A few amazing women

Last week, the kids, Nicolas and I went to see the annual Habima theater production. This year it was "Once Upon a Mattress". I think this may have been the best production yet. My friend (who also happens to be my father's looong time girlfriend and Gillen's Godmama) Dina Shadwell has been directing this group for nine years. She received a BIG Atlanta theater award a few years ago and for that occasion a video was made that introduces some of the Habima actors. Check it out here on the theater's web site. This group of "special needs" actors glow with pride and enthusiasm in every production I have seen. They always get all of us laughing and crying with joy as a result of their shine! I wish that I had posted about this earlier so that those who live in Atlanta could go (they just ended this year's run) but be sure to catch it next year. I am so grateful to know Dina and get to witness her magic as a director and as a woman. She brings out the best in everybody. She needs to run for office.

I also feel inspired right now by these two amazing artist/photographers - Stephanie and Jen. They have entered a contest to win money towards making their dream job assignment happen. Their idea is so beautiful that they have risen through the ranks of many applicants to be major contenders to win this contest! Their idea is about hope. Here is their video:
Shutter Sisters Dream Assignment: Picture Hope from LittlePurpleCow Productions on Vimeo

Lemons to Lemonade

Heart Rockin'Mama , a new-to-me blogger (whom I'm glad I'll get to meet this summer at the New England Unschooling Conference) passed me this award. I like the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, a lot.

Here are the rules:

1) Put the logo on your blog or post. 2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude. 3) Link to your nominees within your post. 4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog. 5) Share the love and link to the person from who you received your award.

So, here are the blogs I would like to nominate (I did less than ten, just to spike the lemonade a bit with my ornery ways. I was too sweet for too long. O.K. So, I just felt most moved by these and felt like stopping...)

1) I am excited about being able to pass on the award to Angie, who has had some serious lemons falling on her over the past three months. With her spirit, she just can't help but make lemonade, even when they're really sour.

2) Also worthy is Vicky whose husband had a horrible work accident recently but they have overcome and are soon going to be back on the bus, unschooling on the road.

3) Gail is always so positive.

4) The Pile Of O'Melays keep making not just lemonade but all of their own clothes and food and farm buildings. They are irrepressible, despite many challenges.

5) Alecto is another one. Her perseverance is inspiring. Her latest blog post is about the time when her parachute didn't open! She survived that, at sixteen, and has survived much bigger challenges ever since.

6) Jen Lemen taps into the world's sadness and transforms it with her amazing art, and as a witness to those who are overcoming great challenges in Africa.

7) Kelli has great attitude.

8) Mindy has great gratitude.

Between the Ages

While Kenneth, Naomi and Zoe were here we visited Ms. Whit, our 104 year old friend who accompanied us (mostly my brother and father) on trips when we were young. It was a very nice visit. The highlight was her reading to us from a journal she kept while visiting Mykonos, Greece with them, about thirty-four years ago.

It was also fun to see she and Zoe together, Ms. Whit supported by her walker and Zoe supported by her parents. One is so close to the beginning and the other is inching her way towards the end. I was struck by their shared lack of worry. They are both more laid back than most and they easily roll with the punches, trips and falls.
Last New Year's, in Sydney, I was inspired by the Aussie word for whine - "whinge" - to use it in my one New Year's resolution - not to "whinge" all year. I think I did pretty well. But to be honest that wasn't really such a big challenge for me. I took on the big one this year - "No Worries", also inspired by the Aussies. I'm (hopefully) moving through the middle of my life and it feels like a good time to start more fully embracing risk, joy and sleep. Worrying can get in the way of all of that. When I'm tempted to go towards the worries, I'll think of these two inspirational females and of the unique way in which they each laugh - Ms. Whit, like a woodpecker and little Zoe, softly, like a whispering fairy - and I'll try for a giggle instead.

Slow Food/Michael Pollan news:

The following came to me in an email from an Atlanta Slow Food leader and friend:

Michael Pollan will be in Atlanta!

As you may already know, renowned author and food activist,
Michael Pollan will be the keynote speaker at the
Georgia Organics Conference in Decatur, Georgia on March 21, 2009.
We are pleased to announce that Slow Food Atlanta will be giving you the opportunity to meet and dine with Mr. Pollan while he is in Atlanta.
Please mark your calendars, and plan to celebrate the start of spring with Michael Pollan and other distinguished guests. We will savor
a fabulous feast in a convivial setting, created by Southern Slow Food chefs. Special pricing will be available to Slow Food members,
so join today if you're not already a member.
Save the Date: Fri., March 20, 2009. Details will follow soon at www.slowfoodatlanta.org

Vote with Your Fork and Your Voice!

While we're speaking of Mr. Pollan, we'd like to call to your attention
his latest newsletter requesting support in encouraging
President-Elect Obama to nominate a Secretary of Agriculture
who will support sustainable family farmers. Michael Pollan,
along with Wendell Berry, Alice Waters, Bill McKibben, Erika Lesser and 13,000+ concerned farmers, chefs, activists and eaters have signed their names to a thoughtful letter to our future Farmer in Chief. You can find more information here: http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/.
Please take a moment to read this petition, and add your name if you agree. Time is of the essence.

Sincerely,
Judith Winfrey
Co-leader Slow Food Atlanta

Ms. Whit.

Ms. Whit. is actually Mrs. Cornelia Whitten but when we first met her, about twenty-five years ago, my then six-year-old brother christened her "Ms. Whit", and it stuck. She was the chaperon who came with my father and brother (two of the several times, I went as well) on overseas trips when we were young. My mother, no longer his wife, had insisted that my father bring someone responsible with him. Ms. Whit's husband had just died and she had never traveled outside of Georgia. My father had money, liked to drink, was young and was adventurous. That first summer, Kenneth was six, precocious and already had a life goal of being chairman of the world. It could have been disastrous. Instead, it was so magical that the trips continued for years and would probably still be happening if there were funds to pay for them.

Yesterday, my father, my boys and I visited Ms. Whit at her home to watch the Braves game together. I didn't bring my camera but have this recent picture that my sister took of her: She is 103. She lives in a wing of her daughter's home and has her own entrance. I have visited her a few times every year but have never asked her as many questions as I did today. I found out, for the first time, that she was one of six children who lost their mother when the mother was only thirty-nine. The day that her mother died, of cancer, her father remarried and proceeded to have ten more children. Cornelia and her siblings lived with her grandmother. I asked if she liked being with her grandmother and she said, "Ohhhh, yes! She dressed in old lady...(here she couldn't find the word) something or others, and she could tell a good joke." I asked if she remembered any of the jokes. She did! Here is her grandmother's joke:

There was a man who had a wife and six children. Often, in the evening, he would go out. When his wife asked him, "Where are you going?" he would answer, "That's a bone for you to chew on." This kept happening. Years later, the wife got sick and called the man to her death bed. "One of our six children has a different father", she told him. "Which one?" he asked in shock. She answered, "That's a bone for you to chew on."

Ms. Whit raised an eyebrow and gave a great little ironic smile before bursting into her familiar high, woodpecker laugh. I was overjoyed that she had remembered the whole thing.

I asked her about her health. She said that aside from a swollen ankle, that had just started bothering her that week, she had nothing to complain about. She is supposed to keep that leg lifted but for the most part can't be bothered with that instruction. She has a hearing aid but can still read books, watch every Braves game and she likes to look at her old journals and photograph albums from her trips to the Far East and to Europe. She has "no inner pains, whatsoever." Going to the hair dresser and leaning her head back to have her hair washed started to make her dizzy, so she washes her own hair, alone, in her sink at home. She said that after hitting one hundred, she stopped caring so much about her hair. Now she "combs it and lets it do its thing".

We have a massage therapist who greatly helps Nicolas and I with our many aches and pains. I asked her if she wanted a massage. Her response was that she massages her son-in-law, all the time. He lays down on her floor and puts his foot in her lap and she massages it or she massages his neck - has done it for years. She mentioned that she'd been worried that he was too rough when she first met him but now she just loves him to death. Then she said, "What would I need with a massage?" and laughed that bubbly laugh.

Yesterday, I was wearing my "No Worries" shirt that I bought in Australia. I think I should add a picture of her onto the back, her laughter highlighting the beautiful life lines of her face.

"Back to the Garden" trailer

Remember those wonderful documentary film makers who filmed Nicolas last month and then taught me to roast asparagus? I just saw the trailer for their upcoming film. I thought it was great. They have a blog where they are documenting their process.

They also made a documentary about a small Maine town fighting off a Wal-Mart intrusion. I would love to see that as well. Gillen and I had a date today to buy things for his garden and to buy a new baby pool for his ducks. Due to the crazy gas prices, we did not drive from the nursery to Target, a half hour further away, to get the pool. We went next door, to Wal-Mart and I entered it's creepy super doors, for the first time in over a year, with appropriate down-faced shame.

If only we had closer alternatives or I were more energetic like those Wally-World-fighting moms in Maine.

Inspired by :

-Molly's lemon-dill salad dressing, which I have been making every other day for a few weeks. It is unbelievable that a salad dressing can be so life-changing.

-Danielle's farming blog which has finally pushed me to join the summer eat local challenge. It asks you to eat one all-locally produced meal a week and then post about it on your blog. We eat mostly local meals so it's time I learned how to take pictures of a few of them (I am challenged by food pictures) and share some recipes here - not, Farmer Nicolas, that I am not hard at work on a farm website as well. I am, in my mind, conceiving all kinds of brilliance with all of this inspiration.

-Next month (gulp), inspired by a tiny germ of an idea I've had in my mind for years, I am taking on the National Novel Writing Month Challenge. The challenge happens, with lots of support from the website and from fellow participants, in November. But June is the month that my kids have chosen to attend lots of day camps so that is the month when I will have hours of uninterrupted time in which to procrastinate write. I do wish that I had fellow writers to do this with. Anyone else want to join me?

-Jen Lemen's blog where she is recounting her soulful (Stephanie's apt word for Jen)and successful attempt to raise money and cards for girls in Rwanda. She is making the trip to Rwanda this month and has created a zine that is beautiful. There is so much more to the story. Check it out.She and Stephanie (and Danielle) inspire me to think and create with a world-view, and/or to support those who already do.

Tamar's comment on this recent, somewhat self-deprecating post of mine. She talked about how an accessory or style choice can make you feel great, just as Gillen's new cowboy hat had him walking tall last week. That comment helped inspire my newest hair accessory, which I purchased yesterday while shopping with my sister. It was also inspired by my love of a Wedgewood China ashtray we had growing up, by how awesome my mother looked in head scarves and by how good I feel when I wear Julie Person's hair accessories.

Lastly, I am inspired by Jesse's peace post to live in my peaceful "yes" and fight to control the dramatic "no" demon and reactive witch who occasionally also inhabit my body.

Anyone out there inspired to write 50,000 words with me next month (while living peacefully and eating locally of course)?

Those only inspired by the farm photos - they are coming! Taken by my photographer sister, they are amazing.

Conscious of Their Roots

Southern roots, that is. This weekend, we got to visit with two talented Georgia natives who have had success in their fields and are grounded in a genuine concern for what matters.

As I mentioned in the last post, at the GO conference we got to eat dinner with Janisse Ray, winner of several book awards, whose poetic, wry memoirs have moved me deeply. She grew up in a small town in the south from which she couldn't wait to get away. She became an environmentalist and a writer, living as far away as Montana, before she felt pulled home to reconnect with her roots. Her literary non-fiction and activism has helped to bring more attention to the plight of her beloved Long-Leaf Pine and to other endangered plant and animal species. If I had my copies of her books, I would be quoting from them in order to let her writing inspire you to immediately put her on your list of writers to read. But as with my Annie Lamott and Kingsolver books, I've lent them to friends. My favorite was Wild Card Quilt but Ecology of a Southern Cracker is also laugh and cry out loud wonderful, and got more acclaim. I loved finding out the other night that she too was inspired to change the way she eats by the Weston Price diet and that her son goes to my alma-mater. It was wonderful to hear her read her poem and to talk about literary non-fiction. I even talked about one day maybe writing it myself (though then I'd have to write well, with a "literary" bent rather than a neurotic, improv., stream-of-consciousness-that-serves-as-my-therapy-bent, so maybe later).

The other southern-born celebrity of our weekend was Kyle Chandler, a friend of Nicolas' from high school. He, and his fantastically beautiful and interesting wife Katherine, came all the way from L.A. for two days in order to help raise money for a center that gives help to kids at risk for drug addiction. It was a small gathering at an auction in a rural GA town. He had brought hats and t-shirts from his hit tv show, "Friday Night Lights", and the big item of the night, which his wife won, was dinner with this "star." He got to see some buddies from high school, but he was truly there for the cause. He's not just really pretty (even more so than on screen) he is also a great father, husband and friend. And his show, despite having some football in it, is really a fantastically written,directed and acted drama about relationships, with good music and brilliant, moody lighting. It is the only series that Nicolas and I watch regularly without waiting for it to be on netflix (though Nicolas would love it to have more football;)

The thing that Janisse and Kyle share besides being down to earth and having big hearts is a beautiful southern accent (they're not all created equal) that just melts my yankee side and makes me more proud to call Georgia home.

12 hours later, I have visited my talented friend Stephanie's blog and have seen her latest creation, a video about a local southern restauranteur doing the right thing with local organics and making really delicious food in a very hip atmosphere. Stephanie is an amazing writer and photographer (among other things) and has that same sensual, mesmerizing southern accent, so I had to add her to the list. Listen to her on her video and let her voice welcome you up onto a big southern porch with Magnolia blossoms all around you, a sweating glass of lemonade waiting for you in your smiling hostess' outstretched hand.