10 Years of Blogging!

Illustration © Hillary Knight
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

Today, April 21st, 2015 is the 10th anniversary of this blog and of my blogging anything at all, in fact. I don't post regularly here any more but there are many changes taking place over at, or related to, my Farmwife at Midlife blog writing. I'll be detailing everything there in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, The Pantry-Its History and Modern Uses is still available from my website.

I will continue to post pantry-related updates as I can as pantries will always be in our lives. You can follow our continued farm life over at my other blog even though I detailed it here until 2011.

My very best wishes and thanks for your readership over the years.

––Catherine

Downton Abbey Fever

There is much to love about Downton Abbey. Airing here on PBS as part of "Masterpiece Classics" and now ending its second season, the series is filmed in an historic English estate, there are marvelous clothes and real settings, and the characters are feisty and largely likeable, with fast-paced plots just sudsy enough to keep our interest. It is written by Julian Fellowes, who also wrote the equally frothy motion picture Gosford Park (and whom you may remember as the rascal Killwillie in the Scottish-based Monarch of the Glen, a more modern take on the aristocratic and sporting life that remains in Great Britain). The series is a glimpse into the large scale country house era that once existed on both sides of the Atlantic and, seemingly, something of which we can not get enough. Of course, there are pantries and larders and silver vaults, too.

Carson, the loyal butler of Downton Abbey, awaits his supper below stairs.

As in Gosford Park, Fellowes has created a world where the servant and sire know their position and everything runs within well-oiled systems, precise order, and an awareness of one's place. World War I was a game-changer for all of that, even for our American "aristocracy." What I like about Fellowes' approach is that he pays equal attention to the domestic staff, which outnumbered the family members several times over, as he does the lives of those who are on the receiving end of such loyal service. In the past several decades, the museum world in Britain and the United States has begun to take notice of this importance. No house museum tour is worth its admission without seeing a glimpse into the "below stairs" life. Kitchens, sculleries, pantries, cellars, laundries, and servant bedrooms are now regular parts of most house museum experiences with the names, faces and histories of the domestic staff of a household often researched in detail. [Of course, a love of these spaces fueled my interest in writing, The Pantry-Its History and Modern Uses.]

Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, Ohio is an architectural nod to English manors and an

example of the country house expression in the United States in the early 20th century.

I have always been an Anglophile. This is motivated by architectural and historical interest as much as great literature, a rainy and lush climate (but notice how it never seems to rain at Downton Abbey?), stodgy nursery food and a good cup of tea (OK, and for a brief few pubescent years I read a lot of Regency romances). My great-grandparents, of German and English heritage, were über Anglophiles. In 1912 they set out with their architect and decorator on buying trips to Great Britain to find suitable furnishings–even buying old bits of manors and castles that were for sale–for the Tudor Revival estate they were creating back in Akron, Ohio. Enamored as they were with their British travels (Compton Wynyates and Haddon Hall were especially inspiring), they decided to stay a few extra weeks and went ahead and cancelled their homeward trip on the Titanic in April 1912. Stan Hywet Hall likely owes it ultimate completion to that fateful decision. That it even exists today is because it was signed over in 1957 by the six Seiberling children to a non-profit museum foundation and left as originally furnished and decorated–complete with paintings, china, silver, full cupboards, closets and drawers.

Gertrude Penfield Seiberling, c. 1925.

The house, which opened in 1915, had all of the grandiose trappings of its era and yet always maintained a cozier sense of home and family. There were balls and galas, events in the Music Room, garden parties and large family dinners (F.A. Seiberling, my great-grandfather, was one of nine children who lived in the Akron area and he liked to gather the clan together often). Christmas was a beloved time and my father's childhood Christmases at the manor were a source of many happy memories. On certain occasions, the manor and its grounds were also opened to the public or to employees of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. The English would have scoffed, I'm sure, but the attention to detail in the house is transporting and the intended effect has succeeded in the appearance of an estate that has evolved over centuries. Charles Schneider, a Cleveland architect, won the commission because his design was warm and appealing, not at all like the marbled halls of many of the Gilded Age homes in Newport and New York that the Seiberling family found wanting.

Lord and Lady Grantham–

to the manor born in Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey incorporates aspects of the American Gilded Age in the newer wealth of Cora, Lady Grantham's heritage paired with the aristocratic, but slowly impoverished, Edwardian English estate of her husband Lord Grantham. Despite his wife's money, and their three daughters, the estate and its contents must pass by law to the next male heir, ideally with sufficient funds for its maintenance to keep it within direct lineage–an example of the male heir primogeniture holdover of feudal law. Marriages of this kind were not uncommon during this time when wealthy women from American industrial families were paired with English noblemen to infuse dwindling estates with cash and uphold their preservation. Thus, a tentative "marriage of convenience" was forged between pockets of the American nouveau riche and a few bastions of fading English aristocracy.

The F.A. Seiberling family around 1915, after Stan Hywet was completed. My grandfather, James Penfield, is at the upper left, alongside his sister-in-law Henrietta Buckler Seiberling (who would later be instrumental in the creation of Alcoholic's Anonymous), brothers Fred and Willard, and in front (from left), sister Virginia Seiberling Handy, parents F.A. Seiberling and Gertrude Penfield Seiberling, flanking youngest sibling, Franklin, Jr., and sister Irene S. Harrison.

One of the many reasons I continue to enjoy Stan Hywet today is because it is the only repository of family memory that I have left in Akron: we long ago left the small house across town where I grew up and my grandparents' home, just up the road from Stan Hywet, was sold in 1983. Where there were once several dozen staff, by the end of World War II there were only a few servants (and the once well-manicured grounds more or less went wild). Meanwhile, my father's household in a comfortable 1923 Spanish Mission style house nearby had two live-in staff and several hired as needed. He and my mother spent their married years in a much smaller suburban Colonial, across town, with no maids. By the 1960s, the world that my family had known no longer existed and paralleled the demise of the midwestern Rust Belt's industrial heyday. While I can't deny that I am grateful for a glimpse into this other world––or that I take pride in my heritage on both sides of my family––at the same time I am blessed to have had a grounded upbringing from each of my parents that focused on values, kindness and the merits of a good education: part middle class suburban offerings and part New Hampshire farm.

F.A. Seiberling in front of Stan Hywet in 1942.

It's fun to speculate "what if?" What if the family had returned on the Titanic? Would Stan Hywet still have been built? What if there hadn't been a hostile takeover of Goodyear Tire & Rubber in 1921? What if the family had still been involved with Goodyear and never founded Seiberling Tire & Rubber (when F.A. lost Goodyear he turned around after a few months and started another tire company, which stayed in the family until a corporate raid in 1960)? What if the family still owned Stan Hywet? Would there have been a pattern of primogeniture as there was in Great Britain or would my grandfather, the second of two sons, who ran Seiberling Tire after his father passed the baton, been the heir apparent to the home? The speculation is fun but the reality is that, in deeding the entire estate and its contents in 1957, the six siblings guaranteed that the property and grounds would never be divided, sold or destroyed. Today it continues to live up to its noblesse oblige Latin motto carved over the door: "Non Nobis Solum" (Not for us alone) with a well-preserved house, collections and accurately restored landscapes and gardens. [Meanwhile, Highclere Castle, the very English and historic setting of Downton Abbey, remains privately owned through direct lineage of the Carnarvon family since 1679, and is also open to the public.]

So as my husband and I watch Downton Abbey from our humble doublewide on our Kentucky farm, it seems a rather strange way of glimpsing a reassuring sense of order and family life in a changing world. While the fictional characters in the household of Downton Abbey mourn the way it was before World War I, nearly one hundred years later we look back at a past we did, or did not, know with the same, odd kind of longing. No matter what era we're in, it's usually about one's sense of place in the world, family hierarchy and relations, a well-appointed house (or hopes and plans of one), great dinner parties, and the intricacies of romance and relationships. Strong and imperious no-nonsense matriarchs with great one-liners go a long way, too, even if snark was probably not very fashionable in those days. I want to be like the Dowager Countess when I grow up! And, while we're being silly (sort of), a devoted butler would be fabulous.

Reclamation

Sometimes I land upright and realize, yes, that's it, it's been this way all along. Perhaps it was there all the time but I wasn't seeing and I wasn't listening. Rather than have that "ruthlessness to rest," as my great-grandmother used to write to her children (here "rest" as in "pause"), I have had a wanderlust for many months.

The Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" speaks to this necessity to pause right where we are: "Till by turning, turning we come round right." That's exactly what I've done these past few months: whirling and twirling and now fortunate to have landed on my feet again, but glad for having had the journey.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

In the past six months I have been presented with several job opportunities, all from my own searching but each one, in its own way, something I feel I have been qualified to do and to do well. Problem is, I sense, with an especially tough job market now, that options are limited for writers or historians and certainly more competitive. I made the deliberate choice when my last job was downsized in 1997–– from site manager of an historic museum house to a part-time docent: I chose "I don't think so"––that it was time to have more children. We had been married not even a year and I was thirty-three, my husband forty-one. Our two boys were born within two-and-a-half years. ["The heir and the spare," as it is often referred to in jolly old primogenitured England.] I had our daughter in my mid-20s but that's another long and wonderful story.

My point is that well-educated little old me, who had worked hard at developing her career in historic preservation, public relations and freelance writing, felt it was important to be at home with her children. I had been reared in the "you can have everything you want" school: career, husband, children. But I knew better and I knew myself better than that: I have believed, for some time, that you can have everything you want, within reason, but certainly not all at the same time. If someone tells you otherwise, they are fooling themselves: their house-of-cards has to give somewhere (or they have a lot of hired help).

So I was able to be a stay-at-home mother and I hope it has served my children well (although perfectly organized, crafty and polished mother, I am not). Then we moved here several years ago, over the span of a year, and life has been busy and hectic and still not quite settled. We still have things in boxes and our real estate situation has more settling out to do yet. As my husband stretches out into the farm that we are creating, I'm often running around like some of my hens, cackling and scratching and generally in a twirl. He is project-based and linear where I am circular: he moves from A. to B. with great finesse, while I am dabbling in G., thinking about finishing A. and pondering X., Y. and Z. Occasionally I screech or peck at those around me, but I've been able to keep that to a dull roar. And, I've kept writing in some form, still selling the occasional magazine or newspaper article or copy of The Pantry from my home coffers (thank you all, for that!).

With each potential job opportunity there has been this expectation: what would the job bring in terms of challenges and income and benefits? How would it change our lives? But each job, as great it has been on paper, and as polished as I've been on paper, has not even led to an interview. This has been a bit discouraging, and also quite humbling. It has also been illuminating because I realize, finally, that I am meant to remain at home for the foreseeable future, perhaps consulting or working away from the ridge when the right opportunity may present itself, but not now. A few weeks ago when I realized this, I received a hearty check for a forthcoming article and some press-related queries on The Pantry. Around the same time I found some amazing writings from my grandmother, in an old college trunk of mine, some of which seemed to speak right to me [she was also a farm wife and a published magazine writer––and we share a focus issue, too]. The Universe was speaking to me and with a big, LOUD BANG!

So what am I going to do with all of this newly allowed "free" time, you may be asking? Well, I've given myself permission to write the stuff I want to write, to try to sell more articles and books. To blog more. To can food for winter and organize our house while we transition some more on the ridge. To be a more organized wife and mother. To start tackling a family archives project at last: for myself, for my extended family, for posterity. To walk again now that the hot summer is behind us and glorious warm fall days are here. To be more present with my family and have no regrets about what I'm not doing in the world, but to better focus on what I am doing. To be right where I am, "where I ought to be."

I've felt a bit like Dorothy in the past few months: looking for a different scenario than the one in my own back yard. Not only did I try so hard to get the right job that sometimes things backfired on me, despite my own efforts: like the time I was a "strong contender" last spring for a publications manager position, but they never received several key emails from me that would have weaned out the group to be interviewed. [I found this out two months after I first applied, when I had the guts to inquire as to what was going on: I have never had "dropped" emails before in my life, at least for something so significant!] There are other stories, some humorous, some pathetic: like when I virtually begged a headhunter (excuse me, a "Culture Catalyst"–don't ask) to convince the ad agency to let me write them some sample copy. I think that guy went running, and fast, leaving me a mere quip: "The agency is no longer in a particular urgency to hire at this time."

Finally, my own personal catalyst for this recent epiphany was this email response, when I inquired as to my status, after spending eight hours about a month ago crafting the pitch-perfect college development letter as another test of my writing abilities: "Thank you for your inquiry. We are in the interviewing stage for the position now but will bring in additional candidates as necessary. We hope to have some resolution to this search soon and will be informing all candidates of our decision." Perhaps I am reading too much into this but my gut says that, in other words: "You are way overqualified for this position (you nitwit), you will probably want a lot of money, and, most of all, you are old. And remember, don't call us, we'll call you for an interview, but only if our other younger, less qualified candidates don't pan out. As a lovely parting gift, you will eventually receive our generic 'We've filled this position but thank you and we wish you the very best in your job search' email. Now, thank you and go away."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Sally O'Malley. I'm proud to say I'm fifty years old and I like to kick, stretch, and KICK! I'm FIFTY! Fifty years old..."

I've been out of the workforce for some time. I'm graying naturally and I kind of like that. I'm definitely middle-aged but my eyes can still laugh and twinkle or be tinged with melancholy. In my heart and my head I am still that idealistic, passionate twenty-five year old young woman. So, that woman is going to be my driving force now to accomplish the things at home and with my family, and in the world via my writing, that I want to do. Let's face it: writing is an ageless profession. Many women novelists, especially those who raised a family, got their start later in life. One of my favorite books on farm life, Little Heathens, was written and published by a woman in her 80s!

Now that this midlife crisis is effectively over (unless it is just beginning), I'm going to finish my canning this weekend: salsa today, peach jam and bread & butter pickles tomorrow. Then I'm going to tackle projects: both writing and otherwise. Little bites, one life at a time. Most of all, I'm going to "write and KICK!" as my now twenty-two year old daughter has so wisely advised. Because I'm (almost) fifty: fifty years old! And time waits for no one.

Epiphany

Today, January 6th, is also known as Epiphany, when the three kings apparently visited Christ, twelve days after his birth. Some people–the English come to mind–still do celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas. Usually, by January 6, I am ready to take down our decorations which I am (starting) to do today. It is always a laborious process for me, like so many organizational tasks (but a closet or cupboard, especially if it is food-related? I am all over it...). In Appalachia, the custom of Old Christmas is likely a thing of the past but perhaps there are readers here who can elaborate on that. That link provides more information than I can and here is another. IMAGE–Giotto's "Adoration of the Magi," 1304-1306, one of the fresco panels he was commissioned to paint for the Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel in Padua, Italy. While I studied these frescoes extensively in college, I have never actually seen them. Here is an interesting modern interpretation of the frescoes, with more photographs.

I am a great one for epiphanies and I am always open to them throughout the year. Sometimes the awareness is external, from other sources or friends or even family, and sometimes it is from within. Over the years I've learned that my intuition–call it female, my soul, my alter or the God-voice–should never be ignored. It is our most primal gift and should never be feared, but embraced. I believe it is the same thing that would have caused us to perk our heads up from the campfire and listen to the cracking of sticks in the woods. What prickles the hairs on our neck. What makes the deer in our fields pause, listen, and respond. What, at times, just clicks.

I've had epiphanies that radiate from within me, like an enveloping warmth. I've had them when being very still and almost seeing an inverted external radiance from the natural world around me, like a glimmer on another realm and then, just as quickly, it is gone again and the world looks the same as it did only moments before. An epiphany is like a voice of great clarity or the manifestation of the divine. I've had friends tell me of a booming external voice or hearing only the faintest whisper. At its most basic, an epiphany is "a light bulb moment." Any way we experience it, we should listen.

Adoration of the Child (1439-43) by Fra Angelico

One of my favorite moments in The Common Book of Prayer, the Episcopal service liturgy with which I grew up, was a benediction spoken after communion: "The Peace of God, which passeth all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." I always took it to mean that we should listen and keep our minds open to God's wonders and wisdom, but don't spin it for your own purposes. God and his "peace" are beyond our understanding and I don't believe we as mortals are supposed to always have all of the answers or solve all of the mysteries on Earth, either. But we are to be open to them and to discovery (and yes, that includes scientific discovery, too). That, to me, is what Epiphany is all about: being open to the wonder and the mystery of it all. To behold something so great from something so very wonderful that even three kings were brought to their knees. What writer Madeline L'Engle termed "the Glorious Impossible" in her book of the same name (and one of my favorites in our Christmas books) reflecting on the birth of Christ through Giotto's frescos: Possible things are easy to believe. The Glorious Impossibles are those things that bring joy to our hearts, hope to our lives, songs to our lips.

I watched a disturbing film this vacation in the wee hours of the night, when the rest of the house was sleeping, that I probably shouldn't have watched. Occasionally I am just a sucker for the morbid–or at least trying to understand a person's psychology, what makes us as mortal infallible humans "tick." [I am also a fan of redemption but there is none in this movie and there is no happy ending, either, which is why it is not for the squeamish.] Seven was about a serial murderer, played to the chilling hilt by Kevin Spacey (as good a performance as Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, just not as much screen time). In his mind he was carrying out a plan of atonement, in what he claimed were God's whisperings to him, for the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and wrath. [I think I've got that right...] In his own mind and deeds he became jury, judge and executioner in the name of God. [Yet, it is not really clear who is whispering, just that this guy has issues with mortal sins, big time.]

What I realized is that we all have an inner voice of sorts but that some of us use that voice differently–and that some of us use God's voice, or what we perceive to be God's voice, for great hurt and harm, sometimes even persecution or a minor, but self-interpreted, judgment call. Perhaps that has been my greatest lesson here in the Bible Belt: God is used as a cross, shield and even a crossbow at times. But I have to wonder what he would really have to say about what is often said or done in his name?

I am aware this is just a fictional movie but yet we have many modern and historic examples of sociopathic and narcissistic leaders who have listened to their inner voice, too. And many psychopaths, certainly. So when is that voice evil and when is it good? I suspect it is evil when harm is being leveled, when intolerance is preached, when personal and wider boundaries are crossed, when tears are shed or blood is spilled. This can happen in a home or a country. Goodness is so very easily seen but evil can be more hidden and at times even defended, by individuals or entire governments. Perception and reality can be two murky concepts.

And yet, there are so many "good people" and glimmers of good, too. It's the high and mighty–and often the terribly insecure–among us who want control, to bring us down, to be the first to throw stones. It can be the ultimate in persecution and, sadly, it is at the root of what is dividing this country–and world–right now into two very different political and social realms.

There is a wildness here in our new world that is refreshing and open and yet there can be menacing voices in the woods, too. I see despair all around me. Poverty, drugs, people who won't or can't work and have just given up from generations of despair. But I also have encountered people who are, on the surface perhaps, all clean and shiny and allegedly Christian but their appearance masks great judgment and probably even greater unhappiness. We also have people "around" who have outright stolen wood, hay and fencing materials from us and yet go to church every Sunday. It is a dichotomy that ingratiates or amuses, depending on the day. [I've often thought we should just leave out extra food and hay like the Scandinavians do for their barnyard Tomtens: so they'll bless their farm rather than pillaging it.]

I've always preferred real: true grit, honesty, and an attempt at mutual understanding and respect, even if there is not agreement. "Good fences make good neighbors," wrote Robert Frost in his poem Mending Wall, but make sure you provide a gate that opens both ways once in a while. [Then there is that great expression: "If you don't like my gate, you don't have to swing on it!"] The people most dear to me in my life are not afraid to challenge me or tell me like it is and neither are they afraid to validate and support who I am and respect my own journey. They are also not afraid of my authentic self, the one that radiates from inside and not on the surface–which, depending on the day, varies from dowdy to downright pleasant. All I ask of others is that they not judge my own journey as I try not to judge theirs–but sometimes you just have to take different paths to the same end point.

Teddy and the Bear-with-No-Name (I never named her!) are still a part of the family and have always sat in old chairs. They wear some of my daughter's clothes from when she was a little girl. I try not to choose favorites and love them both.

Then there is that most marvelous, scruffy, ready-to-toss out old stuffed animal or doll. Do you remember that most magical children's story, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams? Did you ever have something that you loved so much that the poor thing got so bedraggled or patched back together? Each of my children had (and have–of course I still keep them!) one of those: Addie had a Raggedy-Annie doll, "Annie" that my mother bought from a doll maker when she was one or two, Henry has a mohair bear that my father (Grandpa) gave him, "Teddy," of course, and then there is Eli's "Piggy," who came in his Easter basket when he was a toddler. Piggy is no longer pink but has faded into a pinkish-gray and much of his plush hair has worn thin. Each doll or animal is covered in love.

I still have my father's mohair bear, "Teddy," that he gave to me in my early childhood and that my grandmother tried to replace with a newer model. I wouldn't have it and I remember my father smiling at my youthful defiance–we're talking before the age of five (and yes, I was a precocious brat but that's beside the point here). I even remember overhearing their conversation at my grandparents' house about it: "Jim, you have to get rid of that old bear!" "No, Mother, Cathy loves him." I still have the replacement bear, too, that my grandmother was pleased to give me that day but my father's bear is still my favorite in my own nursery arsenal.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

So here is to growth and meaningful introspection and to earned and well-deserved shabbiness–to becoming real in our journey. To learning from our own voices and to hearing the voices of others, too, even if at times, we don't want to hear them. We can even choose to tune them out or turn them off, certainly, but make sure you at least listen, first, or keep an open mind and heart. Acknowledgment is always good, too, if not polite and gracious. Even as I age I can't ever imagine not keeping an open mind to new possibility, friendship, outlook, change or a different perspective or way of doing something. I tell my children that even though I have a lot of education and the paper to prove it (sometimes I question if it was really needed, but don't tell my children that!), I'm still a student and always learning. I will forever be a seeker because, as much as I am comfortable with old and sentimental or well-worn things and concepts, a new idea or way of being can sometimes be a revelation. Perhaps even a "glorious impossible."

Keeping Vigil

I haven't written much about our neighbor Ida and her farm because, well, I'm probably leery of writing too much about other people here or their stories. Or perhaps it is because I have not wanted to intrude or that it is all just too close to home in the literal sense. PHOTO–Ida has always been proud of her hollyhocks and blackberries. These have always flourished on the east side of her house and she made sure I got some seeds this summer.

We we took a real shine to Ida when we first met her two years ago in her board-and-batten farmhouse across the road from our doublewide farm property and the "knob piece." My husband, being a generally more knock-on-the-door and say "Hi-ya" kind of guy than I, paved the way for our friendship.


"House when new" and Ida's sister, Maythel, c. 1940 (not certain of photo dates)

Mr. and Mrs. Walter (Bannie) Dye (Ida's parents) and their three youngest children (some of Ida's siblings): Pete, Dickie and Maythel with the guitar.

She immediately reminded us of our dear neighbor and friend, Dot Grim, who had lived across the street from us in New Hampshire (and sadly died only a few weeks before we moved to Kentucky). They were both feisty women in their late 80s who lived their lives their way, inspiring in me a kind of awestruck admiration. One day, during the fall when we moved our things and I was cleaning house in advance of the moving truck, Ida brought me a pile of huge tomatoes that she had grown as a housewarming gift. "How are you today, Ida?" I asked. "As mean as ever!" she said with an impish grin. It seemed you always knew where you stood with Ida and that's a rare and welcome thing.


Ida's brother Dickie with his horses, Dock and Dan and Ida's mother, Bannie Dye.

Another time I was sharing with her some concerns about someone who was always talking about how Christian they were, but yet there was something I didn't quite trust about them. Ida's answer was the wisest counsel I've heard on the subject: "Do they walk the walk?" I said I wasn't sure–I only knew them at our house when they did some work on the place. "Well, that's what matters–if they spend too much time talking, they probably aren't doing a whole lot of walking!" Ida told us how the three Baptist churches on the ridge used to baptize people down on the creek below. I always looked forward to spending more time with Ida but in this past year she has been in Tennessee for much of the time. She was independent, too, and you have to respect when someone wants to do for themselves so we tried not to intrude too often, and usually only when asked. This fall she often liked to spend time at my husband's shop having coffee with him. She loved it when our boys mowed her lawn and insisted on paying them something, even if they refused.


"Stock barn and Pap's wagon" [sadly, we had to tear the barn down last year as it was ready to fall down and needed too much work to be righted again.] We will one day build our farmhouse to the rear left of it. Now, with the barn gone, the famous "short-core" apple tree is in full view, a kind of indigenous old heirloom apple that even Kentucky novelist Janice Holt Giles wrote about.

In 2008 before Thanksgiving and after we had been here a year, Ida's daughter–who lives out of state and had bought the farm from her mother about ten years ago–approached us about buying the farm from her. We couldn't believe it as we'd often thought to ourselves, "maybe one day, wouldn't it be nice..." So much land here is sold at "Absolute Auction" where it is subdivided and often split up in rancorous battles between families, which is sad and demeans the spirit of the land. We had left our own family farm situation back home in irreparable shambles after trying to carry on with the legacy, and yet had purposefully left the land as intact as we could, even getting protective conservation easements. We sensed that Ida's daughter wanted the same kind of thing for her family farm and have come to know that with certainty.


"Dempsey Dye–their home place at the end of the long field."

Ida's daughter knew we were planning to have a cattle farm here and she came to the realization that, apart from the occasional visit, she would not be living here enough to justify owning it any more. As her daughter had done, we gave Ida life estate of her home and nearby in the past year we have built a shop and woodshed. It is on her farm where we will eventually build our own farmhouse. The land sits across the road from our knob pasture and doublewide home and so we've joined, effectively, two old ridge farms together.


"Brooder house and Grandma's (Bannie's) chickens across the drive near the corner of road and drive." (person unidentified–our shop is now at this location as the brooder house is long gone)

When we saw Ida on Saturday, in a local nursing home, I was stunned by the change in her, and so quickly. We last saw her two months ago, before she returned to Tennessee where she has another house, and the place hasn't been the same without her around. All she could say when she saw us was, faintly, "It's all going to be beautiful." And she said my name, repeating it as if to place me. She smiled when I told her that our boys were there, too, and that they'd been taking care of her golf cart. And yet I wasn't certain she knew who we were.


"Grandma's (Bannie's) chickens and yard (and) barn before wings were added."

Before Ida headed south for the holidays two months ago, my husband drove her around the farm, showing her what we had done to restore the fields and hedgerows. She told him, repeatedly, "Pap would be so pleased with what you have done." Over the past two years she has pointed out old places, like the "pennywinkle spring" (pennywinkle is another name for vinca or myrtle which grows wild in the woods here) where the neighbors used to gather for water and gossip, the various houses on the ridge where she has lived, of the ghosts that have visited them from time to time. In the past few years Ida has shared many stories about the farm and I always wanted to hear more (fortunately some are written down and my husband has a great memory for the spoken word). She told us how they stored the apples from the "short-core" tree out back (under where our dog Lucy is now buried) in the haymow and how they kept through the winter until the spring. She shared some darker stories, too, of harder times and circumstances. Ida did not always live on the ridge, and for many years as far away as Chicago, but she came home to it again. Her brother Dickie, for a time, lived up the road in a small house on the farm.


"Dock and Dan and Pete?"

This morning we learned that Ida's grandson had been visiting before we were there on Saturday. He was telling her about the farm and commented on the changes we had made and about the fencing and cleaning up here and there that we'd done this fall. So Ida's daughter believes that she did know who we were and that she was talking about the farm when she said, "It's all going to be beautiful." I'd like to think, too, perhaps, that she might have already been catching glimpses of a world beyond as I've seen it in people before they pass on, as if they are straddling two realms of existence. Now her family waits by her side or in their thoughts and prayers. As her daughter said this morning, "Mother has always known how to live her life." But it is never easy to let someone go and getting older myself doesn't make that any easier.


"Front yard looking east." Apart from the gate and the tree in the foreground, this view hasn't changed at all.

Today, in a strange kind of epiphany and after a week of some occasional doubt and a bit of holiday homesickness, I realized why we are here in Kentucky (a question people often ask of us): I believe now it is to keep Ida's home fires burning, even if we could not tend to our own, try as we might, back in New Hampshire. This was a gift, beyond any measure or real estate transaction: Ida and her daughter have allowed us the opportunity to create our own family homeplace, our own roots on an old family farm in Kentucky, a place where only a few years ago we knew no one. It is our own slice of heaven in a strife-filled world–without the chords of upset and baggage, while cared for with our best intentions.

Dear Ida–we will miss your spirit and your warm welcome to our family here on your ridge: to your land, your farm, your Kentucky homeplace. We will always try our best to honor what you and your family have kept here–intact and well-loved–while cherishing it ourselves. We now have a chance to be caretakers of another family legacy, while also making it our own. This I am sure about–we never really own the land beneath us, except on paper, but the land has a way of binding us to it.

Postscript. This morning, Wednesday, I learned that early Tuesday evening, January 4, 2010, Ida Elizabeth Doyle, passed away. She was 88. Here is her obituary and it reads, in part, "She was born on her parents, Walter and Bannie Dye, farm on May 23, 1921 in what is now Nancy, KY and returned back here in the 1970s. Ida was widely traveled but loved the home place best, perhaps because she intimately knew every tree, stone, spring, and field."

The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
in Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

~ Robert Frost

NOTE on Photos: To best appreciate this you have understand that my office is an absolute wreck and I'm not kidding (think Hoarders kind of wreck). So today, when thinking about blogging this entry as I do not have a photograph of Ida, I remembered the copies of old photos of the farm that Ida's daughter had given us and I thought, "Where must they be? I only saw them a few weeks ago..." But a few weeks in a cluttered office, especially at the holidays, is like a small epoch. Before two minutes had passed I had found them: my intuition told me to look in a box to the right of my desk, and there they were. In another pile I have transcriptions of many of Ida's old farm and ridge memories that her daughter wrote down several years ago. With her daughter's permission, I might share some of them here from time to time.

A New Year's Renascence

From Recovering: A Journal by May Sarton (1980)
Sunday, December 31st, 1978

"Tenderness is the grace of the heart, as style is the grace of the mind, I decided when I couldn't sleep last night. Both have something to do with quality, the quality of feeling, the quality of reasoning.

The last day of what has been an uneasy and painful year for me. I look forward to dawn tomorrow and, as the days get longer, to begin to feel my way into renascence. It is not strange though it is mysterious that our "New Year" comes at the darkest time in the seasonal cycle. When there is personal darkness, when there is pain to be overcome, when we are forced to renew ourselves against all the odds, the psychic energy required simply to survive has tremendous force, as great as that of a bulb pushing up through icy ground in spring, so after the overcoming, there is extra energy, a flood of energy that can go into creation. Painting of "Miss May Sarton" by her friend, Polly Thayer (1912-2006) 1936. Collection of Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum, Harvard University.

Monday, January 1st, 1979

...Now on this first day of a New Year, I am in a quiet way blooming. And this year, no more wild hopes. Then maybe the Furies so present in the last two months will go elsewhere."


An old abandoned Kentucky homeplace where daffodils and forsythia bloom each spring: "the psychic energy required simply to survive has tremendous force, as great as that of a bulb pushing up through icy ground in spring..."

NOTE: Poet May Sarton (1912-1995) was also known for her many published journals–quiet and luminous reflections long before the popular memoir genre of today. For many years, before she moved to York, Maine, Sarton lived in the small village of Nelson, New Hampshire where she is now also buried. [She was a good friend of my friend the author Elizabeth Yates McGreal, although I never met her during all of my years in New Hampshire.]

For more New Year's musings from the literary world, see our book blog, Cupcake Chronicles.

New Year's Resolutions-Why Not?

I'm trying to resolve to do things all the year round but I love a clean slate so why not go public about it?

• Children–More present and in the moment with our boys and more letters and visits with our daughter.
  
• Communication–I want to be in better touch with people and I don't mean via email or Facebook: a letter or note, visit, tea, lunch, dinner party, or phone call (will take some work as I hate the phone). Consolidate: two basic cell phones and no land line more practical? (especially with satellite internet expense)
  
• Computer–I will try to be on the computer for work or play only when my children are at school or asleep.
• Cupcakes–Be a better book group (and blog) participant!
• Exercise–More of it. Enough said. And let's start with walking all over this beautiful farm of ours as much as possible.
  
• Family/Friends–See Communication, above.
• Farm–Develop a working plan with my husband. What are we doing and when? A girl's gotta know these things.
  
• Farmhouse–Same deal, even if it will be on paper for a while.
• Food–Continue to eat only when hungry, not depriving myself but not going overboard, either. Balance indulgences with sprees of great health and limits. Be more proactive about menu planning.
  
• Garden–Plan what can easily be tended and managed and remember the bounty in the next county. [No, I did not intend for that to rhyme!]
• Hormones–Need I say more? Can't live with them, can't kill them. Continue to explore this new realm of sight and sound.
  
• Houses-in-Order–This is a literal as much as figurative goal of mine...and on-going, always. Pick up, put away or pitch. Repeat. Clean often (yes, more often than I think).
  
• Laundry–Laundry, laundry, LAUNDRY! And while we're on the subject, how about those two baskets full of ironing? (I should see it as a chance to catch up on all of those taped Barefoot Contessa and Dr. Oz episodes...)
  
• Marriage–More time to pause and plan together.
  
• Past Issues–Burn 'em or bury 'em; reconcile 'em or write about 'em.
• Photos–Organize, copy, scan, duplicate, share (same with all family archives).
  
• Recreation–Literally, "recreate": more reading and day trips and family pauses together.
• Restaurants–Once in a while, like once a month in Lexington. Really. Home cooking so much better (and cheaper) and we have all of those freezers and stuff.
• Sleep–While I seem to require less these days, no one is well served by my regular 2-4am bedtimes. So, I will try to be more of a morning person by going to sleep before midnight!
  
• Song–Join the Pleasant Hill Shaker Singers in March and sing my little heart out several times a year, and maybe dance a bit, too (even if in costume).
  
• Spirit–More "morning time" and find a church that moves and inspires and is good for the family.
• Volunteer–Do more for others and more often. Find a niche and commit to it.
  
• Writing-for-Blogs–More often or when inspired, but don't let it get in the way of other writing, too. Be more bloggy, if possible, and less of an essayist! (Save that for the books.)
  
• Writing-in-General–Pick a project and work on it. Make a year plan. Prioritize. Enough of these ADD-driven snippets. Follow through!
  
• Writing-for-Hire–Generate regular articles in a variety of new and old media and while we're at it, let's market those cases of books that are in storage to some museums and gift shops.

So there it is, everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask. It helps to write it all down and be accountable, even if I forget to check the list from time to time.

Thank you, always, for visiting me here in the pantry!

Happy New Year to you and yours and may 2010 be all that you hope and dream.

Enjoy the rare New Year's Eve "Blue Moon" wherever you are. A great way to start a new decade and by New Year's Day it will already be waning again.

Catherine

What Would The J-man do?

Lifting fog at sunrise over our farm on my 47th birthday: October 29, 2009.

Brother stand the pain; Escape the poison of your impulses. The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do. Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun. Turn away from the cave of your sleeping. That way a thorn expands to a rose. A particular glows with the universal.

~ Mevlava Rumi, Persian poet and mystic, 1207-1273

I have an unusual request: it is for your help and good energy. I have a hard time asking for it, believe me, just as I have a hard time delegating or letting go of anything, really: physical or emotional. I do believe in the power of positive thinking and of prayer and you know what? Rather than think negative thoughts of my enemies I've been trying to pray for them. It turns everything upside down, doesn't it? It no longer empowers our enemies but frees us, instead. This can be a difficult realization but even more difficult to practice. Oh boy, is it ever.

You see I try to live by the Golden Rule, a universal quality of most religious belief systems. But when I am wronged, or those I love are wronged, it is a harder philosophy to put into practice. So I try to analyze the person or the situation: what grievance do they have with me and why? What can I do to change the situation or my behaviors to make it better?

Yesterday I was tapped on Facebook to join a group called Charter For Compassion. I usually balk at joining anything but the simple message in this group has the power to transform the world, just as forgiveness can do. Here is the beginning of their mission and purpose:

"The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect."

In this divisive era of name-calling and hatred in our national landscape, of religious righteousness thrown at political or societal difference, I find this cause refreshing. We do not have to tolerate hate but we can throw love back at it.

Sometimes you just end up barking up the wrong tree all the time: darned if you do, darned if you don't. Sometimes it's not you at all. Like with certain friendships that have cooled for no reason or people whom you feel you want to keep trying to reach again, no matter how brusque their demeanor. You start to feel like a dog who wants unconditional love while trying to please a difficult taskmaster who is always raising the bar. If you persist you are doing so at your own peril: more cold shoulders or a decided chill in the air. You either retreat or rebel. I have had a short-term situation like this in my new life here that requires me to let go, move on. So I pray for this person and wish them well, even though I want to tell them that their actions and behaviors have been observed by, and with, others. That they need to get over themselves! I want to have the last word or I want to fix them–either way, it's not my place or problem.

Several much older friendships have gone through a transformation in the past few years: one person is more distant from lifestyle and circumstance and the other is renewed because of a better understanding and appreciation of our differences. We forgave each other and have moved on. I hope to rectify the other. In yet another we have just gone our separate ways because I was completely misunderstood about such a minor thing and refused to apologize for something I did not do–and I had had it with their bullying. Part of the reason for all of this kerfuffle in my life is that I am not so willing to squelch who I am anymore. In most of my formative years, I was a pleaser and a smoother and a fixer. Not any more. Now I want to accept people for their humanity while I hope they will appreciate mine.

But a much more grave situation has festered and lay dormant on occasion for eight years in my life–and has always been out of my hands. But this is with a pseudo-relation, someone I will call a "pot-stirrer," someone with whom I do not spend any time (I have only actually been in their presence a handful of times) but who persists in causing harm to someone I love and to those around them. I am powerless in this situation and have been for some time. The dysfunction is overwhelming and the lies and deceit rendered by this individual are staggering, as is the pit-bull protection rendered by their enabler, no matter what the cost. I try to understand where they are coming from, what makes them tick–apt cliches for a daunting reality. I realize substance abuse is at the core of it but in my mind should not excuse any of it. I realize there are some major codependent issues that have a trickle-down effect, including with other relationships that have been troubled during the same period. I realize this could probably describe the scenario in so many families today and it is sad. I can not speak for those, even though I know of some quite close to me, but I can empathize. I know now what a toxic, unaccountable person can do and what the price of denial and avoidance can be. But I can choose not to live my life that way.

I realize even half a country away, there are going to be occasional flare-ups. And I realize, at last, that whenever I try to help or to intercede, the aim is to kill the messenger–me–and the tale is retold in such a way that there is nothing but victimization when help and understanding is all that has been offered. So I retreat out of self-protection.

But when this person lies about someone even closer to me, I lose perspective. I become enraged and want to get in my car and drive all night and darken their door with my anger and I want to slap their enabler and "victim" silly, even though that is the one person I want to protect.

I have never considered myself a "victim" of anything so after the initial rage quelled the other day, I have tried to look at their life and their actions: there have been many lies in the past that have been uncovered so why does it surprise me that this is just yet another one? Then there are the lies spread around that are manipulative and untrue that have caused irreparable damage. This person has had the quiet agenda of dividing and conquering for some time and they have succeeded. Instead of defending myself or my family, I have chosen to be silent as anything I do or say has been, and will be, used against me. It is sad, it is toxic but it is the reality of the situation. And the only thing I can do is to retreat from it and to pray about it. This has been my method of coping with all of the "pot stirrers" in my adult life.

So why do I allow these bullies to occasionally rule my life? Let's no longer empower those in our lives who wish us harm or treat us or those we love badly. Let's love them instead, as best we can, while not tolerating their behaviors. So that is what I ask of you: could you please think positive thoughts during these first few days of Advent that I am able to let these situations go while I try to pray for those who probably need it the most? And, if you have a similar example in your life, I will think of you, too.

The Word made flesh for us gives us the greatest hope that the murky night of darkness will not overwhelm us, but we shall see the daylight of eternity.

Lord, let us receive your clear light; be for us such a mirror of light that we may be given grace to see you unendingly.

If we are overcome, you have the power to forgive us; Therefore, in my sin I call on you, my Lord, my Light, for help.

For you were sent into the world to enlighten my heart, to nurture true repentance and to make the Holy Spirit’s work grow more powerfully in me.

With the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign for ever!

–Hildegard of Bingen (German mystic and abbess: 1098-1179)

PAINTING: The Visitation, by Jacopo Pontormo, c. 1528

Whenever I'm truly angry at someone or a situation, I think of the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania whose school was attacked by a crazed man several years ago. They lost many of their children in that incident and others were wounded for life with physical and emotional damage. But what did they do? They forgave the man responsible and even went to comfort his family in the days after the shooting. To most of us, myself included, this is inconceivable. But they did it and I'm sure they meant it. And those two things are the hardest part of forgiveness: the doing and the sincerity, and finally, the letting go. I'm starting to feel better. Thank you for listening!

NOTE ~ I have also ordered a double-book from Amazon: Codependent No More and Beyond Codependency, written by Melody Beattie. I am hoping it will help me understand this sad situation and help me cope with the fall-out in my own life. Here are some helpful quotes in these situations and some wise advice from the Mayo Clinic about forgiveness and how it helps our health:

"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

~ Matthew 5: 44

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

~Abraham Lincoln

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man's life enough sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner was you."

~ Lewis Smedes