Just in case you missed it, there has been a story in the news about a couple who got in trouble for letting their young (6 and 10 year old) children walk a mile to a park by themselves. It created a huge discussion all over the country. Now there is a ridiculous term, "Free Range Children." It is absurd.
When I first heard this story, I felt like an instant libertarian. I was immediately on the side of the parents who were making careful judgments about how they wanted to raise their kids. Why in the world would we need a law to keep parents from making their own decisions about how much freedom is appropriate for their children?
Of course there have been a storm of other perspectives on this topic. And the issue of families who can't afford child care of any kind also gets mixed in, which is not really quite the same as the first story, but it is relevant.
Everyone in my generation, broadly speaking, remembers a childhood of relative freedom. Or at least we all remember being outside without being able to actually see our parents. So many who were children in that time after the war and on into the 1950s and 60s have clear and fond memories of playing outside until dark and then getting called in for dinner.
Obviously there are a number of issues here. Somewhere along the line, people got scared. They were afraid of having their kids stolen or poisoned or abused. Whenever something like that happened, however rarely, it confirmed that we should be fearful. Surely there are places where we should be vigilant, but there are also huge swaths of this country where that fear is unnecessary and unfounded. People are so ready to be afraid.
In our own homegrown neighborhood here, we have quite a range of parenting styles, shall we say. Even here, where it is hard to imagine a safer environment, some parents are afraid of anyone who is at the border. I think our kids grew up right at the very tail end of the time when parents let their kids be alone outside. When Rebecca was in the fourth grade, she walked from our house all the way down to the end of the farm driveway to catch the bus every morning. We thought nothing of it. I believe she is the youngest person in the history of Blueberry Hill to walk to the bus stop, wait for the bus, and go to school all by herself. I do not recall every accompanying her. Every elementary school child since then has either been driven or walked to that bus stop by an adult.
What is different now? What makes these parents feel that they are putting their children in danger by letting them walk through the farm (it is not even like walking in the suburbs or in the city) by themselves? Or, do they not want their kids to be alone because they won't be able to cope if something unexpected happens?
And do not get me started about all the parents everywhere in this hyper privileged region who drive their children to the bus stop (even a block) and then wait for the bus with the car running, five cars all lined up on the shoulder until the bus comes. That is an issue of laziness, overprotectiveness, wastefulness, and general obliviousness to the consequences of driving your children anywhere that they could walk.
Lots of people say this, but it is absolutely true that my parents would have been in big trouble in this day and age, if they were raising us now in the way they did. Our parents were unusually negligent. I mean, extremely negligent. But they gave us the tools to cope. They actually didn't leave us without a strategy for dealing with unexpected occurrences. Most people would say that my siblings and I have more than our share of self-confidence and competence and calm in the face of chaos, etc. Surely this has something to do with the way we were raised. We were definitely never babied. Not ever.
Just so you can picture the level of underprotectiveness we experienced:
When I was 7 years old and Lani was 5, we would go to public school on the DC transit bus. We lived in Washington DC near Dupont Circle. We were not the only children who rode the public bus to school -- there was a whole system of bus tickets that were sold in booklets at the post office or somewhere (I am making that up, since I never purchased those little booklets). Mom would tape the bus ticket to our lunch box. The bus drivers looked out for us, and some of them were nicer than others. I remember that we sometimes let one of the buses go by, waiting for the bus driver we liked the best. When we came home, we got off the bus at 18th and Q and walked the block back to our house at 1707. I don't remember anything about a locked door or keys. We often went home and were there by ourselves until our parents came home from the farm, with our younger siblings. One evening, a prospective worker, an Oberlin student, named Tim Wyant came to Q Street while Lani and were there alone. We made him some dinner (having never met him) -- frozen peas and tuna fish, I think the story is -- and we ate together. He remembers this much more clearly than we do, as we were only in the second grade and in kindergarten. He still tells this story, and it's not about parental neglect. It's about how capable we were at welcoming him and feeding him.
I am generally unimpressed by the way parents schedule their children's days. I don't think it is a matter of having no choice. That is how they talk about it, but it makes no sense to me. The problem starts with the ways that we organize ourselves -- the current model of suburban living goes against everything that children want and need. They don't think so, because they don't know any better. Parents and children now cannot imagine a world without screens and electronic toys. They see no choice. So in order to maintain control over as much as they can, they schedule their kids: classes, sports, clubs. The outdoor world is not available to them without an appointment.
So, these parents in Silver Spring decided to teach their kids to walk alone. They gradually expanded the circle of where the kids would be ready to go by themselves. And eventually that got to be a whole mile from home. And someone noticed and called the police. Of course they did, you just don't see children walking by themselves outside anymore. It is a shame and a crime that children are not allowed to be alone.
The goal of being a parent is to raise children who can take care of themselves, independently and happily. That is what Jon always says. There are lots of corollaries to that goal, but essentially you want your kids to be capable, self-sustaining, well-adjusted, unafraid, and armed with a range of coping mechanisms. Knowing how to make and save money is also essential.
I know that we were supremely lucky in the children that we got, and the ones who grew up next door. Our children came with many gifts. And we enhanced those gifts by treating them like capable people, not by driving them places when they could walk, not by filling their days with forced activities, and not by telling them to be afraid. Sometimes it seems we might have gone too far (hence the motorcycle trips and other international adventures), but not really. You want your children to grow up full of confidence that they can do whatever they decide to do.
I want that for everyone's children. So it drives me nuts that there are lawmakers trying to figure out how to keep parents from raising children like mine.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Being On Time, Sometimes, Mostly
I got to my piano lesson 7 minutes late -- my teacher was beginning to wonder if I had decided to skip it. No, no, it's just hard to be on time.
And then I was over half an hour late to a new knitting group that is meeting once a month now. About six or seven women who know each other from temple sit around a dining room table and knit with great focus. Except that we talk and laugh so much that most of us, even Nell, end up ripping out our work at some point during the evening. Some of us are in choir together, others are part of a book club, others have had children in school together for years. It is striking to me to see these high-powered modern women sitting together, fully engaged in an activity that is centuries old and requires no current day technology in the room. When we need help, we ask each other. Suddenly it was much later than we thought, and we gathered up our yarn and headed home to our regular lives.
But this morning Jon and I arrived exactly at 7 AM, as requested, to help with a "barn raising." It wasn't a barn, it was a high tunnel that needed its plastic put on. What made it like a barn raising was that the farmer had asked anyone who lived nearby if they would come and help, in exchange for some bagels for breakfast. I don't know who he invited, but he got me and Jon, Chip and Susan, and Dennis -- five farmers over the age of 55 and under the age of 80. I think we are the ones who accepted the invitation because we have all made similar requests of fellow farmers, multiple times, in the past. The younger folks have not yet had much practice at showing up, voluntarily, and certainly not early in the morning. We older farmers know that we are just replenishing the supply of good will, even if it feels an awful lot like regular work.
It was fun to watch the young farmer directing us. He had been thinking about how to get this done all winter long, by his own admission, and he hadn't really imagined that he would have the "A Team" at his disposal. He said, "you all know way more than I do about how to do this." He was right, but he had a new system, so we followed orders. He had all the tools and materials laid out and he had thought through every step. The air was supposed to be calm from 7 - 8 AM. Sure enough, at 8:00, the wind kicked up. But since we were all seasoned professionals, there was no panic. We just held on tight (the greenhouse is 275 feet long, which is a very long way to travel over uneven ground when you are trying to grab the plastic that is billowing up at the other end). After a while, Chip and Susan and I were just human sandbags, lying on the edges of the flapping plastic and chatting while Jon and Dennis and the farmer installed the ropes.
I had to leave before the job was done because I was trying to get to my next appointment -- the funeral of a neighbor's father, 60 miles away. As I have said before, funerals are important to me, and this particular neighbor had specifically asked for our support today. There were 11 of us from Blueberry Hill, including a former neighbor who had come all the way from Asheville, North Carolina. We sat behind the family and joined the singing and the prayers, feeling comfortable in someone else's traditions. I love going to religious events with Noel, the atheist who is married to Rhonda the practicing Catholic. He is so respectful and so present. I sat next to Betsy who can sing anything, beautifully, and make everyone around her feel musical. On my right was my sister Anna who is also always respectful and attentive, an experienced social worker with an empathetic way about her, and not a whisper of religious affiliation. And down the pew sat my mother and Mel, the wise elders of our community who cry as easily as breathing, almost.
Tonight I will be on time to a meeting that I arranged -- at least I am reliably punctual when I am the one running the meeting. So it's not really that I can't be on time, it's just a matter of wiggle room. There is more wiggle room when it comes to a piano lesson or a knitting party...I have about six more weeks of wiggling before the vegetables take over for real.
And then I was over half an hour late to a new knitting group that is meeting once a month now. About six or seven women who know each other from temple sit around a dining room table and knit with great focus. Except that we talk and laugh so much that most of us, even Nell, end up ripping out our work at some point during the evening. Some of us are in choir together, others are part of a book club, others have had children in school together for years. It is striking to me to see these high-powered modern women sitting together, fully engaged in an activity that is centuries old and requires no current day technology in the room. When we need help, we ask each other. Suddenly it was much later than we thought, and we gathered up our yarn and headed home to our regular lives.
But this morning Jon and I arrived exactly at 7 AM, as requested, to help with a "barn raising." It wasn't a barn, it was a high tunnel that needed its plastic put on. What made it like a barn raising was that the farmer had asked anyone who lived nearby if they would come and help, in exchange for some bagels for breakfast. I don't know who he invited, but he got me and Jon, Chip and Susan, and Dennis -- five farmers over the age of 55 and under the age of 80. I think we are the ones who accepted the invitation because we have all made similar requests of fellow farmers, multiple times, in the past. The younger folks have not yet had much practice at showing up, voluntarily, and certainly not early in the morning. We older farmers know that we are just replenishing the supply of good will, even if it feels an awful lot like regular work.
It was fun to watch the young farmer directing us. He had been thinking about how to get this done all winter long, by his own admission, and he hadn't really imagined that he would have the "A Team" at his disposal. He said, "you all know way more than I do about how to do this." He was right, but he had a new system, so we followed orders. He had all the tools and materials laid out and he had thought through every step. The air was supposed to be calm from 7 - 8 AM. Sure enough, at 8:00, the wind kicked up. But since we were all seasoned professionals, there was no panic. We just held on tight (the greenhouse is 275 feet long, which is a very long way to travel over uneven ground when you are trying to grab the plastic that is billowing up at the other end). After a while, Chip and Susan and I were just human sandbags, lying on the edges of the flapping plastic and chatting while Jon and Dennis and the farmer installed the ropes.
I had to leave before the job was done because I was trying to get to my next appointment -- the funeral of a neighbor's father, 60 miles away. As I have said before, funerals are important to me, and this particular neighbor had specifically asked for our support today. There were 11 of us from Blueberry Hill, including a former neighbor who had come all the way from Asheville, North Carolina. We sat behind the family and joined the singing and the prayers, feeling comfortable in someone else's traditions. I love going to religious events with Noel, the atheist who is married to Rhonda the practicing Catholic. He is so respectful and so present. I sat next to Betsy who can sing anything, beautifully, and make everyone around her feel musical. On my right was my sister Anna who is also always respectful and attentive, an experienced social worker with an empathetic way about her, and not a whisper of religious affiliation. And down the pew sat my mother and Mel, the wise elders of our community who cry as easily as breathing, almost.
Tonight I will be on time to a meeting that I arranged -- at least I am reliably punctual when I am the one running the meeting. So it's not really that I can't be on time, it's just a matter of wiggle room. There is more wiggle room when it comes to a piano lesson or a knitting party...I have about six more weeks of wiggling before the vegetables take over for real.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Chips and Salsa
Tonight we had the best salsa yet. Ever since we looked for and found the recipe for the Tortilla Factory salsa (legendary in this area), Jon has been experimenting with it. He makes a giant tub every time -- enough to fill one of those 3 lb. Breakstone cottage cheese containers. The secret that we could never figure out, when it was a proprietary recipe, is that it is much more like salad dressing than salsa -- it has oil and vinegar at its base and then you add high quality cooked tomatoes and Greek oregano and some other stuff. And THEN you have to let it sit in the refrigerator for several days. It does not taste good right when you first make it. Before Rebecca comes to visit, Jon sometimes makes a series of batches, one for each day, knowing that she will be able to polish off a whole one almost by herself as soon as she walks in the door.
A few days ago Jon discovered that he had no commercially sourced crushed tomatoes (there is a specific Italian brand of plum tomatoes that the Tortilla Factory used, but I don't know the name anymore) and he was all ready to make the salsa. He wasn't sure how it would come out but he decided to use our own stewed tomatoes. He worried that they would just be too watery. So he poured out all the liquid, changed the recipe by increasing the proportion of tomatoes by a cup, and whizzed it all up in the food processor.
The best. I usually don't sit and eat chips and salsa until the bowl is empty (the bag of chips is huge so finishing that is not an option). This time I just kept eating and eating. I think the homegrown tomatoes, subtle though they may be in this context, made this the best salsa ever.
As I ate, I started to think about how we generally cook and eat in this house. When Jon had a real job and I was mostly in charge of the cooking and shopping, our menus were different from nowadays. First of all, we had young kids and that generally meant more pasta, more homemade pizza, more mashed potatoes. About ten years ago, Jon stopped driving away to go to work every day and he gradually took over the shopping and eventually most of the cooking. This has been a definite upgrade in all regards. I still make most of the soup (a staple of ours -- one winter I wrote down all the types of soup as I cooked them and there were about 75 homemade iterations) but Jon is much more adventuresome.
When Jon finds some food that interests him, he learns to make it. He has perfected the Middle Eastern menu that we all like. He always makes excellent brisket at the holidays. He makes chili and stew and Mexican (too easy) and Chinese stir fries and, very infrequently, sweet and sour chicken. My favorite soup that he makes is Tom Ka Gai, a Thai chicken soup. I could eat that for days on end. Unfortunately for him, I don't like things as spicy as he does, so he has to add more hot sauce to his own food later.
As the years have gone by, we have stopped buying anything but basic ingredients. Well, he still buys Thai green chili paste in those little teeny jars. He shops at the Asian supermarket for winter vegetables and seasonings, Costco for dairy and olive oil and giant boxes of oatmeal and big bags of walnuts, Trader Joe's for trifles. But it seems to me that the shopping trips are much less frequent, now that there are only two of us, and we tend to eat our inventory down to almost nothing before the next shopping trip. I am much better than he is at cooking whatever is there -- tonight I made a big pot of chicken soup with one of Lani's chickens and used up all the dribs and drabs of vegetables and a bunch of spinach. But I was really too full for soup after all those chips and salsa.
We are very lucky to live right in the center of a vortex of excellent fresh ingredients. The other day we may have eaten some of the best spinach that anyone has ever tasted, two hours after it was picked. We get a weekly delivery of raw milk. Sometimes I make yogurt when the milk starts to pile up. Lani's eggs are always available. In the fall we butcher a few deer that Roger drops off in the cooler, already peeled (that is an arduous process, taking a deer apart, but it is our main meat source). We can a lot of tomatoes when they are at their most delicious in late summer. We freeze scandalous quantities of blueberries and garlic curl pesto and random surplus vegetables. We even salvage and chop up the good parts of rotting onions and freeze them because it is so hard to grow onions that we don't want to waste a single one.
Our kids eat well too in their faraway kitchens, even though they live with so many disadvantages, compared to us. When Jon goes to Boston, he packs a cooler full of frozen venison, chili, fruit for the girls. And when they come home, they plunder the blueberry stash and request chicken soup. To be fair, they also bake luscious treats and freeze them for us -- neither of their parents is a dessert maker.
Who could have guessed that Jon would turn out to be The Cook? When I met him he could make exactly five dishes. Jon's curiosity and talent and America's Test Kitchen have changed our lives forever. We almost never make homemade pizza, as good as it is. There are too many other possibilities now. Jon keeps saying he wants to learn to make Indian food. It'll happen. Next time we have too much milk we can make saag paneer -- Benjamin knows how, so we know who to ask if we need advice. I already know how to make Greek yogurt, and this sounds easier than that.
All this rambling, just because we had the best salsa ever tonight. Maybe this summer we will work on canning tomatoes that are meant for salsa and give out the recipe so everyone can make it.
A few days ago Jon discovered that he had no commercially sourced crushed tomatoes (there is a specific Italian brand of plum tomatoes that the Tortilla Factory used, but I don't know the name anymore) and he was all ready to make the salsa. He wasn't sure how it would come out but he decided to use our own stewed tomatoes. He worried that they would just be too watery. So he poured out all the liquid, changed the recipe by increasing the proportion of tomatoes by a cup, and whizzed it all up in the food processor.
The best. I usually don't sit and eat chips and salsa until the bowl is empty (the bag of chips is huge so finishing that is not an option). This time I just kept eating and eating. I think the homegrown tomatoes, subtle though they may be in this context, made this the best salsa ever.
As I ate, I started to think about how we generally cook and eat in this house. When Jon had a real job and I was mostly in charge of the cooking and shopping, our menus were different from nowadays. First of all, we had young kids and that generally meant more pasta, more homemade pizza, more mashed potatoes. About ten years ago, Jon stopped driving away to go to work every day and he gradually took over the shopping and eventually most of the cooking. This has been a definite upgrade in all regards. I still make most of the soup (a staple of ours -- one winter I wrote down all the types of soup as I cooked them and there were about 75 homemade iterations) but Jon is much more adventuresome.
When Jon finds some food that interests him, he learns to make it. He has perfected the Middle Eastern menu that we all like. He always makes excellent brisket at the holidays. He makes chili and stew and Mexican (too easy) and Chinese stir fries and, very infrequently, sweet and sour chicken. My favorite soup that he makes is Tom Ka Gai, a Thai chicken soup. I could eat that for days on end. Unfortunately for him, I don't like things as spicy as he does, so he has to add more hot sauce to his own food later.
As the years have gone by, we have stopped buying anything but basic ingredients. Well, he still buys Thai green chili paste in those little teeny jars. He shops at the Asian supermarket for winter vegetables and seasonings, Costco for dairy and olive oil and giant boxes of oatmeal and big bags of walnuts, Trader Joe's for trifles. But it seems to me that the shopping trips are much less frequent, now that there are only two of us, and we tend to eat our inventory down to almost nothing before the next shopping trip. I am much better than he is at cooking whatever is there -- tonight I made a big pot of chicken soup with one of Lani's chickens and used up all the dribs and drabs of vegetables and a bunch of spinach. But I was really too full for soup after all those chips and salsa.
We are very lucky to live right in the center of a vortex of excellent fresh ingredients. The other day we may have eaten some of the best spinach that anyone has ever tasted, two hours after it was picked. We get a weekly delivery of raw milk. Sometimes I make yogurt when the milk starts to pile up. Lani's eggs are always available. In the fall we butcher a few deer that Roger drops off in the cooler, already peeled (that is an arduous process, taking a deer apart, but it is our main meat source). We can a lot of tomatoes when they are at their most delicious in late summer. We freeze scandalous quantities of blueberries and garlic curl pesto and random surplus vegetables. We even salvage and chop up the good parts of rotting onions and freeze them because it is so hard to grow onions that we don't want to waste a single one.
Our kids eat well too in their faraway kitchens, even though they live with so many disadvantages, compared to us. When Jon goes to Boston, he packs a cooler full of frozen venison, chili, fruit for the girls. And when they come home, they plunder the blueberry stash and request chicken soup. To be fair, they also bake luscious treats and freeze them for us -- neither of their parents is a dessert maker.
Who could have guessed that Jon would turn out to be The Cook? When I met him he could make exactly five dishes. Jon's curiosity and talent and America's Test Kitchen have changed our lives forever. We almost never make homemade pizza, as good as it is. There are too many other possibilities now. Jon keeps saying he wants to learn to make Indian food. It'll happen. Next time we have too much milk we can make saag paneer -- Benjamin knows how, so we know who to ask if we need advice. I already know how to make Greek yogurt, and this sounds easier than that.
All this rambling, just because we had the best salsa ever tonight. Maybe this summer we will work on canning tomatoes that are meant for salsa and give out the recipe so everyone can make it.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
April Anniversaries
I remember dates, anniversaries, birthdays, memorable events. Part of that is just a good memory for numbers (Rebecca is like me in this), part of it is a tendency to notice something and have it stick in my mind forever.
Before April 18, 1984 I did not have any particularly strong associations in April. But when Dad died, that began a long collection of April memories. On the day of his funeral, there were only the tiniest blurs of leaves on the trees (like this week), we had only onions in the field and they were only barely sprouting, there was wild mustard blooming everywhere (that Nina and others collected as flowers) and it was a clear, cool day. Sweatshirt weather. We walked, carrying the heavy box made of rough cut wood from the cottage through the mess of sheds to the farm road -- all the way up to the Moutoux Shed Patch to the steep hillside in the woods. It was a long and sober walk.
And after that April seemed like a super sad month to me, even though it was also the most beautiful month in the spring, bouncing between cool grey days and teasing humid warmth, with trees blooming in steady sequence: white, pink, deep pink and purple.
So when Jon and I decided to get married, I said I wanted to create a reason to have happy memories in April and we chose the 28th. That day was cool, clear, the azaleas were busting out, and my mother had babied a gorgeous head of Buttercrunch lettuce so that it was fully ready to be my wedding bouquet. It was a lovely day in every possible way.
Two years later, somewhat by chance, Benjamin was born on the 14th, the same day as his grandmother's birthday. This put April solidly in the win column. Benjamin was the best possible event in April. Like his father, he does not feel particularly interested in celebrating his own birth, but as his mother, I celebrate it every year. Really, giving birth to a baby is about as momentous as it gets.
As I mentioned in an earlier story, I have distinct, strong memories of the week that we first learned of Jon's cancer diagnosis. Of course I could not help associating this with Dad's quick decline, so April once again had a dark side. While Jon struggled to get his balance back (two scary trips to the hospital for two different issues, related to his diagnosis but not exactly about the cancer), I fit in planting onions with Carrie. I remember driving the tractor, laying plastic in the Horse Pasture while Carrie walked behind, and telling her not to worry a bit if the tractor driver was crying -- I had left Jon in the hospital with someone else and had sprinted home to get some work done. Crying was a luxury I could squeeze in while on the tractor but not while I was sitting in the same room as he was.
April is all about planting onions. We have to get them planted as fast as we can stand to do it. It is the time of year when we are not quite ready to bend over for more than a few hours a day, plus it rains about three days out of seven, so it takes two or three weeks to get the job done. By hand, we plant about 10,000 individual sweet onion plants (think about planting individual grass blades, with roots, six inches apart) and about 5000 leek plants (ditto) and about 15,000 storage onions in sets of three. By the time we get to the storage onions, we are zooming along.
Last year, on Dad's yartzeit, I happened to be at the beach with Nell and Nancy and Hannah. And we all went to a tiny synagogue together and said Kaddish for him on Shabbat morning. It was entirely meaningful.
Now there's Michael L's birthday, there's Carrie's birthday. There are birthdays of people I haven't seen in years, and birthdays of babies that were all expected at about the same time as Benjamin (their mothers would be so surprised to know that I think of those babies -- Rebecca daughter of Kathryn, Marie daughter of Jean). You would think I would clear out some of those dust bunnies, but they just pile up around the edges.
I always compare the progress of the trees to the April we had in 1984 and to the next year, and to last year. There is a weeping cherry just outside our living room window that bloomed almost three weeks late this time. Who needs all this data? Nobody.
One more memory: this year for the first time possibly ever, Jon and I went to Yizkor at the end of Passover. These early morning services are extremely lightly attended. We were part of a group of six including the cantor. We went to remember Jon's dad, and everyone else. I learned something that I never knew -- they read the names of everyone who has died since the last Yizkor. So we remembered Don's father and Joe Blumberg and Leon, among others. When she asked if there were other names to add, I said, "Darryl Wright." And so I will now always remember that at Passover, I think of Darryl. And I am thinking that I should put his name on the memorial board on the wall. Maybe I will let Jon put Leon's name up first, so we can keep things chronologically correct.
Anyway, in April I am in a constant state of remembering, more than any other month of the year. And in choir we are singing a song using that poem that always makes me cry. We will sing it at a Holocaust Remembrance event and there will be tears.
In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we remember them.
In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.
In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.
In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.
In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.
In the beginning or the year and when it ends, we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength,
When we are lost and sick at heart,
When we have joys we yearn to share, we remember them.
So as long as we live, they too shall live,
For they are a part of us as we remember them.
Before April 18, 1984 I did not have any particularly strong associations in April. But when Dad died, that began a long collection of April memories. On the day of his funeral, there were only the tiniest blurs of leaves on the trees (like this week), we had only onions in the field and they were only barely sprouting, there was wild mustard blooming everywhere (that Nina and others collected as flowers) and it was a clear, cool day. Sweatshirt weather. We walked, carrying the heavy box made of rough cut wood from the cottage through the mess of sheds to the farm road -- all the way up to the Moutoux Shed Patch to the steep hillside in the woods. It was a long and sober walk.
And after that April seemed like a super sad month to me, even though it was also the most beautiful month in the spring, bouncing between cool grey days and teasing humid warmth, with trees blooming in steady sequence: white, pink, deep pink and purple.
So when Jon and I decided to get married, I said I wanted to create a reason to have happy memories in April and we chose the 28th. That day was cool, clear, the azaleas were busting out, and my mother had babied a gorgeous head of Buttercrunch lettuce so that it was fully ready to be my wedding bouquet. It was a lovely day in every possible way.
Two years later, somewhat by chance, Benjamin was born on the 14th, the same day as his grandmother's birthday. This put April solidly in the win column. Benjamin was the best possible event in April. Like his father, he does not feel particularly interested in celebrating his own birth, but as his mother, I celebrate it every year. Really, giving birth to a baby is about as momentous as it gets.
As I mentioned in an earlier story, I have distinct, strong memories of the week that we first learned of Jon's cancer diagnosis. Of course I could not help associating this with Dad's quick decline, so April once again had a dark side. While Jon struggled to get his balance back (two scary trips to the hospital for two different issues, related to his diagnosis but not exactly about the cancer), I fit in planting onions with Carrie. I remember driving the tractor, laying plastic in the Horse Pasture while Carrie walked behind, and telling her not to worry a bit if the tractor driver was crying -- I had left Jon in the hospital with someone else and had sprinted home to get some work done. Crying was a luxury I could squeeze in while on the tractor but not while I was sitting in the same room as he was.
April is all about planting onions. We have to get them planted as fast as we can stand to do it. It is the time of year when we are not quite ready to bend over for more than a few hours a day, plus it rains about three days out of seven, so it takes two or three weeks to get the job done. By hand, we plant about 10,000 individual sweet onion plants (think about planting individual grass blades, with roots, six inches apart) and about 5000 leek plants (ditto) and about 15,000 storage onions in sets of three. By the time we get to the storage onions, we are zooming along.
Last year, on Dad's yartzeit, I happened to be at the beach with Nell and Nancy and Hannah. And we all went to a tiny synagogue together and said Kaddish for him on Shabbat morning. It was entirely meaningful.
Now there's Michael L's birthday, there's Carrie's birthday. There are birthdays of people I haven't seen in years, and birthdays of babies that were all expected at about the same time as Benjamin (their mothers would be so surprised to know that I think of those babies -- Rebecca daughter of Kathryn, Marie daughter of Jean). You would think I would clear out some of those dust bunnies, but they just pile up around the edges.
I always compare the progress of the trees to the April we had in 1984 and to the next year, and to last year. There is a weeping cherry just outside our living room window that bloomed almost three weeks late this time. Who needs all this data? Nobody.
One more memory: this year for the first time possibly ever, Jon and I went to Yizkor at the end of Passover. These early morning services are extremely lightly attended. We were part of a group of six including the cantor. We went to remember Jon's dad, and everyone else. I learned something that I never knew -- they read the names of everyone who has died since the last Yizkor. So we remembered Don's father and Joe Blumberg and Leon, among others. When she asked if there were other names to add, I said, "Darryl Wright." And so I will now always remember that at Passover, I think of Darryl. And I am thinking that I should put his name on the memorial board on the wall. Maybe I will let Jon put Leon's name up first, so we can keep things chronologically correct.
Anyway, in April I am in a constant state of remembering, more than any other month of the year. And in choir we are singing a song using that poem that always makes me cry. We will sing it at a Holocaust Remembrance event and there will be tears.
In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we remember them.
In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.
In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.
In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.
In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.
In the beginning or the year and when it ends, we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength,
When we are lost and sick at heart,
When we have joys we yearn to share, we remember them.
So as long as we live, they too shall live,
For they are a part of us as we remember them.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Farmers with Dual Citizenship
As I may have said before, history is repeating itself. The irony is not lost on me. Back in the days when Tony Newcomb was the lead farmer and visionary, he traveled between the three farms several times a week. We all did, but he was on the road more than the rest of us. I think that I am trying to do something new here by watching over just two farms at the same time, but I am really walking on the exact same paths, driving on the same roads. The vehicles are different but the destinations are the same. The vegetables are even different, but the farms are right where they always were. The body is 35 years older and that is definitely different.
Back in the 1970s and early 80s, we regularly traveled that big loop between Southern Maryland, the home farm in Fairfax County and the Loudoun farm. We could get in the truck and head south at 5:30 in the morning, arrive at the Maryland farm in under 90 minutes, work for five hours, and come back home with a truck full of whatever we had picked -- corn or melons or watermelons. Something big and heavy, in any case. Then when that field of corn was finished we might get in a truck at 5 AM on another day and head west, driving about 40 minutes through fog but no real traffic, arrive at the Loudoun farm, pick corn for a few hours and head back home.
With my dad there were always errands to do along the way, and he rarely did the early morning runs. He often left home in the afternoon, spent the night at the other farm and returned the following day. When he went between the farms later in the day, he went to lots of different supply places, the bank, various stores. That is now Jon's life. Just this morning, on his way to Loudoun, he went to Merrifield to get a big air conditioner (I think) and then to Manassas to drop off a carburetor that needs work. When we end up going to Loudoun together, I always bring my knitting so I can sit in the car and wait for him to pick up whatever materials he needs. I never want to go in and browse at Home Depot. I use the time to call Nancy and find out what's going on in the non-vegetable world. I have never been the shopper in the family -- not now, not back then. My inter-farm trips have always been direct, non-stop, same day return.
It is still very early in the season and we are making up new patterns, trying out new routines. But I think this was the first time in my life that I ever remember laying plastic on two different farms on the same day. In the morning I walked behind Ellen as she roared ahead on the big orange Kubota, unrolling a shiny stream of plastic mulch behind her. I followed with the shovel and covered the ends of the plastic so they would stay secured to the ground all summer. That same afternoon in Vienna, I drove the red Case, much slower, while Jon walked behind me, making sure the plastic was just right and wouldn't fly away in the wind. It still feels a bit unpredictable, this dual life. Everything depends on the weather, as always, and so we need a Plan B for all sorts of possibilities.
It is not really the way I want to live for the foreseeable future. I prefer to have a home farm. Coming back to Vienna is still coming home -- the hills, the trees, the small scale, I could walk this place with my eyes closed. But it is exciting to have another farm to memorize. It is wide open, much flatter, the sky is wide, the tractors are big and loud, the view is gorgeous. Maybe by the end of this summer I will feel at home in both places.
It would certainly feel more like home if we had our own kitchen in Loudoun. So far we have only the most rustic amenities, and the mice chewed up most of what was in our sleeping cabin over the winter. Once we get those kinks worked out, maybe we will have dual citizenship. I always told my father that it didn't feel like home unless there was orange juice in the refrigerator. So first we need to be able to power a refrigerator somehow and then we can get the orange juice. (His solution was to make an Electricity Shed right near the property line on the Maryland farm, where the electric line stopped, and then he put a refrigerator in there, but that was still about a half mile from the granary where we slept, so it didn't really meet my requirements.)
Anyway, I am not just like my father, but I do seem to be parking tractors in the same sheds, in the most literal sense. On both farms. This is not what I thought was going to happen.
Back in the 1970s and early 80s, we regularly traveled that big loop between Southern Maryland, the home farm in Fairfax County and the Loudoun farm. We could get in the truck and head south at 5:30 in the morning, arrive at the Maryland farm in under 90 minutes, work for five hours, and come back home with a truck full of whatever we had picked -- corn or melons or watermelons. Something big and heavy, in any case. Then when that field of corn was finished we might get in a truck at 5 AM on another day and head west, driving about 40 minutes through fog but no real traffic, arrive at the Loudoun farm, pick corn for a few hours and head back home.
With my dad there were always errands to do along the way, and he rarely did the early morning runs. He often left home in the afternoon, spent the night at the other farm and returned the following day. When he went between the farms later in the day, he went to lots of different supply places, the bank, various stores. That is now Jon's life. Just this morning, on his way to Loudoun, he went to Merrifield to get a big air conditioner (I think) and then to Manassas to drop off a carburetor that needs work. When we end up going to Loudoun together, I always bring my knitting so I can sit in the car and wait for him to pick up whatever materials he needs. I never want to go in and browse at Home Depot. I use the time to call Nancy and find out what's going on in the non-vegetable world. I have never been the shopper in the family -- not now, not back then. My inter-farm trips have always been direct, non-stop, same day return.
It is still very early in the season and we are making up new patterns, trying out new routines. But I think this was the first time in my life that I ever remember laying plastic on two different farms on the same day. In the morning I walked behind Ellen as she roared ahead on the big orange Kubota, unrolling a shiny stream of plastic mulch behind her. I followed with the shovel and covered the ends of the plastic so they would stay secured to the ground all summer. That same afternoon in Vienna, I drove the red Case, much slower, while Jon walked behind me, making sure the plastic was just right and wouldn't fly away in the wind. It still feels a bit unpredictable, this dual life. Everything depends on the weather, as always, and so we need a Plan B for all sorts of possibilities.
It is not really the way I want to live for the foreseeable future. I prefer to have a home farm. Coming back to Vienna is still coming home -- the hills, the trees, the small scale, I could walk this place with my eyes closed. But it is exciting to have another farm to memorize. It is wide open, much flatter, the sky is wide, the tractors are big and loud, the view is gorgeous. Maybe by the end of this summer I will feel at home in both places.
It would certainly feel more like home if we had our own kitchen in Loudoun. So far we have only the most rustic amenities, and the mice chewed up most of what was in our sleeping cabin over the winter. Once we get those kinks worked out, maybe we will have dual citizenship. I always told my father that it didn't feel like home unless there was orange juice in the refrigerator. So first we need to be able to power a refrigerator somehow and then we can get the orange juice. (His solution was to make an Electricity Shed right near the property line on the Maryland farm, where the electric line stopped, and then he put a refrigerator in there, but that was still about a half mile from the granary where we slept, so it didn't really meet my requirements.)
Anyway, I am not just like my father, but I do seem to be parking tractors in the same sheds, in the most literal sense. On both farms. This is not what I thought was going to happen.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Celebrating Michael
(As Lilah knows, I generally try not to give too much specific information about people I write about here, since I have not asked permission to spread names all over the internet. In the case of this story, it will be a deliberate act of omission not to use Michael's whole name because we call him by both his first and last name, even at the dinner table sometimes.)
There could easily be 40 or 50 different versions of this story, since we came from all different directions, with a multitude of connections through time, but this is the one I know.
A few months ago we got an invitation by email to a surprise birthday party for my mother's husband Michael. All the time we have known him, he has had a conflicted feeling about birthdays and in particular, about celebrating his own. He has some reluctance to confront the numbers, although I haven't heard about that for a while so perhaps he is more at peace with that aspect now that he has fully achieved the status of a perpetually youthful Something Year Old. He also seems to have a hard time wanting to be the focus of a celebration, unlike other people. Jon is exactly like that too, actually.
So, anyway, I was a little dubious about the surprise part. But since I wasn't the planner, I let that go. His children were doing the planning and they clearly know him best. They sensibly planned it to coincide with the annual gathering for the seder, when people come from all over the country to make matzoh balls and charoset together, and to sit down with their Reconstructionist siddur that was printed in 1941. For all I know, one of the traditions is to have a surprise party for Michael.
We said we would be there. There was a ripple effect on the traditions here in Virginia, since our gracious hosts for second night seder then shifted their seder to the third night of Passover so we could all be together. Have our cake and eat it too, so to speak.
As it happened, Stephen had a reason to go to New York on the same weekend so we made a complicated plan that would accommodate all of our needs. We dropped off a vehicle at the Union Station parking lot yesterday morning and drove to New York. While Jon drove, I knitted and Stephen worked in the back seat on one of his many art projects, this one involving vice grips and lots of wire.
We found a parking place and had time to walk around in Central Park for an hour or so. Stephen says he has been to New York five times now, and three of those times he has happened to visit the site that honors John Lennon -- a spot labeled Strawberry Fields with a large tiled circle on the ground with only the word IMAGINE in the middle. We sat on a bench and listened to an elderly gentleman singing Beatles tunes, accompanying himself on the guitar.
As we were walking to the hotel, I started to think about who might be at this party. I hadn't had any contact with anyone, other than Josh the eldest son, by evite. But I realized that it was quite likely my brother Charles would be there, knowing him. And then I decided that Chip and Susan would be there too.
Sure enough, there they all were in the lobby. We followed directions and scooted down a dark hallway to the party room where we hung around with more people that we knew. It gradually became clear to some of us that Michael must have figured it out by now since he had seen many of these people in the last few days, although no one had made any reference to this event.
Michael made a nice display of being pleasantly surprised, and I am sure he was, in some ways. There were people there, including those of us from home, who he did not expect.
His lovely granddaughters had voluntarily learned some songs to perform, and Michaela had even learned to play the guitar for the occasion. They could not have asked for a more appreciative audience. They had several sets of grandparents in attendance, uncles, aunts, everyone there has known them since they were born. They may be haunted for the rest of their lives by the videos, but they did beautifully.
And then there were the stories and the tributes. It was this part of the evening that made it The Place To Be. It is a rare moment when we are allowed to tell one person how much he means to us. He had friends there who had known him for 60 years. The elders told funny stories, the next generation (including me) was mostly less funny but very direct and open about our gratitude for all that Michael has brought to us. Michael accepted all of it with grace. He said, "I hope everyone gets to have a moment like this."
Because this is my story, I will say that I sat there for a long time trying to come up with one perfect illustration of who Michael is for our family. I couldn't do it. I especially couldn't come up with anything funny. But as I sat there I came to realize how much he has woven himself into our very strong and self-assured family -- by virtue of his patient, kind, calm, generous, humble nature. He is so different from the rest of us in almost every way and yet he has found himself a place in our midst, and we are so glad. First, of course, glad for Mom. But I also realized how rock solid he has been for all the grandchildren. Because he works with us, he suffers many judgments from all sides (including the grandchildren, but I didn't say that), but he is so incredibly gracious about every bit of it. And all the grandchildren have had a consistent, attentive, loving grandfather figure in their lives. What a gift.
I have said this on many occasions and I repeat it again -- when you are choosing someone to marry, there are two non-negotiable traits that your potential partner must have. The person must be kind and smart. As I tell my kids all the time, you can't teach either one of those. And when I say smart, I specifically mean "as smart as you." Not the exact same kind of smart, but both parties must believe in the depths of their souls that the other person is equal, and I am mostly talking about intellectually. Of course there are other kinds of intelligence, but our family requires intellectual compatibility, and I believe that is true of every happy couple. Mom and Michael found each other and knew they were lucky.
Anyway, it was a lovely evening all around. Jon and I had to catch a 9:30 bus and of course we left the table at the last possible minute. Then, as anyone would expect who follows our travel stories, the subway line was disrupted by something and we had to get off at 42nd St instead of 34th, which meant that we had to hustle eight blocks down plus three blocks across. Not my favorite thing, hustling. But we got to the bus just as it was about to leave, and all was well.
Those buses are amazing. They certainly make the trip between DC and NY a non-issue financially, and so far our experience has been great.
We left our car parked on the street, Stephen spent the night with Jesse and will go to JFK to pick up his girlfriend and they will come back to Virginia today. All very complicated, but that's how we roll.
There could easily be 40 or 50 different versions of this story, since we came from all different directions, with a multitude of connections through time, but this is the one I know.
A few months ago we got an invitation by email to a surprise birthday party for my mother's husband Michael. All the time we have known him, he has had a conflicted feeling about birthdays and in particular, about celebrating his own. He has some reluctance to confront the numbers, although I haven't heard about that for a while so perhaps he is more at peace with that aspect now that he has fully achieved the status of a perpetually youthful Something Year Old. He also seems to have a hard time wanting to be the focus of a celebration, unlike other people. Jon is exactly like that too, actually.
So, anyway, I was a little dubious about the surprise part. But since I wasn't the planner, I let that go. His children were doing the planning and they clearly know him best. They sensibly planned it to coincide with the annual gathering for the seder, when people come from all over the country to make matzoh balls and charoset together, and to sit down with their Reconstructionist siddur that was printed in 1941. For all I know, one of the traditions is to have a surprise party for Michael.
We said we would be there. There was a ripple effect on the traditions here in Virginia, since our gracious hosts for second night seder then shifted their seder to the third night of Passover so we could all be together. Have our cake and eat it too, so to speak.
As it happened, Stephen had a reason to go to New York on the same weekend so we made a complicated plan that would accommodate all of our needs. We dropped off a vehicle at the Union Station parking lot yesterday morning and drove to New York. While Jon drove, I knitted and Stephen worked in the back seat on one of his many art projects, this one involving vice grips and lots of wire.
We found a parking place and had time to walk around in Central Park for an hour or so. Stephen says he has been to New York five times now, and three of those times he has happened to visit the site that honors John Lennon -- a spot labeled Strawberry Fields with a large tiled circle on the ground with only the word IMAGINE in the middle. We sat on a bench and listened to an elderly gentleman singing Beatles tunes, accompanying himself on the guitar.
As we were walking to the hotel, I started to think about who might be at this party. I hadn't had any contact with anyone, other than Josh the eldest son, by evite. But I realized that it was quite likely my brother Charles would be there, knowing him. And then I decided that Chip and Susan would be there too.
Sure enough, there they all were in the lobby. We followed directions and scooted down a dark hallway to the party room where we hung around with more people that we knew. It gradually became clear to some of us that Michael must have figured it out by now since he had seen many of these people in the last few days, although no one had made any reference to this event.
Michael made a nice display of being pleasantly surprised, and I am sure he was, in some ways. There were people there, including those of us from home, who he did not expect.
His lovely granddaughters had voluntarily learned some songs to perform, and Michaela had even learned to play the guitar for the occasion. They could not have asked for a more appreciative audience. They had several sets of grandparents in attendance, uncles, aunts, everyone there has known them since they were born. They may be haunted for the rest of their lives by the videos, but they did beautifully.
And then there were the stories and the tributes. It was this part of the evening that made it The Place To Be. It is a rare moment when we are allowed to tell one person how much he means to us. He had friends there who had known him for 60 years. The elders told funny stories, the next generation (including me) was mostly less funny but very direct and open about our gratitude for all that Michael has brought to us. Michael accepted all of it with grace. He said, "I hope everyone gets to have a moment like this."
Because this is my story, I will say that I sat there for a long time trying to come up with one perfect illustration of who Michael is for our family. I couldn't do it. I especially couldn't come up with anything funny. But as I sat there I came to realize how much he has woven himself into our very strong and self-assured family -- by virtue of his patient, kind, calm, generous, humble nature. He is so different from the rest of us in almost every way and yet he has found himself a place in our midst, and we are so glad. First, of course, glad for Mom. But I also realized how rock solid he has been for all the grandchildren. Because he works with us, he suffers many judgments from all sides (including the grandchildren, but I didn't say that), but he is so incredibly gracious about every bit of it. And all the grandchildren have had a consistent, attentive, loving grandfather figure in their lives. What a gift.
I have said this on many occasions and I repeat it again -- when you are choosing someone to marry, there are two non-negotiable traits that your potential partner must have. The person must be kind and smart. As I tell my kids all the time, you can't teach either one of those. And when I say smart, I specifically mean "as smart as you." Not the exact same kind of smart, but both parties must believe in the depths of their souls that the other person is equal, and I am mostly talking about intellectually. Of course there are other kinds of intelligence, but our family requires intellectual compatibility, and I believe that is true of every happy couple. Mom and Michael found each other and knew they were lucky.
Anyway, it was a lovely evening all around. Jon and I had to catch a 9:30 bus and of course we left the table at the last possible minute. Then, as anyone would expect who follows our travel stories, the subway line was disrupted by something and we had to get off at 42nd St instead of 34th, which meant that we had to hustle eight blocks down plus three blocks across. Not my favorite thing, hustling. But we got to the bus just as it was about to leave, and all was well.
Those buses are amazing. They certainly make the trip between DC and NY a non-issue financially, and so far our experience has been great.
We left our car parked on the street, Stephen spent the night with Jesse and will go to JFK to pick up his girlfriend and they will come back to Virginia today. All very complicated, but that's how we roll.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Erev Pesach
Not sure if that is a real term, but tonight is the night before the first night of Passover. I am staying awake waiting for Jon's plane to arrive (about an hour later than hoped, but in flight now). In the olden days, when we had little kids we were much more disciplined about preparing for Passover. We actually cleaned out all the closets and if Rebecca had brought home the kit with the feather and the candle, we would do that ritual together. We took our bags of leavened food over to the Bradfords and left them there, at the risk of never seeing our cereal again.
In recent years, we have alternated hosting the seder -- one year we do it at our house and the next year we go to Mom and Michael's. This is our year, and I am quite sure we have never been less prepared.
The main reason is that Jon has been in Shreveport all week and I have been utterly distracted by the sunny weather. Instead of boiling eggs and chopping apples, I have been laying plastic and planting leeks. Tomorrow we will dedicate ourselves to the preparations. Jon will go shopping (when he is away I just eat whatever is in the house, it never occurs to me to buy anything) and get all the ingredients and make brisket. I will dig around for the box that has the haggadot and seder plate. We will clear the table and make it big enough for eight.
From what I infer, all three of our children will be at seders of their own making. Alissa has been hosting a seder in New Hampshire for the last few years and this year Rebecca will join her. It seems that Benjamin might be hosting one, but I am not entirely sure about that. He asked us all for our favorite vegetarian recipes and I gave him one from his Gram (scalloped tomatoes).
There will be no children at our table, alas. But there will be lively, friendly people who will have a lot of fun being together, dipping parsley and re-experiencing that taste, layering charoset and horseradish onto matzoh, singing off key, arguing about the story.
And I will be remembering that April 3 is the anniversary of the date that Jon first learned of his diagnosis, six years ago. It has been an amazing six years. We have been incredibly lucky that he was able to return to his healthy self, ignoring (for the most part) the constant presence of a chronic disease. Six years ago, he went to the hospital after the seder in the Common House (which he did not attend) and had one of the worst nights of his life. That wasn't April 3, to be precise. It was about five days later. By now we have resumed our normal lives to the extent that we assume we can do anything. I don't think Jon has any bad associations with Passover -- his memory of that whole spring is cloudy. He can be reminded but he doesn't really have a clear picture of the sequences. I do, and every Passover I am reminded of our good fortune.
Chag sameach, everyone.
In recent years, we have alternated hosting the seder -- one year we do it at our house and the next year we go to Mom and Michael's. This is our year, and I am quite sure we have never been less prepared.
The main reason is that Jon has been in Shreveport all week and I have been utterly distracted by the sunny weather. Instead of boiling eggs and chopping apples, I have been laying plastic and planting leeks. Tomorrow we will dedicate ourselves to the preparations. Jon will go shopping (when he is away I just eat whatever is in the house, it never occurs to me to buy anything) and get all the ingredients and make brisket. I will dig around for the box that has the haggadot and seder plate. We will clear the table and make it big enough for eight.
From what I infer, all three of our children will be at seders of their own making. Alissa has been hosting a seder in New Hampshire for the last few years and this year Rebecca will join her. It seems that Benjamin might be hosting one, but I am not entirely sure about that. He asked us all for our favorite vegetarian recipes and I gave him one from his Gram (scalloped tomatoes).
There will be no children at our table, alas. But there will be lively, friendly people who will have a lot of fun being together, dipping parsley and re-experiencing that taste, layering charoset and horseradish onto matzoh, singing off key, arguing about the story.
And I will be remembering that April 3 is the anniversary of the date that Jon first learned of his diagnosis, six years ago. It has been an amazing six years. We have been incredibly lucky that he was able to return to his healthy self, ignoring (for the most part) the constant presence of a chronic disease. Six years ago, he went to the hospital after the seder in the Common House (which he did not attend) and had one of the worst nights of his life. That wasn't April 3, to be precise. It was about five days later. By now we have resumed our normal lives to the extent that we assume we can do anything. I don't think Jon has any bad associations with Passover -- his memory of that whole spring is cloudy. He can be reminded but he doesn't really have a clear picture of the sequences. I do, and every Passover I am reminded of our good fortune.
Chag sameach, everyone.
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