Departure

Today is September third. Tomorrow afternoon I will be embarking to Milan for a year long journey. In some ways, it hasn't hit me yet.

 I would tell you all the fact-y things that everyone's been asking me about for months, but I'm worn out with pretending to answer a question for the first time. I feel bad, because I know that these people love me and care about me and that is why they're asking. But all these identical questions and conversations are beginning to make once dynamic and unique relationships all feel identical, too.

 At the market today, I saw a couple of friends that I hadn't seen since the beginning of summer. I love these people, and our relationships were so authentic and genuine and still are in memory. But today I found myself feeling distant, hesitant to fall back into a relationship. I feel very much like I'm turning inward, feeling uncomfortable in social situations in which I used to thrive. I'm wanting time alone, to myself, to reflect.

 Time for reflection has been lacking this summer, as evidenced by this blog. My journal, too, lay stagnant this summer (I wrote in it for the first time in months a couple of days ago.). With working about 40 hours per week with Summer of Solutions and spending an additional 12+ per week interning at Brick House Kitchen, my summer is a blur. I think I've blocked some of it out -- the stress that comes along with maintaining a productive team and a very dry garden was overwhelming. I'm lucky that I have pictures to remind me of my successes:

Combining my love for activism, art, and bike-riding in this snazzy poster for our Day of Action! Seventeen summer programs nationwide (including the other 14 Summer of Solutions programs around the country) gathered on July 23rd in their local cities to celebrate and highlight the work they've been doing.

One of our main partners this summer was Bike City Recyclery, and awesome bike co-op located just off Center St. on the trail. Here, we partnered with them to give a workshop on bike maintenance in Walker Park to nearby residents.

I interned this summer under David Lewis in Brick House Kitchen. Incredible. My most frequent task -- washing produce from the market that morning. What a treat!

Making the delicious custards on my last day. You can feast on these at BHK Kafe on Dickson St. (inside Nightbird Books).

It happened rarely this summer, sadly, but I also experimented with food at home, too! This was a delicious meal shared with good friends, concluded with the most delicious banana cake and lemon buttercream icing. Mmmm.

Andrea and I. Together, we spent over 1,000 hours planning and executing this year's Summer of Solutions program in Fayetteville. What a treat it was to work with you.

At the end of the summer, forty representatives from thirteen Summer of Solutions programs nationwide gathered in Raleigh, NC for August Gathering. We celebrated our successes and our friendships and worked through challenges that we'd faced in our local programs. What a week it was and what friendships blossomed. Love you all!

For myself, I'll be documenting this year through sketching. For folks back home, this blog will probably be the venue for some semi-regular updates. Stay tuned!

Solutionarily: How SoS Changed My Life

Empowerment. When I first heard that word, it meant nothing to me. I was participating in a program called Summer of Solutions, or SoS, with some friends of mine. At first the idea was pretty vague -- a program for youth that simultaneously empowers them and creates on-the-ground solutions for the community. Again, that word: empower. For the first semester of planning our summer program, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had all these questions hovering in the back of my mind -- what is community organizing? What are the “grassroots”? And what the hell does empowerment mean, anyway?

---

I was on a conference call, late one Wednesday night. Someone had asked me a question -- what was it again? What was I talking about? It'd been a bad week and my head kept spinning.

No, that’s cool. That’s great! Some overenthusiastic fellow named Matt on the other end was encouraging me to talk more, to keep going, to move on.

---

It was August, about a week after my father left. The summer was already over and our programs were coming to a close. That week happened to be the week of August Gathering, a chance for representatives from each of the twelve Summer of Solutions programs around the nation to get together and share their successes of the summer. The guy I heard on the conference call a few days before was named Matt -- one of the leaders from the Twin Cities, and he turned out to be the kindest and most genuine guy I’d ever met. Only, he wasn’t the only one.

There were about twenty youth reps in all:

There was Gustavo from Austin with his thick facial hair dark against his summer skin, with a red bandanna tied around his neck and black western shirts and baggy jeans. Gustavo who spoke about foxes and music like he were the most eloquent speaker in the world, gesturing without thinking the whole while. On our way back towards the square from Cheap Thrills, he stopped the whole group to point out a black widow making a web in an abandoned window. What did he tell us?

There was Joe, who shares my passion for food and music and creativity. Between every session he would quietly come talk to me, grinning goofily every time. We talked about carmalizing onions in white wine and sugar and about all the recipes he made for his summer program. We wrote a song together late one night accompanied by his old guitar covered in bumper stickers that were beginning to wear away, and I harmonized with him as he sang about graduating high school and Love in the Time of Cholera.

There were others, too, and I hold them all in my heart as though I still spoke with them every day. Ruby who unveiled her pits unshaved and spoke with such authority, such grace. Timothy who must be a prophet, whose body ignited when he spoke and burned his passion into us all. Jared who sat with his eyes closed, arms crossed, doing more than listening -- he was feeling us as we spoke, knowing not thinking, rising beyond himself to a greater divinity. These people changed me.

---

We were graciously hosted by St. Pauls church, which lent us their youth programs space. I remember it being hot and stuffy with the August heat. But more than that, and despite that, there was a certain quietness to the room we met in. It was a quaint room with two pianos crammed into the corner and a hurried medleys of couches and chairs forming a circle in the center. I remember it bathed in natural light slanting in from the stained glass windows. See, and I know we had lights on, but I remember it only in that natural, transient light than illuminated us from within.

I spoke in that group as though I never had before, as if it were the first time in my life I’d told my whole truth. Every word I spoke came from some reverberant bone in my chest, and it resonated as I spoke, purring at me with satisfaction and belonging. I spoke as if I’d known these people my whole life. But then again, no. I think not knowing them is what enabled me to speak so honestly about myself and my inhibitions and my joys. Not knowing them and yet knowing them -- I didn’t know where they grew up or where they went to college or what their favorite subject was, but I knew them on the deepest and most intuitive level possible. I knew that they would listen to whatever I had to say, drink it in and let it sit within them. They would hold space and resonate and feel what I had to say. They would listen because they talk that way too -- in a passionate slurring of words that leaves you shaking, shivering with resonance and passion and glory. It really was glorious, speaking in that half-lit room; it was glorious to be in the presence of my true peers. Their love and devotion and freshness was real to me then, and I was in a dizzying swirl of passion for about a week.

It faded, though, and so I’ve naturally sought that feeling every day sense. School started and my friends drove back to their pockets of the country. And then it was hard, because I knew that such learning was possible. I knew that I could create change and be a social entrepreneur. I could be anything in that room and with those people. School became monotonous and dry and uninteresting. I would daydream about urban agriculture and in-kind donations and our farmers’ market. I realized my full potential, and I realized that my education was more than just my schooling at FHS. I became frustrated with my peers who couldn’t relate to my summer stories and didn’t want to get involved.

Anytime I’m dissatisfied with school, which seems to be happening increasingly often, I think back to a moment at August Gathering when Joe hugged me, when he put his hand behind my neck in the most infinite support, and I could breathe in for one more instant. He loved me then and I him. Not even each other but the movement; we loved supporting each other and being supported and feeling cushioned. They keep me from giving up, and they hold me. They cradle me from a distance without even knowing they do because they did that one week in one faraway August when I was scared and lonely and opened to them.

With those thoughts in mind, I feel like there was so much more out there, and it’s worth my while to hunt it down. And in reality, I have. I taught a cooking class to kids and I went to a conference for youth activists in Minnesota. I created a pseudo business called Green Food Solutions, and I drove down to Little Rock to give cooking demonstrations to an inner-city school. The thing is, I really am proud of myself. I am satisfied with who I’ve become and who I’m becoming. I feel worthwhile, and I feel strong. Somehow even with my family falling apart and hating school and missing my friends from all around the country, I was still happy. I was content, and I still am. The memories of August Gathering, the voices of my friends from SoS on biweekly conference calls, and my passion for the work we are doing -- they all keep me going.

That’s the thing about the movement -- it’s not just a hobby, and it’s not quite a job. It’s a passion, full and verbose and all-consuming. It’s made up people and trainings and gatherings and solutions, and you can’t just limit it to one of those. The movement represents the voice of youth today, but it is also very personal. It is my own. And with that ownership, I am empowered. With that ownership, I want to work with these people to find solutions -- within a failing economy, amidst corruption and disconnection, for communities and people, by youth and for youth -- for the rest of my life.


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Summer of Solutions has changed my life -- are you ready for it to change yours?

Want to learn more?
Learn more about Fayetteville's program: http://grandaspirations.org/fayetteville
Check out the new SoS page on OMNI's site: http://www.omnicenter.org/sos-home/
Read about our principles, values, and the Solutionary Method: http://grandaspirations.org/summer-of-solutions/philosophy
Take a look at this be-a-udiful flier by Andrea Love: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Update-from-Summer-of-Solutions-Fayetteville.html?soid=1102918551993&aid=8sx4z9e7_EQ

Really excited? We have a new position in desperate need of filling!
Apply to be a program leader in Fayetteville: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B3hV6INSrQDTMmEwOTA1MTMtZTIzYy00M2I1LWJlOTgtNmEzYjhkMjFmMTI1&hl=en

Don't live in Fayetteville? No problem!
Check out our programs all around the nation: http://grandaspirations.org/programs

Wondering what's happening now?
Follow us on Solutionaries: http://solutionaries.net/



If you're still not interested, that's okay! Please feel free to spread the word to anyone else who might be. Thank you so much for your time, interest, and support. Best of luck to you all!

Operation Minnesota

Hello friends!

I am typing from my brother's macbook in my cousin's house outside of Minneapolis. I am here for the Green Schools National Youth Summit, which starts tomorrow. I'm so excited!

I arrived last night around 8:45, and I made a point to sit on the left side of the plane to see the sunset. It was glorious! I wish the earth were molded like clouds, or perhaps I wish I could see the earth in all its expansiveness. For a while the plane sat between layers of clouds, so everything around us was highlighted in the dying golden light. Magenta, golden, brilliant clouds. There was a darker cumulonimbus fit for Zeus. Amazing I can be so high up above it all; I'm sure our ancestors would think it impossible.

Later, after the sunset, I began reading the training packet for The Waking Up Experience, which will be a section of the conference on Monday. As part of the National Leadership Team, we will be facilitating Wake Up, which I'm very much looking forward to. One of its parts is about looking to future generations for support amidst the epic systematic problems that we face. I hope that our children's children will be living in a safe, sustainable, thriving world, and on that hope we may act to create change.

Right now my second cousins, Maddox and Finn, are "tickling" my brother Ben on the couch. (I quote that because they are really jumping on him and screaming.) Maddox is dressed up as Daphne from Scooby Doo for a costume party in the neighborhood, and Ben and I are going to go to dinner and a movie with Monica later. I can't stay up too late, though, because I've a busy day tomorrow.

In the morning, Monica and I are going to attend a portion of the Northland Bioneers Conference at Macalaster College. Timothy, a friend I met at August Gathering and one of the founders of Grand Aspirations (the program in which Summer of Solutions is based), will be talking about our moment of choice in this rapidly deteriorating society. I heard a speech similar to this one in August, but I want to share with Monica more of what I've been working on in the past few months. (For those of you who have just started following The Paper Year and my project, Summer of Solutions that sparked my activism and Green Food Solutions -- learn more about it here.)

It's getting a little hectic, so that's all for now. Hopefully one of the people on the team will bring a laptop and let me borrow it for more updates. Thank you all for your support and kindness. I am able to pursue this incredible opportunity because of your consideration, interest, and donations. Please come back for more updates on my project (or, to make it easier on you, just follow me on Blogger or through Google!).

Thanks always!

Best,
Serena

P.S. I brought the camera but forgot the card, so you'll have to be patient for photos. (They're worth it!)

News Coverage and Other Stuffs

Exciting things --

1) On Monday I was interviewed for KUAF's Ozarks at Large, and I should be featured sometime this week. The interview went astoundingly well, and we all had a good time. I fed the reporters a browned squash and brie tower (I'm still looking for a good name.) -- it was superb. More details to come!

2) A few days ago I answered some questions for a reporter from The Food File. That's supposed to be featured on their website tomorrow.

3) Today I made my first meat dish! It was a spicy lamb steak with a refreshing, mint sauce to go with it. Too bad our blender is worthless, so really there were just some mint leaves and garlic on top. Here's where I got the recipe: http://norecipes.com

4) I now have five followers, one of which I don't know personally (hello!). To all of my sneaky, unnamed readers, I do appreciate you. It would mean so much if you let me know you exist.

5) For newcomers, this blog my venue for documenting my passions -- food and art and language and how they overlap. I also focus on my project, Green Food Solutions (check out the right hand column, then scroll down a bit), which is really some combination of those other elements.

6) I'm heading up to Minneapollis over Labor Day. I'm helping my brother move into his dorm at Carleton College, and then I'll be spending some time with family and friends that I met at August Gathering. Exciting!

7) I found a new Kickball CD in our van. Huckleberry Eater. They're really wonderful when you get to know them -- myspace.com/kickballl. I don't think they'll ever know how much I appreciate their sound.


I haven't done any homework yet, mostly because I'm too excited about this gorgeous weather and this wonderful vision I'm working towards. I'll post links to news stuffs once I learn more.

Thanks for dropping by! Let me know you were here by posting your comments below!

Success

Hello, hello!

It's late, but I'm here to report on the Fayette Farmers' Market cooking demonstration I gave this morning. Usually, I would put it off until the morning until I can think more clearly, but I've a busy day tomorrow, and it will officially be the first official school night of the 2010-11 year.

If you refer to some earlier posts, you'll find a brief freak out somehow regarding my unpreparedness for the demo. Turns out, it wasn't too much of a problem! With a quick, last minute scramble (thanks to my family for helping me out), I made it to the square around 10:45. At first glance, I was disconcerted by the lack of people around the previous demonstrator's table. Ignoring this, however, I made my rounds to buy zucchini, eggs, and tomatoes for the creamy pasta I'd be making. (Here I'd like to thank dH Farm, Dickey Farm, Dripping Springs, and Marty's Produce for their contributions.)

Because of the steady but very sparse flow of people around the square, I wasn't sure how to officially begin. It reminded me painfully of setting out a tip jar before I sing -- there's just no graceful way to do it. I was saved, however, by two girls who I'd talked to previously. The older girl was eight, and her sister probably four. They said, "What are you making?" and so it began.

And with that, it went so smoothly. I've made the semolina pasta dough so many times from scratch that it wasn't at all an issue. The kids surrounding the table (yes, they were surrounding me! hoorah!) helped out here and there with measuring flour, stirring, etc. My friends, my lovely friends came out (some as pleasant surprise!) to lend their support. They and the kids drew in more people. Naturally, the crowd came and went, but I always had an audience. This, in itself, is an accomplishment.

I apologize for the lack of photos recently. A friend took some pictures at the demonstration and will hopefully lend them to the cause...

On a side note, August Gathering has been progressing throughout this week (see previous posts!). It's wonderfully stimulating and titillating to have so many like-minded, inclusive rule-breakers. That's a funny description, but a friend from Austin and I mentioned the term specifically in a conversation today. Something about this work is breaking the rules. We are pushing and setting new boundaries and standards and expectations for our economy, as well as ourselves. Right now we're a small force, but if we keep on pushing, we will cross bounds.

Even with the end of summer (and thus, the regular Summer of Solutions work), Green Food Solutions will continue throughout the year.

If you ever need an event (informally) catered, would like to host a cooking demonstration, or have specific cooking class inquiries, please email me at serena.caffrey@gmail.com. If you sign up to receive updates, I will send weekly emails with updates, upcoming events, and in-season recipes. Likewise, click the follow button in the right hand corner. If you don't have a google account (or even if you do), subscribe to this blog and view updates on your homepage.

Thank you always for your time and support. Perhaps someday I will be writing to more than just my three followers... If you exist out there, shoot me a comment! You don't have to be a user.

August Gathering, Day One

Hello friends, family, and newcomers!

Exciting news: August Gathering has arrived!

My summer job, Summer of Solutions (SoS), works to empower youth to create meaningful jobs for themselves and the community. SoS is a national program that totals 12 cities across the country. Despite our best efforts to keep in touch, the momentum of our vision becomes diluted with such distance. Thus we created August Gathering -- an opportunity for representatives from each city to come together in one location for a week.

This set up gives the cities a chance to discuss, in person, their successes, failures, and planned improvements to their chapter of Summer of Solutions. (Each city has a specific focus regarding the green economy. Fayetteville's SoS program is focusing on the local food network. Others include weatherization, gardening, energy reduction, and more.)

Lucky for us, Fayetteville is the meeting spot! People began arriving last night and today, and more will come tomorrow. So far we have reps from Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Oregon, and others. Not all are directly associated with Summer of Solutions, but all share the same vision and passion.

This morning, I coordinated the "optional fun events" section of the schedule. Because it was really the only time to get to know Fayetteville, we spent the day in the down town area. Being a Saturday, of course I took the group to the Farmer's Market. We grabbed breakfast from Little Bread Co., then went to the square to hand out fliers about our program and some upcoming events.

Next, we explored the Fayetteville Underground (an art gallery for local artists), Cheap Thrills (a vintage/second-hand/costume store with moderately well-priced items), and the many shops on Block Street. After a left onto Dickson, we peaked into Nightbird Books, followed by the Dickson Street Book Shop. On the way down to Greenhouse Grille for lunch we walked by Fine Finds (a seriously cheap, rather junky store I've only been in once), Bike City (a bike shop that constructs refurbished bikes out of previously used parts), and Trailside Cafe and Tea Room (a quaint little restaurant that specializes in premium refreshment).

If you are familiar with the city, I hope you agree; this is it. The previous two paragraphs represent the very core of Fayetteville -- the most important glimpses to any outsider. As coordinator of the tour, I did my best to capture it in its true light.

What's your favorite aspect of Fayetteville? Leave your answers in comments -- you don't have to be a user!