Hunger Knows No Season

Note: When I first posted this yesterday, I wrote that "one in eight" is food insecure. I did my math wrong: it is one in SIX of us! I corrected the post below.

Just ten days before Thanksgiving this year, the USDA released its annual report on food insecurity in this nation. "Food insecurity" is the measurement of the degree to which one's access to "enough food" (enough to meet basic nutritional needs) is limited by a lack of money and other resources.

The news was not good.

Here are some of the grim facts, compiled by Feeding America in its review of the report:

• In 2008, 49.1 million (16.4%) Americans lived in food insecure households compared to 36.2 million (12.2%) in 2007.
• In 2008, 17.2 million (14.6%) American households are food insecure compared to 13 million (11.1%) in 2007.
• In 2008, 8.3 million (21%) households with children are living in food insecure households compared to 6.2 million (15.8%) in 2007.
• In 2008, 16.7 million (22.5%) children are living in food insecure households compared to 12.4 million (16.9%) in 2007.
• In 2008, 2.3 million (8.1%) households with seniors were living in food insecure households compared to 1.8 million (6.5%) in 2007.
• The number of individuals who are food insecure increased 36% over 2007 and the number of children increased 35% over 2007.

The short version is this: one in six of us is food insecure, unless you are talking about children. One in four of our children is food insecure.

Just this past weekend, the New York Times ran an article about food stamps. Guess what? Food stamp programs nationwide are seeing a huge influx of applicants. About 20,000 people per day are added to the program. In some parts of the country, the rolls have more than doubled in two years.

In the Times article, an undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program, is quoted as saying, "[t]his is the most urgent time for our feeding programs in our lifetime, with the exception of the Depression. It's time for us to face up to the fact that in this country of plenty, there are hungry people (emphasis added)."

We are all growing hungrier and hungrier - some of us literally, some of us figuratively. Some of us do without or skimp on meals so there is more for others at the table. Some of us have family members and friends who struggle to get enough food. Some of us prepare food wondering who in our hometowns is going hungry tonight?

One in six of us is.

Many of us just celebrated a holiday dedicated to eating. Coming up next is a season of multiple holidays in which foods play an important role.

Locally, People in Need (P.I.N.) is gearing up for its annual Holiday Clearing House, which distributes food, toys, and necessities for the holiday season to needy families. Last year, P.I.N.'s holiday efforts helped 491 families and 168 seniors/disabled households. This year the numbers are even greater; P.I.N. had over 500 families registered more than two months ago.

And that's just for the holidays. In 2008, P.I.N, which runs our emergency food pantry, provided 51,650 meals to 1845 households. In those households were 3246 adults and 2554 children. That was a 10% increase over 2007. 2009 will see even greater numbers.

As the staff and volunteers that run P.I.N. know, hunger is more than just a seasonal affliction. We know that in our household - the Symphony's Board of Trustees has already given Warren the go-ahead for another benefit concert in 2010 to help fill the shelves of P.I.N.'s food warehouse.

I have written about hunger before and I will in all likelihood write about it again. To me, hunger is the face of the Great Recession. I see hungry clients at our monthly legal clinic. I see hungry individuals at court when they sign in at the bailiff's table. And sometimes I see a hungry family member at our own table, which makes me quietly pack a bag of groceries, grateful that I have something to share, even if it is just peanut butter and crackers, pasta and homemade tomato sauce.

In this holiday season, while we are planning our holidays meals, let us not forget those of us whose cupboards and refrigerators are bare. Find a food bank or a meals program. Donate dollars, donate food, donate time, not just for this season, but for all seasons.

First Snow!

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley

When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I'll know I'm growing old.

Lady Bird Johnson

We woke to our first snow this morning. Not a lot and it is late in coming this year, yet it is still magical and I am still thrilled to see it.

Thanksgiving

Sam (Indian) and friend Sam (Pilgrim), 1st grade Thanksgiving feast, November 1996

So here we are at Thanksgiving. I baked the pies yesterday afternoon. Two pumpkins first, then an apple (spices only, no sugar so my dad, who is diabetic, can eat it). I found the "all Christmas music all the time already" channel on the radio and put it on while the house filled up with the smells of cinnamon and cloves.

After supper, while Warren practiced for a weekend performance, I peeled potatoes and made the cranberry sauce. If you stepped outside and then came back in, the fragrance of good food would greet you at the door.

This morning I'll tackle cleaning the living room, where we will set up the table for later today. Warren's son David is joining us for breakfast shortly, having driven down from Akron yesterday. My nephew Matthew is marching in the Macy's Day parade as part of the Macy's Great American Marching Band, so at some point we will flip on the television (a rarity!) and see if we can catch a glimpse of him in the mellophone section.

Late afternoon today, family will gather here for an evening meal. Warren and I are undertaking the bulk of the food and preparations - the turkey, the mashed potatoes, all the desserts, the cranberry sauce (already done), the stuffing. My parents, my older brother, my aunt Ginger, and Sam will join us at the table. I have no question that Warren's parents, Ellen and Art, are already present one way or another.

Sam is struggling to be thankful for anything as his job search goes on and on. I'm hoping the Thanksgiving meal will bring a smile to his face; Grandma is making the marshmallow sweet potato concoction and a plate of deviled eggs at his request. Sam is making pumpkin mousse (his idea) when he arrives, serving it in the parfait glasses that caught his eye last week when he came over. (They belonged to Warren's mother or grandmother and Sam thought it would be cool to use them.)

I am awash in memories of Thanksgiving past, way past. When I was a kid, Thanksgiving and Christmas were divided between my grandparents' households. Thanksgiving was always spent with my Grandma Skatzes, who lived one floor below us. Christmas was always spent with my grandparents Nelson, on their farm some 12 miles away.

Looking back many decades later, I now scratch my head over that particular division. I loved Grandma Skatzes dearly, but cooking was not her strong suit. On the other hand, Grandma Nelson, who was not a storybook Christmas grandmother, was an excellent cook. So I am unsure to this day why the holidays got split such that we spent the one holiday devoted to food with Grandma Skatzes.

Even though Grandma Skatzes was not known for her cooking, I don't remember ever having a bad Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe my aunt Ginger, who lived with her parents until their deaths, took on the bulk of the cooking. Maybe my mother was down in that kitchen as well, adding her talents to the mix. As a little kid, I didn't pay much attention to the food preparation. I just remember the food tasted good.

Food preparation didn't interest me because I was camped out with my brothers in front of the color television watching the parades: Macy's in New York, Gimbels in Philadelphia. (Note: Color television was a BIG deal back in the early 1960s.) We were all enthralled with the giant balloons and would squeal and shriek when a favorite (Underdog! Bullwinkle!) would float into view.

There was limited space at Grandma's table (a 1950s red top, chrome trimmed classic that I miss to this day) and we four would be relegated to TV trays in the living room. Unheard of luxury! Turkey, a TV tray, and a color television all in one fell swoop!

Thanksgiving was bliss.

For the most part, the menu at Grandma's Thanksgiving was pretty standard from year to year. Turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, stuffing, sweet potatoes. "Brown-n-serve rolls," exotic simply because they came from a store. Pumpkin pies on a folding table in Ginger's "sitting room." Two dishes made Thanksgiving distinct: my grandmother's vinegar coleslaw and a pan of homemade oyster stuffing (which was always called "dressing"). Those were the flavors of my childhood Thanksgiving: that tart slaw and that moist dressing. As a adult, I finally tracked down a close facsimile of the slaw, but I have not tasted that oyster dressing in over 35 years.

While I type these words, Warren is at his instruments. Soft conga sounds drifted down from upstairs at first; he is now two rooms away on the timpani. Our Thanksgiving is being heralded in with a chorus of kettle drums.

Parades! Pies! Turkey! Family! Drums! My cornucopia of blessings is full to the brim.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankfulness

It's that time of year again.

You know what I mean. It is the time of year when being thankful rises to the top of our consciousness and we actually stop and count our blessings, instead of merely rushing past them on the way to something or somewhere else.

I have many Thanksgiving thoughts and memories, and some of them may (may, I say) make their way into a post on the Day itself. But I just experienced something - not for the first time, I might add - that always makes me thankful beyond words.

The experience? Two and a half hours with my stepdaughter, Elizabeth. She just left with her dad to go to Scouts.

Elizabeth is well on her way to being 16, a sophomore in high school. She was 13 and in seventh grade when her parents separated, almost 15 and in ninth grade before she saw her father on a regular (i.e., an established and adhered to schedule) basis again. (Comment: someone - not Warren - behaved very, very badly during the lengthy divorce process when it came to the children.) There were many times during that whole time when what little contact or information Warren had about Elizabeth was along the lines of "I hate you" or "I don't want to see you." After it was over and we were married, she was not hostile or ugly towards me, but she made it very, very clear without ever opening her mouth that she would prefer if I did not exist.

What a long ways we have come.

Elizabeth spent much of this evening before supper talking with me - sharing her day, reviewing her knowledge of Ohio driving law (a learner's permit is in the offing), talking about tap dance (Elizabeth loves to dance), exclaiming over Scouting requirements (she is in Venturing, the co-ed program of the Boy Scouts), and just giggling and laughing. She spent a huge portion of it sprawled out on the couch, furrowing her brow over traffic signs, looking at her Scouting requirements, and sharing bits of information with me.

She is a great young lady.

I am thankful that Elizabeth is in my life and that she made the decision to let me be in hers. The turning point came last December when after a particularly chilly and stressful evening, I told Warren he could take his kids home in the truck while I walked home from the nearby party because I was too tired of trying to be pleasant with Elizabeth. I don't think Warren said a lot to her on the way home, other than "April is my wife and in this home, you will be nice to her. You don't have to like her, but you will be nice."

Bless her heart, Elizabeth went way beyond that. The next day, while Warren was running errands and I was busy in the family room trying to stay out of her way, she sought me out, sat down, and started talking - first about dance, then about how ballet slippers are made (taking an old pair apart to show me), then about school, then about something else, and then something else, and then something else.

I remember sitting there holding my breath, afraid the moment would evaporate. It didn't and neither did Elizabeth.

She has not closed me out since then. Sometimes I get the same brusque teenage treatment that Warren gets, but we get it together when she is feeling her age. I have never again felt singled out (or ignored entirely) because I married her dad.

I am thankful for lots of things - not just during this season, but (I hope) most days. Warren and my boys are on the top of that list, as are Alise, my almost daughter-in-law, and David, my stepson. My friends are close behind.

Elizabeth, though, occupies a special place on that list. I never had a daughter. I don't pretend that I am her mother; I'm not. But I am thrilled and delighted and, above all, thankful to have this amazing, wonderful, funny, engaging stepdaughter who somewhere, somehow, made the decision to dance into my life.

Clutter

My morning started with rotting pumpkins on the mantel. They were the last of the pie pumpkins out of my pumpkin patch, and the ones that rotted were the very last of the last to be picked.

Warren discovered them. Three of the four were at the moldy, soft stage; the fourth was at the really yucky leaking stage. So while the oatmeal got cold out in the kitchen, we cleaned up pumpkins.

This was a full morning. I had to get to a meeting in Columbus. Cleaning up rotting pumpkins was not on my schedule. By the time I left the house, I was frustrated with the pumpkins, stressed over time, and wondering if I had everything I needed. The car windows were covered with condensation, so I had to go back in the house to get towels to wipe them. I had no money for parking in downtown Columbus, so had to factor in a quick stop at the grocery where I needed to pick up one item anyway. All these things tumbled through my mind while I grew tense about the ticking clock in my mind.

Poor Warren. He looked at me with love and concern while I brushed off his offers for help. "I can do it!," I said through gritted teeth. "Just let me take care of it." All he wanted to do was make things easier for me this morning, but I was in such a state of mind that I couldn't let my walls down to let him take care of me. (When I got to Columbus, I called him and left a voicemail that I had arrived, I had stopped hyperventilating, and I loved him.)

En route to Columbus, my mind started looping on Dr. Bully and what I would say to my oncologist in mid-December in response to the question I suspect is coming. ("What happened?") When I wasn't looping on Dr. Bully, I was worrying over a list of "to dos" (or, more honestly, "not dones").

To break the loop, I put on a radio station loudly. Between the morning show and the music, I managed to shut the internal loop off in my head. I arrived in Columbus with no loop, but not much peace of mind either. My thoughts raced in all directions while I walked to the meeting.

The meeting started out slowly and my attention wandered far and wide. I found myself making notes and lists to myself, trying to shake out my tangled thoughts. They're all in a clutter.

Everything is cluttered right now.

My life is cluttered right now. My desk is cluttered, the coffee table is cluttered, the kitchen table is cluttered. Grocery receipts, store ads, the program booklet from yesterday's conference, a card from Warren's sister, letters I need to answer.

Clutter, clutter, clutter.

My mind is cluttered right now. Sam's situation is nagging at me. (It turns out the ex told Sam before he moved back to Ohio that I would pay his rent. Not just one month but all months until Sam gets a job. Did the ex ask me? No.) Court matters are on my mind. Emails I need to answer are tugging at my brain cells.

Clutter, clutter, clutter.

My time is cluttered right now. We have had many, many nights out (evening meetings) for the last several weeks. December 2009 is almost filled in on my calendar and I am already starting to mark up January 2010. While I sat there today, I noted all the repeating dates I have yet to pen in on 2010: United Way board meetings (4th Monday every other month), legal clinic (3rd Tuesday of the month), mediation (Thursday afternoons), coffee with Nancy (1st Thursday of the month).

Clutter, clutter, clutter.

I ended up jotting down a list of what I "want." My list read like this:

• less clutter
• more control over schedule
• more disciplined with my time
• cleaner house* - dusty floors, shower needs cleaned, what is that in the fridge?
• personal time: read, write, Warren, projects, friends

[*Note: I am not what you would call a neat-as-a-pin homemaker. I have a high tolerance for dust. I have a high tolerance for things in the house, including shop equipment, ongoing projects, and six timpani. I can tolerate all of that. But right now we are way past my breakpoint on surface level clutter.]

When I attended a "Bridges Out of Poverty" workshop this summer, the speaker said people with middle class values like to make lists and check things off as they accomplish them. This is so engrained as a value that if they have accomplished something not on their list, they will often write it in and then cross it off as a sign of accomplishment.

I thought of that statement as I looked at my list. I'm not sure my wants lend themselves to being crossed off.

The meeting picked up midway through the morning and I set my notes aside. At lunch, the five of us (it was a small meeting) told personal stories about where we came from and how we got into this field (mediation). Small, intimate notes were exchanged. Martha used to keep a herd of Jersey cows and was an accomplished cheese maker. Kathy was a county commissioner at one time. Mac was in the Army and did three tours of duty during Desert Storm.

While sharing his story, Mac said he tries to find the good in each day, adding, "I'm just skipping along in God's grace." He rapped a rhythm with his knuckles against the tabletop while he said that.

Skipping is a lighthearted act. Skipping is the unfettered and unburdened gait of a happy child.

I am looking at my list again, now that I am home and typing these words. It is interesting that time or time management is three of the five points. Time seems to be my continual stumbling block. Sometimes what I perceive as clutter - mental and physical - is more my banging my head against the clock and the calendar than anything else.

I can go on wrestling with time and its accompanying clutter, getting frustrated with its unmanageability, or I can consciously step back and let it flow by.

I can choose to let it go.

I can skip along in the grace of the moment.

Changing the Channel

So here's where I'm at.

It is fast approaching Thanksgiving, Christmas is right around the corner, and I am looking at my oh-so-slender account balance and taking a deep breath.

Make that several deep breaths. Thanks to that one disastrous medical appointment in mid-July, I am still paying off the resulting damage from the doctor who ordered his "favorite" tests over my and my pocketbook's protests, reminding me that he was the one with 14 years of medical training and also insisting that if I were just "firm," the hospital would knock those bills down to nothing.

Add to that the recent email from my ex in which he asked me if I could cover Sam's December rent because he was "very tight" on money this month. (This is the same ex who at the time when I was recovering from my second stem cell transplant and had been unemployed for months, insisted he could not scrape up the money to pay one ( just one!) monthly orthodontia payment.) The ex had promised Sam he would cover his living expenses until Sam finds work. But wait, there's more! After I wrote back yesterday and said it would be hard but Sam and I would make it work for December, the selfsame ex (who is fully employed with benefits) emailed last night to ask me if I could take over Sam's monthly expenses until Sam finds a job.

I was momentarily staggered by his presumptuousness, but then remembered that this is but one of the many reasons we are no longer married.

All the same, it made my chest hurt.

Maybe I need to take a million deep breaths. My thoughts are looping on my grievances against Dr. Bully (now four months in the past) and my grievances against my ex spouse (too far in the past to count).

Several years ago when I was clawing my way out of the wreckage of my marriage, I had a great therapist who helped me put the pieces of my life back together. One of the things I learned from him was how to turn off the loop when it gets started.

You turn off the loop by walking away from it. Which in this case means I need to let go and focus on the present.

The present is this: I have income (freelance) coming in, I have a roof over my head, and there is food on the table. (And thanks to the gardens, in the freezer as well.) I have a wonderful husband who is always, always there for me and is honest and straightforward in our relationship. (And who loves me and never fails to show it. Wow!) I have much of my health. I have my younger son back in town and striving hard to get back on his feet again. I have my older son who is about to move with his amazing fiancé to a new town in the next step of their life adventure. I have family close at hand. I live in a community I love and in which I have invested my time and my heart. I have good friends - here in town, here and there throughout the country, and here in Blogville.

I have all of this in my life.

When I look at it this way - the only way to look at it - I am rich beyond measure.

We - Warren and I - will figure out something with Sam, something that disengages me from my ex and gets Sam on his feet. The hospital bills will get paid. My life will go on with richness and warmth and fullness, regardless of the balance in my bankbook.

And Christmas will come. Christmas will come with tinsel and bells and even a present or two, although in looking back at the riches I have listed, I'm can't imagine needing anything. (Well, maybe new oven mitts.)

My wonderful therapist from long ago often likened my painful memories and hurtful thoughts to a radio that played nonstop. He would say, "you may not ever be able to get rid of the radio, April, but you can learn ways to turn the volume way down so you don't have to listen to it all the time. You can even learn to change the channel."

I'm changing the channel right now. It's time for some holiday music.

Percussion Universe

I just got back from a long weekend with Warren in Indianapolis. We were there for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). After all, I do live in the percussion section.

This was not my first time at PASIC. I attended the 2007 convention in Columbus, Ohio, so I was not a total neophyte at this. All the same, I was once again just blown away by what it means to immerse yourself in a world of percussion.

A world of percussion? Try something bigger, much bigger. A galaxy? A universe? Yeah, that's more like it. It is a Percussion Universe out there and I just spent two and a half days in the center of it.

There are some things you should know in case you ever are in Percussion Universe:

• Lots of performers in Percussion Universe wear black. Despite this, Percussion Universe is not a somber or grim place. All the same, if it were up to me, I'd throw some color into the mix. What about a little fuchsia or turquoise every now and then?
• Five gallon buckets (empty) dipped into water and then emptied out are percussion instruments.
• It is not unusual in Percussion Universe to see the denizens walk by carrying a drum cradled in their arms as gently as you would carry a child. On a return trip, they might be guiding a marimba in the same manner one would coax a balky horse.
• You may come upon a group of older men standing outside talking, carrying what look like from a distance to be purses of various colors and styles. Only when you are closer do you realize they are holding tambourine bags.

In Percussion Universe, the drumming never stops. You cannot go anywhere without tripping over someone drumming, hearing someone drumming, or seeing someone carrying something that could be drummed upon. At any time day or night, you find percussionists, regardless of age, gender, or nationality, tapping out rhythms with their fingers, their feet, their hands, the mallets or sticks in their back pocket, or any other object that can strike a surface, be it a wall, a tabletop, a floor, or a leg - theirs or that of a buddy.

I arrived in Percussion Universe tired and out of sorts. We'd been up way too late the night before and had left early Thursday morning to get there. I was disoriented in the large convention center.

But that mood didn't last long. The joy of Percussion Universe is infectious. There are too many notes, too many beats, too many rhythms, too many shiny things, and too many goofy things to see and do to stay grumpy for long.

To enter the Exhibit Hall at PASIC was to plunge into the heart of Percussion Universe. In the front of the hall were publishers and schools and makers of the quieter instruments like marimbas. The back area contained the drum sets, the timpani, the cymbals, and everything else that was loud. In between the two was a buffer zone, curtained off, that contained dead space.

You need a buffer zone in Percussion Universe because percussionists need buffered. Think of the buffer zone as a DMZ between loud and LOUD.

In Percussion Universe, all that glitters is not gold. The hottest colors and metals are brass, bronze, and copper. Everywhere I turned, there was another stack of shiny cymbals or triangles to run my fingers over. Everywhere were percussionists touching, drumming, tapping a bar, a marimba, a triangle, a cymbal, just for the sound of it.

It is glittery eye candy. It is stunning ear candy.

The big question in Percussion Universe is "what does it sound like?" And that question is answerable in infinite ways ranging from tone to rhythm. I know, because I walked more than once through the Exhibit Hall with Warren, who did a fair amount of tapping, rapping, and drumming himself. The PASIC staff kept making announcements to hold any playing to a mezzo forte level and no louder for no more than 20 seconds. For the most part, people did that. But with 100 or 200 percussionists all playing different instruments at the same time, the phrase "mezzo forte" didn't mean a thing.

I saw some amazing performances that I am still carrying in my head and ears. One was a gamelan ensemble from University of Illinois. A gamelan is an assemblage of Balinese percussion instruments that are treated as one instrument for playing purposes, being built and tuned to stay together as one unit. Some of the pieces are mounted metal bars (like a xylophone) which the players strike with metal hammers. The musical effect is wonderfully like a merry-go-round band organ. One of the players, a young Balinese woman who had danced the first piece with three others, wore her elaborate golden headdress while she played. She looked like the Queen of Percussion Universe as she concentrated on her striking.

There were so many groups that just floored me (and everyone else listening to them). Ju Percussion from Taipei performed pounding rhythms, classical Chinese opera complete with two singers in traditional operatic costume (elaborately brocaded) and makeup, and incredible keyboard work that brought us all to our feet for a lengthy standing ovation. There was the high school quartet, Badaboum, which won an audition to be a showcased ensemble and came all the way from France to play at PASIC. Saturday night, the amazing Tommy Igoe and his jazz band performed. They were joined by Rolando Morales-Matos, who has the fastest hands I have ever seen and who just happens to be a brother of our Symphony's conductor. Again, we - all of us in Percussion Universe - were on our feet at the end.

My favorite group was the Louisville Leopards Percussionists, a group of about 65 children ages 7 to 12, who learn the happiness of making music through learning to play jazz percussion. We heard two different ensembles: the beginners (who had started just three months ago) and the older students, who have been in the group for anywhere from a year to several years. Never mind how cute the group was (how can you not melt watching a little boy play bongos when his eyes barely clear the level of the drums?), these kids were musicians. As they played, they filled the room with joy and rhythm.

Soon after the performance, the youngest Leopards exited single file. Adults lined up on either side and applauded and cheered them down the hall. Later on, I saw many of them in the Exhibit Hall, all wearing their telltale orange shirts, weaving in and out of exhibits, playing different instruments. A couple of the Leopards had purchased drum sticks and were doing what any other percussionist would do - drum on the table, the backs of chairs, their legs, or a nearby buddy's back - just to see what it sounded like.

By the end of PASIC, Percussion Universe had infused entire city blocks in downtown Indianapolis. Everywhere you went were people walking around with sticks in hand, tapping, or their fingers drumming on a sign pole while waiting for the light to change. At Rhythm Discovery Center, the soon to open percussion museum of the Percussive Arts Society, I heard someone taking a masterful turn on a cajon drum, which is very much like a large box you sit on and thump with your hands. Turning the corner, I found one of the museum guards just getting up from it, grinning. And in what was surely the epitome of PASIC and a badge of being a true citizen of Percussion Universe, one of the college age attendees set up shop on a street corner with his steel pan drum, an open case in front of him, busking for fun and a few bucks.

We have been home for a couple of days now. Our living room still contains the detritus of our trip. There are brochures and cymbal mounts and programs on one chair. There is a large tuned cowbell on the couch. As I type these words, I hear again the sounds of tambourines and bongos, and see again the faces of the Louisville Leopards as they showed a whole room of adults what it was all about. It was all about the rhythms, all about the beat, and all about the sheer energy and joy of making music.

It was all about being in Percussion Universe.