Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 7

Another Failure

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For a number of years, I had as a potential goal to cultivate houseplants. I did not act on this aspiration until we moved to Florida. Now our home is filled with houseplants. I love it, but it is another practice in which one cultivates failure as much as joy and satisfaction.

Since cultivating houseplants, I have wanted to have a beautiful, red marantha prayer plant like the one in the photo below. I purchased on at Home Depot two years ago. It has never thrived. I moved it from a northeast facing window where I thought it was getting too much sun to a more southerly exposure where sun only seem to shine during the late afternoon. It has never liked that spot.

A friend suggested that perhaps she was lonely and in a too big pot. She said, perhaps, put a few friends in the pot with her and see if she thrives. I did that a month ago. The other two plants are thriving. She has shriveled and is will soon die.

I am out of strategies to save this plant. I’m throwing up my hands, recognizing another failure. The other two will hopefully survive. This failure is not my first; it will surely not be my last. I hate that another living being is entangled with my failures; I hate that I could not find the right location, the proper light, the right water to save this plant. And more than save it, to help it grow and thrive. I hate that I failed this plant. It’s withered brown leaf a reminder of my many failures. Even as the photograph below whispers to me: try again, try again, we want to grow and thrive with you, Julie, we do.

[image error]A gorgeous, healthy marantha prayer plant.

Handmade Paper

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Fifteen years ago, I traveled to Thailand. It was an amazing trip. I came home with a suitcase stuffed with textiles and layered with large, three feet by four feet, sheets of handmade paper. Eventually, I could not keep the paper stored flat and so I rolled it into a plastic bag and stored it near the back of a closet. I would look at it periodically and think one day I am going to have time, and I am going to make something beautiful with that paper. Perhaps homemade chapbooks. Or broadsides of hand-lettered poems. Or invitations to a beautiful dinner party. Or. Or. Or.

The paper moved with me from Maryland to Florida. It moved about my office as things became crammed here or there and I did not want the paper damaged. I kept thinking, someday, someday. Then I would think of my mother and that stack of cards she had, the correspondence paper unused.

In January, I took scissors to those pieces of paper. I cut them all up. I made Valentine’s Day cards and a stack of correspondence cards, more than a stack, actually, I think there are about 135 cards to write and mail over the next year. They are beautiful as the photo above and below demonstrate.

Pessimistically, the cards represent giving up dreams of someday. Yes, I crafted them into beautiful objects to share with people of whom I am fond, but before the cards, the paper was filled with so many possibilities, so much hope, so many dreams and schemes yet to be achieved. Now they are contained, disciplined, stacked, ready for a utilitarian engagement. That paper is no longer a dream for the future, it is an object in the present.

Ultimately, this reality is why, I think, my mother did not write on her very best stationary. To use it was to concede, this may be the best I can do. This may be the best moment in my life. The future may not hold a better opportunity to use this stationary. As I lost the dreams for the paper as it was cut, glued, and placed into envelopes, I felt that sadness, that sense of resignation to the state of the here and now. I also felt the enormity of the task of writing my through all of the cards. (The Valentine’s Day cards have already been mailed and I assume recycled by the beloved recipients.) Using the paper, transforming it from possibility to an immediate obligation, removed all of the hopes and dreams it came to represent over fifteen years, After completing the craft component of the project, however, in the weeks since, I have come to recognize a new hope that emerges: there may be more handmade paper in my future. I may travel again, make an incredible find, and carefully carry it home.

I would have not known this hope, this sense of possibility, had I not cut into that stash of paper. In the end, I am glad I did.

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Buy Good Quality and It Will Last Forever

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These are my favorite wool socks from LL Bean. I bought them at least a decade ago when another pair of beloved wool socks became hole-y and had to be thrown out. I bought six pair of wool socks and recall that they cost over a hundred dollars then. (A quick search of their website confirms, two pair now are $34 so add on shipping and tax and for once memory serves.) Shocked at the price then, I remember muttering to myself, good quality lasts forever. It reassured me.

For a decade, these have been beloved socks. The days in Florida for wearing wool socks are few. For a few good weeks in January and February and sometimes into early March, however, each evening, I can don wool socks. Sleep in them, walk around the house with only socks. Given how few they are in Florida, I love these days even more. In Michigan and Maryland, setting aside wool socks in May and March respectively was a relief. Here in Florida I hold on to these wool sock days fiercely.

This year, I bought two more pair of wool socks. Cheap ones from Dick’s Sporting Goods. Yes, good quality lasts but not forever. My beloved wool socks have a hole in the foot. The cool floor presses my heel when I walk about. It is time to discard them. I know, I know, they could be darned. In fact, I know how to darn, how to blend wool thread into the existing weave. Being taught to darn, though, means I have walked on darned socks. No matter how careful, how expert one is at darning, there is always a lump, a bump, a site of the repair, pressing against the heel with every step. I walked on them as a child. Today my feet refuse.

This reality, this fact that good quality does not last forever, makes me wonder: what lasts? I am certainly willing to concede that good quality lasts longer, but it seems to me nothing lasts forever. For my mother, the person that I heard this aphorism from first, good quality could last forever; she walked willingly on lumps and bumps. Forever was a relative construct and something that needed to be nudged along by extra thread. Perhaps that is the answer to my question, what lasts? What lasts is what you are willing to nudge along to your own forever. But then does the quality matter? Does it matter if those wool socks are from LL Bean or from any other purveyor of wool socks? If nothing really lasts forever, does quality matter? I do not know any of these answers.

I only know, tomorrow, these socks will go in the trash. I will miss them, but will wear others as we wait for warm days to banish them all to an infrequently used drawer in the dresser. One day, I’ll replace them, certainly. A day when once again a sprig of belief in mothers mantra returns, and I believe passionately if only briefly. Again I will believe: good quality lasts forever. And I suspect again I will be disappointed and questions will return. Quality and forever. Do you believe?

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Choice: what works and what doesn’t?

My book club read Goldie Goldbloom‘s wonderful newish book, On Division, this month. I love this book and urge everyone to read it. In addition to a wonderfully complex portrayal of a fifty-seven year old Chasidic Jewish woman, it features a beautiful intimate relationship that she has with her husband and a heartbreaking story about their queer son. It is epic and soaring and heartbreaking and wonderful. All of the things one hopes for in a novel.

In the course of our discussion at book group, one member reflected on the value of choice as a core principle. I agree in many ways. My life is a result of having choices, making unconventional choices, and the expansion of choices for women and lesbians over the past fifty years. I embrace choice.

At the same time, I recognize the limitations of choice, and I recognize the appeal of limited choices. How to reconcile the two? I am not sure it is possible, but what feels most urgent to me is holding open the possibilities for conversations about what and where we benefit from choices, particular expanded choices and where and how choices, often the exact same choices at the same time limit or do not serve us.

For example, I love the life that has taken me around the country on new adventures every few years. I love the professional opportunities that I have had and the choices about what kind of work to do and where to live. Can I imagine a different life? Of course. Can I imagine a life where I stayed in Michigan? Ten years ago, not at all. Now, I wonder.

What I want to hold space here is for the possibilities that exist in communities with restrictions. The possibilities that exist in communities where there are roles circumscribed for men and women, were there are limitations. Is it possible to imagine a world that serves people without choice as a fundamental commitment and hallmark? In the past, I would have said no, absolutely not, but now I wonder about this fundamental liberal value. I wonder how to value my own choices and the life that choice has created for me while also valuing the lives of people who live with limited choices. I want to understand the ways that constraints can fuel interesting, valuable, and meaningful lives.

I want my life and my choices to not be inherently the right path for everyone. I want to be able to peer inside other spaces and think, oh, this is interesting! I see nothing more wrong with it than with all of the things in the spaces I am occupying. I can value it as much as I value my own spaces. Mostly, I want curiosity about others, other communities, other spaces, other lives. I want to understand more about the possibilities for other ways of living.

I am thinking about what choice means in my life and how I value it and trying to imagine other values and what outcomes those values might deliver. How has choice worked in YOUR life? How has it not worked? What have been unintended negative consequences of choice? What choices and possibilities do you really treasure?

I wonder if by examining these questions we might become more able to see and hear one another.

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Ants

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They are always here. I see the sand mounds in different places on the property throughout the year. When they get too close to the house, particular the screen door to the lanai or the screen door on the breezeway, I take out the broom and brush the sand away. I feel bad doing it, thinking about all of the labor each of the ants do, carrying and placing single grains of sand into mounds. The homes that they make, here near ours. I want them to live peacefully with us.

In the three years that we have been here, I have not learned to differentiate among the species. I know we have fire ants; they have bitten me. I do not know the difference between the fire ants and the other ants I see moving about the property. I have stepped on some mounds and not been bitten. Luck? Non-biting ants? I do not know. I have not studied them enough. They deserve more attention than I give them.

Partly I am fascinated by their communal life. I see them walking in a single line, sometimes in and out of the hole in a central mound. Sometimes they walk out of the grass and across some concrete. I wonder what they do all day. How do they communicate with one another? What do they love? Do they feel satisfied?

I see them now in January and there seem to be more. Are they more active in the cooler months here in Florida? I do not know. I do not give them the attention they deserve. I know they are out in the summer, too. Summer is when I have had the most bites. How long do they live? What do they do with their lives other than build homes, reproduce? How do they live their lives?

These two photographs, taken earlier today, show just the ant mounds, but do not capture the ants themselves. Leaving me wondering more about them and their lives. Not enough to read more or probably even observe more. And I wonder, do we even have the answer to the question, how do they live their lives? Do we have an answer to the question about our own lives?

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50 Things I Could Still Do With this One Wild and Precious Life*

Finish my book about lesbian-feminist publishing
Publish an edited collection of poetry by at least one more forgotten lesbian-feminist writer
Complete the biography project I have started poking at
Complete another edited project I have been poking at
Write some more poems, maybe publish them as a book
Archive and preserve lesbian-feminist print culture
Shine a light on transformative literary work
Dye my gray hair purple
Reread all of Virginia Woolf
Read all of Proust and Gide (not sure that I actually want to do that, but I continue to be intrigued)
Learn Hebrew
. Read the Talmud over the seven year cycle of Daf Yomi
Learn to play the banjo
Learn to play the mandolin
Learn to play the dulcimer
Rescue one more large dog and help him or he become happy and well-adjusted
Help Sadie continue on her path of being happy, well-adjusted, less barky, and less neurotic (though that may be impossible)
Rescue a few small dogs and help them have happy lives
Rescue another kitten
Own a convertible and drive around Florida in the winter with the top down
Write one of the series of poems about one of the cool topics I have in mind
Write more letters
Complete the project of writing through all 613 mitzvot
Read at least 2,000 more books
Read everything by Zora Neale Hurston
Publish 20-30 more issues of Sinister Wisdom
Identify a handful of new Sapphic Classics
Help Sinister Wisdom be a sustainable, on-going concern
Do something lasting that benefits lesbian writers and artists
Make paper
Refurbish a letter press
Print revolutionary tracts
Print beautiful notecards
Train women on the letterpress
Complete another 30 day Bikram challenge
Travel to every continent
See the great wildlife of Africa
Visit Macchu Pichu
Eat and stay at the Milkweed Inn
Have a little cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan
Use all of my paper and craft supplies
Wear out my clothes
Love and protect Tibe fiercely
Speak with honesty
Be kind
Be inspired
Believe
Live with awe and delight
Die naked surrounded by friends
Turn 50

*https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

50 Things I Will Not Be Able To Do in this One Wild and Precious Life*

Raise a jade plant that becomes to large to get out of a room or too heavy to move
Become a brain surgeon
Or a surgeon
Or any type of medical doctor
Be the President of the United States
Or run for President of the United States
Or be a Senator
Or Representative
Be a trial lawyer
Or a partner at a law firm
Or a judge
Discover a cure for something
Patent something
Invent something
Do the splits (again, I think I once could do them, but this may be a hopeful memory)
Do the Guillotine posture in yoga (photo in the middle of the third row)
Or the crane posture
Own a horse (their life expectancy now longer than mine)
Ride dressage
Make candles, dipped candles, from beeswax
Be a cobbler and fashion my own shoes
Be a professional violist
Play with the New York Philharmonic
Be a jazz pianist
Develop perfect pitch
Run a marathon (totally lack the commitment to make that possible)
Complete a triathlon
Live in Africa
Backpack through Asia
Travel by boat through the Amazon
Circumnavigate the world
Learn Russian
Or Chinese
Or honestly even French (my language skills are horrible!)
Build a sauna
Learn to operate a lathe
Become a welder
Live in Pittsburgh and dream of being a dancer
Live in San Francisco
Be a burlesque dancer
Live in Los Angeles, in Hollywood Hills
Live in a cabin on the shores of Lake Superior, north, way up north
Run a dog rescue
Prevent any dogs from being hurt, abused, homeless, or hungry
Train a dog for agility (again, I lack commitment, once they love me, I quit!)
Make hand-crafted bourbon
Save all of the animals in Australia
Liberate all of the queer people
End violence, discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-semitism
Save the world

*https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

Priorities*

[image error]In response to the things that make me peevish, a smart friend wrote on Facebook:

It’s a good list. I think one thing that I’d put on my list that I didn’t see on yours would be a poorly calibrated sense of priority or seriousness. We all have our own gauges for what we’ll take seriously or view as *urgent*. And it can be useful to ask ourselves why someone might calibrate the way that they do, but understanding doesn’t eradicate the annoyance.

I’ve been thinking about his comments for the past few weeks. It raises the question, what do I take seriously? What for me is urgent? And how have those things changed over my lifetime.

For instance, I am aware now how many decisions that I made in my 20s were shaped by my absolute priority to always have health insurance. I have not gone a day without it in my lifetime. On one hand that reflects extraordinary privilege that I have always had a job that makes it available. On the other hand, grit and determination to make it so and repeatedly making decisions that kept me employed with health insurance. Why was that so important to me? Two easy reasons. My mother convinced all of her girls that one of us would get a terrible disease, likely autoimmune and die a miserable death from it like her mother. Health insurance seemed a worthwhile tool to have when this inevitable eventuality reached one of us. Second, I saw in my early working life so many gay men die from AIDS. Health insurance did not prevent death but it sure made living easier. So a strong priority of mine has always been to have health insurance. That priority though was shaped by my family and by my loved experience. Like many things, however, I often assume that everyone shares my priorities and I am surprised when they do not.

Today, I live in a state where 12.5% of the people do not have health insurance. It boggles my mind, yet with some conversation and persuasion, I can understand the rationality of that decision to other people. Still, when I hear someone uninsured it gives me pause and worry, even fear.

Share priorities are hard to craft. We all know that. We see conflict in our homes, our communities, our states, our nations. Am I just peevish about things because I have not done the work of building shared visions and shared priorities? Perhaps. And that gives me pause.

Like my Facebook interlocutor, I seek to understand, but understanding does not preclude annoyance. Yet here I am pausing, thinking, wondering. What are my priorities? Why are they my priorities? What are yours and how did you come to identify and embrace them?

*Nota Bene: Typed on the iPhone because I left the iPad at the office and am too lazy to walk over and retrieve it. Forgive the errors and brevity.

Time

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Measuring time is easy and we all generally have agreement on how we measure time. Measuring time into minutes, hours, days, seasons allows us to gather, on occasion from around the globe in the exact same moment to meet, to talk, to reflect, to share, to be with one another. I am grateful for that innovation of measuring time that enables us to create time and space to share together. My earlier reflection on place lead me to the reflect on the famous opening from Ecclesiastes:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Though I know these lines of poetry not as from the Tanakh but rather from the song by Pete Seeger which I recall first hearing in a recording by either Judy Collins or Peter, Paul, and Mary (though the second link takes you to YouTube and Collins singing “Turn, Turn, Turn” again. I cannot seem to find a recording of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Perhaps they did not record it, and I am having a memory fail.) Like many songs remembered from childhood, the tune and the lyrics provide great comfort. Almost a primitive reassurance. When I read the words, however, and see the stark contrasts, I wonder what was comforting about it as a child, other than the tune, the sweet clarity of the voices of Collins or the trio? There is obviously nothing reassuring about a time to die, a time to hate, or a time to kill.

The lyrics themselves suggest the conflicts and struggles that we face as humans. What they do not suggest or explain is how do we know when the time has arrived? There is no giant clock to tell us, now is the time to kill, the time to mourn, the time to lose. That to me is the vexing aspect of time. We can tell time using clocks, watches, or more often now computers and telephones, but how do we mark time? How do we know when the time is right for various activities, milestones, or events? What tells us, this is the time for love and this the time for hate?

The seasons overlap or morph and run in together. Here is Florida, the planning begins in late November and in late December, the strawberry harvest began. Tonight they are cold on the vines. It will go down to forty-five degrees. This morning it was forty-two when we woke at six am. It was too cold outside for even Tibe to sit. He knew it was not the time for sitting and running, but I wonder, how? How did he know? How are we to know when it is the time to sow, the time to reap?

Though a friend on Facebook just lost her beloved dog, Idgie, after many years of companionship. She knew when it was time, both she, the friend, and she Idgie, the dog. But how? There is no clock and no calendar to tell us when it is the time to die. How can we understand time when the big things, the important things are not marked and an easy, accessible way?

Ecclesiastes tells us there is “a time to every purpose under the heaven” but finding that time and knowing when it is is basically an article of faith. Faith that there is a time to every purpose and faith that we will recognize that time when it arrives.

A little over a year ago, a friend of a friend died of heart failure. It was sudden and he was young, just forty-eight years old. The other week, I called my father for the details about the death of a friend of his. He did not know he had died; I learned of his death on Facebook. My father’s friend was in his early eighties. A time to be born and a time to die. Sure, but the time to be born is always the beginning, with a vast amount of time in front of you and a system to measure that time in days and years. The time to die on the other hand seems random at best, without purpose at worst.

It would be easy to write here, to every thing, turn, turn, turn. As though the lyrics explain both the complete incomprehensibility of it all as well as the injustice. And for the faithful, it does. Or at least from the perspective of this apostate, it does for the faithful.

In the Friday evening Shabbat service, one of the prayers affirms that G!d separates day from night, the daily from the holy, work from Shabbat. I will speak those words, but I do not believe them. For me, the questions remain. How do we separate day from night? Work from play? Sleep from awake? How do we know when the time has come to sow, to reap, to be born, to die, to love, to hate. We may agree how to mark time and it’s passage with our calendars, our watches, our schedules, but the big questions of time, of its utter incomprehensibility, it’s capricious engagements with us humans, it’s limits, it’s expanses, on those questions of time, we are without any answers. We can agree how we mark time’s passage but on the more important questions such as how much time do we have, how can we organize the time that remains, how do we know the season, how do we discern the purpose under heaven, there are no answers, no agreements, only silence, or an old familiar tune with comforting lyrics on first blush but under close examination only marks of pain and contradiction. Turn, turn, turn.

Ten Things that Make Me Peevish

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I want to love the world and all of the people. I do. I read Mary Oliver obsessively, and I want to embody that hopefulness and cheeriness and optimism that she brought to life, but reading her I realize, she spent a lot of time alone or at least time free from humans out in the natural world. The time I spend with humans makes me peevish. (Peevish sounds nicer than angry, annoyed, or pissed off; you can decide which word is more accurate at the end of this post.) Recently, I have identified ten things that make me peevish about people. Perhaps this list proves I am a misanthrope, or perhaps it nudges me to love the world and all of the people in it a bit more. Again, you can decide.

Things that make me peevish:

Inability to listen. I continue to be flummoxed by the number of people in the world who just do not listen, thoughtfully and intently, to other people. Listening is a skill and a vital one for learning and being successful in the world. Why are there so many people who cannot listen?
Excessive talking. Sometimes this corresponds with number one, but not always. There are quiet people who do not listen. When the inability to listen corresponds with excessive talking, however, it is a sign to me that here is someone who just is not worth the time and energy.


Lack of interest in other people (often accompanied by an extraordinary interest in one’s self). In some ways, the first two combine to make this one, but I have also encountered people who are truly not interested in other people and just blatantly disregard the humanity present in other people while bolstering their own self worth. How does that happen? How do we build a world where people truly are interested in and care about the lives of other people? I think part of it is listening to others, but I know that is not everything.
Disregard for animals. I get it, animals are not everyone’s cup of tea. I haven’t always been an animal person. I’ve written about not being a dog person (until I became one). I understand people have animal preferences, but when I encounter someone who does not have at least some bit of awe about all living creatures when she or he encounters them, I wonder about their connection to their own humanity. How can you not encounter an animal and not experience some kind of awe and wonder?
Lack of mindfulness about the time and attention of other people. Time and attention are the premium commodity in an information economy. My days are filled with people asking me for my time and attention–and I ask people to give me their time and attention. I try to do it mindfully, to not make assumptions or demands, to do it with respect and care. I am surprised by how many people approach the time and attention of other people with demands, derision, and arrogance.
Inability to imagine the lives and interior operations of other human beings. One of my favorite questions has become, what do you think prompted that person to act in that way / do that thing / make that choice? It is such a great question for interrupting people’s anger or defensiveness. It invites people to imagine themselves as another person and speculate on the reasons for their actions or decisions. Yet, I am surprised by how many people respond with, I have no idea, and then move on, unwilling to even imagine an answer, or worse yet, say, I don’t really care. At that point, I want to say, so you care enough to speak ill of the person but not enough to imagine their life? I do not say that. Yet.
No self-reflexivity. Self-reflexivity is basically self-knowledge. It is the ability to reflect, generally in real time, on one’s own actions, behaviors, ideas, and beliefs. This is a high level human operation, so I always try to temper my expectations on this one. Recently though, I have had conversations in which a person critiques someone else for a lack of self-reflexivity while displaying a similar lack of self-reflexivity. Mind-numbing. I do have a pro tip though for those of us still developing our self-reflexivity (and I happily include myself in this group). When you find yourself critiquing another human being, at the end of your screed, add this line: of course, I think I am especially sensitive to this issue because it is exactly what I am working to improve in myself. The first hundred times you say this line, you may not believe it, but as time passes and you repeat it enough, you might learn more about yourself.
Inability to ask thoughtful questions. Asking thoughtful questions is a part of listening carefully and intently, but it is also a tool to know people in intimate ways. My favorite questions these days are: What do you feel passionate about right now? What has inspired you recently? And my perennial favorite, what have you read recently that filled you with wonder?
Inability to express kindness and gratitude. The more direct way to say this is, people who are selfish, make me peevish. Being selfish often means there are limited expressions of kindness and gratitude. How have you been kind today? How hav enough expressed gratitude?
Not hard working. At the base of everything in my life, there is the belief in hard work. If I see someone working hard, that can override all manner of peevishness. Not listening, but working hard? Fine by me. Not being kind? Not experiencing awe from animals? But working hard? Awesome. Not working hard? Not regarding labor as a method to love the world, as a tool to make your life valid? Watch me shake my head with mild disgust. If you cannot listen, stop talking, show interest in others, hold animals with positive regard, be mindful of people’s time and attention, imagine people’s interior lives, be self-reflexive, ask thoughtful questions, express kindness and gratitude, then at least work hard. If you are doing none of those things, what are you doing?