And we use movies as we need or want to, but have only watched two so far.

Will my children be scarred by my system? Maybe there will be a memoir. I don’t know. Why am I sharing this? Because I think it is perfect or amazing? Not really. Am I totally consistent? No. Do the kids get excited earning that one measly ticket for a whole day of good behavior that translates into 10 minutes of game time. Yes, shockingly they really love the tickets. I have to do a lot of overseeing the chores, and the jobs, but we have to start somewhere. So this is what we are trying today. It’s evolving. They seem pretty happy and healthy so I’ll take that as a good sign.

I send thanks and prayers out for all of the folks out of their homes right now, working in the wide world to protect the rest of us and provide us with the necessities of life. I am fortunate to be sitting here comfortably able to type these words to you. Dave built me a new garden bed yesterday. Today we planted tomatoes, peppers, basil, spinach, kale, calendula, parsley, sunflowers, watermelons (Sam’s choice), beets — that’s what I can remember. They were seeds we had left over from prior years so hopefully some of them will come up. I would also like to get some thumbelina zinnias. I also love poppies but they never grow here.

Warm wishes and love to you all. Take good care, wash your hands, and I will write again soon.