Be good for something.

January 27, 2023 ~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 263 of 365

It has been a tough week on my empathetic soul.

I have had to take on some extra classes at work to help some colleagues struggling with COVID and long COVID, so in addition to just be worn from the work, I am worried about my fellow writing professors having such struggles. Then, there was the sad and angry man at the grocery store who was so upset about groceries prices. I also have some friends and family really struggling from grocery prices, and I worry things won’t get better. I read an opinion piece by an economist who said it’s possible that things, in general, may never be cheap again, that climate change is causing at least some of this economic turmoil. I can see this, so this makes me worry. Then, there were a few things that happened today that just kind of made me despair for the world.

Thankfully, thankfully, I have learned what helps me when I despair for the world–kindness. Even if it’s just a small thing.

I remembered this tonight when I had a distant friend, who has been struggling with health problems, commented on the new candles I made this week and wanted to know if they were going to be on sale in the Etsy shop. They will be if I can ever make the time to do it, but I thought to myself, “oh, maybe it would lift her spirits to just get one on the mail!” I mean, people send me gifts in the mail sometimes, and I am like a kid at Christmas. So I love to send gifts too.

Ron used to think I was over-acting when I received gifts from people. Maybe some others have thought this about me. One time my sweet neighbor said, “It’s just a dish towel, Crystal.” But I was like, “but it has chickens on it!”

I am not acting. When people are kind to me, and I so deeply grateful that it just comes out–all gushy like.

So I asked my friend to send her address to me, and she seemed so happy! And then I felt happy. Really happy. I forgot my despair, and then I remembered–it’s the kindness. So I will get to work figuring out some more kindnesses I can do for others and focus on doing good work. That’s how I keep from despairing.

I certainly realize that small kindnesses are not going to fix the world, but they will fix me and help the people around me. And that has to be a good thing–being good for something in some small way.

One of Thoreau’s famous quotes is, “Be not simply good. Be good for something.” This is the truth, isn’t it?

photo credit: Laura Gilchrest, Unsplash

Apples: Part I

September 28, 2022September 28, 2022 ~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Day 141 of 365

I was in graduate school before I learned that the Bible doesn’t actually say that Eve ate an apple. It just says she ate a fruit, and I had always thought it was an apple. In art, it’s always the apple. It turns out John Milton, author of the epic poem, Paradise Lost, published in 1667 about the fall of man, said it was an apple. I guess that stuck. Maybe it’s because we really like the aesthetic of apples.

I have often wondered about this, when a food has an aesthetic we love so much that it becomes a central part of art or decoration in our culture. I wonder about eggs in this same way. Why are eggs so beautiful to me? And I am not alone. Every chicken lady I know spends way too much time taking pictures of eggs and then sharing said pictures on social media. Are the eggs beautiful to us because of something deep inside of us on a primitive level? Eggs are so full of nutrition. Maybe that’s why I love them so, or are they just beautiful?

With apples, I have to believe that their beauty plays a big role in our love for them, but they are nutritious–perhaps not as life giving as the egg–but still. Of course, there’s also hard apple cider, so I supposed apples bring us joy and give humans something in that way too.

This week, our family will go pick apples at a small local orchard. I love picking apples. We have wild apples that grow on our property, which we do not eat, and we planted two apple trees a few years ago. But, so far, the planted apple trees have yet to produce. It could be we have done something wrong for them. Ron and I have much to learn about fruit trees. It’s an area of weakness in our homesteading knowledge, but the pear trees produce most years and were planted just one year before the apple trees.

It’s okay though because we can visit the orchard, and the whole experience is wonderful to me. We will pick a bunch oaf apples. I will make apple pies, apple crisps, and we invented a family treat where I make homemade tortillas and then fill them with cooked apples and cheddar cheese. They are wonderful to me! We will also freeze many bags of apples for future apple pies, apple crisps, and our apple tortilla invention. I wonder if other people would like these. Maybe I will share the recipe. During the pandemic, we had a terrible storm that knocked down or broke many of the big trees on our property. Ron hired a “tree guy” to come in with his team and take down the dangerous trees. It was a group of young men, and they were so sweet and kind. So we made all of them snacks, which included our apple tortilla invention. They seemed to love them. I don’t think they were just being polite. But I digress.

Apples were the first food I fell in love with for its history. If you have not read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, I highly recommend his chapter on apples. It was a life changer for me. Of course, there is also Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Wild Apples” published in The Atlantic in 1862. Oh, how I wish The Atlantic still published essays on apples. Well, maybe Thoreau said all there was to say.

I have to admit that Thoreau would be ashamed of me that I don’t eat the wild apples on our property, but after rereading his essay this week, I think we should at least get a press and make cider. But then what would the deer eat? Maybe the deer are willing to share?

Walden

July 28, 2022July 29, 2022 ~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Day 80 of 365

It’s hard to describe how much Thoreau has influenced my life, but Walden was a life changer for me when I read it for the second time in my mid 30s. Then, a few years ago, I read Laura Dassow-Walls biography of Thoreau, and my life was changed again. I fell in love with this human who lived so long ago. I knew and understood him from Dassow-Walls’ magnificent biography, and I became more interested in ever in visiting Walden Pond. Last summer, I devoted a whole issue of Farmer-ish to Thoreau. The essays in this issue are magnificent to me. I published another essay on Thoreau for a separate publication, and I had the honor to interview Laura Dassow-Walls. She was just as awesome as I had hoped and helped me understand that Thoreau was just as awesome as I had hoped.

Still, I thought it would be years before I would be able to visit Walden.

Today, however, we were on our way to take our son to a museum in Massachusetts. The museum is west of Boston. On our way, I started seeing signs for Concord. The reality of how close we might be came over me in almost a panic. We had not planned to visit Walden Pond, but we were going to be so close.

I starting Googling directions and hours for the park and then asked Ron if we could do it. He hates driving on such long trips, so I was unsure. When he said, “Just read the directions to me after the museum,” I started to cry a little bit.

I have to tell you that spending 2 and 1/2 hours in the war museum just about killed me. I had to get out of there, but I hid my anxiousness. Our son loves world history and is fascinated by World War I and II, so I hid my anxiousness. It was hard though.

When we first arrived at Walden, we couldn’t find where to park. Again, my anxiousness was epic. Finally, finally, we found parking, and finally, finally, finally, after 20 years of deep study of Henry David Thoreau’s life and work, after living my life according to the principals of his teaching–at least as I understand them–I walked up to the shore of Walden Pond.

I took off my shoes and felt the water. It was crowded on the front side of the park though, and I knew I needed to see the good stuff. I got out the map and found where we needed to go to see the site of Thoreau’s original cabin–the cabin I have imagined in my head for my entire adult life.

We had not eaten since a very early breakfast. We had no water since early morning. But we hiked in the heat and humidity away from all the people, and we made it to the site.

I broke down and cried. I touched the dirt with my hands. I stood next to the site of the original chimney. Our son, who had been complaining a bit about the hike in the heat with no water suddenly understood the power of the moment for me. He hugged me. He reached down and touched the soil too. He doesn’t know Thoreau like I do, but he loves me, and I was so excited to see him reading the signs and instructional posts in the area.

When we finished, we went to the gift shop, and it was hard to control myself. I got a t-shirt and too many books and Thoreau and Son pencils for Farmer-ish readers–and I talked to the shop keeper. At first, she was kind of short with us, but as we lingered and my son charmed her and I talked to her about my love of Thoreau, she warmed to us.

She asked me, “Did you make it to the original site?”

“We did,” I replied. And I teared up again and put my hand on my heart.

She looked at me so kindly then and said, “I was the same way my first time.”

Today, I put my feet in Walden Pond. Today, I saw the site where Thoreau lived. I saw his cove in the pond. And I saw a chipmunk on the trail! One day soon, I will have to tell you with this was so significant. But it’s a long story. For now, I am tired but feeling more fortunate than words can possibly express.

Today was a religious experience for me.

Happy Walden Pond Day!

July 4, 2022 ~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 56 of 365

On July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved to a tiny cabin on Walden Pond in order “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

On this July 4, at first, I thought about my disillusionment and the mourning I felt for the liberties of clean air, clean water, wholesome food, and bodily autonomy that have been taken from us.

But, then, I remembered that July 4 was the day Thoreau moved to the woods of Walden Pond, and I remembered Thoreau gave me a path to an independence of sorts that is as outside as I can get of a corrupt system with a government that allows big business to poison us, to kill us, and big religion to divide us–ALL in the name of profit and power.

Today, I celebrate Henry David Thoreau and an environmental movement that, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling last week against environmental protections, continues to live–and thrive in many ways.

I celebrate July 4 as a day of environmentalism, as a day to remember that we are a part of Nature and that Nature is a part of us. When we separate ourselves from Nature, we make it easier for those would wish to destroy it in the name of greed to do so. Nature is our home. The birds in the trees are our brothers and our sisters, and clean water, fresh air, and good soil are essential to all of our lives.

Today, I cannot celebrate “freedom” in America because too many of us are not free. But, today, I can celebrate Thoreau for helping to open my eyes and the eyes of so many others who continue to be inspired by a human who was flawed but striving, as we all should be, I think, to treasure and protect Nature because it’s the source of everything for us.

Today, a young man, perhaps an idealist, went to the woods, and he wrote about his experiences and tried to make a difference in the short life he lived.

Happy Walden Pond Day, friends!