The Furious Spinner

It's been a time it has. Strange not writing. But things have percolated. Thinking about connection, community, communication. Spending time with flowers. And trees. Wind and rain. Dreams.

Dreamed of an apocalyptic flood. Went upstairs to get away from the water. Found a band of gypsies on the roof, dancing and serving each other meals. The world looked rather difference from this vantage point.

Was feeling irritated at all the money I’ve been spending on medical stuff. Healing stuff. I decided to make my own flower essences. I'm skeptical of vibrational medicine. Figured the best way to find out was to go through the process myself. I made rosemary, sage, rhododendron, columbine, and deer's head orchid essences. I used flowers from my rosemary, sage, and rhodie bushes, but I did not pick the wild columbine or deer's head orchids. I took the water to them and gently dipped them into it.

And I planted my garden. Bush beans, salad mix, spinach, buttercup squash. I'll plant carrots when the moon is right. I've got volunteers of summer squash and potatoes. Sheltered beneath the rosemary bush, strawberries and thyme grow. Sage and marjoram are thriving from past years too. Felt good to be in the dirt again. Made me think about our disconnection from food. If we're lucky, our first food was from our mother's breast. This first meal is a profound connection—one that many baby boomers missed. At least those of us in the USA. Our fifties moms were brainwashed into believing that milk from a cow was better for their children and more convenient for them than milk from their bodies.

As we grow, how many of us know where our food comes from? I was lucky that we lived in the country and grew an extensive organic garden. We also lived down the road from my grandparents' farm. I knew what fresh produce, fresh eggs, and fresh milk tasted like. (Although truth to tell, I liked pasteurized milk better—I was used to it, I suppose. The milk from Grandma’s cows always seemed a bit too strong for me.) I gathered produce from the garden I helped plant. I picked berries and grapes from bushes and vines. I gathered eggs still warm from the hen’s be-hind. I watched my grandfather squirt milk into the mouths of cats. I fed lambs milk from coke bottles when their mothers rejected them. I knew my water came from a well beside our house.

I knew where my bread and water came from, baby.

Not many Americans can say the same thing. We go to huge grocery stores and get our food from all over the world. On the one hand you might say, “Isn't it great I can get winter squash and oranges all year round?” But at what price? How much energy has to be put into (and out into the atmosphere) to get that orange or winter squash to you? Do you know how it was grown? Even if it's organic, it could have been from a huge farm. What connection do those farmers have to the Earth, to what they grow, to you? And what has the so-called global economy done for the small farmer: put him/her out of business for the most part.

We are what we eat. Absolutely freaking literally.

More and more I weary of so much disconnection. I can't remember if I mentioned that just before and right after my surgery—both of them, actually, and during the root canal—I held everyone's hand. Every time someone went by me, I reached for them. In the operating room, I held hands with everyone. When I went to the dentist, she took off her glove and we held hands. It wasn't a conscious thing on my part. In fact, I didn't even remember doing it after surgery—except once or twice—until Mario mentioned it.

When I was a girl, probably until I was about twenty-five, I nearly always felt as though I had to touch every person I talked to. I believe my nervous system—or some part of my being—required or needed information that I could only get through that physical contact with another person. It didn't have to be much: just contact.

Connection.

I gave that up, that need for physical contact with everyone I met, as I grew older. It seemed childish. And every once in a while, I gave the wrong impression. Or someone got the wrong impression. Male someones. Plus some people just don't want to be touched. That took me a long time to learn. So I stopped.

But you can't keep a good woman down. I've started holding hands with doctors. Who knows where it will end?

Lately as I’ve walked along the sidewalks or on the streets, I am aware that I am separated from the ground. From the Earth. That's another thing I used to notice but forced myself to stop noticing. It is crazy-making to be sensitive in this world. But ignoring the fact that I'm sensitive is crazy-making too.

There's gotta be another way. Today at my craniosacral therapy I started crying. I said, "I want to be around like-minded people. I talk to the wind and the trees and the flowers and the invisibles. I want to be around people who cherish the same things I do. I want my own tribe." She said, "There are people out there. You've just got to find your own tribe." I said, "That's a lot of freaking work." She agreed. I don’t think it was always this difficult.

Before I went to craniosacral therapy, I stopped at a nearby Walgreen's to get something. The checker was nice, but she never looked at me. (Yes, I know there are cultures where it is rude to look at someone, but as far as I knew or could tell, she and I were from the same culture—what little culture there is in our culture.) The machine wouldn't take my check, so she had to get the manager. He never looked at me either. During the entire five minutes or so that I was there, the two people waiting on me never looked at me. How did they know I existed?

Later, after the session, I went to Tao of Tea. As soon as I came in, the waitress brought me Zen tea (hot water) and said, "Dal and rice, right?" She looked at me. She knew me. She remembered me. A few minutes later, a man brought me the dal and rice. He looked at me too.

You can be in my tribe, thank you very much.

Afterward I went to Goodwill to buy some clothes. I tried to engage the checker in conversation—or even get her to acknowledge that we were two people on this planet together. It didn't happen. At Food Front I talked with one of the produce guys. He talked about where he grew up, I talked about where I grew up. Started with me being amazed that they still had butternut squash. I said, "I'm weird. I crave winter food in the summer and summer food in the winter. Not very sustainable purchasing, I know." "Not weird if you were born south of the equator." "No, Louisiana." "Close." And so we began to talk. He looked at me. We connected.

Still, these connections feel disconnected. I don't want to drive an hour to get my food. I want to walk to the store. Better yet, I want to walk to the farm and get my food—or take my extra produce and trade with other growers. I want to buy my clothes in my town, from someone who makes them. I want to get my car fixed in my town. I want to buy my bread from the baker. I want to do everything in my town. This isn't me longing for past. This is me talking about what is sustainable—about what is good for us and our planet. We’ve traded a good and satisfying life for so-called comfort and lower prices.

I hate buying clothes. I wonder what poor little slave girl or woman made my clothes. I wonder what disease-causing chemicals were put into those clothes. So I buy secondhand clothes, for the most part, and I wear them until they drop off my body. I would much rather buy a few sets of clothes from someone local every year. I would know how much she was getting paid because I would pay her. And she could tell me where she got the fabric and how it was made.

You get the picture. I'm tired of monoculture. I'm tired of brand names. I'm tired of chain stores. I'm tired of cement and pavement and zombies everywhere. Politicians can't fix this. Somehow we did this to ourselves, our towns, our country, our world. Somehow we accepted this disconnection to everything and everyone as normal.

In Michael Pollan's new book The Omnivore's Dilemma, he says we have a national eating disorder. I agree. I'd take it further, of course. We just have a national disorder. Let's put up the sign: OUT OF ORDER.

No! You're out of order!

This was going somewhere, but it's 2:30 a.m., and I've lost my train of thought. (What did people say before there were trains? Or did they name trains—the choo-choo kind— after this particular kind of thought?)

It takes a village to raise sane human beings. We’re pack animals. We need our packs. Our tribe. The people in Congress aren’t my tribe. The people in the White House aren’t my tribe. Neither are those in the mass media.

Sometimes I feel like one of those trees left after they clearcut. Do you know what I mean? Around here, they’ll clearcut a whole area and then claim they didn’t clearcut because they left about three trees. But those three trees have a tough time standing. They need the forest to thrive.

People need other people. We need our tribes. Mine seems to have disappeared. If you see them, tell them I’m looking for them. Me and the spotted owl. 5 comments

5 Comments:

Whoa. Kim, if you feel you don't have a tribe, then I must be a hopeless case. I read your blog and see photos of you with your good friends and wish I had that. My friends and family are farflung, and I feel like an urban hermit. I believe we kindred spirits are part of a worldwide diaspora, with no place to put down and live as our tribe wants to live. From one member to another, I hail you.

By  M, at 4:29 AM  

I really 'connected' with what you said. I, too have noticed the lack of eye contact (and am guilty of it myself); guess I'll work on that! I've been reading your blog for several years now and enjoy it very much. In fact, you're at the top of my favorites!

By  Meg, at 7:09 AM  

Thanks for the kind words! And diaspora is a great word for how I feel. Thanks, M and Meg. I recognize I have more than others, and I've worked hard to be a part of community, but we've got this one beautiful life, and I want to be submerged in real life. Instead I feel surrounded by zombies and walking advertisements for crap. There is more. So much more. (And I don't mean more in the consumptive consumer way.) We're the lost Earth Tribe, eh? Hail to you, too!

By  Kim Antieau, at 10:44 AM  

Shortly after my Mother died, I was on the phone with an old friend weeping "I don't fit in anywhere." I will rail against patriarchy until my tired bones finally give out, get annoyed as hell when people refuse to acknowledge my hyphenated last n name,yet I am happy as a pig in shit purveying lipsticks and eye colors at the drug store. I cast circles and collect Buddhas and still feel unsettled when I see Madonna with a crown of thorns, mock-crucified on a chain wall. I think the Pope is insane and weep at your books and dance round and round in my living room to Sugarland. I hate Wal-mart and the murder of small town America and love chili-cheese fries at Ruby Tuesdays. I hear the fairies and the sprites in the Carolina woods now my home and tell them you and I are our own tribe and everyone we love or cry for is welcome...I wish you joy and peace of mind on your journey, Kim.

the scan letters to idnetify--ojtfg--OJ TOO FUCKING GUILTY!

By  Pamela-ChileYeager, at 9:05 PM  

It seems we're switching from "think globally, act locally" to "think locally, act globally" through the internet. Through this empowering medium we can reconnect with like minded people. It's not quite as good as being able to pop over for dinner and spend some quality face to face time, but it's the next best thing. For now. Until the next step in the technology where that face to face may happen too.

By  kevin, at 9:05 PM  

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