Hobbits, Home and Abroad

From someone who routinely finds typographical errors in all sorts of media, the discovery that the paper misidentified a bird in Benicia as a guinea fowl was a little horrifying.

“But, that’s a turkey!” we protested. And then realized that maybe we’d better have some back-up for our protest, because, after all, we have no biology degrees. Still, the huge, crazy toms currently displaying all kinds of aggro-pretty at 6:30 in the morning on our street don’t look like any guinea fowls we’ve ever seen. And, we’ve actually seen some. In zoos and on conservation ranches, as those babies aren’t at ALL native to this continent – hello, Africa?.

Now, turkeys, oh, yes. They’re from around these parts.

Remember, they were nearly our national bird – eagles do seem a less ungainly choice.

And, anyone in a buckled shoe-and-hat outfit knows that the Pilgrims ate them. (Okay, so that’s a total lie, but work with us, here.)

At this time of year, turkeys are everywhere: moulting, displaying, and viciously protecting that clutch of eggs they MIGHT have secreted somewhere two blocks from here, but next to which YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY STILL WAY TOO CLOSE. All day long, we can hear them making little coughing-barking-chirruping noises, challenging stray dogs, passing cars, and scaring the crud out of pedestrians. Poor tetchy, crazed, irritable wee beasties, being bombarded by our hummingbirds and lambasted by our local skunk (oh, that’s another non-fragrant story. All sorts of excitement going on down our hill on these warm nights – all the windows open – gah!), and glared at by the neighborhood – even at their worst, which has got to be now – (although last summer when they were on everyone’s rooftops may be a close second) – no one’s bothering them. Either we’re all softies, or we can afford to ignore them, in favor of shooing away the non-existent guinea fowl…

You talkin’ to me? I didn’t think so.

The odd pattern of rain and weather, broken machinery and other annoyances mean that though the “field” had been turned twice, but none of our “crops” are in — STILL! It’s as if we’ve forgotten how to pull this off! Despite weeks of prep, we have no pictures of vigorously growing plants in our yard – and knee-high lawn and rampant weeds in our backyard, oy, but we’re hopeful that finally we can get that all squared this weekend so we can start enjoying the weekends again, and awaiting the fruits of our many labors. Or, D’s labor, anyway.

We’re looking forward to growing some lovely salad greens and some unusual onions and stuff – fingers crossed that we pull it together! Until then…happy weekend, May the Fourth be with you, and Viva Puebla Day, aka Cinco de Mayo, whereon we raise a well-guacamoled tortilla chip to the sound trouncing of French forces by Mexican soldiers in 1862. Outside we go! There is much to celebrate.

Cheers,

D&T

For all that we’re citizens of this digital world, we don’t really trust it.

We’ve learned to deal with social media to the extent of ignoring it. We’ve realized that, between them, Google and Amazon have made a pact to swallow up the earth whole. As users, we make an uneasy peace with Craigslist – or Freecycle – and heed the warnings about meeting in busy parking lots and well-lighted places, just in case. Nine times out of ten, everything is fine, and the largely lawless digital world flickers on.

As non-supporters of social media, the Hobbits still view online dating with deep suspicion.

Which only makes sense. By nature somewhat introverted, the whole idea of meeting strangers is, to a Hobbit, somewhat daunting, and on a bad (READ: cynical) day, abhorrent. So, it’s a surprise to us to count the number of friends we’ve made online, despite our distrust of the digital world for making lasting connections.

There’s Elle, and her brilliant and funny “Sweetie,” with whom we truly enjoy spending all too infrequent time in the North Bay. There’s Kelly, down south, Kansas up north, and Jacquie even further north, with whom we’ve swapped seeds, stories, recipes, and more. There’s Bake My Day and Healing Hands. There’s Nami-Nami with whom we spent time with in Scotland (jet-lagged and dazed) and in Estonia (slightly less jet-lagged, still dazed), there’s Saints and Spinners who met us in an airport and waited with us between planes – the list goes on. We’ve shared so much of our lives with people we haven’t met, yet through swapping recipes or reminiscences about our slightly nomadic lives, we’ve made connections.

This isn’t even counting all of T’s colleagues and writer-friends who also blog. It’s a little crazy, when you count all of them – two of them have made room for us in their homes, sight unseen, and over we came. Just from knowing each other through our words.

So, it should not have been astounding to have a visit from a not-yet-met blog friend feel so much like having extended family over to visit.

We did all a Hobbit’s favorite things – baking, and eating. Watching things and eating. Playing with kites, and eating. And all sitting in the same room, silently reading … and eating.

We introduced a New Yorker to See’s. She introduced us to Hedonist. We fell into sugar comas.

We talked about all of the things we wish we could do, we hope to do, and we expect to do someday. And tried to put our dreams in some sort of sequence so that they could more frequently meet reality. And planned for our next trip to visit more friends we’ve never met.

We’ve pushed off our trip to Scotland again.

The plan was to go in May, but we’ll more likely visit in the autumn when the weather is probably not going to be as nice, but we’ll have gotten the garden set up to where we can leave it. It’s a little surreal that we can let go of our plans so easily – plans that, weeks ago, were sometimes all that kept us going, but the reality is that our friends and “family” in Scotland aren’t sitting still with baited breath, waiting for us. (Some of them are actually planning 2014 trips to the U.S.), and we’ve been digging in and trying to make our living here. Life can only go forward, so onward we go. We’re looking forward to outwitting the frequent showers and getting the garden settled in – as soon as the rototiller stops dying. We’re anticipating a few days in Yosemite at the end of the month, reacquainting ourselves with the ten thousand waterfalls sure to be melting and thundering to the valley floor by then, and we’re paging eagerly through seed catalogues and imagining our food dryers and canning jars packed full.

It’s hopeful, these anchors to reality, in the digital world. Some things are still true: friendships. Dirt. Water. Time. Growth.

The sky is leached of all light — and all color, as we head toward the deepest part of the night. It gets colder, after midnight, as if there’s some cosmic rule about darkest-toward-dawn that means everything always becomes more, before it becomes less. If that’s the case, on the last night of the year, we are both more and less than who we will be tomorrow.

I know I am, tonight, less. And more.

Less, because there is still part of me stunned and caught, stumbling and frozen, ears ringing with the sound of silence as twenty-six souls might make, wrested from this world so terribly too soon. Less, because, like so many people, it has become easier to talk about the mechanics of a thing – law, weapon, institution – than the reality of a thing: hopelessness, brutality, incomprehension. My friend Barb, in an attempt to find for herself sanity and balance in a world where she just wanted to retreat to her bed, has declared a personal war on the dark. She has become a ninja-style hatred-assassin, sneaking about and spreading light. Something as simple as buying a certain type of tea at Starbucks – and then another, for the next person who comes along and orders it, or buying herself a split pea soup at a local bakery, and another for the next person who orders it. As simple as paying her own toll on a bridge, and then for the next four cars. She’s been fun to observe, but more amazing has been those joining her. She’s generating a greater light as tiny sparks are fanned across the world.

Better to light a candle than curse the dark, right?

Someone mentioned wanting to do twenty-six random acts of kindness in the names of the twenty-six people who died in Connecticut a few weeks ago. And then, they reasoned, “there were actually twenty-eight victims,” including the mother of the shooter and the shooter himself. They rounded up, and decided to do thirty-one deeds for the month of January, and in honor of mental health month. I like that idea – but I have names for the other victims which make up the number to thirty-one. Those names are You and Me and Us.

You and Me: we’re the people who think twice about smiling across an aisle at the gas station at the man filling his car. You and Me: we’re the ones who maybe glance with suspicion at the people in the line at the bank, who are inundated with negative media about our fellow humans, Us, who wonder if the world is indeed a more hostile and crazy place.

You and Me: we’re the people who wonder what world we’re leaving to our kids. We don’t know our neighbors, and wonder if they’re crazy, too. We’re prepared to shoot first. We’re prepared to not be the victim, and so the aggressor. We’re prepared to pack up and run, to keep everyone at arm’s length, to lock our doors and ride out the apocalypse, hoarding our resources. It’s not enough that the economy has tanked and we’ve wrangled on politically for the last twelve months, spewing anger and nastiness and raising voices in protests which keep getting batted down. We’ve been ground down before, …and now this???

Individually – you and me – collectively – us: we’ve been hurt, in a thousand tiny ways. How many people wanted to go to work, or send their kids off to school the Monday after this happened? How many people wanted to pull the drapes and stay in bed – not just through Christmas, but through all of these dark days?

I don’t know what else to do but say “NO.” None of us are intended to live this way. And to honor our own mental health, and to honor each other, I think we need to dig in our heels and not be dragged down into paranoia and fear and distrust of our neighbors. Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine times out of one hundred, people are okay: definitely quirky, truly strange, undoubtedly weird, and yes, perhaps freakish, awkward, sometimes repellent — but not abusive, not cruel, not insane, not homicidal. Each time I leave the house, I want to remember that. Each time I interact with strangers, I want them to remember that. Each time my eyes meet those of a stranger’s, I want to remember kindness. To that end, I am going to do thirty-one things, ninja-sneaky, to keep faith with peace. Thirty-one things to remind myself that we are people of the light. If we walk in the light, not everyone is out to get us. If we light our lights, we make the night brighter for everyone. Who knows, maybe my small thing will remind thirty-one other people. And maybe they’ll keep the cycle going. Maybe that little spark I bring to their day will be enough to light their own tinder, and they’ll keep the flame burning.

Asking for another diner’s check at a restaurant, and paying theirs, too. Paying a $10 fine at the library, toward the person (identified by the librarian) with the greatest fines. Buying another copy of a book I want, for the next person to come along and receive for free. Giving up a primo parking place, or paying someone else’s parking meter. It’s not for anyone else to see or know about but the receiver. It’s not about the glow for me, but the glow that goes forward.

And so, on this New Year’s Eve, when I know that light must diminish to become brighter in the light of morning — and a new year — I’m signing on not for “resolutions” just for myself, and the usual losing battle with weight, coffee, smokes, booze or exercise, etc. — those are daily, personal battles that must be fought, true, but they’re not as important. Not as much as the battle to fight for my neighbors – for my community – for the you-me-us that makes up my world. Instead, my intention for the year is to cast out fear, embrace love, and lighten the dark.

Thirty-one days… or, maybe three-hundred and sixty-five?

Happy New Year.

X-posted at T’s blog.