Tag: Counterculture

LONG AND WILD AGAIN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Not all that many years ago some people close to me reacted strongly to a jest that I was thinking of growing a ponytail. Well, they didn’t threaten to murder me if I did. It was more like a promise.

They wouldn’t believe I’d actually had one, back in the day.

No, it wasn’t until my old housemate from after college visited and confirmed my description that their resistance evaporated.

I still can’t get used to the reality that in place of his own huge blond Afro he’s now completely bald, by the way, although I suspect that reality played into what happened after he and his wife left for home.

I let my hair grow, at least what’s left of it.

As one of those close to me said in relenting, Well, if you’re writing hippie novels, you may as well look the part.

Ahem.

Or reliving a part of the experience. Or calculating the odds that I’m in a range where one diagnosis could lead to chemo and then … or even that I might shave my head in sympathy with someone else who’s undergoing chemo. Or even that this might look better than a comb-over, and that was even before the Donald started crowding our news pictures with his own atrocious mop.

In other words, I had a premonition of now or never.

Well, that was over a year ago.

While my hair’s growing much more slowly than it did when I was in my early 20s, the mane’s down to past my shoulders again, reminding me of what happens when it’s unfettered in the breeze or I’d be running. More often, it’s back in a ponytail, especially when I’m swimming.

But it’s nothing like I remember. It’s coarser now and tangles easily, for one thing. Then there’s all the thinness on top. At times, it’s even annoying. And there’s all the gray.

So even if it’s low maintenance and avoids trips to the barber, I’m wondering what’s next.

I guess I’m open to suggestion.

GARDENING, WEIRD WEATHER, AND INDOOR APHIDS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

So here we are already in the month of May after what’s been an outright strange winter here in New England – and that’s even before we consider some broader and admittedly frightening American political developments. Whew! (I suppose.)

First off, those who scoff at the predictions of climatic instability should note that our region of the world just had its warmest winter on record, and while I’ve welcomed the break from shoveling tons of snow from our driveway, it comes at a price in terms of pests that would have normally been killed off and of perennial plants that took early hits as a result of false starts. I could point to my beloved fern beds or asparagus as cases in point, or the daffodils, which were poised to blossom when they were nipped by a night that dropped to 17 degrees Fahrenheit. It pains me to think of the way they buckled mid-stem and drooped. The only truly positive outcome I’d accept to date is the fact that our compost bin is not still frozen too tight to turn, sift, and spread on our beds. On the other hand, our state’s ski industry took a hard financial hit, affecting regions that already could use substantial relief.

As for maple syrup? I hate to think of the price tag  when my current supply is emptied and it’s time for the next. It was a short run of sap from everything I’ve heard.

When I call this an nontraditional winter, I should add that I’ve been in the midst of some major home maintenance and interior remodeling, which I’ll detail in future posts, along with some other dramas of a more private nature. Family’s what it is, after all, along with some public affairs of a more local nature. Oh, yes, we had to go without supplementary wood heat, at least until that chimney’s fixed. Have I said anything about household expenses and supporting finances?

None of that’s kept us from looking ahead to summer, even if we wound up getting many of the seedlings started later than we would have liked – we did, after all, get the portable shelves and grow lights up in what’s otherwise our front parlor (aka the “library”) and then delighted in watching the green sprouts appear. At least until the next shock.

What we hadn’t previously encountered was aphids, first in the peppers and then the basil before they spread as far as my African violets. We’ve been using a soapy spray as an organic counteraction, but it’s still unsettling.

At least our early peas are in the ground and looking happy as they pop their heads up underneath their elegantly stringed frames in the side of our yard we call The Swamp.

As I draft this, James Levine is making his final appearance as music director of the Metropolitan company in Manhattan and from the overture of Mozart’s “Abduction from the Seraglio” as I listen to the broadcast, let me add my vote to his laurel as the greatest opera conductor ever. The details, to my ears, are amazing. All of this takes me back, too, to our shared roots in southwest Ohio and rumors of his budding talent. So much as transpired since then.

Random impressions, then. Now, back to whatever is in front of us!

PERUSING THE PERIODICALS, MORE OR LESS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

An opportunity to stop by the periodicals room in a well-stocked town library had me sensing something had shifted since my last visit. The room itself, at the heart of an 1884 building, is gorgeous, with tabletop reading lamps and much dark woodwork. The local history archives are in a tall-ceilinged room behind glass at one end, while the rest of the chamber is embraced by an open contemporary addition from 2006.

This time, though, as I looked around, I realized how few of the shelves had magazine covers facing me. Mostly it was the plain metal finish. And then what hit me was that of 14 of us sitting quietly there, all but two were working on their own laptops. We could have just as easily been at Starbucks, apart from the no talking and no food requirements.

As I read short stories in Ploughshares, with its heft an assurance in my hands, I reflected on the paradox of being one who treasures a room like this and its contents and then being one who’s appearing more and more only in digital formats read on these flickering screens.

What are we to make of it, ultimately? The library has posters telling patrons they can now access their favorite magazines online at home, thanks to an institutional subscription. So how do we simply wonder and peruse, open to whimsy and discovery? What are we losing and gaining in this exchange?

COMING UNPLUGGED FOR A WEEKEND – OR IS THAT UNSTUCK?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

One of those interludes when our Internet connection crashed – this one lasting more than a weekend – had me reflecting on how embedded the Digital Age has become in our daily activity. And I’m not even one of those who’s texting much or has his ears plugged into thin wires except rarely.

On one hand, apart from a bit of twitchy readjustment, it was rather liberating. I found myself catching up on a stack of magazines and a couple of books and just hanging out in the house.

On the other hand, though, I wasn’t getting my emails or making sure scheduled blog posts had run properly, much less interacting with the comments or our WordPress Reader. For that, I wound up running out to the nearby Panera for late Sunday afternoon pastry and WiFi.

Still, I’m uneasy about all these digital changes in our lives. There’s too much else right at hand we seem to be missing. Just a thought. As for you?

ADJUSTING FOR INFLATION, OF COURSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The cover of a small paperback kicking around our house these days keeps catching my attention: How I Feed My Family on $16 a Week.

I know it’s an old book. When I was head cook in the ashram, back in the early ’70s, I faced similar constraints and ours was a vegetarian diet. This one has a subtitle that amuses me – (And Have Meat, Fish or Poultry on the Table Every Night). From a vegetarian point of view, it’s all flesh – that is, all three are meat with no distinction.

That aside, I looked for the original price of the book, $1.75, and the copyright, 1975. Prices have gone up in the intervening years. In this case, those groceries would cost $70.52 today if the general inflation calculator holds. Some food items, like seafood or lamb ribs, have shot up much more. Others, though, like boneless chicken breasts, have gone down in relative terms. Still, as the food economist in our household points out, you couldn’t do these recipes on that adjusted budget these days – it would be mostly beans and no meat. The bottom line’s less than a food-stamps allotment.

And I thought I was doing well on $40 a week for just me – 30 years ago, when I gave myself a sabbatical. Hate to think what that would cost now!

SETTING UP FOR A ‘QUIRKY QUEER QUAKER PERFORMANCE ARTIST AND SCHOLAR’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Peterson Toscano, an extraordinary “Quirky Queer Quaker Performance Artist and Scholar” with bizarre and wonderful stories to share, is coming to my corner of New Hampshire next weekend — and it’s good reason to be excited.

I’ve heard him present the Bible half-hours at Friends General Conference and New England Yearly Meeting and can say he’s both insightful and original in his exploration of Scripture. It’s a matter of encountering a passage for the first time, no matter how often you’ve read it or heard it or think you have. I’ve also seen him delivering his comedy routines to teenagers, not the easiest of audiences, and he’s had them hanging on every word.

His topics will likely range from climate change (from a social justice point of view) and environmental awareness to human rights and gender outlaws in the Bible to coping with privilege or our most tragic losses – and back again. He’s both outrageously funny and a delightfully original thinker. Who would want more?

He’ll appear in the Dover Friends Meetinghouse Saturday at 4 p.m. with his “Everything Is Connected (a collection of stories – many weird, most true)” as a late-afternoon event that’s free to all. We’re hoping this fits in between busy rounds earlier in the day and those of the evening to come – giving folks a shot of humor and hope along the way.

Other performances are at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Portsmouth, and Sunday at noon in Rochester and in the evening in Concord.

If you can attend any of them, great! Obviously, I’m a big fan. But why not amuse yourself and sample him in his own voice? For starters, let me suggest:

Hope to meet you there, if you can. Meanwhile, we need to get him back from Wisconsin and Maine … en route to Massachusetts.

TRIPLE PLAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Any writer tackling a large work such as a novel or screenplay will need to consider the matter of structure. The easiest way out, of course, is to follow a conventional model.

In fiction that might mean 60,000 words, more or less, spread out over 20 to 24 chapters, typically in a straight chronological order, past tense. For the film, something that would come in a little under two hours. To that you’d add pacing, points of conflict, resolution, number of main characters, and so on.

Sometimes, though, you find that’s not the best way to organize your material.

For example, in its revisions, Promise emerged with three sections, each set in a different locale – Prairie Depot, the Ozarks, and finally the Katonkah Valley. Each one, as it turns out, can be viewed as a novella held together by the central couple, Erik and Jaya.

I didn’t intend it this way. The original version had five sections, for one thing, which I came to feel were simply too unwieldy. The cuts provided what I feel gives a better balance.

Let me also admit to a fondness for shorter novels. Novels, mind you, not simply novellas, no matter how much I enjoy them, as well. Maybe it’s a reflection of my typically crowded schedule.

Still, both short stories and novellas stand as kinds of orphans in today’s literary scene. They should be more popular than they are. An occasional solution, one I’ve enjoyed reading, runs a central character through a set of short stories to culminate in a volume of novel length. It’s a tricky strategy, though, and hard to pull off.

Maybe that’s one more reason I feel a special satisfaction with Promise.

Hope you do, too.

Promise~*~

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