Meanwhile

I am going to just launch in here without all the hoopla about not writing forever. Sydney encouraged me to write a blog, specifically so we could track the slow descent (or rise) to hippiedom. This would be a good place, we thought, to track the length of armpit hair, percentage of bra-wearing days, and the like. Actually, it might be to the contrary. I have showered every day (well, bathed, the cottage doesn’t have a shower) and been to Walmart on 3 different occasions. I have felt the pull that Stan’s dad on Southpark experienced. There is something about it that makes you want more. But I promise, it is only out of NECESSITY. And the first day I met with my mentor he said he humbled himself and bought all his christmas gifts from there one year. So good people do go to Walmart (not that that was ever the question, I am just looking for validation).
I have had days of eating mostly RAW. I think when you are referring to the diet it is supposed to be capitalized like that. I see it written that way all the time. When I see it that way I can’t help but picture skinny, very energetic, glowing and hungry people baring their canines and roaring RAWR! it makes me giggle.

There were 5 wild turkeys outside the back porch today. I think if I had had a bow and arrow and known how to use it and how to butcher one, I would have done it. I think you can observe the beauty of wildlife and at the same time feel the natural instinct to do what any human living in the wild would do. Or maybe it was from eating too much RAWR lately.

There is an actual blizzard going on outside. A real live, whole city closed down, I’ll-remember-this-forever-because-I’ve-shoveled-so-friggin-much Blizzard. After being sent home from work, being pushed out of the parking lot, and the above-mentioned shoveling, I came inside and opened the curtains for the first time since I discovered our house is a human fishbowl (I won’t tell you about the after shower incident). To my delight, the sideways snow spray had deposited a sort of shield on our windows, a very pretty one, so I could both admire the natural wonder AND have some privacy. (When I have some money maybe I’ll invest in those 2-way mirror windows…or is that creepy?… No I think peeping strangers are more creepy).

At home the sound track is different from the normal daily drone of the not-so-distant freeway. From inside there is a combination of muted but distinctive sounds - snow blowers whining, tires spinning, diesel engines revving, then beeping, revving, then beeping, and the occasional unfortunate siren.

My friend saw a SNOW PLOW get stuck today. Yes, one of the big garbage truck ones. The police had to come dig it out. The storm has been so persistent that in some nearby counties, they simply gave up, took the plows off the roads, and declared them “Impassable.” When I heard that I suddenly felt cooler, as if I lived out west where the Outdoors are somehow bigger so people actually respect them more. Today in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Mother Nature has literally thrown a blanket on the city and made everybody Go Home and Stay There.

On our way to Kopp’s, home of some of Milwaukee’s best frozen custard, we wondered when the US citizens would be alleviated of some of the confusing conversions between pints and quarts and gallons when ordering their custard. We figured a typical conversation at Kopp’s during the transition to the metric system would go something like this:

Joe Milwaukee (insert accent of choice): I’ll take a half gallon of Cookies ‘n’ Cream.

Clerk: We don’t have half gallons anymore sir, we now have 2 liters.

Joe Milwaukee: Uh, is that like Coke?

Clerk: Yes sir, it’s the same amount as a two liter of coca-cola.

Joe Milwaukee: Well how do you get it out of there?

I had big plans for the last couple hours until I checked my email and found out I had new “Friends” and it was all over… I was sucked into the world of long lost pals who are now living exciting and adventurous lives, or so it appears from their sparkling smiles and world capitol addresses. There is something so riveting about tracking paths that began the same and then, inevitably, split in all directions. In a way we’re all living vicariously through one another, basking in the glow of our friends’ physical and mental journeys in one big The Grass is Greener. It’s got its ups and downs, staying in touch with friends this way - a tinge of wondering why we’re Keeping up with the Jones’ with our web presence mixed with the synergistic energy of traveling together again as a team.

This morning at the gym I did what I guess I’ve done unconsciously until today…found the person running the fastest and hopped on the treadmill directly beside. This one was a particularly great runner. Thanks to a stranger and that inexplicable but completely reliable force, I ran further and faster than I had in awhile. I hope he did too.

Do you love, without a doubt, living in the Information age? Or do you wonder of its dangers, like if we have lost connection with our inherent wisdom in favor of having a glorious array of facts and opinions at our fingertips that may or may not be applicable to a given problem?

I think I may have inadvertently stumbled when I rambled:
“I know what things are made of. How be healthy. How to feel free. All this knowledge is out there. What a privilege, to be taught to fish rather than fed!”

But what of this…
“We can certainly access a lot more information, but we don’t necessarily have more wisdom.”

Touche. But if not ourselves, who can we trust to provide the wisdom? To use the popular example of healthcare, in the US drug companies over-diagnose diseases like ADHD while advertising their ‘cures’ directly to consumers. Meanwhile doctors poo-poo self-diagnosis because otherwise what did they spend 4 years in med school, 4 years in residency, and upwards of $300K for anyway?!  The information is not hidden, but agendas sometimes are.  In the age of information, is cynicism the new wisdom?

Dandelions

a child plays in a spring field
the sun shining and the grass wet with dew
a patch of yellow flowers catches her eye
the happy, fleshy heads staring up at her
and she smiles.
she plucks a few with sheer delight
to bring home to her mother
who loves them
because they are a gift
and the plant left behind
begins to reconstruct itself.
a woman walks through her spring yard
the sun shining and the grass wet with dew
a patch of yellow flowers catches her eye
the happy fleshy heads staring up at her
and she scowls.
she bends down and snips the stalk
the milk runs over her hands
the stub left behind, a corpse
for sometime in her younger years
someone very unaware
said they are not flowers at all
but weeds.

Did anyone read that book as a teenager? Judy Blume was the savior of pre-pubescents when I was one. I’m actually not sure I read that particular book, though Judy Blume was part of the canon in some capacity. I think I went straight from A Wrinkle in Time, after a brief detour through The Babysitter’s Club until I realized that all 100+ volumes were exactly the same, to The Clan of the Cavebear and I had found my realm.

Anyway, that title is just what happened to pop into my head as I peered out from my dark hiding place of real life to the big bright fakish world of the web. Well hello out there, sorry for being so anti-social. I re-published a bunch of old post so that you’ll forgive me.
Why the silence? Well, to be honest I have sort of enjoyed keeping away from the computer after 5pm, now that we’re back to work full-time. Evenings are for cooking dinner and reading and wishing they were longer. And the fact that I’m staying with my parents, and when not with them elsewhere in another social setting, has all but evaporated that private world that a blogger lives in. I would feel creepy holing up in my room while there are actual real live people around to talk to. Not that it IS creepy to do that, it’s just not my style.
The carpeannum crew does seem to be in transition, doesn’t it? The school year has rolled over and those year-seizers are seizing this one yet again but in different ways. Andrea is in Spain, I think. Julian is out and about in the states. Noel is back in Milwaukee, though in Death Valley, CA at the moment. And I’m in Milwaukee, doing the transition thing too. I’m enjoying being back to work after a long (for me) hiatus of travel. I’m also clinging to my dreams, making sure that at least something gets done towards one of them each day.

And with that, Margaret is on her way.

As I struggle to get comfortable in front of a desktop while mourning the loss of my laptop to the Geek Squad, I am pondering the interview with a young female theoretical physicist at Harvard I just read. It appears she is on the brink of actually discovering the extra dimensions that have been theorized for years now, which in my mind is pretty cool, and pretty ironic, that science has come to this:

It has been over 2 months since I last wrote and I’m not sure where to begin so why not start with the little pint of peak-season plump organic raspberries I just bought and have nearly finished off…the taste brings me back to berry-picking on my aunt Jo and uncle Frank’s farm. There are condos there now, but just before they were taxed out and forced off Jo and Frank owned the last 10 acres of nearly-pristine land on the southeastern corner of Milwaukee. On it was an old farm house with a great cellar where they fermented wine and beer in big vats, a barn filled to the brim with auto parts and tools for Frank’s expert mechanic work (and maybe a bit of tinkering), shelters for the animals that came and went, a pond they dug, a huge, lovingly-cared-for garden that fed them year round, and lots and lots of berry bushes. My sister and I would come on a day when the berries were ripe and pick for hours, numb to the heat, thorns, and insect bites while our senses were enraptured with the sweet taste of those prize pickings that never made it to the pail.

15 years later and 175 miles away all of this has been transplanted to southwestern Wisconsin, a well-kept secret of a place with beauty equal to that of Wales. It is part of Wisconsin’s ‘driftless zone,’ land untouched by the ice age glaciers where the natural rolling hills are still intact. Here Jo and Frank’s new homestead emcompasses a whopping 265 acres of unfarmed land, complete with forest-covered highlands, prairie midlands, and marshy lowlands they bought with the settlement from the condo companies. We visited last week over the Fourth of july, and I fell in love once again with the lush green setting and simple lifestyle of rural life. Riding our bikes one evening along the adjacent highway, Jo pointed to the distant, rolling horizon, a black silhouette against the setting sun.

“Those are our three hills” she said.

“Wow, I almost can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I” she replied “I’m not sure I ever will.”