I call it: "the singer effect"

Sewing was to be as important a skill to me as ant farming. I never could think inside out and could only dream of the gorgeous clothes I would never have because I could not sew.

When I was very young maybe twelve my mother gave me her singer sewing machine book. And Dad set up the latest machine in my room. This book was filled with things that interested me not at all. How to put in zips. How to sew a French seam. The hemming foot. Buttonholes. It was heaving with instructions and directions and illustrations.

Sewing was to be as important a skill to me as ant farming. I never could think inside out and could only dream of the gorgeous creations I would never have because I could not sew.

The machine sat untended for the next two years until my sister discovered it and dismantled it for parts.

My grandmothers could sew and run pie shops and junk yards, and rose gardens and fix machines and grow all the food they needed in their little back yards. My mother was stunning at invisible mending and darning socks but that’s as far as her sewing prowess went. We lived in hand-me-down clothes from my mothers church friends and as my mother’s best friends daughter was into bell bottoms and halter tops that suited me just fine! Mum was a terrible housekeeper and a useless sewer but could paint and write with an other-worldly inspiration.

She is famous for setting up a play pen and put herself and her easel in itletting her many children run wild outside of it! That famous line of Daphne de Mauriers (and I am paraphrasing ) to her kids as she went into her study to write - “You can do anything you like just don’t let the goats in the beds”. That was my Mum - when she was in a painting mood. Housework was not her thing. Nor was cooking or laundry to be fair.

As my mother often quipped - “we would fail at being a good Haus Frau - no medals for us”. A sentence I used to laugh at until I grew up and thought this was a mean thing to say and then later it dawned on me that this would have come from her mother and was a response to the very real Nazi threat they lived under in the 40’s. The Nazi regime encouraged women to have lots of healthy babies and keep a nice house.

Nazi propaganda also pushed the "Three Ks" slogan: Kinder, Küche, Kirche ("Children, Kitchen, Church"), underscoring the idealized role of women. In this system, women were expected to marry young, have numerous children, and focus exclusively on domestic tasks. Mothers with many children were celebrated and rewarded with honors like the Cross of Honor of the German Mother (Mutterkreuz).

Simultaneously, policies were implemented to remove women from the workforce to make room for men and ensure women stayed at home. Birth control and abortions were not allowed for "Aryan" women while being forced on others deemed "unfit."

In my grandmothers generation, (she was a fourth generation New Zealander and lived through both wars), women were encouraged to get out and take the jobs of the men so the men could go fight.

But life is loaded with contradictions. One generation would be hell bent on fighting for their rights and growing enough food, the next sits around and has their nails done while her sister shovels shit. These are choices by the way. Our grandmothers fought long and hard, and made few friends along the way, fighting for women to have choices.

Anyway for an American company founded in 1851, the introduction page in the Singer Sewing Machine Manual was not too much of a surprise.

The typical guidance suggested that women:

• Look attractive while working.

• Ensure housework is completed before sewing.

• Maintain a neat appearance with lipstick and orderly hair.

• Create a clean, organised workspace.

• Stuff like that.

  

  Not so much of a surprise that my mother gave me a sewing book so I might learn to sew but the sentence that had the most impact on me was to put on my lipstick before beginning. Though my mother swiftly tried to counteract that idea.

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

Helena in Midsummer Nights Dream

There were so many contradictions in those years. I was brought up to be an elegant and capable homemaker though I spent much of my time running wild on the beach. By twelve years old I was already proficient at serving a hot homemade dinner for eight every school night at 6pm. But I could not sew a straight seam. And at the same time I was constantly reminded (this was the 60’s remember) that I could be anything I chose to be. Told by the nuns that women’s thoughts and comments were just as important as mens. My studies at school were never really discussed - homework was a thing but I don’t remember any adult in the house checking that we had finished it. Yet my Dad insisted that we read the paper on the weekends to keep up to date. And learn to weld in the school holidays. That we should study, vote, and use our voices for the future but only after bathing and putting the younger kids to bed with Grimms Fairytale bedtime stories. Though my parents hid their fears about the nuclear tests in the Pacific. Mum was openly appalled when faced with a braless woman at the butchers shop one day. In the same breath she would not buy me a bra because it promoted vanity. Dad and I brainstormed how women could take control of their own money someday. Women could legally own a car or a horse but not a house or a bank account. This did not sit well with him and he encouraged saving our pocket money into jars for a rainy day.

So the sewing just would not fly with me. The girls of my generation were pulled in all directions. And for me sewing was not one of them.

But the list of what to have prepared before sewing struck a loud gong in my head when it came to WRITING.

This is the Singer Effect.

Dressing for work if you will. Saying goodbye to the fam and locking oneself in the study.

Here is how the Singer Effect works for me: Before a full-on writing day like today (as opposed to an ordinary writing day like the rest of the week). I tidy my room. Do my hair (hate to break it to you but my wild mop probably sees a brush once a week). Wash my hands with scented soap. (I think with my hand under my chin). Maybe add a little eyebrows, a little mascara. (I should have listened to my mother about not over-plucking my eyebrows in the 70’s!) I check that the desk lip-balm is at my desk (this is not a vain check, sometimes I cannot find my farm jacket pocket lip-balm, then I nick the bathroom lip-balm, causing a loss of the desk lip-balm and then horrors my life is a mess).

Eliminate all the small jobs that hang about in your brain.

So yesterday I swept and mopped the floors. Washed and hung my laundry on the racks to dry. Brought in enough wood to keep the home fires burning for a day. I have scooped the poop in the barn, (what isn’t still frozen to the floor). Filled all the water troughs. Visited the mother in law and checked her fridge for supplies.

This morning I have tidied my desk, fed out hay, collected the mornings eggs, patted all the pigs, closed the lids on my WIPS (Work in Progress Suitcases - that are never put away so are a constant distraction), put on a little lippy, and now I proceed to write.

It works. Honestly it works for me. For me the theory is be up to date so I can block off physical things. Do a little self care. Release your back from burdens. No housework guilt (and I do feel housework guilt - contradictions right?) and focus solely on our work.

I can sit into my second hand desk chair - drifting slowly downwards - for some reason it never stays up - and write. Just write.

And write some more.

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It has been so cold the whole time I have been back on the farm. I work every day trying to get the barn in order but any droppings from the cows or pigs freeze up so fast. It is like picking up a pile of cricket balls with a hay fork. And that is if they are not frozen to the straw which is frozen to the concrete floor of the barn. It feels hopeless. But I don’t have time to wait for a thaw (I leave again in twelve days). And the ground is frozen in polished lumps so the ground is desperately uneven. Treacherous really. My back aches from slipping to and fro while carrying heavy buckets of water due to the frozen farm faucet.

Then the other night the bloody cows broke into a side of the barn they have no business being in. This is where the last of the third cut of hay and a little straw is stored and also where the loft is weak and bendy and ready to fall down. They ripped into the bales. Tore all the piles apart, leaned on the poles holding the loft up and when discovered in the morning were lying contentedly and fatly in the midst of the destruction, the loft yawning low above them, chewing their cud.

Cows do not move fast. So this takeover was slow. Methodical. And thorough.

Picking up a bale pf good hay they had missed, I called and led the cows back out of the barn through the broken door. Poor door all forlorn. Standing ajar and at an impossible angle. Him indoors came out with his drill and fixed the broken door. I wacked the base of the poles, that hold up that end of the hay loft, with a sledge hammer and we are good to go.

Sledge hammers are useful for many things.

The cows are locked out of that area again.

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Life is a funny place to live.

But as my father famously said - “Don’t let the bastards get you down”.

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Have a gorgeous afternoon.

The internet is still being intermittent so I will be recording the next chapter of Wind in the Willows later this afternoon. Here is what we have so far!

Wind in the Willows (so far)

I am crossing my fingers that this newsletter posts. All my work is read or written ON THE DAY! This is a considered choice but the rural america internet does not always care.

Here is the LINK to my daily farm (and travel blog).

Here is a lovely essay beautifully researched and written about George Takei.

The Resilience and Resistance Tale of George Takei, and the Takei Family

I will be back in later (after the writing day) to check in with your comments!

I DO love comments.

Celi