a little red hen

A mid-20th century romance began, endures...

 

THE LONG-TERM MARRIAGE

At last she’s happy, reigning with her creams,

rubbing his scalp’s roof until it gleams.

As the squamous-cell carcinomas sprout,

the local dermatologist cuts them out

 

or frosts the lunar surface with liquid nitrogen.

The creams come from West Fourteenth Street, Manhattan,

FedExed from their adopted son’s boyfriend’s home,

a relationship that remains, to them, unknown.

 

Their Oriental rugs are steeped in piss

from the bulldog barking like an activist.

Bickering over misplaced books, the tchotchkes

lost, and how she re-remembers her stories,

 

they wait with an unfinished, finished look,

and note how honeysuckle crowns Old Saybrook

and thistles overrun their last garden.

The dash between their dates is nearly done.

                                                                -Spencer Reece

Published in The New Yorker,  April 13, 2009;  on my bulletin board since then.

On a spring day in Portland, Oregon, I celebrate  meeting my spouse in Manhattan.  March 1966,  a large, airless room at a counseling conference in the Commodore Hotel. He was presenting; I was in the audience determined to get my question answered.  He took me for an ice cream soda at a nearby Schrafft's on 42nd Street..  It was a lovely day; we walked twenty blocks south.

We lived four blocks apart--Ron in a  classic 8-story 1930s building--one-bedroom, rent-controlled  ($110) on East 24th. Mine was a smaller studio ($160), in a new 21-story high-rise.    We married in his apartment October 29, 1966--the same year NOW began.  The word "femnism" was not in my vocabulary at the time.  We disagreed on the war in Vietnam.  We moved quickly toward working on equality between women and men--and being very opposed to the "American war," as it's known in Vietnam.

Two children, four grandchilddren, several moves--Oberlin, Ohio then Baltimore, Maryland, then back to New York City before landing in Portland.

The Commodore, built in 1919, was renovated inside and out in 1980.  Unrecognizable to us in its current state. Schrafft's is gone.  We are still New Yorkers in spirit, almost 50 years later, in Portland, Oregon.  

My political life requires a placeholder...

Too much going on to be a frequent poster here...or infrequent.  Yet I want to stay with blogging as a practice even while I need more thought on its structure for the future. 

My neighbor Joella demonstrates a perfect solution for all those buttons we collected in second wave activity in last century--coast to coast.  Hers in Oregon, mine mostly Baltimore and New York.  Gun control is a shared focus through Ceasefire Oregon.

Marian Wright Edelman on Inauguration Day 2013 in conversation with Melissa Harris-Perry wears image of Sojourner Truth.  Takes our feminism back to the 19th century struggle for African-American equality.  Read Ta-Nehisi Coates in the March Atlantic on why the re-election of Obama matters even more than the first. 

Speaking of blogging, the life in bread has not had enough attention here. It has not had as much attention as I would wish.  Here's a whole wheat sourdough made in October 2011.

My personal challenge is should I emulate one of my favorite, 19th century feminists, Frances E. Willard of the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union).

"Do Everything" was her motto. Is it mine?   Her unusual book,  "A Wheel with in Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle" used that newly-introduced contrivance as a metaphor for women's lives.  An excerpt HERE  with comments by a contemporary blogger.

And so you have it: Black History month (a young friend recently pointed out is the shortest month of the year) and the upcoming Women's History Month.  Both of which call out for celebration more often.  I hope to do my part one day soon but till then...  

The Working Life, Baltimore feminist therapist

Images that match ideas for writing hang out on my desktop.  The local tech suggests that fewer of these could improve the computer's function. They are too important to an old lady's memory bank to hide. 

When both our children were in school, I entered a fulltime program in social work at the University of Maryland.  Graduating in1976, I thought there'd be a job where I could do clinical work in a family agency.  Now 42 years old with a considerable resume in public relations in New York, the challenge was finding a fit for the next step.

Though I'd done community work and developed innovative workshops  in Baltimore, it was another 20th century recession with intense competition for professional placements. It was ten years since I'd worked fulltime.

During social work school I had an internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital and had an exhilarating experience with another younger student.  We designed a group for relatives and visitors to the Intensive Care Waiting Room.  Joe Lynch and I co-led a new collection of anxious people twice a week with anywhere from ten to 25 individuals, wide range of ages, ethniticies.  We published about it and hope this would be a model for Hopkins to us with other grad students--in nursing and other disciplines.

Because Hopkins was not oriented toward group work--something Joe and I discovered when one patient complained-- I was surprised that I was asked to work there.  I turned down the offer because social workers were at the bottom of the Hopkins' hierarchy and moving toward less emphasis on clinical services.  

When an instructor of mine who was an exceptional clinician at another hospital, offered me a position, I was tempted. She explained I'd start at the same level as 22 year olds recent grads in spite of my past employment.  As she explained,  "None of that was in social work."  My response, "I've just spent two years as 'school student' and I need to feel I'm moving on." That was my ego speaking.  Looking back, I think there would have been value in working for her but I was not a fit for a medical setting. 

We lived in a three-story house in Baltimore, had two young children.  The house was not one we'd have chosen but was what we could afford--$30,000 in 1971.  Twelve rooms on 3/4 acres with a 200 year-old black walnut in the front yard, built in 1923.  The smaller places we'd seen were more costly.  

Houses were cheap in that city after the 1968 riots. We'd arrived in '69 from Oberlin, Ohio, a small college town where we lived for a dizzying two years like others on college campuses in the late sixties. Our best experience, the birth of Rachel, our first child, was shadowed by Martin Luther King's assassination eleven days before her birth.  

At lunch with a friend from school I was asked to identify my ideal goal.  "Running groups for women," I answered.  Building on my experiences with feminist activities--starting Baltimore's Women's Political Caucus with two others, attending N.O.W. meetings in a small room at a local college, strongly influenced by second-wave feminist energy, this seemed my destiny.  My friend had focused me:  I'd have to begin my own practice.

A few weeks later the phone rang.  "A woman I know told me that you are a women's counselor.  I'd like to make an appointment."  Pulling myself together, I looked at the calendar, and suggested an afternoon time.  Of course, I remember J,  first of many.

Late fall 1976, I sat in the rocking chair  facing the camera in the top photo. J. sat across from me in the other rocker.  She could look out  the window behind me onto our back yard.  Between us was an oak washstand facing the alley.  I kept cash and checks in the drawer.  My fee was $15.00, payable each session.  One year later I began two women's groups.

Afterwards, yet pre-election uneasiness lingers

My favorite image from Election Night with the Democrats, Chicago, 2012.

The whole campaign thing, its endlessness and thoughtlessness, lurked behind most of my days.  The bad vibes, though they should, do not vanish with a good outcome.  All that negativity in the air must become dark cloud formations.  This is only my conjecture--yours are welcome.

Walked into Whole Foods across from Powell's Books the other night and saw pale green ornamental kale--new to me--and brown/tan wheatlike fronds turned out to be ornamental corn.  Who knew? Orange gerbera nearby seemed right.  The glass battery jar holding them hovers over a Day of the Dead figure brought to me from Mexico years ago.  Courtesy of a friend in Baltimore who appreciated (or was amused by) my fondness for hen images.  Joining him (all skeletons to me are male for some reason) are heavy metal locks I found in either San Miguel de Allende or Oaxaca, Mexico.

While grocery shopping I found another new fruit/vegetable, watermelon radish.  My posting these images is a way to move past my uneasiness in America.  Besides the re-election of Barack Obama whose graying black hair over the last four years signals the weight of his position.  He has much more heart that most give him credit for.

17% of women in Congress has miraculously inched up to 20 per cent.  The long struggle for equality has made some progress...November 5, 2012, marked the 100th anniversary of woman suffrage in Oregon.

"It's the little things..."

When the that phrase runs through my head, the song from the musical, "Company" comes to mind. It is, however,  a less positive take on the words.  A youngish Elaine Stritch (in white hat) sings rehearsing for  the original 1970 cast recording...    

In my old lady life, the good small stuff is an email with picture plus short note from daughter about our 7 year old grandchild, "Zoe learns to tie her own shoelaces."  To avoid turning it into not-so-good stuff, I gave into iPhoto's refusual to rotate the image.

Or, the two women, encountered in recent months. Both resonated to the message of the 17% button, pleased to take and wear one. At left, a much decorated checker at a local Whole Foods store; right, a dedicated Planned Parenthood petitioner at Powell's Books.

                       

Happy find while searching for Stritch performances.  Isotop Films is raising money for "Elaine Stritch:  So Shoot Me," a  documentary of this funny, bawdy, show-biz survivor, now 87 years old.  Clip has song bits from her one-woman show, "At Liberty"  in 2002. Living in NYC then, saw her at youthful 77!  [Click on red letters for video] 

 

"I've got money, I've got fame...if I could drive, I'd really be a menace!"

"Mitt Romney Rap" by WWII vet, now 87

Have four minutes and two seconds to spare?  Even if rap is not your favorite popular music mode, try this one...

 

Every visit to Tenured Radical  (see blogroll at left), I need to get there  more often. Usually Claire Potter's writing and thinking educate me.  This time it was the unexpected headline above this video, "WWII Vet Stuart Hodes Headed to Top of Rap Charts at 87." 

Reminded of Hodes' rap (and how I'd thought about posting it) on reading Saturday's miscellany at TGB where Ronni Bennett asks for viewers' take on Randy Newman's new political song, "I'm Dreaming."  A longtime fan of Newman's earlier work, I was disappointed with his result though appreciated his message: there is rampant racism toward Obama by right wingers.

Back in 1977, we'd lived in Baltimore for a decade when Newman's song of the same name created some much controvery with its dark lyrics--

“ Beat-up little seagull
On a marble stair
Tryin' to find the ocean
Lookin' everywhere
Hard times in the city
In a hard town by the sea
Ain't nowhere to run to
There ain't nothin' here for free”

Speculating on why the song was written, Cenarth Fox and Shawna Hansen Ortega gather several theories from simply random to my own favorite, "Remember, this was ... 1977, when Baltimore, like much of the country, was suffering through a crippling economic recession."

Yes, those days seem similar to the present-- though more hopeful that things would improve.  And they did-- until unresolved issues of "rampant capitalism" (apt turn of phrase from yesterday's Up! with Chris Hayes) came charging back again.

I may relate more to Stuart Hodes' "Mitt Romney Rap," in this beleaugred moment, but I'm still waiting for another Randy Newman effort.  One with his own lyrics like "Baltimore" or the whimsical, "Short People" (1978).  He was on quite a creative roll in the 1970s (many of us now-old people were likewise).

And then there were his words and music for "Louisiana, 1927," composed in 1978, referencing his knowlege of  the state's abandonment in an early devastating flood. Few people knew this history until Katrina (personal link to New Orleans) happened.  Then we heard Newman's elegy over and over in the days after the flood.  As the New York Times' Geoffrey Himes, said, "...it has become the state’s unofficial anthem in the wake of the 2005 tragedy."     

A bird's nest...recent traveling bread memories

Much going on over spring/summer that needs attention here.  Many choices for posting--ideas sparked by other bloggers, stuff in my everyday life. Deciding can get in the way of doing, don't you think?  Over at Folkways Notebook, the images Barbara posts often lead me to stuff in my own space as this one of a Carolina wren nest.  Time to consider the nest lingering, carefully saved in a container that once held roasted, unsalted cashews from the Harlem Fairway. 

Imagining-- did it land on a Manhattan street or did I find it in my Baltimore backyard in 1995 before we made the final move to New York.  A birder was visiting, so I opened it for the first time so we could examine it closely.  From the front and the back, a bit of dental floss?  Birder took out her book and delivered a lesson:  "It's probably a Blue gray gnatcatcher " (link is to actual bird sound).   

    

BREAD  Have neglected writing about it lately.  Was I so bowled over by my encounters in northern California that I felt inadequate to homemade efforts? The loaves at Acme Bread in the Ferry Building at the San Francisco wharf were good but the five-grain loaf  and pastries at Pearl Bakery here in Portland are more flavorful. 

Tartine on Guerro Street in the Castro District?  This is complicated. I was especially looking forward to this.  Much hullabaloo on food sites about the book the baker there had written.  Delightful ride on crowded trolley in the late afternoon, then startled by naked gay men preening in the sunlight at the last stop, finally a very long walk through friendly neighborhood to arrive for the moment bread was removed from ovens--at 5 p.m.  Different.

"Our bread is available Tuesday through Sunday after five o'clock in full or half loaves."  Folks lined up around the block. It was also possible to order earlier by phone, then get in line.

Staying in a motel, eating out, we were not up for even a half loaf. Here's the only photo we managed of quickly-purchased intact loaves--on the way back from the restroom. We ate an early dinner in the tiny Tartine cafe alongside the waiting bread-buyers.  Had delicious quiche, followed by an abundant and tasty bread pudding.  

From what we could discern, bread was good  but with so many other ingredients surrounding, it was hard to compare with our favorite so far on this trip, Wild Flour in Sebastapol--out in the country in Sonoma.

Finally, on our trip on our return to Santa Rosa, our friends said we had to have THE experience.  And we did.  We went to the  Sonoma Farmers Market where the bejkr (may be Esperanto for "baker") holds court, along with a clay, wood-fired oven for pretzels attached to his vehicle.

Cult Sonoma dscribes him as an "artisanal god."  Hyperbole but  the quirky Mike Zakowski is both an unusual character who grows his own wheat (little red hen could relate) but also makes fabulous bread and pretzels.

Our encounter was soon after he'd won a silver medal in a bread-making competition in France.  Movie is in the works.

On returning to Portland, my first effort, oft baked sourdough graham recipe from from some mix of flours , looked remarkably like a torpedo. Used French bread pan,carried from our place to our baby-sitting gig at our daughter's.  Best part was six year old Zoe joined grandma in working with the dough.

Stopped for a while.  Last week used my sourdough starter to make another starter for a Sourdough Semolina bread recipe I found online. Gave the entire process far more time for autolyze and fermenting.  Excellent result--even though I turned the oven too high at beginning.  But no illusions I'll reach the level of the bejkr in this lifetime.    

 

 

 

YOUR City on the List against illegal weapons?

Question:  Which of the two chocies below would you favor?

(a) More funds to raise awareness of signs of mental health instability...

[photo:  gas station, Harlem, New York City, 1996] 

or (b) Gun laws?    
          

My bias is toward both.  In the heat of the second wave of the women's movement that energized the late 20th century, women's studies scholars began to label different "schools of thought."  An academic psychologist I knew and admired described my belief that the world would be in a better place with women in charge as out-of-date. 

That was essentialist thinking she cautioned.  It was old-fashioned feminism to leave behind as a relic of the first wave--the one that gave us the vote and prohibition.

In Portland, Oregon, Saturday, July 21, 2012, marks an initial celebration of the centennial of Oregon women obtaining suffrage.  They were able to cast a ballot, to vote--eight years before it happened nationally.  I am very grateful to these essentialists and look forward to supporting more women into the House and Senate and local offices  as soon as possible.  Others life myself seem at home with the label is applied feminism.

  Your Mayor, your city on this list to oppose concealed weapons in public?  

UPDATE...UPDATE...UPDATE...KEEP FOCUS ON  GUN CONTROL!   

Just signed this next one from Mayors against Illegal Guns.  The rightwing defeats us through unwavering vigilance...we need to do the same.

Arranging Life's Personal--and political--Papers

One does not have hoarder "issues" to struggle with the difficulty of  throwing stuff out. Much recent talk here and elsewhere.  Last month the struggle with it popped up in so many places I wondered  if some invisible teacher's voice had suggested, "Write all you can about why middle class Americans love their stuff."

Because I could not find something, maybe extra copies of my, "Empowering Women," (originally called Women's Studies as Therapy), I suggested a visit to the storage space in our community's basement.  Right away it was clear that the cardboard boxes, marked and remarked through our last two moves, needed to be replaced.  And reduced.

Remember, and this is the best advice anyone can give you, the aging parent:  your children do not want your stuff.  It takes a while to accept.  Since I was left absolutely nothing by my father--there is art in places around the country, there is the one picture of his mother that I saw 40 years ago and wish I had, there's the pre-Columbian pottery, etc.--my projection was that my kids would surely want our stuff.  WRONG.

Let me amend.  Our son and his wife selected a few things when we left New York in 2009.  On our last visit there last September, I stood in front of this Kiyoshi Saito woodcut in his front hall.  How curious that a print purchased in Albuquerque in my first marriage now hung in Tarrytown, New York.

They also chose another Japanese woodcut, the only art my father gave me from several he owned by the artist, Sadao Watanabe.  Its Bibical subject including a cross (!) seemed an odd purchase for my father.

There were others I'd rather have had.  I'd long thought about selling it, kept it in storage.  Now rests above the early 20th century marble-top sideboard, an early furniture purchase, around 1964...little vintage store on west 72nd street. Seeing some of my past in his home feels like continuity.

Our daughter on the other hand is happy to have a set of German or Czech lustreware cannisters from our Baltimore kitchen. The tea container here looks the same style.  She resists all else. Though the two wool jackets I knit for her and her brother when children she wanted. Used one for her oldest, not sure what happened later.

What will I keep?  Letters from men not my spouse?  A few.  I had an idea once about a performance called "Letters from Men."  My first year back in New York, 1996, I did, "This Artist & Her Hats," for an opening of a fiber art show where I had some work.  What was it about hats I mused--the ones worn only to job interviews mid-century and never once I had the job.  And about my mother's influence.

Applied Feminism...that's what came to me as I went through photos, workshop notes from the seventies to early nineties...1972 start ing an early Women's Political Caucus chapter in Baltimore.  Now I will use this category on my blog to reflect on meaning and future.  Beyond talking about it, Applied Feminism is walking the walk. Feet tired sometimes.

"The Talented Tenth", title of notecard created from a photo I found in a Maryland flea market. 

 

EMILY'S LIST: Listen Up, please!

Like the day, I'm a bit overcast:  Eileen Brady, my candidate, has been defeated in her run for Mayor of Portland, Oregon.  She sent a "Thank you" to supporters:

...As I have said on  many occasions - Jobs save lives. Jobs save families. Jobs allow parents to send their children to school having had breakfast. And together we said that we can and must fully fund our school system, we can and must have both an accountable and respected police force and we can and must invest in all our communities including in East Portland.  

Two qualified Democratic women are now tied for same seat on City Council. Two other equally qualified Dem women ran against one another at the state level; one has won.

In 1972, a very small group of women--black and white--started the Women's Political Caucus in Baltimore.  We had no background in politics, no money.  We were knocked off by the very savvy, well-funded women of Montgomery County, Maryland--very close to that notorious Washington beltway.

As I sit back today from my current home in this different universe in the Pacific Northwest, how do I put it all together?  Looking at where we came from in the late 20th century and where things are for women now, my feelings are mixed.  I need to figure out how to direct my energy/my dollars in the few years left to me.

Emily's List receives a monthly contribution from me in its work to select pro-choice Dem women.  The other day you asked me for more to support Claire McCaskill's re-election in Missouri.  Sent a check right away.  But soon was disappointed to learn that she was uncertain on joining Obama's support for gay marriage.  I would not have sent that $25.

You need to tell me more about the Democratic women you promote. 

I endorsed Eileen Brady because this city needs a smart leader with an instinct for what is best for all Portlanders--women, children, men.  Endorsed her because her company, New Seasons, gives parttime workers health care and she has put considerable volunteer energy into that issue.

We have terrible racial problems here; I wish she had addressed these more fully.  We have a serously underfunded public school system--same for social services.  Would she have been well-advised to put the considerable money raised along with her personal resources into an effort with more likelihood of creating change?  To her credit, already strongly pro-choice, she immediately announced enthusiastic support for the President's on gay marriage.

Does your organization ever advise potential candidates about working together?  About what issues each must stand for as Democratic candidates for office?  These are hard times for women.  I want to be behind women candidates who get that my daughter, my granddaughters are entering uncertain times for women.  

Women running for office must recognize that we need an energy field that brings us together. We know about "every man for himself." What we need again is a women's movement for all of us, for a path that leads to lasting cultural change.