Walking the Berkshires

Of Apples and Trees

I went to my children's school last week to give a living history presentation on the American Revolution.  Far from being mortified by their father in geeky clothes, they were utterly thrilled by the visit and apparently basked in the glow of minor celebrity.  Reenacting is cool, at least in their K-8 school.

We've been talking about having them join us for an event this year, and what that would mean for them to participate in this hobby.  It looks like we will all be going June 9th and 10th to Rockford Plantation in Lancaster PA.  In addition to casting about for various items of clothing and securing a spare tent, we've talked about camp safety and etiquette and things they could do as part of their impression of Colonial children in a military camp.  They understand it is a privilege and really want to take part, so we'll give it a try.

Emily plays the flute and for Christmas received a student fife, practice book and CD.  She finds it challenging without keys to press but is making steady progress and there will be opportunities for her to observe and interact with fife players in camp.  Elias has asked for cartridge paper so he can demonstrate how to roll cartridges.

They will do fine.  And maybe, get bitten by the reenacting bug that got their Dad when he was even younger than they, but had to wait decades to act upon it in earnest.

 

 

Holding the Groove

I grew up at a rural boarding school in New York's Hudson Valley.  The formative years  were 1976-1982, before I went off to boarding school myself.  The students in those days still wore their hair long, and the girls favored long overcoats and fedoras.  I idolized the high school students who were actors, and the ones who played guitar on the steps of their dorms and faced their huge stereo speakers out windows towards the quad. 

Disco was dead on arrival, but not the Grateful Dead, nor were the Talking Heads.  Classic Rock was not yet a commercial radio format; it was what your older cousins or big sister turned you on to, before they left home and moved on to new sounds.

Back then you discovered new music in used record stores, from dorm mates who hailed from hipper locales, or over the weak signal of some backwater college radio station.  Forget about wanting my MTV; there was no cable and barely any television reception so we went without.  We traded tapes until the clones lost all fidelity.  We taped pennies to the stylus to hold the groove. 

Today my vinyl sits in the attic, waiting for me to gather up the components needed to reassemble an analog stereo system with those huge, Boston Acoustics speakers from my parent's living room that now sit mute and unconnected.  I bought my last vinyl recording in 1989 - a used one at that from Plastic Fantastic Records store, that one-time music collector's mecca out on the Main Line. I'm not sure what market there is today for an original recording of Bob Weir's solo album Face, but I have it upstairs, along with lots of other music from my youth that was old even then.

I have written before about music as touchstones of the past, reflections of the person and the place I was at the time.  If I find myself driving along, up and down the dial, and suddenly I hear "Rudie Can't Fail" or "Like a Rolling Stone" - or, God help me, "Sugar Magnolia", then I drive down other highways of the mind, back in that familiar groove when I was 12, or 16, or 20. I am still a tourist, though, an observer from the future, when the switch gets flipped and the music comes from "another times forgotten space." 

The soundtrack of my life today is much harder to pin down.  The source material is different, for one thing, and my environment is not rich in new sound.  I am singing more, though, as often as not around a reenactor's campfire -  "Give me the punch ladle, I'll fathom the bowl" - and sometimes lyrics of my own devising.  You won't be hearing any of these on the radio, though they sometimes find their way onto Youtube.

I still love a righteous groove, plenty of bottom, and hot horn hits.  I'm partial to songs that last more than 3 minutes.  In this age of earbuds and bowling alone, sometimes I want to lift the sash and let some mighty music off the leash.  Perhaps on the first warm day of Spring, when all these pupating houses disgorge their blinking butterflies, I'll find what is hip in the old vinyl stacks.

 

The Year That Was (2011)

The Gourd is my Canvas, I shall not Haunt

After the Storm

When the lights went out on the backside of Irene, it helped to have a Mawrter in the house, as they come with lanterns.  My writer in residence has two red glass panes and two blue ones in her Bryn Mawr lantern, because she finished in 3 1/2 years and so overlaps two difference classes.(1993 and 1994).

We came through the storm far better than the rest of our region.  The trees that came down were scattered - the wind culled mostly the old and the sick - and our power came back after 18 hours.  There are parts of CT, within 45 miles of us that still have no juice. My basement filled completely with water for the first time since I have owned the place, but drained just as quickly once the power came back and I put in a new sump pump.  My garden was not ruined.  We were spared what others were not, and that about sums it up.

There was plenty of rain, and the Housatonic and its tributaries rose in flood, but Vermont, NY and NJ had it far worse.  It was impressive standing by the Great Falls of the Housatonic on Monday, the first day of school having been cancelled, and watching those chocolate waters plunge.  I've seen the river this way in the winter, thick with snow melt and the trees rimed with ice from the spray, but the foliage and the sunlight were an interesting variation.  The Hous is over Ramapo Rd. in Ashley Falls to a depth of 4-6 feet, flooding the oxbows and making a lake out of the floodplain by Bartholomew's Cobble.  Otherwise, the tribs are where the damage was greatest, gnawing away the sides of the little state roads that connect the villages of the Litchfield Hills.

I have not been down to Windrock since the storm, but reports from family who have are that the property came through in fairly good shape.  There are a couple of big trees down, most notably the grand old oak where the Orioles like to nest at the side of the house.  It was rotten to the core and mercifully fell without so much as grazing the house and porch.  My cousin Rob Canham stands next to the fallen giant in the image below. and also took the picture of the "Hell Cat" beach fort which did not get swept out to sea, even though the tide should have been high with a new moon and storm surge. 

Cousins Week(end)

Talya and I and the kids went down to Windrock this past weekend for the start of the annual "Cousins Week", where appearances are expected in the following days of virtually all of my maternal aunts, uncles, 1st cousins (and those once removed), along with their spouses, significant others and more distant relations. The children will remain for the duration under the benign eye of the grandparents, but work and other realities have called me back to the Litchfield Hills for the intervening week.  We will head back on Friday and take a less frenetic vacation on into the following week with a smaller contingent of family after the regular gathering disperses.

There are now more 1st and 2nd cousins in evidence in Emily and Elias's generation than in my own, ranging in ages from 14 to 2.  Most of them are able to range in feral packs about the grounds and woodlands without significant threat to life and limb.  In yesterday's downpours the big house became quite congested, but even so there were sodden, wooden-sword wielding gangs tromping out into the rain and musicians jamming on the gray porch.  The cluster of tents, including one I have borrowed from my regiment for reenacting purposes but which made an excellent place to change clothing in a vertical posture, only added to the overall feel of Woodstock-by-the-Sea.

The waves and wind were high on Saturday, and I went out for a high speed sail with my cousin Than in a small Laser that put us through our paces as we raced from crest to trough. 

This was Talya's first time meeting many of the family - her "outlaws", if you will, and felt most welcome.  This is the one time aside from weddings and funerals that we all have a chance to see each other, and sometimes the only time we get to connect at all.  While it can be both overwhelming and chaotic, it is a gathering none would want to miss, at least for a few days.  There is much still that I hope to do when we return this weekend, including digging for quahogs and singing all the old favorites and some of the new, if they are not all sung out by then.

In all the getting back to the garden going on at Windrock it was fitting that a serpent made an appearance.  I found a black racer basking on a brush pile just over the embankment, a snake I remember finding occasionally during my childhood but have not come across on the property since then, though they certainly must be around. There were Ospreys crying at dawn and gulls hanging on the wind above the bluff. 

Love Finds a Way

Viv and I did the hardest work of our adult lives to carefully uncouple our marriage while preserving our family and our hopes for happier times, and I had reason to expect joy. My two greatest fears about divorce - fears that kept me from facing the possibility well before we took steps to end that  marriage - were crippling debt and losing close connection with my children.  Neither of these outcomes was inevitable, and today I am able to maintain my household and be an engaged and full parent with my children.  Under our joint parenting arrangement they move weekly between two homes just a few blocks apart, and know they have two loving parents, and always will. 

I had another fear, or more accurately, a resignation, that having lost romantic love I would no longer feel or find it with another.   Our relationship endured for nearly twenty years as a couple, and fifteen of them as husband and wife.  I looked forward to finding out what I wanted in my personal life outside my chosen roles as father and provider, but did not expect to find intimacy and joy with a strong, intelligent and caring partner anytime soon, if at all. 

This was a case of my head trying to rule my heart, and even as strong minded as I can be (not to mention headstrong), there was never a question of which was the stronger force.  I am still an impulsive, hopeful romantic.  The heart, even a broken one, trumps the mind with me every time.  It's just that the heart does not always see with clear eyes, though it when it does there is piercing clarity.

While we were still living in the same house, waiting for the necessary parts of our lives to fall into place that would allow us to accomplish under law what had already happened in fact, my former partner and I discussed how this arrangement made it difficult for either of us to move forward in our emotional lives.  I was encouraged to date if I wished, but keep any relationships outside the home and the awareness of our children until we had managed to move into separate households and finalize the divorce.  I considered this a highly unlikely scenario, imagining that a conversation in some local bar in which I revealed both my attraction and the fact that I was still married and living with my estranged wife would be a non-starter for anything approaching a meaningful relationship.  I was lonely, and longed for a loving partnership, but I did not know if this might still be possible for me, or where, or when.

And then the stars aligned, and by a wondrous series of coincidences, love found a way.  Our story is a great one, the stuff of romantic comedy and of good things happening to good people, and the arc of the story is still unfolding.   We met over a year ago when my life was still in Limbo and hers was likewise one of translocation and new direction. 

You might say we met through the Internet, for she had found my blog by happenstance and had been a quiet admirer of my writing for years.  You might say we met through mutual friends, for this is certainly true, although we were not, strictly speaking, set up with each other.  We did not meet at College, though we have many friends there in common, as my time at Haverford did not quite overlap with hers that followed at Bryn Mawr.

We met when I drove to Philadelphia at the end of May, 2010 to attend my 20th reunion.  She was staying in Philly with the family of my dear college friend, Janet, and I knew of her only as their "house guest" Talya, who had been BMC Class of '94 and was staying with them while she finished writing her PhD for an Autumn defence. Talya says that she came back the US after seven years studying at Newcastle University in northern England with the stated goals to find "a job, an apartment, a boyfriend and a cat", although not necessarily in that order.  As things worked out, the cat was last, the boyfriend first.

I had actually been asked by Jan a month or so prior whether another of our classmates might be suitable for Talya, but this was before I had made my plans for divorce public, and there was no mention of such matchmaking thereafter.

I drove to Haverford that weekend hoping that among people from a place where I once thrived I might meet someone who was in a similar place in their lives and where there might be a spark.  I knew I would meet Talya at Janet's  house and had been told she was a fan of Walking the Berkshires and was excited to meet me, which my friend considered "adorable". 

Even I, with my wounded heart, recognized the potential in that description, but I knew nothing more about Talya except that as a BMC alumna she might like to go to the step sing at Bryn Mawr that evening.  So I extended that invitation via an email to Janet and drove to my reunion open to possibilities.

I can still remember how it felt when I walked into that home in the Northern Liberties, hugged Janet and her family, and turned to be introduced to Talya.  It was one of those transformational moments when everything comes into clear focus and nothing afterward is going to be the same.  I saw her, had a crystalline sense of immediate recognition, felt my heart leap as it had not done since my children were born, and told myself; "Don't blow this."

From that spark came joy, and close companionship that has survived the long process of my getting divorced and beyond.  It has endured over long distances, relocation for her first to an unfamiliar and uncomfortable city, and now our living together in Northwest Connecticut as the next phases of our individual and shared lives take form. 

I was open from the start with my former partner about this new love, and today my children love their mother and Talya for who they are in themselves, not one or the other as substitutes for the innocence they lost.  Viv and Talya and I are planning a South African-style braai in the coming weeks to make introductions, rather than having them meet up unexpectedly in the supermarket in our small town.  There is understandable awkwardness, but there are hopeful signs.  You know you all are all doing something right when your ex-wife is happy to look after your girlfriend's cat when the two of you are away on vacation.

It is not simple, but then life seldom is, and ours is a partnership of intellectually curious and sensitive hearts and minds that is strong and sustaining.  My eyes are open, and so is my heart. I can risk love and commitment.  And now you know the reason why. 

Living on Sugar Mountain

We have been enjoying a remarkable stretch of fine summer weather here in the Litchfield Hills.  True, there has been some rain, and in general the season has been wetter and cooler than usual, but for all that there have been a number of brilliant blue skies with low humidity and a fresh wind.  The temperatures have stayed in the comfortable 80s and high 70s during the daylight hours, with cool evenings ideal for sleeping.

Nonetheless today I hear the drone of the first cicada, a harbinger of the advancing season if ever there were one.  My vegetable garden is in that transitional stage where the early greens and herbs have bolted but the beans, squash and tomatoes have yet to ripen.  The wild blackcaps are in season now, if one knows where to find a sufficiency without undue risk from poison ivy, and the cultivated red raspberries in my yard are more productive than in other years.  My thoughts turn to pie, and vanilla ice cream smothered in berries, and cool drinks in the evening shade.

I am also considering which of my potential summer projects I will actually tackle this year.  Will I get the oft-threatened dumpster and cart away the accumulated dross and bulky waste produced over a decade in residence, or will I sharpen my chainsaw and drop the sickly butternut and carve another totem pole?  Is this the year when I will take the well seasoned ceder posts and make a pentagonal rondavel complete with phragmites thatch?  Will I muster the energy and enthusiasm required for any of these ventures, or will I be content to trim the verge, weed around the edges, and acknowledge that I am still weary from the long journey to life after divorce?  Despite my genetic predisposition and familial conditioning to bustle, there is something to be said for simply taking one's ease.  For that, there is fresh mint for iced tea, and the occasional key lime mojito.

Today my children will come over from their mother's for the afternoon so that the three of us can go to the local carnival.  They have an African Elephant to ride and the usual carni amusements, and there is a model train display in the partially restored Union Train Station.  It is a fine day for cotton candy and colored balloons.

 

Species of Special Concern

My children know that when you go looking for Box Turtles, you will not find them, but when you live where they live, it often happens serendipitously.  This old tortoise was walking across the cut in the bank that leads to the beach at Windrock.  The Massachusetts Heritage and Endangered Species Program lists  the eastern box turtles as a species of Special Concern in the Commonwealth.  I sent in a record from our property a number of years ago, making the surrounding area priority habitat and ultimately strengthening the environmental significance of the open space protection efforts that have saved so much of Great Neck from the heavy development pressure that has affected the remaining woodlands and shoreline of this coastal community.  Windrock itself qualified for Chapter 61B, a "current use" open space tax abatement program,, based on the environmental condition of our property and we cited the presence of this species to help make that case..When our neighbor cleared a part of the woodlands between us to build a stately home, the order of conditions for the construction work mandated a turtle barrier around the build site.

We are delighted to be sharing this land with these turtles.  I have the same thrill when I spot one of their long necks peering above a patterned shell that I felt as a child.

Blink

Tonight I will watch for fireflies by the garden gate. The field grass and wild apple branches will be thick with rising mist as daylight fades.  I will stand with my children and together we will trace those meandering lights in their hundreds out in the meadow. 

In the procession of the season, fireflies and mountain laurel blossoms are among June's finest offerings.  They follow the ephemeral glory of the woodland wildflowers and anticipate the wild berries of early summer. The laurel will blush and bloom for a couple stunning weeks in June, and the fireflies will linger on until the mower lays the tall grass down. 

My children count the days until Summer vacation - almost to the hour -  but I mark the passage of time by the growth and change that is going on all around us.  I see the Orioles weaving their nests in the oak tree, and snapping turtles hauling their ponderous forms out of the swamps to lay their eggs.  I see the starter plants in my vegetable garden rapidly filling in what always feels at the outset like ample space between them. 

This will be the year when Elias learns to be a stronger swimmer, and dares remove the training wheels from his bicycle.  This will be the summer when Emily brings a friend (and a boyfriend, no less), to Windrock for the weekend.  The day is coming soon when I will shave my beard and mustache and put on wool and linen to participate in the annual reenactment of the Revolutionary War battle of Monmouth Court House.  

I want to run my hands over the tops of the grass, already wet with dew.  I want to watch my wide-eyed children gently cup a firefly, and wander in the mountains when the laurel is in bloom.  I do not want to miss any of this. You have to seek these timed moments of grace and wonder.  The great wheel is always turning while it carries us forward.