I'm _________ years old.

[  ]  old enough to not want to begin a pregnancy at this age.
[  ]  a grown damn woman who has my birth control plan on point.
[  ]  experiencing intermittent periods, but not fully accepting that I'm perimenopausal, so wondering if I should take a pregnancy test.
[  ]  all of the above.

I'm here for this purge.

All the people who "made a joke" at a woman's expense 40 years ago--them too.

Voluntarily head to the nearest exit.

If you are an elected official, give your constituents a chance to re-elect you ONLY if they demand it, years from now after you have re-earned their trust.

Instead, spend time in your district listening to young leaders with whom you normally habitually haven't interacted.  Who among them needs a nudge, your mentorship, door opening, and millions of dollars of fundraising experience?  Help that person to replace your seat in Congress. 

Create and support a pipeline of these diverse young leaders, to replace you, yes, but to also use your influence to create the more perfect union in our communities and through government. You used your power and influence and frankly the structures of the patriarchy, racism, etc to nudge your way ahead in line, ahead of their mothers and fathers.  Give this diverse young generation of leaders the direct support they need to build the structures and new systems that we all need to navigate the future:  to support aging boomers, in an increasingly automated age, while developing post-carbon infrastructure and more equitable social systems and processes.

Surely you know that you can be both the problem and the solution.  Your money derived from the crumbling paradigm funds the new leaders so they are not beholden to gun lobby or pharmaceuticals or whatever other money makes it so even the best politicians cannot actually vote in their constituents' voice.

The problem, the hurt.  The women who were humiliated by your "joke" were hurt by you.  As Cohen says in her tweet "it's deliberate gender-based public humiliation of a colleague."  Those women you intentionally humiliated were hurt.  And also the young women and girls who witnessed the humiliation--either directly from you, or from hearing their aunts or sisters or mothers or community members talking about the humiliation.  Some of these women later chose to avoid working around powerful mean people like you, which incidentally often means doing lower paid work, because of you and your behavior.  And all the men who laughed.  And all the boys who watched.  And all the women who laughed.  And all the girls who watched.  They're all hurt by your behavior too.

Atonement means fixing  the things you broke, including relationships you didn't even know you had. 

This this the conversation I've been waiting for.  These are the actions we deserve.

If you genuinely don't understand the Black Lives Matter thing, step aside.  Let others who better understand serve in office instead.

If you genuinely don't understand the transgender thing, step aside.  Let others who better understand serve in office instead.

If you genuinely don't understand the water protectors, step aside.  Let others who better understand serve in office instead.

If you genuinely don't understand the million other perspectives we'd be better off having represented in our government, step aside.  Let others who do understand serve in office instead.

That's better than issuing an apology.  Be the leader who learns and repairs and empowers and survives and is redeemed. 

confronting our White privilege, a text conversation

He: Remember that one time you beat me with the stick of inappropriate perspectives of privilege and power?  That was fun :) [self-deprecation]

Me: I'm drafting a blog post about it. I'm thinking White people need to frequently check our privileges and become even more outspoken because silence to those who haven't been educated/exposed appears like we endorse these horrific White supremacist daily onslaughts.  Good morning :)

He: Can you keep the who's/what's confidential?

Me: lol yes.  Not naming names/outing people who aren't ready.  But there is power in coming out about privilege and may we all experience that sort of liberty.

He:  Indeed.

Me: I think the uncomfortable direction we White people need to move in is to acknowledge that we are mediocre. That there *are* more qualified women/transgender/people with disabilities/PoC that *should* be in well-paid positions of power and authority. Which we currently hold because of unearned privilege. If the alt-righties and young people who haven't heard any different heard smart, powerful White people say this they may have to question the stream of garbage that spews from some media sources about immigrants and lgbt and feminists making their lives hard.

He: I mostly agree with you.

Me: Help me see the error in my ways.

He: It's a matter of semantics.  And words matter.  There are more qualified PoC, women, people w/ disabilities that should be in well paid positions of authority.  And can we get there without making less (mediocre) of well meaning White male cis folks?  The assumption I'm challenging is that all PoC, people w/disabilities, queer folx, are more competent than all CIA [cis?] normative White men.  I also hold that cisnormative White men were told that we are more special, more competent, more deserving of power and that we need to actively combat that perspective, which is what I think you are reflecting with the mediocre statement.

Me:  I did not say *all* non White/cis/male/able are more competent.  I'm saying "on the average", read, not personal to you, there are a large quantity of mediocre White people, myself included, who have benefited from these biases.  To answer your (perhaps rhetorical) question, no.  I think we can't just say that every thing will get better without pointing out that there are dare i say too many White/cis/male/Christian people gumming up the system, especially those who are ignorant, willfully ignorant, of their privilege and how they continue to reproduce privilege.

He: yep.

Me: and also we really are mediocre.  We are not special, uniquely qualified, etc.  To presume otherwise is literally supremacist.  Mediocre meaning average, ie assuming we're always above average, Lake Woebegone effect.

He:  I'm struggling with that part.

Me: I know. You've been told you're special all your life.  Prizing male children over female children, etc.  I'm probably not the first to tell you, but maybe it's first sinking in for you.

He: I know I'm not innately special.  I know I am average on average.  I also know that each of us has individual areas of excellence and can train to become better qualified.

Me: Lol but you're not quite ready to embrace "mediocre" even though "average" is a synonym... because Whiteness is always presumed to be better than.  And that's uncomfortable.

He: Average on average is different than mediocre in my understanding and that has nothing to do with my Whiteness.

Me: Uh huh. 

Seeds bind us to place: panel at the 2017 Appalachian Studies Conference audio file

Click this link to listen to/download an audio file of the 1.5 hour panel discussion about seed libraries.  Speakers include Dave Walker, Cody Miller, William Ritter, and me, Karen Lemke.

Seed Swap

I and a group of grad students from Appalachian State's Appalachian Studies program as well as the Sustainable Development program attended the High Country Seed Swap on Saturday March 4th, 2017 to collect stories of attendees.

At the beginning of the event, we were figuring out how to best approach participants to ask them for their stories.  This wasn't a university sponsored research project--we had no IRB approval--but I wanted to represent, describe and interpret my 'subjects' narratives as best I could, practicing my qualitative research skills in preparation for writing my dissertation.  I noticed folks were walking right past the sign-in desk, where the ag extension officer had placed clipboards and pens intending to catch names as data he could present to his supervisors to substantiate the impact of community events/outreach.  I offered to be the welcome wagon, smiling and calling out good morning to seed swappers, directing them to sign in and asking if they'd be willing to share any stories they had about seed saving with me and my colleagues.  Some started pulling out seed packets right away, happy to be able to tell their seeds' stories.  Others were in a hurry to attend one of the workshops on gardening and grafting but looked like they may stop back later when there wasn't such a crowd.

I collected stories about pink and yellow stripy tomatoes from an 81-year-old woman who struggled to tell me more about them saying "I can't speak the way I want to anymore."  Another told me about pie pumpkin seeds she brought and kindly didn't roll her eyes at me when I asked what she cooked with the pumpkins.  I heard stories of grandparents who were sharecroppers, of how these very varieties  helped their ancestors survive the Civil War.  Did you know that grits and hominy came into being because the Union soldiers commandeered all the food and people were forced to mill next season's seed corn into grits?  Combined with reconstituted dried corn (hominy) their ancestors survived 2 1/2 years on these rations.  That variety of corn was called, gruesomely, Bloody Butcher, for its red color I assume, and I found some of it in small packets nearby.  Other survival foods included caffeine-y chicory root in place of coffee, a plant which likes salty soil so can be found along our modern roadways with the residue from ice abatement salting--just keep your eyes open for the blue flowers.


I heard stories of love and devotion, of making medicinal tinctures from plants who can feel the energy of their gardener, of a couple who dug up their 800 dahlias EVERY YEAR to store indoors before replanting again in the spring.  Older folks told stories of collecting herbs in the woods with their elders who are long gone but felt present again in these stories their kin were eager to share.

I explained a few times the difference between a seed library and a seed bank, why librarians don't worry as much about temperature control and germination efficiency when they're just hoping to get a few more patrons to keep locally suited varieties in the soil and in the bellies of community members. Building resiliency in our food system and connections among us, growing food builds the kind of world I want for the future.

My mom's cousin was his cousin, so we're probably related
Western North Carolina is perhaps the most genetically diverse plant region in North America. Because the ice age didn't completely freeze this part of the world, we have some really old adaptations in these plants and lots and lots of different versions.  So while I was surrounded by so much genetic diversity in the plants, I also was struck by the consanguinity of the participants: many in the room had family histories in this particular region for many generations, and some swappers were in fact related to each other.

I developed my own seed fever near the end of the event, realizing that all this earthy sexyspring pleasure might be available to me too.  I'm not just a data collector.  I recognize I have some baggage, egoic attachments, about being childless and being good at gardening, as if silent voices ask with incredulity: really?  You couldn't even get pregnant and you expect to raise a tomato plant?  Nevertheless, I persisted, and in frenzied optimistic moments like this seed swap I throw this nonsense aside and gather seeds to plant as if they were gifts to others: indigo flowers for my artist friend so she might make natural dyes, Rose of Sharon in honor of my mother Sherrie, Black-eyed Susan in honor of my other mother--heck all the flowers for all the moms and non-moms.  I left with a collection of flowers, ornamental climbing okra which makes loofah sponges, pink-tip beans and medicinal plants, which I hope will survive my neglect.  And even the survivors, ("we happy few" they may recite), they shall have the genes to survive neglect; perhaps they will figure out how to water and weed themselves.

Promposals and privilege

There is a high schooler who is excited about her first relationship, her first girlfriend. However, because her girlfriend isn't out, doesn't feel safe to be out, they are keeping their relationship on the "down low".  When people ask the high schooler why she isn't dating anyone, she has to make up excuses to keep the secret.

I hate this.  I hate that this young person cannot have the validation of an acknowledged relationship. In a season of promprosals, she's already learning the toxic skills of hiding a relationship, of the nature of power and silence to the detriment of her own pleasure, her own confidence in her worthiness as a person deserving of love.

I understand that this is how things need to be right now.  I don't know the circumstances of the girlfriend, but I understand that young people risk ostracism, abuse, even homelessness if their parents don't accept them. I know hate crimes against LGBTQ+ teens are real.  I'm glad these two young women have each other.

I wish you love in your life

I wish you love in your life.

Whether that means a great relationship with your mom,
Or sibling or cousin or letter carrier.
A nice person you work with, who asks how you're doing and actually listens for the answer.
A clerk or server who makes eye contact.

Or kids you're over the moon about.
Or a lover who looks into your soul and accepts all of you.

Or a friend who you don't text "sending thoughts and prayers" because
you're on the way over to their place to help out, bringing food and stamina.

Or a person you just met, whose smile makes your rib cage wanna burst.

Love everyone you meet, and this becomes possible.

Why I'm still wearing this awesome pink hat

This hat has agency. This hat creates brave space, all around me, everywhere I go.  I wear it every day.

I don't know how to knit.  Someone who couldn't go to the march knitted a whole bunch of these hats and sent them along which is how I acquired this one.

 I marched in the Women's March on Washington on January 21st, 2017.  It was a much-needed balm on my soul, a moment of connections with my siblings around the world who are asserting a version of reality that resists the narrative being forced upon us by others.

While some want us to live in fear, anxiety, subservience, acquiescence, disorder, and scarcity, and to blame those different from us as the cause of our problems, we came together to express our love of other humans, our affirmations of what we care most about.  We created brave space where Black Lives Matter, Women are human beings, our LGBTQ+ siblings are worthy of love and respect, and we weren't going to put up with a wall or a ban on Muslims. It was intersectional.  It was care-full. People pointed out where the ground was uneven: "watch out for that curb there." A visually-impaired person was separated from her group, and event organizers announced her name over the PA adding that "she is safe and is at the front right area of the stage."  People were looking out for the well being of one another.

It was a potluck: people shared water.  People shared food. Strangers hugged.

Pink hats, White house.

On my drive back from DC, I stopped at a Dominican restaurant, still wearing my pink hat. The owner of the restaurant asked me about it and thanked me for marching because she wasn't able to do so.  Strangers have thanked me every day for the past two weeks.  It feels not unlike the "thank you for your service" comments I receive on Veterans day.

A male friend of mine who attended a march in a nearby city told me he and his male partner were able to hold hands in public during the march. He doesn't feel safe to do that in our town.  I want to create brave space for him and others to be as they want to be, even if it's just a four foot radius around me.

Not everyone can see a safety pin attached to your coat, but most people can see this neon pink hat from across a street.  I'm still marching. (It's easier than carrying a mattress around.)

I'm white.  What am I doing to dismantle White Supremacy?

About a week ago I was having a dark night of the soul.  After a sleepless night worrying about a) the challenges facing the world right now, b) my own personal quotidian challenges, and c) my health declining because I was in a state of chronic anxiety, I decided I need to cultivate some balance, pace myself, and do a little bit each day to make progress, including self-care.  This is the new normal.

My balancing act triangle of self-care, microwork, and macrowork: I need to care for my body in order to be able to do the other tasks of my quotidian projects (my work that pays the bills, completing my educational goals, reading, writing, making music) and the larger project, what I call The Work, creating the new systems and supporting the transitions to these new systems through love, education and good policy development.  I'm reminded of the flight attendant instructions about putting on my oxygen mask before assisting others.  Framed this way, I'm reminded that sharing a meal with a friend is activism. Reading is activism.  Writing my dissertation is activism. Working with and against my privilege is activism. And I can do most of it while wearing this fabulous pink hat.