Failure

Today the discussion over at Midwest Homesteading and Permaculture is about things that we've tried and then failed at. Also, about how dangerous and violent emus are, but that I already know all 

about....

Music. I have tried and failed to learn to play a number of instruments. It is hard, I have a lot of respect for those who can do this, but it is not something I enjoy enough to keep trying.

 

 See these? Oh, the picture is gorgeous but the filling had so much salt that we had to scoop it out and just eat the pepper and the bacon.

These fried green tomatoes were way too salty too. Salt has been a problem in my kitchen lately. I am having a hard time finding the balance since I switched from Kosher flake salt to fine ground pink sea salt. I have since switched back. One year I put too much cayenne in everything, or so I thought. I have since decided that there is no such thing as too much cayenne. Maybe that's why I can't taste salt...

Failure, as I tell my writing students, is an indicator of what needs improvement. It is a chance to revise and do better. If you always get it right then there is no learning, or if no one pointed out that you needed improvement, that is even worse. Revision is learning. Life is about failing over and over again.

When I was in the sixth grade I came home sobbing every day for a week and hid all my homework from my parents. A teacher had told us that if we failed an exam we would fail the class and that homework was just as important. It was history and the homework was stupid map colouring. I pointed out that one of the maps was wrong and I failed the worksheet. I got so anxious over failing the class that I couldn't eat or sleep for a week. I finally broke down crying to my dad and he called the school.

I had a B in the class. Also, failing that worksheet for pointing out an outdated borderline and country name is bullshit. I should have gotten extra credit.

Failing is not something to be afraid of. It is what life is all about, learning holds a lot of it intrinsically, and kitchen failures? My mistakes make me a better cook. Yes, I still have a fire extinguisher and activated charcoal in my first aid kit- I have set the oven on fire too many times and spent too many nights in the ER with Chad over food poisoning when we were first married to not be super aware of that. Those experiences made me research fire safety, food safety, and general health. Bonus is that I am pretty sure Chad is now immune to most food poisoning bacteria. So there is that.

I want my kids to fail too. Lily has burnt eggs so many times that she knows now how NOT to burn them. She used the wrong kind of paper to paint with and the paper ripped when she tried to move it, she knows now that details like paper thickness matter. She cut herself with her new pocket knife. She knows now not to cut toward her hand AND she knows how to deal with a deep slice of a cut. She is my brave girl and being fearless of failure has led her to fail a lot. Instead of shaming her and internalising it, we focus on how failure is part of the process and not a destination. It is only the outcome IF you stop there and do not keep trying.

Sometimes failing is a good place to stop though. Sometimes relationships fail and you just have to walk away. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done for the lamb attacked by a fox during birth and the vet has to put him down. Sometimes failure is a sign that it is time to move on. Is it still failure then? Maybe. Maybe we have too much tied up in that word as a culture to really embrace it?

 

I usually only blog success in the kitchen. Should I start including the failures too? What things have you tried and failed at?

Muchness

 

 A few months back a friend left a comment that she was glad to see my muchness coming back. Those words swirled around me like a hug. This was exactly how I was feeling, like I had lost something and it was just an ember. I have to do everything to get the fire back and keep it strong enough to warm me and fill me up. I was feeling so lost and so cold.

Recently another friend said she writes because not writing feels wrong. Yes. This. I love writing, but it goes deeper than that. For me, writing is like working out is for some people. That is the only way I can describe it- I need it to stay healthy physically. Without this creative outlet, I get tired and sluggish and even nauseous. I get foggy in my thinking, forgetful, and unattentive. With the daily exercise, I feel bright and sharp and ready for the world. Yet, doing so and hitting publish takes a certain amount of bravery. Silence is safer.

"And since your history of silence
Won’t do you any good,
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave"
- Sara Bareilles, Jack Antonoff

Then this song comes on the radio and it lights me up from the inside every time I hear it.  So much silence.  Sometimes being brave means walking away and putting things behind you. Grief does strange things to people.

When I set out to revive my blog, it seemed like a good first step. Promising to write once a week wasn't working. I'd miss it and then feel guilty and avoid it again. Every other day was a habit to easily avoided as well and it was too easy too let the draft folder pile up. Every day was easier, it could become a daily routine, but if now and then I miss one or just post a photo, it would be doable.

I also needed to stop drafting and fussing over proofreading. That means that sometimes there are errors and the writing is messy. I am trying to hold a higher standard than casual blog writing, but at the same time, that is what this is. Messy in many ways. I am not going to be critical about this when I need to focus on editing other work. This writing gets to be raw and true and jagged like a field stone pushed up by Spring rains flooding the soil.

Another friend worried over starting a blog. I said do it. Do it. Write every day. Don't proof. Don't fuss. Write about what matters to you. Don't care if it is all over the place. We are adding to the history books, folks. These are the modern diaries that historian will someday use, just as we use letters and diaries from past eras to compare and verify historical documents and figure out what daily life was really like. If that means someday someone will look at pictures of my lunch and my children and my ramblings about feminism, then so be it. History of the peasants tells more about life than the history of kings. Your story matters. My story matters. If you disagree, there is a whole huge Internet to find some other story to read or you can let silence be the ashes of your life. I'm done with silence. I am reviving the fire.

Holiday Cheer and Glad Tide(ings) Preview

The holidays are not easy on me.

My anxiety rises every time I go shopping. The extra lights, extra people, extra noise. I hate it more than anything. That would be my boggart for sure- the malls at Christmas, the traffic around malls, and maybe even a crowd of adults with glazed eyes asking for the things they want.

How am I going to get through this?

Internet shopping, extra coffee, and some extra patience with myself.

Back at home I am working with a lot of laundry issues and changes. Here's my latest project:

Indoor clothes lines. $12 on Amazon and it mounts to the wall. It is also supposed to be retractable, but that part doesn't work well. No mind, since it will just stay extended. Not as much sag as we thought it would have either, but I cannot hang jeans or towels on it. It isn't heavy duty enough for that. Tomorrow I will post how we dry those heavier items and the math behind why we have started this new change.

With the success we have had not running the dryer this last month, I think we will seriously look into an outdoor line for next Spring.

I am also working on the cookbook and holiday photos and keeping the kids entertained. The usual stuff keeps me busy and distracted and joyful.

Today, December 2nd

Today my girls are outside picking rose hips for tea they are making.

Isaac is playing with his toy cars.

Chili is bubbling on the woodstove.

Chad and Grampa are cutting and stacking firewood.

I am planning out the Christmas blog series of how I am going to emotionally survive the holiday season. Lily told the pastor at Children Time, in front of the whole congregation, that all she wants for Christmas is a Midwife kit and for her mama to be happy because Mama is always sad at Christmas.

Whoa, hearing that hurt my heart. 

Time for a change, y'all.

This year we are also paring down activities and changing things up a little bit. We are hand-making quite a lot of the gifts this year, we are hand-making ornaments, hand-painting wrapping paper, decorating the tree just us without company, and we are going to stay home more.

Staying home also means more reading time, more dancing time, more art, and more home cooking our meals. I am really looking forward to weather cancellations, snowed in days, and hot tea.

As I was planning out what to write this week and next, I also looked at archived blog posts. It is amazing to see how much our family has changed and how slow this change has happened. Last night I hug my laundry on indoor lines. Even as recently as last year I was proclaiming the high praise of the electric dryer and saying that hang drying clothes was NEVER going to happen at our house.

Change happens. When it is real change, it is gentle and slow. So that is how we will change our traditions here too.

Happy Monday!