Lani was born in 1961 when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. There is a photo of newborn Lani with my mother on a picnic blanket somewhere on the Mall with cherry blossoms all around, or at least that is what I remember. Lani has looked like Lani since the day she was born -- those expressive black eyebrows, big dark eyes, that perfectly round face (as Jerry Lehmann always said) with cheekbones and that little upward curve at the corners of her mouth when she smiles. She has always been beautiful.
Like me, she has a very large body. Sometimes when I wear an aloha shirt, Jon mistakes me for Lani. We can look quite a bit alike, especially now that we both kind of roll when we walk, taking the stress off of our inherited knee structure. She has endured many more injuries than I have, though, after a lifetime around horses.
Lani has always had the energy of two or three people, and for the last ten years or so it seems she barely sleeps. With her partner Kathy she has owned a veterinary business for almost 30 years and about 6 or 7 years ago they bought an old building that housed the Bluemont General Store, a business that had been going for 150 years but had closed suddenly due to health issues of the previous owner. They reopened the general store, selling groceries, souvenirs, hot lunch items, ice cream -- open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. In addition, they own about two dozen horses in various states of disrepair or health, a couple thousand chickens and random other pets like llamas and dogs and cats. For fun, they compete in endurance rides all over the country and are nationally ranked, sometimes in the top ten. Apparently on Saturday Lani and Kathy were in a race in New Jersey (endurance rides aren't exactly a top speed event, but the fastest one is the winner) and Kathy "gave" Lani the sixth place win for a birthday present. I guess this means Kathy could have taken sixth place if she had wanted to.
Lani turned 54 yesterday. It is nearly impossible to schedule a birthday celebration for Lani since she is often out of town on the weekends and working most of the hours of the weekdays. I sent her a few emails asking about a birthday plan but didn't get very far. In our family, the general tradition is to celebrate the birthday by getting together whoever is around on the exact day of the birthday or at least on the Saturday that is closest. Anna usually organizes us and hosts the dinner.
It might seem like I am changing the subject... but yesterday most of the senior staff (so to speak) of the farm was drafted to go to Loudoun to put the plastic on the hoop house (that we moved in a previous story). It was forecasted to be the calmest day of the week, with no rain. The days all around Sunday were supposed to be rainy, windy, cold, no good for unfurling a huge sheet of plastic. We arrived at 11:00 on the dot, unrolled the plastic, cut it in half (50 feet), and tied the rocks to the corners, attaching long ropes at each end. Stephen and Carrie pulled the ropes and the plastic went over the top, easy peasy. Usually we have to pull two pieces of plastic at the same time, twice as long, so this was 1/4th the weight that we often pull -- we use a tractor for the heavy version. Then it got windy, of course, and we all had to hold tight to this giant sail and wait for the wind to die down. It didn't die down much, so Jon and Stephen climbed on ladders and tacked down the ends as best they could. We all have put plastic on many greenhouses over the years, we know the drill, but it still a little stressful as we try to put it on square and tack it down without any wrinkles. In the end, we won and the cover is on pretty nicely. Jon is of course not satisfied with the result, but we expect that.
I had a vague plan that we would see if Lani was in Loudoun so we could all observe her birthday with her, perhaps with an impromptu picnic in the newly covered tunnel. Mom called her to see if this might work. I told her to bring a birthday cake (just kidding, but we didn't have one with us). Kathy got in the mix and said she had been planning to take Lani to their favorite Chinese restaurant. They had just got back from New Jersey at midnight and Lani was at the office in Bluemont doing paperwork.
So after we had finished the job, we all headed to Purcellville in our lovely work clothes, with mud stuck to our boots. Lani sat at the head of the table with our mother on her left, then Michael Lipsky, Kathy, Jon, Carrie, Stephen and me. We ate a buffet lunch, talked about chickens and predators, horses, customers, who knows what else. If someone had been listening to us, it would have sounded like some kind of a business meeting -- our businesses are closely connected by the chickens and eggs, so all of our interactions are kind of business-related. But I don't think most senior staff laugh quite as heartily around their conference tables, and the floor under the chairs might not be quite as muddy.
That may have been the first time in about two decades that we actually managed to have a birthday party for Lani on March 29. It was just right.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Rock Stars
Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear the term "rock stars" applied to farmers. This is of course silly, but things have changed in the last few decades. Big time. There are numerous famous farmers, spokespeople, journalists, public people who have all started to lead the conversation about sustainability, and the newest word: "regenerative" agriculture. In our local region, our farm is part of this too.
While our farm and family started out in relative obscurity 50 years ago, we were still enough of an oddity that my father/mother/the farm were profiled in the Washington Post from time to time, or another local paper would think that they had found an untold story. We have learned over the years not to take any of this very seriously and we have also learned that the journalists only get it right some of the time, or they tell the story they want to tell and they use some of our words to get to their point.
Last year some environmental filmmakers from American University got in touch with us and asked if we would be part of a film series. We said sure. For a couple of days -- one in May, one in August -- they lugged their equipment around both farms and filmed many hours of footage, including extensive interviews with me and Mom and Ellen, mostly separately. We never heard what the others said, except for the parts where we were together mostly talking about whatever we wanted to talk about.
And then last night the film was aired as a part of the Environmental Film Festival, a two week long event at AU and other sites around town. Mom and Ellen and I were invited to sit on the panel with some of the film makers and some local people who represent a trust fund that underwrites things like this. We didn't have to prepare any remarks so there was no reason to say no.
The small auditorium filled up quickly, standing room only, and some people couldn't even get in. My non-farm girlfriends (Nell and Nancy and Hannah) squeezed into the room and made me feel special by spending their evening this way. I knew quite a few people in the audience, of course, from being connected through flowers and lambs and markets and mutual interests.
There were four short films, all good and interesting, about different aspects of farming for the future. One was about a fifth generation landowner who is creating opportunities for future farmers by leasing land (for lifetimes, not for years), one was about the agriculture reserve in Montgomery County, MD, one was about us and one was a fancier film (underwritten by the World Bank) about the multiple benefits of pasture raised beef/rotational grazing.
After the films there was an hour of questions and answers from the panel. My mother is the passionate land preservation farmer with a lot to say, sometimes on point but always heartfelt, Ellen is the one who knows how to talk about soil and organic matter (and profits) in a way that is funny and engaging, I tend to talk about the importance of figuring out how to be efficient, changing your model to meet the needs, pragmatic stuff. The film makers got most of the questions, which was good. Anyway, it was not at all nerve-wracking, and while some people in the audience wanted to pontificate about vegan/vegetarian/animal stuff, most of the questions were relevant and brought out interesting answers.
It could have been shorter, in my view, but it is always nice to be amongst people who are working on the issues that matter. These issues matter greatly. I am glad we are part of the group that is trying to keep our planet from burning up, to put it bluntly.
It is also good to be part of something that does not expect anyone to dress up, to make speeches, to prepare. This level of celebrity is quite manageable. Most farm-related events are just like this, with farmers speaking forthrightly about important stuff. Last night we got to be those farmers.
While our farm and family started out in relative obscurity 50 years ago, we were still enough of an oddity that my father/mother/the farm were profiled in the Washington Post from time to time, or another local paper would think that they had found an untold story. We have learned over the years not to take any of this very seriously and we have also learned that the journalists only get it right some of the time, or they tell the story they want to tell and they use some of our words to get to their point.
Last year some environmental filmmakers from American University got in touch with us and asked if we would be part of a film series. We said sure. For a couple of days -- one in May, one in August -- they lugged their equipment around both farms and filmed many hours of footage, including extensive interviews with me and Mom and Ellen, mostly separately. We never heard what the others said, except for the parts where we were together mostly talking about whatever we wanted to talk about.
And then last night the film was aired as a part of the Environmental Film Festival, a two week long event at AU and other sites around town. Mom and Ellen and I were invited to sit on the panel with some of the film makers and some local people who represent a trust fund that underwrites things like this. We didn't have to prepare any remarks so there was no reason to say no.
The small auditorium filled up quickly, standing room only, and some people couldn't even get in. My non-farm girlfriends (Nell and Nancy and Hannah) squeezed into the room and made me feel special by spending their evening this way. I knew quite a few people in the audience, of course, from being connected through flowers and lambs and markets and mutual interests.
There were four short films, all good and interesting, about different aspects of farming for the future. One was about a fifth generation landowner who is creating opportunities for future farmers by leasing land (for lifetimes, not for years), one was about the agriculture reserve in Montgomery County, MD, one was about us and one was a fancier film (underwritten by the World Bank) about the multiple benefits of pasture raised beef/rotational grazing.
After the films there was an hour of questions and answers from the panel. My mother is the passionate land preservation farmer with a lot to say, sometimes on point but always heartfelt, Ellen is the one who knows how to talk about soil and organic matter (and profits) in a way that is funny and engaging, I tend to talk about the importance of figuring out how to be efficient, changing your model to meet the needs, pragmatic stuff. The film makers got most of the questions, which was good. Anyway, it was not at all nerve-wracking, and while some people in the audience wanted to pontificate about vegan/vegetarian/animal stuff, most of the questions were relevant and brought out interesting answers.
It could have been shorter, in my view, but it is always nice to be amongst people who are working on the issues that matter. These issues matter greatly. I am glad we are part of the group that is trying to keep our planet from burning up, to put it bluntly.
It is also good to be part of something that does not expect anyone to dress up, to make speeches, to prepare. This level of celebrity is quite manageable. Most farm-related events are just like this, with farmers speaking forthrightly about important stuff. Last night we got to be those farmers.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Breathing
I just stepped out onto my porch to check the rain gauge, but it was still raining and I didn't really want to get wet. My next door neighbor was walking by (he wears a FitBit and likes to get 10,000 steps recorded every day so he is often walking by) so I asked him to check the gauge for me. One inch. That's enough to keep us off the fields for another day. I don't have to put my shoes on yet.
But he asked me a question -- why is today the day that all the earthworms come up to die?
That's an easy one. They aren't coming up to die, they are coming up for air. The ground is saturated and it's hard to move down there and if you are an earthworm, it seems easier to go fast and breathe if you are on the surface. Unfortunately, the surface is largely paved and you can drown or get run over or get disoriented and cooked and crispy when the sun comes out. They do that all the time on the plastic that we grow crops in. There are always drowned earthworms in the small puddles that collect when the plastic stretches in a rain.
Every time I see earthworms scattered all over the road I remember the very old comic of Snoopy (on four feet, that's how old this is) walking about two feet above the ground, looking very perturbed and the last panel just has him saying, with disgust: "earthworms!"
This topic of needing air has been much on my mind lately.
Obviously, we generally forget that we are breathing. It happens automatically, around the clock. But when we have trouble breathing, we notice every breath. When I was little, like about 5, I had asthma. So did my mother (and so do lots of people in our family -- we know my great grandfather who came from China couldn't work in the cane fields because of his asthma...but he was a smart young man and he was reassigned as an indoor worker and thus he learned skills which allowed him to become a businessman and have 12 kids who all went to college. Asthma: the enabler of our intellectual prowess on the Au Hoy side.).
Not being able to breathe is just about the worst malady. Well, having a heart that malfunctions is probably worse, but along the same lines. When you can't breathe, then the misery is constant. You HAVE to breathe. So all you want is just one deep breath and you can't have one. I remember my mother having days and days of no breath, not being able to come outside, struggling to get air. It is so scary to see your mom like that. Even my father worried.
Of course there is better medicine now than there was then, and I have isolated my own allergy so I don't think I actually have asthma, I am allergic to dust/dust mites. I can generally predict when I will have an episode. My mother also manages her condition better now, but all of us worry about her lungs. She can't breathe as well as we can, even on her best days.
We think about breathing, constantly, in yoga. We are told that if we can't breathe normally through our noses, with mouth closed, that we are pushing too hard and we should back off until we can breathe easily. This is a life saver. Without that simple way of measuring, it would be natural to try to do things that I am just not able to do. My belly is actually in the way most of the time (a different topic altogether) so I am limited by my physical size as well as my own lack of conditioning. But I have come a very long way in my yoga, even with this body of mine, and it is all about the breath.
We talk about breathing when we are at the synagogue (both in choir and in services). And that is where we make the connection about the absolute miracle of breathing. How often do we consider how amazing it is that we subsist on air? That our entire existence depends on inhaling and exhaling. We try to imagine the connection between breathing and our souls, and I don't really get that, but I totally get the miracle of breath.
And finally, singing is just breathing in a different form. And all humans understand about singing. It is a part of what makes us human.
Anyway, every day that we breathe without thinking about it is a blessing, and we should remember to notice that we are blessed. And we should be really glad that we are not earthworms.
But he asked me a question -- why is today the day that all the earthworms come up to die?
That's an easy one. They aren't coming up to die, they are coming up for air. The ground is saturated and it's hard to move down there and if you are an earthworm, it seems easier to go fast and breathe if you are on the surface. Unfortunately, the surface is largely paved and you can drown or get run over or get disoriented and cooked and crispy when the sun comes out. They do that all the time on the plastic that we grow crops in. There are always drowned earthworms in the small puddles that collect when the plastic stretches in a rain.
Every time I see earthworms scattered all over the road I remember the very old comic of Snoopy (on four feet, that's how old this is) walking about two feet above the ground, looking very perturbed and the last panel just has him saying, with disgust: "earthworms!"
This topic of needing air has been much on my mind lately.
Obviously, we generally forget that we are breathing. It happens automatically, around the clock. But when we have trouble breathing, we notice every breath. When I was little, like about 5, I had asthma. So did my mother (and so do lots of people in our family -- we know my great grandfather who came from China couldn't work in the cane fields because of his asthma...but he was a smart young man and he was reassigned as an indoor worker and thus he learned skills which allowed him to become a businessman and have 12 kids who all went to college. Asthma: the enabler of our intellectual prowess on the Au Hoy side.).
Not being able to breathe is just about the worst malady. Well, having a heart that malfunctions is probably worse, but along the same lines. When you can't breathe, then the misery is constant. You HAVE to breathe. So all you want is just one deep breath and you can't have one. I remember my mother having days and days of no breath, not being able to come outside, struggling to get air. It is so scary to see your mom like that. Even my father worried.
Of course there is better medicine now than there was then, and I have isolated my own allergy so I don't think I actually have asthma, I am allergic to dust/dust mites. I can generally predict when I will have an episode. My mother also manages her condition better now, but all of us worry about her lungs. She can't breathe as well as we can, even on her best days.
We think about breathing, constantly, in yoga. We are told that if we can't breathe normally through our noses, with mouth closed, that we are pushing too hard and we should back off until we can breathe easily. This is a life saver. Without that simple way of measuring, it would be natural to try to do things that I am just not able to do. My belly is actually in the way most of the time (a different topic altogether) so I am limited by my physical size as well as my own lack of conditioning. But I have come a very long way in my yoga, even with this body of mine, and it is all about the breath.
We talk about breathing when we are at the synagogue (both in choir and in services). And that is where we make the connection about the absolute miracle of breathing. How often do we consider how amazing it is that we subsist on air? That our entire existence depends on inhaling and exhaling. We try to imagine the connection between breathing and our souls, and I don't really get that, but I totally get the miracle of breath.
And finally, singing is just breathing in a different form. And all humans understand about singing. It is a part of what makes us human.
Anyway, every day that we breathe without thinking about it is a blessing, and we should remember to notice that we are blessed. And we should be really glad that we are not earthworms.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Transitions are Rarely Seamless
It is the end of March, the time of year when we are sometimes outside working and sometimes not. At this time I begin to think more about farm stuff and less about anything else, but the other stuff is still going on. My calendar still reminds me of Monday piano lessons, evening meetings where I seem to be serving on a number of quiet advisory groups for the temple, choir, Blueberry Hill meetings.
Nothing is new in all of this, except that this year instead of just thinking about the timeline of the farm that is a golf cart ride away from my door, I am also thinking about the farm that is a 45 minute drive away, at best. This is a huge new wrinkle. I am not the only one thinking about the distant farm, I consult with Jon and Ellen and Ashley, the most senior worker out there. So now I am much less likely to really know what is going to happen next. I have to ask questions because I have never been responsible for day to day operations in Loudoun. Asking questions is not hard, but not knowing is.
I expect that within a month we will have made the transition into a regular pattern of communication, of travel, of management. I am so accustomed to being the boss of my world (here). Eventually I hope to have created a wider circle so we are all on the same page, even with a 45 minute drive between us.
It's a little frazzled feeling right now. I am actually happiest when the two crews are combined and we can all be working in the same space, with the same goals. Yesterday was excellent. Jon and Carrie and Katherine and I went out to Loudoun and joined forces with Ashley and Sam and Warren and Ellen. We tackled a problem that has been worrying us for a bit -- the movable hoop house (a structure that is about 24 x 48' and about 15' tall at its peak) needed to be moved on its tracks. BUT it had been lifted off its tracks by the wind, who knows when, and that presented a problem. Ellen and Jon and Ellen's boyfriend Dan came up with some theories earlier on how to lift the thing, and by the end of yesterday we had successfully disconnected the hoop house from its moorings, lifted it back onto the tracks with levers and lots of woman power, pushed it to its new spot, and reattached it to the ground. It was a great moment. We still have to replace the plastic which blew off in a huge wind this winter, but we do know how to do that.
Anyway, this is a complicated time for me, determining where I am needed most, telling people in two locations what the priorities are, and staying ahead of the game. It is a new game, and I don't quite know how to fit in yoga and piano practice with any regularity. But that is part of the rules of this new game: I have to make all the pieces fit. Thank goodness Jon is healthy. The whole game comes apart when he is not strong and fine. He is absolutely an essential part of this, and he plays a huge role in enabling me to keep spinning all these plates.
I am not going to worry very much, in this blog, about whether the topics are as interesting to others as they are to me. It seems quite likely that we are sliding into farm talk for the next months, but there are still some other topics that I am thinking about and they will surface occasionally.
Nothing is new in all of this, except that this year instead of just thinking about the timeline of the farm that is a golf cart ride away from my door, I am also thinking about the farm that is a 45 minute drive away, at best. This is a huge new wrinkle. I am not the only one thinking about the distant farm, I consult with Jon and Ellen and Ashley, the most senior worker out there. So now I am much less likely to really know what is going to happen next. I have to ask questions because I have never been responsible for day to day operations in Loudoun. Asking questions is not hard, but not knowing is.
I expect that within a month we will have made the transition into a regular pattern of communication, of travel, of management. I am so accustomed to being the boss of my world (here). Eventually I hope to have created a wider circle so we are all on the same page, even with a 45 minute drive between us.
It's a little frazzled feeling right now. I am actually happiest when the two crews are combined and we can all be working in the same space, with the same goals. Yesterday was excellent. Jon and Carrie and Katherine and I went out to Loudoun and joined forces with Ashley and Sam and Warren and Ellen. We tackled a problem that has been worrying us for a bit -- the movable hoop house (a structure that is about 24 x 48' and about 15' tall at its peak) needed to be moved on its tracks. BUT it had been lifted off its tracks by the wind, who knows when, and that presented a problem. Ellen and Jon and Ellen's boyfriend Dan came up with some theories earlier on how to lift the thing, and by the end of yesterday we had successfully disconnected the hoop house from its moorings, lifted it back onto the tracks with levers and lots of woman power, pushed it to its new spot, and reattached it to the ground. It was a great moment. We still have to replace the plastic which blew off in a huge wind this winter, but we do know how to do that.
Anyway, this is a complicated time for me, determining where I am needed most, telling people in two locations what the priorities are, and staying ahead of the game. It is a new game, and I don't quite know how to fit in yoga and piano practice with any regularity. But that is part of the rules of this new game: I have to make all the pieces fit. Thank goodness Jon is healthy. The whole game comes apart when he is not strong and fine. He is absolutely an essential part of this, and he plays a huge role in enabling me to keep spinning all these plates.
I am not going to worry very much, in this blog, about whether the topics are as interesting to others as they are to me. It seems quite likely that we are sliding into farm talk for the next months, but there are still some other topics that I am thinking about and they will surface occasionally.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Knitting, Part One
In September 2010, just before Jon went to Hopkins for a month to have his stem cell transplant, I went over to Nell's house for my first knitting lesson. We sat on her living room floor with a skein of purple yarn and some long #10 needles. She patiently showed me how to knit. She was undaunted by my clumsy fingers. She knew that the fingers are only the first step, and that it is the mind that gets the most out of the knitting.
Anyone who knew me before this knitting lesson would never have believed that I would really want to do this. Jon was incredulous for months. But my initial reason for wanting to learn was that I imagined I would have many hours of idle hands while I was in Baltimore waiting for Jon.
I was right. I had lots of time by myself to struggle with that purple yarn. I worked really hard at it and made a long, scraggly scarf-like item with lots of dropped stitches (holes) and the edges were quite wavy because I kept adding stitches without knowing it. But, as a brand new knitter, every single stitch was an effort and I did not want to rip out my work -- plus I am absolutely not a perfectionist -- so when it was finally finished, I gave the scarf to Stephen who wears lots of purple and who was glad to receive such a unique accessory.
I remember sitting on the floor in that Baltimore studio apartment while Jon was sleeping in the next room. Sweat rolled down my face from the exertion of doing this new thing. I watched the digital clock to see how long each row took me. If I am remembering right, it took me about ten minutes per row. These were not long rows. It was hard work.
Four years later, I am still knitting and it has become part of my life. Jon has come to accept this, even though he can't quite understand how I got so addicted. But when we go on long car trips I do a lot of knitting -- and I do a LOT of ripping it back out (which is called tinking) because knitting in the car or in the dark can lead to big mistakes. And I cannot go to a meeting without my knitting (unless I am leading the meeting). I listen better, I sit more quietly, and I enjoy my meeting time so much more.
Like so many other creative skills (farming, cooking, exercise, being a parent), knitting reflects one's personality. Nell is a careful and precise knitter, follows the patterns perfectly and does not allow mistakes to stay. She keeps track of where she is by using colorful knitting gadgets. Her sweaters and blankets and socks are lovely. Ellen knits with lots of brilliant colors, does ambitious projects, and has been knitting for so long that her work is nearly flawless. Both of them rip out entire projects when they find that they don't like them. Ann Livingston, the queen of all knitters, is most interested in rewriting patterns to suit her. She makes up sweaters. She once knit an entire sweater without any pattern at all, making a Charlie Brown sweater for her son, on a 2000 mile car ride. It came out perfectly. Compared to those knitters, I am an infant knitter. But I am rather fearless. If something seems to be going wrong, I might just try to figure out how to get back to the pattern without backing up, redesigning (not always successfully) a bit if it seems like it will still fit.
My children have received a few loose, misshapen presents along the way. Mittens that are big enough for more than one hand, Benjamin's sweater that doesn't actually fit a human with normal arms, Rebecca's hat that was supposed to be big enough for her hair but turned out to be too big for anything. The scarves are always fine because size doesn't matter, and cowls are generally my best bet. Size is the most challenging concept of all.
I have an ace in the hole that most knitters don't have. Jon has rescued me on several occasions, helping me to interpret the patterns (I really think that Ann Livingston should rewrite the language of knitting patterns. They can be so opaque and abbreviated and sometimes they are just unintelligible.) and he does the arithmetic to figure out how to make it all work when I am stuck. He has no idea how to hold a knitting needle but he has helped me find knitting stores on our travels and he even buys me supplies on line. He does not get all fussy and uncomfortable in a knitting store -- and he gets how unique and interesting they are as a business model.
I meant to write about the social opportunities and unexpected connections that have arisen from this knitting habit, but that will have to wait until the next installment. I meant to write about the psychological benefits. There are famous and erudite writers (Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett come to mind) who have captured the essence and joy of knitting in essays that are like jewels. I probably should read them again, now that I have some more knitting miles behind me and I will understand them even better.
The wonderful thing about skills is the more you practice them, the better you get. And the more you come to understand about other things that are not even remotely related. Again, that is a whole different topic for later.
Anyone who knew me before this knitting lesson would never have believed that I would really want to do this. Jon was incredulous for months. But my initial reason for wanting to learn was that I imagined I would have many hours of idle hands while I was in Baltimore waiting for Jon.
I was right. I had lots of time by myself to struggle with that purple yarn. I worked really hard at it and made a long, scraggly scarf-like item with lots of dropped stitches (holes) and the edges were quite wavy because I kept adding stitches without knowing it. But, as a brand new knitter, every single stitch was an effort and I did not want to rip out my work -- plus I am absolutely not a perfectionist -- so when it was finally finished, I gave the scarf to Stephen who wears lots of purple and who was glad to receive such a unique accessory.
I remember sitting on the floor in that Baltimore studio apartment while Jon was sleeping in the next room. Sweat rolled down my face from the exertion of doing this new thing. I watched the digital clock to see how long each row took me. If I am remembering right, it took me about ten minutes per row. These were not long rows. It was hard work.
Four years later, I am still knitting and it has become part of my life. Jon has come to accept this, even though he can't quite understand how I got so addicted. But when we go on long car trips I do a lot of knitting -- and I do a LOT of ripping it back out (which is called tinking) because knitting in the car or in the dark can lead to big mistakes. And I cannot go to a meeting without my knitting (unless I am leading the meeting). I listen better, I sit more quietly, and I enjoy my meeting time so much more.
Like so many other creative skills (farming, cooking, exercise, being a parent), knitting reflects one's personality. Nell is a careful and precise knitter, follows the patterns perfectly and does not allow mistakes to stay. She keeps track of where she is by using colorful knitting gadgets. Her sweaters and blankets and socks are lovely. Ellen knits with lots of brilliant colors, does ambitious projects, and has been knitting for so long that her work is nearly flawless. Both of them rip out entire projects when they find that they don't like them. Ann Livingston, the queen of all knitters, is most interested in rewriting patterns to suit her. She makes up sweaters. She once knit an entire sweater without any pattern at all, making a Charlie Brown sweater for her son, on a 2000 mile car ride. It came out perfectly. Compared to those knitters, I am an infant knitter. But I am rather fearless. If something seems to be going wrong, I might just try to figure out how to get back to the pattern without backing up, redesigning (not always successfully) a bit if it seems like it will still fit.
My children have received a few loose, misshapen presents along the way. Mittens that are big enough for more than one hand, Benjamin's sweater that doesn't actually fit a human with normal arms, Rebecca's hat that was supposed to be big enough for her hair but turned out to be too big for anything. The scarves are always fine because size doesn't matter, and cowls are generally my best bet. Size is the most challenging concept of all.
I have an ace in the hole that most knitters don't have. Jon has rescued me on several occasions, helping me to interpret the patterns (I really think that Ann Livingston should rewrite the language of knitting patterns. They can be so opaque and abbreviated and sometimes they are just unintelligible.) and he does the arithmetic to figure out how to make it all work when I am stuck. He has no idea how to hold a knitting needle but he has helped me find knitting stores on our travels and he even buys me supplies on line. He does not get all fussy and uncomfortable in a knitting store -- and he gets how unique and interesting they are as a business model.
I meant to write about the social opportunities and unexpected connections that have arisen from this knitting habit, but that will have to wait until the next installment. I meant to write about the psychological benefits. There are famous and erudite writers (Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett come to mind) who have captured the essence and joy of knitting in essays that are like jewels. I probably should read them again, now that I have some more knitting miles behind me and I will understand them even better.
The wonderful thing about skills is the more you practice them, the better you get. And the more you come to understand about other things that are not even remotely related. Again, that is a whole different topic for later.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
First Full Day of Work
You don't really know how soft you have become until you work a full day. I can only hope that everyone else is as sore as I am this morning.
It's not that we did anything particularly strenuous. We mostly just crouched or knelt down so we could work on the ground. Swimming and yoga and sitting in chairs does not prepare a body for that.
In the winter and early spring we tend to work in little bursts of activity, with plenty of breaks in between. We get complacent about our state of fitness. Loading a small pickup truck of firewood might take less than half an hour. Unloading it means carrying the firewood by the armload, up the stairs onto the porch. It feels like work, but it is quick. And then you go back inside and sit down.
Yesterday we had a full team of workers for the first time and I had to behave as if working were a normal thing to do. First we loaded up some plants to go to Loudoun, then Katherine and I drove out there (easy, sitting down), then we did a little furniture rearranging in the greenhouse (mostly they did it) and then we went out to weed some spinach. Spinach grows right close to the ground, couldn't get any closer, and the weeds around it form a netted mat so you have to really get under the chickweed and coax it out of the mud. We did that for maybe an hour and a half and I had had enough of that.
After lunch we headed out to the blueberries to prune. Blueberries are nice and tall but most of the work happens at the base of the plant. With clippers and loppers, we reduced the size of the bushes by a good amount, taking away the parts of the bush that would compete with itself, essentially. It is quiet, meditative work. The five of us settled down and started clipping and chopping. No one said a word of complaint. By about 3:30 I was tired of kneeling and getting up and down. I said we were stopping soon because my knees were finished.
Only then did Warren, 24 and an athlete, say that he agreed about the knees. Turns out he had spent time the day before coaching baseball, and since he coaches the pitcher, he had to be the catcher. There is nothing harder on knees than crouching like that, and popping up and down. Like me, he has a chunky body (not as chunky as me, to be fair). The other workers, all women, are all slender and wiry.
Back in the car for another 45 minute ride (just to really let those muscles solidify).
I am 30 years older (or more) than the rest of the people who were working with me, and I can only hope that they are feeling the same tightness in their hamstrings and shoulders and hands this morning. I am pretty sure they are. But the only cure for this soreness is to go back and do it some more.
This may be the year when I do less physical work than I have ever done, just because I will have more managing to do than ever before. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that I will be sore all the time. The really good news is that my knee doesn't hurt any more than usual, so this means that the requirements of working close to the ground do not have an effect on my most worn body part.
By an unforeseen coincidence, both Ellen and Carrie are out of town this week so I am actually watching over both farms at the same time. This is good practice for me but I won't have to do this in real life -- meaning that most likely I will not be spending full days crouching on the ground with the crew all day long. More likely I will be dropping in to say hello, or staying to help for a bit, but this may have been a rare day. We shall see.
It's not that we did anything particularly strenuous. We mostly just crouched or knelt down so we could work on the ground. Swimming and yoga and sitting in chairs does not prepare a body for that.
In the winter and early spring we tend to work in little bursts of activity, with plenty of breaks in between. We get complacent about our state of fitness. Loading a small pickup truck of firewood might take less than half an hour. Unloading it means carrying the firewood by the armload, up the stairs onto the porch. It feels like work, but it is quick. And then you go back inside and sit down.
Yesterday we had a full team of workers for the first time and I had to behave as if working were a normal thing to do. First we loaded up some plants to go to Loudoun, then Katherine and I drove out there (easy, sitting down), then we did a little furniture rearranging in the greenhouse (mostly they did it) and then we went out to weed some spinach. Spinach grows right close to the ground, couldn't get any closer, and the weeds around it form a netted mat so you have to really get under the chickweed and coax it out of the mud. We did that for maybe an hour and a half and I had had enough of that.
After lunch we headed out to the blueberries to prune. Blueberries are nice and tall but most of the work happens at the base of the plant. With clippers and loppers, we reduced the size of the bushes by a good amount, taking away the parts of the bush that would compete with itself, essentially. It is quiet, meditative work. The five of us settled down and started clipping and chopping. No one said a word of complaint. By about 3:30 I was tired of kneeling and getting up and down. I said we were stopping soon because my knees were finished.
Only then did Warren, 24 and an athlete, say that he agreed about the knees. Turns out he had spent time the day before coaching baseball, and since he coaches the pitcher, he had to be the catcher. There is nothing harder on knees than crouching like that, and popping up and down. Like me, he has a chunky body (not as chunky as me, to be fair). The other workers, all women, are all slender and wiry.
Back in the car for another 45 minute ride (just to really let those muscles solidify).
I am 30 years older (or more) than the rest of the people who were working with me, and I can only hope that they are feeling the same tightness in their hamstrings and shoulders and hands this morning. I am pretty sure they are. But the only cure for this soreness is to go back and do it some more.
This may be the year when I do less physical work than I have ever done, just because I will have more managing to do than ever before. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that I will be sore all the time. The really good news is that my knee doesn't hurt any more than usual, so this means that the requirements of working close to the ground do not have an effect on my most worn body part.
By an unforeseen coincidence, both Ellen and Carrie are out of town this week so I am actually watching over both farms at the same time. This is good practice for me but I won't have to do this in real life -- meaning that most likely I will not be spending full days crouching on the ground with the crew all day long. More likely I will be dropping in to say hello, or staying to help for a bit, but this may have been a rare day. We shall see.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Morning Rituals
This has to be quick, as I am supposed to show up at work in about fifteen minutes. But first I need to drink my hot yucky.
When I roll out of bed, I am not yet hungry. My mother is ready to eat as soon as her feet touch the floor, she says. My father didn't eat breakfast for a couple of hours but always started the day with a cup of coffee, just one, and by today's standards, barely a cup of coffee at all.
In this regard, I am much more like my father than my mother. He once taught me how to make his coffee for him. Boil the water and swish the boiling water around in the coffee cup, dump it out. Put a scant third of a teaspoon of instant coffee and the same amount of honey in the warmed cup. Add boiling water. Top it off with whole milk. Do not leave the spoon in the cup as it will speed the cooling process.
My own hot drink is not much stronger, but it is more delicious. I use a half cup of warmed milk mixed in with a hearty teaspoon of hot chocolate mix and a half teaspoon of instant coffee. Fill the rest of the cup with hot water.
My dad didn't care about the caffeine and neither do I -- it is the comforting ritual of a hot cup of something with some body to it. My aunt Sarah drinks tea with milk and sugar in the morning, pretty much the same thing. She makes her tea much stronger than I do, though.
The name "hot yucky" came from Sindee who heard it from her sister Andrea and we used to drink hot yuckies all the time at 30 Chilton Street -- much yuckier than what I drink now (things like Postum and other grain-based beverages).
My father used to take his coffee outside with him to the morning meeting. In those days there were none of those cups to carry coffee with the lids, etc. That's why his coffee had to be so hot to start out. He left his empty cup on the top of the gas tanks in front of the cottage. The cups would accumulate there for days and days.
My cup is empty and now I need to go outside and start the day.
When I roll out of bed, I am not yet hungry. My mother is ready to eat as soon as her feet touch the floor, she says. My father didn't eat breakfast for a couple of hours but always started the day with a cup of coffee, just one, and by today's standards, barely a cup of coffee at all.
In this regard, I am much more like my father than my mother. He once taught me how to make his coffee for him. Boil the water and swish the boiling water around in the coffee cup, dump it out. Put a scant third of a teaspoon of instant coffee and the same amount of honey in the warmed cup. Add boiling water. Top it off with whole milk. Do not leave the spoon in the cup as it will speed the cooling process.
My own hot drink is not much stronger, but it is more delicious. I use a half cup of warmed milk mixed in with a hearty teaspoon of hot chocolate mix and a half teaspoon of instant coffee. Fill the rest of the cup with hot water.
My dad didn't care about the caffeine and neither do I -- it is the comforting ritual of a hot cup of something with some body to it. My aunt Sarah drinks tea with milk and sugar in the morning, pretty much the same thing. She makes her tea much stronger than I do, though.
The name "hot yucky" came from Sindee who heard it from her sister Andrea and we used to drink hot yuckies all the time at 30 Chilton Street -- much yuckier than what I drink now (things like Postum and other grain-based beverages).
My father used to take his coffee outside with him to the morning meeting. In those days there were none of those cups to carry coffee with the lids, etc. That's why his coffee had to be so hot to start out. He left his empty cup on the top of the gas tanks in front of the cottage. The cups would accumulate there for days and days.
My cup is empty and now I need to go outside and start the day.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
The Human Condition
Now there's a grandiose title for a blog post that will be read by perhaps three people. (Who is reading this thing anyway? Send me an email and tell me sometime.)
It often happens in the wintertime, when I have the opportunity to be part of lots of things that are not related to vegetables, that I find myself in the midst of human drama. Generally not my own drama, but certainly I am connected to it in some way.
It sort of amazes me how much effort it takes for any organization to continue to function smoothly. I am not talking about money or resources, I am talking about people getting along with each other. It is a huge issue. I guess the groups I am a part of are not top-down, hierarchical structures, but I am willing to bet that those organizations have plenty of drama too.
Without getting into any detail that would cross boundaries of confidentiality, most of my volunteer meeting time these days seems to be spent talking about how things are going at the temple. They are not going very smoothly at present. Certainly I can take some responsibility for this since I was closely involved in the selection of the people who are currently having so much trouble. Oy. It is really hard to know how things will go when you hire people, I know that from lots of experience. But when you add in all the earnest lay leaders who are trying to keep things going (and spending countless hours at it, as always), it can be quite a pickle. There are so many egos to account for. People have so much history of their own that they bring to the conversation, even the very best of them/us, and it makes everything so complicated. There may be nothing more inherently complex than running a congregation whose budget is dependent on voluntary dues, who hires talented clergy to lead itself, who has a Board of Trustees that is made up of well-meaning volunteers, and AS ALWAYS, the purpose of the organization is to perpetuate itself. The good times are so short-lived! There is always a new wrench that gets thrown into the machinery.
In addition, I am about to have a phone call with my partner Ellen. Her birth family (the people she grew up with, I mean) is just coming apart in all directions. People are having such a hard time with health, relationships, their children. Ellen herself is in a good place right now but she needs to figure out how and if she can help her mother, her brother, her sister, her other brother.
Perhaps this is why we like funerals and weddings so much. They are our chance to focus on the purest moments of the human experience. In deference to what is big and compelling (not much is more compelling than death), we let the chaos of daily life slide into the background for a bit so we can celebrate or cry together, and feel grateful.
But always there is more to contend with, at least when you are middle-aged and deeply engaged in a number of different communities/families/groups. It takes so much work to keep all these boats afloat, so to speak. Certainly it is easy to see why some people choose to excuse themselves from this sort of work. But no matter what, everyone benefits when society is functioning well. It is ridiculous to imagine that we can all be curmudgeons and hermits. Someone has to keep trying to build relationships and maintain them so that the curmudgeons can have somewhere to live, somewhere to go, somewhere to be welcome when they need us.
And that is my current take on the human condition. It is a lot of work to keep things going so we can all enjoy being humans together.
It often happens in the wintertime, when I have the opportunity to be part of lots of things that are not related to vegetables, that I find myself in the midst of human drama. Generally not my own drama, but certainly I am connected to it in some way.
It sort of amazes me how much effort it takes for any organization to continue to function smoothly. I am not talking about money or resources, I am talking about people getting along with each other. It is a huge issue. I guess the groups I am a part of are not top-down, hierarchical structures, but I am willing to bet that those organizations have plenty of drama too.
Without getting into any detail that would cross boundaries of confidentiality, most of my volunteer meeting time these days seems to be spent talking about how things are going at the temple. They are not going very smoothly at present. Certainly I can take some responsibility for this since I was closely involved in the selection of the people who are currently having so much trouble. Oy. It is really hard to know how things will go when you hire people, I know that from lots of experience. But when you add in all the earnest lay leaders who are trying to keep things going (and spending countless hours at it, as always), it can be quite a pickle. There are so many egos to account for. People have so much history of their own that they bring to the conversation, even the very best of them/us, and it makes everything so complicated. There may be nothing more inherently complex than running a congregation whose budget is dependent on voluntary dues, who hires talented clergy to lead itself, who has a Board of Trustees that is made up of well-meaning volunteers, and AS ALWAYS, the purpose of the organization is to perpetuate itself. The good times are so short-lived! There is always a new wrench that gets thrown into the machinery.
In addition, I am about to have a phone call with my partner Ellen. Her birth family (the people she grew up with, I mean) is just coming apart in all directions. People are having such a hard time with health, relationships, their children. Ellen herself is in a good place right now but she needs to figure out how and if she can help her mother, her brother, her sister, her other brother.
Perhaps this is why we like funerals and weddings so much. They are our chance to focus on the purest moments of the human experience. In deference to what is big and compelling (not much is more compelling than death), we let the chaos of daily life slide into the background for a bit so we can celebrate or cry together, and feel grateful.
But always there is more to contend with, at least when you are middle-aged and deeply engaged in a number of different communities/families/groups. It takes so much work to keep all these boats afloat, so to speak. Certainly it is easy to see why some people choose to excuse themselves from this sort of work. But no matter what, everyone benefits when society is functioning well. It is ridiculous to imagine that we can all be curmudgeons and hermits. Someone has to keep trying to build relationships and maintain them so that the curmudgeons can have somewhere to live, somewhere to go, somewhere to be welcome when they need us.
And that is my current take on the human condition. It is a lot of work to keep things going so we can all enjoy being humans together.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Remembering Darryl
I don't know if everyone else thinks about Darryl every day, but I do. He died while Jon and I were driving across the country in January. When Hilary died in 1977, I missed that event too and it stayed with me for so long that I learned a life lesson: never miss the funeral. And if possible, don't miss the death. In Hilary's case, I missed both. I was a sophomore at Oberlin and the advice from home was to stay at school, don't come to Virginia. In hindsight I now know that was bad advice. I understand why they said that, of course, as it was quite complicated to try to get home from Ohio in the middle of September without someone actually driving all the way to come get me. But my heart broke on September 19, 1977 and it stayed broken for a long time.
It is possible that missing Hilary's funeral is what made me such a funeral attender. In the nearly 40 years since then I have made a serious effort to go to every funeral and memorial service that I am connected to. It is always meaningful and I am always glad. It is worth it to me to get on a plane in the morning, rent a car, drive to the service, sit in the back, say nothing to anyone, drive back to the airport and fly home in the same day. For me, I have to be there to be part of the unique group that gathers to remember, honor, speak of, cry for, and sometimes bury the person who is gone. It is a critical part of the human experience. If you miss that, you miss it forever. Also, it matters a lot to the people who were closest to the person.
All the people at home in early January did everything just right when Darryl died. I was sort of part of it because Mom called me as soon as she found him (and sent Michael Lipsky to verify what she thought she was seeing) and asked me what to do. I called Anna, knowing she would know what to do. Meanwhile Jon said, repeatedly, call the police. He was right and that was what Anna said too. I called Carrie and told her what was going on, knowing she would want to be part of things. Jim joined the group too. Anyway, the point is, Darryl's body was in the company of many people who cared about him and everything was handled well.
I thought about Darryl a lot for the rest of the trip, but I didn't cry. His death wasn't a death to cry about, really. Without any sort of planning or even without much warning, he just died quietly in his chair. He could not have managed it better. Apparently the days just before he died were hard for him (I last saw him on the last Saturday of his life and he was in excellent spirits, unusually fine) because the weather turned very cold and he suffered in the cold. Everything was so much harder for him in extreme heat or cold: walking, moving, driving. In hindsight, people say that he got weaker in those last days. He died on Thursday, my mother thinks, although the death certificate says Friday because that's when she finally went into his room to verify that he wasn't just napping.
When we got home I took it upon myself to find a date that we could get together and celebrate Darryl. His family is not the sort of family that organizes things like this -- he has two sons ("the twins") in the area, an ex-wife (with whom he had a very good relationship) and a daughter who lives far away and a son who is estranged from the family. It was not presumptuous of us to take this task, in other words. I checked with the twins and the ex-wife to be sure they could come on the day, and they were glad to come.
I knew right away that if it were at all possible, we should gather in the greenhouse. Darryl would have loved nothing more than to have his own greenhouse. His whole life, he puttered with plants. He loved plants and flowers and trees and bushes and gardens and all that went into creating beautiful spaces. He didn't have anywhere to put up a greenhouse and he never had a penny, so he just used whatever corners were available on the farm, and started seedlings at the very first opportunity. He was completely happy, sitting on a stool in a sunny place, spotting out flower plants...even with those big clumsy fingers.
The first two weeks of February were bitterly cold, but we stayed with the chosen date of February 15. It was a sunny, windy day. The ground was frozen so hard that everyone was allowed to drive all the way through the farm, anywhere they wanted. We assembled at 4:00 when it was still warm inside, but the sun was on the way down toward the trees.
There were maybe 60 of us. We sat on green baskets and stools, and many people stood, wrapped in their winter coats. Carrie had cleaned up the greenhouse and put down a new layer of landscape cloth so we wouldn't trip on the raggedy floor. A few of us brought some Darryl-style snacks. There was plenty of Pellegrino water, his favorite. I remembered that the last meal we shared was in the greenhouse, a Friday Lunch in late November, he was so tickled to be eating in that warm space that he thought we should do that all the time.
There was no music, no poetry (except Mel's beautiful poem written in his honor), no ritual. We just told stories. We pieced together what we knew of him and we talked about why we loved him -- in spite of his curmudgeonly ways. He was a character (when I called Benjamin to tell him that Darryl had died, Benjamin lamented that the last of the interesting people from the old days was gone now). He was so difficult and yet so generous and caring. He had become so much less angry in the last 27 years since he stopped drinking. He was stoic, strong, principled, independent, creative, dogged, always in pain, never complaining, and he took care of people. He swore viciously but usually when he thought no one could hear him. He was grateful for the gifts of his life, which most people would not have said were very many, but he knew how to count them.
He would have loved that gathering, and he would not have predicted so many people would come.
I will probably think about him every single day this summer, and beyond. He has been a presence around here for the last 30 years or so. He could be an aggravating, complicated presence, but after I realized that he was here to stay, I decided he was like an uncle and we just needed to take him in and help him be who/where he wanted to be. We built him a dry, warm space to sleep -- like an outdoor cat being allowed to stay inside. He didn't get any petting, his life was not easy, but he was safe and warm.
Darryl Rodney Wright was born on August 15, 1936. He lived a long and interesting life, on his own terms. He died on January 8/9, 2015. We will miss him tremendously.
It is possible that missing Hilary's funeral is what made me such a funeral attender. In the nearly 40 years since then I have made a serious effort to go to every funeral and memorial service that I am connected to. It is always meaningful and I am always glad. It is worth it to me to get on a plane in the morning, rent a car, drive to the service, sit in the back, say nothing to anyone, drive back to the airport and fly home in the same day. For me, I have to be there to be part of the unique group that gathers to remember, honor, speak of, cry for, and sometimes bury the person who is gone. It is a critical part of the human experience. If you miss that, you miss it forever. Also, it matters a lot to the people who were closest to the person.
All the people at home in early January did everything just right when Darryl died. I was sort of part of it because Mom called me as soon as she found him (and sent Michael Lipsky to verify what she thought she was seeing) and asked me what to do. I called Anna, knowing she would know what to do. Meanwhile Jon said, repeatedly, call the police. He was right and that was what Anna said too. I called Carrie and told her what was going on, knowing she would want to be part of things. Jim joined the group too. Anyway, the point is, Darryl's body was in the company of many people who cared about him and everything was handled well.
I thought about Darryl a lot for the rest of the trip, but I didn't cry. His death wasn't a death to cry about, really. Without any sort of planning or even without much warning, he just died quietly in his chair. He could not have managed it better. Apparently the days just before he died were hard for him (I last saw him on the last Saturday of his life and he was in excellent spirits, unusually fine) because the weather turned very cold and he suffered in the cold. Everything was so much harder for him in extreme heat or cold: walking, moving, driving. In hindsight, people say that he got weaker in those last days. He died on Thursday, my mother thinks, although the death certificate says Friday because that's when she finally went into his room to verify that he wasn't just napping.
When we got home I took it upon myself to find a date that we could get together and celebrate Darryl. His family is not the sort of family that organizes things like this -- he has two sons ("the twins") in the area, an ex-wife (with whom he had a very good relationship) and a daughter who lives far away and a son who is estranged from the family. It was not presumptuous of us to take this task, in other words. I checked with the twins and the ex-wife to be sure they could come on the day, and they were glad to come.
I knew right away that if it were at all possible, we should gather in the greenhouse. Darryl would have loved nothing more than to have his own greenhouse. His whole life, he puttered with plants. He loved plants and flowers and trees and bushes and gardens and all that went into creating beautiful spaces. He didn't have anywhere to put up a greenhouse and he never had a penny, so he just used whatever corners were available on the farm, and started seedlings at the very first opportunity. He was completely happy, sitting on a stool in a sunny place, spotting out flower plants...even with those big clumsy fingers.
The first two weeks of February were bitterly cold, but we stayed with the chosen date of February 15. It was a sunny, windy day. The ground was frozen so hard that everyone was allowed to drive all the way through the farm, anywhere they wanted. We assembled at 4:00 when it was still warm inside, but the sun was on the way down toward the trees.
There were maybe 60 of us. We sat on green baskets and stools, and many people stood, wrapped in their winter coats. Carrie had cleaned up the greenhouse and put down a new layer of landscape cloth so we wouldn't trip on the raggedy floor. A few of us brought some Darryl-style snacks. There was plenty of Pellegrino water, his favorite. I remembered that the last meal we shared was in the greenhouse, a Friday Lunch in late November, he was so tickled to be eating in that warm space that he thought we should do that all the time.
There was no music, no poetry (except Mel's beautiful poem written in his honor), no ritual. We just told stories. We pieced together what we knew of him and we talked about why we loved him -- in spite of his curmudgeonly ways. He was a character (when I called Benjamin to tell him that Darryl had died, Benjamin lamented that the last of the interesting people from the old days was gone now). He was so difficult and yet so generous and caring. He had become so much less angry in the last 27 years since he stopped drinking. He was stoic, strong, principled, independent, creative, dogged, always in pain, never complaining, and he took care of people. He swore viciously but usually when he thought no one could hear him. He was grateful for the gifts of his life, which most people would not have said were very many, but he knew how to count them.
He would have loved that gathering, and he would not have predicted so many people would come.
I will probably think about him every single day this summer, and beyond. He has been a presence around here for the last 30 years or so. He could be an aggravating, complicated presence, but after I realized that he was here to stay, I decided he was like an uncle and we just needed to take him in and help him be who/where he wanted to be. We built him a dry, warm space to sleep -- like an outdoor cat being allowed to stay inside. He didn't get any petting, his life was not easy, but he was safe and warm.
Darryl Rodney Wright was born on August 15, 1936. He lived a long and interesting life, on his own terms. He died on January 8/9, 2015. We will miss him tremendously.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Farmer Talk
It's not that we have been so busy, it's just that farm stuff has started to take some our daytime hours. And it's not that we have been so productive -- just to get the truck ready to go to Pennsylvania to pick up supplies (which Jon did on Tuesday, a rainy day, and he was gone for the whole day) meant finding a tractor or truck that would start so we could pull the truck out of its level parking spot, which was icy and muddy. None of this is surprising. Everything just takes so LONG when the ground is squishy and the tractors have been parked all winter and there are piles of ice inconveniently situated.
Yesterday we planned to spend the whole day in Loudoun working on the new barn. For one reason/errand and another, we didn't really get there until a little after noon. This certainly reminds me of my childhood when we were farming three farms, spending lots of time getting ready to go to one of the other farms, loading up, stopping on the way to pick stuff up, finally arriving at the other farm about four hours later than originally planned. Or more.
Anyway, the only thing on the schedule for yesterday was attending a dinner potluck meeting hosted by Rob and Mo Moutoux. This is an annual event that Jon and I have never attended, not being part of the Loudoun/Wheatland community except in a peripheral way. The meeting was sort of a kick-off/wrap-up meeting that happens before the growing season starts again. Farmers were invited to tell brief stories about what they had learned in the last season, what new plans they have for the upcoming season, and to introduce topics they wanted to talk about with the group.
I won't go into the gory details of farmer shop talk, although it was all very interesting. What was most interesting to me was to be in a room that was filled only with real farmers. People who are running actual businesses, or who have done that for a lifetime and are now retired. This is completely different from going to a conference where many of the people are wannabes or extension agents or support people. These farmers were not talking about concepts.
About half the farmers were "young farmers." This is a specific category, and one that people pay a lot of attention to because most farmers in this country are old. These young farmers are go-getters with perspective. They have had a lot of experience, they know a lot about working really hard, and they also know about social media and how to use it.
The older farmers -- me, Ellen, Jon, the Plancks, the elder Moutouxs, even Barbara and Dennis - -are still very much in the game but it feels different to be a senior member of the assembly. We still count but it's sort of common knowledge that we don't struggle as much as the young farmers do. For one thing, we don't have little kids anymore. And it is easier for us to attract good applicants to work on our farms because we are a known entity.
Anyway, it was an honor to be part of that group of actual farmers. I am not particularly interested in talking about the nuts and bolts of farming with non-farmers. They are, sometimes, curious but it is rarely a very satisfying conversation. I can't talk to lawyers about their work very effectively either.
And the food was good -- even my burnt offering (I burned a pan of enchiladas to a charcoal blackness and had to resurrect it by removing most of the charred parts and adding back some new cheese). Farmers definitely eat well in groups.
Yesterday we planned to spend the whole day in Loudoun working on the new barn. For one reason/errand and another, we didn't really get there until a little after noon. This certainly reminds me of my childhood when we were farming three farms, spending lots of time getting ready to go to one of the other farms, loading up, stopping on the way to pick stuff up, finally arriving at the other farm about four hours later than originally planned. Or more.
Anyway, the only thing on the schedule for yesterday was attending a dinner potluck meeting hosted by Rob and Mo Moutoux. This is an annual event that Jon and I have never attended, not being part of the Loudoun/Wheatland community except in a peripheral way. The meeting was sort of a kick-off/wrap-up meeting that happens before the growing season starts again. Farmers were invited to tell brief stories about what they had learned in the last season, what new plans they have for the upcoming season, and to introduce topics they wanted to talk about with the group.
I won't go into the gory details of farmer shop talk, although it was all very interesting. What was most interesting to me was to be in a room that was filled only with real farmers. People who are running actual businesses, or who have done that for a lifetime and are now retired. This is completely different from going to a conference where many of the people are wannabes or extension agents or support people. These farmers were not talking about concepts.
About half the farmers were "young farmers." This is a specific category, and one that people pay a lot of attention to because most farmers in this country are old. These young farmers are go-getters with perspective. They have had a lot of experience, they know a lot about working really hard, and they also know about social media and how to use it.
The older farmers -- me, Ellen, Jon, the Plancks, the elder Moutouxs, even Barbara and Dennis - -are still very much in the game but it feels different to be a senior member of the assembly. We still count but it's sort of common knowledge that we don't struggle as much as the young farmers do. For one thing, we don't have little kids anymore. And it is easier for us to attract good applicants to work on our farms because we are a known entity.
Anyway, it was an honor to be part of that group of actual farmers. I am not particularly interested in talking about the nuts and bolts of farming with non-farmers. They are, sometimes, curious but it is rarely a very satisfying conversation. I can't talk to lawyers about their work very effectively either.
And the food was good -- even my burnt offering (I burned a pan of enchiladas to a charcoal blackness and had to resurrect it by removing most of the charred parts and adding back some new cheese). Farmers definitely eat well in groups.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Time Change
It seems to me Daylight Saving Time came much earlier than usual, and now I wonder what the reasoning is -- how do they decide that? That was only four months of Eastern Standard Time. It is still the dead of winter. I can remember Sundays in the past, arriving at Takoma Park and seeing various vendors arrive an hour late because of the time change. We don't start going to market for another six weeks or so.
However, from an entirely personal viewpoint, this is perfect because I am still adjusting, after a whole week, to the time change and now I believe I am aligned with the clock, now that they have eaten up the last hour. Most people don't like this one because they lose an hour of sleep.
But to get to the real point of this story: the Turkish rugs finally arrived yesterday. I came home and there was a big lump on the kitchen floor, still wrapped up in many feet of FedEx tape. We never got around to unwrapping them because we had things to do and Jon is feeling sick and grumpy. It will take him a very long time to welcome these rugs into our house, being who he is and feeling uncomfortable with the purchase, but I know that I will love them.
So -- this morning I rolled out of bed at 6:20, new time, and came downstairs and unwrapped the rugs. I will have to send a picture using my phone because I don't know how to put pictures on the blog. Now that I see them, I realize that many people we know have little Turkish rugs in their house. Dorothy and Danny have always had a rug in their living room and now I understand the origin.
They are beautiful. Jon was worried that they would not match our haphazard decor because we don't have anything of real value in our house. But they fit right in. They are a little bit hippie-ish, in a way. We are not hippies, in any sense of the word, but our house does not reflect the decorator sensibilities of mature adults. I was not raised with good furniture or furnishings and I am always in awe of people -- like Laura Cooper, Nell, Nancy, Hannah -- who know what to buy and how to make their houses look so nice. Betsy's house is full of furniture that her grandfather made with his hands. You can't beat that. In fact, all my best friends know how to decorate and how to shop for clothing.
The previous living room rug is still fine, of course, and we don't have a plan for it, so I moved it into the dining room. In the winter we feel a little chilly when we are sitting at the table, so maybe our feet will be warmer. And we don't have any little kids anymore so I think we can be allowed to have a rug under the table.
Well, now we have rugs that will remind us of our trip for the rest of our lives. That makes me happy.
However, from an entirely personal viewpoint, this is perfect because I am still adjusting, after a whole week, to the time change and now I believe I am aligned with the clock, now that they have eaten up the last hour. Most people don't like this one because they lose an hour of sleep.
But to get to the real point of this story: the Turkish rugs finally arrived yesterday. I came home and there was a big lump on the kitchen floor, still wrapped up in many feet of FedEx tape. We never got around to unwrapping them because we had things to do and Jon is feeling sick and grumpy. It will take him a very long time to welcome these rugs into our house, being who he is and feeling uncomfortable with the purchase, but I know that I will love them.
So -- this morning I rolled out of bed at 6:20, new time, and came downstairs and unwrapped the rugs. I will have to send a picture using my phone because I don't know how to put pictures on the blog. Now that I see them, I realize that many people we know have little Turkish rugs in their house. Dorothy and Danny have always had a rug in their living room and now I understand the origin.
They are beautiful. Jon was worried that they would not match our haphazard decor because we don't have anything of real value in our house. But they fit right in. They are a little bit hippie-ish, in a way. We are not hippies, in any sense of the word, but our house does not reflect the decorator sensibilities of mature adults. I was not raised with good furniture or furnishings and I am always in awe of people -- like Laura Cooper, Nell, Nancy, Hannah -- who know what to buy and how to make their houses look so nice. Betsy's house is full of furniture that her grandfather made with his hands. You can't beat that. In fact, all my best friends know how to decorate and how to shop for clothing.
The previous living room rug is still fine, of course, and we don't have a plan for it, so I moved it into the dining room. In the winter we feel a little chilly when we are sitting at the table, so maybe our feet will be warmer. And we don't have any little kids anymore so I think we can be allowed to have a rug under the table.
Well, now we have rugs that will remind us of our trip for the rest of our lives. That makes me happy.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Snow Day
The Boston snows have made it hard for us to know how to feel about our snow here. Seems insignificant. We really haven't had very much. But today it did snow all day long, and by 6 PM there was about 10" of heavy, pristine snow. Off and on all day, people from the neighborhood shoveled the walkways, cleared cars and scraped ice. Schools were closed and just about everyone stayed home for the day. Many people worked from home.
I am still in my pajamas. I had a busy day, but I never got dressed. At about 9:00 in the morning I sent an email to the community: an open invitation to come over for hot chocolate or tea at 10:30. It has never occurred to me to do something like this before, but Jon was out of town and it seemed like a waste of resources to have this nice fire and relatively clean house all to myself.
At 10:30 the first neighbors arrived. We had popcorn and hot drinks and sat by the fire. Then the next wave arrived, with the small children. People kept coming and going, Anna and Gordon made themselves some eggs, the kids played games on iPads. Chess games, knitting, computer work. The last people left at 3:00. I would not have predicted that tea time could last so long, but it was nice to have such an easy way to hang out with people -- with no agenda.
After that I pulled my snow pants and boots on and walked over to see my mother and Michael. Jim walked over too after putting the loader away, and we all had soup together.
Then there was a big shoveling event just before dark, and lots of slipping and sliding. I think I fell down three times today, all the way onto my back, but I was wearing enough puffy clothes that I never got hurt. I imagine I will be stiff and sore tomorrow after the shoveling, but the falls were nothing, thank goodness.
Betsy and Kenyon and Jack and I went to Anna's house for dinner. Where and when can it seem normal to be in your pajama pants all day and host a big daytime event at home, visit your mother, and then go to dinner down the street? Snow days take away all the rules.
I am still in my pajamas. I had a busy day, but I never got dressed. At about 9:00 in the morning I sent an email to the community: an open invitation to come over for hot chocolate or tea at 10:30. It has never occurred to me to do something like this before, but Jon was out of town and it seemed like a waste of resources to have this nice fire and relatively clean house all to myself.
At 10:30 the first neighbors arrived. We had popcorn and hot drinks and sat by the fire. Then the next wave arrived, with the small children. People kept coming and going, Anna and Gordon made themselves some eggs, the kids played games on iPads. Chess games, knitting, computer work. The last people left at 3:00. I would not have predicted that tea time could last so long, but it was nice to have such an easy way to hang out with people -- with no agenda.
After that I pulled my snow pants and boots on and walked over to see my mother and Michael. Jim walked over too after putting the loader away, and we all had soup together.
Then there was a big shoveling event just before dark, and lots of slipping and sliding. I think I fell down three times today, all the way onto my back, but I was wearing enough puffy clothes that I never got hurt. I imagine I will be stiff and sore tomorrow after the shoveling, but the falls were nothing, thank goodness.
Betsy and Kenyon and Jack and I went to Anna's house for dinner. Where and when can it seem normal to be in your pajama pants all day and host a big daytime event at home, visit your mother, and then go to dinner down the street? Snow days take away all the rules.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
All Talk No Action
I really can't think of anything in particular that I got done today, but I feel like I had a lot of conversations. This is what winter is like. The days just wander by. I woke up at 6:30, which was two hours later than recent mornings (we are still trying to find our way back to this time zone -- my friend Nancy says we are probably still somewhere over the Atlantic). Just a few minutes later Jon called from Shreveport, so that was my first conversation of the day.
And then I somehow just got caught in that slow-moving stream of emails, messages, computer fussing, which is another form of conversation, responding to this and that. I had intended to go swimming but then Jon had got it into my head that I should go check things at the farm, but before I went outside I started to make some soup and cornbread, and then it was already 11 AM.
I went to the farm and filled some buckets with water so the people in the greenhouse would have an easier time (the pipes are frozen and the chief plumber is many miles away and the ground is frozen anyway so repairs have to wait). Saw Michael Lipsky, talked shop. Chased some geese.
Then off for a mammogram at Kaiser. I haven't gone to any doctor in at least a year, which seems kind of amazing. Anyway, that took about 22 minutes and then I came back home for Wednesday Lunch with Betsy. We had just seen each other last night at Book Club, here in this house, so it wasn't like we had a lot of catching up to do -- but we always have plenty to talk about. There's always the Blueberry Hill gossip.
Then the solar panel guy came by to answer my questions -- he said we are all set and we can claim the whole tax refund in 2015, no problem, and there is no more work that needs to happen. We have 25 solar panels on our roof that were installed in September but not hooked up until February (very frustrating), but now they are generating electricity. Very exciting.
After that I took chili and cornbread and soup to a choir friend whose fiance fell on ice about 6 weeks ago and is very slowly recovering from a head and back injury. The choir friend, Elise, and I went out for coffee/tea while her fiance was having some physical therapy -- she needed to get out of their apartment for a bit. We don't socialize, really, but I can certainly sympathize with her need for a little air after all that intensive caregiving. They were supposed to get married at the end of this month but they have postponed (Elise says they are going to white-out the date on their already printed invitations...).
Stopped by the greenhouse to say hello to Ashley who was seeding some chard and cabbage. The greenhouse is the ONLY place that looks like we are on track to have a farm season. Outdoors is mud and snow and ice, a big mess. In the greenhouse the plants are growing well, sturdy and green, nearly oblivious to the world outside now that my mother has wrestled the furnace into submission. Or at least cajoled it, through many visits from the service guy.
Carrie came to visit in the greenhouse too -- she just got back from a visit with her mother in upstate New York. Carrie is now 12 weeks pregnant and we are allowed to tell other people. It is going to be great, having another baby around eventually. Carrie has a long hot summer in front of her.
I had a phone interview with a young lady in New Hampshire at 5:00. She will tell me by March 13 if she wants to work here. Her name is Hannah. I don't know if we have ever hired a Hannah before.
I heard our neighbor Noel in the parking lot scraping ice with a shovel so I went out to see if he needed some help. After about 3 minutes I decided to go get the loader. It was not the perfect tool for breaking up solid ice but I gradually got better at taking bites out of the packed surface. We didn't finish, but we got the parking lot much more ready for the next snow, coming tonight.
And then after I had a quick dinner I reluctantly took myself over to the temple (oh yes, Alissa called me, delaying my departure) for the Purim service. Ever since our children grew up, I have stopped having any interest at all in Purim. It is not a holiday that speaks to me in the least. It is noisy, noisy, silly, the story isn't great, the costumes are irrelevant, and I just feel like a curmudgeon. I also feel like the people who are leading the celebration aren't very interested either. It all feels fake. I arrived a half hour after everything started, sat down next to Nancy and Nell who were ready to leave by then, and we quietly escaped before the improv skit was done (boring).
See? The day just goes by so fast. Not counting computer/texting conversations (with Sarah Bansen, Benjamin, multiple CSA customers, Ellen, etc.) I had a total of 13 different human interactions (not counting the geese, I mean). I didn't even have time to practice piano, which is ridiculous because I have this entire house to myself.
It is supposed to snow all day tomorrow so I can practice all day long (ha).
And then I somehow just got caught in that slow-moving stream of emails, messages, computer fussing, which is another form of conversation, responding to this and that. I had intended to go swimming but then Jon had got it into my head that I should go check things at the farm, but before I went outside I started to make some soup and cornbread, and then it was already 11 AM.
I went to the farm and filled some buckets with water so the people in the greenhouse would have an easier time (the pipes are frozen and the chief plumber is many miles away and the ground is frozen anyway so repairs have to wait). Saw Michael Lipsky, talked shop. Chased some geese.
Then off for a mammogram at Kaiser. I haven't gone to any doctor in at least a year, which seems kind of amazing. Anyway, that took about 22 minutes and then I came back home for Wednesday Lunch with Betsy. We had just seen each other last night at Book Club, here in this house, so it wasn't like we had a lot of catching up to do -- but we always have plenty to talk about. There's always the Blueberry Hill gossip.
Then the solar panel guy came by to answer my questions -- he said we are all set and we can claim the whole tax refund in 2015, no problem, and there is no more work that needs to happen. We have 25 solar panels on our roof that were installed in September but not hooked up until February (very frustrating), but now they are generating electricity. Very exciting.
After that I took chili and cornbread and soup to a choir friend whose fiance fell on ice about 6 weeks ago and is very slowly recovering from a head and back injury. The choir friend, Elise, and I went out for coffee/tea while her fiance was having some physical therapy -- she needed to get out of their apartment for a bit. We don't socialize, really, but I can certainly sympathize with her need for a little air after all that intensive caregiving. They were supposed to get married at the end of this month but they have postponed (Elise says they are going to white-out the date on their already printed invitations...).
Stopped by the greenhouse to say hello to Ashley who was seeding some chard and cabbage. The greenhouse is the ONLY place that looks like we are on track to have a farm season. Outdoors is mud and snow and ice, a big mess. In the greenhouse the plants are growing well, sturdy and green, nearly oblivious to the world outside now that my mother has wrestled the furnace into submission. Or at least cajoled it, through many visits from the service guy.
Carrie came to visit in the greenhouse too -- she just got back from a visit with her mother in upstate New York. Carrie is now 12 weeks pregnant and we are allowed to tell other people. It is going to be great, having another baby around eventually. Carrie has a long hot summer in front of her.
I had a phone interview with a young lady in New Hampshire at 5:00. She will tell me by March 13 if she wants to work here. Her name is Hannah. I don't know if we have ever hired a Hannah before.
I heard our neighbor Noel in the parking lot scraping ice with a shovel so I went out to see if he needed some help. After about 3 minutes I decided to go get the loader. It was not the perfect tool for breaking up solid ice but I gradually got better at taking bites out of the packed surface. We didn't finish, but we got the parking lot much more ready for the next snow, coming tonight.
And then after I had a quick dinner I reluctantly took myself over to the temple (oh yes, Alissa called me, delaying my departure) for the Purim service. Ever since our children grew up, I have stopped having any interest at all in Purim. It is not a holiday that speaks to me in the least. It is noisy, noisy, silly, the story isn't great, the costumes are irrelevant, and I just feel like a curmudgeon. I also feel like the people who are leading the celebration aren't very interested either. It all feels fake. I arrived a half hour after everything started, sat down next to Nancy and Nell who were ready to leave by then, and we quietly escaped before the improv skit was done (boring).
See? The day just goes by so fast. Not counting computer/texting conversations (with Sarah Bansen, Benjamin, multiple CSA customers, Ellen, etc.) I had a total of 13 different human interactions (not counting the geese, I mean). I didn't even have time to practice piano, which is ridiculous because I have this entire house to myself.
It is supposed to snow all day tomorrow so I can practice all day long (ha).
Monday, March 2, 2015
Mikveh Ladies
It has been 20 years since my official conversion to Judaism. At that time, there were four of us (Nell, Peggy, Ruth and me) who were all somewhere in the process of learning, thinking about converting, fretting about it. At Ruth's suggestion, we started to meet -- actually we started to meet after I went to the mikveh in the spring of 1995 because she was so taken aback at her reaction to the speed of my decision-making. She had been dithering about it for years, partly because she was raised in a church and was a Unitarian as an adult. It was not a simple decision for her. So she asked if I would come and tell the rest of them what it was like, and how I was able to decide to take the leap.
We met now and then, named ourselves the Mikveh Ladies, and after we all eventually completed the ritual, we all went on to have very active Jewish lives. We all had children about the same age so we had plenty to do, keeping up with the holidays, taking kids to religious school. But in addition, each of us took the lead in our Jewish community in some way. Nell became the music teacher for our temple, Peggy and I both became Hebrew teachers, Ruth went to work for the Union for Reform Judaism in the Outreach department. I also became a lay leader, starting out by serving on the Preschool Board, then helping to get the building addition built and moving on up through the ranks of the Board of Trustees, serving two years as President, etc. We have all done our share, making a big contribution of time to our congregation.
Now we are all older, our kids are grown and out of the house, and Ruth thought it would be good if we got together again to observe this 20th anniversary. She asked Rabbi Gold if she would like to shepherd us -- and the rabbi said she would be honored. So we have met twice now; today was our second meeting. Sometime in December we will all go to the mikveh together, to celebrate this milestone.
The first meeting we talked about what our hopes and goals might be for this series of gatherings. We talked about ethical wills, what we remembered about our first trip to the mikveh, and what we remembered about the studying we did way back when.
This time we talked about God and what that might mean to us, and whether our perceptions have changed over the years. Rabbi Gold had a gentle series of questions ready for us, helping us to reflect on our sense of who we are and how we have changed.
(Just before the last person arrived, I got a call from Carrie in upstate New York telling me that there was a freight truck that needed to be unloaded in the stand parking lot. Since Jon is in Shreveport, I had no choice but to go back to the farm and unload the plow blade. It took me 40 minutes round trip. I didn't miss too much.)
At our next meeting we are supposed to tell some of our best/strongest Jewish memories.
We met now and then, named ourselves the Mikveh Ladies, and after we all eventually completed the ritual, we all went on to have very active Jewish lives. We all had children about the same age so we had plenty to do, keeping up with the holidays, taking kids to religious school. But in addition, each of us took the lead in our Jewish community in some way. Nell became the music teacher for our temple, Peggy and I both became Hebrew teachers, Ruth went to work for the Union for Reform Judaism in the Outreach department. I also became a lay leader, starting out by serving on the Preschool Board, then helping to get the building addition built and moving on up through the ranks of the Board of Trustees, serving two years as President, etc. We have all done our share, making a big contribution of time to our congregation.
Now we are all older, our kids are grown and out of the house, and Ruth thought it would be good if we got together again to observe this 20th anniversary. She asked Rabbi Gold if she would like to shepherd us -- and the rabbi said she would be honored. So we have met twice now; today was our second meeting. Sometime in December we will all go to the mikveh together, to celebrate this milestone.
The first meeting we talked about what our hopes and goals might be for this series of gatherings. We talked about ethical wills, what we remembered about our first trip to the mikveh, and what we remembered about the studying we did way back when.
This time we talked about God and what that might mean to us, and whether our perceptions have changed over the years. Rabbi Gold had a gentle series of questions ready for us, helping us to reflect on our sense of who we are and how we have changed.
(Just before the last person arrived, I got a call from Carrie in upstate New York telling me that there was a freight truck that needed to be unloaded in the stand parking lot. Since Jon is in Shreveport, I had no choice but to go back to the farm and unload the plow blade. It took me 40 minutes round trip. I didn't miss too much.)
At our next meeting we are supposed to tell some of our best/strongest Jewish memories.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Dinner with Ygal
This is a report that Lilah requested, so I am thinking of her as I write, but perhaps it might be of interest to other Groissers.
Benjamin and Ygal had agreed that Ygal would drive to Haifa to have dinner with us on Friday, February 27. Ygal had too much to do to try to organize a family dinner with us, which is what he ordinarily would have attempted, but he said that since he is the only English speaker in his house it would be too much of a strain on him to try to manage that right now. Benjamin has been to the Groiser house several times, and Alissa and Benjamin were there in May -- so that family has already rolled out the welcome mat to second cousins (once removed) on numerous occasions. Ygal's wife Yaffa (?) is famous for her enormous meals, with many delicious offerings (as Leon and Lilah know from their own visits).
Ygal told Benjamin to choose the restaurant and Lilah asked us to arrange for her to be our long distance host/patron. We were dubious about this, knowing that it would be Ygal's inclination to be our host, and the first time Jon mentioned it on the phone with Ygal, he adamantly refused the offer, saying that he and Lilah have a good relationship and she would understand. This gave Jon the idea of how to turn things around in Lilah's favor later.
When Benjamin was taking classes at the ulpan, he walked past this restaurant twice a day and it intrigued him. I can't quite understand what he was seeing, because it doesn't have any presentation on the street at all. It is just a door. But maybe there is a place for a menu outside that we didn't see, or perhaps someone stands outside and looks hopefully for customers. He had inquired and knew that it was known to be one of the best restaurants in Haifa. As he said, the sign on the building, printed on a real signboard and not just handwritten, says "Fine Dinning." He made the reservations, speaking Hebrew on the phone, for 7:00. Afterwards he was a little nervous that they might not have understood each other perfectly and perhaps he had made a mistake, but on Friday afternoon the restaurant called his cell phone to confirm the reservation, so we knew he had got it right. The restaurant is Hanamal 24, named after the street it is on, and that is the street that Benjamin lived on for those months.
Ygal texted Benjamin a few minutes before 7:00 to say he was there in the restaurant. We were walking the 5 minute walk from our hotel. Ygal had driven two hours.
We climbed a steep flight of stairs to the dining room and were greeted by smiling young hostesses dressed in black and white (more formal than any restaurant we had been to on this trip). Ygal was sitting at the table waiting. He is going to be 55 years old in March, and I guess he looks his age, but he has a youthful face and body. As he began to talk, Jon immediately noticed that he reminded him of Papa, especially in the way he told stories. The stories were clearly ones that he had told many times before, like Papa, and they had a point he was trying to express -- like what it was like to be a young immigrant in Israel and how he was humbled by the experience. As I watched him speak, I remembered Leon too.
I am nearly certain that Lilah has heard all of these stories before (because Benjamin had and because Alissa told us some of them), but I enjoyed hearing them directly from Ygal. His English is very good, and sometimes he made up words that fit the need, and sometimes he searched for words and let us make suggestions so he could move on.
First he wanted to select the wine. He explained that when he first came here, Israeli wine was not nearly as good as it is now. 25 years later there are many regions growing grapes, many types of wine, and lots of flavors. He doesn't like other wines as much as he likes the wine from Israel now. So when he looked at the menu and found only Italian and French wines, and one California wine, he was surprised and disappointed. He asked the waitress and she then showed him a whole page of Israeli wines, which made him much happier. He chose a red wine with lots of body (? Benj and Jon will have to help me here) and then we selected our dinners.
Jon ordered a Salade Lyonnaise and a lamb burger, medium. Benjamin had the same salad without bacon and a pasta dish that wasn't just a jumble of noodles, it was sort of stuffed pasta tubes, stacked up elegantly. I had nut-encrusted stuffed mushrooms for a starter and "spring chicken" with potato and sweet potato gratin. I don't think I can remember what Ygal had, but he was definitely eating the slowest because he was doing most of the talking. He might have ordered fish because he says that is what he usually eats when he goes out, but he doesn't observe kashrut at all. He just likes seafood. All the food was delicious, but we probably did not give it the attention it deserved as we were talking and listening so much.
The menu was mostly French, or certainly European. There was no hummus or Israeli salad or any of that. The restaurant filled up with families and couples. We never felt rushed, the light was quite low, and there were attentive waiters filling our glasses with water and making sure we were fine.
Ygal talked about their early life in Siberia, the lack of food, how complicated it was to move because no one was allowed to sell a house, only trade it. It was possible to find people who were interested in moving to Siberia because the government gave incentives of higher pay so people would move there to work in mining and natural resources. His father moved to their new town (somewhere related to Moscow) a few months earlier to find work and get their housing set up for them. He talked about how close he felt to his uncle Max (who was most like Leon in looks and temperament) and how Max basically died on his watch -- he called Ygal to tell him that he wasn't feeling well and asked him to come now. By the time Ygal got to his office, Max had already died of a heart attack at age 50-something -- this was when Ygal was about 30. It was a huge loss.
He talked about his first years as an immigrant in Israel and how impossible it felt to learn the language. He was in the very first wave of Russian immigrants so there weren't even very many people to speak Russian with. He told the story of how he met his wife when he needed to go to the clinic, and she was the only Russian speaking receptionist, very pretty and nice, he asked for her number... He talked about how hard he had to work, and how he learned to stay ahead of the crowd through working so hard. After a six month stint as a dishwasher (with an engineering degree), he decided he needed to practice speaking Hebrew more so he got a job pumping gas. Then after getting better at Hebrew he started to knock on doors in search of a job that would use his degree. The first factory he worked at, he got a job making some part of a Venetian blind, using an extremely ancient piece of machinery. He was bored silly and had lots of time to examine the workings of his particular machine. He had been told that he would have to work hard to make 10 of these things a day, and he did that. But after a while he realized there were some pieces that were not functioning correctly and he took it apart and found a machinist who spoke Russian and he told him what he wanted and he put his ancient machine back together and produced 25 widgets in a day. And thus began his upward trek.
His oldest daughter Karin is just about to finish her army service. Ygal was quite worried about her before she started her stint because she had only been a sheltered girl at home, with no experience working hard. But it turned out that she loved the challenges of the army, she excelled at her work, and she chose the harder jobs. He is very impressed and proud of her. When we asked what she will do next (most kids take a gap year and travel in India or South America), he answered that she is a very serious kid and she wants to go to university immediately. So she will study for the big test that determines where she is eligible, and she will take the test in June. She hopes to go to Tel Aviv University. He says that she has no talent in math, despite lots of private tutoring, and he is not sure she will be able to go to that prestigious school but he is encouraging her to aim high. For sure she will be able to go to some school in the fall, but everything depends on this test. Benjamin says that people often take a year to prepare for it.
Throughout the conversation, Ygal expressed his respect and appreciation and love for Leon. He said that he felt that they could talk about anything, and that as his own English improved, their conversations got better. The first visit with Leon and Lilah was torturous because he had to have a translator and that helped him to realize that he really needed to learn English, so he doubled his efforts on that. As Alissa reported earlier, Ygal felt so deeply for Leon that he could barely express it. Leon would analyze things with him, ask really good questions, give his opinion without any requirement that his advice be taken, and support Ygal in whatever choices he made. It was a deeply meaningful relationship to Ygal, and he had conversations with Leon that he never had with his father.
Of course the story of Ygal's quest to learn English -- and painstakingly translating newspaper stories, coincidentally finding the reference to a professor named Groisser in the U.S. -- was told in great detail. But he said that it should not have taken a newspaper article to get them to look for their American cousins, it's just that they were busy and distracted and trying to survive.
He also talked about his travels in China and what he has learned as a businessman/general manager of his company. He said at first he could not figure them out, but little by little he learned that Chinese businessmen cannot concentrate if they are hungry, and they can think only about how hungry they are. So, knowing this, Ygal learned to bring a packet of almonds for himself that he could nibble on when he went to take a break, and then resume negotiations in a much more robust frame of mind than his counterparts. He loves all types of Chinese food, eats everything happily, and appreciates the diversity of the cuisine. He says in China the top value is money, and they will kill each other for it. And that no country will ever be able to do what China has done in the last generation or so, in its quest for economic strength. So he thinks that it is wise for his company to continue to manufacture its product (air conditioners?) in Israel -- it is the last factory of its kind in the country -- because there is no guarantee that there will ever be a customer like China again and anything can happen...it's better to have your production in a reliable place.
He would love to retire in about 5 years but he still has two daughters to provide for and so he thinks he will probably work longer than that. The retirement age in Israel is 67 and that seems stupidly long to Ygal.
This is undoubtedly more than you were expecting, so maybe this is enough for now. The next time we see you, we can fill in more gaps if there are some. In the end, when it came time to pay the bill, Jon pointed out that if Ygal wanted to preserve his good relationship with you, he should honor your wishes, and allow you to buy us our dinner. He gave in, but insisted on paying the tip (and told us not to tell you).
It was a lovely evening -- we stayed at the table until 10:30. And then we went outside to take some pictures and say goodbye. We encouraged him to come to the U.S. and visit and he says they will, but first they have to put an addition on their house, and the price is horrifying. One more room will cost something like $100,000, unless it is $200,000. In any case, it is a huge project, bigger than he ever thought, and that is what is on his mind right now. His house has four rooms and they need another one with Karin coming home for a while.
He sends his love to you, and gave us a package to deliver to you.
Benjamin and Ygal had agreed that Ygal would drive to Haifa to have dinner with us on Friday, February 27. Ygal had too much to do to try to organize a family dinner with us, which is what he ordinarily would have attempted, but he said that since he is the only English speaker in his house it would be too much of a strain on him to try to manage that right now. Benjamin has been to the Groiser house several times, and Alissa and Benjamin were there in May -- so that family has already rolled out the welcome mat to second cousins (once removed) on numerous occasions. Ygal's wife Yaffa (?) is famous for her enormous meals, with many delicious offerings (as Leon and Lilah know from their own visits).
Ygal told Benjamin to choose the restaurant and Lilah asked us to arrange for her to be our long distance host/patron. We were dubious about this, knowing that it would be Ygal's inclination to be our host, and the first time Jon mentioned it on the phone with Ygal, he adamantly refused the offer, saying that he and Lilah have a good relationship and she would understand. This gave Jon the idea of how to turn things around in Lilah's favor later.
When Benjamin was taking classes at the ulpan, he walked past this restaurant twice a day and it intrigued him. I can't quite understand what he was seeing, because it doesn't have any presentation on the street at all. It is just a door. But maybe there is a place for a menu outside that we didn't see, or perhaps someone stands outside and looks hopefully for customers. He had inquired and knew that it was known to be one of the best restaurants in Haifa. As he said, the sign on the building, printed on a real signboard and not just handwritten, says "Fine Dinning." He made the reservations, speaking Hebrew on the phone, for 7:00. Afterwards he was a little nervous that they might not have understood each other perfectly and perhaps he had made a mistake, but on Friday afternoon the restaurant called his cell phone to confirm the reservation, so we knew he had got it right. The restaurant is Hanamal 24, named after the street it is on, and that is the street that Benjamin lived on for those months.
Ygal texted Benjamin a few minutes before 7:00 to say he was there in the restaurant. We were walking the 5 minute walk from our hotel. Ygal had driven two hours.
We climbed a steep flight of stairs to the dining room and were greeted by smiling young hostesses dressed in black and white (more formal than any restaurant we had been to on this trip). Ygal was sitting at the table waiting. He is going to be 55 years old in March, and I guess he looks his age, but he has a youthful face and body. As he began to talk, Jon immediately noticed that he reminded him of Papa, especially in the way he told stories. The stories were clearly ones that he had told many times before, like Papa, and they had a point he was trying to express -- like what it was like to be a young immigrant in Israel and how he was humbled by the experience. As I watched him speak, I remembered Leon too.
I am nearly certain that Lilah has heard all of these stories before (because Benjamin had and because Alissa told us some of them), but I enjoyed hearing them directly from Ygal. His English is very good, and sometimes he made up words that fit the need, and sometimes he searched for words and let us make suggestions so he could move on.
First he wanted to select the wine. He explained that when he first came here, Israeli wine was not nearly as good as it is now. 25 years later there are many regions growing grapes, many types of wine, and lots of flavors. He doesn't like other wines as much as he likes the wine from Israel now. So when he looked at the menu and found only Italian and French wines, and one California wine, he was surprised and disappointed. He asked the waitress and she then showed him a whole page of Israeli wines, which made him much happier. He chose a red wine with lots of body (? Benj and Jon will have to help me here) and then we selected our dinners.
Jon ordered a Salade Lyonnaise and a lamb burger, medium. Benjamin had the same salad without bacon and a pasta dish that wasn't just a jumble of noodles, it was sort of stuffed pasta tubes, stacked up elegantly. I had nut-encrusted stuffed mushrooms for a starter and "spring chicken" with potato and sweet potato gratin. I don't think I can remember what Ygal had, but he was definitely eating the slowest because he was doing most of the talking. He might have ordered fish because he says that is what he usually eats when he goes out, but he doesn't observe kashrut at all. He just likes seafood. All the food was delicious, but we probably did not give it the attention it deserved as we were talking and listening so much.
The menu was mostly French, or certainly European. There was no hummus or Israeli salad or any of that. The restaurant filled up with families and couples. We never felt rushed, the light was quite low, and there were attentive waiters filling our glasses with water and making sure we were fine.
Ygal talked about their early life in Siberia, the lack of food, how complicated it was to move because no one was allowed to sell a house, only trade it. It was possible to find people who were interested in moving to Siberia because the government gave incentives of higher pay so people would move there to work in mining and natural resources. His father moved to their new town (somewhere related to Moscow) a few months earlier to find work and get their housing set up for them. He talked about how close he felt to his uncle Max (who was most like Leon in looks and temperament) and how Max basically died on his watch -- he called Ygal to tell him that he wasn't feeling well and asked him to come now. By the time Ygal got to his office, Max had already died of a heart attack at age 50-something -- this was when Ygal was about 30. It was a huge loss.
He talked about his first years as an immigrant in Israel and how impossible it felt to learn the language. He was in the very first wave of Russian immigrants so there weren't even very many people to speak Russian with. He told the story of how he met his wife when he needed to go to the clinic, and she was the only Russian speaking receptionist, very pretty and nice, he asked for her number... He talked about how hard he had to work, and how he learned to stay ahead of the crowd through working so hard. After a six month stint as a dishwasher (with an engineering degree), he decided he needed to practice speaking Hebrew more so he got a job pumping gas. Then after getting better at Hebrew he started to knock on doors in search of a job that would use his degree. The first factory he worked at, he got a job making some part of a Venetian blind, using an extremely ancient piece of machinery. He was bored silly and had lots of time to examine the workings of his particular machine. He had been told that he would have to work hard to make 10 of these things a day, and he did that. But after a while he realized there were some pieces that were not functioning correctly and he took it apart and found a machinist who spoke Russian and he told him what he wanted and he put his ancient machine back together and produced 25 widgets in a day. And thus began his upward trek.
His oldest daughter Karin is just about to finish her army service. Ygal was quite worried about her before she started her stint because she had only been a sheltered girl at home, with no experience working hard. But it turned out that she loved the challenges of the army, she excelled at her work, and she chose the harder jobs. He is very impressed and proud of her. When we asked what she will do next (most kids take a gap year and travel in India or South America), he answered that she is a very serious kid and she wants to go to university immediately. So she will study for the big test that determines where she is eligible, and she will take the test in June. She hopes to go to Tel Aviv University. He says that she has no talent in math, despite lots of private tutoring, and he is not sure she will be able to go to that prestigious school but he is encouraging her to aim high. For sure she will be able to go to some school in the fall, but everything depends on this test. Benjamin says that people often take a year to prepare for it.
Throughout the conversation, Ygal expressed his respect and appreciation and love for Leon. He said that he felt that they could talk about anything, and that as his own English improved, their conversations got better. The first visit with Leon and Lilah was torturous because he had to have a translator and that helped him to realize that he really needed to learn English, so he doubled his efforts on that. As Alissa reported earlier, Ygal felt so deeply for Leon that he could barely express it. Leon would analyze things with him, ask really good questions, give his opinion without any requirement that his advice be taken, and support Ygal in whatever choices he made. It was a deeply meaningful relationship to Ygal, and he had conversations with Leon that he never had with his father.
Of course the story of Ygal's quest to learn English -- and painstakingly translating newspaper stories, coincidentally finding the reference to a professor named Groisser in the U.S. -- was told in great detail. But he said that it should not have taken a newspaper article to get them to look for their American cousins, it's just that they were busy and distracted and trying to survive.
He also talked about his travels in China and what he has learned as a businessman/general manager of his company. He said at first he could not figure them out, but little by little he learned that Chinese businessmen cannot concentrate if they are hungry, and they can think only about how hungry they are. So, knowing this, Ygal learned to bring a packet of almonds for himself that he could nibble on when he went to take a break, and then resume negotiations in a much more robust frame of mind than his counterparts. He loves all types of Chinese food, eats everything happily, and appreciates the diversity of the cuisine. He says in China the top value is money, and they will kill each other for it. And that no country will ever be able to do what China has done in the last generation or so, in its quest for economic strength. So he thinks that it is wise for his company to continue to manufacture its product (air conditioners?) in Israel -- it is the last factory of its kind in the country -- because there is no guarantee that there will ever be a customer like China again and anything can happen...it's better to have your production in a reliable place.
He would love to retire in about 5 years but he still has two daughters to provide for and so he thinks he will probably work longer than that. The retirement age in Israel is 67 and that seems stupidly long to Ygal.
This is undoubtedly more than you were expecting, so maybe this is enough for now. The next time we see you, we can fill in more gaps if there are some. In the end, when it came time to pay the bill, Jon pointed out that if Ygal wanted to preserve his good relationship with you, he should honor your wishes, and allow you to buy us our dinner. He gave in, but insisted on paying the tip (and told us not to tell you).
It was a lovely evening -- we stayed at the table until 10:30. And then we went outside to take some pictures and say goodbye. We encouraged him to come to the U.S. and visit and he says they will, but first they have to put an addition on their house, and the price is horrifying. One more room will cost something like $100,000, unless it is $200,000. In any case, it is a huge project, bigger than he ever thought, and that is what is on his mind right now. His house has four rooms and they need another one with Karin coming home for a while.
He sends his love to you, and gave us a package to deliver to you.
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