When I was a girl reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder series (which I adored and devoured, just as I devoured all the Louisa May Alcott I could find), I knew how remote that world was from my own when I read the description of spring cleaning: the beating of rugs, boiling water to wash curtains and bedding, fresh straw (or goose feathers) stuffed into big pillow cases, scrubbing floors and pots, all day long, all done by Ma and the girls, while Jack the dog got underfoot or took the opportunity to chase groundhogs.

Well, such is the composite of many vignettes of cleaning in that 9-book series, shaken down in my memory. A quick online search will lead to many, many LIW links. But here is a brief excerpt of one account of fall (not spring) cleaning, from Little Town on the Prairie:

She [that would be Laura, our Jo-like heroine] had not realized how heavy a quilt is, to lift soaked and dripping from a tub, and to wring out, and to hang on a line. . . . It was amazing, too, how dirty they all got, while cleaning a house that had seemed quite clean. The harder they worked, the dirtier everything became.

The worst day of all was very hot. They had tugged and lugged the straw ticks outdoors, and emptied them and washed them, and when they were dry they had filled them with sweet fresh hay. They had got the bed springs off the bedsteads and leaned them against the walls, and Laura had jammed her finger. Now they were pulling the bedsteads apart.

Here’s my version: “She [that would be me] had not realized how difficult it was to spend several hours crouching while sorting through the dribs and drabs of toy parts, lego pieces, pen parts, stray plastic potatoes, mustaches, lips; dirty girl socks and partly chewed Barbie heels; a missing earring, marbles, Mardi Gras beads, matted grass and dust bunnies the size of fat toads, and so on and so on. It was amazing how sore her arms were and how the brightly colored mounds of thises and thats spread across the floor. In fact, the more junk she sorted, the more junk there was.

“By morning she had discovered seven new muscle regions, her already short nails were frayed and catching on her clothes, and a brown recluse had cleverly burrowed its chops into the tender flesh behind her knee. The good side of this seedy scene was that her leg was so sore that she couldn’t work for another week while it healed (thanks to antibiotics and steroids).”

I think of myself as a hard worker, but this research is getting a little intimidating. Check out this link, which shows “real” pioneer women cleaning, with ongoing references to Ma, Laura, Mary, and the rest of the Ingalls family:
http://www.hoover.archives.gov/LIW/pioneering/pioneering_pepin-chores.html

Finally, here’s what the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes site says about cleaning:

Washing the clothes was probably the hardest chore of the week. First, bucket after bucket of water had to be brought in from the spring or the well to fill a big iron pot on the cook stove. A large supply of wood had to be chopped and ready in the wood box to keep the fire going in the stove, because the water needed to be heated and kept boiling during the washing.

The white things would be washed first, then the colored things, so that the dyes in the colored clothes would not spoil the white ones. The clothes were scrubbed by hand on a ribbed scrubbing board in the washtub with strong homemade soap. After the clothes were scrubbed, they were boiled for about half an hour and stirred constantly with a long stick. They were then lifted out of the hot, soapy water with the stick into another tub, and the water was squeezed out. When all the clothes were washed, the wash water was dumped outside. More buckets of fresh water were hauled into heat on the stove for rinsing the clothes.
When all the clothes were rinsed and wrung out, they were hung up to dry. In summer, they could be hung outside in the sun and fresh air, but in winter, they would have to be hung inside the house, perhaps in the attic or lean-to.……….http://www.discoverlaura.org/discover.html#q43

So back to my starting point, which had something to do with the notion that spring cleaning, while a pain in the neck, back, arms, legs, is a wonderful example of effort well-spent. The house is cleaner! The junk is goner! May we dwell in domestic clarity and peace.

Beautiful portrait of my cigarette-smoking, coffee-loving uncle, by his granddaughter Nicole Payton Vanek

Uncle Bob enjoyed a good laugh, no doubt about it.

Survived by a daughter, three grandchildren, one great grandson, a niece, three grand-nephews, and three great grand-nephews, Robert Hiatt taught us to love the world at hand, to work hard at what we care about, to respect our communities and families, and to treasure words, using them sparingly when appropriate and letting them spill when a story needed telling.

1. My granddaughter calls us over to look at a caterpillar, “Guys, guys, look here. Guys!”
2. An older person chuckles benignly at a couple of colleagues, who are being irreverent, “You guys . . . “
3. The young feminists refer to each other as guys.
4. The dean sends an email when a group of 3 women and 1 man have received a grant, “You guys have done a great job.”

So, what’s a tired feminist who cut her teeth on the first women’s history course at BGSU, back in 1973, to do?

I can, in the interests of education and my own refusal to be silenced, something we are supposed to have learned not to allow (though it will not help my popularity), point out the problem of language to them. My 8-year-old Omni will try to correct, even if changing her words stops the flow of enthusiasm. The older person might respond with a little more edge and say, would you prefer “ladies”? Noo! Please not that! Are these my choices, then, to be a lady or a guy?

I reject both.

The young feminists will likely say, “It’s just a colloquialism,” “We’re reclaiming the word for ourselves,” or “‘gals’ doesn’t have the right tone, and calling each other ‘women’ just sounds presumptuous.”

The dean, depending on which one, will probably ignore the correction, chalking it up to “those politically correct feminists” who think changing a word here or there will actually change the way we think. The nicer ones will say, “thanks, good catch, I’ll do better,” and then then next time we might be “ladies and gentlemen” or “colleagues,” which I prefer, as it offers up the rather pleasant suggestion that we’re in this together, all at the same table.

If you go to google and type in “guys” and then search images, you will find a couple hundred pictures of muscle-rich young men. If you try “guys and gals,” you’ll find a lot of images of butts, some signage for hairdressers, some bands, and a motley crew of young folks with tie-dyed hair and tattoos. But perhaps we should not trust what google has to say.

What’s bothersome with our use of these male-identified words, at least for me, is that packing them around as if they’re not gendered ignores the history of words that were used and still are used to devalue women and keep them in their place. “Ladies” might passably refer to a bridge club of silver-haired matriarchs sitting around someone’s dining room table on a Thursday night (probably drinking tea, though perhaps something stronger, during the last hand). Historically, “ladies” has been supposed to be the female equivalent of “gentlemen,” though not really, in practice, given the depth of our ingrained sexism. For instance, a “gentleman’s agreement” is one built on trust and suggests a transaction of some sort, with some level of economic exchange, whereas a “ladies’ agreement” sounds like a secret code for letting each other know when a bit of lettuce is caught between one’s teeth.

“Ladies of the night” is a polite way of referring to prostitutes, and when a coach wants to get his all-male team revved up, he will likely say, “Come on, ladies, get out there, and give me 50.” Men calling other men girls or women (by any name) is another way of professing their social location as above women’s–it’s one of the best insults, second only to calling each other fags, perhaps (which is, of course, another way of degrading their “man”hood). When women call women men (or guys), it’s more like a compliment. “Way to go, dude!”

But back to “guys,” and why I cringe every time I’m called one or witness a group of strong women calling themselves “guys.” Alice Walker, in her collection of ruminations We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For, comments on the increased use of “guys” for anyone, which I found gratifying, since if Walker doesn’t like it, my students might actually listen to me if I “correct” them while quoting her. Still, she doesn’t delve into it all that much. I think of “guys” as much like “man” to refer to all people. As Susan B. Anthony, in her speech after being arrested for trying to vote, argued about this business of language:

It is urged that the use of the masculine pronouns he, his and him in all the constitutions and laws, is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government and from penalties for the violation of laws. There is no she or her or hers in the tax laws, and this is equally true of all the criminal laws.

In other words, you can’t say out of the one side of your mouth that “he/him/man/guys” refers to all human beings and out the other side that “he/him/man/guys” refers only to those determined to be male. What are we to do when we are told, “All guys go to the right. All girls go to the left”? I am “one of the guys,” so which side do I belong on? I am torn–some of my girlfriends are urging, “Here, here, come over here,” while others who are neither girls or boys or necessarily friends, are urging me over there.

Including women (and children, not to mention numerously other-gendered folks) in the terms of MAN and GUYS, is the best way to exalt men and devalue anyone else. “Man” and “guys” become the normed group to which others are included by virtue of the power of manguy to speak for all of us. It is their interests that determine the nature of the group, WE are just along, willing to be defined by people we are not, and by people who have historically seen it in their best interests to deny US the rights that were common sense and appropriately given to them. I reckon excluding women (and children, not to mention numerously other-gendered folks) from the terms of MAN and GUYS, is only going to happen when the manguys decide that the others don’t really merit inclusion–such as in the vote or property or inheritance or leadership or just plain-old everyday self-determination and expression. As long as we “act” like a guy, we’re welcome . . . once we don’t, their inclusive group is going to suddenly be exclusive, as when “man” meant in Anthony’s day both “men only (white, propertied)” as well as “men, women, and children.”

From here on out, I have decided to refer to any group of male and/or female human beings, at least if being casual is appropriate to the setting, as “gals.” While I would prefer to use “folks,” it does not go very far in making my point, which I’ve decided is the least I can do.

By morning I was feeling pretty chipper, so I went to work and then headed up to Louisville to listen to an interview of Michael Pollan (re his new book, Cooked) by Wendell Berry–more on that in another post. Then the stabbing began again. I went out to the car during the (boring) Q/A and put my leg up. Bactroban cream only works awhile. My friend Leslie drove part of the way home so I could keep the leg up. Went to bed thinking, “it needs rest,” but what it needed was to complain some more, and some more. Finally got up at 2am and went to the kitchen, took another tylenol with codeine, had a glass of wine, and finally crawled back in to bed, and finally to sleep, at 4am, after too many games of Solitaire and Scrabble.

Moral of the story: Don’t let Aunt Nancy bite you!

I was reminded of the nickname by Erika Brady, one of WKU’s fine folklore professors, who responded to my Facebook trauma posts, so this morning I got back on google and low and behold, discovered that one of my favorite novels–one that I’VE published about–Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow, integrates the “Ghanian spider-trickster, Kwaku Ananse,” into the novel and in particular, the characters Joseph Lebert and Aunt Cuney. I wrote about African myths in my article, but did not know about Ananse. I wish I’d had this article (by Shanna Greene Benjamin, “Weaving the Web of Reintegration”) when I wrote my own, back in 1996….but instead of my quoting her, she quotes me (twice). Sweet! Thanks, Shanna Benjamin . . . (if you see this, let me know!) So, if it weren’t for my spider bite, Erika wouldn’t have commented on the dangers of Aunt Nancy, which wouldn’t have sent me off on my little google scavenger hunt, and would therefore have never turned up Benjamin’s article quoting mine! Crafty web-making here!

Here’s the little critter we’re talking about:

Aunt Nancy Brown Recluse

Aunt Nancy, you are strong, but you can’t have me!

A number of confusions seem to come bubbling up from that paragraph, to whit:
–what the hell do I mean by “instructions,” why is it quoted and why did Judge Wilson decide that it was appropriate to leave out the possible sentence of self-defense in his directions to the jury?
–why the hell did the man who killed our son get “Man-2″ rather than Wanton Murder, as he should have, at least in the judgment of Casey’s family?
–why did we bleed, why do we bleed, why did he have to bleed, where is the blood, what is blood, what is death and loss and heartbreak?
–there are certainly more, like what is his life like, the man who shot the gun, and what is prison?
–why did I have to “make myself” take the picture?

But here is the tree, from today:

Casey’s Dogwood Tree

And here is was when we planted it in the cold winter of 2010, 2 1/2 years ago:

The root ball

I can’t get a handle on this post–it’s pulling me this way and that way. There must be 2-3 or 4 or 5 posts here, or one long post that goes into the darkness of tonight . . . so how to pull it together for the post-at-hand….?

What is a tree–even a dogwood–to the loss of a son?

When I pass the tree and the plaque, which I do every day I go to my office, I either notice or don’t notice the dogwood and the plaque. When I do, I say, “Hello, darling, I love you lots,” and sometimes I make the sound of a kiss, such as when we blow a kiss to someone we’re driving away from. . . . When I don’t notice, I suppose my head is down or my gaze akimbo, at any rate, not on him, my thoughts a ways away. For this I am sorry, and I say this too, when I realize that I haven’t been acknowledging him or sending him a conscious thought though I pass this reminder almost daily. That’s when I say, “I love you even when I don’t notice that you’re gone.”

Another great journaler is my friend and colleague Trish, who has been keeping (and keeping) journals since she was a child. She too is a terrific writer, so I am sure that the connection between keeping journals and enhancing the craft of writing is profound. No end of books on “how to” would seem to affirm that. Other reasons for journaling, according to what I hear, include

1. healing
2. finding out who we are, at this time, in this place
3. creating a record for our progeny (who may write term papers using our 20-something drama rambles as primary texts)
4. understanding what’s going on–without writing it down, it may just mish-mash in our minds, knocking into other things, bruising and rising to the surface distorted and betrayed
5. feeling the joy of letters and words flowing from the nib of a pen, magic
6. exercising our creative spirit so it doesn’t languish

I suppose there are more, but that’s what I can think of right now, without consulting google or my bookshelves.

I have a few journals from now and then and I suppose I’ll keep them, but I don’t know why. I’ll never be famous and no tenure-track professor will ever discover them, giddy with excitement, in a box in the archives at Duke.

What I do rather like, at least today, is putting a few pictures and thoughts on this blog. I don’t think I’ll reflect much on the great events of the day–others do that so much better. Like my friend Mike Rivage-Seul http://mikerivageseul.wordpress.com/. What seems somehow worth my effort (in Mike’s words, “things that matter”), much more than sitting in contentious (or even congenial ones, which is actually more accurate for the good place I work) committee meetings where we are dividing scarce resources among projects we care about or trying to figure out how to make “it” work, this project called Education . . . is the noticing of little things going on around me. (and that’s what you call a long-ass sentence)

I think recognizing small features of the day, the place, the mind, and giving them a little nod to show we love them might just be what being 60 means to me.

Me on the Oroso, a tributary of the Amazon, journaling just once

First, the history:
I have been mowing lawns with a riding mower since I was 12 years old, which means I’ve had 48 years of experience so am well qualified to answer all questions about mowing the lawn on a little gas-guzzling, carbon imprinting lawnmower (Cub Cadet and Sears being the machines I’m most familiar with, though I admit to some envy when ours is broke-down and I use our neighbor’s John Deere). . . .

When I mowed the lawn as a 7th grader living in the country outside of Oberlin, Ohio, our house on Peasley Road was surrounded by mother-14 owned acres of woods and meadow. Of these, some number of acres were mine for about 6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the spring and summer. That’s an estimate, but I suspect my mother sighed a big breath of relief when her little drama-hungry girl settled down on her ride-n-cut for the day. I mowed in South Amherst (where Peasley Road is officially) until I graduated from high school in, well, go Falcons! Suffice it to say the Stones were showing some sympathy and the Beatles were just on the brink of drugs and all you nead is love and Lucy in the sky, you get the picture. But as a 7th grader, I was probably listening to “To Sir, With Love” and the Turtles’ “I think we’re alone now”….you get the idea.

And indeed I was. But as an only-child, I was most of the time not interested in more time alone. When I was not mowing, I wanted to be WITH MY FRIENDS…my neighbor Judy Dohanes and her cousin Nancy Callier, Teresa Sivinski, Ruthann Bechtel, girls who lived in their own country worlds. But when I threw my leg over my trusty steed and turned the key, I was okay with alonedom, and even loved the time to mull over and meditate what was most assuredly some serious stuff.

That was the beginning, and it is to those years that I return when I clambor on board now and mow our 1.4 or so acres. This is the season when once a week is almost not enough, before the droughts set in. But to the point of this post. I like to mow because:

1. I have to be alone. It is too loud, this mower, for me to both mow and converse, so go away. I am meditating.
2. Every round releases the smell of fresh-cut grass laced with wild onion and garlic.
3. I see the lawn in new ways–or rather, I see trees and bushes in passing but with the attention required not to mow them down. I would never have seen these worms if I hadn’t been riding beneath them:

Apple blossom with invading (I think) catepillars

Leah pauses . . . with azaleas

Leah’s picture: who wins the silver contest?

Purply pink azalea

Largely pink lilac….

Naturally, as soon as my 4- and 8-year-old granddaughters see me out and about with my camera, they’re done with whatever was once so important and are with me holding our subjects still and prying my fingers loose so they can take their own shots. Here’s one of Omni’s close-ups–a nice curly cue grape vine, dried and hanging from our also dried and slightly crumbly swing…

We had a heck of a time getting this blowsy dandelion to hold still enough in the light breeze. We propped the macro lens on our garden gate and took turns holding the green stem. Team work!

Dandelion poof before the wind took its little seedlings away

I think maybe it’s not nosiness but delight in the secrets of this amazing world we have, right there in our own backyards. Even an ugly back yard retreats if there’s one nice flower or curly cue to hone in on. Maybe if we look a little closer at the simple things at hand we will learn what it takes to appreciate the more complicated whole.

Last night I went up to Berea, where we lived from 1986-1991, to see my good friends Keila, Barbara, and Peggy. Dorothy joined us for dinner, but the over-night was just the four of us. It was in Berea that I found my first real job–real in the sense that it and I fit each other, grew and evolved into each other–it’s the job that taught me that teaching in a college or university was the best place for me to do whatever worthwhile thing I might be able to do, and that the doctorate was my ticket. It’s the place where our two oldest boys grew from 2 and 3 to the ripe old age of 7 and 8 (don’t worry about the math) and our youngest boy Casey was born, in 1987.

I found my best friends there, a new consciousness, community, love. I wrote a couple of poems that I’m still rather fond of, and one of which is about these boys and this growing, shedding old skin and learning to move in the new body. So I’ll share a part of “Cicada” here:

—
This transformation takes seven years, they say.
Right now my oldest heads down the homestretch
to his seventh birthday
and I wonder what’s in store for him,
what growing pains first grade will bring.
Seven years ago I began a marriage,
took it upon myself to offer the world two lives,
ended the marriage began another,
ended a job and began anew,
offered the world another life,
said, “Here, I trust you to care for these
they are mine I would not have them destroyed.”

Already I feel an itching at my shoulder blades
where I can’t quite reach the scaly skin
though I can just make out the v-shape through the steam
where my rubbing in the bathroom mirror
has left a filmy reflection.
Any day now I shall lay myself down
pull my body into its tightening shell,
trusting the stillness to remain free
from inquisitive hands
so I can let these wings unfold and dry
before I leap into that startling void.

I hope I will soar. I hope I will sing.
I hope I will meet up with other cicadas,
our wings a crackling testament to our joy.

But that’s not what I started this post about, though there may be a connection. I wanted to say something about friendship, the deep knowing we four friends share—about our frailties, our strengths, our histories. How the four of us want to grasp this thing we’ve got and honor it until we can no more. All of us professors, world travelers, authors, activists, one a Fullbright Scholar, 3 of us mothers and grandmothers, one an Episcopal priest now, two of us survivors of dead sons and a hundred other heartbreaks. Two still live in that town where we met and found each other (one lives in the country outside of town), the third lives now about 30 minutes away, and me, the furthest off, but still here in Kentucky, just a couple of hours down the Cumberland Parkway–I’ve contemplated chewing my fingers off in committee meetings as long as it took me to drive from here to there, a ride that gives you a series of hills touched by green and flowering trees and enough time to listen to a CD or two. On the way there, your mind rehashes the business of work till you shake it off finally. But on the way back you think how you are going to make your home a little better, having shared 15 hours with your friends and seeing, remembering them, yourself, listening, laughing. All the angst and frustration of work are just tempests in cracked teapots compared to what that kind of friendship means.

So here they are, my beautiful friends…..Keila, Barbara, Peggy . . .

Keila Thomas listening to Peggy

Barbara, listening to Peggy (she’s interesting)

Peggy, listening to Barbara (she’s interesting too)[/caption]

And the four of us . . . Sweet!

Peggy, me, Barbara, Keila

Purple Dead Nettle, responds to a rainy day, while rain-dropped kale stands unpurturbed

Here’s another shot (okay, I’m learning how to use photoshop on my raw images–does it look new?), which you can compare with my truly “new” kale (below if I can find it and not if I can’t) that I planted in early spring last year, and which was so beautiful, but did not survive the bugs that gobbled the leaves up, seemingly overnight:

My old kale in new spring

Now, all that said about new kale, old kale and Dead Nettle (a good thing), Purple, I’ve also just learned that it works well in a smoothie….well, coincidences upon co-incidents! Just this weekend I finally threw the over-ripe bananas I had in the freezer, with some store-bought frozen strawberries (probably not NGO), some vanilla yogurt, and 1/4 cup of orange juice. Voila! A smoothie to write home about. And if you’re writing home to Dharamsala, to your Tibetan friends, make that a Goji….even better.

Here’s what I learned about the purple nettle, from the wonderful “First Ways: urban foraging and other adventures” Blog: http://firstways.com/2011/02/17/purple-dead-nettle-a-weed-good-to-eat/

That is Lamium purpureum, a mint family plant known as purple dead nettle. You may wonder: Why eat it? Because it is said to be high in a number of nutrients including antioxidants, those cancer-busting compounds we can all use more of! I have been into putting it in my smoothies ever since I read this piece by a Tennessee homesteader. I blend it because the fuzzy texture and bland, grassy flavor does not make for awesome eating as a whole plant. (That said, with a little creativity, anything is possible.)

So I picked some Dead Nettle (a la purpella), ran to the store for above ingredients, or as close as I could get, and threw them into the blender….was it better than my original Goji? See for yourself!

First, the ingredients, then the pouring of the libations….I can’t show you how good it tastes. I put in all the Pupolis Deadus Nettalis (Lamium purpureum to be fair) that you see in the picture, two bananas, a bunch of strawberries (8?), some juice, and half the yogurt….

5 ingredients, that’s all!

Thick, lucsious smoothie with Purple Dead Nettle, minty!

So, here’s the site map:

begin with picture of kale you didn’t know you had growing because you’re only just now venturing out of your house and into the spring…..

get mildly curious about the purply weed taking over, almost thatching your treasured kale, curious enough to see what google says (take a photo or two)

discover that someone EATS THE STUFF

run to the store (in your car), come home, compile ingredients, more photos (for evidence)

drink (and share)
–
This is how you go from a long day at work home and make a little sense of your day….ahhhh.