a little red hen

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. 

 

Cultural Geography @ Maple Grove Cemetery

It's winter term at Portland State.   Cultural Geography this time for myself as Senior Auditor.

Unlike the highly motivated and much younger Dianne at Schmidleysscribbling, I take no tests,  get no grades.  However, she works toward a PhD.  At 70, or will she be 71 when she actually holds it in her hand?  Am I correct in assuming that higher ed still delivers something printed, a document to hold in one's hands?  Please, not a PDF printed out at home. 

My (note the sense of ownership here) prof, Hunter Shobe,  does expect a certain level of participation from auditors.  Not too much, as we old people with our weighted bags of "knowledge" and "experiences" would love to share, Hunter likes just a drop or two.  Class has 50 students. "Proper auditor etiquette" is described by PSU HERE.

Cemeteries in the landscape were the subject recently.  Because this is the "new" geography, begun in the 1980s, refined further in the 90s.  It is more humanistic than in the first half of the 20th century where maps and regions were the focus. People and their lives and urban considerations are now included.  We attempt to read the "text" of what surrounds us.*  Cemeteries are part of that, places with which I've enjoyed chance encounters.  With little personal history beyond my own life, I'm curious about the lives of others.  Similar curiousity enhanced my practice of psychotherapy: listening to family histories,  creating genograms, family maps from these.

Walking through cemeteries was accidental until the birth of Roxie, our third grandchild.  We spent afternoons with her wandering the 65 acres of the best park in Kew Gardens, New York, where her family lived at the time.  It was one of those unexpected finds:  Maple Grove Cemetery.  Founded in 1875, described on its website as "rural," it  has its own fact-filled book, now in a second edition.  Dense with trees and other foliage, it was an oddly quiet place in the City. 

We encountered few visitors other than the occasional person tending a grave.  Every now and then we could sit on a concrete or wrought iron bench.   Roxie was a few months old, mostly sleeping in her baby carriage when we began our walks in the winter of 2007.  Two years later she  talked, was restless in a stroller bcause she had learned to walk "by myself."

Guiseppe Izzo's marker at the top of this post was one of the first graves I photographed.  He had been electrocuted?  No, a young employee of the Long Island Railroad, working on a Sunday, he  stepped on the third rail.  He was scheduled to leave for Italy the next day--June 13, 1915-- to join otherf Italian immigrants to enlist in the Italian Amy. This information was available in the Maple Grove archives a few weeks ago.  Today to satisfy my nosiness about David Morrison, whose spouse gave his religiosity more weight than her own name, I visited the site again and was disappointed to read a note "Interment Database is temporarily unavailable."

Fortunately I'd written about Guiseppe in a one-pager handed to Hunter Shobe along with these images, so I did not have to rely on my memory to write this.  He will show the class selections of our photos. In the  next post, there will be other pictures I took for their variety of styles and different ways of expressing loss.

 *More on cultural georgraphy... two of the non-academic course readings.  Michael Casey, Che's Afterlife, the Legacy of an Image and Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust, a history of walking.  Textbook, virtually unreadable as is much academic writing, Pamela Shrumer-Smith, editor, Doing Cultural Geography.

 

 

 

Condom Amulets Startle Knitters!

Knitters, concerned and good-natured women with a sense of the humor, contributed to an the idea I had pre-Portland, when I lived in New York.  When I finish this post, I'll contact them with the surprisng proof it worked: use provocative knitting  to raise awareness about HIV.  Like this one, The Princetonian, the first of my college amulet series.**

Knit a Condom Amulet,  the title I'd been using for a little paper zine give-away, became my second blog -- 7 amulets by 5 knitters.  It was beautifully designed by a woman in New Jersey I only knew online and the phone.

The debut post featured my friend Annette's hand adorned with Lisa Daehlin's copper wire Condom Amulet Bracelet.  It appeared Decemer One, 2007, to highlight that year's    World AIDS Day. 

 

The image at left is a screen shot of the statisitics for the blog that I check once in a while to see if it still has visitors all these years later.  After the initial outing, viewership has been low.  Once a very kinky crowd, definitely not fiber folks, were entranced by some of the content.

A couple of the amulets ---Man Thong, Bra & Breast Pouch (pink one here by Lisa Daehlin) -- are especially so.  Comments on the blog are closed; simply out there hoping to be discovered.

October 13, 2011, was the all-time big bump of  2,356 visitors, October 14 another 564, October 15, 223, the next day, 296.  And another 192 for the finale.  Five days, close to 3,000 hits on a blog that usually has 20-30 daily visitors!  Turns out this time it was by our target  group--knitters.  These were from Knitting Paradise^SM - Knitting and Crochet Forum whose membership is in the thousands.  [We also started a group on  Ravelry, an even larger online knit and crochet community.]

It began with "Deb," an active Forum member.  She linked to our site and noted, "No, I'm not kidding. Hey, someone might want one of these!"  And then the deluge.

Culturally the Forum knitters appear different from those on Ravelry but, without a rigorous study, who knows?   Judging from their photos, they are generally older women than most on Ravelry.  Many were shocked:  should this even be happening?  Some, amused.  Others thought it just might be a way to "...begin talking with my granddaughter..."  That's it, ladies!  Referring to Michelle Edwards' beaded amulets from corn silk yarn, one poster was ambivalent:

  first amulet is very pretty & COULD be used for something else...but someone might recognize it from this site. LOL   

I plan to  join Knitting Paradise (could use some extra magic with current projects on the needles) to thank "Deb" for introducing our site to her fiber friends.  Forum member "Jenna" the Ball Band Condom Amulet (Kay Gardiner design)  would be just the thing for people she knew,  "Christmas gifts  for single girlfriends,  holds at least three condoms."

In the past, when I've heard from an knit amulet enthusiast, the knitter wants   to find out if their creations could be sent to me:

"I work for the AIDS Resource Group in Evansville, IN and love your idea... inspired by  patterns and made a few amulets for the "environmentally concious" condom user out of "plarn" (plastic bags made into yarn). Is there an address that I could send them to?" 

My response is that we hoped the person's own circle would provide ideal recipients, that the primary idea behind our project was more personal:  gift someone close to you--like "Deb" and "Jenna."  You know, the personal is always political, as we used to say back in the day.

** College series includes:  Oberlin, Columbia & Oregon State Universities, send in yours for posting here.

UPDATE...On December One, 2011, an email arrived with a reminder.  Here's a poster you might copy to your own blog and a plea you can sign from The Feminist Majority.

Ask President Obama and Congress to fight AIDS with science and medicine, not ideology. Condoms must not be an afterthought.  Click on the link below to sign.

Ask US Leaders to Stop Abstinence Only Programs

 

STREET ART, "university without walls" at PSU

Ever hear of the "university without walls"   movement back in the past century?  It raised the possibility that education as we'd known it could  step back from traditional ideas about who taught what/who were "appropriate" college students/how class content might be altered.  Linked here is a very long unpublished paper that brings together its history, dating from the 1920s through the "glory years of 1970-76" when it was a consortium of colleges, to its eventual demise.

At Portland State, surfing for a second class to take in the Spring term, I discovered a survivor of the UWW idea.    "Street Art," caught my attention but what department was "Chiron"?  Also the meeting place--XSB--sounded more like a Portland rock band than a classroom building.   While I was trying to figure it out, Ron brought home a flyer he'd noticed on a wall at PSU.  It was hard to miss.

"That's it!"  The mysterious department indicates classes designed and taught by students.  Could a Senior Auditor take it?  An email to the instructor, brought a polite reply:  anyone taking it was expected to participate.  What would that mean for me:  another "art in the public interest" fling like This Dirt Museum, or promoting Single Payer around the 2004 Republican convention,  knitting Condom Amulets?

No.  It would have to be something more appropriate to advanced life stage and energy level--a modest proposal from me to you not something outrageous like the equality of women or kitchen composting.

More to come...

 

Landscape on the way to school & Dead Man's Cell

  Another term, another class at Portland State, "Understanding Theater."  A neighbor  took it last year with a different instructor, told me he learned much from attending local  theater and analyzing.  From the catalog, "...dynamic relationship between theater and society..."

Turned out to be a little more.  Besides attending three plays, students also had to write four pages of a play for the final. Turn it in before the end of the quarter (whiz by unlike semesters), prof selects several for students to produce.  Challenge to face my ambivalence about doing more play writing.  In my situation as a Senior Auditor,  my play would not be in the drawing; I hoped to use the nudge to get going again. 

Now a number of weeks have passed. The prof, a working theatre professional, has been distracted by work on a theater production in another city.  Ended classes early after the first few meetings, had us meet in small groups to discuss our plays.  Good news for me:  began a new play.  "Knitting in Public: PDX," another riff on earlier play, similar title, different location and theme.

First week of class, walking along Broadway, main thoroughfare that runs through PSU campus, I was surprised by this "mid-Century Craftsman bureau"  crowding the sidewalk.  Behind the "For Sale" sign--if you enlarge the first photo--is an electrical box that controls street-crossing.  It acts as a message board and the plea here what is often posted, "Stolen Laptop." Reward of $2,000 indicates there's much valuable material  inside.  Hope it is not someone's PhD dissertation.

The class met in the newly-refurbished Lincoln Hall, the setting for Fine Arts programs.   I went to the first seat I could see in the semi-dark of a small theatre space.  Lucky for me, I plopped down next to Denise who could tell I was literally in the dark.  She helped me follow our prof's unorganized style.

Those are her hands examining the drawers in the bureau above.  She pointed out how each drawer was put together. The one with dovetail joining--right hand drawer--indicates it may have been a replacement. I wondered if someone might roll it away on its casters.   Denise has an impressive background desiging commercial interiors.  Out of work for almost two years, she decided to get another B.A. 

Denise joined Ron and me at a production of "Dead Man's Cell Phone"  by Sarah Ruhl.  It was the last play we saw off Broadway before we left NYC.  It is very funny--and dark.  The script is a little too clever at points and the ending something like a Beethoven symphony with endings that are not the end.  The acting was very good-- something we've been impressed with at all the Theatre Vertigo plays and readings.  I suppose it's equivalent to "off-off Broadway" but not sure how that's referred to in Portland.

That play followed the Thursday afternoon I'd  schlepped to class through the rain.  Put many steps on my pedometer:  a good thing.  Small group of us waited about 30 minutes until someone entered at stage left, "Class cancelled."  Think I'll not return.  Need to research material on attitudes in Islamic societies about women wearing hijabs.  Will spend my time at school..."independent study" it might read on my imagined transcript.

POST-SCRIPT:  But wait, something was not quite right with my memory of the play.  Googled the review in March 2008 New York Times.  Oh, neither of us liked this this one and it was not our last play-going in the City.  Mary Louise Parker (he likes, I do not) and Kathleen Chalfant (always a favorite) were in it.  So what was the last play we saw?  We both recall standing on line in Tribeca, nice July (?) 2009 day as we waited to go in.  Sometimes the memory thing does make it hell to be old!

 

School starts...wrapping up my Incompletes

About the "Incompletes," classes taken in what could be considered my freshman/woman experience.  In September '09, mostly settled in our new place, Ron and I joined a "lifelong learning" program for seniors through the University of Oregon.  There were two problems with it--limited courses, many were DVDs from The Learning Company.  Electronic instruction not our style.

One good outcome from the program was that every now and then a faculty member from the main U of O campus in Eugene presented an excellent lecture.  Gabriela Martinez from the Journalism School showed a video she had made in Oaxaca, Mexico.  She had been there in 2005 when women supporting a teachers' strike took over the local television station (link to video here).  Members of Portland's Planning and Transportation Departments spoke and illustrated past, present, and future City issues. [photo:  Hawthorne Bridge opens for tiny sailboat to float underneath along Willamette River.]

We became friends with Al and Toni, another couple new to Portland, who live in the South Waterfront neighborhood, have excellent views of boat traffic and skies.  We've met up to  explore, walk, find new places to eat.  Who knew when we visited the Hulda Kluger Lilac Garden that it would gain fame in Congress as a reason not to fund a national museum of women's history when there are already places like this small garden in Oregon that cover the subject.

Back to PSU, which we see as "our" school, a 15 minute downhill walk from Terwilliger.  Once we got into the system, described here, it was only a matter of course selection.  It was November, classes are on the quarter system, so I started late in "Women & Politics."  Great instructor, Lois Ann M. Bronfman, very patient with mostly clueless students.  It was stimulating to review the time of my own participation starting in late 1960s.  Issues with my teeth caused me to miss classes including the last one when the speaker was Barbara Roberts, Governor of Oregon from 1991-95--the first woman.

 In March 2010, next term, at the suggestion of Susan Bishop, an older student herself who runs the Senior Auditors' (official designation) office, I signed up for "A Sense of Place," a cultural geography course. I've been needing a way to look at where I am now, how I relate to a very different landscape and people, and vice versa.  An east coast woman, surrounded by westerners, I know little about  the history of Oregon.   My imagination can hardly take in how  Merriwhether Lewis and William Clark could travel from early 19th century, urbanized east into this mountainous, unsettled  territory.  Taking grandson Zach to Fort Clatsop at the state park in Astoria, where the exploration ended, made the expedition more real though still awe-inspiring.

Hunter Shobe was the energetic, super-organized instructor.  Every class period he'd open the New York Times, read a paragraph from a relevant article (3/31/10 Notes:  Key West as best place for homeless, France bans facial veils).  Discuss: he demanded active participation from students.  The only photo I took--busy taking notes, figuring out place making vis a vis finding places--was the front of the classroom.  At the top of the blackboard were the familiar pull-down maps I'd expected to see, like elementary school.

Not what we saw up there rather several important documentaries.  "Manufactured Landscapes"--- I'd seen in New York and was glad to see again, provoked classroom exchanges about whether it was useful or not to be able to buy cheap goods from China...and how workers are treated there...and the environmental consequences of China's massive industrialization.  Notes:  Student, "Population increase...panic that losting ourselves."  Shobe, "Aware that this issue brings out most concern in my classes."  He mentioned that Malthus in the 19th century had noted war was one check on over-population.

Hearing students voices was powerful experience.  Many were older (over 25), most were from Oregon or elsewhere in the West. Here are some others: "I belong to nine different identities and I'm not comfortable with any one of them....curious phrase 'ethnic' food when we're all ethnic or is this the way to differentiate from white peoples food?....Neighbors when we moved in. felt like Steppford wives. I was impressed that some could talk about readings that were beyond my comprehension-- Marxist ideas about cultural geography and power geometry.

For the final two classes, students had turned in photographs reflecting sense of place and as  Shobe screened them, students explained, "Grew up in military, when I see Mt. Hood, know I'm home....Can't imagine living without my garden....Railroad spike from time I hopped a freight train....Skate park, best place in the world....St. John's bridge cathedral-like....Juno, Alaska, where I'm from...Dormant farm field, my father is a farmer, has booth in Saturday Market...My husband and my dog."  With about 50 students, we traveled mostly outdoors; were surprised by the living room of an apartment in Venice. Great trip.   Thanks to the students and Hunter Shobe, my sense of Portlandness has expanded even while it may never be fully mine.

Suggested article from the reading list, one that could shift your thinking when visiting historic sites is Dydia DeLyser's "When Less Is More:  Absence and Landscape in a California Ghost Town."

"Small Is Beautiful" in my everyday life

Last night we picked up our daughter and went to a downtown movie.  Last show, we were the only ones at Lloyd Center Mall to see "The Informant."  Curious film--glad for lack of violence or gratuitous sex--maybe I missed the point?  Afterwards,  realized I'd dropped my Ron-knit-hat and new gloves.

[Aside:  Minor challenge is adjusting to current Portland weather.  Thought cold times had arrived--wrong.]

Called the Mall this morning, got number for movie office.  "Wait a minute," the woman said, "let me look."  She returned, described my lost articles.  Later today I'll pick them up at the box office.  Meanwhile we had a brief and pleasant exchange about the oddness of being alone at the movies.

Oh, I am liking so much the scale of life here.  Take Sunday morning just passed.   Along with 17 others,

[Aside: Every now and then some of that much-advertised rain appears]

I scribbled away for two hours at a Community Writing Workshop at HOT LIPS Pizza on Hawthorne.  Write Around Portland puts these on to give new and not-so writers the "experience of the transformative power of writing in community."  Very intergenerational--17 on up, one other grandmother, other recent transplants.

[Aside:  Hot Lips' pizza has been a favorite since our family settled nearby...delicious Pear Soda, a new addition...and the jams.  Website text on how they came to add these by accident rather than corporate plan is my notion of  modern Portland-style, as contrasted with old-fashioned.  Again, more later.]

Why the workshop, I hope you ask.  Need a jump start on writing in general plus a push to working more on  my plays about life among the not-so-old  as we get more so. Preferring "old" lately as adjective and noun.

[Aside:  The WAP session was a push.  More came from unpacking another book box (endless), finding books of ten-minute plays.  More later.]

In synch with E.F. Schumacher and the beauty of "small,"  decided to get rid of many more books.  Reading Fran Johns' postings on the True/Slant blog, listening to children of the old talking about the burden of parents' wish for them to receive their "stuff," resonated.  Okay, they really, really live in the here-and-now--a thing or two from Mom and Dad's pile and that's it.

  [Aside:  Our son-in-law cherishes his grandfather's college football helmet, our daughter dresses her children in sweaters I knit for her--and saved.  My daughter-in-law in New York took on this blue baby dress of mine.]

Keeping the flame of  Schumacher alive is a society with a number of programs,  and a blog.  Good ideas do not go out of style.

 

Composting in Manhattan, 1998

DOING FEMINISM: Not so hard*

Many times I'ive tried to do this again-- adapt the little 1977 booklet from my days in Baltimore's NOW (National Organization for Women) to lives of older women.

Several tries--Gray Panthers, The Transition Network-- had not sparked enthusiasm.    Then I saw a notice in the New York City NOW newsletter earlier this year about a group starting with a focus on "senior women."

At the first meeting we talked about why we were there--support mostly.  A couple of us were interested in action/advocacy projects.  Not one to miss an opportunity, I'd brought along the 1977 booklet, suggested we update it.  We have done that.  Questions Women Over 55 Should Ask Their Doctors is a one-page flyer and was featured in the Spring 2008 issue of "WhatNOW," the chapter's hard copy quarterly publication.

The most challenging part?  Locating photos of older women doctors/healthcare providers (not blonde)  to use in the flyer.

We briefly addressed three areas:

-- Preparing for a visit to the doctor;

--Questions to ask during the visit;

--Getting the information you need before you leave.

Finally, we invite women to join our renamed "Boomer and Senior Women's Network," which has a place on the chapter website.  Each of us took copies of the new flyer to distribute--laundry rooms in our buildings, senior centers.  At the meeting this week, a 79 year old actress who described herself as a radical feminist was among four new members. 

Who are we?  Besides the actress and myself, there may be one or two others who'd use the f-word to self-describe.  In many ways we are as varied as women in 1966 when NOW, this very chapter, was founded.  "This is my first time at anything like this," was a comment that surprised me.  Only the actress and I have longtime histories with NOW.  Among the twelve of us we're different colors, transplants to the U.S., former teachers-- of course.  "We need to do consciousness-raising around aging," was a suggestion you would not have heard in the sixities!

*This post is dedicated to Katha Pollitt who this week in The Nation magazine ended her column, with a plea, "Feminism, please call home!"  So glad that I'd had this woman-affirming experience before I read "Backlash Spectacular" on the source of her distress.

Washington University (St. Louis) is about to give Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist, an honorary degree.  Good grief, that awful conservative. Only other place I've seen about it is WomensEnews as one of their Jeers of the week.  WashU was a politically regressive institution in the 1940s and 50s when I lived there; old habits die hard.  Cheers to graduating students and faculty who plan to protest.

   

Word & Image, a new class at Cooper Union

[The room is dark.  Black and white 1940s snapshot on a screen up front. I write.]

I loved him that summer.  Afterwards too but the time we met at camp when everything was secret... it's very hard to describe.  Years later I found this photo when it was too late to ask him why this one.  You cannot see my excitement in being close to him.  I'm surprised I could fall asleep when we were together.

He'd let the boat drift into the middle of the lake.  He didn't know what a bad swimmer I was.  And I'd lied when he asked if I'd be okay if we went out to the middle.

But it turned out that he had lied in a much deeper way to me.

This was the second of six photos shown in "Word and Image," a new continuing education class at Cooper Union. Susan Landry, writer and cofounder of  "Lifeboat: A Journal of Memoir" and Stacy Morrison, photographer and photo artist, who met in a another Cooper class, designed the six-week class for those who want to integrate photography and text.  Among the images we viewed and wrote about were famous, found, and personal photos.

This photo belongs to Susan's family.  Through my lens it became a scene from a play, an exchange years later between the boy and girl. What would you write?