Tag: Life

Ever been in a barn?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

You already know about the barn I’ve owned the past 20 years – the one that gives this blog its name. It’s modest, as barns go – more of a carriage house, common in an old New England city like ours, but “carriage house” sounds pretentious and ours isn’t. I usually call them “urban barns.”

I grew up in a Midwestern industrial city, and barns were usually something we passed out in the country. Even so, my novels Nearly Canaan, Yoga Bootcamp, and Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, each feature a barn.

Here are ten I especially remember.

~*~

  1. Uncle Arlie’s. We spent many Sundays and holidays at my dad’s aunt and uncle’s farm. I loved climbing around in the rafters and loft, even though it was dangerous.
  2. Grandpa’s. A small “urban barn” at the rear of Grandma and Grandpa’s yard on the other side of town was stuffed with supplies for his plumbing company. I can still almost smell it.
  3. Dad’s birthplace. Once, traveling with Grandpa, we stopped at a farm in the middle of nowhere. He introduced me to a strange man and took me inside the barn on the farm while telling me this is where my dad was born. I was around five, maybe no older than seven, and didn’t fully understand, especially the idea of home births much less than Dad wasn’t born in a city. What I do remember is all the light shining through the slats of the walls.
  4. Moler Dairy. From our side window when I was growing up, we could see a working dairy. It had a large white barn facing busy Smithfield Road, while we were on a quiet side street. I did get to tour the bottom level a few times, with its stanchions and cows. The brick milking parlor was next to it.
  5. Hippie farm. After college, I shared a farmhouse with a circle of other free spirits. Its small, ramshackle barn provided living space for some of the characters in Pit-a-Pat High Jinks.
  6. Ashram. That sturdy brown barn is described in Yoga Bootcamp. It was Swiss-style, set in the side of a hill.
  7. Ivar’s. Our landlord in Wapato had one of the most impressive barns in the Yakima Valley. It was white frame, rather than modern metal, and had three large levels. It’s detailed in Nearly Canaan.
  8. The Antique House. The large attached barn, as many in New England are, is part of the house where elder stepdaughter reigns. It’s second-nature now.
  9. Silas and Connie Weeks. They were intent on restoring their ancient farm in Eliot, Maine. Quaker Meeting even had a wedding reception in theirs.
  10. Parsell Farm. Serves as a farm stand just up the road in Rochester. Our principal source of hay for the rabbits.

~*~

A few others I should mention include the massive Shaker barn in Canterbury where I contradanced once, and another in Ohio I once toured. A similar one, but kept to a single story, was at a friend’s summer home in Sandwich in the White Mountains to our north. And then there was a decrepit one at my goddaughter’s family in Enfield, Maine, that was too far gone to repair.

~*~

What are your experiences with barns?

Their names are a way of remembering, too

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

One challenge in a large multi-generational story like What’s Left comes in managing first names. Many families customarily name babies in honor of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, even the parents, but even with nicknames, that’s bound to create additional confusion for readers.

I skirt the issue by introducing names independent of any mention of family connection, perhaps justified with the break from the old country at the outset of their arrival in America and perhaps as a reflection of adapting new customs as well.

Pressed on the point I might respond that Stavros’ three sisters, who remain unnamed in the text, repeated earlier names. And then I wondered about Nicky, a generation later.

Does your family have naming traditions? What’s the pattern? Which names are most popular?

 

Pigweed, no joke

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Every year, it seems we have a different weed or two that really takes off in the gardens. Virginia creeper nearly took out some shrubs a few years ago, the same time Jerusalem artichoke went rogue and nearly demolished a rhubarb.

Last year, a newcomer seemed to be popping up everywhere, and we kept tossing it out to the lawn for me to mow or to the driveway. Then, one afternoon, I put some in front of the rabbits … and they loved it.

Then came our quandary. Was it safe for them to eat?

In trying to identify the plant, we came across Better Homes & Garden’s online “only guide to weeds you’ll ever need,” and after scrolling past a few dozen we know all too well, we came across our suspect – pigweed.

And yes, it’s edible, even by some humans.

No wonder the bunnies were, uh, pigging out.

And our weed suddenly became a welcome crop to harvest abundantly.

 

Basically

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

do you really like me? I mean, nothing beyond some fool’s hazardous perspective up and by god safe in season, I’m whatever happens lovelier than that canopy maybe fully open lifting into play, hopefully without nonsense spreading

 

Some things to consider about Pentecostals

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When Jaya meets Joshua and his family in my novel Nearly Canaan, she’s introduced to their Pentecostal faith. It’s not like most Christianity.

Here are some points to consider.

  1. It’s more emotional than most churches, for one thing. Shouting, dancing, praying out loud during the service are common, along with applause, praise songs, and a rock band.
  2. The term comes from the Day of Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts and its events 50 days after the Resurrection of Christ.
  3. Pentecostalism’s principal defining trait is speaking in tongues as “Bible evidence” for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The vocal utterances are rarely in a foreign language the speaker doesn’t know, unlike the Day of Pentecost, but in a stylized babbling known as glossolalia. The proclamations are usually translated by another into the language of the congregants – typically English, though the movement is rapidly spreading worldwide.
  4. In Brazil, an estimated 12 percent of the populace is Pentecostal and rising.
  5. The movement started at the 1906 Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, led by African-American preacher William J. Seymour, or maybe as early as 1896 with the Apostolic Faith movement or maybe 1901 in Kansas when Agnes Ozman, a Holiness Methodist, was publicly recognized for speaking in tongues. It’s had more recent incarnations, such as the Charismatic strand among Roman Catholics and Episcopalians.
  6. Among Pentecostal churches, theological beliefs can vary widely. But the majority interpret the Bible literally.
  7. Women were ordained to leadership roles from the beginning of the movement.
  8. Some denominations place strict limits on personal conduct and attire, even forbidding sports and movies.
  9. Many Pentecostals are found as active members in non-Pentecostal congregations.
  10. Pentecostal denominations include Assemblies of God, Foursquare Gospel, United Pentecostal, Church of God in Christ, and Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, but there’s a raft of smaller ones, too. Congregations range from small storefronts to mega-churches.

 

How a novel takes shape and grows

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

While she thinks she’s learning about her father in my novel What’s Left, we’re really learning about her.

Let me confess, that’s not how the story started out, back in 2013. Cassia really grew up in the meantime!

All of the changes are what really matter.

~*~

If it were only pink, like Cassia’s family headquarters in my novel!

Tossing out those old return-address labels

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In moving, I had no more need for a folder of return-address labels to the old house, many of them sent to me as fundraisers from various sources. They were really helpful back when I was submitting work prolifically to the literary mags, but lately it’s been mostly in paying the bills.

Among the labels were those from these sources:

  1. The alumni association.
  2. Sierra Club.
  3. Amnesty International.
  4. Grassroots International.
  5. AAA.
  6. Climate action.
  7. Wildlife groups.
  8. Resist.
  9. Ones from a lighthouse series I had ordered. They were larger and impressive.
  10. Ones I designed and printed out myself.

Photography just ain’t what it used to be

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my Freakin’ Free Spirits novels, Cassia’s father is a professional photographer who views the world in a unique spirit.

Now that digital technology has made taking pictures so easy and ubiquitous, everybody always seems to be holding their cell phones up for another shot.

Does anyone else miss the sound of the clicking shutter?

How do you find capturing photographic images affects the way you see events around you?

 

Oregon gone

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

soon a dozen frontiersmen, each venturing out from the base camp as far as we can go through swamp and foothill within our own skulls where the bull moose and grizzly bear and horned owl call and sinister tribes compel strenuous rambling if we were to preserve our own thinning scalps, concede the unmarked route will force us to doubt our own skill and remove all excuses to others have beaver pelts or gold dust or speak of cannibals . affectionately