Searching for My Taxonomy

I spend a lot of time trying to understand the overarching structure under which all of my assorted interests and occupations make sense. My brain is ultra-creative but ohhh does it crave order. I look for patterns and similarities, links and connections to tie it all together in a tidy narrative.

I’m reminded of when, as a child in Montessori school, we learned about the animal kingdom. There was a seemingly bottomless stack of square flashcards, each one with a photo of a different animal, its scientific name, its geographic range and a description. We then laid out the cards in a giant display grouped by phylum, class, family, genus and finally species. Looking at the pictures, who would ever guess that a rattlesnake and a horse and a goldfish and an eagle shared a common ancestor? But once you saw the animals organized by this system, the flow of one creature into the next became beautifully obvious. I suppose I’m searching for my classification titles, the criteria that will bring my Kingdom (Queendom!) into focus.

(I really want to embed an image of the animal kingdom chart here that I found on another website, but I can’t figure out how to do it in Squarespace, and just spent more of my precious late-night time than I would have liked trying to find the answer to no avail. So I’m moving forward, imageless for now, and making a note to come back to this another day. Also I hate the way the categories and tags display in this blog. And the fact that there is no sidebar. Bleh. I wrote for 11 years on blogspot and had it figured out to a T, and now I’m struggling to figure out this new platform. Anyhow, back to writing…)

Just now, while googling images of the animal kingdom hierarchy, I (re)discovered the concept that perfectly describes what I spend so much of my brainpower on: TAXONOMY. Literally it means “arrangement law” and is the practice and science of classifying things or concepts, including the principles that underlie such classifications. The title of this post originally was “My Themes” and now it’s been updated to reflect the dynamic nature of my research. :)

Here is a brilliant article that talks about taxonomy and its application to UX, and the various types of taxonomies. I want to quote and link to everything here but can’t right now (see above rant about my lack of digital skills for this platform), so hopefully you’ll click through and enjoy as much as I did.

So here are the elements of my taxonomy that I know so far - some of them are phylum-level and others are species-level, so to speak:

Origins and Routes, aka Fusion, aka Heritage

I see this in my art, my language, and my culinary creations. It’s also in my heritage, obviously. The mix of where we are from, the paths we have traveled, what we inherit and what we adopt by choice. I love bringing my myriad influences together in ways that are palpable. Heirlooms and sentimental mementos remixed to create an object portrait. Spices and cooking methods combined to make a novel flavor and texture experience. Words and expressions and gestures strung together to create Portu-Italo-Span-glish. The sum of parts that reveals a new, hybrid identity.

Working With My Hands

A key element of so many processes I love: metalsmithing, gardening, cooking, painting, drawing, ceramics, sewing, piano playing, typing on the computer. Especially when it’s repetitive, soothing, meditative movement. Not so lovely when it results in repetitive stress injuries, but I’m working on finding a balance and taking care of my hands like the precious tools they are.

Agriculture and Food Systems

I first started contemplating these issues while working in Mozambique, doing fundraising for various agricultural projects, and I find myself drawn to these topics more and more, especially after realizing how disconnected we are from our food systems as a result of the shortages that came at the beginning of lockdowns last year. Connecting to the land, understanding how and where and why our food is grown the way it is. Understanding inequities in our food and land systems, realizing that we use poisons at the foundational level and then spend loads of resources trying to find health further down the daisy chain. Agricultural time vs. Industrial time. Nurturing. Learning the bittersweet lesson that not all seeds will sprout, but that more growing opportunities lie ahead. Seasonality. Sustainability.

Entrepreneurship

I love a good business plan. Again, it’s about the challenge of structuring something and understanding strategy. How to take an idea and put it forth into the world. It’s not about the money to be made, although I do enjoy spreadsheets and cash flows and revenue projections. It’s more about what is possible, and seeing how something small and humble can flourish if given the right conditions. Also female entrepreneurship, because women rising up and claiming independence is what we are born to do.

Bridging Borders

Having grown up near the US-Mexico border, and hailing from a family with roots along the Italy-Slovenia border, and having lived in many different countries along the years, I find it natural to bridge borders. Travel, diplomacy and ambassadorship - but in a dynamic, non-stodgy, non-formal way. I’m currently participating in a virtual bread-baking collaboration with someone in Lebanon who has started a #breadbeyondborders movement. I’m reminded of SineFinis wine, made with grapes from either side of the Italian-Slovene border in a symbolic gesture of unification and fraternity. Doctors without borders. Engineers without borders. Translators without borders. All of this the antithesis to building walls.

Motherhood

In my personal taxonomy this is the equivalent of when vertebrates and invertebrates divided, or perhaps more significantly but less relatable, when single-celled organisms became multi-cellular. Nothing was the same after, and there was most definitely no going back. The watershed.

Writing

My first process-based love was journaling. When I was an exchange student in Brazil in 1997/8, I wrote every single day about my experience living abroad. It was like social media oversharing, but analog, and for an audience of one. Since then I’ve filled countless diaries and hundreds of blog pages. And then I took a writing hiatus while my personal life underwent a major shakeup, and the pause continued when I became a mother and realized there. was. no. time. Finally I’m over the hump and am managing to write again, mostly late at night once Stasi is asleep. I usually get an hour and a half before she stirs and wants to nurse again. She is two and still nurses all night long. We all co-sleep. It’s not for everyone, and it certainly has its drawbacks, but I have no regrets (although I do look forward to the day - or night - when I have longer stretches of time to write).

taxonomy list to be continued…

As I was saying, I can hear Stasi starting to stir. Writing this blog is an exercise in priorities - do I want to blog “perfectly” with curated images, flawless layout, all the right links and ultra-polished writing? A presentable, professional face to the world with good SEO? Or do I want to get into the flow and write? Not worry about what the external world will think, much less whether I exist in search rankings? After all, this space is ultimately for me. It’s okay to show the rawness, the lack of technical finesse, the thoughts suspended mid-paragraph because it’s time to nurse my toddler. I’ll certainly look back on this with fondness and appreciation (and hopefully a lot will have come together by then, both technically and conceptually). It’s all a process, and I know for sure that the process is where the gold is.