Sixty Degrees North: A Memoir of Finding Home

COMMUNITY IN 2020

There are many things I could write about in this year of shutdowns and sickness, separation and lack of travel. It has been a lonely time for many, and also a time where households could spend more time together, welcomed or not. There is no doubt that COVID-19 and the changes made in society to prevent its rapid spread have changed "community"--how it looks, acts, and feels--and communities. I’ve been too overwhelmed by it to feel enabled to write clearly about it, and yet there has been much to say about how the Internet has kept not only companies and schools (Who had heard of Zoom before late March?!?) going but also brought groups together in new and unexpected ways (my local PTA saw a dramatic increase in attendance from home), and how the lack of community (job loss, being or feeling alone) has led many down roads of despair and suicide or to innovative ways to succeed or change course. COVID-19 has wreaked its havoc on our world in many ways including community. As have unjust deaths of men and women at the hands of law enforcement, the riots and neighborhood takeovers!

Has this episode in our world’s history taught us anything about the importance of safe, strong community ties and a place to call home. YES, or at least I hope so! There are many personal and public examples of how community has changed for the worse or better this year, and it really depends on what demographic you are in, your resources, previous community ties, your experiences this year, and your ability to access technology.

BOOK REVIEW

All this to introduce a review and personal thoughts on the book Sixty Degrees North (softbound, Pegasus edition reprint, 2017) by Malachy Tallack. It was an enjoyable read as far as reading for pleasure, but as I was reading I formed some thoughts about how the book relates to my own views about place, community, and home, and found the writer’s journey mirrored what I believe is a human instinct to find “home,” that place where the heart and memories reside as well as the body and soul, even when those things can’t be present all at once in that place one calls home. 

Part travelogue and memoir, this book travels with Tallack as he circles the globe westward along the 60 degree parallel. For the geographically challenged, this is north, about as far north as is inhabitable for humans. He is spurred to travel out of personal loss and upended life plans, including an unexpected move. Feeling restless, he makes his way from his physical home of Shetland Island to Greenland and land hops all the way around the globe stopping in Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Russia, Finland, Aland, Sweden, and Norway, following the 60th parallel, before discovering that Shetland was home.

With vivid geographical descriptions of the lands and towns he visits while trying to get as close as possible to that imaginary 60th "line," Tallack brings readers on his westward and inward journey, as he explores anthropology, history, and culture with honesty and an open mind to experiencing these places for what they are. The personal, thought-provoking, and quiet memoir explores how mankind interacts with and lives off the land in a symbiotic relationship in the harsh terrains and unforgiving climes. He explores how land at the 60th is both life-giving, beautiful, and dangerous, and not for everyone!

 

Near the end of this book, Tallack writes about finally finding home for a while in Fair Isle, part of Shetland, Scotland, but its own island 25 miles from Shetland itself. He writes of the community he grew to love while visiting his brother who was working in a bird observatory: “It was Fair Isle’s community that drew me in. It was the connections that people had with each other and with their place-connections that were obvious to even the briefest of visitors. To live in Fair Isle was unlike living anywhere that I had known before. It was to become a member of something bigger and more important than any individual. It was to belong to a community that was greater than the sum of its parts, independent from and yet dependent upon each member. On that island, among those people, I came to understand and to experience a sense of attachment that was stronger, more intricate, and yet somehow simpler than any I had felt before. Fair Isle was the first place in which my desire to be at home felt welcomed and reciprocated” (pps. 186-187).

Home may be where
you hang your hat,
but it is something more?

As I read Tallack’s lovely clear writing, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story of Adam and Eve, and how they were kicked out of their home that had all the accoutrements of life they needed. Within the human heart lies this very loss, want, and need of home. There are many stories in literature that speak to this longing. We also know how social, mental, emotional, and physical health depends on our relationship with others and the world around us. We are made for relationships. Without them, from the smallest baby to the eldest world citizen, we will literally die for lack of connection and meaning. This book also caused me to think about Christian’s journey in Pilgrim’s Progress, the metaphor for the journey of life with God to an eternal home.

Within us all there is a longing for our home, our people, our place, our community. 

Tallack’s book, while informative about the cultures and traditions of the lands he visited, is more about finding home, community, and belonging. His description of the attraction of living in Fair Isle sums up what community is and should be. 

This would make a great library, church, or community center book club read for a group discussion about what home and community means. Armchair travelers and students of anthropology and northern climes may find this a lighter read to offset their studies. It is also just a good read if you are so inclined.

Where is home, not just the physical building you reside in, but where is your home community? Where do you really feel you belong?

For the book, see: Malachy Tallack's Website

For a completely heady and more critical review (including two photographs from the book), go here: The Guardian: "Book of the Day," July 8, 2015

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

We just returned from a day and a night in Boston, which is a hop, skip, and jump from Maine. We took the train. Driving in Boston can be a nightmare, and many Mainers skip the stress and hop on the bus or Amtrak.Whenever someone has to drive to Boston, they get a lot of sympathy, and everyone has their driving-in-Boston stories. When the Big Dig was going on, it was more nightmarish, but it still seems like signs and streets move on a dime and we never know when a road is going to be closed or where there might be traffic backup. We have spent a few weekends or days visiting Beantown, and we always look forward to it and also grit our teeth and pray for good traveling. One time we payed the toll twice on Tobin Bridge-don't ask. We've also had our T and train nightmares too, but this time we had a smooth journey.

We went to see the Red Sox, who got whomped by the Dodgers. Too bad. The night before the Sox had beat the Dodgers. (In context for all you non baseball fans, this was a big series because last October the Sox won the World Series against the Dodgers and one of the Sox star pitchers, Joe Kelly, switched hats over the winter and became a Dodger. Boo!)

We aren't advocating underage drinking,
but we did eat sandwiches, wings and
sodas at Boston's tv-famous bar/restaurant;
 however, no one seemed to know our name. 

Boston is a very fun city. It is also gritty and fast-paced. My brother has told me there is a saying about Boston that its a little drinking town with a big sports problem! It is a historic, artsy, and collegiate town with lots of great restaurants and culture. Running is, of course, huge.

I don't know if it was the heat or getting up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a super early train, but by gametime I was ready to get back home to smallville Maine where everybody really does know your name. (We always hit Cheers at Quincy Market.) I think what hit me this visit was the general unfriendliness of the Boston natives. I have to say the Parisians were friendlier! Although we didn't have any truly rude encounters, its always the other tourists in Boston that are friendly and helpful to each other. Mainers always seem to find one another as well. One year a family asked us for helped with the T. They were from Maine. They looked at us and thought we looked like we knew what we were doing. We did, momentarily, because we had just spent three days  navigating the T using maps and my husband's skilled sense of direction. (This trip, likely thanks to the French firm the city has hired to fix their public transport, we found more vested MTBA workers in the T to ask questions of--not many but one or two, which is more than usual.)

The folks that work at Fenway are, of course, friendly, so long as you aren't trying to run on the field. But I really couldn't wait to get home. We heard more F words and people yelling into phones on this trip than any other time.

I know Boston must have its own sense of community within neighborhoods and groups of likeminded people, but as in most cities no one looks at each other directly, no one smiles at you, and officials often seem annoyed when you ask dumb questions. Even though life in Maine is somewhat unvaried and small in terms of what there is to do and see (no night city life or regular sporting events), I do like that many people know your name including grocery clerks, corner store clerks and the postmaster, or at least they ask "How are you?" I regularly run into people I'm distantly related to, and while that used to sometimes feel socially claustrophobic, I'm realizing it's not a bad thing at all that everyone knows your story (the public version) and your name.

That's where community often starts--knowing one another, at least by name.

Get Off Your Phone and Talk to Someone!

Remember the telephone ad campaign that said "Reach out and touch someone?" It was a very sweet ad campaign by AT&T to encourage people to use their telephones to call loved ones across the country.

Today advertising to get people to use phones is unnecessary. Phone use is here to stay. But we all know hardly anyone uses the phone to talk on, but we text, browse, play games, and use social media apps.

AT&T had a long ad campaign
with the slogan,
"Reach out and touch someone."

There are no doubt a million benefits to the razor sharp technology that keeps the world at our fingertips. Alexander Graham Bell
would be shocked and delighted.

But are cell phones and tablets getting in the way of quality interpersonal communication and relationships? I'm not talking about all the GOOD reasons to keep that cell phone handy. There are many of those. And I'm not writing this to make anyone feel guilty over how they use phones.

What I'm concerned with here is encouraging people to get off YouTube, texting, Snapchat, Google, and talk to the people nearby.

I like to joke that in a few years babies will be born with a cell phone implanted in their palms, because it seems that kids have grown a device that cannot be detached from their hands.

There is tons of advice, blog posts, news stories, etc. on how to curb cell phone and technology use. But I want to encourage people to just do it. I know that for some people they do use the Internet to create a community with like-minded people in disparate parts of the world or start groups with common goals or information sharing. I'm not talking about the good uses of technology. The technology itself is not bad. In my teen years, it was the amount of time we all spent in front of the TV that was bemoaned. TV is not bad. TV is not a moral object, but how we use TV, just as how we use our phones than can be labeled healthy or unhealthy.

MaineGirl on a rotary phone, circa 1980.

Did you know there is a Center for Internet Technology Addiction? Yup! It was started by a Dr. Greenleaf and is located in West Hartford, Connecticut, and what does it have but a long list of online tests you can take and be rated on your addiction level. I took the cell phone test and rated a 4, which was considered on the verge of addiction! Me? I hate using my phone more than necessary!**

Dr. Greenleaf likens cell phone use to playing the slot machine. This is a comparison you may have heard before. We type something and our cell phone rewards us with dings, beeps, and ring tones, and surprise, you have an instantaneous reward of a "like," comment, or response.

(Curious if you are addicted to your screens? Take Dr. Greenleaf's tests here: https://virtual-addiction.com/addiction-screening-tools/).

I'm not going to relate all the information found out there but how in the world do we curb our appetite for our cell phone that do everything but the dishes (now that I'd like to see!)?

What are your best ideas and most successful stories at disconnecting from technology and reconnecting with a person face to face or voice to voice?

Reconnect with the world around
 you. Take a tech Sabbath!

Me? I just keep talking. I get a little edgy and pushy and demand those around me answer my questions. I ask them to put their phone down. I ask for attention at dinner. I even did an experiment where I confiscated the phones before the rest of the house was awake and locked them in a vehicle. (That was an uncomfortable experiment!)

Some people take technology Sabbaths where they go off all social media, internet, gaming for a set period of time in order to reconnect with the world immediately around them.
(Curious about the tech Sabbath, click here, read, and then shut down your device! https://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/time-for-a-tech-sabbath)

The biggest thing we are losing is lack of eye contact. Its hard to look someone in the eye if a majority of communication happens while looking at a screen.

The best thought is just shut it off, put it away, turn it down, and look your family and friends in the eye and have a conversation without a phone between you. Just do it!

What do you do to reconnect with the real world around you, without a screen?
_________________________________________________________________________________
More info on cell phone/technology addiction

Common Sense Media stats on teens and cell phone addiction from 2016: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/new-report-finds-teens-feel-addicted-to-their-phones-causing-tension-at --this article is from THREE years ago!

Information about internet addiction from a rehab center in Washington state. https://www.northpointwashington.com/blog/internet-addiction-quiet-common-form-compulsive-disorder/

And there's more. If the Betty Ford Center is talking about it then it must be real:  https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/fcd/teen-technology-addiction.

Community Cornerstones: Honesty and Trust

Community can only exit where there are relationships built around trust and truthful communication. Any community, even controlling, destructive ones thrive only when every member accepts and lives by a code of trust.

Any healthy community, including the community of family, needs to be able to know members will be as honest as possible and communicate with respect, courtesy, and honesty. When trust breaks down, so do relationships. When one member cannot be trusted to live within a group and communicate with truth and respect then the rest of the group may suffer or at the very least lose faith in that community member. This is the very fabric of safe community, and the opposite of this is what we see every day in the news. Murder, terrorism, abuse, theft, unethical political decision-making and behavior, even divorce, drug-related problems, you fill in the blank.

Let me make it more personal, have you ever fibbed to save face or keep from hurting someone's feelings? Have your ever spoken the hard truth but done it disrespectfully? These kinds of interactions regularly hurt relationships, and when relationships break down, community breaks down.
So how are you doing in building community in your communication?

Open Heart/Open Home

I wrote a post on mainegirl that started off about traditions and ended up being a reflection on hospitality. This post relates so much to my thoughts on Front Porch Conversations I should have written it here. It also relates to the photo in this blog, my grandparents' farmhouse, which has a beautiful front porch that they added after moving in when they were married 71 years ago this past December. I've spent many hours visiting and playing on that front porch and to this day I can see my grandfather sitting there looking out over the fields and hearing him say "What's new?" when I pulled in and walked up the steps. My grandparents' home was one where I don't know if anyone was ever turned away!

Read my latest post on mainegirl that segues traditions with keeping the door open.

Stay in Touch Without Social Media

How to Connect Without a Screen in Between

Facebook, fake news, and Twitter got you down? There are other ways to stay in touch.

In the 2000s communicating is much different than it was before the explosion of social media apps and websites. Despite the ease of instantaneous communication with all your friends (and then some), maybe you want to “reach out and touch someone.” (AT&T’s ad slogan created in 1979.) Before 2004 social media was unheard of. That's because Facebook didn't exist yet. Zuckerberg was launching it at Harvard. 

Put down your phone and call someone! While texting is very easy and less obtrusive and allows your correspondent to respond when they can, sometimes you just need to hear a voice or hash things over in real time. Before my grandmother died in 2012 and when I was busy being a mom and working, I knew I needed to spend more time with her. She didn’t drive and was often home alone. Instead of feeling bad for not having time to visit, I would to call her while making dinner. The conversation was usually short, usually about what I was “making good” (her words), and mine were (“Do you need anything?”) and love you’s. Also with calling you can have a conversation more quickly and accurately because your fingers aren’t mis-typing and your phone is not incorrectly autocorrecting! And do I need to say it can eliminate misunderstandings? I’m always saying to my texting family, after many minutes of texting, “Why don’t you just call them? You could say all that in two minutes rather than 15 of texting, right?”

Write a letter Before there was e-mail, there was mail. In the movie You’ve Got Mail, there is a telling conversation between Joe Fox, his father, and his grandfather, in which the grandfather says he wrote letters to an old flame. He explains, “Or maybe we just exchanged letters.” Joe replies, “You wrote her letters?” “Mail. It was called mail.” “Stamps.  Envelopes.” “You know, I’ve heard of it.” This movie was made in 1998 when AOL dialup was “the” Internet! One stamp is still relatively cheap. Find the address of a college roommate, former neighbor, or a relative who lives far away. Remember penpals? I had many as a child. Through school, friends from summer camp, balloon launches with an address attached (considered environmentally unsound and somewhat creepy nowadays). It was a way to make a friend with someone you had never met. (Now that sounds like befriending strangers on the Internet!) I keep notecards around for thank you notes, sympathy cards, and birthday cards. I do it far less than I used to, but mail is fun when it’s not bills.

Coffee There is nothing like meeting a friend to catch up in real time. Even if we know everything about their lives on social media, getting the details helps us feel connected and allows us laugh, love, and be supportive. In business, the business lunch often seals the deal. It may be difficult to arrange, but keep trying, it’s worth it for an hour of face-to-face tea and sympathy.

Invite someone for dinner Yes, to your house. Is it really that difficult? Only if you’re not going to be home! Connecting over a meal in your own home is a real treat and can grow friendships. The meal and the table does not have to be fancy. Paper plates and plastic forks are fine as is take-out pizza. Make it potluck! The idea is to connect. And real friends won’t care about clutter or a little dirt and dust if you don’t have time to give your house a good shine before they arrive.

Here's a tip: Check out the Family Dinner Project for daily dinner ideas! The July newsletter

on this site has an excellent article about courtesy at the dinner table with lots of suggestions
on how to put down our devices and connect over a meal! Along with recipes, the site offers
conversation starters and meal time activities perfect for all ages.

How will you plan for real time connection this week?

Family dinner is an essential community builder.

Busy life or fickle friendship?

Friendship is a funny thing. For as much value as we place on it, sometimes above family relationships, friendships sometimes feel fickle. Not that the "friend" is necessarily a fickle person, but the give and take of friendship seems to be fickle, inconsistent, and out of whack with my expectations.
How often do you try to schedule a lunch or coffee after someone suggests it, and then he or she  can't make it work? Schedules and plans shift around as we go through our weeks, and those iffy plans made with a friend get pushed aside.
Someone says, "Hey, we need to get together sometime."  I never know the protocol. Am I suppose to initiate that or do I assume they will contact me to make a plan? {Sigh}
My husband is often good at remembering to follow up on these conversations. I have been frustrated many times when I've tried to set up a time to meet a friend. Sometimes I get so frustrated I quit.
No one likes to be harassed either.  No one wants to be guilted into friendship, and it doesn't work either!
Everybody has acquired friends and acquaintances from various stages of life--childhood, high school college, work, parenthood, children's schooling, or other activities.
Who will you count as friends years from now? Many of these friends we see in passing. At one time there may have been deep connections with them, but now life circumstances (we like to call it "busyness") get in the way. Some friends I am reunited with in new social situations; others I have to work at with them to get together once a year (its worth it!); and often I feel left out of others' lives that I was a part of at one time. It's a fickle thing, friendships, bedeviled by time, work and family commitments, volunteer activities, and life in general. For the unnaturally outgoing or well-spoken person, as I am, initiating is a personal challenge.
Its difficult to remember my last good phone conversation with a friend especially with so many other ways to connect with people. Now more often than not I exchange a text rather than talk on the phone or in person. Its good, but still not quite as good as having a conversation in person. And yet, I'm to blame, too, because at the end of my day I just want to curl up at home. So, is life fickle, are my friends fickle, or am I fickle? Or is it just a stage?
What must each of us give up in order to invest in friendships?

Stealing from the dead

Already raw and anxious about my dad's upcoming inurnment service, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut to hear my significant other say that he noticed some lobstering equipment missing from behind the old shed at my dad's. Stealing is wrong. Stealing from the dead is wrong. Neither is more wrong than the other.
This theft feels like another loss.It didn't help my already raw emotions and whirling stomach to settle down. Of course the stolen goods have little meaning to me, other than it didn't belong to whoever decided they wanted it.
Despite having the property on a police watch and a light on inside, the place looks abandoned. It's not a pretty property. Its run down (maybe falling down), and it seems like it won't be worth much to invest in for the estate. Regardless, it was my grandparents' before it was my dad's. They worked hard for their little home and in photos and in my memory it was a cozy little house with plenty of treats to eat and cuddles from my grandmother.
Interestingly enough on the front page of a local paper was a report of a gravesite that was dug down to the vault and it was reported that it looked as if someone was trying to tamper with it. The family has no idea who would have done such a thing and said there were no valuables buried with the family member. What a horrible thing to have happen to you.
Most people are respectful. These stories are few and far between but make headlines. Unfortunately there is a lot of petty theft in the area, which is not respectful but selfish and brazen and sad.
I was hoping that people would respect my dad's property. So many people are aware he's died and that no one is living in the home. Why wouldn't they just respect that? They just can't. Thieves are not neighborly or caring about others.
The property will never be recovered, and maybe it was sold or scrapped for cash, I don't know, but I do know that I wish for people to become neighborly again and watch out for each other rather than trying to take what they can get. 

Home Team

The parking lot was full. The gymnasium was pulsating with music through the brick wall. Couples, grandparents, and kids were hustling through the cold air to get in line for the big game.

In the lobby of my high school I shuffled into line not really sure where it ended. The man behind me said, "You were ahead of me."

"Oh, I wasn't paying attention. I'm surprised how many people are already here."

"Big rivalry, these two schools."

Yes. Even twenty years ago the other team, then the Tigers, was the powerhouse rival. Despite a new name, mascot, and student body, the Mariners are as fierce as its former name suggested.

Energy was coursing through the air. The stands were full even before the first game. People made openings and offered arms and shoulders to hoist their neighbors and friends into the stands. People called to each other or stopped for a quick hello. By halftime of the first game it was standing-room only.

Every other face was familiar-I recognized school mates or their parents, teachers, newer friends from church or around town. And despite not being able to talk to all of them, it was comfortable having all those familiar faces nearby cheering for the same team.

The music was loud. We yelled and cheered. The cheerleaders performed. The players ran hard and fast. Only the occasional taunt, protest, and "boo" was heard from opposite sides of the court mostly in good fun. It was loud, intense, exciting, and happy.

At 9 seconds left, the game could have gone either way, but it didn't. After one overtime, the hometeam spoiled it for the rivals by two points, one goal.

The place was wild with noise and celebration. Elation and disappointment mixed together. Clapping, cheering, hand slaps, fist pumps, and hugs.

Another community rite--cheering on the home team!

Another Supper

Garlic and tomatoes. That's what it smelled like when I opened the door. Red and pink balloons greeted us, as did two volunteers who kindly told us that would be "Ten dollars, please."

Community supper for a good cause brings
community members together.

Another community supper for another great cause, this time for a community preschool of which we are alumni.

I am continuing to wrap my head around community, what it looks like, and what it is. It's difficult to define in one word, but if it could be done the word would be people, or maybe eating.

But eating can be done alone, whereas people are never too far away, and when they are gathered together it can be called community. And when they are gathered for a similar goal or a singular purpose, that seems even more like a community.

Our purpose was to raise a bit of cash for a wonderful school that serves preschool age children and their families in our county. The dinner draws parents, grandparents, friends, and of course, children.

The dessert table was a delight of pink and red frosting topped with heart candies, rainbow jimmies, and paper heart flags. It is almost Valentine's day, and what a way to show our love for the school, the teachers, and students, and our community.

There was a raffle prize table filled with gift certificates to the hardware store, restaurants, a gardening basket, and a chocolate basket, and more. Buy your tickets, pick your favorite chances, and drop the tickets in a bag. We didn't win, but that's not really the point.

Even though we are 4 years out of attending preschool, I love to attend this community event. The teachers and staff can see how their former student has grown, and he (my child) can stay connected  to the people who first formed his idea of leaving home and Mama's lap. We see former classmates and their parents, and we can catch up with current attending families who we know.

Community is about people, and community suppers are just one way we celebrate each other.

Besides who can resist a $5-a-head spaghetti supper?

Who can resist a $5 spaghetti supper?

Stone Soup

Remember the story of Stone Soup? I just read it tonight to my 4-year-old.

If you don't know the story, I will recap. Three soldiers are travelling home and have had nothing to eat for two days. They come to a village and plan to ask for food and a bed to sleep in. As small villages go, word got around quickly that there were soldiers on the way, and they conspired to hide their food because soldiers had a reputation for eating what wasn't theirs. At every house, the soldiers heard good excuses as to why there was nothing to share. Bad harvest. Hadn't eaten in two days. Too many mouths to feed. Saving the grain for planting. These wise soldiers suggested boiling water with three stones to make stone soup. This piqued the villagers curiosity. That was something they'd be interested in knowing about. After the pot and some stones were found and a fire was roaring, they imagined out loud how much better the soup would be if they only had a couple of carrots. Lo and behold, one woman thought she had some, and she returned with an apron full. Then, oh, how it would be with cabbage, and then some barley, and on and on, until the villagers were tricked opening into their cupboards to make an entire feast. Suddenly the soldiers were geniuses and given the best beds in town.

I think our world could use this kind of sharing and community right now. Between the economy, government policies changing at the speed of light, lost jobs, health crises, winter, illness, death, and feelings of hopelessness, it feels like we need some old-fashioned stone soup!

I'm not talking the government kind either. I'm talking about the true heart-to-heart sharing that takes place in homes, neighborhoods, extended families, communities.

I had a conversation recently and the other person expressed great concern about how the economy and harsh winter weather may be affecting local people, older folks on fixed incomes, younger folks who have lost jobs. Are they eating? Are they warm? Maybe you don't think of these problems often. Maybe you do. My personality is geared toward thinking about social problems, world wide and locally. Although I don't seem to put my worries to rest by acting often enough, I agreed wholeheartedly with my co-worker. How do we know if our neighbors are all right?

Pride, we figured, often gets in the way of people asking for help. Are people housebound? Do they even know the name of the agency to call? I don't know about other states, but Maine has had major budget cuts in recent years, and social services has taken a huge hit. I suggested that someone needs to go door to door to make sure people are alright. We concluded that looking each to his own neighbors and family is the place to start.

In my area, churches still hold pot lucks, bean suppers (a Saturday night Maine favorite from my grandparents' days), and community dinners open to all. 

What about a stone soup dinner? What can you bring to the pot? What can you share that will make life a little better for someone else and, in the long run, benefit yourself?

Fall Nostalgia

Fall--the end of summer, looking to winter.

Fall colors against the
brick of a local school.

In the fall I want to curl up in a fleece, work outside, eat a picnic lunch, take a nap, watch a movie, go for a walk, drink hot tea, and that's just for starters. I look homeward in the fall. I don't know what it is. It must have something to do with fall and the start of school. School is where most of my memories begin, and throughout the first 18 or so years of life, life is determined by fall--what grade you will be in, new shoes, new teacher, new routines. Fall is a way of marking time for most of the early years of our lives because whether we liked school or not, the start of it marks that we are another year older, something kids look forward to eagerly, that is, growing up.

Memories of Home
Nostalgia must play a part in past memories of home. Despite problems, there was security and warmth for me because of homemade cookies, dinner, buying new school clothes, playing games, popping corn, sleeping in, laundry on the line, and generally a secure backdrop to grow up against. Who wouldn't love to be a kid again if it meant happiness, security, and comfort?

Routinely routine
Also fall meant wood fires (warm, cozy), and routine.
I think we all long for routine. Summer is the anti-routine. Fall is all-routine. There is definitely something about routine that makes humans tick. They say kids thrive on it.

What is cozier than a puppy by a fire?

Finally it leads to Relationship
I long for a Norman Rockwell existence, especially in the fall and around the holidays. One where home and hearth are the setting and the relationships within are peaceful and secure. Maybe it's something about hunkering down for the fall and winter being warm and cozy with a book and blanket, no place to go except for a walk, and a pot of soup on the stove, and friendly warm conversation.

I've always had a similar longing when I drive through a neighborhood in the evening and see lights on inside people's homes. Since childhood, I've always felt it meant something wonderful was happening inside...people were together, happy, peaceful. But I'm not so naive to realize that may not be the case. It could have been just electricity igniting a lightbulb, as empty as that. But a light on in a home reminds me all of home should be--relationships! 

The end of an age (again).
Also I get sad that summer is over, and for me the idea of autumn marking time is very relevant again. It means my boy is growing up. After graduating from college I loved fall moving in because I didn't have to go to school but I could enjoy the site of school buses for what it meant for me then and now. The beaches and grocery stores are less crowded on the weekdays! 

Eternity?
Maybe nostalgia is suppose to draw us to eternity--the ultimate in peace, comfort, and security. Maybe this nostalgia of fall is simply a longing for the life we were meant to have, a life originally planned by a bigger Someone, namely our Creator God. He gave humankind many of His characteristics, such as feelings, thinking, and free will. Beautiful things. He also gave us a contract, and we choose to breach it. With the breach we forfeited what He promised in His contract, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness in a perfect lush garden filled with all earthly and heavenly delights and with pain-free relationships with others and Him. After that breach He closed the doors to that garden, put some angels there to guard it, and made us go to work for a living, bear pain in childbirth, and struggle with the earth to eat. Ultimately does nostalgia stem from this? Those first people longed to go back to the garden, that idyllic life they experienced and for that perfect carefree give-and-take they shared with each other and their Creator, who they spoke with face to face! What we are missing!

Nostalgia looks to the past, but we have been promised a future--another perfect carefree paradise, another Eden waiting for us. Jesus, the carpenter God, came to repair the breach. He took some wood, hammer, and nails, and he fixed it.

My husband built
this cross on our
land to remind us
what Jesus did to provide
us with an eternal
love, life and home!

Now we just have to choose to accept the repair, stop trying to get back to Eden our own way with our own map. We'll never find it, nor will we be let in if we do. Remember the angels with the flaming swords guarding the way? I'm not ambitious enough to take on an angel. So I propose I need to turn my nostalgia into hope that looks ahead to a perfect garden. It's a future we cannot fully understand, never having lived in that perfect garden ourselves. For this, we can only have faith.

In the meantime, life is not as Norman Rockwell portrayed. It's like what they say about pursuing happiness, you never find it. I think the same is true of longing. If you try to pursue it, it evades you. You have to catch those peaceful comforting moments when they are there despite how rough and rocky life is. You have to make them and revel in them when they appear. It's being present in the moment and not panicking over every little imperfect part of life, whatever it may be. It is odd, that feeling-- it's like a dream. A dream of dreams. And thankfully that dream can be reality for those that accept the repair Christ made.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiasties 3:11

Children create opportunities for community-friendship

Many weeks ago we had dinner with our very good friends in their yard. While the food was good, the conversation is always the best part of our time together. Venting, idea sharing, and just getting caught up on life was a part of the conversational adventure. For me, I enjoyed getting out of my own head, forgetting my life problems a bit, and listening to what someone else has been doing lately. I get far too few of these kinds of connective conversations, although their value is immeasurable.
These friends I've had for many years and our children are growing up together. This is community.
How I long to sit on my front porch, back deck or front yard with you, and let our children grow up together playing in the front yard so they can learn the value of love, respect, honesty, sharing, friendship, community.

While out doing some errands, we visited with my grandparents at their farm. An aunt and uncle live nearby and when we stopped at their barn to get some eggs, my son wanted to go in to see his cousin. I didn't feel like we had time, but we did for a minute. I didn't accept the pie, but my son did get to play for a minute. We had a few more stops, and he was downright grouchy that we couldn't continue down the road to his friend's house. He loves visiting. The home we lived in when he was a baby was on a cul-de-sac-- a quiet neighborhood with families of all ages. After a while, and after many stroller walks, he caught on that their were friendly people that lived in those houses who we would often greet in the yard or go knock on their door for an errand or visit. Every time after those first few visits were ingrained in his memory, he begged and cried to go visit. He had a great longing for community even before the age of two.

Stroller boy who loved to visit
neighbors on our walks!

I love it when he can play outside with our neighbor's son, who is about a year younger than him. In the summer when the windows were open, if he would hear voices he would stop and say, "Is that H...? I want to go see." He would hurry to go outside to see if his friend was playing, and sometimes he'd be disappointed if they were leaving.

I remember growing up in a neighborhood without kids. It seemed like forever but I was about 6 when kids (girls even!) moved in across the street. I was so excited because there were 3 of them and one was in my class! I remember they walked down their long driveway with their Mom to visit and meet us, and I was mortified when our large collie grabbed the youngest's blanket and proceeded to drag her around the yard. He was playing, but I thought for sure I'd never see them again! I was wrong.

While 4 girls of vast age differences had our social hiccups and girl fights, I still reveled in having friends nearby, no matter the struggles. I still tend to brag about it. "They lived across the street from me!" It's as if they belonged to me!

One summer when the one my age was going away, even though we talked the night before, I was so sad knowing she had left. Later, I found a note she'd left in my mailbox about friends and jeans always being there for you, and that she would miss me.

Because kids naturally gravitate toward each other, children tend to create instant community through their friendships with each other. Community creates friends, or sometimes a neighborhood does. It's a beautiful thing when people can go outside and make a friend.