Topic 181: On Recovering from a Love Affair

Carol:

Trains and Boats and Planes and Trolleys and Feet

I have never really shared most Americans' love affair with the automobile.  When I travel, I really enjoy seeing new places and watching new faces while learning to navigate subways, busses, and trains. You might say, I recovered from my love affair with automobiles by forming a new attachment to Bart and Max.  
 

Our trip this last week to New Orleans (aka The Big Easy Crescent City, Saint City, Paris of the South, Birthplace of Jazz) reminded me that there are lots of places in the US where a person can live quite happily, thriftily and conveniently without owning an automobile.  

One of the best deals in town is the day pass for $3.00 that gives unlimited passage on city busses and the three trolley lines that operate along Canal Street, St. Charles Street, and the esplanade bordering the Mississippi River, Once passengers debark   at the terminus, conductors walk through the old-fashioned car, reverse the directions of the wooden seats --no need to turn the streetcar around. 

The Canal Street line goes through the heart of the city where most of the tourist venues, businesses and major medical facilities are located. One branch ends at the   above-ground cemeteries 3 miles from the streetcar’s starting point; the second branch ends at City Park and the New Orleans Museum of Art. The walk from the streetcar stop  can be either direct along the wide, European-style avenue leading to the Museum, or indirect along the meandering, lakeside shaded paths of a park that is twice as large as New York’s Central Park.

 

The St. Charles Avenue Line advertises itself as the oldest continuing operating street railway in the world, but large sections  were closed for several years after extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina to both the tracks and the cars. The seven-mile route shows off the best of New Orleans, from the majestic homes of the Garden District to Audubon Park and Zoo to the campuses of Tulane and Loyola Universities. The leisurely progress of the streetcar affords the rider a chance to view the little details of New Orleans life that become a blur to an automobile rider: moss-draped trees sparkling with gaudy beads from last year’s Mardi Gras, ornamental statues and elegant porch swings, late afternoon dog walkers.

 

The Riverfront Line is the shortest (at two miles) and newest (built in 1988). It is a popular route that takes the Convention-goers along the waterfront with views of the French Quarter and French Market before it ends at the foot of Esplanade Avenue. A tourist can hop off just below Jackson Square and spend a couple of hours on the River itself,  lunching on southern fried chicken and chugging cold drinks on the deck of the Natchez Queen, the last steam-only operated Riverboat on the Mississippi. A cheaper alternative is the ferry that crosses from the riverfront over to Algiers on the west Bank, free for pedestrians.
 

Now that I’m back in rural  Arizona, it’s back to relying on the automobile…and the kindness of the family chauffeur. There is a bus company in town, but it starts about six miles from where I live and has both a limited schedule and limited routes, The good news is that if I really can’t recover from my love of Bart (Bay Area Rapid Transit) or MAX (Metropolitan Area Express), I can head down to Tempe and try out the METRO Light Rail--$3.50 for an all-day pass. On second thought, I think I’ll wait a few months. The day we flew back to Phoenix from New Orleans, the temperature was 114 degrees.  


Source:
“Streetcars in New Orleans.” Wikipedia

Megan:

There are many ways to recover from a love affair. Some people get in shape – I know of someone who split up with his girlfriend and started walking his dog five miles a day. He’s lost 80 pounds. A good friend of mine used his breakup as an opportunity to try new things – he bought a motorcycle, learned to ride a horse, took a pottery class. Both those guys took their pain and tried to form better selves. When I was in their situation, I chose to emigrate.

Some of my relationships only came to pass after I’d already made plans to leave the country. When the time came for me to go, we’d parted amicably and said something about the timing and how it was wrong. Only once did I hesitate and consider staying, but the relationship ended anyway. I went back to England and stayed for almost 6 years.

The problem with running away is that, in order to make sense of a strange, new place, one’s mind becomes occupied with comparing the present situation with the previous. Even after putting 6,000 miles between you and the former object of your affection, you may still find your mind wandering back to the what if’s and if only’s, replaying it all in your mind and wishing things were different. Believe me, this can really ruin your experience abroad.

I sometimes  think the best way to get over a relationship is to start another. This probably isn’t the case with everyone, but I don’t have the capacity to maintain deep and emotional connections with more than a few people at the same time. I have friends all over the world, but, with a few exceptions, my closest friends at any moment are the ones who I see the most. Simply put, I’m kind of a ‘love the one you’re with’ sort of person.

The last time I fell in love, it ended badly for me. For a long time, I thought something had permanently broken inside me. As time passed, I realized I was just young and naive and I finally emerged from that pain a better person (I hope). But I worked with that man and saw him every day. I watched him meet and then marry someone else. The week their child was born was the week I moved back to the United States. I had plenty of other reasons, which have been described at length in these essays, but those relationships bookend a very significant part of my life, and I like that there’s a symmetry to what drew me to England and what brought me back.

Topic 155: Leaders and Led

Carol:

The Royal Ties That Bind   

I decided to get up early and whip out this essay so that I’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the Wedding. I recorded the whole thing (on two channels because I want the commentary of the BBC but the clearer images of CNN) and have planned a little morning family get-together to watch it. But, I cheated. I watched the first half hour of it live at 3 a.m. I didn’t intend to, but I couldn’t help it. I blame my sister-in-law, who led me into it. She called yesterday to find out if I planned to watch it live like she was.
 

Jean and I have a bit of a tradition behind us, you see.  Thirty years ago, she was living with us in San Diego County during the week while she worked for Marc as a summer “intern” while she was in law school. It was a great time because I was pregnant, and in between working on cases with Marc she helped me wallpaper the nursery and get the baby furniture together. And, I’m sure it must have been her idea that we watch the royal wedding together…live. The Wedding of the Century with Prince Charles and Lady Diana.  It was late July, and we had carried the TV out to the back porch to catch some breeze and relief from the stifling heat.
 

The man on the far right is Princess Anne.

I admit to having been a Royal watcher long before Jean and I “attended” the wedding of Prince Charles. Living in Canada for 7 years and being just a few months older than Prince Charles, I remember visits of the Royal family to Canada and much discussion among my friends about what it would be like to marry Prince Charles, who would (we assumed) eventually become the king of the United Kingdom but the head of the British Commonwealth, which of course included Canada. Steeped in the royal mystique, raised on Austin, the Brontes and the Lake District poets, I thought more about boating on the Thames with Charles than about cutting ribbons at boat launchings or shaking hands at hospital openings. I know Charles is more stiff than romantic, but I have always had a very active imagination.
 

So, the Wedding of this Century is over, and the happy couple is waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace just as Granny Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip did in 1947. Prince Charles will never be King (thank God I didn’t marry him, it would have been such a disappointment), so sometime in the next 10 years Prince William and his wife The Duchess of Cambridge (Kate the Commoner) will stand on the same balcony and wave to the crowds just as Granny Elizabeth II and Prince Philip did in 1953.
 

All this hoopla and preoccupation with the Royals—is it fading in the harsh light of modern economic woes and international unrest? Well, apparently 750 million people joined Jean and I to watch the wedding of Princes Charles and Lady Diana. Today when the baby I was pregnant with back then and I turn on the television to watch the wedding of Prince William and Lady Kate, we will join a party of 2 billion Royal watchers.
 

Abso-bloomin-lutely loverly.

(Edited from Megan: Prince Charles WILL be King. As unpopular as he is, the only way he can be passed over is if he abdicates or converts to Catholicism).

Sources:
Image of the Royal  Family. Image taken by Man vyi, uploaded from http://flickr.com/photo/35765599@N00/573748521 using User:Flickr upload bot)

Megan:

Leader of the Pack

I was thinking I’d say something about The Royal Wedding ™ but I haven’t seen it yet. My friend Kelly stayed up all night and live-facebooked it. If I was still in England, I would have put on a fancy dress and watched it at a friend’s house, drinking champagne and making fun of the hats. You’d think with my history with that country, I’d have put more effort into watching it live on this side of the pond but honestly I was way too tired. The puppy has suffered a setback in her sleep routine.

Also: she is disgusting. The other day she brought me a mouse. I posted this information on Facebook, and received a number of comments telling me that I should be proud of her hunting skills, and that bringing me the mouse is a sign of love and admiration etc. But I neglected to mention in the status update that she had not killed the mouse. As with the lizard from the day before, it had likely been dead for longer than she’s been alive. In the desert heat, dead animals dry out and mummify – maintaining their shape, but becoming feather-light as the internal organs shrivel into nothing. 

With this mouse, there was a very real risk it had been poisoned and I did not want her to swallow it, so I repeated the convulsive upside-down, Heimlich maneuver I invented when trying to get her to drop the lizard. The very last thing I wanted to do was reach into her mouth and touch the dead thing because I was afraid pieces of it would come apart in my hand. With the lizard, both the head and the tail detached, the head rolling under the couch. I had to sweep it out with a pencil.

After I got her to drop the mouse, I tossed Bella into the house and got a dust pan to scoop it up.  I hurled it over the fence, but because of the aforementioned feather-lightness, the dead mouse was picked up by the breeze. It flew into a bush growing next to the fence and caught on a branch by its tail. It is out of Bella’s reach, so I let it be, but it continues to hang in the bush at (human) eye-level, swaying lightly in the breeze like some psychotic dream catcher.

This puppy is going to be the death of me. I have read Cesar Millan’s perfect dog book, and watched countless hours of the The Dog Whisperer. Cesar says if the puppy can see and smell the pack, she will be comforted by their presence. So I lined her crate with my favorite red fleece blanket and invited Milo back into my bedroom room. I know what to do. But at 2:00 in the morning when she is howling, I’m too tired to do the right thing. Incoherently, I encourage Milo to see to his sister/niece. “Can’t you go down there?” I ask him. “It’s your turn.”  But he just rolls over on his back and lets out a snore. I wake up hours later on the floor, with my fingers poking through the wire of her crate, and I wonder who exactly is in charge here.

 

Topic 153: Adventures While Pursuing an Idea

Carol:

Clochard

 The opportunity of going to school in France for a year was exciting and scary at the same time. My roommate Laurie was going, so it wasn’t that hard to convince my parents of our plan. I expected to become fluent in French, enjoy the Provencal countryside, and spend my holidays poking around Europe. I did not expect to meet Raoul.
 

Aix-en-Provence is a beautiful  city with a grand, tree-shaded boulevard called the Cours Mirabeau. Cafes with outdoor tables line  the street, perfect to linger over a café au lait and croissant before going to class. Laurie and I shared a room in an old farmhouse on the road to Marseilles, about 15 minutes by bus from the center of Aix. In the evenings we would usually  buy a roasted chicken and head back to our room for supper. But, sometimes we would stay in town for dinner and wine with friends, and that’s how I met Raoul.
 

It was common for musicians to show up in restaurants, play a few songs for tips, then head out to the next “venue.” Raoul played the guitar and sang a range of folk music  with a raspy, Tom Waits voice. He was very tall, over six feet six, curly headed with a bit of a beard, and one eye roamed. Not your typical Frenchman. And, not your typical boyfriend.
 

I can’t say that we really dated because Raoul never had any money. Each night, he played in the bars and restaurants around Aix, and the next day he would spend all the coins for food. One morning I saw him give away every franc he had to a vagrant huddled in a blanket on the sidewalk, an old clochard. Raoul was a young clochard. Not someone to write home to Mom about.
 

Cafe des Deux Garcons, Aix

Mostly, Raoul and I would meet at a café and talk for hours before he set out on his evening musical circuit. Sometimes we would join up with his older brother Bernard, who could usually be found in a café reading Herbert Marcuse. Bernard was not a clochard. He lived in an old apartment with little kids and a wife who was a professional ballerina. I think Raoul must have come to Aix because of Bernard. 
 

For several months, I did a lot of hanging out with Raoul and not much studying.  We would weave stories together about buying a boat and sailing around the Mediterranean.  Raoul was at heart an innocent dreamer, and I loved the idea that he made me a part of those dreams. One day he decided to return to Strasbourg, and we said good-bye. He invited me for a visit, and I stayed at the home of his very traditional mother. She gave me steak tartare for dinner, and I was sick all night on the train back to Marseilles.
 

At the end of the school year, my friend Bonnie arrived from Canada for our long-anticipated summer trek around Europe. In July we headed back to Aix for the music festival, and there was Raoul sitting in a café.  Same routine, same dreams, same slight temptation on my part to shuck off conventionality and responsibilities for a vagabond life with Raoul. Slight temptation.
 

Thirty years later, I returned to Aix with my husband and two children. It was July, and the Cours Mirabeau was crowded with tourists for the music festival. I couldn’t help but think about Raoul and wonder what had happened to him--excited at the possibility that I might hear his raspy voice, scared that I might see him wrapped in a blanket on the sidewalk. A clochard, no longer young.

Sources:
Image of Cours Mirabeau Cafe

Megan:

Ideas while pursuing adventure

I like this topic. I think it’s open to interpretation and there’s probably  an abundence of anecdotes that could relate back to it, but I can’t think of one.  I’m gonna be honest and admit that I cheated and read my mother’s essay. Well, the first paragraph anyway. As soon as I realized she wrote about studying abroad, I thought of something to say. And here it is.

When I was in college, I knew that I would study abroad, but I didn’t know where. Spain had originally been the plan, but although I had 4 years of Spanish in high school and a couple months of immersive study in Mexico, I never bothered to take a Spanish class in college. When I also changed my mind about my major and switched from art to creative writing, England was introduced as an option for my junior year. I remember this so clearly. I was sitting on the steps outside of the Tea Shop at Mills and I was talking to a friend who worked on the newspaper with me and my friend Kelly. I was frustrated because Kelly was going to Italy to study opera and I still had no idea what to do and deadlines were approaching and this girl I barely knew said, “You should go to Sussex. That’s where I went.” And that’s what I did.

That random choice influenced everything that happened for the next 8 years. Every decision I made from then on about my education, my career and my relationships was focused on being able to live in England. Now that I don’t live there anymore, my decisions are still mainly shaped around where I do want to live, which for now is here in Prescott.  As I mentioned yesterday, an opportunity has come up and if it pans out, I might get to stay here, but I would not be a librarian anymore.

Even though I’ve been unemployed for close to a year, I have never stopped thinking of myself as a librarian. Doctors go to med school, lawyers to law school and even if they aren’t practicing, they are still doctors and lawyers. I went to library school, so I am a librarian. The thing is, my degree is not in Library Science – it’s in Information Studies. It’s abstract on purpose, so that the graduates aren’t “restricted” by the qualification. I can take the same skills and be a database manager, a web designer, a research assistant or consult on project management and community outreach. There’s no such thing as being “just a librarian” but the career experience can be applied to more than just libraries.   I’m not sure I want to give up on being a librarian, but pursuing alternative ideas could open the door to another kind of adventure.

Topic 147: The Joys of the Country Cottager

Carol:

The Pause that Refreshes

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil, — to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. (Thoreau, “Walking”)

I am married to a Massachusetts native who remembers visiting Walden Pond when he was a teen-ager, riding his bicycle from Lexington to Concord. When I asked about his recollections, Marc’s response was “It’s tiny.” I guess reading about it from Henry David Thoreau might make one curious to see what it is like—the pond, not Thoreau’s wilderness lifestyle.  

In Thoreau’s time, Walden Pond wasn’t exactly an isolated wilderness. Apparently it served as a “nature retreat” for the town of Concord. A number of people lived in the woods around the pond, including Irish railroad workers and an assortment of interesting outsiders described in his journals. “An elderly dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gather simples and listening to her fables” (Walden 152); Thoreau was as isolated as he chose to be because he was also in easy walking distance of Concord and could find company if he desired it.   

Walden Pond

Thoreau’s experiment  at Walden Pond was not just about solitude and nature; it was also about simple living, stripping away the conveniences and  encumbrances of a modern, materialistic life. The first chapter of Walden, called “Economy,” serves as an introduction to the book. Thoreau addresses the readers directly from the perspective of someone who has returned  from having “earned my living by the labor of my hands only” (Walden 1). Most of the chapter is really an examination of what people need to keep themselves alive, what is necessary versus what is luxury.  Thoreau looks to the ancient philosophers as having eschewed a rich outer life for the rewards of a fuller inner life. “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of man” (Walden 15).

Most of us have neither the time nor the inclination to step out of the world for two years into the solitude of a Walden Pond.  The term “social networking” has become such a part of our thinking that it may be hard to imagine disconnecting from our adult toys, computers, media and frenetic lifestyles. A couple of years ago when I took a nine-month class at my church, the participants were asked to “turn everything off” for just one day as part of experiencing “voluntary simplicity.” No phones, computers, I-pods, answering machines, electrical appliances. Just one day to slough off that accumulation of the “comforts of life” that Thoreau refers to. I closed the door to my office, seated myself with a view of Granite Mountain, poured a glass of water and started reading. I felt an incredible freedom when I heard the phone ring and didn’t answer it, when I became master of my day.

Thoreau didn’t have a wife and children to feed. And I no longer have kids that need to get to soccer practice or piano lessons. The solitude and inward journey described by Thoreau is itself a luxury. But, I imagine everybody appreciates the value of a little peace and quiet, a temporary time out from life. The pause that refreshes.

Sources:
Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Image of Cover: Schward103. (Public domain file from en.wikipedia: Category:Books made in the 19th century)
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906. The Walden Woods Project:

Megan:

You'll never think of cottages or dogs the same way

I’m sure this topic is meant to be about the pleasures of country life. It certainly evokes the image of the thatched-roof tiny white house out of one of a Thomas Kinkade painting, with a bubbling brook and scattered wild-life. I have always been attracted to the ethereal fairy-tale images, and when I picked out the flat I rented in England, it resembled that dream.

The thing is, in England the term  “Cottager” is also a euphemism. In its verb form, “cottaging” is the act of having anonymous homosexual intercourse in a public toilet (ala George Michael).  According to Wikipedia (it’s times like this I LOVE the internet), cottage became a term for a public toilet in Victorian times but cottaging wasn’t picked up as term within the British gay community until the 1960’s. 

Public Toilet, Pond Square, London

I first became familiar with the expression when I was studying abroad at the University of Sussex. My friends and I frequently watched an adult cartoon series called Monkey Dust. On the show, there was a recurring character by the name of Geoff who was a self-proclaimed “First-time cottager.” Geoff was very unlucky. Although he was determined to participate in this ritual, he was regularly thwarted by obstacles and misunderstanding and never managed to achieve his goal. Youtube has many clips, but none of them are appropriate for me to post here because I don’t want to have to register this website as having "adult content."

When we pulled this topic, I got the giggles and had to explain it to my mom. However, I mis-remembered the details and told her it was anonymous public sex on the side of the road, occasionally with an audience. That is actually called “dogging” – which was gleefully described to me by a housemate’s boyfriend, again while I was living in Brighton.  Last October, the New York Times featured an article about a lay-by (or, as we would call it: a rest-stop)  in Puttenham, Surrey in England.

“So popular is the woodsy field below the ridge as a spot for gay sex (mostly during the day) and heterosexual sex (mostly at night) that the police have designated it a “public sex environment.””

After learning about this phenomeon, which is in no way restricted to Surrey, it became impossible for me not to notice all the cars parked on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. According to the NYT article, this practice is so popular, there are websites and guides devoted to popular areas in the UK. When I was working in the prison, I once heard one officer joke about another that she knew the location of every lay-by in the county, and I only now understood what was being implied.

I bet this isn’t what you were expecting when you came here today. I can’t wait to see how the search statistics will change to reflect some of the keywords I’ve used today. 

Sources:

Wikipedia: "Cottaging" Image taken from this entry.  New York Times: "Here’s the Pub, Church and Field for Public Sex" October 7, 2010

Topic 128: Cast-Off Enthusiasms

Carol:

Long Live the Queen

I have never cast off my enthusiasm for things British, which started when I was  13 and moved to Canada.  That summer I immersed myself in Austen and the Brontes while  learning the words to two national anthems.  Every sporting event, every musical event,  every public event  Canada began “O Canada” followed by “God Save the Queen.” 
 
Britain’s National Anthem  was originally a patriotic song, first performed in public in 1745 at the Theatre Royal in London as a show of support for King George II, who was under attack from the Jacobite supporters of the Stuarts. The practice spread through other theaters and became custom. By the beginning of the 19th century, it had been designated as the official national anthem, just in time for the spreading of British imperialism around the globe. Back then, of course, they were singing “God Save the King (source: British Monarchy).
 

Back in the 1530’s Henry VIII took extreme measures ensure that a King succeed him on the throne. Royal marriages were predicated, not on love, but on carefully negotiated foreign policy, and Henry VIII was an astute strategist. He knew that neither England nor the Tudor lineage was yet robust enough to fight off  potential power plays should a weak female heir marry a strong European Royal.  Securing succession through a male heir became an obsession.  At the time he was completely besotted with Anne Boleyn, but he was also in desperate want of a legitimate son.
 

Katharine of Aragon 1503

Popular novels and films tend to overlook Henry VIII’s first wife in their enchantment with the younger, more exciting Anne Boleyn.  So, it is easy to forget that Henry had been married to Katharine of Aragon for over 20 years when he met the much younger Anne. He  married Katharine when he was 18 and she, 23. He was handsome and athletic; she was described as a beauty. He was  an eloquent and passionate “Defender of the [Roman Catholic] Faith”; she was a devout, obedient follower of the Church. Henry demanded loyalty; she gave it, choosing duty to her husband over support for her father, King Ferdinand of Spain. Katharine of Aragon endured at least six pregnancies, with only her daughter Princess Mary to survive.  By the time Henry became enamored of Anne Boleyn, Katharine’s efforts to provide a male heir had worn her out and taken her beauty.
 

Henry and Anne cavorting.

In 1526 Henry arranged Anne Boleyn’s appointment as a maid of honor at Court—to Katharine of Aragon. It was a turning point in their relationship, a sign of his increasing regard for the sister of his earlier Mistress—now cast off—Mary Boleyn.  In a 1526 letter, Anne writes that the appointment to Court “induces me to think that your majesty has some regard for me, since it gives me means of seeing you oftener…”(source: englishhistory.net).
 

It would take almost seven years to legitimize their relationship.  The King’s thwarted attempts to obtain an annulment and Katharine’s refusal to back down led to a complete break with the Holy See in Rome. When Henry and Anne finally married in 1533, she couldn’t have imagined that she too would be cast off for a lady in waiting. In 1536, Anne was executed as Jane Seymour stood in line to be the next Queen of England.
 

What of Katharine of Aragon, beloved by the people of England if not by their King?  She was exiled from Court and died the same year as Anne, lonely and in exile, buried far from Henry at Peterborough Cathedral. But she kept her head about it. 

Sources:
Englishhistory.net
          http://englishhistory.net/tudor/monarchs/html 

The National Anthem.The Official website of The British Monarchy.
        http://www.royal.gov.uk/

Megan:

Cast Iron Enthusiasms

I just  tried to get out of writing today. I suggested it to Mom and she insists she’s got only one paragraph left to do and doesn’t want to take the day off. She said, “Are you saying that you have 'cast off' your enthusiasm for writing on this topic?”  And then I rolled my eyes so hard I could see my brain.  I bet I can write this whole thing before she finishes that paragraph.

It’s not that I’m losing interest in the project – if anything, I’ve been more into it the past few weeks. But I hosted a dinner party last night, which felt like such a Friday thing that I was ready to start the weekend early. Plus the movies changed today and I want to go see Paul.

Movies are an enthusiasm which I will never cast off.  As are reading, and writing in my journals. But there are a few things I used to do, things I was good at,  that I have lost the inclination to do:

Art. –When I moved to England, I sent my oil paints to a friend and haven’t bothered rebuilding the collection because it’s expensive and I don’t feel like painting. Painting and drawing used to be a compulsion – images would pop into my mind fully formed.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided I wanted to do some scratch board drawing, so I bought all the supplies, and in the space of about 3 days I’d gone through all of my materials, produced 3 pieces which are hanging around in my room.  I have no interest to do it anymore. I don’t know why. 

I used the pattern that comes with the board.

Knitting and crochet- my grandmother taught me how to do that, as well as to embroider and I like telling people that if my life were an Austen novel, I might be considered an accomplished young woman (or possibly a spinster). I can’t say I ever had a lot of enthusiasm for these handicrafts, but the two blankets I knitted for myself while I was in England did keep me warm.

Sports – as a child all the way through college, I participated in a variety of sports and always eventually quit for the same reason. I am not a competitive person. I did gymnastics and then the swim team, basketball and volleyball. In college I was on the crew team my freshman year. I hated the competitions, and the sounds of people encouraging me, shouting from the sidelines, always has the opposite of the desired effect. I find it embarassing to be cheered (but only in sports. I accept praise in all other situations).

Anyway, I don’t think it's important what you lose interest in. When my brother was 12 or 13, my parents bought him a guitar. I remember saying that he would quit in a couple of weeks, just like he did with everything else. Now, I have no idea what the “everything else” was – but after 15 years, he still plays the guitar every day. Someone told me once that it's important to like your job since that’s what you’ll spend most of your life doing. I think it’s even more important to spend your free time doing things you enjoy. What holds your interest – what you consider worth your time – that’s what matters. 

I still like Dragonflies

PS: I was right. She still hadn’t finished her essay.

Topic 125: Beyond My Horizon

Carol:

Remember the Ladies                       

           

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."  Louisa May Alcott

Thank you, Louisa May Alcott, for giving American girls high aspirations through the story of four special Little Women.  Against the backdrop of the Civil War, loving Marmee struggles to raise her 4 children while their absent father serves as a chaplain in the Union Army. I might have liked history more if a teacher used Little Women as a window to the Civil War, or showed us the birth of a nation through the letters of Abigail Adams.  

Abigail Adams

March 1776 was an eventful time in our history.  The British had evacuated Boston, pulling out 11,000 soldiers, a sign of hope for leaders of the Revolution.  On March 31, John Adams received a letter from Abigail, another mother raising 4 children as an  absent father met with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.  Abigail advises her husband: “In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors” (source: America.gov).  

 March is National Women’s History Month. It honors women who wrote letters, marched, rallied, stayed behind, and  pushed to the front of the line-- all to gain the right to vote, raise healthy children, earn a fair living,  and dream beyond their horizons. March is a time to “Remember the Ladies.” 

 

March 8 was also the centennial of International Women’s Day. United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon read a  special declaration, Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton honored “International Women of Courage, “ and countries like China, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and Russia celebrated an official holiday.  That morning’s New York Times did not have a single news article photograph about International Women’s Day. I guess they forgot to “Remember the Ladies.”

The Times did include two full-page corporate advertisements.  Goldman Sachs highlighted its “10,000 Women” program, a global project to expand business and entrepreneurial opportunities for women.  L’Oreal Cosmetics announced its annual “For Women in Science” awards in partnership with UNESCO to promote women scientists and provide fellowships to young women in science research. Both announcements are tangible evidence that we need to “Remember the Ladies” of the future as well as the those of the past.
  
Our little Prescott book club “The Distinguished Literary Ladies”  meets this evening to discuss Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Kristof and WuDunn).  This  book is a sobering (and sometimes horrific) reminder that women around the world are still enslaved, living in abject poverty, suffering abuse and paralyzing discrimination.   The book is also about hope. The final chapter describes “Four Steps You Can Take in the Next 10 Minutes,” simple ways to connect with agencies and grass roots groups that make a difference in the lives of young girls and women around the world.

Every Spring, as I peel away the calendar from the chill of February to the hope of March, I think about women.  Their stories invite all young people to aspire beyond their horizons, to “believe in them, and follow where they lead.” 

 "Hope is a thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without words, And never stops at all." (Emily Dickinson)

Thanks, Louisa May Alcott. Thanks, Emily Dickinson. Thanks, Abigail Adams.  Thanks, Mother and Daughter for your patience and support as I aspired to “move beyond my horizon.”

Sources:

Abigail Adams. America.Gov.  

International Women’s Day. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Kristoff, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky. Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Vintage Books: 2010.

Megan:

Beyond My Horizon

Over the weekend, I got an email from a friend of mine in England who worked with me in the prison library. It was a perfectly normal update, but it sparked a deep feeling of homesickness for the place I used to live. I received the message on my phone after having breakfast with a friend, and on the drive home I tried to figure out how I could move back to England and get my old job back and be happy again. Even though I wasn’t happy there, and I am not unhappy here.

The mind is a weird thing.

When I got home I yelled at my parents for not being perfect specimens of humanity, and then I cried in my room for a while.  The last time I was that upset, about that very thing, they put me on a plane and sent me back. But that was five years ago, in a better economy, and the reasons I had for returning to the United States are still true.

For all my recent talk about having a zen-like, in the moment contentment with my present situation, it’s just not always true. Last week was also the anniversary of when I handed in my resignation, even though I didn’t leave until June.  I know my recent frustration has more to do with feeling useless than missing an old life. And it seems when I don’t know what’s coming, I reflect more on what’s passed -- at least when I’m writing.

When we pulled this topic yesterday, I originally thought I might write about the landscape. Mom talks a lot about seeing Granite Mountain out the window.  Because our house sits at its base, the mountain is definitely the dominant feature of our view to the west.  I’ve only hiked it once, but as a kid, I spent a lot of time wandering the dry creek beds and horse trails in the valley. The ashes of my maternal grandparents were scattered there. Sometimes in a storm, the mountain disappears behind the clouds or the fog, and ever since childhood, I have found those moments thrilling and scary at the same time. It can be a little overbearing in its presence, because really it is the only thing to see if you look that way.

Looking to the east, our view really opens up. Whenever we have guests over, my mom takes them straight out on the back porch and says look at what we get to see every day. The view from our back porch encompasses all of Williamson Valley until it reaches the Bradshaw mountains about 30 miles away. We can see the San Francisco Peaks, in Flagstaff, almost 100 miles away.  It is a splendid view, but except for during the lightning storms in the monsoon season, and eating dinner on the deck in the summer, we don’t spend much time looking that way.  Our writing desks and chairs are turned towards the west, to Granite Mountain.

On a map, West is on the Left and East is on the Right.
On a time line, the Past starts on the Left and progresses to the Future on the Right.
For this reason, I think of the West as the Past and the East as the Future.
The Past is an ever present, semi-oppressive (but beautiful) mountain and the Future is an expansive, wide-open area that stretches for miles into the unknown.

  
                             

(Turn up your volume for the full effect)

Topic 121: Nature's Language

Carol:

The Sounds of Silence       

One of my favorite teaching exercises was meant to show students how to use all of their senses, not just sight. A computer classroom isn’t the best place for that with its controlled temperature and humming, buzzing and squeaking electronic universe.  We needed to disconnect not only physically but mentally from the land of tweets and texts.

The campus was built into the side of a hill. A few yards uphill from the road that loops around the classroom buildings, students in an Environmental Ethics class had created a primitive classroom in a small grove of pine trees. Just a circle of large, flat-topped rocks in a clearing, placed at random so as not to destroy the natural lack of symmetry. 

One fall evening I moved my Women in Literature students to this outdoor classroom. We would soon be reading essays and poetry by “nature writers” like Linda Hogan and Terry Tempest Williams, but we would  begin  with our own stories. As the light faded and the temperature dropped, we huddled closer together on the rocks, not just for comfort but because the rhythm and tone of our conversation changed…quiet, calm, focused, intimate. Stories moved around the circle, recollections of long-forgotten trips into the Sonora desert or the Mogollon Rim. The stories gained force, not with volume but with detail: the whooshing of a Class III rapids, the smell of pine needles underneath a sleeping bag, the sting of icy snow pellets against the face. We had to feel our way out of the clearing, holding onto each other as we returned to the sensory cacophony of the computer classroom.

Terry Tempest Williams listens to nature. She “interprets” the languages and contours of the natural world for “newcomers” just as a park ranger interprets the geography and biology of at Grand Teton or Bryce Canyon or Organ Pipe. Williams is a fierce and eloquent advocate for the environment, what she calls “bearing witness.” When she came to Prescott about 15 years ago, I heard her speak twice. Her passion for the history, landscape and environment of the West was quiet, the kind of “bearing witness” that causes you to lean over in your seat and pay attention with your whole body, not just your ears. She left such an impression of urgency and commitment on me that I couldn’t get her out of my mind for days.

Williams’ 1997 essay “Listening Days"  begins with a visit to her dying grandfather and ends with the simple announcement of his death, “peacefully at home in the company of family.” In between she reflects on sound and lets thoughts move her from conversations with her grandfather about his radio program to “tonal memory” to the big question of “what do we know.” She walks the readers into  the hills behind her home:

           The leaves have fallen, leaf litter, perfect for the shuffling of towhees.

           The supple grasses of summer have become knee-high rattles. Ridge

           winds shake the tiny seedheads like gourds. I hear my grandfather’s voice.

           All sound requires patience; not just the ability to hear, but the capacity to

           listen, the awareness of mind to discern a story.  A magpie flies toward me

           and disappears in the oak thicket.  He is relentless in his cries. What does

           he know that I do not?  What story is he telling?

Reading these lines as I look out my window and watch the reflected pink of the sunrise on granite rocks, I think back to those students in our outdoor classroom, re-tuning their senses to experience the languages of nature, adding their own voices to the stories of ancient grandfathers, prehistoric rocks, and magpie cries.

No cartoons today, no photographs.  Take a few minutes, move some time around, and head outside, see for yourself. Calm down, breathe and listen. Nature is speaking.

Sources:

"Listening Days" by Terry Tempest Williams website http://arts.envirolink.org/literary_arts/TTWilliams_listening.html 

Megan:

Nature’s Language

Many times I have heard visitors to the countryside comment that after the noise of a city, they find it difficult to sleep with all the quiet. I suppose the reverse is often true as well. I have lived in both environments, and where I live now, which is where I grew up, has the least amount of road noise.  But if you spend  time actually listening to the Arizona desert, you would realize it is anything but quiet. Between the crickets and the coyotes, the dampened crunch of deer hooves on gravel and the sudden scratching of startled rabbit fleeing through the bushes, plenty of sounds make their way through the apparent nighttime stillness.

Of course, it is easy to fancy for a moment that these nighttime sounds might comingle into a natural dialect, unique to this particular latitude and longitude but it is difficult to argue that actual communication is taking place. You hear the noises and you know you are not alone, that you share the space with other creatures, but there is no apparent interaction.

Recently, I have come across a number of facts and anecdotes which seem to confirm that although humans grow more remote from their natural neighbors, the flora and fauna may have their own languages, or some means of shared communication. We can acknowledge this possibility by observing the results of their apparent cooperation.

On March 3, a brief article was published by CNN Money which informed the public of a recall of the Mazda6 sedans because a certain type of spider had started building nests in the fuel system, which might ultimately lead to a fire in the engine. Usually you would find this sort of article on their Oddball news page, but because of the financial impact of a recall,the story had made it to the Money section. The article does not explore how or why the spiders came to develop this habit, merely commenting that there had been at least 20 occurrences of infestation. The company spokesman speculated that perhaps the spiders like cars that "go Zoom-Zoom" (the tagline for Mazda). But this article raises all sorts of questions (in my mind) about the communication powers of these spiders.

And then, over the weekend, I spent some time with my cousins, one of whom is the manager of a series of vineyards across the state. He mentioned that he is currently helping a new vineyard get off the ground on a pistachio farm. The owners are looking to diversify their crops because the pistachio trees do not consistently produce nuts. For a comparison, he mentioned that the pinyon trees so common in Verde Valley will occasionally, and for no observable reason, stop producing nuts for years at a time. And not on an individual level, he said. Entire groves will cease production together, as though they had a collective consciousness.  There are no consistent environmental factors to point to as a reason (he gave me a word for these kinds of trees, which I cannot remember and the Wikipedia articles do not support what he said. BUT he is one of the smartest people I ever met, so I believe him).

There are countless other examples of apparent intraspecies communication (or perhaps mis-communication), such as mass animal death – large scale whale beachings, the sardines in Redondo beach in the past few days—declines in the bee population.  

I’d rather not leave this essay on a negative note, so here is a more whimsical example of nature’s language. When I lived in Brighton, England, I used to walk along the seafront in the evening specifically to watch the starlings fly about in an acrobatic swarm. I’ve never been able to accurately describe what it’s like to watch, but luckily Peter Greenhalgh has compiled a video of the phenomenon on Youtube (warning: the music is sort of startling). Enjoy.

CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/03/autos/mazda6_spider_recall/index.htm?hpt=T2

Sardines in Redondo beach, LA Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/vaccums-may-be-used-to-remove-dead-fish-remains-will-be-use-for-fertilizer.html

Topic 100: The Passing of the Country Road

Carol:

Over the River and Through the Woods—Arizona Style

Read the daily Prescott newspaper for the latest news in Egypt and you’ll be disappointed. But, if you want to know what’s up at the Prescott Public Library or where the next controlled burn is, the Daily Courier is your best source.  One of my favorite columns is the Sunday segment  called “Days Past,” and a special treat in 2011 has been reading author/historian Stan Brown’s series “A Day Trip to Seligman on the Williamson Valley Road.“
 

When we moved to Prescott in 1983, our home was rural enough that all the mailboxes were lined along Williamson Valley Road nailed to fence posts. Our address was just our name, “Camp Wood Route,” Prescott 86301.  Williamson Valley Road itself was a quiet, two-lane paved road, and the easiest way to direct folks to our house was to look for the 5-mile marker and then turn left towards Granite Mountain onto the dirt.  

One of our first adventures was to find Camp Wood. So, we packed a picnic basket and our 18-month old daughter in our little white Mazda GLC (which my husband tells me stands for “Great Little Car”) and  headed north on Williamson Valley Road.   We had never been past the 5-mile marker, so we were surprised by how quickly the houses disappeared as we went further into ranch country with its expansive views of Little Granite Mountain on the Left.

The road to Camp Wood

About 15 miles out, the paving ended and we almost turned around.  That “Great Little Car” was not an off-road vehicle and we were not off-road people, having migrated from the wilds of Southern California.  The gravel road was dusty and noisy, but a mile later a sign directed us to turn left at Country Road 68, leading west 14 miles to Camp Wood. By now, we were hot and hungry but determined to find the perfect camp spot on our little Sunday adventure, not really considering that 14 miles on gravel was not going to be achieved in an hour in our GLC.
 

When we forged the creek, I got nervous. When we hit the ruts and boulders, I got really nervous. When we arrived at Camp Wood, I got frustrated. There were buildings, undoubtedly historically significant buildings, but where were the pristine restroom, the picnic tables, the California-style amenities I had come to expect? We walked around to stretch our legs, got back in the car and re-traced our route to the Route, looking now only for an open flat spot beside the road to stretch out our blanket for the long-delayed picnic. In ranch country, we soon found a turn-out, unpacked our lunch and settled the blanket on a flat area with the fewest rocks, stickers and cow patties. Not so easy, not so rustic, not so appetizing. Megan slept the rest of the way home, thank goodness.
 
The changes in Williamson Valley Road since 1983 have marked the growth—and the growing pains—of the Valley. The roadside mailboxes multiplied, the historic “Camp Wood Route” became “Highway Contract 30,” then HC 29, then the mailboxes were torn down when we got actual addresses. The horse pastures and ranches turned into developed communities with names like Crossroads, Talking Horse, and Inscription Canyon.  Water problems, growth problems, political controversies have all become new chapters in the history of Williamson Valley.
 

I have never been back to Camp Wood. Despite the changes to Williamson Valley Road, the gravel trip along County Road 68 probably hasn’t changed in 28 years. Mr. Brown’s series in the Courier has me excited to take the trip again, but I’m waiting until Mr. Brown’s third installment comes out in next Sunday’s Courier.  The trip may take me all day now that I know the history of our no longer country road. I’ll take the truck, pack a lunch, and if I can’t talk my baby girl into coming along, there is always…. Milo.

Sources:
Brown, Stan. “A Day Trip to Seligman on the Williamson Valley Road.” The Daily Courier. 
Part I
Part 2
 Photograph:
Adventure Rider website (posting by “Sixer", 23 Mar 2009)

Megan:

The first car I got in England was side-swiped by a hit and run driver and from that point on it sort of drove sideways down the road. I didn’t notice it while driving, but I got a lot of concerned comments from people who had seen me around town. I didn’t notice any real problems until I got up to around 80 miles per hour and then the car would pull strongly to the left. I mentioned this to a coworker and he responded, “Considering the maximum speed limit is 60, that should never be a problem for you.” And then we all laughed. Speed limits in the UK are generally considered to be hints or suggestions.  Everyone speeds. The main reason to have a GPS navigator is because it also lets you know when a speed camera is coming up. 

In England, the national speed limit is 60 MPH (unless you are on a motorway or dual carriageway, and then it is 70). Through towns and busy areas, signs will post slower speeds, but once you’re out in the countryside you will usually see the following sign:

That means “national speed limits apply.”  The UK is full of winding single-lane country roads lined on both sides with hedgerows and sheep, occasional pullouts and hidden driveways. These roads are older than our country, originally carved out by horses and buggies. Visibility for more than 20 feet is rare, but an experienced driver will merrily accelerate to the maximum or beyond.  Whenever I was a passenger, driving along these roads terrified me.

In the Fens, where I lived, these country lanes often paralleled the canals and dykes that had been dug to drain the marshland. Some of these canals, although only 15 or 20 feet wide, were 50 or 60 feet deep.  This added to the stress of the speeding, because if you suddenly had to swerve off the road to avoid oncoming traffic, you had a 50% chance of going into the water. A lot of people died that way, yet the speed limits still are rarely reduced.

When I asked, a friend explained to me that the speed limits were dependent on the traffic, which is why it was slower going through a town on a four lane road, then winding through the farms and woods where fewer people were likely to be. Pedestrians usually had their own paths (also carved through the hedgerows), so were not often on the road either. “It’s a matter of probability,” my friend told me. “It is very unlikely that another car will be coming around that bend.”

Although I mastered speeding on the main roads, I was never able to even approach the national limit on those back roads with any confidence. Once on a longer drive, after the GPS had been silent for awhile, my passenger turned to me and said, “Look what you’ve done. You’re going so slow, the TomTom got bored and fell asleep.”

Topic 97: On Grooves and Graves

Carol:

                       Lookin’ for Graves and Feelin’ Groovy
 So, Megan,I have this idea for a theme vacation. We talked about taking a road trip before you start your job, whatever and wherever that job is. We could just hit the blue highways on a journey without a destination.  Or, and this idea is just too cool, we could visit famous graveyards, preferably of people in the arts and letters. I know you’d like it because we have already experienced the thrill and awe of standing in the Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey. This would be the American version, and I wouldn’t mind including some of those ancestors I’ve been researching for the last three years.
 

Certainly, there is no American equivalent of “The Poet’s Corner,” but the biggest conglomeration of famous groovy but dead people is in Los Angeles County. Forest Lawn Cemetery is the eternal home to such celebrities as Gracie Allen, Gene Autry, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Nat King Cole and Benji. Let’s be accurate here, Benji did not get his own tomb; his remains were put in the casket of his trainer, Frank Inn. Another notable cemetery is Westwood Memorial Park, the final resting place of such notables as Eddie Albert, Jim Backus, Rodney Dangerfield, and my beloved SF author Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury? He isn’t even dead yet. Futurist that he is, he has already reserved his plot. But, since we go to LA several times a year, I propose heading east instead. 

We can fly into Boston, rent a car and spend several weeks visiting the graves of some of our greatest American authors and musicians and still hunt for the graves of our not-so-famous relatives. I know how much you want to see the 9th great-grandfathers I’ve been researching.
 

Our first stop on the “groovin’ graves” theme trip can be Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass. To say a pilgrimage to Sleepy Hollow would be transcendant is, well, the literal truth. Located in Sleepy Hollow are the family plots of the Alcotts, the Emersons and the Thoreaus.  It is also the forever home of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ephraim Wales Bull, the original cultivator of the Concord grape. We have a lot of Bulls in our family—a lot of bull, too. Perhaps, Ephraim is a relative.
 

From there we would head down to New York, Brooklyn to be exact. Two cemeteries caught my attention.  First is Green-Wood Cemetery, home to Leonard Bernstein (section G, Lot 43642), inventor Samuel Morse (Section 25/32, Lot 57161-69), and Roger Williams --the famous religion guy not the famous piano guy. Green-Wood Cemetery itself is worth the visit because it is not only the highest point in Brooklyn, but it is a 478-acre National Historic Landmark. And, roll of drums, it is the forever home of my great-grandparents John Edwards and Emma Olssen Edwards, their oldest daughter Helen (all in Lot 4436 sec 101), Emma’s nephew William Olssen, his wife and their children (Lot 6429). I’m sure we would stumble across more Edwards and Olssen graves as we stroll through the beautiful grounds of Green-wood.
 

The second cemetery is also conveniently in Brooklyn, Woodlawn, which really adds the groove to graves. Instead of the aged rusticity of Sleepy Hollow, or the lush landscape of Green-wood, close your eyes and imagine the finger-snapping sounds of such jazz greats as Duke Ellington and  Miles Davis. Or hum the famous notes of “White Christmas” composer Irving Berling and “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” composer Johnny Marks. We might even do a little fox-trot around the graves of Irene and Vernon Castle before marching past Butternut Plot, everlasting home of George M. Cohan.
So, what do you think, Megan? 

 Source:
All information for daily theme 97 came from the grooviest grave site of them all, Findagrave.com.
http://www.findagrave.com

Megan: 

How grooves can become graves

When we pulled this topic, my mother and I both groaned. She reminded me that if we threw it back, we’d still have to deal with it eventually. “Maybe it’s an expression,” I said, “like ‘shit from shinola.’” That doesn’t seem to be the case, not according to Google anyway.

I could only find 4 results not related to our website or the book, and two were set in a religious context, one in a poem and one an apparent advertisement for an air conditioning unit, but reads like poorly translated science fiction. The poem makes sense, because alliteration can be a useful tool.

Somehow the spiritual references make sense too. “Don’t let your grooves become your graves” is the title of one. The suggestion seems to be that grooves and graves are both pits  in the ground into which you may fall, but only one need be permanent.

So, how does one prevent a groove from becoming a grave? The answer is not in the ensuing entry, which is about revivalist prayer. Instead, I’ll attempt to answer the question based on my own interpretation. 

First,  we must have definitions! I think we can all agree that a grave is a hole in the ground in which a dead body is placed. The word groove, however, has many different meanings. It seems to me that there are dangers which might affect any of the definitions and turn a groove into a grave. Let’s address them one by one:

1. a long narrow channel or depression
I was walking through some farmland once and came across a long irrigation channel at the end of the property. Instead of walking a mile to the next crossing, I decided to jump it. I underestimated the width of the groove, and began sliding down towards the icy water. Luckily, I managed to grab a handful of vines and stop my descent. Unluckiliy, the vines were stinging nettles. As I was hanging there in the side of the ditch, I tried to decide which would be a worse way to die – hypothermia from the water or stinging. Anyway, I managed to pull myself out eventually but my hands had a rash for days. 

2 a fixed routine : rut b : a situation suited to one's abilities or interests : niche

I need the routine of having a job -- something to keep me occupied or else I dissolve into a little puddle of inactivity. Ever since we started this website, the routine of writing daily is enough to keep me sort of focused on what else needs to be done. It feels like a job. But there’s no money. Or accountability. The past 7 months have disappeared into what feels like one long day. This is the one that will kill me.

3 top form <a great talker when he is in the groove>
I’m not sure what to say about this one… but top form is as high as you can go. If you think this is the best you can do, you’ll probably never do this well again. And then you’ll die. 

4 the middle of the strike zone in baseball where a pitch is most easily hit <a fastball right in the groove>
This is a very dangerous groove.  If you’re standing there, you could get hit by the ball or the bat or both and the force of contact could kill you.

5 an enjoyable or exciting experience
Ever heard the expression “too much of a good thing”? That’s right. It’s called an overdose, and people die from those all the time. 

6 a pronounced enjoyable rhythm
Has music ever killed anyone? I knew a prisoner once who got beat up for having his radio too loud. Just because you like the song doesn’t mean everyone else does. And then maybe they’ll kill you.