Weekly reminder.
Our Christmas cactus bloomed this week, about a month “late”. You do you.
Be a guest
Like many, I struggle spending too much time on social media. It's easy to make excuses for it - I learn much on social media. I've intentionally diversified my feeds so I am exposed to new viewpoints and movements and news I wouldn't get elsewhere. I've become good friends with several folks through social media and enriched relationships with acquaintances. My friends and family provide encouragement and connection through social media.
However, because of all that, it's easy to forget that Instagram is not real life. It is curated snapshots of a moment. And conversations begun there must continue off-screen. Advocacy and allyship displayed there must be enacted in our actual offline communities. Yelling into an echo chamber (or posting a meme into an echo chamber) doesn't make any change, and often warps our perception of reality.
So I've decided to be more of a guest on Instagram. It's somewhere I'll drop by and say hello, but I won't live there. I still intend to post my happenings and family's milestones (partially because at the end of each year I get an album printed of my Instagram posts, which are the only photo albums we really have). I've set a limit on the amount of time each day I will use the app, and it won't be enough time to get through everything I want to see. But that is okay.
Instagram is abundance - it is always there with more and more photos and information and funny memes. The app is designed as if there is a scarcity (“needing” to view stories before they disappear, the fear of missing something), but it is the opposite.
So I hope to see you there when I drop in, but if we don't, I hope to connect by other means.
2021 : Reflect
This year many folks were able to slow down and reflect upon their priorities and choices. Many articles were written about the new pace of life, ways to develop new patterns, and the ability to reflect. It seems this pandemic period was a time for many to take stock of their livelihoods and make conscious changes for their mental and physical health and wellbeing.
This was not the case for my year. I did not have extra time to dedicate - in fact I had less time than ever. And while I know this is not unique to me, sometimes reading the social media posts of my peers or reading those headline articles, it appears as if I’m in the minority. Even before the pandemic, I knew this was going to be a hard year, which is my focus word for 2020 was survive, and that is exactly what I did.
I acknowledge I am very privileged, and have maintained that privilege throughout the pandemic. I have steady employment, housing, and my health - 3 things which many Americans do not have. Yet, as a mother of two school aged children, the lack of in-person education, coupled with not being able to work in the office, has had a drastic effect on our family. In fact, I was in school myself at Harvard for much of the year, with so much demands on my time and brain space. Frustrations with our children and between our children are the highest they have ever been.
As a working mother, balance has never been easy. And this year the working part became even heavier - I was promoted to Maharam’s parent company, Herman Miller, which was certainly cause for celebration. But the new position, on a very new team, in a department whose resources were needed most during a pandemic, was almost untenable. I still have yet to meet my team or my coworkers in-person. And I never imagined the amount of work, and the pace of it, that would be required. Again, I’m not alone here, many mothers have felt the crush this year.
My husband and I realized that this year we got less sleep than any year since we had newborns. (He is in IT and spent countless hours this year setting up remote work systems, shuttling external monitors and the like to folk’s homes across Chicago, securing technology when none was available, etc.) Our relationship has suffered, as we spend our evenings after kids are in bed doing work, or chores that we might have previously done on a lunch hour or tacked on to a commute. When we do reunite on the couch, we’ve rarely had the energy to converse about day-to-day, much less reflect on our situation or the world as a whole.
And simultaneously there has been so much more that needed to be talked about and processed and acted upon. Racial justice. Homicidal police. Disparity. Science-based solutions. Democracy. Hard goodbyes. Heroes goodbyes.
Reflection is necessary. It is important to acknowledge what we’ve gone through in 2020, and recalibrate for our futures. That is why for 2021, I have chosen a focus word (not a resolution) of reflect. I didn’t have the time or space this year to do that properly, but I’m hoping 2021 can bring me the affordance to do so. I hope to walk out of 2021 with a better idea of my ongoing priorities and values, and ways to put them in action.
2020 Recommended Reading
I read more than I thought I would this year. Despite Harvard case studies taking up much of the first 6 months of the year, I was able to cross several books off my list that had been lingering. I finally finished F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Crack Up, and while I loved it, I didn’t add it to my “Recommended Reading” list below, which I’ve kept intentionally short.
Outside of Young Adult novels, which I read to my son each night, I didn’t read much fiction this year. I was more into real people and what they had to say about their lived experiences. Maybe it seemed more social, like I had another connection out there in this isolated world this year.
Hands down the best book I read was Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson. I’ll copy here from my Goodreads review:
A masterpiece of a memoir. Only covering about 5 years time, the picture she paints of her life in a sprawling Vermont home filled with kids and cats and books seems representative of a lifetime of mundane adding up to grandeur. You don't have to have kids or know anything about the 1940s to appreciate how timeless these anecdotes and conversations and domestic trappings are. A trenchant wit, a masterful writer, and apparently a peculiar and amazing mother. Definitely recommend.
Poetry was also toward the top of my list - perhaps because it is easily digestible in bites, or perhaps because it gave me something to ponder other than current circumstances. Regardless, I recommend everyone read American Journal: Fifty Poems from our Time, edited by Tracy K Smith (Poet Laureate). A poignant reminder of the many facets of our country. And Salt is necessary reading; I’m looking forward to reading her second book Nejma.
The most surprising book on my short list is The Planter of Modern Life: Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution, which you might think was fiction based on the almost-unbelievable exploits of the main character. Bromfield (who is know almost unknown) was a WWI ambulance driver, a Paris expat, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist as famous his contemporaries, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and the like. He moved to Senlis, outside of Paris, and fell in love with gardening (and his neighbor Edith Wharton). Only to return to the states and cash in his literary and Hollywood success to finance his agrarian dream in Ohio. His utopian experimental farm, Malabar, inspired America’s first generation of organic farmers and put environmentalism and agriculture in the American conversation. It was an outrageous but true story I couldn’t believe I didn’t know.
For parents with kiddos, or anyone in the education system, I recommend White Kids: Growing up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America. It provides remarkable case studies, and makes you consider your own choices and their impact. Read my full review here.
Full 2020 bookshelf is pictured below. Hoping to get to more fiction next year. The Overstory is at the top of my list.
holidays 2020
A couple holiday themed Procreate creations.
Holiday peace
It may be the holidays, but that doesn't mean we have universal peace and goodwill toward men. Consider donating to the Sentencing Project for justice reform, to help those get home who deserve to be.
We usually have a protest sign or two in our front windows. This year we made them seasonally appropriate. No justice, no peace.
kitchen tables
This year, Thanksgiving will looks lot like any other Thursday night in our household. We'll all sit around the kitchen table to eat a meal that mostly I prepared.
We are following the science-based advice to limit our gathering to our immediate household only, and to not travel. But we will make our version of the traditional foods, and hopefully have plenty of leftovers. We will also discuss our gratitude, and make a land acknowledgement to the native peoples who own the land we live on (thank you, Potawatomie, Ojibwa and Odawa peoples), as well as donating to their present day organizations.
But in many other aspects, we will just gather for a meal at our kitchen table, like we do any other night. We've had family meals every night at that table since the time there was only the two founding members. The table is in some ways the modern-day hearth of our family. We've always had the type where you can pop in a leaf to accommodate more guests at any time, or scale back to a cozy foursome. It's there we've revealed big news, discussed our wins, worried over our losses, and attempted to solve problems. It's where we work and where we play (now more literally than ever).
Mealtime shows how much our children have grown, as our oldest now lingers for a few minutes after the meal is over, to talk more with his parents. Someday perhaps all four of us will be able to stretch out the night with a cup of tea after dinner and prolonged conversation.
My dear friend recently shared a poem by Joy Harbro, a member of the Muscogee nation and poet laureate:
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
Our table is so much more than just a place to eat. It is a place where we live and recount our lives to each other. And for that I am thankful.
all votes
We are still watching this election unfold, as many states continue to count votes. One lovely part of a democracy is that everyone gets a vote - and so, we should respect each vote, like we respect each person, and count it.
There is much news that Republicans are attempting to stop vote counting in some areas and encouraging recounts in others. But at the end of the day, every cast vote should be counted.
Sally Kohn said it well:
I wonder if Trump voters realize we want their votes counted too. Dunno about you, but I want to win by persuading the majority of our fellow Americans that a just, inclusive and equitable future is the best possible future for all of us and our planet. Fair elections are essential to building a fair nation.
May we all play our part. Be kind and just to one another.
Discussing voting and kids
This week I was thrilled to join a new podcast Moms You Meet by sittercity, to discuss my thoughts on voting and engaging kids in the voting process. The podcast is about parenting in a pandemic and replacing a bit of the support system we might have previously gotten by chatting with other moms on the playground.
As everyone who knows me knows, I'm a big fan of voting, and civic engagement. I work the polls; I try to educate folks about how to vote; I advocate and fight for everyone's right to vote. And I hope that I'm instilling that in my children. It was great to be able to share some of that enthusiasm with two other moms, and hopefully a slew of listeners.
Please give it a listen.
Backyard Renovation!
Fall is here. And we are so excited to enjoy it in our newly renovated backyard space. Since we are spending so much more time at home, we decided to invest in our outdoor living space. It was a complete transformation.
This serviceberry tree is one of my favorite additions. In a year or two it will provide us some much needed shade in the summer months.
Before, with old door on garage.
Before, with an old metal pole used for a laundry line in a previous life.
Before, with the coop in the middle of the yard.
After, using the full width of the little yard.
After, with new new blue stone around the pedestrian garage door and relocated coop.
After, with coop next to the house and the yard opened up.
Although we usually do the work ourselves, we’d done sections of concrete removal before and were not looking forward to doing more. So we hired a crew. They took out a ton of old and broken concrete, and then laid a bluestone patio. There is now a raised bed along the north fence, which will be perfect for veggies in the spring. And since we are now using the full width of the yard, there is so much more lawn for soccer games and running through the sprinkler.
A big viburnum makes the transition from the raised bed to the spiral stairs, and offers great fall color. Surrounded by Amsonia (Blue Star) which will become little butterfly-attracting bushes.
Looking forward to this bayberry growing up to block the air conditioning unit from view. There are also several milkweeds that will hopefully attract butterflies next year!
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Be a voter.
Combining my love for handwritten correspondence (and USPS) with my dedication to civic engagement, I've been writing postcards to potential voters.
You can do this too. By visiting postcardstovoters.org or Vote Forward.
Comparison
Comparison is the thief of all joy. Whether we are talking about Labor Day weekend plans, or e-learning setups, or if your tiny backyard garden generated any edible tomatoes this year, your mental health is affected by comparing.
Instagram and other social media especially makes this hard. Instead of formulating the thought “I'm really glad that family could take in that beautiful sunset together”, it is easier to think “We haven't seen a sunset as a family all year! How do I find a place to catch a good sunset in this city?” Comparison makes it harder to be happy for others and content with ourselves.
Coupled with that is the current state of the pandemic, where different folks have different levels of access to safe places and different comfort levels being outside of their own homes. Seeing others can make us question our own choices or be disappointed in our own abilities.
In short, maybe give yourself more grace. Try to feel thankful for your own experiences and happy for others. As we know, they are likely feeling the same about you at some level.
Take care of each other.