Cinderella and the Pulitzer Prize

At this moment, a Pulitzer-winning poet is stacking some papers on a podium. She's clearing her throat and thanking the person who introduced her. Maybe she's smiling or maybe she's bowing her head for a moment before beginning to read. Whatever she's doing, I'm not there.

Unexpectedly, at the end of today, which has been marked by kids (like all my days are), and significantly, has been full of joy and contentment, I am now feeling a bit like Cinderella left behind at the ball. Martin rushed out the door, cup of tea in hand, to walk to the event, and I finished the dishes and sat down in the disheveled dining room (which I've cleaned up already twice today). As I sank lower in the morass of my own personal misery, I heard my mother's voice telling me to stop being such a baby and empower myself. I could have arranged to go tonight. I don't need to wait for a fairy godmother. I could have hired a babysitter.

But then I argued back: in an age when women are supposed to be empowered, why is it that we have to remind ourselves to BE empowered, when, for many men, that is already assumed? I thought about telling Cinderella: These people don't own you. Shake free of this learned helplessness. Get a microloan. Go out and start your own business, one chicken at a time.

And I told myself: Come on. Nobody's oppressing you. Think ahead and find a babysitter next time. At home instead of at the poetry reading? You have nobody to blame but yourself.

And I told myself (and this is related, believe it or not): Be more disciplined and write your book.

To add a humorous note to my frustration (by making me see myself in a more realistic light) Merry just got frustrated over a bookmark that she decorated (to enter in a contest) that she decorated with the motto: Fly Away With Your Imagination and READ!. She started listing genres on the bookmark: Fantasy, Mystery. . .She wants to add: Realistic Fiction, Fiction, Etc., and draw pictures.

"I just don't think there's enough room on the bookmark." I was pointing out the obvious, a fact that already had her worked up.

"But the judges will think I just picked two random genres," she argued passionately. "They want something more than this. These days. . ." She trailed off as if the world is a hard nut to crack. Then she got that Merry look that warns me she is overwhelmed and about to cry. "I just don't want to talk about this anymore," she said, and filed the bookmark back in her folder.

Already in fourth grade and she's feeling the same roadblocks as I do now. And I have to wonder, how many are from the world, and how many are from our own expectations of what we as women should be accomplishing, even though we accomplish an awful lot?

Just today I had to tell myself to relax and enjoy life. There's nothing you absolutely have to do today, I reminded myself. . .And in the end, I did enough today (not least of all, I drank endless cups of tea to try to cure my stubborn sinus cold), and I wrote my column for the week. . .but even now I'm chastising myself for not writing thirty minutes on my latest project and not planning ahead for the Pulitzer poet. Finally, I can add to my list: Figure a way out for Cinderella. Come up with an economic plan and the right words to make her stand up and leave the fireplace. I can't just leave her waiting around for her fairy godmother. And surely she has better places to go than to a ball.

Off to Red Barn Farm

We spent last Sunday at Red Barn Farm, a self-sustaining dream come true. Jeannie Williams, a burnt-out preschool teacher, was inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable. . ." and went to work with an astounding energy. I wanted to glean a couple of articles so I carried around my tape recorder all morning, in the chicken coop and goat pens,
up muddy hills, and in the warmth of a hoop house lined with spinach, bak choy, and other gorgeous winter crops. Look at those nannies, so protective of their kids; they could hear them from across the barn and would charge off looking for one, nosing it back safely among the other babies. Here's Elspeth standing in front of a cunning structure built by a local artisan, all by hand with stone, into a hillside. It looks like a hobbit should live there but it's actually a cellar where Jeannie Williams stores her jams.

To read the sweet, syrupy story of our trip to Red Barn Farm (which is mostly about Llew Williams' maple tapping operation), click here.