What to do with the time given to us
Updates on life, classes, and the newsletter.
We are living in strange times and even as I say that I wonder how often people thought this same thought throughout history. On Sunday I went to Quaker Meeting, which if you don’t know what that is, the best way I can describe it is a spiritual gathering where all of the members have a different idea of what their spiritual journey looks like and yet we gather together in community and in direct action. That’s my answer today. The service is an hour of unprogrammed silence during which people can stand up and speak if they feel moved. One Friend (the name for members) stood up and shared a passage from Lord of the Rings that kept coming to mind in the wake of the election and global turmoil. During this passage Frodo says “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” and Gandalf replied “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
What I’ve been doing lately is cooking and sharing food with others. November 7th I got up, after spending the previous day in bed, and I began cooking for a friend who has shown up for our farm time and time again and does a lot of important work in our community. She spends so much time feeding others and all I could think of was to make sure she and her family are fed so I cooked kale down with the last of the garlic scapes, made rice scented with bay leaf, tossed a pan in the oven and broiled the bounty from the garden and greenhouse (tomatillos, chilis, onions, garlic) and blitzed it all into a salsa verde I used to braise smoked pork. I added the rest to some sour cream to drizzle on top. I packed this all up and the following morning and delivered it to her door. Standing in her living room, we talked about books (she recommended “Rest is Resistance” by Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry and I recommended the poet Ross Gay’s essay collection “Inciting Joy” which if you didn’t know Ross Gay would seem like a fluffy self-help book but is so much bigger and better than that), farming, joy as resistance, and how important our micro communities are now more than ever.
I tucked away more of the braised pork along with containers of cooked beans into the freezer to bring to a friend who donated their kidney to a family member. Last weekend, I helped Jared work a market and we returned home with loaves of sourdough to share with friends. Other people arrived back from the market eager to share containers of chicken salad and hummus. I bought four heads of cabbage, two of which I turned into kimchi in a crock on the counter which I beat down each morning. Someone gifted us extra pumpkin pie filling which I used to make French toast this morning, topped with some leftover cranberry sauce I made to top a gingerbread cake.
If you are here for the book recommendations, I have one big one—The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. This is a book my friend Andrew recommended— they have very strong feelings about this book and about the Brontës— and so when I went to the bookstore I picked up a copy and wow, am I glad I did. I read this one fast. I switched between the print copy and the audiobook as I was doing all my cooking. I wrote wildly in the margins cheering Helen on in her good fight against a rotten man. It was a trip. Perhaps it is the best Brontë book. I’ve not read enough to know.
Last Thursday I led my final Thursday Evening Craft Club of the year. I have to say, each one of these classes was so different and each one really moved me in an unexpected way. This past class was no exception. I asked participants to bring some items to class so that we could call on these tangible objects as we explored different types of prose— long, short, meant to be spoken, and pushing our form. A few notable objects included a stone with a perfect hole, an embroidered pillow, a shell with a tiny rock wedged in its folds, a photo of cats drinking milk clipped from a newspaper, a photo of a woman (someone’s much younger grandmother) laying in the grass taken by an unidentified shadow, a handmade notebook with a shell bookmark, a whittled wooden toy on wheels with a secret hiding space, and a painting of a house. We showed each other these objects like I imagine elementary school kids do during show & tell, an experience I never had growing up but that I remember watching in movies and on TV. I also asked each person to bring some lines of their favorite prose. “What is your favorite body of water and why?” was a line from the poet C.D. Wright that one person read out loud and I wrote down in my notebook. Lines were also read from Claire-Louise Bennett’s “Pond”, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera, and “The Mud Below” by Annie Proulx.
While this is the last class of this year, I’m eager to start classes up again next year. I’m going to try out something new for 2025 and I hope you will be as into it as I am.
Starting now, I’m offering paid subscriptions to my newsletter. The same usual content will be available for free to everyone but subscribers will also get:
𖦹 Drop-in access for any and all of the monthly craft club meetings. In the coming months, I will be testing out new times and dates for these so they may no longer be called Thursday Evening Craft Club nor will they exclusively happen on Thursday. So, if that evening has been a busy one for you or you’ve been on the West Coast or UK and the timing didn’t work, fret not. New times will be available to you. This excludes any multi-week classes moving forward as they take more work on both the participant and host’s part.
𖦹 A seasonal print newsletter shipped to your home four times a year (plus if you subscribe now, a holiday edition sent out in December). I will be working around the farm seasons for this one so expect one mid-winter, during spring planting, summer growing season, and fall harvest. This newsletter will not be available to free-subscribers because it will be unique, hand printed, and mailed to your home. It may include seasonal writing prompts. It will likely include farm updates because that’s my life. It will be special. It may be in the form of a zine or a long hand written letter with handmade stationary.
This offer is available to all levels of subscribers of which there is three:
Monthly subscribers are just that, you can opt to join us month by month as it benefits you. During those months you will be able to drop into all writing classes/workshops. You will also get the print newsletter that season so long as you are still a member when I send them out. This monthly membership is $20 which means you save $180 a year on class fees.
Annual subscribers have the same benefit as monthly subscribers but you get even more savings on the class— It comes out to a savings of $240 a year over dropping in on classes.
Sustainers also get the same perks as the previous memberships and you still get a class savings. Plus, you also get two one-on-one feedback sessions with me a year where I will read and review your writing and provide both line edits and feedback over video call.
No matter what level of subscriber you choose, you are getting a discounted class fee. Classes will still be available at the typical drop in rate of $35 if you do not want to become a subscriber! I see these subscriptions levels as a means of investing in your 2025 writing journey. They will also be a good indicator to me of whether people want these writing classes, in whatever new form it takes, to continue. If you sign up now, I’ll begin the print newsletter portion by sending you one of my handmade holiday cards.
As we are facing the holiday season, I’m eager to step away from my screens as much as possible, read a whole lot, and share many a meal with friends. I hope you get some of the same. This year’s been something, huh? All we have now is to decide what to do with the time that is given us.
I hope to spend more of it with you.
CM
Some things to tide you over until we meet again
I’ve listened to Jobi Riccio’s cover of “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies" so many times over the last few months. It’s stops me in my tracks every time. Perhaps you need that.
Have you listen to (or watched) the podcast Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud? I found out about it from a clip Brandon Taylor posted of Zadie Smith talking about the false idea that female beauty is antithetical to intellect. The video captivated me, not only because I love Zadie’s words but because in the video Zadie is laying on a couch looking up at a camera suspended above her. I assume it’s meant to mimic therapy but without that context I assumed it was a Zadie thing. I had me interested in watching the full video. Perhaps you want to watch it too—here.
On the topic of beauty, Lynn Steger Strong put out great newsletter this week called Making Yellow Heavy, a reference to the artist Joan Mitchell
If you are reading this ahead of Saturday, November 23rd, my good friend Maia is doing a community art exhibition in Gloucester, MA called Seed Stories. During this exhibition she’s going to play audio of people talking about what seeds mean to them. To share your thoughts (which you should), you can call 978-309-7093 to leave a message.
Some images as parting gifts:
