Land, Holt!

Weird things occasionally come to mind when I’m on my morning walks.  Once, I imagined an animal family living in an unoccupied house on M Street, right down to an elderly squirrel reading the paper by lamp. Another time, I saw Christmas ornaments covering a bare tree.  And more than once, I’ve imagined the razor-thin outline of a new moon as God’s toenail clipping.  

Yeah, I know.

On a recent Sunday morning, under a noisy sky of freezing rain, I started to think of my body as a microhabitat and me as its land manager.  And it kind of made sense.

Think about it.  Our guts are home to trillions of microorganisms, harboring 500 species of flora, and that’s before I sit down with a skunky German beer.  While it’s not always fun living with all those microorganisms, it is thrilling to imagine the wild west atmosphere down there--tiny gunfights and feuds, sultry affairs and children born out of wedlock, and all of it happening just behind my belly button! 

This time of year, despite my better senses, I invariably ponder the need for a new sheriff in my town.  Someone who is more disciplined, a person less prone than me to sugar-coated cereals with plastic prizes crammed halfway down their cardboard maws. 

My land, after all, has expanded a bit, while my eyes aren’t as sharp as they once were.  And, despite notching 56 years on this earth, I don’t think I’ve become even slightly more discerning than I was when I was a 13-year-old kid obsessed with Space Food Sticks.

What do I do, then, with this land of mine?  Where do I put up fences to slow the erosive power of wayward winds?  How do I encourage the wetlands to take hold once again?  

As a land manager, I’m constantly pressured to find a balance between doctor-ordered pesticides and my more organic tracts, to say nothing of outside pressure to expand ecotourism opportunities.  I know, for instance, that I should clear the underbrush from my overgrown trails, but it’s so cold outside and I’m not good working hunched over for long periods of time.  Just typing this makes me verklempt. 

I’ve got all those microorganisms to consider, though.  They depend upon me to seek balance, to set aside and till in the proper proportions.  They need me to embrace diversity while keeping a wary eye on introduced species.

It is a massive job, managing one’s land.  And I’ll do it best only if I learn to love it completely--a hard task for a not-quite post-modern woman. 

So here’s to a new year of tending to me.  To embracing my biomes--from tundra to taiga, temperate forest to desert lands.  To loving my neighbors inside and outside my gut and learning, along the way, how to better tend to this greater world, as well.

I Never Imagined. . .

"I never imagined . . . . "

How many times this year have my sentences started with those three words?  Well, basically, every morning that I picked up the newspaper. 

Who could have imagined all these dunderheaded politicians, the endless parade of  piggish men, such evil and rampant greed?  Who could have imagined so much rain, such horrendous fires, so many idiots drawing imaginary lines in the sand, as though this beautiful, precious life were some kind of a spitting contest?

Honestly, who could've imagined this world right now--at once aflame and under water? 

And yet . . . . 

. . . who could have imagined 8 million people from 81 countries walking out of their homes on Jan. 21 to gather with strangers in protest?

. . . who could have imagined 13,000 women expressing an interest in running for office?

. . . who could've imagined six transgendered Americans winning political seats this November?

. . . . who could've imagined Alabama voters--many of them black--saying "enough" to white men behaving badly?

. . . And, while it required no imagination among women to explain the tidal wave of #metoo moments, who'd have imagined the swiftness with which that testosteroned tide has begun to turn?

In my own small life, who could have imagined I would march for women and immigrants and science and education and aquifers?  Who could have imagined I would call and write and email Congressmen?  Who could have imagined I would wait 8 hours to talk with the Education Committee about charter schools?

When my tired and beaten imagination began failing me this year, it was in facts and faces, courageous stories and stunning push backs that I found myself once again imagining something new.  Something better than this.

As for the future?  I imagine a long-overdue revolution, much of it led by women.

I imagine that won't sit well with some . . . .

Food For Thought

About a dozen years ago, Thanksgiving supplanted Fourth of July as my favorite holiday.  And that says a lot about the November event, considering I used to tap into the kids' college funds, come July 3rd.  

(Did you know that it's possible to flip a Burley filled with a young child, if you are riding your bike furiously enough towards the fireworks stand at Hinky Dinky?  I am not proud that I know this.)

Yeah, I needed a new favorite holiday, and, aside from Flag Day, I can't think of another that is more basic than Thanksgiving--cook, eat, nap, repeat.  Like shampooing, only more delicious.

Still, for about five minutes Monday, I cursed the holiday.  Four days and four iterations later,  I wasn't sure I could do the same bird, seventh verse, a little bit fatter, a little bit worse.  And yet, at lunch that day, I bemoaned the end of our beautiful brined bird, the last slivers of its savory breast tucked between two slices of bread, transfigured by a dollop of sriracha mayo.

Bird aside, though, what's best about Thanksgiving is eating with people I love.  And therein is the real lesson: if we are going to survive, we need to eat with people--at every moment possible.

If you have never worked in school, then you don't understand the importance of lunch in a work-free staff lounge.  It is a place to gather--gallows humor and silliness in hand--where our motley crew can take a breather, break some bread and say some stupid things, often without reference to the work day itself.

In that most magical space known as the East High lounge, I have peed myself--happily--because of something funny someone said.  There, during my 30-minute duty-free lunches, I have made prank phone calls, learned about fat quarters (look 'em up!), giggled at a corny pun and been moved by an original poem that my friend Linda wrote the weekend before.

Staff lounges and my dining room aren't the only spaces where we can be transformed, of course.

Just last night, in my neighbor Lisa's lovely home, several of us gathered to eat and drink and laugh and bemoan the things that break us.  We also celebrated the things that we have in common.  And all of it was framed with food.  . . . and maybe a little alcohol, if I'm honest.

Always, it seems, where food is present, there is laughter and love and coming together.  Maybe, then, the thing our country needs most right now is a plate of nachos and an open door, a place where we can gather and be glad for those who are in the room with us, framed in a glorious outline of dripping cheese and jalapenos.