Month: February 2014

Sisu: Some Sources

Yesterday I posted More Rocks than Potatoes on Cowbird. It’s about my dad’s classic story of learning the value of hard work and persistence on the farm by picking more rocks out of the soil than potatoes. It was difficult to write. I struggled to make sense of my feelings about it when I learned that they didn’t just clear the field of rocks once to plant the potatoes, they did it every year. Picking rocks once sounded hard, but picking rocks every year, knowing that new ones would pop up the next spring, seemed like too much. My dad understood this rock picking to be a good lesson in life about the necessity of hard work, but I wasn’t so sure. Maybe, I wondered, the better lesson would be to give up on planting potatoes altogether. I’m big into the mantra: work smarter, not harder. But then I put their activity in the context of the Finnish concept of “sisu” and it started to make a bit more sense.

According to many sources that I’ve found, sisu doesn’t translate into English easily. Most frequently, it’s understood to mean guts, inner strength, hardiness, persistence, resilience. It also means a willingness to push beyond one’s physical and mental limits, to act even in the face of insurmountable odds. For some, sisu describes the spirit of the Finns who, having fought so many wars against Russia and lost (almost?) every single one, continued to fight anyway. Maybe the picking of rocks in a field, year after year, knowing that you’ll never get all of them and that new ones will pop up again, is an example of Sisu? I’m still not sure, but it has made me curious enough to want to do a little more researching and thinking about sisu and how it does and doesn’t fit into the sprite of the Puotinen farm and its inhabitants.

Here are a few sources that I’ve found so far:

iBooks

Last summer, I turned my grandma Ines’ memoirs into an interactive book using iBooks Author. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed combining her words with old photos, video interviews, digital stories and other archival material. And the editing process enabled me to reconnect with her and remember her stories and gestures.

I hoped that I could share this book with my family and that it might enable us to start talking about the farm again. Since the farm was sold in 2004, my family hasn’t talked about it, or our sense of grief over its loss, that much. But, that sharing never happened. Why? Part, but not all, of the reason was because not everyone in the family had an iPad (the book came out before iBooks was available for laptops).  Even those who could get the iBook, didn’t have the time to read it.

After this failed attempt at connection, I decided that the iBook couldn’t be the only way that I should share farm stories. So, I started thinking about a more ambitious project, the one I’m working on here. But, even though I didn’t want to limit my story project to an iBook, I still envisioned incorporating iBooks (at least 2) into my project: 1) the already completed, Memoirs and 2) a short book combining a homemade photo book that my mom crafted in the summer of 2001 with my video footage and memories from that same summer. 

This afternoon, I came across another idea for an iBook: Post Script. Here’s a description:

Made exclusively for iBooks, Post Script
offers you a literary and cinematic experience like no other. Watch as an independent film production unfolds through a curated collage of words, sounds, and images taking you deep into the creative process. Starting from the first e-mail conversations between novelist Leah Hager Cohen and director Patrick Wang (In the Family, witness the novel The Grief of Others find life as a film.

Post Script

I love the idea of documenting the process of creating the project! I’m trying to do that (to a lesser extent) on this blog.

Banging on the Loom

This morning I posted a story on Cowbird about my grandmother Ines and her account (from her memoirs) of using a rag rug loom at the Farm. I entitled it “Banging on the Loom.” While she never uses the phrase in her account, it’s how I’ve always imagined her at that loom, banging on it LOUDLY and joyfully. I love this image (and her story) so much that I’m naming the interactive documentary for The Farm, “Banging on the Loom.”

In the introduction to my i-doc, I’m planning to craft my own story to put beside my grandmother’s about the significance of this phrase. My cowbird story from this morning was a first attempt at conveying that significance. I don’t think I quite succeeded.  I feel like something is missing. But, that’s okay. The process of spending time with my grandma’s account and reflecting deeply on it as I craft my own story about it is central to The Farm project.

Why do I like her account so much? I think I want to let this question persist without attempting to fully answer it now. But, I will offer one thought for today. My grandmother’s joyful (exuberant, physical, loud, playful) banging on the loom is, to me, the bold and persistent assertion of a spirited self who refuses to be silenced by the burdens of a difficult life.

Johannapic

This is a picture of a rag cutting bee at the Farm. Family/community women would gather together to prepare rags for the loom. My grandmother sits in front of the television. My great-grandmother Johanna is on her right.