"Are all these wubs for frou?"
Before I decode that phrase, let me set the scene here. It is the end of Friday (a long day full of big triumphs, even in the middle of August we can still have triumphant days), I have had a shower and there are three men in the kitchen cooking my dinner. Does it get any better than this?
Jon just got back from a week of traveling around Croatia with Rebecca and he says it was a true vacation -- he didn't think about the farm at all. They had a great trip. Meanwhile, back at this ranch, we kept from breaking everything in his absence (very consciously) and there was only one flat tire for him to fix when he came home. Anyway, he is cooking dinner with two international students who are staying with us and working on the farm and I am relaxing completely, now that he is home.
So, this morning there were four of us picking flowers at dawn. It was peak humidity (people who get up early and go outside might know that the most murky time of day is right at the beginning, before the sun comes up) and we were snipping zinnias as fast as we could. We had a special order to fill for a wedding, plus the regular flowers for the markets. We had designated some containers for the wedding and some for markets, to help us stay organized.
"Are all these wubs for frou?" asked Susi, from down the row. I laughed as I realized that five months ago she would never had asked that question. She was asking if the plastic containers were reserved for the non-zinnias. It was an entirely reasonable question. A "wub" is short for a white bin. A few years ago we got tired of saying "white bin." "Frou" is any flower that is not a zinnia, and there are many choices there. "Frou" is short for frou-frou, of course.
We all have languages, in all the various groups we inhabit. At temple we overlook a lot of words that make no sense to us these days, or we use them without really meaning them (Ruler of the Universe, Our Father, Our King). In school there are languages for every discipline. I remember when I was taking Intro to Philosophy, I got annoyed with all the reclaiming and redefining of words. Before you could even get started, you had to learn a whole new set of definitions. That seemed like cheating -- in order to prove something first you had to create your own reality.
Anyway, Susi has been working here since the spring and she has transformed herself into a useful and able farm worker, coming from Brooklyn where she worked as a PR person for some company. Her major in college was in fashion design. She decided she needed a change and she made a radical leap. The other day I was complaining about the loud music that was coming from the market stall next to ours, and she said quietly and with a sweet smile, "I like it. That's the best thing about selling at Reston and Leesburg, selling next to Glascock because they play this music." I had never considered that someone would like having loud music playing at 7 AM. But just because she is a good farmhand doesn't mean she has left all her real self behind. And she is about 30 years younger than I am, so we don't speak the same languages at all, except in the field.
Whenever there is a time of shared experience, like a long car trip or a weekend retreat or a whole year of high school, we create a bunch of associations that make us laugh, and we build on it until there is a shorthand, and then someone just has to say one word, and we all immediately burst out laughing. It creates a bubble around the girlfriends who were there when we lost the car for hours in the parking lot or when three out of four siblings threw up after a boat ride. Private languages can develop in a matter of days and they can last forever. When you see your friends who were also on the yearbook staff forty years ago, someone will remember a phrase that only you all know. I wonder if Steve B. still remembers saying "miasmic putrid decay" when he was describing how badly things were going at deadlines.
As so often happens, I have wandered here into thoughts about belonging. Shared language is part of being part of a group, of having memories in common or of working on something together. It is a shorthand that has meaning to a limited circle, and it makes us feel included and special, or sometimes just efficient. At the farm we have wubs and frou and ponies and Diagonal Patches and the G and the cold cooler and Dooley... it goes on and on.
In a few months we will have a PVF reunion, and it will be so interesting to see what words come back with the various generations that return. Only those of us who were here before 1984 will know what is meant by "you amateur." That was pretty much the lowest form of non-flattery from my father.
This topic doesn't wrap up very well. But those are my thoughts this evening.
Jon just got back from a week of traveling around Croatia with Rebecca and he says it was a true vacation -- he didn't think about the farm at all. They had a great trip. Meanwhile, back at this ranch, we kept from breaking everything in his absence (very consciously) and there was only one flat tire for him to fix when he came home. Anyway, he is cooking dinner with two international students who are staying with us and working on the farm and I am relaxing completely, now that he is home.
So, this morning there were four of us picking flowers at dawn. It was peak humidity (people who get up early and go outside might know that the most murky time of day is right at the beginning, before the sun comes up) and we were snipping zinnias as fast as we could. We had a special order to fill for a wedding, plus the regular flowers for the markets. We had designated some containers for the wedding and some for markets, to help us stay organized.
"Are all these wubs for frou?" asked Susi, from down the row. I laughed as I realized that five months ago she would never had asked that question. She was asking if the plastic containers were reserved for the non-zinnias. It was an entirely reasonable question. A "wub" is short for a white bin. A few years ago we got tired of saying "white bin." "Frou" is any flower that is not a zinnia, and there are many choices there. "Frou" is short for frou-frou, of course.
We all have languages, in all the various groups we inhabit. At temple we overlook a lot of words that make no sense to us these days, or we use them without really meaning them (Ruler of the Universe, Our Father, Our King). In school there are languages for every discipline. I remember when I was taking Intro to Philosophy, I got annoyed with all the reclaiming and redefining of words. Before you could even get started, you had to learn a whole new set of definitions. That seemed like cheating -- in order to prove something first you had to create your own reality.
Anyway, Susi has been working here since the spring and she has transformed herself into a useful and able farm worker, coming from Brooklyn where she worked as a PR person for some company. Her major in college was in fashion design. She decided she needed a change and she made a radical leap. The other day I was complaining about the loud music that was coming from the market stall next to ours, and she said quietly and with a sweet smile, "I like it. That's the best thing about selling at Reston and Leesburg, selling next to Glascock because they play this music." I had never considered that someone would like having loud music playing at 7 AM. But just because she is a good farmhand doesn't mean she has left all her real self behind. And she is about 30 years younger than I am, so we don't speak the same languages at all, except in the field.
Whenever there is a time of shared experience, like a long car trip or a weekend retreat or a whole year of high school, we create a bunch of associations that make us laugh, and we build on it until there is a shorthand, and then someone just has to say one word, and we all immediately burst out laughing. It creates a bubble around the girlfriends who were there when we lost the car for hours in the parking lot or when three out of four siblings threw up after a boat ride. Private languages can develop in a matter of days and they can last forever. When you see your friends who were also on the yearbook staff forty years ago, someone will remember a phrase that only you all know. I wonder if Steve B. still remembers saying "miasmic putrid decay" when he was describing how badly things were going at deadlines.
As so often happens, I have wandered here into thoughts about belonging. Shared language is part of being part of a group, of having memories in common or of working on something together. It is a shorthand that has meaning to a limited circle, and it makes us feel included and special, or sometimes just efficient. At the farm we have wubs and frou and ponies and Diagonal Patches and the G and the cold cooler and Dooley... it goes on and on.
In a few months we will have a PVF reunion, and it will be so interesting to see what words come back with the various generations that return. Only those of us who were here before 1984 will know what is meant by "you amateur." That was pretty much the lowest form of non-flattery from my father.
This topic doesn't wrap up very well. But those are my thoughts this evening.
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