The Rapture that Wasn't

It's been more than a week, now, since the world was scheduled to end. No one is even talking about it anymore, when just two weeks ago it trended on twitter, and was in the status update line of nearly all my Facebook friends. I avoided talking about it, facebooking about it, blogging about it (I don't tweet ... though I do have an account). I avoided it for a couple of reasons.

First, I really didn't like all the teasing that folks were doing. Have you ever been afraid? Irrationally? Have you ever been convinced the world is going to end? That your friends would leave you? That your child would die? That your plane would crash? That you'll die in your sleep? That your husband/lover/partner/best friend will up and leave?

I suffer from anxiety and occasional panic attacks - so some of those fears and feelings are familiar to me. Irrational. Unwelcome. But familiar.

I don't think, though, that you have to suffer from panic to have the occasional feeling of being precariously close to the end of something. Brene Brown calls one version of it "foreboding joy."

So, those folks who believed that the end was coming on May 21st, they were simply, in my view, trying to control the anxiety that we're all a bit prone to -- the panic that comes with the certainty that it could all end in an instant. They were trying to control it by predicting it - by calculating down to the last second when it would happen. And, they were trying to ensure that they would somehow survive -- survive because they were "in" and others were "out" -- survive because their god would save them - yes after death, but save them nonetheless. I don't agree with their vision of god. But I understand and sympathize with their desire to control and define the end.

Because, and here is the second reason I couldn't join all the rapture talk, it really all could have ended on May 21st. One of the essential tenets of Buddhism, as I understand it, is that we humans are much too attached (for our own good) to ever-changing material reality. Our lives really could end in an instant. The gift of our days is an uncertain gift. The rapture folks have a germ of truth in their fears - they have the understanding that we're not in control of our days. Of course, they took the extreme of trying to calculate and control - but are they really the only ones of us who do this? What else is the datebook I carry? The computer schedule I update? The blog I am posting ... except for a manifestation of my interest in making a mark, setting it down, and being here -- now, and .... later?

So, I felt sympathy for the certain and scared Rapture believers, and sorry that their god was so unforgiving and exclusive and mean. But I also felt a kinship for the panic and anxiety - for the existential awareness of the transient nature of the reality of our physical world. Our challenge is to meet that transience as a gift and a joy - rather than a burden of worry.

Fish on Fridays

Those of you who read this blog because you actually know me, know that A. and I were vegetarian for more than five years - including during my pregnancy with W. and the first three years of his life. As he weaned, though, W. decided to eat meat (he started with salmon and went down the slippery slope of pepperoni and bacon, before settling on elk as his favorite) - and we decided to join him. We did for lotsof reasons -- we didn't want him to feel guilty for eating meat, when the reasons we had become vegetarian were primarily ethical; we had been really sick, with lowered immunity, since moving to Iowa, and some folks suggested that adding meat to our diet would help; we missed pulled pork; and, it was difficult and expensive to be vegetarian in Iowa.

We've moderated our meat intake again, after a couple years of omnivorous eating, and nowadays we follow these general rules: meatless mondays and fish on fridays. The first is from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (hey! have you signed the petition?), the second a longstanding tradition from my Catholic-raised mom.

Tonight's meal tasted so good, and was frugally elegant, so I'm sharing it with you, here.

I soaked a pound of dried pinto beans overnight and through the day. About 4pm, put them in a big pot and covered them with water, boiled them hard for 10 minutes (I borrow this simple recipe from Deborah Madison's brilliant Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which is honestly almost the only cookbook you'd ever need), then reduce the heat to low and partially cover, simmering for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, I started some brown rice cooking (I used 2 cups Lundgren Farm's brown rice [this blog will NOT feature product placement, but this is the best rice I've ever used to cook with, I won't buy any other kind, and am thrilled that Costco sells 20 lb bags of it).

This, with good local whole wheat tortillas, some queso fresco, and a salsa (we had cilantro salsa tonight!) would make a great frugal meal (less than 1.00 per plate). BUT, since it was "fish on Friday" day, I splurged on 1/2 a pound of little scallops (cost me $4.50). After the beans had cooked for those 30 minutes, I added 1 1/2 tsp of salt, and cooked them another 10 - 15. While they cooked, I melted a tablespoon of butter in a small cast iron skillet, added a clove of garlic (pressed), and the scallops. Fried them quickly for 3 minutes, added a squirt of lemon, and turned them off.

We had brown rice-pinto bean-scallop burritos with locally grown orange heirloom tomatoes, and fresh strawberries. It was yummy :-)

I entered a contest ...

For the record, I adore contests - especially door prize contests. I do not usually win - but I'll stay to the end of any party, just to see if my name is drawn. I do not like silent auctions, where you bid to "win" an item ... because it isn't winning, in my book, if you have to pay for it :-)

In any case, I entered a contest today - to attend, for free, a week-long women's writer's conference @Jen Louden's #Writer's Retreat. To enter, I had to write 250 words about why I wanted to attend. It was hard to read everyone else's entries - I skimmed through them - so many worthy essays, some that annoyed me, several that inspired. It was nice to read my honest reflections on why I wanted to be chosen, though. Not chosen. Why, if I had the money and time freely available, I'd go.

The post that I used to enter listed all the academic work that I've had published (or accepted for publication) in the past ten years - and it listed the three novels and one set of memoirs I've started and put down, in favor of the scholarly writing. I want to continue my scholarship - it makes me energized when I do it (I wrote 42 pages this week on two separate projects! Yay summer!) -- but I also don't want to turn 50 (in 11 years) and not have finally finished one of the novels I've had going for decades. I love to write.

Jen's workshop is one of four I'm interested in finding ways to do in the coming decade. I'll post about the others, later. I'd go on and on now ... but my husband, who has been working overtime and has put in a 14 hour day, just called to say he's on his way home. I want to meet him at the door with cold water and a plate of pasta! Wyatt has decided (at 9:40pm no less) that he is hungry, too. So it will be a party.

Present Moment

I had a bolt of awareness this morning - an insight into a behavior of mine that isn't very useful - and I want to remember it and share it, so I'm posting it here!

I was running late. Only 6 minutes late - but late (I hate to be late!). I swore in conversation with Wyatt - made it funny, but still, used "fuck," and, after I dropped him off at school, found myself indulging in a bit of road rage and driving too fast.

The meeting I was late for is at 8am - it's really hard for us to get out of the house in time for me to make 8am. I can make 8:15 no problem - but 8am just seems beyond our reach. And this morning was both "Take a stuffed animal to school" day AND "Take a flower for Teacher Appreciation day" day, which meant an additional 10 minutes of "stuff" on top of getting out the door. So the fact that we were only 6 minutes late, instead of 16, that should have felt lovely!

But, rather than feeling lovely, I was beating myself up

"I am such a failure!"

" I can't both mom and work outside the home!"

" I take on too much!"

etc. etc.

And I realized that I was going to walk into the meeting with a bad, nasty, angry energy.

The last thing I want to bring to this particular meeting - a group of faculty, staff, and students committed to infusing multicultural and global understandings into the culture of our academic institution - is bad energy! Yet I seemed powerless over the rage I was feeling at myself for being late.

And then it hit me, the bolt: Everything is Great. It is a beautiful day. I am making it to work safely. I will contribute to and enjoy this meeting.

So WHY am I taking bad energy in with me??

Simple: I was taught that if you're late, you had better walk in in a huff, upset with yourself and showing it, to signify that you didn't mean to be late!

You dare not walk in, smile slightly apologetically, and then jump right into the conversation! You dare not contribute if you're 6 minutes late. In other words, you must suffer for being late - and everyone else should suffer with you.

That this is insane may sound so simple, so obvious. But if this blog is (going to be) about anything, it is about how difficult the simple can be!

In that instant, as I pulled up to the curb and saw another (late! 6 minutes late!) colleague, I knew that I was powerless over my 38 years of training regarding lateness -- until I acknowledged it. So I did: I told my colleague my internal dialogue, shared it with her as she shared similar feelings with me. I said, "I can't believe I was going to bring negative energy into this meeting, a meeting I enjoy so much and a group I care so much about!" And I thanked her for her presence - for being late with me, but more, for helping jolt me out of patterns of behavior that do not serve me.

We are powerless over so much - but we can always chose a kinder, gentler, more self-reflective path. This morning, I was given that opportunity. It was hard, but I took it. And I am grateful.

I haven't been blogging here much since Alabama, in part because school is getting close to starting, my tenure file is coming due, and Wyatt is so much fun to hang out with ... but also because I've been working to do a weekly column for Friends of Iowa Midwives, at our blog.

Check it out.

Leaving Birmingham, Planning to PUSH at Home!

I'm waiting to get on my flight from Birmingham to Memphis/Memphis to Des Moines (and hoping for time for one more bbq sandwich in the Memphis airport!) - thinking about all we have to do as a pro-midwifery movement, in Iowa and the US as a whole!

Its one of those days when I'm brimming with ideas, and wondering where I'll get the energy!

I've learned from so many amazing women (and Russ from North Carolina, representing well for the men in our movement!) - and been awed by their energy. I hold in my mind's eye, and in my heart, the midwife from Idaho who had to drive 10 hours (or take an airplane!) just to get to her state capitol to lobby for a pro-CPM bill; and the activist from Missouri who seems to know everyone, and has a brilliant way of connecting with each of her contacts.

Its clear what we need to do in Iowa: continue what we've started! We've got to build our grassroots, reach out to and educate legislators, support the federal push for medicaid reimbursement, raise funds, market and message ourselves to each constituency and the media, AND build a viable birth and parenting culture so that once we have a good law, midwives in the states have clients, and clients will have friends supportive of their parenting choices.

WOW. That sounds like no small task!

But it is a set of tasks made easier by the energy of Friends of Iowa Midwives members, and by alliances we've made and coalitions we can build with advocates and midwives and moms and dads in other states.

We are not reinventing the wheel here, even when it feels like it. There is so much wisdom to draw from in our region and beyond - and a chance to contribute to others' fights as well!

So, I'm bringing the Big Push home to Iowa ... looking forward to our Central FOIM Chapter Leadership meeting, our FOIM Steering Committee meeting, and a general membership Family Picnic at Raccoon River Park in Des Moines on Labor Day!

Heck, today, I'm even looking forward to the start of the legislative session.

Learning about social networking, technology, marketing, and grass roots advocacy....

Photos of Midwives and their Advocates Hard at Work!

Look at these great T-shirts!

Best One Liner from Big Push, so far!

"I'm a child of the 60s. I always thought I'd get busted for pot, not pit!"

States Report on their Progress

So far this morning, we've heard reports from Idaho and Missouri -- two states that recently got legislation legalizing Certified Professional Midwives!! -- as well as state still struggling with the process: Iowa, South Dakota, Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, and Georgia.

Its amazing how many of our strategies are the same, as are the challenges we face! But I am learning some innovative ideas and am interested in getting home and implementing them!

Birmingham Day 1

Here is me, getting ready to get on the airplane to Birmingham, Alabama – sitting in the Des Moines airport, wondering what I will learn in the next 2 days, and excited about the progress I have to report in our own state.

The purpose of The Big Push National Birth Summit is to help organize activists and advocates from every state where direct entry or Certified Professional Midwife attended homebirth is still illegal or unlicensed. We’ll spend all day Monday and Tuesday meeting with each other, as well as organizers from the national Big Push campaign, to talk strategy, success, and failure. We’ll gain nuts and bolts knowledge, as well as mutual support and solidarity!

We’ll learn what is going on at the grassroots in places like Florida and Ohio, and talk about the huge diversity of interests we have in making out-of-hospital birth an accessible option for families.

And, at the same time, we’ll have a lot of fun! Sunday night we are all meeting up at The Bottle Tree , a Birmingham venue, for a night of music provided by Vulture Whale , 13 ghosts , Duquette Johnston , John Jeremiah Sullivan , and Kate Taylor in benefit of the Alabama Birthing Coalition. And, academic dork that I am, I am looking forward to the “fun” of hearing a lunchtime presentation on African American midwifery in the Deep South, by Shafia Monroe of The International Center for Traditional Childbearing .

I imagine a bit of fun and information sharing during informal times, too – especially with my roommate Debbie Pease, an amazing organizer for South Dakota Safe Childbirth Options .

I’ll keep everyone posted on what I learn, do, and see this week – and I can’t wait to share with members of Friends of Iowa Midwives when we have a general membership meeting and picnic this fall!

Birds and Birdsong

My grandma used to dream that she was a bird - and in her most recurring dream, she would fly over cornfields to an abandoned barn, sitting lonely in the fall sun. It always sounded like a desolate dream, to me -- but she experienced it joyfully. She told me she would love to be able to fly like a bird.

We'd spend hours looking at picture books of birds, tracing them with pencil and tracing paper - and watching them from her front porch window. And, when she died, I gained possession of two gorgeous green glass birds - cardinals, I think, from the crest on their heads - which I have in my bedroom, and like to think of as grandma and grandpa watching over me.

So, I know she would love this new book by Dr. Miyoko Chu, a professor in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University. I heard her interviewed on a terrific Iowa Public Radio program earlier this week. Its a pop-up book of birds in their natural habitat, with audio of their native songs! Did you know that some birds can actually harmonize with themselves???? Listen in .....

Gene Robinson's Invocation

Huffingtonpost is reporting this about the decision made by the Presidential Inaugural Committee not to ask HBO to air the invocation, given by Gene Robinson, an Episcopal Bishop, and the first openly gay, non-celibate, person to serve in that capacity. I, for one, really missed the opportunity to hear this prayer as part of the celebratory events - I'm grateful to HuffPost and Youtube for providing it for us now. It's a beautiful call to action.

Bless us with tears and anger, indeed.

Our Anniversary

I'm posting my favorite wedding photo, in honor of our eleven years of marriage!

So excited about the Inauguration!

I plan to be watching lots of You-Tube this week, enjoying the inaugural festivities. I am so proud and excited and hopeful that Barack Obama will be our president, that Joe Biden will join him in leadership - and that we are all being called to serve our neighbors in this new government.

If you haven't seen the schedule of events for the inauguration, you can find at Huffintonpost's Big Inaugural News Page.

A picture of Bliss in the Family Bed

This is a photo Aaron took of Wyatt and I nearly 4 years ago - smiling blissfully while sleeping in our family bed. I wanted to post it to illustrate my point about getting good sleep while being a nursing mom, and to make good on my promise to add some visuals to the blog!

A note about formatting!

This blog is text heavy, I think - and I just want you to know I'm working on it! I want to be able to do the amazing things with photos that Sara Janssen just did on her terrific blog; but I'd settle for simply figuring out how to add more than one picture to my text .... I promise, in the coming weeks, to make the blog more appealing to the eye!

Hunger, Part III: What I'm Cooking Today

My friend, Sabbath, a birth worker in Des Moines, has just requested, via Facebook, the recipes for what I'm cooking today ... My status line indicated I'd be carmelizing some onions, and putting bread up to rise.

The best thing is, I had already planned to come over here and blog about these recipes because they're FRUGAL! And healthy. And yummy.

So -- here's what we're eating this evening (before my Friends of Iowa Midwives Virtual Steering Committee Meeting!).

ONION SOUP -- a riff on a recipe found in one of my favorite cookbooks: The Soup Bible.

You'll need -- 3 lbs of yellow onions, 2 tbs butter (real), 2 tbs olive or canola oil (the lighter the better), 2 - 3 cloves of garlic, 4 - 6 cups of stock (chicken if you use it, light vegetable if you don't, bonus frugality points if you make your own!). Oh, and some brown sugar, salt and pepper, and a dash of vinegar (rice wine or apple cider are best). And I'm throwing in leftover potatoes (from our garden) and parsnips that I roasted for last night's dinner.

You'll do -- in a nice, large, heavy bottomed pot or dutch oven, melt the butter and oil together. Add the onions, which you've already peeled and sliced into rounds, and some salt. Slowly, slowly, slowly cook them - the technique I use is: turn up the heat hella high for about 2 minutes while stirring gently the whole time, getting them all nice and warmed up. Then turn the heat down as low as it goes, or maybe up 1 or 2, and cook for 30 - 90 minutes, stirring every 5 - 10, or 15 - 20 (you'll find I'm not that into precision) - as they turn soft, and then pale yellow, then golden hued. When they get golden hued, add a tbsp of that sugar - light brown works best, white in a pinch, and the 2 - 3 cloves of garlic, crushed. Keep cooking until the onions are darker golden. Then turn off the heat.

About an hour before you want to eat this soup, add the stock and a splash or two of the vinegar. Slowly slowly heat it up again, to a good warm temperature. Salt to taste, pepper, too.

Now this is a darn frugal soup. And Wyatt loves it. Tonight, we will add to it, as I noted above: roasted parsnips and potatoes. Also, some croutons from a bag we have in the cupboard. You could make your own (croutons) but I find that tedious. The recipe book suggests lots of gruyere cheese -- but boy is gruyere expensive, and I don't find that the soup needs any dairy to make it great. If you find that it does, my husband recommends a small spoon full of sour cream. And he's right - especially if you add potatoes, the sour cream is great.

MOLASSES BREAD WITH COOKED GRAINS -- I take this straight from the only cookbook you ever need, the best cookbook in the world: Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. . A great thing about this recipe is that making your own bread is frugal in the extreme (pennies on the dollar to bake instead of buy), its a good workout (kneading bread is hard work!), and this particular recipe uses yesterday's leftovers, too.

You'll need: an envelope of yeast, some sugar, 1/4 unsulfured molasses, 3 tbs canolal, corn or sunflower oil, salt, water, 2 cups all-purpose flour, 3 - 4 cups whole-wheat flour, and 1 1/2 cups leftover cooked graincereal (wheat, rice, oatmeal, seven-grain, etc.) Today, we're using what was left over of an amazing Snowy Saturday morning breakfast of Bob's Red Mill 4-Grain Cereal. (Just a side note: yesterday, I cooked that up, added maple syrup and some milk, and we felt like kings and queens eating that yummy, healthy, cheaper-than-the-packaged-flavored-oatmeal-that-you-buy-in-the-store porridge).

You'll do: stir the package of yeast into a 1/4 cup of warm water, add 1/2 tsp sugar. Set it aside in a warm place until it foams, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, butter or spray 2 8X10 loaf pans, and oil a big bowl for the dough. Note: This is a great step for kids - Wyatt absolutely adores watching the yeast bubble, and talking about how bread is "alive." In fact, now I feel guilty for doing this while he was asleep this morning - the kid loves to bake bread.

In a big bowl, combine 2 more cups warm water, the molasses, oil, 2 1/2 tsps salt, and the cooked cereal. Add the yesaty water, then the 2 cups of white flour, a cup at a time. Follow with a cup of a time of whole-wheat flour, stirring with a big wooden spoon (or gathering it with your hands) until the dough leaves the side of the bowl. Turn it out onto a floured surface, and knead until it is "smooth, but still a little tacky" (Says Deborah M). Add flour as you need to.

Note -- this is a pretty darn tacky dough. If you keep adding flour, it will get shaggy (which you don't want) and/or too dense (which you also don't want). Just have faith in the bread - adding up to 4 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour, in my experience, is OK.

Turn the dough into the oiled bowl, cover (with a warm damp cloth), and set aside in a warm enough place to rise until doubled - about 1 1/4 hours. In the last 15 minutes of rising, preheat oven to 375. Turn the dough out again and shape it into loaves, put in the loaof pans. Set aside again until doubled, about 40 - 50 minutes.

Bake for 50 minutes.

This is one of our favorite yeast breads. It is versatile (you can vary it almost anyway, depending on what cereal you use), high in iron (molasses!), and yummy. Its also really light, for such a fiber-rich and dense bread. And, it will be great with the onion soup tonight, and even better in the morning with some sweet butter and pumpkin butter (see my pumpkin butter guilt note, below...).

Enjoy!

Hunger, Part II: Lactivism!

Aaron and I practice attachment parenting and natural family living. The only baby book we ever had in our house was by William and Martha Sears, and we found that, for our family, doing things like babywearing, co-sleeping in a family bed, and using non-coercive child guidance (rather than discipline) worked best most of the time.

One of the main manifestations that our approach to parenting and living with Wyatt has taken was breastfeeding. He weaned himself (with a bit of encouragement from mom and dad) when he was 3 1/2 years old.

Quite simply, breast is best! When it is possible for a mom to nurse her baby, both receive tremendous benefits: increased immunity and optimal nutrition for baby, relaxing hormones and often accelerated weight loss for mom, bonding for both. There are potentially no bottles to sterilize, and no cost of buying formula (wow, that saves a ton of money).

If a mom and baby share sleep and nurse on demand through the night, both tend to get better sleep. And, if a mom and baby nurse on an airplane, especially during take-off and landing, the suckling motion actually stops baby's ears from popping, resulting in a happier (quieter!) baby.

So it disturbs me that flight attendants on Allegiant air recently made such a fuss over a mom's attempts to satisfy her baby's hunger.

When a baby is hungry and a mom can satisfy that hunger in the most nutritious, affordable, and comfortable way possible, why on earth would someone want to stop them? This isn't just a "mom" issue, either -- it is a feminist issue. Women's breasts have been objectified by the media for so long and in so many ways that the simple act of feeding a child makes others uncomfortable, seems obscene, might even be taken as erotic. As women reclaim our bodies from objectification, lets reclaim our ability to feed our children, to sate their hungers.

I would love to boycott Allegiant, but don't plan to fly with them anyway, so my boycott is rather meaningless. Instead, I'm going to write to their corporate headquarters in Las Vegas, and demand (calmly and politely) that Allegiant create a family-friendly policy that comports with most state laws and grants women the right to nurse in any public or private place where they are otherwise welcome and permitted.

Maybe you'll join me in this little bit of lactivism?