Rewriting our childhood

Following Hannah Hinchman's advice, I have begun to re-remember my childhood, recording my memories of the fields, streams, woods, and prairie land that surrounded my childhood home in rural southern Wisconsin. In between my nature memories from my Midwestern childhood, I am adding descriptions and reflections from my walks through the woods, fields, and marshes of the suburban New England town that is now my home.

I invite you to share your memories of nature from your childhood or your responses to nature as an adult in the comments.

Katy Z. Allen
January 21, 2012

Note: Unless otherwise credited, photos were taken by me.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Swinging on the Birches

The story went, as I remember - correctly or not I do not know - hearing my mother tell it, that a family friend from her childhood who was out in the wilderness came upon a bear (or perhaps a bear came upon him), and he climbed the nearest tree. The problem was, the tree he climbed was a birch tree, it bent over under his weight, and there he was, hanging down near the ground, eye to eye with the bear.


The birches across the valley
Photo by Mary North Allen
This may be just a "bear story," but the part about the birch trees is real, and we had plenty of birch trees on our property. To get a really good swing on a birch, the tree had to be just right. The trunk had to be large enough in diameter to hold our weight as we climbed up, yet thin enough that it was still supple. We climbed as high as we could, then hung on with our hands and let go with our feet. The tree bent under our weight and we swung down close to the ground, then jumped off. With just the perfect tree, and climbing to just the perfect height, our feet touched the ground, with no need at all to jump. If the tree was too small, it bent over before we climbed high enough to get a worthwhile jump, and if the tree was too large to bend enough, or if we didn't climb high enough...well, there we dangled, hanging too high too jump, and yet jump we must, and jump we did. 


Splendid and majestic is the One's work...        --Psalm 111:3


I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~ 
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 
But dipped its top and set me down again. 
That would be good both going and coming back. 
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.   --Robert Frost

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Goats

I had goats. Why goats? Well, they were not too big, like cows or horses. My brother Tom already had sheep. They were not too small. They were mammals, unlike the chickens, which were not so very personable. And somehow they just appealed to my childhood spirit. And so my parents allowed me to have goats.


Sammy
Sam or Sammy, short for Samantha, was my favorite. She was a gentle soul, unlike Nannythanial Hornthorn (named by Tom), who was just plain mean. But still, I had soft feelings for her in my heart, as well, because she was, nevertheless, my goat.


My father wasn't happy about the goats for one simple reason. It was almost impossible to keep them confined, except by locking them in the barn, and after all, shouldn't they be outside, especially in summer, when there were so many nice yummy things to eat? Including, unfortunately for all of us, all my father's favorite plants. They jumped over fences. When tied to a chain that was attached to a stake driven into the ground, they pulled it out. And they munched on everything. Not just the grasses, but everything. I often gave up and let them run free, but this was dangerous territory, and I had to at least try to keep them out of my father's gardens and orchard. 


I desperately wanted to have one or another of my goats pull a goat-cart. Lying around the barnyard I had found an old set of wheels and an axle to attach the two. I tried fixing up a seat on it, but the engineering of it wasn't right, and it never worked - in the sense that it didn't stay together and move along as a cart should. The question of the goat being attached to it and being willing to pull it was a whole other question, and the answer to that one was also that the engineering, or the personality and training of the goats, just didn't work. I tried many times, but never fulfilled the visions in my mind.


The most famous goat story was about Scooter, Nannythanial Nornthorn's son, who was also inclined to be tough and mean. He was wandering the yard, and my mother was sitting in the dining room and saw him on the front porch. She watched him look in the window at the tall, impressive, flower-filled fuchsia plant that was happily growing inside the house. She saw him eyeing the plant, and at the same instant that she realized what was going to happen, it happened. Scooter wanted the fuchsia, and so he just jumped through the window into the house and started eating it, ignoring the broken glass around him and the blood streaming from his ear.


There are many more goat stories. But most of all, I just loved them, and loved knowing that they were - in as much as an animal can be - not my brothers' and not my parents', but mine.

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. And on his farm he had some goats, e-i-e-i-o. With a ma-maa here and a ma-maa there, here a ma, there a ma, everywhere a ma-maa.

I wait for Adonaimy whole being waits.  Psalm 130.5







Sunday, May 6, 2012

Jones and Company

My brother Tom raised pigs. Rather, hogs. They lived their lives in the pigpen and its accompanying closure. These hogs became immortalized in our family with a front-end portrait shot of Jones that Tom took when he was into photography. It is a memorable view.

Aside from this photograph, I do not have any special or fond memories of the hogs themselves. More that they simply were. They were part of the landscape, a factor in life on our home, grunting, oinking, growing larger and larger, grunter deeper and louder, and then gone. Slaughtered, chopped, packaged, and put into our freezer. Such is life and death for farm animals. And they taste very good.

I stopped eating pork before I stopped eating meat altogether. The taste of bacon and ham are but a memory. But the image of Jones remains vivid in my mind, helped along by his studio-quality portrait, and accompanied by Wilbur from Charolette's Web and Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh, two very memorable characters that didn't always behave so much like pigs, or hogs.


[Photo of Jones to come]


In all the world
There is no way whatever.
The stag cries even
In the most remote mountain.                     --The priest Fujiwara No Toshinari


I know, Adonai, that the way of humans is not in their control, humans are not able to direct their steps as they walk.                                                                   --Jeremiah 10:23


Sunday, March 25, 2012

Windmill



The ladder up the windmill
Photo by Mary North Allen
Looking up the hill
from beside the barn 
The windmill above the barn no longer provided the energy needed to run the pump at its base. An electric switch opened a circuit to bring electricity to power the pump. But the blades atop the windmill continued to rotate in the wind, and the ladder to the top of the windmill was still intact.






A winter view toward the northwest from the windmill
Photo by Mary North Allen
More than once I climbed to the top of that ladder. From just below the windmill blades I could see over the barn roof and the treetops, up and down the three small valleys that came together at the creek juncture below the house. And when I turned around, I could see beyond the orchard to the large hilltop alfalfa field and the lone tree in its middle. 


It was a fine view.
View toward the ocean from atop Mount Agamenticus,
York, Maine, elevation 691 feet
Photo by Gabi Mezger




Not seeking
Just being...


Not defining
All accepting.


No demanding
Faith expanding.


Without knowing
Ongoing...


Inner listening
Gladness -- glistening.               --Albert Krassner


Be still, and know that I am God.   --Psalm 46:10

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Potatoes

My father loved to garden and he always had a large vegetable patch. On late spring evenings and weekends, I helped him with the planting, sprinkling the seeds just the way he told me to into long, straight furrows below taut strings stretched from one end of the garden to the other. The most fun were the potatoes. My father bought seed potatoes and cut them carefully so that each piece had just one eye, and then let them dry thoroughly in the sun before we planted them. He dug the holes and I placed the piece of potato eye up in the bottom of the hole. Then he covered it over with soil.


I loved harvesting the spring crops, especially asparagus. The tender green stalks were the first fresh vegetable of the year, and they arrived before the weeds took control. Hunting for the green sprouts against the brown soil was a joyous search down the long asparagus bed, hoping not to miss a stalk that was just the right height for eating, finding and slicing them off just below the soil line. 


But potato harvest was the best - a time of mystery, exploration, and surprises. 


Paul Allen with his shovel,
used for many things, including
planting and harvesting potatoes
Throughout the summer, as the potato plants grew, my father mounded soil around them, creating small "hills." Some time in August the weeds always gained the upper hand. Perhaps my father lost the desire to keep up with them, but from then on we had to search for the vegetables among the weeds. At that time of summer, the leaves of the potato plants could easily be discerned among the weeds, but it was still too early harvest the potatoes. We might find green beans, but for potatoes we had to wait. 

In mid-to-late autumn potato harvest time would arrive. One by one, we searched out the dead or dying potato plants among the weeds. Sometimes we couldn't find any trace of a plant remaining, but my father was certain there was a hill of potatoes just about "here." He was usually correct. Once we located a potato hill, my father dug down into the rich soil, trying to be at just the right spot - not so close to the center that he sliced through a potato and not so far away that we missed them altogether. 

My asparagus patch needs weeding.
With excitement, I pulled out the large potatoes that rose upward with the shovel. I pulled out others peeking out through the sides. And then we reached in with our hands and searched for more, still hidden behind the sides of the hole my father had dug. The best potatoes of all were the "doll potatoes," the little ones, just right for little girls and dolls. Those I treasured. Those were for me.

By the time we were finished we usually had several bushels of potatoes. After drying in the sun, they were stored in our cellar and provided sustenance for our family for many meals during the cold, short days of winter. 


One potato, two potato,
Three potato, four,
Five potato, six potato,
Seven potato, more!               --Nursery rhyme


You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.  --Psalm 145:16


Monday, March 12, 2012

The Barn Loft

View from the barn, looking up the driveway
Photo by Mary North Allen
The barn was great fun to play in, especially the loft, and most especially when it was mostly filled with hay. Exploring the dark corners below the eves from atop a solid bank of hay was invariably an adventure. By moving a few bales around, my friends and I could create a hiding spot behind which no one could see us. We, however, could peek between the slats of the barn walls and see the driveway, the house, the other farm buildings, and the view up and down the valley. What a liberating feeling! Sometimes, in one of those back corners, we would find a nest full of eggs. The hens must have also liked the seclusion.

Door from the barn loft to the main floor
Photo by Mary North Allen
The greatest fun in the barn loft was provided by the long, thick, heavy rope that hung down from the peak of the roof almost to the floor. We would skinny up it, as though we were sailors aboard a huge sailing ship: Put your hands up as high as you can and hold on tightly to the rope. Scooch yourself up. Hold on tightly with your knees, and again reach up as high as you can. Keep repeating as you swing gently from side to side, until you are as high up as you want to go. You can see the inside of the roof, and maybe a few pigeons. Then slide down (quickly for fun, but carefully, so as not to get rope burn if you are wearing shorts!) until you're at the height where you are ready and then -- jump!

View of the barn with the loft doors closed
Photo by Mary North Allen
Better than the sailor routine with the rope was swinging on it. Not far above the floor, just at the perfect spot was a large knot. When the two sides of the barn were filled to the rafters with hay, but the middle section was empty, we opened up the sliding doors as wide as possible. One of us climbed up the ladder to the rafters and made our way to the back of the barn, away from the doors, beside the open central space. The one standing below swung the rope up and back and the one on the rafters caught it. The big knot just reached the spot where we sat, ready. Perching on the knot, hanging onto the rope tightly, we jumped. Down, down, we fell, then the rope went taut and we would swing outward, out the barn door, out beneath the open sky, with a fleeting view of the trees and fields and streams as we swung upward to meet the sky until the rope could go no further, then backward and into the barn, then out again, and again, each time a shorter swing, until we came nearly to a stop. Then the rider let go and jumped off the "seat" to land on the barn floor. What an amazing and wonderful ride! It was impossible to get too much of it.

One of several rock outcroppings
at Loker Conservation Area
Nonesuch Pond in Natick, through the trees
Last Friday, I walked the trails of the Loker Conservation Area with five other women -- part of Earth-Connecting: Walking Wayland. I felt so comfortable -- easy conversation, sharing of knowledge about the land and the trees and the Earth, and a powerful sense of connection to this plot of land. The conservation area is close to the highway, and on one stretch of the trail the sounds of the traffic were quite loud. Normally that would have interfered with my ability to connect to myself and the Earth and to let the healing power of the Earth into my heart and soul, but not this day. This day something different happened; I felt the connection and the healing almost immediately -- the evergreens giving color amid the browns and grays of late winter / early spring, the rock outcroppings, the view between the trees of a distant pond across the highway, shared moments of silence as we each made our quiet, personal connection to the land, and somehow most of all, the knowledge that we were crossing the divide between two watersheds, from the SuAsCo - Assabet, Sudbury, Concord - Rivers Watershed, in which we all live, into a tiny corner of the Charles River Watershed. We connected to Boston Harbor with our feet. Two ways to touch the ocean. 
Taking a moment alone in silence
to connect to the trees and  the Earth


Kol haneshama tehallel Yah, Halleluyah. 
Let everything that has breath praise the One, Halleluyah. --Psalm 150:6


I have walked through many lives, some of them my own...   --Stanley Kunitz














Monday, March 5, 2012

Skiing, Sledding, and Tobagganing

In winter, we went skiing, sledding, and tobogganing down the hills that rose up from the sides of the valleys. My skis were old wooden ones that had been my mother's when she was young. I wore my regular snow boots and put my feet into large loops, big enough to encircle my boots, and then clamped myself in. Easy as pie.


We had a hill that we called our ski slope. It began at the end of the path across the marsh. ("Path Across the Marsh," January 22) A long stretch of the lower hillside was meadow, open and potentially ski-able or sled-able, but only in this one area was the hillside free of trees all the way to the top, providing a nice long run, when the snow conditions permitted. Our ski slope was groomed only by our skis as they made tracks in the snow. Going down the second time in the same tracks - if one could manage that - provided a faster run than the first time. But too much snow made skiing - and sledding and tobogganing - impossible, for in the deep snow we could go only a very short distance, or no distance at all, before sinking down and coming to an abrupt halt. 


Some years we had a "January thaw," a respite from the frigid below-freezing and often below-zero weather that was the norm of my Wisconsin childhood. The snow softened as it began to melt. Then the temperatures inevitably dropped and the top of the snow froze hard, leaving a crust. Depending on the thickness and strength of the crust, we could either walk on it or else, with each step we might be held up for a brief second and then sink down into the snow, making walking very difficult. On those rare occasions when the crust was thick enough to carry the skis or toboggan, we gloriously zoomed down our small hills at high speed.


One winter the conditions were just right for a wild, wild, toboggan ride straight down the steep hill below the barn, conditions that included the craziness to even try this run. The hill was steep enough that we picked up more and more speed, so when the front of the toboggan hit the first wall of snow from the snowplow along one side of the driveway we bounced into the air and over it, to almost immediately hit the wall of snow on the other side of the driveway. But that wasn't the end of our jumps, for the driveway had a circle, so, after a short zip across the middle of the circle, we had two more tortuous jumps as we hit the two walls of snow on both sides of the driveway on the other side of the circle, and then -- danger! Quick! Bail out before we hit the barbed wire fence! It was glorious and crazy and fun and scary all at once, and whoever was on the back of the toboggan was lucky (or unlucky?) if he or she made it to the bottom of the hill without sliding off.


Another winter - or maybe it was the same one - my brother Tom created a sled run through the woods across the valley; a toboggan was way too awkward to navigate this trail. We flopped belly down, head first, on our wooden sleds with their metal runners, and steered carefully, very carefully. One sled at a time in case the other person crashed, zigzagging between the oak trees. At one particular spot we would be zooming down the hill and suddenly we were headed straight for a huge tree, but with adroit and swift steering we swerved to the right, then back again to the left after the tree to continue downward at top speed and into the safety of the open pasture below. This winter ride was also at once glorious and crazy and fun and scary. And my brothers and I are here to tell the story.


There come to us moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us tells us, 'You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way.


There are moments in your life when you must act, even though you cannot carry your best friends with you. The 'still small voice' within you must always be the final arbiter when there is a conflict of duty.


Having made a ceaseless effort to attain self-purification, I have developed some little capacity to hear correctly and clearly the 'still small voice within'.


I shall lose my usefulness the moment I stifle the still small voice within. 
--Mahatma Gandhi

Be strong and of good courage...                              --Deuteronomy 31:23


Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Back Porch

View from our back porch. Photo by Mary North Allen
When we moved into the old farmhouse that would be our home during my formative years, my parents had the foresight to have a screen porch built in the back corner of the house, off the kitchen, in the shade of the big old maple tree, beside the cherry tree. It was a large room, with enough space for a table and chairs and two twin-size beds or cots. All summer long - and warm days in spring and fall - we ate our meals at that round table with the folding leaves, and on hot summer nights we vied for the opportunity to sleep on those coveted beds, to be the ones who would feel the gentle breezes of the night on their faces, who would awaken to the chorus of bird song and frogs emanating from the surrounding marshes and fields, who would sleep soundly rather than tossing and turning in a fruitless effort to find a cool spot of bed on the hot second floor of our not-so-well-insulated and not-at-all-air-conditioned home.

The 3-season porch we added to our house.
Photo by Gabi Mezger
We loved that porch. A bird house - wren-size - hung on the lowest branch of the maple tree, and we reveled in the bubbly sounds of the wrens' calls and in watching them enter with food and exit empty-beaked as they fed their young ones during the warm spring days. Other kinds of birds stopped on the maple branches for shelter or snacks, and as the cherries on the cherry tree ripened, red-wing blackbirds and others snatched up the tasty fruit. All were a source of joy and wonder. On weekends and after dinner, we sat and we talked, and not a single mosquito bothered us. The sky grew dark in the late summer and the whip-poor-wills began to call from the underbrush. The moon rose over the tree tops and spread its faint light across the hills and marshes. The sound of an occasional car on the road and lights twinkling in the house up the valley reminded us that we were not alone. Our dogs barked in response to sounds beyond our ken. Cows mooed in pastures unseen, and the chickens in our barn settled in for the night. At its best it was idyllic, serene, healing, and renewing.


So many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners....so many nights....so many words, so many events, so many emotions...so much, so very, very much happened here.


On April nights when it has become warm enough to sit outdoors, we love to listen to the proceedings of the convention in the marsh. There are long periods of silence when one hears only the winnowing of snipe, the hoot of a distant owl, or the nasal clucking of some amorous coot.              --Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac


In the name of G!d, the G!d of Israel, on my right Michael, on my left Gabriel. In front of me Uriel, behind me Raphael, and all around, surrounding me, the Presence of G!d. In the name of G!d, the G!d of Israel, on my right Sarah, on my left Rebecca. In front of me Leah, behind me Rachel, and all around, surrounding me, the Presence of G!d.                   --First verse, bedtime Shema liturgy, second verse, Rabbi Jill Hammer, based on passages from the Zohar



Monday, February 27, 2012

Theo's Nature Memories

I was wandering around on the web and came across the idea of making a nature journal with children. You can find what I read about nature journals on this website. I realized that I wanted to start a nature journal with my grandson, who is now 22 months. The last time I saw Theo, I took him outside. After playing with his trucks and in his sand box, I wanted to do something to connect to nature with him. He didn't want to go far from the house, so finally I had the idea to look up. It was a partly cloudy day, and the sky displayed a mosaic of small white puffy clouds. I pointed the clouds out to Theo. I pretended to try to grab them and catch them and bring them down to him. He thought it was terribly funny and leaned back and laughed, a big belly laugh. This of course egged me on. I pretended the clouds were cookies and tried to grab them again and again and give them to him. Each time I did it, he laughed that big joyous belly laugh. I lifted him up so he could try to reach the clouds, and he thought that was just as funny.


Now, ready to make a nature journal for Theo, I decided to start with our experience with the clouds. I hadn't taken pictures that day, so on another day with white puffy clouds, I took several pictures, and chose one for the cover of the journal. Theo came over last week and I showed him the journal. He didn't seem to remember our cloud experience, but he did seem to like the notebook, at least for a moment or two. 


I took Theo outside again. I had to carry him because he has broken his leg and has a cast all the way up to the middle of his thigh. He is heavy! I carried him along the pathway through my garden. When we came to the first tree, we stopped. I said, "Hello, Tree," and Theo said, "Hello, Tree." We spent some time looking at the tree and speaking to it. Then we continued along the pathway and back to the  lawn. Theo wanted to go around again before returning inside. This time when we reached the tree I said, "Good-bye, Tree." Theo said, "Bye-bye, Tree." The first page for Theo's Nature Journal will have this picture of the tree we visited and the words "Hello, Tree" above the picture and "Good-Bye Tree," under it.

I contemplate a tree. 
I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground. 
I can feel it as movement: the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air--and the growing itself in its darkness. 
I can assign it to a species and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of life. 
I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law--those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate. 
I can dissolve it into a number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it. 
Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition. 
But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It.…What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.                     
                                                                                                 --Martin Buber, I and Thou

Sunday, February 19, 2012

A Two-Man Saw

We had a two-man saw. More accurately, a two-person saw. We used it to cut fallen trees into short logs that we could then split into smaller pieces to be burned in the wood-burning stoves that helped to keep our home - an old farmhouse - warm (or at least warmish) in winter.

When I say "we" used it, I do me "we," which is why it should have been called a two-person saw, for I was neither man nor woman, but child, and yet many times I pulled on one end of this hefty tool. The saw had two vertical handles, large enough to be gripped by both hands, that were connected to a long metal blade with gigantic teeth. Getting the motion of the saw started was difficult. The big teeth would bump and jump and get stuck in the wood. My father directed me from the other end of the saw, telling me how to pull the handle toward me and not push it, and eventually, eventually, we would strike up a rhythm and the saw would sing as it glided back and forth, cutting through the fallen hardwood. Invariably, though, at some point deeper into the tree trunk, the rhythm would break. We would need to fiddle around, perhaps shifting in the angle of the saw, until we got a rhythm back - at least for a few strokes back and forth before stopping yet again. Invariably, too, my arms would grow tired, and someone bigger and stronger would step in to take my place. But I would always return, to again be one of the "men" at the ends of the saw. 

In every cut tree you can count
the rings to find out how old the tree was.
There was a great sense of satisfaction when the saw slipped through the last of the wood, or neared close enough to the end of its work that the length of log separated from the rest of the trunk and fell to the ground.

Later, the wood had to be chopped, and with this, too, I helped. I learned to wield an ax, and I often went out on a cold autumn or winter day to split some of the logs we had cut with that two-person saw. A giant log located beside the screen porch, under the big old maple tree, provided a chopping spot. The idea was to carefully position the log to be split upright on the larger log. It was richly satisfying to then raise the ax above my head, swing it down in the center of the chosen log, and with one whack split it cleanly into two. Wow! Of course, many times I was off the mark, and the ax went "thud" onto the wood and nothing happened, but I was successful often enough to keep me coming back and splitting more wood.

We had two fireplaces. One was totally enclosed, on four legs, with enough room for Smidgen - who, short-haired dog that she was, was always cold in the winter - to sprawl out beneath it for a nap. When she emerged, panting, she was too hot to safely touch. The second one was a Franklin stove, with glass doors on the front that could be opened or closed. Both gave off significant heat and helped the furnace - too small for the size of the house - heat the rooms.
A trail at Greenways
Conservation Area


The furnace in my home now is plenty big - and fossil fuels alone heat my home. I have a saw in my garage, but it is a one-person saw, and I use it mainly to cut up fallen pine branches before I haul them to the brush pile in the backyard or pile them in the trunk of my car to take them to the landfill.

In the woods near my home, someone else cuts the logs, not for burning in a  fireplace, but to clear the trails. The fallen trees are left to slowly decompose and return to the soil. Some have been lying there long enough to become covered by fungi, or to provide a solid base for a new tree to grow on.
At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose your self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's, but in only one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one--which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your I.               --Dag Hammarskjold


The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day makes utterance, night to night speaks out,
There is no utterance, there are no words, whose sound goes unheard.
Their voice carries throughout the earth, their words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19:1-5


Friday, February 17, 2012

Hidden Gifts

Another hiding place
I've discovered a totally unexpected treasure as I have been writing these nature memories. Some of them contain hidden gems, jewels of understanding. These gifts are not discernible from the words - they are visible only to my heart and mind, but treasures and gifts indeed they are. Perhaps this is what unknowingly compelled me to begin writing. 


I look forward to the possibility that additional gifts of understanding will come my way as I continue to record my memories, and I invite you to hear and pay heed to the voice within you that leads you to your personal inner treasures.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Four O'Clocks

I had a flower garden. In late winter, my father would take me to the greenhouses at the university where he was a professor of botany, and we would plant seeds of the annual flowers that I would fill my garden. At the greenhouse there was wonderful, rich, clean potting soil, with which we filled flat, round pots. Very carefully, I spread out the seeds on the soil and then sprinkled on another thin layer of soil and watered the pots thoroughly. When we were finished, we set the pots out in the greenhouse, alongside seedlings and plants belonging to students or professors. 


Some weeks later I would go with my father again, and we would gently transplant the 2-inch high seedlings - marigolds, four o'clocks, zinnias, petunias, and more - into individual pots. In late spring my father would bring home the seedling,s and I would start to plant my garden. 


Four O'Clocks
by Nemo's Great Uncle
I especially remember the four o'clocks. I planted them beside the house, and by early summer the plants were two feet high and filled with bright blossoms - pink and white and yellow and red - blooms that opened in mid-day and closed again in the evening. It always bothered me that they were called four o'clocks - they didn't bloom right at four o'clock! They bloomed much longer, often starting earlier in the day and lasting well past four pm. My father had an explanation, which I had, of course forgotten. Now I learn that it is the change in temperature, not sunlight, that determines the flowers' bloom time. This fact of science didn't stick in my memory, but the images of the colorful masses of flowers below the front windows have remained with me.  


Because the four o'clocks close each evening, these were not the flowers for cutting and putting in vases; these remained outdoors, connected to stems and roots, only to be seen when coming or going, or just being outdoors.


Four O'Clocks
by Wallygrom
Why did I love those flowers so much? Their misbegotten name was surely part of it, their riot of colors, their insistence on being left where they were growing and not transported indoors to give brief enjoyment and then fade and die, the alluring pictures in the Burpee catalog, the moments alone with my father in the greenhouse, the flowers' spot beside the house, the height they grew to from those tiny seeds; the knowledge that they would without fail grow and thrive and bloom. 


A medley of bright, ephemeral colors, symbol of joy and cheer and hope.

Southern Spring

Soon
I will borrow
a bow saw
to trim the yews
that run my yard,
and soon
I will hunt stakes
to brace my plants,
but now
I must sit
in the shade
and watch
the four-o’clocks grow.
--James Donahoe

My garden now grows perennials only - in my busy life I need plants that will return each year on their own, without my help of seed planting. And when the first frost of autumn cuts short the last of the flowers' colorful display, their memory holds me through the shortening days until the new year brings tax forms and seed catalogs and visions of the richness of summertime.


I have learned that four o'clocks have tubers that can survive some winters. The bitter cold winters of my Wisconsin childhood were too much for them, but perhaps here in southern New England, the story will be different. I must try.


The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. (Song of Songs 2:12)

P.S. The poem above came from the website of Four-O'Clock Flowers Around the World Cancer Memorial. I sent an envelope to get four o'clock seeds from them, and you can, too. They ask you to plant the seeds as a symbol of hope. I will plant these seeds in memory of my cousin, Trynka, and my aunt, Lorraine, both of whom died of cancer.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Eggs

My brothers were raising animals, and I wanted to, too. I got chickens. We had a large chicken coop, which provided a home base for the birds. They were Bantams, colorful burgundy and brown. And some white chickens, too. I fed and watered them morning and evening in the chicken coop, closing them in at night and opening the door in the morning to let them out into the fresh air. 


Eggs laid by the hens
at Codman Farm in Lincoln, MA
At first the chickens laid their eggs in the chicken coop. I would gingerly slide my hand into the nest box and sometimes be rewarded by the feel of smooth eggs under my  hand. With time, the chickens began to wander far from the safe confines of the chicken coop. They could be found among any of the farm buildings, out on the rough gravel and bedrock that provided a roadway up the hill from the house to the barn, or among the tall grasses or the trees nearby. Sometimes, playing in the loft of the barn with my friends or my brothers, among the high stacks of baled hay we would suddenly come across a nest. It could have a dozen or more light brown eggs. Occasionally, one was still warm. We gathered up the eggs and took them home. The next day, they made their way into a cake or found themselves on my father's plate beside his daily strips of bacon. 


A Space Child's Mother Goose was infamous in my childhood home. We read it aloud together at times laughing so hard the tears welled up in our eyes. A few of Frederick Winsor's poems became etched in my memory, including one related (!) to eggs:
Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to Postulate How.

I, like Probable-Possible, remain unable to Postulate How, and I no longer gather eggs, but I still eat them. I buy eggs from a nearby community farm, and sometimes my friend Robyn gives me eggs from her hens. I am grateful for all of them.

The Holy One gives nourishment to all flesh, for Divine kindness endures forever. (Ps. 136.25) 


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

An Island in the Stream

Beyond the garden and below the spot where the cow pasture crossed the stream, where the stream banks were totally broken down by the cows and it was muddy all around, hidden among the willows growing out from the stream banks was a small unassuming island. This tiny plot of land was just barely an island. Most of the stream flowed along one side, but enough of a rivulet - more than a rivulet - flowed along on the other side that it could accurately be identified as an island. One hot summer, my friend and I lived a children's fantasy on that little piece of ground.


On our island grew small willow trees and a mass of undergrowth, brushy and hard to scramble through, and in the middle was a small open area. Working our way outward from this bit of open space, we brought into being a home. There we "played house." And yet, what we did together was much more than playing. We created - not out of nothing, but out of something - out of the earth and the grasses and the trees and the bushes and the spaces between the trees and the fallen logs, and out of our imagination - we created a sanctuary. We created a place of safety and security. A place where all is just as one imagines it. A place without pain or embarrassment or self-consciousness or judgement or rejection. A place where our souls could sing and our hearts could dance and we could be and do just as we wanted.


I would always choose to be the person running
rather than the mob chasing
I would prefer to be the person laughed at
rather than the teenagers laughing
I always admired the men and women who sat down
for their rights
And held in disdain the men and women who spat
on them
Everyone deserves Sanctuary a place to go where you are
safe
Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing

to open their hearts as well as their eyes
                                 --Art Sanctuary, by Nikki Giovanni


Let them make for Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Ex. 25:8)


Hazel Brook
I walked today through Hazel Brook Reservation, a property of the Sudbury Valley Trustees. It was an unseasonably warm and sunny February day. I walked briskly, wanting and needing to exercise my body, to help it strengthen and heal. But when I reached the brook - something more than a rivulet - the sight and the sound of the water stopped me.  


Below the bridge the banks of the brook were broken and the trail was muddy from the hooves of horses traversing the it. Above the bridge, the water tumbled down a small hillside and over moss-covered rocks that provided a touch of green against the brown and grey of winter. 


I stood at first on the wooden footbridge, then sat down on it, listening, meditating, praying. The noise from traffic was muffled and distant. More present was the babbling of the brook.


Sanctuary. I sat in the midst of the art of the Creator, and I felt safe. My eyes and my heart began to open, and only then did I see the first skunk cabbages of the spring, just the tips, pushing upward through the dry leaves.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

A Home Among the Grass

I had some very little people, wooden, I believe, intricately painted in bright colors. They were not much more than an inch tall - men, women, and children; families in my mind. 


One summer day, I created for these little people the most resplendent of homes, with rooms for everyone and every use. Sitting in the grass of the front yard, I carefully pulled out all the dead, dried grass from between the blades of green, growing grass, leaving behind areas of clear soil, free of growth: rooms! Narrow bands of grass-free soil made for hallways between larger rooms. Some openings were small - bedrooms, perhaps. Others were larger and could be a living room, or library, or perhaps a ballroom! My little people had never before had such luxuriant living conditions. Rich green wallpaper, deep brown carpets, and ceilings of sky blue turquoise. Ample sky lights in every room let the sunlight stream in, with quieter, dusky areas along the sides for those seeking a respite from the light and heat. 


My little people thrived in their new home, their spirits nourished by the sights and sounds and smells that wafted into their summer abode. Only, with the dark, their proprietress insisted on bringing them into the big house for safekeeping through the chill and the dark of the night. They didn't seem to mind in the least.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Wagon Wheel


In our yard was a wagon wheel, an old-fashioned one, made of wood and metal - a wooden inner wheel protected by a metal outer wheel. The wheel was attached to its axle, and the axle was sunk into the ground. But it wasn't straight up and down. The axle pointed up toward the sky at an angle, and so, of course, the wheel also sat an an angle, and the angle was such that one side of the wheel touched the ground and the other side was about 18 inches high. 


To me, this wheel was meant to be ridden. And so I tried. Sitting on the higher end, I lifted my legs, hoping to swing down and around (and perhaps up again?). It never worked very well. I cleaned away the weeds and grasses from around the wheel. I tried to reposition it so that it would be level and I could just go in circles, pushing myself with one foot. I tried twirling it around in hopes that it would become a better swing, or slide. All of my efforts were in vain. 


The old wagon wheel
Photo by Tom Allen
As a swing or a slide the old wagon wheel was an utter failure. And yet, I returned to it again and again over the years, trying in one way or another to get a usable ride. Summer after summer, the wheel was there for me to try again. We had a long and engaged relationship, for I returned even when I was long past the age of swings and slides and far to tall to even think of making the old, abandoned wheel into a ride. Now that wheel is embedded in my memory and in my soul, but not by itself or alone, for the wheel, sitting in our yard above the marshes, is joined forever with the wide-open sky, the trees lining the stream and rimming the western edge of the yard, the birds winging across the sky, and the summer breeze riffling through my hair. 

Monday, January 30, 2012

Snow Bridges

It was a very snowy winter. So much snow fell that year that it created bridges across the creek that ran through the valley below our house. Some of these snow bridges were thus in name only - they couldn't hold much weight and collapsed readily. Others, however, created real, usable pathways from one side of the creek to the other. 


Smidgen in the snow
Photo by Mary North Allen
Smidgen, our small black dog, could cross almost all the bridges, and she scampered back and forth, bounding through the snow like a little black ping pong ball, perhaps hoping that if she stayed in the air enough of the time, her feet wouldn't get so cold. Duncan, the collie, couldn't leap so readily, and he trudged more slowly through the deep snow, stopping to sniff interesting scents. Forty pounds heavier than Smidgen, fewer of the bridges remained intact when he ventured onto them. I, the next heaviest, experienced the snow more in collie fashion than in little black mutt fashion. With trepidation, I would step onto the bridges that Duncan had crossed. I didn't want to land in the creek! When I was able to cross a snow bridge successfully, I was triumphant. That fleeing architectural structure, with its ephemeral footing, had held me up and sustained me. And only when I succeeded in crossing would my older brother Tom follow, and if he succeeded, we knew we had a true triumph of winter engineering beneath our feet.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Stars

My older brother's high school class filled the hay wagon on a ride through the fields at night. The tractor buzzed and the teenagers around me were probably more interested in each other than in the mysterious of the nighttime. I was lying on my back, watching the stars. One kept moving - a satellite, unusual in those days. The stars, so many, so bright, so very, very bright against the black, black sky. White, twinkling specs of wonder, a whole panorama of them, silent.

And the moon, too, when it is visible.
I look at the stars every night, now. Blessed are You, Adonai our G!d, Source of all being, by whose word the evening falls. In wisdom You open heaven’s gates…ordering the stars on their appointed paths through heaven’s. Creator of day and night, rolling away light before dark, and dark before light, making day pass and bringing on night…Blessed are You, Adonai, who makes evening fall. And after these words, the words of the Mourner's Kaddish, in memory of my mother: Yitgadal v'yitkadash, May the Great Name of the One be magnified and sanctified...and there before me are the stars - the magnificent, amazing, glorious, mysterious, amazing stars.