#50 The End of a Beginning

     It’s been three years since I moved to my cabin in the woods, after decades of urban living and teaching, beginning anew as writer and editor. In December 2011, I began this blog to share with friends and family the sometimes ironic stories of what I was learning about living in a cabin with only solar power for electricity, a woodstove for winter warmth, a composting toilet that required my creating the “flush” with sawdust and ashes, and other relatively non-urban experiences.

But as I rooted myself in Willits and as a writer, other adventures became part of my blog, especially the drama over the Caltrans bypass mowing down whole forests and wetlands in the interest of feeding hungry workers, project-happy engineers, and the many citizens and leaders insensitive to environmental and indigenous concerns (as far as I can see).

Kim & Malcolm at Book Passage

In the last two years, I’ve been very lucky—as Malcolm Margolin so often says of his own life in the biography I wrote about his success in the world of writing and small press publishing, The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The DamnGood Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher.

Sadie Margolin (Costello) is second from left on floor.

 Malcolm’s luck was interwoven with mine, since his daughter and my student Sadie Margolin showed her father an essay of hers that I’d edited. That serendipitous connection to Malcolm led to an editing job, a friendship, and more work as a writer at this juncture of my life. I’m lucky! 

           

   I was also fortunate to work with inspiring teachers and students over many years in schools. I will always feel that the most important work I could ever do was to help students find their own voices as writers, speakers, and critical thinkers. 

            When I left behind that valuable work promoting positive changes through the world of classrooms, I was fortunate to find a community in Willits dedicated to conscious living—be they Buddhists, artists, musicians, organic farmers, environmentalists, or indigenous activists seeking to save threatened wetlands, forests, and cultures. 

Protest against the drilling and draining of wetlands, 2013 
(photo, courtesy of Steve Eberhard)

In fact, we just engaged in a spirited protest at the Army Corps of Engineers on Nov. 18^th to seek federal consultation with the members of local Pomo people in protest against the fill dumped on ancestral archaeological sites, burying them forever, yet another act of cultural genocide. 

Protest in SF on Market St.

Sit in until the Pomo tribal members were heard

I sat down with Polly Girvin and other folks on the San Francisco sidewalk until the request to allow tribal members inside the ACE offices was met. Priscilla Hunter, the representative of the Coyote Band of Pomo Indians, was attempting to have her letter of complaint taken into consideration. 

Priscilla emerges happy to be heard

Finally, Priscilla was allowed in and ultimately emerged, happy to be listened to and ready for the next steps in this arduous process—one taking centuries for Native peoples to be respected.

 The efforts to rebuff  thoughtful engagement with issues of climate change and cultural genocide—continue unabated. My fellow humans, for better and for worse, amaze me!

Horrors happen down in the valley or across the world—brutal beheadings, girls abducted and raped, suicide bombings, Mexican teachers murdered, the pillage of precious natural resources in the interest of profit—the world is a mess! 

So I am all the more thankful to reap the benefits of blessings. 

Sunset at the hill we call "On Top of the World"

         
    I’ve been blessed to have this hilltop aerie from which to look out on the restful green of the forests, acres of paths to wander with dogs and visitors, a warm fire in the winter when rain pelts down (we hope), whimsical art to tuck along trails by bounding spring creeks, and a home from which to head off to the coast, to other beautiful forests, and to urban adventures not too far away.

            After these three years of writing this blog, and after many complaints that Blogspot is not functioning adequately to allow readers to get regular updates, I’ve decided to discontinue writing on “An Urban Woman’s Guide Back to the Land,” perhaps to start up another blog one day on a different blogging site (suggestions welcome!). [This site will stay posted, however.]

In the meantime, I continue with several writing projects. One involves taking the many compelling stories I’ve found in the letters and diaries of the 19^th century women in the family of my great-great-grandfather H.H. Bancroft and pulling them together into the story of what “archived women” can tell us about the private sphere of a very public man.

Another exciting project was the brainchild of Malcolm, to write a history of Berkeley focused on the environmental influences it has had—in consciousness and movement—with a special focus on the role of beauty, going back to John Muir and his initiation of the Sierra Club with UC Berkeley professors, through the Arts and Crafts Movement and its emphasis on building in conjunction with nature, to the first city-wide recycling center to the most recent development of an Edible Schoolyard and more.

Finally, my work helping others write their memoirs or essays carries on. I look forward to seeing many life stories become books that keep those stories alive for generations to come. It is the same work that Malcolm’s publishing company, Heyday, has done for forty years and that my own great-great-grandfather, H.H. Bancroft, cherished in the late 1800s: He said his work was

  “to save to the world a mass of valuable human experiences, which otherwise, in the hurry and scramble attending the securing of wealth, power, or place … would have dropped out of existence.” 

If you’ve enjoyed this blog and would like to be included in the invitation to another weblog when I recommence, let me know, either with a comment here or sent to my email: teacherkimb@yahoo.com.

Thanks to all who have commented over time. With so much to read in our modern self-publishing extravaganza on the web, I am grateful to anyone who’s taken the time to sit with my stories.