Inspired
by menders
near and far, I got
out a needle, some light
purple thread, and got to work.
I want to wear this fragile
cotton shirt again.
Because...​

Oh.
​And always
have a sense of humor.
For 26 years, I have only seen
colors, shapes, & an artist's signature.
When I told my husband about this project,
he asked: "Oh, your dancer shirt?"...
"My what? No, the one with
cool colors and
shapes." 

I asked:
Is it good enough?
Am I good enough for all this?
Then I look at the work and experience
an uncontainable surge
of energy. 

OK Greta.
I'll try. But when
the winds blow and my heart
races, I run for shelter to protect myself and
my children. I think, "my children are
watching, I must stay calm."
Isn't it my job to
​protect?

I think,
though, that you're
asking me to stop protecting by
running away. You're telling me that we,
mothers and fathers across the planet, have to protect
not by seeking shelter from the storm, but
by facing the wind, rain and fear
and calling them what
they are. 

I am not
a jazz musician,
but I love the energy that
comes from a group ​of people working
together to find solutions to real problems. With our
Neighborhood Action Group (the NAGs),
we've walked in a parade and 
organized neighborhood
conversations. 

Here are three that I currently following:

Mothers of Invention
(With former Irish President Mary Robinson and comedian Maeve Higgins)

No Place Like Home
(Anna Jane Joyner & Mary Anne Hitt; Sponsored by The Sierra Club)
​
Cultivating Place
(With Jeniffer Jewell - Focus on gardening, but really about the human spirit)

Greta -
This is how we 
express our panic in New
Hampshire. I know we look silly,
but we're listening - - to you and to each
other. Personally, I'm grateful to you for keeping
us honest and inspiring us to say 'No'
by saying  'Yes' to
this mess.

Clearly, we
have a hodge-podge.
Of course, my favorites are the
​ones I made when first married in 1992 and
the re-used ones from my grandmother's house that
I found in her attic when she died and then
hung in our living room a decade
ago - - just to try
​the colors...

This week
I've been thinking
about  the idea of 'window
dressing,' of giving a superficial, but
misleading impression. Most of the 1930's New
Deal murals I studied in college (see last week's blog
​post, My Green New Deal, Part 1) were colorful
celebrations of the American Dream,
a dream that for millions of
people at that time
was a broken
​promise. 

No, I'm not talking
about the impact or reality of an aging
​population or racism
​in our country.

I'm talking about
The Green New Deal and
all the controversy it is inspiring.

It turns out,
that in 1987, at the age of 21,
I traveled around  the United States
on Amtrak, stayed with alumni ​from my college in twelve
​different cities, and researched murals painted
during the Great Depression in Post
Offices ​and other public
​buildings.

Amtrak employees
provided  hats for the kids. I got
out my camera and made friends. These places,
people and works of public art I was so
inspired by thirty-two years ago
are why I care so
​much.

It's hard to believe
that there are imperfections
with these perfect symmetries and designs.
But there are. Energy can not be created nor destroyed,
but it can be transferred between objects,
creating inefficiencies
​along the way.

​
​It is clear
that Adams witnessed
and understood a whole lot more
about the human condition than his reverent
landscapes had ever revealed to
​me on their own. 

And I laughed
when I saw myself in Mitch
Epstein's "Altamont Pass Wind Farm."
So funny how we play games with
each other, with nature and
with ourselves.
​

And,
I loved Luis
Faglio's reflection about beach
restoration, how it celebrates the "hope
and the irony that we are able
​to move sand."
​

2013:
A blog called
"Ataraxia Gardens"?
It sounded exotic. Ataraxy stands
for "serene calmness." I needed that. For
a bunch of ancient Greeks, Ataraxia was a lucid
state of ​robust equanimity. Heaven.
That's me. In the garden.
I wanted to ​share.
​

2014:
Then I found
Rufus and George.
Why not let them speak for me?
Our global problems are all about consumption
and our need for objects of all kinds. What insights could
a ruffled 50-year-old Steif Chimpanzee and a broken
china pug share about our relationship to all
our belongings, big and small?
So I briefly had a blog
called "Rufus &
​George."

2015:
There was
a problem, though.
I had more to  say than Rufus &
George understood, about how stuck we seemed,
caught between 20th century expectations and 21st century
realities. It hit me when I forgot to pull up instead of push down when
I peed. It's so confusing, changing a habit I'd had my entire life.
Flush the toilet. Push down. Until now, when everything
was a hybrid. So I created a blog, a business,
and a book, all called "Our
​Hybrid Lives."
​

2016:
But I was stuck.
Why would anyone care?
Who was I behind the blog, book
and business? What was I trying to prove, and to
whom? So I got help. When my new business coach asked
me those same questions, I knew, in my heart, that I
was a photographer. When she asked me what I
loved, I knew -- compost and being outside
and noticing light and texture and
beauty. So I ignored all I had
been doing, got my
camera and
explored.

2017:
I kept exploring,
while taking small steps
forward. A web site. A business card.
A trip to New York City to photograph compost
& a few months later, have a 'pop-up' show where
I stood by my work and told people I was a
photographer and that I was into
compost, which kept inviting
me to go deeper, beyond
the soil, and into
​myself. 

2018:
I kept diving.
Saboteurs yacked on 
my shoulder, but I kept going.  
A visit to my sister in Idaho gave me time
to process. Compost, it seems, has the answers for me.
Pay attention. Be patient. Honor micro- dramas.
Allow for the mess and complexity
contained in any story, even
my own. Change "by
degrees."

​