During my first week as a Montana resident, I stood face to face with a politically conservative, devoutly Christian, Bikram-yoga loving, Scottish electrician who told me to have faith that the negative ions in this pure country air will cure all ills. I took an exaggerated inhalation and smiled at him. He proceed to share his idea that negative ions could be bottled and sold. It’s no news that our environment affects our health. However, it has become popular news recently. Nicholas Kristof devoted this week’s Op-ed to the topic, linking studies that show the low incidence of breast cancer in women living in Asia. But ethnic Asian women born and living in the United States have a much higher risk of cancer. Hmmmm. Oh, plastic. I’ve long feared microwaves and, despite my family’s incessant teasing, collect glass jars for storing leftovers. But I’m not convinced that’s going to keep me in the clear.
We can intend to shift our home environment (chuck everything plastic and eat well) and our external environment (live and work in a calm and nourishing place). But let’s face it, one or both of those is a complete luxury. Two other Crucial Minutiae-ers and I recently email chatted about internal environment versus lining all the externals up in a row. Perhaps an inner peace is the ultimate healer. Then the word “disease” came up and one of them passed on the reworking of that word into “dis-ease.” A brilliant understanding. You can live a pristine, wholesome, uncluttered, chemical-free life and still feel emotionally burdened and insane. Or you might, like a monk I once knew, live in the rush of mid-town New York surrounded by smog and the throng of unpredictable people, somehow maintaining the deepest ease in your heart.
At 7.30 yesterday morning, my boyfriend and I hovered over our new Montana friend Greg as he took this Middle East geography test in our kitchen. We’d remembered it while speaking with him about the arbitrary nature of political borders and hooting about the 50 elk we saw yesterday in the field. He fared better with his country placement than we had originally. PLEASE take it yourself. It’s fun, I promise.
What surprises/shocks you about your knowledge as you try to place each country?
In Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the lovable narrator, 14-year-old Arnold Spirit (based on Alexie himself), touches on an idea that’s been goading me for years. We spend most of our life running from or trying to get into a particular tribe. By tribe, I mean social group identity.
Being from nowhere once made me feel like I had no place and therefore no “people.” Of course, I have many tribes, probably three of four that resonate most with me. There is something poignant about Arnold’s quote below, with its wonderful teenage-hood ness and cultural context. In 2009, how relevant is the fact that we are being asked to step away from the one or two tribes we clutch to in order to breed some tolerance in this world? Very, I think.
But how does one do this without watering down an identity?
I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I was not alone in my loneliness. There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream.
I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms.
My cohort at Emotion Technology (and husband) Christopher Gandin Le is live blogging for the CDC at the National Environmental Public Health Conference: Healthy People in a Healthy Environment.
Majora Carter, a genius and one of my favorite speakers on this subject, is speaking at this conference along with many other great minds. You can enjoy the highlights of a conference on a vital topic from the comfort of your own computer!
“The Killing Season” is not a spoof television show–it’s an eerie phrase used by Mongolians who live on those grassland plains called steppes. It’s not hard to imagine which season exactly is the killer. These nomads usually lose half of their herd (of camels, yaks, sheep, horses) during the brutal windswept winters. Since their herd is their livelihood, the death of the herd is a kind of death of human existence.
I don’t depend on a herd, but I am anticipating living in a cold unlike any I’ve experienced, partially because I’ll be living in a yurt. Winter blasted into Montana the first week of October with 1° temperatures, a foot of snow and icicles hanging like daggers from homes. The snow has melted and left us some semblance of fall, but aspens and cottonwoods never had a chance to turn golden yellow. The leaves froze into a mottled purple color; now they flutter like strange ghosts casting a strange purpley hue in the valley.
A friend of mine hates summer. I love summer. Maybe for her, summer is the killing season, a killing of some piece of her, but I’m not sure anyone reading this blog or using a computer (like me) can understand what a killing season actually entails.
A brilliant healer friend of mine recently gave me homework: “You always write about the space around you, what you see, how others respond to their surroundings. Why don’t you spend some time writing about the inner space?” I am continually obsessed by the contention that our inner space is shaped by our outer space. But instead of exploring that orientation (again and again), here goes an attempt at only the inner space.
I am a chronic anticipator. I anticipate what will happen next, how it will happen, and often I anticipate the worst in order to pre-grief whatever might await. As Rebecca Solnit writes, “Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don’t–and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.”
So when another friend of mine (a visionary artist) shared his debilitating worry about whether a commission would go through with an important client, I told him about what I try to do in those moments of self-doubt or worry. Imagine that “worry thought pattern” inside your brain. Give it a color and watch it traversing across your scalp. Now, erase it; start at one end and smudge it out inch-by-slow-inch. With that new vacant space, draw a vibrant healthy thought pattern in a different color. Do this every time that “worry thought pattern” appears. Eventually, you reprogram yourself.
That’s an inner space I can visualize. We make grooves in our brain and our heart. Usually those grooves are worn-down roads. Despite the difficulty of traveling these roads, we like strolling down them again because they are familiar. I wonder about all the uncharted pathways in our inner spaces. There’s a fact floating around out there that humans only use 10 % of our brain. The possibility, the possibility, the possibility. And what of the heart?
I met an elderly woman on a metro-north train in Connecticut. Without any prompt from me, she began explaining why she gets off at Harlem 125th instead of Grand Central Station. Though Grand Central is closer to her home, it is a daunting space for her to navigate.
“I have a fear of open spaces,” she shared. Before I could dredge up the word Agoraphobia (that anxiety disorder that Woody Allen, and even mermaid Daryl Hannah are labeled with), she launched into a lament about how her children and husband never understand and that she can only cross a street in NYC when someone walks with her. Otherwise, she spirals into a debilitating anxiety attack.
“What about fields outside? Does it happen there too?” I asked, because a life without the distinct pleasure of feeling tiny in the natural world seemed to me like no life at all.
“Well, I’ve lived in the city my whole life, but anytime I have been in a field, it’s the same,” and she rambled on and on, as if I were the first person to listen.
Some people with Agoraphobia can never leave the house or “safe space”; most photos detailing it show people staring out windows with painful/longing/confused looks on their faces. As an open-space junkie (which isn’t to say that I don’t also love a nook), I had a hard time hearing this woman’s story and imagining all the lack of arms-thrown-open delight in her life.
Are we each born with a unique spatial orientation? Why would the shapes I see coming at me look the same as the shapes coming at you? Like everything, it reminds me of the nature v. nurture debate. And then I tracked my own fear. Though I can lie in a sparse field for most of the day, at some point, the cells in my body register that animal-feeling of wanting to take shelter, to dash towards a cozy spot under a tree, or at least to know that there is somewhere to hide.
I have an addiction. I admitted this yesterday while staring at the ancient lady–her bright-red, hair-sprayed beehive and two-tone glasses–at the New York Public Library. She is practically a fixture, and has been here forever, or at least during the three years I lived here, and even now when I stroll the marble halls as a visitor. She looks the same. She is still perfectly coiffed. I like that she’s still here. But my brain says, Ugh, how boring. I don’t want to be her, or someone who, at any point in time, is still anything. And therein lies my addiction. I am addicted to that shameful, self-conscious, liberal, privileged concept–new experiences in new places. It feels as strong and confusing as a drug.
“Go a mile wide, not deep” has always been my family’s mantra. I lived in five different countries before the age of 11 and my parents instilled in me the importance of a particular mindset–global, open and evolving. As an adult, I have translated that vision into two principles: the need to continually change environments in job and place (not so hard) and to seek out, in our “like-attracts-like” world, a good proportion of friends who don’t think, look, act, or feel like me (harder than it sounds).
But, knowing that the flip side can be sweet, I also have a thing for the word local and the idea of being deeply connected to a community and a landscape. The instant I start to slip into reverie about such a life, my wandering self barks, “But you must always push beyond your comfort zone! DO NOT get stuck in your comfort zone.” So I live my life wondering, Which way is better?
“Small Changes” by Jennifer and Christopher Gandin Le!!
Tonight was the Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition Screening and Awards ceremony, held at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It was thrilling to see our work on a big screen and to hear the audience’s reaction. And it was even more thrilling to receive the Jury Prize, complete with big check and all!
Indian women have been granted an unprecedented break–8 women-only commuter trains. Was anyone else struck by this headline news, and by “struck” I mean,… did you pause?
On these trains known as Ladies Specials, a weight has been lifted. Men are not there to do what they reportedly do onboard every day–pinch, grope, molest, threaten and shout insults at the women. Apparently, this harassment is the norm. Apparently, it was bad enough to warrant the government stepping in.
Imagine a women-only train. It might be like a big slumber party. In my world, it would manifest as a man-free subway at 4am on a Saturday night. Oooooo. How fucking freeing! What about a man-free traveling experience? I would drive across America or any wild country and push deep into the night, until I collapsed alone and sleepy in my car, a tent, or a grassy ditch on the side of the road. I’d be relaxed, watching the stars sparkle without letting my imagination roar me into at least twenty minutes of heart palpitations: A man is going to find me here and hurt me. A man is going to find me here and hurt me. (An aside: I know plenty of women who are braver than me on that front.) Though I am deeply nourished by the different men in my life, I am also convinced, after 30 short years of living, that this fear of men is inherent in all women, even those who refuse to admit it.
Why? There are so many books that attempt to pin it down, so many poems. No need to descend into the messy discussion of biology (predators, the mechanics of body parts, sowing seeds, choosing carefully for your womb and all that fraught stuff). Instead, here’s some wisdom from a man on the topic… (more…)
I’m watching Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s 2008 documentary “The Garden,” a film about urban farmers in South Central Los Angeles and their fight against developers.
And I’m nearly speechless.
For 14 years, 350 familes grew their own food on this 14 acres, once scorched by riots and pain. It was the largest community garden in the U.S.
In 2006, the garden was bulldozed – all 150 plant species – and plans are underway to build a Forever 21 warehouse and distribution center on this land. This, even though the farmers had raised the money to buy the property from the developer. He’s on record as saying, his words smacking of self-righteous privilege, “Even if they raised $100 million, this group could not buy this property… It’s not about money. It’s about I don’t like their cause and I don’t like their conduct. So there’s no price I would sell it to them for.”
A flood of words get jammed in my fingers when I try to express how I feel about this. Did I mention that most of these farmers are Latinos and Latinas from the community? Are you surprised?
What I can manage to stammer is that this is the mark of everything wrong about the United States, about our dominator society. This is a prime example of what will destroy our national soul.
In the movie, there is footage of heavily armed police officers storming through tall rows of vegetables. If it were fiction, it would be hilarious. But it’s real, and it’s powerful and embarrassing.
The footage of carefully tended, productive, green vegetables, fruits, herbs, being torn up to put in concrete buildings just wrecks me. I feel that loss viscerally, and it makes me hungry for the social upending that will bring in a nurturing, partnership society. Right NOW.
Three years ago, at dusk on September 10th, my boyfriend and I spun our bikes down the entire west flank of Manhattan, what feels, in effect (because of the scenery change) like distance. In reality, it is 13.4 short miles. Fresh to New York City, we vowed with the open-heart of newcomers to explore the cracks. This bike ride was the start. As spotted London Plane trees gave way to the behemoths of midtown and eventually to the hip of downtown, we pedalled by completely unaware of what everyone else on the island was aware of. Because though we are Americans, the physical history of two crumbling towers was not imbedded in us. We didn’t know this space when the World Trade Centers existed. We only knew the aftermath. New Yorkers felt the empty space. As interlopers, we were disconnected.
As we neared what we could not yet recognize as ground zero, we noticed droves of people moving inland, police officers cordoning off streets, a solemn collective buzz–the tell-tale signs of a gathering. We shrugged at each other and chalked it up to the wild ways of New York. “Must be some crazy event!” I laughed out loud, letting the wind whisk my voice out to the Hudson River.
It’s embarrassing now how oblivious we were to the date or the occasion. Later we learned that at the exact moment we coasted by on our bikes, on the eve of September 11th, President Bush stood at ground zero to address the world, the nation and New Yorkers. Hence, the crowds.
High school economics was not my forté. Only one concept stuck: supply and demand. But recently, I’ve had market shifts on the brain. This September, the press has emblazoned talk of solar panels everywhere, from Nat Geo to the good old stand by NYTimes. Apparently China, noting a future demand, has jumped on it, creating more factories to produce the panels and polysilicion, the substance needed to make them. The US has done nothing of the sort. Prices have gone down, as happens with most things made in China. (that’s a whole other conversation)
Imagine the moment one human hands-on witnesses the amorphous market beast suddenly shift.
Has this happened to you? Here is my story:
Central Otago, New Zealand 2005
With the afternoon light softening, I place a clump of cherries into my 18th bucket of the day. I have been picking cherries on this orchard for two months now. My workmates are men from China, Malaysia, India and New Zealand–we’ve gotten mean at each other and all adoring. Like siblings. So it goes in the field. Most of these big juicy purple cherries, called Lapins, will be sold to Japan and some to North America, or at least that’s what our gang-boss Nigel says. As we sweat and move quickly (getting paid for how much pick), I keep wondering: How long does it take these cherries to get to the mouths of consumers? Who loads them on an airplane, a truck, the grocery store palette? What if those consumers knew that Bob, Remy, Hydah, Nigel, John and Molly had hand-picked these cherries in a small town on an island in the southern hemisphere? Do they think about it?
Perched on my ladder, I look over the leafy canopy towards… (more…)
Someone I revere and respect recently explained to me (paraphrased):
“No one has read those nature writers you read. They aren’t mainstream. No one knows who they are. They were published because they’re weird.”
Based on some on-the-ground market research I’ve done (i.e. living in a city where everyone doesn’t think exactly like me), it’s come up true. All of the liberal, earth-loving, smart people I went to college with can spout off names beyond Thoreau because our professors in rural Vermont (of course) assigned nature writing with urgency and conviction. Anyone else I’ve ever met has never heard of them or that thing called “nature writing.” I have two reactions to that:
#1 Really?
#2 Well, that makes sense because environmentalists are famous for marginalizing themselves. Preaching to the choir might feel good, but it’s ultimately only as useful as the energy the choir has to go mingle with, let’s say, Republicans, if your choir is Democratic.
For all the pushing against it I did while living in New York, I am now re-reading Wendell Berry’s agrarian essays, ‘The Art of the Commonplace,” which I’m guessing most of you reading this blog haven’t read or heard of. Taking stock of the hour and the day, 3pm Mountain Time, United States of America, August 21, 2009, Berry’s words could not be more apt. Sure, some of the language is outdated, he uses words like household; some might be jargony, not witty, too idealistic. But many of his ideas are radical and would appropriately offend people. Usually, he is wise, sharp, humble and moral, a word not highly-prized these days, even by me (I think “oh, moral, how boring, how 1950’s).
But in an era where knowledge of elders is underused, I wish… (more…)
This week, I’m sharing my own work, because I’m so dang proud of it. Chris & I, along with our incredibly talented Austin-area friends, created this 2 minute water conservation PSA in response to RainBird’s “Intelligent Use of Water” film contest. Austin is in the middle of the worst drought in 50 years, and last week, officials announced even tighter water restrictions, so this awareness-raising contest comes at a crucial time.
We had a great time making this film, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy!
In the midst of such fertile (ha ha) conversation on Crucial Minutiae about babies, books, and the environment, I offer something slightly different.
What’s the deal with the trees? you might think. The deal is that it is overcast, currently 80 degrees outside, in Austin, at 7:30pm, and it might even rain. For the last, oh, two months, the daily high temperature has been over 100 degrees, and we are in the worst drought in 50 years.
I do not complain about the summer heat in Texas very much. I acknowledge that it was fully my choice to move here, and I do hate to expose myself to scorn or chastising from friends more northernly-inclined.
All I will say is that a “cool front” in the middle of August is incredibly welcome. Now please excuse me, I have some sitting outside to do.
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
How many children do you have or want to have? Oregon State University just released a study that having a child dramatically increases your carbon footprint.
“The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.”
My response: Obviously. Your response:
Does that mean none of us should have children? It’s a touchy subject. One that grates sufficiently on me. I understand the reality of dwindling resources. Oil. Water. Food. Someone somewhere is going to lose out; and it’s likely that most people who live in my country won’t be the ones picking at scraps.
But my bone is with the field of science, one I respect and value for being a critical workhorse, one I also find heart-numbing in the way it undercuts a round picture of “humanity.” Because science with a capital S depends on numbers. Science rarely charts the emotional human quotient. What about the capacity of an individual to profoundly affect their orbit, whether that orbit is one of high-powered government officials or the small-town residents at the one grocer who need that smile to get them through the day?
My bias: I assume that each individual is born to offer a unique love, perspective and learning in his/her community. One we can all learn from. But…. (more…)
Remember studying The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in Civics class? We read excerpts and made gagging noises when we got to the parts about rat pieces and feces found in American food. Maybe we didn’t quite understand the other call for social reform in the book: to end the profound mistreatment of immigrant workers at the turn of the century. 1906 seemed like another world. We had no idea how close this book hit to home, to now.
Everyone who eats should watch Food, Inc. Or at least the trailer.
Should you buy popcorn and M&Ms? Probably not– unless you can down them during the previews. This documentary isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s tasteful and informative. Most importantly, it argues for our right to knowledge, to be able to find out “what’s in the kitchen.”
My first night sleeping in New York City I was convinced crazy people were crawling up my fire escape to rob and brutalize me.
But no, it was the clank and clatter of a city.
My first night sleeping in Montana, I was sure an angry bear was breaking down the screen door to eat me.
But no, it was a persistent wind.
Adjusting to the ways of a new place takes a while.
After three weeks living on 100-acres where large potentially aggressive animals do roam, I’m trying to be composed about it and not lambast myself for being scared or cautious. Right when I thought I was slipping into a Zen place about solo exploring through huckleberries, we met our neighbor, a woman who has lived here for 25 years.
“Oh yeah, there’s a resident mountain lion, she explained, “But she knows the rules.”
“Does that scare you?” I asked, trying to seem aloof about it… (more…)
I’ve been thinking about how people actively connect to place. Not everyone is active in this process; many let it happen to them; many do not notice. But my cousin Lauren is always in an active phase. She strolls through cities with her point-n-shoot in her pocket–looking for street art. I even had the privilege of her showing me around NYC, the city I lived in, and indoctrinating me into who painted what, who pasted up what, how, why. It is a knowledge she has cultivated. And done best in her own hometown of Chicago for the past three years. For example, her photo to the right is a “tip toe heart in hands paste-up, chicago.”
“It’s the reason walking these streets I’ve walked for 25 years stays interesting. My eyes are always darting around. Down alleys and around corners.”
She likes observing how a community represents itself in its own space. Now she sees every city she goes to in the context of street art. It’s like being a cyclist who notices the detailed cracks or fissures of any road. It’s a lens–perhaps a way of claiming place. Even Chicago Public Radio has discovered her flickr site and showcased her photos.
WHERE DO YOUR EYES GO IN YOUR LANDSCAPE?
Below is a story straight from Lauren’s email to me: (three of her photos here are #1 choke and goons paste ups, chicago, #2 miss van ice cream girl, toulousse, #3 C215 stencil on the pompidou, paris)
During my first week as a Montana resident, I stood face to face with a politically conservative, devoutly Christian, Bikram-yoga loving, Scottish electrician who told me to have faith that the negative ions in this pure country air will cure all ills. I took an exaggerated inhalation and smiled at him. He proceed to share his idea that negative ions could be bottled and sold. It’s no news that our environment affects our health. However, it has become popular news recently. Nicholas Kristof devoted this week’s Op-ed to the topic, linking studies that show the low incidence of breast cancer in women living in Asia. But ethnic Asian women born and living in the United States have a much higher risk of cancer. Hmmmm. Oh, plastic. I’ve long feared microwaves and, despite my family’s incessant teasing, collect glass jars for storing leftovers. But I’m not convinced that’s going to keep me in the clear.
“The Killing Season” is not a spoof television show–it’s an eerie phrase used by Mongolians who live on those grassland plains called steppes. It’s not hard to imagine which season exactly is the killer. These nomads usually lose half of their herd (of camels, yaks, sheep, horses) during the brutal windswept winters. Since their herd is their livelihood, the death of the herd is a kind of death of human existence.
A brilliant healer friend of mine recently gave me homework: “You always write about the space around you, what you see, how others respond to their surroundings. Why don’t you spend some time writing about the inner space?” I am continually obsessed by the contention that our inner space is shaped by our outer space. But instead of exploring that orientation (again and again), here goes an attempt at only the inner space. 
I met an elderly woman on a metro-north train in Connecticut. Without any prompt from me, she began explaining why she gets off at Harlem 125th instead of Grand Central Station. Though Grand Central is closer to her home, it is a daunting space for her to navigate. 
I have an addiction. I admitted this yesterday while staring at the ancient lady–her bright-red, hair-sprayed beehive and two-tone glasses–at the New York Public Library. She is practically a fixture, and has been here forever, or at least during the three years I lived here, and even now when I stroll the marble halls as a visitor. She looks the same. She is still perfectly coiffed. I like that she’s still here. But my brain says, Ugh, how boring. I don’t want to be her, or someone who, at any point in time, is still anything. And therein lies my addiction. I am addicted to that shameful, self-conscious, liberal, privileged concept–new experiences in new places. It feels as strong and confusing as a drug.
Indian women have been granted an unprecedented break–8 women-only commuter trains. Was anyone else struck by 
High school economics was not my forté. Only one concept stuck: supply and demand. But recently, I’ve had market shifts on the brain. This September, the press has emblazoned talk of solar panels everywhere, from Nat Geo to the good old stand by NYTimes. Apparently China, noting a future demand, has jumped on it, creating more factories to produce the panels and polysilicion, the substance needed to make them. The US has done nothing of the sort. Prices have gone down, as happens with most things made in China. (that’s a whole other conversation)
Someone I revere and respect recently explained to me (paraphrased):
How many children do you have or want to have? Oregon State University just released a 
I’ve been thinking about how people actively connect to place. Not everyone is active in this process; many let it happen to them; many do not notice. But my cousin Lauren is always in an active phase. She strolls through cities with her point-n-shoot in her pocket–looking for street art. I even had the privilege of her showing me around NYC, the city I lived in, and indoctrinating me into who painted what, who pasted up what, how, why. It is a knowledge she has cultivated. And done best in her own hometown of Chicago for the past three years. For example, her photo to the right is a “tip toe heart in hands paste-up, chicago.”
