The Crow and The Historian

Door to Interesting Places; Charley Freiberg photo

“A  naybah fella who was working in his garden one day found a crow nestling on the ground. The crow had fallen out of his nest, so the fella picked it up, tucked it into his shirt to keep it safe while he was working, and at lunch time took it home to show his mother. Mother discovered she could feed the bird with a medicine dropper, so they adopted it and fed it milk until it was old enough to eat solids.

“The crow adopted the fella as if he were its mom. The bird lived in the house with the family, never soiled indoors, and would ride on the fella’s shoulder when he went out to work in the garden. While the naybah fella worked, the crow eventually taught himself to fly about, but always returned for a ride into the house, or just to sit on a tall cornstalk and watch the fella work.

“One day the fella heard his mother calling him home for lunch, but when he got to the house, found he was too early. His mother hadn’t called and they were bemused by this, but once back out in the garden, the fella discovered the crow had somehow learned to mimic the mother’s voice when he was immediately called for lunch again. 

“From that time on, the crow learned all sorts of things to say, and used to tease the neighbor’s cat terribly. The crow would imitate another cat meowing, and when the fella’s cat ran outside to see who was invading his territory, the crow would fly down and grab the cat’s tail. 

“The crow was also quite a lady’s man. He disappeared for several days, and the fella and his mom figured he’d returned to the wild. But soon he reappeared with another crow, which he tried to get to join him eating food the fella left out for the crow in a pan. The lady crow wouldn’t come that close to the house, so the crow took bits up to his friend and fed her. Eventually the lady bird returned to the wild without the tame crow.

Crow; Clare McCarthy photo

 

“The story has a sad ending: a neighbor, who didn’t know the crow was a pet, and thinking he was doing the fella a favor, shot the crow one day when the fella was away and the neighbor saw the crow in the corn. The bereft  fella and his mother buried the poor thing’s body where he had first found it, and erected a little wooden headstone to mark the spot.”

That story was told to me by an older gent in town who’s lived an interesting life, as many people have. The Historian, however, is interested in the curiousities we all encounter, that many people may note briefly but soon forget or otherwise ignore. The Historian stores up these encounters, and sometimes documents them: on the walls of his house are many old photos and curious stuff from days long gone; and in his mind are stories, stories about people and the things they did, who they did it with, and what they said when they did it.

I’ve had an interesting correspondence with The Historian over the past year. The correspondence in itself is a fair curiousity in this day and age - he hand-writes me a letter, and hand-delivers it to my kitchen door, a polite New Hampshire gent who quietly comes and goes and never intrudes. In turn, I type a response on my computer and print it out, because most people claim that my handwriting is completely illegible. Then I put it into an envelope and even though the Historian lives only about a mile away, I send it via the actual mail and let the rural route delivery guy put it into the Historian’s hands. If we were having a contest about who is more a true New Englander, The Historian would win, because a true New Englander never spends money he doesn’t have to. It gives me an excuse, however, to buy and use a stamp, and I will admit that I’m fascinated by some of the stamps the Post Office has for sale, wastrel that I am.

The Historian has lived and worked in the same places I grew up in, then returned to as a young adult after living away for a decade or so. So he and I know a lot of the same people – his wife and my Nana were nurses together, and he knew, as an adult, a lot of the folks I knew, as a kid, who lived in and around the village where I grew up. These are very different perspectives – as I read his stories, I go through a fascinating mental maze: now wait, who’s that he’s telling about? That name sounds familiar – oh! I remember! Wait – they did what? Really? Holy mackerel, I never heard that story when I was a kid! Someone musta clapped their hands hard over my ears when that story was brand new! 

There’s something special about living most of one’s life in the same place, especially when the people around you have also lived there for long and long. When the Husband and I lived in Maine, back in the dark ages, I met a husband and wife who lived on the farm his family had lived on for generations – the farmhouse was filled from cellar to attic with trunks and chests and baskets full of things that belonged to the generations that had preceded them, and family – and town – history and the answers to events that had since slipped into historical mystery was just a finger’s length away, if you knew where to look. I also knew there an old man who lived in the house he’d been born in, and to him, the house – still without electricity or running water; and the barn and land - though he no longer farmed except to keep the fields hayed and the ancient kitchen gardens working - were like a holy temple that had entered his being and become the material expression of his spiritual connection to the world and his own past and future. 

Old Bottle; Charley Freiberg photo

When you live where you’ve long lived, bonds form that our more mobile neighbors don’t experience. When a town elder dies, that loss tolls like a clarion through the spirits of all those who knew him or her, whether you were good friends or not. When an ancient tree is felled, or a piece of woods unsettled, we feel it in our bones, because it alters us as well as the landscape. 

The Historian’s stories reintroduce me to my place, in this, my home place. My memories now include some of his memories. And they remind me – what an interesting place small towns can be, and how interesting the people who have lived there and keep the stories!

For the blog, 22 May 2017

From the Edge of Darkness: 5

 The Continuing  Problem of Talking about It

Charley Freiberg photo

I have a patient I’m very fond of – ok, I have many patients I’m very fond of, so that’s not unusual – but this one I know well enough to know some important things about her and how she lives her life. One of those things is that she is always giving to people who are in need, and is religious enough to believe that God sends her unfortunate people so she can help give them a second chance. In the process of helping these folks – and there have been many – she has welcomed the otherwise homeless into her home, kept them warm and fed, refused or forgiven rent so long as it was put towards continuing their education or getting out of past financial entanglements, and she has even paid court fees and supported those lost souls through very, very bad times.

 My patient – I’m going to call her Honor - is very well educated and has a good job, but not one that provides her with endless supplies of excess money; and over the years, her good works have come close to impoverishing her, and have cost her too much of her own resources of energy and rest, and with property damage expenses she may never recoup. Even so, she doesn’t regret all she has done and is pleased that she was able to help folks who otherwise might have fallen into a pit they couldn’t rise out of.

Yes, Honor has been used, sometimes, by people who have shown no gratitude nor even taken good care of the things she’s shared with them. They’ve broken her personal things, damaged her home and yard, exhausted her as she tried to care for their daily needs, put Honor and her beloved pets sometimes at risk, done silly or dangerous things over and over – and yet, Honor has persevered, believing that everyone, even the most foolish, deserve support and a second chance.

You and I might call her crazy – which one of us would put ourselves so completely at personal risk to come to the aid of a stranger? – especially when we can’t be certain how long that aid might be needed, and knowing we might lose our own cherished privacy and property, we might need to empty our own savings accounts to help the ungracious and ungrateful, and that we will need financial and personal resources to clean up the messes those strangers made once they’ve finally pulled themselves together and moved on?

Honor simply says, when I ask her why she would put herself at such risk and exhaust herself so thoroughly, “But they would have been homeless if I didn’t take them in. They needed help. They finally were able to go about their own lives in a better way. And I believe they were sent to me, so I could help.”

Honor may be a living saint walking amongst us. But – here’s the rub – she’s a Trump supporter.

The other people where Honor works – doing work, I’ll mention, that most of us couldn’t begin to do – found out she voted for Trump. These people, all of them adamantly not Trump supporters, who do the same kind of difficult work Honor does (which takes skill and intelligence and higher education) have worked with Honor for many, many years. They know her as well as any people who have worked together for many years on difficult projects come to know each other. 

These intelligent people have been tormenting Honor daily since the election, calling her a racist and other offensive names, making unkind jokes, never letting it go – not in meetings, not in person, never – to the point where Honor has wondered if she should leave the job she loves and does well, and move somewhere else to start over again. Her boss, she says, tries to support her, but not well enough to make a difference. Honor says that her boss is also not a Trump supporter, and so has a split mind – he tries to make it easier for her, but can’t seem to bring himself to do what needs to be done to finally and completely stop the harassment. And so now, at work, Honor isolates herself: she eats alone, she doesn’t start conversations that aren’t absolutely necessary, she avoids her fellow-workers in the halls and elevators and parking lot. Honor is sad, and lonely, and afraid.

Let’s state clearly that such behavior is completely inappropriate in a work situation and should be dealt with summarily, and also completely inappropriate in personal relationships. Let’s also note that this bad behavior, which is nothing but mindless bullying, is especially morally reprehensible because her co-workers have known Honor long enough and well enough to know that she isn’t a racist, or any of the other foul things they’ve called her. And they endlessly continue, knowing what they’re doing is causing her pain.

“Why,” Honor asked me, “are they doing this? They know me well enough to know I’m not those things they’re calling me. I thought we were friends.”

And here we go – the continuing problem of talking about it. It seems we can’t talk about it. 

“Why did you vote for Trump?” I asked her. “I know you aren’t a racist, I know you’re a kind and sensitive and compassionate and intelligent person. Why would someone like you vote for Trump, who is a manifestation of evil? I’m truly curious, because I can’t understand it.”

Honor’s voice got very quiet, as I expect it does whenever the topic comes up, especially at work. Very, very quietly, she almost whispered, “Socialism…”

“But we’re already a partly socialist country,” I exclaimed, in spite of my vow to shut up and listen. “Social Security, Medicare – and it works, it helps people!”

“I know,” she said quietly, “but…”

Ashamed of myself, I changed the subject. I want to have this conversation, but I don’t trust myself to not argue, to not try to verbally bowl her over. So instead, I tried to explain to her why her co-workers are being so evil, because I think she doesn’t really understand it – she would never be so mean to anyone, no matter what, no matter how awful she was feeling. And I make sure I tell her it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

And it is wrong, wrong, wrong. C’mon, guys – it’s fair play and fairly entertaining to say vile things to the politicians who themselves are saying and promoting vile things – and to any of the vile, trash-talking trolls that I hope none of us actually runs into in person - but not to our relatives, not to our co-workers, not to our neighbors – not under normal circumstances, and we’re rarely in anything that isn’t normal circumstances in our day-to-day lives. 

When we take out our anger about the daily, sometimes hourly, mind-blowingly unbelievable frustrating, stressful and scary horrors that our country’s leaders are ceaselessly perpetrating and seem to have no lack of imagination to think up, not only are we becoming part of the problem, we’re avoiding our duty to direct our anger where it belongs. If we’re exhausting our energy shouting angrily at the people near us, we aren’t writing our legislators, we aren’t calling them, we aren’t expressing our anger appropriately and we may be making it much more likely that Honor, and people like her, will vote the same way again.  We’re making it more likely that those people who are demonstrably good people but voted for the evil person will never understand why we’re so upset, and convince themselves that we’re the problem.

Do we have a moral obligation to be public and private witnesses to the horrors? Yes, absolutely. We must speak up, we must be heard by our relatives and friends and neighbors, but we must be clear about what’s happening that isn’t acceptable, that’s dangerous, that’s immoral, that’s un-American. We must say, “This trashing of the ACA is immoral,” and say why. We must say, “This persecution of Muslims and Jews (and every other group being persecuted or treated unfairly) is immoral and this is why.” We must say, “Threatening our allies and cozying up to our enemies is foolish and likely illegal,” and say why. We must say, “Obstructing justice is illegal and un-American,” and say why. We must say, “Giving giant tax breaks to billionaires, trashing the environment, gutting the many safeguards that protect the country, the world, and the powerless or unprotected is not acceptable,” and say why. We must insist that truth be actually spoken, and that lies are lies; we maybe need to remind Trump voters what he’s really said and done, and who he’s surrounded himself with as advisors and supporters and what they’ve said and done, and what’s actually happening in DC, because somehow the nice folks who voted for Trump don’t seem to hear it – or remember it – or believe it – or something. 

But we don’t bring it up in the office, and we don’t harass people, and we don’t make accusations that aren’t true. WE DON’T. Because if we do, we have become the thing that horrifies us, and we lose our righteousness.

We’re angry. We’re exhausted. We feel like our brains are going to explode if any new horror happens – and a new one does, endlessly, inevitably, continuously. We’re assaulted by the opinions of people who keep saying we “should just get over it.” Who seem to be clueless, or malignantly blind and deaf to anything unpleasant coming out of DC, or even noisily pleased by it.  We need to let off steam, and we can’t shout at each other, because that doesn’t help. But if we shout at people like Honor, we have lost honor – literally and personally.

I don’t understand, still, what possessed and still possesses people like Honor to vote for and continue to support Trump and the evil Republicans who are gleefully using the chaos to cause as much destruction as possible under cover of the administration’s smoke and mirrors. I don’t understand it, but I – and we – need to understand it, because if we don’t, we’re going to be stuck in a corner with no good way out. 

I emailed Honor later, asking her if she would mind talking about her reasoning when she voted for Trump and as she continues to support him. I listed some of the horrible things he and his minions have done or said, and asked her – I hope without sounding challenging – how she thought about such things, and how it factored into her decision to support him. I told her, and this is true, that she’s such a nice, compassionate, intelligent and admirable person, and that I really and truly want to understand but have no one else remotely like her to ask. I told her I wasn’t trying to be snarky or set her up – and that I wouldn’t argue, and I hope she’d find the time and energy and trust to talk to me - by email so I wouldn’t be able to lose myself and blurt out something contradictory and argumentative to interrupt whatever she had to say. And that I’d understand, in her circumstances, if she’s just had enough of it and doesn’t want to do it.

I haven’t heard back from her yet, which could mean she’s not going to go there for fear of what might be said or because she can’t bear to talk about it. It might mean she’s thinking about it. It might even mean she hasn’t read my request yet – I know she’s avoiding email as much as possible because of all the unpleasantness she’s experienced and how tired she is. And I know also, because I read back to myself what I’d written, trying to imagine how it would sound to her, that it’s almost impossible to write, or speak, such a request and not sound like it’s a poke, an aggression, an attempt to start a fight. I realized that she’ll need to rely on our mutual past and take a leap of faith that I really mean what I said about wanting to understand, and translate it in her own mind into an honest request, and not a sneak attack. 

I know that if she does agree to start this conversation that it’s going to be very hard for both of us. I’m going to have to bite my tongue a lot; and I’m going to have to think carefully, and remember carefully – did I ever actually hear Trump say something racist, for example, or did I simply equate his welcoming of support from known racists to mean that he, too, is racist? Is there a difference? What is the difference? Can I say it in a way that doesn’t sound like an attack?

I hope she takes the chance. It may simply leave me gob-smacked, but maybe it’ll shine a light into what seems, from where I stand, to be very murky waters. I hope to learn something. I already have – I’ve learned it’s really hard for me to keep my mouth shut about something I care and worry so much about, and not jump ahead, instead of listening, and letting the explanation wend its way to a spot where I think I can ask questions without shouting. I’ve learned that it’s possible that someone else can consider something that I consider highly beneficial to be infinitely worse than the things that I find completely horrifying. 

I’ve learned that I have a lot to learn, and part of it is that if I want to be an effective witness, I need to carefully examine all my assumptions, and make concise distinctions, even if those distinctions don’t make a difference in my own moral judgment. But if I want to have an honest conversation, with someone who doesn’t think the same way I do, I need to be concise, not casual. And I need to be in control of my own fury.

I am One Witness.

Written for the blog alone; 18 May 2017

Still Wicked Cool

The view from Lost River; Clare McCarthy photo

  

When the British Car Gal and I trekked north early last fall, we were headed there to tour the Poore Farm and the Weeks Mansion - both historically and visually fascinating and well worth the trip - with side-stops to cool our feet in the Basin, have an early-morning snack at the Falls, and stand on the 45^th Parallel. But on the way up, we decided to do something neither of us had done since we were kids: we went to Lost River.

Lost River is a place in Kinsman Gorge where a river tumbles downhill and creates pools and basins and caves and caverns through the granite rocks. The Society for the Protection of National Forests has owned it since early in the 20^th century, and there are paths and lookouts and towers and bridges and – gulp! – caves and caverns and twisty places that kids scoot through with glee, and adult humans of a normal size look at with alarm and trepidation. Which is exactly why we decided to go back there. 

Lost River; Clare McCarthy photo

The Gal and I are women of a certain age, and we’re built like that, no longer the skinny young things we once were.  I have photos dating from 1953 that a skinny, crew-cutted Dad took of tiny, terribly cute Mom before they were married, climbing the outdoors stairs and crossing the cool wet river bridges ‘way up high on a trip they made to the mountains with my grandparents. And I have memories of my dare-devil Gramp squeezing his way through the “Lemon Twist” when I was a little bit of a thing and Brother and I could zip through the dark places mostly upright, and he was about my current age. The Gal visited the River when she and her sister were a little older, but still young enough to be fearless and able to slip easily into and out of the tight spaces.

So it seemed perfectly natural that we, two very cool chicks with adventure on our minds, should revisit the places of our youth. Besides, it was a hot day and women of a certain age always appreciate places that are, without fail, cool and cooling.

We were there on a day when there weren’t many children and actual young people to make us feel ---well --- old. We were able to mosey along and stand at each cave entrance and contemplate the world, our sense of mortality, carefully read the descriptions on the markers about how narrow and low each cave was, think about our knees and backs and how they were feeling, wonder whether the car keys were firmly enough secured in the pocket (no we did NOT take our pocket-books along like a couple of old grannies!!) to still be with us when we emerged, clear our throats, gaze off into the distance, check out other, younger adult human beings emerging from the exits to see how pale and terrified they looked, test our view of the entrances against our feelings of claustrophobia, think about what might happen if we got stuck, wonder why on earth we were even thinking about dipping down into dark, narrow, low, wet unknown spaces, weigh how wimpy we’d feel if we passed the cave by, and finally take a deep breath and head down, saying out loud that if it was too claustrophobic we could back out again.

Deb emerging from a cave; Clare McCarthy photo

 

Which we never did. Instead, we went on hands and knees, ducked our heads low, bent far over, twisted to the side, once even squirmed along on our bellies, groping for the hand-and-foot-holds in cool, dusky, stone-smelling small spaces, following each other’s heels and giving each other directions when we couldn’t see where we were headed, and we came out of each cave with wet bellies, skinned knees, cave dirt dusted along our backs, moss in our hair, pounding hearts, and big grins. I haven’t had a skinned knee in decades, and I ended up with two.  Man, it was fun.

Full disclosure: we did skip the last two caves. We watched a guy trying to figure out how to emerge from the Lemon Twist and having to disappear and reappear several times turned different ways and decided that, despite my Gramp’s ancient example, we’d had just about enough of that kind of excitement for one day. The cave right next to it looked equally ominous and we agreed claustrophobia had finally kicked in. But, by gawd, we did all the rest of them! And proved we are still wicked cool.

We fully deserved the poutine we ate at supper.

Carved bear in a tower at Lost River; Clare McCarthy photo.


For the blog alone; May 18, 2017