A Rose by any other name...

My Grandma Rose was a singularly interesting person. There are many things to say about her; what a survivor she was; how smart, savvy, and class conscious she was; she was great story teller. She was amazingly beautiful. No wonder she swept my grandfather off his feet.

This week I have been thinking about her and the territory she defended. She arrived in the US in the 1930s with nothing more than the clothes on her back and the skills of her sewing needle. Within twenty years she built two homes for her family, one in South Bend, Indiana and the other at Diamond Lake near Cassopolis, Michigan. I spent lots of time in both these homes, but the latter was my favorite since it was on the lake. I was too young to appreciate the view, but I did appreciate the water, pier, and getting to run around in a swim suit all the time.

Access to water frontage was at a premium, and even those who didn’t own lake access were supposed to have some shared path to the lake. Many of the homes were huge homes that the owners wanted to keep private. My grandma’s neighbor, who I think was called Mr. Hazard, had a cement stairs right next to Grandma’s property.  I’m not sure who she disliked more Hazard or his stairs.

Grandma also liked her champagne. She liked it pink, near freezing, and with strawberries. As a college student I helped her drive from Arizona to Michigan one summer. When I arrived, she greeted me with a bottle of champagne and a bowl of strawberries and said that she had our evening activities covered. That’s when I knew I had finally come of age and joined her as an adult. 

On one particular visit back to Diamond Lake, Grandma told us that she had been saving up champagne bottles to launch a new campaign, one where she would toss a bottle a night over the fence so that it would break and cause trouble for her neighbors.  I’m sure we laughed with her at the time, but now as I look back I am amazed at how feisty she really was. Her territory was hers, and no one was going to take that away.

As I reflect on the meeting I will attend tonight to learn more about the cities plans to turn my properties canal easement into a public trail, I wonder what my Grandmother would advise. I’m certainly not opposed to trails, but find myself saying “not in my back yard.” Until the city can competently answer the questions of safety, liability, privacy, and maintenance, I’m not likely to support a movement to put the path in, especially since the proposed path will be paved. My Grandmother was a Hungarian of Jewish descent, but with her pistol-packing, vandalistic tendencies, I think she would have fit right in here in the west. She would have defended her property and her rights in whatever way she saw fit.

Out, damned spot!

This phrase was clearly on my mind this morning. Last night we were awakened by Maggie, our neurotic Border collie mix, whose stomach released its contents repeatedly throughout the evening. Both Charlie and I bolted from our bed to the sound of her retching and looked for the offending spot without success. As luck would have it, it was found later in the night by Charlie as he stepped in the remains while taking her downstairs for one of her many visits outside.

In the morning, I surveyed the damage, five spots in the living room and another in our bedroom. Perhaps the choice of woolen berber carpeting in our bedroom was a poor one given how hard it is to clean. So, after sending everyone off to school I set out to clean the offending areas.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth speaks this line as she is sleepwalking and imagines the king’s blood staining her hands.  She continues by saying "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red" reflecting the guilt she feels, which is spreading, and cannot be contained.

For me, cleaning is cathartic. It offers a clear challenge to fix a visible problem. The more difficult the stain, the more satisfying it is to make it clean. My cleaning fetish extends beyond the carpet s to clothing and laundry as well. I know that different stains react to certain cleaners differently, and keep an arsenal of products available for use.  My identity tied in no small part to my success.

This isn’t to say that I welcome the spots that the dog creates, or even that I can contain my anger for being awaken in the night knowing that I will need to clean the spots that have been made. But, there was a small degree of guilt that went along with this stain as well. Maggie has been especially neurotic lately, and has taken to chewing up hardback book covers left in the living room. We already supply her with a fresh pheromone collar each month to ease her nerves. At the end of each cycle, the destruction returns letting us know that it is time to replace her collar again. Knowing that this was not the case this time, I thought that I would redirect her chewy angst by supplying her with an artificial bone. I never anticipated that she would find and devour it in such a short time, making for a very happy dog that turned sick in the night.  Along with her neuroses, she is plagued with a sensitive tummy.

I think my obsession to clean spots is more about controlling the things at hand. If I give up on removing the whole spot, I look at what remains each day, reminding me of my dog’s faults. Removing spots is also about problem solving in general. I prefer the problems with obvious solutions to the ones that linger unsolvable because of too many potential outcomes. So, things like finding the best cleaning solutions, dandruff shampoo, or allergy pills are one of the many challenges I rise to with gusto.

My rather rocky relationship with Maggie falls into the more frustrating areas of my life. Because she seems to have come to a settled happiness late in life, and she is too smart for her own good, she has come to expect things from us. For instance, she knows that I don’t work on Fridays, and responds with destruction if I leave the house without her. Unfortunately, dogs are barred from many of my Friday activities. So, when the phrase “out, damned spot” comes to mind, sometimes it could be applied to the removal of my dog from my life as easily as the spots she leaves behind.

Angry

I have a beautiful wooded trail in my backyard, one that I walk almost daily if weather permits. Up until three years ago I had a water feature to walk along, a cement irrigation canal that provided life to the surrounding birds and trees, in addition to carrying water to farmlands and gardeners to the north.  A tragic landslide took the water away, along with the tree lives of people living in its path. 

The day the water went away I didn’t realize the impact this change would have on my life. I’m not generally an angry person but as I gradually learned that the water would be replaced with an underground pipe and that I would have to fight to access to the water that was rightfully mine, I became angry and distrustful.

Throughout winter, heavy equipment and dirt movers have worked to submerge the pipe, leaving nothing but mud and tracks behind.  Last summer mosquitos and odor remained as the shallow water was left standing and dried up.  No one cared about what has been left behind, or what was once living.

Now, I thought that we could put this all behind us and have our waterless trail return to some sense of normalcy and use but the city has other plans. They have already secured money in the form of a grant from the county to pave our former cement ditch with a wide asphalt trail. With this trail will come more people, dogs, and bike riders? Our once private backyard will become a thru-way on the way to Logan Canyon and other trails. 

I like the idea of more city trails and areas where people can recreate outdoors, but something is not right about this pathway. 

My concerns are:

-           How can the city build a public path on privately owned land?

-           How will the users be safe from future landslides?

-           How will the underground springs be address so that future landslides won’t happen?

-           If future landslides occur who will be liable?

-           How often will the trail be maintained? What if a tree falls across the path….

-           Who will water and maintain the trees that are already suffering from water loss?

-           How will the city handle trespassing and damage to landowners property?

-           Would the city consider putting up fencing to keep people off private property?

-           Why does it have to be paved? Early documents called for more natural surface

I don’t mind sharing the path occasionally with people walking the trail but I don’t want to open the trail up to people who don’t realize that it is private property. It is quite a bit different to grant easement rights to the canal company than it is to give access to the general public. I don’t want people in my backyard that I haven’t invited to be there. We are all stewards of what we have been given and this is my property to share as I see fit.

What’s the hurry?

Today we met with Hana’s guidance counselor. While guidance counselors seem a lot cooler than when I was in school, high school itself seems much more complicated.  Hana is a freshman and has already taken the pre-ACT test. The school does this and everything earlier to give the students more options during the later years of her time in high school. This year, she had all of her classes chosen for her. Her grades have had their ups and downs, like a yo-yo, with Hana as surprised as anyone at where they will stop. She has worked hard and done well.

Next year she has to continue on the STEM focus of her high school, with science labs, math, and engineering playing prominently in her schedule, but she also has a couple of electives. She has chosen Spanish, History, and Digital Media, all having some connection to taking classes from teachers she likes. Even in this setting, she already has the choice to take either AP or regular American History, selecting the later because she’s a girl who just wants to work hard enough. 

Given the fact that her grades are good, and her test scores reasonable, next year she will start studying for and take the ACT college entrance tests. If she continues to do well, she can apply to be a university student in the spring of her sophomore year. As she enters her junior year, she can start taking a college course. By the time she graduates she could be taking 2-3 college courses per semester. Also included in her options are vocational courses, concurrent enrollment courses, or just normal college classes offered by her school. 

I find the myriad of choices alarming. I don’t think school used to be quite so serious. There used to be plenty of time to play and participate in extra-curricular activities. The kids still do this; they just do it while working through their college courses.  It seems that everyone is constantly moving towards the next levels of education rather than savoring where we are. When did we as a society become so interested in making high school into college?

Today many high school students enter college as sophomores or beyond. These are students that have taken AP tests, concurrent enrollments, and college courses because they are offered. While it is good on the pocketbook, is it good for the students?  Are all these courses really the same for high school students are they in college? Some would argue that college classes happen too soon for college students as well, and should be saved for people in their 40s and beyond. 

Taking classes for completion doesn’t stop in college. So many students rush through college that they miss the point of self-discovery. They are so focused on completion that they arrive with a major chosen and one foot out the door already before they even open the door to their first class. This narrow focus makes college into just another hurdle, a job before the job you get for the rest of your life. At a time when minds should be open to new thoughts and ideas, they are closed. Their eyes focused only on the prize.

I guess one might ask if this is really a problem, and if so, how do we fix it. I think the thing to do as parents, is be an informed guide. If my daughter wants to take certain classes and push herself, let her know that this will require work. If she’s fine with being a high school student in high school and letting college wait, that’s ok by me.

Multiplicity of words

Today I caught a story Revisiting Iraq Through The Eyes Of An Exiled Poet on National Public Radio, by poet Dunya Mikhail. She lives in the United States, now but discussed the love she has for her former country Iraq. The poems she read were simple in words, but deep with meaning. The first one she read was called “I Was in a Hurry,” and could have easily been about losing anything and realizing its value only after it was gone. She says of losing her country that “it fell from me like a broken branch of a forgetful tree,’ and ends the poem with “I was in a hurry when I lost it yesterday.” The impact of the phrase “forgetful tree” is that the tree is somehow to blame for losing its branch.

When I returned hours later to search for the name of the poet, story, and poems, I was stayed with me was only the feeling of the poet’s loss.  “Lost it” can refer to any number of things that range from the physical act of losing an object to a loss of control of a strong emotion. It implies ownership, kinship, and control over what was lost, a careless act replaced by emptiness. The beauty of written words and poetry are that they bring depth of intent to content which is often lost in other media.

We expect words to tell us things, give us direction, and motivate us to action. I have often struggled to figure out why I love written words so much. When questioned on what is to be gained from the act of reading, I am often left speechless. For me, the written word brings me closer to myself. The subtle twist of words and phrases are like songs or spices, bringing surprises to the mundane. 

The ideal outcome of reading for me is transcendence. Reading takes me to places and lets me be the judge of how deep I will go. When I see a movie, much of the plot and imagery have been decided for me by the director and cast. Sometimes I feel assaulted by the scenes and drama, having someone else's emotions pulled from my psyche against my will. When I read a book, the imagery is my own, patterned on the author's intent. Last night I read part of a rather mundane chapter from Cloud Atlas in which two characters had a chance encounter in an elevator and became engaged through the stories they shared.  As I read I became transported, the third person in the elevator, with my questions coming to mind and participating in the dialogue.  This never happens when I see a movie. I see movies as a passive viewer, seldom bringing my questions to the story until after the movie has ended. 

The poet on the radio finished her interview by talking about the impact poetry has had on her.  She said that rather than helping her heal, poetry acts at “an X-ray.…helps to see the wound and understand it.” This analogy might work for reading as well. When I read, what are revealed is not just words but also a deeper understanding of the human condition. I bring my experience to the words and participate in only the concepts that I am ready to explore. In this way, reading is as much about self-discovery as it is about the book. The stories I read become my stories, ways for understanding and interpreting the world that I live in, and creating a more satisfying life for myself.