Wednesday, November 18, 2015

It's been a long time coming…(my religion).

Lawrence University Chapel at Bjorklunden, Wisconsin.
Not too long ago, a friend of mine described the Sugar Beet Food Co-op as my "church".  Soon after, another friend jumped in and called it my "place of worship."  Tickled, I was delighted that folks around town are demonstrating kindness, companionship, support, and celebration over my own positivity about our food co-op, the first of it's kind in our area.  I got to thinking about how apt this description is. 
 If I were to ally myself with any group of ideologies or religions, I suppose it would be the Secular Humanists, in which I believe that human beings (myself included) are capable of being moral and ethical without the rulings of a supreme being or faith community. (This post has no intent to embark on a conversation about the merits of organized religion/or not).  The fact that I'm not religious doesn't escape the view of my bestie, and of course, it makes it easier to apply this idea that my religion is the co-op.
What I got to thinking about is the similarity between my faith in the co-op and a religious community.  After all, if the place of worship is our new Sugar Beet store, is not it fair to define what my faith is?
It's quite possible, even probable, that the religion that I adhere to is one which is much more universal, or global, than what is immediately presented to a congregant who enters our new co-op.  So what is my Faith found in co-operatives?  This is a beginning, and I've included images from some of my foundational faith system (those places which have nurtured my ideas about faith and renewal) : 

Sundance Foods, Eugene, OR
  • Food system politics: small, local producers are good for the economy, good for communities of producers, ethical production is worthwhile.
  • Good food: the more salt and msg and artificial sweeteners, the further we go from health and our ability to enjoy basic nutrients found in whole foods.
  • Small is good: I hope I don't have to argue the devastating effects of chain stores, box stores, and their impact on climates, community centers, and the ability for people to have diverse employment and production experiences.
  • Local ownership, shared input & decision making: an old adage *the personal is political* or *the biggest political impact we can have is local*.
  • Food from scratch is good (Slow Food): the slow food movement reminds us that when we create something that takes time, it delivers psychic, health, and community benefits.  We must slow down.
  • Hippie Health food stores from the seventies were a good thing that inspired so much (see WF and Walmart & Costco organics) we owe something to those foundations: Whenever I get to talking to a Midwesterner who didn't grow up around hippy health food stores I'm all the more thankful for what we had in Eugene, even though my parents were largely middle of the road taste profiles.  That said, we benefited from the overfill of bulk containers, fresh veggies, varied restaurant experiences, and everything that i could find out in the world when I jumped on my bike.  We owe the small store trying it's best a giant payback.  Small, hand written signage, friendly staff, even dirty produce (dirt don't hurt)….know where it all came from!
  • Building community through food/grocery experiences: Community.  Community. Community. We do it very well in Oak Park, this is another avenue for that connectivity, and it circles back to what we put in our bodies, and what we share with our guests.
  • Employees are important and deserve independence, camaraderie, supportive, and non-bully style leadership: I love going in to a store and not following a script with an employee.  I love the give and take of chatting with someone who works at a small, local venue. 

Sundance Foods
  • Best practices in production: The Sundance website uses a phrase that I really like, which is, that the store acts as a "gatekeeper" for the shoppers value system.  Food politics are so difficult, and nobody's hands are ever entirely clean, but I feel proud to support an endeavor in which the organization is doing it's best to honor ethical practices, from production to selling.
  • Access: everybody should be able to be a part of the organization as members, owners, community members, shoppers, employees.
  • Process: thoughtful about how and why things happen.  This is not a bottom line endeavor. There are many factors that shape every decision.
  • Community activism and support of progressive and green causes: The co-op is involved in the greater community and finding alignment with its mission and values.


Sundance Foods
Fort Collins Food Co-op
Fort Collins Food Co-op
So that's a bulleted list of how I might describe my faith.  If the Sugar Beet is, in fact, my place of worship, then it begs the question how does my church fulfill my religion?  It's a new place, and we're in the very early stages of building our community around an actual storefront, rather than a virtual store, as I would describe the past three-plus years.  People often help to build a place of worship, in which they plan to congregate with their community, and sometimes the place itself strays from individual's sense of what the faith and what the church must honor.

 Sometimes congregants attend a church because it is the nearest to what they hope their church should deliver, although not exactly as they would design.

Sometimes there is a falling out and someone chooses to not attend any church at all, if the organization has strayed too far from what is perceived to be the faith.

Willie Street Co-op, Madison, WI 
So, I return to my own proselytizing about the Sugar Beet Co-op.  We are very young, we are working very hard to keep in mind the foundations of our belief system.  We are also a real store in a real economic zone. Not everyone in our community knows what they want from a co-op, or even what a co-op might be.  There is much building to be done.  I'm so excited because I see nothing but possibility in what this entity can offer us in this community, which, until now, has lacked sorely in food democracy and small storefronts offering vibrant, local, whole food.  We are young, fresh, and new enough to provide shaping to what it is we would like to see it be. And,  there's probably not one of our congregants who does not hold in mind parts of our daily practice that might or should be altered and shifted.  Great thing about our Co-op, of course, is that there are many ways to become involved and feel a part of something bigger.  Come in to the Co-op, check it out, buy things, talk to the fabulous, energetic, employees.  Meet our General Manager who has brought a wealth of Natural Food store experience to Oak Park.  Attend board meetings, talk to board members, join the board, attend or lead a class.  Host meetings at the Beet. You can often spot our founder and current Marketing Maven, Project Leader, and all things fabulous, Cheryl Munoz who is more than willing to share fabulous food and meal ideas, progressive food/industry ideas, and suggestions for a Better Beet.

Old Time True Believer spotted on the road.
It's really easy to get caught up in the now, but I'm a big believer in looking back to the things that we remember fondly and build upon what we have today.  This old Toyota pick-up, rusty and smattered with well-loved and remembered bumper stickers, is an exemplar of bridging hippy health food from yesterday with the current movement to make food systems more progressive, more thoughtful, more real.


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Quotable Bestie: "The Unencumbered Woman sure gets around."

 Yup!  Last week's trip to Colorado was no exception.  Once at the lovely elevation of 4900 feet, I was energized by the clean, dry air, the slower pace of my hosts' town, and, generally, the lack of any agenda beyond spending time with friends, sleeping, eating great food, crafting, reading and exercising.  I may get around, but I'm sort of easy to please.  Although it had been raining earlier in the week, Fort Collins served up some amazing Autumn weather which made the cashing in of my Southwest voucher worth it! 

In this episode of Unencumber-ment, I'd like to highlight the benefits of hiking up a hill.  Friends in Chicagoland would call this a mountain.  If my friends in Colorado hear me call this a mountain, they slap me, (or at least stiff me a smoothie in the AM).  Thousand foot climb?  Hill. Period.  One day I'll climb a real mountain in Colorado, but today I was huffing and puffing all the way, what with the effects of altitude combined with the incline necessary to achieve this summit of this winding trail. 
For our climbing friends?  this and many others await…I stuck to the trail.

Aside from the obvious health benefits of climbing a hill/trail, I'm so often reminded of the power of a shifting perspective for our soul and mind.  As we climb, our bodies adjust, just as all of our senses adapt to the changing environment.  Wherever we go, being able to look forward at a peak that we're climbing, looking back at a trail as it winds itself down below us affords a puzzle for our mind to work.  Even shifting from hot sun to cool shade allows us to momentarily adjust and adapt.  These skills we can hone in any surrounding, but for me the fresh-ness of an ascent reminded me of the joy of being able to look out over a valley at the summit of our walk.
looking for rattlers
Early in our hike, a person with about three kids tagging behind him hollered out to us, "Look out! Somebody saw rattlers out sunning themselves on top and they're likely to be mad this time of year!"  We thanked him for his advise, but as we trudged on I couldn't help but wonder if he was stirring a pot a little more than necessary.  I wondered if there was a simpler, calmer way to communicate that he had heard that someone had seen a rattler.  I proudly boasted that the only rattler I ever saw in the wild was in Los Angeles! You can read about it in a five years old blog post!  I guess he reminded me of people who start rattling the cage around here about a wave of thefts or something.  It just seems that there are some people who like running around talking about imminent threat, I also wondered if he would have had that edge of admonishment if we weren't two women with kids and a dog in tow.  I guess I'll never know, but, I'm always trying to find a reasonable way to alert someone to be cautious. Maybe, *if one of those kids or that pup gets attacked by a rattler, do you know what to do?*  Oh, sheez, I dunno.
Near the summit, looking across vast forestland and hills

  That said, I'm happy that I didn't meet up with a rattle snake, and I was truly awed by the clarity of the air and the vast sky and even the flat Colorado/Wyoming plain spread out beneath us.  But mostly, I was thinking how I wished there was a way that I could merge all of my lives and take my family on this hike every Saturday.  It seemed, at that moment, a perfect solution to the disconnect and harried and often interior life that we live here, on the grid.  But then, I went back to gratitude.  Gratitude that I can do this at all.  Gratitude that I found a way to make things like this work, so that I can have the positivity left to do the other things that I'm trying to do.  So grateful for friends and family that love me as I am. And of course, grateful for sun, and the most beautiful season, Autumn.

The Unencumbered Woman does it again. 

Monday, November 2, 2015

Cycling with a wide open smile.

Prologue: Views from Out there:
A recent trip to a bike able city in Colorado reminded me how I love to pedal and ride.  I love to ride for the exercise, I love to ride for the adventure, I love to ride for solitude, companionship, transportation, and for an alternate view of the world.  I've always considered myself a cyclist, at times more serious than others.
Here in Chicagoland, it's easy to get out of the cycling routine.  In order to get a serious workout in, one must get outdoors at a very early hour to avoid the stress and noise and congestion of traffic and other obstacles.  What's more, almost all of our rides in this area are riddled with poorly paved streets, too many stop signs and traffic lights, poor visibility, train tracks, difficult weather, and a general lack of interesting or challenging topography.
Even in the best of times, we're often so harried by the time we get out into the *surrounding environment* that we drop our veneer of good cheer and put on a game face and make the whole experience a bit of a tough-guy *I survived that ride* sort of slug-fest.  I've long contended that no ride of over an hour or so in this region ever does *not* include a moment in which I slam on my brakes, heart racing, convinced that I barely escaped the fangs of death.
And so, is it a wonder that I leave dust to collect on my beloved bicycles?  Even at a gorgeous time of year (2015 Autumn has been spectacular) it's easy to trade the wheels in for any of the following: running shoes, gym membership, library card, knitting needles, smart phone…you know the drill, basically anything else that isn't as exhausting and demoralizing as having some guy honk and throw a middle finger at a cycling middle aged woman in western suburbia (phew!)
Imagine my joy and wonder whenever I visit some place that I can ride blissfully. Safely. Pleasantly. With great exuberance.  With open lungs, open face, open smile.  I can wave at passers-by.  I can stop and photograph.  I can park, lock and buy some delicious grub. I can bathe in my own thoughts. I can dream, I can imagine, I can plan.  What joy.   I am so fortunate for all that I have in my own home, but it's so delightful to be able to experience some of the things that are hard to come by at home.  In this case, It was a respite well worth the travel, and leaving my family behind.


 Addendum: Bikeable Cities:

 Lest I oversimplify, dear loyal follower, here's a *road map* to identify when you think you might be in friendly territory.  If you answer yes to more than half of these bullets, well, then, BINGO!








  1. Bike trails constructed in a fashion that is continuous, rather than sporadic.
  2. Bike trails that are accompanied by useful maps and guide posts.
  3. Bike trails that connect the inner core of a community with an outer lying area where roads are broad and shoulders provide cycling avenues.
  4. Bike trails that are well marked and broad enough that cyclists, pedestrians, and others may share without attacking one another intentionally or accidentally.
  5. Bike trails intersect with city or village services that make them functional for some, entertaining for others.
  6. In urban centers, bike lines are well painted and signified.  
  7. Bike lanes do not discontinue spontaneously, and do not overlap with extremely heavily trafficked car lanes.
  8. Automobile drivers, although sometimes clueless, are generally patient.
  9. Automobile drivers do not, reflexively, honk, lift middle finger, shake head vehemently or yell behind glass at a rate that I would deem *astonishingly high*.
  10. You probably wouldn't hear the phrase: *get on the sidewalk where you belong!* too often.
  11. Parking spaces for cyclists are ample and not an *afterthought*.
  12. The parking racks are usually a little newer than ca. 1970.




"Toto, I do declare! We're not in Kansas, anymore!"

Friday, October 30, 2015

I'm so excited to have about ten blog posts queued up in my head:


Change in topography (creating altitude in our mind)
On top of our hike

  • Trips out of town to altitude, hills and bike able cities 
  • Long time dear friends
  • Cycling with a wide open smile
  • Co-ops elsewhere
  • What is a Co-op?
  • Local Yarn store Love
  • Time with friends
  • Social media time-out 
  • Great food and our Sugar Beet co-op. 
  • Yarning up a storm.  
  • The season has been incredibly beautiful.
  • Time Change
  • Indigenous Peoples Day & other Fall Celebrations
  • Local Field Trips 







On my hike
That said, it's another beautiful day and I always want to pedal somewhere, anywhere, especially after a trip to Colorado.  So, instead of wrapping my brain around writing and formatting a blog post, I'm out there for one last day of glorious blue sky and yellow leaves.

 And you, LF?  What's up in your world? Taking time to assign significance to the things that matter to you?  Are you making an effort, even in the smallest fashion, to change the heart and mind of at least one person in your community?  Are you eating something whole and amazing?  Are you outside?  Are you gazing into the eyes of your child, your friend, an animal? Are you taking the time to savor our time here, today? If that's not possible today, then I hope sooner than later. One of the few things we can hope to have access to is stillness, quiet, air and our own thoughts.


Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Nothing Time.

A few days ago, a friend complimented me (okay, on Facebook) for being inspiring, curious, and creative. I pridefully gloated for a few minutes, and soon after shuffled up to bed, because I love to experience flow by guaranteed Nothing Time.  Nothing Time as in, slowly transitioning from activity to activity, waking up slowly to experience daybreak and dreamtime, gazing outdoors or walking the neighborhood, catching myself with time that is not accounted for: unplanned time.

Not Nothing Time: checking email or smartphone, cleaning, doing laundry, reviewing and creating a calendar, sitting in traffic,  etc….Want more Nothing Time? Snatch it when it appears.  Nothing Time is the sort of time that we absolutely need to have if we want to foster our own creative impulse.  Without a moment of wondering…hmmm….now what? It all becomes the stuff of obligation.  Living an artful life is a balancing act in itself.

Granola, Country style jumbo batch.

Recently, my inspiration comes from a lot of good old fashioned Home Economy.  I'm delighted to throw myself out there as a beacon for friends who want to slow down and learn how to knit, make granola, bake a pie, or walk the neighborhood while chatting with a friend.  I love to encourage others to make/build/do.  I know that when I see someone else creating something I'm inspired and heartened. As I've indicated many times, the Unencumbered Woman is a mind-set, not an end product.  I'm fortunate in my life right now to have carved out ample Nothing Time.  Hardly true for many, and not always true for me, but when it's there….snatch it!

Madelinetosh Sock yarn daffodil toe-up socks.  Fresh off the needles and ready to wear.


Pumpkin pie…must be Autumn.
And then there is mealtime.  The benefit of a family meal has been well documented, and it's quite evident that sharing meals with friends and extended family is one of life's great pleasures.  That said, I hope that in your pursuit of nothing-ness you take the time to eat a beautiful meal solo whenever you are able.  I've got a stack of books for reading during mealtime, and it's always a pleasure to make a gorgeous plate and look out the window while eating a complete meal.
I can brag about my Nothing Time, but I must confess to being an insomniac-type person. At best, my late night sleep is inconsistent.  It's in the late dark hours that my mind races recklessly.  I have many methods of dealing with sleeplessness, and this week I was lucky to be so consumed with a book that I replaced the batteries in my little night reader as a counter to wakefulness. I savored some chapters in Joyce Carol Oates' newest book, The Lost Landscape.  I try to not miss anything Joyce Carol Oates publishes (not easy), but I do my best to follow my favorite author.   Rarely does Joyce Carol Oates share her personal stories, which makes this compilation of memories all the more precious.  In her tales of growing up in rural upstate New York, Joyce Carol Oates conjured up images that stir my own passion for practicing old crafts and home skills. In the spirit of Home Economics, rest, creativity and endeavor, I note a few takeaways from my reading: 
On insomnia: "by day the obsessions of the insomniac fade like screen images when the lights come on."

On housekeeping: "For what is housekeeping but small simple finite tasks executed with attention, care, love."

On needle arts (to Mother): "You tried to teach me to knit, and to sew, without great success…you had more luck teaching me to cook, or at any rate to prepare meals." 

And so I travel a week full circle, trying to curate an artistic life while remaining engaged with my community, fostering health and stability in my home, and nurturing my own talents and passions.  Each piece contributes to heart and head that are well enough to reach out to others and try to make something work.  Each piece contributes to another day of calm in our own home.  Each piece is a bit of battling against a tremendously disturbing and chaotic world.  Each day, I try to forge forward so that my own soul stay afloat and I may share with others. 

Friday, September 25, 2015

HARLEQUIN AFGHAN…or….relationship advice.

"Come on, here's the camera, take a few shots before you leave!"
Blocked & positioned on matching rattan furniture.

And it's off the hook, assembled, complete. The Harlequin Afghan, finished.  I blogged about this piece just days ago, and before that, a few other times.

What to say, now?  Perhaps an homage to the sort of playing with cameras that we enjoy…or at least I enjoy, with the indulgence of my family members.  Peter is responsible for this collection of KSN photos in the back yard, modeling the afghan as wrap/cape.



blocked, ready for use.
 Every once in a while I start to wonder if we ham it up for the camera a little too much. After all, some of us are not getting any younger.  Then again, it's terrific fun, especially for the self-absorbed.  I'd also dare any of you, LFs, to do the same.  Why not?  In this instance, I'm rustling up the attention of my long-suffering spouse.  One of the remedies to long term relationship blues is to simply ask for attention.  It's so easy for us to focus lots of energy on self, on kids, pets, work, house, and forget about each other.  So, on a Friday morning when I ask my spouse to take a few extra minutes to shoot these photos, I'm asking for attention, interaction, a laugh or too, and, thanks to the technology, a memory.
"This is going to look fabulous. I can wear it wherever I wish!"
 Somebody warned, in an earlier post, that this afghan is too gorgeous to not convert to a wearable item.  Now that it's finished, I sort of agree.  It's main purpose will be to adorn my mid-century rattan couch, but whenever the fancy hits, I think I'll break out the "Harlequin Cape". why not?  One hundred percent worsted wool, it's soft, not too scratchy, and warm.  I'm fond of the colors. Chartreuse, coral, black, grey, white. Great midcentury colors, still classic today.  I'm wild about the juxtaposition of classic vintage detail with modernity.  In this case, the whole set-up looks hopelessly modern.  The Harlequin Afghan time traveled to today and got stuck in a selfie-shoot and an outdoor affair.
"Go ahead. Just try to tell me what I can and can not wear!"
And so we have it.  I can't help but try to synch the piece up with a pop song, and for some reason Hall and Oates comes to mind, again and again.  If you see the cape around town, you'll know who it is.  You'll also know what it is.  And if you see me running/riding/sitting with this cape wrapped around my shoulders, you might even hum a few lines from a Hall & Oates song:
"It's up to me, what will be…"


"She's gone." 

"What went wrong?"



"Face ain't looking any younger, now I can see, love taking her toll on me…"
And to quote the photographer: "I like seeing you argue with the camera!" There is usually a fair amount of arguing, but not without it's fun. Next installment of yarn madness, nobody knows.  But there is a small chance that it will be painstaking, unique, and possess bit of whimsy. 


Saturday, September 19, 2015

In which an eternal project nears completion…or… I'm gonna make an afghan, "Just Because" I can.

 
Can you say 1950's?
 I'm obsessed with a lot of things, and vintage afghans are right  up there with jigsaw, crossword puzzles, and needlepoint. It takes a yarn goddess special personality to move up from the smaller items that might adorn oneself in the outside world to making giant pieces that take forever to complete.  A few of the afghans I've finished have the added status of mind-numbing details.  My current afghan project entails the crochet construction of one hundred-eleven small-ish diamonds,  sewn together, painstakingly, by hand (naturally).

This afghan is exciting, also, because it is one of the patterns in an old book that was part of my mom's collection, ca. 1956, called Modern and Traditional Afghans to Knit or Crochet.






Mom kept everything in mint condition.


So it's been a long time coming. In fact, I think I've blogged about this very project (in another lifetime?) at least twice.  Now that it's almost the moment of truth, I don't know if I love or hate it.  I certainly love the inspiration from which I embarked on the project.  Nothing like planning and purchasing and starting out on an endeavor, with nothing but possibility ahead, and about twelve skeins of wool washable yarn.








Early days, meticulous blocking.







An old blog post,  Spring 2103
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I came to believe that I didn't have that *special stuff* required of the fifties housewife or whomever was expected to make these monster blankets. Much to my disgust, I realized that many of my diamonds were inconsistent in shape and size. 
early assemblage and blog-bliss
 Blocking (deep steam pressing) takes care of this problem to a certain extent, but, truth be told,  I can be a little devil-may-care in my approach to projects, so…Not. Perfect.….Which means, not a terrible thing in many projects (pie, for example) but for a piece that requires over a hundred perfectly symmetrical parallelograms sewn together with all seams equal, there erupts a problem.


But I persevere, and insist that this afghan will be worthy of the party that is our house-full-of-lap-throws.  The four of us often sit around, and whomever grabs afghan first is cozy and ready for whatever it is our family is up to (conversing, reading, drinking wine,  coffee, tea, dessert or sleep).  What I really love is having a project to work on (okay, many projects) so I'm never thinking or feeling that the things I do I do because I'm being *forced* to do them.

 Projects are so compelling to me simply because I don't really have a reason.  I just do.  There's no income, there's no *should* , there's no status.  All I have is the human desire to make something, and do something.  Call me entitled.  Sure.  But also, call myself Unencumbered.  This is the idea.  Amidst all of the shoulds, the worries, the what-ifs and the what I forgot to take care of,  insert the devil-may-care, "Just Because."  I'm gonna make an afghan, "Just Because" I can.  "Just Because I want to."  Or, finally, "Just Because I really really really wish that we all had to or wanted to make things for ourselves, because, of course, making things takes time, and this is what we've been doing since the beginning, and it's only in the very recent past that we've forgotten all this, and not needed to make things that take time for ourselves and for our survival and for our family."