Ode to a cottonwood tree

The familiar cottonwood tree, genus Populus (the poplars)—the same genus as aspen trees, their well-known cool-climate cousins. Both trees have leaves with unusually shaped stems, flattened sideways so that they quiver in the wind … hence the name, “quaking aspen.” 

On my walk today, I remembered to notice them … I usually don’t.

Everyone knows that cottonwoods get their name from the little puffs of cotton that carry seeds on the wind in the spring. The piles of cotton against curbs and buildings and around the edges of puddles aren't always welcome. But on the other hand, a snowstorm of cotton in the late afternoon spring light is a lovely thing to behold. At least it is in my book, but then I’m not allergic to it, as some folks are.

Cottonwoods are one of the very few deciduous trees that are native in these parts. The plains were pretty much barren except for willows, cottonwoods, scrub brush, and prairie grass when white folks arrived. We’ve since planted a lot of trees—some useful, many just ornamental—and the cottonwoods just stand by. They grow along streambeds and around seasonal ponds, thriving in areas where most trees couldn’t survive. They grow tall and old, with huge trunks and complicated tangles of branches. They make great shade in summer and lovely snags for creatures when they die.

I pass them all the time, but I usually don't really see them. I walk by, thinking about other things, until one day, I get caught by remembering to pay attention to them, think about how grand they are. Some of the trees I see might be 100 years old or so. They may have seen the first settlement by non-native people in the areas where they now stand beside a busy bike path. They have been home to owls and squirrels, beetles and children’s swings, like this one I spotted. What a lot they must have witnessed in all those years.

I remember other cottonwoods from my childhood. I lived near an old irrigation ditch that was lined with them. I remember standing next to those trees when a neighborhood kid laughed at me when I flexed my muscles to show how tough I was. I threw him in the irrigation ditch.  

I also remember hearing about another neighborhood kid, someone I didn’t know, who died when he fell about 50 feet from high in the branches of a cottonwood.  

When I pay attention to these trees now, I get sort of pensive. I think about how long they’re been here, what changes have whirled around them, how silent and steadfast they are. I think about how trees like these were the only shade that folks living on the prairie had—think the eastern Colorado grasslands in August. I even think about the many creatures these trees have known: the woodpecker that nests in an old knot, the red tail hawk that perches on a tall branch looking for a mousie snack, the chipmunks that scurry around in the branches and up and down the trunk, the bugs that live under the bark and on the heart-shaped leaves.

What a complex story you could write about just one of these trees. And to think I forget to notice them most of the time.

Solstice and other miracles

We’re officially in winter, now. Solstice passed, the sun turned around from its descent, and now the days are getting longer—although the coldest weather and heaviest snow are (historically, at least) still ahead.

It’s easy to understand why people have always understood this annual return of the light to be a miraculous thing. It’s easy to understand why major faith traditions mark this time in late December as a holy time. Thinking about this, I realize that many apparently "ordinary" things strike me as miraculous. I don’t mean “miraculous” in a religious sense, although some folks might understand these things that way. I simply mean that they are so remarkable in their complexity, so striking in their steadfast reliability (so devastating when they abandon us) that words fail. For instance:

Solstice. Consider that marvelous morning when you can wake up and know, simply know that the days will get longer now. This seems so simple, but think about what it means. These massive planets are circling around a star, with all of them exerting tremendous force on one another. This sun star is surrounded by other suns, some (we now know) with planets of their own. These collect in spiral arms and wheel around a black hole that steadily consumes everything, including light itself. This pinwheel flies through the universe (maybe one of several universes) at unimaginable speeds, moving among other galaxies, all  pushing and pulling on one another. And the space around them all is laced with dark matter and dark energy that we can’t  see even with our most powerful instruments, although they make up most of the matter and energy in the universe as we know it. 


Yet, despite the complexity of all this, our particular tiny planet moves around its particular medium-sized star with such precise timeliness that we know what day will be the shortest of the year. Miraculous.

The Hubble space telescope. Launched in 1990, repaired and up-graded numerous times, the Hubble telescope continues to transmit the most amazing pictures of far outer space (like the one above)—as well as lots of other data that are not nearly as interesting to us lay people. This telescope, orbiting outside earth’s atmosphere, has taught us more about the forces at work in our universe than all of the work done before its launch. Miraculous.

The heart. Last year, I had a medical event (turned out to be nothing) that sent me to the hospital for tests. Among those tests was a heart ultrasound. I got to watch the monitor during that procedure, and it honestly left me speechless. The kids would say it was “awesome,” and so would I, and I would mean it literally. I was awed, stunned by the thought that this rhythmic pattern had gone on for decades, all day, every day. The various chambers and valves alternately contract and relax, open and close with timing as precise on a miniscule scale as the movement of celestial bodies on a scale too vast to imagine. And they just keep doing it day after day after day. Miraculous.

Evolution. Thinking about this heart thing got me pondering on how it came to be, this brilliant, intricate, precise, beautiful system for circulating nutrients and waste. Some would argue that such beauty could only come from a divine creator. Personally, I believe that, whether or not the process is guided by a God, evolution has crafted this remarkable organ as well as the other organs and organisms that make up our world. In my mind, this makes it all not less but more astonishing. 


How many tiny steps, how many mutations and adaptations, how many dead ends did it take to create an opposable thumb so we could grasp? An ear, with all its internal intricacies? A brain? And how many steps to fashion the precise lines on the face of the alpine forget-me-not, the colorful patterns drawn in feathers on a blackbird’s wing. How many gradual adaptations formed the varied shells on Galapagos tortoises that allow them to feed on their particular island but that would make it impossible to feed on others? What prolonged process of change resulted in the odd system whereby a newborn kangaroo clambers the distance from its mother’s womb into her pouch? Miraculous.

The Post Office. I know this seems like a leap from the sublime to the ridiculous, but think about the service that the post office provides for pennies. I heard someone on the NPR program “Wait, Wait! Don’t Tell Me!” put it like this: For less than 50¢, you can send a letter to a particular individual at a particular address in a particular town in a particular state, and within a couple of days, it will be delivered to precisely that person. Imagine how much you would pay a messenger to make that delivery! I’ve thought about this often and have always found complaints about the post office misguided. But I’ve especially thought about it during these last few days just before Christmas. I've seen several postal carriers climbing over snow banks long after dark, using headlamps to find their way, delivering mail to people’s homes through the holiday madness. Sure, the post office messes up some times. But usually, they get it remarkably right. Miraculous.

There are so many other things I could mention: the Constitution, prenatal development, the Mars rovers, language, the curiosity of small children, the way spider's web catches the dew. All, simply awesome!

Nine, going on ten

During the past week, I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with my partner’s 9-year old (almost 10 … within weeks, in fact) grandson. I recommend this experience to anyone who enjoys kids.

This is a great, fluid age—cuddly at one moment, on the verge of that early adolescent “adults are so embarrassing!” attitude the next. If you can find a space that allows both (without calling attention to either), kids this age can be a treat. There’s so much to learn from them: how the world looks to a person just becoming aware of its breadth; how the world looks to a kid who knows far more about technology than I will ever learn; how adults look from the perspective of 9 years’ wisdom; how much kids pick up the language and attitudes of folks around them.

Case in point: when I get frustrated with the world (or with myself)—like, I forget something, someone else doesn’t follow through, or something doesn’t work right—I have a habit of saying, “Rat’s toe!” It substitutes nicely for the other things I might say. So, after I had hung out with this guy for a morning, he got frustrated at something and said, from the back seat of the car, “Rat’s toe!” My partner cracked up. It only took a few hours for him to pick it up and make it his own (although I admit I have no idea how often I said it in those hours). We’ve heard other comments from him that sound so much like his parents’ words and intonation, it seems quite clear where they came from.

So this is a child on the brink of adolescence, learning almost as easily as he breathes, eager to learn (and sometimes quite certain that he knows most things), full of mastery (and sometimes able to admit to still being “a kid” and needing some direction). In short, he’s very fun, very challenging … and exhausting to keep up with.

The first day he was here held many of the elements of what this time with him has been like. Take a look:

It was a cold day, with the promise of snow by noon. We headed for the skate park despite the cold. I think he didn’t quite believe he could get too cold to enjoy skating (he lives in a warm climate), and he was too eager to skate to care anyway. Part of the skate park was full of snow, so he skated on the few parts that were clear and not too difficult. He got cold pretty quickly, so we left before long for hot chocolate. But not before I got a picture of him with his board near the snow and one of him about to go off a marble slab. (I suggested re-doing it so I could catch him in mid-air, but he was too cold).

I also snapped a few pictures that said something about the culture of skateboard parks. The first is for the skateboarders. Framing the park as fearsome is bound to make conquering it worthwhile. The others suggest that this place is prone to trash (apparently enough to require bulldozers) and is home to a range of kids, including some with serious trouble in their lives.

After lingering (!) over hot chocolate, we went to Boulder to get him a season pass at Eldora so he could polish up his snowboarding skills during his two weeks here. Actually, he seemed to be torn between assuring me that this would be plenty of time to become completely proficient and reporting that he already had it pretty well mastered, having boarded 3 or 4 times before. 

Then we picked up my partner and headed to Denver for an appointment. Among the finer experiences of the day, in my book, were sightings of many hawks, a coyote, and a bald eagle as we drove around Boulder and then to Denver. He seemed to enjoy them, too, as he glanced up from the back seat … but maybe a tad less than playing games on his ipod. Our day ended with a hot dog at Mustard’s Last Stand. This is a stop he has always loved, vying for the hot dog consumption record (which for him, a scrawny kid, has been two hot dogs). But a day or so later, he announced that he is “pretty much over hot dogs,” at least for a while. This may be related to the fact that we saw a very drunk man on the sidewalk outside as we sat at the counter in Mustard’s (probably the first time he has ever seen this). A very sensitive and reflective kid, he may have found this experience too unpleasant for hot dogs to seem like much fun—at least for a while. 

Other days have held other activities and other combinations of folks. But across it all, spending time with him has been consistently a pleasure. He’s a very nice boy, his curiosity is fun (if his all-encompassing “knowledge” is sometimes annoying), and his ease with adults makes him an interesting conversation partner. Yet, without any actual exertion or any late nights, I find myself worn out at the end of days like this. I am reminded over and over why parenting is done by people who are younger (by decades!).

He’ll be here for another week, but much of that time will be spent with other folks, so my days with him this trip will now be limited. I’m certain I’ll appreciate the time we’ll have over this week, and I’ll look forward to spending time with him again next time the opportunity arises.

In the meantime, I need to work out more or else rest up for his visit.

North Carolina and the meaning of truth

Lecture module alert (A new feature of this blog, a warning that I worry that I have stepped into my beloved teaching mode. This means I feel an irresistible urge to think through the nuances of a topic out loud. To add context and examples. To be sure it makes sense. Please don't decide not to read this ... it's pretty interesting. And please excuse me if I launch into discussions about stuff you already know and if I get sort of wordy. I can’t help it.)


Ideas are always products of their times. They grow according to the elements of the soil they where they sprout. Of course we like to believe that our ideas are exceptions to this. Our "truth" isn't tied to time and place. We have it right, and others are simply wrong. But really, what we “know” is always shaped by the world around us. Our point of view always depends on where we stand. As philosopher Donna Haraway said, “There is no view from nowhere.” 

So, thinking about this (as I have been recently) leads me to reflect on how easy it is to see someone else’s ideas, ideas that grew in different soil, as wrongheaded, ill informed, absurd. But when I do that, I miss the point that those folks likely think that my ideas are wrong-headed, ill informed, and absurd.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with North Carolina. OK, I’ll explain.

This train of thought came to mind as I read some recent news about North Carolina. The state of NC is considering paying reparations to victims of state-legislated, forced sterilization in the early twentieth century (in some cases, as late as the 1970s). In fact, sterilization programs were being pursued in more than 30 other states at the same time. This took me back to my years teaching the history of psychology. That may seem like a stretch, but stick with me a minute.

Most of us haven’t heard much (if anything) about this nation’s foray into eugenics. (In case that word isn’t in your everyday vocabulary, eugenics refers to programs intended to improve the species through selective breeding.) One form of eugenics involves encouraging the “right” sort of reproduction among people (or animals or plants). Think animal breeding and plant genetics, designer dogs and seedless watermelons. A very recent example of human eugenics was the “Nobel Prize winners’ sperm bank.” (If you’re thinking of signing up, it’s too late.)

Another form of eugenics aims to ensure that some people, the “wrong” people don’t reproduce. We see this in laws that prohibit marriage between close relatives or between members of different races. We saw its most extreme form in Hitler’s efforts to eliminate groups he saw as “inferior”: Jews, Gypsies, gay men, people with disabilities.

To get back to the North Carolina story, eugenics was widespread public policy in the US in the early twentieth century. Much of the push for eugenics came from wealthy and powerful people. Its supporters included Alexander Graham Bell, Winston Churchill, John Kellogg (of Kellogg’s corn flakes fame), Theodore Roosevelt, and Margaret Sanger, the “mother” of birth control and founder of Planned Parenthood. Not surprisingly, the advocates of eugenics were quite clear about who the “fit” people were—people like them. And the “unfit” folks who should be prevented from reproducing were people unlike them: non-white, non-educated, poor, foreign born, people with disabilities.

Winners of the Fittest Family contest,
Topeka KS

During the heyday of eugenics in the early 1900s, government-sponsored programs encouraged reproduction among the “fit.” Others discouraged, prohibited, or physically prevented reproduction among those were “unfit.” These included national contests to select the “fittest family” as well as programs supporting the sterilization of “unfit” people. University courses and textbooks about eugenics appeared around the country. Widespread public support resulted in the passage of legislation mandating sterilizations for those shown to be unfit. Like the ones in North Carolina.

Psychology played a major role in the eugenics movement (here’s where I came in). Early versions of IQ tests were designed to identify people with limited mental ability—children who wouldn’t benefit from traditional schooling, army recruits who shouldn’t be given advanced assignments, immigrants who shouldn’t be admitted to the country. IQ tests were often used to identify people as “feebleminded,” which meant they were unfit and should be sterilized.

It’s not hard to see the racism, classism, and abelism in these ideas. It’s hard not to see the advocates of eugenics as purely self-serving. But it’s too easy to write these people off as cruel, thoughtless, or at best misguided. There are lessons for us here, too. I’m not saying that eugenics is a good idea just because it fit the context of that time. (In fact, I think it's a very bad idea, whatever the times.) Actually, I’m not really talking about eugenics at all. I’m just saying that ideas—including our own ideas—are products of the soil they grow in.

In one of my all-time favorite books, The Day the Universe Changed, James Burke recounts people asking him, “How could medieval Europeans have possibly thought the sun circled the earth?” Burke replies, “What would it have looked like if the sun had been circling the earth?” The answer, of course, is that “It would look exactly the same. … We see what we want to see, according to what we believe at the time.”

So, when I get to thinking this way, I start wondering: What are we thinking as a culture that will look absurd or horrendous to people 50 or 100 years from now? Of course, we can’t really know—we’re still in the soil. But it’s fun to speculate. I hope we’ll see today’s resurgent anti-immigrant movement as wrongheaded, ill informed, absurd. And the idea that “preemptive war” is justifiable in any moral code. And the belief that some people should be barred from the right to marry as they choose. But I suspect that there will be even grander ideas than these that will bite the dust.

Just as important, I wonder: What ideas am I spouting that will be considered crazy in 50 or 100 years? Maybe the very idea that ideas are shaped by their times will seem absurd. In that case, this discussion will have proven itself!

This is an interesting exercise, wondering about the future of your own certainties. Give it a try. But keep in mind that we’re doomed to limited success. We can’t see our viewpoint when we’re standing on it.

More mental clutter

So, I’ve been collecting an assortment of odd thoughts again. And, as usual, this blog is where I get to dump them and see if they mean anything … or are just to remain odd thoughts.

Ode to a hornet’s nest

I was strolling along, really enjoying the brisk air and afternoon light, when I spotted this in a backyard tree just off the bike path. Biologically, hornets belong to the genus Vespa, the same name as the scooter that sounds so much like a hornet. Scooters are probably more fun, though. These colonies can have hundreds of worker hornets. I'm guessing this yard was not a fun place to be last summer.

So this got me thinking: either the folks who live here couldn’t locate the nest (which would have been hidden in the summer foliage) … or, they found it but decided not to destroy it. It’s easy to see the hornets as the villains and us as the victims. I’m allergic to these guys, so that makes it especially easy to see them as pests. But in truth, they belong here. It’s we who are the intruders. This got me thinking about my coyote … and the Sound Circle concert … and I found myself appreciating the fact that these folks left the nest despite the unpleasant moments its residents must have caused.

On moving slowly

On a totally different (totally different!) theme: I’ve been especially struck of late by how much longer it takes to do everyday things as I age. For instance, getting ready for bed—what a former nun friend called “evening ablutions” and I refer to simply as ‘blutions—used to be a 5-minute task. You change clothes, brush your teeth and wash your face, make a last pit stop, and get in bed. 

These days, it takes me about half an hour. Cleaning my teeth and washing my face, which used to be simple tasks, now have multiple elements that seem to accumulate with time. Also, a few steps have been added to the routine over the years: swallowing the day’s final handful of pills, lubricating what a friend’s child used to call “nozzles” to avoid nose bleeds, a final mouthwash to give a boost to aging teeth, and eye drops to lubricate aging eyes. Dang! Besides being slower, it sounds like I’m falling apart piece by piece!

So, everything takes longer … and now I know why retirement was invented.

The scoop on Gertrude Stein

And another switch of topic and mood:  I recently learned (apparently I'm slow on this) that during WWII, Gertrude Stein was connected in a variety of ways with the collaborationist Vichy government in France—the government installed after the Nazis occupied France. In some of her writings, she was clearly sympathetic to the Nazi mission. I gather that Stein scholars have long speculated about how she and her "longtime companion," Alice B. Toklas, managed to live safely in southern France during WWII. They were very out Jewish lesbians at a time when both of these identities were explicit targets of the planned Nazi purge.

I must admit that I thought about this issue only slightly as I read a biography of the two, Two Lives by Janet Malcolm, several years ago. At the time, I guess I was more intrigued by their relationship and how it survived. Anyway, that book asked in passing and this more recent work explores more directly the glaring question: Might her collaboration with this government explain why they survived?

And then we are left with the question: Should this matter to our overall judgment of Stein’s life, her work, and her place in women’s and lesbian literature? 

Who knew?

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Actress Hedy Lamar, known in her day (circa 1940s) as the “most beautiful woman in the world,” was a brilliant inventor on the side. Or maybe her acting was what was on the side. In fact, in 1942, she came to be co-holder of a patent on “spread spectrum radio,” a key technology that later morphed into cell telephones, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. If you’re into under-appreciated women and or/early techie stuff, check it out!

Correction to an earlier post:

New research out of Johns Hopkins shows that babies don’t lose track of the existence of objects when they’re out of sight. They may not remember the details of an object that has disappeared, but they apparently hold on to the idea that the object still exists even though they can’t see it anymore.

Nonetheless, I did lose my keys, and they weren’t in that pocket. Although as a helpful reader pointed out, the coyote might have been.

And, the finale ...

I had a lovely day with my partner's 9-year-old grandson, a total treat ... more on that another time.

Yesterday, I spent the morning on an onerous task, and I just know there must be some important life lesson. Onerous tasks always come with life lessons. It’s required. I think it’s in the constitution. So maybe you can help me figure it out. 

It all started with one of those phone calls from a charitable organization. I have a pat response to those calls: “Let me save us both some time,” I say calmly as they launch into the spiel. “I never respond to telephone solicitations. If you’d like to send me some information by mail, I’d be happy to consider it.” This usually leads to several rounds of “Could you just …” and “No” before they finally get that I really mean I won’t do anything by phone.

So, this particular solicitor had a different angle. To my first sally, she said, equally calmly, “I completely understand. I feel the same way. That’s why we’re not asking you to donate anything or pledge anything.” Unfortunately, I took the bait. She then explained that all they wanted me to do was either hand deliver or mail some requests to my neighbors. That’s all. It sounded easy enough. Mostly, I wanted to get off the phone.

A few days ago, the “kit” arrived. It turns out my task was larger than I had expected. Much larger. Reading the instructions, I realized that project had several (conveniently numbered) steps. My instructions (paraphrased):

1. Using the enclosed List, hand address the White Mailing Envelopes (provided) to my assigned neighbors.
2. Using the same enclosed List, personalize the boilerplate Notes (provided) asking for contributions by adding each addressee’s name to a note.
3. Put my address on each of the Red Return Envelopes (provided).
4. Insert the individualized Note, the Red Return Envelope, and a sheet of Christmas seals (provided) into each hand-addressed White Mailing Envelope.
5. Either hand deliver or mail the stuffed White Mailing Envelopes to all of the individuals on the List.
6. Record the contributions as they flood in, keeping track on the enclosed List.
7. If people don’t respond, follow up (using the List to keep track of how many times I harass people, I suppose).
8. When all responses have been returned or followed up to no avail, insert all the contributions and the completed List (indicating who was contacted, who I heard back from, and how much each donation was) in the Large Envelopes addressed to the Organization (two provided—envelopes, that is, not Organizations). 
9. Weep with relief as I drop them in the mailbox. They forgot to include this instruction, but it was implied.

Now, this is a fine charity, and I would actually have happily sent them a contribution. But I’m not so invested in this particular issue that I actually wanted to work for them. 

To be honest, I considered calling them back to say I couldn’t (wouldn't) do it. My thought was to refuse based on having been hoodwinked. “I was never told,” I would complain, “that I would have to go through all these machinations or that I would be responsible for collecting and returning the money.”

But then I said to myself, “Janis, you agreed to do this. If you weren’t clear about what it would entail, you should have asked.” Basically, “Grow up, girl!” So I did it, as I’d promised I would. 

And now, since miserable moments are always learning experiences, I’d like to know what it is this time. Here are my guesses:

• I shouldn’t be so eager to get off the phone that I sign up for something when I'm not sure what it is. This one is too obvious to be The Lesson.
• The universe is speaking to the hermit in me, “Hello … This would be easier if you knew your neighbors!” Possible, but I'm not listening.
• I live such a privileged, simple, self-contained, self-determined life that I consider this an onerous burden. Heck, some people have to do this every day. True.

And here are the good things that came out of it:

• I got to do doubly good work. Not only did I help feed the coffers of this non-profit organization (I hope!), I also helped the post office by mailing all these White envelopes and asking my neighbors to mail back the Red ones! And, as we all know well, the post office needs all the help it can get!

• It was a great opportunity to do some consciousness raising by using Barbara Jordan stamps on the return envelopes.

Wait … this was my lesson!

I actually considered not using those stamps, just in case someone would be bothered. Then I stopped myself, aghast, and said, “What are you thinking?!” And put them on.

If anyone is bothered, that’s their problem. And furthermore, how dare I consider asking Barbara Jordan, of all people, to retreat from someone’s discomfort?

Thank you all for helping me figure this out. I feel much better. 

Forgetting farewell

I was just catching up on some back issues of the "newspaper" (seems like a better word would be the “newsdigitalrendition,” since it’s not paper at all) and came across a column by Frank Bruni. The title intrigued me, “Time, Distance and Clarity,” and the tagline, “Revisiting the past with a renewed sense of appreciation.”

This started me thinking. As I have aged, I’ve often thought about how experiences disappeared in my rearview mirror while I wasn't paying attention. I realize that I didn't think to bid them farewell. Sort of like failing to say goodbye to a friend, thank them for a lovely time. When I left these experiences behind, I didn’t even reflect on the likelihood that I wouldn’t be back. I guess it was that sense of perpetual life, perpetual youth that catches most of us in our young, invulnerable years—at least it certainly caught me. Whatever the reason, I walked away without noticing that I wouldn’t be returning, and I didn't say goodbye. 

As time and age have slipped into my days, so many experiences I took for granted simply aren’t possible any more. Like backpacking to a remote mountain lake. Of course, half of the lakes that were a full-day hike with a heavy pack before are now a short stroll in flip-flops from a paved parking lot. I could go there, but it wouldn’t be going in the same way and it wouldn’t be there at all. To quote GertrudeStein, “There is no there there.”* Metaphorically, that backpack trip stands for many things: late night conversations with friends that left me invigorated instead of exhausted, bike trips where the dawn and I were greeted by a sea of columbines on a mountain pass, the thrill of a being brand new to my career, the certainty that all medical problems would be healed and I would be, as they say, “good as new.” The simple confidence that I had decades ahead.

All of those “theres” are simply not there now.

This is not at all a morose feeling. I’m not bemoaning these changes. I’m simply aware that didn’t think to say goodbye. I missed an opportunity as I left these experiences behind, oblivious to the finality of it.

 

I’m not sure what I would have done differently if I had realized that I would regret this oversight. Maybe I would have stopped before they vanished to take in the sights, the smells, the air, the sounds of the place. Maybe whisper “goodbye” to the experience, thank it for sharing time with me. Maybe I would have sat on that crest a little longer, looked over that lake one more time, taken an on-my-knees look at one more alpine forget-me-not. Maybe I would have invited a friend for one more all-night philosophy session while we still had time and energy, stopped to be grateful to that early-career thrill for welcoming me to adulthood, thanked my healthy body for all it did for me before it wore out.

 

Maybe I would have glanced in that rearview mirror as I left and smiled. 

 

This sense of having missed the farewell moment doesn’t feel sad. It's sometimes accompanied  by a touch of melancholy—which isn’t a bad feeling at all, at least for me.

So, as I was musing on these things, the title of a book came to mind: “Time and the River Flowing.” It’s a phrase I often think of when I’m contemplating how time moves on, changing the landscape, changing us. Slowly, so we don’t exactly know it’s happened. This experience I’m trying to describe is simply noticing one stream of the flow of aging.

 

Some things are just gone. And I wish I'd known to say goodbye. 

 

 

--------------------------------------

* Stein was referring to her childhood home, which she went to visit only to discover that it was no longer there. Perfect.

On knowing ... or not

One of the fun things about being retired is that I have time (or take time) to notice. Recently, I noticed that I was noticing things going on around me that reminded me of things I used to teach. Since I taught psychology, this means I get to notice people in new ways. Now, I know this sounds odd: “You were teaching these things but didn’t notice them?” It’s a different experience, just sitting and noticing, for no reason other than that these things are so fascinating, so hugely entertaining in their real-life forms.

A case in point:

Recently, I was waiting for my breakfast at a favorite local eatery, watching a couple of young children who were watching the world. One was an infant. His hair was standing on end from the static electricity, and his gaze was fixed on the ceiling. He was transfixed by the fans, and (to all appearances) oblivious to everything else. The other child was a girl aged about 5 whose attention was focused, more gently, on pictures of castles and city scenes in the former Czechoslovakia. She was less single-minded, seemed more in touch with what was going on around her, and she was definitely curious about those pictures.

I was watching them and thinking what a marvelous process they were going through. Their momentary attention, barely noticeable unless you’re watching closely, is the stuff of mental development. For the infant, these moments of watching the world—just seeing, taking in the sensations, the movement, the relationship between events—this is how he creates the world in his mind. The little girl already has some of these most basic knowledge bits. The pictures of things she hasn’t seen feed her evolving understanding that a world exists beyond her immediate experience. She’s old enough to “get” that this is true; her task now is populating that absent world with bits of content.

Maria Montessori said that “play is the work of the child.” And here, before my very eyes, in a neighborhood diner on a Saturday morning, are two children hard at work. These early bits of “knowledge” may seem trivial and primitive next to what these children will later do with their minds. But they are the building blocks of their future understanding of the world: how to pilot a bike through an obstacle course, coordinate services on a disaster response team, or calculate the trajectory of a galaxy retreating into distant space/time. It’s incredible to watch.

And then, of course, there are the less inspiring examples of psychological principles at work:

I recently caught myself in a moment of firmly believing that something would happen simply because I wanted it to happen so badly. Psychologists call this “magical thinking”: imagine it hard enough, and poof, it's real! Little kids do this a lot (crossing fingers, magical chants, etc.) and adults, apparently, have a share, too.

On another occasion, I experienced a momentary return to infancy. Very young babies don’t really know that there is a world outside of them, one that exists even when they aren’t sensing it. Then, they start getting it that things continue to exist despite them. It’s called “object permanence.” So now, knowing that things still exist even when they can’t see them, they can start looking for missing objects. At one point in this process, if they lose something, they look for it where they last found it—even if they “know” it’s not there. Like, they saw a ball disappear under the couch, but they don’t see it there. So they look under the chair, where they found it yesterday. OK, so I lost my keys. I checked my jacket pocket. Not there. I looked elsewhere, no luck. I went back to my jacket pocket. Not there. Checked elsewhere. No luck. Back to the jacket … Need I say more?

Here’s another one we all do. Psychologists call it “superstitious behavior.” It’s not exactly what we usually mean by superstition (although it does help to explain superstitions). If you do a behavior a few times, and it works, you’re more likely to do the same behavior again. Simple, right? But exactly which part of the behavior worked? Say you had a particularly good job interview, so you want to do the next one just like that. But what worked? Was it the suit you wore? The slides you showed? The greeting you used? Where you sat in the room? The heft of your vita? The day of the week? So, say you decide that the key was that you ate oatmeal that morning so you felt really solid. So, next job interview, you eat oatmeal, and sure enough, it goes well. Next interview, oatmeal. Pretty soon, you’re afraid not to eat oatmeal before a job interview.

My own recent encounter with this had to do with my now famous coyote. The day after I photographed her, I felt an irresistible urge to walk exactly the same route hoping that she would be there. Of course, I “knew” that where I walked had nothing to do with where she was, but that route was lucky the day before, so … Superstitious behavior, for sure.

Or was it object permanence (She was here when I lost her)? Or magical thinking (I wish so much that she’d be there)? Or all of those?

The trifecta of cognitive glitches all in one experience. There must be a name for that, too.

Imagining a hum in b-flat

A few days ago, I mentioned worrying about a coyote—not coyotes in general, but individual coyotes and the huge risk we represent to them. Actually, this was both a thought (coyotes in general thrive in spite of us) and a feeling (oof! I hope this coyote doesn’t become so familiar with people that it ends up shot, “sacrificed” to human safety and comfort).

That moment was brought to mind last evening as I listened to Sound Circle’s concert, “Requiem for Roadkill: A concert about being human.” If you don’t know about Sound Circle and live anywhere near Boulder, you might want to check them out. An a cappella women’s vocal ensemble, this group is wonderful to hear and even to watch. They incorporate sometimes-surprising soundscapes that range from bells, chimes, and gongs through a musical saw and beats tapped on animal bones to running water and body percussion. Anyway, back to last night’s concert.

This was Sound Circle’s annual Solstice concert, a celebration of the natural rhythms of the seasons and, by extension, of nature. In any other venue, the title “Requiem for Roadkill” would be sort of a joke, maybe a tongue-in-cheek commentary on local folks’ sensitivity to animal rights. But as I settled into the music and the deeper meaning of the title (the intent of the title piece was genuinely to serve as a requiem for animals killed and left on the road), I was reminded of my coyote. And of a dog that once jumped in front of my car. And of a dead squirrel I dodged on the street yesterday. And, not at all paradoxically, of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist teacher with whom I once did a weeklong retreat. 

I recall sitting on my meditation mat, listening to Thich Nhat Hanh talk about a thought he'd had while eating breakfast one morning. Gazing out his window, he had thought to himself, roughly, “This grain I’m eating came from that field, and soon, it will become a Dharma lesson.” Hearing his story, I really got the concept—and, on a gut level, the feeling—of how everything is connected. Trees come from earth comes from decaying matter … like us. Songs come from voices that are made of the same stuff as the echoes of a spinning black hole at the center of a constellation cluster (b-flat, it seems).  

So how do we wrap our minds around this idea? We who were mostly raised in a Western mode of thinking that draws lines off separation: she is not he; we are not they; I am not you; your country is not my country; song is not cosmic echoes; grain is not prayer. Now I'm thinking of John Lennon singing, “Imagine there’s no country/ It isn’t hard to do …” What if the problem in our “getting it” about connection is that we can’t imagine it? Literally. We cannot imagine anything other than separation.

Enter Sound Circle. “The only war that matters is the war on the imagination. All other wars are subsumed in it.” So says “Rant,” another piece on the program.* This poem/song/performance had me totally engrossed. Imagine this: what if the only impediment to our “getting it” about being connected is the failure of imagination, the war we fight against our own imagination. What if this failure to imagine is what allows us to engage in wars, see coyotes as pests, destroy the environment in the name of profit, deny teen girls access to emergency contraception. I don’t mean only that we fail to imagine solutions. I mean we fail to imagine anything other than separation. We fail to imagine that we somehow are  the coyote, the squirrel, the other nation, the pregnant teen, the hum of the universe. The problem is that we’re not heeding John Lennon. We’re not even imagining there’s no country, easy though it may be.

The moon was nearly full in a very dark sky as we drove home from the concert. Six months from now, it won’t even be dusk at this hour. We had left on a sad note, saying goodbye to a dear friend who has sung in, played piano with, choreographed for, and generally inspired Sound Circle since its origins 18 years ago and is leaving for a dream job. But the moon was beautiful and the music was with us, layers of comfort around the sadness. Or maybe I shouldn’t say that our friend, the moon, and the music, the sadness accompanied us, but that they were us. Imagine that. It’s not easy, but we can try.

_______________

*“Rant” was written by Diane di Prima and set to music by local musician Gary Grundei.

Volunteer travel log: Northampton, part II

Several days ago, I started a sort of travel log about my various volunteer gigs during the 6 years I wandered around the country. The idea, way back then, was to talk about how I found what I wanted to do with the luxury of time granted by retirement. This led to talking about the huge pile of possibilities that presented themselves when I just listened.

When we last visited that story, I was in Massachusetts … and Rachel Maddow entered the story. So, we paused a bit to appreciate that time with her. And now, I figure everyone is over the Rachel rush and it’s time to pick up the tale where I left off. Because the truth is, the world didn't actually stop when Rachel appeared. So, back to Northampton, MA, one of my very favorite places in the world—I could have stayed there forever—and the other ways I filled my days there. Like always, as I looked around, there were plenty of good things to do. 

For starters, there’s always food. Getting right down to basics. I’d had such a good experience in the community kitchen in New Hampshire, I decided to give meals on wheels a try. I liked it so well right out of the gate that I signed up for two shifts a week. This meant I got to get to know folks better, which  was, of course, the fun part of this work. And I met some people with interesting tales, some living under sad circumstances, some really funny, some dour, some locked to the television, some eager to engage in conversation. This also helped me learn my way around Northampton, which I found to be great fun. I love exploring new places, often spend time just wandering around roads, wondering, “Hmmm … can I get there from here? Where does this road go? Now I’m lost … how do I find a highway?” Path finding: a fringe benefit of dropping off hot meals on cold, snowy days.

This was the year when marriage equality (a.k.a., same-sex marriage) was on the table in MA, so things were hopping. Out of the blue, I’d been asked by the local newspaper to do a blog. Apparently, the guy in charge of blogs had read something I wrote somewhere, and he cold-called me. Needless to say (see invisibility, above), I accepted happily.

I was traveling to Boston to lobby about marriage equality anyhow. Unlike many working folks, I had the time to spend the day hanging out at the Statehouse. And with this blog "assignment," I got to send back posts from the field, keeping folks back in Northampton posted on the hour-by-hour status of negotiations and then the vote.

What an uplifting experience to be in the midst of all that excited energy! Imagine the sound of hundreds of LGBTQ people and their supporters singing patriotic songs ("This is my country...")—as well as protest songs, songs of resistance ("Like a tree standing by the water, we shall not be moved")— outside the chambers as the legislature voted on our rights.

We did everything we could to make our collective voice heard. We also laughed a bunch, cried a bunch ... and mostly were a bunch. It was very cool. As a field correspondent, I considered buying a flak jacket and helmet so I would look like a real field reporter on TV. But I decided against it. For one thing, I was never on TV. For another, I already had those swell overalls left over from the NH recycling gig; they’d do in a pinch.

Somewhere—probably from Rachel or one of her interview guests—I also heard about the local branch of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker peace and social justice action organization. This particular branch of the AFSC was very active, and I worked with them on a whole flock of actions. Many of these had to do with opposing the move toward war in the Middle East.
I got to wear a mock-up of the pentagon and parade back and forth across the main intersection of town, while other folks fed me money. I took several overnight bus trips to DC to participate in anti-war marches. Those trips included absolutely frigid days of standing on frozen ground in the mall, warming our toes in the Smithsonian … and lovely spring days nodding off on the grass beneath the Washington monument during the (shall we say extended?) political speeches. I also tabled against a soft drink company on Main Street (this company is siphoning water from lakes that are the sole source of water for folks in India, bottling it for sale here). I painted a lot of posters, did a bunch of leafleting, and several other things I now forget.

These were very inspiring folks. I only did this work part time, then I’d go home to my laziness. The dyed-in-the-peace-sign AFSC-ers, on the other hand, never slept. I’m sure about this. Their one hired staff person, a wonderful woman, belonged to a peace and social justice affinity group. They called themselves “The Turtles” because they moved slowly but relentlessly toward their goal. Their name always made me think of “turtle fur,” a buttery soft form of fleece that came out about that time. That’s how they seemed to me: slow, steady, tenacious, and soft as fleece.

Our time in Northampton ended too soon. I loved it there, and through my assorted volunteer gigs, I was as connected as I had ever been to a local community. But the next home town beckoned, and we were on the road again. Now we were headed west – eventually getting as far as you can go without getting on a very big boat. 

Our next stop on the way was Middle America, the Midwest, a section of the country I had only driven through, usually very quickly. We were headed for Michigan. Only a 13-hour drive from Northampton, MA, but a world away.

Hope comes out

An article appeared in my inbox today that grabbed my attention. It’s a piece written by an Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Steven Greenberg,  who recently officiated at a commitment ceremony for two gay men. This was in New York, where same-sex marriage is now fully legal. But historically, Orthodox Judaism has not approved of same-sex relationships of any sort, and certainly not of same-sex marriage. Indeed, he tells us that this wasn't a marriage. But it was close enough that his act met with stinging criticism, even condemnation from many in the Orthodox community. This piece is his reply, his explanation of why he decided to perform the ceremony. Let me quote a bit of it:

I am a Modern Orthodox rabbi who, while totally committed to [Orthodox Jewish law], maintains that it is not a closed system. ... It is my position — a position that I believe is shared by a growing number of young Orthodox Jews and some of my rabbinic colleagues — that if “it is not good for the human to be alone,” then some form of life trajectory that includes love, intimacy and companionship and even family building must be possible for all of us.

Sexual restraint is a foundation of civilization, a prerequisite of health and well being for individuals and societies. However, absolute sexual denial is not a Jewish value. An externally imposed lifelong exclusion from love and intimacy for tens of thousands of people (in the Jewish community alone) borders on religious irresponsibility, if not cruelty. God is not cruel and does not demand the impossible from anyone.

This is fascinating! He invokes principles of his Orthodox Jewish faith to explain an act that many believe violated Jewish Orthodox beliefs. 

I was particularly struck by this because of an experience I had several years ago. In the mid-1990s, a group of kids in Salt Lake City, the heart of conservative, Mormon Utah, tried to start a gay-straight alliance, a club for LGBTQ kids and their supporters. This rocked some very large boats. What followed is a very long story, worthy of its own post, but the important part for the story I want to tell is this:

Watching these events from across the mountains, my partner I and decided to launch what became a very an extended research project in Salt Lake City, trying to understand as much as we could about this event and all that followed. Among the many folks we interviewed were a bunch of allies, heterosexual folks who supported these kids—and most of whom supported LGBTQ equality in general. 

Among those allies, we were surprised to find a number of faithful Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the LDS church (which, in Utah, is simply “The Church”). The LDS church does not look with favor on same-sex marriage. In fact, in the hierarchy of sins, homosexuality is second only to murder. So, imagine our surprise at these faithful LDS folks who were taking a stand for LGBTQ equality! 

We talked with many of these folks and came to realize something amazing: a key reason for their position came precisely from their Mormon beliefs. As they saw it, the LDS church had taught them that family is the most important thing in life—this life and the next. So, to be true to their beliefs, they could not abandon a member of their family. And they could not ask anyone else to abandon a member of theirs. To do so would be to violate their commitment to a core principle of Mormon faith. We also learned that the meaning of “family” can be very inclusive: people you love, people who have helped you, people who are in your care—all these people can be seen as “family” who must not be abandoned.

You can see why I recalled Salt Lake as I was reading this article. In both cases, people from very conservative traditions hear very expansive, even progressive messages in their religion's deepest values.

These versions, heretical to some, surprising to most of us, remind me that hope comes in unexpected packages.