This year in an effort to break free of the bonds of chemically-treated produce and Wal-Mart, we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Sailsville, Ohio. We got in on the program two weeks late and had no real idea about what it would be like - all we knew was that our neighbors had new heaping bags of fresh vegetables every Saturday and they loved it.
We chose the Mott Family Farm based on our neighbor's recommendation. The owners were the sort of kind and welcoming you see on bad Lifetime movie - except they were very genuine. They warmly welcomed us into their embrace - we paid a modest fee for 17-weeks of the fressh veggies (we did a half share because we had no idea what we would receive) and agreed to make one run to the farm to pick up the vegetable crop for consumers based in our area. That was it.
Our first pick-up was surreal. "We get to just take this bag?" I asked the woman who hosts the drop off site. I couldn't believe these vegetables just magically appeared for us. I know it sounds stupid now, but in a world of grocery stores and credit card scans and plastic bags sure to outlive my great grandchildren's great grandchildren, the simplicity of it all was crazy to me.
In the car, we tore into the bag like children in an overloaded basket Easter morning. Raspberries, tomatoes, things we couldn't identify, they were all there waiting for us. We ate raspberries on the way home, giggling as if we'd done something wrong because they hadn't been washed yet. But it's organic we tried reminding ourselves. We were giddy.
It became my custom to go through our bag each Saturday after returning home and processing the veggies - taking stock and working to prepare dishes with them as soon as possible to ensure they wouldn't go to waste. The first bite of Arugula from The Mott Family Farm sent me into cheers for the peppery flavor - so much more vibrant than any store-bought variety I'd ever tasted. I started making cherry tomato salad with the seven or more varieties of heirloom cherry tomatoes we received, fresh basil, fresh onion...fresh fresh fresh!!!
Then, like all good things, the leaves started to change (hot peppers and squash were in abundance) and the supply dwindled until on week 17, we said goodbye to our CSA share for the season. I admit that with the other things happening right now - finalizing a successful fundraiser we put on in the community, getting the children adjusted to school, Swine Flu, training to walk 60-miles in three days - I hadn't much thought about out farm share. Then today the sun was shining brilliantly in the bright blue sky, a cool breeze blew across the area and we were out enjoying 71-degree temperatures when a week ago it was 30. And the urge for some cherry tomato salad hit me.
And I missed it.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Circle
Today my youngest niece turns 19. This is enough to make me feel older, but for once, I'm not actually thinking about my aging process.
I'm thinking instead about my sister.
Her 19th birthday on December 4, 1988 was a fun-filled party at my parents' house capped off by a midnight viewing of Tequila Sunrise with many of her closest friends. The party was great fun - I, being five years her junior, was allowed to invite a friend and the two of us enjoyed the music, food and gossiping about all of the older kids in the house. But over the entire party hung a cloud - barely noticeable during the times when laughter and Bon Jovi filled the room - but all too present in the split seconds of silence.
My sister chose a different path than a lot of recent high school graduates - although not so different from the paths chosen by many of her friends in the city of Virginia Beach where we grew up. She decided against college and instead chose to join the Air Force. As an Navy Jr. ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps.) student throughout her high school career in our military-infused area, she excelled in areas that made a good soldier and was recruited heavily by the armed forces. She chose the Air Force ultimately when her ASVAB results indicated that she would be suitable as a flight technician. She was going to work on planes!!
The day after she turned 19 my sister left for boot camp in Texas. The eight weeks went flew by and suddenly she was in training and just as suddenly she was shipped of for her first base assignment: Guam.
It was there, on that 15-by 30-mile snake-infested landing strip that my sister met a man almost twice her age, fell in love with him, learned she was pregnant with his child and married him. At 19. And I don't know if it was a combination of the military training, his influence and the awesome responsibility of being a parent, but the day my sister turned 19 was really the last day I knew her, really knew her like the little sister who shared the backseat of Toyota Corolla Tercel on many an eight-hour drives to Ohio. I imagine it happened instantaneously, because it hit me very suddenly that she had aged far beyond her years. And not in looks per se, although she began to suddenly eschew any type of style that reflected an awareness of pop culture and youth; she aged in attitude and mind. For her though, it may have been a process that took place over months - perhaps as her fetus aged, so did she. But it happened nonetheless. And she went from 19 to 40 and never looked back.
Or did she? I ask myself as I can't ask her. She can't see the transformation or doesn't want to, at least that's how I see it. I will likely never know, as she's become as foreign to me as the cash register operator at Wal Mart. She lives across the US from myself and my parents now. And she likes it. She calls my parents occasionally, and visits every few years. When we are together these days she acts still as if I am non-existent. As if I'm still that 14 year-old little sister that she said goodbye to on a December afternoon and forgot. My children, my life - they matter not to her - or at least that's what it seems to me. The forgotten little companion. I try to communicate, to reach out, to be a part of her new existence, but it's too hard to get in.
On this day, when I am proud of my beautiful niece who is a college freshman working to find herself in this world I wonder if her mother is right now thinking back to her own 19th birthday. And wondering where the time went.
I'm thinking instead about my sister.
Her 19th birthday on December 4, 1988 was a fun-filled party at my parents' house capped off by a midnight viewing of Tequila Sunrise with many of her closest friends. The party was great fun - I, being five years her junior, was allowed to invite a friend and the two of us enjoyed the music, food and gossiping about all of the older kids in the house. But over the entire party hung a cloud - barely noticeable during the times when laughter and Bon Jovi filled the room - but all too present in the split seconds of silence.
My sister chose a different path than a lot of recent high school graduates - although not so different from the paths chosen by many of her friends in the city of Virginia Beach where we grew up. She decided against college and instead chose to join the Air Force. As an Navy Jr. ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps.) student throughout her high school career in our military-infused area, she excelled in areas that made a good soldier and was recruited heavily by the armed forces. She chose the Air Force ultimately when her ASVAB results indicated that she would be suitable as a flight technician. She was going to work on planes!!
The day after she turned 19 my sister left for boot camp in Texas. The eight weeks went flew by and suddenly she was in training and just as suddenly she was shipped of for her first base assignment: Guam.
It was there, on that 15-by 30-mile snake-infested landing strip that my sister met a man almost twice her age, fell in love with him, learned she was pregnant with his child and married him. At 19. And I don't know if it was a combination of the military training, his influence and the awesome responsibility of being a parent, but the day my sister turned 19 was really the last day I knew her, really knew her like the little sister who shared the backseat of Toyota Corolla Tercel on many an eight-hour drives to Ohio. I imagine it happened instantaneously, because it hit me very suddenly that she had aged far beyond her years. And not in looks per se, although she began to suddenly eschew any type of style that reflected an awareness of pop culture and youth; she aged in attitude and mind. For her though, it may have been a process that took place over months - perhaps as her fetus aged, so did she. But it happened nonetheless. And she went from 19 to 40 and never looked back.
Or did she? I ask myself as I can't ask her. She can't see the transformation or doesn't want to, at least that's how I see it. I will likely never know, as she's become as foreign to me as the cash register operator at Wal Mart. She lives across the US from myself and my parents now. And she likes it. She calls my parents occasionally, and visits every few years. When we are together these days she acts still as if I am non-existent. As if I'm still that 14 year-old little sister that she said goodbye to on a December afternoon and forgot. My children, my life - they matter not to her - or at least that's what it seems to me. The forgotten little companion. I try to communicate, to reach out, to be a part of her new existence, but it's too hard to get in.
On this day, when I am proud of my beautiful niece who is a college freshman working to find herself in this world I wonder if her mother is right now thinking back to her own 19th birthday. And wondering where the time went.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
What if?
After rolling around in bed for the past four days with what I believe was a wee touch o' the Swine Flu, or The Hiney as it is being called around my house, I made the decision to start this blog. Why? Oh, there are so many reasons why. Because I need an outlet for thoughts that I obsess over for a day; thoughts too complex for Facebook or Twitter yet too fleeting to devote to a full essay. Because I've been reading more blogs by Twitter friends of late and know I should get in on this conversation. Because I need to write. A lot.
Perhaps the biggest reason for starting this blog however lies in the fact that each and every day since roughly October 12 I've been overwhelmed with the knowledge that out in this world today are a group of people who decided that my writing was only good enough to merit me a spot on the waiting list for a wonderful low residency MFA program. I have no ill will towards these people whatsoever. They deemed me better than those people whose applications they threw into the circular file, however, I keep asking myself the eternal "What If?"
For me, in many ways, that question dominates my life. What if I cut my hair - would he love me more? What if I lost 10 pounds - would I feel better about myself? What if I enrolled my son in this program - would he learn to lighten up on himself? And on and on and on. So, since the email that told me that I'm good, but not good enough, came, "What if..." is bouncing in my head like a basketball.
Certainly I'm wise enough to know that the complexities that go into admitting a group of people into an MFA program go beyond me and my concerns. I know that issues relating to everything from age, gender, nationality, and concentration choice add to the equation that when worked with slide rule and pencil sharpened to the nub equaled me sitting at home wondering where I went wrong with my application packet. But still...what if I had more writing out there in the here and now? Sure, the publication area of my CV is weak (unless you count the thousands of newspaper articles I wrote as a reporter and used to hone my method of dissecting Creative Nonfiction pieces with objective accuracy and an eye for the story), maybe a blog will help. Maybe not. Maybe this blog will actually hurt my chances of getting in upon reapplication to the program. But what if it doesn't?
What ifs aside, the clear message that I got from this stomach-churning email that laughed in the faces of all of those cheerful and helpful loved ones who told me I was sure to be accepted was that I need to continue to grow as a writer. Indeed, that was my goal in applying to the program in the first place. To grow as a writer. Because really, if we don't grow as writers we're reduced to rehashers. And while I don't mind rehashing a good story in a socal setting, guaging audience reaction to the words and images created and ever-so-slightly tweaking them for the next group for maximum impact, I would stop writing tomorrow if I were doomed to write the same things the same way for eternity.
So here goes...what if this turns out to be something?
Perhaps the biggest reason for starting this blog however lies in the fact that each and every day since roughly October 12 I've been overwhelmed with the knowledge that out in this world today are a group of people who decided that my writing was only good enough to merit me a spot on the waiting list for a wonderful low residency MFA program. I have no ill will towards these people whatsoever. They deemed me better than those people whose applications they threw into the circular file, however, I keep asking myself the eternal "What If?"
For me, in many ways, that question dominates my life. What if I cut my hair - would he love me more? What if I lost 10 pounds - would I feel better about myself? What if I enrolled my son in this program - would he learn to lighten up on himself? And on and on and on. So, since the email that told me that I'm good, but not good enough, came, "What if..." is bouncing in my head like a basketball.
Certainly I'm wise enough to know that the complexities that go into admitting a group of people into an MFA program go beyond me and my concerns. I know that issues relating to everything from age, gender, nationality, and concentration choice add to the equation that when worked with slide rule and pencil sharpened to the nub equaled me sitting at home wondering where I went wrong with my application packet. But still...what if I had more writing out there in the here and now? Sure, the publication area of my CV is weak (unless you count the thousands of newspaper articles I wrote as a reporter and used to hone my method of dissecting Creative Nonfiction pieces with objective accuracy and an eye for the story), maybe a blog will help. Maybe not. Maybe this blog will actually hurt my chances of getting in upon reapplication to the program. But what if it doesn't?
What ifs aside, the clear message that I got from this stomach-churning email that laughed in the faces of all of those cheerful and helpful loved ones who told me I was sure to be accepted was that I need to continue to grow as a writer. Indeed, that was my goal in applying to the program in the first place. To grow as a writer. Because really, if we don't grow as writers we're reduced to rehashers. And while I don't mind rehashing a good story in a socal setting, guaging audience reaction to the words and images created and ever-so-slightly tweaking them for the next group for maximum impact, I would stop writing tomorrow if I were doomed to write the same things the same way for eternity.
So here goes...what if this turns out to be something?
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