Walking

One of the things I have noted in writing this blog, is that it becomes stale quickly. I started writing this post a week or so ago and back-burnered several others, and now none of them seem particularly compelling. I suppose that is a function of the blog-o-sphere; though some things rise like cream to the top, very little of what is written in this format seems worthy of keeping for long. What is also true however, is that as I noted in my last post, my head continues to buzz with writing ideas. Which thoughts will eventually get posted is unclear, but it seems that if I get them “on-paper” here, one will rise to the top of the heap. I always find that the writing goes in a different direction when I sit at the desk and do it rather than thinking about it.

I should let H describe the process of getting the cloth fitted to the table at long last. I should give him the opportunity to crow about those first shots.  What I know though is that the long-awaited pool room is a special space, one in which we will both be spending time, though for now, I am happy to leave it to him as his own sanctuary. To a person, everyone who has seen it has said something about "man-cave"--a function I suppose of the dominance of the table and some media driven assumptions about what kind of people pool draws, but the light is lovely through the glass doors, not cave-like at all, and it is a surprisingly engaging view to the south. The windows/doors open fully, and there is a sense of sitting high in a tree looking out at what passes (which around here isn’t much), and hearing, really hearing, the wind and bird calls. It is an unexpected benefit of a space that was designed for something so different. So far, there are only camp chairs and a folding table, but I expect that to change shortly, and I expect that we will both be sitting there with a pile of books and our notebooks and a pen in hand.

Meanwhile, I am having homeowner-itus. We have had a few warmish days; 50 degrees seems vaguely tropical compared to the rest of this winter and the last few nights in the teens.  I got so excited at the prospect of Spring that I let the wood boxes empty and now I have substantial work to get back up to speed on kindling and log supplies in the house and the garage. I raked several piles of daffodils clear of leaves only to find substantial clumps in a dozen other places. The lemon thyme that has overtaken the center of the raised beds has greened up, and there are chives emerging from the pale grey shroud of last year's abundant crop. The strawberries are starting to leaf out and the rhubarb has emerged as a little knot of fuchsia at the soil line. The crop of wind-fall sticks would be bliss for a retriever....More on that some time not too far off.

I find myself feeling differently about all the tasks that were part of my life for the past 13 years of living in a rural place. Certainly the changing out of the snow tires was familiar, but it felt different yesterday, and on the way back from town I noticed again that something needs to be done to fix the culvert along the road. We have given a trial run to a "powerbroom" that can be rented from the local hardware store, to put the gravel back where it belongs on the driveway rather than on the lawn (snowplowing's collateral damage), and of course, it is only after H sweated and did real grunt work, that I learned that there is a trick to using one…it will be good to know next year.

The man who taps our maple trees with his father, came by with our “payment”—two and a half  GALLONS of syrup and a small jar of maple cream. At 40 gallons of sap to a gallon of syrup, this represents a substantial commitment, and I will never take the taste of good syrup for granted again. We have chosen the “B” grade which seems sweeter, rather than tourist “fancy”, and I am happy to have this real gift from our land, and from the real hard work of our friends.

I have renewed my call to the person who does the outside jobs that require more logistical skill and brawn than we can manage--the roof raking, the toting of 3 tons of pellets from driveway to basement in 40 pound sacs up and down the stairs. He will be trying to scare up some hemlock boards from a local mill, to rebuild the raised garden beds, after we failed to find anything but cherry, ash, maple and pine on the acres behind the house. And he will find some humane means to relocate the resident groundhog that seems to occupy the "basement" of our garden shed.

I got a call a week or so ago from the woman who has been the heart and soul of this community for some three decades. She was one of the first to welcome me with a bottle of her own corn relish, and back then, she invited me to her house for one of the ritual Sunday potlucks that saw a familiar cast of characters--people I would get to know and many of whom are still close friends. Anyway, she called to ask if I would be willing to run for the Chair of the local Democratic Caucus. She is stepping down, from this and from the other offices she has held—another person coping with the ravages of cancer. I was happy to say yes, both because I am happy to do what I can to help her, and because I was inspired by the process of helping with this year’s town election, by checking off voters as they arrived to take their paper ballots to the voting booth, and by spending the wee hours counting the votes for the 30 articles by which local non-profit groups request town funding for their activities. There were, of course, a number of people running for office though only one was a contested race. The election count is a ritual that occurs every first Tuesday in March in Vermont, following a town meeting in which residents gather to debate the budgets for the town and the school, argue over costs of foreign language instruction or highway paving costs, or the proposed shelter for the “free” ladder truck. Sometimes there are national issues on which voters get to be heard though most of these are “advisory” votes and count only as a symbol of the people’s will– the troops in Afghanistan, the Defense of Marriage Act are recent examples. In any case, there was something powerful for me, in sitting behind a metal table on a metal folding chair, asking people to state their names, twice, checking them off on the official list and ensuring that they got the right ballot pages so that they could cast their votes. There were 301 people who voted this year, and almost all the articles were approved. The firehouse did not get approval for the shelter for the ladder truck though their budget was increased, and the school budget went down to defeat by 4 votes.

There was talk about introducing voting machines, instead of paper ballots, to save us the wee-hour counts and checks and rechecks that ensure a consistent and reliable result, but it would be an enormous loss I think. The people get to gather and think carefully about what they want. There are marks and erasures and marks again to demonstrate that they are actively deciding what they want, and there are few people who merely check off all the “no’s” or all the “yes” boxes. It is possible to see the community demographics at work with more consistent support for the Visiting Nurse Service and less support for Little League. But the seriousness of the process is what struck me strongly. There was no gossip, no joking, no approximations as we counted and recounted our chicken scratch calculations to ensure accuracy. There were some bleary eyes by the end of the evening, but when a close vote necessitated a recount, the counters returned to their tables and began again without hesitation. In the end, I got to see the best of a democracy at work, and was glad to have been asked. I will Chair the Democratic Caucus with pleasure – another opportunity to talk about the issues that matter and to do the work at hand.

As of today, the snow is gone except in the lee of the wood shed roof. We will need to do an inspection of the roof slates to see whether any are missing after the snow, and we will soon be having someone examine the pipes that once fed the house with spring water before our current well was drilled by the prior owners. (The well water tested free of coliform this past week, if you are interested). We acquired a three bowl porcelain sink that will be set up outside so that the garden pots can be washed in the spring water and it will have a hose hookup so that we can water the garden.

I have a minor case of OCD about keeping the kitchen and dining area clean as we frequently have people stopping in, and when I dropped a half quart of tomato soup all over the kitchen yesterday, I found myself washing and rewashing the range and the iron burners, washing and spray-cleaning the oven door and the vents beneath it, washing the cabinets, cleaning and mopping the floor and running the sink mats through the dishwasher. One remains a lovely shade of pink.  Of course that led to mopping the dining room floor and the sitting area by the woodstove, and the living room floor, which was a good thing in the end, because we held the building committee meeting here, and seven people sat at the table relishing the wood stove heat.

I have yet to sleep in all the beds in the house; we bought a new one when we moved so that our friends could stay here in that first week of chaos. I have never taken a bath in the upstairs bathroom. I continue to look for a replacement for the fixture in the small bathroom upstairs which I just found out also has a fan, presumably for the potential of converting it into a shower room if needed, so the discoveries continue. I keep moving things into new places -- the wood bowls need a better "home", but I have housed the cookie sheets beside the stove where they seem more logical.

In short, it is, as always, one story that comes to the fore -- about home and the many manifestations of belonging to a place. Often, I think that I have forgotten how to write about “home” which has been so much a part of my personal and professional life. Often, I think that I have forgotten entirely how to write. But given a chance, the work comes back to overwhelm the conscious mind which is filled with roof slates and chicken scratchings, and the patterns are all woven together into a fabric of identity. Ironically, I got a call a bit ago, from someone I haven’t seen in more than 15 years. He was part of a writing group I once worked with, and our teacher has just passed away. I wonder about these synchronicities that make no rational sense. Why would Carol and Jerry have come back into my life at this moment when I am confronting the challenges of writing, and confronting the “who-am-I’s”?

Last week Herb read me a post by the great writer William Rivers Pitt who is awaiting the birth of his baby. He and his wife are walking to try to accelerate the birth. He wrote, as many have done before him, of the lessons he wants to teach his daughter. He quotes from Daniel Berrigan on the lessons he will have to teach his daughter about the world she enters:

"And when she comes to wonder what can be done, I will tell her of Daniel Berrigan, and read to her some lines he wrote long ago:

Some stood up once, and sat down
Some walked a mile, and walked away
Some stood up twice, then sat down
'I've had it' they said.
Some walked two miles
then walked away
'It's too much,' they cried.
Some stood and stood and stood.
They were taken for fools
They were taken for being taken in
Some walked and walked and walked
They walked the earth
They walked the waters
They walked the air
'Why do you stand,' they were asked
'and why do you walk?'
]Because of the children,' they said
'And because of the heart'
'And because of the bread,'
'Because the cause is the heart's beat
And the children born
And the risen bread.'

I will tell her: within reach of your arm, do what you can.
In the meantime, we walk."

I suppose that is what I am finding; that within the reach of my arm, I do what I can. And in the meantime I walk. And I walk. And I rake. And I write.