The China Buffet

 

It was just dark when we walked over to the China Buffet last night. The sky was clear and an almost full moon leaned over the trees. Down all of the small, gridded streets of my neighborhood,  colored lights twinkled and shone from roofs and porches and branches—we leave our lights up for a long while in Oregon.  The air was cold and dry and it felt later than it actually was. The streets were quiet. In houses, groups were gathering, knocking on doors with one hand, balancing a platter in the other. New Year’s Eve.

Chinese food for New Years is traditional in my family. My urban cousins, from my father’s side, introduced my family to the concept and it felt very sophisticated, especially in comparison to the dreaded sauerkraut and pork my mother’s family swore by. One New Year’s Eve while I was still in college and home on Break, my mother and I found ourselves without plans for the night (no surprise for me, but very unusual for her.)  We went to the local Chinese restaurant, where you could get pink edged pork strips, and chicken chop suey, and pork fried rice, along with drinks in glasses shaped like the heads of Easter Island. We had just ordered when our neighbors from 15 years before, whom my mother had lost touch with, showed up. They sat down, ordered, and spent the evening remembering the past. We drove home in the cold dark, glimpses of lights in houses along the way, feeling rooted to the place.

A few years later, I lived in Newton, right down the street from the same sort of establishment. The big booths were covered in red “leather” and there was hot mustard along with the soy sauce on the table. We ate there at least twice a month—once, late at night on New Year’s Eve, when we left First Night before the fireworks to come home ahead of the crowds. It was dim, and warm, and welcoming. Home.

New Year’s Eve has always felt a bit melancholy for me. Even when I was young, it was never a great party night. So, because Mark loves a buffet, especially one where he can have two bowls of hot and sour soup, melon, sushi, and something deep fried,  we visit the New China Buffet once a year. It is warm, and bright, and welcoming. And then we walk home, start a fire, and see the old year out.

On Tyranny and Advent Season

 My juniors are reading Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng; it is a dystopian novel written during the pandemic, thinking about what would happen if the chaos of the early months of that crisis were intensified. I like it because it talks about 21^st century examples and issues—Asian American hate, all of our information on computers and not books—as well as the old favorite of silencing dissent by, as Timothy Snyder would say, obeying in advance.  As we moved through the book, I handed them Snyder’s list of acts against tyranny and asked them to find examples in the book and, if they can not, then in the world. It was hard.  The language is challenging and the concepts are fairly abstract. I spent an hour and a half talking students through different actions. Corporeal politics? The frog outside of ICE. Professional ethics? Teachers can’t tell you what to think but they can present you with challenging assignments that make you think. We are not done with the assignment; each student or pair is going to pull one of the actions out of the hat next week and make a poster, using the graphic version of the book as an example, where they explore how these ideas play out in the book and in our world.

I’ve been thinking about this assignment and the list of actions for about a year now. Some people find Snyder stressful because you can see how authoritarianism, according to his work, is increasing all over the world. It feels both very close to home and very hard to stop. I find him hopeful. Grim, but hopeful. There are 20 actions we can all take to halt the spread of authoritarianism, they just need a bit of grounding in our daily world.

Every Advent, I try to take on a focus. Some years it’s big, like democracy or climate change. Some years, it’s small, like what do I love about my life or daily image in my notebook. The practice helps me get through this, the darkest time of the year, while we are all waiting for the world to shift and the light to return. This year, I want to attempt to ground On Tyranny in daily practice. I will strive to take action on all twenty of his points, but I will give myself a little leeway, because I hope I do not have to “be reflective if you must be armed” or “stay calm when the unthinkable arrives.” For those, I will substitute actions of my own—build community and participate in ritual—because I believe that will also counteract tyranny.  I start on the first night of advent and work until Solstice Eve.

This is the list. Please, join in. There is nothing more empowering than taking action.

December 17: Do Not Obey in Advance

I have been thinking about this action since I began this project. Do not give in silently to something you believe to be wrong. It is, in some ways, one of the hardest to sort out. As a teacher and as a city councilor, I find myself constantly confronting things I believe to be wrong or misguided. Should we read the entire novel aloud to the class because they do not want to read? Should we continue to post camps that are not in the Approved Sleeping Places during the Point in Time Count? Should we push back on a state regulation that we do not agree with? At what point do we say—No.

There is a constant calculation involved in deciding when to push and when to back down. Sometimes I ask—am I own my own here? Will someone else take the lead? More importantly, does this push back align with other ideas that I lean against or am I reaching beyond my usual boundaries to take this on? Do I have the energy to take on one more fight? And if I don’t who will.

Sometimes, in conversations, after considering all of the options, we will say “ I don’t agree, but this is not the hill I want to die on.” Or I will decide to not take the issue on at all, even though I believe that it is important and needs support. And so, am I obeying in advance? Am I taking the easy route out?

December 18: Make Eye Contact and Small Talk

I learned this from my parents.

When I was eight my parents took a cross country road trip—we left New Hampshire and headed West. According to my mother, we were in California one day when a man walked up to my dad and called out “Whitey?! How are you?”  (My father had very light blond hair…) He recognized my father from when he was a truck driver, years before in Boston. “Your father knew people everywhere…” she mused. Because she was a hairdresser, she also knew people everywhere, but that did not strike her as unusual. Hairdressers, after all, are the spider in the middle of the web of women in small towns.  

On a sunny afternoon it can take me 45 minutes to walk the ten blocks home from work. I stop and talk to people sitting on porches, walking their dogs, taking a smoke break on the corner…I learn a lot about what is happening in the neighborhood during these chats. When I head downtown, I pass the homeless guys sitting out of the rain. I don’t usually carry money, but we always nod and smile at one another, acknowledging humanity. When I lived in Portland, I always put out the bottles and cans and no one ever bothered our house. When I moved out, it was broken into. My old room mate kept the deposit cans.

Know your neighbors. Acknowledge their existence.

 

• December 8: Defend Institutions

  One thing I have been working on since I began to engage in local action is defining who’s responsible for a specific action. Landfill? County. Pothole? City—but it also depends on the street.  Report a Problem! Mental health for low income people? County. Tearing down Sunflower House? OSU. Knowing who to talk to makes you more effective. Spending hours at the wrong meeting is just..a waste of time. I try and connect people with the right person who can make the changes they want to see or explain, better than I, why not.

  On Saturday, I had Government Corner, where I sit in the library for two hours and talk with whoever shows up. It can be fascinating. It can also be exhausting; after the school shooting in Florida I had a woman who had lived in Sandy Hook right before the shooting, moved south right before the shooting there, and then came here. We were both a bit freaked out. Right now, we have an elderly man who loves Government Corner and asks about everything. He wanted to know what I thought about school closures.

  “That’s not my jurisdiction,” I told him. “I don’t tell the school board what to do.”

  He was puzzled.

  “I also can’t talk about the landfill. That’s the county. I have opinions, but not all of the facts.”

  “Other councilors (he named names) are talking about the schools,” he told me.

  “They can do what they want,” I replied. “But, as an elected official, I shouldn’t  talk about their choices here. I can talk about the city.”

• December 2: Beware the One Party State

  The last line of this statement talks about engaging in local politics as a way to maintain a healthy democracy.  Benton county has ranked choice voting, so I am a registered member of the Green Party—have been since Ralph Nader!—because I believe in a multitude of political parties, not just two.  Not everyone has ranked choice voting (it can be a challenging sell to voters) but we can all participate in local politics. Showing up is the most important thing you can do to work for change. Sit in the audience, look your elected officials in the eye, and dare them to vote against what you and everyone else in town has been asking for.  I promise you, it matters.

  I am about to head out to a meeting on downtown and economic vitality, if you want to come along. Madison Avenue room at four o’clock. 

• Be wary of paramilitaries.
• Be reflective if you must be armed.

December 3: Remember Professional Ethics

Education around the country is struggling after the pandemic; students are not coming to school as well prepared to learn and we have been making adjustments. However, some of those adjustments are starting to fray in a way that is reminding me that I, too, have professional ethics. When I give students credit in my class, it means that they have made significant progress on their journey to become better readers and writers as well as thinkers. They don’t all start in the same place; they don’t all make the same amount of progress in the time allotted for many reasons; they don’t all go gracefully along the path. But, my professional ethics remind me that a credit means something—progress.  We have many students this year that won’t make progress. It’s not that they can’t do the work—I know what to do to help those students—or they don’t do the work because they are on what I call a Work Strike because they are making  statement to someone about control in their lives. It’s a softer action. Won’t.  They can, but they won’t. There is pressure to drop the bar and push these students over—but, where does that leave us? Their skills stagnate, then fall behind. I’m a grouchy old teacher—they have to show progress to earn credit. I’ll work with you, but I am not going to do it for you. Professional Ethics.

December 1^st: Stand Out.

Standing out means saying what you believe, even if it goes against the popular will or thinking of the group. I am getting good at this—last night, I was the minority vote three times. Once to not raise the city manager’s salary five percent after a 4 percent COLA; second to not send social service funding to the county to distribute; third to establish sanctioned camping spots in town so that people do not have to move every 12 hours. Each time, I was trying to remember the impact of my decisions on the people who have the least money and influence in our community. Not everyone has the “benefit” of being on the city council, but we can all urge our lawmakers to consider the impact of the decisions on the least powerful.

December 5: Be Kind to Our Language (read books)

When I read the extended piece connected to this action it became very clear—this one is easy! Read, rather than watch screens. He had an extended list of very serious books to consider, but, when I was done with this section, I turned to my other bedside read right now, one of Madeline L’Engle’s journals/ stylized reflections. It was a popular style when I was in college and I have been revisiting some of my old favorites this autumn.  In the pages I read last night, she was musing on how all of writing connects to the issues of the day and what the author is wrestling with personally and politically. And then I flashed back onto A Wrinkle In Time.

I checked A Wrinkle in Time out of the school library one afternoon in mid-March, when the world was washed clean and bright. I read through class, stopped for the bus ride home (car sickness is not fun), and finished it before dinner in the back yard. I remember just…inhaling the story.  It was unique, fascinating and deeply metaphysical all at the same time—and there was something about the very awkward Meg that I could relate to. It wasn’t until I reread it to Mark as an adult that I realized both how deeply strange it is, as a story, and how deeply it impacted my thinking. She is wrestling with the ideas of communism and total control of the mind and free will—the the analogy of free will and a sonnet still resonates with me.

Children’s stories are often deeply radical. In them, we learn to be independent and to work together, to love the world, and to stand up against tyranny. It may be time to revisit some of those lessons.

• Believe in truth.

December 11: Investigate

One of the most frustrating things about our news media is the short clip that everyone is fussing about. It’s a couple of minutes long, at most, taken from the middle of a longer meeting and it is almost impossible to track down the original video. I have spent an ridiculous amount of time trying to find the video, say from when the president of South Africa visited the White House and was shown something… but I never watch the entire meeting.  How do I know how accurate the commentary is if I cannot see the primary document?

This weekend, Robert Reich put out a video on Trump’s mental decline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQHLciC67V8

I like Mr Reich’s work—I have always found him to be thoughtful, well informed, and able to back up his thinking with deep details. And he has a sense of humor. So I thought I would do a bit of fact checking on the video as part of my Investigate action. He has a clip from a “recent” cabinet meeting where the president is musing on the décor of the Oval Office for 15 minutes. Seriously? Was this part of a conversation about the “renovation” of the East Wing? Because there was no date— Mr Reich, we need footnotes on your work!-- I scanned the most recent cabinet meeting using captions and time stamps—to find the conversation.  Not there. I looked at the first video again and noticed a gold tie, so I started searching for cabinet meetings with gold ties. It took about ten minutes, but I found one back in early July where the tie matched. I scanned that one until the end. Victory. There it was. Fifteen minutes of end of the meeting musing on picture frames and the presidents within them (that section could use its own fact checking, but I am not doing that today) and polling the audience about using gold leaf on the corner moldings. Mr Reich was accurate.

It is deeply frustrating to this trained historian to be unable to find the actual work that every pundit is riffing on. Because we are in such a divided and fractious state of affairs, I want to see the original, in context to understand the full picture. And that takes some serious googling. 

December 19: Practice Corporeal Politics

Also known as putting your physical body into the action.

Teachers are not supposed to touch students. We use our bodies in so many ways in the classroom. Some days, I lean over a desk on my hands (thus making myself a little taller) and demand to know what a kid is doing, because clearly they are not doing their work. It’s effective—hundreds of times, over the years, a six foot tall boy has commented when we are walking down the hall “You’re way shorter than I thought.” I’ll sit between two students while we are watching a movie or in a boring assembly in a (often failed) attempt to keep them quiet. If I can’t, and the assembly has gone on for an hour, all three of us have gone for a walk.  Some days, I sit on the chair or the balancing stool at the same level, working my way through a story edit while chaos swirls around us. Other times, I scoot down to look at a kid from below, so that I can see their eyes which is how you know what is actually going on.

 This year, I’ve had some serious melt downs in my room—deep sobs, shaking, I can’t move kinds of meltdowns. I’ll place my hand on the middle of their back, feel them lean into the pressure, and walk them slowly down stairs to the counseling office where they will be both safe and quiet until they can rejoin the class. 

December 12: Maintain a Private Life

In many ways, this one is easy for me, so I am using it on a Friday afternoon at the end of a long week. I do not have a cell phone. I do not want to be traced everywhere I go and connected to the world all of the time. And, on Friday afternoons, after I check my home emails, I shut the computer off until Sunday and take a complete break.  We call it Technology Shabbat. It has made a huge difference in my sanity. This evening, I will be signing off for 36 hours.

• December 7: Contribute to Good Causes

• For people with a bit of money, this is an easy action, although I have long found that my poorest students are often the most generous when we are collecting change for Winter Smiles at CHS. I give money and time regularly. Today, I spent hours working to distribute the boxes of citrus for the League Of Women Voters fund-raiser. Mark and I have maintained the spreadsheet of orders then he manipulated it to organize delivery routes and email addresses to the purchasers. Today, most of the fruit went out. We’ll spend a few more days mopping up the mistakes before we rethink how to do it for next year.

  If you don’t know, the League of Women Voters has been round for over one hundred years, informing people about voter’s rights, candidates, and local and state politics. It is non-partisan, education focused organization. And you don’t have to be a woman to be a member. J

December 15: Learn from peers in other countries.

We had latkes for dinner tonight. We have latkes at some point during Hanukah every year, but it feels a bit more poignant this year, after the shooting in Australia.

The first year I did not go home for Christmas was right after I moved to Portland. I didn’t have a lot of money; taking time off of work during the holiday season is difficult if you are a cook; it was hard to spend quality time with people who were not family because of their work and family schedules.  I went home in February when everyone was thrilled to see anyone new or different, instead. My roommate in Portland was Jewish. We got along well. I learned a great deal from him and his responses to American winter holidays—Christmas was everywhere, he complained. There was no break from it. In Israel, he told me, it was not this way.  He was right—and, every year, when someone at school sets up a tree, I remember his concerns.

One December evening, I was lying on my bed, recovering from work, feeling a bit depressed and exhausted. “It’s Hanukkah” he told me, “Come with me.” Every Friday night, he made a big bowl of hummus and took it to a huge extended family gathering (not his family). They laughed and sang and ate and had a grand time while small children careened around the space just below everyone’s elbows. That night, I went along. I ate latkes with sour cream for the first time and watched the candle lighting ceremony.  They took me in without question. A few nights later, I went back for the eighth night, when they lit a dozen menorahs and put them all out on the porch, blazing against the darkness. And I was there for Christmas Eve.  Someone gave me a Hanukkah mug. It was a warm, welcoming space for a transplanted Transcendental New Englander.  

I m thinking about that warm space this evening, as we eat our latkes and burn two small candles on the table. And I am hoping that we can all live in a world where we take strangers in, not keep them out. 

December 6: Listen for Dangerous Words

Although I usually strive to hear or read an entire passage before passing judgment on what was said (context is everything!) I did not need to her all of the current administration’s rambling at the recent cabinet meeting where he referred to an entire country’s people as “garbage” to take action.

 December 11: Stay Calm When the Unthinkable Occurs

Last night I went to two hour training on ICE Watch that focused on our rights and responsibilities to our community. The room was packed and seriously silent—this felt like essential information.  I don’t feel ready to volunteer as an observer but I do feel better informed on how to act and what to watch for if I stubble into the situation. I hope to be able to remain calm and repeat the key phrases: “I wish to remain silent.” “I do not consent to this search.”  “I wish to have the search conducted by a woman.” And “I would like to speak to an attorney.” 

We also covered what to look for: a count of officers and vehicles, the location and direction of action, the equipment being used, the activity, and to record the entire action.

The last point covered was to Not Spread Rumors. Fact check statements before reposting. This is just good social media practice but reposting something that is not true can cause real harm to people in our community. Stay calm. 

December 14: Be a Patriot

When I was 17, I won a five hundred dollar scholarship from my essay—What is an American? I argued that an American is someone who believes in human rights and freedom and is willing to stand up against authority to defend their rights and the rights of others. The United States was not perfect—it was 1979 and we were in the middle of the Malaise—but we were a work in progress, reaching for the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

I am not sure where I picked up this idea. New Hampshire was not a radical place in the 1970s and my parents, although they questioned authority constantly, where not liberal hippies, but children of the Great Depression and WW II. My U.S. history teacher was very interested in battles and foreign policy; he tolerated my little notes on my quizzes and taught us well, but did not spend any time on social movements. Some of it came from being a throwback musically, as the songs of the late 1960s appealed to me far more that the music I heard on the radio on the bus every morning.  I think some of it came from my love of fantasy and the heroic journey.  But, by the time I wrote that essay, I knew every reference in the Declaration of Independence  and had a pretty solid grasp of the protest movement I had just missed. And, although, I went on to study literature and material culture (food, architecture, clothing) rather than political movements, I still believe in these ideals, that we are, as a country, a work in progress, and that we are constantly striving to become a better place for all of us to live.

I bought a flag this afternoon. It is time to reclaim it. It will be hanging on our porch on significant—to me—dates.

December 16: Take responsibility for the face of the world.

This has been a practice of mine for years. I pick up trash. I toss  used red cups on people’s porches if they do not pick them up after a party. I dig through the trash at school and haul out recyclable and compostable material. So I saved this action for later in the month, when I thought I would need a quick activity. My plan—to return to painting over graffiti on the local mailboxes and electrical boxes in the neighborhood. I mean, even if I agree with it, do we need to see “Fuck ICE” every time we walk down the street? No. I dug out some pale green paint (flay gray is better, but I can’t find any premixed) and surveyed the local spots. Then, the weather changed. Two Atmospheric Rivers converged on the Pacific Northwest. So, it’s not a good day for painting. As soon as it is, though, I am ready.

 

• Be as courageous as you can.

 

December 4: Work Together

I’ve made a few changes—or additions—to the list. Work together is one because I feel like the list is to heavy on individual actions, rather than collective. Together, we can make change. Alone, it is harder.

Last night, I went to a potluck for the Corvallis Sustainability Collation, which has been working on climate education for 19 years. It has been an umbrella organization for dozens of projects and plans in our community and many of the people there have known each other for 20 years. My life has woven in and out of the circle over the years, but it has always been a touchstone of friendship and advocacy. Sitting in the circle last night, I thought of all of the moments when we—people all over the world—have sat in a circle, plates on laps, and worked for change.

December 13: Rituals

This is one of my additions. Rituals ground us in place and community. On Saturday, we are heading to Bald Hill to celebrate Lucia Day with hot cocoa, buns, oranges, a walk, and our friends. It starts at eight AM during the darkest time of the year so it is not for everyone. But people show up, year after year. Ritual ties us together.

 December 20: Believe in the power of community.

For the last 20 days, I have been living within Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. My original plan was to take an action, every day, above and beyond what I already do, that related directly to one of his statements. That proved difficult and the project morphed into a consideration of each statement and what we do on a daily basis to oppose—or support—tyranny in our lives instead. It has provoked some excellent discussions on our walks, so it was a valuable exercise. I recommend it, although, if you want to take action above and beyond, consider what else is happening in our life that month!

But Snyder’s statements and actions are…lonely. They are often Big Picture abstract statements: believe in truth. It is hard to ground them in our lives.

While I was working on this, I listened to three powerful women from our community speak, each from their heart and their work. Each one of them was addressing this same issue: How do we, as human beings in the place and time, stand up to tyranny and fascism? And each had the same answer which is, in some ways, the opposite of Snyder’s. We are not alone. Work together.

Senator Gelser Blouin reminded us that we are a choir, singing together. Sometimes, one person has to hold the note while another takes a breath. It’s ok to both hold the note AND take the breath, she says, because we all need to breathe. We all need to engage and step back. Do both.

Reverend Jen Butler reminded us that we need to come together in community to support the people most in need. It is going to get worse before it gets better and we cannot rely on the government to help us.  All we have is each other.

And, finally, Lorena Reynolds talked about our rights as protesters and citizens. We don’t have to know – or do-- everything in order to step up and do what we can.

So, that is what I am taking away from this season of Advent when I considered the nature of tyranny and resistance. If each of us, every day, steps up in small concrete ways, we will survive. If we don’t we won’t. What world do you all want to live in in 2026 and beyond?

 

Basement shelves

 

                My friend Mark says, in total seriousness, that he moves piles for a living. The idea resonates with me. His piles are big, mostly wood and lumber for work, while mine are smaller—books and papers—but they are rooted in the same trees. And, as winter comes in, I move more piles. Winter stores and outdoor furniture need homes inside out of the rains; our books and laundry both hang out inside rather than out; food precessing tools that lived on the edges all summer need to return to their homes on shelves. Meanwhile, books, leaves, and cats pile up inside.  Ours is not a minimalist, pure white house.  Everything has its place, but it  requires constant pile moving to keep it there.  I have spent years building shelves. Even now, I eye a blank wall, especially in the basement, hopefully. Can I lift up a long board and stack something there, out of the winter flood zone?

                My favorite little shelves hang out half way down the basement stairs. I got the idea from a friend who removed the sheetrock from a wall and built little shelves between the studs to hold his canned roasted tomatoes, all neatly packed in half pint jars.  I don’t want to take plaster off of our walls, but, after we transformed the garage into the dining room, there were exposed studs on the stair side.  One afternoon, I built a bunch of little shelves and filled them with the useful debris of living—cleaning supplies, sidewalk chalk, water bottles, and trash bags. A few days later, I returned to the project on the other wall and added shelves for candle holders and vases, along with a very sturdy bench that I found by the side of the road as a step to the highest shelf. Some hooks for rags and candle wax scraps, and we were good to go. A cleaning station worthy of Martha Stewart!

A few years later, we thought it would be good to bring Mark’s college graduation present into a more useful spot, so we built another series of shelves at the top of the stairs. He used some slats from a futon frame (also found by the side of the road) to create the floor and let them project out over the stairwell. When his father was here that summer, they wired a plug for the microwave and our toaster oven, so that we could pop out of the kitchen door and heat up our lunch or tea.  We hung all of our canvas grocery bags off of the extensions.  I keep several potholders right by the oven and a couple of gnarly old towels that we use to clean up floor spills below them.  On the other wall, I used the metal shelving system with brackets to hold the extra serving bowls and water pitchers, as well as my bean pot and big pasta pot. Underneath are the three bags that hold plastic and recycling.

The back hall is probably full—even a little tight at times. But, because everything is right there, it’s not a big deal to move it back to its rightful place (even if it migrates out again the next day).

               

                 

Rainy Sunday Morning

 The rains have begun. We hung the storm windows, brought in all of the garden art and chairs, made hazelnut pancakes for breakfast, and read the New York Times by the dining room stove while laundry dried around us and the cats napped.  We are not sure we are really ready for the Rainy Season, but it is ready for us.

Back Pain

 

                My back hurts. Right where all of the moving parts come together at the base of the spine. It’s stiff. I can walk and cook dinner, but not bend over or turn to far either way.  I am not really complaining, although it is annoying. It has been worse—a few winters ago, my entire pelvic ring seized up, compressed some nerves and arteries, and took five weeks to settle down. I didn’t sleep through an entire cycle of the moon and could barely walk. This is not that. I am grateful. And I have an appointment already with the woman who undid all of the tightness two years ago on Tuesday.

 But I am wondering, why my back, now?

I’ve had reoccurring pains before. Urinary tract infections that lingered and flared up for four years, until I knocked it out with a nasty sulfa drug that made me so ill I had to leave work in the middle of a Saturday rush.  I lost my voice regularly for years when I first started teaching, once for two weeks.  I’ve had neck pain that made my hands go numb and a weird shoulder clicking that I finally cleared out by lying on the floor and making snow angels over and over. Migraines have knocked me out while back packing  or when I did not get enough sleep.  All of these pains feel related, in some deep way, to stress on that part of the body and all have moved on to bother someone else.  This will, too.  

 But why my back, now?

Is it sitting too much in chairs that are too big for my frame? There was a six hour council meeting last Monday night and then four late afternoon meetings of an hour and a half to two hours each, after several days of conference in Portland.  Am I sitting the wrong way in my chair, where my legs dangle above the floor sometimes?  Was it the grand tug of two huge pieces of black plastic mulch off of the school garden so we could begin to prep the beds for blueberries in the spring?  My book bag banging into my spine? I do not know.  But, as my actions are limited for this week, at least, I’ll be spending some time considering the problem.

What is my back telling me?

 

Portland

          

      When I first moved to Oregon, I lived in Portland. It was a good time for many—the tech industry was booming and food lovers were flocking to town—but I struggled to make ends meet and find affordable housing, several times leaving my cats with a friend and sleeping in my van in the city so that I could get to work on time (5AM some days…). The local papers wrote many articles about the decline in SROs as the old weekly hotels were torn down and replaced by high rise, expensive, apartments for hipsters. Street Roots was starting up; I interviewed for the cook’s job at Sisters of the Road Café; the number of people living on the streets was growing. But the city did not feel unsafe to me.

                One night, I was waiting for the bus on the downtown transit mall. Because I had no money, I had started carrying a loaf of bread from my job at Great Harvest in my backpack.  If someone asked me for money, I gave them the loaf. It had been a long day—I worked for nine hours baking bread then came downtown to teach an adult education GED class in the basement of the Pioneer Place Mall. My timing was off—I just missed the bus.  It was winter but not too cold and not raining.

                A man sidled up to me, holding a sign “Spare Change?  Anything helps.”

                “No,” I said, “but I have a loaf of bread.” I held out the round, whole wheat loaf. He smiled.

                “We thank you,” his next sign read.  As I nodded, he reached into his collar and brought out a white pet rat. We smiled at one another and he slipped off into the night.

                I was in Portland last week for a conference. My room had a beautiful tree right outside the balcony; crows woke me up the first morning, gossiping with one another about local food services. I walked the downtown streets for several hours—it is not a Hellscape. It is not a War Zone. It looks a great deal like it did that night, thirty years ago, when I handed over a loaf of bread to a homeless man and his companion.

 

Bits of the Past

 

                My friend Maureen hunts down old Fine Gardening magazines, reads them over afternoon tea, and then sends them my way. (I send her our New Yorkers.) I got a bunch on Friday afternoon and was poking through one from about 2000. There, in the Northwest section, was an article on Cracked Pots, an arts fair full of garden objects made from recycled materials. One photo caught my eye. The two pieces looked…familiar. Like I had just seen one and helped move the other, back in the day. I looked closer. It was a stool and an insect, both made by my friend Anne Hart. The insect did not sell that day and it now sits on my front steps. Her name was not in the article; I wonder if her work would have sold better if it was.

 

                When I was in grad school in Boston, I had a job at a Jewish bakery in Newton, Massachusetts, where we lived. It was a small place—served coffee to commuters in the morning, bagels and cream cheese to the high school students from down the street at lunch, and loaves of rye and challah to the Jewish mothers who came in during the day. I started in September, right before Rosh Hashanah. Women called all day, ordering bread for the holidays.  “I want three round challies,” they would say, “two plain and one raisin.”  “Challie?” I asked one of the people I worked with. “Challah,” they explained.  All righty, I thought. Challie.

                When I moved to Portland, I called the loaf “challie.” “Challah,” my west coast Jewish roommate corrected me. No pet names here.  Last night, I made a rather huge braided challah with fig paste rolled in for a potluck. My friend Leah, from Brookline—right next door to Newton—reached for a piece. “I want some of the challie,” she smiled.