People, on MLK Day

I used to believe I was colorblind.  What that meant, to me, was that I thought I could judge people, in the words of Dr. King, not on the basis of the "color of their skin but on the content of their character[s]."  And maybe I was (though I know better now, I have my own biases that I work to overcome); but maybe--more likely--I was just blind, not so much to injustice (easy to point fingers), but to my own role in perpetuating it by imagining that standards created by a dominant group could be race-neutral.

Now, I think we need to see the difference that we have been taught to (or become accustomed to) un-see, to acknowledge the difference that difference has made, and decide to throw away the glasses that cloud our vision, whitewashing everything.  We need to question what we think we know, about the world and about ourselves.  My eloquent friend Noah (who can riff in words as well as he can in music) wrote something along these lines last year, when he challenged us to be more self-reflective, to ask ourselves, every day, in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, "are you sure?"

A few years ago, my son was gifted a hand-me-down book entitled, simply, People.  It's a beautifully written and illustrated book, originally published in the 1980s (in many ways a product of its time) that describes the astonishing diversity of humanity on all four continents, and touches on issues like poverty and racism and body image (even body modification) in a way that isn't moralizing, but that opens the door for questions and conversation.  Who are human beings? What are they like? Where do they live, how do they communicate, what games do they play? How are people different, and how are they the same? What can we learn from each other? Why should we respect -- and celebrate -- difference?

And while there are sections of the book that feel like a dated "salad"-style multicultural curriculum, or some pages that replicate cultural stereotypes, there are others that talk about the ways in which we create artificial power structures that don't, in the end, protect us from all experiencing the same fate: death.

My daughter chose this book as her bedtime story last night, and as I read, admiring the artwork and the book's matter-of-factness, I found myself wondering how her reading of People might be different with her own children.  Whether she would look at the pages about diversity of employment and think about the white man in the grocery store, complaining that black people get and keep jobs just because they're black (with whom she'd gently disagreed, pointing out the roots of urban poverty in slavery and industrialization, asking him why he thinks people in power shouldn't do something about the mistakes that we've made as a nation). Whether she would look at the pages about poverty and remind herself that all of the people in the poorly maintained apartment complexes at the other end of town are nonwhite.  Whether she would read the pages about diversity of religion and think about a world that turns away migrant women and children from war-torn countries.

Or whether she would be reading that book to a child in a country that continues to ask itself "are you sure?" ... that faces its unsavory past, has been brave enough to tell more complicated stories, recognized institutional biases, overcome fears of each other, and found a way to move forward, to promote peace and justice.

#Microblog Monday: On My Sleeves

I never used to wear dresses, preferring instead the pantsuit approach, but when I started working at my current place of employment, I did what people usually do: I started dressing like other people who worked there, hoping to fit in.

Unfortunately, I'm down to two dresses in my closet, so it was time to find another.  I scoured the consignment stores, my local box stores, and the internet.

But have you noticed?  If you live in the Northeastern U.S., someone has decided that women don't need winter wear this year.

Dresses are 3/4 sleeve tunics, only halfway down the leg, presumably to be worn with leggings, but really, not.  Or they're short sleeve or sleeveless affairs, to be worn (I'm assuming?) with a light sweater.

I confess, I'm confused.  Why are women expected to wear less clothing in the winter?  What would happen, I wonder, if we decided that men had to go sleeveless in January?

The Thin Line: Activism, Voyeurism, and Consuming Lives Online

(Cross-posted at BlogHer.com)

The other day, my news feed was full of that story.  You know which one.  The story about the black girl who was brutally dragged from desk in a high school classroom by a white uniformed police officer after refusing to get off her cell phone and leave the classroom.

I'd seen the story the previous afternoon, but I didn't want to play the clip; I knew what I'd see, and I didn't want to watch another black girl's body be treated like it wasn't even human. Part of me wondered if I had a responsibility to watch, to bear witness, to know that my privilege makes this inhumanity possible.  And then part of me thought about how I would feel if that had been my daughter, knowing that it would likely never have been my daughter (because she is white), and it made my stomach churn.

I finally ended up watching it, but not until I'd thought a lot about my role as a viewer.  I've written before about my mixed feelings towards hashtag activism: how it can become a throwaway, even with the best intentions.  And now, I realize there's something else that troubles me about the way in which we produce and consume activism on social media: it can be awfully voyeuristic.

Social media is a powerful tool for activism.  But if all we do is watch, and share, it can become a twisted form of entertainment, like rubbernecking at a car wreck.  Important images that bear witness to injustice can be diminished without deep thought, and context, and action.

An article in the New Yorker last week offered some interesting (though perhaps hardly surprising) data about bullying and bystanding online: that not only is bullying harder to escape in virtual spaces (because you can't physically walk away), but that bystanders act less often in defense of the bullied, for a variety of reasons, including: the victim is dehumanized by our computer screens, adults imagine that their comments as justified outrage instead of the kind of harassment they imagine perpetrated by children.  I wonder if similar principles are at work when we share images of people being bullied.  How does that complicate our role in the act?

Last week, I happened across an another article on social-media-as-virtual Colosseum, which argues that the vicious infighting among social activists online (which is partly designed to increase one's reach) replicates oppression:

When oppressed people watch or participate in destructive behavior toward one another in the name of social justice, in some way our values, and perhaps our pain, feel reaffirmed. We want to believe we are doing something powerful by adding our voices to already fraught conversations, and in fact we are; but at times it less the reestablishment of justice and more the reactivation of oppressive power dynamics.

Author Frank Castro explains that upvoting, doxxing, etc. -- the kinds of things we do as participant hashtag activists -- is, in the end, counterproductive to the cause.

I think something similar happens in the consumption of images and videos produced in support of social (in this case racial) justice.  And I don't think it's race-neutral.  Because aside from the fact that this never would have happened to a white girl, I don't think we would have filmed a white girl being treated this way, and I don't think it would have gone viral even if we had.  Black bodies are objects of consumption in a way that white bodies aren't.  Like siding with infighting activists, this becomes a spectator sport, reactivating the power dynamics that create the situation in the first place.  We have the privilege of viewing, knowing that many of us are safe behind computer screens.

I don't think that we should stop sharing disturbing stories.  We need those stories to be told.  But I do think that we should be more thoughtful about how we share media, understanding that what we're seeing isn't just a movie, that consuming media gives us power, and that we should wield that power carefully, in the service of justice.

Thank You: A Parent-to-Parent Love Letter

Dear Stay-At-Home-Parent,

I'm tired of the barbs I see thrown from either side.  And today, I wanted to write to say thank you for being who and where you are.

I wanted to say thank you for helping to run the PTO whose meetings I can never attend, but whose fundraisers I consistently support.  I wanted to say thank you for volunteering to be the class mom and organizing the parties to which I can send fruit platters, and from which my children bring home crafts and holiday themed pencils that they cherish.  I wanted to thank you for volunteering in the library, for organizing the Scholastic Book Fair and making sure there's a family night I can attend, for chaperoning school trips that I can't.

I wanted to say thank you for helping to get my daughter to dance class because I would never be able to pick her up from school before aftercare is over, so she'd never get to dance, which is her heart's desire, and part of what she loves best about dance class is attending it with friends like your daughter.  I wanted to say thank you for picking her up from school on the days when I know I can't get to aftercare on time, because she is learning that is takes a village to raise a child, and that she can trust lots of adults, not just me.

I wanted to say thank you for being a role model for children who can choose to become stay at home parents some day, if their finances permit, just as I am a role model for your daughter, who may choose to work outside the home.

Maybe there are times I envy you, but I also know myself well enough to know that I am where I need to be, and you are where you need to be, and maybe it would be helpful if every once in a while we were just grateful instead.

Love,
Working-Outside-The-Home-Mom

(It's Not About the) Costume

On Thursday, I signed N. up for dance class.  She has been begging me to find a class for her for almost two years now, since we had to leave the "mommy and me" dance class we attended briefly when I returned to work.  She has collected hand-me-down tights and leotards and ballet slippers and tutus of all colors and persuasions, and can often be found flouncing around the house in one or the other of them, alternately performing something like "Waltz of the Flowers" and "Flashdance." When one of her friends' mothers wrote to me and offered to take N. to class along with her own daughter this year, I felt like the universe had just laid me a golden egg.

Truth be told, I'm excited about this, too. I have fond memories of my own dance school (when I'm not thinking about the clique of girls who terrorized me for being pudgy or awkward or bookish or not going to school in town), and this one is just like it: old school, no monitors to watch the class while you wait for your child, twice a year parent observations, black short-sleeved leotards and pink tights ONLY, please (of course, not in our hand-me-down pile), and seriousness about the study of the art.  I wish I could go, too; my body aches for that kind of movement sometimes.

My daughter is also excited.  I keep reminding her, because she really is a little fashionista sometimes, that it's not about the tutus, that it's really about the dance, about becoming an athlete, about learning a whole new language.  She seems to understand; I hope she understands.

***

For part of our honeymoon, my husband and I took a bike trip through Umbria.  The trip consisted of  a series of 30-40 mile rides through some spectacular countryside, with stops at wineries and fabulous restaurants, supported by a van that would bring you snacks and carry luggage (and you, if the need arose).  I remember being worried, upon our arrival in Perugia, that we were about to be upstaged by expert riders. That we weren't prepared for this.  And when I saw the other family get off the train with their own bikes with clip-on pedals, bags of gear, and their own personalized helmets, I nearly cried and gave up before we even got started.  But we pretty quickly realized that it was they who were outclassed; that they'd probably bought half of that stuff the week before their trip, which was why it was all so pristine.  By day two, one of the four were riding in the support van, one of them was biking alone miles behind us, and the two teenagers had lost the route (presumably on purpose, so they could make out with each other uninterrupted).

It was an important lesson, though one I find myself re-learning with embarrassing frequency.  It's not about the costume.

***

It goes for writing, too, doesn't it?  It doesn't matter if you have sharpened pencils, or if you've mastered the art of post promotion through social media.  It's not even about being published, or having been published.  The writers are the ones who are writing, practicing their craft.  What matters is that you put your fingers to the keyboard, and come as you are.

Not There: On International Women's Day

Maybe I'd been living under a rock, but I'm pretty certain that the first time I heard about International Women's Day in my 30s, I thought it was an Australian thing.

No one had ever celebrated International Women's Day in my house when I was growing up, nor did anyone mention it in school.  Sure, we had Women's History Month, during which there was some discussion of Florence Nightengale and Marie Curie and Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (eventually Sally Ride made it into the top 10, too, and we had Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks for "color" when someone finally realized that our version of Women's History Month wasn't exactly inclusive).

Even now, despite the social media campaign, it doesn't seem to me that we celebrate International Women's Day in the U.S. in as public a way as some other countries do.  Which is really too bad, considering what a mess of a holiday Mother's Day has become.  Socialist origins aside, IWD is an important opportunity to remember that we still have a lot of work to do, at home and abroad.

Like: for all of our demands to #BringBackOurGirls, there are still 230 missing.  If we really felt that they were "ours," why has our outrage or willingness to act subsided?  Like: the recently banned documentary about sexual violence in India, which is now available, thanks to the BBC.  If we don't live that experience, what do we do with information like that, beyond being voyeurs, safe behind computer screens?  Like: a recent U.N. report found that 70% of the poor are women, that one in three women is a victim of sexual or physical violence and the majority of rapes are either never reported or under-punished and that statistics are even worse for women of color, who are disproportionally victims of sexual violence, more often at the hand of white males.  What are we doing about this?  Even the U.S., seen internationally as a leader in gender equality, ranks 17th in the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report, and in many states, our reproductive rights are under attack.

Want to celebrate Interational Women's Day?  Here are a few suggestions:

• Be a local activist.  Are there women in your community who are abused, who don't have enough to eat?  Find a women's shelter.  A women's support network.  Don't just write a check.  Listen to the stories of a diverse group of women.  Understand that inequality and abuse are not a third world problem.
• Speak up for women you see being harassed.  Microaggressions happen everywhere.
• Mentor another woman. Do you have a talent to share?  A network?  Are you an entrepreneur?  Help another woman to start a business, get a (better) job, get a (better) education.
• Celebrate women who call out injustices.
• Be an activist on a broader scale, domestically or internationally.  Write to your policymakers about "women's issues," and help them to realize that women's issues are everyone's issues. Beyond the personal effects of trauma, violence against women, lack of adequate child care, poor health care for women, and other issues traditionally seen as "women's issues" have a huge impact on international economies.
• Celebrate the diversity of women's experiences.  Know that not all women are mothers.  Realize that well-intentioned and brave as it was, Patricia Arquette's Oscar acceptance comments about women fell short.  Recognize and own privilege, and realize when the dominant narrative is merely that: dominant, not all-inclusive.  See out other perspectives.  Support other ways of being woman in the world.
• And celebrate the women in your life who have helped you to become the person you are.
• Follow the 31 day action calendar at http://notthere.noceilings.org/ to find one thing you can do each day in March.  Create a habit of gender mindfulness.

What did you do for International Women's Day?

Why I Will Never Invite Cinderella to My Daughter's Birthday Party

(cross-posted at BlogHer.com)

My daughter is not a feminist.  She is an almost-three-year-old tornado whose favorite color is blue, but who enjoys dressing in pink and purple tuille and dancing around, proclaiming, "I'm a PRINcess!"

To which I respond, invariably: "You are always a princess, because you're smart, and beautiful, and kind."  (Or some drek-y thing along those lines.)

Because, really, what else can you say that is uncomplicated enough for a well-indoctrinated three year old girl to understand?

We don't have TV in my house.  She doesn't watch many movies, and most of the ones she's seen involve Dora or Kai-Lan.  We've dressed her in hand-me-downs since birth, sifting through the piles to find the items of clothing that are most innocuous (no leopard print spandex. thanks).  Still, she has more shoes than Emelda Marcos (well, at least more shoes than I do), a closet full of clothing (of which only three or four outfits are acceptable), and a fondness for Disney.  She has to function on a preschool playground, and princess knowledge is playground currency.  My daughter is savvy; it's not surprising that she picked up and now uses the currency she needs.

Understandably, she was interested to learn that her friend would be having a birthday party at which Cinderella was going to make an appearance.

We arrived at the party, she dressed in a frilly purple number from her dress-up box.  Her friend, dressed in a blue Cinderella ball gown, hugged her fondly and ushered her into the basement.  And for a while, it was a standard happy pre-K party, with a small bouncy house in the basement, and a minature trampoline, and kids running amok.

via flickr Creative Commons
from user BalloonLady

Until Cinderella arrived.

N's friend, who had previously been animated and talkative, stood dumbstruck, her little eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.  Cinderella proceeded to make much of her, then invited the kids to come forward for "makeup" (face painting), informing them that "princesses need makeup."  I restrained myself, thankful that my daughter didn't want any, despite everyone's encouragement.  "It's ok," I reassured her. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

Then, there were lessons in waving in curtseying, and twirling around to "show off your dress" for the girls (yes, seriously), while there were lessons in bowing, showing off your muscles, and a primal yell of "charge!" for the boys.  For the whole group, there was a story about Cinderella going to visit a girls' boarding school, where she was going to choose one lucky girl to be a princess for a day.  And finally, a coronation ceremony, with sequined tiaras for the girls, and full crowns for the boys.

To say that I was grateful to see Cinderella go would be an understatement.  After we paraded upstairs to eat pizza (which my daughter would not eat, because she thinks pizza is "yuck"), and cake (which she also would not eat, because she doesn't like cake, which makes me wonder sometimes if we're really related), and strawberries (which she devoured), we took our leave, too.  And when I asked my daughter what she liked most about the party later, she told me, matter-of-factly, to my relief: "the strawberries."

I will not be inviting Cinderella to my daughter's birthday party.  I'm not anti-Disney; I think that princess play can be fun.  I played my share of "princess" in my youth; usually there were three of us, and the unlucky one with the short straw got to be the wicked witch who lived in the woods, and who was vanquished through our magical powers.

But that's just it.  We weren't playing a princess game in which makeup and dresses and waving and curtseying were important.  We played at a game that involved establishing, and tapping, our own powers, not relying on a fairy godmother and a dress to get us into a ball where we can show up the ugly (and admittedly, unkind) stepsisters.    So when I see things like yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education article on how women's leadership in academe remains largely unchanged, and yesterday's article in Nature about gender disparities in science, and Monday's NPR commentary on how women's representation on corporate boards remains unchanged, I start to wonder where, as a nation, we are going wrong.

~~~

As princesses in the woods of my neighbor's back yard, we were not playing in a male-dominated world.  We were playing in our world, by our rules.  And now, we're not playing there any more.  As adults, we continue to create a world that is not equal.  The same people who are encouraging Cinderella to be our daughters' first idol may not realize that they are perpetuating a culture that places the U.S. 23rd in the Global Gender Gap rankings.  It may surprise those people to learn that the U.S. ranks 60th–below India, China, and Uganda–in terms of political empowerment, and that U.S. women also still struggle with a significant wage gap, making an average of 77 cents to every dollar that men make, that African-American women make an average of 64 cents to a man’s dollar, and that Latina women make 55 cents.

I continue to be frustrated by what I read.  I know one thing for sure, which I've written here before: leaning in isn't enough.  We can and should raise daughters (and sons) who can speak up for themselves, who are willing to make choices, who have high aspirations.  We can't send them mixed messages about what we value, and we have to believe what we tell them, modeling it for them ourselves.  But we also need to change the adult world we're preparing them for, because we can't expect them to change it for us.

What will your first step be?

The In Between: Kale with Chard, and Day of the Dead

Our last CSA pickup for the season was last Friday, and so this week was the first in many months that I had to plan a menu that didn't involve kale, chard, or tomatoes.  I don't tend to can or freeze our share, so there was something wistful about eating the last local-farm-sourced meal of the season, as much as it's freeing to have the entire supermarket open to me again.  Watching the fields turn brown and white is like watching a loved one die, and yet, after eating so much green for so many months, I start to crave things that are brown and white, the root vegetables of winter.

I've always loved this time of year, though, this in-between when it feels like the door to another world is open, when death and life collide.  We more or less suck at dealing with death in this country, in my experience; death is something we don't like to talk about, something we distance from our own lives, something to be feared.  These silences make grieving more difficult, not to mention significantly limiting our experience of being human.  Other cultures cope with death and dying much more effectively by making it part of life, particularly during this season of the year: the Celtic holiday of Samhain both celebrates the end of the harvest season and welcomes the souls of the dead, who were beckoned to attend feasts where a place was set at the table for them. The three-day long celebration of El Día de los Muertos, likewise, sets aside a specific day at the end of the traditional harvest period to remember lost friends and loved ones.  The only thing we have that comes even close to honoring this liminality is Halloween, and we're too busy gorging ourselves on candy to really appreciate it.

My daughter asked me what I was going to be for Halloween this year, and--not wanting to do one of the usual ghost/zombie/vampire affairs--after giving it a lot of thought (not to mention spending a lot of time admiring the creative costume ideas at Take Back Halloween), I decided that if I needed to dress up, I would be Frida Kahlo, the feminist Mexican artist famous for her self-portraits.

Kahlo lived on the boundaries.  A victim of childhood polio that left her with legs two different lengths, and a bus accident during her teenage years that resulted in life long pain, multiple operations on an injured pelvis, and multiple miscarriages, she also pushed the limits of traditional gender norms, smoking, drinking, and having bisexual extramarital affairs. After several years living in what she referred to as "Gringoland" with her husband Diego Rivera, with whom her relationship was complicated at best, she painted a self-portrait in which she stands between Mexico and the United States, herself a physical boundary (or bridge) between indigenous culture and technology, natural resources and industrialization.

While I don't identify with Kahlo as I did once long ago with Jane Eyre, I appreciate her embrace of the space between, her strength and resilience, her joie d'vivre, even given her difficult life.  A few days before her death, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return — Frida".   Kahlo accept and embraced her fragility, and still did her best to live a life and produce art that suggested her power and serenity as a woman in the world, living courageously into a future that is unknown. And perhaps, at this time of year, that's the most we can hope for.

Do you celebrate a holiday that remembers lost loved ones?  What's your experience of this particular kind of in-between-ness?

Spiced Squash and Chard with Walnuts
This was I did with the last of our CSA produce of the year.  Not quite salad, 

not quite side dish, not quite root vegetable or leafy green, it lives somewhere in the in-between, too.

1 medium acorn squash
1 bunch of swiss chard, ribs removed and chopped, leaves chopped separately
2 T. olive oil
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
2 t. cardamom
3/4 c. chopped toasted walnuts

2 T. orange juice (preferably fresh squeezed)
3 T. local honey
2 T. apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. oil grapeseed oil
1/2 t. apple pie spice
1/8 t. ginger
1/4 t. salt

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Slice, peel, and cube the acorn squash. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and cardamom. Roast in a single layer for 30-35 minutes, flipping once half-way through.

While your squash is roasting, shake together the orange juice, vinegar, oil, apple pie spice, ginger, honey, and salt in a jar.

When the squash is done, move to a skillet  over medium heat and add the the chard, continuing to stir until wilted. Chop and toast the walnuts; you can toss them into the same roasting pan you've just emptied, and put them back in the oven for just a few minutes (check every two minutes or so to make sure they're not burning).

Add your walnuts after 3-4 minutes.

Toss the warm chardwith 1/4 c. of the vinaigrette. Enjoy immediately or at room temperature.

Jane Eyre, Feminism, the Gothic, and Cardamom Scones

I was eleven.  My aunt and uncle, in a moment of uncharacteristic attentiveness to my interests, had bought me a copy of Jane Eyre for my birthday; the 500-and-some-page Illustrated Junior Library edition, it boasted a full color hard cover and plastic dust jacket.  Though I remember my mother saying something about the fact that I was probably a bit too young for Jane Eyre, there was something special about that book from the beginning, about the thickness of the pages, the tantalizing illustration on the cover, its sheer weightiness.  My first real literature, perhaps.  And though I struggled a bit with the tangled language and the length of the sentences, I soon fell in love with its heroine, just as I'd fallen in love with Louisa May Alcott, Girl of Old Boston, even before I read Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables after that.  Jane Eyre is one of the few non-children's books I've read multiple times in my life, some assigned, and some not.

A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of the book's 1847 publication, the Huffington Post featured what amounted to "lessons we can learn from Jane Eyre."  I found the piece a little Pollyannish : one of the author's takeaways is "Be Positive!" as if Victorian heroines had any choice but contentment with their lot, or at least the forced moral fortitude to embrace it as a "lesson."  After all, Helen Burns tells Jane that "it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear."  Still, it brought back fond memories of reading the book and identifying with Jane, as I identified with Alcott's Jo March: a plain, outspoken young woman who lived both completely in the world and completely apart from it.   To this day, there's something about the name I find powerful; it was on my short list of names for our daughter.

There's the proto-feminism, of course; as she leaves Thornfield, knowing that a relationship with Rochester would mean the loss of her self-respect, Jane (and, by extension, Brontë) offers some thoughts about independence which I think are relevant even now: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”  While I think that oversimplifies things (do we respect ourselves for being "unsustained"? or is there something respectable about knowing how to lean on others, too? what lessons do we teach our children about finding balance between independence and interdependence?), I confess, it's a principle by which I've lived most of my life. 

And then there's the fact that Brontë gets Romanticism right for me: though I wouldn't consider myself a sucker for Romantic novels of the Victorian period, I wept through the death of Jane's friend Helen from consumption, wondering whether one got consumption now, and whether I should be wary of catching it. I remember, too, wishing for a champion like Miss Temple, and resolving to have tea in my chambers for students, should I ever end up teaching in a boarding school--a resolve which was later re-kindled by my crush on Professor Keating of Dead Poet's Society.

I was also drawn to the Gothic aspects of the novel, especially the powerful shadow-figure of Bertha Mason, and feeling sorry for her, even long before I read Wide Sargasso Sea, which attributes Rochester's rejection and her subsequent descent into madness to her (literal) "dark" Creole heritage.  Jane defends her without knowing, in her first weeks at Thornfield, musing that women "suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation"; they are, quite literally, trapped.  Bram Stoker was born the month after Jane Eyre was published, and dressing my son as Dracula this year for Halloween, I found myself thinking about the madwomen in the attic, about how Halloween enables us to plumb our own darker sides, to play with the shadows within us.  As he moved from house to house, I watched my son begin to walk differently, cape billowing behind him, fangs brilliant against the ghostly face I'd painted; he was absolutely getting into the character, in a way he hadn't done in Halloweens past.

What are the books you've read again and again?  Which literary characters have spoken to you over the years?  Did you channel your inner madwoman for Halloween?  What are your thoughts on the balance between independence and interdependence?

Cardamom Scones with Cranberries
Miss Temple offered Jane and Helen seed cake during their first visit to her chambers.  While these aren't exactly cake, I suspect that they're more like what Miss Temple had in her room, given the conditions at Lowood school, and the cardamom pods count as seeds in my book.  Enjoy them warm out of the oven on a dark night or cloudy morning,with a cup of tea.

3 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
3/4 t. cardamom pods (or, if you must, 1/2 t. ground cardamom)
1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 c. plain Greek yogurt
1/2 c. sugar (I used evaporated cane)
2 eggs
additional sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Peel the cardamom pods and grind the seeds with a mortar and pestle (or use a very small knife and carefully chop until you have powder).  Stir the cardamom into the flour mixture.

Cut the butter in with a pastry blender or two knives until small crumbs form.  Add yogurt, sugar, and one egg, and mix (you can use your fingers).  At this point you can also add anything else you want (candied ginger, cranberries, raisins, chocolate chips).

Divide the dough into 12 equal parts (you can also use an ice cream scoop to get rough 1/3 c. balls); place the dough on the parchment.

Whisk the other egg and brush over the dough.  Sprinkle with additional sugar.

Bake 25 minutes, or until pleasantly golden brown.  Serve warm.

Catching More Flies: Peach Walnut Salad with Honey Mint Vinaigrette

I don't know about you, but this has been too much déjà vu for me.  Gunman with a history of mental illness enters a building to which he has legitimate access, opens fire, and mows down multiple innocent people.  An outraged public demands better gun control.  Media track down the gun purchase, only to discover that it's entirely legitimate.  A nation mourns.

My heart aches for the families of the dead.  But doesn't the fact that this continues to happen suggest that we need to consider a different approach to the problem?

As I've been following coverage of the event, I've been thinking a lot about Antoinette Tuff.  Remember her?  The Atlanta elementary school bookkeeper who averted the school shooting at McNair Discovery Learning Academy back in August?  If you haven't listened to the full 911 recording, you owe it to yourself to do so.  It's a remarkable example of our potential to humanize others, even in the moments in which they seem most inhuman:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/22/antoinette_tuff_911_call_listen_to_the_full_tape_of_ga_school_clerks_call.html

Tuff begins the encounter by relaying the gunman's demands to the 911 operator.  But soon she begins to interject her own responses to his comments, and that, in the end, is what changes the situation.  In the moment when she chooses to validate him as a human being, to see him as something more than a gun-toting maniac, the monologue becomes dialogue: "He said he should've just went to the mental hospital instead of doing this because he's not on his medication. But do you want me to try - I can help you. Let's see if we can work it out so that you don't have to go away with them for a long time." As the conversation continues, Tuff connects with the shooter through her own vulnerabilities.  She talks with him about her own suicidal thoughts, her separation from her husband, her multiply disabled son.  And then, the part of the conversation that blows me away every time I hear it: "It's going to be all right, sweetie.  I just want you to know I love you, though, OK? And I'm proud of you. That's a good thing that you're just giving up and don't worry about it. We all go through something in life."

Love him? Remember, she is talking to a stranger who was, not minutes before, armed.

When, I wondered, was the last time someone said that to him?

What I don't understand is if Aaron Alexis was hearing voices six weeks ago, and actually told people about it, actually asked for help, why wasn't there someone to help him?  Where was the Antoinette Tuff of the Navy Yard?

There have been more "mass shootings" since Newtown than you've probably realized, since the FBI's definition of mass murder involves the killing of four people. Most of the shooters were unrelated to either most or all of their victims.  Most of them expressed some kind of desperation, some kind of estrangement, some kind of mental disturbance.  There was an insightful article in the NYTimes today about schizophrenia patients and the voices in our heads, suggesting that local culture plays a significant role in the manifestation of mental illness, and that if we--I would argue, patients and communities--treat unsettling voices with dignity and respect, then we can change them.

I'm not suggesting that we don't need to talk about gun control.  I have two small children, and I don't understand why civilians need to own semi-automatic weapons intended for military use.  But I also know that if someone wants a gun badly enough, he--or she--is going to get it, regardless of what the law says.  And I think that there's a lot of truth to the old adage about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar. 

We don't need all need to become social workers, or experts in dealing with mental illness.  But we can learn the equivalent of mental CPR.  And we need to see the mentally ill, instead of pretending that they don't exist, or that they're not our problem.  Because when someone decides to purchase a gun and kill twelve innocent people, it is our problem.

Isn't it about time we employed the ethics of care?

Peach Walnut Salad with
Honey Mint Vinaigrette
Here's a vinaigrette in which the tang is tempered by local honey.  Invest in a good one, because you will be able to taste it.

12 mint leaves, julienned
1/4 c. honey
2 T. rice vinegar
6 T. vegetable oil
pinch salt
4 or 5 ripe peaches, peeled and cubed
1/3 c. walnuts, toasted
8 oz. mixed greens

Whisk mint leaves, honey, rice vinegar, and salt in a bowl.  Continue to whisk while pouring in vegetable oil; mix until emulsified.  Add peaches and toss to coat.

Empty mixed greens into a large bowl.  Top with peaches and walnuts, and toss gently.  Serve.

Supposed Tos, and Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans

I don't generally sign up for inspirational email.  In fact, I don't generally opt in to anything that will come regularly to my inbox which doesn't have direct relevance for me professionally.  But a while ago, a friend introduced me to TUT's Note from the Universe.  They were different enough, quirky enough that my interest was piqued.  And I subscribed.  Now, I'm often surprised at how apropos the messages are.  This was my message the other day:

No more "supposed tos," OK, Justine?

You're not supposed to work harder, look better, sleep less, sell more, run faster, talk slower, be happier, stay longer, leave earlier, cook, clean, negotiate, settle, start, stop, move, try, win, shake, rattle or roll.

Other people made all that up.

    The Universe 

How many times do I make this my mantra?  I should blog more.  I should be happier.  I should be posting beautiful new photographs of food every day.  But how realistic is that, given that I now commute for almost two hours, that I do laundry every night, that I sometimes bring work home, that I'm trying to comment often on friends' blogs, that I have two children that need my attention?

It's not.

I'm not another blogger.  I'm not another working parent.  I'm not another runner or yogini.  And right now I'm not capable of coming up with new photogenic recipes.  Publishing fabulously deep blog posts every day, or even several times a week.  Leaving earlier.

Other people made that all up.

So what am I doing listening to other people?  To popular media, to Sheryl Sandberg, to other bloggers, to the more critical voices from my past?  Who don't have any basis for their claims on my behavior, my appearance, my anything?

I ran into someone we know from town today at the car show, and she was talking about her artwork winning an award at an art show.  Immediately, I caught myself.  Well, she's an artist.  She actually works at her craft.  You don't work at yours.  So how do you ever expect to win an award or get published?

Those voices get internalized pretty deeply, so that at some level, we forget that they are other people's voices, and start to think that they're our own.  Maybe, eventually, they become our own.

Realism.  This is my life the way it is right now.  All I can do is trust that I'm doing things the best way I can do them ... which is the way I've done them--at least in my own opinion--my whole life.  And remind myself when I can that there's nothing else I'm supposed to be doing, and nohow else I'm supposed to be.  Except who, and what, and where I am.

Do you have "supposed tos"?  Where did they come from?  How do you tune them out?

Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans
This is what I did with the beans and potatoes from last weeks' CSA share.  It wasn't fancy, but it was dinner.  And if you put enough garlic and salt on pretty much anything, you'll be OK.

1.5 lb. baby potatoes
1 T. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
1 quart green beans, trimmed and halved

Preheat the oven to 450F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place it in the oven to preheat.

Toss potatoes with 1 T. olive oil, then season with salt and pepper; transfer potatoes to preheated baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes.

Toss the green beans with garlic, season with more salt and pepper. Add to the baking sheet with the potatoes.

Roast for 10 more minutes.

Happy

"You look ... happy," she says to me, sizing me up one last time before she heads home.  My friend, who had come to see my new office, is standing in the middle of the walkway, framed by the contrast of modern and Collegiate Gothic architecture, dappled light playing on the walkway around her.

"I'm ..." I begin, trying to find the words, "it's complicated ..." I hesitate again, a little bit surprised at what I'm about to say.  "... I guess I am happy."

It's a thought that's crossed my mind more than once during my drive home from work over the Sourland Mountain and down into the valley, as I take stock of my day and plot the next one, passing fields of grazing cows.  I try this "happy" on in the car, like a hat, adjusting it this way and that.  Am I really?  What if I think about it this way?  Isn't it complicated?

Happy is word I dare not use.  How could I be happy to leave my children, getting home barely in time for dinner, spending so much time away from them?  What kind of a parent is happy that way?  And how could I be happy making just a little more than the cost of day care, and probably breaking even after I add in clothes and a commute?  How could I be happy having to rebuild my career from the ground up?  What kind of self-respecting professional could be happy with that?

And yet, that's exactly what it is.

In the years to come, I will likely count going back to work as one of the hardest decisions I've made, next to leaving.  I need to work for financial reasons.  I couldn't have stayed home forever anyway.  But transitions are always difficult, aren't they?  Deciding to move across the country for graduate school.  Deciding to leave said graduate program, giving up two years of fellowship money because the program didn't "feel" right.  Deciding to move back across the country to my parents' basement and take a job at my alma mater.  Deciding to leave the job at my alma mater, because I felt like I was worth more than the way I was treated.  And now, deciding to take this position.

But as I drove home the other day, the thought entered my mind, unsolicited, and crystallized: yes.  This is right for me.

It's not often I get moments of complete clarity.   In that moment, wearing my work clothes, driving in my stockinged feet, heels kicked off to the side, I felt like my identity and my work were aligned again.  I am a parent who works outside the home, I said to myself.

I wonder if it would have been this clear to me if I hadn't ended up staying home for a while.  After all, being at work was all I'd ever known.  But seeing it from the other perspective, knowing that I am capable of staying home, but that I'm in a better place when I am not at home, and when my children and I go our separate ways, reconnecting at the end of the day, has helped me to appreciate who I really am.  And I can accept that it might change, but that for now, this is where I need to be.

It's not easy.  Getting a second grader and a toddler out the door by 7:15 is no picnic, nor is a long commute that gets me home at 6.  In order to make this work for me and for my family, and have enough time to spend with them when I am home, I have given up pretty much all of my extracurricular activities.  No more yoga or other exercise right now.  No more volunteer commitments at night.

And there are certainly other sacrifices: last night, as I stood making my kids' lunches after dinner, I thought, yes, this is the way it will be, every day, ad infinitum, until they go to college.  Studying my son's award from day camp, I thought about how brave he is to be alone, how independent he is, despite the fact that we still can't trust him to wash behind his ears.  And my daughter is a little clingy when I walk through the door at 6pm, but she is also excited to see me, to tell me her stories, which mitigates the clingy a bit.

It's not perfect.  There will be hiccups, adjustments.  But yes, I think, this is right.  And finally, isn't that, with all of its flaws and imperfections, what happy is?

NaBloPoMo: More Things We Don't Talk About, For Nigella

On the day we moved into our current house, I was wearing a sweatshirt from a university women's retreat at which I'd been invited to speak just a few months before.  My neighbor, who was at the time the director of the county domestic violence agency, noticed this, sized me up, and decided that she was going to get me on her board of trustees.

She did, actually, and I served for a few years, through the birth of my son, and until the worst of my pregnancy losses, when I decided that I need to focus just on me for a little while.  And I learned a lot during those years about abuse, about assumptions, and about our power to make change.

I live in a county that is fairly wealthy and homogenous (white).  And domestic violence is more or less invisible.  Or at least, most people I talk with here don't have a good sense of the scope of the problem.

I no longer have the most current statistics, but I can tell you that most estimates agree: 1 in 4 people will experience domestic abuse in her (and in some cases, his) lifetime.  I can tell you that in my county, a high percentage of victims are wealthy, educated white women.  I can tell you that the more suburban and sprawling a place is, the more likely it is that neighbors will never notice, and the less likely it is that a spouse can get away.  I can tell you that the wounds are not always visible, because they are financial, psychological: abusers can control their victims by controlling the purse-strings, or by berating them, or by doing any other number of other awful things.

I can tell you that almost one year ago, a friend of mine and co-founder of my working moms group, who was a highly successful clinical research trial manager for a major pharmaceutical company, was found dead in an Atlantic City hotel room, with her two children--ages 3 and 5--trying to wake her up, and that until then, many of us didn't even know that the police had been called to investigate incidences of violence at her house.  I can tell you that she was one of the most well-put-together, speak-your-mind women I knew, and while her husband was hardly ever there when we were around, she seemed to have mastered the single-parenting lifestyle of someone with a spouse who works long hours.  I can tell you that some of us spent months wondering whether her death was really an accident (as the prosecutor claimed it was), or whether her husband had found a way to hurt her even after she'd left him; wondering what we could have done differently, blaming ourselves--as unreasonable as we knew that was--for the loss of her life.  (Did you know that over 70 percent of domestic violence murders happen after the victim has ended the relationship, after she's gotten out, because then the abuser has nothing left to lose?  I didn't, until last year.)

I can tell you that another friend of mine--the sole breadwinner for her family, and a manager for an environmental safety group--experienced abuse at the hands of her stay-at-home-dad husband, and though they were able to get back together again (and have a third child), I will never forget the fear in her eyes the day she dropped her kids off at my house to go to court.

This is another one of those things we don't talk about.  Because it's too private.  We don't want to intrude on what happens in people's homes.  That's their business, right?  Not ours.  We have protections in place for children, but we feel like adults can take care of themselves.  In fact, it's not even clear whether anyone who shot the photos of Nigella and her husband called to report a domestic violence issue.  We know one thing, though: they did what so many other people do in that situation.  They watched it happen.

Like racism, like sexism, like so many other things, we need to be able to talk about domestic violence.  That it doesn't have one face.  That it doesn't live in one socioeconomic community.  Do you think this isn't happening among your friends, in your family?  You are wrong.  Domestic violence doesn't live, with Chris Brown and Rhianna, in the tabloids.  It lives--quite literally-in our back yards.  We need to be able to talk with our teens about healthy relationships in a way that is honest and real.  We need people who are in unhealthy relationships to feel safe telling someone, rather than feeling like they are disappointing us if they can't fulfill the terms of their contract--in the official or unofficial sense of the word.  We need to make it clear that we will believe victims, that we will take them seriously.  We need to show them that they will be treated with dignity and compassion.  That this is not for them to figure out alone.  That it happens, and that they are not the only ones, that they should not feel ashamed.

I don't know where Nigella will go from here.  I wish that she hadn't been caught that way, that someone could have reached out to her in a way that was not so public, not so potentially unsafe for her.  But I am glad, in a way, that it's gotten us to talk ... and I hope it's not the end of the conversation.

Why do you think we are so silent about domestic violence in this country?  What kinds of things do you think we can do to help victims feel safe about coming forward?

NaBloPoMo: The Trouble With (Just) Leaning In

I had hesitated to post this, but I found out recently that Sheryl Sandberg will be one of the keynote speakers at BlogHer, and I felt that it was worth putting out there.  I am looking forward to hearing what Sandberg has to say, because I hope that she will be offering a more robust and complex solution to women's marginalized space in the workforce than I feel she offered in her book.

In case you've been living under a rock, Sandberg's book Lean In talks about about why women are not as successful as men in their careers, and encourages women to stand up for themselves, take risks, sit at the table as if they believe they have something valuable to say, and "don't leave before you leave" (making conservative choices due to fear of inability to juggle everything later on down the road).  “Compared to our male colleagues, fewer of us aspire to senior positions,” she writes. The ambition gap, to which women are socialized, is to blame: “My argument is that getting rid of these internal barriers is critical to gaining power. We can dismantle the hurdles in ourselves today. We can start this very moment.”

Sandberg's book was probably a necessary counterpoint to Anne-Marie Slaughter's viral article about not being able to have it all, at least not the way society is currently structured.  But both women miss the boat when they talk about work ethic and work culture, without talking about the sexism that still persists in work environments everywhere.  And I'm not just talking about the sexism that has to do with bias against the competing commitments of parenting.  While I don't think that we're going to get anywhere by tearing each other down, I also think that we need to do a lot more than "lean in" if we're really going to change anything.

photo courtesy of flickr user im pastor rick

Case in point: let me tell you a little story.  I have removed names and as much identifying information as I can to protect those who were involved, but rest assured that this story is real, and that it is far from ancient history.  I know this woman.  And this is the landscape of now.

~~~~

Once upon a time, there was a smart, ambitious woman.  She went to college at a reasonably good public university, paying her way almost on her own through scholarships and work-study, and earned a 4.0.  She went to graduate school with a full ride, realized that her long-term interests didn't match the program goals, and taking a leap into the unknown, left to join the workforce.  She started at the bottom of the ladder at the institution where she was a student, while attending graduate school part-time at night for another doctoral degree.  Through hard work and determination and collaboration, and the support of a female supervisor (where leaning in works?), she was promoted.  Asked, in a group of leaders at her organization, to come up with some fundraising ideas, she wrote a proposal to build a new program, which a donor endowed at a significant sum, in the millions of dollars.  She was asked if she wanted to take on the responsibility for building the program, and won accolades for her work over the next seven years.  Her program, which she ran on a shoestring budget, became one of the hallmarks of the institution, and had wide ripple effects.

All was well until she got a new boss, coincidentally, just as she was going to have her second child. She had not "scheduled" this child's arrival as she had tried to schedule previous arrivals because she had already miscarried several pregnancies, and was not longer going to let her job take priority over her body. The new boss seemed supportive of her continued contact with the program during her maternity leave and enthusiastic about her return to the division.  He insisted on taking on some of her responsibilities himself, to "ease her mind" about the program's safety.

And then, without her input, hired a brand new just-minted graduate, his former intern, to do the day to day work of the office.

And then, days after she'd had the baby, and after she had made a routine exception as she had been directed by previous supervisors, told this woman she was no longer to respond to any email without his permission.  And told her that she had an attitude problem. And then told her she was no longer permitted to respond to any email at all.  And then removed her title from her "until further notice."

Then removed her ability to make any significant financial and programmatic decisions.  Then cancelled events that she had scheduled before she left (with guest speakers) without informing her.  Then informed her that she would have to fire the student staff she'd hired and started to train for the next year.  Then hired a faculty member who had never worked with the program before to supervise her, and promoted her assistant out from under her supervision (hiring her assistant's son as his personal assistant, to seal the deal).  Then finally, informed her that she would be removing the personal effects from her office so that the new faculty supervisor could use the office whenever he was in the building.

As the months went by from the first event to the last, the woman felt increasingly isolated and anxious about opening her email, wondering what would await her.

Finally, confiding in some other female colleagues, she discovered that she was not alone.  That the same thing was happening to other women at this organization.  That other senior women had advised them to "lie back and think of England," and go home to a peach Bellini.  This was their version of "leaning in."  This was how they'd reached the glass ceiling.

She did the only thing it made sense to do at the time: she resigned.

Several others did, too.

Some didn't have this choice, and were restructured out of their jobs.

Meanwhile, her new boss rose up the ranks, hiring mostly inexperienced young men to replace the mostly female staff members who had left or who had been forced out of their positions, and was eventually promoted to a position that put him second in command at the organization.  Despite an investigation conducted by the Office of Employment Equity, despite a pending lawsuit, despite confidential union grievances, this man was given a position of immense power.  Because his behavior was, apparently, acceptable.  Laudable, even.

~~~~

Friends, this is not a story about lack of ambition.  This is not a story about not "leaning in."  This is not even a story about embracing a "good enough life."  This is a story about a pervasive, sexist culture that continues to be acceptable, not just at this woman's workplace, but at many others.  This is the same culture that permits us to limit women's reproductive rights, that permits legislation of women's bodies.  This is the same culture that makes the media think they can talk about rape victims as life-ruiners, and rape perpetrators as the ruined.

Sandberg recently created leanin.org in order to "encourage and support women leaning in to their ambitions."  And I think that is an important step.  We need supportive communities in order to achieve our ambitions.   But there is more work to be done.  Leaning in is not enough.  If we allow discriminatory practices and cultures -- ANYWHERE -- to continue unchecked, then regardless of their leaning, women will continue to struggle to achieve balance, or risk losing their integrity, or risk losing their careers, or risk much worse.  In too many places, the choice to "lean in," or not, doesn't even exist.

And really, all people--not just women, but every one of us--deserves better.

Have you experienced a situation in which you've been prevented from "leaning in"?  Or have you found or created a"lean in circle" like the ones Sandberg refers to?   Do you think that women are the only ones who need this kind of support?  In what ways, small or great, do you try to help others to "lean in," even if you don't consider yourself "ambitious"?

Feminisms, and The Diary of a Submissive: BlogHer Book Club

I confess, I'd been wanting to participate in the BlogHer Book Club for a while.  It seemed like a great way to read something different, and participate in broad discussion with voices I wouldn't ordinarily encounter.

So when I got the email about the BlogHer Book Club discussions about The Diary of a Submissive, I almost jumped at the chance.

Almost, I say, because I actually did read the book summary.  And honestly, I was a little nervous.  It's not my kind of book.  (I'm, you know, the kind of person who write about cupcakes, yoga, and my CSA.)


You see, Sophie Morgan--a pseudonym, the reason for which becomes clear not long into the book--is a successful journalist in her early thirties with a penchant for children, animals, books, DVDs, handbags, Marmite, and ... oh, right ... being on the "s" side of a D/s sexual relationship.  People claim that her memoir is the "real-life Fifty Shades of Grey" (which, by the way, I didn't read, and which Sophie Morgan herself lambasts in an article from a few months back in the Guardian).

I decided to review it because I consider myself a feminist, and I needed to understand how someone who willingly renounces her power in this way could be a self-proclaimed feminist, too.  In the midst of a highly contested U.S. presidential race where women's issues have been front and center, and as a woman who has experienced sexist treatment, the voice of women, and our ability to speak for ourselves and be treated like our voices matter, is particularly important to me.

Sophie's "awakening" is, thankfully, not a "diary," but the story of a submissive coming to terms with her identity, of finding herself empowered within a D/s relationship.  Oddly enough, or perhaps predictably, that sense of self comes through most effectively in the words of another, James, one of her lovers, when he writes, "the difference between [a D/s relationship] and any form of abuse lay in consent" (199) and "you like being pushed to do things you find difficult because you enjoy overcoming them" (201).  And unlike what I've heard about the Fifty Shades trilogy, for all of the juicy erotica, there's also a lot here about the negotiation that happens in a D/s relationship, about agreements (if not contracts), and about establishing and maintaining trust.

I do think that the book, though it could have used some tightening (it was released previously as a novel under another name, and I get the feeling that Penguin rushed it to press to capitalize on the success of Fifty Shades), is well-written overall.  While it does contain extensive graphic and--for me--disturbing descriptions of Sophie's sexual exploits, I feel that its strength is in the author's reflective commentary about her journey to self-knowledge and search for someone who will be able to be her partner, with all of the paradox that entails.  I thought that her portrait of James, the man who nearly ends their relationship over the extreme guilt he experiences for inflicting "punishment" on the woman he loves, and who has to come to terms with his own identity as a Dom, was well-handled and three dimensional.  Sophie--a well-chosen pen name--knows that her relationships are, as Facebook would say in its reductive way, "complicated."

While I tried to read Diary of a Submissive with an open mind, I still worry about what Sophie's story, and others like them, do for--or to--the voices of women, even though I know not all subs are female.  Despite, or perhaps because of, her experience in journalism, the paradox she presents of being feminist and still enjoying a sexually submissive role is highly nuanced, and could have been more deeply explored.  After all, we live in a world where "legitimate rape" was an acceptable phrase to use, even if only temporarily.  On the other hand, the book did make me wonder whether we talk enough about the need for deep trust, continuous communication, and empowerment of both partners in non D/s relationships; I suspect that the answer is "no."  And the personal is political; if these conversations and negotiations don't happen at home, how can they happen in the public sphere?  Perhaps that, for me, is the real food for thought. 

**This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed above are my own.

Working Mama: Crockpot Southern Greens with a Kick

I can't remember exactly how the conversation started.  We were eating dinner together, my kids and I; S. was at an important dinner meeting for work.  Maybe my son had asked about S.'s recent spate of late nights.

"But you don't work," he objected.  "You just hang around here all day with N."

Hello, what?

"VERY interesting," I said, trying not to reveal that he had pushed my biggest button.  "That is one of the things that not even adults agree about.  You've hit on a very sophisticated conversation.  So: changing diapers, making meals, making snacks, entertaining your sister, teaching her things ... none of that is work?"

"Nope," he said, confidently, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

"Well then how do you define work?" I asked.

"Something you get paid to do," he replied.

"Huh," I said.  "So when you rake leaves in the back yard, is that work?"

"Nope."

"How about when we ask you to make your bed?"

"Nope."

"Let me tell you something, Buster," I said, looking him square in the eye, "taking care of your sister during the day is quite possibly the hardest job I've ever had.  And I've worked for some pretty challenging people."  I paused.  "So tell me this: what if I took N. to day care, and the person there did all of the things for her during the day that I do, and the only difference is that she gets paid.   Is that work?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well," I said, thoughtfully.  "I guess if what I do isn't work, if it's just for fun, and it's not hard, and it doesn't have value, then it won't matter if I stop, right?"

He looked at me quizzically.

"I mean, I'm not going to bother to bus your plate.  Or run your bath tonight.  Or do laundry."

"Whoopeee," he said, running into the living room, full of six year old glee, "no bath!"

I ran N's bath, and collected her from her booster seat.  About two minutes later, my son came back into the kitchen, hopping around, with his shirt stuck on his head.

"Moooooooom," he called from under the folds of striped fabric, "help me, I'm stuuuuck."

"I'm not working," I said, amused that he was clearly going to take a bath anyway.  "And I have to go tend to your sister."

Horrified silence.  "But Mom, I'm stuck."

"You'll have to get yourself out.  I love you, and I'm happy to help you, but I'm on strike until you recognize that I work."  I make like I am going to head into the bathroom, where N. is calling for me and drinking the bathwater.  sigh.

A beat.  He calls after me.

"On strike?  There's no such thing as being on strike."

"Sure there is.  When you don't like your working conditions, you can strike to request better ones."

"You can't go on strike."

"Well, I'm not helping you take your shirt off."

I can see him chewing his lip, from under his shirt.  Then: "okay, OKAY, you're WORKING."

"Right," I said, removing the entangled button from its hole.  "And don't you forget it."

Southern Greens with a Kick
I made these with the new tsunami of kale and chard coming in our CSA share these days.  Or rather, my crockpot made them.  Because I wasn't working, right?  Right.

2 bunches greens (collards, kale, mustard or turnip)
1 large sweet onion, sliced
1 T. olive oil
4 -5 garlic cloves, pressed
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded, minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 turkey leg, or 2 ham hocks, or for a vegetarian version, use a T. or so of Spanish smoked paprika/pimenton and salt more liberally
2 -3 cups water
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar

Tear the greens into large pieces, wash under running water to clean well, drain.  Preheat a heavy skillet with olive oil, add sliced onion and garlic; cook stirring frequently until onions begin to lightly brown, add minced jalapeño peppers.

Place the cooked onions in the bottom of the crockpot, add the drained greens, pimentor or turkey leg or ham hock, crushed red pepper and water. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours or until greens are tender. Remove meat from bones, discarding bone and fat. Shred the meat and return to pot, mixing well; adjust salt and pepper to taste. Top each serving of the greens with balsamic vinegar to taste.

Being There: A Blog(h)er Ice Cream Social (and Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream)

When I went to BlogHer'12, the thing that most moved me was meeting the women that I'd gotten to know online over the past two and a half years.  For all of my commitment to social media, because of its ability to connect people from across the globe around common passion and purpose, there's something about making a face-to-face connection with that somehow solidifies those connections, and makes you feel a bit less like you're alone behind your computer screen (not to mention that the women I finally met up with there are just as amazing in person, if not more so, as they are online).  I firmly believe that there are some times when there is no substitute for being there in person, for being present together even in silence; being online doesn't allow for that presence, because when you're silent online, you are invisible.

I've made a habit of connecting people.  You might call it an obsession.  When I worked at the university, I connected students with students like them through peer mentoring programs that I created.  I connected faculty with students through faculty mentoring programs.  At home, I connected working moms with one another through a working moms' group, the only one like it in my county, which, unlike so many moms' groups I encountered, appreciates the different balance of a 9 to 5 commitment outside the home with all of the other things that need to get done when you have a family to manage, too.   So it seemed only natural that the wheels started spinning when I couldn't find a generic organization of bloggers in my state.  I started to become curious about other bloggers out there who lived near me, especially those in the ALI blogosphere.

So much of what many of us publish online, especially if we blog anonymously, erases our geographic uniqueness, sometimes with good reason.  I wanted to see if, given this erasure, I could still identify and gather together a group of women bloggers from my area, and see what might happen.  I decided to host an ice cream social.

As luck would have it, Mel was happy to help by publishing a blurb in the LFCA, and six women responded: Emily from A Blanket 2 Keep, the anonymous blogger who writes With Just A Little Help, S. (who has taken a break from blogging to focus on her own family), Lauren from What's In Lauren's Tummy (formerly also from What's In Lauren's Uterus), and Lisa from the Mommy Gauntlet--three of whom I'd never read before.  I went to work making honey lavender ice cream, oatmeal cookie ice cream, and my own version of Chubby Hubby (a special request from Emily, the secrets for which I will never reveal here).  Though Lauren couldn't make it at the last minute due to a minor catastrophe, and Lisa had an unfortunate significant family emergency, the other four of us spent two hours talking as if we'd mostly known each other for years.

It made me think a lot about something I have posted a lot about here before, about women supporting each other, taking care of each other, looking out for each other, even if we can't assume that we know what every woman needs simply because we share elements of our anatomy.  (I'm well aware that Feminism has become feminisms--heck, that was already true back when I was in grad school and reading the anthology du jour--and that women are not a monolith but a diaspora, thank you very much.)  We were all very different women, coming from different stages in our lives.  But there in my living room, we talked about the things that connected us, even despite our differences.  We talked a little bit about whether there might be a way to make bloggers who wanted to be resources more visible to other women in their own region, without compromising anonymity.  Sometimes we didn't talk at all.  And as everyone was getting ready to leave, we talked about getting together again.

Things We Don't Talk About: Women's Voices from the Red Tent had its world premiere on September 15th.  There are a host of upcoming screenings around the country.  The film summary says: "Spontaneous and organic, a Red Tent is a red textile space where women gather to rest, renew, and often share deep and powerful stories about their lives. The Red Tent movement is changing the way that women interact and support each other by providing a place that honors and celebrates women, and by enabling open conversations about the things that women don’t want to talk about in other venues. Things We Don’t Talk About weaves together healing narratives from inside the Red Tent to shine a spotlight on this vital, emergent women’s tradition. The film provides us an opportunity to remember, to listen, to know, and to find what it is we need to bring back to our communities to help awaken the voices of women."

Yes, there are places we do this all online now, too.  BlogHer, for example.  But sometimes we need to just be there.

Most of you know that it's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month here in the U.S.  I'll talk about that in a later post.  But it's also Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  And Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Month.  And while none of these things affect only women, they, along with the fact that the election that is practically upon us, are reason enough for us to talk about about ways we might be able to better have each others' backs, not just on the internet, but in the "real" world, too.

Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream
with thanks to Jeni Britton's practically foolproof ice cream base, which I have altered a bit here

1 T. plus 1 t. corn starch
2 c. milk
1 c. heavy cream
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. sugar
1 T. corn syrup (optional, really)
1 stick cinnamon
3 T. cream cheese (or goat cheese)
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/8 t. nutmeg
3 oatmeal cookies, crumbled
1/2 c. raisins
dash of vanilla

Mix about 2 T. of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry.  Whisk the cream (or goat) cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. In a third bowl, soak the raisins in about 2/3 c. water and a dash of vanilla.  Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

Combine the remaining milk, cream, sugars and cinnamon stick in a 4-quart saucepan, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes, Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat and remove the cinnamon stick, but don't discard it yet.

Gradually whisk the hot milk into the cream (or goat) cheese until smooth. Add the ground cinnamon and nutmeg and return the cinnamon stick to the mixture. Submerge the mixture partway in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.  Drain the raisins.

Remove the cinnamon stick again and pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and spin until thick and creamy.  During the last five minutes, add the raisins and crumbled cookies.  Pack the ice cream into a storage container.   Press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours.