Bill Best, the author of http://www.heirlooms.org/tomato.html and owner of a heirloom seed farm near Berea, is a local legend who I always have wanted to know better. I met him a couple times at the Farmers Market and happened to buy a tomato that's seeds he saved from someone who has kept the variety in Lee County Virginia.

This night, Kaleigh invited me to her house to eat good food and go tomato picking afterwards. But good food takes time, and it was dark by the time we were ready to take our boxes for a ride. Bill Best had told Kaleigh she could pick his left over tomatoes, and there were TONS. He simply had too many and has plans to till the ground, or care for it in whatever way he does, and move on to a cover crop real soon.

So we went anyway. We went to his farm and I got to see Bill Best's farm for my first time in the dark of night. We shone the headlights down the row and used flashlights. I picked as many as I possibly could while who Kaleigh was very meticulous, picked only the ones best for her.

The night was alive and the sky endless. We talked about dreamy things. Kaleigh wondered if there are other universes with people who are just like me and Kaleigh, picking the tomatoes of a local legend. I admitted to my usual narcissism but said that looking up at a sky like that makes me think outside of myself.

Today there is not an iota of me that wants to leave Berea. I need to remember that when there is a cloud over my head that obstructs my perspective. I have so much reason to be grateful.

This cold weather is making me so productive with my catch up homework. The leaves are turning something beautiful. Sitting by a window for hours doing my arithmatic, I look outside and notice leaves coming down from a long tall tree. I had been here for hours and not even glanced outside. Glad I finally did.

Even at the evil empire, in Berea, an innocent grocery shopper can find herself sandwiched between beautiful women with dreadlocks in the check out isle. Berea is special. I knew the woman in front of me, a nontraditional student from college. I had run into here in the spices isle that I was going up and she was going down. The other woman pushed her son in a stroller and told me she's a barber. I have always been interested in getting a dreadhawk. Well, not when I was in junior high and attending the Episcopal church, but at least for three years. Mary gave me her number and said she had not found work yet and I was glad to take it. When my hair grows long enough to dread it, I imagine I will give her a ring.

A haircut
is never
just a haircut.

Hair is
alive and
sacred.

Like the
meaning in
a poem.

A dreadheaded
woman entering
a script

of a job
interview chops
at her professionalism.

The hybridized mohawk
is there for
an interior purpose.

The hair is
there, reminding of
another potential.

One late night this summer the name of a child came to me and I thought it was my child. For a few days I thought about how it would be to have a child. I have come full circle since then. Tonight I declared that I if I can help it, and I hope I can, I don't want to even think about child rearing until age 36.

If 18 years
Raises a child
May 18 more
Prepare her to
Raise a child
18 years, to
raise a child
18 more.

I got my blood work done and my medicine level is high. Raise your hand if you don't think I try hard enough. (The nurse who writes my scripts tends that way.) I am really sad and frustrated. Alas.

1. Solo
   
   Alone and solemn I lay down my head,
   switch the switch.
   Solo, I wake with the rush the sunshine
   gives and takes.
   
   
2. Jealous
   
   My sister is more publishable,
   more desirable by men,
   and even does better
   on standardized tests.
   
   
3. Happy
   
   Sweeping the deck to an audiobook,
   I muse at mother nature's
   similar multitasking venture -
   combing through leaves, knocking nuts to dirt.
   
   
4. Truth
   
   Some sage in Newark
   told me all I need to remember
   if only I can -
   I am a poet, my job is to write poetry.
   
   
5. Thread
   
   I am a piece of my environment,
   a word I refuse to delete,
   a part of you, hated and loved,
   stepping gingerly, pointedly, by myself.
   

I have a class that breaks my heart every time I go there. I don’t seem to have many friends in there. I think I make a different kind of friend than most of those people are seeking. My friends are long term friends, friends with whom I share a commitment to our endurance. Today one of the people in that class said something under her breath to another member of the class, “why do people think she is suicidal?” He said something back to her that I did not hear. For some reason I was certain she was talking about me. I have always felt there existed animosity between that particular woman and me. I used to try to make jokes in the class. Then I went through a phase of missing class quite a bit. Now I just stay pretty quiet. But when I heard her say that, I got pretty angry inside. Why would she say that about anyone? That is such a hurtful thing to hear. Why be so insensitive. So when some people misread something that was written on the board, I said under my breath something about with the word “illiterate.” It was on my way home today that I realized my action was just as negative and could be as pain causing as the young woman who remarked about “suicide.” In fact, one thing I have learned as an English major is that literacy can be a great root of shame. Also, one of the principles I profess the very most is that being hateful only perpetuates hate. Love in the face of hate is the only way to stop the pain that the hate causes. In the situation of a classroom, I have sometimes heard people talk about love, but I don’t think that is how love is brought into the equation. I must act and speak with love at my wings. What are some ways I can be loving? There are people who I can think of who have been loving towards me. How can I emit love like those people? Suggestions?

Last night I talked on the phone with my father who suggested the strangest thing, that I have learned something from college. Though I sometimes am not sure how I should separate this from adulthood in general, I did finally begin a list of things that are integral to my life that I learned in college.

editing and draft writing
literacy and its implications
MTR
bipolar disorder
climate change
children's literature
resume
TA
journalism with BC NOW!
convictions on issues of war
coping skills
Appalachian identity
poetry skills
poet identity
read wonderful things
tolerating/grinning and baring things I am opposed to

Oh how short life is. Yet, so long life is.
I don't know. So much I do know.
I am so sorry. But I wish you would apologize to me.
Oh how short life is. Yes, life is so long.
Maybe some day you'll know.

Witness for Peace Colombian Lecture:

A Second Chance for Caring

I went to a lecture that was given by a Colombian activist and his translator, a representative of Witness for Peace. As I told Michelle Tooley at the event, it is this kind of lecture that brings the world to me that is why I am a student in the first place. In 2001 I went to Costa Rica, 19 and naïve about the world. It is through this program that I took a step back and a dramatic pause, realizing that 19 year old could teach this 29 year old a lot about the world. The Witness for Peace activists were good to remind me of the vast geography of these Americas, to have the world be brought to my fingertips, without the benefit of my 19 year old self, passionate about studying ecology or “picking up fallen bromeliads off the ground for my sister to draw.”
In and out of college nearly the whole time, I have learned so much since I was 19. The lessons of the night had an awakening affect on me, opening me to capacities of my spirit that have been in slumber. I have been so frightened that this spiritual awareness that underlines the intellectual principles might disappear in me. I have been worrying that I might “forget Costa Rica” for so long that the Truth of the mango I bought last week, the Truth of my daily gas mileage and the Truth of loving others when it is not clear and easy have slipped between my fingers like water in a cupped hand.
These are the testimonies that I always have hoped I could find as a Quaker. As the activist said in reference to monoculture Monsanto corn, “don’t forget that purchasing is one way of voting.” This is what I think of with the simplicity testimony, one testimony that I have not been practicing nearly as loud as I preach. The testimony of equality was another that the activist mentioned in a passing remark that could be taken in many directions. He said that most people from our country are pretty ignorant when it comes to geography. The more I thought about this statement, I began to realize that people from the United States and other parts of the Western world think in a dualistic manner emphasizing “here and there or us and them.” We are the United States, “America, ” or the developed world. They are the 6.5 billion other people in the world. Attending the Witness for Peace lecture was for me like returning to Monteverde, Costa Rica, as the 19 year old woman of a decade ago. Thank you for this second chance at caring.

Finding Home

Nineteen, in 2001, I went to Costa Rica,
Promised the land I would return to it.
Twenty nine, in 2011, Berea, Kentucky,
A Columbian activist came traveling.
I thought:
The land returned to me.
A friend revised me
“The land and you returned to each other.”

Maggie Hess
October 20, 2011

Both good and bad,
Neither good or bad,
School is Eternity,
Looking a Question in the face,
Persevering onward.

willie told me I said this:

"we all move at our own pace. Don't be put off by your own hesitancies. Work through your hesitancies and that is activism."

I did apparently, in front of many people last night. I must be smart!

I was talking to my mother today and it occurred to me that the most critical strategy I can think of for the Occupy Wall Street movement would be if a group of peaceful people found a way to occupy Guantanamo. However, as my mom pointed out, the result of that, would be the imprisonment of those peaceful people (if not also, water-boarding and other forms of legalized torture). It is my understanding that Obama has not followed through with his promise of closing down this detention camp.

As someone who went to New York and experienced Occupy Wall Street, what I understand about the movement is that every one of the dedicated people who are putting their lives on hold to be there have unique causes that they are independently fighting to defeat the corporate machine. I think it is important for people to understand why the corporations gained this wealth, power, and Orwellian "all people are equal but some people are more equal than other people" person-status. My best heuristic to this why question is this: the United States military industrial complex is a overly large portion of the budget. Some 42% of US tax dollars go to military spending according to the Friends Committee on National Legislation. That number represents a corrupt regime that has been around at least since Reagan was in office. Guantanamo is my version of a microcosm of injustice and justice needs to be served, the justice of peace, of forgiveness, of love, and compassion.

And that is what Occupy Wall Street is about really, isn't it? Just a thought for those who are asking "what's next?"

The one difference between me and the other hicks who ain't singin' is the true fact that I am.

I am plugging right along with school. Except I am taking this Algebra class that is proof that you can unlearn things without use. (I did very well in Calculus in high school! Algebra is kicking my butt.) For some time I was growing angry and sulky and worried. Until today, I was pretty worried I might be developing a heart condition, as eating too much fat and not exercising can cause me to do. Then somehow I ended up walking to school. I love to walk. Especially in this season. The colors are so brilliant. Walking really cured me of worrying today. My therapist had said I "over-identify" with bipolar disorder. Walking is something I will gladly take in place of illness. It was 45 Maggie minutes each way. I'd say at least 4 miles. I was simply walking to the campus and the library from the professor's house where I am living. Walking alone is my favorite thing today. It makes me sentimental about this time. This fall might be my last one in Berea before I graduate. I am working on two main goals now: being nice and being confident. I can be a bully and a sulker, so I think those are a nice pair of goals to add with my walks. I have no idea what I am doing after college. At least I do know what I am doing now!