Speak Your Truth

Good morning. It is a cold one out. I realize that it is colder in some places but when the thermometer says 0°F, it is cold. That is what it said when I went out to milk at 7:25. Previous to that, it was even colder. It might be slightly warmer than that now, but even if it’s 1°F, it is still cold.

This is from earlier in the month. Joseph was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to Maddie. She ought to love books and reading.

I would like to thank Megan Hill this morning for something she posted on Facebook. This is it:

“I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."

“I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

“Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.

“And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

--Audre Lorde

“Your silences will not protect you.”

“…only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

This morning I got an email that was looking for money in order to protest Trump’s election. This group wants to begin now and continue twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, to discredit Trump and everything he says and does to the point of impeachment. I just had to laugh at that. For one thing, I’m not giving anyone money for anything. For another thing, wasn’t Bill Clinton impeached? And what good did that do? Did he leave office? Please, people, if you want to be taken seriously, be serious. Don’t assume that everyone out there is going to be swayed by your sensationalistic words.

This is our pillar of used wax just out of the mold. You can see the mold to the left as well as another candle to the right (part of it is at the top of the new one).

I don’t know why that led to other thoughts, but it did. Probably because there was a picture of Obama in my newsfeed. I didn’t even look at the headline but I got to thinking about that whole birth certificate debacle. You know, go ahead and tell whatever stories you want to about how terrible he is. It just doesn’t matter. He was elected and that’s the way it is. And his mother, for the record, was a US citizen. Honestly, this whole thing should have been laid to rest years ago and yet it still pops up every now and again.

This is in action. I wanted to save it for some unspecified day but Cedric really wanted to burn it so we lit it. I'm not sorry we did.

It is 9:01 and we’ve got a fire going. It’s too darn cold not to. I’ve also got hot chocolate getting hot on the stove. I made some non-spicy earlier so Amena could take some with her to school and Cedric could have some if he wanted. I wasn’t going to make any for me but it’s so not warm in here that I think I might take a bath in it.

The other day, Saturday I think, I decided to melt the wax from old candles and make a new one. I hate wasting all that wax and we all love candles and Daniel isn’t here to make firestarters for us. Since I have the molds and the wick, I thought, why not? I also have a now-empty jar that I think I’ll fit with a wick and anchor and begin pouring the wax in it. Paul burns more candles in his office than we do in the rest of the house so that’s a good source for more wax, as well. Saturday’s candle is eleven or twelve inches high and about three inches square.

We are burning a bit of oak right now so I thought I’d check out information about different types of wood and how hot they burn. Turns out I didn’t know much about them. All wood produces about 7,000 BTUs per pound so what really matters isn’t the type of wood but how much it weighs. Five cords of oak is going to produce more heat than five cords of pine because it weighs more. Huh. Interesting.

I think I should have called this Wart Soap instead of Crunchy Granola.

I’m not entirely convinced. It seems to me that cedar produces a pretty hot fire and that oak produces a pretty not-as-hot fire. And I seem to remember that madrone, which is really dense, produces a pretty hot fire. I might have to do a bit more research. If I feel like it. In my spare time.

I can tell you that the wood this morning had to warm up before it would burn. I can also tell you that when we move to western Montana, we need to have wood storage in the basement along with an indoor winter barn for the goats. I can also tell you that my hot chocolate is hot now, I need to get some reading done today, I need to pick up some oil, I need to do something for the Court of Honor this evening, I need to take some pictures, and I’m sure there are other things that need doing that I’ve not managed to remember at the moment.

Have a wonderful day and don’t forget to speak.