she was born in a small town

since i feel a little bit like their fairyblogmother, i am going to take the liberty of doing a 5 things i love about growing up in a small town list ala VEG & extranjera over on Ocean (and to think i was calling it siamese. my bad.). plus, you know how i love lists. and need an assignment. i've written about growing up in a small town kind of a lot of times before, but i'm not sure i've ever really thought specifically about what was good about it.

1.  getting to try everything

in a small town school, you don't have to choose whether you're a band person or a cheerleader or a theatre person or smart girl or a sporty girl. you can be all of them. and in fact, the only way the school thrives is if everybody does everything. so you try it all and find out what you like and what you're good at. and you learn not to be afraid of trying new things. and that will get you a long way in life.

2.  getting a driver's license (learner's permit anyway-able to drive without an adult between sunup and sundown) at 14

there was nothing to run into. it was flat and the ditches were wide.

3.  having horses

i grew up with horses. we always had them. we showed them, and i've written about my horse trainer before. she was awesome. and having horses is just a wholesome thing to do. you learn responsibility. hard work. caring. getting up early to feed. mucking out stalls. and that standing in the barn at dusk on a summer night, listening to the snuffling and munching of a horse is just plain good for your soul. and your sanity.

4.  big old house with a front porch

the house "in town" that we lived in 'til i was 10 or so had a front porch with a porch swing, big columns and it was all covered in vines. i loved sitting in there in the cool shade, protected from prying eyes by the vines, watching people go by. that was great. there was a silver milk box there and i remember milk being delivered into that box (yup, i'm old). ice cream jim came up on that porch dressed as santa one christmas. lots of good memories and some not so good. it was on that front porch that our dog stella bit my friend tracey on the nose. tracey kinda deserved it, she had totally gotten in stella's face and stella was an old crotchety shetland sheep dog. and there that time i got a huge sliver in my foot and my dad had to sit on me to hold me down while mom got it out with a needle and a tweezers. ouch. but for the most part, it was awesome for dressing up and playing laura from little house and just swinging on the swing.

5. always feeling safe 

it was a totally safe place to grow up. i don't even think our house had locks on the doors and if it did, no one had seen the key in years. you knew everyone and they knew you. and you trusted each other. and looked out for each other. i think it has made me a person who, for the most part, feels at ease in the world and isn't afraid. it's grounding to grow up feeling safe like that. i'm glad i had that ground to grow up on.

so those are my five things. what are yours?

the casual vacancy is a cuttingly mean book about a small town

i had long been on the waiting list for j.k. rowling's casual vacancy at my local library. right before new year's eve, my turn came and i picked up the book. i'd read that the book was a major departure from the harry potter series - a book for adults, not children. well, i finished it yesterday and it was indeed a departure.

it's a mean-spirited book. it feels like rowling was taking revenge on a whole lot of people in some small town who she felt had wronged her. there are no redeeming characters, not much of a story, no real resolution of what little story there is and no redemption for anyone at the end. in short, it's a disappointment.

that said, in some ways, it's a book i wish i'd written. i think anyone who grew up in a small town or lives in one has dreams of exposing all of the pettiness of various people for the pettiness that it is. and she definitely does that. what's sad tho', is that she comes off petty herself in doing so. a writer like jonathan franzen does it much more elegantly. his book, freedom, also had a lack of any redeeming characters, but somehow it didn't make him seem as uncharitable as rowling comes off with this book. possibly because his story was just better. the casual vacancy doesn't actually have much of a story.

i guess i expected better of rowling - her harry pottery characters are such well-drawn characters and the stories so well-plotted and drawn. i knew this wasn't going to be harry potter, but i thought it would be good. it wasn't. i'm just glad i got it from the library and that i didn't buy it.

have you read it? what did you think?

aggressive christianity

being in the states for a few weeks, i was struck by the visible increase in christian fundamentalism all around in the upper midwest. there have always been a few anti-choice signs here and there, and my hometown of 1300 has 12 churches, but there are more and more aggressive bible verses lining the highways and byways and christianity just seems to be much more in your face.

but i found this nail-studded cross west of the town where i grew up most disturbing. apparently, with 12 churches in a town of 1300, the youth groups have banded together into one and they erected this cross on the edge of a cornfield west of town. the large, rusty nails represent the sins of the young people in town.

and it strikes me as extremely violent and aggressive. and i wonder how a bunch of kids in small town south dakota can possibly have so many sins. what on earth are they? sex? drinking? playing hooky from school, the odd joint? hello, these are normal teenage issues - not giant nails on a cross. and to display them in such a harsh way, what good can that possibly do?

i'm more than a little worried about the aggressive tone christianity has taken on in the US in the years of my chosen exile. it seems to me not all that different from the sort of fundamentalist leaning of which all of islam is accused because a few choose to be extreme. when extremism comes to a small town in south dakota, what do we have left?

for more on this, read what frank bruni says about michele bachman and her ilk of the religious right here.

interview with a...well, not a vampire, but more of a small town american girl in europe

i've recently discovered a blog called willow manor. and i'm playing along on a fun little interview game that willow has going on, here are the rules (there are always rules):

willow says:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." check.

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions). check.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.  see below.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. check.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. please comment below and i'll ask you five questions and we can keep the interview chain going!

and the questions that willow asked, not in the order that she asked them, but you'll see why in a minute:

2. You mentioned in one of your recent posts about a Fulbright Scholarship. Tell us about it.  

arizona state university was (in the mid 90s) year after year playboy magazine's #1 party school (perhaps it still is, i've lost track). i was there, doing a master's and they were eager to shed their party school image, so their scholarship office went on a campaign to help their students get fulbright and NSEP scholarships in order to raise their perceived academic standing. seven of us won fulbrights that year. i pitched a project to study macedonian literature in, you guessed it, macedonia. a couple of months in, i found out it didn't exist (difficult to create a viable national literature when your language was codified in a political move in 1945), so i was hanging out in the balkans. 

1. How did you come to live in Denmark?

"there among the concrete slabs, great love was born." --monica b., skopje, macedonia, sometime in august, 1997. 

along the way, in the ex-pat community in macedonia, i met a wonderful (and very cute) danish boy who was there with peacekeeping troops. at the time, there were two battalions there--a US and a nordic, the nordic consisted mostly of finns, but there was a single dane, a single swede and a single norwegian. since my danish boy was in the army as a career officer and i was a graduate student, it was logical that i came to him, tho' at the time, i was a snob for eastern europe and used to proclaim that i didn't DO western europe. however, suddenly you find that more than ten years have gone by and you find yourself with a house and a child and friends and a career and, well, a life, and you live in denmark, which you never imagined you'd do, growing up in a small town in south dakota.

3. If you had to choose one spot in the world to live, where would it be?

cape town, south africa. i've been there twice on business and fell madly in love with the natural beauty of the winelands and the cape. tho' i could also easily live in manila. i love the philippines and find filipinos so friendly and warm. but i'm supposed to choose only one, so i'll say cape town.

4. Apart from your loved ones, what is your most treasured possession?

these days, it would seem to be my camera, but probably, it's our home. we built on in 2008 and it's really great now, exactly as we wanted it. we not only built on, but built a number of smaller buildings in the garden...one for me, one for husband, a fantastic a-frame greenhouse and a sauna. and our home is filled with us and our life together...things we've collected on our travels, our memories, our laughter. it's definitely a most treasured possession.

5. Before blogging, what, if any, was your main mode of personal expression?

my small black moleskine full of "to do" lists that i still carry wherever i go. it's full of everything from travel impressions to lists to small sketches to snippets of song lyrics to clever or funny quotes said by people i've encountered.  people who know me well are always trying to get a quote into my book. and in my last job, people were a little afraid of my "little black book." once one is filled, i save them, because i feel like half my brain is in there.

* * *

so, now it's your turn, if you'd like me to interview you,  asking five questions of my choosing, please leave a comment below and let's keep this ball rolling. this is gonna be fun!

i don't look like who i am

i feel sometimes like i'm not selective enough. not critical enough. don't think things through enough. yes, me, who can come off snobbish, cutting and over analyzed...the problem is that i don't necessarily look like who i am.  i mean, seriously, who has freckles only on one side of their face?

just as an example--i fall too easily into those invites for my photos to be part of groups of flickr--i'm so flattered that someone wants me to be part of the group that i don't even look at the other photos in the group before i submit it, just immediately click submit. i should be more choosy than that.

part of it is flattery. i'm a sucker for it. i'm easy. i remember once we were in prague and i had let husband answer the inevitable "where are you from?" question from some vendor at a glass stand. of course husband answered "denmark." then, a few minutes later, the guy trying to sell us some whimsical martini glasses complimented my english. for a second, i blinked like a purring cat and felt flattered, then i remembered that of course my english was good, i was a friggin' native speaker. and then we bought six martini glasses. they were, after all, very whimsical.

it's no doubt a product of growing up in a small town. in a small town, what people think of you matters. you're at the mercy of public opinion for your standing and position. belonging is everything. of course, now i've lived more of my life outside that small town than in it, but somehow, that need to belong never wears off.

anybody got some advice for removing freckles?

the end of the innocence

i had a discussion with my sister some weeks ago about don henley's 1989 classic the end of the innocence. go watch it, i'll wait here...

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by

When "happily ever after" fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

But i know a place where we can go
That's still untouched by man
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind

You can lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

O' beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king

Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie

But i know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair spill all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us

I need to remember this
So baby give me just one kiss
And let me take a long last look
Before we say good-bye

Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

what was interesting is how different our memories of the song were. she finds it very political, whereas the only politics i can find is the stanza about the tired old man that we elected king (has anyone ever described reagan more aptly?). for me, that summer was the one where i had a very painful broken engagement. i was devastated and lost 17 pounds in a week, mostly in tears shed. that felt like the end of my own innocence and a real transition into adulthood. it caused my life to change course...shifting from plans to attend u.c. irvine to iowa city and the university of iowa. looking back, i think it made me less trusting of potential boyfriends for years afterwards, really ending my own romantic innocence...poisoning my own fairy tale. in other words, i found the song very much about my own situation, even though reading the lyrics now, i can clearly see that it was about one's parents splitting up. my own happily ever after had failed (thank odin now, looking back), so i sang along at the top of my lungs as i drove my little gold pontiac fiero and felt like the song was written specifically for me. especially after i met a handsome summer fling who gave me back some confidence and made those lines about the tall grass in the wind and the small town in each of us ring true. it was really more or less the anthem of the summer of 1989 for me.

for my sister, her departure for college was on the horizon and she felt the pressure of that. i think we both thought that our parents wouldn't be able to survive the empty nest, having such separate interests. so the words about daddy having to fly spoke to my sister and she felt a heavy weight of responsibility for keeping them together. and watching the video, with its odd 50s feel (aside from the shots of tattered reagan posters and ollie north), it does seem much more political that it ever seemed to me at the time. and though i was home that summer, i definitely didn't feel the same pressure my sister did to be the glue holding our parents together. in the end, their marriage held, though some part of me still wonders why when they shared so little. i suppose staying together was just what you did in their generation (speaking of the 50s).

in these times, where our entire existence is smeared in the nasty politics of our post-truth era, it does seem that our innocence has ended once and for all.

* * *

today's lack of truth has its roots in postmodernism.

i heard about this piece here on T.O.E.
and i'll admit to feeling a little guilty for all that derrida, foucault and baudrilliard i read in college.

* * *

the problem is way deeper than trump. 

an interview with kim of *numinosity*

now it's time to meet my friend kim from *numinosity* - she lives in arizona in the cold months and alaska when it's "warm," she makes amazing ATCs and even cooler jewelry.  since i lived in arizona myself once upon a time, i had to ask her about that.


1. so, alaska and arizona - do you just like places that start with "a" or is there deeper meaning (or is that actually the deeper meaning)?

No, I just like places that end with "a". Seriously though, I followed my older siblings to Alaska back in the 70's and have made it my home since. I'm not sure if I would have chosen it on my own. The Tuscon Gem and Mineral show initially brought me to Arizona which was a nice winter getaway in early February where I would get my supplies for my jewelry business.

2. how are alaska and arizona the same? and could they be any more opposite?

Winters in Arizona are the most like Alaskan summers with dry heat and big sky and expansive vistas. There's also a funkiness in the town we've chosen to live in (Bisbee) that reminds me of Alaskan funkiness and it's also an art community. Both places were built on mining dreams and have a bit of wild frontier feel to them. Both are land of extremes with climate and elements. Both places seem to attract more adventurous tourist types, not your typical resort seeking types.

Both Delta Jct. Alaska and the area around Cochise County in Arizona are some of the richest archaeological corridors in the US. Both border other countries.

As for opposites of course Alaska gets so damn cold and dark but it also seems to be a more prosperous place to live. The economy is better in most cases and I find it a much easier place to sell my art. The population base is so small for a state it's size with only a bit over 600,000 people with half of those people living in the city of Anchorage.

3. when you sit down to play with pretty paper, describe what happens. can you control where the inspiration comes from? can you make it come?

When I sit with paper I start arranging images that have a juxtaposition that might make me smile or are enigmatic as you commented in one of my posts about my ATC's Sometimes it takes me a very long time to get started when I'm piling through my stashes of snippets of images. Most times I'm not concentrating on making something pretty but I do focus on composition and color so that in the end it will be a pleasing combination along with either the whimsy or depth of my piece. My pieces that focus on beauty seem to be more when I'm working with the hot glass in my lampwork and jewelry designing and then it's all about color, texture and composition without trying to evoke meaning.

4. what's your favorite place in arizona?

My favorite place in Arizona is where I live, the town of Bisbee and surroundings. We have a view of a mountain in Mexico and I can walk around the small town for errands which I haven't been able to do since I left New England. There are always things going on but it's very low key and artsy. It's easy to drive or walk somewhere for amazing hikes. The thrift shops antique shops and estate sales are the best for a collector like me. Then we're near the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show that is the most amazing array of materials for my craft available in one place, part of what drew me to Arizona in the first place.

5. black tea or green tea?

Black tea for me, I just got some English Typhoo tea this week and am really fond of Oolong. When I'm in Arizona, Trader Joe's has a bottled ice tea called Tejava which I'm rather addicted to. I have to make my own sun tea in Alaska though.

6. if you could choose an era in which to live, when would it be?

I think I would have had a fine heyday in the Bohemian Era.

7. what's your guilty pleasure?

Spending too much time on the computer with facebook and blogger!

8. where do you do when you need an escape?

Walking is the best thing for me when I need an escape, It grounds me and slows me down in my mind and body. I have nice woods and trails and a field nearby our home in Alaska and in Arizona it's a short walk to an ocotillo filled desert walk.

9.  how about a whimsical random fact?

The piece of plexiglass that I use on my workbench to collage on is actually a piece that was from the construction of the Bee Gees stage used in their 1979 tour.  Remember the stage that would light up different colors when they stepped on them? My boyfriend back then worked on the stage construction crew and brought a piece back to me to use for a cutting board which is now relegated for a crafting surface.

* * *

thank you kim! that seals it, i must visit bisbee next time i'm in arizona!

a little bit country

as some of you may know, i grew up in a very small town in the upper midwest. i know i seem like this dazzlingly cosmopolitan, sophisticated, traveled european woman (NOT), but really, i'm a small town girl. so it's not all that surprising that i find myself twenty-odd years after leaving for the city (if Iowa City counts - ha!), back in the countryside.

but having lived in orange county, phoenix, chicago and copenhagen for two decades, there are some things i forgot about country life. things like...

~ flies.

~ livestock grazing in fields (see flies above).

~ wind sweeping across with nothing to stop it.

~ that comforting sound of a horse crunching its grain.

gratuitous jumping shot, because i love this picture.

~ neighbors dropping by to chat - and to try to sell you a tractor.

~ riding lawn mowers.

~ trading for things instead of buying them.

~ having a BIG vegetable garden - instead of a dozen strawberry plants, we've got more like 150.

~ birdsong filling the air. and i mean filling the air.

~ the general intensity of the presence of nature. and spiders.

~ deer darting in front of your car on a winding country road.

~ people driving like complete maniacs on winding country roads.

~ getting stuck behind a tractor on the winding country roads.

~ a feeling of having loads of space - both physical and psychological.

~ pollen allergies from hell that turn to sinus infection and then a sort of asthmatic bronchitis which only more steroids than lance armstrong used in the last tour de france can cure. (i know, i know, he supposedly doesn't use any. yeah. right.) case of pneumonia which leaves you feeling even worse than you did because now it's been assigned that word.

life in the countryside generally has a completely different rhythm. after dinner, we go over to the horse - to ride her and groom her and spend time with her. as a result, we're watching far less t.v. this can only be a good thing. there's always something to be done outdoors - weeds to pull, seeds to sow, lawn to mow, a walk which beckons. we definitely feel much more the pull of nature. it feels healthy and good for us. it clears our heads of a day spent in the office or at school. but i guess i appreciate it that much more for having been away from it and lived in cities for a time (half my life, actually). it's nice to feel things slipping into an easier rhythm, one that feels more in tune with nature.

contemplations in the aura of a headache

as the aura of my headache fades, i find myself thinking about the online art journaling course i've been taking. i'm a little behind, but have taken to traveling with a mini-stash of goodies to use to work on it while i'm in the solitude of my hotel rooms around the world. what i like about it is that it's all inspiration and no pressure. unlike an online scrapping course i signed up for thru SISTv . lots of pressure and really just NOISE there and that was a big turnoff, which caused me to drop off after the first couple of tutorials--i just haven't made time to go back to it and don't actually plan to and i'm definitely not submitting anything.

in contrast, rachel has done an excellent job of offering great journaling prompts and inspiring examples and then giving time and space to fit the assignments into your own life. it's been just excellent and as a result, i actually signed up for all three in her series.  they've been just what i needed to both be creative and try to live in and be aware of the present moment.

the prompts have been inspiring in their simplicity. things like making a list (which we know i love) that starts with "keep it interesting..." and "i want..." and "i need more..." and "currently loving..." very grounded things that help both to focus forward and to honestly take a look at where i am right now. it's felt healthy and has been a great thing to do with the time i have alone in the evenings in hotels. it has made it much less lonely.

one of the ones that i haven't done yet, but have thought about a lot was a prompt to look at things that were said to you in childhood which have shaped the way you behave today. some of my thoughts on that went into the list i did on monday. but in general, i've been thinking about the place of my personal history in the present of my life. i've been thinking about since i read an article in a 3-day-old danish newspaper in the thai lounge in singapore a few week ago. it was by poul høi, the best danish reporter writing today. he had visited midland, texas to try to get to the bottom of what has made george bush who he is. i started wondering then what the small town i grew up in would say about me. i spent the first 18 years of my life there, so it surely shaped me (for better or worse).

i know that one thing it did was make me care what people think. when you grow up in a small town, you're dependent on the opinion of those around you. they all know you. it was impossible to go astray--no skipping school or anything like that, because someone would see you and ask your folks why you weren't in school that day. so, i guess it made me basically a good kid--i didn't step too far out of line and while i wasn't valedictorian of my class (my high school boyfriend was that), i did ok and went off to college and such. because that was the other message--education is important. that may be why i collected SEVERAL degrees before i went out into the real world and got a job.

but what we do and where we spend time continues to shape us and shape people's opinions of us even after we're (ostensibly) grown up. in my current job, my previous job carries great cachet and i'm still defined by it (in a good way, luckily), despite not having been IN that job anymore for nearly a year! i'm actually perceived as someone special for having had my previous job. i shudder to think of what it would be like if it had been a liability! in a way, i'm a bit branded for life by it, at least as long as i stay in the industry i'm in.  and of course the job DID shape me and teach me a lot and much of it was positive, so in a way, it is a valid judgement. sometimes it bothers me a bit tho', because i feel that i'm MORE than just that person who had that job and i have to fight sometimes to prove that and to stand as me in the here and now and not with one foot in the past. but perhaps that's just life. we're shaped by our experiences and can never really escape from that...

it's a whole 'nother world

i grew up in a small town of about 1300 people in south dakota. when people there talked about traveling, they meant to the black hills or perhaps a day trip to the "big city" of sioux falls. on special occasions, people visited relatives in other states or made a yearly pilgrimage to las vegas. once in a great while, you heard of someone who went abroad to a whole 'nother country (often that country was canada, where in those days, all you needed was a blockbuster card and not a passport to get in). europe was spoken of in hushed tones and shrouded in a mysterious and wonderful haze which conjured images of picturesque castles on hills and dark forests where fancy cuckoo clocks grew.

fast forward to the end of 2008. i'm on a shuttle to the office from the hotel in oslo. i overhear a conversation in which people are talking about their office christmas parties. one of which had taken place last week on a beach in angola. and was attended by a guy with a heavy scottish accent who was spending a half day in the office in oslo before heading back to angola for a week of work and then three weeks off back home in cape town, where it's such a welcome change to live after five years in the wilds of zambia. "cape town is almost like a normal european city," he said. i wanted to pipe in and say no, cape town is much BETTER than any european city i could think of, but i didn't.

i have to admit that i love having a job where these conversations are the norm.

hey, anybody out there want to meet me in london? i just read the pound has taken a real beating and it's almost on par with the euro, so it could be a good time for shopping. if we were shopping, which of course we're not because of our new desire to be more aware of our consumption. but i'm just saying, it might be a good time to go to london.

a question of trust

trying to fit in another's frame doesn't work for me

last evening, the schoolmarm character in the farce that has filled my recent weeks, righteously gave me a lecture about trust and how i needed to trust in systems and processes and the people around me (this isn't the first time this happened). she offered no supporting evidence, save tradition, that trust was warranted and i have numerous examples where i can see that trust has neither been earned nor deserved.

for me, trust and openness go hand in hand. when a group is teeming with hidden agendas and secret alliances, there is a distinct lack of openness. when one member is repeatedly left off emails and action lists, one has to begin to wonder if it's not being done on purpose. once might be an accident, twice some serious forgetfulness, but more than that and it begins to look like chicanery. i suppose that many would give up in the face of such treatment (and schoolmarm more than hinted yesterday that i should consider that), but i'm not many. and i'm stubborn. and the project itself - the establishment of a place in the community that will house not only a new library, but all kinds of activities - creative workshops, atelier space, theatre, film, exhibition space, concerts, events, music, readings, lectures and maybe even a café - feels worth it. because i want to live a place where all kinds of things are happening and to have a place to go that feels welcoming and open to a wide variety of people and activities. i want to learn ceramics and jewelry-making and maybe try to paint. i want to hang out with creative people and be inspired and for the community to have a place where that's precisely what happens, well, i think that's worth fighting for.

what's odd is that a small group within the small group that has been elected to this task is very closed and insular. they want to keep the project to themselves. they don't want to hear the wishes of the community. and it's very odd, because several of those who are the most closed are not users of the current facilities - the troglodyte actually goes so far as to disparage the activities that are happening there today. apparently not realizing that it will be the same sort of activities - concerts, lectures, film evenings, like-minded arty folks who paint together, theatre - that will happen in the new (or renovated) facilities.

is it any wonder i don't trust the motivations of these people? why on earth get involved if you're not passionate about the project itself? i will continue to question and yes, think for myself, and yes, hold onto my suspicions until i can see that everyone involved wants the best for the project. because that's definitely not clear right now. there are issues of alliances and power (as laughable as that sounds in this small town context) involved that are not easy to see through.

i don't need to be popular, i just need for people to treat differing opinions with respect, rather than bullying. there must be room for all of us. and once that room is made, then trust might follow. but until then, i don't trust them any farther than i can throw them.

character sketches

i find the best way to get out my frustrations from meetings is through writing character sketches. i figure they'll come in handy if when i write a novel about this peyton place (isn't every small town a peyton place?) where i live. writing these gives me the anthropologic distance i lack when i'm in the midst of the situation and allows me to return to a place where i have a cool head. probably the worst feeling of all in the midst of the actual situation is feeling that because i speak with an accent, some (but not all) of the players involved talk down to me, as if i'm a small dull child and don't understand. as you can see from the sketches below, i understand very well.

the tender manager: officious, arrogant, condescending, pedagogical and more than a bit self-satisfied. yet underneath, there is that insecurity that often comes from being a woman in a man's world - it leaks through in the mannish haircut, the abrupt manner, the defensiveness when legitimate questions are asked. in order to be accepted in the man's world, chooses to use archaic, anti-feminist, degrading characterizations of women to describe things - along the lines of calling them a flock of hens and such. despite being tasked to listen to the group and speak for the group (in writing), simply writes what she wants herself, bullying it through under the guise of technical and legal jargon (that upon further examination is neither technical nor legal, just not what the group thinks is important). allows her personal preoccupations to shine through, tho' the project technically belongs to others and the end product will not be used by her. furthermore, she has a strange aversion to the word "sustainability."

the project manager: ruled by the gods of the calendar. both loves and thrives on being able to prove how busy (and therefore important) she is by how many meetings are packed in, especially if they extend after normal working hours and to the weekends. may actually secretly (and even visibly if you're observing carefully) have a small orgasm right there out of the pure delight of filling her calendar with meetings, preferably months out into the future.

the secretary: a little sheepish about being secretary of the whole thing, because he is, after all, a man. the women's world of the public sector has rendered him emasculated and a bit defensive when any questions are asked of him. he is quiet and well-behaved, tamed, like a obedient dog.

there will undoubtedly be more to come...

scenes from a weekend (warning: carnage ahead)

we awoke saturday morning at our leisure, only realizing later that it was because there was no annoying crowing from our rooster. that's because a fox appeared to have gotten him in the night. he'd been turning aggressive of late, to both me and the best cats, so i have to admit i don't feel that badly about it.

the feral hen (our one lone survivor from last summer's chicken rustlers) is just fine and so are her four babies (tho' this morning, there were only 3 and she wasn't telling why).

here's how bacon and bacon are doing these days. the bacon with the black spot on her side (she's on the right) took the hose from me soon after this and dragged it over to her mud pit all by herself. she's no dummy and we're thinking she wants to be our mama pig going forward. how can you dispute such intelligence?

we tried the strawberry shrub (it's strawberries cured in vinegar that you use, mixed with fizzy water, like a cordial) this weekend. it was brilliant and i made two more jars of it, plus bought cherries and made two jars of cherry shrub as well. it tastes old-fashioned in a very good way...like a cold black cherry soda from a dime pop machine in an implement dealership in a small town.

we decided our latest batch of bunnies are old enough to sell, so we had a little photo session. how cute are they? these are the batch we like to think of as the immaculate conception bunnies, as to our knowledge their mother was never with the buck.

sabin has totally got the hang of her personal cotton candy/candy floss machine. we like to call her the cotton candy/candy foss whisperer.

i spent several hours on saturday, picking these and more than two hulling them and preparing to make them into 11 jars of jam, two shrubs and four bottles of cordial.

i decided to make small jars, as they are more giftable and we eat them up better. when it's time for æbleskiver in december, these will come in very, very handy.

it was time for the first honey harvest today as well - 13 frames, 20 kilos. it's good to have honey for our tea once again.

it was a nice afternoon, so husband built a fire and we grilled some sausages. there's just something about food eaten outside, don't you think?

the little hen knows there's trouble afoot, so she coaxed her small children up into a tree with her, where the fox can't get them. she's no dummy, that hen.

we spent the evening building a bit of LEGO. i finished up my maersk triple e ship (photos coming soon in good light) and sabin built the LEGO Friends caravan. and then promptly crashed into the juice bar. as one does when one is playing with LEGO Friends outside of the normal age recommendations.

here's hoping you all had a blissful and fox-free weekend wherever you are.

resisting fundamentalism

amber waves of grain in denmark, but it could just as easily have been taken in south dakota

with the child away at boarding school this year and with plans for her to go to high school in my little hometown in the states next year, we are easing back into the life of an adult couple around here. we're less likely to eat dinner at a specific time, we watch netflix or hbo nordic until midnight, we sit in the garden and have deep philosophical discussions, or lie on the trampoline and stare at the sky, we spontaneously decide to go out to dinner. we do miss her, but it continues to be ok in our minds that she's moving on to the next step. plus, without her around, there's no one plaguing us to build a pool.

it might be different next year when she's an ocean away, rather than just 30 minutes. i also worry about how religious that little town i grew up in has become. yes, there were always 12 churches, but it seems that aggressive christianity is just so much more pervasive than when i was a kid. even in the answers given to reporters for stories like this one. such a tragic and yet heartwarming story and yet they had to go all jesus at the end. i worry about that. i see it as a symptom of fundamentalism no less heinous than that purveyed by the taliban and isis. 

in denmark, some immigrants talk about sending their children back to their home country for genopdragelse - or "re-raising." this, in most instances, means back to pakistan or turkey to learn the old ways and be more in touch with their native religion. in my case, while i want sabin to learn more of where she comes from and how much her grandfather meant to the community, i do not want her to be steeped in religion while she's there. i love the secular life we lead in denmark. i love that what people believe is personal and private and not flashed in everyone's face all of the time; you don't have to participate in religious rituals to be considered a good member of society. i love that the child wisely said, in choosing to be baptised and confirmed, that you can be interested in god without believing in god. in denmark, there are even ministers who admit they don't believe. that would never fly in small town south dakota.

i am confident that sabin is a strong person with a good head on her shoulders. she has a quality where she is able to float above the fray without being snooty or arrogant. she seems at once grounded and above it all, which is a delicate balance to strike and i don't think it's something you can learn (i certainly don't have it), i think it's something you must have in you innately. i'm hoping it gets her through the year in a community where the aggressive, fundamentalist christianity of the local youth group forces the young people to hammer hundreds of nails into a cross to represent their many sins. talk about a need for genopdragelse...

my cousin, who she's going to stay with while she's there, isn't like that, but it may be hard to resist when the social life in the little town is steeped in religion. i understand that they may have forgotten some of the separation of church and state mandated by the constitution - with ministers speaking at graduation and prayers at the sports ball games. we'll have to see what can be done about those things, without placing the child in the middle of a fight. we simply have to be vigilant against fundamentalism in all of its incarnations if we're to stop this downward spiral the world is on...maybe we have to do that right here, in our own backyards, just by beginning to question it and not just accepting it when it's shoved down our throats. it must be possible for a community to rally around an orphaned young man without bringing god into it.

wind is the new oil

NOTE: this is a guest column written for my dad for a little weekly newspaper in the town where i grew up. dad owned the paper for 35 years before selling it a decade or so ago to the woman who had worked for him for most of those years. he still works there every day and writes a weekly column. this week, he ordered politely asked me to write it for him. i found myself having to write it here in this blogger compose space, in order for the words to flow, so i thought i'd share it with all of you as well. plus, i thought you'd all like to see that i am indeed capable of capital letters...

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earth art from the COP15 meeting in copenhagen

Over the past year, my husband and I began to think about living a more environmentally responsible life. Last December, Copenhagen hosted the COP15 United Nations environment meeting and so for the past year, our newspapers have had an environmental slant to all of the stories. Although the meeting was a disappointment on a political front, we found that it had us thinking about ways we could, as individuals, do our part towards ensuring that the planet we leave to our daughter Sabin isn't a complete disaster.

One of the first things I did was leave a job I'd had for two years in Norway. I was flying to work on a bi-weekly basis from our home in Denmark and that just didn't seem like the most environmentally responsible thing to do, so I decided to get a job in the country where I lived. An opportunity arose for both my husband and I in a renewable energy company that manufactures wind turbines. That seemed to both of us like a good way to take action.

house with a 10-year plan

Taking the new jobs mean that we had to move across the country. Denmark is about the size of Wisconsin, so this move isn't as dramatic as it sounds. At the same time, we decided to follow our dream of getting a farmhouse with a bit of land where we could have a big garden and a few animals and although we have no desire to go completely self-sufficient, to be more self-sufficient than we are today. We found a place with an old and rather falling-down house that was built in 1895 that sits on about 11 acres of land. We have a ten-year plan for restoration of the house, but we are definitely in love with the property, which includes one end of a small lake.

our little corner of the lake

What it all means is that we have room for a big garden, where we can grow all kinds of our own vegetables and put them up, thereby eating a more locovore diet. We're going to have chickens and raise a couple of pigs as well, because it feels much better knowing where the eggs and bacon come from and what they were fed and knowing that they lived a good life. We live much closer to work than we did - only about 8 miles away. That means that my husband can bike and although I drive, it's much better on the environment than flying to work like I did for the past two years.

When we do our renovations, we're looking to use as many recycled materials as we can and to build in ways that make the house as energy-efficient as possible. We're researching having our own little 2-3KW wind turbine, with the intention of eventually going off the grid, or perhaps selling our excess energy back into it. We're finding that even though Denmark is very far ahead on the wind energy front (Vestas, a Danish company, is the world's #1 wind turbine producer (for now)), the legislation is lagging a bit behind as far as the individual consumer is concerned, but even that is changing.

near Charles City, Iowa

It's very encouraging to drive across Iowa and South Dakota and see big wind farms dotting the landscape. I know there's work to be done here on the infrastructure, but it's a good sign that the wind farms are being built. Today, 20% of the energy in Denmark is produced by wind farms, both on- and offshore and they have a goal of being 100% on renewable energy by 2030. It's my impression that in Denmark, there are more small wind installations -- of 2-3 turbines -- and it would be nice to see that coming here as well. A small town could put up 4-5 turbines and surely go a long way to producing the needed power. Of course, power in this area is already renewable hydro-electric power, so it's not as much of an issue here near the river. But we sure do have the wind for it around here.

It's interesting after a number of years in the maritime industry, where I learned quite a lot about the transport of fossil fuels (oil, LNG, LPG and other petroleum products), to come into the wind industry, which feels like there's a new gold rush going on. I keep saying wind is the new oil and there is definitely a cowboy mentality in the industry - a pioneering spirit of trying all sorts of innovative solutions (gearless turbines are a big one, and the sheer size of the turbines is another - our company's largest are 3.6 megawatts with 58-meter (190-foot) blades). There's a heady feeling that must have been there in the early days of the oil business and it's very interesting to be part of it.

teasing meaning and significance from the chaotic stream of daily contingencies

dear sabin,


you’re only seven and you’re growing up mostly danish, so i’m not sure that you understand the significance of this american election. you’ve watched with me on BBC and CNN, but i realize you don’t really comprehend it. i hope that one day you will. one of the things that i have worried about with you growing up outside the US is that you won’t be instilled with the good bits of the american dream...that part where you believe so much in yourself and your abilities that anything can happen.


for a long time now, i haven’t really believed in that...i’ve felt much more ashamed to be american than anything. although many cite sept. 11, 2001 as the beginning of the end, for me, it started with the whole clinton-monica lewinsky thing followed by the debacle of the 2000 election and the resulting eight years of bush. it hasn’t been good for my identity, nor has it been good for me knowing what identity i hoped you would have.


but now, with the election of barack obama, it all feels different. it feels like hope has returned to the world. and with it my pride in being an american. i haven’t felt proud of that for a very long time. it’s strange how pride comes back intact in one fell swoop. i literally no longer feel the need to hide my passport as i stand in line for passport control.


don’t get me wrong, those people who found their voices during the bush years...people who are hyper-religious, people who believe jesus was hanging out with the dinosaurs, people who think that evolution is just a fluffy science thing that masks the “truth” of the bible, and especially people who would compromise a woman’s right to choose what happens in and around her own body...they were always there. it’s just that bush and those who brought him to power...the aptly named (because it means ass in danish) karl rove and the dark lord dick cheney...made it ok for those people to speak up and be the loudest voices, spreading their bigotry and narrow-mindedness. those people who made sarah palin not only possible but logical as a VP candidate. those people who were afraid of other nationalities, didn't have passports and who weren’t really aware that there were other countries...those people were in power during your entire lifetime. and that gave me pause. because i wanted you to have the good parts of growing up american...especially the part about not believing there were any limitations if you worked for your dreams.


and i worried about you growing up danish, because the government that’s been in power in denmark since your birth has been equally if not more mediocre. no big ideas, actually not even any medium-sized ideas...only small minds and small thinking, anti-intellectualism..the ultimate in mediocre. not to mention afraid of the other. of which i have feared you would be classified with a foreign mother. so, what kind of world had we brought you into? i have to admit it has worried me. rather a lot.


but somehow, in my mind, the election of barack obama in the US changes everything. it’s a return to an intellectual politics. (at least it feels like that right now.) it’s a return to ideas. it’s a return to sanity. it’s a return to a world that acknowledges (and even just realizes) that there are a whole lot of other countries out there and holds a passport. it’s a return to thinking and logic. it’s a return to the silence of those radical right wingers (at least i hope it is), a space in which they don’t feel it’s ok to spread their hate and narrow-mindedness and try to force their version of god and their morality down everyone else's throat. it’s a return to the good parts of the american dream. and it makes me worry less about the world you will inherit and inhabit.


but for you to understand it, perhaps i need to share with you with some thoughts from the guardian weekend edition (8.11.08) on what the election of barack obama seems to mean for the world...


“when, at 8:01 p.m., pacific time, CNN called the race for obama, we collapsed...the champagne, whose presence in the fridge i had thought to be ominously bad karma, was opened. no toast. just ‘thank god, thank god, thank god’,’ spoken by four devout atheists.” --jonathan raban . (i took the title of this post from his article as well.)


“for the last eight years, it’s been hard to keep the flame alive. those of us who have admired america since childhood--seeing it as endlessly fascinating, brimming with energy and founded on the deeply radical ideal of self-government--felt increasingly beleaguered after 2001. how to admire the land of ‘you’re with us or against us,’ embodied by a president with a cowboy swagger, waging a fraudulent war and threatening to choke the planet by belching out a quarter of the world’s CO2 and damn the consequences? america became bush country, its national symbol no longer the statue of liberty but abu ghraib. the flame was sputtering out.” --jonathan freedland


“palin may despise the cities and the coasts, the new yorks and californias and the university towns--but that is the america that the rest of the world treasures. and now it is in the ascendant.” --jonathan freedland


i think through the election process, especially since the naming of sarah palin as mccain’s VP, she is what provoked me most. probably, if i’m honest, because she in many ways, reminded me of me...a failed beauty queen who hopped from one university to another before finally gathering a degree. although my geography is better than hers, and i did eventually complete more than one degree and earn a fulbirght, would i really have been any smarter? or less ambitious? or less anxious to prove my small town background was good enough? i was left with the overwhelming feeling of wanting more and expecting more. and hoping there was more. after all, i know i wouldn't make a good vice president. this self-knowledge seemed to be disturbingly lacking in her.


i was a hillary supporter, mostly because i have a soft spot in my heart for bill. i heard him speak at commencement at the university of chicago in 1999 and could understand why monica lewinsky did what she did. he is such a dynamic individual, and although weak as a person, an embodiment of the good parts of the american dream. in a way, i felt it was hillary’s turn. and i was heartened to think that along with hillary, we would get bill. but somehow it’s different with obama and it’s become ok for me that he ended up the candidate and that he won. more than ok, actually. it’s the beginning of something new. a sense of hope and a return to all that’s good about the american dream.


it isn’t going to be easy. the world you will inherit will be a different one. energy consumption will change, banking will change, the way you travel and how you spend your money will be different. but, i hope that you will be able to consider the entire world your home. but i also hope that you will feel a tie to a particular place that you consider your base...because a home is important. wherever it is, be that place denmark or the US (hopefully some of both, because you are the product of both). or perhaps it will be another place, should your parents choose to move you to norway or singapore. whatever the place, i hope that it will be a space in which you can be the thinking, intellectual being that i already see in you. i want so much for that space to be free for you to inhabit.


whatever may happen, i am more filled with hope now because of the election of barack obama. whatever he proves to do in the coming years, this moment of hope, this very one, is an important one. for us and for you and for the future. please treasure that and hold onto it for the future, no matter what else happens.


(composed on KL804 MNL-AMS, nov. 9, 2008)

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 1

we had a family road trip in the southern united states this summer. we visited 6 states none of us had ever been in before - tennessee, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, florida and south carolina.  the others hadn't been in georgia before, but i had. and technically, i flew through miami in 1988, but that doesn't really count as being in the state. this time, we visited beaches and the state capital, so it must count. i expected to have heavy exposure to trumpanzees, but we didn't actually speak to a single one. that surprised me quite a bit, but then i saw this piece in the nytimes - it seems we followed that blue route through the south, perhaps guided by some subliminal survival instinct. or maybe we just didn't really talk to enough people along the gulf coast. but we also ran into a surprising amount who vocally volunteered their embarrassment at the mangled apricot hellbeast.

a quick list of impressions/lessons/thoughts:

~ two weeks was just the right amount of time, even tho' we did have our occasional flagging moments. at the end, i was both longing to go home and wishing we still had a few more days and that's exactly how it should be.

~ cheesecake for lunch is awesome in the moment, but come late afternoon, proves not to be such a good idea.

~ way-finding and map-reading were the biggest challenges, even in this day and age of ubiquitous gps. we didn't have a phone plan where we could roam, so we were constantly looking for wifi to help us do our route planning. in the morning, we would plan our route in google maps while on wifi and then the gps does actually follow where you are, but if you deviate from the route you planned while on wifi, the google maps app doesn't handle it well. also, husband was horrible at being the navigator if i was driving, which is weird, because he spent 18 years in the military and is otherwise good at maps. everyone stayed happier if i did the map-reading and husband did the driving. tho' even then there were a couple of kerfluffles. lesson was that maybe we should just know where we are in a general sorta way. and we did buy a big atlas of the united states. it helped out on the highways and byways, but not as much within cities.

~ several of the best things we found were quite random -  a cooling creek/waterfall (mardis mill falls) on a hot alabama day, windsor ruins off the natchez trace, which we found by talking to an older couple at another point of interest along the way, and the space museum just over the louisiana-mississippi border on the way towards biloxi.

~ we actually stuck to our budget and we didn't really deny ourselves much to do so.

~ since we were five more or less adults, we needed two hotel rooms, so we were looking for rooms on the budget end, since we were mostly looking for a good night's sleep and not a place to hang out. plus, we wanted to save our money for great coffee, fun experiences and shopping in goodwill! after a few days of disappointment in the mid-range ($65-$80/night) hotels, we looked to airbnb, and we felt much, much happier. there, we found quirky places with personality, a bit more luxury and charming hardwood floors, still in our price range. if you haven't tried it, i'd be very grateful if you used this link when you do.

~ you should stay off the interstates and get onto smaller highways and byways. we did some of this, but undoubtedly not enough. when you do hit the small highways and byways, make sure you have a full tank of gas, as gas stations can be surprisingly few and far between. we stopped at one in a small town in mississippi where it was clear we were the only white people who had passed through in a long time. that made for some amusing conversations while we waited to use the bathroom.

~ shopping at goodwill is awesome and our child is a wizard at finding the best stuff there, no matter the location. probably the best one we visited (and we tried to visit as many as we could) was the first one, south of atlanta. maybe our eyes were freshest, but i think it also had the best selection. i got an awesome t-shirt that says, "sorry i'm late, i didn't want to come." that makes me laugh.

~ there seems to be a disturbing trend in the states - one of which i was previously only peripherally aware - from barbara ehrenreichs' amazing nickle and dimed book, but never imagined i would actually encounter (which sounds more arrogant than i mean it to). when we were staying at the lower-priced hotels, it seemed like many of the other patrons were folks who seemed to be living with what they euphemistically call housing insecurity. it appeared that the hotels were full of people who probably had work, but not enough money for the deposit on an apartment, so they were forced to live on a weekly or even day-to-day basis in these hotels. i was waiting to ask for a wifi sign-in and i witnessed two young women paying their rent, peeling the fee off a roll of one dollar bills (perhaps from waitressing tips). initially, they gave the clerk, who was behind thick bullet-proof glass, since it was nearly dark, less and he said, "no, it's $63." the second girl reached down her cleavage and got a roll of her own bills out and peeled off the remainder, saying, "there goes my fun money," and rolling her eyes. i felt a little bit shocked. others stood in their doorways, smoking or chatting on the phone, obviously very at home in the hotel. it made me aware of a stark reality in my home country. and also acutely aware of my own privilege.

and on that note, i'll sign off for now. more about the trip, with actual photos, tomorrow. i'm still sorting through all of them.

denmark you are a mystery to me: or when life turns kafkaesque

there is a deep and abiding faith in clubs and associations in denmark. they're called foreninger. it's something that i, as a non-dane, find really quite incomprehensible. and the ability to create a new association, which is focused on a very specific, narrow purpose (instead of expanding an existing one to include that little focus area) is simply breathtaking. sometimes it appears that they'll create a new association simply to get away from some other people they don't like in the old association (instead of relying on democracy and voting them out). heaven forbid that people made room for one another or adjusted their thinking a little bit to be more inclusive within existing groups. no, no, let's call a general assembly, create a convoluted set of bureaucratic by-laws (which we will debate down to the last comma) and by odin make a new group - one that preferably will really show that other group that we maybe could have been part of, had we had even an ounce of open-mindedness.

deep breath.

it's a fascinating study in group behavior and if i still wanted to be an anthropologist, i'm sure i could easily write an entire dissertation about it. it has everything - social darwinism, cultural capital (ahh, bordieu), biology, psychology, even a bit of pop business theory between the lines. there's jockeying for position, there's the constantly determining who is with the in crowd and who's not. there's the determining who is the albanian (remember my theory that everyone needs their albanian - someone who they feel superior to?) in any configuration (and oddly, it seems to be an ever-shifting thing). and there's the scheming beforehand because of an inherent lack of trust in the democratic process. and don't even get me started on conflicts of interest...

but among the things that strike me most (there are 2), is how utterly meaningless it all is. it's a small town that's part of a larger municipality (more like a county in american terms) and the mayor and politicians on the city council are those ultimately allocating funds and deciding things - so these local councils and committees and associations and clubs are actually full of powerless little wanna-be kings (who to the cool anthropological observer are actually a whole lot more like a flock of banty roosters). ones who apparently couldn't even make it on the pathetic plane that is the municipality level. so the supposed power of the little clubs is utterly impotent.

the second thing that strikes me is how proud the little banty roosters are of their bylaws and their long history of being involved in this whole culture around the little associations. one stood up at a recent meeting and proudly declared that he was a foreningsmenneske (a person of the association - it's one of those things that just has a better ring in danish, mostly because i can't imagine that it truly exists outside of denmark) and went on to pontificate on how bylaws were the glue holding the society together. it was a critique of another association which had mistakenly (and rather publicly) not followed their bylaws to the letter and managed, as happens if you accidentally dissolve the very glue holding the society together, to embarrass themselves - having to call a new general assembly according to the letter of their bylaws. they were even ridiculed in the local press for not announcing the first general assembly two weeks in advance, as required. yes, the behavior, especially between generations, is that petty and small-minded.

and for all of the group mentality, they really don't want to work together across groups - not even if those groups share an interest. it's all very petty and quite exhausting. and even as i try to maintain an anthropologic distance, i couldn't help but feel i had stepped into the bureaucratic hell of a kafka novel as i observed the natives in their natural habitat last evening.

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speaking of boring things, i keep reading really interesting stuff about the boring conference.

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the t boards on pinterest: tattoo in the near future. that's funny. the eyes have it. the hats (and possibly the crowns). tiny houses (this is one of my best boards). to dye for. topographies (another winner). treehouse.

epic fail on the first assignment

i'm participating in kylie bellard's fortnight of self-adoration for the next two weeks. she sends a daily "assignment" and there's a facebook group that's full of good, positive energy. i'm enjoying it. although i've already utterly failed at the first mission.

here's what it was (quoting exactly, capital letters and all):

While you’re going about your day today, look at another person whom you’ve never seen before.

Take a few moments to glance at them, and contemplate the fact that this person has had hard experiences, just like you have. This person has cried, and felt angry, and felt like they messed up, and been self-critical at one time or another. This person has felt afraid, too.

What’s it like to take the time to notice that someone else has an inner life that’s just as nuanced as your own?

my first failure on it was that i didn't do it on monday, as assigned. i've lead a hermit-y life for a couple of days and haven't really left the house much or been in contact with any people i didn't know (it's a small town i live in, so sue me). this failure i can forgive myself for.

today, i had a chance to try to do this and i even had a perfect opportunity, where to be able, even if just for a moment, to understand where the other person was coming from would have really helped me. but i simply was unable to do it. and not to defend myself, but allow me to explain.

we moved our horse to a new stable at the beginning of july. the main reason being that it's much closer to home, so it's much easier for us to pop over there. matilde spent the summer out on grass in the pasture and we haven't been over to ride much since we moved her. she needed time off and so did sabin. since school starts tomorrow and there's a nip of fall in the air, we decided it was time to, quite literally, get back in the saddle again.

we didn't really see anyone there when we arrived. some girls were being picked up from a riding camp, but then it was pretty quiet. we saddled up and sabin rode in the outdoor arena. as she was nearly done, a woman walked towards us. she was still some distance away, but i turned and said "hi." to which she responded by turning around and going the other way. i heard her daughter say, "who was that, mom?" and she said, "they must be the new (people)." (people is in parentheses because she didn't actually say it, she just said, "they must be the new," which can be said in danish,  tho' frankly, it isn't very nice.) but we apparently didn't rate a greeting or a chat or even a direct question to find out who we were. apparently that extra 20 feet she would have had to walk to have a small conversation with me was too much.

now, i'm quite accustomed to this sort of treatment after 15 years in denmark, but honestly, there are days, like today, where it really gets under my skin. mostly because i can never make myself understand it. she was walking in our direction, looking fully like she intended to say hello, but when i turned and said hello and she realized she didn't know me, she turned heel and went the other way, without so much as saying hello back. this isn't unusual. but it makes no sense to me. we are both at a stable, we both have daughters, we must both live in the area, so we actually have quite a lot in common, even if we don't know one another. so why couldn't she even say hello to me? especially when i said it to her first?

i tried to put myself inside her head, to contemplate what experiences she had that brought her to the point where she's unable to even have a common sense of politeness towards someone that she's never met before? is it shyness? is it arrogance? is it not wanting to be an inconvenience to me? or to herself? is it that i look like i would bite? or that i might smell bad (she was too far away to know that when she turned back)? was she afraid i didn't speak danish (sabin and i weren't talking at that moment, so she couldn't have heard us speaking english)? is there just a cultural chasm i can't cross? what was it? why couldn't she even say hello to me when i said it first to her?

i feel it as such a negation of my humanity. even as i try my hardest to fight that feeling, reminding myself that it couldn't possibly be about me, because she didn't know anything about me at all. but the fact is that she also didn't want to. she had no interest in me once she realized she didn't know me. and i can't stop myself from feeling hurt by that. nor can i get inside of her head and try to understand it. i simply don't understand. but i also have a hard time thinking that it's really my failure. short of running after her and insisting on introducing myself, what else could i have done?

worst was, it didn't just ruin that moment, but it put me in a bad, irritated mood for the rest of the evening. i snapped at my family. i sighed big sighs. i was exasperated with everything. i felt impatient and restless throughout an evening meeting. it made me uncomfortable in my own skin. i'd love to be able to let go and to understand, but it feels pretty beyond me at this moment in time.

community building takes passion and hard work

i think a lot about community-building these days - both in a work and a volunteer context. this summer, when we were visiting the little town where i grew up, we had a chance to visit the local museum that volunteers are setting up there.

it's housed in a building at the north end of main street. i can't really remember what used to be in there - perhaps it was a garage that belonged to a car dealership? (it's been awhile and my memory is increasingly like a sieve). but that doesn't really matter.

what matters is that the community has come together to create a little museum, showing mostly what the town used to be like (as museums are wont to do). there are beds from the local hospital, mailboxes from the old post office, uniforms from hometown boys (and girls?) who have served in the military over the years, tools, machinery...

there are areas which replicate the local drug store, a local grocery store - which was still open when i was a kid, a home, the local newspaper (which i know a little something about) and they had just begun putting together an exhibit featuring the local jail.

there are all kinds of things which make you feel nostalgic, from bicycles to a horse-drawn carriage, to machinery, tools and even a lovely doll collection that a local family has curated and shared.

local artists have done murals depicting rural life across the decades. the town itself became a town in 1900 when the railroad came. a number of buildings were moved to the end of the railroad line from little towns in the area and platte was incorporated.

i can remember from my childhood that this linotype was still in use. i can picture my mom sitting at it, typing away. not too long after, they updated to some compugraphic machines that she had at the house in a back room. there were two of them (they're not at the museum) - one where she typed everything in, creating a long, yellow punch tape, which was then fed into the other machine, which created the set newspaper columns, which were then waxed and stuck to the page to be burned as plates and then printed into newspapers.

but the old-fashioned way, with type cases and heavy boxes of letters, was still the way it was done within my own lifetime and even my memory.

i do wish i'd learned now to run this press, because people are making beautiful things these days with such machinery (not that i'd be able to check it on a plane and get it to denmark very easily). i can actually still hear the sound this press made, just looking at it, and smell the smell of the ink. all kinds of posters, letterhead, cards, etc. were printed on it when i was a kid. it still works and could be used. if i lived back there, i'd learn how to do use it and do demos at the museum.

here's dad standing next to some of the machinery at the museum. i have a clear picture of him in my head from my childhood, standing up inside the press, fiddling with something or other, covered in ink. it must have been pretty frustrating for him when things weren't working, because he's not really much of a mechanic, but oddly i don't remember much swearing.

that big heavy, marble-topped wooden block table in the middle, i clearly remember standing at, stuffing inserts into the paper, the smell of ink in the air.  i rode countless times in the stationwagon as a kid when my mom drove every wednesday to nebraska to have the paper printed in o'neill before a cooperative printing plant was built closer to home. all those miles on winding roads with bags of freshly-printed newspapers in the back, bring back memories of being carsick and even today, if i take a deep breath of newsprint and ink, i still feel a bit carsick.

another display is of the local pharmacy - eastman drug. it was open when i was a child and the owner was the one who never let me live down calling myself snow white at the random bible school that time. i always dreaded seeing him because he could never forget that.  best about eastman's was that it had an old-fashioned soda fountain, with stools and ice cream and malt machines. that was awesome. there should be more of those around.

for me, eastman's was far more the soda fountain and far less about medicines, tho' looking at the bottles and boxes on the shelves in the museum is fun to see how far we've come. i wish packaging was still romantic and simple like it was, instead of how it is today with so much waste.

i also clearly remember little graff's grocery, run by mr. and mrs. graff. my grandmother liked shopping there best, because it was sweet, small and personal. grocery stores today don't feel very personal and you feel like you have to rush in and out as fast as you can, with your cart loaded to the gills. there was no room for carts in the aisles of graff's.

everything i love from antique stores was reflected in the model home - with an icebox and a big retro stove, wooden ironing board, hurricane lamp, nostalgic dishes. tho' i feel nostalgic when i see these things, i am grateful we have the kind of washing machines we have today.

so as i work on building communities around a new school and a new culture house, i think a lot about what it is that makes communities function. and every time it comes back to the people who are involved. danish has a great word for them - ildsjæl (fire souls) - people who are passionate, driven and care to get things up and running and keep them going. they're hard working, but they are driven by a sense of really caring. every community project needs a number of those.