my essay in this month's Literary Mama

All about writing and reading and mothering - our children AND our selves. You can read it here:

The Great Height and the Long View by Billie Hinton

November Hill farm journal, 22

We are fully into autumn now, with gorgeous color and leaves falling like mad. This morning I was momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer number of leaves and manure piles on the ground and then I reminded myself that both are compostable whether I get them raked into piles or not.

After many days of dry autumn we finally got rain last night and the horses and donkeys stayed in the barn for the first time in awhile. It was nice to wake up this morning to horses outside the windows right next to the house. 

In the garden it looks a mess, but the good kind of mess: my husband just dug up the large patch of sweet potatoes he put in and we have quite a harvest. I laid them out to dry after he washed them this morning and thought about all the good ways we'll eat them. Sweet potato shepherd's pie, sweet potato chickpea curry, baked with a little cinnamon and brown sugar, sweet potato pie, and maybe I'll try a new recipe I saw today: flourless sweet potato brownies.

In the fridge is a sugar baby watermelon that volunteered in the barnyard. Along the outside of the fence an entire long row of cherry tomatoes are hanging off the cat enclosure wire which they used as a trellis. I'm not sure if they're edible after the frost but if not they are still red and look almost ornamental there. I suppose the birds will enjoy them.

This weekend we bought a Montmorency cherry tree to plant as the first official fruit tree on November Hill. I saw an article after purchasing it that said these cherries are good for making the tart cherry juice heralded for health benefits and I'm eager to try making it when we get our first harvest.

The chores are lined up like dominoes. I finished painting the cat tunnel two weeks ago but only this past week got to the tung oil application. I'm 1/3 of the way through and had to stop due to the rain. I still have the final two screens to do on the front porch, and the porch steps. We've had busy weekends and my progress has slowed, but I'll chip away one domino at a time until I'm done.

We have a wood stove to clean, a catalytic combustor to replace, and wood to prep. And we also have a mystery critter in the attic to catch and release, and gutters to clean. Tree limbs to cut, hay to pick up and unload. The moment I think I'm ahead more chores pop up. When I stop calling them chores and name them projects somehow it feels more manageable.

A fun chore has appeared in the long row of dominoes this week: we signed the contract to have the barn roof replaced in January and I have to pick the weathervane! We're going with a green metal roof with functional witch hat cupola. I am torn between the traditional horse weathervane and more unusual ones: a cat, a Corgi, a shooting star, trees, a leaping deer. I wish I could commission a horse, donkey, Corgi, cat one but that will have to wait for some future time!

Speaking of cats and Corgis, Bear is doing well as a single dog. We all keep imagining a puppy or a rescued Corgi or another rescued pup but for now he seems to be handling this solo time well. With four cats in the house there's never a dull moment. This morning Pippin was running along the cat walk above our kitchen cupboards and refrigerator and he slipped and fell behind the fridge. A huge scrabbling thunk and then a series of deep-throated yowls was my wake-up alarm this morning. He was promptly rescued and I hope has learned he needs to be very careful up there. 

Across the lane our neighbors just brought home two very young donkey boys who I met over the weekend. They are as cute as little donkey pies and it is such a wonderful thing to hear more donkeys braying in our neighborhood. I haven't yet heard any answering back from Rafer or Redford but I expect that's soon to come.

With all my longing for autumn I find it hard to believe that we are approaching Thanksgiving already. I want the days to slow down so I can enjoy this season. It's passing much too quickly. 

Leonard Cohen's "revelation of the heart"

Today in Brain Pickings Weekly this Leonard Cohen quote from Paul Zorro's book Songwriters on Songwriting was featured along with Maria Popova's words about what Cohen had to say on leaving certain potent and challenging verses out of his songs.

"I didn’t want to compromise the anthemic, hymn-like quality. I didn’t want it to get too punchy. I didn’t want to start a fight in the song. I wanted a revelation in the heart rather than a confrontation or a call-to-arms or a defense."

Maria Popova:

"In these present days of outrage and confrontation, how much of even the most elegantly argued writing aims for “a revelation in the heart”? And what might our world look like if this is what we aimed for instead of belittling and badgering those we find at fault?"

It's tempting to come out blazing about issues we are passionate about, but I love the idea of sharing revelations of the heart instead and hopefully getting people to respond from that same place in the process.

Since the election I've had some revelatory heart moments. 

Hearing my mother tell the story of her neighbor coming to visit, a little girl who was confused about what she was hearing - that both Hillary Cllnton AND Donald Trump won the election. My mom, a die-hard Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, took the time to explain to this little girl, whose family are Trump supporters, about the electoral college and the popular vote, and encouraged the girl to enjoy her candidate's victory and to hold him accountable for his acceptance speech promise to be a good president to all citizens. 

Visiting the Museum of Life and Science yesterday so that my university student daughter could recreate a childhood photograph in the butterfly house. And leaving, seeing a young girl of color crying and lost from her family and helping her find them again, hoping that she could tell we were "safe" and friendly people. 

Riding Keil Bay this morning while the neighbors worked in their woods with a shrieking chipper/shredder, all dressed in white, throwing things out of the woods. Keil was spooky but my daughter came out and stood with him while I mounted from the picnic table instead of the mounting block and later encouraged me to dismount to the ground just to prove to myself that I can. 

Visiting neighbors whose two young donkeys just arrived yesterday to answer some questions about donkey care and to spend an hour getting little donkey hugs. 

Some of these things have to do with the election and some don't but I think they all put a little bit of goodness into the world and when we all do that I believe it makes a huge difference.

The state of our union - my thoughts

Without getting too deeply into political party issues here, I suspect many of us are feeling overwhelmed with the results of the recent election in one way or another. I went on hiatus from Facebook for most of the fall because I became so tired of reading posts which said:

If you plan to vote for Trump (or Hillary) unfriend me now.

My Facebook friends list includes people from many backgrounds and religions and political parties. While I don't agree with any of them about EVERYthing, and in some cases ANYthing, they are on my friends list because in some way or other we share a connection. Some of the people I disagree with about politics are the people who would be at my door in a moment's notice if I needed them to help with my horses. Some of the people I most agree with would never lift a finger to help me or anyone else. It would never occur to me to tell any of them to unfriend me because they believe something different. (Abuse of children or animals is the one thing I can't tolerate)

If someone's BEHAVIOR or posts on Facebook are so out of line with my beliefs that I can't tolerate it, I would proceed to unfriend them myself and not take the passive-aggressive path of posting that all such people should unfriend ME.

We all have to move forward from what has been a stressful and difficult campaign season. We have to move forward now. I think the way we have to proceed is this:

We are all people who live in this country.

We all have the ability to change our personal behavior and examine our perspectives on things we do not understand or believe. 

We live in neighborhoods and communities and we can focus some of our energy on being good people in those contexts.

We can choose to put energy and hours into causes we believe in. Volunteering is a great thing. It's DOING something. Writing daily posts on Facebook bashing other people does nothing productive. Calling people idiots because they supported a different political candidate doesn't add anything productive to a conversation.

Let's all commit to finding something we can do that matters - to us, to someone else, to animals, to the environment, to a group of people who need our advocacy and voice. 

And above all, we have to get in touch with our own shadows, our own baggage, and our own journeys to be the kind of people we want to be in this world. If we take care of how we act and react, if we aim to be good to the people we meet in our daily lives, and stand up for others when they cross our paths and need our help, that will make a big difference in the world. Maybe the biggest difference of all. 

Weekending with kindred spirits

This past weekend I attended the North Carolina Writers' Network fall conference in Raleigh and had a fabulous time attending workshops, a master class in subtext in fiction, and the best part, talking and spending time with bunches of kindred spirits: my fellow writers.

Writing can be a solitary venture. We spend time, if not necessarily alone in offices or rooms, with our faces and minds deep in the screen of whatever device we use to write down our words. Even a yellow legal pad and a blue ballpoint pen pulls us in so we aren't really present with the people around us. 

Add to that the fact that serious writing is a lifestyle, a long-term journey, and an endeavor that often involves rejection many times over before there is acceptance and fanfare, if there ever is that. But anyone who keeps writing does it because they have to, not for the reward of publication or recognition or fame.

So imagine a conference full of writers, all having so much to say that so many of their friends and families don't really "get" - there was a constant buzz of conversation in between the workshops. In the halls and bathrooms and at the bar, by the coffee tables and in the banquet room, around the book tables, everywhere.

The long hallway that stretched outside the meeting rooms was lined with booksellers and their wares. Literary journals, novels, books of poetry, nonfiction work. Browsing, talking, bumping into writers one knows, writers one is just meeting. It was a lot of fun.

In addition to the master class I learned about the problem of plot in nonfiction and uncovering emotion in characters. Met Rita Mae Brown's agent and listened to Margaret Maron talk and Shelby Stephenson sing and read from his evocative poetry. It was inspiring. 

North Carolina is known as "the writingest state." NCWN hosts annual conferences in the spring and the fall and also a summer residency workshop each year. Come join us!