Busy Hands Homestead

“I gave my home away today.” I'm hugging a stranger. She is crying and I'm trying really hard not to. In my hand is a rain spattered list of mobile homes that are delinquent on their property taxes. Everyone in this mobile home court received a six month eviction notice five and a half months ago, and I am attempting to figure out which homes on the list are still occupied, or planned on being moved, and can benefit from a community of strangers that raised $10,000 to keep folks in their homes. Folks who can leave, have left. The lots are a mix of occupied, empty, abandoned, trashed, and taken over by squatters. Her home is not on the list. Her mobile home, well maintained, loved and updated, is too old to move. Nine years as a owner of her own home are gone. Thirteen years working for the same employer and nothing is okay. She gave away her home. “I'm sorry.” I say. My personal, professional, and public office worlds have bee...

I have been writing and re-writing an an artist statement to accompany my First Friday show at the Missoula Community Food Co-op. The official event is on April 7th, but my pots will be on display for the remainder of the month. "This will be easy," I thought. After all, the wheat design carved onto the surface of my mugs, bowls and plates is an external expression of a more than a decade long ritual I have created for myself to process the news of violence and conflict present in our world. But still, the words to articulate feelings and motions are hard to construct. I was 18 for 31 days when September 11th became a date marooned in the year 2001 and we entered a pre- and post- world. Slightly tipsy, from my first honey brown beer, at an elevation over 5000 ft, in my best friend's college dorm, I watched bright dots flashing across a night sky and I was struck by the surreal beauty of what could have been mistaken as fireworks on screen but what were in reali...

Today is President's Day.  This kids are off school, wrestling around the bedroom as I am typing, because sleeping in on a day when there is no school just is not an option.  We are going on a road trip.  We are going to return to a few of our favorite Helena places.   I might be bribing the kids a little bit, because I have an ulterior motive.  We are making a quick jaunt over the pass to make an appearance at a legislative committee meeting to make a public comment on House Bill 361 .  This bill revises the criteria for who is eligible for SNAP benefits cutting benefits for many low income Montanans while also costing the state upwards of $500,000.  Go figure.  I can only assume that the sponsoring legislator likes poor people even less than he likes being being fiscally responsible. Driving two hours to go speak for a few minutes about proposed legislation is a a new adventure for the three of us and I have to admit that I am ...

I am face down on the floor in child's pose, inches away from the furnace warm air blowing over my body, tears pooling on the floor. Adam took Ivory to the bus stop.   Sylvan is playing.  I am crying.   I have been crying and crying and crying.  I got the day wrong on which I was to deliver the salad to the staff lounge at Ivory's school and it was the last tiny little snow flake to land on a mountain of snow and set off an avalanche.  It is rushing down and nothing will stop the force of gravity until it reaches the valley floor.  I will be the first to admit this is one part hormones mixed in with a million other things:  The feeling of failure that has been building for months.  The feeling that I am okay at many things but not great at anything and not being able to figure out at which skill I am supposed to excel.  The years of sleepless nights.  My constant battle against the natural state of the universe -...

When I was twelve, a recent transplant to this country (I am a citizen, but spent my child hood across the ocean in Germany), I was required to write a paper on the Clinton Dole presidential race.   That assignment resulted in a letter detailing all the reasons why I thought Clinton was the better candidate which I was actually was brave enough to put in the mail box and send to the White House.  (I really wish I had kept a copy of that letter.  I have no idea what it said, but I do know, that somewhere, in some box, I do have the letter I got back a few weeks later.  It was just a form letter with a pretty little signature but that was alright with me.  Twelve year old me got a letter from the White House!!) When I was twenty I met my future husband on the way to a debate at which nine of the twelve candidates competing for the democratic nomination for president were present.  I was going to see Dennis Kucinich.  I had recently declared a ...