My Truant Pen

Daydreams of time

What would you do if you had more leisure time? I’m sitting outside on a glorious Sunday afternoon, cool in the shade and warm in the sun, listening to the sort of rock music meant for summer. I’m edged in a short hour between my Pastor Nominating Committee meeting & follow up emails and when I need to leave to catch a plane for Chicago for work for the next few days.*

My life is filled with meaningful and joyful work, almost all of which requires me to sit at a computer. Funny that, isn’t it?

But I’ve lately been having fantasies of what I’d do if I actually had real blocks of unencumbered time in which to do stuff I wanted to do (as opposed to the stuff I already decided to do – I’m a lover of novelty!). I’m quite sure I’d end up filling those hours (if not quite a packed as they are now…)

Real life: Counting the proceeds from our “change drive” for Heifer in my Sunday School class

My fantasy life isn’t what it once was. This may be partially because so many fantasies of youth have come true. I am married to a guy I totally dig, and who seems happy with me. I have two happy, healthy children. I’m working my dream job. I have a D20 tea mug. Hard to improve on this.

But lately I’ve been daydreaming a lot about writing, and history.

Real Life Saturday: foraging in the Fells

Anyway, a recent fantasy has to do with being an author. I have wanted to be an author since I first realized that a) you had to have a job b) writing books was a job. Unfortunately, I have never written a book. This puts a damper on one’s authorship. But I’ve recently come to imagine what series of books I want to write. I always wanted to write fantasy novels a la Tolkien. But it turns out I’m terrible at it. As I’ve sunk into true belonging into this amazing town I live in, though, I’ve discovered all this phenomenal history, and remarkable stories. You’ve heard me talk about this before, but it seems like every few months I find out something new and amazing about the town.

The most recent discovery came when I did a tour of Lindenwood Cemetery only to learn that Stoneham was *apparently* a hotbed of the Spiritualist Movement.

Mind you, not everyone was a fan of spiritualism.

So my latest brilliant idea is to write a series of mystery novels, loosely set in the history of Stoneham. It would start with the naked sailors & wolf attacks of the early 1700s. It would wind it’s way through the blood and suffering of the Revolutionary War. We’d get Jacob Gould’s murder, of course. The Spiritualists would follow. Perhaps then the Civil War and the Underground Railroad. That would be followed by the pugilists on Spot Pond & the mysterious “Where Shute Fell” marker in the roaring 20s (even the cursory research for this post points out that the marker far predates the prohibition prize fights!). We’d dedicate time to the great Pan Pacific Race, where Stoneham was wrongfully denied it’s place in history by cheating.

I might stop there, coming at that point to close to living remembrance to steal so boldly. Or it might be, in doing the depth and research of learning I would have to do to write these books, I’d uncover even more rich stories in the interstices. I imagine the books being threaded together by the lives of the people who span them. Silas Dean would show up often, in fact or in memory. Elizur Wright might be the hero of the Civil War book. Maybe there’d be two Civil War books – same time, two perspectives. Honestly, I might be a happy woman for decades just doing research until I felt like I knew enough to start writing. (Although given my personality, I’d probably start writing and then get sidetracked on the research.)

Doesn’t that sound like fun? Can’t you see my notebooks spread out before me, a look of concentration on my face? Can’t you imagine me hovering over the library’s microfiche machine? I imagine falling into long digressions with Dolly in the library, following heretofore unknown threads of history. Consider the hikes in the Fells to see _that spot_. The joy of unearthing just the perfect picture from forgotten archives. The maps that would need to be made and adjusted for each one of these moments in time. The cast of characters set and threaded through books.

For example, while I was writing this, Dolly sent me this picture of my neighborhood (Nobility Hill) c. 1900

Then imagine the books actually get published, to some degree of success. (Let’s be clear, this falls well into the realm of utmost fantasy.) Imagine the sectional in the library touting the local author! The tour of local sites by the Historical Commission! A book signing at the Book Oasis (where the patrons thrill to imagine the courage of the Underground Railroad travelers and conductors on the very spot where they now stand)! Imagine my sleepy town rising from the backwater of history to claim its place next to Concord and Lexington. (OK, probably not that much, but maybe people would have heard of it?) Imagine citizens walking past Silas Dean’s house with a sense of awe and ownership.

It’s a pretty good fantasy, as fantasies go.

So, you ask, what would it take to do it? The reason it’s a fantasy is because I have some idea what it takes, and I don’t have it. I’d guess it would take an hour a day, four weekdays a week. Then probably a 3 hour research block + an hour a day writing time on weekends. Obviously there could be breaks & vacations, but I find the momentum & continuity pretty critical to writing a coherent work. That’s time I simply don’t have. Last time I did Nanowrimo, my whole family felt neglected and left out. They’re my first priority, so that just won’t work. Maybe someday I’ll have that extra hour a day I need, but I don’t see that day anytime soon.

Until then, you’ll just have to continue to be my writing outlet, dear friends!
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What about you? What daydreams do you hold on to? What mighta-coulda beens while away your pleasant thoughts?

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*A friend commented how remarkable it was that I always took precisely the 10 – 11 hour on Monday mornings to write my blog post. Let me clarify – I write the post over the weekend and schedule publication. The timing is so that people actually read it, since posting on a weekend is a great way to have a readership of 10.

Nothing new under the sun

It’s Mother’s Day, and I’ve spent it in glorious sloth and catching up on some things that need to be caught up on. Someone praised my blogging on Facebook today, and I’m happy for the compliment. But then I find myself with another week coming, and another post, and not such great ideas.

Or rather, I have some excellent ideas. I’d love to tell you about Mother’s Day, lilacs, and how much I love lilacs. Except I did that back in 2009. (Eight years later, the boys still roll down the hills at the Arnold Arboretum during the Lilac Festival.) Also, please note that in that post I whined about how hard it is to come up with things to write about. I also covered lilacs in 2010, 2011, 2012 and probably every year since then. Maybe I should start thinking of these posts as traditions instead of repetitions?

Yesterday at one point I had on my “Mirkwood National Forest” t shirt, had my “Not all who wander are lost” sticker on my laptop (the other laptop has a custom made “Gates of Moria” sticker and was reading Tolkien.

In an attempt to restore and rejuvenate myself, I’ve reread Tolkien for, I dunno. It might be the 40th time. I have my own “Editor’s Cut” of how to read the books if I’m in a hurry. I read them super slowly this time, to notice things that had previously escaped my attention. I did! It’s such a rich text. I love it more each time. This time I pondered a parallel between Theoden of Rohan and Roland of “The Song of Roland”. Both are killed by their own weapons (horse and horn), arguably because such characters couldn’t be bested by a foe and hold to the story. I also saw more clearly than ever some of the Christian allegory Tolkien claimed he was including. There is much of the Christ story in Gandalf’s death, resurrection, transformation & teaching. But I’ve also covered the topic of Tolkien pretty well.

Complaining about being busy is boring. Being busy is also boring.

My life is pretty awesome. The most I have to complain about is too much awesomesauce. There’s chocolate cake to celebrate tonight. And at any moment now I’m going to log off and start playing Civ VI like I intended to three hours ago.

May your remembrances of mothers and mothering bring you joy today. For those of you who do not have your mothers, may you find consolation either in memory, or in the memory of those who have served as loving influences in your life!

Spring is astonishing

I work in technology, and the epicenter of technology is in California. I have thought a lot about living in California, and repeatedly decided that I did NOT want to live in California. Many people transplanted to California talk about how they miss “the seasons”. I mean, paradise is great but it has no variety. I sometimes wonder in the dreariest days of early April (when according to the seasons I learned at the hands of English poets spring should be well along) whether the seasons are all that much to brag about.

But then, oh glorious May! There is this thing that happens to color and sunlight in May that beggars explanation. It’s as though your eyes put on a saturation lens. Every color – from the blandest grays to the chartreuse grasses and indigo skies – looks more vibrant than you remember the world looking. The phlox is unrealistically pink, and soft to the touch. Fragrances – long forgotten out of doors – waft on the soft winds bringing news of nearby lilacs (my favorite flower). The way the golden light bends over playing children long into the evening hours seems like a double bounty. Not only is it a glorious, beautiful and rich light, but it lingers longer.

Spring is an excellent time for ambition. Oh, not as great as Fall. There is no better time for the embarking on great adventures than September (as Tolkien well knew). But when you step outside to mow your lawn for the first time in a calendar year and contemplate the land allotted to you, it occurs to you it’s not enough. You should put in a flower bed. You should plant some pansies. Heck, maybe you should buy out your back door neighbor’s yard and add it to your own! (I confess that latter is a fantasy I’ve entertained. Tragically, that neighbor has no interest in selling.)

Spring is the time of year when you make gardening commitments your July self will deeply rue. You know that, of course. Everyone knows spring decisions are unreliable. But you can’t help yourself. You don’t want to help yourself. You want to believe, in spring, that all things really are made new and you yourself are a different person. A greater person than you’ve been before. A person who will weed all year round.

My next door neighbor is just such a person. (If you’re one of the cognoscenti of my street, no this isn’t any of my neighbors you know.) Every year since they moved in they’ve seeded their lawn with new grass seed. They even usually water it (thereby going one up on me and my “only the strong will survive” attitude towards grass seed). But they don’t believe in actually MOWING said lawn. Those newly minted blades of grass poking up through the “one-step” grass seed/fertilizer & soil mixes will be grow unmolested until August, at which point they’ll be crudely mown (by a weed-whacker I believe) for the sole time in the year. (Unless I get sick of it and sneak over and mow it first, which is deeply tempting.) Still every spring, they plant. You can’t fail to admire optimism like that.

I have continued to follow the progress of my plum tree with avid interest. The winter moths have not arrived. I don’t know if that’s “yet” or if they’ve been successfully suppressed. I have found today a tiny, embryonic plum. I haven’t given much thought to the growth patterns of fruit, but since you generally only see the flower and the fruit, I thought the inbetween stages somewhat invisible – the ridiculousness of which belief becomes apparent as quickly as writing it down. They are indeed there, those minute plums. The one I spotted is less than the size of an olive pit – much less. But it is there.

The tragedy of my spring is that I am not overambitious just once (or even twice a year). I suffer from chronic overambition. I would say that this year has been extra super ridiculously busy, but if I’m honest with myself it’s actually only a notch or two busier than usual. A good portion of the extra busyness comes from the Pastor Nominating Committee, which I’m chairing. We’re meeting three times this week. And for a total of about 6 horus. And I have homework on top of that. The efficiency maven in me keeps looking at how we might do this faster & better, but it’s a process that resists shortcuts.

This guy would like you to know he is NOT a spiritualist and does not condone the ridiculous stuff his son gets up to. His son, meanwhile, has his name on the plot in no less than FIVE spots.

I find myself caught between two powerful feelings – on one hand the feeling that this is all to much and I absolutely have to slow down. On the other hand, there’s this pressing and persistent guilt for all the things I have not done, which I have not put my hand to. I do absolutely nothing for the PTO. I would love to do more things with town history, but I’ve never even used the brand new microfiche machine in our library. (Although I’ve dispatched others for information found therein!) I really want to put up a sign marking the Nobility Hill Historic district. Two in fact. I just need designs. And money. Those just need… time. I haven’t seen half my friends in far too long. I turn down party invitations I’d rather attend. I don’t have season tickets to the theater. I don’t practice my trumpet. And I wish I spent more time with my kids. They’re neat people. It’s been ages since I attempted anything complicated in the kitchen. And the prime time of foraging season is here and I have not set foot in the woods.

In my defense, this weekend I did see “Guardians of the Galaxy” (both 1 and 2) with my kids. I finished reading “The Two Towers” for the, uh, I have no idea how many times I’ve read it. But when you have your own personal “director’s cut” (which I *didn’t* read) you may have read it rather often. I did a ton of PNC work. I cleaned up the “clothes to donate” pile. I took a 3 hour tour of Lindenwood Cemetery. (GUYS! Stoneham was a hotbed of spiritualism! The ghost stories just write themselves, really…) We went out to dinner with the gift certificate we were given in gratitude for rescuing a hiker last year. I played two board games. I attended one soccer game (our team won!). I went to church, and the International Potluck afterwards. We saw Gabriel at the theater with the boys (it was excellent!). I mowed the lawn and the space where I want to put the “Nobility Hill” sign. We went for a run. I made dinner & we watched “Bertie & Jeeves”. And then I realized I had no idea what to write for a blog post and went for the extremely creative “well what’s the weather like” prompt.

And honestly, this was not a super duper busy weekend. Not even the fullest spring-intoxication can beguile more commitments out of me!

One last word on spring. I’ve often contemplated the shift in metaphor that separates us from our forepoets. Both Homer and Keats – worlds & thousands of years apart – have seen real live sheep in the flesh. They know what they are to the touch. What a clean pelt feels like. How a contented sheep sounds. These are things that thousands of years of history have in common with each other. And they are things which have abruptly been removed from the common experience – or at best made isolated and rare. The rich metaphors are drying out in a world that no longer does the things we’ve always done.

But the seasons still remain. The stars have faded (when is the last time you glanced out and the sky was clear enough you could see the Milky Way?). The livestock are gone from our lives. We neither sow nor spin nor shear nor reap (the latter being especially true for my neighbor). So what remains as connection is all the more precious. The seasons remain. The daffodils still bloom, as once they did. Our hearts are “pricked” and we long to go on “pilgrimages”, just as Chaucer said. Even as much falls away, or becomes an intellectual adventure, we still share those seasons with those who came before us.

And that, my friends, is why I will not move to California.

The City of New Orleans

Back in September, at “The Event”, I bid on one item in the silent auction we hosted, the trip to New Orleans. I was super excited, but knew I didn’t want to go WITH children. February break, when the kids be at their grandparents, was unfortunately Marti Gras. (There were blackout dates on the hotel, alas.) So as April break arrived, I welcomed my mother-in-law and said a quick farewell as we hied ourselves down to The Crescent City.

We had a great time. We got half our to-do list done the first day. We had begnets for breakfast, with accompanying live jazz. We hit the largest historical museum. We had foot massages. (Well, we did that pretty much every day!) We did the cocktail tour (of which I remember the beginning better than the end… for some reason…) The best part of the cocktail tour was the set of scientists we were doing it with who were there for a Physical Anthropology Conference and were fascinating conversationalists. The worst part of the cocktail tour was absinthe. UUUUUGH.

The French Quarter was a noisy, tumultuous crazy place. I found myself slightly off-put by just how pleased everyone seemed with the moral decrepitude. Also, the concept of to-go beer is surprisingly disconcerting. We liked it best in the morning – and there were some great museums. I loved the Pharmacy Museum, and the Insectarium was well done. The leaf-cutter ants were the coolest part!

Many of those implements were terrifying!

Food and drink are a huge part of the appeal of the Crescent City. While I think they were well done, Adam doesn’t eat seafood and I don’t like spicy food. I think the best of it was a miss for us. My favorite were the Cajun Eggrolls at the Huck Finn Cafe. We went to one of New Orleans top restaurants, the Commander’s Palace where I had a soft-shelled crab. I was upset when I realized that after the glorious diversity of New Orleans, I didn’t see a single person of color in the entire restaurant, as server or patron. There were probably 300 people there. That was not a statistically plausible outcome, even correcting for income inequality. That realization made my bread pudding souffle taste much less sweet.

Three days was a short trip, but we were both in dire need of rest. The lovely weather, down time and amazing things to see were just what the doctor ordered – and not a creepy 19th century doctor either!

Damson Plum Jam

She’s panicking to her publisher about her book being successful.

There are some fragments of culture that are tiny – perhaps shared only across a few people. My family, like many families, has a culture fragment. It’s a book – a barely known domestic novel written in the eve of WWII by R.L. Stevenson’s first-cousin-once-removed, D.E. Stevenson about a woman who wrote novels. It’s called Miss Buncle’s Book and everyone in my family of birth has read it – multiple times. We used to hunt for copies of it (it was out of print) every time we went up to Canada, and finally over years we each got a copy. Mine is a fourth edition, and has an inscription on the front cover: “Mrs. F.B. Pemberton, from Laura, Jan 1937”. That same lady had a bookplate with the family motto on the other side, “Virtutate et Labore”, with a boar’s head.

Old books are awesome. I digress.

My original reading of that calligraphic scrawl was much more outre until I realized it was the same name as the bookplate.

In Miss Buncle’s Book, she accuses her neighbor of using pectin to get her damson jam to set. (This is, apparently, a crime. Here in the 21st century, before it became a hipster past-time, making jam at all was so ridiculously archaic that making it without pectin sounds ridiculous!) I’ve read this book probably 20 times, and this sentence always stuck out to me. And when I started getting more serious in the jam making and farmer’s market attending, I began asking the farmers if they had any damson plums. Plum jams are some of my favorite jams, and a bit of research had revealed that damsons are, in fact, a favorite plum for preserving.

But across all the farm shares, the farmer’s markets and the produce stands … no one had damson plums. No one had even heard of them. I badgered my farmer (Farmer Dave) to plant some for me. He politely declined.

What was previously a desultory inquiry became a quest. I wrote about my jam tendencies in 2011 and my adoring readership confirmed that damson plum jam was indeed the cat’s meow.

Finally, in 2012, I bought a fruiting sized tree for my tiny back yard, bound and determined to get my damson plums one way or another. I started thinking of recipes I could use the plums for. I’d make some prunes for pork and prune stew. Maybe a plum pudding? Plum wine? Of course, I’d make 3 or 4 batches of jam with all the plums. Perhaps I’d give the rest to neighbors, or finally teach my family to enjoy the fruit right off the tree. I know one tree an produce quite a volume of fruit, and my recipes were ready.

But that year came and went with nary a plum. And the next year. And the next year. I pruned. I watered. I didn’t water in order to stress it out. I didn’t prune. I watched in horror as winter moth caterpillers denuded my tree and every tree in the vicinity. Two years there were five blossoms – the first time I could finally figure out exactly when the tree was supposed to flower. Last year, every stone fruit in all New England was devastated by a late, hard freeze. I’ve watched it with a keen, worried eye as I saw the buds swelling this year, praying hard that no late chill would shrivel the blooms off my tree. I wondered if I could justify a smudge pot for my tiny, one-tree orchard. I actually tried to cover it in a tarp for the last really cold snap. (News flash: it’s too big.)

I’ve joked that I’ll never get a plum off my tree. We plan on owning this house for another 20 years, and I’ve sometimes had a horrible feeling I’ll go all 20 of those years damsonless – the tree growing and thriving and somehow falling down on it’s ONE DUTY of providing me with enough plums to make a batch of jam. Just one! Just once!

It’s Easter weekend. It’s the time when we have hope that things which look hopeless and beyond saving actually are not. And this year, for the first time ever, my plum tree is prolifically blooming. There are pollinators of all sorts whirling in a buzzing cloud around it. Green leaves and white blossoms blaze against a blue sky. We still need to get through the winter moth caterpillars, the summer and the harvest season. I have many steps to go between these virginal blossoms and the effulgent plums whose harvest is my great desire.

But there is hope. And I will probably use pectin.

PS – My name comes from another D.E. Stevenson book, “Crooked Adam”!
PPS – In looking up links for this article, I found this not-reassuring poem:

“He who plants plums
Plants for his sons.
He who plants damsons
Plants for his grandsons.”

PPPS – The site I bought it from just says it’s a “Blue Damson”. I hope that means it’s really a:
‘Shropshire Prune’ (syn. ‘Prune Damson’, ‘Long Damson’, ‘Damascene’, ‘Westmoreland Damson’, ‘Cheshire Damson’) is a very old variety; its blue-purple, ovoid fruit has a distinctively “full rich astringent” flavour considered superior to other damsons, and it was thought particularly suitable for canning.[28] Hogg states that this was the variety that became specifically associated with the old name “damascene”.[29] The local types often known as the “Westmoreland Damson” and “Cheshire Damson” are described as synonymous with the Shropshire Prune by the horticulturalist Harold Taylor and others.[28][30] The Shropshire was also the best-known variety of damson in the United States.[31]

Stoneham Town Election Results: April 4, 2017

I think this election cycle in Stoneham was remarkably awesome. We had many contested elections for important town roles. The candidates were all phenomenal. They debated issues, priorities and skills, but I didn’t see any meanness or personal attacks on display. Voters in town were engaged in thinking through the race and what it meant for the town (although I’d love to see higher turnout numbers next time!)

I’d like to offer my gratitude to all those who ran, who offered their perspective and who were willing to spend their time and energy making this town a better place. Thank you!

That said, here are the winners of the contested races!

Selectman: Shelly MacNeill
School Committee: David Maurer & Nicole Finocchi Nial
Planning Board: Augustus Niewenhous
Moderator: Jeanne Craigie

You can see the full vote tallies, including # of voters and margin of victory at this link.

Congrats, Stoneham, for being such an awesome place to live with so many amazing people willing to serve you!

My ballot – Stoneham Town Election: Tuesday April 4, 2017

Stoneham Town Election: Tuesday, April 4 2017

Ballot here
You can see the Candidate Statements here.

EDIT April 1, 2017 (but actual edit – not a joke)
One of the amazing things about being in a small town is that posts like this can create a dialogue. This election has been a remarkably productive and positive one.

There’s been some confusion, so let me reassure the audience that everyone I’ve talked to and have taken notes on has been aware that the purpose of the meeting was for me to get information on their candidacy, and I told them I’d be publishing the results.

Here’s some additional information I’ve gotten:

Planning Board –
Devon Manchester reached out to me to by phone to offer me some information on his candidacy, which I appreciated. We talked by phone for half an hour. You can read the transcript here. I liked some of his insights, but felt like he undervalued the work that the committee had already done on things like the sign law. This is a very difficult race to decide on the best candidate. I thought carefully about our conversation, but although a great dialogue, I don’t think our chat has changed my vote.

Moderator –
Larry Means – In response to questions that I and others have raised, Larry Means has posted an explanation on why he had the DPW worker removed. His explanation includes video of the event, so you can watch for yourself. I think it outlines the technical stance he took in the meeting. But especially in a role like Moderator, I would like to see a person who has the respect and admiration of the town employees, which is not demonstrated in the interaction he references.

I’d like to commend Jeanne for being very civil about me not endorsing her, although not all the conversations on Facebook have been quite as polite. She’s really taken the higher road in responding to me, which is actually quite reassuring.

This race is ALSO very difficult to call. I feel like the candidates have different qualifications that rather evenly offset each other.

It was my intention to make the hard voice to tell you who I was endorsing for all these races. I know as a newcomer to town, trying to stare down a ballot with positions you didn’t know existed and names you’ve never heard, it’s really demoralizing to realize that you can’t cast a meaningful vote because there is no public information for you to base a vote on – even if you look. I want to at least let people know what I’m doing and why, so they can agree or disagree with my thinking. But in this race, I suspect my decision will be made with a Sharpie hovering over an oval and a gut-check of what my heart says. Sorry theoretical newcomer to town.

Stoneham goes to the polls for a town election on Tuesday, April 4! I started preparing my selections back in January. I didn’t get to interview all the candidates I would’ve liked to (not their fault!) but still need to cast a ballot, so used publicly available information for the other candidates.

I’m pretty thrilled by the vibrancy of our small town democracy. We have legitimate, contested elections with qualified candidates in many of the critical town roles, including Selectman, School Committee, Moderator and Planning Board. This is a great thing for our town and our community. The really hard part about this election is that in general I think all the candidates are pretty qualified. I don’t think there’s anyone on the ballot I’ll be horrified to see in office.

I’ll be updating with new information right up to election day, so if you have more information or would like to talk with me, drop me a line at brenda.j.flynn@gmail.com!

With all that said, here are my picks. My reasoning is below.

SELECTMAN
Shelly MacNeill

SCHOOL COMMITTEE (pick two)
David Maurer
Nicole Fenocchi Nial

PLANNING BOARD
August S. Niewenhous (see update above)

MODERATOR
Tossup (see update above) – was previously Lawrence Means.

SELECTMAN
I had the opportunity to speak with both selectman candidates. I am no journalist, but I tried to ask them the same set of questions and give them similar opportunities to explain their positions. All the candidates I talked to discussed “healing of divisions” within our community. I find the divisiveness of Stoneham politics to be very odd indeed. It’s not Democrat/Republican (as far as I can tell). The division doesn’t seem to have a philosophical underpinning. It’s hard to reckon who’s on either side. (I’m pretty sure that not knowing which side I’m on means I’m not on a side? Right?) But this coming together is something I’m optimistic that whoever we elect will work hard to do. I will certainly be holding them accountable for doing so.

Shelly MacNeil
Webpage
Facebook
My Conversation with her

Shelly was the first of the candidates to reach out to me to ask to talk. I’d never met her before, and had no idea who I was going to vote for in this election. I was impressed with her. She seemed committed to running for all the best reasons, which she articulated well and passionately. She had clearly thought deeply about her reasons for running, and what she hoped to accomplish.

Her work on the Substance Abuse Coalition was top of mind for her, and I believe that if she is elected, she would take a well-planned, methodical approach to this crisis for our community. I also have high hopes that her intention to coordinate planning better across the town will result in better communication and outcomes for our community.

Shelly has my vote because I think she has the skills to be deeply effective, the willingness to do hard, unglamorous work, and a cooperative and pleasant personality which will allow her to work with people across Stoneham.

Christine Warren Linn
Webpage
Facebook
My Conversation with her

I was pretty excited when I heard Christine was running. My only experiences with her have been on Facebook where she’s organized a Couch to 5K, but she has been a high energy presence in the town. It took a long time for us to both find to get together, since we work opposite schedules.

Christine doesn’t think experience is necessary to run for selectman. She may be right. But I do want my selectman to think hard about the issues facing the town, and come with mature and well thought out positions. One of the first things Christine asked was for me to hold off posting this until after the candidates debate. When I asked why, she said it was because she didn’t want her opponent to know “where she was coming from”. I asked if she meant that she hadn’t been forthcoming about her platform to this point, she changed her mind and said I could publish whenever I liked. She changed her mind on the request twice more in our conversations.

I’m happy to listen and accommodate a reasonable request, but this tiny example showed me that Christine hadn’t really thought through her position on timing. I’m sure she’d be more thoughtful on things that really mattered, but it struck me that I prefer a selectman who thinks through their requests/positions BEFORE they make them.

Our conversation ended up being much less substantive than my conversation with Shelly. Christine had fewer specific plans and ideas and less insight into our current position and challenges.

Overall, I think Christine might do a great job as a selectman, but what I saw was not a compelling example. Given that Shelly was extremely well qualified, my decision for this race feels very clear.

SCHOOL COMMITTEE

I didn’t meet with any of the school committee candidates. (Honestly, when I started posting my ballots a few years ago, I didn’t realize it would end with me spending hours talking to candidates!) I have good information on two of them and no information on the third. This is obviously unfair to that third candidate (Elaine Trant Brown), so if you have good information you should a) share it with me b) choose to vote for her instead!

First choice – Dave Maurer
Dave and I have worked together on some technology initiatives, and had extensive conversations about the role of technology in education. He does this work because he’s passionate about the kids in this town and has tremendous technical experience to back it up. He has worked long and diligently, not really coveting the spotlight or attention. He’s got energy, background and a good track record with the Middle School and I’d like him to be continue on to the High School. I highly recommend his work.

Second choice – Nicole Fenocchi Nial
I’ve been lucky enough to have Nicole as one of the leads of the PTO in South School during both my sons’ tenure there. I’ve gotten to see her passion, diligence & organization in full swing. She does a great job of keeping things rolling and making things fun in what has to be one of the least glamorous jobs a town has to offer. I can attest that she will be a strong and capable presence on the School Board.

PLANNING BOARD

I have very little insight into this. Both candidates are known to me by reputation only. I think planning board is critical to our success as a town (can I suggest a moratorium on nail/hair salons?). I’m open to feedback on this one, but don’t have a strong or well formed opinion. In this case, I opted for the continuity of Mr. Niewenhous.

MODERATOR

So I saved the hardest race for last. In full disclosure, Jeanne reached out to me and we had a very productive hour long conversation. I reached out to Larry late, and haven’t been able to set up time as much for my schedule as anything. So there’s an information imbalance here.

In my opinion, the moderator role is one that would be best served by someone who’s primary skill was building relationship bridges and earning respect from everyone for their impartiality and calmness. The actual role of the moderator is to run the town meeting once a year (which has been contentious at times!) and also to make appointments to boards – an under appreciated responsibility. Both of these rely on reputation and relationship.

Over the few years I’ve been watching Stoneham town politics from the sidelines, I’ve seen passion and a willingness to invest time and energy from both candidates. But neither has struck me as a consensus builder.

My conversation with Jeanne (here) helped me understand her much better as a person. Her passion really came through. But I’ve seen a darker side of that passion on some of her interactions on town Facebook pages where her feelings were understandably hurt and she responded by removing people from the group. I get the hurt feelings, but that response doesn’t lead to that more civil society she spoke to. (FYI – in my humble opinion the amount of political decisions in this town which are made on Facebook is rather astonishing.)

I’m honestly really on the fence about this. Larry’s comparative lack of participation with social media does not necessarily mean he’s been more of a bridge builder – especially not if that’s where the engagement in our town is. There have been some times where it’s been hard to understand some of his moderation choices, such as when he had a DPW worker escorted out of a town meeting I attended. He’s generally run the meetings well, but there have been a few times when I wondered if the decisions were fully equitable, such as when the balcony wasn’t counted.

Both have been dedicated public servants in various roles. Both have experience and aptitude. I think either would do well in the role, but in this case I’m opting for the candidate with more experience in this particular role.

I’m finding my part to play in town to be a challenging one. I want to be engaged and well informed, but it’s remarkably difficult to gauge the effectiveness of a candidate even when you talk 1:1 with them. I had a particularly busy few months (as you can tell by the dropoff in blogging!) which made it difficult for me to be completely thorough.

So… share your ballot in the comments, along with your reasons for picking the candidates you’re passionate about! I’d love to learn more from your perspectives!

Brenda’s Bruvarian Brew

My most genius Christmas request ever was the time I asked Adam for sourdough starter for Christmas. He got the starter, read all the materials for getting it started, and stealthily started it in the fridge. He presented it to me on Christmas morning, as it was nearing time for use. I expressed my excitement and gratitude! But it needed to get used, and I showed no sign of getting up to make bread… so Adam made some sourdough bread. He kept feeding the sourdough and making delicious baked goods, periodically reminding me that hey! This was ready whenever I was! I kept nodding and saying I was thinking of doing something with it tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.

Basically, I got months of delicious sourdough baking with zero effort, before he figured me out. It was brilliant.

This year for Christmas, I asked for a beer brewing kit. The yeast arts are amazing ones to me. The similarities between bread and beer are striking. They’re the staffs upon which civilization was founded. And hey! Adam has a degree is biochemistry, so this is gonna work out great, right?

Over Christmas, I brewed the first kit. It was a teeny one gallon kit, perfect for a trial run. I read through the book. I watched a Youtube how to video. I cleaned the kitchen and read through all the various steps multiple times, lining up my tools like a surgeon.

Over and over again, all the materials stress the dire need for excellent dishes doing. Everything has to be super clean. Very sterile. Completely squeaky clean. I assiduously did the dishes and contemplated how fun a hobby must be in order to be worth doing this many dishes for. I wrestled with the auto-siphon and stared at my destroyed kitchen and thought “This beer better taste good.” Six bottles were all that labor produced. I doled them out to my friends.

“Not bad! I hardly any of that banana taste homebrew usually has. This is actually drinkable!”

Hours of labor. Massive dishes. Incredible expense. All to create something I could buy a better version of for a fraction of the cost. Worst yet, Adam was on to me and wasn’t using his clean room technique to do all the work for me. Curses! Foiled again!

Still, I had gotten a second kit – a five gallon one. A neighbor gave me their gear (missing one or two bobs and bits). It included this neato cooling kit that you hook up to your faucet, except we didn’t have that connector. Adam spent about 2 hours going to many hardware stores, coming home with about 7 connectors. None of them worked. D’oh!

Adam was sad his plumbing connectors did not connect correctly

As I brewed the gigantic pot of mash, I thought of my alewife ancestors. If brewing required this much cleanliness, how did they pull it off with pottery instead of stainless steel, creek water and dirty hands? Was ancient beer just really bad? Were there tricks I don’t know about? Did they have extra potent yeast? The mind boggled.

I managed to get the beer into the carboy without any major sanitation fails. It pretty much exploded in my closet. (I guess that yeast was really active?!) Then it was “add sugar and move to bottle” time. This apparently includes moving the beer from the carboy to a bucket with a hole in the bottom (at which step you add the sugar that creates carbonation) followed by putting it into the bottles from there.

I had elaborate schemes for moving everything, while keeping everything perfectly sanitary. But then the auto-siphon wasn’t long enough to reach all the way into the carboy and disasters occurred with the sterile environment. Worse yet, at one point the bung came out of the bottom of the bucket and the entire floor was awash in uncarbonated beer. There were many bad words spoken.

Finally, we got the beer into the bottles. It’s about a case an a half. If you take into account what my time is worth, each bottle has to cost about $20. I have no idea if it will even be drinkable.

I do not think this is my new favorite hobby.

Dating in mid life

My husband and I have been married for 17 years. We started dating 21 years ago. Eleven years ago we added Grey to the family, and eight years ago Thane joined in. Now, this is going to come as a massive surprise to you, but it’s hard to spend great quality time with your spouse when you have two children, two full time jobs, a rather obscene number of side interests (see also: Pastor Nominating Committee, role playing games, local politics, Mom’s Groups…). But Adam and I would like to stay happily married for another 2x 20 years. (Given our ages when we got married, we have a shot of making it to 60 years of marriage!) And that means that sometimes taking a break from the tumult of life to focus on each other.

Fruity drinks with umbrellas at the Baldwin

When we switched the kids’ afterschool option, I wasn’t sure if there would be February break coverage. But do you know what’s cheaper than $900 a month for afterschool? Airline tickets and retired parents. So last Friday I waved my children goodbye as they went down the gangplate. (No pictures because I left my phone in the car. I didn’t have it for like 2.5 boring hours! It was a sobering highlight on how dependent I am…)

Snow shoeing in warm temperatures and bright sunshine!

We then had the AWESOMEST weekend. We ate out practically the whole time. That night we went to the Baldwin. The next day we went snow shoeing. That seems funny to say right now, as it’s 60+ degrees out, but it was a lot of fun! Then we went to a regional theater performance of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirits and ate a super fancy dinner. We actually got a chance to talk about something other than the upcoming week’s agenda.

Since we couldn't snuggle kids, we snuggled cats — Since we couldn’t snuggle kids, we snuggled cats

Sunday I went to church. We had lunch with a friend, went on a run, and then had dinner with other friends. We ended the night at 11, reading the Iliad aloud around the dinner table.

Then, oh bliss!!! Monday was a holiday! First we had brunch at The Ugly Mug in Salem. We wandered through a used book store (where we bought books mostly for the kids, whom we were missing…). Then we went to the Peabody Essex Museum and went to the maritime art section (which ostensibly interested neither of us, but which we were both quickly enamoured with).

We took as long as we wanted, and Adam spend half the time on his belly near the furniture to see how the artists had jointed it. We got home just after noon, and I initiated project “second batch of beer”. I think I did… better this time. Not amazing, but better. It’s really a lot of work for a product that has a high likelihood of inferiority, so I’m not 100% sure there will be a third batch.

On the flip side, I discovered that dude-hobbies have cleaning devices driven by power tools.

I asked Adam to get me a sink connector for the wort chiller. He ended up going to like 3 different stores and buying 5 pieces of hardware. None of it, in any configuration, actually connected our wort chiller to the sink.

We ended the weekend at another friend’s house having another delicious dinner and playing games. We got months’ worth of dating into one action packed weekend!!!

It was awesome. It’s easy to lean on him as a capable partner, hard worker and good provider. But that can risk forgetting that my husband is funny, loving, great to talk to and in sum – he’s the guy I want to spend my life with.

I got my children back on Friday night (the same day my husband hied him off to yet another gaming convention). I really missed them too. The house seemed very quiet and clean without them – unnatural, I tell you! But I’m really looking forward to spending more time with this awesome guy I’m sharing my life with!

I'd missed these boys! — I’d missed these boys!

The Wheel of Time

I often looked at the cover art and wondered what the heck they'd told the artist, who had clearly never read the books. — I often looked at the cover art and wondered what the heck they’d told the artist, who had clearly never read the books.

“The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings in the wheel of time. But it was a beginning”

– The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan

I was in sixth grade – perhaps seventh. Having worn through a few copies of The Lord of the Rings, my fifth grade teacher had lovingly given me a copy of Terry Brooks’ “Sword of Shannara” for graduation, as perhaps a subtle hint that there were more fantasy authors out there than just the one. (In my defense, that particular school didn’t have a library. And fantasy novels were far rarer in the 80s than they are now.) Having made that great discovery, I began reading at a great rate, along with three companions in my literary journey. Now, if I’d had the kind of heroes journey I was reading about, the four of us would’ve become inseparable companions, filled with a respect and friendship that would warm our memories.

The way it really worked was that there were four of us who like to read fantasy in the tiny podunk logging town I was raised in. If we wanted to talk about books, it was with each other. We did play Middle Earth Role Playing together. But despite my best efforts, fondness never grew from forced interaction. In retrospect, I deeply pity the guy I had a crush on who was forced to deal with me six days a week (we went to the same church) for multiple hours a day. I saw him at reunion and he got a slightly haunted look seeing me. Sorry!

I digress.

One of the books we discovered was “The Eye of the World”. It was a good one. I had bought a copy, and we all read it in turn. The seven hundred page sequel followed, and was similarly devoured. And then, bliss! The third came out! Granted, it was crazy expensive on my $40 a month food/clothes/fun money budget (if you knew me then, this explains why I dressed the way I did), but life was too short to not buy books! It would be great to finish the trilogy and move on to the next one. I may have pondered how wonderful it was to have a living author who would keep writing! I never fully got over the betrayal of Tolkien dying without knowing how much I loved him.

But what? The series didn’t conclude? I’d read all three back to back – with labyrinthine plots and a cast that had to be in the hundreds, you couldn’t rely on your memories of the last reading a year or two ago to see you through. You had to start over.

Well, a four book series wasn’t unheard of. We’d allocated out the purchasing of these books. None was available at any library we had access to, so they must be bought. This was back when a bookstore meant Waldens – before the big box bookstores came and long before they were replaced by the great online retailers. We had a deal. I’d buy Jordan. Chad bought Terry Brooks. Jack bought Lawhead. And maybe Heidi somehow weaseled her way out of being responsible for buying any author’s books.

A year later – in high school – the fifth came out. When I graduated from high school I was still there on release day, buying the seventh volume and praying that this time he’d really wrap it up. I spent hours in my bedroom reading the books and listening to “All the Best from Scotland volume II” on repeat – they’re still inextricably combined in my head. My collection of books was getting unwieldy, my budget largely spent on Starbucks, and the time commitment required to read seven books at about a thousand pages a piece was significant. But I was there. I even got that seventh book signed.

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In college when the eight came out, I may have made time to reread it. Maybe over the summer. But then it was followed by the ninth. Rumors began of his ill health. He had a fatal diagnosis. Surely, one thought, this would encourage him to oh… I dunno… actually close a plot thread for once? Ha! Great at opening them. Lousy at closing them. He even went to write a prequel. It’s possible that I was actually angry about this.

He died and I never read his last books because I couldn’t justify weeks of rereading, and he hadn’t *finished*. It all felt very tragic.

He had, though, written down how he was planning to some day finish up the plot. That thread was pulled up by Brandon Sanderson, who had probably been buying them from Waldens in the mall just like I was. That “last book” turned into three books, ponderous as their predecessors if a little better in the “closing plot threads” department.

And finally, the last book was written and the last story told in Spring of 2013.

In the Spring of 2015, I got a new job with a new commute. A car commute. By myself. As time has gone one, my tolerance for NPR has gone down. (I like the non-political news far more, and that’s been a vanishing commodity over the last two decades.) So I needed to listen to something. I figured that this was the perfect time for me to finally catch up and hear the end of the story!

So every single commute for the last TWO YEARS I have spent two hours a day listening to the Wheel of Time on audiobook. Especially around book six or seven I would get to work irritated. The entire commute could be cut by an editor (if only!) and there would’ve been no material change to the story.

But it was entertaining. And over this vast repetition, it also became much more real and tangible to me than if I’d only read it. Last weekend, recovering from a bout of labrynthitis, I laid on a chaise and listened to about eight hours of the conclusion. I realized, staring fixedly out the window, that this was it. I’d spent two years living with Perrin the Blacksmith and his strength, and Mat the womanizing gambler, and Rand the started-every-book-less-mad-than-he-ended-the-last-one, and Nynaeve with her temper and braid and Pevara who I think might be the only real hero in the whole book and and and… well, the list of characters is long. And I know them all with the intimacy of daily contact over two years.

The end of the series, if you’re curious, did not satisfy. All battle, no epilogue. There were major plot threads left open. (Spoiler alert – seriously, how did you not manage to explain that Olver is actually Gaidal Cane reborn, which is sooooo obvious!) We don’t see how the world does get remade, or how these overarching conflicts that I spent DAYS of my life hearing about were finally resolved. I got to the end, but I could’ve stood that last half of the book to be what came after. Alas, I didn’t get it.

But with all this – with the annoyance at the lack of editing and lack of satisfying culmination – I have done it. I have finished the series. I enjoyed it, whining aside. And it is almost certain that I will never read it again. That brings a sense of loss. I suppose I could read it, if I wanted. But those down sides are too steep to encourage me to ever climb them again. It’s just not worth the effort. And so it is that this journey, which I started twenty-seven years ago and spent endless hours on, is done. It is finished. I will never again hear of Thom Merrilin in his patched cloak or the hawk-nosed and fierce Faile.

Farewell, fictional friends. You will be remembered fondly.

It is not THE end, but it is AN end, for the wheel of time has neither beginnings nor ends.