Walking the Berkshires

Seeds in a Dry Pod

The husks of butterfly weed have split and spilled their soft insides.  They cling to their pods in feathery clusters, newly fledged and waiting on the wind.  They drift in the high grass, through asters and bee balm, a seed rain in a dry season. 

And I am like those seeds in a dry pod, waiting for release, or rebirth.

There is an almost centrifugal pull on my spirit as the seasons shift, riding out at the end of my tether with the equinoctial sun.  Everything is in motion - coming and becoming - like the children who pass my house on their way to school, or the butterflies that pause by the cardinal flowers in my backyard.

I may lie out in the hammock beneath the maple tree, but if I look up into the canopy I will see the veins of the worn out leaves and know that the sweet corn days of summer are drawing to a close.  I become impatient, and ready to get on with it.

Autumn in New England is our great consolation for all that ice and mud and our foreshortened Spring.  Those early leaves turning now are the first notes of the dance, the approach of distant thunder out of sight behind the mountains.  I can feel the tension in my bones, sinews taught and expectant. I can feel the thrum of my quickened heartbeat, standing still.

I want to rise up on broad wings and wheel out over the valley with the kettling hawks.  And I want another week of garden basil before the first and final frost, and the warm taste of the sun to linger in the last of my tomatoes.  It is hard to let go, and harder still to resist what comes to us all, in time.

                                        Edgar Lee Masters: 86. Petit, the Poet

SEEDS in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel—
Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens—
But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Ballades by the score with the same old thought:
The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;
And what is love but a rose that fades?
Life all around me here in the village:
Tragedy, comedy, valor and truth,
Courage, constancy, heroism, failure—
All in the loom, and oh what patterns!
Woodlands, meadows, streams and rivers—
Blind to all of it all my life long.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics,
While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines?

Caption This!: 20 years after edition

Through the magic of Facebook, this phograph came back from my collegiate days fronting for a 16 piece Funk Band with these fine folks.  My son and daughter looked at this picture, and their father's younger self, at left, and had very revealing responses.

Emily (age 10): My Dad looks so cool!"  (I am doomed).

Elias (age 7):  You look like the Duke of Buckingham! (as played by Simon Ward in the 1973-1974 Three Musketeers movies, favorites in our house).

In any case, the picture is a priceless candid of the Hiram L Weinstein All-Star Memorial Funk Project in action in the Spring of 1990 at Haverford College.  What it really needs now is a witty caption that only you can provide.  Have at it!

Harry's Reply

Those of you who craved the full text of Haverford Harry's Reply after reading this post about the Bryn Mawr step sing last Alumnae Weekend need look no further, thanks to the Class of 1967's online songbook.

Harry's Reply
To the tune of (The Girl that I Marry)

The girl that I marry will have a degree,
Not B.A., nor M.A., but Ph.D.
A Mawrter to the core!
She's enlightened, but frightened:
Three locks guard her door.

Her suite will be occupied by ten cats,
A parakeet, goldfish, and two white rats.
Mind's precocious, hair's atrocious;
If you get her in bed, she's ferocious.

Her books are all fingered and thinly worn.
That text in her knapsack is really Greek porn.
Education, then stagnation,
Bryn Mawr women are doomed to frustration.

She seems to think all men have one-track minds,
While brushing her teeth, she first closes the blinds.
She's a sickly, strangely picky,
With her ten o'clock tea friends, she's cliquey.

Yet the Mawrter I cherish
Has deans that would perish
If they knew she was married to me --
(spoken) For only failures wed!

Compromised

I once knew a man who painted pictures of Adolf Hitler on commission.  He was a gifted landscape painter, primarily a watercolor artist, and he lived in Swakopmund, wedged between the cold South Atlantic and the Namib desert, in a town with palm trees and colonial German architecture and at least four German Namibians who wanted their own private portraits of der fuhrer.  And this artist, a British subject who was a child in wartime London, swallowed his principles and collected his pieces of silver.

I have thought about him ever since the night we met in 1992, when the guest house where we had hoped to stay in Swakopmund was full, and the owner called his artist friend to see whether he could provide a place for two travelers for the night.  In exchange for taking him out to dinner, this man extended his hospitality.

I do not remember that our host was particularly interested in us and our stories, but neither was he especially outgoing.  There were layers to him, like the glint buried within his deeply lined eyes that suggested a capacity, once, for laughter, and watchfulness.  He had Hemingway's short, stiff beard, but was not a garrulous storyteller.  He never said what life of disappointments drove him to self-exile on this desert shore, a survivor of his own mistakes.

During the course of the evening, he peeled a few cards from the deck of his life and lay them on the table, and left it to us to reconcile these things, for he would not.  He survived the bombing of London.  He painted Hitler's portraits.  He lived in a strange place of mirage and sea fog that blurred the edges and blunted expectations. 

I think he told us his secret because we were young and new to Africa and life had shorn him of his absolutes and illusions long ago.  I think his confessional was as much a challenge to us as an unburdening for him.

Whatever braided tracks had lead him to compromise something core in his humanity were not examined that evening.  I do not know, in fact, whether he was prepared to do so in the private reaches of his solitary heart.  But I do know he had a heart.

A few years later we returned to Swakopmund, staying at the guesthouse this time.  We asked after the artist, and learned that he had died of a heart attack a year or two before.   He had tried to save a life beyond the cold and pounding surf, someone he did not even know.

This week in the LJ

I have been remiss in failing to link to my recent Nature's Notebook articles in the Lakeville Journal, readable here with free registration.  Fair use excerpt of yesterday's piece:

"Sometimes life roils like those hidden high-energy springs that lie below the mountainside, those dark upwellings of silt that pulse with flecks of gold. 

Sometimes it concentrates all its glory in the mottled sides of trout, or a scarlet stalk of Cardinal flower.

I am not needed to bear witness to all this beauty, for it has its own intrinsic value, yet in doing so I revive myself. I look for the unremarked jewels that lie at our feet, and still expect to be amazed by this land I know so well."

Eat Your Heart Out, Robert Goddard!

This morning at Windrock, on a day of departures for some and the end of a glorious week together for all, witnessed another generation reaching for the stars through the magic of model rocketry.  When my cousins and I were the ages our children are now, the Christies often arrived at Windrock with some of Estes finest, and the bluff was a favorite launching pad. 

Quite often we had slow fuses to light instead of electronic ignition, and multiple launches were rare for the same rocket.  Several kits would get modified into behemoth creations, the most notorious of which was a 4 stage rocket that veered for the beach after stage one and missed my sunbathing father by inches.  There was also a rocket with a clear compartment that carried a toad into the stratosphere.  The toad parachute, my cousin John ruefully reminds me, was live tested with its passenger out the third floor window before the launch, but I do not recall whether the astrotoad returned safely to Earth.

No such shenanigans were in evidence today, as a single stage rocket was constructed and successfully fired skyward on two successive launches. The wind is still blowing lightly offshore from the ENE, and much to the delight and amazement of all the first rocket launch went high and straight and landed on the grass a short distance from the launch pad.  My recollection of past rocketry attempts is that those that did not explode at take off often ended up lost in trees or far out to sea. The second launch today, while epic, did not end in disaster.

Ignition was once again flawless, and the rocket went so high we lost track of it for a moment against all that bright blue sky.  Then it reappeared, drifting out towards the bluff, splashing down just at the edge of the shore in less than a foot of water.  A little damp but none the worse for wear, it now reposes in the sun, awaiting a third launch later today.

My son, who just turned seven years old last week, has asked for a model rocket for his 8th birthday.  The outlook is good for Christmas.

The Family That Sings Together

When the extended Barker clan gathers in the big house on the bay, complete with numerous dogs and cousins in the 2nd and 3rd degrees, we love to sing and make music together. 

This is a tradition with deep roots in our family.  My parents are among those who met through glee clubs, and my mother and her siblings all are wonderful singers.  One aunt plays guitar and an uncle has a polychromatic harmonica, and when I was growing up they provided accompaniment to the evening sing-alongs.  Now my cousin Margaret's husband Nicholas and their son Elihu strum the next generations through an ever growing set list of old standards and new favorites.

We know and enjoy some very odd songs.  We sing "The Ship Titanic" with great exuberance, belting out its maudlin lines with glee and gusto. We love "The Cat Came Back" and The Old Family Toothbrush (That dirty old toothbrush...)"  One of my aunts had a roommate at Smith College during the folk revival who introduced her to many songs that are now classics: "Tom Dooley"; "Dirty Old Town"; "Sloop John B". We know a lot of show tunes, ranging from Rogers and Hammerstein to "Corner of the Sky" and "The Rainbow Connection." 

Through the years, new songs have been introduced that are as beloved for the current generations as the Kingston Trio, or for my grandparents (who courted by attending musicals).  Elihu brought us "Barrett Privateers" from a sailing camp he attended, and it now is in almost nightly rotation (with me and my strong pipes singing the lead).  We have relatives who live and work in Eastern Kentucky, so we are partial to Appalachian roots and mining songs of the likes of "Shady Grove" and "Dark as a Dungeon".  The occasional Tom Lehrer and Flanders & Swann make it into our review.  Last night, my Daughter Emily and I sang "I'm a Gnu" and "A Transport of Delight", and she managed to overshadow her Dad - no mean feat - to the delight of all.  I also pulled out "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" for the family's delectation.

Somethings requests were made for songs to which we did not remember all the chords or lyrics.  For this, we have both an old school and new media solution available.  We consult a well-loved copy of Rise Up Singing, and if that fails the iPhone generation can easily locate what we need only, I sang "If I were a Rich Man" and "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat" while peering at an iPhone screen (the later for the first time since I owned the stage as Nicely Nicely Johnson in my sophomore year of High School).  The family encourages me to step up and put my pipes to good use, though there are many excellent singers and others who are delighted to join the chorus.  My cousin Leila, for example, has become a wonderful songsmistress and carries us forward in grand style.

I do love a stage, but I also think they know I need to feel that love right now.  The elephants in the room get to sing as well, even if they blend into the background.  On summer nights when we gather together, well fed and sleepy from days of sun and sea, the music is love.

Stuffies: Quahogs for the Masses

Down in our corner of Buzzards Bay, I am known as the king of baked stuffed quahogs.  For some reason, I have the mojo needed to find them in their hundreds when there are scores of hungry relatives, and the stamina to convert these hard shelled clams into their finest culinary incarnation.  This week, with more than 40 relatives at Windrock, I figured we needed about 350 medium sized clams to make 120 stuffies.  My brother-in-law Peter and I made our target in under an hour.

I scrubbed each clam and steamed the whole lot in two vast kettles with a bottle of beer and a goodly amount of Wye River (Original Red) Seasoning, the Eastern Shore's answer to Old Bay.  Each opened clam produced a midden of shells and a mound of meats, with the clam juice reserved for those who like it straight, those who like it with tomato juice and vodka, and the cook, who needed some for the next phase of the process.

Here we hit a snag, as someone in recent days seems to have melted the Cuisinart in a position that no longer allows the blade to engage.  An ancient KitchenAid with meat grinder attachment could not overcome the tenacious clams, so they had to be hand cut and minced, a process where I had the indispensable assistance of cousins Margaret and Leila.  Cynthia, meanwhile, scrubbed out over 100 half shells to contain the stuffing.

I sauteed some garlic and onions in a roasting pan with olive oil, and added more Wye River.  The clams were enough for several meat loaves had we felt so inclined, and I stirred in some unseasoned breadcrumbs until the mixture reached the desired consistency . I'd estimate that the ration was 6 parts clam to 1 part stuffing: a generous proportion making these premium stuffed clams the way Ben and Jerry's make premium ice cream.

I filled the shells on three baking trays, sprinkled on some vermouth and dusted them with paprika.  Then into the ovens they went for 15 minutes until there was a nice crust on top and they were ready to transfer to serving trays and distribute to the assembled throng.

Even finicky eaters devour my stuffed quahogs.  An inter-generational soccer game came to a screeching halt when the platters arrived on the field.  Having enjoyed a more intimate dinner with clams from the same waters just the week before, I was in my prime with this batch.  Favorite nephew status is now assured, at least until dinner, when my cousin John and wife Megan are serving us hundreds of chicken enchiladas.  Ah, summer.  Ah, stuffies.  For the next few hours, all is right with the world.

The Ghosts That Haunt Us

Statistics on rape and sexual assault in America are an appalling arithmetic. 

• "approximately 50 percent of college women have been sexually assaulted, and 27 percent have experienced rape or attempted rape."

• "1 of 6 U.S. Women and 1 of 33 U.S. men has experienced an attempted or completed rape as a child and/or adult."

• Surveys suggest at least 1/3 of US women in the military has been raped during her service.

In Western countries, statistics like these are more readily available than in the developing world, yet even here estimates of abuse are grossly under reported.  It is undoubtedly worse in places where women and vulnerable children have even less protection, but to our lasting shame and great discredit, there are something on the order of 39 million survivors of child sexual abuse living in America. 

I do not exaggerate when I say that virtually every woman I have ever been close to has had something horrible happen to her along these lines.  I have come to expect that when someone I love starts sharing her past with me, sexual assault has been part of her experience as a child or young woman.  This is true of close family members as well as lovers and dear friends.  In my experience, such trauma constitutes a much greater percentage than those terrible numbers listed above.

I have two very powerful and contrasting responses to this reality.  One is rage: a primal, murderous anger that has roots far deeper than just some hardwired response of the protective male.  Those who prey on the vulnerable and have deeply hurt the ones I love, even if many decades ago, get no pity or compassion from me.  I am not a pacifist.  I understand, and fear, what it would be like to seek vengeance and retribution coming from a place of such righteous rage.  I understand that I could do violence in return, and savagely, if driven by this blind, unchecked passion.

The other is humility.  These injuries were not suffered by me, and in many cases happened long in the past (in one case well before my birth).  The strong, vulnerable women in my life who have endured sexual assault continue to live their lives, define themselves in terms that do not imprison them in the perpetual reliving of these traumas.  In Namibia, I learned a fundamental truth about from a woman who opened herself and her past to me about reconciliation, which was the official policy post-apartheid in that nation, and meant that torturers and rapists lived in the same vicinity as their victims.  She told me that one does not forget, but must live, and the only way to live is to reconcile and move forward.  Vengeance and victim-hood do not set you free.  I continue to learn this lesson from women I love, though I find it hard to reconcile for myself.

It is not for me to be the avenger.  It is not for me to stir up the old pain when it is revealed to me and I experience fresh emotions.  I vowed long ago to be a good man, to be a counterpoint to the sexual violence that too many men inflict.  I am a tender and compassionate lover.  I am a good listener.  I struggle because I want to fix what may have already healed, or may not be in my power to set right.  I still feel anger on their behalf, and I strive to channel it into better behavior.

And I am also the father of a 10-year-old daughter, not yet damaged.  Heaven help the one who makes her another statistic.  And heaven help us all, because even if the law of averages puts her in the path of someone who does something unforgivable, she will need the strength that comes from her own, dear self, and nothing but compassion and love from her father and family and friends.  There is no place in that equation for extra-legal retribution, though I know the place where that would come from, in me, if I ever let it free.  There is no "honor" to avenge here, or in vengeance.  There is healing to be done.  And we must, unequivocally, as a cultural imperative, refuse to tolerate a culture of rape, for how else can one explain the brutal numbers of good people violated, of strong people made vulnerable, and especially those who should never be left in a place of sexual vulnerability? 

"Few are guilty, but all are responsible."  - Abraham Joshua Heschel

A Sea-Change Into Something Rich and Strange

Something happens to me when I get near the ocean.  My whole body starts to tingle, responding to the smell of the sea, the flow of the tide.  I listen for the sound of the waves at the shore, the creak of the cradle that rocks me to sleep.  I overlook the bay, or the surf, or the great Atlantic swells, wanting to be close to that rhythmic, restless water. 

I feel this way about mountains, too, and deserts, but these are generally static affairs, and my experience is one of being in motion within those landscapes. A great summer storm roiling over the crest of the hills or the shimmer of heat haze may animate these places, but for me the ocean itself is a living thing.  I do not presume to know its moods, or ascribe intentionality to its actions, but I do see its power, and feel its pulse.

I have never been a blue water sailor.  One summer, though, at just this time of year, I did sail from Cape Cod to Rockland, and had the dog watch during the Perseid meteor shower far out in the Gulf of Maine.  That was a night where only the winking lights of distant watercraft vied with the display in the vault of the sky.  I remember trails of green fire, and imagining longboats from Greenland making such a journey a thousand years before.

I'm not at all sure there is a mask around anymore that will fit me, as my diving gear is long gone, but if so I may go out to the breakwater and dip beneath the surface to explore the old rocks and crevasses to see what they conceal.  The pouting white lips and crooked teeth of Tautaug,  or a sleek gray eel, or the mottled claws of lobsters are all possibilities.  I love being under the water, in the very element that so captivates and intrigues.

This year there are many blue crabs in the warm waters of Buzzards Bay.  I saw one in the shallows when I was rooting for quahogs with my toes, and evidence of others up and down the beach.  Maybe this coming week when I am at the shore I will go crabbing in the Weweantic River (avoiding the Agawam with its swans and algae and treatment plant).  Maybe I will gather fiddler crabs and fish with my children and nephews and their second cousins with bamboo poles at high tide.  Or maybe I will sit, contented on shore, and watch these children splash and play, and let the weary weight of my complicated life drain away with the falling tide.  Sand between the toes and salt on the skin is just the balm I need.

Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

- Shakespeare (The Tempest)