Old Man Tree: September 1

I know that calendar doesn’t close out Summer until later this month, but something about the arrival of September 1 spells Fall to me.  Part of that is the fact that school is about to begin and everything changes when school starts.  Part of the feeling is that an unseasonably  cool weather pattern has settled upon us for the last two weeks.  We’ve enjoyed days in the 70s and nights in the 50s.  When I poured my first cup of coffee this morning, it was 54 degrees.  There is just the beginning of a golden hue to the leaves as Old Man Tree prepares for the coming changes.  

We’ve had plenty of rain with this patch of cool weather and the Fall leaf display will likely be quite splendid.  I never tire of the beautiful woods around here and I look forward to the coming show.  Until then, I’m hoping for more days to sit outside on the back deck, enjoying the back yard.  Time outside is a lovely tonic in all seasons, but especially once school begins.

August Book Report: Pride and Prejudice

I’m a bit loathe to see the end of August.   For starters, the weather was simply glorious and such mild days in August seem like a treat to savor.  The close of August also marks the start of the school year and with full-time school days, the time I am able to devote to reading will be much reduced.  In the Summer, I can read a book every week or so.  Once school starts, I won’t be able to find such time.   For someone who loves books as much as I do, that’s a transition I don’t enjoy.

I read some good books this past month, including a re-read of Pride and Prejudice.  I’ve read the book dozens of times and always enjoy it.  

From the sparkling dialogue to the time spent with the thoughts of the very clever Elizabeth Bennet, this book never disappoints.  I fear that I love it so much because of the irksome characters.  Lizzy’s sister Lydia and her insipid mother, Mrs Bennet, could be enough entertainment for any reader longing to feel superior.  But then Mr. Collins and Catherine de Burgh turn up with their smug self-importance and the reader is treated to some of the most caustic commentary a narrator could offer.

It’s lovely.

There is much else in the novel to warrant its status as a classic but I’ll save the serious commentary for the English majors.  I love Pride and Prejudice for its commentary on the world of 1800 England, its clever dialogue, and its tidy happy ending.  It’s a re-read that always delivers.  

Monumental

The pace of bad news out of the Trump Administration is such that more bad news has arrived well before I’ve had the chance to process the last injustice.  This new reality takes its toll, but it’s not an excuse for failure to truly think about what is going on and why it matters.  To that end, I’ve been thinking about monuments.

New York State Monument in Gettysburg National Cemetery

As we engage in a national debate about Confederate monuments and what to do about them, I am reminded that it’s not just the existence of monuments, it’s whose achievements we choose to honor.  And even when we honor achievements, it may very well be that we are marking contributions that did not make our nation a better place.  We have two obligations here: to understand our history in its complexity and to leave the world better than we found.  Doing both means thinking clearly about who - and what - we honor.  This doesn’t have to be difficult if a handful of key questions guide our thinking.  As discussion of monument removal emerges, consider the following questions:

1.  What is the primary accomplishment of the person being praised?  The answer to this question alone will insist on the removal of nearly every Confederate memorial.  Consider Jefferson Davis.  He was a senator from Mississippi, not a particularly thoughtful one, though he was respected and influential in his time.  But his primary accomplishment is as president of the Confederacy, a doomed government founded upon the principal that blacks were inferior to whites and deserved to be enslaved.  That is who Jeff Davis is and we do not need monuments to this achievement.  We should preserve his plantation and mark his words and works; he should certainly have a headstone at his grave.  But we don’t need public monuments of Jefferson Davis.

2.  When was the monument erected?  Was it placed in the immediate aftermath of an event in which the person it praises participated?  Or is it marking those accomplishments 20, 30, 50 or more years later, when erecting such a monument is a dog whistle for racist whites and a not-so-subtle reminder to subjugated groups that they should stay in their place?  Monuments to Confederate generals erected in the 1880s, as Jim Crow laws were being made and strengthened or in the 1890s, after the Supreme Court enshrined the unjust principle of separate but equal in Please v. Ferguson are involved in a not-so-subtle message.  Those built the 1920s, in Southern states that forbid blacks to leave, forcing the Great Migration to occur in fear and secrecy are not marking achievements, were erected to stoke fear.  Monuments built in the 1950s after Brown v. Board of Education ruled that separate is inherently unequal were meant to challenge the rule of law and subjugate people of color.  The majority of Confederate memorials were erected in a time different from the event or person they purport to honor.  These “monuments” were not-so-subtle reminders that blacks were and would remain unequal.  The context matters.

3.  Where is the monument erected?  Is the site itself a place where an important historical event occurred?  Or is the monument making a mark on a place known for something all together different?  If a tree was used to lynch African Americans, a monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest at such a site has a specific message.  It’s not a good one.

4.  Consider who is there now. At minimum, we should be uncomfortable with the notion of children filing into school named after a segregationist.  That is no message for any child and to a child of color it is alienating.  Is there any reason for a highway to be named after a Confederate general?  What message to do we send about our society when this history is marked in a tone that implies honor?

The answer to these questions can guide both the building and removal of monuments.  In all instances, we must be sure to mark a complete history of our past.  Founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison pass scrutiny and we can build monuments to them.  As always, we must tell the whole of their story; the good and the troubling.  Folks like Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson will be in the cross-hairs; monuments to them should likely be removed and a more complete contextualized history marked.  Exceptions might be made for monuments erected in the years immediately after the Civil War; the Gettysburg battlefield is a good example.  There are figures who occupy some awkward territory.  Woodrow Wilson comes to mind.  He did lead the nation through WWI and provided a philosophical foundation for the idea of the League of Nations.  These are important accomplishments.  At the same time, Wilson was an unapologetic racist who subjugated segregated armed forces; he stood in the way of women’s suffrage.  I’ve a mixed mind about Wilson; at the least, I wouldn’t build new monuments to him.

Our past is real and present in our lives today.  We must understand it in all of its complexities.  Monuments bear a big responsibility in this process and should receive careful consideration  They must mark who we are and help lead us toward the nation we want to become.  They are not the only history we have and shouldn’t be the only way in which we understand our selves and our past.   Where they exist they should be of people, places, and accomplishments that are worth our praise because these people made us better.  

Garden Report, Week 13: Monday, August 28

Yesterday, for the first time in two weeks, I turned on the sprinkler to water the garden.  We’re in the midst of some lovely mild days and while that is slowing down the growth of my tomatoes and zinnias,  it’s made for the sorts of days that make me wish for an endless summer.

It’s still August and so tomatoes are setting on; I’ve hope of zinnia bouquets in the weeks ahead.  I counted the days on the calendar and there are nearly 100 days between now and the average first frost.  For a gardener, that news is balm for the soul.  

Bookish

I didn’t learn to read until I was in the third grade and had turned 8 years old.  By today’s standards, that makes me hopelessly behind the curve.  By my standard, it’s a reason to make up for lost time.  I’ve been doing that since I began reading.  As a child, I read on the bus and during the walk home from the bus stop.  I read by the streetlight after bedtime. I read books during the school day when the teacher’s plans didn’t interest me.  As an adult, I rarely go anywhere without a book.  I read new stories and never tire of re-reading my favorites.  I read both fiction and non-fiction, though fiction is more often in my hands.  For the most part, I read serious books.  My favorite are well-written stories that have human happiness at their core and that kind of story makes up the bulk of what I choose to read.

For the coming school year, a few teachers at my school have organized a book club, with a book to discuss each month of the year.  I’ve read a few of the books on the list and picked up some more with plans to participate.  So it was that earlier this week I found myself reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowlands.  It’s a technically brilliant book, written well and with a compelling story and fascinating characters.  Lahiri can turn a phrase when it comes to the human condition and I enjoyed reading the book.  But it his by no means a happy story and in that respect it wasn’t the escape I like my books to be.  In aftermath of the read, I needed something happy to restore my equilibrium.  And so I turned to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books.

These stories were the very first books I can recall truly reading on my own. I loved them and re-read them so often that to this day I have certain passages memorized.  I read them to JT when he was old enough to appreciate the stories and cherish those memories.  Each August, I pick up one of my Laura books and re-read it.  This year, I chose On the Banks of Plum Creek and it was just the anecdote to the melancholy of the book that proceeded it.  Ingalls Wilder may have been writing for children, but her loving descriptions of the places and things Laura knew is the gold standard of descriptive writing.  From the prairie sunlight to the feel of a cold creek on a hot summer day, her books remind me of the simple pleasures of being.  These books have meant the world to me and I love them beyond measure and description, in a way that I expect Laura would certainly understand.

Strawberries

Last weekend, T and I made a batch of lemonberry jam, our favorite.  The smell of these berries being rinsed off in preparation to make jam is just lovely.  That’s happy!

Morning Light

I love the mornings, especially a leisurely morning with time to read and relax.  During the school year, I’m up at at 5:30 in the morning so that I don’t have to rush to be ready for school.  I listen to NPR, take time to read e-mail, and generally gird myself for a busy day to come.  I work seven-day weeks in the school year, rarely completely setting aside work on the weekend.  I’ve always been that way, knowing that I’d have a whole Summer to renew and refresh.   

I work a 12 month calendar since I took the job in the Middle School.  To combat my tendency to work at full tilt in the Summer months as well, a few years back  I instituted my own set of Summer rules.  I wake up a little later, at 6 instead f 5:30 am.  For the most part, I don’t read work e-mail in the morning, on the weekends, or in the evenings.  I take every spare moment to be outside in the light and warmth.  I read book after book.  I spend my Summer mornings on the front porch or the back deck, reading, drinking coffee, and enjoying my garden.  

When Summer first begins, it’s light when I rise and by the time I’m downstairs to pour my coffee, the sun has risen.  With the arrival of August, the morning light begins to fade and when I come downstairs for coffee, the sun is still short of the horizon. The light is golden but not bright and it’s lovely outside.

I’m always sorry to see the Summer come to an end.  This year, I’m a little sorrier than usual.  That’s the case both because it’s been a mild and lovely Summer and because when school starts, JT begins his Senior year.  This will be our 15th year at school together, it's also our last year  together.  Next year, he’ll be packed off for college and I’ll be driving off to school on my own.  More than usual, I’m aware of the bittersweet passage of time.

Part of me would like to hold on to this light forever.  I know this isn't possible.  So I plan to embrace it while it lasts.

Garden Report, Week 12: August 21

Usually, this point in the summer finds the garden looking weary from the heat.  But this year’s lush rains have really kept the garden green and lush.  I’m grateful because that helps me to maintain the illusion that Summer isn’t over quite yet.

Fresh tomatoes served warm off the vine certainly help with that notion.  Keep it coming, Summer.

Muddy Man-Child

Yesterday, JT and some of his cross country teammates, including his coach and some assorted friends of the team, joined one another for a local mud run.  He’s never participated in an event like this, but for a boy who grew up logging countless hours at local parks and playing in puddles, it was a fitting start to his final high school cross country season.  The race was a 5k, punctuated by 21 muddy obstacles.  The team started off clean but ended rather muddy.  JT ran the race with his buddies L and E.

At the final obstacle, there was no avoiding the mess.

They got right in it and triumphed.

After a wash in the outdoor showers, the racers celebrated their finish.

I was a spectator to the muddy spectacle, marveling at how much my kid loves a messy challenge and reflecting on the places I will travel to watch him race.

Senior season, here we come.

A Timely Reminder

The flower pots on my backpack are a source of daily happiness to me.  They are lush and bright and as the August days slip past I am yet again aware of how fleeting this summer has been.

School starts in a few weeks; JT has already begun practice for his last high school cross country season.  The amount of sunlight in our days is slowly shrinking.  While the summer lasts, I’m determined to enjoy the time to relax and lift my face to the light.