The Nature Of Friendship

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

“And in that moment, he was finally able to accept it all.  In the deepest recesses of his soul, Tsukuru Tazaki understood.  One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone.  They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds.  Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility.  There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss.  That is what lies at the root of true harmony.

Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage

Well, hello there, good old friend of mine
You’ve been reachin’ for yourself for such a long time
There’s so much to say, no need to explain
Just an open door for you to come in from the rain

Carole Bayer Sager, Melissa Manchester, Come In From The Rain

Friendship is an ephemeral concept.  Most commentary or quotes about friendship focus upon its various outcomes, shortcomings, and difficulties rather than upon its chemistry.  There is undoubtedly good reason for this, as there appears to be no single chemical formula which would account for the concept.  All you have to do to understand the differing chemistries which support friendship is consider the relevant clichés about it –  from the notion that opposites attract to the belief that true friends are sculpted from the same clay.

Friendship requires some form of mutual, base level attraction which is not physical in nature.  Friendship is a loaf of mutual fascination formed from some combination of time and  place, shared thoughts, passions, and goals somehow unique to those involved, and somehow baked separately within each participant’s crucible of self-awareness, empathy, and curiosity only to emerge as a single, shared finished product.  While there is no universally correct list of ingredients or recipe for friendship’s creation, the process of its formation always requires this initial spark of attraction.

Given the twin mysteries of the requisite ingredients and the particular processes of their combination, it is no wonder that the final loaf is always a unique enigma peculiar to those involved.  It is their respective personalities which will determine whether the friendship, once formed, will prove lasting or ephemeral; friendships can either be quickly consumed or carefully nurtured.  To stick with the bread analogy, the participants can either eat a single loaf of warm bread of any variety with shared gusto in one or two sittings, or they can re-bake many loaves of sourdough bread over the long course of time by carefully maintaining the levain, the starter, within the secret places of their hearts.

Both varieties of friendship have value.  Friendships are often situational, dependent upon shared experience for their creation and maintenance.  Consider, for example, a friendship formed in high school or college, or during military service, whose existence is determined by the urgent needs of time and place.  While such friendships might be capable of being nurtured through time, there is nothing wrong with an act of single consumption that ends when the declarative situation does.  Such friendships are not only enjoyable in consumption, but they are often the source of pleasant memories that sustain good spirits in times of desperation or need.

Long term friendships are of a more complex nature.  They somehow survive the tides of life, constantly reforming and reshaping as the needs of each participant vary according to whatever exigencies life may deal them.  These types of friendships are carefully formed, sip by sip, over lengthy periods; trust is of their essence, and the participants understand and respect the value of its fragile nature. It is this type of friendship that allows one or another of the participants to come in from the rain when it is necessary to do so, and unburden themselves with the confidence that whatever it is that they may hear in response – be it supportive or confrontational – will be incisive, necessary, and well-intentioned.

Because of their complexity, long-term friendships are not dependent upon time and place but rely, instead, upon the more ephemeral ingredients of similar personalities and shared viewpoint and passion. Indeed, they  are often at odds with the causes of situational friendships  in that they may cross the boundaries of generations or of formative cultures, overcoming these inherent differences because of a mutual principal focus.  For such a friendship to be successful, each participant must possess a natural curiosity; the kind of curiosity that allows him or her to question whether the participants’ perceived differences due to differing ages or upbringings are truly real or only mistaken perceptions resulting from faulty or all-too-casual communication.  In short, such friendships succeed due to the insistence of each party to search for shared truths rather than defining differences; to seek commonality in the teeth of perceived rational differences by means of the telling of, and the listening to, their respective fundamental and formative life stories.

I have been fortunate to have such friendships.  Each is a rare orchid, dependent upon its own peculiar potting soil for survival, dependent upon the individual will of myself and those with whom I share them for their continued existence.  I am grateful to the gods of chance, for I am a lucky man.

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The Children’s Hour

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Children’s Hour

“THIS, O Best Beloved, is another story of the High and Far-Off Times.”

Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Beginning of the Armadillos’, Just So Stories

I am an unrepentant early riser and am typically working at my computer in the silence of a sleeping house.  Of course, the cats are always up and about, but they are creatures of stealth and not often heard at such an hour – unless, of course, they demand to be fed or let out (or in, or out); and at each dawn the birds conduct their celebration over the sun’s safe return as if they were neo-pagans worshipping within the sacred confines of Stonehenge during a summer solstice.  Other than these occasional interruptions, peace and quiet reign throughout the house during the earliest morning hours – those hours before Helen, a chronic late-to-bed, arises to begin the earnest portions of our shared day.

Things are not the same in my oldest son’s home in Belmont, Massachusetts.  Following my usual routines, I am often the first adult to rise when we visit there.  Once dressed, I creep carefully down two flights of narrow stairs to sit in the living room and read my current book.  But sooner or later the inevitable slight noises begin from above: a bedroom door creaks slowly open; tiptoed, stealthy footsteps (the kind made by bare feet on polished hardwood floors) are heard; careful noises of hopeful investigation follow as the first of my granddaughters to wake peers into her sister’s room to see whether her sister still sleeps; and, eventually, bare feet patter down carpeted stairs until they come to rest in the silence reigning behind me, and I become aware of being watched as the wakened granddaughter peers cautiously around the living room doorway to see if Granddad might be up and available for a story or a discussion over a topic of interest to a six or nine-year-old mind (discussions usually conducted by means of the sort of incessant interrogation that springs from a sense of wonder and excitement over the inexplicable ways of the wide, wide world).

Such times are precious, both because they happen all too infrequently given the distances between our respective homes and because of their intimacy and warmth.  During these early morning visits with whichever granddaughter might prove to be first awake, Don and Sarah’s home is otherwise quiet and our business is, at first, conducted in the hushed voices of respect that honor the rights of those yet sleeping.  Even the inevitable giggles are restrained and intimate, given forth from behind a small, sheltering hand  – at least until such time as the second sister awakes and makes her presence known, and the unrestrained, high-spirited,  ritual of joyous reunion that is the essence of each morning’s sisterly re-engagement begins.  It is then that silence is flung aside as arms are swung wildly about and restless feet are made to shuffle, skip, and prance in their excitement over each new day’s unknown promise.

But I am now back at the Farm and the morning rituals of Don and Sarah’s home are three thousand miles away and three time zones in the past.  Yet, as I write these words, I feel a tingle occasioned by the shy glance around our library’s entryway made by an incorporeal, gap-toothed sprite – the same little girl who called, using her father’s iPhone FaceTime, on our first day back to ask me whether I would go up to the library and show it to her again on camera in order that she might better remember where she and her sister sleep among the books, on futons, when visiting the Farm.  Ghostly as her glance and giggles are in these early morning hours here on a farm so far away from Belmont, MA, they nonetheless warm my heart and make me smile – for they are as real to me as the morning’s sunshine.

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Random Impressions Of A Spring Day

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

I find this morning that what I most vividly and longingly recall is the sight of my grandson and his little sunburnt sister returning to their kitchen door from an excursion, with trophies of the meadow clutched in their hands – she with a couple of violets, and smiling, he serious and holding dandelions, strangling them in a responsible grip.  Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists – just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

E. B. White, “A Report in Spring,” May 10, 1957, Points of My Compass

The tractor makes quick work of the long grass in the lower pasture.  The grass has dried in the warm sunshine of a late morning and does not clog the blades of the mower, allowing me to first create, and then diligently follow, the mown patterns left behind in the standing grass.  The grass cuttings do not clump and drop in place underneath the mower deck as they do on wetter days, but spread and disappear behind the tractor as if the now-former blades of grass had never existed, had never stood tall in the pasture and waved their tassels gaily at passers-by while caught in the vagrant breath of slight spring breezes.  The acrid smell of the cut grass is pleasant, especially in combination with the sun’s warmth and the tractor’s hot diesel exhaust.  I feel the strain in my wrists as I turn the tractor into the tightest corners, enjoying its clatter  and swing as I accelerate out of each turn, even though I know that when I’ve finished the morning’s work I will be overheated, stiff, and sore from my manhandling of it.

My chore completed, I stow the tractor in its assigned place in the barn, pull the choke to cut off the engine, turn and withdraw the key, and climb stiffly down.  I take off my work gloves and hold them and the tractor key in one hand while closing the overhead steel door with the other.  I begin the walk up the slight hill to the house, each step releasing some of the pain I feel from having suffered the cramped quarters of the tractor’s driver’s seat. When I get to our front porch, I take off my cap – the orange one with the logo of a former law firm in which I was once a partner – place the key and work gloves within, set the resulting pile upon the wooden bench on which Marco, our only house cat to be allowed outdoors, stands and meows when he wants back in, and sit down in the adjacent wooden gliding chair.

The chair sits out of the direct sun, inviting me to rest in the aftermath of a successfully completed chore.  It sits underneath two bird feeders: one for hummingbirds filled with a sugary nectar hand-made by Helen; one for the rest of the birds filled with a seed mix purchased from a retail store located in a near-by, small town mall – a kind of store unlikely to be found in the city.  A rufous hummingbird darts in and out at one of the yellow flowers on the red plastic feeder, tail up, wings fluttering too fast to resemble anything other than a blur, bird and beak alike diving and withdrawing as he swallows his fill, sip-by-sip.  When done, he disappears into the limbs of the dense, flowering pine standing beside our garage, only to reappear and repeat the process several moments later.  He repeats this circular journey several times while I rest, ignoring me because of his certainty that I am no match for his speed and agility.  I wonder where his nest is and how many babies he might be feeding.

A miscellany of small birds flits into and out of the other feeder, the one not given over to hummingbirds.  They are more cautious and jittery than  hummingbirds, spooking at my slightest adjustment, no matter how carefully planned and executed, or at the sound of each unwanted cough made in response to the ever-present pollen or the remainder of the tractor-trailing dust still lingering within the depths of my throat.  One small black-eyed junco is braver than the rest, hopping about on the porch planks near my feet looking for gems within the bevy of seed husks covering the area beneath the other feeder.  Given the zest with which the birds attack and fling their food about, he is not disappointed in his search, and finally, having eaten his momentary fill, flies away in a flutter of wings without so much as a goodbye or a backward look.

Cottonwood fluff is everywhere, drifting and swooping according to the whims of the contrary breezes.  As soon as they alight on the tarmac of our drive, they are carried aloft again; they will not find a home until caught and held by the spines and leaves of the vegetation growing in our fields or flower gardens.  I am certain it is cottonwood rather than dandelion fluff, because the dandelions are mostly done with their gestational work while the cottonwoods have only begun.  Besides, dandelions are forbidden to grow near the house; their principal allowed residence on the Farm is the pasture I’ve just finished mowing, and all that remains of them there – for the moment at least – are their roots.  As I sit and ponder the uncontrollable serendipity that is the fate of cottonwood seeds, I idly wonder if cottonwoods and dandelions could cross-breed since their seedlings look so alike.  I shudder at the fantasy of a tall cottonwood crowned with broad green and yellow leaves and quickly return to the more comforting contemplation of birds.

Birds are everywhere about the Farm singing in counterpoint – the calls and responses of each single species of songbird commingling with those of another to produce a richness akin to that of a full symphony of woodwinds and strings, while woodpeckers provide an intermittent, lackadaisical drum beat.  Being careful not to interrupt the birds’ composition, I remain as still in the chair as my sore muscles allow, not rocking in the glider as I often do during the shank of a summer’s day.  To my left, peripheral vision senses, rather than sees, a mob of blue-black Stellar’s jays streaking from the feeders located above our side deck to the pine limbs where they take each captured peanut to eat the nut inside and drop the shells for Helen to find later in the evening as she gardens by twilight.

I sit in my chair as if I, too, were woven into the tapestry of this warm spring morning, sated with the knowledge of a well-executed chore as my muscles and mind relax within the heat bath of noontime.  And in that warmth lies peace.

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A Night At The Theater

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

I no longer practice law and have discovered great joy in retirement.  It isn’t that I didn’t like the practice of law; in fact, I enjoyed it a great deal for over 40 years.  But law practice comes with a great deal of stress primarily due to externally imposed deadlines which carry significant penalties if missed, and the fact of always dealing with other people’s problems for which the lawyer must assume a great deal of responsibility, both legally and morally.  I happily managed the resulting stress when I was in practice since the ability to do so and stay sane is evidence of a significant skill – one which I call walking the high wire – and it yields a peculiar form of satisfaction when you are successful at it, even when, or perhaps especially because, you are perfectly aware that too much stress is bad for your health.  But I am now free of those stresses and have found great relief in learning how to manage my life in their absence.

To my surprise, I find there is not very much that I miss from my days at the bar.  I maintain my license to practice more out of habit than need, since I refuse to take on legal matters and limit my service to boards dealing with legal affairs – one which governs the local law library and one which raises the necessary funds to provide legal services to the poor.  In that way, I keep a hand in and manage to interact with many of the comrades with whom I used to keep daily hours.

But there is one thing I miss a great deal in retirement: my friendships with many clients.  I was a fortunate lawyer in the sense that most of my clients either (a) were friends before becoming clients and the friendship survived whatever interaction I had with their  legal problems, or (b) were clients first and a subsequent friendship grew out of the mutual activities in which we engaged as a partnership of business man or woman and lawyer.  I suspect it helped a great deal that, for the overwhelming majority of my career, I was not a litigator.  I was a corporate/transactional lawyer engaged with clients in dealing with the legal aspects of their business needs, a practice which makes a service-oriented lawyer a quasi-partner with the client in the attainment of their business goals.  A relationship such as this is a rich feeding ground for the nurturing of friendship;  any successful one always requires the mutual granting of trust from one to another.

I think it also helped that I have always been curious and find great delight and fascination in watching and learning about the wide range of human activities that yield profitable livings.  Successful businesses range from the mundane to the truly arcane; from those in which the kinds of jobs I had as a teenager or a college student dominate, to the kind of new business idea that seems truly certain to be a success only after someone else first grasps its essence and is able to explain it in plain English to the unwashed rest of us – the kind of idea that makes you slap your forehead and say aloud: “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Whenever I was first confronted this last sort of notion, the experience always reminded me of why I was the lawyer and the client was the client: for I was good at process, mechanics, and visualizing and formulating practical legal solutions, while each such client possessed the inherent ability to accept a great deal of risk in combination with an uncanny ability to conjure up previously unknown or untried forms of business.  This combination always made for an exciting ride for everyone involved, lawyer and client alike.

It was the result of a client-lawyer partnership that I first met Tracy.  Well, perhaps I should say that it was out of a client-lawyer relationship that I first met Roy, because I met Roy first and he subsequently introduced me to Tracy.  Roy, who is not the subject of this piece, is, however, important to it.  He is a jolly, creative Zimbabwean who has taken to living in various places in the wide world while, I maintain, attempting to return to Zimbabwe the long, hard way – by circling the globe.  He has presently gotten as far as Hawaii, and is so delighted with the place that he may well interrupt his globe-trotting journey home and permanently come to rest there.

I first met Roy when he was sent from Canada to become the manager of a major client’s newly acquired business.  We quickly became friends despite his initial belief that another lawyer might serve him better with respect to one particular legal aspect.  I made certain he never discovered whether or not his belief was true.  Tracy worked for Roy as sales manager, having come into their company’s employ after a successful career in a related business in Alaska.  Once the acquisition of the business was complete, my relationship with it became that of outside general counsel.  In that capacity, I was soon introduced to Tracy, both because of the variety of sales and shipping issues that are common to most similar businesses and which occasionally require legal consultation, and because he also served Roy as a sort of amanuensis and comedic foil.  Roy and Tracy were generally inseparable whenever Tracy wasn’t on the road; and they were often on the road together, since a large part of Roy’s responsibility, as the general manager, was the maximization of sales and profits.

It was Roy who provided the seeds of a friendship outside of our work relationship.  He had a group of tickets to the Fifth Avenue Theater, a local musical theater occupying a beautifully refurbished former cinema located on, surprisingly, Seattle’s Fifth Avenue in the heart of its downtown.  One day, Roy told me that he had two extra tickets for a performance due to someone’s cancellation and asked if I would accept them and join him for dinner.  It was a good thing I accepted his offer, because, when Helen and I arrived at the restaurant, I met Tracy for the first time in a social setting and met his wife, Suzy, for the first time ever.

Even before I met Suzy, I’d heard a lot about her from Tracy, for he was engaged in an unabashed, life-long love affair with his own wife.  Of the two, she always was, and is, the true charmer.  Tracy would be the first to agree with this assertion.  He always maintained that he was the luckiest man alive, and he asserted that the proof of that proposition was to be found in the fact that Suzy had married him and stayed with him through thick and thin despite his unspecified shortcomings.  Over the years I have found no reason to dispute his argument, for Suzy is certainly beautiful both in aspect and soul.  Tracy was a lovely man as well – jolly, funny, ironic, honest and earnest, and an especially dedicated and good father – but hardly Suzy’s equal in the realm of physical beauty.  He frequently acknowledged this difference between them with pride and equal portions of unabashed glee and genuine amazement, wondering aloud why it was that someone as glamorous as Suzy had chosen to spend her life with him rather than someone more handsome or wealthy – usually while rubbing his rather bald pate to emphasize his point.

From that first theater evening, our non-working relationship began to blossom.  Starting with our mutual love for the American musical, the six of us – Tracy, Suzy, Roy, Jenny, Helen, and me – grew closer together.  Musicals and pre-theater dinners grew into shared potluck evenings at each other’s homes.  There is something in the sharing and preparation of food that makes for good friendship, so it is lucky that I, who am good only at boiling water and the use of a bread machine, am married to Helen, for she can cook and cook well.  Her abilities allowed me to tag along on these evenings with a straight face; she was the key to our admission because of her preparation of whatever contribution to the common dinner table we’d been asked to make.

What I remember best about these evenings is laughter.  It was long and loud, and each of us, in our respective turns and within our respective specialties, provided both the lungs to sustain it and the occasional, impromptu source of its ignition.  We gelled as a group through humor and a general shared enjoyment of life and its foibles – so much so that our respective children eventually joined the group and became at least acquaintances, if not friends.  I remember shared pre-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas gatherings, shared barbeques and sit down dinners, and great quantities of good food and drink.

When Roy and Jenny eventually moved to Hawaii, the theater group was replenished by the addition of Suzy’s niece and nephew-in-law.  Tracy, Suzy, Helen, and I continued our tradition of home-and-home dinners, but the interaction of the entire theater group became limited to the theater itself.  And then Tracy, no longer working with Roy and running his own construction business with Suzy’s able assistance, suffered a business reversal as the economy went into a tailspin in the mid-2000s.  The reversal was so severe that he and Suzy decamped for Arizona and the theater group finally disbanded.  Helen and I kept our tickets for a couple of additional years, but having to make a 60 mile commute to have dinner and go to the theater by ourselves simply wasn’t the same; absent the shared conviviality of our original group, the joys of the experience paled in  the face of our commute, and we finally gave up our tickets.

Following the demise of the theater group, we all kept in touch sporadically by phone and email, but long distance relationships are never the same as face-to-face ones.  Still, the fellowship of the past kept us going; kept us going, that is, until last week when Tracy succumbed to ill health and passed away.  He suffered from Alzheimer’s during his final years and no longer knew Suzy to be his wife.  Nonetheless she visited him faithfully every evening on her way home from work at the care facility where he resided, often bringing him a treat and always telling him stories of their life together.  On one such visit during Tracy’s last week, he thanked her, with a touch of amazement and wonder in his voice after she’d finished telling him once again about their long life together, for the gift of the beautiful story she’d just finished telling him.  In truth, Tracy was still grateful to Suzy for sharing the fullness of a life well lived together, even if he was no longer capable of remembering the basic fact of who she was.  Tracy always knew a good deal when he saw it.

With Tracy’s passing, the possibility of a full reunion of our families is no longer possible, but if we do get together I am convinced that Tracy will be with us in spirit – so much so that it would be very close to being as if he were present in person.  For Tracy was always the ironical sprite at our get-togethers: the one who usually was first to point out the absurdities present in our combined situations, whether they existed outside of the room or within it; the one who always stood in awe of beauty – not only of Suzy’s external and internal beauty, but of that inherent in life itself.  Such a spirit never dies, because it is nurturing and habitually leaves an excess supply of good will behind when it leaves.

I am not certain when we will get together again.  Helen and I are unable to attend a celebration of Tracy’s life scheduled for later this month in Scottsdale.  But we will be there in spirit, sharing the tales that will be told, and, just possibly, being the source of a few.  I am certain that I will be able to hear the laughter from here, at the epicenter of Humptulips County – that place within my memory in which we all have resided since that first night at the Fifth Avenue Theater.

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The Legal Consequences Of The Phrase: “No Shit, Sherlock!”

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

At times, living in the countryside of Humptulips County has its own peculiar challenges.  Indeed, I suspect this is true of anyone living in the countryside anywhere in the world.  But some of the challenges of doing so are truly bizarre and, perhaps, unique to inherently litigious societies.

We have a natural gas pipeline which passes by adjacent to the house.  It is a main distribution line for natural gas which, I believe, originates in Canada and feeds Seattle and points south.  A couple of years ago, the pipeline company upgraded the line by digging up the old one and replacing it with new and larger pipes.  They took a construction easement from us for the privilege or working on our land and paid us well, but the greater payment for us was the knowledge that the pipeline was new and installed in accordance with much stricter current regulations than the ones that governed the installation of the old line.

The pipeline owner is determined to be a good neighbor, so yesterday we received a letter telling us how to contact them in the event that certain conditions apply.  For example, we are to call them and evacuate if we hear a “hissing, blowing, or loud roaring sound.”  Another hint given to us is to evacuate if we see “dead or dying vegetation near the pipeline (OK so far), dirt blowing in the air, fire coming from the ground.”  And, of course, if we smell a strong petroleum scent or rotten eggs, we are also instructed to beat it as fast as we can.

I attribute all of this good advice to a lawyer sitting somewhere in the home office attempting to justify his or her existence on the payroll. We lawyers are notoriously risk averse on behalf of our clients, and he or she must have read about the MacDonald’s case of a few years ago wherein a  customer sued MacDonald’s for handing them a cup of hot coffee which subsequently spilled in their lap and caused harm (I have always hesitated to consider the nature of that harm, because the very thought makes me shudder).  I don’t remember how the case eventually turned out (it was probably settled in order not to set a precedent), but lawyers everywhere were instantly agog over the startling clarity of the notion that merchants must warn of the obvious in order to avoid liability.  After all, there is at least the remotest possibility that the tried and true principles behind the act of god defense might no longer apply in a digital world!

So it seems to me that we ‘consumers’ need to provide our own warnings to the merchants that serve us, if we are to maintain our legal rights when harmed by their goods or services.  So here goes:  I hereby promise the pipeline company on behalf of Helen and myself that a couple of things are certain to be true: (1) if either of us hears a roaring sound or sees fire coming from the ground anywhere near the pipeline route, we will immediate run like hell if we are given a few moments to do so; and (2) if either of these things ever happens or the pipeline explodes, there is certain to be a lawsuit no matter what warnings you’ve given to us and no matter whether we die in the escape attempt (Don and Peter: read and heed!  There is money in them there litigations).

As the founder of The Men’s Wearhouse used to be fond of saying before he was relieved of his role with the company: “My name is Stephen Charles Ellis, and I guarantee it!”

So, Williams Northwest Pipeline, consider yourself warned in the best traditions of the American legal profession.

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The Bunny Factor: Consistency In The Making Of A Good Loaf of Bread

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

I made bread yesterday using a bread machine and a packaged mix.  I love the smell and taste of warm bread right from the oven – or machine – and, in my ecstasy over the results, I posted a small item on Facebook extolling the virtues of fresh bread.  Since I limit access to my Facebook page to my ‘friends’, the post hardly went viral, but insofar as such things go on my Facebook page it got more than a bit of notice.

In one of my own comments to my post, I responded to my son’s inquiry about whether it was possible that he or his brother might have inherited my ‘skills’ at bread making by noting that whatever knowledge I possess was learned from my grandmother.  Bunny (as she was known to all and sundry, as opposed to Maude, her given name) was an artist at all sorts of baking. Whatever recipes she used were kept in her head, and I doubt she ever made any of the endless succession of breads, cakes, pies, or rolls exactly the same way twice in a row – at least not consciously.  My particular skill as a child was consumption of her products, and she often timed things to come out of the oven as school ended.  I never knew what she might have on offer when I got home, just as I never knew quite how she did what she did. In response to a question about how much of something she put into any given recipe, her response was always in the nature of a dollop of something mushy or a smidgen of something more solid.  And of course, there was always the pinch she added of this or that.

Bunny knew that success was always about consistency – not the kind of mechanical consistency I engage in while working with my bread machine, but the type of physical consistency that a ball of dough must have if it is to eventually become an edible loaf of bread.  While I slavishly follow recipes in a consistent fashion, she always tested the dough with her sense of touch and smell and instinctively did whatever might be needed to make her concoctions turn out to be not simply edible, but beautifully proportioned and wonderfully consumable.  Where we intersect – if we intersect at all – is that I learned enough from her to know that if you desire consistent success while using a bread machine you do not simply dump the ingredients in the pan in the desired order and hope for the best; instead, you leave the top of the machine open for the first ten minutes or so and play with the dough using spatulas and additional bits of flour or water until its consistency is just right.  And what constitutes ‘just right’ is something that you come to recognize through trial and error.  As Bunny used to insist somewhat impatiently whenever she was asked: “You just know when it’s right, now run along!”

Bunny didn’t live with our family on a full-time basis.  Early in her marriage she had lived a life of privilege with her banker husband (my grandfather, Frank), but when the Depression brought his bank down and he died too soon thereafter, she was reduced to a state of genteel poverty – the kind of poverty where appearances always matter even in the face of an empty bank account.  In short, Bunny was first, foremost, and always a lady, whether or not an impoverished one.

Bunny lived with all of the members of her immediate family in constant rotation, no matter how widely they were scattered at any given time across the landscape of the West.  My parents’ generation accepted her presence as a familial obligation, and in that way shared both in her support and in the joys of her baking.  She usually stayed with my family in roughly six month increments, and it is true that as much as we always eagerly awaited her arrival when it was our turn to have her in residency, we were equally were glad to see her go when she left for the next stop on her never-ending circling of the west coast.

Bunny was always a joy to be around at first, for she also loved games – especially dice games (Yahtzee being her personal favorite) and was always available to play with us no matter the state of the weather.  In fact, she insisted upon it.  And therein lay the seeds of our willingness to see her go on her way eventually, for Bunny was the most stubborn, insistent person I have ever met – myself included.  Bunny was devoted to having her way; it was her principal survival skill.  Imagine being widowed at a young age (she must have been in her forties when it happened) and being destitute.  I don’t think it would have occurred to her to have considered remarriage as a solution to her poverty; instead, she soldiered on as best as she could, surviving by means of her indomitable will, a keen sense of humor, a perennial, beatific smile, and a fine appreciation of the irony inherent in her life’s circumstances.

Within my familial generation, stories about Bunny are legion.  My sister’s stories are the best, but I personally remember endless games of Yahtzee and piano lessons à la Norman Rockwell whereby I was kept at the keyboard even as I yearned to go outside and play with my friends.  But mostly I remember her baking, and while the cakes, pies, and rolls were also wonderful, it is always a loaf of fresh bread that best reminds me of her.  There is something in the smell of freshly baked bread that reminds me of the quintessential Bunny; it reminds me of the warm breath of love emanating from a set of shared family values which would not allow her to be left to deal with her poverty on her own.  After all, why condemn her to the harsh reality of a bread or soup line when we could enjoy the smell of fresh bread – and games of Yahtzee – in our own home on an almost daily basis whenever she was in residency?

In urban America the idea of family obligations toward the elderly has evolved from the model prevailing during my childhood, but the sort of evolution involved is not necessarily positive.  It would likely be true that in today’s urban family culture some or all of Bunny’s immediate family members would pitch in willingly to pay her rent in some sort of residential facility and would feel satisfied with having made the effort, but the thought of her living with anyone and interfering in their lifestyle would not be acceptable.  Not everyone living in urban America acts this way – my sister does not, for example – but it is currently the dominant means of dealing with the impoverished old age of a revered family member.

Consider what we miss by acting this way.  I remember great personal joy whenever I was able to beat Bunny at Yahtzee – or hearts, or Chinese checkers, or Monopoly, or any other of the endless variety of games we often played – as well as I remember the smell of fresh bread.  But as heartwarming as these memories are, I am also aware that whatever ability I have to pursue cherished goals with intensity was learned from her – absorbed by watching her relentless pursuit of an endless round of residences through employment of an inherent sense of self-esteem: a self-esteem arising from the fact that she always knew herself to be a lady even in the teeth of her impoverishment and the endless passing of the buck by her immediate family; a self-esteem evidenced by the hats and furs she always wore with pride when going out, the smile she always wore even when she was tired or depressed, and her insistence by example, word, and deed that she was someone to be reckoned with and not to be ignored despite her circumstances; a self-esteem founded in her notions of personal dignity.

Watching Bunny was a good lesson in the merits of having a positive self-image, even if she carried herself with perhaps a bit too much pride at times.  But whatever pride she possessed was well earned, coming as it did from the friction between her belief in herself and her state of poverty. We could – and did – forgive her for her pride whenever it asserted itself, for we knew it was her way of coping with the serendipity of circumstance that made the years of her widowhood such a stark contrast with most of her married life.  After all, her right to exhibit the occasional burst of pride was well earned; and it was her pride that allowed her to survive long enough after what was described afterward by her physician as a massive heart attack to take the bread she had been baking out of the oven to cool and go to her room in my cousin’s home to don her best nightgown before lying down to die with her sense of dignity intact.

Whenever Bunny was in residence during my childhood, I found myself watching and learning from her.  She taught me by example that if I wanted to escape from the isolated Eastern Washington valley where I was raised, I would have to possess dedication and fortitude in order to overcome the usual obstacles thrown our way in life; she also taught me that what others might think were insurmountable obstacles were nothing more than bigger bumps in the road that had to be surmounted differently than those of lesser stature.  In short, she taught, by example, the merits of positive self-esteem and – yes – of just a soupçon (or a pinch, or a smidgen, or a very small dollop) of pride.

Each loaf of bread I make here on the Farm is a personal salute to Bunny’s memory, even if my bread making skills are nothing more than those of a good mechanic as opposed to her true artistry.  She visits me here (a place she never knew in life) every time I plug in my bread machine, and serves as my spiritual advisor whenever I have to choose between using just a pinch more flour or a tiny dollop of water to make the loaf-at-hand a success.

Posted in Our Place in the Firmament, Ponderings on the Meaning of Things | Comments Off on The Bunny Factor: Consistency In The Making Of A Good Loaf of Bread

The Path To Inevitability

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

A decade or so ago, a good friend, David, died of cancer.  He was first diagnosed with lung cancer and operated upon immediately to remove the offending portion of his lung.  The doctors were optimistic following the surgery and he followed their prescribed post-surgical treatments religiously.  For several months things looked good and he returned to work with renewed vigor and an enhanced appreciation for life.  Then, one day while I was standing in his office doorway, he complained of constant blurred eyesight.  I asked him if perhaps some of the cancer medication he was still taking might be causing the problem, and he replied that he didn’t know but had an appointment with his doctor to find out.

When he returned to work the day following his doctor appointment, he told me that his lung cancer had metastasized to his brain.  This was not good news and we both knew it.  How bad the news actually was we didn’t learn for another week when he was told that the brain tumor appeared to be inoperable.  The doctors resorted to targeted radiation in hopes of either eradicating the cancer or at least slowing its progress, and David – still insistent upon coming to work – would regale me after treatment sessions with stories about an iron brace affixed to his head to hold it steady throughout the course of radiation therapy.  He made a joke of it, suggesting it was a medieval torture he had been delighted to undergo, laughing about how silly he must have looked.

Eventually, the cancer re-metastasized to his lungs, whereupon David elected to stop treatment and face the inevitable.  In his case, the roulette wheel of death had dropped the ball into a red, cancerous slot.  He was, he told me, relieved to know the manner of his death, reminding me that we all share a curiosity about both the means and timing of our deaths.  He told me this during the first of a series of weekly lunches we began at his request, lunches whose purpose was to discuss his impending death and the things that had become important to him in the face of its urgent inevitability.  He told me that most of his friends didn’t seem to know how to deal with the news and either avoided the subject of his death assiduously whenever they saw him or avoided seeing him altogether.  He told me that while he understood their reaction, he felt isolated because of it.

By agreement, our lunches were focused on the subject of his impending death, although we did find some time during each for more frivolous subjects.  At first I found it difficult to look a dying man in the eye and discuss his feelings, beliefs, and fears about the process.  It wasn’t the first time I’d done so.  A former partner had died of brain cancer and at our final lunch at a French restaurant, he’d drawn two arcs with his fork on the paper sheet covering the table – one rising up to the right and one arcing downward beneath the first; the rising arc, he said, was the path of everyone but him, and he alone was following the second.  This lunch had occurred at least a decade prior to my lunches with David, at a time when my former partner and I were both middle-aged.  His table-top drawing had remained in my memory because of the clear sense of a future lost which it had evoked.

My conversations with David were very different from the one I’d had with my former partner.  For one thing, they stretched over several weeks, and, for another, they were detailed, wide-ranging, and not limited to a single image.  David had no fear of death, having come to accept the inevitable.  His acceptance allowed him to tell me what he hoped for following death and what he expected of me when the time came.  I will not go into the details of our conversations because they were of the essence of personal privilege and privacy, but suffice it to say that they were some of the most interesting philosophical and practical conversations I have ever been privileged to share with anyone.

At the start of our conversations, I was hesitant.  Our agreed subject matter, after all, is a difficult one at any time, but much more so when the conversation is had with someone who knows the manner of his death and has an extremely good inkling of when it will occur.  But David instantly freed me from my hesitancy during the very first lunch by telling me he was grateful that I was willing to talk to him about such things and moving directly onto the topic at hand without hesitation.

And so began a cherished portion of my life.  I soon realized that while I might be giving David the gift of a willing ear, he was giving me a far greater gift in return.  He was showing me a path to the inevitable that was reasoned, rational, and thoughtful; he was leading the way forward and dropping helpful clues about how one might travel a necessarily lonely road with dignity and determination.

Promises were made by both of us during our lunches.  He had some concerns about his wife and children following his death that I was able to help him with, and I promised him that I would follow him on his solitary journey as far as I could, and that I would continue joking with him to the end using the mutual cajolery that was our standard, shared conversational format.  We agreed that the process of dying should be leavened with humor.

Of necessity, our lunches eventually came to an end as his health failed and travel to the restaurant became impossible.  When I heard he was in the hospital and only had a day or two left to him, I resolved not to visit him there for the sake of his family’s needs.  But the next day his son called and asked me to come to the hospital and spend time with David.  It seemed that he, too, – even in his extremity – missed our conversations and desired yet one more.  I quickly agreed to come, and left work immediately to honor my promise.

As luck would have it, I was wearing a tie that day for business reasons, an article of clothing I no longer wore unless absolutely compelled to do so by circumstance.  When I entered his room, David was curled in a fetal position and breathing with difficulty with the aid of an oxygen mask – his lung cancer had won the race with the tumor resident in his brain.  His eyes were closed, but his son assured me he was conscious.  So I leaned over him, gently shook his shoulder and waved my tie at him, announcing that I had worn it in his honor.  I quickly admitted to the fib, telling him I thomught he ought to have a good laugh on such a day.  He replied: “Right to the end, huh?”  When I assured him that I intended to honor my promise, he laughed and told me to knock it off because it hurt him to laugh.

That last conversation was short.  He had little stamina left for anything but goodbye.  Before I left, I hugged him as best I could given the angles, positions, and equipment involved.  As I left the hospital I finally found the tears that had – until that moment – refused to come.

I was reminded of my conversations with David yesterday when a good friend called to tell me that he had just been diagnosed with an aggressive tumor and that he had elected not to engage in treatment given the nature of his diagnosis.  Usually, first conversations in the face of such a grave announcement are limited because they are so wholly unexpected and startling.  But I found that David had left me with a lasting gift; instead of shying away from the immensity of my friend’s news, I was able to have the beginnings of a rational conversation about death rather than retreating in the face of enormity.  During the phone call, I told my friend about David and our time together in a similar situation; I believe the story helped both of us move beyond the respective tensions inherent in the  effort of having to make and receive such grave news.

My friend is certain to face his death with dignity and courage, for that is the manner in which he has lived all of his life.  He told me yesterday that he does not fear death, and I have good reason to believe him.  He, too, will help me find my own eventual way, certain to provide me with a glimpse of yet another kind of integrity to be followed on my own path forward.  I only hope I will be able to give something back to him in the time he has remaining.  Whatever I am able to give him cannot begin to repay the debt I already owe him, or to compensate him for the knowledge he has yet to impart.

David has been close at hand these past few hours following my friend’s call, standing just on the other side of the curtain of gauze that separates life and death and reminding me through his spiritual presence of the gifts we shared with one another so many years ago.  My thanks to him again for all that he gave to me – both the good memories and the vision of a right way forward.

Posted in 'Tis a Puzzlement, Friendship | Comments Off on The Path To Inevitability

Thoughts Upon The Cusp Of Decades

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

That’s the way that the world goes ’round
You’re up one day, the next you’re down
It’s a half-an-inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown
That’s the way that the world goes ’round

That’s The Way That The World Goes ‘Round, John Prine

Here’s last year’s grief
In the green leaf;

And all he knows is
That Time will take
All heartbreak,
And turn it to roses.

With a Bunch of Roses, Robert Nathan 

Sometime tomorrow morning – I confess that I am not certain when – I will enter my eighth decade of life.  The cusp of decades is a time for reflection, and the upcoming one is of special interest to me for if I complete its first half, I will be older than my father ever became.

There is a temptation to look back upon a concluding decade and classify it as happiest, saddest, most thrilling, deadliest, etc.  But as strong as that temptation may be, I find that the events of the past decade are nothing more than the result of my having, over the fullness of time, blended a series of irrevocable personal choices with my genetic base material, with the resulting soup having been spiced with healthy doses of serendipity.  In short, the seeds of whatever did or did not happen during the decade that ends today were sown throughout the course of a long lifetime.  This suggests to me that the passing of a decade has no greater significance than that possessed by highway mile-posts.

The upcoming decade will only be different in that the personal choices I must take are yet to be made, and whatever serendipity will come my way is yet unknown.  Of the two, I have the possibility of controlling only my own choices.  While I would much prefer not to have my past in control of my future, I realize how impossible this is.  My experience has contributed to who I am, and I can no more make decisions as if I were an infant faced for the first time with the concept of ‘choice’ than I can go back in time in order to undo one or more of all the choices I’ve made.  In some dimensions time may flow backward, but not in the one we humans inhabit.

As a result of my experience, I am convinced that:  (1) life deals to all of us unequal measures of pleasure and despair, with the only certainty lying in the fact that each of us will receive doses of each; and (2) the primary difference between success or failure lies in whether an individual is able to: (a) distil useful lessons from whatever hands he or she may be dealt (even from, or perhaps especially from, the shittiest of them), and (b) effectively employ the lessons learned against such portions of the future which are capable of being controlled to any extent.  In other words, it all comes down to agility (both mental and physical) and attitude.

Attitude is a matter of determination; agility is adversely affected by age.  So it seems to me that a stubborn insistence upon a positive outlook is the best anyone can do to ride the tides of time.  If this is true, I am well positioned, because there are plenty of witnesses to the fact that I am a stubborn cuss.  I might even argue that such is my chief charm (with the proof of the concept to be found in my willingness to equate ‘stubbornness’ with ‘charm’).

So I resolve to continue being stubborn, and to temper my stubbornness with a healthy regard for the well-being of others.  I know these goals can be complementary and not mutually exclusive, if only the right balance can be achieved.  Since the trick to finding good balance lies in one’s agility, I will apparently have to work even harder in the next decade than I’ve had to do in those past.  But I do love a difficult challenge, so bring it on!

Posted in Ponderings on the Meaning of Things | Comments Off on Thoughts Upon The Cusp Of Decades

Labels, We Sling Labels!

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

Perhaps nowhere else [than in America] will you find such a discrepancy between people and myth, between life and the representation of life.  An American said to me: “The trouble is that we are all eaten by the fear of being less American than our neighbor.”  I accept this explanation: it shows that Americanism is not merely a myth that clever propaganda stuffs into people’s heads but something every American continually reinvents.  It is at one and the same time a great external reality rising up at the entrance to the port of New York across from the Statue of Liberty, and the daily product of anxious liberties.  The anguish of the American confronted with Americanism is an ambivalent anguish, as if he were asking, “Am I American enough?” and at the same time, “How can I escape from Americanism?”  In America a man’s simultaneous answers to these two questions make him what he is, and each man must find his own answers.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Americans and Their Myths, The Nation, April 6, 2015 edition

Liberal elite (also known as the metropolitan elite in the United Kingdom) is a political stigma used to describe politically left-leaning people, whose education had traditionally opened the doors to affluence. It is commonly used with the pejorative implication that the people who claim to support the rights of the working class are themselves members of the upper class, or upper middle class, and are therefore out of touch with the real needs of the people they claim to support and protect.

Liberal Elite, Wikipedia

Elite:  A select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities: the elite of Britain’s armed forces.

Definition of elite, Oxford Dictionary

I was recently accused of being an elitist liberal in a Facebook post by a conservative friend in language that reeked of its own peculiar elitism.  I was fair game for criticism of some sort since some of my own language used on the topic of Ted Cruz was over the top, but I found his charge of elitism particularly curious since it was used as a pejorative.  After all, I grew up in a poor family in the same small town in which my accuser grew up in his own poor family, and each of us subsequently found a measure of success in life due to our respective personal efforts and drives to succeed.  So what makes me an elitist and  him not?  Because we last set eyes on one another in 1963 when we graduated from high school, I can only attempt to analyze my own condition; I leave his analysis to his own introspection.

The inherent difficulty in reacting to a charge of this type is that I have to brave a further charge of immodesty by being willing to acknowledge that I believe I am more ‘intelligent’ than the average American.  Yet I find I must risk being called an elitist or being seen as immodest in order to write this piece.  I have a lifetime of evidence for my claim, but I won’t offer a litany of reasons for my belief since doing so would only further a charge of immodesty or even arrogance.  I do wish to make it clear that I am not claiming to be the most intelligent American; I leave that claim to the likes of Thomas Edison or Bill Gates or anyone else you care to name.  I do, however, believe that I was granted above average intelligence at birth together with a strong psychological drive to use that intelligence, and that I was fortunate enough to enjoy good parental nurturing of both gifts during my formative years.

By making this claim, I am automatically opening myself to an accusation of being an elitist.  After all, how dare I claim to have more intelligence than another; indeed, the bulk of others within my target group?   Alas, I will likely only further my elitist attributes by acknowledging two further personal beliefs: that I possess a good measure of common sense and usually use it efficiently; and that common sense is highly lacking among people of any intellectual condition.

The problem in my making such claims is found in the above-quoted definition of ‘elite’ in the Oxford Dictionary.  Inherent in my claims is the notion that I find myself to be ‘superior’ to the rest of the group – in this case, the group consisting of all Americans.  To someone else, my claim to be of greater than average intelligence might well imply that I am supercilious as opposed to merely acknowledging the fact of possessing a greater-than-average intelligence.  But why should I be wary of another’s interpretation of who I am, even so wary as to engage in the limited discussion contained within this paragraph?  Upon reflection, I confess that I don’t know, and this realization means that I must leave the resolution of my status as factually correct or as braggart  to the reader.

In truth, I take pride in my intelligence and have often used it for my own benefit, for the benefit of my family, for the benefit of my clients, and for the benefit of others with whom I am not acquainted.  In so saying, I am not trying to argue that I am the only person to do all of these things.  In fact, it is my firm belief that all people try to do the first two things to the best of their ability, and that all service professionals, educators, and merchants of every stripe attempt mightily to do the third.  However, I am unconvinced that everyone tries to act for the benefit of others, for far too many Americans seem to be empathy impaired and only find joy in being wealthier or more powerful than most others.  It is this last belief that makes me a liberal because I believe that our great wealth ought to be shared.

If my willingness to be labeled a liberal and to claim above average intelligence for myself makes me one of the meritocratic elite so despised by dedicated, right-wing Americans, then so be it.  If someone does so pigeonhole me, they must understand that I find great irony in their classification.  A major principle of modern American conservatism is that government should stay out of the way of individuals and let them succeed by using their native talents.  Apparently, however, demonstrated intelligence in the form of a university degree or degrees is a status for which the farthest right-wing has great disdain – even though the likes of Ted Cruz possess such degrees but prefer to be labeled as members of the Tea Party rather than as a mere conservative or, God forbid, a liberal.

There once was a political party in America known as the American Party who were strongly anti-immigrant and especially anti-Catholic.  Today, few remember this party by its  correct name, for it became known to history as the Know-Nothing Party because its members were instructed to say that they knew nothing when asked about their pro-protestant, anti-immigrant beliefs.  This was simply another form of burying one’s head in the sand in hopes of not being seen or caught out.  I do not aspire to hide my beliefs, and refuse to be classified as a Know-Nothing of any stripe.

Ours is a country of constitutional checks and balances, so I am dismayed at the absence in contemporary American politics of the parliamentary notion of the loyal opposition.  We only truly get things right in our governmental deliberations when men of principle on either side speak out clearly and strongly for what they believe and subsequently find common ground somewhere between the extremities of their respective positions.  This is called debate and the result is known as compromise.  I not only don’t understand the far right’s need to vilify those willing to assume the label of ‘liberal’ or who appreciate the value of meritocracy, I also find it reprehensible that those farthest to the right wish to limit the application of our meritocratic principles to the privileged few – especially when their denial is exercised against skin color, against religious belief, against sexual preference, or against some other attribute deemed unacceptable within their concept of what it means to be a ‘true American’.

Sartre had it right: too many of us are afraid of being labeled as anything specific for fear others may think ill of us and call us un-American.  Joe McCarthy understood us better than we knew.  As for me, I long ago learned that if you are willing to stick your head above the parapet by asserting any form of leadership, someone will take a potshot at you for having done so.  It comes with the turf.  But if you believe in something heartily enough to take action of any kind, you must accept this inevitability.  You must come to appreciate the empowerment inherent in the phrase ‘So be it!’ and learn the value of letting the chips fall where they may.

It isn’t another’s opinion of you that matters; it is your own opinion of yourself and the quality and strength of your adherence to your own ideals that does.  So use your brains and don’t let the labels get you down.  Wear them openly, with pride!

Posted in Politicians and Other Lower Life Forms | Comments Off on Labels, We Sling Labels!

Daffodils, Robins, and Snakes, Oh My!

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Gavin Stevens

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Woodsman, and the Scarecrow as they pass through the forest before meeting the Cowardly Lion, The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum.

In Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s

spring
and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee

In Just-, e. e. cummings

According to the calendar, it’s not yet spring.  The vernal equinox is still a week away; moreover, Punxsutawney Phil predicted that spring would come late this year – at least in Pennsylvania.  But nobody told the telltale totems of spring who are resident in Humptulips County that it was too soon to celebrate, for they are here enjoying the weather and thumbing their noses at such an old-fashioned idea as a calendar.

I am not certain whether the robins returned in force before the daffodils bloomed, or vice versa.  It may have been a dead heat, for all I know.  But both are here in force.  Normally, I would have expected the odd daffodil by now, but they have been blooming en masse for well over a week.  But spring’s true telltale in these parts is the presence of robins.  Two weeks ago a couple of intrepid scouts arrived ahead of the flock and could be seen testing the soil here and there for its worm content.  The rest have now caught up.  Robins can be seen everywhere down our lane searching for bugs and worms, only to fly into the nearest tree whenever we approach during our walks to wait patiently for us to pass by so that they may return to their work.

The final proof that spring has come to Humptulips County well in advance of its due date was the lone garter snake I found sunning itself in our driveway’s gravel when I took this week’s trash down to the pick up spot on the lane.  Garter snakes never come before their time; snakes need the sun’s warmth to function well – or at all.  So while the robins and the daffodils were strong hints that the calendar is awry this year, the little green and gold garter snake was proof.  It was lying so still while basking in the sunlight that I had to look twice to recognize it.  It was lucky that I took a hasty step to one side when my peripheral vision indicated something amiss in my seasonal expectations; otherwise, I fear I might have destroyed the proof.

The earliest vanguards of spring have been at work for some time, but they are nothing more than early warning systems and not proof of the concept: chorus frogs have been singing since Valentine’s Day and still soldier on in their continuing lust for life and love; the crocuses and snowdrops have bloomed and gone; many wedges of snow geese have passed low over my library’s roof over the course of several early mornings, each honking their enthusiasm about the endless possibilities awaiting them in the Valhalla of the far north; the morning mists have shed much of their winter’s bulk to become more ethereal and ephemeral; the bright yellow of our forsythia bushes has begun to dim; the morning frosts have lessened in frequency to the point where they are nothing more than winter’s occasional complaint over its dwindling control of daylight hours.

New bird species have begun to show themselves at our feeders.  A varied thrush flirted with them the same day that a red breasted nuthatch joined his cousins at the trough. Yesterday, I saw a flash of bright yellow go by our sun room windows, and thought it might have been the first evening grosbeak of the year.  Whatever it was proved too fast for identification, so perhaps I was overly eager in making the assumption.

I offer no excuses for my over-eagerness; I am always eager this time of year, and am proud of my feelings for they are proof that something still stirs within me at the most base levels.  Spring has that effect on every living thing.  What else could it possibly be about?  This year, at least, I cannot be accused of being the only overly eager celebrant.

Posted in Humptulips County, Ponderings on the Meaning of Things | Comments Off on Daffodils, Robins, and Snakes, Oh My!