in one basket

they say you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, but what if they're together with all of your bunnies?

in which she wonders if now is all it's cracked up to be

it's very now to live in the now. to be present in your life. to be mindful - of surroundings, feelings, thoughts. in some sense, there's nowhere else we can live but in the now. but at the same time the now is elusive. because now is so fleeting. it's here right NOW and then it's gone, almost before you can enjoy it or savor it.

as much as i do things like my 365 photo project (for the second year running), which help me be more aware of my surroundings on a daily basis, i have my doubts about this trendy living in the now. i get a lot of pleasure both out of imagining the future and remembering the past. and sometimes, what's best, is to let your mind drift to one or the other, when where you are is not that engaging (think a boring, long meeting with a 54-slide powerpoint). it's really a question of imagination, isn't it?

where would stories and novels be if everyone only lived in the now? what would happen to imagination? for that matter, what IS happening to literature and imagination with all of us constantly being told we have to live in the now?

just from a standpoint of personal happiness, when i think of some of my happiest moments, they're often when i'm imagining the future...visualizing how the house will be, planning the next project, sketching out next year's garden...looking ahead gives me loads of energy. being grounded in my surroundings brings me satisfaction, but it doesn't necessarily motivate me or energize me.

i suppose it's rather against the current to be questioning this whole mindfulness/now movement. but there you have it. maybe part of why the world is where it's at is because everyone's living for today and not looking towards tomorrow. or working on imagining a better one. perhaps living in the now isn't really all it's cracked up to be...

november sun

Novembersolen...
min jätteskugga simmar
och blir en hägring.
          - Tomas Tranströmer, Den Stora Gåtan

work and defining oneself

i think a lot about words. and how the way they're (mis)used shapes the culture around us. as i've been working on my scandinavian welfare state book, i've encountered countless interesting linguistic turns of phrase. for example, it seems that we can no longer refer to our work as a job, it must be a career. every "course" designed to help the unemployed get back to work is called something with career - the career way, the career cannon, and the like. even if the job it leads to is cleaning hotel rooms or sitting at the cash register in a grocery store or stocking shelves in a warehouse. those are now careers. and i think it diminishes the word "career" to call every job by that name. because where does it leave us when we want to refer to work that requires years of education and work experience, built up over a long period? 

but the tendency to refer to all jobs as a career reveals something about the way culture views work. it's everything. it's THE defining feature of a person. when you meet someone new, one of the first questions is always, "what do you do?" and how they view you hinges on that question. we are our work in the eyes of others. which is why everyone needs a career and not just a job. because if i have just a job, then who am i?

i've been working very hard for several years now to NOT be my job. back when i was my job, i wasn't much of anything else. i certainly wasn't much of a mother or wife and i definitely wasn't creative or energetic, i barely remembered who i was. i was just a corporate drone, giving all of my energy to a company that ultimately didn't give a rats' ass. because companies don't care about anything. they can't. it's impossible. but in trying to be my job, i forgot who i really was. and i think that's happening to an awful lot of people.

ink spiller wrote yesterday about being a working woman and i think that's part of the problem. women came into the workplace on male presumptions, trying to fit into a male world, not accounting for their uniquely feminine strengths. however, i think it's only part of the picture, as i've seen female-dominated workplaces that are just as dysfunctional as male-dominated ones and frankly, i'd take the male-dominated kind any day (there's usually (but not always) less crying in meetings). 

i think we have to make it ok again for people to have jobs which provide them with an income, but which don't define them as humans. not every job has to be a career. sometimes it's ok to just have a job. because you find your self-definition elsewhere - in puttering around your garden, in making meaningful handmade gifts for people you love, in making dinner for your family, in daily writing or reading, in spending time with a horse, in laughing at the antics of the chickens (just to name the things i do). maybe you hunt or forage or go to taekwando or a knitting group. 

who we are is the big collection of all of the things we do. i write and i take pictures and i have begun to teach and i do research. but i also cook and plan parties and serve on boards and laugh and entertain and sew and learn new things. i am far too complex to boil it all down to one word that happens to have to do with where i work. and i suspect all of you are too. 

let's take back work. and take back ourselves in the process.

11022011

somehow, those days with significant numbers (even if it's only a palindrome if you're american) seem like they should be especially significant, but today was just an ordinary day. the child wasn't feeling well, so we spent the morning making yarn pompons, drinking tea and playing with the baby bunnies. i did a bit of work, made some eggs and bacon (we suddenly have a lot of eggs) and then we went to see how the horse is doing. she's no longer lame, but sabin has two more weeks off from riding due to her broken finger. it got foggy on our way home. very foggy. and that was it. an ordinary day, despite the extra-ordinariness of the numbers of the date. but perhaps life is lived on the ordinary days.

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it's been awhile since i had a blog crush, but yesterday, i spent a long time reading quite a lot of posts on spilling ink.  and i had that feeling of finding a real kindred soul.  check it out, i hope you'll enjoy it too.

i take it all back

freehand cut feathers made of maps of south africa by peter slingsby

my mail woman with the unnaturally red hair came knocking on the door today. bearing not one but TWO packages. one a total surprise from the fabulous molly (of arbness fame) of heaven cape town and of bloggy fame in the form of oh for the love of blog and the more recent (and less sweary-y) c is for cape town.  she made feathers from one of her father's maps. for me! feathers, maps, cape town - it couldn't get any better than that. which reminds me that i have some stuff to make for some people via some facebook promise to make stuff for people.

the second package contained the beautiful stitched and felted stones i was lucky enough to snatch up last week from the fabulous lisa of lil fish studios. her work is gorgeous and unique and always beautifully packaged. me, i suck at packaging, but i do enjoy when things are nicely packaged.  i almost hated to open it up, but i couldn't wait to see my beautiful stones. they're just exquisite and this photo doesn't even come CLOSE to doing them justice.

so a big thank you to both of you for completely turning around my grumpy, ranty day.  suffice it to say, it was precisely what i needed on this day which had otherwise started on the wrong side of the bed. thank you!!

november wakes up on the wrong side of the bed

i hate to start off november with a rant, but there you have it. husband is on one of his snoring kicks and i woke up about 72 times in the night, so i'm grumpy. there's a fine mist hitting me in the face whenever i step outside to do chicken and rabbit chores. the horse is still lame. and she's getting crabby too. our washing machine is down and tho' i've called a repairman, they're extremely imprecise about when he'll show up. a rant is simply in the dark, chilly, damp autumn air.

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i tried to cheer myself up with a little browse of my google reader via flipboard. and can i just say that those blogs where there's only a truncated feed and you can't see the whole post without clicking an extra step....i'm just not going to read those anymore. the reality of today is that people are reading on a device - an iPad, an iPhone - and it's a big pain in the ass to have to click an extra step. i know all the reasons why one would truncate the post...to make sure the visits are counted...but really, it's just arrogant and annoying. and i'm done clicking the extra step.

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i'm reading another bad book. elaine feinstein's biography of anna akhmatova, anna of all the russias. and it's just bad. she extrapolates all kinds of biographical details from anna's poetry, as if they're true and not art. clearly the woman couldn't be bothered to do real research - she doesn't properly explain who anyone is or their connections. she appears to have only the vaguest knowledge of the russian revolution.  it's just a bad book. luckily, it's not a novel, so i can put it down without finishing it. i'll be taking it back to the library today.

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i no longer have any patience or time for things and people who drive me crazy. meddling. being too involved. not just letting me get on with what's ostensibly my responsibility, that stuff pisses me off. and makes me want to take a step (or two) back. this is why i'm not in the corporate world anymore.

*  *  *

another thing that's driving me crazy is how people wear stress as a badge. as if it's a good thing to be so busy that you feel totally stressed out. here's a news flash: it's not. and i'm not impressed by your bragging about how stressed you are. it doesn't mean you're important, and it may actually mean that you're stupid.

*  *  *

ok, i'm going to stop grumping now.

i'm actually very happy because handmade holiday starts today

and i'm really excited to share a lot of fun projects

with a lot of fun people.

it's not too late to join us!