America's Heartland in Our Backyard

Grinnell Iowa:


- Population: 9087 - With Grinnell college students.
- Size:  Well, you can only imagine.  We are located right smack dab in central Iowa.
- Local Attractions:  Grinnell College - top ten liberal arts school in the nation.  Students major in things like Bioethics and Philosophy or Physics and Anthropology.  The cross-country team runs naked, co-ed through the city once a year too.  Grinnell College was also lauded with the notorious Huffington Post award for the number one "Hipster Campus" in the nation.  Lonnskis:  Local pub and restaurant.  Perpetually playing Bob Dylan, "Benny and the Jets" and Michael Jackson.  2 Mexican Restaurants: Both are terrible.  Nothing much more to say on that.  Dari Barn:  Yes I did mean to spell it that way.  Dairy treats for the general populace.  Most popular spot on a Saturday night.  Amish, German and Dutch Communities - Just down the lane from Grinnell are loads of little communities and towns of Germans and Dutch.  Pella, one of the Dutch communities, is one of the most quaint little towns you will ever visit.  Everything is incredibly clean and orderly, typical of the Dutch.  One will find excellent pastries made in dutch ovens by little, blonde dutch girls in baby blue hats and aprons.  Stop around the corner and pick up fresh smoked meats from the Dutch butcher.  We all know Pella windows right? This wealthy community has kept things almost purely Dutch.  Amana Colonies - German settlement.  Amish - Colona - A huge Amish community producing delicious organic dairy products and dried goods.  Just be aware of the rules before you enter the market:  Dress modestly before entering.  I am constantly checking my shirt in a grocery store?  What?
 Soy and Corn Fields - I don't think I need to expound on the fact that we are surrounded by soy and corn.  Oh yes, and cows.  I am still not used to the sickening Methane fumes that these lovely cows produce.  I have concluded that cows are NOT cute anymore, at least when the window is open.


This is the place where me and Aaron live, work and breathe.  The real defining part of Grinnell is its people.  Like any place, the people make the locale unique.  Grinnell is unique.  Naturally, I will be comparing these native Iowans to Southern peoples.  I just want to make that clear.  


My first bit of culture shock came when I realized that people were completely baffled by why such a young couple would be residing in Grinnell if they didn't go to Grinnell college.  I often feel like an outsider, a visitor who is being "sized up".  It seems as if people just know that we don't fit into "Grinnellian" life.  I find this liberating and entertaining.  My Southern accent likes to put on a little show for the crowd at times, which I am sure is utterly annoying to my fellow Iowans/Iowegians as they are famously called.  I just can't help it!  Oh and people really like to schedule things here.  Perhaps its the industrious nature of Northerners that creates a habit of needing to have schedules in order to hang out with people.  I am certainly not used to this.  I find myself asking, "why doesn't anyone just pop by for a visit?"  It's not in their blood.


Another question I frequently ask here is:  "where is the sweet tea?"  There is no such thing here.  I have grown accustomed to being offered a cold beverage, preferably sweet tea since I don't ever make it for myself.  I so look forward to social settings where it is offered.  Not in Grinnell.


If you didn't already know, it gets really cold here.  I find it hilarious when people complain about how hot or humid it is here.  It can get rather warm, but nothing like Tennessee.  I actually think that the weather here is perfection.  Everyone tells me to just wait for the winter.  Aaron and I love snow so we look forward to it.  It seems that people here, for the most part, love the cold.  I like that part of Grinnell.  


This town is small which in effect makes me feel small.  This feeling is nice for a change.  I miss the hustle and bustle of the larger cities that I am accustomed to. I am now convinced though that everyone should get to live in a town like this for a little while.  Grinnell is the heartland.  I keep wondering where all of the color is?  It's green and white here.  Food and white people.  I miss so much the racial and ethnic diversity of TN.  However, it's quaint, it's quirky and it's our home for now. 
More to come.  

"Be Careful"

"Be Careful" by Patty Griffin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-uH2qtc7M

All the girls in the Paris night
All the girls in the pale moonlight
All the girls with the shopping bags
All the girls with the washing rags

All the girls on the telephone
All the girls standing all alone
All the girls sitting on the wire
One by one fly into the fire

Be careful how you bend me
Be careful where you send me
Careful how you end me
Be careful with me

All the girls standing by your beds
All the girls standing on their heads
All the girls with the broken arms
All the girls with the deadly charms

All the girls in the restaurant
Pretending to be nonchalant
Funny girls on the TV shows
Close your eyes and they turn to snow

Be careful how you bend me
Be careful where you send me
Careful how you end me
Be careful with me

All the girls working overtime
Telling you everything is fine
All the girls in the beauty shops
Girls' tongues catching the raindrops

All the girls that you'll never see
Forever a mystery
All the girls with their secret ways
All the girls who have gone astray

Be careful how you bend me
Be careful where you send me
Careful how you end me
Be careful with me

Be careful how you bend me
Be careful with me

Sabrina Fair 
by John Milton

SongSweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-imbroider'd vale Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are? O if thou have Hid them in some flow'ry cave, Tell me but where Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere, So mayst thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heav'ns harmonies. Song Sabrina fair Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair; Listen for dear honour's sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save.

Listen and appear to us In name of great Oceanus, By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace, And Tethys' grave majestic pace; By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look, And the Carpathian wizard's hook; By scaly Triton's winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell; By Leucothea's lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands; By Thetis' tinsel-slipper'd feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet; By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks; By all the nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily glance, Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-pav'n bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answer'd have. Listen and save. Sabrina rises, attended by water-nymphs, and sings By the rushy-fringed bank, Where grows the willow and the osier dank, My sliding chariot stays, Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen Of turkis blue, and em'rald green That in the channel strays, Whilst from off the waters fleet Thus I set my printless feet O'er the cowslip's velvet head, That bends not as I tread; Gentle swain at thy request I am here.

To My Mother

 

To My Mother

by Wendell Berry 

I was your rebellious son,

do you remember? Sometimes

I wonder if you do remember,

so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been

I wonder sometimes if it did not

precede my wrong, and I erred,

safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,

or my bed at night, so that almost

I should forgive you, who perhaps

foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,

causing me to smile now, looking back,

to see how paltry was my worst,

compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,

is the vision of that Heaven of which

we have heard, where those who love

each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,

the light a music in the air,

and all is unentangled,

and all is undismayed.

 

 

Mom, 

Your unfailing forgiveness 

The steadfastness of your own character 

And the steadfastness of your efforts in shaping my character

Your strength of heart and mind

While still remaining soft and feminine 

A woman that delights in the Lord and in people of all kinds

You've always kept a sense of grace in our home

Many are quick to judge, quick to blame

But the lasting impression of you has been your quickness to forgive

To bring grace to a world that experiences little of it

I want to have pride like you 

Like the Avett Brothers say,

"not the kind of pride that turns you bad"

But the kind that gives up selfish ambition 

And sees good and isn't afraid to live it

What I can say for myself is that 

You, mom, have shaped me

The parts of myself that I like

The times when I get real honest with myself and God

When I struggle and find some remnant of joy to smile about

When I don't take myself so seriously

And I can laugh at my shortcomings

But mostly when I reach out to God 

I find you there, encouraging me 

To keep pursuing what is good and lovely

Because that's who you are

A lover of beauty

The kind though that doesn't fade with time and age

But one that lasts for all of time

And one that has laid an imprint on my life

Continue in your way, mom

I love you

Natalie

Feel It

I'd like to touch the tops of the trees
Dive down to the deepest depth of the deepest ocean
Hear a symphony of beautiful sounds I never knew existed
Forgetting my humanity, I want to venture into the unknown

What good things I've never felt
I want to feel them
The rain to wash me on a mountaintop
I want solid souls all around me
A chorus of fairies flickering in the twilight
A drumbeat that I can dance to
Children of my own to laugh about me

I'm gonna run wild and free
I don't care what you think
I don't want to be stopped
Let me be invincible
Hop on one foot if I like
Or paint with chocolate

Get dirty in the mud
Float down a Tennessee river in the heat of the summer
Drink tea with the ladies in Kashmir
Share a story with the King of Morocco
Kiss you in the rain
Cast a spell on the world
Run the finest silk through my fingers
Lie with my ear to the ground for hours
As God speaks in rhythms and beats
Touch your skin in a field of lavender
Drive so fast that I can't see
I'll see magic at every glance

I feel God in the soil in my hands
I see His wonder in the buds of the pussy willow
He is the Master of color
He breathes His life into a world of dying things
He paints His beauty on the face of the moon
His love, it runs its course through my veins
Pulsing energy to go and be
To fall down at His feet in His world
With no fear of pain or death or sadness

For the rest of my days
I'll run with no fear
Through this world
Screaming until my voice is gone
Or He take me home
And I'll shatter all this doubt
With the throbbing tap of my bare feet on His earth
 
 

Don't Touch What You Don't Understand

You wanna touch the sleeve of my blouse?
Is it that difficult to resist my charms?
Or just why don't you pretend that I don't drive you mad?
So what if I'm alluring to you.

You think that my hair looks pretty
I've got soft, white skin
My style is unique, it's dream-like
I brought you to another world
I raise the bar, you say
I'm your little muse
But dear, you've gotten all confused

I won't play the muse
Cause I won't sit for you
A pretty picture just to admire and use
I'm a living, breathing child of God
Created to create
To be loved the way you wanna be loved
It's so damn shallow the way you care for me

Babe, stop all this objectifyin'
It's like you never had a mother
Respect a lady please
If you wanna call yourself a man
Your Ego, it's gotten out of hand
Why don't you take a minute to reflect
On your actions
You know the ones that make us cry

I won't be liked the way you wanna like me
So if that's your deal, no compromise
Well, you keep your hands in your pockets
Cause from now on we are just gonna talk
And you'll lose what you could've had
And I'll have a good laugh

Daily dose of Berry

"For the care or control of fertility, both that of the earth and that of our bodies, we have allowed a technology of chemicals and devices to replace the entirely cultural means of ceremonial forms, disciplines, and restraints.  We have gathered up the immense questions that surround the coming of life into the world and reduced them to simple problems for which we have manufactured and marketed simple solutions.  An infertile woman and an infertile field both receive a dose of chemicals, at the calculated risk of undesirable consequences, and are thus equally reduced to the status of productive machines.  As for unwanted life–sperm, ova, embryos, weeds, insects, etc.–we have the same sort of remedies, for sale, of course, and characteristically popularized by advertisements that speak much of advantages but little of problems… That is only a new battle in the old war between body and soul–as if we were living in front of a chorus of the most literal fanatics chanting: ‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out!  If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off!"


Wendell Berry’