The (Responsibly, Sustainably, Productively) Merrie Month of May

It's May first today, and so of course I'm beginning a new life. It's also the penultimate month of my two blissful years in Indiana. As I think about leaving Indiana toward the end of June, I'm wild to cram this new month's new life as full as I can of Indiana joys, and I already have an impressive list planned, including all the pleasures associated with commencement at DePauw, and attending the 37th annual Spirit of Vincennes Rendezvous, a Revolutionary War reenactment in the former territorial capital of Vincennes, Indiana's oldest continuous European settlement (dating from 1732), not to mention evening walks with a friend and her darling little dogs, and a round of farewell breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with friends who will be heading elsewhere for the summer.

But for me a new life can never be built entirely around fun and games. I want to "be intent on the perfection of the present day" (William Law), but it has to be the productive perfection of the present day, or else I'll be consumed with guilt and stress. I need to finish writing my current book project (a middle-grade time travel story set in Indiana - what sweeter place to write it than here?) and to proceed with the editing of my Ethics and Children's Literature volume now that revised submissions from the last round of editing are coming in.  

And of course I don't want to spend inordinate amounts of money or gain inordinate amounts of weight during my productively perfect days, either. I want to have frugal, healthful, productively perfect days.

Luckily, all of those things go together.  I'm happiest when I'm making progress on work I love; I'm happiest when I'm walking everywhere rather than driving anywhere; my happiest non-work activities tend to be those that cost little. E.g., I'm staying with a dear high school friend for the Vincennes Rendezvous; a pre-purchased ticket for the daytime activities is $7; the candlelight evening tour of the historic sites is free.

So right now I'm going to eat a leftover Jimmy John's cinnamon stick waiting for me in the Prindle Institute fridge (free; calories already pre-burned by walking 45 minutes to work in the early morning along Nature Park trails); then I'll scribble for a bit on my book-in-progress. At 4:15, I'll attend the final monthly advisory board meeting for the Prindle Instiute.  Oh, and it's Wednesday, which means half-priced flavored martinis at the Swizzle Stick (a great bargain), and this evening there is an open-to-the-public, end-of-term reading by DePauw creative writing faculty, which should be wonderful. 

Sounds like a productively perfect day to me.

Blessing the Farm

On Wednesday night we had the inaugural dinner for the DePauw University campus farm.  This has been a dream for some years of people here at the university who care about environmental sustainability: to have a place where we could grow food for the campus community in an environmentally responsible way.  Now the farm is a reality, awaiting the planting of its first crops once the fields dry out from the torrential rains we've had this spring.

At the inaugural farm dinner we couldn't eat food grown from our own little farm, of course, as those harvests are yet to come. But all the food we ate was grown and processed locally, and it was a sumptuous feast, eaten at long picnic tables covered with red-checked tablecloths adorned with mason jars filled with spring flowers. Here are a few of the delicacies we shared:

Mixed Greens with Honey Vinaigrette
Samuel Fisher Amish Farm, Bloomingdale, IN; Majenica Creek Honey Farm, Huntington, IN

Red Barn Farms Grilled Chicken with Fresh Thyme and Lacqured with Harris Sugar Bush Maple Syrup
Red Barn Farms, Greencastle, IN; Harris Sugar Bush, Greencastle, IN

Peaper Brothers Turnip Hash and Mash with Fresh Chives (the best thing on this delicious menu!)
Peaper Brothers Farms, Indianapolis, IN; Samuel Fischer Amish Farms, Bloomingdale, IN

Fresh Asparagus
Melton Acres, Oaktown, IN

Breads served with fresh-churned butter and persimmon jam
Scholars Inn, Bloomington, IN;  Smith Dairy Farms, Richmond, IN; The Great American Persimmon Company, Freetown, IN

As we gathered, soft bluegrass music was played by two local musicians. The director of the Center for Spiritual Life offered a blessing: we all stood and faced our farm and offered up our hopes for its fruitfulness.  And then we ate. And ate. And ate.

One of my favorite songs ever, the mantra of my hour-a-day writing career, is the "Garden Song" sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Pete Seeger, and others:

Inch by inch, row by row,
Gonna make this garden grow.
Gonna mulch it deep and low,
Gonna make it fertile ground.
Inch by inch, row by row,
Please bless these seeds I sow.
Please keep them safe below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down.

So I joined with beloved students, colleagues, and friends to bless the seeds we would be sowing, and to bless all small steps that anybody takes to make our fragile world a better place.

Indiana bucket list: progress!

With only two months left of my stay in Indiana, my top priority right now is to cram as much Indiana fun into my life as possible.  Here are a FEW of  the things I managed to do last week (plus my job, of course!)

1. Drove to Richmond, Indiana, for a school visit, traveling on Route 40, the National Road; construction on the road (which extends from Maryland to Missouri) began in 1811. I was able to drive for a short distance on the Old National Road, a one-lane rutted affair passing through farmlands ready for the spring planting.

2. Stopped at the James Whitcomb Riley birthday in Greenfield, Indiana, where Little Orphant Allie (who became Little Orphant Annie in the poem) came to work, sharing her stories with the young poet about the "gobble-uns" that would "git you ef you don't watch out!"

3. Visited the Two Sisters independent bookstore in Richmond, which has this recreation of Harry Potter's cupboard room under the stairs (my friend Alisa's daughter is the child perched on Harry's bed).

4. Attended a community theater production in Richmond of a play version of the wonderful children's novella The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  I've written a scholarly paper on the book so had to see the stage version to observe how they fleshed out the story to fill a 75-minute production. 

5. Toured the Lew Wallace studio/office in Crawfordsville where the Civil War general wrote the best-selling novel of the 19th century, Ben Hur (actually, he wrote much of it while he was governor of the New Mexico territory, quite an inspirational feat of writing productivity).

6. Spent a weekend in Chicago on a girlfriend getaway with  my friend Robin, seeing Frank Lloyd Wright's home/studio and Ernest Hemingway's birthplace in Oak Park (which Hemingway described as a town of "broad lawns and narrow minds") - this was not strictly speaking an Indiana pleasure, but "get to know Chicago" was on my list of things to do during my two years in Indiana, and now I know Chicago and this one lovely suburb much better than I did before.

7. Lay on the floor in the dark last night, with pillows and blankets, on the stage in Kresge Auditorium here at DePauw listening to a Bach piano/cello sonata in a remarkable "Lie Down and Listen" program organized by my colleague Erik Edberg - certainly a pleasure that has never been offered to me anywhere else!

So far, so good!

Always Different, Always the Same

I had the opportunity earlier this week to speak at a once-a-month lunchtime program, co-sponsored by the DePauw University Library and the Putnam County Public Library, called "Books That Made a Difference." I shared the hour with P.T. Wilson, pastor of Gobin United Methodist Church, where I worship here in Greencastle (P.T. also serves as the university chaplain). Our charge: to talk about a book that had made a difference in our lives, and why. P.T. chose Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.  I chose Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hard Lovelace.

I knew I would choose a children's book, because no books I've read as an adult have touched me as deeply and lastingly as the books I read as a child. Interestingly, P.T. first read Heinlein when he was ten. So we both chose to share a book we had loved in our childhood. The difference between the two of us is that he was reading a grown-up book when he was a child, and as as a grown-up I'm still reading (and writing) books for children.

In my remarks I singled out three things that gave the book its transformative power in my life:

1) It is the story of a girl's beginning to grow into her future career as an author. In the book, Betsy's parents come up with the idea of sending her on weekend excursions to Deep Valley's brand-new Carnegie library so she can read "the classics" rather than simply borrowing the hired girl's dime novels: "Betsy," her mother tells her, "it's a mistake for you to read that stuff. There's no great harm in it, but if you're going to be a writer you need to read good books. They train you to write, build up your mind." The best chapter in this wonderful book is Betsy's first outing downtown to the library, complete with lunch out on her own. Her father says, "Don't hurry home. Stay for a while. Browse around among the books. Every time you go you can take fifteen cents. At noon go over to Bierbauer's Bakery for a sandwich and milk and ice cream. Would you like that?" Oh, who wouldn't! By the end of the book Betsy has submitted her first story for rejection by the Ladies Home Journal and published her first poem in the local newspaper. She is on her way as a writer.

2) The book shows how creativity can be fostered within a loving, supportive community. While so many stories show the young artist as isolated and alienated, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown allows Betsy to develop her talents with the support of loving parents and friends. Throughout the series, all the characters have their dreams and goals affirmed, whether it's Betsy's writing, Julia's singing, or Carney and Bonnie's homemaking. 

3) The book, and the entire series, is suffused with kindness. The problems the characters face are small; the conflicts for the most part easily resolved; the books are filled with love and laughter. So Lovelace modeled for me as a future writer the possibility of creating lasting books built around a positive vision of humanity.

In his remarks about Stranger in a Strange Land, P.T. commented that he loves that he's read the book seven or eight times and each time finds something different. I replied that I love that I've read Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown dozens of times and each time it's the same. Whatever else is happening my my life, or my world, I can enter the space of this book where characters pursue their dreams with the caring support of those who love them. There is no place on earth that I would rather be.

Done! - So now what?

Yesterday was the grand finale of the second of the two symposiums I was in charge of this past week at the Prindle Institute for Ethics: 1) "Cool Talk about a Hot Topic: The Ethics of Communicating about Climate Change"; and 2) our 6th annual Undergraduate Ethics Symposium.  Both went extremely well, I'd say, all things considered. More important, both are now DONE. I was reminded of a favorite line uttered during finals weeks at Wellesley: "All's well that ends."

For weeks I've been (foolishly) putting the rest of my life on hold to prioritize fretting and moaning and yearning for the meadowlike expanse of time that was to open up in front of me when both symposiums were over and done with. "Oh, how lovely it will be to do all that work I've been postponing!" I'd tell myself. "Oh, how glad I'll be to able to throw myself back into writing again."

So now it's time for me actually to do the things I've been telling myself that I'm yearning to do. And of course, there was some real danger that I wouldn't come through. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre reminds us that however eagerly we make some future appointment with ourselves, there is always a real chance that we won't show up.

I knew that today was crucial. And I knew that I didn't want to spend today doing small postponed LTs (Loathsome Tasks), much as they need to be done. Today was the day to get up, make myself some hot chocolate, and write.

And I did.  It was wonderful. I read over eighty pages of my novel in progress and fell in love with my story again. This is my valentine-to-Indiana book, set right here in a town loosely based on Greencastle. It's different enough from my other books that I'm not sure any publisher is going to want to publish it, but I know that I want and need to write it. Ten minutes ago I finished writing two new pages. My plan is to have a draft of the novel done by the time I leave Indiana in June. That is goal number one for the next two months. Goal number two is just to love Indiana as much and as hard as I can.

So, Jean-Paul Sartre, today I DID show up for my appointment with myself. And how grateful I am that I did.

Take one step, then another

I'm spending my entire week consumed with thinking about global climate change as I help to host our Prindle Institute symposium, "Cool Talk about a Hot Topic: The Ethics of Communicating about Climate Change." Of course, this is an enormously depressing way to spend a week, as global climate change is, in the view of all of our speakers, by far the most urgent environmental, economic, political, and social problem ever faced (and caused) by humankind. As readers of this blog know, I prefer to occupy myself with happy thoughts about beloved children's books, covered bridges in rural Indiana, hot chocolate at the Blue Door Cafe, and other favorite things. But I remain a citizen of this country and denizen of this planet, and so occasionally I have to leave what one friend calls my "Betsy-Tacy bubble" (referring to my obsessive fandom for this series of children's books by Maud Hart Lovelace) and engage with the crucial issues of our world at this time.

The opening keynote yesterday was a stunning talk by Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. In the Q & A period, he was entertaining a question about action that individuals can take to reduce their carbon impact (although individual actions at best can amount to only about 10 percent of the reductions needed; still, 10 percent is not a negligible reduction). He said that researchers are investigating the question of whether individuals who take some small step toward living a more sustainable life tend to say something like, "Look at me! I changed all my light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs, so now I've done my bit to stall global warming!" or if instead they say, "Changing my light bulbs wasn't so hard! So now I can start biking on short errands rather than driving! And I can start drying my clothes on a clothes line!"  He said that the empirical evidence favors the latter. The important thing is just to get started. Then one small step can lead to another.

Of course, as the author of a blog called "An Hour a Day," I was delighted to hear this and to be vindicated in my general life approach that one small step, one hour spent writing, one page written, can lead to another, and another, and another. I thought about all the changes I want to make in my life - related to work productivity, financial security, enhanced physical health and emotional well-being - and how the most important thing I can do on all fronts is just to take that one first step.

Now, when it comes to global climate change, as I just said, individual steps by all of us are not going to be nearly enough.  We need to take collective action to make massive shifts away from our reliance on fossil fuels in a way that none of us can do on our own. Still, I can take my own small steps toward individual carbon reduction, as well as my own small steps toward becoming more politically engaged and activist on this issue

So leaving my Betsy-Tacy bubble for a while yesterday provided me with inspiration to start changing out those light bulbs, writing to my congressional representatives, and marching on Washington the next time that the opportunity presents itself - as well as lovely confirmation of my core time management principle.

Thumb Twiddling

This is my stressful week where I'm in charge of not one, but two, symposiums sponsored by the Prindle Institute for Ethics. The first is on the ethics of how we communicate about climate change: six prominent speakers - two philosophers, a sociologist, a geo-scientist, a political scientist, and the director of Yale's Project on Climate Change Communication - are coming to campus to talk about how we should talk about this most urgent environmental issue of our time, or arguably of any time in human history. The second is our sixth annual Undergraduate Ethics Symposium, which brings talented, highly motivated undergraduate students from around the country (as well as some of DePauw's own best and brightest) to the Prindle Institute to share their analytic and creative works about ethics. Both events are almost guaranteed to go extremely well: an interdisciplinary committee that I put together worked for almost a year on the climate change event, and the Undergraduate Ethics Symposium (which I've attended for the last four years) is always wonderful. Nonetheless, it's hard for me to do anything else this week except pace and fret and gnaw at my fingernails.

Pacing, fretting, and fingernail-gnawing are not productive or pleasant activities.

I think it may be too much for me to expect my week to be filled with productive activities (above and beyond the productive activities associated with both symposiums), so I'm going to try to fill any free hours with pleasant ones. I crammed my weekend full of enormous quantities of sister fun: opening day of the Bloomington Farmers Market; daffodils in bloom at the House of the Singing Winds (the home and studio of Hoosier Impressionist artist T. C. Steele); lunch in the cute touristy town of Nashville, Indiana; a bus tour of Columbus, Indiana, dubbed the sixth most architecturally significant city in the United States (up there with New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Washington, D.C.) for its policy of having all its public buildings designed by famous modernist architects; overnight at the gorgeous historic West Baden Springs resort (rightly dubbed "the Eighth Wonder of the World"); a stroll through Madison, Indiana, situated on the banks of the Ohio River, which Charles Kuralt called the most beautiful river town in America; and a quick glimpse of one somewhat trickly waterfall at Clifty Falls State Park.

Yesterday I had the pleasures of seeing my Honor Scholar student here at DePauw complete the draft of her lovely honors thesis on academic integrity and of participating via phone in the doctoral dissertation defense of a terrific grad student at CU, whose dissertation offers a theory of just immigration policy. I had a long walk with my friend Nicki and her little dog, Henry. And then supper last night? Why, a hot fudge sundae with black raspberry ice cream at Dairy Castle, of course.

So instead of pacing, a lovely April walk past daffodils and tulips in bloom. Instead of fretting, stimulating philosophical conversation about academic integrity and immigration. Instead of fingernail-gnawing, licking the last bit of hot fudge sauce off my spoon.  Sounds good to me.