Knowing where things come from

Our society is set up so that we don't know where the stuff of our daily lives comes from.  Food, clothing, cars, homes -- all we know is if we pay money, then we get that stuff.  How many people who eat chicken know how to slaughter a chicken? How many people who wear cotton clothing know how to grow cotton?  How many people who ride in cars know where the materials for the car came from?  And when we are done with stuff, we put it in the trash.  How many people know where it goes after that?

Sometimes journalism tells us.  In December 2013, NPR's Planet Money told us about the making of a t-shirt.  The CNN Freedom Project researched slavery.  That is, we think of slavery as from the past, but they told us about things that are going on now. 

We put money in the bank.  That doesn't mean that they have a vault of cash that belongs to us.  They are investing our money.  What are they investing it in?

My employer gives me a choice of retirement plans.  One of them is called socially responsible.  It invests in McDonald's, Pepsi, Ford, American Express, Procter and Gamble, and Time Warner.  That's not what I think of when I think of socially responsible. 

Things get tagged as "socially responsible" or "green," and we think that means we should buy them. 

Our society makes it easy to be a blind consumer.  It's hard to dig deeper. It's hard to be a responsible citizen.

Priorities

Time rushes by.  I am so busy.  Work. Morris dance. Time bank.  Radio show.  Family gatherings.  Chores. I'm just caught up in it, focusing on the immediate deadlines.  I need to make choices about how I spend my time.  I will have a little more leeway in my schedule in July. How will I spend that time? Some many things I want to do:

1. Morris dance camp
2. Time bank conference
3. See my family -- various people in various places, so this is really more than one item on my to do list
4. Go to the ocean
5. Stay home.   Take some time for reflection, writing, meditation, communing with nature.  Catch up on projects and chores.
6. Figure out what to do with my life.  Find another way to earn a living.  

It is tempting to go with items 1 and 2, because there's where my inertia is now.  I think that instead, I need to find a way to focus on 6.  It's a hard one to do, because there's no clearcut way to accomplish it.  

One way to start is to think about what I want to do.  I have a lot of ideas.  I've had the same ideas for years, but I just keep going in circles because I haven't managed to move from swirl of ideas to implementation.  I know that I like to work with information in support of a community that values what I have to offer and is working toward goals consistent with my values.  I care about:

• Education.  Helping people to grow in knowledge, skill, critical thinking, compassion, and wisdom. Helping people to understand nature and society.
• Restorative justice.
• Sustainable living, renewable energy, the transition movement, small business, organic agriculture, permaculture.  I would not be an expert in these areas.  My expertise might be in education, and my employer would educate people about these things.  

What can I do to move my life forward? There are a few approaches I can think of:

1. There are two organization that seem to be working toward all of the above things.  One is a college, and the other is a camp.  I give money to these organization.  I check their job postings.  I did ask once at one about volunteer work.  Both are some distance from where I live.  I could make a trip there, but I couldn't volunteer there on a weekly basis.  Maybe in July I could take some vacation time to visit one or both of those places.  Maybe I could find a way to be involved in a short term way.
2. Maybe I could get involved in more of the things happening in my local community.  I'm over-extended now.  Maybe I should quit Morris dance and join the transition group instead.
3. Are there skills I can develop? One of my problems is that I'm not sure what I can or want to offer.  I like working with databases and web sites and statistics, but I'm a real amateur at it.  If I could focus on something and develop my skills in that area, then I would have something to offer.  

Sometimes people get in a rut. They say they want to do something.  They keep saying it for years but they never do anything.  I see that in others. I see that in myself.  I don't want to be that person.  I'm struggle to break out of the rut.  

Living in a corporate culture

They talked about Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.  They did not say anything about the food co-op or the farmer's market.  

I was so alienated I didn't bother to say anything to them.

I'm polite. I have a hard time telling people I think their values are bizarre.

Most of my society thinks they are the normal ones.

Dance

I've always loved to dance.  One of the reasons why I chose the apartment I live in is because there is a large living room floor directly above an office.  The office is usually unoccupied when I am home.  That means I can dance around the living room all I want without disturbing the neighbors.  When I dance around the living room, I am filled with joy.

I've always loved to dance.  I've always loved dancing around where I live.  The other thing that I've always done, on and off, and try to do more official kinds of dancing.  They don't work out, but I keep trying new ones.

I took ballet when I was 6.  I did not do well and it did not last that long.

As a child and teenager, I had a little experience with square and contra dancing, and also went to school dances.  In junior high, the boys had to ask the girls to dance.  It was all partner dances.  So I went to the 7th grade dance and I went to the 8th grade dance, and at each once, I got to dance one dance.  In high school, a group of girls could dance together, so I got to dance more, I didn't have to wait for a boy to ask me.

In college, physical education classes only lasted for one quarter, which was half a semester.  I took one quarter of Israeli folk dance, and one or two quarters of modern dance, but other quarters I was busy with other physical education classes, including yoga, swimming, and self defense.

My first year after college, starting my first job was enough to keep my busy, but after one year, I moved to a different place, and near that place was an aerobics class.  I took aerobics for most of the three years that I lived there.

Then I went away to graduate school.  My exercise consisted of all the walking I did, to school and to grocery shopping.

After school, I was unemployed for a  year.  After getting settled in my job, I took aerobics.  I did that for several years, until it ended.

In years after that I tried ballroom, swing, contra, English country, modern, and jazz.  Ballroom, swing, contra, and English country require a partner.  I hate that when I can't find a partner, I have to sit on the sidelines.  Those kinds of dances are not for me.  I really object to the idea that you are not allowed to have fun unless you have a partner.

Modern and jazz were tough.  I had no experience with jazz dance, and only a few months of experience with modern dance.  I was in a class with people who had been doing it since they were 5.  They were college students, and I was in my 30s.  I did not last long in that environment.

Then they started offering Nia classes at work.  I liked that.  I kept doing it as long as it was offered, which was a few years.

Next up was tai chi.  I took that for 9 months.  I quit when we got to the end of the 24 form because my teacher seemed annoyed with me for not being good at it.

One year after quitting tai chi, I started Morris dance.  I've been doing that for just over two years now.  My experience with Morris dance is like my experience with ballet, modern, jazz, and tai chi -- I'm terrible at it.  I don't mind being terrible at it.  What I mind is when other people get annoyed at the fact that I am terrible at it.

There are some things I like about Morris dance.  I like the way it's about celebrating the coming of spring.  I like the way it's about keeping alive a tradition of my ancestors.  I like dance that's about performing.

The style of dance isn't everything that I need.  I like dance that's more about full body movement, like Nia or modern dance.  If I had the time and energy, I would Morris dance plus other kinds that have more of that full body movement.

For the future, I'm signed up to take tai chi this summer.  Two things I haven't tried yet but would like to try are sole synthesis and  dances of universal peace. I may try a zumba class (I've done zumba at home with a video.) I may some day try again to take modern or jazz, if I can find a class for middle-aged, fat beginners, instead of being with a lot of young fit people who have been doing it since they were 5.

Dancing around the living room fills me with joy.  Going out in the world and trying to follow someone else's instructions about how to dance is often frustrating.  I do okay with exercise classes (aerobics, Nia), but I hate sitting out partner dances, and I seem to annoy the teachers of performance dancing (ballet, jazz, modern, Morris).  You'd think I'd be content to just dance around the living room, but I keep trying new ways of going out in the world and trying to follow someone else's instructions about how to dance.  I think it's because I want to learn and grow.

Gap

One woman lost her job.

Another woman lost her mother.

Another woman, 35 weeks pregnant, lies in the hospital, 35 weeks pregnant, semiconscious.

I go to my  job and tell people they are filling out their forms incorrectly.  At Morris dance, I worry that I have nothing to offer, that my dancing sucks and that they don't want the other things that I can do.  I tell myself I'm going to do laundry after work today, but I'm so tired when I get home, that once again, it does not get done.

Such a gap between what is important and what my life is.

Once More With Feeling

Just watched "Once More With Feeling."  She really captures where I'm at:

Every single night, the same arrangement
I go out and fight the fight.
Still I always feel this strange estrangement
Nothing here is real, nothing here is right.
I've been making shows of  trading blows
Just hoping no one knows
That I've been going through the motions
Walking through the part.
Nothing seems to penetrate my heart.
I was always brave, and kind of righteous.
Now I find I'm wavering.
....
 I can't even see
 If this is really me
And I just want to be alive

She's not telling her friends how she is hurting because they just try to press her to be okay, and she's not okay.  The only person she can talk to is someone who knows darkness, who can be present with her in darkness, rather than pressing her to be cheery.  She doesn't know how to go forward.  She goes through the motions of what she has to do, but she knows it's not right and she doesn't know any way out.

Writers

When I was in high school, I thought I might want to become a writer.  I thought that meant that I had to be either a novelist or a newspaper reporter.  I knew I wasn't cut out to me a newspaper reporter, because you have to be kind of persistent about trying to get people to talk to you, and my attitude is if people don't want to talk to me, I should respect that.  I attempted to write several novels, and enjoyed it, but in time I came to see that writing novels was not my thing either.  I'm not that imaginative.  Now I think that the kind of writing I do is to write my thoughts and observations.  Sometimes it's mostly introspective, while other times, it's about observing other people and writing about what they say and do.

 Anyway, when I was a teenager, I thought that the only ways to earn a living as a writer were as a novelist or a newspaper reporter.  But I look at things I got in the mail, and I realize that someone was paid to write them, and I realize that there are a lot of ways to get paid to write that I didn't necessarily think of.

I have a clothing catalog that says

Splash through a creek.  Hose down your horse.  Get doused in a downpour.  With DuluthFlex Dry on the Fly Pants, you'll be comfortably dry before you can say, "Where's an umbrella."  

I have an alumni magazine from College of the Atlantic.  Each issue starts with a letter from the editor.  In this issue, the letter from the editor starts with a paragraph about how it is the anniversary of the publication of The Maine Woods by Thoreau.  Then it goes on to say

The founders of the College of the Atlantic -- inspired by Thoreau, among others -- created a school in which students are immersed in firsthand experience.  At COA, students connect directly to their subjects -- to learn for themselves, much as Thoreau did, aided by faculty catalysts -- whether studying biology, history, literature, art, or land use planning.  This kind of learning hones self-reliance and keen observation, qualities crucial to thriving in our unpredictable world.

And another piece of writing, which unlike the others, is not something I got in the mail:

As the summer heats up, we often try to start our routes as early as possible to avoid the mid-day sun. Please remember to have your trash and recycling out by 8 am so that we don't miss it. Also, if you don't already have compost service with us, summer is a great time to start. Putting food waste in the compost helps keep animals and flies away from your garbage bin, and keeps the smell down. Compost service is free for our customers who already have trash & recycling service with us. Contact us and we can sign you up.

So it's not always obvious how a person can earn a living as a writer.

And it's very much not obvious to me how I can earn a living.  Not that I necessarily want to be a writer.  Well of course I would be doing some writing as part of the job, but writing might not be the thing that defines the job.