An eternity of binder clips...

I'm changing offices, temporarily, until March when I will move again. I've changed offices 3 times in 5 years and each time I purge a little more...a few more old files are discarded, old reprinted articles tossed, books given away, pictures pitched. I can throw out overhead transparency pens, right?  They aren't coming back.

All in all, having to pack up and move is not unpleasant. I get a chance to do a little reminiscing, find things I thought I'd lost forever, get rid of things I thought I could never bear to let go.  But, the binder clips....where do they come from?  I have piles and piles. Every recycled stack needs first to be liberated. I have tiny ones, hardly more than paper clips. I have huge ones I can barely open. The most popular size seems to be 3/4 inch and 1 3/4 inch.  (I could measure them because I found my ruler deep in a desk drawer! I have a tape measure, too.)  They are on student papers, on articles I've printed out, on committee reports, on memos and assignments. They are everywhere!  And now, absent their papers, they are piled on my desk and table, swimming in the bottom of my desk drawers, lounging in the deep recesses of my file cabinet. I fear they are waiting to organize; to form their own binder clip union with usage restrictions, minimum wages, and mandatory rest periods and vacations. I'm almost afraid to leave them for the semester break...

Small monuments

I'm a fan of This American Life. I've probably written before about how I adore Ira Glass who hosts the show. It is one of my favorite walking time podcasts, my only regret is that there is only one show a week...what will I listen to on the other 6 days? 

I had gotten a little behind and over the weekend listened to episode #479, "Little War on the Prairie" which aired November 23rd.  This hour long story details the Sioux uprising of 1862 in Minnesota, an event that ended in the hanging of 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minnesota.  It is a horrifying piece of history, told with the help of current Dakota living in Minnesota.  The lead up to the execution is long and twisted, with wrongs carried out and bad decisions made on all sides.  However, there is no doubt that the American government and settlers treated the Native Dakotans abysmally.  Determined not to let this image ruin their public perception, the event was, until recently, pretty much ignored in American and Minnesotan history.

Early in the broadcast, the reporter accompanies a Dakota woman to a site of a small memorial marking the spot where 5 settlers were murdered by 4 Dakota men, the event attributed with starting what is sometimes called the "U.S.-Dakota war." He reads the inscription on the monument and then comments that his companion is shaking her head. She responds, sadly, "It leaves so much out."  Then  you can almost hear her shrug her shoulders as she says softly, "It's a small monument, you can't get everything on there."

Wow.

How can we ever make a monument big enough to explain the complexities of war? How can we ever record any meaningful event in our life with enough words to convey the emotions and feelings associated with it?  Instead, we go through life creating small monuments, short paragraphs that try to capture some essence of what has happened to us...but fall so short.


http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/479/little-war-on-the-prairie







The Inscription Reads


On a bright Sunday afternoon. August 17, 1862, four young Sioux hunters, on a spur-of-the-moment dare. They decided to prove their bravery by shooting Robinson Jones, the postmaster and storekeeper at Acton in western Meeker County. Stopping at his cabin they requested liquor and were refused. Then Jones, followed by the seemingly friendly indians, went to the neighboring Howard Baker cabin, which stood on this site.

Here the whites and the Indian engaged in a target-shooting contest. Suddenly, the Indians turned on the settlers and without warning shot Baken Viranus Webster, another settler and Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Baker, Mrs, Webster, and several children escapes by hiding. Then the Indians rode off shooting Jone's adopted daughter, Clara D. Wilson as they passed the Jones cabin.

The indians fled south to their village forty miles away on the Minnesota River. There they reported what they had done, and the Sioux chiefs decided to wage an all-out war against the white triggered the bloody Sioux Uprising of 1862.

The bodies of the settlers were buried in a single grave in the New Lutheran Cemetery. Near present-day Litchfield. In 1878 the state of Minnesota erected a granite monument there. This site, where the Makers cabin stood. Was similarly marked in 1909.

Flawed children

I was listening to an interview today with Andrew Solomon, author of a new book, "Far from the Tree."  In the book he interviews parents who have children very unlikely them--children with disabilities, children who are criminals, children conceived in rape, children who are prodigies.  He asks the question, how do we help children be who they are?  As well as, how do we, as parents, accept children for who they are?  I haven't read the book, although I've read a few reviews and essays from the book or about the book.  Here are three things I found interesting in the interview.

1. He wanted to talk to one set of parents, who's child had committed a horrendous crime.  He said that they were reluctant to tell their story, but once they started, "they were so full of their story it was overflowing."  What a great description of the breaking down of that logjam and the opening up of the storytelling.  To be "overflowing" with a story.  How lucky they were to find someone able to hold onto their words.

2. We, parents, all love flawed children.  None of our kids are perfect.  It is, from the Christian perspective, the kind of love we receive from God.  We are flawed, but still precious to God and loved by God.

3. He mentioned an essay I had heard before, about raising a child with Down Syndrome.  It is not what we expected.  The essay talks about how we get on a plane expecting to go to Italy when we conceive a child. But, sometimes, we end up in the Netherlands instead.  We could spend all our time regretting not being in Italy, but then we would miss all the  beauty of the Dutch country.  A good lesson for many other aspects of life--this is where we are, appreciate it for what it is, rather than lamenting what it is not.

             

The art of being still

My local newspaper, The Post Standard, will start publishing only 3 days a week beginning in January. My biggest concern is what to do with my missing morning Sudoku puzzle.  For several years, I've read the New York Times online. I don't miss having a print version, except for the crossword puzzle. Luckily, the office gets a daily print copy and we all make copies of the puzzle to work over our lunch breaks.

As an online subscriber to the NYTimes I get two little features called, "recommended for you" and "most viewed" that provide a handy list of articles the Times folks think I will like, based, I assume on what I have read in the past, and of articles that most people are reading.  There is some overlap...

This evening, though, the article that caught my eye was titled, "The art of being still." Turns out it is an essay by a writer on being a writer. He describes the need to be writing in your head, even while you are doing other things.  He states, "The problem is, too many writers today are afraid to be still."  This stillness is not inactivity, but heightened awareness, an acute appreciation of the richness of the world around you.  He argues that every encounter can be fodder for a writer if he or she is open to the awareness of the details.  I like the perspective of being still in your mind while active in life.  The sharpened sense of awareness and sensitivity should be good for all of us, writers or not.

Rocks in the river

I grew up alongside a small river, the Little Calumet, and have always enjoyed moving water. Most of the time, looking at a stream, I focused on the water, the rushing, spilling, moving water.  But, what about the rocks in the river, those big, solid, immovable rocks? Does anyone ever think about them?   Sometimes the water will rush down and push against you and threaten to dislodge you from your spot. Other days the water is only a trickle, barely getting you wet. There may even be those blessed days when the stream is dry.  But, through all of that, you are still a rock, holding onto your spot, letting the water rush or push or slide by.  It might seem, from the outside, that being a rock is easy.  You don't have to do anything--don't react, don't respond, don't reply.  But, I don't think the rock would always feel that way. It might be harder than it looks.