Voicings

Who gets to speak?

Dear bread,

The rooster bleats like an ailing sheep. This spring, our neighbors hatched a batch of eggs in an incubator, and of the 21 chicks that moved to our yard, seven roosters are already gone. We live in a city so creature noise – that is not dogs – is a problem.

In a flock of chickens, there can be many roosters. One time we hatched 19 chicks, and 15 turned out to be roosters. The boy chicks didn't all show up at once. The most masculine spoke first, and a couple of others joined him, a little gang. Once they were gone, some formerly meek ones surfaced, and once they were gone, a few more found their voices. Five rounds of three! It was incredible.

There are no rules against keeping chickens in my city, but there are ordinances against noise, and I am a light sleeper, so roosters are out. We always try to find country homes for our city birds but often they end up in the freezer. I do not participate in the process.

This week, I was thinking about voice and power even before this last rooster began to speak. His first articulations didn't sound like the proud caws of a rooster. Can I be the ruler? He seemed to wonder as he tossed some sounds into the air. Do I really need to crow? My husband says the bird’s vocalizations match his general timidity. He doesn't boss around the hens.

Bitter melon my husband grew, a green soft gourd that looks like a boat.

I feel like that animal as I try to write. My voice is thin and distant, like words are bullies I'm trying to tame. "Don't hit that kid," I whisper. "Be nice." Or else I'll call the figurative cops on my half-baked ideas? I want to write about history, the history of baking and my city and my country. The facts come out like I’m a PBS narrator, and that voice can't dance with the me that sees magic in everyday life. Facts can't hold hands with awe. We are a mullet haircut, business in front, party in the back.

As I circle my reluctance, I take heart in thinking about expression, and whose stories get to be heard. I hope you like exploring the following voices as much as I liked discovering them.

• I love knowing that Studs Terkel's editor suggested his great oral history book “Working” after he (the editor) saw Richard Scarry's phenomenal What Do People Do All Day? (Thanks Austin Kleon for filling me in on that link — I've used the flour milling pages of Scarry’s book teaching classes to kids, and Able Baker Charlie's overdoing the yeast is a great cartoon.)

• One humbling read is Gladys-Marie Fry's “Stitched From the Soul,” a book about the quilts that enslaved women made, and the lives of these seamstresses. The patterns and colors are lovely, with many intricate repetitions, and random piecings, too. Someone cut and sewed these utilitarian but gorgeous objects; someone who probably wasn’t allowed to read or write. The quilts hold that work, preserving voices that found beauty within inhumane conditions.

• Sewing is speaking. A friend told me about Sara Trail's Social Justice Sewing Academy, and the phenomenal workshops that help kids find their voices in fabric. The SJSA has many projects, including remembrance quilts, and quilts of comfort for families who have lost loved ones to gun violence — what a powerful and empowering organization! Has anyone reading this worked with them? Please let us know!

• Civil Eats broadcasts food and farming stories that don’t otherwise get told, like this beautiful reflection on the Japanese American investment in California agriculture.

• Here’s a short video about Farmer Ground Flour, Oechsner Farms and Wide Awake Bakery, the farmer-baker-miller trio near Ithaca, New York that helped me understand regional grains. When I met these people, I knew I needed to write a book — they were so passionate about their work, and so generous describing it to me. They may help me wrestle history into story for the next big project, too!

Two striped cups of ice cream on a red table.

One last musing on articulation: when we were on Cape Cod last week, the heat was unbeatable, even at night. So a bunch of us swam in the ship canal, relishing the cool of the water, swimming a bit and floating like buoys. My son Francis and I were horsing around, and he agitated some seaweed. It sparkled like fireflies! We were out there in the dark, and we replicated the magic by touching seaweed. We made a glorious show as bioluminescent plankton blinked on and off, registering our contact.

The final night of our vacation, we stood on the rocks, looking at the water and the boats moored just in front of us, and I dipped my hand. Stirring it around, the plankton lit up again. Without my movement, there was no sign of light. The plankton were quiet.

And here on shore, I seek my luminescence, and hope you are finding yours.

Amy