rodent follow-up

I moved the toy snakes every other day. I picked as fast as I could. But still, there were hundreds of half-eaten apricots on the ground. I've already eaten or dried all the fruit. Then I ate all the dried fruit.

. . . and I set the pits outside for my friend, the squirrel.

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Squirrel totally won.

'baring our souls and telling the most appalling secrets'

One of the classes I took this fall was a leadership class. My classmates and I did projects and case studies and a therapy-inducing 360 review to evaluate and develop our leadership capacity. As the culminating project, we were asked to write a "This I believe" essay to help us identify our core values. Writing the essay was an interesting experience; it made me realize that while my values don't change easily or often, the way I choose to express them does. Needless to say, there were drafts and drafts of drafts before I was finished. The hardest part was knowing that I would have to deliver it as a speech to my class. How much of your soul can you comfortably share with relative strangers? Turns out, not very much; I prepared to get uncomfortable. Some of my classmates' essays were deeply personal, sharing details about losing children, finding forgiveness, and developing or losing faith. Others were more of the bullet point variety. I think mine lay somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Anyway, I figured if I could share it with them I could share it with you, so here it is:



December 2009

This I believe

I believe a culture that values education will thrive and grow. Education bears the fruit of tolerance, self-knowledge, and positive social change. I believe learning is its own reward and that those who believe money is their reward for education, will get it, and without much trouble but likely without much knowledge. While a college degree happens to be a strong social currency, Education and its applications are not and must not be confined to classrooms. Jed, a young student I met while working as a writing tutor, showed me this (names have, of course, been changed). He returned to college after serving a sentence for a felony conviction. While working together on his essays, he confided that by going to college, learning to focus on math and sociology and writing, he has also learned to control his anger. He now has some good friends, a scholarship, and a fresh start. I believe in education. I believe it is the best solution to long-term problems because it is the only long-term, transformative solution.

I believe in the power of food as a healing instrument and a means of cultural self-expression. Every day I make choices between options that are narrowed by a culture that is powered by corporations and industry. I have the power to take back my original, now invisible options. Common sense and communion and have given way to Gogurt and Gushers, fruit loops and high-fructose corn syrup. Before they came from multivitamins, nutrients came from food. Uncomplicated, unpackaged, unprocessed food. Last summer I found a part of myself as I learned to make cheese from milk as my great, great grandmother must have done, and yet another as I visited the farm where my food was grown and grew more vegetables in my own garden. I can comprehend, though vaguely, the complexities and joys of life halfway across the world as I parse a complicated curry or burn my first souffle. I believe Food is a way to simultaneously connect with the earth from which it came and the people who create meals from its bountiful ingredients. When I make deliberate choices about food, I recognize myself as a part of the whole.

I believe the mouth is one of the most important parts of the body. It is where nourishment enters body and the mind finds expression as ideas exit in the form of words. I believe that I, along with many others, would find more happiness and health if I guard more closely what goes in and what comes out. A large ship is indeed guided by a small rudder.

I believe in the transformative nature of words and ideas. Among others, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and Harper Lee have shown me the power of words and parts of me are real products of their fictions. Scout’s innocence and evolving devotion to justice, Pip’s realization of his self-destructive search for external happiness, and Jean Val jean’s story of kindness, mercy, and personal redemption express some of the best parts of me and ideals to which I aspire.

Although I had read or been read to all my life, the first book I remember getting excited about is Johnny Tremain. I was ten, and my teacher had assigned the book. I read it twice, once for fun, and answered every question with a paragraph where a sentence would have sufficed. A new world had been opened. Reading has allowed me to glimpse the wonder of science, experience the beauty of a diverse humanity, and find companions in this human experience.

I believe that we are connected in ways we do not and cannot understand that are best expressed through literature. Poetry, once inaccessible to me, has given breath and validity to my own deepest emotions and core beliefs. With John Donne, I affirm that all mankind is of one author, no man is an island and that any man’s death diminishes me. I believe, like W.H. Auden, that we must love one another, or die. These words and ideas penned by great authors and poets have allowed me to think their thoughts and become, if only slightly, the product of their ideals. God bless Gutenberg.

Okay, bloggers, Consider yourselves "tagged." If you choose to blog a This I Believe essay, post a link in the comment section; I would love to read yours, now that I've borne my soul. It's a challenge, and knowing that someone else will read it changes the quality of the experience. You'll find instructions here. Who knows? You may like it so much that you'll want to go on the record by submitting it to the NPR Essay database.

schmalloween

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I have a confession.

I HATE HALLOWEEN!!!!

There. I said it. Just so you know how serious this is, you have to know that I also hate all caps (QUIT YELLING, already) and excessive use of exclamation marks (use sparingly!!!! - overuse causes punctuation inflation).

I know some of you will protest, but I don't care. You can have your costume parties and your haunted houses . . . and your spiders and rats, and your masks and gory face paint, and your blood and maimed limbs, and your carved and smashed-in pumpkins. Enjoy. I'll be at home baking my pumpkin into a pie instead of carving it into a Jack-O-Lantern.

The past four years I have strategically, purposefully turned off all the lights or been gone that night. When we have littles, I will just buy them the candy they want on that day and we will go home and plan the menu for Thanksgiving.

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by the numbers

Today is the first day of fall, which means 2009 is nearly three-fourths over.

For some reason, I often think about life and it's milestones in terms of ratios. I think it helps me to organize and conceptualize the past and make the future less chaotic and more manageable. Either that or it's some type of neurosis that I'm not quite ready to come to terms with. I'm not sure when I started doing this, but I think marking time this way stems from measuring life in context-specific intervals (terms/semesters in school, transfers on a mission, etc.).

So here it is, my life by the numbers:

• I am 27; I have lived about one-third of my expected life span.

• I have known Clark for one-third of my lifetime. We have been married for half of that time.

• We've lived in Idaho over half of our married life.

• Five years ago today, I came home from my mission . . . and that doesn't divide evenly into 27.

• In December, I'll be three-fourths done with my degree.

• I have finished one-fourth of this semester. Even though the work/school pace has been rigorous, I can definitely do this three more times. (This same logic works with exercise - one mile magically turns into two. Three, if you're lucky and optimistic. Try it; you'll like it).

• There is still one-eighth of my farm share still to enjoy this harvest season (upcoming post - analysis of our first year of CSA membership).
  

Sometimes it's hard to quiet these numbers in my head (1/4th of my work day left, the week is half over, etc!). In the last months of my mission, I got a letter from Haley, who had then been home from her mission for a several months. In it, she said she had been home for 3 transfers (6 weeks each) and that she felt basically back to normal. I knew then that 'normal' is a relative term and that I would never really be the same.

Reader, how do you mark time? Do you just let life happen and not worry about quantifying it or are you mildly neurotic, too?