Category Archives: Life

The Karen Conundrum

Life, thinking out loud,

I am a white woman named Karen. That means that I routinely see my name used as a shorthand for privileged white women asking to see the manager. And, because “karens” are portrayed as complainers, I find myself sucking it up. After all, complaining would just prove that I am a “karen.”

In August 2020, Helen Lewis wrote in The Atlantic, “Karen has become synonymous with woman among those who consider woman an insult. There is now a market, measured in attention and approbation, for anyone who can sniff out a Karen.”[3] Lewis also noted what she called the “finger trap” of the term, saying “What is more Karen than complaining about being called ‘Karen’? There is a strong incentive to be cool about other women being Karened, lest you be Karened yourself.”[3]

Karen. (2025, May 26). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_(slang)

Today, I decided to push back a bit. I recently joined a welcoming community of women. This morning’s email used the karen slur twice, once in the email subject line and then in the message itself. I replied to let them know that this did not make me feel welcome. I received a lovely apology and an offer to cancel my account, but I plan to remain.

I do have a sniggle of guilt for speaking up probably from growing up in the “if you can’t say something nice” era. Plus, I hate to make another human being feel badly about themselves. But, a slur is a slur, and if your stated goal is to be welcoming, language must be a priority.

Embracing Insomnia

Life

My sleep patterns have gotten increasingly sporadic as I get older. I often find myself awake in the very early morning. when it first began, I would find myself stressing about begin awake and fretting about the next day. The anxiety overwhelmed any attempts to relax and breathe.

Through my meditation practice, I was presented with the idea of just embracing these moments. At the least, lying in bed in the dark is a good time to practice and I often do fall back to sleep. I also explored the medieval practice of two sleeps or biphasic sleep where people slept then got up during the middle of the night, a period of wakefulness called the Watch. It was used for chores and religion. They would then generally go back to sleep for some time before rising for the day.

Very early this morning, I knew I needed to just get up so I moved from bed to chair and picked up my book. I was just starting to get drowsy and considering a return to bed when the cat arrived with a tiny, very-much-alive mouse who immediately burrowed into a pile of dirty clothes. I was able to push it into my empty tea mug, pad downstairs, and deposit it outside, facing down the glares of my cat.

That activity was enough to convince me to just stay up. After all, I was downstairs at this point so I figured I would make coffee. While it brewed, I did the dishes, mopped the kitchen floor and folded laundry. I headed back to my chair and my book, steaming mug in my hand. Another perk of these early mornings is watching the sunrise over the woods that border the now barren fields.

It’s noon time now and I feel no worse for wear. I am attending the New Member Welcome class for Ali Manning’s Handmade Book Club and then planning an afternoon outside. I suspect it will be an early night; I usually sleep better the night after an insomnia night so there’s that to look forward to. Meanwhile, it was lovely to wander back into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee and find my clean dishes and floor.

Musical Memories

Life, music

We woke to the news that Jimmy Buffett had died. We were fortunate to hear him in concert. My husband introduced me to sailing, and we would listen to Buffett at some point during our excursions. I have read a couple of his fiction books and found them as upbeat as his music. “Pencil Thin Mustache” is one of my all time favorite songs, and I was able to find a live version.

I failed to mark the passing earlier this year of probably our favorite musician: Gordon Lightfoot. We heard him several times over the years and were never disappointed. I love many of his songs but my favorite is “Song for A Winter’s Night,” a quiet love ballad that he originally recorded in 1967.

Farm Life

gardening, Life, Nature, work
Corn
Our first planting of corn has been producing for almost a month! Eating fresh and freezing as much as possible.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, about her family farm in southwest Virginia, she describes the extensive preparations they took to protect the garden from weeds and critters before going away for a week. I was away for two weeks at the height of the growing season with no time for preparation, and my gardens, both vegetable and flower, were busy both producing and returning to the wild when I returned. I was able to wrestle back some control from the weeds while also harvesting corn, green beans and tomatoes for consumption and preservation. My freezer is slowly filling up with bags of beans and plastic containers of corn and tomato sauce. It will be a delicious winter.

The Pear Orchard
The pear orchard with six trees and lots of delicious, eat-off-the tree pears.

I have also been canning pear jam with the bounty from our six pear trees, all of which have produced amazing fruit this year. I am using this great recipe from Practical Self Reliance; it makes a beautiful, chunky but spreadable jam. My only hack is that I use my pressure cooker to cook down the pears as it requires less tending than the stove top.

The world of “real” work is calling, and in between gardening and cooking, I got started on a couple projects for the fall semester. I was worried that, after feeling very retired for the first months of 2023 and especially while I was hanging out with my parents and then digging into my part-time farmer life, I wouldn’t have the energy or motivation to deal with timelines and deadlines and other people. Fortunately, my skills at prioritizing and focusing kicked back in but with a better sense of balance. I was able to integrate work without it overwhelming the rest of my life the way it might have in the past. Plus, it has been a great time to learn new tech skills: I am incorporating AI into both my edtech courses and have been having fun learning about and experimenting with ChatGPT. More on that later.

For now, I’ve got pears to prep and tomatoes to pick, and I might even take a bike ride on a Monday morning.

Pears
Pears hanging low on the branches