I can say No, but I prefer to say Yes

If popular culture is any indication, it seems women suffer from an epidemic inability to refuse additional responsibilities.

Magazines, self-help books and therapists nationwide offer heaps of advice on how to assert oneself, draw boundaries and generally say No when asked to sign on for those things for which we have little time and less interest. We’re urged to stop putting our own needs last and remember that taking time for ourselves is a necessity, not an act of selfishness.

Me? I’ve never had that problem. When asked to take on something that sounds like a time-consuming bore (cooking daily meals, for example), I have no problem begging off. Just ask my husband – the one with the culinary talent and the weekly meal plans to prove it.

So you’d think I would have a lot of Me Time – hours and hours to kick back, read gossip magazines and figure out exactly how to apply Oprah’s vast and infallible wisdom to my daily existence.

You’d be wrong.

Although I have no trouble saying No to other people, I have yet to be able to be so assertive with myself, which means that I perpetually (joyfully, excitedly) invite far more activity into my days than there are hours to accommodate it.

Do I want to meet with friends every week for knitting and conversation? Yes.

Do I want to volunteer for one thing or another at my daughters’ schools? Absolutely.

Can I help a friend of a friend’s daughter who wants to learn more about creative writing? You betcha.

You need help putting out a monthly newsletter to help your organization stay in touch with donors? Oooooh – me, me, me – I know how to do that.

A puppy who needs to be house-trained and taught to behave? I love puppies; I’m sure I’ll find the time somewhere.
You know what I’ve always wanted to do? Grow a massive organic garden. Sign me up.

And these two pigs we have in the back field will be gone by next month. Time to start thinking about new baby animals for next spring. Maybe dairy and fiber goats. We’ll make our own cheese and I’ll learn to spin mohair. But first we’ll have to build our own barn and expand the fencing.

There’s no way that will get in the way of my schedule of growing my new business and taking a half-time load of writing-intensive college classes.

And it will leave plenty of time for being a parent and a wife and a person who wants to live in a house that is not in danger of condemnation by the health department.

These are not chores or burdens. They’re passions and delights.

And the notion that I should be forced to choose between them, limit them or outright reject them is unfair in the extreme.

Back in January, I decided to focus this year’s columns on attempts to live more mindfully. Incredibly, I don’t think I’m on anyone’s short list for Bodhisattva of the Year Award. It’s a process. And for some of us the process toward more mindfulness is longer than for others.

What I have learned is that I am not good at saying no to myself. Not only do I want to have lots of experiences, but I want to pursue each and every one of them as though that were my only pursuit.

It’s not sustainable.

So I am going to learn to apply my editor’s discipline to my artist’s joie de vivre. I will say yes to things that make me happy. But I will say yes to fewer of them.

One of the things to which I am sadly, painfully saying No is this very column. I have written a weekly column in one form or another for various publications for some 16 years now. I’m not sure I know how to not do it. But in my effort to edit my commitments, I must make the difficult decision to take an indefinite hiatus from this column.

However, I plan to still maintain my blog at www.moremindfulfamily.wordpress.com, so please go online and have a look. You can even sign up to get new entries in your e-mail box or RSS reader.

I hope you’ll find me there, where we can go beyond just reading and writing and engage in conversation. I can promise to show up when I have something good to share.

In the meantime, I’ll be celebrating this Thanksgiving with an abundance of gratitude for all of you who have shared a few weekly moments with me.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is so glad we had this time together. You can continue this conversation at www.moremindfulfamily.wordpress.com.

Only in my house

Bee: Dad, you said we were going to clean my room tonight.

Papa: No, it’s too late tonight. It’s almost bedtime. We’ll do it tomorrow.

Bee: But you promised.

Papa: It’s too late.

Bee: What if we clean half of it tonight? Please? Please????

A view through bare branches

Every morning, Bee and I stand at the end of the driveway waiting for her bus and we look up into the branches of the elm tree that arches over the drive.
We started this little ritual back in the spring, when the first signs of new leaves appeared like green knuckles up and down the long branches.
“Look,” I said to her. “Soon the tree will be covered with leaves, and we won’t be able to see a bit of sky through them.”
Sure enough, bright green leaves sprouted and spread until the tree offered a cool canopy. Peering up through the branches was like looking into a verdant kaleidoscope, a mosaic of greens and yellows and tiny flecks of blue sky.
In summer, of course, we found little reason to stand at the foot of the driveway for any length of time. Sure, we might venture to the mailbox or pass through that general area on our way to throw rocks into the creek or walk to our neighbor’s pond and listen to the frog symphony. But we never took the time to see how summer had changed the view upward through the elm branches.
But then autumn came around, and with it a new school year and a new daily opportunity to view the world from the foot of an elm tree.
In early September, the tree already was giving us a show – a bright yellow leaf here, another leaf orange and brown, and yet another looking for all the world like a green and red holiday ornament.
Bee claimed she was collecting autumn leaves, and for many mornings, she would find her favorite, and give it to me to add to her collection after she had gotten on the bus.
“But wait there until the bus is gone,” she told me. “Don’t walk back to the house until after the bus leaves.”
I promised.
The elm tree is one of her favorites because, according to Bee and her dad, fairies live there. Or maybe they’re faeries. However they self-identify, Bee is certain of their existence because, on very, very cold winter mornings when her Papa takes her down to the bus stop, the two of them help the fairies keep warm by blocking their knot-hole doorway with a stick. Later on in the day, when the fairy house warms up, the fairies push the stick out of the doorway to the ground, where Bee finds it the next morning.
You should know that our lawn is well-populated by fairies. In the summertime, Bee and Posey and I build them little garden shelters. We make beds of moss and set pine bark tables with buttercup tea sets. We always add some signal or flag so the fairies will know that we’ve created a safe place for them where they won’t be bothered by cats or chickens or dogs.
After we’ve built the fairy shelters, we check them over the next days and weeks for signs of habitation. Bee is particularly adept at spotting fairy magic – a sort of vapor trail they leave in their wake.
“They were here,” she will declare. “I can see their magic.”
This week, Bee and I have stood under the elm tree looking skyward, and we have noticed how very little there is standing between us and the view beyond. Not one leaf remains on the tree. It seems Winter does not ask permission from me, or from Bee or from the shivering fairies before unpacking its bags and settling in for a long, long stay. It’s kind of a bully and a boor, that Winter. A difficult and expensive house guest who comes unannounced with no clear plans for leaving.
I began to think of snow tires and oil bills and evenings that grow dark before the end of a banker’s workday. I sighed.
Next to me, Bee sighed too, but hers was more wistful, more like the sigh one makes settling into a feather bed or a bubble bath.
“Maybe Dad can make a fire tonight,” she beamed up at me with an excited grin. I could tell that she was thinking of mittens and sledding and snowmen.
“That would be perfect,” I told her.
Okay, Winter. You can come in. The guest room is yours, and I’ve laid out extra towels. Leave your shoes by the front door and don’t monkey with the thermostat without asking.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger hopes you’re as cozy and warm as the Elm Fairies.

To Posey on Her Fourth

So here we are, on the other side of 3-years-old, and it seems we both survived it intact. It wasn’t easy, but perhaps it made us both stronger.
I have never known someone who dove into each day with such joy and humor. You have an uncanny ability to create and then steal the comedic stage in almost every setting. Your “pretending to nearly fall off a tightrope” routine is always a hit as we are being led to our table in a restaurant. You’ve also really perfected what I like to call “The Astonished Aside.” It’s as though you imagine yourself as the star in your own British sitcom, and every so often the situation at hand calls for you to do a wide-eyed take toward a camera seen only by you.
“Posey, did you know Abi and Ivy are coming for the whole weekend?”
[Astonished Aside] “What!? They are? Nobody told me!”
And, of course, you are never afraid to work blue. Your skill at replacing key words and phrases with the word “poopy” is unrivaled.
For all your clownish nature, which takes long sojourns into the realms of mischief, your heart is as wide and open as a blue October sky. You do not simply like people – you adore them with every ounce of yourself. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of a running hug from you knows just how powerful that adoration can be.
You even adore your big sister, giving me great, happy hope that the two of you will share not only a childhood and a name, but a lifelong friendship.
And speaking of lifelong relationships, I think it’s perfectly admirable that you have already chosen your future husband at this tender age. And in that choice, you have exhibited good taste beyond your years. However, I think it would be wise for you to hold off on making anything official just yet. Who knows what the next couple of decades might bring.
Just look at what the last year has brought. A year ago, only your closest family could understand every word you said. Now you can entertain perfect strangers with elaborate stories about your family members.
You can snap your fingers and cross the monkey bars and very nearly whistle. I cannot wait to see what comes next, and what comes after that, and after that.
As a mother, it is nigh impossible to resist the urge to make predictions. I watch you put on a princess dress and grab a guitar, and I think, “She’s going to be a rock star.” I watch you hang by your knees at the playground, and I think, “A gymnast!” I watch your tightrope routine and think, “The next Tina Fey.”
But I know very well that all those predictions are idle amusements with very little connection to the future you will make for yourself.
But there are some things that I know for sure about you – things that will be a part of who you are no matter what you do.
You are strong, both in body and soul. You have a love that is as big and warm as the August sun. You have a mom, dad, brother and (eve, even) sister who can’t believe their luck to be your family.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is happy to be a supporting player in her daughter’s Britcom. You can connect with her at www.moremindfulfamily.wordpress.com

Who are these little girls?

There are two children in my house who bear a striking resemblance to my daughters. They are adorable, smart and energetic. Like my daughters, they can spend hours drawing and coloring or watching DVDs about princesses and adventures. They even answer to my daughters’ names.
And yet, I can’t help but be suspicious about their true identity because these girls have been nice to each other.
Mornings around Schoolhouse Farm are always difficult. There is only one bonafide morning person in our home, and that’s Bee. The rest of us do what we can – Papa at a determined pace, me in a fog of overnight caffeine withdrawal, and Posey with either a mischievous clown face or an outright scowl.
For her part, Bee doesn’t have much patience with people who aren’t morning people.
So I was dreading the first day of school just a bit.
In her excitement to start the new school year, Bee had planned her ensemble down to the smallest detail, and declared the night before that she was going to wake up early, get dressed immediately and make her own breakfast “because that is what first graders do.” (Clearly, she hasn’t met a lot of high school students.)
Her unmitigated enthusiasm for school is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. And her self-sufficiency is even more admirable.
But in a house full of non-morning people, it’s wise to keep the one morning person occupied.
I set my own alarm extra early so I could be on top of my game. I predicted that Bee would be up and ready to board the bus approximately one hour before it arrived. That would give her plenty of time to get antsy and look for a diversion to fill her spare time – something like parroting her little sister’s conversation (“Stop copying me!”) or reminding her father and me of some vague quasi-promise we may or may not have made three years ago whose fulfillment has become urgently and immediately necessary (“Remember that time you said it would be fun to go back to that museum in Philadephia? Remember? Remember when you said that? When are we going to do that?”).
But that’s not how the morning progressed, and that’s what makes me so suspicious.
Bee was sitting calmly at the kitchen island eating her breakfast when Posey woke and, still rubbing her sleepy eyes, recounted a dream about Bee and a castle and a knight who saved her.
“You tell the best stories,” Bee said, in one of the few spontaneous, genuine compliments she has ever given her little sister.
Moments later, Posey told Bee she was beautiful.
Then Bee helped stir Posey’s oatmeal and kindly passed it to her.
Then Posey said, “Thank you.”
Then a sparkly unicorn flew down from the top of Panther Mountain and beckoned us to ride her far away to a land where eating chocolate makes you rich and buying shoes makes you smart!
Okay, so that last part didn’t happen, but it is no less fantastical than what did transpire.
Having grown up with only a brother, I have no direct experience with sisterhood. I ask a lot of questions to adults and children who are old enough to be a little reflective. The answers span the full spectrum.
It got easier as we got older.
It got so much harder when we were in middle school and high school.
They’ll probably always be friends, like my sister and me.
If their relationship survives past college, they might have a chance at beginning a friendship.
One young friend with keen analytical skills said of her relationship with her younger sister: “We are closest friends, but we can be the worst enemies.”
I don’t doubt that for a minute. Girls can have a rare talent for being hurtful to other girls, and being close with someone means they know all your weaknesses, and you know theirs.
The challenge is to teach your daughters to lift each other up, cheer each other up and, when the time arrives, back each other up.
And if at all possible, teach one of them to make coffee.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger knows you are, but what am I? You can connect with her at www.moremindfulfamily.wordpress.org.

A harvest that’s good for the soul

Signs of harvest are all around. The afternoon sun glows amber over the fields and the farm stands are filled to overflowing with vegetables and fruit. We’re lucky to live in a place where we can have such an immediate connection to the food we eat.

If you live outside of one of the local villages, you might even live on a bit of land that fed (or feeds) your neighbors.

Our house here in Fly Creek was never a proper farm. For more than 100 years it was a one-room country schoolhouse. Where the coal room once stood, now we have a den. Where students once sat in their rigid little desks, now we sit around a kitchen table and take in the view of the rolling hills outside.

That view includes our own little foray into agriculture. Next to the house, we have a small plot of potatoes, squash, corn and beans. The corn and potatoes seem to be doing alright, but the beans and squash seem to be a nonstarter. Thank goodness we don’t have to rely on our growing skills to feed the family all winter long here at Schoolhouse Farm.

We have been thinking a lot about food, though. And — judging by the books people have been reading, I’m not the only one.

Julia Child’s “My Life in France,’’ tops The New York Times non-fiction bestseller list this week, and “Julie and Julia’’ is close on its heels at No. 3. At Nos. 13 and 15 are Michael Pollan’s books ``The Omnivore’s Dilemma’’ and “In Defense of Food,’’ respectively. Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,’’ clocks in at No. 23, and if you count Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love’’ as a partial meditation on good food, well you can add a No. 10 bestseller to the list.

The common ingredient simmering through all of these books (plus Mark Bittman’s “Food Matters,’’ Marion Nestle’s “What to Eat,’’ Carlo Petrini’s “Slow Food Nation’’ and many others) is the notion that we have ventured too far away from the source of our food and that factory-produced food is bad for our bodies, bad for the environment and bad for the local economies. It may also be bad for our souls.

In his book ``Anger,’’ Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh asserts that the first step toward cooling the rampant flames of anger in our lives and our society is to consume food that was created without violence.

He asks, in essence, if you think it’s physically and emotionally healthy to nourish ourselves with the suffering of others. No thanks.

That doesn’t mean being a vegetarian. But it does mean eating meat that was produced with humane, compassionate practices. But how can you know if the factory farm 2,000 miles away treats its livestock humanely?

You can’t. But you can know whether the farmer down the street treats his cows decently.

And vegetarians aren’t off the hook when it comes to consuming food created compassionately.

Who picked that juicy apple in your fruit bowl?

Was it a woman or man who earned a living wage?

Or was it a 10-year-old child who needs to skip school in harvest season because Mom and Dad’s paychecks won’t cover even the most basic living expenses?

And was the apple grown in a way that nourished the soil from which it came, or is it all red and shiny at the expense of the surrounding environment (and the health of whomever sprayed the pesticide)?

I’m glad I don’t have to rely on my own farming skills to survive the approaching winter months.

But I would much rather live in a world where communities sustained themselves, where people knew exactly where their food came from and where every dollar I spent on food supported a farmer rather than a corporate executive’s monthly bonus.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is what she eats.

P.S. Links to books on Amazon are not meant as an endorsement to shop at Amazon. Support local booksellers whenever you can.

Creative communities will thrive in the new economy

I grew up in a town – heck, and entire state – that relies heavily on tourism and retirees for its economic health.

While my hometown is in Northwest Florida, rather than that vast strip-mall/amusement/park/nightclub we liked to call “the other Florida,” the town still catered to the tourists who brought their vacation-driven need to spend and retirees who brought handsome next eggs.

The powers that be considered the future of the town, and decided to outsource, relying on people and money from other places to keep its economic engines running. The town had a long tradition of outsourcing its future, from it’s earliest formation as a Spanish colony (or is that in-sourcing?) to the town it had become when I left – a town which eagerly planned a waterfront sports attraction while its teachers were some of the lowest paid and its students some of the lowest performing in the nation.

We had a saying in Florida: Thank God for Mississippi.

The problem with outsourcing your future has become pretty evident over the past year. It doesn’t take much (just a few dozen bank closures, is all) for nest eggshells to get a little brittle and for people to start scaling back their vacations. Suddenly, the restaurants and theaters are empty, while the car lots are full. The newspaper where I used to work – a paper that had served the community since the late 1800s – now operates on a skeleton crew and can’t even afford to run its own press any longer. It sends its pages 60 miles away to be printed on a former competitor’s press.

I hate to say it, but I’m glad I’m not there to see what’s happening. And I hope that all the buzz about supporting local food, services and goods will take root in my hometown, and they’ll start investing in their most precious local resource: People and ideas and ingenuity.

Ironically, as reports from old friends back in Florida have given me cause for pessimism, things here in my new home are filling me with hope.

Things just keep getting more interesting here.

Of course, there has always been a lot to love about this area. Beyond baseball and the beautiful countryside, there is Glimmerglass Opera, the Fenimore Art Museum, The Farmers’ Museum and a handful of smaller museums, historical sites and arts groups that have long been reliable springs for cultural refreshment.

But those pools of music, theater and art seem to have started swelling and overflowing their banks.

The Smithy-Pioneer Gallery is proving that you can bring some seriously new culture to a town’s oldest building.

The “Fen & Farm” (short for Fenimore and Farmers’) has continued hosting some wonderful cultural events, such as the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, as well as a stunning season of exhibits at the art museum, including Walker Evans photography and “America’s Rome.”

They’ve also added summer immersive daycamp experiences for kids at The Farmers’ Museum, art classes for kids at the Feminore Art Museum and great events such as Taste of the Sublime. (Full disclosure: my husband works there, and I am friends with many of the other folks there, so I have first-hand knowledge of just how dedicated and passionate they are about what the museums stand for.)

Just a few miles south of Cooperstown, Foothills Performing Arts Center is bringing in one amazing act after another from NYC and all over the country. Under new leadership, the team there has focused its mission on providing theater and entertainment that is just not available in this community.

(More disclosure: Foothills is a client of my company, and we are honestly humbled by the work they’re doing. Instead of maintaining the status quo and wishing for the staff and money to run the type of venue they dream of, they jumped in and did it. And if it means their executive director is clearing martini glasses at Thursday’s cabaret night, that’s what they’re committed to doing.)

And now, just outside of Cooperstown, the new Rangjung Yeshe Gomde meditation center has opened under the leadership of Phakchok Rinpoche. The center’s first weeklong retreat will happen Aug. 30 through Sept. 5.

Honestly, I could go on and on. Every day, it seems like I see one more activity, event or exhibition that makes me slap my forehead and say, “What a great idea.”

But what’s most exciting is that, in our modern economy, it’s going to be the innovative, creative and collaborative communities that thrive, not just as tourist destinations but as hubs for innovation, creativity and collaboration. They become the kind of place people want to raise their families because of the opportunities, not in spite of the lack of opportunities.

For all the uncertainty in the world, this is an exciting time to be here in this community. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger loves a smorgasbord of choice.

Casserole Week – Friday

In his wonderful book on anger, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes about the importance of eating food that was created without violence. He’s not just talking about the bickering that goes on in the kitchen at dinnertime. He’s talking about the entire supply chain of food, from its seed to your market shelf. Food that is created humanely feeds you with compassion. Food that is created with violence feeds you with anger.

He astutely points out that if humanely created food is more expensive, that just means you have to eat a little less.

Although this is just a small part of his theory on why anger is so pervasive in our world, it’s interesting to me that the notion of humane, sustainable food creation and consumption practices have been getting lots and lots of attention. “Food, Inc.,” “In Defense of Food,” “Eat Where You Live,” “What to Eat,” “The End of Food”…. the list goes on and on.

It’s enough to make me glad I don’t work in the PR department for Cargill.

“OK, OK,” you’re saying. “We get it. Factory food is bad. Get off yer high horse and tell us what this has to do with Casserole Week.”

I decided to post a casserole a day this week after my friend Karen’s mom passed away last Saturday. People of my generation are sort of casserole-impaired. When a friend is going through something horrible, we don’t know what to do. We think we have to come up with something that will actually make the horrible thing go away. Or we think we have to come up with just the right words. Knowing how impossible those tasks would be, very often we don;t do much of anything. We rationalize that we’re giving the grieving person privacy.

Our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew that, when someone is going through a rough patch, you bring a casserole. No, a piping hot dish of homemade macaroni and cheese won’t bring someone’s loved one back. But it will get you in the door of their suffering, where you can see how you can be helpful.

Being helpful is absolutely the best thing you can be when someone is suffering.

That’s also why I bring up Nhat Hanh and all the other sustainable foodies. The last thing that a suffering person needs is a casserole with violence and oppression baked in.

Mark Bittman also has entered the humane food discussion with “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.” Are you kidding me – conscious eating as presented by the guy who can teach you “How to Cook Anything”? Sign me up.

And again, this is not a casserole in the literal sense. But it would be a fantastic casserole in the figurative, I-Brought-You-a-Little-Something sense. Bonus: It’s chocolate and raspberries, a combination of flavors that proves the existence of a higher power.

(P.S. I nicked it from this NPR story on Bittman and the book.)

Chocolate Semolina Pudding With Raspberry Puree

Somewhere between a cake and pudding, this lovely dessert is served warm, with a simple raspberry puree that balances its richness. Other fruits that work well here include stone fruits, but (except for cherries) they have to be peeled first. Figure on about a pound of fruit for just over a cup of puree.

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, plus butter for the pan
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup (2 ounces) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup whole-milk yogurt
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup semolina
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound fresh raspberries
Sugar (optional)
Freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square baking pan. Put the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the foam subsides, add cocoa powder and semisweet or bittersweet chocolate and stir until smooth. Remove from the heat.

2. Beat the yogurt and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the butter and chocolate, the semolina, the baking soda and the vanilla; beat until thoroughly blended. Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Bake until the pudding is lightly browned, about 30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, puree the raspberries in a blender or food processor. Depending on how flavorful they are, you may want to add a tablespoon of sugar or a squeeze of lemon juice to the mixture, but taste first to see if either is necessary. Then strain the puree, stirring and pressing the mixture through a sieve with a rubber spatula to leave any seeds behind; be sure to get all the puree from the underside of the strainer.

4. When the pudding is done, let it rest for a few minutes, then cut it into squares or rectangles and serve warm, on some of the puree, with a few whole berries on top.

Casserole Week – Thursday

Who says a casserole can’t be sweet? I mean, as long as it’s not technically a cake, I say you can call it a casserole.

This recipe from Smitten Kitchen is called Boozy Baked French Bread, and I have made it several times to much acclaim, a rare reaction to my cooking. I’ve never made it boozy, because the times I’ve made it involved pregnant women and children. (no – not pregnant children. Sicko.) And also because if I’m going to consume booze for breakfast, I see no reason to bake all the alcohol out of it.

However, if you are making this casserole for a grieving friend, I highly recommend adding the hooch. And bring along a carton of orange juice and a bottle of champagne so your friend can have a little Irish Breakfast Wake any time of the day or night.

The recipe is here. Enjoy it.

Casserole Week – Wednesday

The day my mom died, a woman from my church brought a casserole to the house. We hadn’t been going to the church very long or very regularly. I didn’t know her very well at the time. She didn’t know us, either.

But she had gotten the word that a family needed comforting, so she made a casserole, covered it in foil and attached a Post-In to the top reading: Corn Casserole. Not Spicy.

That may be the most touching note anyone has ever written me.

In honor of that note and that casserole, here is a recipe from The Pioneer Woman for a fresh corn casserole.