Connections and Tetris

Connections

This week I came to the designated end of a big push to find more students.  On Wednesday we started a class for brand-new beginners.  My goal was to fill it with ten families, but we planned to make it work with just five.  In the end we only came up with two, and I was feeling somewhat defeated over the weekend.  But after the first class, and upon review of what's in the pipeline, I think my work in "advertising" was truly positive.

If you know me, you know I love all my students, and have found ways to connect successfully with a wide variety of profiles, but in replaying comments that Jared and I have made to each other over the years, I realized I heard myself saying that I really want to keep investing in beginners and growing together over the long haul.  I did some research over the summer by connecting with people who have done group starts, as opposed to the one-at-a-time starts I have always done, and I got some great ideas, and frankly, a good feeling about the group dynamic, and the easy out on all sides for those who start in our studio but find that Suzuki lessons with us is not what they were looking for.

Despite various methods of trying to reach out over the years to new students (because there really are people out there who want to play the violin, viola, and cello, and who will mesh well with our particular way of doing things!), nearly all of our students have come down to word-of-mouth connections.  With some great advice on how to "language" things from my dad, I communicated with so many people I have connections with.   Emails, and text messages, and fliers, and in-person communications EVERY day for some weeks.  As a result, not only do we have the two new students, but actually several more who are very interested in starting with us in the next few months, but for  a variety of normal logistical reasons couldn't do this particular class.  It feels very hopeful.  I have also come to realize that despite my introversion, I am definitely someone who is looking to connect with people and connect people to each other.

Now that we are off to a solid start with this class, I feel like I can relax a little bit.  Make some cookies or something...

***

Tetris

Earlier this year I was talking to another parent who lives in a house only a little bigger than our 840 square feet, with as many family members.  She described her home life as constantly shuffling *things* around.  I can't tell you how much that applies in our house, too.  Especially since Jared and I are teaching in this same tiny space.  

Group class days at home (currently Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday), we reorient our dining table and chairs by 90 degrees in our dining room/kitchen annex/utility room, and add our sofa (truly only a love seat) so that we have room in our tiny living room for our class.  This sounds simple, but it involves massive clean-up (see: three kids).  And also, if anyone needs to access the fridge or bulk goods during the hours of rearrange, it involves literally climbing over the table to reach them.  (Let's say Jared wants to put rice in the rice cooker for dinner in between two lessons.  He is standing on top of chairs and the dining table to reach the corner where the rice bin is located, and then climbing back over everything to reach the pot, hidden from view behind a curtain in the so-called kitchen.)

Let's talk about our official *kitchen*.  The so called foot-space, if no cabinet or over doors are open, is about seven feet by three feet, boxed in by a weird pillar in the middle.  Smack in the middle of that small walking space, we have a full-size dishwasher on gimpy wheels (you know that shopping carts which doesn't run smoothly? > Those wheels.), which came with the house.  The dishwasher is at all times blocking a) the silverware drawer and the kids' dishes drawer, b) the sink, c) the oven, and/or d) the cabinet.  It is truly the most difficult small kitchen we have ever had in all our dwelling places.  When I gave my parents their first tour of our house on Skype, I showed them the kitchen, and my dad kept insisting he'd like to see more of it.  But that was it.  He'd seen it all.  I have done less cooking in this house than I have in any place I've ever lived, and I'd like to think it's because Jared likes to cook and would rather I do more kid stuff.  That is likely true, but also, it's because it is such an awful kitchen to work in, I usually want to give up before I start.  In order to do anything in there, one is physically shoving the dishwasher back and forth, climbing over chairs, walking in wide arcs in and out of the kitchen around the pillar, squeezing past the table to access the bulk goods and refrigerator, and becoming totally exasperated.  Jared is a saint (truly a SAINT!) and cooks copious amounts of tasty and nutritious food for all of us, and then washes the dishes.  I honestly don't know how it doesn't drive him insane.  

There is also the laundry.  The clean laundry migrates from the dryer and various precarious hang-drying spots to the sleeper sofa, and then sometimes to the beds or tops of bedroom cabinets before it gets folded and put away, often in a hurry before students arrive. Hurriedly dumped on the bed, that is.  Next to Jared's nice cello in its case, and a pile of books which fell off the adjoining bookshelf, a sleepy cat or two, and hopefully not on Laurel's napping spot.

These are all the most obvious examples of work-flow issues and TETRIS in our house, and I could go on for hours if I wanted to.  There have only been two places I've lived as an adult where I thought my home was tidy and organized, and both of those had a LOT more square footage per person than my truly charming 1940s War house.

Anyway, this is not a complaint.  It's really to preface my excitement about some genuine change coming down the pipeline, which is so close, I can almost... feel it.

My 9'x5' mini-studio attached to the end of the garage is in full use for all of my lessons now, and the larger 13'x20' studio is getting close to usable.  Plus, of course, Jared and his dad added the 12'x12' storage shed last year (which could use some more internal work on my part to get everything stored well).  Right now! > the garage studio is sheet-rocked minus the window and skylight openings and the attic access.  There is still taping and floating, texturing and painting, and eventually flooring and baseboards to go (and probably several things I don't know about).  The new donor upright piano our neighbors passed along needs work before it is ready to lead improvisation in Dalcroze or accompany the string group.  It is playable (although a half-step flat), but we need a professional to work on it - no one has maintained it in at least 20 years....

But as soon as we deem that room suitable for all group classes, I have grand plans for interior  house reorganization, which I know will improve our family flow.  The kitchen will be more functional (although a full remodel/addition would be the true solution to its issues).  I might even consider cooking something more complex than popcorn.  The living room will be friendlier.  The laundry room/dining room/kitchen annex will be a wee bit less crowded.  We will have TWO bedrooms in which to store beds, toys, books, and homeschool stuff, and I will not have *six people stepping on my bed pillow as part of their normal throughway every day*.  This evolution will not be instantaneous.  It will probably take several months from start to finish, but I am excited.  Also, in this house, I am ALWAYS trying to clean out. (Which goes against my nature.  But so does looking at the horrible headache of clutter all the time.) I have no illusions that our space is going to be showing up in House Beautiful, but I have hopes that certain things will be more functional for all family members.  I have been committing Tetris in my mind with all the furniture in anticipation.

Peach Bundt Cake

For that huge segment of the population DYING to know the recipe for Laurel's birthday cake...

I did some serious internet scouring for a peach bundt cake which was also... vegan, gluten-free, no added oil, and lower sugar.  Ha.

Most of the recipes along this line started with: six eggs, two cups of sugar, two sticks of butter, a cup of sour cream...  I am sure they are delicious!  But they will not suit our family eating issues.  So I found a somewhat unrelated recipe and altered it, and this is what I came up with:

2 cups all-purpose gluten free flour (Namaste is what we have on hand)
1 cup almond flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1tablespoon ground golden flaxseed
1 1/2 cups almond milk
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chopped and peeled fresh peaches
oil and almond flour for the bundt pan

Mix flax, milk, and vinegar and let it sit.  Sift dry ingredients together and pour in liquids.  Fold in peaches.  Pour into bundt pan.

Bake in a at 350 for 45 mins.  Let cool completely.

It turned out fine, but was far from spectacular.  I was vaguely disappointed.

Next time I *might* add some cinnamon, which showed  up in various recipes, and also more maple syrup - perhaps around 1 cup total, and cut a 1/2 cup of the almond milk.  I would also up the almond flour to 1 1/2 cups and lower the flour blend to 1 1/2 cups as well.  And dice the peaches even finer.

Imperialist Gardens

Yesterday morning as I was walking the neighborhood solo while the kids were still sleeping, basking in the morning sunlight, enjoying exploring everything I can see, my mind was whirring, as it is often wont to.  Some themes from the previous night's post came spinning out in new ways, and now I have more to say, and it is not about schooling, although maybe it is...

It is about colonialism in all the negative senses of the word. 

As I look at yards around houses, I see familiar things.  I see a few large native trees.  I see some smaller ornamental trees, usually imported from another continent.  I see lawn.  The lush lawns are made up of only one or two species of grass not from around here.  The scraggly lawns are made up of whatever felt like growing.  Most of them, lush or otherwise, are regularly mowed into submission, chopped to a length deemed attractive by the residents, or to a length imagined to be deemed attractive by the neighbors.  There are flower beds containing shrubs and flowers and various plantings, mostly imported from other continents.  And there are the gardener's nemesis: weeds.  Weeds, of course, are ugly plants that we don't want soiling our space.  Or a gentler definition: weeds are any plant that is not where we want it to be. 

In a naturally balanced ecosystem, of course, there are no weeds.  Weeds are only defined by what humans don't want.

Think me crazy, but I have always been sympathetic to weeds, and I have felt badly about pulling them, preferring to let life live its own way.  But of course, that isn't practical is it? 

I realized on my walk, all of a sudden, that the imperialist culture of Western Europe (which we erroneously conflate with Christianity ALL THE TIME) that took over the world, snatching unknown people for forced labor, and rounding up or killing other unknown people which were in the way, to create a lifestyle of comfort for ourselves, is exactly how we create havens of rest around our homes, too.  "Weeds" are how we see the native plants which are the foundation of the carefully balanced ecosystem in our place.  And "weeds" are how we see native people who don't fit in with our culture of comfort.  We bring in other, more-comfortable-to-us species to please our senses without considering the soil, the water systems, the insects, the birds, or anything else that lives in symbiosis.

This was heavily on the back burner of my mind while I was teaching in my corner room at the church in Gig Harbor late yesterday afternoon, when a man came around the corner with a LARGE propane torch, setting fire to the weeds growing up between the landscaping rocks just outside my window.  He got carried away, and accidentally burned some young trees and ferns and shrubs which were meant to stay.  With heavy clouds of smoke going up, he had to run the hose on his fires and stomp them out, leaving charred blackness in the so-called landscaping.  Then he came back with a huge plastic bucket labelled weed-killer. 

The man was merely doing his job. 

I felt angry.  Vaguely angry that he was endangering the building with roaring fires so close to the eaves.  Very angry that he let the fires burn some carefully bedded plants.  Partially angry at the environmental degradation caused by unnecessary smoke, the production of propane for this purpose, and the poison of the weed killer.  But I was most angry that we see the miracle of tenacious, beautiful native life, growing in its own perfect spot, as a nuisance which must be killed. 

But the man was merely doing his job. 

We do this stuff ALL the time in so many ways.  And we have NO idea what we are doing.  We are all just doing our jobs.  This is how its always been done.  This is the most efficient, expedient way.  This is what's practical.  This is what the neighbors expect.  This is normal. 

We never stop to think outside the box - our little box of cultural comfort handed down to us generation after generation.  I come from slave-owners many generations back.  Slavery is officially illegal, but do you think all the attitudes which made it possible are dead?  I doubt it.  There are tiny whispers in the way we do little day-to-day things, handed down from parents to children, grandparents to grandchildren. 

Looking at imperialist gardens, it is easy for me to see today how we could slash and burn whole forests, kidnap families in the middle of the night and ship them overseas to work unpaid under the eye of the whip until death do us part, selling off their family members at a whim,  pour poison in people's drinking water for financial gain and lock the clean-up in irrelevant legal battles for years, create damaging earthquakes to wrest bits of ancient forests out of the ground to propel us from place to place at our convenience, laugh at the possibility that the only way we have left for the few tough-enough-to-still-be-alive remaining rightful inhabitants of the continent to find their way forward is to let them swindle us in casinos, consider nomads eyesore to be rounded up and placed somewhere out of sight (was that the Plains Natives in the 1800s? or is that the tent-dwellers in large cities in the 2010s?).  We are a culture that uses force, coercion, and abuse to control those we see beneath us, and THAT INCLUDES OUR VERY OWN CHILDREN.  And then we are unhappy people, and we wonder why.

I wish I could take all this baggage to the dump, leave it there, and start fresh.  The enormous dump filled up with things that should never have been made in the first place.  Garbage that will never rot.  Plastic that will break into smaller and smaller pieces and haunt us for hundreds or thousands of years.  The everything that you buy which is packaged in plastic.  Or the garbage that never even made it to the dump, which the sea water has collected in rafts the size of Texas.  Unprecedented-in-the-history-of-the-world conspicuous consumption at a daily level, and we can't even see that we're doing it.  It's cheap.  It's convenient.  It keeps us in our comfortable box.  If we want to imagine we don't need it all, never fear: every day we are advertised to in so many ways.  And we have the biological push to keep up with those around us, so we keep chasing all this pointlessness...

I wish I could take all this baggage to the dump, leave it there, and start fresh.  But the reality is slower and more difficult.  We must work through it little by little, day by day, painfully.  True change is often slow.

Noticing the problem is the first step.  Anger is a signal.  When we notice the signal as a call to action, we are letting anger work its magic.  Get good and angry...