Three Poems

September 12th, 2013

Obviously I haven’t kept up with this blog, since it has been four years since I last posted. I wrote half a post in the middle, that I just read and wished I’d finished writing, but never did. It may be a decrepit blog, but really big events require poetry, and sometimes poetry wants to be shared, so here I am.

It has been a big few years: Dave and I moved to Seattle, got married, and I finished my dissertation and became Dr. Cristie. But the very biggest event happened in April, with the birth of our first baby. I understand a lot more about parents now, because it’s true that your life immediately changes when that baby enters the world and becomes your world. I also understand more about mothers, because wow, bringing a baby into the world takes an immense amount of effort, however you do it!

So. I birthed a baby (at home). The baby needed a poem. The birth needed a poem. And then the midwives needed a poem. It may have taken me five months to birth these poems into the world, but here they are. To everyone who helped with the experience that made these poems possible: thank you. You’re amazing. I can’t imagine having done it without you.

Zephyr

You are a maker of entrances
arm-raising victories
of waiting and drama and intensity

You are a bundle of warmth
a curled puddle in my arms
limp-limbed and full-bellied

You are forty-one weeks and five days of anticipation
five hours of strength and pain
one moment of determination
one moment of flying

You are my crackle-skinned joy
molting into kissable cheeks
plumping fingers and toes
bright eyes widening at windows

You are milk-faced distractibility
an epic of squirm
with a final chapter of melted satisfaction

You are my challenge
my new meaning
my wonder
my forever-changed.

4/17-4/27, 2013

Zephyr at 1 month and 4.5 months



Sixty Seconds

So much nestles in that moment
filling it to over brim
expanding the walls of temporal possibility

I curl around my belly
clutching my feet as if I can kiss my toes

I have worked so hard
my body’s preparations smoothing the passage
between my bones
until betrayed by my flesh

Can I be too healthy to give birth?
Can I be too strong?

In that moment I strain
wondering if this is possible
until I hear words floating toward me
baby and heartbeat and episiotomy

She says I have to do it now and
I suddenly find the impossible
as if I am more than my body
as if I have been given the strength
of a thousand mothers before me

I pull on my feet
clenching my belly
roaring with strength and pain and desperation

And in that moment
he arrives
with his own roar
his own essence
his own possibilities.

-- 4/30/13

New Zephyr

My Midwives
(to Taylor and Christine, with gratitude and love)

I want to write a poem for my midwives
like I did for my son and my self
I want them to know they are worthy
of my words and creativity
of my occasional attempts at eloquence

I want to write a poem for my midwives
to capture their meaning inside verse
to somehow disentangle my thoughts and memories into words

But how can I possibly describe the primal trust
sourced so deep in my belly that
I remember it even when I have forgotten myself
when my world has condensed into
this motion
this pain
this sound
this pattern
and I can still hear a voice and listen
trusting

How can I explain the space where
I no longer believe I am capable
yet I must believe because they do
and because they believe in me I do
so I find the strength to
move this way
rise that way
bend there
push here
as she tells me and I listen
believing

How can I express the comfort
in knowing they know me
that I will be heard
that my desires
and wishes
and hopes
have been accepted
that I speak and they listen
comforting

I want these words to fit together better
to birth a complicated loving completeness
like I birthed a complicated loving being

I want to honor these women
and their work and their love
that they spread to enchant so many new lives
and somehow
I want them to know
deep down in their bellies
how special my memories are
because they are here.

5/23/13

Midwives Extraordinaire

On Grandmothers and Blogging and School

October 19th, 2009

My grandmother mentioned to me a few months ago that “none of the grandchildren blog anymore,” and while some of us do on occasion, she was also quite correct that we’re not as regular about it as we were. And to be honest, I’ve never been good at writing regularly here - too many other things going on! But I thought maybe it was time to write a post, and especially since I’m starting a whirlwind of writing academic material, my brain might appreciate some expression that’s more creative rather than scientific.

But I’ve also been a little bit caught in thinking that every post I write has to be eloquent and well-structured and thoughtful and perfect, and I’m starting to realize that if I hold myself to that standard, I really will never get around to writing anything. And if my grandmother wants to know what I’m up to on occasion, who am I to argue? So here I am, to give you a little update on me and my life, and to state an intention that I would like to write here more often, even if it’s only a paragraph or small thought at a time.

It’s hard to say whether teaching or “dissertating” is a bigger thing for me right now. The dissertation of course casts a longer shadow, and I am slowly but surely trying to actually get some momentum going on writing it. Everyone seems to believe I’ll be graduating in June, so somehow I need to make it happen! This fall, I managed to finally get my dynamic state variable model working, which was ridiculously exciting (one of my favorite things about modeling is that there’s suddenly a point at which “it works,” and it’s a much more obvious milestone than writing a paper is), and then I promptly realized that my understanding of how to go about exploring the model and its outcomes is extremely limited. So my next step with the modeling is to learn how to explore the model, now that I’ve coded it and gotten it to work. And here I thought that part would be easy!

Okay, this isn’t a picture of me dissertating, but that looks pretty boring, so it’s a picture of me helping on an archaeological excavation up the coast over the summer!

Teaching, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a looming deadline at the end of the year, but must happen at least three days a week, and requires all the relevant prep time and energy on a regular basis. I love the teaching, and I once again have fabulous students this quarter, just as I did during summer session. In the summer, I taught Introduction to Archaeology, and was glad I knew the material really well since it all had to be taught in a five week period (an 11 week quarter’s worth of information). It was exhausting, but the students were champs, and I think we had a good time together. And judging from my teaching evaluations that I just received today, it happily seems like they agree with me! This quarter I’m teaching North American Archaeology, material which I know pretty well for some geographic regions, and very little about for other regions. Once again, my students are participatory and engaged and enthusiastic, which is both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because I really do have to know my stuff, and it doesn’t take a lot for them to catch me on things I don’t know. Rewarding because they’re making me learn the material as best as I possibly can before going in to lecture, and I love that they ask me questions and interact with me - the back and forth is one of my favorite things about teaching. I have three students that took Intro to Archaeology with me in the summer, and four students that had me as a TA in previous years for other classes, so it’s nice to know I haven’t scared them off, and even, in a couple of cases, that I got them really excited about archaeology.

Students from Intro to Archaeology walking a transect on the field as they learn how to survey an archaeological site

So I am happy with what I’m doing right now, amidst being overwhelmed and frustrated on a pretty regular basis. If only there were 48 hours in a day, if only academic writing weren’t like pulling my own teeth, if only I didn’t like to do so many other things in my life as well, if only I didn’t have to eat or sleep or shower... The “if only’s” stack up sometimes, and I just try to remind myself that I do what I can, and what happens will happen. Usually all it takes is one really good night’s sleep, and I feel like I can tackle everything head on again!

And that’s all for now, folks. :)

Dave and me, on our one-year-since-we-met anniversary in July

A poem

In Memory of Jim McGough, 1948-2009

Jim

I didn’t see Jim every day
not every week
nor even every month

But over six years of living here
Jim would occasionally walk through my life
always with a smile
always wondering how was I doing
what was I up to
how was school

Perpetually early
he was always surprised to find me at home
and when I was packing to leave
he would be adamant I not worry about him
and be on my way

When I had time though
we would talk
about me
about him
about my research
about the book he was writing

I would leave him cookies on the counter
he would insist I share his pastries

I didn’t see Jim every day
not every week
nor even every month

But now I think of him every day
and now that he’s gone
I realize how big of a presence he truly was.


-cmb, May 7th, 2009

Recent moments

April 16th, 2009

Moment 1.
The fields on campus are blooming purple, small flowers blanketing the hillsides with my favorite color. Christina tells me the flowers are called “stork’s bills,” and I almost don’t believe her until she brings in one of the plants to show me. A purple blossom adorns part of the plant, but incredibly long, pointed, green spikes also extend outwards. “Stork’s bill” suddenly becomes appropriate and understandable. I’m sad to learn that this little flower that covers the fields in purple is an invasive species.

Moment 2.
It’s early in the morning, and I’m biking to the shuttle to get up to campus. The air is thick with fog, salt, kelp, and cold. The ocean often intrudes like this, reaching inland and reminding us that we live on the edge of a vast expanse of water with its own climate. The fog will burn off by mid-morning, but often returns again as the sun sets. On those nights, while lying in bed, I can hear the lighthouse calling warnings into the darkness, accompanying the regular chorus of sea lions.

Moment 3.
She’s so close to the shore, this particular sea otter, closer than one normally gets to see. She’s doing sea otter things, rolling around to stay wet, diving under water to get food, splitting it open to eat. But after several moments of watching, we can also see that she has a baby sea otter on her belly. The little otter seems to cling plenty well enough to stay attached during the rolls, but also keeps jumping off to swim around on its own. Occasionally it tries to follow its mother on a dive, but doesn’t appear to have learned that skill particularly well yet, as it arches into the water over and over until it finally gets under for a brief moment. The mother lets the baby swim around, but big waves lead her to swim over and swoop it back up onto her belly with her tail. The interaction is endearing and mesmerizing, and hard to leave behind.

Moment 4.
Red has overtaken the previous purple, and the cows lounge around in their self-cropped fields. Across the road, where the cows will be moved next week, the plants have grown a couple feet high, and are dominated by white and yellow gangly flowers. It looks like rich eating, and I imagine the cows thrilled as they’re let out of their well-grazed pasture and led into belly-deep food. I don’t think it’s such a bad life being a cow on the UCSC campus.

Colors of a Live Earth Farm winter

February 7th, 2009

One of the things I try to be consciously thankful for on a regular basis is the local, organic produce that can be easily acquired while living on California’s central coast. I love vegetables, so it’s not hard to fully enjoy eating them, but I like to remind myself just how lucky I am to live in a place where I can get a remarkable variety of produce year-round.

For the last two years, I’ve bought into a cropshare program (or CSA: community supported agriculture), where I pay at the beginning of the season for my entire share, and then I get a box of vegetables delivered every week. My farm is called Live Earth Farm, and it’s pretty much the best farm ever (Shaleece will back me up on this). :) It’s located in Watsonville, and is just under 20 miles from my house, so it’s hard to get much more local than that. They deliver to several drop off points in Santa Cruz (and over the hill), so each week I walk three blocks to pick up my box of heaping vegetables. During the summer, the box comes with one or two baskets of strawberries every week, practically worth the cost of the box right there. It’s the best deal available in terms of price and quality, and it’s all organic. They are also the best vegetables and fruits I’ve ever tasted. Seriously.

So, their summer season lasts from April through November, and then you have the option of extending through the winter season, December through March. One might think that the winter season would be all cabbage and root vegetables, but you’d be surprised. There certainly is an abundance of cabbage (fortunately, I like cabbage), and a wide variety of root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, beets, etc.) that are wonderful roasted, but also lots of cooking greens, apples, brussels sprouts, onions, winter squash, romanesco, and so on. Despite being in the middle of January here, my box still comes packed full of richly colored, delectable edibles. My farm even cans their own tomatoes during the summer, and makes jam from their own apricots, so that we get jars of summer flavors during the winter.

I like having a farm that I can call “my farm.” I like being connected to the place that grows my food, to see pictures every week of what is growing, to hear stories of planting, and to have even had my hands in my farm’s soil (during their yearly harvest festival). I have neither the time nor the green thumb to grow my own food right now, so this is the next best thing. With the last winter box, Heidi was so taken with the beautiful colors that were stacked up on the countertop that we decided to take a few pictures. And so, I give you, the colors of a Live Earth Farm winter. :)

A New President

January 20th, 2009

This morning, I woke up, made myself a cup of tea, sat down on the couch, and turned on the TV. This is not my usual routine; in fact, I rarely turn on the TV at any time of day, much less first thing in the morning. But today was an unique day, a day when Barack Obama was sworn in as 44th President of the United States of America. I have cared enough about politics to write letters to the president at least since I was ten (see below!). I have cared enough about politics to vote, for my entire life as a voting-age citizen. I have cared enough about politics to volunteer, to make phonecalls, to donate money, for at least the last five years. I have never cared enough about politics to watch an inauguration ceremony, until this year. I wish I could have been in D.C.

There are a lot of reasons why I was excited about today. Admittedly, I was ready for the kind of hope and energy that Obama brings to office - I think hope is a good thing, as is appealing to the best parts of people’s personalities. And I hope that Obama will find a way to heal our country and our place in the world. I hope that Obama will truly tackle climate change, health care, human rights, and all of those other issues that need addressing in addition to the economy. I think he really has a chance to do it, despite our country’s current understandable preoccupation with the economy. I wish him the best of luck.

But in addition to all of that, it really was remarkable to see the first African-American inaugurated as president. I thought I might see it in my lifetime, but certainly not this soon. I can’t imagine what it must be like for people who lived through the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

Two quotes stood out for me, as I watched Obama give his speech. As a scientist, “We will restore science to its rightful place” was a particularly welcome phrase to hear. And as an American, I was moved by this: “This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

This morning, I drank tea, watched the inauguration, and cried when Obama was sworn into office. Tonight, I find myself anticipating hearing what his policy announcements will be tomorrow. What an amazing part of history to be a part of.

Below, just for the fun of it, is my first recorded (i.e., saved on my computer) letter to a politician. I was ten.


November 28, 1988
Vice-President Bush
Washington, D.C.

Dear Vice-President Bush,
Congratulations on winning the election!
I think to pay off the debts we owe without raising taxes, you could take part of the money, like 1/2 or 1/4, that is paying for research on weapons and use it to handle the deficit.

Why do you oil drill along the coast? It kills a lot of animals that live on our coast line and destroys habitats. One of these days we will run out of oil and nobody will know what to do. I think you should start doing more research on solar power and other things.

I think you should stop sending weapons to Nicaragua. You could keep signing peace treaties to destroy some of our weapons and slow down the arms race. I think it would be neat to have a world full of peace. Then we wouldn't have a lot of danger of some place being blown up. If we keep working our way to peace we will have a kinder and gentler nation just like you wanted!

Sincerely,

Cristie Boone
5th Grade

Final thoughts from Guatemala (August 13, 2008)

I want to remember the corn growing up the sides of mountains that look too steep to climb. I can't imagine what effort it must take to plant corn on such slopes, nor to harvest it. I can't imagine a life that makes such effort worth the return. I know that clearing forest to plant the corn worsens erosion and shrinks natural habitat, but the corn looks beautiful as it spills down the hillsides.


I want to remember the vibrancy of the Chichicastenango market, the colorful fabrics, the beautiful vegetables and fruits, and most of all the nearly hidden middle of the market where the local people cook and eat and shop and sell for themselves, not just the tourists. I had the best fried chicken of my life in the center of Chichi's Thursday market, and the following day a delicious traditional breakfast of eggs and beans. They came with chile powder and jalapeños as optional condiments, the chile powder described as "picante" (spicy), and the fresh sliced jalapeños described as "non picante" (not spicy). I want to remember the essential sound of Chichi's market - the clapping arising from so many women continuously making fresh corn tortillas by hand throughout the day. Fresh corn tortillas come with every meal here, as well they should.



I want to remember how many things are transported by carrying or by bicycle here. Giant loads of cloths or other street stand goods are bundled up into blankets, or large baskets in turn wrapped in blankets. With creative tying, the ends of the blankets are brought across the shoulders and chest, or sometimes the forehead, and then walked down the street. I don't know how much some of those bundles weighed, but I'm sure the weight they carry with their bodies would put our strength to shame. No ergonomic considerations here, no workers comp or sense that something might be too heavy or too hard to carry. It just gets done, because it has to, and frequently happens over steep hills that we Americans breathe heavily while walking up when we're not carrying anything.

I want to remember how frustrating it is to only be able to understand so much, and to say even less. My Spanish improved throughout the trip, but I would like to know more before returning to a Spanish speaking country. I am learning to formulate my questions, but am missing a lot of the language structure that I think would help. Living in California, it probably is about time I really tried to learn some Spanish.

I want to remember how beautiful the mountains and valleys and volcanoes of Guatemala are. The pine forests of the highlands, the jungle of the lowlands, and the pervasive farmlands each have their own personality and their own draw. The jungle in particular grows plants and animals in sizes and shapes I'm thoroughly not used to. Toucans with their giant beaks and tiny streamlined bodies, howler monkeys that sound like dying or injured animals at 3 o'clock in the morning, the gigantic larvae of something, the funny lizard guy that ran upright on two legs when startled, an insect that makes sounds like a sprinkler alternating with an electric wood saw...



I want to remember how to make traveling days part of the adventure, to be happy with a space on the bus even if it's only half a seat, and to be willing to just go with what happens because sometimes you just can't figure out what's going on. I want to remember that fruit should always be mouthwatering, that tortillas should always be hot off the griddle, that lemonade should always be fresh, and the milk for your coffee served steamed. I want to remember that taking a complete break from work is refreshing, invigorating, renewing, and healthy.

To adventures, journeys, and experiences...