S2 Final Essays

GROWING

gratitude S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

contents SYNOPSIS 5 CHERRY PIE 6 WATER JUGS 12 BUTTERED TOAST 18 A GOOD RAIN 22

F

I

N

A

L

E

S

S

A

GROWING

gratitude

Y

S

Summer wheat

A typical afternoon view at the farm in early June 2013.

A golden, almost ready to harvest, summer wheat field.

Photo by Larry Thompson, then owner of Long Vue Farms & father of Lorilee Rager. Sent via text message.

4

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

Synopsis My research and investigation started with rural farm life based on my family farm. I started to learn the history of the farmhouse, interviewed family members and employees, collected farm data, and began to produce Autoethnographic writing pieces based on my findings.

My reading and research of the writer's voice helped me to write a bit more confidently. I began to produce many essays featuring both farm life and design life such as the few I have selected for you today titled Cherry Pie, Water Jugs, Buttered Toast, and A Good Rain.

In my research of bookkeeping logs and vintage newspapers, my grandfather’s notes and land maps, I began to look deeper into the hardships of farming. There was a continuous theme of hope, constant planning and dedication to a career like no other and a level hardiness that emerged in my own work. I uncovered in my study that these were the building blocks to life as a designer.

Through all of this work my discovery was finding a sense of place. Visualizing them as silos of my life, where one stores years of hard labor, memories and trauma, and the buckets of empathy, lessons learned, and resilience that we each carry along with us in our own journey. I was able to narrow this down into a collection of essays that described a behind the scenes look of the design life. I discovered how to embrace the values and skills I developed at the family farm and through my writer's voice I began to express how these skills manifested into running a graphic design business.

Design authorship became a focus as my research led me to become more vulnerable and write about personal issues in living the everyday design life. I spent my semester focusing on being open in my communication, writing about the hard stuff we all live - that messy side that you hide from everyone. Your life's dump shed let’s call it. It’s what lives on the other side of the perfect instagram photo. The profession of being a graphic designer and the emotions and pressures associated with this career as communicators is real but not often discussed. My authorship is framed around this sense of place through writing and visual essays.

I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude throughout this semester that really did grow with each hour of study. My work has a common thread of domestic life, the critical work of raising human beings, alongside raising my creative self, and it’s challenges. This semester's journey landed me where I least expected it, on the front porch of my childhood home. Synchronicities presented themselves and hardiness merged into bushel baskets full of lessons learned and how to grow gratitude from every single one.

GROWING

gratitude

5

CHERRY

pie

F

6

I

N

A

L

E

S

S

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

A

Y

S

Cherry Pie While I was reading Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry, I was reminded of the life my grandmother often spoke of growing up in our rural community with family and farmhands living together as one. Helping one another work in each other’s crops, repair farmhouses, and in the mix like the novel, how loved ones came and went with the war. This is just as my grandmother would tell in our interview about her own brothers leaving for the war. In our Kentucky rural community, the homeplace farms were known as names such as ‘The Austin Place,’ and the “Old Cane Farm.” These were the names of original farm owners that had long passed before me and had new folks living there, yet the old farm names stuck with them as a sweet tribute to the past and respect the people that worked the land. It was such a close community that we lived in growing up I didn’t know until I was in high school if anyone was really related by blood. I didn’t know if they really were an uncle or cousin because we all worked, ate and churched together like one big close family.

When I was in about the 5th grade I remember really feeling quite important in my role as the baby of the family and the youngest granddaughter of 11 grandchildren.

I often was left with my Grandma Smith for the summers before I was big enough to drive a tractor. She was very busy with her large garden, feeding the farm hands lunch daily, and her many Methodist church bake sales. Not to mention being in charge of bible school snacks, and canning and preserving the garden’s goodies when they did ‘come in’ – even if you were sick of squash they were ‘in’ so we had to eat lots of them, can even more of them, and deliver the extra to neighbors.

These days were some of the grandest of my childhood with my Grandma Smith. She would tell me stories of how she grew up with all 9 children of the Bellar clan. How each one of them had very specific roles and chores. Ivy was in charge of firewood for warmth and cooking and repairing the chicken coops, while Elvis was in charge of hoeing tobacco and bringing in the garden vegetables. Lucille was in charge of washing clothes, and little Louise was so small she would hand grandma, her sister, the vegetables to be cooked up for canning and for supper. That is until the war took away her brothers in 1941 she said, “We all just did the best we could back then to survive.”

Grandma likes to tell it as if she was up in her twenties at the time, but in all reality, she was just 10 years old and stood on a washtub to reach the stove. That’s how old I was when I remember first hearing the story, and not even knowing at that age myself how to turn on an oven. At that age, she was in charge of cooking for the whole family. I remember being amazed at the stories she would tell about the important roles in the family.

She grew up in hard times but didn’t even know she was living hard she went on to explain. They had all the homegrown food they could eat and then some, and

GROWING

gratitude

7

with brothers and sisters they certainly had a crew to pitch in on the farm and help one another. Let’s see, she says as she recalls, “there’s me (Betty Sue), Lucille, Ivy, Elvis, Felix, Johnny, Thomas, Ruby Mae, and Louise. We all just helped Mama and Daddy every day until all the work was done.” She went on to tell that they even made sandwiches and sold them to the soldiers who were on the trains in town. She said the trains brought men from all over the country headed to war and sometimes the tracks would be backed up for hours and “them boys were hungry.”

The best part of the research and gathering I’ve been doing, as I collect data on our family farm, has by far been gathering memories. One of the photos I’ve found is a rare photo of her with her siblings, parents and a few nephews. My grandma, Betty Sue is pictured front row far left. Sweet sister Lucy is back row center, just on the left of Uncle Felix the sailor. “Lucy was my very best friend,” my grandma always has said. Aunt Lucille was with her every summer I can remember while canning the garden goodness as it came in.

Aunt Lucille was her sidekick for many years putting up pepper relish, green tomato ketchup, pickles, jams and preserves. She was also always along for our many trips we would take with all of the grandkids to Opryland, USA – a big theme park dedicated to the Grand Ole Opry and Country music in Nashville, Tn. We were allowed to skip church on Sunday, which was a big deal for my Church of Christ father to allow, and be there right when the park would open. This is where we met the likes of big-time celebrities like Porter Wager, Roy Acuff, and Little Jimmy Dickens. We heard some of the greatest country music, and saw red white and blue dressed square dancers in live shows at the park. The day always ended with Lee Greenwood’s "God Bless The USA" where my Aunt Lucille and grandma proudly stood in the audience with their hands on their hearts and tears running down their faces. Today it is a wonderful memory because Opryland is gone and a large mall is there now. My grandma is the only living child left of the famous Kentucky State Fair winning “Largest Family,” the Bellar family, so gathering these memories will be special for many.

Reading Wendell Berry: Life and Work has taken me directly back to my place on earth I know as home. Learning about his life in Kentucky, his education, passion for agriculture, being a Christian, and his love of his country has me feeling as if he just might be a distant cousin to the Bellars. He talks of a way of life in 1930 - 1940 that mirrors exactly how my grandmother lived, and how I also lived in 1980. Just as his characters describe looking through old farm places, I am reminded of the plaster walls, the dusty wood floors and old stoves in the farmhouse I grew up in, known as the Maude Gill Farm.

My grandmother, just as it reads in Hannah Coulter “has cooked and canned and butchered together…” with so many of her sisters, neighbors, her children, and grandchildren. The community we lived in really did lean on one another in

8

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

1941 Bellar Family

My grandmother, Betty Sue Bellar Smith (pictured front row far left) with all of her siblings, parents and 2 young nephews.

Her sister Lucille is back row center just to the left of Uncle Felix, the sailor. Lucy was her lifelong best friend.

good and bad times. Also, as the family grew, so did the number of children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Even though it’s hard to remember each and every birthday, Hannah goes on to say in the book “she remembers everything else - the history and weaknesses of every one of them, and she knows exactly what to get every one of them on their birthdays and Christmases.”

My grandma remembers each and everyone’s favorite desserts and disliked foods. So when my birthday comes around she always has a fresh cherry pie with homemade latticed buttered perfectly baked golden crust. Even if I tell her I am on a diet and didn’t need it, I still get the call that I need to come by and pick up my pie while it’s still warm.

My sister Michelle gets fresh apple pie from the local Johnson’s Orchards, sister Mandy her chess bars. My son Will gets a lemon pound cake, and Luke gets homemade peach ice cream. She just laughs and laughs about how all my husband wants is a skillet of cornbread. “Is that all babe? Are you sure he don’t like sweets?

I’ll swannee I ain’t never heard of nobody that don’t like sweets, but I’ll make him a skillet of cornbread if that’s what you’re sure he wants?” She is just making sure he’s not just pulling her leg and not wanting to trouble her about making something else, as a skillet of cornbread is too easy, she thinks, but no matter what she’s gonna bake you your favorite.

GROWING

gratitude

9

These foods made fresh from the gardens and orchards on the farm are really the way we love and have been loved my whole life. We didn’t go to the store to shop for gifts, and we certainly didn’t ask for anything when it came to birthdays. We really had all we needed. Any new clothes were for special occasions like Easter Sunday or a funeral and were even handmade. So our gifts were homemade, hand patted, baked full of goodness and love. No store sold that anywhere I know of.

As I grew up, I no longer could stay at grandmas all day. As I approached 13 years old, I had to go to the field like the men to run tractors. Some days it was pulling a bush hog and some days pulling a planter. We all sat tobacco together, we filled semi-trucks together, and went to grandmas to eat lunch together. So, as I eat my cherry pie every year for my birthday, I’m reminded of so many stories of family and one in particular of picking cherries. The taste of a fresh cherry hand-picked from the very top of the tree in the orchard by grandma’s house is the sweetest you’ve ever let touch your tongue.

One particular memory was from when I had had a long day on the farm when I was about 15. Even though we were done in the field I knew grandma had asked that I stop by on my way home. She asked to help her just before the sun went down because the summer evening became much cooler as the sun set. When I got to grandma’s house she said the cherry’s had come in so we needed to get the pickup and go get all we could reach.

That particular day I had sweat all the way through the back of my white hanes t-shirt and had mud all over my jeans where I had been trying to help fix the irrigation with Uncle David Wayne. Drought and leaking irrigation mean lots of mud and mess in case you didn’t know. But I knew we needed to get the cherries when grandma said as she knows when they are ripe and ready.

“Of course, the very best cherries are all the way up at the top of the trees,” Grandma says. I realize I was enlisted to be the top of the tree cherry picker. Not because I’m tall, but because I lack fear and common sense. Also, because I’m the youngest and it likely won’t hurt me to fall out of the top of a little o’ cherry tree.

Since I believe and trust my grandma I easily climb up in the back of the pickup truck. Next, I set up the ladder at the end of the tailgate and began to climb.

She was right, the cherries were simply divine at the top. I had to try just a few before I began putting them in the dishpan. Dark and juicy every single one. They were bursting with flavor and slid right off the stem as easy as could be. Please note, if you are eating cherries right from the tree to be mindful of the pit. As it can crack a tooth if you’re not careful. Be sure to spit those out if they didn’t come off with the stem while you were picking.

10

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

It was a successful day cherry-picking and we had a few dishpans full, as well as my belly. So grandma called to us all to come down and get settled in the back of the truck so we could head on up to the house. I was talking non-stop and likely didn’t hear the message to sit down and shut up. I decided I’d hop up and sit on the top of the truck cab and hold on while she eased the truck up from the field. When I did that, she got into the cab of the truck and shut the door, catching my fingers just right at the first knuckles.

The pain wasn’t instant, rather as my hand felt ice cold, until my cousins screamed, and she opened the truck door. I fell over, off the top of the truck and onto the tall grass, hitting the ground. Partly laughing, and partly crying, and nauseous, I made sure not to fall into the back of the truck onto the cherries, as I knew I’d be in trouble. I laid there trying to catch my breath in the cool grass. My fingers were fine and so were the cherries that day, thankfully.

The writer Wendell Berry’s voice is so strongly similar to my family stories that I could read him for days. It has helped me remember wonderful stories, times and life on the farm. It also helped me remember the cherry-picking business can be a dangerous job, but if you survive it the reward of grandma’s fresh-baked pie is absolutely worth it.

GROWING

gratitude

11

WATER

jugs

F

12

I

N

A

L

E

S

S

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

A

Y

S

Wendell Berry’s essay Think Little reads:

“If we are to hope to correct our abuses of each other and of other races and of our land, and if our effort to correct these abuses is to be more than a political fad that will in the long run be only another form of abuse, then we are going to have to go far beyond public protest and political action.

We are going to have to rebuild the substance and the integrity of private life in the country.

We are going to have to gather up the fragments of knowledge and responsibility that we have parceled out to the bureaus and the corporations and the specialists, and put those fragments back together in our own minds and in our families and households and neighborhoods. We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities. We need persons and households that do not have to wait upon organizations, but can make necessary changes in themselves, on their own.� (Berry, 18) GROWING

gratitude

13

I finished the greatest little pocket book, Think Little by Wendell Berry. I felt so much goodness and gratitude in reading these essays. From the very first few pages, his words rang powerfully strong inside my gut. His words were as familiar as morning coffee pot conversations at the county Crop Service with local farmers I’ve heard all my life.

Berry writes about the idea that the world's problems are big, and government is big, but we cannot wait on them, or expect them to fix it. We can start helping on our own, in our own homes, our own families, neighbors and communities. This is something I was taught as a child to believe.

When I read the essay I immediately stopped to see when this was written expecting it to be from just last year and learned this essay was first published in 1972. Think Little is a powerful essay that critically talks about the rural life I’m so well versed in. I’ve never read much at all, and never dreamed anyone would understand me, much less think that I would agree with Berry’s own views of the world we live in and where it’s headed.

I love how he writes about how we are all connected to the earth, environment and each other. Berry’s essay, A Native Hill, took my mind along with him on his walk around his farm. His voice, the descriptions, is incredibly comforting, powerful, and makes the reader really think about what you are leaving here on this earth both in your environment and in your own creations.

He writes in great detail of the dew on the horse’s feet in the early morning field work and I can remember my own toes cold and wet from an early fall morning walk to the tractor and the dew soaking my boots. He talks of the farmers setting their water jugs in the shade on the fence row. I immediately know it’s so to keep the water cool and out of the way of the work.

A water jug’s an important tool for a hot farmer, I speak from experience. If left in the pick up it’s like drinking boiling water by the mid-morning of the summer.

If kept in the floorboard of the tractor it might vibrate off and be splintered into a thousand tiny pieces as you drive over it with the bush hog, but you won’t notice until your next pass through the field when you wonder what’s all that red and white confetti. So listen to Wendell when he writes about setting the water jugs in the shaded fence row. It’s important I tell you.

My first job on the farm was mowing and bush hogging all of the landlord’s farms, homes and driveways. The landlords were often widows whose farming husbands long past away usually from hard work, hard living and often hard hearts.

So as our family signed lease land rent agreements my father would begin to bring me around to meet the landlords. He wanted them to know me, know I was his loyal daughter, and that it was a safe person coming up the driveway to their estates.

14

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

14

Many of the farm places were similar in size and stature. They would be a large two story farmhouse with big columns, big front porches, and back porch mud rooms, and a few out buildings. A few utility sheds full of old tools, tractors and trucks rusted and no longer usable sat around too. Some of the properties still had old chicken coops, and smokehouses for bacon and hams but had not been used in my lifetime. A few of them still had family farm workers there that lived in small houses on the property. I imagined they were originally built for sharecroppers in the early 1900’s and generations of families never knew any other place other than these farms as home.

Miss Alzada Gill’s estate had a large rock entrance that was original to the farm and narrow, as horse and buggy didn’t need it to be as wide as a Chevrolet does. It was quite the challenge to get the pickup truck and mower loaded trailer through that narrow path. I learned to swing the long wheelbase white farm truck and trailer out wide behind me and then quickly straighten it up to fit just right through the middle of the curved drive entrance. The two large concrete rock posts were massive and I knew I’d be in trouble if I hurt them or the mower. I could barely reach the pedals of the truck and see over the dash, but I learned after a few weeks how to slide right through as quickly as a gardener snake.

I loved going to see Miss Alzada after I finished mowing because her house maid Miss Maggie made some of the best tea cookies on earth. I can smell the butter and sugar now just thinking about it. I’d make sure to get out of the truck and sometimes dump out my water jug to pretend I needed more and that's why I stopped by the house. A trick my father had taught me. So I’d dump my jug, brush off any extra grass from my jeans, remove my cap to reveal a terrible sweaty rats nest of a hairdo and go up to the back porch and knock. I would hear Miss Maggie holler, “Come on in child!” As she walked to the old storm door, wiping her hands on her apron. She moved pretty slow and must have walked many miles I always thought as she couldn’t stand up straight with a painful looking limp, but the biggest smile ever.

She always seemed so happy to see me.

She’d say “Ma’am has been looking forward to seeing you today. We made an extra batch of the tea cookies when we heard you mowing.” Miss Alzada was going blind, but keen on her hearing. I could smell the vanilla coming from the kitchen.

They were a small round butter cookie with a drop of melted caramel, and a pecan sat right on top. She called them Caramel Pecan Thumbprint Tea Cookies. I called them amazing.

Still warm out of the oven, she would place a dozen or so on a silver serving platter and pour me some fresh lemonade into a heavy crystal thick patterned pressed tea glass. I remember the weight of the glass in my hand and the intricate cut details, yet the glass barely seemed to hold 8 oz. of liquid. With the ice, it was merely a sip to have with those delicious sweet cookies.

GROWING

gratitude

15

1979 Miss Maggie

Maggie Bell, housekeeper for Mrs. Alzada Gill. I found this in family photo albums left to me by Mrs. Alzada. There were many images of Maggie and Mrs. Alzada picking buttercups with the title 'Spring of 1979' hand written above.

Miss Maggie would walk me down the side porch into the parlor where Miss Alzada sat in front of the window. I knew she always sat looking out at the front yard and main rock entrance. Although she had gone mostly blind by the time I met her, her mind was crystal clear. She listened to many books on tape and had stacks and stacks of them on her end table beside her emerald green recliner and her walker. Along with a telephone equipped with large oversized one-inch push button numbers and a radio where she listened to the local Russellville AM news station. She would sure light up when I walked into her dim room. The room was surrounded by built-in bookcases brimming full of what I’m not sure. I sure wish I could go back and ask.

We would sit and talk about how dry the weather was and how the grass just still keeps growing, as well as anything I might have heard such as babies born, how my grandmother was doing from hip surgery, or what a great sermon Brother Craig preached Sunday. She also wanted to know if my father was planning on coming by to look at the johnson grass across the road in the ditch. “It’s hard to stop it, but we were on top of it,” I assured her, and “I’ll be hitting it with my wick of weed killer again on my way out today.”

She used to be a college professor at Berea College in Kentucky I was told, and after her husband died early in their marriage she never had any children. She lived there at his family estate with her older sister Miss Lillian. They were the classiest women I thought I’d ever met in my young 15 years. Not like any other kind of woman in our small town.

16

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

They always had on real nice clothes during the week, unlike the farmer’s wives I knew. The kind like you wear on Sunday’s to wedding showers, like bright colored thick wool or linen dress clothes. Miss Lillian seemed a bit more modern to me and years ago was a nurse in the army. Her frame tall and slender, she wore high waisted dress pants with collared blouses, stockings, and patent black leather shoes.

I admired their style so much that if they could have seen very well they would have noticed how I would stare.

They looked just like movie stars I remembered from the 1950s. In their fitted business looking skirts and ivory colored silk blouses on hot summer, middle of the week, days. They looked just like I imagined Betty Davis, Grace Kelly, and Katharine Hepburn would have been. I’d never seen my mom or grandma dress like that on a Tuesday, nor talk about college, teaching and city life like they did. I was fascinated by every word.

The tea cookies were served, the community news was tastefully discussed like any southern belle until things got too gossipy or catty. That’s when Miss Alzada would sigh and smile saying “What about fried irish potatoes?” We would all giggle, and that would mean we should drop that topic. She would call for Miss Maggie to fill my water jug and I would be off to the next farm to mow. I’d lean in giving her a hug and kiss on the hand, promising to see her next week and report back to dad the message on better weed control.

Moments with Miss Alzada were some of my most favorites growing up. She passed away just before I turned 17. In her will, she left me her vintage salt and peppers antique collection, many other fine antiques, and her home. I had no idea water jugs and tea cookies meant so much to us both. Sigh, what about fried irish potatoes?

GROWING

gratitude

17

BUTTERED

toast

F

18

I

N

A

L

E

S

S

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

A

Y

S

The other night I was texting with a friend confessing my eating of buttered toast for breakfast. I felt the need to confess because I’ve been pretty devout in recent weeks to be extra healthy in all the ways. It’s been a strict lifestyle of no alcohol, no Xanax and clean eating. I’ve been pretty good at staying up on this wagon until today.

You see, that wagon is really big, heavy and piled up with lots of things. The wagon has some pretty massive weight to be carried or pulled along too. It’s full of work, family, grad school, healthy living, sober living, and don’t get me wrong, it’s full of joy, gratitude and the ever needed humor. However, staying on that wagon is not nearly as easy as one would think.

Daily, we’re all busy. Busy isn’t something to be proud of, and it’s not a specialty to be listed on your resume. It is however a commonly used word by many who don’t seem to have it all together. I am trying each day to control the busy, plan the chaos and be extra efficient and productive. Each day it’s a conscious effort to get all the things done, done right, done well, and done on time. Hour by hour is planned, budgets are set, all while meeting your step count, stand up goals, water ounce intake, and help the kids make healthy choices, spend less money, feed the dog, and repeat it all over again the next day.

So I slipped off my wagon just after mid-morning of my extra efficient day. That is when the buttered toast crossed my path. After my 5am workout, morning pages, and a big proposal meeting at the local Chamber, I had a message that my grandma was in town. She was just down the street from my office at Moss’s Country Kitchen having a late breakfast after a doctor’s appointment. This is when I didn’t realize it, but I was about to be on the edge of my wagon. I hadn’t had any breakfast but had my two large cups of coffee, and after my presentation meeting, I was feeling the drain of energy. I knew some quality time with my grandmother would be just the right thing even though it was not on today’s schedule.

I called her back to say I was headed to the diner. She said she would order for me so I wouldn’t have to wait, as she knew I was busy. Right as I sat down so did a platter of scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and two pieces of white bread toasted with butter dripping and shining in the reflection of the diners pick up window heat lamps. I took a deep breath and scooted the hashbrowns off the plate and on to my grandma’s.

She’s a little thing and needs to eat more I told her as I winked at the hovering waitress. Next, a handful of jelly packets were sat down between us. Grandma needed help getting them open. I have to agree with her that those small rectangle little tubs are “hard boogers to get that shiny corner a holt of to peel back” when you want to add jelly to your toast. “Why do they make them things so dern hard?” she asked trying not to feel embarrassed about her old hands not working as well as they used to.

GROWING

gratitude

19

From there I ate my eggs and inhaled another cup of coffee. Next up was the extra greasy bacon, and another cup of joe topped off by the sweet and efficient waitress. She was on us like a preacher with a collection plate. “Ready for a warm up?” she asked after every sip we took out of our classic white diner mugs.

I hadn’t seen my grandma in quite a few weeks as she reminded me. She said I’d been too busy jet setting all over the country. She’s referring to my trip to Vermont for grad school and then to Florida for beach time for the boys' fall break. Just before that, I hadn’t been able to make it by her house the day they were putting up pear preserves. So she needed an update on me and a good reason why I couldn’t be there for the canning and conversation. She said they had a large time with Aunt Lonetta and Aunt Mildred and she had 3 jars for me in her kitchen I needed to come get.

As we got caught up on life, we talked about the weather. She said the upcoming farmer’s almanac predicted a wet, but mild winter, and so did the woolly worms.

It came time to open up more jelly for her, and my toast was still just sitting there beside me. My scrambled eggs and bacon hadn’t really filled me up and she was certainly not done talking. The waitress was also eager to keep us in coffee.

So, as I jellied her toast some more, I mindlessly jellied myself some and took a bite. I think my brain was in shock. As the warm melted butter and light crunch of the toast and squish of jelly entered my mouth I was instantly happier. My forehead did tingle from the sugar rush, and grandma never missed a beat talking about the hams she needs to get for Thanksgiving prep as she reminded me to “be sure to get myself one next week when they are on sale at Walmark’s.”

We wrapped up our breakfast, and finally asked the waitress to take the coffee cups away, and bring us the check. The conversation was the best I’d had in weeks I told her, and I was delighted to know her new hearing aids were helping her as I helped her up and out the door. The diner had a handwritten sign on the door that they were hiring for 2 chefs and 1 waitress. I told her we should apply and she laughed loudly, saying “Oh gosh, ain’t no way I could babe. I got too much to do cooking for the church and the senior citizens center.” Not to mind you she’ll be 89 in a few weeks, has neuropathy and cannot stand longer than just a few moments without help. However, yes I agreed with her that she surely is too busy to come cook at the diner.

I didn’t log the toast in my weight loss app that night as I sat in bed about to turn out the lights. I wasn’t thinking about how it had been another ‘busy’ day again. I just thought as my friend texted back “Everyone needs the occasional buttered toast.”

That I no longer felt bad, or guilty about the confession of calories or the time I took with grandma away from all the busy. Never be too busy to enjoy some occasional buttered toast.

20

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

GROWING

gratitude

21

A GOOD

rain

F

22

I

N

A

L

E

S

S

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

A

Y

S

I sit at a desk this morning that I own, of the business that I built, in a building with my name on the deed. The glow of the computer screen is casting a soft white light onto my notebook as I open it. I pick up my pen ready to scribble across the page. It’s an overcast, rainy, drizzle of a day.

I tap the spacebar and my study playlist begins. I’m listening to Suite Bergamasque: Clair de Lune, and the sound of spraying water hissing, as the world's commuters are zooming by just outside. The dog snores and readjusts her curl as the heat kicks on. The coffee is piping hot off the rim of my cup. It’s morning pages time.

I am reflecting on the map dot where my feet touch, the longitude and latitude of my life. My career has been insanely fun. Yes, some days more of the insane side surfaces than the fun, but the fun side is time spent helping so many folks communicate better. I help them communicate better their sellings, their tellings, and their deals of the day. I don’t know if the job I do is neverending or beginning, but it feels like something new and good is changing and brewing. I can feel it swirling around me like the wind is whistling and gusting outside.

I used to dread the rain, fear a storm, run and hide, and wait for it to be over.

Over so I could go back to the calm things, the same routine things, but today the energy feels different. Like a good rain is here to wash away yesterday's grime. It even is soothing me, and calming me. It's putting me at ease instead of into a panic.

Maybe it's the rain, or maybe it’s the Wolfgang piping from my playlist now, but it’s good, so very good.

Waking up early, exercising, fasting, coffee, and pausing to write is a treat, a treasure, and reward for surviving another day. Just thinking back to the to do’s and tasks, and looking ahead to the tomorrows – we have this simple moment right now to pause, appreciate and be mindful of where we are. In this moment I think back on how did I get here, why am I here, and even glance just a bit further up the road to where is my next "here" going to be? It’s ok if we don’t know these answers, we do know we can just enjoy this moment and the clean wash of a good rain.

Why focus on the good rain? Because anxiety can quickly rush back in. When running behind anxiety builds. Feeling rushed, full of a week of dreaded meetings, lunch appointments, and so many people messaging in all the ways trying to connect, they need help, need attention, it mentally drains me. It seems to get to a point when you feel you might drown as you add up all the things, on top of being off schedule. Then, the small drops feel heavier. Feel them? The dog is sick, one child has detention, and one has no gym shorts. Upset young adults make upset mom adults too.

GROWING

gratitude

23

So, right now I’m trying to recenter myself. I'm being mindful, and intentional.

Yes, I’m 37 minutes behind my schedule, as I glance at the clock, but think of what’s been accomplished today. 5AM gym (check), kids fed a healthy breakfast (check), the teenager fearfully drove us to school in the rain (check), the criminal reported to morning detention (check), I remembered my arthritis meds (check), I showered AND washed my hair, and pooped! (check, check, check!) It’s always so very nice when that task is over and flushed away before employees show up! The dog can be taken to the vet after lunch, the coach is not going to fail us for lack of gym shorts, ordered more on Amazon to be here tomorrow. Royal blue shorts surely will get us into college?

I am slowly coming down from the demons that are trying to talk me into biting my nails and running away. We are going to make it through this day I assure you.

Stay with me! It’s only 8:07am! Keep writing. The lunch meeting just canceled, see we feel better already. The coach understands not all people can fit into mediums.

The detention hour has been served and the sun is beginning to shine. The coffee is strong and so are you.

Taking the deep breaths, we start the playlist again, we sip, write and calmly take a moment. Fire up the diffuser next, wild orange energy oil is pumping up into the air, it was my friend Shea's favorite. The meds for the aching knees are helping, I tell myself as they burn. We’ll write out our whole week of appointments in our planner next so no surprises take us down in battle. Don’t you feel better already?

You know there’s always going to be something, someone, some event that will throw you for a loop, but remind yourself and really believe that it’s only temporary.

It’s not permanent. It’s going to pass. You are going to get recentered, anchored, and back to steady. It may not be easy each time or as quick as you'd like, but I’ve learned to surrender to the feeling and the build up of the stress. I don’t fight it anymore, I don't ignore it, or avoid it. I just let it in, look it in the face, and even welcome it into the day. The realization and acknowledgment of it isn’t as scary as you think. Take it in, and make a plan, piece by piece, of how you will take back your mind's control.

You can work your way right back into listening to the good rain.

24

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

GROWING

gratitude

25

26

S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0

Sources: 1. Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Harper Press 2016. Audio.

2. Berry, Wendell. Hannah Coulter. Berkeley, California: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005. Print.

3. Peters, Jason. Wendell Berry: Life And Work. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007. Print.

4. Abumrad, Jad. Radio Lab Presents: Dolly Parton’s America. New York. Podcast. Accessed November 5, 2019 Podcast.

5. Ilyin, Natalia. Blonde Like Me. New York: Simon & Schuster 2000. Print.

6. McDermott, Alice. Charming Billy. New York: Picador, 1998. Audio 7. Ilyin, Natalia. Writing For The Design Mind. New York: Bloomsbury, 2019. Print.

8. Thompson, Megan and Saltzman, Melanie. Why music has such profound effects on the brain. PBS. Newshour. Accessed November 9, 2019. Web. 9. Ford, Ashley C. Imagination Is A Creative Superpower. Accessed October 25, 2019. Video.

10. Author Unknown. From Star Trek to Stranger Things: how Ed Benguiat's iconic font haunted us forever. Typeroom.eu Accessed October 25, 2019. Online.

11. Berry, Wendell. Think Little: Essays (Counterpoint Series). Counterpoint, 2019. Print.

12. Lamott, Annie. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year. New York : Anchor Books. 2005. Audio 13. Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. Free Press. 1973. Audio 14. Renkl, Margaret. Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss. Milkweed Editions. 2019.

Audio 15. Cron, Ian Morgan. The Road Back To You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery. InterVarsity Press. 2016.

16. Lupi, Giorgia and Posavec, Stefanie. Dear Data. Princeton Architectural Press. New York, 2016.

Print 17. Turchi, Peter. Maps of the Imagination: The Writer As Cartographer. Trinity University Press, Texas. 2004. Print 18. Onion, Rebecca. Slate.com Article: Where Does the Term Redneck Come From? 2019. Accessed January 1, 2020. Web 19. Hannah-Jones, Nikole. 1619. Episode 5: The Land of Our Fathers, Part 1. Podcast. Accessed December 30, 2019. Web. 20. Cameron, Julia. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: Penguin, 2016.

Print.

21. Philosophy Basics Online. Existentialism Definition. Accessed January 1, 2020. web 22. Wikipedia Definition: Dirty Realism. Accessed January 3, 2020. web 23. Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. World Publishing Company. 1969. Print.

24. Brown, Brene. Daring Greatly. Penguin Books 2012. Audio 25. Eagleman, David. The Creative Brain. Netflix. 2019. Video 26. Perel, Esther. Ted Talk: The Secret To Desire In a Long Term Relationship. 2004. Video 27. Shameless. Netflix. 2019. Video 28. YOU Season 2. Netflix. Video 29. Lear, Norman. Netflix Documentary: Just Another Version of You. 2016 Video 30. Shepard, Dax. Experts on Experts with Dax Shepard with David Sedaris. Podcast. Web 31. Sedaris, David. Calypso. Audible. 2018.

32. Doyle, Brian. Notes on Wonder: One Long River of Song - Brian Doyle. Little, Brown and Company. 2019. Print.

33. Glass, Ira. This American Life Podcast: Recommended List. Accessed February 2020. Web. 34. Lamontt, Anne. DailyGood.org Blog Post. 12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing. February 12, 2019. Talk. Accessed January 20, 2020. Web. 35. Maddi, Salvatore & Khoshaba, Deborah. (1994). Hardiness and Mental Health. Journal of personality assessment. 63. 265-74. 10.1207/s15327752jpa6302_6. Web.

GROWING

gratitude

27

GROWING

gratitude S E M E S T E R 2 // F I N A L E S S A Y S // A P R I L 2 0 2 0