I am a teacher by trade. My subject matter varies from the ironies of religion to the mighty power of worm-tillage and my audience on any given day can be a 7 or a 70 year old. I earn money from this: the university pays me per course (I’m a part-timer.) and a local Montessori school by the hour. I also run workshops on Permaculture gardening and consult in edible landscaping.
I was raised a Christian fundamentalist and so truth came easily. Now I am less secure, but I like to think that my interactions with plants, bees, and Italian farmers offer glimpses of reality. I am happy, whether I am preparing a meal from food I have just harvested or reading a history of Mediterranean cuisines. These two worlds fit together for me. I’m Aristotelian in that I think we become human through conversation and then I’m Epicurean in that cooking is just as important. Just to play with this a little, I used to be high-minded, a Platonist, and you don’t have to be a Creationist to know that life began in a garden.
I’ve racked my brain and walked a few miles to figure out what to do in life. I never made it out of the academic basement, i.e. apart-time lecturer at a mid-grade university and at 61 I’m not going to make any startling moves. But I have tried to keep alive certain passions and a sense of discovery.
The books by my bed tells a lot. Here they are for August-September, 2009:
Infidel Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Banker to the Poor Muhammad Yunus
Formation of Vegetable Mould Charles Darwin
Passage (environmental art) Andy Goldsworthy
Garlic and Oil: Food and Politics in
Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim David Sedaris
Italian Short Stories, parallel text Ed, Raleigh Trevelyn
Animal Architecture Karl von Frisch
The Portable Atheist Christopher Hitchens
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