What we cannot see

I broke from my usual ritual. When the weather warms, I head out to Rietta Ranch in the morning before church in search of books for my class. I woke up at 7:03 this morning, just in time for Rietta, and decided that that wouldn't do. I needed a little less commotion. So, much to my dog's unrestrained joy, I decided to head off to the park. Rutland State Park is kind of crappy on the weekends, in that, there are people there. Sometimes, if I am especially early, I can avoid any one... or as I like to call it... contamination. In truth, there were only two people there, and they were kind of nice. They were somewhere from a city (I can always tell) and they were smoking. I wasn't super thrilled to see them, but they wanted advice on where to fish and I am full of that kind of advice. We talked, they gave Chaucer a part of a "slim jim," praised him for being such a good dog, and we left.

The sun is rising earlier and earlier. This means several things, the fog is lifting in the park earlier, the birds are waking from their rest earlier (that early bird gets the worm thing... I think it may be a farce. There are no birds around sometimes when I get out there. They are still snuggling away in their nests. Robins maybe... that's about it. Now, the sun is taking it's full effect and the air is filled with song. I know them all, or at least enough to know when I don't know one. I closed my eyes for a good long time while I was sitting on an especially comfortable rock this morning. The songs filled the air, and the cold weather subsided around me. The red-winged blackbirds are out and their huge guffaws fill the wetlands. Often in the summer and spring, when I get out of my car to start my hike, I slam the back door shut after letting Chauc out and a wood cock starts his whumping call in return. I can only assume that he thinks that the thump of my back door is the beginning of another wood cock trying to call for him. I remember hearing their call ( they make it by flapping their wings against their chest and fluffing up their chest feathers) when I was young and thinking that someone was starting a tractor in the neighborhood. Thump thump thump.

As I was walking, I heard a new song and hunted it down. It was this little Rufus sided Towhee. He sat at the top his tree singing to the morning. I decided to walk through the fields, as they are still low enough to navigate without too much risk of ticks. My shoes got wet, but the good thing about shoes is that they dry eventually. Chaucer loves these fields. His running is normally relegated to the straight

and narrow of the roads in RSP. Once he is in an open field he takes full advantage of his freedom and flies across the grass. We walked this way for around 45 minutes and then decided to head back to be in time for worship practice at church. ( I lead worship for my church). On our way back we stopped by the two smoking fisherman that we left earlier. They smiled and told me to look in the bucket. They had three nice size brook trout swimming around in the tepid water. I may end up not walking once or twice during the week and just fishing for an hour or two before work. I have often said that trout is the only animal that I can see in its unadulterated state and immediately begin to salivate. They were beautiful. All in all a good morning, and all this before anyone in my house was awake.

db

seek adventure

Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures. 

     Henry David Thoreau

I have been thinking on this. The first time I heard the quote was on an old friend's facebook page, a couple of years ago. I think that that's what inspired me to look into Thoreau's works. I won't lie and say that each page holds staggering truths for me... but some of them do, and his mentality and the attitude he has toward life click deep down with how I feel. Central Massachusetts, as I am sure it is with other places around the country, did not heed Thoreau's many warnings. We are a growing, work focused community with mini-mansions popping up ten feet from each other all around town. We base our success on what kind of car we drive... Is it a Volvo? An Escalade? Are you part of a "good" neighborhood? At times, I truly wonder how I ended up here. I have lived in places that weren't like this at all. I lived only a few miles away, in Western Mass, where a person's success was not nearly measured by their car and house. Some of the most amazing Professors tooled around in beat up mini-cars and lived in 50's style ranchs. Still, at least in Rutland, there are woods... real woods... that are deep and still. Thank God.

There are a couple of sentiments in the quote above that have almost completely lost their meaning. 

"Free from care."
 Lets all just stop and think about being "free from care." When Thoreau said it, he actually meant it. Don't hinder yourselves with houses. Don't tie yourselves down with burden. Travel where you want, when you want for the purpose you want. Keep life simple and live care free. I am so far away from living free from care. My life is a series of rebounding off of worries and struggling to remain floating in a sea of obligations. I know, because I know the difference. I have a rare and beautiful opportunity to glimpse just a small window into what Thoreau was talking about. I have summer vacation. It isn't complete... not nearly. But when school ends, so does my job. True, I am not paid during the summer. True, I still have every other obligation and financial burden to uphold. And yet, when that last class ends... there is an amazing transformation that takes place in me. It takes a couple of weeks, but I start to feel.... free. Light. Everything slows down and the days open up in front of me. It is a gift that I am not willing to let go of for social pressure. I still have obligations, but I see greater obligation to being with my kids in a real and purposeful way, and to teaching them that life, in responsibility alone, should be devoted to finance. Everything else, which is most of everything, should be devoted to their souls. And I mean no cliche' in that.

"Adventure." 
I was walking this morning and I saw what I thought was a black bear hunched over in the brush beside the road. My heart rate went up... I slowed my pace, brought up my camera, but it was only a "bear-shaped stump." Later, I did manage to sneak up on this blue heron though. It got me thinking about adventure. In our nearly completely explored world, it

has become, for most, only a quaint idea that can be relegated to a "Disney World" like experience. Everything is manicured and taken care of. Our big surprises now come in the form of scripted reality TV shows that expose for the public the drama of someone's overly archetypal lifestyle. Is that really all there is? Is there more out there for us? Do we have to do our rock climbing in Gyms that have rubberized plastic handholds and nothing at the top of the cliff? I am not speaking as one condescending from great heights here. I am speaking as one searching for that spark of reality... real life. I think it may come down to a matter of time. We don't have a lot of it, so we are hesitant to gamble it on something that may be fruitless. With our two or three weeks of precious vacation time, we find ourselves funneled into vacations that get to the main point. We go to Paris to visit the Eiffel Tower. We don't have time to wander the streets of its suburbs, because we need to get in and out in such a short time. Even on a daily basis... this rush propels us forward. right down to our relationships... who has time to go over a friend's house for no reason at all... just to be there. We are missing something in our rush. Obligation has taken hold and we are frantically throwing our lives on its altar. This, I think, is Thoreau's chiefest warning... at least in the beginning of his master work "Walden." Simplify simplify and head out "free from care before the dawn...................... and seek adventures. 

db

surrounded

The porcupine was back today. It was only Chaucer and I walking, Henry decided to stay home because he woke up with a headache, so I was able to walk right up to it and snap some pictures before Chaucer drove it into the woods and up a tree. My little walk took on its usual inward tone and I was able to walk in silence (which I love). I do miss Henry's little voice and ample conversation though. I saw the first blue bird of the season. Flashes of blue in the tree branches. As I was walking I noticed that there was a stone wall, way across the river on what now is something of an island in the middle of marsh. It got me thinking about the past. I am surrounded by the past, and not just my past, but all of ours. Einstein was right to consider it into our dimensions. It is everywhere. Rutland State Park is a poignant

reminder of this. The park used to be a prison surrounded by far reaching farms and remnants of that are littered among the woods and fields of the park. Henry and I found a massive, too big to fit into a picture and not the one pictured above, stone structure yesterday. It must have been a bridge over the river, or the makings of a dam. The boulders were the size of me. The entire thing was at least three times my hieght. These boulders must have been put there by hand, or horse... horse and hand, because there was no access to the work. The trees had grown all around, and even on it. This land was manicured and worked hundreds of years ago. The fields that this porcupine combs for food are remnants of prisoners working them for vegetables and pasture.

In New England we are surrounded by the lasting tributes to the hard working people who settled the land we live on. Stone walls are everywhere. They ribbon over the land in front of and in back of my house and each of the houses on my road, each of the roads in my town, the surrounding towns and counties in our state and throughout New England. It is only in the cities that they have vanished. Made up of stones that were pulled out of the earth by hand and plow, they are as poignant a reminder as the famed Easter Island effigies. It is only because we are surrounded by them with such frequency that they are ignored as historical markers. When this land was tamed, they were made.

In some ways, I feel a sense of guilt when I look out of  my window. The difficulty they faced in farming this land must have been staggering. Some of these stone walls cut through swampland in the park and climb the steepest of the hills that I walk on. They line each road and sometimes reach

far over my head. Each rock pulled out of ground to be made usable for agriculture by someone's hand and placed on the outskirts of their effort. A lasting symbol of their frustration. I am building a firewood shed this weekend. I cleared out the ground in front of it and under the tangle of prickers were these stones. I don't think that they had "grown" there on their own. There is an enormous boulder next to where I am building, and I think they were piled next to it by someone looking to get rid of them. I decided to add some of them to the stone wall in front of my house. I pulled 10 of them out and placed them by wheelbarrow into the sparser parts of the wall in front of my house. I couldn't help but think of whoever it was that had done this before me and the steel like strength they must have had to build this stretch of wall. Miles long.

We stand on the shoulders of hard men and women. Their effort has shaped where we live and really who we are. We are taught of their determination in school and movies are continually made because of  the wonder of their strength. It is impossible to escape. We are their descendants and heirs to the results of their toil. To live on top of that without acknowledging their work would be callous. And to not allow their work ethic to at least shape our own, may be the folly of what we ourselves are building.

db

little worlds

Henry and I have been walking every morning with Chaucer into Rutland State Park during this April vacation. It is very different walking with Henry. He brings with him his own presence... a light and indomitable... and chatty presence. As we were walking we found a little, hanging piece of moss. I thought to myself, this moss has it's own presence, sitting here, waiting for God knows what. We all live within our own little worlds, and as we bring each of them into intersection with each other, things get bounced around, pushed away, or sometimes they merge.
This one tiny piece of moss has a whole family of cells devoted solely to the life of the moss. Endless arrays of microorganisms might take their homes there. Insects: midges, mosquitoes, fruit flies, ants, aphids, myriad lives may take up residence here. And I calmly and callously pick it up and look into it without seeing anything at all. My life intersects with an enormous amount of other worlds as I walk through the park. Some take high offense, like the blue

herons that immediately take to the air as they see me on the road, and others seem not to mind at all. It's these intersections and the randomness of it all that packs the excitement of exploration full of meaning. This is why those early explorers pushed into the woods, and still why men encase themselves in steel and air and drop into the sightless depths of the ocean. I choose to meet these worlds in the relative wild of the park and not in the mall where these interactions take on another flavor entirely.

db

Tower Hill

Our family went with some good friends to Tower Hill Botanical Gardens today. What a beautiful place. If you have never been to a place that is blossoming while the world around you isn't yet, I would advise you to seek one out. The greenhouses were full of flowers, lemons and oranges. The surrounding gardens are still holding on to their blooms, except the Daffodils which are just now

starting their frenzy. There are frog ponds and tree swings and all of those good natured things that lend themselves to contemplation and/or goofing around. There are statues sprinkled throughout the woods, lending the place an ancient, secretive feel. Even on vacation week, I still felt a bit in awe when I found cupid hiding among the trees.

db

Knowing each other.

I have walked the same entry road into Rutland State Park, nearly every morning for a couple of years now. I feel like I might be crossing over into some sort of more primitive way of thinking. Objects are taking on more significant meaning. This is the Welcoming Tree. I sits right at the entrance to RSP. Its huge and old and beautiful and I realized a while ago... maybe a year ago... that I felt better when I saw it. I am sure that that had something to do with the peace that comes from these walks. Still, I feel... welcomed. So I started calling it the Welcoming Tree. Then I started quickly laying a hand on it as I

passed, to kind of say "thanks for welcoming me." I now do exactly that, just about every time I go into the park. It has become a kind of mantra for me. I know that when I pass the tree, it is time to let things go, to gain perspective, to breathe the clean morning air. The Welcoming Tree.

There are other places and things in the park that hold meaning for me as well. There is a particular rock that I like to sit at, in the big open fields in the park. There is a bend of the river that Chaucer likes to jump in at. Actually, this place has taken meaning for him too. As we get near to it, he starts to get all jumpy and stir crazy in anticipation. There is, about five miles out into the woods, a hill where the trees thin and there is the remnant of what must have been a seriously beautiful farmhouse. Way out there... where very few other people know about. That is my place now. I lay claim to it. It

takes over an hour of walking to get there. I saw a the largest toad I have ever seen in a little open area there. Sound lame... sure.. but if you could have seen the size of that thing you would have a much different opinion. It must have been the size of Shiatsu . That little clearing is "Toad Clearing." There is a particular tree that looks like and elephant head. There is a stone wall that I was looking at once that had a moose laying down behind it. It got up not ten feet away from me... towering over me... and walked into the woods like I didn't exist. There is one particular place where the spotted salamanders

line up and cross the road on route from there vernal pool to the river below. There is an old foundation with a deep, deep, open well. A place where the red-winged black birds gather. A grove of birch trees where you can find pheasants if you are quiet. These are all my places. They are all bits of my relationship with this place. I know this place... or maybe we know each other, I think.

db

Don't tread on me

It is the day after the Boston Marathon incident. I can't help but think about it... and about how I feel about the whole thing. I feel both removed and involved. My thoughts are scattered and I am left just wondering why whoever did this did this.

Is it another country?
I like to think about our country like the porcupine that Chaucer chased this morning. We are full of formidability. We harbor weapons that make other countries tremble. But we don't use them. We just hold them in threat, like that porcupine... all spines. He just sat there eating in the field until Chaucer came up at a full out run, nefarious playing on his mind. The spikes came up, Chaucer thought twice and the incident was over. The porcupine (it was huge by the way) waddled its way back into the woods. The truth is though, that I know that things are not that simple and to quote the great Britney Spears, we are not that innocent. I know that we create situations that put other countries in a place of dependency on us. I know that we are doing things all around the globe that no one really knows about, and I hope that it is all necessary to keep peace... I hope. I know we have funded both sides of countries at civil war in order to create weakened situations that we as a country could take advantage of. I know that things are difficult and that we live our lives of relative ease because of efforts made by people that I will never meet. All of this does come at a price I am sure, and I am not dim enough to think that every country that hates ours is evil incarnate or even misguided. I just don't want them to retaliate with violence. It seems that everything is aimed at people, not armies. I am sure that has something to do with the enormity of our armies... but the outcome is scary. And what do we do afterward, wage war? Hit back? Do we not hit back? I don't have any of these answers.

Is it from our own country?
Is it a dissident? An angry citizen? A mentally sickened individual? A Neo-Natzi, hate mongering group looking to make a point? Is it a cult? The KKK? A drug addicted crack head that got fed up and took things too far? All of these live in our country. They're all here plotting and ready. It is a wonder and a statement of the power of our law enforcement, that public violence isn't a daily occurrence.

Who were you? What did you want? Why would you do this? Are there more of you somewhere? Were you making a point? Is it over?  We all need to heal, and to do this, I need to understand, if it is possible.
My thoughts are all questions.

db

the social networking of tree swallows

The Tree Swallows have returned. One of the aspects that I love about walking so often is that when the seasons change, change often comes about suddenly. One day the swallows weren't there and then they were. Simple and beautiful. They're common. I remember them being there in flocks at my grandmother's house. Her neighbors owned a large barn, so maybe they were barn swallows, with their forked tales. Still I know these birds, and they are beautiful. They're among the most graceful fliers in the skies of New England. I have thought of them as little blue, streamlined dolphins for years. They are fly catchers after all.

They are also loud, chittering and completely gabby. They live in huge flocks... or what I imagine are families. The fields of Rutland State Park are filled with them now...overnight. They were so loud this morning as I walked under one of their roosting trees... where they sit and drink their coffees and chat before the air warms sufficiently to allow the midges to take to the air. I do love them. They clean the air so efficiently of mosquitoes that on walks in May and June, I practically run down the forested roads to get to their fields where the clouds of mosquitoes are lessened to the point of decency.

They talk to each other, constantly. I think that maybe all birds talk to each other, even between species. Maybe they even speak in ways that things other than birds can understand (Am I sounding particularly SnowWhiteish here?) I know that I certainly know when there is a hawk bothering a group of crows. And I also know when a Blue Jay announces my intrusion to anything willing to listen. It is common sense then that maybe other animals listen for cues and what amounts to at least rudimentary conversation as well.

I don't do well with conversation, especially of the small sort. This, is what I imagine that chittering of tree swallows amounts to. I have Aspergers. A strange form of autism. It isn't pronounced... I think at least, but it does show itself in areas of my life. I am very uncomfortable with groups. I am almost completly baffled with small talk. I am given to a drifting (or what I would call "thoughtful") mind. It has made me feel like an outsider for most of my life. I some ways, I don't mind feeling that way though.

I went to a birthday party today... the dreaded birthday party. It is a pretty difficult thing for me. I brought "Walden" to read, and sat on the carpet at "Pump it up" and read for about half the time. The mystery of small talk for me, is it's purpose. I sat and watched it all transpiring, rising above the blasting white noise of constant air pumping into inflatable slides and bouncy castles. I always feel bad for those trying to hold one of these conversations with me. I know that it is awkward... the gaps in conversation as I try to tread water and end up drowning in the confusion of what sentence comes next. Information-wise, these conversations amount to nearly nothing in my opinion... So why talk? Why chitter away like the tree swallows?

I think it amounts to some more subtle form of conversation... a series of gateways of acceptability. Sure, they may be talking about what's for dinner tonight, but really one party is checking to see how far the other will take them into their fold... confidence...friendship. Do they invite them over for dinner? Do they only allow surface topics to block the other from more intimate conversation. It is all jockeying for acceptance and place. It is completely foreign to me. Again, I think it maybe exactly what the Tree Swallows are doing. Finding whose territory is whose and who is the leader of the pack.

I would be the tree swallow on his own tree, happily reading "Walden."

db

The beginning again

This is the beginning again. I have started a few blogs... and here is yet another. Some have died off at their allotted time, others, in their youth. I intend to keep this specific blog open and ongoing. I walk with Chaucer, my two year old Chocolate Lab, down the winding dirt roads of Rutland State Park almost every morning before work. I teach eighth grade English. I have found that this time is bordering on necessary for me to find center. It has been a long winter. I don't walk him in the mornings in the winter, not because of the cold... although, sometimes it is because of the cold, but because of the light. Those dark days when it is dark when I leave for work and dark when I return home from it are among the most difficult for me. They are done now and  it is Spring time, time for things to begin again, be it blogs or walks or life in general.

I thought about jogging in the mornings. I really did. I am not against exercise. I actually bike to work when the weather is warm enough. It was the closeness that I couldn't give up. These walks, for me, are time both wide and narrow in focus. There is something about the cold morning air that gives me clarity on larger issues. In the same regard, I am always drawn to the details of my walk. I am sure that anyone (foolishly possibly) choosing to walk with me, would become pretty frustrated fairly quickly. I stop a lot. All the time actually. I stop to look at hoarfrost covered thorn bushes, cardinals lit crimson with the sunrise. I stop and look at tracks and coyote scat and the way the water rushes over the new beaver dam. This is my world... large and small. What I gain in the mornings, is perspective. I know more clearly my place in the world: That this outdoor world continues when I head indoors. It all falls into place into the larger rhythms of the outdoors. I find comfort in the fact that my little classroom and its 100 or so students, all with concerns and troubles and drama... god the drama... all exists within the fold of that larger picture. That school is one small dot held in the palms of the roads that I traveled that morning.... You see, jogging in the mornings really isn't for me. I will walk with Chaucer and ride my bike later. The mornings are for finding who I am and where I matter.