CONSIDERING THE COMPETITION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

After I moved from the ashram, I spent a year-and-a-half in a small city that very much resembles one I call Prairie Depot in several of my novels. And then I returned to my university as a research associate.

While our institute was set in a town very much like Daffodil, there was one difference I omitted. By this time, the town had a large urban ashram and, for several reasons, I chose not to attend classes or other activity there but instead began sitting with the Quakers in their mostly silent worship in a country meetinghouse.

Still, as the joke went, the ashram owned a third of the town. It had a vegetarian restaurant or two, maybe a bakery by this point, a house painting company, art gallery, significant real estate, and maybe much more.

The university, of course, owned the rest.

Or so the joke went, back in the mid-’70s.

My own experience is much more along the lines of what I describe in my novel, Ashram. We barely owned anything.

HOLIDAY GREETINGS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

We’re in that time of the year when we receive cards and letters. Personal ones, I mean, rather than direct-mail advertising.

Each year, I find myself reflecting on differences among generations regarding this custom. My dad’s circles, for instance, would send out and receive about two hundred cards apiece – keeping touch long after their high school and Air Force years, and trailing off only with illness and death. My generation, in contrast, falls away quickly. Each year, more lost connections, often with a pang of disconnection. There are, of course, a few who cling on, often with nothing personal included. There are also some older friends of my parents or a handful of relatives, in some sense of duty. (Only one of my first cousins has kept in touch). There are even a few correspondents who have reconnected, after years of silence. My wife and kids, being of a practical mindset, figure the folks we see regularly know what’s up with us (and so there’s no sense in mailing greetings), while those we don’t see, well, they’re history (so what’s the point?).

I think a lot of my dad’s era was a continuation of an earlier awareness, before cheap long-distance phone calls and then email. Those connections were special. My kids, on the other hand, don’t send letters of any kind, but they do have a wide range of online correspondents and texting. (Should we ask what will happen to the timeless art of the love letter?) What all this says about American society is another matter.

Quakers in some measure maintain an ancient practice of epistles, typically sent from one Meeting to another or even from a Meeting or “weighty Quake” to individuals. Some of our most powerful expressions survive there, and not from George Fox exclusively. Still, in an email world, how do we extend our faith? What efforts will survive? What will be read over the years? How do we reach out with something personal and special? Suddenly, I notice how many people are buying candles, especially at this time of year! Candles, in an electronics age. Remarkable! A spark of Light in the dark!

MORE THAN A DENTIST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Many of the Red Barn postings have reflected the experiences of living in a relatively small city – almost 30,000 population – set near other communities of similar scale, all a little over an hour from Boston. These conditions, by themselves, do not necessarily guarantee an ideal stomping ground, but for the most part, I very much like where we landed. Having some of the neighbors we do, I should emphasize, is the biggest pleasure.

This scale also encourages face-to-face interactions in multiple settings. You run into people you know at the supermarket, the bank, a contradance at City Hall or the annual Greek festival, a chamber music concert, one of the coffee houses or a corner pub, well, you get the picture.

It’s all so civilized.

Much of this has been embodied in our dentist’s practice as well. Paul and Marge are both local kids who graduated as high school sweethearts and, well, I can let them tell their own love story. It’s charming.

When I first moved to town a little over a dozen years ago, I asked around Meeting for recommendations for a new dentist, and their practice came up repeatedly. For good reason.

As I said, their practice. And you notice, the first-name basis.

Everybody loves Marge, it just can’t be helped. She knows everybody and has a lively curiosity about their interests and activities and, well, let me add she never used a computer in the office – her penciled spread sheets were all she needed. Besides, it was also in her head. She might mention as you were leaving that your wife had an appointment in three weeks.

Paul, meanwhile, was down-to-earth and gentle. My previous dentist had expanded his building and his operation and wanted to replace all my fillings. Fortunately, I relocated in time. Paul correctly said my fillings were fine and saved me and my insurance thousands of dollars. Over the years, he’s also performed two root canals on me, and they felt no different than getting a filling. He lived up to his promise to this chicken on that count.

There were two other reliable delights in my semi-annual visits.

One was the bird feeders outside the second-floor windows, which were always flocked. While their office was close enough for me to walk to it and back, their feeders attracted a different array of birds than the ones we got at our own feeders. The grosbeaks, especially.

The other delight was Paul’s latest photography. He’s good, very good. And not every photographer can claim the kind of close-ups of bears he got at his home bird feeders just beyond the patio sliders … five days in a row.

Well, the last time I was in for my cleaning they announced it was their final day. They’d just signed the papers the previous day and were handing the practice over to a younger dentist they believe shares their values and ways. We hope they’re right. He’s keeping the staff and the setting.

As Marge said, they’re 72, though it’s hard to believe it. And as they said in their farewell letter, they came to see their patients as friends and neighbors as well.

They’re right. I hope we’ll be bumping into them around town. And I hope Paul decides to launch a photography blog of his own. I’ll certainly let you know if he does.

HAPPY HOG

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

Having a big freezer allows my wife to keep garden produce available through the year and to stock up on “happy meat” (meaning humanely raised, and free of unnatural chemicals) when she finds it marked down on sale.

One year we even ordered half a pig from some Friends in Bowdoinham, Maine.

Went up to the farm, met him before his demise, scratched his nose, watched him trot. Didn’t get to see him leap from the diving board into the pond, though, due to a dry spell. We were assured he was happy right up to the end.

Rachel even ordered the cuts from the butcher the way she wanted them, with no waste. Wanted it all, especially the parts we couldn’t buy at market. No need to make any into sausage or smoke the ham, either. We preferred those as pork belly or fresh ham, which we discovered are very, very tasty additions to just about any dish you’re preparing.

In fact, the experience proved as much of a revelation in taste as what we’ve discovered by growing our own vegetables and berries or going out to a nearby farm or picking our own at an orchard. It’s miles apart from the supermarket. Fresh is the essence of wondrous dining.

These days, though, we’ve been cutting down on meat altogether. It’s more a garnish or ingredient than the traditional slab Americans expect. But that’s another story. Maybe even one to make a hog happy.

BUBBLES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

With apologies to the Friends disciplines that warned of intoxicating beverages or to friends who are longtime members of twelve-step programs, let me confess to the period when I was an amateur homebrewer. I’ve recently retired from it, recycled the bottles, and distributed the gear. But it was an educational experience. (Seriously.) I never got as detailed as my friend Eric, with his sensitive scale to measure ingredients or his original recipes. No, the pre-measured kits from Stout Billy’s were unbeatable, especially when I learned ways to travel “cross country” to make double stouts or double bochs. And I soon bypassed the alcohol level measurements, a move that gave me one more bottle from each kettle of brewing.

My wife’s long been fascinated by the role of yeast in civilization. Think of bread or yogurt, for starters. We like the story that across Europe, the bakery and brewery were side-by-side, both relying on the yeast culture. She even baked some bread from our used beer yeast, though the younger daughter objected to its taste. Still, we know it can be done.

Yeast makes the difference between ales and lagers. The ale yeasts thrive at slightly warmer temperatures, such as the British Isles, compared to the lagers, of German fame, especially. (Pilsner is a sub-set of lager.) I soon fell into a pattern of brewing and bottling ales in the fall, before Christmas, when I’d take a break before launching into lagers. In all, I created more than 2,500 bottles, each one “hand crafted.”

Well, the Irish musicians did declare my stout tasted like the Guinness in Dublin – not the stuff they ship here. And I’ll take that as the highest complement, along with their smiles as they drank while playing.

REVELS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I first heard of them while living in Baltimore, the Christmas Revels that friends participated in down in Washington.

But it wasn’t until I moved to New Hampshire that the event came into focus, first through live broadcast previews of that year’s Boston production and then through actually attendance at Sanders Theatre at Harvard.

Revels, you ask?

I initially thought of something along the lines of a glee club, but what I discovered was much more elaborate – gorgeously costumed stagings blending solo, instrumental, and children’s and adult choral music, dance, comedy, a mummers play (skit, actually), audience singing, and a story narrative. The closest event to it I knew of was the annual madrigal dinners back in college, but rather than repeating an Elizabethan theme each year, the Revels create a lively story around a particular culture in time and place. One year focused on Leonardo da Vinci’s Italy; another, Armenia and neighboring Georgia; and then Appalachian, Scottish, Irish, French-Canadian, and colonial Spanish themes also come to mind.

The events were the brainchild of folklorist John Langstaff, who launched the first public performance in 1971 in Greater Boston to draw people into a community-wide celebration of the season. It’s a great way to introduce children to live concert and theater without the second-class status of “children’s” attached. And they’re always joyful and fun.

This past winter, spring, and fall I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in the bass section of the Revels Singers, a community chorus that rehearses and performs music from the previous four decades of shows– not just the Christmas productions but other events throughout the year, ranging from the Middle Ages till now and including 15 or so languages at last count. The chorus for the Christmas shows, I must point add, is top-notch, by audition only. Having some of its members among us at our weekly sessions has been illuminating. And some of them wondered why I’d commute up to four hours for a two-hour rehearsal? OK, I try to make an outing of it. Still, it’s magical time when we’re together.

Meanwhile, how often do you get to watch a first-rate conductor and arranger like George Emlen behind the scenes? We soon recognized that within his light-hearted approach were some very high standards and matching expectations, and we’ve felt ourselves rising more and more toward them.

This year’s Christmas show is The Road to Compostela, focusing on the Galician region of Spain and its famed pilgrimage. If you can’t get tickets to any of the 16 performances, there’s always the CD. And, yes, we’re going right after Christmas Day itself.

MADRIGAL DINNERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

When I was in college, one of the unique Christmas events was a series of madrigal feasts replete with Renaissance music, troubadours, jesters, and, of course, a meal that included the procession of the roast boar – in actuality, a large Indiana hog. Effective all the same.

The event originated in 1947 in what we now call the Early Music movement, and soon evolved into its Elizabethan splendor, drawing (as I recall) 550 people to each sitting over a two- or three-week period. And it was quite colorfully memorable.

Alas, by the beginning of the 21st century, the dinners had become history – in part, I assume, because of the academic pressures of a reconfigured semester that now ended before Christmas, rather than two weeks later. (A change I applaud, all the same – having finals hanging over you during your so-called vacation was tortuous, as was returning for two weeks, leaving, and coming right back to register.)

Still, it has me thinking of the many holiday events that now sustain American arts organizations – the Nutcracker ballet at the top of the list, of course, and the staged Christmas Carol or Holiday Pops concerts. As well as the big collapse most people seem to suffer for two or three weeks after.

HO-HO, THE ROSE AND THE HOLLY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

This time of year, we head out to collect sprigs of red berries from along the roadway – wild rose hips my wife uses for decorating the interior of the house. A seasonal touch.

Holly is another matter. Our sole bush remains stunted after all these years. Fortunately, we have a friend whose plant proliferates. She’s glad to have help with the pruning.

Ho, ho, ho!

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ADVENT AND MORE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This is the time of year when many people work themselves up into a frenzy of festivity, inevitably followed by a letdown. For whatever reasons, it has me reflecting on the contrasts between many of the expectations and realities in our surrounding culture. For instance, Christmas is supposed to be a holy occasion, but the fact is that one can eliminate all mention of religion and still engage fully in its revelry and spending. Family gatherings, too, are emphasized, although at the office, what we’ve noticed, listening to the police radio scanner, is how family structure is drifting: “live-in boyfriend or girlfriend,” becomes “fiance or fiancee” after their second child together. Maybe that’s a reflection of a widespread fear of commitment in America today – as if having a child isn’t a commitment. Those calls, too, typically arise in domestic abuse or breakdown, in turn arising in other fears. Think, too, of the troops overseas, and their families at home. We might ask, then, what is the real Christmas message.

Here I believe we can look to small children for a clue – those who are old enough to sense that something special is about to happen, but not old enough to equate it with receiving particular products. (Hmm, might the latter suggest something about the expectation of prayer many people seem to hold? Well, that’s another topic.) What I’m thinking about is that tingling anticipation that’s full of wonder and discovery and emotional overflow. Everything is new or newly repeated, from last year or maybe two. Full of hope and questioning, as well. Their exuberance and obsession are contagious. And, yes, they crave the stability of a loving family.

That is the energy early Friends had when they were known as Children of the Light. May we, too, be filled with a revived sense of that vitality and urgency –the ecstasy of apocalyptic faith that shakes the world for miles around, and brings change. And brings us together.

AUDIO TAPE LEGACY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

A neighbor showed up after a Saturday morning of hitting yard sales and presented me with three shoeboxes full of classical music audiotapes. It was quite a haul and included some impressive collections – sets of the symphonies of Ives, Shostakovich, and Vaughn Williams, among others. But there was also Ella, along with a few other quirky delights.

Of course, listening to these, often in the loft of the barn, also reminds me of the passing technology, how passe tapes have become, even more than vinyl. But at least I could also play them in the car, especially in those spots in the countryside where public radio does not always come in. Better yet, still can.