Sustainable Sunday : The Alliteration in the Corridor.

Alliteration. Corridors. Kids. A Recipe for Butternut and Spinach Lasagne. And you.

Mar 10, 2024

I always wanted to be a writer. Just an ordinary garden type writer. Nothing fancy. Here is a story of when I realised that words were a super power. It was previously published on my blog many years ago and edited for you today.

The Letter from The Kitchens Garden

The day I learn the word "alliteration," it is summer. Hot. White hot. School has just resumed after New Zealand summer holidays, and I am eleven. My new teacher is young, wearing bright blue eyeshadow, with the longest eyelashes I've ever seen. Her skirt is short, her legs in transparent stockings, stacked onto high cork heels. Her hair is long and brown, and she wears black-rimmed glasses. We've only known her for a few weeks, but the whole class is in love with her.

Today, she introduces us to the word "alliteration." I can still remember writing this word and creating sentences to show I understand. In class, hearing and understanding that word is like a light bulb going on above my head. Suddenly, I know this word. I can say it, spell it, and I know what it means. I own it. I can have it and keep it. It makes sense to me. I am thrilled to bits at this massive discovery.

Peter Piper picks a peck of pickled peppers.

Sally sells seashells by the seashore.

We chant the rhymes with increasing excitement. Our excitement. A storm of laughter. School is wonderful, I think.

It is a big, old school. This intermediate school. The school is probably about the same old age as the school at the beach that I have just left but much bigger. All the little local primary schools feed into the intermediate school in town. Unless you are Catholic - they go to Catholic intermediate schools, and we are Catholic, but my mother had been raised by nuns and wanted to keep me out of their way for as long as possible. So she lobbied for me to go to a state school. My brother was sent to the Catholic Intermediate for boys - though I never know why. Every day, I put on my grey skirt and white blouse and tie my hair into two ponytails then ride across the bridge on my bike and around the hill and into town to get to Napier Intermediate School. In New Zealand, intermediate schools are for kids aged eleven and twelve. My whole class from the beach has graduated into this school, so I am confident yet it feels like a new world. The warm scents of summer waft through the windows as we learn.

The windows open out to the playground quad and on the other side into the long cool corridor. The long hallways are dark with heavily varnished wood paneling. The school is one long, L-shaped building, all on one level, with one wide indoor corridor that runs the length of the building, turns the corner, and runs down the length of the next building as well. It's very wide, the hallway, about four kids laid head to toe wide. And loud. Cool. The top half of the corridor is light; the exterior wall is entirely made up of generous windows stretching right to the ceiling. The high windows open every morning to pine trees laden with sappy summer scent. Outside these glass windows, though they are too high to see out of, is the senior girls' playground—a wonderful quiet space full of gardens, roses, and jasmine. The scent of jasmine and pines always takes me back to the girls' garden.

The long, long corridor—so long in my childhood memory—has hundreds of brass pegs running its entire length. The brass pegs are shaped like double hooks and run all the way down this exterior wall. There are masses of them, one for every child. They are dark with age; maybe they had been bright shiny brass once. Now, only the tips of each hook shine brassy. These pegs are for the students to hang our school bags and a coat. Maybe cloaks in the old days we said to each other. Though no-one has coats. Not yet. It is summer. My school bag is brown leather, a satchel that runs diagonally from over my shoulder to my hip so I can ride my bike unhindered. I hate it; it's a hand-me-down bag from my brother, and I hate him too because I also have to ride his hand-me-down bike from the beach to the town school. (Secretly, I don't mind about the boys' bike, but appearances have to be maintained, even when eleven years old).

The hooks run the entire length of the corridor, hung with a motley collection of dark bags. Below the hanging bags and stretching as far as I can see (they still haven't realized I need glasses at this point) is a shiny wooden, box shaped bench shaped like a window seat. It's made from the same shiny, dark, heavy-grained wood as the walls. A child could sit on this bench under his hook, maybe to do up his shoe, or drop her bag there when she's lazy until told to hang it up on the hook—that's what they are there for. The bench has to stay clear. This is a rule.

If you stand with your back to your peg or sit on the bench under your coat and bag, you face your own classroom. The classroom wall is also lined with high windows. The outside wall of the classroom on the other side has open windows as well. So if you were a bird in the girls' playground, you might fly into the pine trees, through one corridor window, into the corridor over my head, then swoop down and fly through another set of windows into the classroom, over the tops of the heads of the children in there, and out the next set of windows to the great outdoors of the quad. Even though I never did see a bird do that, I sometimes wished I could.

Spaced evenly down the hallway are the classroom doors. Each door has a number on it and a classroom stuffed full of children and a teacher. There were never teacher aides in those days, just one teacher with her huge wooden desk and a blackboard. And tons of books. So the corridor, with its gorgeous hardwood floor, is long, wide, full of sunlight in the morning and delicious fresh summer air in the afternoon. The scent of pines, leather, jasmine, and waxy floor polish fills the artery running alongside all the classrooms.

For some reason, on the morning I learn the word "alliteration," I walk this corridor alone. It is later. Everyone else is still in class. Maybe I am delivering a message or coming back from the toilet. I cannot remember. I do remember that I begin to walk smartly down the long long corridor, swinging my arms and legs, saying the new word softly to myself. "Alliteration." "Susan sells something on the seashore," I whisper. Then I break into a kind of shuffly dance jog, my Roman sandals tapping on the floor, tripping down the glowing corridor, letting the word gain volume and speed. Then I begin to jump up and down, on and off this bench as I take off and race and fly down the corridor, my wings spread wide, jumping over the puddles of sun, up and along the bench and down again singing “Alliteration!,”"Peter picked pongy peppers and pooped them". I am leaping up onto the bench, turning, running along, and jumping off the bench. A rhythm develops, a dance gallop, a leap. A soar. "Alliteration," I call out with each jump! Then shouting it at the top of my voice. "Alliteration!" The sound rings wonderfully. My arms are fully fledged wings, and I fairly fly about, my voice ringing. The sound is gorgeous in this big wide light, empty, sun-filled corridor. Alliteration takes form, and that form is me, and we leap and shout together, the word and I, and fly like birds down the corridor together. Then bang. Doors spring open, and out pop two teachers growling like awoken bears, cuckoo clock rumbles. What is this commotion? No running in the corridors. Who shouted? My own teacher far down the hall pops out and stands quietly, beckoning me back in. Her eyes flicking sideways to the older teachers. But one tall teacher sends all the others back in with a flick of her hand. She remains in the open doorway of her classroom. She beckons me with her one long finger.

Caught mid-leap, I stumble. My wings fold away. I run back to her door. The old teacher. Even then I run everywhere. "What is your name? You are a noisy child. What do you think you are doing?" Her words are precise. Her diction perfect. Her back ramrod straight. She is the scariest of all the teachers. Her hair is absolutely white, in a tight white French roll. Her eyes dark brown and intense. She is a Miss Somebody and teaches French to the clever kids. I am not one of the clever kids. Her glasses are on a chain, laid upon her neat white-bloused bosom. Her cardigan is buttoned with one button just under her chin. Her pearls shine at me like round teeth. "Have you anything to say for yourself?" She peers down at me. Me with my smudged white shirt hanging out, skirt askew, socks fallen, all elbows and knees, curls wild and I do mean wild. I have pale blue eyes and freckles and a nose that is always sunburnt. I am working hard to control my panting breath. You can see it now, can't you? I look back up at her, grinning like an idiot. Heaving with delight. Terrified but absolutely secure in the word I have learned. A smile will not leave my face. Not even Miss Whatever Her Name Was could subdue me that day. I have a word. "Well?" she says. "Have you anything to say for yourself?" Silence, she looking down the perfect line of her nose. My head bends backward a bit further. I lift one foot off the floor. My wings quiver.

"Alliteration," I say very quietly. Letting the ‘t’ sound tickle. The long sshh. She raises her eyebrow at me. She can raise one eyebrow; it is very impressive. She pulls her lips together and twists them hard to the side. "What is your name?" "Cecilia, Miss," I say. Another pause as I am assessed. "Back to class, Cecilia. No running." Then much to my surprise, she turns back into her room, and there is the sigh of an obedient door closing behind her. I am still free. My wings close and settle as I rush back to class.

To my complete delight, my teacher is discussing another new word: onomatopoeia. It is written right across the board under alliteration. She nods to me to sit at my desk. I whoosh back to my seat. My wings unfold just a little. The breeze of them ruffling at my neck. Onomatopoeia. I want that word too!

The delight.

Celi

This weekly newsletter will always be freely available to all because we understand not everyone prefers subscription commitments. I completely get that! If you'd like to join The Tenners and enhance your experience, support our organic, sustainable farm, complete with rescue pigs and expanding tree plots to offset carbon emissions, and gain a direct pipeline into my study; I personally invite you to consider upgrading to The Tenners.

The Recipe:

Butternut and Spinach Lasagna

Oh my gosh this is so good.

Find the full vegetarian lasagna recipe post HERE.

This lasagna was constructed with the layers of home made pasta sheets, caramalised onions, scorched tomato, par-cooked butternut squash, spinach and cheese sauce.

The topping, which I crumbled on just before baking, was fresh breadcrumbs (I pulled apart a slice of Black Emmer bread) with dry roasted garlic and sage that I threw through hot salted butter toasting it ever so slightly.

Free style it! Just make sure to have enough liquid in the mix to cook the pasta.

Home-made Pasta

Here is the pasta recipe I was taught by an Italian friend living in Chicago.

2 3/4 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
4 whole large room temperature eggs + enough water to equal 1 cup of liquid.
Combine. Pause. Roll, fold. Roll, fold then Roll out thin.
For Chicago John’s nonna’s pasta recipe go HERE (I use this pasta recipe for all my pastas - including ravioli!). Thanks John!
Share

My favorite TKG Take Ten of the Week:

This one!

TKG Take Ten : Dark and Stormy

Cecilia At The Kitchens Garden

March 5, 2024

All the good stuff! Why is the screen black I hear you say? It is night time my Tenners. Night time in the country. All the nights here are dark, light is absent. But the night is full of sounds. And…

Read full story

The Most Read Blog Post of the Week:

It has been a quiet week in the blogosphere. But this is what kept me awake last night was a clear winner!

If it’s not broke you ain’t farming! So the old codgers say, anyway. The chicken poop fertiliser is on the organic fields, the tractor started up again and the nutrients were all tickled in. Now we wait for spring!

The Sustainable Sunday Opinion

Narrow it down. Choose what you can do so you do not get overwhelmed.

Because this whole climate crisis can get overwhelming. I choose one sustainable action to focus on a week. Some turn into long term habits some are just not sustainable. Cleaning up your inbox is a task that is easy to sustain once you are on top of it.

Sustainable Tip. Clean up your inbox. (yes I know I have mentioned this before! but bear with me).

Storing data costs energy. And, as you and I are trying to do what little things we can to help mitigate our impact on the environment, let’s you and I make a point of cleaning up our inbox each week.

I also unsubscribe from emails that I did not invite into my inbox. Plus there are myriad notifications I can do without too. All this data need not be stored.

That is what we can do. And of course there always bigger issues that we are not able to manage with our small butterfly decisions. AI for instance. AI is beginning to ring some very serious alarm bells as to energy use. Particularly here in the USA where much of the electricity grid is aging and becoming unreliable. The escalating demands for power may cause some problems. Huge swathes of hard won electricity are required to store and cool data. The astronomical rise of AI is creating an even bigger demand for data storage and hence electricity.

So design your home and work environment to be less dependent on power.

Data centers are an interesting study.

From Data Center Knowledge:

In the Midwest, Aligned Data Centers is planning to build two new data centers in the Chicago metro area. (The big city closest to me) According to the Daily Herald, the data centers will occupy more than a million square feet, forming part of a $285 million project.

Amazon, Google, all the Clouds, Meta Platforms (FaceBook), Microsoft, etc all have massive data centers. The more recent AI innovations are creating a demand for even more of these facilities and these are all HUNGRY for energy. Energy as in electricity.

This is an article I read from Scientific American written by LAUREN LEFFER based on an interview with:

Alex de Vries, a data scientist at the central bank of the Netherlands and a Ph.D. candidate at Vrije University Amsterdam, where he studies the energy costs of emerging technologies.

She writes:

“I think it’s healthy to at least include sustainability when we talk about the risk of AI. When we talk about the potential risk of errors, the unknowns of the black box, or AI discrimination bias, we should be including sustainability as a risk factor as well. I hope that my article will at least encourage the thought process in that direction. If we’re going to be using AI, is it going to help? Can we do it in a responsible way? Do we really need to be using this technology in the first place? What is it that an end user wants and needs, and how do we best help them? If AI is part of that solution, okay, go ahead. But if it’s not, then don’t put it in”.

But do not despair. Just be informed and design a robust, resilient, prepared lifestyle that you can sustain. And talk, talk, talk. We are all equal here. We will discuss how to be intentional with our own sustainable households. You have a team. Also Vote. Vote for those who care. And talk again. I want to learn from you as much as you want to learn from me and that is why we are here.

Communication is key to sustainability.