GrongarBlog – Page 39

The peaceful choice of all

Election Day

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and
show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara–nor you, ye limitless prairies–nor
your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite–nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic
geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones–nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes–nor
Mississippi’s stream:
–This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name–the still
small voice vibrating–America’s choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen–the act itself the main, the
quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous’d–sea-board and inland–
Texas to Maine–the Prairie States–Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West–the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling–(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the
peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity–welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
–Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify–while the heart
pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.

–Walt Whitman

All revved up with no place to go

The polls in our tiny town don’t open until 8 am.

I know!

What with the time change last weekend and it being a school day, I’ve been up since 4.30 this morning.

Now I’m sitting here, cooling my heels, watching the clock.

Some years ago, I remember being in a great conversation with much more politically knowledgeable and passionate friends. We were talking about President Clinton at the time, and the ups and downs of that administration, when my naive, twenty-something mouth said that it really didn’t matter who was elected President. It’s just a bunch of rich, white, Christian men anyway.

Ahem.

The last twelve years set me straight on that one.

It really really really does matter who’s in that office. I read Richard Schiff’s wonderful article, Marine One, last night:

In eight years we had lost ourselves as a people. I’m thinking this to myself. I think in big sentences sometimes. Ignore it. We have caused the death of hundreds of millions of Arabs for reasons I can’t get my head around. Thousands of American servicemen and women. Tens of thousands of life altering wounds both physical and psychological, spiritual. We entered into another war which just twenty years earlier brought down an empire by being as stupid. We have bankrupted our treasury with these wars and the inane war on drugs while aiding and abetting Wall Street’s theft of our savings and our homes. We have been systematically killing arts in our culture and in our schools while supporting windfall profits and tax breaks for the oil and war cartels. Big sentences. Ignore it. I’ll take responsibility. My fault.

I now know the thing that happens to children that is unthinkable. They think it’s their fault. They shoulda done this; avoided; run; attack; something. I shoulda done something.

I almost voted for Nader in 2000. I thought it really didn’t matter. They’re all the same. Now when I come across that indifference I get a little charged up: “If the other guy won? We would never have been in Iraq; we’d have invested in alternative energy and been leading the world market in the next difference making industry; we would not have continued the systematic destruction of the middle class, the deaths of unfathomably countless Arabs in Iraq (whatever the grotesque number is!)…”

Amen.

It’s cold outside. Twenty minutes until the polls open in this frost-covered Vermont town. I know my vote for president in this tiny town in this tiny state doesn’t count for much, and I also know it doesn’t matter if I vote first thing or at 6 this evening. Every vote counts, no matter what time it’s cast.

And still, I want my vote in that bucket as soon as possible, lending even a tiny bit of weight on that side of the scale from the start.

Time to start my engine.

52 Weeks – Summer (29/52)

As you can tell, I’ve been trying to catch up on my posts for my 52-week photo project, so what are the odds that today’s post about summer would coincide with the first snow of the season?

I’ll turn this to my advantage.

How about we create a little space of insulation to ward off the chills by thinking back to a specific summer day?

Okay, here’s mine:

July 21, 2012. We’d taken ourselves down to Boston to celebrate my sister’s birthday.

Mid-day, we walked in town, along the beautiful new Greenway where a mess of highways used to be, walked barefoot through the fountains, scorched our feet on the hot pavement, watched children giggle and run, or stand mesmerized by the sparkling sprays of water.

Later, we took the subway to another part of the city, carried folding chairs, blankets, and a picnic-packed cooler, and walked to the band shell by the river’s edge.

Little by little, a little later, the sun set. It cast shadows through the leaves. It made ribbons of gold on the river.

Then, out came Burton Cummings, the reason the crowd was gathered there that evening.

As a member of The Guess Who, and then as a solo singer/songwriter, Burton had sung the songs of our Canadian childhood summers. His was the voice on the car radio as we sat on beach towels so we wouldn’t burn our legs on the hot vinyl seats, the voice crooning from the albums we saved out allowances to buy. As kids, Laurel and I knew all his songs by heart, every word, every beat, every high tenor note.

We still do.

And just as my remembering and writing this has taken me from this November day to that July day, the concert transformed that crowd of mostly gone-to-greys into teenagers again, whooping and dancing and singing in other summers. One memory leading to another, and then deeper back in time to another, like a series of nested matryokshka dolls, each similar, separate, related, connected.

There. I feel warmer already.

Okay. Now it’s your turn… tell me a summer memory.

http://youtu.be/uiIqyF6RnzU

52 Weeks ~ Texture (28/52)

52 Weeks ~ Reflection (27/52)

Our engagement began near the ocean. We married in a coastal city, in a round room, by the harbor. 20 years on, where else to celebrate but the ocean?

So we took ourselves to Maine this summer, stayed in a deliciously tacky motel by the harbor’s edge, in the middle of what turned out to be the Windjammer weekend celebration. Schooners sailed into the harbor. A parade went down the street, practically next to our road-side room. Lobsters heard us coming and scuttled into deeper, colder water for safety.

But no such luck for them. We went to our favorite lobster spot (from whose dock you can see that view up at the top of this post). Repeatedly. And ate the giant, fresh-off-the-fishing boat shedders with our bare hands—no nut crackers required—our chins and elbows dripping with sea water.

We drove up and down the coast, talking, as we often do, about someday moving to the ocean. We kept saying, “the goats would love it here”, when we really meant, “we would love it here”.

But I know that’s just vacation-brain talking. Of course we love it there. What’s not to love? Beautiful landscapes, great food, the reliable repetition of the waves’ pulse on the shore. No work. No bills. No responsibilities.

I remember when we first moved from a city that never felt like home to Vermont. It felt like we had moved to permanent vacation. When I went out to the mailbox, the air smelled like camping. The pine needles on our trail to the river felt soft and smelled of mornings waking in a remote camp site. The wood smoke from our first wood stove was intoxicatingly relaxing. The country drive to work revealed mountains, trees, farms, distant hovering clouds. I thought, I’ll never stop noticing all of this.

But, unfortunately, I do. At least for a bit, when I’m in a rush for the week, running errands, meeting deadlines, making appointments, worrying about people.

Then I remind myself to slow down. Look around. Observe.

Look where I am? And look who I’m with?

No matter where we live, if we’re together, it’s home.

Potential

Ask anyone who knows us. We don’t rush into things.

We study the situation. We agonize over the details. We talk out the possibilities, mentally try out a series of “what-ifs”, watch the wind, wait for the stars to align.

We think of alternatives that delay further decisions. We come up with Plan A, then re-evaluate in favor of Plan B, then C…

Sure, we’ve been known to make impulse decisions. You only have to look at our overflowing book shelves and CD collection to realize that.

But some things take a long time to develop, and the longer you wait to start them, the longer you wait to enjoy them. Things like cheese, and cider, that need to develop flavor slowly, over months and sometimes years. Or a perennial bed. Or the asparagus bed that I still haven’t planted (being too worried all these years about choosing the wrong location, so never choosing any location).

Two birthdays ago, I bought M an orchard. Rather, a potential mini orchard of four apple trees and two pear trees. I figured we’d waited long enough, and after we lost our favorite Golden Russet tree to Hurricane Irene, it seemed a sign to plant a new one, and a few others while we were at it.

We should have bought those trees years ago. We should have planted them the summer after we moved the house. Imagine how big those trees would be now? Not full-grown, by any means, but…bearing fruit.

That which we should have done we did not do.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do it now.

We had those trees planted a couple weeks ago. The nursery where I bought them was kind enough to let them stay there until we were ready for them. Then they came with shovels and strong arms and fertilizer and mulch, and they planted.

The beautiful part of having made a decision, having finally taken an action, is that you get the satisfaction of waiting and watching the gradual outcome: the soft layer of white mold developing day by day on the camembert; the regular, reassuring “burping” of the cider as it ferments; the tender branches of the baby trees spreading out, and the first buds appearing next year.

Of course, we’re on the brink of winter now, and the saplings have lost most of the few leaves they had a couple weeks ago. But I like to imagine below the surface, their roots stretching out comfortably for the first time in their own plot of land, feeling at home and settling in for the long haul, waiting on spring.

November 1

Día de los Muertos, Merida, Yucatan

First, a wide-angled view,
as if in a travel brochure,
or watching from a high balcony,
or the cathedral’s tower:

Four tourists,
wandering the open city square,
where vendors sell roasted ears
of corn, slathered with
mayonnaise, cheese, and spices.
The decorated city streets
radiate from the square
like arms wearing bracelets.

Zoom in.

The wooden Catherine wheel
in front of the cathedral
is outfitted with explosives
for the evening’s parade.
“Keep your distance from that,”
we joked.

At dusk, the streets alive
with a parade of masks
skeletons, costumes,
we wove through the crowd,
squeezed in and out of
tiny shops that lined
the street. Apartment windows
above the shops displayed
figurines, marigolds,
bread offerings to the dead.
There may have been music.
I’ve lost that detail.

Bang!

Macro.

Fireworks in the crowd
startled us, but didn’t worry us
until we understood,
saw the explosions and sparks
bounce from wall
to wall
in the narrow,
building-lined
street
where we were trapped with hundreds.

We could die here.

We could die, alive,
active verbs in a distant city.

Now, take the widest view:
imagine the moon,
or Jupiter,
twirling in its own orbit,
unconcerned, or unaware
of the parade you’re dancing in.

Are we ready to do this again?

Assuming we have electricity…

There’s no sun up in the sky

We spent the weekend doing the “battening” thing. We have no hatches, per se, but we have the usual yard stuff that needed to be secured, including the little trailer we bought this summer for the goats.

The jack o’ lanterns faced to the south, with grim determination.

But I couldn’t let them make that sacrifice, so I moved them to a safer place, hoping that they’ll survive until their holiday in two days.

We live on high ground and don’t worry much about flooding, but we barricaded the top of the driveway to try to prevent the river that will undoubtedly flow from the hill across the street from carving a grand canyon into what’s left of our gravel.

Yesterday evening’s sky was dappled and beautiful. Though Hurricane Sandy was still hundreds of miles away, her long fingers were stirring our upper atmosphere, speckling the sky with puffy clouds in geometric patterns.

Then the sun went down and the moon rose through the clouds in blue, then grey, then black.

I went to bed. I heard a big wind whistle around the house and the Maine buoy wind chime in the apple tree clanged loudly for a few seconds. It wasn’t Sandy’s arrival. It was just her messenger: I’m on my way. See you soon.

This morning, the sky is a solid fabric of felted grey.

Our biggest worry here is losing power for awhile, which, in the scheme of things isn’t such a big deal. We’ve got batteries, candles, water, a pantry full of snacks, two wood stoves and a lot of firewood. We’ve got each other, books, board games, and, usually, a sense of humor.

One thing we don’t have is a World Series win for the Detroit Tigers. I don’t give a whit about baseball, but this year, couldn’t they have just won? It mattered to people I love.

Well. We can’t have everything.

Even though we feel pretty safe here, we are worried for the people and farms by the rivers and coasts. As far away as we all might be from each other, a storm this size seems to gather us up into one, sensitive web, where we feel the vibrations of blizzards in the Appalachians, storm surges in Manhattan, and wicked winds in Boston. We’re thinking of you, and hoping you stay safe.

And, as big as Sandy’s reach is, her blustery storminess pales in comparison to the storm in our hearts right now because someone we dearly love is in the hospital.

So, I’m sitting here, waiting. For rain, for wind, for flickering lights, for news from afar.

And awfully glad to have Ella for company.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezGHapF8-lY