Handwashing

I'm a slob; I cannot pretend otherwise. I shower regularly, clean myself, but am not obsessive about these things, and I'm sure that this would lead many to disgust.

Hand washing is, of course, foremost in the world right now. In particular, how people have not been washing appropriately. (We have all heard about that bowl of peanuts on a bar and its urine traces, no? Here is a particularly badonkers article from a couple of years ago that advocates not washing ones hands because of immunity.)

The first time I learned just how inadequate my handwashing was came around 2001, when my mother got sick. Really sick. Intensive care, don't know if she'll live, not sure what damage will emerge when she comes to after 107F+ temperatures sick. I was embarrassed to learn just how poor my technique was as I studied the blue hands on the posters outside intensive care: the backs of hands, the crevices between fingers; WRISTS! 

So when this awful situation all kicked off and the handwashing instructions, memes, songs came around, that's where my brain went - my mum, sick, and me focusing on keeping myself as clean as possible to make sure I couldn't hurt her or anyone else. The smell of stress-management cigarettes emanating from all the nurses. The uncertainty of what would happen. And, to pull me through, I remember how Mum pulled through and battled back to learn to speak again, to walk again; how we watched, in disbelief (and fortunately, given the noise we were making and it being after the end of visiting hours - the whole ward could hear us) as England stuck five past Germany in Germany; and how she swooned over her very dishy ENT specialist. She was really brave; I'm savouring and carrying that with me.

And rewatching those highlights. Such joy.

Bioregion: Sweet Gum

In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell argues for getting to know ones bioregion. If I hadn't been persuaded by the rest of the book (note: I had), remembering something from my in-laws' last visit at the end of 2019 should have prompted me to at least reconsider my relationship with my local surroundings. My in-laws were fascinated by a particular type of tree that I had noticed, vaguely, but had no idea what it was or enough curiosity to investigate it. That, now, seems embarrassing and odd - why didn't I have that interest to know more? Why don't I look up? Why do I take the trees and blossom for granted? I enjoy the foliage a huge amount, both when green and when in the blaze of autumnal colours that hits us here; blossom and the feel of freshness and new life in spring provides me with a huge boost each year (and annoyance that it comes so late in New York). My goal is, therefore, to learn something new about the nature around me each week.

Our kid is obsessed with small, hard seed pods that he finds round the roots of various trees in Brooklyn. He calls them lollipops, sometimes, with an occasional early ill-advised attempt or two to bite into one. Until today, I hadn't thought about what they were, despite my abiding love of conkers and other fascinating ways in which trees distribute their seeds.

So, yesterday, I called up my app - Picture This, if you're interested - and found out what they were. These are sweet gum seedpods, and sweet gums grow all over the US, but not much further north than NYC.

The Nahuatl name provides answers for how it interacts with us: Ocotzocuahuitl, which translates to tree that gives pine resin from ocotl (pine), tzotl (resin), cuahuitl (tree), which refers to the use of the tree's resin - it was used, among other things, to flavour tobacco. While that is less common, it is apparently still used as a mild antiseptic or to treat sores (???). Although the pods are lumpy and spiky, goldfinches, purple finches, squirrels, and chipmunks manage to eat its seeds. Humans also use the infertile seeds to create one of the major chemicals in the Tamiflu treatment, somewhat unbelievably - they contain shikimic acid, something discovered after there was a shortage of star anise (which is another rabbit hole I want to go down, but am trying to resist). How do you tell which are infertile? According to Eat the Weeds, "[f]ertile seeds are black with wings on either side, infertile seeds are yellow and wingless." The pods have many names: "burr (or bir) balls", "gum balls", "space bugs", "monkey balls", "bommyknockers" or "sticker balls".


A list of alternate names for sweet gums (some which will clearly help with Scrabble): American storax, hazel pine, bilsted, redgum, satin-walnut (particularly pleasing), star-leaved gum, alligatorwood (due to the way the bark looks, apparently), or simply sweetgum.

These trees blaze up the parks in Brooklyn in October and November; the leaves litter the ground in November and December; I cannot wait until that happens.

Sources:

• The Mean Seed of the Sweet Gum
• Liquidambar styraciflua
• Sweet Gum Tree
• NYC Street Tree Map

Finding Routine

With a very small baby, there isn't really a routine one can follow; one of the best pieces of advice we got when we had the first one was that "everything is a phase." And it's true--each time you think you're on top of things, the baby develops, changes, and you need to learn anew what works for you as a unit. And that rings even truer when you already have a headstrong and stubborn wonderful little person whose life has been twisted upside down, quite deliberately on your part but with no say from them at all.

Nonetheless, this time round knowing the whole "phase" thing really does feel very different. A second child truly can be an excellent demonstration of the difference between intellectual knowledge and experience of a thing. Luckily for me, this has resulted in a calmer (for me) and relaxed state of being. This time I'm trying to take advantage of that experience to think about how I want to spend my down time--those brief pauses between feeding and snoozing and naps and changes of nappies--without giving into the need to feel bad about not being "productive."* %%

So, in that spirit - trying to enjoy the luxurious time I have right now and revel in it without succumbing to pressure to do everything and fix everything, here is what I am trying to do:

• Reduce the pile of old New Yorkers. Yes, like every lefty pseudo-intellectual household in New York City, we subscribe to the New Yorker. And, like almost every household, we do not get through them at the rate that they are produced. I miss Tilly Minute and the filtering of articles desperately, and my consumption has suffered (unless you count my reading of the restaurant reviews). Therefore, for about 5-10 minutes a day, while sat in my lovely glider with the gentle light streaming through the french windows, I am slowly going through old copies. So far, I've read a moving but deeply sad reflection on god and race by James Baldwin and a terribly depressing insight into the Oklahoma teachers' strike from a couple of years ago. So... terrific!
• Build my indoor herb garden. Herbs come in far too large quantities (and I never, despite my best intentions, freeze/dry/make frozen oil cubes from them) and in a lot of unnecessary plastic, so this is one thing that I'm aiming to do that will reduce consumption and environmental impact.
• Get to know my bioregion. In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell recommends (I believe - please bear in mind I'm reading this at 3am while bleary-eyed from just waking up to feed the bairn, so I'm not confident in my absorption of her argument) that one can disengage from the attention economy by engaging with the bioregion in which you live. What plants, birds, water sources, microclimates are you surrounded by and living in? I'm planning to learn about one aspect of local nature once a week to build up my mental database and learn to pay attention to how they (and I) interact. More to come...
• Classical music. Thanks to Year of Wonder (an absolute delight) and Classical Fix (same), Clemency Burton-Hill has had quite the impact on our lives. Through her work, I'm slowly learning about what classical music I do and don't like and starting to feel a little more confident in expressing and pursuing those tastes. 
• House projects. I'm not planning anything that large scale, but there are a few things I like to do that make me feel like an absolute boss for having done but the benefits of which aren't necessarily enjoyed every day. Taking an inventory of our kitchen equipment to work out what to replace/donate; clearing out and cleaning the freezer and fridge; sorting out our books (I did the reorganization but now we need to do a Marie Kondo to create a little space and be honest about what we want to read / keep on our shelves); clearing out my wardrobe so I can think a little more clear-headedly about how I want to dress now that maternity clothes are never, ever, ever going to be necessary again. 

So, that's it. Not too much, but enough to make me feel I am happy with my time and did some things for me as well as raising a small person.

* Having read this book on low wage work with a discussion of the history of emphasis on productivity and currently reading How to Do Nothing, I'm working through ideas of what makes me feel good and useful but how to separate that from the need to be engaged and doing something for the sake of it, without really thinking about it.

%% ARGH I JUST FUCKING LOST THIS WHOLE POST AND I AM PISSSSSSEEEEEEDDDDD OFF.