Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 92

Irom Sharmila to give up her fast and enter politics

Irom Sharmila, the hunger striker and political prisoner from Manipur, in northeastern India (very far northeastern: it's in the portion of India that's on the other side of Bangladesh), has announced that she is going to give up her hunger strike in August and stand for election.

I think this is a very good decision. She has been on a hunger strike for sixteen years. As a means of accomplishing her goal (ending the law that lets the Indian military take the lives of Manipuris with impunity),...

But actually, no.

Sometimes something comes to you in a "wisdom" package, and you're conditioned to nod humbly and say yes, yes, I see, but sometimes, if you (or in this case, I) stop and think for a moment, the wisdom seems completely bogus.

Case in point, this, which is apparently from Swami Satchidananda (but I don't know who that is ... yes, I know I can Google it. I probably will, at some point)

“What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair die...

Open, Close Them**

Dried flower at 7 am



Dried flower at 10 am



I don't know how this flower, with only the remembrance of being alive, decides when to open and close, but somehow it does.

**Title line comes from this song for toddlers. Hand motions accompany it--opening hands when it says "open," closing them when it says "close them"

Open, close them
Open, close them
Give a little clap-clap-clap

Open, close them
Open, close them
Put them in your lap

The Case of Dyani Alissa Hernandez

In the summers, Dyani's father took her to work with him because he didn't trust babysitters, and however dangerous it might seem to others to have a ten-year-old on a building site, Dyani's father felt most secure when he could glance over and see her.

She entertained herself with magic markers and the drywall, drawing (for example) fleets of flying frogs, held aloft by inflated bladders extending from their necks on thin stalks, or cars in flooded parking lots, their roofs colored metallic s...

some words wrapped around some photos

I have a plan: I am going to grow a mangrove. You can do it! I checked, and the Internet said yes. First step is to get the seed to sprout. It's possible this seed won't germinate as (a) I picked it (rather than it falling of its own accord--in other words, it may not be ripe yet) and (b) the seeds mustn't be allowed to dry out, and it might have, between the time I picked it and the time I hit upon this plan. But I'm hopeful. And if this seed doesn't work, I'll get another one. Somehow. I th...

Pokémon Go

My kids were and are big Pokémon fans, and I have great affection for the game and creatures. I was closeted at home, working, when Pokémon Go went live, but on Monday, when I got out to do stuff in town, I saw crowds of people running around, chasing unseen-to-me things with their phones. The excitement and enthusiasm--so infectious! I felt like I'd stumbled upon a festival, a festival of clairvoyants, for whom a whole nother world is present that I'm unable to perceive. I couldn't stop smil...

journey through mangroves

Why do I love mangroves? Because they grow between water and land, between saltwater and fresh. They protect coasts from hurricanes; they're like above-water coral reefs; they are all a-tangle. And they have weird and wonderful traits.

Here's what Marjory Stoneman Douglas said about them:

Two kinds of mangroves dominate … the black and the red. It begins on the last peat with tall hammocks and forests of buttonwoods, called “white mangrove,” not a true mangrove at all but Conocarpus. Then in th...

Fantasy names

In secondary-world fantasies (i.e., not recognizable alternative Earth), names are such a conundrum. It ties into the larger conundrum of culture creation, but I think the issue is especially acute with names. You can invent a culture that contains elements from numerous Earth cultures. For example, You might have a raiding seafaring people with a martial ethos and religious structure like the Vikings, but based in a tropical climate, so with material goods, food, etc., that are more like Pac...

Quote from the letter

I got a copy of the reply Head Start sent my student. Here's most of it.



It concluded by thanking her for writing and wishing her well on her HiSET (GED) exam.

**so happy**

your voice makes a difference

One of the women I've been working with at the jail wrote an essay on what a good choice Early Head Start is, if you have young children. (One essay topic I use frequently is a version of "What child care situation is the best?") I said it would be great if the folks at the Early Head Start program could read it, that this was just the sort of feedback they would love, and so she sent it to them. When last I saw her, two weeks ago, she was on tenterhooks waiting and hoping for a reply.

And now...