CURRENT EVENTS

PERFECT GIRLS

/ janpriddyoregon / 3 Comments

I watched a TED talk that insists women could be better. They should be more like men. We’re raising our girls to be perfect, and we’re raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Girls need to be more like boys, she suggests. They need to take more risks and demand jobs they are unqualified for. It works for the boys.

I appreciate Ms. Saujani for urging girls to be brave, for encouraging women to enter STEM fields. Too right. That should happen.

It’s a worthy goal to identify what holds girls and women back and to offer encouragement. Surely we underestimate the potential of girls and women in our culture. We actively stifle their potential. We should identify changes in their behavior and in our system that hold them back.

But. I am also tired of people urging women to behave more like men at their worst. Saujani describes how, in an experiment, 5th grade girls, especially the smarter ones, give up on “an assignment that was too hard for them.” I’d argue it’s a waste of time struggling against something they can’t do, an assignment specifically designed to be impossible for them. Recognizing that might even be termed smart because that’s not “giving up,” that’s sensible. Just as it’s possible to be persistent without being foolish, it’s possible to be sensible without being a coward.

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CULT OR CIVILIZATION?

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Civilizations rise and fall. A goal of the current administration is to eliminate support for most individuals, particularly those who require food and other support, to lean in to the rich, and deny rights to anyone unable to pay for them. The rationale seems to be that if a person cannot be rich, they don’t deserve assistance.

Yesterday, well before dawn because Gary has trained me to rise early, we stood at the front window and admired the moon. It was blood-red. My camera could not capture that light so my photo only shows a bit of the red reflected path and turned the moon pale gold. What we saw in life was far more glorious. That’s usually true.
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AUTUMN

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We are a couple of hours into the new season. Each of us woke this morning and thought: “We need a fire.” Friends were just here for the tail of summer, but each fall there is a morning when the cool damp weights our chest and abruptly makes us want a fire in the wood stove. It’s a day not to worry, but to hold moments before us, remember trust, and revel in the reliability of the world. Today was that day.

Only gulls this morning during our walk. We choose our path so as not to disturb resting birds.
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WHEN I WAS A KID

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Be aware, I’m going to write about firearms. It’s going to take a while, but I’ll get to it.

A tax code revision allows some teachers to deduct some [more] of their school supply purchases. In response, an engineer announced: “When I was a kid, we were responsible for our own school supplies and if you didn’t bring them to school, you did not participate in the activities.”

When I was a kid, learning disabled kids were left out of school entirely, and even then the wealthy sent their children to absurdly expensive private schools, most people could afford to live a one person’s salary, Russia’s Soviet Union was the ultimate enemy (okay, that hasn’t changed much), and we hadn’t put a man on the moon. Oh! And teachers could deduct everything, EVERYTHING! including travel, because travel is educational. Teachers were treated with respect, and though their pay was poor, the working conditions were better and the perks were substantial, and they were never sued. Most were overqualified first-generation college grads thanks to the GI bill or women with few employment options. Times change.

I took this photo thirteen years ago. Since then, the elk have gotten out of hand. A bull visits the local garden apple trees and then rubs his velvety antler on the Fatsia japonica across the street. There’s been a bull around since a town north of us (Gearhart) shot around eighty of them they considered a nuisance. There isn’t necessarily a connection between the shooting of all those cows and the wandering bulls (several) we have seen since. Just sayin’ this didn’t happen when I was a kid.
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MAGICAL THINKING, pt. 1

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Over the years I’ve experienced many unbelievable things. People have said things to me that were so shocking, I didn’t know how to respond. Then I did. I’ve given up all hope. Surprise! Things fall into place.

These are fabrics from my quilting stash. The ones at the top—the persimmon with swirls of dark chocolate and white at left and the yellow ochre with other colors spinning across are what I’ve always hoped would become anchoring fabrics. I’ve thought that for at least fifteen years, maybe fourteen yards, some of the patterns very rare, all hand dyed. The yardage has waited a long time, and pretty soon I will begin piecing. The stack at left will be one side, the stack at right will be the reverse. I will work from the middle with a center diamond and piece my way to the edges. I’m hoping I won’t need to purchase another cotton batt but can use leftovers I have stashed.
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CATCHING UP

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A lot. My injured foot is still a problem. No publisher for my novel. We’ve canceled an anniversary vacation. A neighbor is not doing well. And I am assured by a former student that, “There is hope in this world, ya know. And it’s okay to get depressed; it just means you’re paying attention. And while anyone is still paying attention, there is still hope for everyone who is not.” Walking, submission, altruism, A Christmas Carol, righteousness, and hope. The ocean of my business.

A couple of weeks ago on a trial 1-mile walk that went well.
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SKEPTICISM

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Examples of “evidence” I discount:
• Your boyfriend’s uncle’s friend survived a house invasion only because he kept a loaded gun under his pillow.
* You saw a YouTube video/Snapchat/Tweet/X post/Facebook story that proves there is a cabal of dems holding torturous events at the local pizza palace.
• You found the photo that proves how people in favor of abortion celebrated a legal victory by eating a cake shaped like an unborn child.*

I loved this sign from a Portland, Oregon, demonstration. It wasn’t my sign and it wasn’t my grandfather. I am old. It was my dad who fought. My father served in Europe, fighting the Nazis. The stories about concentration camps that reached the average American before our entry into the war failed to describe the horrors that awaited my dad when he was present at the liberation of a camp.

Have I read these stories? Yes, I have.

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FOOT by FOOT

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Everything is blooming here, other than things that are already nearly done blooming. In the front yard the wild roses and rhododendron and irises are done, but Pink Grootendorst is still setting new buds and so is my favorite double white rugosa. The honeysuckle and salal are still in flower, and the ceanothus is covered in bees, and the other flowers are getting close to opening. Lucifer looks like it will pop a week or two early this year. [I try not to notice the red lines under three botanical names my computer thinks I’ve misspelled.]

The northern half of the front garden. There is a massive lacecap hydrangea at the south that you can’t see. It’s covered in green buds that, in a few weeks, will open up to blue. The richly scented Blanc Double du Coubert and another highly scented pink single are out of the frame too. Three clay pots, two with herbs, and one with a volunteer viola that’s come back for years. We continually fight the ivy and the neighbors’ invasive single red rugosa rubra.
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SHOOT

/ janpriddyoregon / 3 Comments

In 1972, I drove across the country with my grandfather’s third wife Genevieve to a sheep farm in Kansas. I had never been over the Rockies before that. Vietnam was at war, I learned to spin wool that summer, and when I got back Gary and I moved in together on the 4th of July. We would both be Juniors at the University of Washington that fall.

But in June, Gen and I crossed the plains. It felt foreign-strange to me to see no mountains on the horizon in any direction—no mountains at all in the last days headed to Kansas. All around, open sky. At one point, we pulled over to the side of the highway while a storm passed overhead.

I spend a lot of time looking at sky, have done for most of my life. When I was young, I didn’t want what my dad teased my mother about: Five secluded acres in the middle of town. I wanted to be far away in forest. But then we moved to the edge of the continent, and I began watching the sky.
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