Come to ground at the kitchen table

 

Our Subaru got an oil change and a checkup this week. Matt, the car guy likes this car, he has a sweet spot for the old gal that is smaller than most rigs on the road these days, but not as small or ecologically correct as the hybrids some folks own and drive.

While 'Scout' got some attention Pete and I enjoyed the public services of one of our favorite places -- the library. The sunshine is bright as I work at the keyboard held level on a corner table. The hum of some equipment behind a portable screen and the voices of the librarians enjoying ruckus laughter accompany the tap of the keys as I consider the thoughts and feelings of coming to ground; what is the ground of my being right now? This is a library we don't usually frequent, the vibe and the setting is different but somehow common, like being at kitchen tables here or there.

Joy Harjo's poem, "Perhaps the World Ends Here" got me thinking about how many kitchen tables I've known in my life.

 "The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite."

"Perhaps the World Ends Here" from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.wwnorton.com.

Yes, I still see my parents' old kitchen table tucked against the wall in the Kuli'ou'ou house. Early mornings when bowls of evaporated milk-diluted coffee floated Saloon Pilot crackers smeared with margarine. Sitting to be with my dad before he went to work. Still dark. So early to work. Before the first beer. Before the loud gouging torment of machinery tore both Island and Daddy's blood vessels. Daddy was a bulldozer man.

Yes, I remember sitting at Josephine Spencer's kitchen table after Ma died. "Such a nice lady, your mother." The neighborhood of my girl time was still intact though with values and practices begun decades ago. I had been gone many years by the time Ma sat on her back porch for the last time. In her pajamas, she might have been looking out across her yard, around the long and low growing Hayden when her heart said, "Enough for now."Nola found Ma on her porch. Nola took care of my mom at the end. Called the ambulance. Called me.

Fifteen years ago this week I left that home, the house that held my mother's kitchen table and the kitchen table that Pete and I brought to that same Island valley home. I sold the old home place. Too many old ghosts with stories and secrets held tight; warning me 'get on with it.'

"At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

"At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks."

We have wandered and juggled the answers and versions for life made anew, different yet the same since that day in March.

 "Our dreams ... laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves ... as we put ourselves back together once again at the table."

Soon we will move from a community kitchen that we hoped could be shared. Wasn't it possible that one big kitchen could house a community -- individually, communally -- at different times, in different ways? Wasn't it possible that sharing -- not the same as owning-- the kitchen, or the table could be okay, if we could come to ground? It was possible, temporarily but I think the saddest part is there could have been so much more sharing if the element of reciprocity had a place at the table.

"Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory."

Yesterday we visited a neighbor who owns many acres of land not far from where we have lived for the past several months. This was a followup visit. I was bringing Pete with me after a fit of confidence saw me climb into Scout, drive to the top of Thompson Road, park the Subaru, wheel open her gate and walk across her field to where the woman and her daughter were working their sheep.

I spoke with her daughter first. We talked about the slash burn happening in the neighborhood, and shared gossip and my activism in response to the hazardous burn; I thought there was some simpatico developing between us. I thought there was a bond of equanimity. We were in agreement that the air was damnably difficult for us all.

"I'm waiting for your mom, " I said when the daughter and I seemed at the end of our conversation that cold morning on the prairie.

"She won't be long." I watched the dogs rustle up the last of the sheep.

I had to introduce myself to her mother, "Didn't recognize you. Familiar, but you were out of context," she said from behind deep sunglasses.

Out of context, I was on her land and with the energy of a common issue of slash burn that not only affects me, but her and her 15 baby lambs that have to breathe that foul air, I dared to find common ground.

I reminded her that last fall she had said if things got rough on the Tilth we might take a breather on her land ... she has a small cottage. But that cottage was not what I was asking after; I was asking for a place for us to pull the vardo, plug in for electricity (we'd pay) and maybe, be welcomed.

I listened as yet another woman said, "I am a very private person, I know myself very well. I sympathize with your situation, but ..." Over the last month Pete and I have heard this "privacy" explanation many times.

"It might just be time for us to be mobile again."

"Oh, that's hard. Have you ever thought about a generator?" she asked when I did not speak.

I was ready. "We have a generator and use it when the power goes out."

"Well, maybe you could pull onto the five acres behind (Milo's) building." That was a stunner, and an opportunity that felt like a sweet drink of hot evaporated milk diluted coffee.  Ah, could that be enough. Could the land owner be open to sharing with the woman out of context?I left feeling the possibility of yes! That night I couldn't sleep, dreams or ghosts kept me up, but I so wanting to believe we might be welcome.

Back to the followup visit ...

"I wouldn't want this (driveway through her farm area) to become a road. You don't go out very often do you?"

"The pond needs to be dredged too, so that might be a problem although there's no one who will come to do the work."

"You'd have to stay out of the way.  Close to the fence line."

"You mean the fence I cleared of all those black berries (for you) last summer so Coyotes wouldn't have cover?" Pete asked.

"Yea, that fence. Well ... maybe not quite that close.This wouldn't be forever. Just temporary." She said from her side of the margin.

We left with the landowner's phone number and a stack of books she loaned me. "I want these back, but they should keep you busy." The books are written about animals, coyote and wolf in particular. I had shared my experiences with Coyote, the same ones that hunt her sheep; the same ones that initiated me on the Lunar Eclipse earlier this year. I thought there was common ground there, too. But only if we stay out of the way.

.........

Cloistered and sheltered in the woods of Forest Lane when Pete and I first came to Whidbey Island we managed to learn to share land, space, and friendship. There were many boundaries and borders to acknowledge and respect and during those years the poetry of coming to ground at the table rewinds: I remember how we did make time to come to those tables.

 Pete and Eileen putting in a gate, 2010

In the orchard
On the deck
A couple times inside the house
In the Quonset
Over coffee at the coffee house


Astrologically, Uranus, the slow-mover planet of revolution and change has begun his seven year plow through the Earth-sign of Taurus. Breaking ground, or ground-breaking experiences will make a big difference in our individual lives and the communities and systems that we hold dear. 'In a rut?' Get ready to be plowed under or rutted out. I see the future and feel it in our lives.

We have to plow under some ideas about being welcome in other people's lives. New forms of being with a wagon-centric life where ownership and property tincture down, distilled to small and essential values are in the making.

"Jupiter and Saturn in their home signs at this time, is another indication that most of what happens at this time will be positive.  You may actually be cementing (Saturn) your future (Jupiter). To see this, you may have to view the big picture and ignore the minutiae." - Elsa

At this point, our experiences with relationships ... old ones and new ones may be the minutiae. Maybe there is a big picture to come as the old big picture is churned up. We have several sketchy options for where to be in the next month; all of them temporary, but perhaps enough to make progress without expecting the past to be our future.

 "Thursday, (March 7, 2019) the Pisces Moon conjoins retrograde Mercury then goes on to Aries and over Chiron. Continue to ride those final waves waves wherever they take you. Take it in. It’s familiar territory but a different perspective. We’re learning something brand new, but we’re still rearranging old information in the short term." - Satori

A mixture of snow and rain came to remind me that winter is not yet done with her part in the cycles. We have work to do to clear out the spaces we have occupied over the temporary span of a year and five months. A distillation of what we take forward is necessary. How much is enough?

More unfolds as I rework this piece, and re-listen to Robin Wall Kimmerer tell the story of Skywoman, and explain what 'The Honorable Harvest' means. To re-listen, I hear something I may need to remember about asking, and listening for permission. (At 13:42 on this YouTube presentation.)

I try to make room for a lesson that is more than  human-centric. I do this to find the element of reciprocity to fuel my dwindling regard for humans who so often muddle wants with needs; so interwoven it's hard to know if there is a difference.

Pete and I haven't slept for two nights leaving the vardo because of the ongoing hazard of the neighbor's slash burn. We're stumbling in our activism, amazed at what it takes to stand our ground. Maybe something will change in the process ... 


 "Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite."


How about your life, your ruts? Is there revolutionary action taking place in your field; and how much room is there at your kitchen table for people unlike yourself?