Sunday, December 7, 2014
A dream, 12/5/14
As a postscript to my earlier post, after falling asleep with my girls, I had a rare dream about my father. He's been gone almost 23 years now, but in my dream, which seemed to be now, he was alive and well. I can't remember most of the dream, though it seemed like he was there for a while.
Brief digression by way of explanation: my wife and I sometimes take our young children by their two hands and lift them into the air, helping them make a big jump. Sometimes Lauren and I do it between us and sometimes one parent will do it alone. I'd imagine lots of parents do it, though I don't remember that from my own childhood. Of course, by the time we're forming lasting memories, we're a bit big for that kind of thing, I guess.
In my dream, my father took my hands and lifted me up, just like I do my girls. For a moment, I was flying, a sensation that's exactly as amazing as you would think. And I said to myself "You need to appreciate this. He won't always be around." I meant it as though he was still alive, as he was in the dream, but almost immediately I knew it was a dream, and I knew that he was already gone.
Either still in the dream or waking up just a bit, I found myself in tears. It's amazing that a dream can produce such strong emotions, but there it was.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
In the midst of feeling lousy, frustrated, and unhappy
When you can't get quality sleep, I guess you go for the next best thing: a greater quantity of sleep. Anyway, that was my approach last night, when we spent 10+ hours in or around the bed.
The evening's progress had made it clear that good sleep would not be in the cards. Lauren is away for most of the weekend, so it was just me and our two girls (and the dog and guinea pig). Our almost-5-year-old, T, is in the middle of a cold, and our 2 1/2 year-old, A, is in the midst of non-napping and destructo-tot phases. And whereas Thursday night seemed to prove that children's sudafed does, in fact, need to be taken precisely every four hours, Friday evening was apparently demonstrating just how quickly drug tolerance can develop, because just an hour or two in, T seemed miserable. So T was fussing and crying, while A was trying to destroy one or more Christmas trees, or maybe my computer, or the TV, or... whatever was close at hand. Meanwhile, I seem to be picking up T's headache, which despite adult sudafed seemed intent on giving me a sinus headache.
Yeah, it was that kind of night.
So we went to bed as early as I could bring myself to give T another dose of sudafed before the 4 hours was up. For some reason, A wanted us all to lay in her sister's bed--a twin bed--and got really upset when I said no, we would sleep in mommy and daddy's bed. There I lay, T snuggled in the crook of my right arm, A in the crook of my left arm. T crying and fussing and coughing in my right ear, A crying and fussing in my left ear. I tried singing our tried and true lullabyes, and I may have "tried" losing my temper. All the while, my headache was building.
And then, I just took a deep, meditative breath, and decided to reframe it all in my head. I have a headache, but it's just a sinus headache, just a symptom of a cold; it's not a brain tumor or a cerebral aneurysm. My daughter was upset and difficult to comfort because of a sore throat, stuffy nose, and the aches and pains of a cold; how much harder would it be to comfort her if she suffered from leukemia or cystic fibrosis or any number of fatal diseases? It can be hard on nights like this to be alone with the girls, but besides the fact that my wife has also had to do when I've been gone somewhere, I considered the people who have to be single parents all the time, or the people who are separated or divorced and don't have the opportunity to be with their children as often as they would like.
And I felt gratitude. I was able to give myself a little perspective, to remind myself of how lucky I really am, even in the midst of circumstances that moments before made me feel lousy and frustrated and unhappy. That's not to say that my headache disappeared--it didn't, lingering through the next several times I woke up during the night. That's not to say that my children instantly quieted down, but they did quiet down before too long. Giving myself a new perspective wasn't magic, it didn't make a single problem go away, it just made them easier to deal with them. It gave me a core of serenity that served me well.
****
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, this is the highest of arts.”-- Henry David Thoreau
The evening's progress had made it clear that good sleep would not be in the cards. Lauren is away for most of the weekend, so it was just me and our two girls (and the dog and guinea pig). Our almost-5-year-old, T, is in the middle of a cold, and our 2 1/2 year-old, A, is in the midst of non-napping and destructo-tot phases. And whereas Thursday night seemed to prove that children's sudafed does, in fact, need to be taken precisely every four hours, Friday evening was apparently demonstrating just how quickly drug tolerance can develop, because just an hour or two in, T seemed miserable. So T was fussing and crying, while A was trying to destroy one or more Christmas trees, or maybe my computer, or the TV, or... whatever was close at hand. Meanwhile, I seem to be picking up T's headache, which despite adult sudafed seemed intent on giving me a sinus headache.
Yeah, it was that kind of night.
So we went to bed as early as I could bring myself to give T another dose of sudafed before the 4 hours was up. For some reason, A wanted us all to lay in her sister's bed--a twin bed--and got really upset when I said no, we would sleep in mommy and daddy's bed. There I lay, T snuggled in the crook of my right arm, A in the crook of my left arm. T crying and fussing and coughing in my right ear, A crying and fussing in my left ear. I tried singing our tried and true lullabyes, and I may have "tried" losing my temper. All the while, my headache was building.
And then, I just took a deep, meditative breath, and decided to reframe it all in my head. I have a headache, but it's just a sinus headache, just a symptom of a cold; it's not a brain tumor or a cerebral aneurysm. My daughter was upset and difficult to comfort because of a sore throat, stuffy nose, and the aches and pains of a cold; how much harder would it be to comfort her if she suffered from leukemia or cystic fibrosis or any number of fatal diseases? It can be hard on nights like this to be alone with the girls, but besides the fact that my wife has also had to do when I've been gone somewhere, I considered the people who have to be single parents all the time, or the people who are separated or divorced and don't have the opportunity to be with their children as often as they would like.
And I felt gratitude. I was able to give myself a little perspective, to remind myself of how lucky I really am, even in the midst of circumstances that moments before made me feel lousy and frustrated and unhappy. That's not to say that my headache disappeared--it didn't, lingering through the next several times I woke up during the night. That's not to say that my children instantly quieted down, but they did quiet down before too long. Giving myself a new perspective wasn't magic, it didn't make a single problem go away, it just made them easier to deal with them. It gave me a core of serenity that served me well.
****
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, this is the highest of arts.”-- Henry David Thoreau
Friday, December 5, 2014
Pain and Discomfort
Wednesday, uncharacteristically, my almost-5-year-old asked to go to bed early. She wanted me to put her to bed, so I laid down and snuggled with her. She snuggled in the crook of my arm, her head on my shoulder.
And it hurt, mostly because I was still sore from my bench press workout a couple days before. Which got me thinking about pain. First, there's your response to it. We have a natural aversion to pain (uh, duh). Even a little bit of pain sets my little girls off, screaming and fussing. Yet as we get older, we learn to put up with it. For instance, I was happy enough to put up with this pain, because it seemed to serve a purpose. If I pushed my daughter off my shoulder, denied her the snuggling embrace, I would set back the going-to-sleep process. So even though it was uncomfortable, and a bit painful, I endured it.
For that matter, this pain came, in the first place, from exercise, which itself is a form of enduring discomfort. Whether one is lifting weights or running or doing yoga, there are always--if you're doing it right--moments when you become uncomfortable and you would like to quit. However, you endure that pain, you push through it, and you do more of the exercise in question. You get another rep, you rest a little do another set, you run another minute, another ten minutes, another mile, you hold a pose that much longer. We do it to make ourselves better: stronger, faster, with more endurance. We embrace the pain of the moment, we even embrace the pain that comes in the days afterward, may come to enjoy it because we know the benefits it ultimately brings.
All this, of course, goes against our natural instincts. Young children don't do this--they stop running when it becomes uncomfortable. They don't even seem to know how to "push through." Many people who start exercising for the first time, they encounter the pain and they can't push through it. They encounter the post-workout pain and they decide this isn't for them. We have to learn how, and we can only learn by doing it, by stretching our boundaries.
We all do this to some extent, of course. It turned out, I discovered in the middle of Wednesday night, that my daughter was coming down with a cold. She had a miserable night, which meant that my wife and I had a miserable night. Adults, we have developed a certain stoicism. A cold is lousy, we all know that. But we don't tend to fuss and cry and make everyone around us miserable too. We keep it to ourselves, we manage as best we can.
Now, all of this can be carried to extremes. We probably all know people who won't go see a doctor no matter how sick, how miserable they are. The only way they get to a hospital is by ambulance or carried there by someone else. In the exercise world, there are people who take the maxim "no pain, no gain" to the extreme... and end up injured as a result. There's a certain truth to the phase, but it's only in the way I described earlier: we have to endure some discomfort, push past it. Real pain, in this context, is a bad thing. If you tweak your knee or injure your shoulder while lifting weights, for instance, and you keep on exercising because, you know, "no pain, no gain," you're actually just going to further injure yourself, which will keep you out of the gym longer, which will limit your gains. Likewise, while it may be appropriate in your run-of-the-mill illness to "don't be such a baby," to keep a stiff upper lip and keep working through it or avoid burdening your family or friends with your complaints, we can also make things worse if we don't treat an illness.
In the end, it all comes down to moderation, and the wisdom to find it.
And it hurt, mostly because I was still sore from my bench press workout a couple days before. Which got me thinking about pain. First, there's your response to it. We have a natural aversion to pain (uh, duh). Even a little bit of pain sets my little girls off, screaming and fussing. Yet as we get older, we learn to put up with it. For instance, I was happy enough to put up with this pain, because it seemed to serve a purpose. If I pushed my daughter off my shoulder, denied her the snuggling embrace, I would set back the going-to-sleep process. So even though it was uncomfortable, and a bit painful, I endured it.
For that matter, this pain came, in the first place, from exercise, which itself is a form of enduring discomfort. Whether one is lifting weights or running or doing yoga, there are always--if you're doing it right--moments when you become uncomfortable and you would like to quit. However, you endure that pain, you push through it, and you do more of the exercise in question. You get another rep, you rest a little do another set, you run another minute, another ten minutes, another mile, you hold a pose that much longer. We do it to make ourselves better: stronger, faster, with more endurance. We embrace the pain of the moment, we even embrace the pain that comes in the days afterward, may come to enjoy it because we know the benefits it ultimately brings.
All this, of course, goes against our natural instincts. Young children don't do this--they stop running when it becomes uncomfortable. They don't even seem to know how to "push through." Many people who start exercising for the first time, they encounter the pain and they can't push through it. They encounter the post-workout pain and they decide this isn't for them. We have to learn how, and we can only learn by doing it, by stretching our boundaries.
We all do this to some extent, of course. It turned out, I discovered in the middle of Wednesday night, that my daughter was coming down with a cold. She had a miserable night, which meant that my wife and I had a miserable night. Adults, we have developed a certain stoicism. A cold is lousy, we all know that. But we don't tend to fuss and cry and make everyone around us miserable too. We keep it to ourselves, we manage as best we can.
Now, all of this can be carried to extremes. We probably all know people who won't go see a doctor no matter how sick, how miserable they are. The only way they get to a hospital is by ambulance or carried there by someone else. In the exercise world, there are people who take the maxim "no pain, no gain" to the extreme... and end up injured as a result. There's a certain truth to the phase, but it's only in the way I described earlier: we have to endure some discomfort, push past it. Real pain, in this context, is a bad thing. If you tweak your knee or injure your shoulder while lifting weights, for instance, and you keep on exercising because, you know, "no pain, no gain," you're actually just going to further injure yourself, which will keep you out of the gym longer, which will limit your gains. Likewise, while it may be appropriate in your run-of-the-mill illness to "don't be such a baby," to keep a stiff upper lip and keep working through it or avoid burdening your family or friends with your complaints, we can also make things worse if we don't treat an illness.
In the end, it all comes down to moderation, and the wisdom to find it.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
NaNoWriMo Reflections
As readers may or may not be aware, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The basic idea is writing 50,000 words of a novel in one month. This is technically my third year doing NaNoWriMo, but really my second. The first time around, I reached my 50k goal, was enjoying my novel... and haven't touched it since. I'd gotten to a tricky part in the plot and had no idea where it was going. Plus it was the end of the month. So that just sort of fell apart.
This year, I have once again reached my 50k target, on a different novel, and here early in Holidailies seemed like a good time to reflect on this year's project.
1) There's something beautiful about just getting started. I decided to write a fantasy novel this year. I've had some of the ideas for this novel and for the larger world for a solid decade or two. I've wanted to write it, but I've also avoided writing it, because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to outline the plot, I wanted to spend more time creating the details of the world. And the truth is: I could probably have spent the next 50 years putting off writing this novel, assuming I live that long. So yes: there's something beautiful about just getting started.
2) Going along with #1, once you get started, it's wonderful the way that imagination fills in the details between the broad strokes of what you already knew. Part of this magic, though, I think, came from the devotion that I gave the work, the way that kept my focus on the novel. Part of my normal daily pattern is to listen to podcasts. I love podcasts! I listen to them while walking the dog, working out, driving, just about anything that might be "down time." Instead, for most of the month, I refrained from listening to podcasts, and instead thought about my novel. And one result, particularly during the first half of the month, was that I was able to very efficient with my writing time, because I already knew most or all of what I wanted to write when I sat down to write--the plot, the characters, the scenes, even in some cases the particular words I wanted to use. That was the magic of focusing my attention so thoroughly on one end.
3) All the trackers and stuff are really motivating. There's just something about having a website where I go and log my progress, a website that tells me what my average per day is, a website that's visible to other people (who, granted, don't actually care whether I finish or not)... it really helps keep me focused. Reinforcing this point: in the four days since, I haven't written a word on my novel. Which is unfortunate, because I'm pretty sure that 50k only puts me about a quarter of the way through. So, I would need three more months of that level of focus to finish the novel. ::Sigh::
4) The community is and is not motivating. In past years, the on-line community has been more active. This year, not so much. And yet, I got through. On the other hand, I did benefit from a real-life writing group that met a few Sundays throughout the month. And that was helpful both for the way that it scheduled a block of time and, I don't know, kind of gave me permission to spend three hours writing on a Sunday.
All in all, it was a good month. Now I've just got to get myself sorted out to finish what I've started. By the way, in case it isn't obvious, even when I get to, say, 200k, that's just going to be 200k of a rough--very rough, no doubt--draft. Then it will be time to re-write, write some more... so yeah. It's a big commitment writing a doorstopper of a fantasy novel. Wish me luck!
This year, I have once again reached my 50k target, on a different novel, and here early in Holidailies seemed like a good time to reflect on this year's project.
1) There's something beautiful about just getting started. I decided to write a fantasy novel this year. I've had some of the ideas for this novel and for the larger world for a solid decade or two. I've wanted to write it, but I've also avoided writing it, because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to outline the plot, I wanted to spend more time creating the details of the world. And the truth is: I could probably have spent the next 50 years putting off writing this novel, assuming I live that long. So yes: there's something beautiful about just getting started.
2) Going along with #1, once you get started, it's wonderful the way that imagination fills in the details between the broad strokes of what you already knew. Part of this magic, though, I think, came from the devotion that I gave the work, the way that kept my focus on the novel. Part of my normal daily pattern is to listen to podcasts. I love podcasts! I listen to them while walking the dog, working out, driving, just about anything that might be "down time." Instead, for most of the month, I refrained from listening to podcasts, and instead thought about my novel. And one result, particularly during the first half of the month, was that I was able to very efficient with my writing time, because I already knew most or all of what I wanted to write when I sat down to write--the plot, the characters, the scenes, even in some cases the particular words I wanted to use. That was the magic of focusing my attention so thoroughly on one end.
3) All the trackers and stuff are really motivating. There's just something about having a website where I go and log my progress, a website that tells me what my average per day is, a website that's visible to other people (who, granted, don't actually care whether I finish or not)... it really helps keep me focused. Reinforcing this point: in the four days since, I haven't written a word on my novel. Which is unfortunate, because I'm pretty sure that 50k only puts me about a quarter of the way through. So, I would need three more months of that level of focus to finish the novel. ::Sigh::
4) The community is and is not motivating. In past years, the on-line community has been more active. This year, not so much. And yet, I got through. On the other hand, I did benefit from a real-life writing group that met a few Sundays throughout the month. And that was helpful both for the way that it scheduled a block of time and, I don't know, kind of gave me permission to spend three hours writing on a Sunday.
All in all, it was a good month. Now I've just got to get myself sorted out to finish what I've started. By the way, in case it isn't obvious, even when I get to, say, 200k, that's just going to be 200k of a rough--very rough, no doubt--draft. Then it will be time to re-write, write some more... so yeah. It's a big commitment writing a doorstopper of a fantasy novel. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
The Great Debate: Is there a God?
Tonight, our high school's spiritual life department hosted its annual debate: "Is there a God?" This is at least the third or fourth year now that they've had this debate, though I still haven't been able to attend and see what all the fuss was about. I like to imagine that one of our handful of Hindu students might be sitting there wondering "How about the debate 'are there gods?'" but that's really a digression on my part.
I just like the fact that our spiritual life department--which, after all, is made up of protestant and Catholic ministers--is committed to this event, to raising the question. The debate participants are all teachers, so there's a sense in which no matter what the actual content of the debate is, one of the messages is that there are intelligent, thoughtful, nice people on both sides of the issue--or perhaps I should say all sides because I gather at least one person on the panel answered the question as basically a believing agnostic or a deist. And a related implicit message is that it's possible to disagree about something that's fundamental to one's outlook and to still be civil and even friendly.
Now, that said, I heard some of my students talking about the debate--which, I would reiterate, I have never been able to attend--and one of them was particularly vehement about his dissatisfaction with the debate. As he said, there's nothing new, both sides just made the same arguments they always make. As I probed a bit more, there seemed to be a strong sense in what he was saying that there wasn't a lot of engagement between the two sides. One of the science teachers basically said that the scientific evidence is against God, or makes God an unnecessary hypothesis, or whatever he actually said, and the pro-God response was basically you can't prove God doesn't exist and I feel God's presence. Again, I'm paraphrasing from a 17-year-old's not-totally-coherent account of this debate. So any commentary I'm about to make--and I'm about to make some--is poorly informed. There's a good argument here for avoiding speculation until I have more information, but to meet my Holidailies obligation, I need to get something out and I've already got this much written, so....
My suspicion here is that one of the very strengths I cited earlier--the civil nature of the debate--also defangs both sides to some extent and makes for a less interesting, less convincing debate. You can argue in fairly abstract, non-confrontational terms, but when it comes down to it, the more compelling arguments are also significantly more threatening, in the sense of calling strongly into question a person's deep-held beliefs (and, for that matter, those of the student's parent, you might not appreciate a teacher precipitating a crisis of faith for their son/daughter). Also, if participants were to argue in the strongest terms, students might feel as though a teacher who is arguing the other side from what they believe is unsympathetic or even hostile to them and not just to their belief system. So I suspect it's a challenging line to walk for the participants, to make a case, but to do it in a way that tends more toward interesting than to threatening or uncomfortable.
For my part, I've always had considerable tolerance for strong argument on both sides of this subject, because I've always felt that truth was important. Weird, I know. Hearing the best arguments, the strongest arguments of people on the other side of the issue from me always seemed like an important exercise, because either result seemed positive: either I would be convinced and change my mind, presumably moving closer to the truth--whatever that is--than I was before, or else I would feel that I had refuted the opposing arguments and thus had even better reason than before to believe what I already believed. Of course, this places a lot of trust in my own judgment. The alternative--turning over responsibility for one's beliefs to someone else--seems very problematic to me (even though I could argue in the abstract that it's possible that one could be better off relying on the judgment of someone else). But I have a hard time really believing that argument.
All right, this entry has been a bit scattered and it's not really ending with much of a bang or with a bow on top, but there it is. I welcome your thoughts on any of the matters raised.
I just like the fact that our spiritual life department--which, after all, is made up of protestant and Catholic ministers--is committed to this event, to raising the question. The debate participants are all teachers, so there's a sense in which no matter what the actual content of the debate is, one of the messages is that there are intelligent, thoughtful, nice people on both sides of the issue--or perhaps I should say all sides because I gather at least one person on the panel answered the question as basically a believing agnostic or a deist. And a related implicit message is that it's possible to disagree about something that's fundamental to one's outlook and to still be civil and even friendly.
Now, that said, I heard some of my students talking about the debate--which, I would reiterate, I have never been able to attend--and one of them was particularly vehement about his dissatisfaction with the debate. As he said, there's nothing new, both sides just made the same arguments they always make. As I probed a bit more, there seemed to be a strong sense in what he was saying that there wasn't a lot of engagement between the two sides. One of the science teachers basically said that the scientific evidence is against God, or makes God an unnecessary hypothesis, or whatever he actually said, and the pro-God response was basically you can't prove God doesn't exist and I feel God's presence. Again, I'm paraphrasing from a 17-year-old's not-totally-coherent account of this debate. So any commentary I'm about to make--and I'm about to make some--is poorly informed. There's a good argument here for avoiding speculation until I have more information, but to meet my Holidailies obligation, I need to get something out and I've already got this much written, so....
My suspicion here is that one of the very strengths I cited earlier--the civil nature of the debate--also defangs both sides to some extent and makes for a less interesting, less convincing debate. You can argue in fairly abstract, non-confrontational terms, but when it comes down to it, the more compelling arguments are also significantly more threatening, in the sense of calling strongly into question a person's deep-held beliefs (and, for that matter, those of the student's parent, you might not appreciate a teacher precipitating a crisis of faith for their son/daughter). Also, if participants were to argue in the strongest terms, students might feel as though a teacher who is arguing the other side from what they believe is unsympathetic or even hostile to them and not just to their belief system. So I suspect it's a challenging line to walk for the participants, to make a case, but to do it in a way that tends more toward interesting than to threatening or uncomfortable.
For my part, I've always had considerable tolerance for strong argument on both sides of this subject, because I've always felt that truth was important. Weird, I know. Hearing the best arguments, the strongest arguments of people on the other side of the issue from me always seemed like an important exercise, because either result seemed positive: either I would be convinced and change my mind, presumably moving closer to the truth--whatever that is--than I was before, or else I would feel that I had refuted the opposing arguments and thus had even better reason than before to believe what I already believed. Of course, this places a lot of trust in my own judgment. The alternative--turning over responsibility for one's beliefs to someone else--seems very problematic to me (even though I could argue in the abstract that it's possible that one could be better off relying on the judgment of someone else). But I have a hard time really believing that argument.
All right, this entry has been a bit scattered and it's not really ending with much of a bang or with a bow on top, but there it is. I welcome your thoughts on any of the matters raised.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Giving thanks for food, connecting to food
Growing up in America, "meat" is often just that: a cut of meat, something you get from the supermarket in a neatly wrapped package, perhaps epitomized by the ubiquitous boneless, skinless chicken breasts. "Boneless" and "skinless," of course, they are disconnected from almost any sense that they were ever part of an actual animal that lived and died to become your food (though I suspect the chicken--wrapped in skin and supported by bones--probably looked at its life a bit differently).
Over the past several years, I've gotten somewhat closer to my food. The majority of the meat our family eats comes from a local farmer. Each year, we get a quarter of a cow, a half a hog, twenty chickens, and a turkey at Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving turkey, of course, is the one time of year that many Americans do, in fact, see their food in a way that reminds them that it was once, you know, an actual animal. For us, getting 20 chickens each year (and usually buying a few more on top of our "farm share") I've had a lot of opportunities to prepare whole chickens rather than chicken parts (surprising no one, it's a lot of work to turn a whole chicken into chicken parts vs. roasting it whole). This preparation has made me more aware of the meat I eat as an animal, since you spend time putting spices under the skinning and jamming it's chest cavity full of onions, apples, or beer cans.
I had an interesting opportunity this year to further deepen my understanding of where my food comes from, and my connection to it. Earlier this fall, when I went to pick up my score of chickens, I was talking to the farmer about an addition they were making to their one building, an addition that would allow them to process their own chickens and turkeys. Talking about it, he invited me out to help with the turkeys.
And who doesn't want to help with the turkeys?
Thus, the Monday before Thanksgiving I found myself out at the farm bright and early, helping process 27 turkeys. I told one of my students, later, that I had processed these turkeys, and he kind of looked at me blankly. Processed? What does that mean? So to be clear: we took the turkeys from alive and ornery to table-ready. I even brought home and cooked our turkey that afternoon, so I had the whole cycle in one day. If you're interested in the gory details, I'll put them in the next paragraph. If stories of poultry death and dismemberment bother you, you might want to skip this paragraph (it is, after all, fowl stuff).
Okay, but seriously, it was neither macabre nor hilariously funny. Our farmer is a part-time minister, so perhaps not surprisingly we started the whole thing with a prayer, which set the tone as one of respect for the animals that were becoming food for us and others. Turkeys had to be caught from the trailer they were in, then they were brought to the first room, where they were placed in an inverted cone, upside down, so their heads and necks hung down. This calms them. At this point, someone finds what amounts to the chin, and a deep cut kills the turkey and bleeds it out. It took a while, and it probably wasn't totally painless, but I'm sure it could have been a lot worse. We've all heard stories of chickens or turkeys flopping around with their heads cut off, but this was not that. When the turkey was dead and done bleeding, it went into a hot water bath to loosen up the feathers. From there, it went into a round machine (kind of like a cotton candy machine, if that helps you visualize it) with rubber "fingers" all around the edge. The machine spins the turkeys around and the "fingers" remove the feathers. I think it also washed them at the same time. From there, the now-naked turkeys went to the next room, separated by a window and a sheet of plastic. We worked assembly-line style, so the first person in this room cut off the head and feet. The next person checked the skin for any bits of feather that might be left--they were looking for little nubs that were basically under the skin and had to be worked out. The next person removed the anus and anal glands. From there, it went to me, where I reached into the chest cavity and removed the gizzard. Then I reached in again to remove the guts. From this delightful mass, I separated the liver (which was still attached to the gall bladder) and then carefully removed the gall bladder, trying not to pop it, which would ruin pretty much anything the bile got on (I had a 100% success rate!). From there, the turkey carcass went to someone who got the lungs out, though a number of times I overzealously got the lungs out along with everything else I was grabbing. She might have had some other job too--I got caught up in my own job. The next guy removed something from the neck and also did most of the processing of the gizzards that I was taking out: they had to be cut open, all of the rocks and grass within had to be dumped out, and then an internal membrane removed. I think that was pretty much it. The giblets all went on ice in a bucket, while the turkeys went into a different bucket with ice and then into an ice bath, since they have to be cooled fairly quickly.
Just a generation or two ago, this kind of thing was probably far more common. Both of my parents had stories from their childhood: my father's family getting together with other farmers to butcher hogs (and "use everything but the oink"), my maternal grandmother killing chickens in the back yard for Sunday dinner. These things seem almost gruesome to us now, because they are outside of our experience, but they are a very real part of the food we eat, and one that we've become disconnected from. I appreciated that this Thanksgiving allowed me to deepen my own connection just a little more.
There was also an interesting fellowship that developed between all of us who were doing the work. Most of them had done it before, either at that farm or at their own farm, but at least two of us were new to it--myself and a man in his 20s who works as a cook at a nice restaurant. It was very companionable to be standing around this metal table, sharing this work. You'd sometimes talk about the work, but mostly we were getting to know one another, since most of us didn't already. I'm noticing it more now that a friend of mine has pointed it out, but there's something to be said for the companionship of shared work and the social aspect of that. We often think of "social occasions" as parties, as things we prepare for and work hard to make sure everyone has a good time, but there's something to be said for inviting people--or being invited by people--to share in some work together. It's more productive than just doing it yourself, it's more enjoyable, and there's an interesting social aspect to it.
Over the past several years, I've gotten somewhat closer to my food. The majority of the meat our family eats comes from a local farmer. Each year, we get a quarter of a cow, a half a hog, twenty chickens, and a turkey at Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving turkey, of course, is the one time of year that many Americans do, in fact, see their food in a way that reminds them that it was once, you know, an actual animal. For us, getting 20 chickens each year (and usually buying a few more on top of our "farm share") I've had a lot of opportunities to prepare whole chickens rather than chicken parts (surprising no one, it's a lot of work to turn a whole chicken into chicken parts vs. roasting it whole). This preparation has made me more aware of the meat I eat as an animal, since you spend time putting spices under the skinning and jamming it's chest cavity full of onions, apples, or beer cans.
I had an interesting opportunity this year to further deepen my understanding of where my food comes from, and my connection to it. Earlier this fall, when I went to pick up my score of chickens, I was talking to the farmer about an addition they were making to their one building, an addition that would allow them to process their own chickens and turkeys. Talking about it, he invited me out to help with the turkeys.
And who doesn't want to help with the turkeys?
Thus, the Monday before Thanksgiving I found myself out at the farm bright and early, helping process 27 turkeys. I told one of my students, later, that I had processed these turkeys, and he kind of looked at me blankly. Processed? What does that mean? So to be clear: we took the turkeys from alive and ornery to table-ready. I even brought home and cooked our turkey that afternoon, so I had the whole cycle in one day. If you're interested in the gory details, I'll put them in the next paragraph. If stories of poultry death and dismemberment bother you, you might want to skip this paragraph (it is, after all, fowl stuff).
Okay, but seriously, it was neither macabre nor hilariously funny. Our farmer is a part-time minister, so perhaps not surprisingly we started the whole thing with a prayer, which set the tone as one of respect for the animals that were becoming food for us and others. Turkeys had to be caught from the trailer they were in, then they were brought to the first room, where they were placed in an inverted cone, upside down, so their heads and necks hung down. This calms them. At this point, someone finds what amounts to the chin, and a deep cut kills the turkey and bleeds it out. It took a while, and it probably wasn't totally painless, but I'm sure it could have been a lot worse. We've all heard stories of chickens or turkeys flopping around with their heads cut off, but this was not that. When the turkey was dead and done bleeding, it went into a hot water bath to loosen up the feathers. From there, it went into a round machine (kind of like a cotton candy machine, if that helps you visualize it) with rubber "fingers" all around the edge. The machine spins the turkeys around and the "fingers" remove the feathers. I think it also washed them at the same time. From there, the now-naked turkeys went to the next room, separated by a window and a sheet of plastic. We worked assembly-line style, so the first person in this room cut off the head and feet. The next person checked the skin for any bits of feather that might be left--they were looking for little nubs that were basically under the skin and had to be worked out. The next person removed the anus and anal glands. From there, it went to me, where I reached into the chest cavity and removed the gizzard. Then I reached in again to remove the guts. From this delightful mass, I separated the liver (which was still attached to the gall bladder) and then carefully removed the gall bladder, trying not to pop it, which would ruin pretty much anything the bile got on (I had a 100% success rate!). From there, the turkey carcass went to someone who got the lungs out, though a number of times I overzealously got the lungs out along with everything else I was grabbing. She might have had some other job too--I got caught up in my own job. The next guy removed something from the neck and also did most of the processing of the gizzards that I was taking out: they had to be cut open, all of the rocks and grass within had to be dumped out, and then an internal membrane removed. I think that was pretty much it. The giblets all went on ice in a bucket, while the turkeys went into a different bucket with ice and then into an ice bath, since they have to be cooled fairly quickly.
Just a generation or two ago, this kind of thing was probably far more common. Both of my parents had stories from their childhood: my father's family getting together with other farmers to butcher hogs (and "use everything but the oink"), my maternal grandmother killing chickens in the back yard for Sunday dinner. These things seem almost gruesome to us now, because they are outside of our experience, but they are a very real part of the food we eat, and one that we've become disconnected from. I appreciated that this Thanksgiving allowed me to deepen my own connection just a little more.
There was also an interesting fellowship that developed between all of us who were doing the work. Most of them had done it before, either at that farm or at their own farm, but at least two of us were new to it--myself and a man in his 20s who works as a cook at a nice restaurant. It was very companionable to be standing around this metal table, sharing this work. You'd sometimes talk about the work, but mostly we were getting to know one another, since most of us didn't already. I'm noticing it more now that a friend of mine has pointed it out, but there's something to be said for the companionship of shared work and the social aspect of that. We often think of "social occasions" as parties, as things we prepare for and work hard to make sure everyone has a good time, but there's something to be said for inviting people--or being invited by people--to share in some work together. It's more productive than just doing it yourself, it's more enjoyable, and there's an interesting social aspect to it.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Introductions, 2014 (Holidailies)
I'm a blogger. Wait, no I'm not. I used to be a blogger. One of those blog-every-day hell-or-high-water types. I went a year or two at a stretch without missing a day. Now, with the exception of Decembers, I can almost go a year at a stretch without blogging a day. It's like the evil twin of my former blogging self.
I'm a writer. Wait, am I? I don't know. I thought I was, but except for NaNoWriMo and Holidailies, I don't really show it. I did manage 50k of a novel last month, and I have high hopes of finishing what's probably about 1/3 finished at 50k over the next few months. And I'm committing to blogging here. But am I a writer? I guess we'll see. Time will tell and all that, since a writer isn't a state of being so much as a state of doing. You write or you don't, and right now I am. Good enough, right?
I'm a father. No, seriously, I am. It's still a little unbelievable, even though my oldest is almost five. But I think they've aged me ten years in five, so yes, I'm a father. They've also completely redefined so many things for me. I'm not sure I really knew what love was until I had children. There's a song that says "I'm gonna need a second heart for all this love," and it's not just the quantity, it's the whole experience. I couldn't have understood it until it happened. Maybe I still don't.
I'm an educator. I'm not, technically, a teacher any more: after 10 years in the classroom and the rehearsal room, 10 years teaching music and English, I've spent that past five working in student life at a boarding school. I'm still teaching, though: social skills, academic skills, leadership skills, resilience, and--let's hope--just plain human being skills. I loved the classroom, I miss it sometimes, but I feel like I'm doing good work in this role, too.
I'm a jock. No I'm not. Wait, what does that even mean? I'm 37, and a year or two ago another adult prefaced some remark or other by saying "Of course, you're a jock, so..." And I'm thinking: are you kidding me? The kid who, in elementary school, collapsed dramatically rather than finish the mile run for the Presidential Fitness Test, since he was 1) the only one still running and 2) not getting a medal with zero pull-ups and laughable numbers on the other events, he's a jock? The kid whose favorite part of junior high track--indeed, the only bright spot--was walking from the junior high to the high school, which took us into a gas station where we loaded up on candy, that little butterball is a jock? The kid whose high school activities revolved around band, drama, choir, quiz bowl (if you don't know what it is, trust me, it's as nerdy as it sounds), writing, and--finally, in my junior and senior years--tennis, he's a jock? And yet, it's true that in the last decade or so I've taken a more or less strong interest in health and fitness--I lift weights religiously, I educate myself about exercise and fitness, and apparently it's all paid off by adding "jock" to my list of nerd credentials.
I'm an amateur cook and something of a foodie. The kid who, growing up, was just about the pickiest eater ever--the kid who gagged on peas and broccoli, avoided raisins and bananas, wouldn't eat apple dumplings even though he separately liked both apples and dumplings (and, come one, they're apple dumplings!), that kid grew into an adult who loves all kinds of foods, domestic and exotic, and does virtually all the cooking for his family. I won't say I identify as "Paleo," and I certainly don't follow that kind of eating template religiously, but I've been influenced by the principles (which is a shame, because I make some awesome breads, cakes, cookies, and pies).
I'm a player. A game player, I mean. Growing up, my family played a ton of board and card games. The big game in our family was called Five Hundred, which at the end of the day is basically Bridge. But we also played Pinochle, Canasta, Spades, Hearts, and Euchre. We played other card games like Rook, Flinch, Touring (a knock-off of Mille Bornes, which we also played), and Uno. We played all the regular board games you would expect of a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, and probably a few you wouldn't expect. And then, in the 2000s, I discovered real board games, the German and European games and the ones they influenced: games that were more complicated or interesting than mere roll the dice and move around the board types, games with interesting mechanics and deeper strategy. Things like the gateway games Settlers of Catan and Carcassone, Blokus and Rumis, and from there to games like Agricola, Ricochet Robots, Power Grid, Diplomacy... okay, I don't want to turn this into a boring list for those who don't know the games. But if there's a board game and it's awesome, then I've probably at least heard of it.
I'm a Renaissance man. Or maybe it's a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. Somewhere on that continuum. I've never been good at limiting myself or my interests: I was a double-major (English and music) in college. I went to graduate school for music and majored in choral conducting and composition, because I couldn't choose just one. Teaching in boarding schools for most of my working life has been good: I've gotten lots of opportunities to learn new things through the years. My blog kind of follows the same clear lack of a clear plan, which is one of the reasons for its name. When I blog at all--which, as we've already established, is pretty much only in December--I blog about all kinds of things. I guess the upside there is that if you don't like what I'm blogging about one day, come back the next day, since it will probably be something completely different tomorrow.
And that's me.
I'm a writer. Wait, am I? I don't know. I thought I was, but except for NaNoWriMo and Holidailies, I don't really show it. I did manage 50k of a novel last month, and I have high hopes of finishing what's probably about 1/3 finished at 50k over the next few months. And I'm committing to blogging here. But am I a writer? I guess we'll see. Time will tell and all that, since a writer isn't a state of being so much as a state of doing. You write or you don't, and right now I am. Good enough, right?
I'm a father. No, seriously, I am. It's still a little unbelievable, even though my oldest is almost five. But I think they've aged me ten years in five, so yes, I'm a father. They've also completely redefined so many things for me. I'm not sure I really knew what love was until I had children. There's a song that says "I'm gonna need a second heart for all this love," and it's not just the quantity, it's the whole experience. I couldn't have understood it until it happened. Maybe I still don't.
I'm an educator. I'm not, technically, a teacher any more: after 10 years in the classroom and the rehearsal room, 10 years teaching music and English, I've spent that past five working in student life at a boarding school. I'm still teaching, though: social skills, academic skills, leadership skills, resilience, and--let's hope--just plain human being skills. I loved the classroom, I miss it sometimes, but I feel like I'm doing good work in this role, too.
I'm a jock. No I'm not. Wait, what does that even mean? I'm 37, and a year or two ago another adult prefaced some remark or other by saying "Of course, you're a jock, so..." And I'm thinking: are you kidding me? The kid who, in elementary school, collapsed dramatically rather than finish the mile run for the Presidential Fitness Test, since he was 1) the only one still running and 2) not getting a medal with zero pull-ups and laughable numbers on the other events, he's a jock? The kid whose favorite part of junior high track--indeed, the only bright spot--was walking from the junior high to the high school, which took us into a gas station where we loaded up on candy, that little butterball is a jock? The kid whose high school activities revolved around band, drama, choir, quiz bowl (if you don't know what it is, trust me, it's as nerdy as it sounds), writing, and--finally, in my junior and senior years--tennis, he's a jock? And yet, it's true that in the last decade or so I've taken a more or less strong interest in health and fitness--I lift weights religiously, I educate myself about exercise and fitness, and apparently it's all paid off by adding "jock" to my list of nerd credentials.
I'm an amateur cook and something of a foodie. The kid who, growing up, was just about the pickiest eater ever--the kid who gagged on peas and broccoli, avoided raisins and bananas, wouldn't eat apple dumplings even though he separately liked both apples and dumplings (and, come one, they're apple dumplings!), that kid grew into an adult who loves all kinds of foods, domestic and exotic, and does virtually all the cooking for his family. I won't say I identify as "Paleo," and I certainly don't follow that kind of eating template religiously, but I've been influenced by the principles (which is a shame, because I make some awesome breads, cakes, cookies, and pies).
I'm a player. A game player, I mean. Growing up, my family played a ton of board and card games. The big game in our family was called Five Hundred, which at the end of the day is basically Bridge. But we also played Pinochle, Canasta, Spades, Hearts, and Euchre. We played other card games like Rook, Flinch, Touring (a knock-off of Mille Bornes, which we also played), and Uno. We played all the regular board games you would expect of a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, and probably a few you wouldn't expect. And then, in the 2000s, I discovered real board games, the German and European games and the ones they influenced: games that were more complicated or interesting than mere roll the dice and move around the board types, games with interesting mechanics and deeper strategy. Things like the gateway games Settlers of Catan and Carcassone, Blokus and Rumis, and from there to games like Agricola, Ricochet Robots, Power Grid, Diplomacy... okay, I don't want to turn this into a boring list for those who don't know the games. But if there's a board game and it's awesome, then I've probably at least heard of it.
I'm a Renaissance man. Or maybe it's a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. Somewhere on that continuum. I've never been good at limiting myself or my interests: I was a double-major (English and music) in college. I went to graduate school for music and majored in choral conducting and composition, because I couldn't choose just one. Teaching in boarding schools for most of my working life has been good: I've gotten lots of opportunities to learn new things through the years. My blog kind of follows the same clear lack of a clear plan, which is one of the reasons for its name. When I blog at all--which, as we've already established, is pretty much only in December--I blog about all kinds of things. I guess the upside there is that if you don't like what I'm blogging about one day, come back the next day, since it will probably be something completely different tomorrow.
And that's me.
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