John Turenne
There are so many EVENTS in the first month of this program. I feel like every night of the week I need to decide, when I come home, whether I'm going to go out again in two hours or stay in for the night. There are dinners and hang-outs and bar concerts and club meetings and documentaries. I don't think they're going to end, either. Lately I've been deciding to stay in a lot, which these days to me has the air of a quiet triumph. Yes. Not going out but staying in, either with myself, or for myself, or to face myself and let it go, but not to drive away my anxiety by jumping in the car, and not to fend off loneliness by trying to get to every social engagement that comes up.
Tonight, though, I decided to go about 20 minutes before it started, for another reason -- that I wanted to see what it was about, and it was only happening once here, and I'm going to have lunch with John Turenne and the other certificate students on Thursday, and I didn't want to come in without any context at all. This is a very interesting program for me because on the outside and from the outset, it has lots in common with other university courses I've taken --
syllabi,
binders all over the place,
good-smelling exciting textbooks,
pens,
teachers and students,
powerpoints (love-hate relationship with the powerpoints),
sitting still for long periods of time and satisfying myself with copious notes,
that very adrenal feeling that comes from trying to keep up with a lecture,
the idea of "studying" and "work" and going to special places or putting myself into a special mindset to "complete" these things,
grandiose hopes for the future,
performance anxiety (though the character and intensity of this has significantly changed, which I'm real real happy about)
But on the other hand, this program is and intends to be quite different from those courses. And I want to respond differently than I once did, too. One of the central questions of the program, I think, is "How do we transmit knowledge of agriculture to people in a structured way?" People who did not grow up with it, who didn't receive it as part of their formation. How is that done? How can you learn to farm as an adult?
Now, one answer to that question that made me a little shamefaced when I realized it last fall is: trial and error. People with all sorts of careers are gardening on the side. So then the question is, why am I in this program? Why not teach language and garden on the side? It feels good to be here, but why am I here?
One clear reason is: not to be isolated in this desire. I want to learn to farm, and I don't want to be alone in that. This is a way to "network," to meet people and through those meetings, to see more options and have the possibility of more experiences, more learning. This fall at the Giving Tree, I worked on a farm but didn't see the history or the context, which made it a lot harder to deal with. One thing I have seen is that I treated it as Sue's fault that I didn't see the history and the context, as though it were somehow her job to educate me. I blamed her for my own feelings of isolation and frustration, sometimes... I wanted to be powerful on that farm. I wanted to be able to change the things that I didn't like about it, and to make other people feel better about being there. I wanted that so much when I was there, but I also wanted to avoid it and be free to roam and travel and do whatever I wanted. It felt like a failing organization to me, a sick one, and i really wanted to blame somebody for that because I was spending months of my life there, because I had given up the job in Ann Arbor and committed to the farm....really, I wanted to blame somebody for the Giving Tree not feeling like a better, more organized, more viable, more sane place to work because I was mad that it wasn't everything I expected, and mad at myself for not being better, more organized, more viable, more sane. Because if I were those things, maybe it would rub off onto the farm. I was afraid that I was like Sue: "bad at things." Bad at communication, bad at handling stress, bad at following through with what she started, bad at keeping track, bad at delegating work in an efficient way. And very, very kind to me. Very encouraging of me. I know Sue has her ego in what she does, in who she has affected and the change she has wrought in the local food system. I saw her fire somebody who respectfully disagreed with her too regularly. (At least, that was how I perceived it at the time.) I resented her because I thought she had all these flaws and yet she was my sponsor, my introducer -- she passed on so much information, so many connections to me.
I resented her because I felt neither responsibility for nor confidence in myself, in my own ability to learn and make connections in this community.
This program presented an opportunity, and I took the opportunity because it sounded too good to pass up, because I wanted...wanted...just wanted. DIdn't know exactly what. To learn to farm, to learn the workings of something I was fascinated by at a distance. Health -- know-how -- learning to be practical, to be efficient. Learning about the earth and my body. Working outside. Community. Just like the LVs. It's funny -- I seem to have these qualms about organizations I join -- I like small groups of people working together to promote health and independence and ideals and community. I'm also inspired by the idea of helping to found something, of shaping it with the combined energy of myself and my friends, the intimacy and freshness of that -- but I get really uncomfortable when I smell the possibility of failure, of breakdown, even of flaw, of disappointment. I get discouraged. I want somebody else to do it, to keep things together, at the same time that I want so badly to keep it all together myself, and I don't have fun with it. Sopranos, LVs, The Giving Tree, even the certificate program at moments. I want to jump ship, I get scared. I don't know what is so precious about my time and thought that I can't afford to spend it learning and describing and being engaged, eh? Man, I love writing this. It's like taking a good poop.
Today in choir the four new singers introduced ourselves -- two of us had sung with Sandra Snow before, and she said it was so funny, that we would find that these connections just keep coming back, in ways that surprise you and delight and embarrass, both good and horribly uncomfortable, so be careful what you sow. (I thought it was funny that she noted the "bad" side of that too.) I have already discovered this particular track of experience myself, and I call it "revisitings." It makes me want to meet every person as though I'm going to see them again for sure. Maybe I don't have to use that as a reason for being real, and being kind. There's a difference between treating somebody well and wanting them to fall in love with you, which I want to keep in mind as I'm making my way around this community. I see that sometimes in myself -- I exude this air of...something. I don't know what to call it right off the bat. Tonight Laura, an anthropolgy professor I worked with at the Food Co-op, told me after the John Turenne talk, as I scooted past her to get some free Fair-Trade Coffee Grounds from Rwanda for Mason, "You just smile too much." "I do?" I asked, a little breathless and taken aback. "...you are too cute," she said. "Well, thanks, Laura, I'll take that," I told her, smiling still, and ran out again.
Now, not dwelling too much on what that meant from her side, because it doesn't really matter, on my side it was a red flag. Smiling big is what I do when I'm uncomfortable and flowing into automatic mode, turning my light on really bright to blind oncoming traffic. I know I don't have to do that.
Tonight, though, I decided to go about 20 minutes before it started, for another reason -- that I wanted to see what it was about, and it was only happening once here, and I'm going to have lunch with John Turenne and the other certificate students on Thursday, and I didn't want to come in without any context at all. This is a very interesting program for me because on the outside and from the outset, it has lots in common with other university courses I've taken --
syllabi,
binders all over the place,
good-smelling exciting textbooks,
pens,
teachers and students,
powerpoints (love-hate relationship with the powerpoints),
sitting still for long periods of time and satisfying myself with copious notes,
that very adrenal feeling that comes from trying to keep up with a lecture,
the idea of "studying" and "work" and going to special places or putting myself into a special mindset to "complete" these things,
grandiose hopes for the future,
performance anxiety (though the character and intensity of this has significantly changed, which I'm real real happy about)
But on the other hand, this program is and intends to be quite different from those courses. And I want to respond differently than I once did, too. One of the central questions of the program, I think, is "How do we transmit knowledge of agriculture to people in a structured way?" People who did not grow up with it, who didn't receive it as part of their formation. How is that done? How can you learn to farm as an adult?
Now, one answer to that question that made me a little shamefaced when I realized it last fall is: trial and error. People with all sorts of careers are gardening on the side. So then the question is, why am I in this program? Why not teach language and garden on the side? It feels good to be here, but why am I here?
One clear reason is: not to be isolated in this desire. I want to learn to farm, and I don't want to be alone in that. This is a way to "network," to meet people and through those meetings, to see more options and have the possibility of more experiences, more learning. This fall at the Giving Tree, I worked on a farm but didn't see the history or the context, which made it a lot harder to deal with. One thing I have seen is that I treated it as Sue's fault that I didn't see the history and the context, as though it were somehow her job to educate me. I blamed her for my own feelings of isolation and frustration, sometimes... I wanted to be powerful on that farm. I wanted to be able to change the things that I didn't like about it, and to make other people feel better about being there. I wanted that so much when I was there, but I also wanted to avoid it and be free to roam and travel and do whatever I wanted. It felt like a failing organization to me, a sick one, and i really wanted to blame somebody for that because I was spending months of my life there, because I had given up the job in Ann Arbor and committed to the farm....really, I wanted to blame somebody for the Giving Tree not feeling like a better, more organized, more viable, more sane place to work because I was mad that it wasn't everything I expected, and mad at myself for not being better, more organized, more viable, more sane. Because if I were those things, maybe it would rub off onto the farm. I was afraid that I was like Sue: "bad at things." Bad at communication, bad at handling stress, bad at following through with what she started, bad at keeping track, bad at delegating work in an efficient way. And very, very kind to me. Very encouraging of me. I know Sue has her ego in what she does, in who she has affected and the change she has wrought in the local food system. I saw her fire somebody who respectfully disagreed with her too regularly. (At least, that was how I perceived it at the time.) I resented her because I thought she had all these flaws and yet she was my sponsor, my introducer -- she passed on so much information, so many connections to me.
I resented her because I felt neither responsibility for nor confidence in myself, in my own ability to learn and make connections in this community.
This program presented an opportunity, and I took the opportunity because it sounded too good to pass up, because I wanted...wanted...just wanted. DIdn't know exactly what. To learn to farm, to learn the workings of something I was fascinated by at a distance. Health -- know-how -- learning to be practical, to be efficient. Learning about the earth and my body. Working outside. Community. Just like the LVs. It's funny -- I seem to have these qualms about organizations I join -- I like small groups of people working together to promote health and independence and ideals and community. I'm also inspired by the idea of helping to found something, of shaping it with the combined energy of myself and my friends, the intimacy and freshness of that -- but I get really uncomfortable when I smell the possibility of failure, of breakdown, even of flaw, of disappointment. I get discouraged. I want somebody else to do it, to keep things together, at the same time that I want so badly to keep it all together myself, and I don't have fun with it. Sopranos, LVs, The Giving Tree, even the certificate program at moments. I want to jump ship, I get scared. I don't know what is so precious about my time and thought that I can't afford to spend it learning and describing and being engaged, eh? Man, I love writing this. It's like taking a good poop.
Today in choir the four new singers introduced ourselves -- two of us had sung with Sandra Snow before, and she said it was so funny, that we would find that these connections just keep coming back, in ways that surprise you and delight and embarrass, both good and horribly uncomfortable, so be careful what you sow. (I thought it was funny that she noted the "bad" side of that too.) I have already discovered this particular track of experience myself, and I call it "revisitings." It makes me want to meet every person as though I'm going to see them again for sure. Maybe I don't have to use that as a reason for being real, and being kind. There's a difference between treating somebody well and wanting them to fall in love with you, which I want to keep in mind as I'm making my way around this community. I see that sometimes in myself -- I exude this air of...something. I don't know what to call it right off the bat. Tonight Laura, an anthropolgy professor I worked with at the Food Co-op, told me after the John Turenne talk, as I scooted past her to get some free Fair-Trade Coffee Grounds from Rwanda for Mason, "You just smile too much." "I do?" I asked, a little breathless and taken aback. "...you are too cute," she said. "Well, thanks, Laura, I'll take that," I told her, smiling still, and ran out again.
Now, not dwelling too much on what that meant from her side, because it doesn't really matter, on my side it was a red flag. Smiling big is what I do when I'm uncomfortable and flowing into automatic mode, turning my light on really bright to blind oncoming traffic. I know I don't have to do that.