More pics from Nancy's place

Nancy sent me some more photos of her home, and I thought you'd love them as much as I do.

That stove and the brick wall behind it! It's so lovely! And your row of Really Useful mugs — fab! And look at that copper kettle on the hearth! Oh, your place is lovely, Nancy.

The fireplace is very much like the one in my friend Rebecca Sylvan's home, at Hopewell in New Jersey. Brought back happy memories.

May your home always be happy and blessed. 

Vandana talking about her new book.

And here she is with a message for 2020.

Nancy's place

I wonder if you also read the comments threads that develop from the posts on this blog. If not, I really do encourage you to do so. It's always a thrill for me to find someone's comment on any post, bringing a perspective I hadn't thought of, shining a new light on the topic of the post. And sometimes, of course, a person makes themselves known here for the first time — maybe someone who has been travelling along with us a long time but never before spoken up. That's always lovely, too.

Since I put my email address in the sidebar near the top of the page, more readers have been in touch whose comments didn't get through so they couldn't introduce themselves before. And an email can always be lengthier and more personal that a comment on a blog, so it's been a happy time of making new connections. Thank you for writing to me.

In the last few days I've met Nancy, who has known and loved my Hawk & Dove books, and is a particular friend of Father Peregrine — I think you'll remember him if you've read those stories. 

It was wonderful to meet Nancy — she has lived so many adventures (you can read about her life in her long and interesting comments on my previous post). She tried to attach some photos with her comments, but Google Blogger doesn't offer that facility, so Nancy took the trouble to email them to me instead.

Here's Nancy, with her husband:

They are missionaries, and they live in Poland.

What I specially wanted to show you is Nancy's home. 

When they moved to the village where they live now, they bought two old log cabins — one to live in and one for guests to stay over (if I've understood correctly) — and put them back together in their new location.

Some of you who read here, like me, prize the beauty of simplicity, and have a real love for small and simple dwellings. I think you will immediately fall in love with Nancy's kitchen-living-room:

Isn't that lovely? To me, it just says, "home". All by itself it's the definition of what home should be.

And here's Nancy's guest accommodation:

It has a living roof.

It's a good thing for Nancy I'm not a guest there — I'd never want to go home!

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you my instant response of "Oh, wow! Look! How gorgeous is that?" Because I thought you'd love Nancy's place as much as I do.

Thank you, Nancy, for sending the photos of your home. 

I loved this.

Comments

Increasingly I'm having difficulty leaving a comment on other people's blogs. I can't always let you know, if I don't have your email address.

I can't comment on Beth's blog, or Lynda's, or San's or Kat's, or Rebecca's, or Mike's (and I'm so sorry you've been poorly Mike; hope you're on the mend). So far my comments have always gone through fine on Jen's and Nearly Martha's and (until today) Julie B's. Can't remember if my comments take okay on Daff's.

Equally, I often hear from you that your comments don't stick on my blog, too. Tony has trouble, Tonia's comments don't work here, and other people have said the same.

I did a Google search for answers, and one woman (also on Google Blogger, as I am) said she fixed the problem by going into her settings, to "Posts and Comments", in there to the Comment Location section, where she changed the comment location from "Embedded" to "Pop-up Window". 

I thought this might be worth a try. Mine was set to "Full Page", so I've changed it to "Pop Up Window". Let me know, if you can, how you get on with that. Better? Worse? Same? 

Of course if you can't leave a comment then you can't let me know. I may delete this info after a few days, but my email address is seerember@gmail.com — so if you wanted to comment and never can, then let me know. Or if you wanted to get in touch with me but couldn't leave a comment to tell me so, make a note of that email address because I may delete this whole post shortly.

A good boy.

Today in the supermarket I saw a good boy. Well, I think we all did — heard him, anyway.

He stood two checkouts away, with his mother. His head was about the height of the counter-top, and he was a sturdy little kid, so I guess he was maybe two-and-a-half. 

With concentrated anguish, through tears, loudly and with increasing desperation his head turning slowly to right and left but his eyes fixing on nothing because his interior world had entirely overwhelmed him he kept grinding out insistently that he was a good boy.

His mother, ignoring him studiedly, stood in determinedly relaxed mode beside him, chatting to the cashier. She looked as if she had been here many times before, the veteran of a never-ending series of outbursts and meltdowns. 

He didn't fall to the floor, and though his wails were full of despair and his eyes full of tears, he held it together enough to use words — as, in our family, my daughter always reminds her own son to do. I think this little lad was probably using every ounce of strength he had to convince his mother in the supermarket that he was a good boy. "Nevertheless she persisted", not listening.

I wonder what had happened. 

I guess he saw something he wanted and couldn't have. Maybe he'd been promised a treat if he would be a good boy. In the world of grown-ups, a good boy is quiet, patient, responsive, obedient, waiting quietly and following on, standing aside, standing back, standing . . . standing . . . waiting . . . waiting . . . What no boy ever has been by nature, especially at two-and-a-half, under pressure of the universal stimuli of a supermarket.

I guess his mother ran out of patience, and when his behaviour failed to conform to requirements, the treat was withheld, put back on the shelf. Or maybe he just wanted some sweets and he'd already had his allocated amount for the day.

He reminded me of my grandson, who melts down similarly in anguished tears. I remember the day his mother was struggling to preach in our chapel while he larked about and got into a fight with another child over which one of them got to play with her visual aid. I took it away. He was distraught. He summoned all his control to ask for it back politely — and I said, no. So he curled up on a chair next to his mother (nevertheless persisting with her sermon) tears streaming down his face, glaring at me in helpless rage. And I glared back. I am the wrong kind of adult for this kind of child. I am implacable. So is he. Even so we love each other, and respect each other immensely — it's just, neither of us ever gives in. I believe in it as a strategy, and I think I may be completely wrong.

Today in the supermarket, as I listened to the futile protests with their concentrated misery, "I'm a good boy . . . I'm a good boy . . . I'm a good boy . . .", my heart hurt for him. And for his mother. For all humankind.

On the way home, I thought about how they say God is our Father, and I wondered how this played out with me and Him. I cannot imagine myself insisting, before an implacable God, that I am good. I don't feel good; nor bad, either, particularly. Most of the time I am just afraid — of losing Him if I take my eyes off Him for one second, of automatic doors closing between us and shutting me out, of losing hold of His hand in the crowd. Am I a good girl? How the hell would I know? I am only lost without Him, because I belong to Him, I have nowhere else to go.

I prayed for the little boy on the way home from the supermarket. God agreed with him, he is a good boy; but he is a good boy with ADHD or ASD or something, in a world swirling with traffic and sugar and tempting, brightly coloured mass-produced plastic objects — a world where it's no longer safe for a little boy to roam and run free. I prayed for God to help him out, to bring some kind of a positive outcome from a miserable afternoon.

God bless that good boy. I bless him with the love of the Lord. Please give him a break, Father. Please help his mother. Please give them both what they need. And may both of them, their whole life long, manage to hold on to a firm belief in their own goodness.

What was it she cooked?

So we have been steadily watching our way through the nine series of Taskmaster currently available on catch-up.

There are ads as it's a commercial channel, but not a great variety of them — in fact the same ones come round with monotonous regularity.  The black horses. The woman with a cat and a toaster finally buying her own house. The woman eating her lunch at the bus stop as nosy onlookers encroach on her personal space. The fat-free milk. The not very exciting oaty breakfast bar. The special rebellious whopping burger advertised because it is plant-based (!) but which, due to shared cooking equipment (so it says in the small print on screen) may not be suitable for vegetarians.

And then there's an ad for a weight loss organisation. 

As we are currently halfway through Series 3, we have now seen this ad zillions of times.

We still can't figure out what the dickens this particular woman has cooked.

Is it a really thick frittata with half beefcake tomatoes? Is it the most colossal baked cheesecake with poached half peaches? 

We have no idea.

There is a longer ad that shows the woman squeezing something — a lemon? an orange? We don't know — onto the top of this creation, but I can't find that longer ad. 

Whatever is it she's made?

Thoughts about self-publishing

Because sometimes people come here through an interest in writing for publication, I wanted to say a couple of things about self-publishing, as it's a popular route to making books available now.

There are some benefits to it. 

If your manuscript is of great interest but only to a small group of people — perhaps family memoirs, or an account relating to a specific fellowship or other interest group — self-publishing could be the way to go. 

A publishing company will take your book only if they can make the numbers stack up for the sales forecast. If you are famous they will take on your book even if you can't write well — they'll find someone to help you put a book together. If you have a large public ministry (eg, if you are a speaker on the conference circuit) they will publish your book, especially if you can promise to buy several hundred copies for your own bookstall. If you are a good writer and the publisher believes your topic or story will catch the public imagination, they will take your book even if you are not famous. But the bottom line is always the sales forecast — if they can't sell it in sufficient quantity, they can't publish it.

So people turn to self-publishing for one of a number of reasons:

• Maybe a writer needs a book out in a hurry. There are many stages and a sequence to follow in traditional publishing; a book can be fast-tracked but will still take months to come out after it's written. Self-publishing can dramatically reduce the time frame.
• Perhaps the likely readership group is small. This doesn't mean the book is not good — and indeed taking this route to publication might be a way to grow the readership.
• If a writer is serious about earning a living solely through writing, and is prepared to undertake their own marketing etc, then of course they will get to keep a much bigger percentage of sales income if they self-publish.

I wanted to alert you, though, to a couple of serious drawbacks to self-publishing, just because some people underestimate the importance of these things, and they really should not be ignored.

The first is that even if you are the new Shakespeare, I guarantee your work will be better for passing through the hands of an editor and copy editor. Even if your spelling and grammar are all they should be (and you might not be the one to realise it if they are not), every writer bar none is prone to repetitions and can do with their prose de-coking here and there. And, depending on where your intended market-place is, there might be cautions you need to observe that someone familiar with publishing will be alert to.

For instance, in editing the work of American novelists I've sometimes come across details about daily reality that don't cross the Atlantic. If you have set your novel in England and casually mention turtles, your English readers will be surprised. UK robins and US robins are not at all the same, and we don't have cardinals or blue-jays in England. Afternoon tea and high tea are not at all the same thing, and an English biscuit bears no resemblance to an American biscuit — and of course, UK writers can make similarly mistaken assumptions in a novel set in America.

If you are writing into the Christian market place, there are differences between England and America in what's morally and theologically acceptable. You may inadvertently stray into forbidden territory.

The meticulous and detailed work of copy-editing also usually zaps errors in even the most oven-ready manuscript. 

So if you self-publish, it's well worth getting an experienced editor and copy-editor to help prepare your book. Probably not a relative, who may share your cultural blind spots and be too inclined to try and please you.

The second area of caution is permissions. The importance of this cannot be overstated. If you are writing non-fiction and include anecdotes about someone else, in which they are recognisably identified, you absolutely must get their permission before you publish. If you are quoting anything from anywhere — including the Bible — you must be certain you are within the word length you are allowed to use (or else get permission, which is not always easy). As it is so very expensive to get permission to quote poetry or songs, it's usually better to find a different way to say what you want, or paraphrase. If you go the traditional publishing route, the publisher will check all this for you (or at least let you know you need to do it), but if you are self-publishing you must do it yourself without fail. If you do not, the consequences can be awful. Some writers/estates have legal people who make it their business to spot and act on infringements of copyright, and the fines can go into the tens of thousands of pounds/dollars. It could clean you out. If you self-publish, you must pay attention to this.

I just thought I'd draw your attention to these small but important things, in case they are relevant to your own writing plans.

Watchword

Connections

Perceiving and establishing connections is a Chariklo skill. Chariklo is the lady centaur, married to Chiron the wounded healer, whose superpower is weaving grace into creation. Perceiving and establishing connections is basic to weaving. 

The art of making connections, which is kind of existential darning, weaving, spinning, plaiting, is supportive to living simply. "If this, therefore that," advances simplicity.

Here's an example.

It's cold. This is natural, because it's winter, and I am so glad it's cold. Year on year the government money I earn, by my solar panels feeding electricity into the national grid, is steadily creeping up — and while I am grateful for the extra dosh, I feel profoundly uneasy about it, since it's obviously a measure of the climate changing. I try not to bury my head in the sand, I try to be clear-sighted and brave about the mess we've got ourselves into, and live in such a way as to be part of the solution rather than contribute to the problem, but in all honesty, I also feel very scared about how this is going to pan out. Therefore, when it is cold in winter, when steady soft rain falls in February, when icy winds blow in March, where once I'd have hated it now it makes me happy. One more year to be grateful the seasons are exactly as they should be and we aren't stuffed yet. 

So it's cold and I am glad. I don't want to turn on the central heating, except every now and then to dry out the house, because I'm not a big fan of central heating. I prefer the woodstove, and a cold bedroom with a hot water bottle in the bed. 

There are a two principles to observe in keeping warm, if you want to live simply. One is to insulate your large blood vessels. These pass close to your skin surface at your ankles, wrists and neck. So if you wear a roll-neck sweater or a scarf, and gloves, and thick woollen socks with roll-over tops, you will insulate the arteries through which heat is otherwise lost, and stay a lot warmer. The second thing is to wear a hat. The brain has to be kept at a more or less constant temperature, and the body will rob other organs of warmth to protect the brain. So if you wear a hat and insulate your brain, your entire body will get less cold. 

In winter I also wear merino wool tights, which are brilliant — reasonably breathable, so not suffocatingly hot, but nice and warm.

These last few days as the temperature has been dropping and the air damp, though, my legs have been cold out walking. I have a wool skirt, but it's the one I keep for best, and my everyday skirts are linen or cotton. So I decided I needed an underskirt. I looked on eBay to see what I could find second-hand, and then — ding! — I remembered something.

In a box under my bed I have some skirts I feel a bit guilty about buying. They are full skirts, very pretty, made of stretchy jersey fabric, lined, and the fabric is gathered onto a yoke close-fitted around the waist and hips. The problem with them is they not quite long enough. They're 33", where I prefer my skirts to be 34" or 35". So they are just that bit shorter than my everyday skirts, and because of the style they will make perfect underskirts, and because of the fullness they will keep my legs warm. Ha! Bingo! Ready-made underskirts! 

One might think this re-purposing would have been immediately obvious to me, but it wasn't — and I think that is in part symptomatic of being steeped in consumer culture. On every side I am encouraged by corporate forces to buy new items specifically designed for one purpose only, rather than own fewer items useful for multiple purposes. 

I think part of living responsibly in 2020, which offers us the last chance to put the brakes on carbon emissions, is to give myself the time and space to look creatively at what I already have, and save some money to help the many, many people who are struggling and could use a little extra support.

Talking of which — I wonder if you remember my telling you about Mama's Healing Salve? 

Here she is, the Mama of Mama's Healing Salve:

And this is her son Micah.

Micah is what I think of as a sunshine person. Loving, kind, supportive — in general a blessing to his family and everyone who knows him. He is, unfortunately in a spot of bother.

The day before Christmas Eve, Micah was driving home in his truck along a road with a line of seventeen cars coming in the opposite direction. An impatient driver at the back of the line decided to put his foot on the floor and overtake them all. His car hit Micah's truck head-on at speed. As a result, Micah's legs and arms and jaw were broken, part of his gut has had to be removed and his spleen lacerated. Extensive surgeries were required and a long, slow, painful road of recovery lies before him. He's been doing well, but has a fever today. In due course he will be able to come home, but for the time being the only place for him to be is in hospital.

With characteristic cheerfulness and courage he has been doing his best. Here he is, still smiling, courtesy of his mother's Facebook photos:

Micah's family is not rich. He has health insurance, but it's not yet known how much of the therapeutic support he needs his insurance will cover — you know how eye-wateringly expensive hospital bills can be.

So his friend Leah has set up a crowd-funding page for Micah, to help cover the bills for his recovery. 

It has occurred to me that if I keep making connections — instead of throwing away one thing and buying another — then I can free up a pleasing financial margin to help when things go wrong like this. Our present political climate is deepening poverty and removing safety nets for the people who most need them. Perhaps the connections we make to weave the fabric of simplicity protecting the Earth can also weave a delicate — but at the same time almost unbreakable — fabric of love. A Chariklo shawl.

Help Micah if you can, my friends.