Today we discovered tossing stones off the bridge into a roiling creek, muddy with run-off from the melt. The same mud puddle that was there yesterday was here today, so, of course, we had to jump up and down in it. He's discovering Spring in all its mud and slush, ain't a pretty picture in these parts, but there's a tickle in the air, like when you kiss his belly and his little legs happily kick about. I've never seen this kid walk. He runs, skips, jumps, hops, scrambles, scampers on his toes. His happy dance is life itself.
Spring is the season when predictability is "What's that?" Fifty degrees today. Low twenties yesterday.. Rain this morning. Snow flurries tomorrow afternoon. Bridge washed out. Take the long way around. Choice? There is no choice, no short way around. Nature's rules. Ad hoc. This place takes a constitution as strong as whale bone.
I've always told my children that you can stand anything as long as you know it'll end. Winter has its own whims and wonders, but knowing that Spring is still out there makes it bearable. I heard someone saw robins up on Beech Ridge. I thought I heard a single chickadee down here, but no robins.
Spring is proof that our world is really moving along, even when there's no visible truth to this. Now, we can see it where for months we couldn't, or didn't. Two inches under frozen ground living things are preparing to surface.They'll be ready when the time comes.. Cicadas are down there now. If you thought about it, you knew there was movement, but looking through the window all seemed frozen and still. Day to day nothing changes, nothing we can see, emphasis "nothing we can see". Basically, we're house bound always with a flashlight close at hand for when a tree comes down on a power line and the power goes out. Fingers cross. May it stay out for only a few hours. My thoughts turn to the willow trees I want to plant this year to control runoff through a meadow which is slowly turning into a lake. I've been planting and tending a small grove out back - a family grove. An apple tree for my son, planted when he was one year old. A wine-red, flowering crab apple for my daughter after the weeping peas blossom I originally planted proved to be the runt of the litter. It's still there but not the beauty I thought it would be. And there is a pear tree for me and J, the original pair of it all. There is another apple tree, a birch at the entrance, and an oak I planted for my grandson's second birthday as well. This year I found a cherry tree that bears the first season and will go into the middle of the grove with a bench, then I want lavender to surround it so folks can come and sit there in peace, eat cherries, eat apples, pears, and, when the breeze wafts through, take in the aroma of wild lavender. I've asked that my ashes be put around the new cherry tree (which, I hope, will be an old cherry by that time). The real problem will be to keep the resident black bear off the cherries.
I wonder if we are really doing our grandson a favor. Growing up surrounded by love 24/7, toddling along from one room to another, a room rarely empty, always with someone in it who loves him. Dearly. He goes from one to another, four people always with an A PLUS smile of sheer delight. He is fearless in the cold and snow. He's experienced the cleanest air, the best drinking water, the unadulterated beauty of a mountain creek, moon shadows, owls, and, of course, four horses and those two damn goats. He stares at our mountains through the windows and yearns to trek through them. "Hold on, Buddy. I'm with you."
However. Are we really doing him a favor? Would it be best to run him through a real life boot camp? Teach him pain and tzorris and "just do it" right from the beginning? Happy hour's over. Toss his ass out of Eden? I've heard that some men, assholes, for certain, actually teach their boys to be bullies. Dorian Alexander is a mischievous, creative, intuitive, and physically strong kid who understands boundaries. I hope he will use his strength for good. So many people don't, More and more it seems to me, their lies and cockamamie narratives have taken over our world. Trump's still in the white house but he wears a Biden mask. Who could possibly believe this bat shit crazy? They could. They are!
No, I don't want my grandson to be one of them, but I want him to have a constitution that enables him to deal with the world as it is without causing it any further damage, as well as to himself. I want him to be able to stand his ground because, in so many ways, he will need to. But I want him to stand his ground on principles that are grounded in a seriously considered assessment of the issue, with a bedrock of kindness and empathy as guides.
You're probably heard me say this before: the most important thing I learned as a young Marine was that I did not want to hurt anybody, yet turning the other cheek was no kind of option. Hand-to-hand combat was my favorite part of training. I've hung around boxing gyms all my life - the best - Gleason's with Freddie Brown, Wild Card with Freddie Roach, and others scrappy but not so erudite in the University of Advanced Fisticuffs. I've had struggles with myself which I'd like Dorian to avoid. Good luck, right?
Please, just let him be good and curious and kind. He is strong and fearless, and he will need to be.
