Meeting Dogs vs. Being Married, Searching for God, and Building Community

The dogs are excited enough.

First, the dogs --

 

Whether you are meeting a dog for the first time or coming home to your own dog … whether the dog is reactive or simply exuberant or whatever … the rules of engagement as formulated by Cesar Milan are simple: No talk, no touch, no eye contact. Or as I tell friends coming to my house, “Ignore the dog.” What you’re doing is keeping your own energy calm. You don’t ignore the dog indefinitely, of course, but what you want to reward is calm behavior, not excitement, on the part of the dog. 

Calm is rewarded with play.

I am completely on board with Cesar’s advice and only wish more people would practice it. Even when directly instructed, too many find it difficult not to approach a dog head-on (an aggressive approach in the dog world) with big smiles (showing teeth) and/or cooing voices (inviting dominant behavior from the dog). Then when jumped on, many of those people assure the owner, “It’s all right.” No, it is not all right! You are working against the owner and not in the dog’s best interest! 

 

But that’s all I’m going to say today about dogs...

Then, marriage --

 

...because what I want to focus on today is a book by David Brooks, and I want to begin by saying that the way to approach a dog is not the way to make a good, strong, satisfying and lasting marriage. 

 

On Sunday morning I was writing to a friend, telling her about The Second Mountain, and admitting that I did not fully engage with the book until I came to the section on marriage. And then, as I was writing that to my friend, it occurred to me that what I miss most since my husband died is exactly what we should not do when meeting or reuniting with a dog! 

 

I miss the talk: the shorthand of “trivial” daily sharing (never trivial to the sharers of it) and the deeper conversations extending over hours or even years. 

 

I miss the touch: holding hands while walking, sitting side by side in a restaurant instead of across the table from one another, being in direct physical contact as much as possible. 

 

I miss the eye contact: seeing and being seen, not as two strangers glancing at one another on a sidewalk but as intimates, seeing each other’s hearts and minds and souls. “He saw you,” that same friend wrote to me once. 

"The first time ever" -- I saw him.

Here is the sentence from the section called “The Stages of Intimacy” that changed my casual, desultory reading of Brooks to total engagement:

 

When you choose to marry someone, you had better choose someone you’ll enjoy talking with for the rest of your life. 

 

That sentence stopped me in my tracks. Brooks continues:

 

It doesn’t work unless two people can fall into a state of fluid conversational flow. The phone calls can last hours. They can spend a fourteen-hour day together and the words don’t stop. Everything can eventually be said, and every topic can be discussed. This is what Martin Buber called ‘pure relation,’ when I-It becomes I-Thou. This is what it feels like to be known.

 

We saw each other.

I really appreciate how David Brooks does not set aside passion to focus on common interests and common values. Friendship is not enough to make the kind of “maximum marriage” he describes and most of us (those who wanted marriage) always wanted to find. A relationship can “make sense” without touching the depths of the soul. Couples who enjoy each other’s company and admire each other 

 

…may tell each other that they love each other, they may feel real love for each other, but somehow it’s not the kind of love that makes it painful to be away from the person, the kind of love that stirs up turmoils of fear that the other person might go away, the kind of love that produces enchantment and deep happiness when the two of you are just next to each other doing nothing, the kind of love that calls forth the everyday service and constant solicitude that marriage requires.

 

I can almost see some of my readers recoiling in disgust at this description of what they would call “codependence,” but my money is on the quite well-known woman whose name escapes me at present who said in one of her comedy routines (or in a book she wrote?) that what other people call codependence she simply calls the human condition. Well, but maybe not everyone wants enchantment. Someone once accused me of romanticizing my life, something the Artist and I certainly did, but if we didn’t, who would, and why would we want to stop? 

The Second Mountain is not a book about marriage alone but about commitment and transformation. (Or should I say transformation and commitment?) Brooks calls the first mountain the one on which we strive to measure up as adults.

 

On the first mountain, we all have to perform certain life tasks: establish an identity, separate from our parents, cultivate our talents, build a secure ego, and try to make a mark on the world….

 

The goals on that first mountain are the normal goals that our culture endorces….

 

Then something happens.

 

What happens varies from one person to another, but the result is the sense that there is another mountain to be climbed. There may be but is not necessarily a change in careers or marriages, but it is transformation that characterizes the second mountain, a move from acquisition to contribution. Topics such as intellectual commitments, spiritual seeking and/or conversion, and community building—these are reasons why I think everyone, not just romantics, should read this book. I loved the idea of community building focusing on possibilities rather than problems, especially the story of the Spartanburg (SC) Academic Movement. 

Basically, the story is about the joy of commitment, which reminds me of the answer Richard Leakey gave when asked if he was really willing to give his life to Kenyan politics. His response was, “What else does any of us have to give?” Where we give our attention and care and time is where we give our life. Something to ponder….

 

“How Big Are We?”

Peasy sends greetings.

 

I’m not writing about dogs at all today. Peasy is only there to draw you in. But let me wade into my big, sprawling topic slowly, coming at it from an oblique personal angle. 

 

More and more, conversations the Artist and I have at home are concerned with memories and reminiscences. We recall past adventures and travels taken together, look back on days with children, and fondly (to put it mildly) remember our wonderful old dog, Sarah, “she who could do no wrong.” We also share with each other years before our meeting, his growing-up years in Detroit and mine in Joliet. We tell each other of friends the other may never have met, and we also repeat stories of friends we both have known and loved, some now gone forever except in the hearts and minds of those of us who loved them.

 

Our lives are finite. We will not live forever. And the older we get (those of us fortunate enough to live to be old), the clearer that vision of the end limit becomes, with more life behind than ahead of us, every day more and more precious.

 

Old friends had a show of their art this past weekend, the work of husband and wife Gene and Judy Rantz on display at the Northport Arts Building on 3^rd St. The work was beautiful, the occasion poignant, Gene and Judy not present. Gene had written a statement about their life together, going back to their meeting in 1985, then noted that this would be their “last show together.” It was clear in the show that their respective art had developed along with their relationship, Judy’s work ever-evolving through the years and Gene’s most recent painting a break-through tribute to her.

 

I wanted to edge into my larger topic from the personal angle rather than opening with a quote from the economics book I’ve been reading for the last couple of weeks, because – really! How many of you want to read about economics, even at secondhand? But while Herman E. Daly’s distinction between growth and development is crucial for communities – and that’s where I want to go next – it seems to me that the distinction can be seen in our individual lives, as well. Babies grow and develop. Adults mature. After maturity, normal physical growth ceases (although cells are replaced, we do not continue to grow taller and taller), but moral, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and artistic development can go on and on. We may not learn as fast, and we may not remember as much of what we learn late in life, but in these other ways continued development often more than compensates for losses.

 

A usually very upbeat and positive friend was uncharacteristically crabby the other day. “I danced too much last night,” he said, but still he continued in a curmudgeonly vein to insist that “Northport is ruined!” Oh, dear!

 

It’s true that I have never seen as many people in Northport as are here this summer. Our village has never before experienced parking as a problem, outside 4^th of July evening, but now lots fill up and people have to walk more. (But that’s okay, isn’t it? I remember a faculty member saying once that the university did not have a parking problem but a walking problem.) Seating and being served is no longer immediate but usually necessitates waiting. Still, if people don’t have time to wait while on vacation, when would they have time to wait? Patient, good-natured, happy visitors are very welcome everywhere!

 

There’s been more of a brouhaha, to tell the truth, in both Northport and Leland, between long-time, year-round village residents and owners of big, new houses who have built adjacent to street ends, which are legally public access spots to the water. Another (perhaps milder) controversy focuses on Timber Shores, a proposed RV park south of town on land that was a public campground years ago. Again, adjacent property owners are adamantly opposed, as are a few village residents worried about increased traffic and congestion. The Northport-Omena Chamber of Commerce supports the Timber Shores plan, seeing it as a way to bring more visitors to the area so that our community can “grow and prosper.” 

 

The truth is that population pressures are being felt almost everywhere in the world. We humans have multiplied exponentially! And accelerated growth can be disconcerting. I feel it myself whenever I go to Traverse City, where it seems another huge condominium building or hotel pops up along Grand Traverse Bay every week. But we are not talking about condos with the Timber Shores plan. We’re not talking about million-dollar McMansions for seasonal residents, either. The RV park, which would include a section for tent campers, would complement the campground at Leelanau State Park in providing a way for non-property owners to have an Up North vacation.

 

My first Michigan experiences began when I was 12 years old and my parents and sisters and I began our summer camping life, all up and down the Lake Michigan coast. We camped at state parks in Orchard Beach, North Muskegon, Pentwater, Traverse City and Interlochen, and our two annual weeks in Michigan were the high point of our family year.

 

Herman Daly advocates a steady-state economy because economic growth cannot go on forever. The basic natural resources of earth and its minerals, clean air and water, and surface land space are not unlimited. We hesitate to put limits on population or economic growth, he says, because the alternative is sharing (instead of a second pie, we share the one pie we have) and we in the most advanced country of the world when it comes to producing material goods and waste are very reluctant to share, it seems, even with each other.

 

Our disgruntled friend on Saturday was railing against former plans for the Timber Shores property, plans that would have built condominiums on both sides of M-22. Nothing like that is in the current plan! Ironically, the people most opposed to the RV park are not at all opposed to condos. Population and economic growth are fine with them, as long as it’s growth of a particular kind – the kind with a high price tag, out of reach for most would-be vacationing families. I've written about the old campground and the sadness of its absence before.

 

I've also been to places in American, towns in beautiful natural settings, where only the wealthy can now afford to live, while those working in businesses that support those communities – shops, restaurants, bars, building trades -- must live long commutes away. That is certainly not growth I want to see for Northport. I would much rather see us continue to develop the community sharing ethos that makes this village such a delightful place to live and work.

 

“I worked hard to earn this!” one irate homeowner adjacent to a street end shouted as he tried to chase a grandmother and her granddaughter away from the public access. What does that have to do with anything? Besides, not all who work hard become rich (my hardworking grandmother always in my mind), and not all wealthy people have worked hard (though others have). The fact is that no one is in control of every twist and turn of fate. Everything accumulated is not the result of choice and sweat. 

 

And what about noblesse oblige? We who live here have great good fortune. Whether or not our individual households would be called “wealthy,” whether we’re still working into our “golden” years or retired and enjoying perennial vacation, if we’re here at all we are blessed. We are very, very lucky! 

 

Honestly, have you never vacationed in a place other than your home? How did you want to be treated when you were there? I try to make visitors to my bookstore feel welcome by extending the kind of helpful friendliness I have received and enjoyed in the U.P., in Arizona, in Montreal, and even – yes, true, believe it or not! -- in Paris, France.

 

I am reluctant to sign onto a simplistic “grow our community” agenda, in that I have no desire to see the village get bigger and wider and taller and spread out at the edges. But I have no problem with the idea of an RV-tent campground. The way I see it, this is development – at least, the potential for development, as Daly sees the distinction. It gives us a chance to share generously and gracefully with others what we are fortunate enough to have. In turn, it means jobs for the young people of our community. Why not?

P.S. Books read since last post: 94. Waxman, Abbi, THE BOOKISH LIFE OF NINA HILL (fiction); 95. Trethewey, Natasha. MEMORIAL DRIVE; A DAUGHTER’S MEMOIR; and 96. Lively, Penelope. THE PHOTOGRAPH (fiction).

You’re Not Getting a Complete Picture

The other morning I had an e-mail from a reader of this blog that read, “Pamela, I have just read yesterday's blog. Your dedication to loving life inspires the same in me!”

I do love life. Indeed, what else is there? Everything else for the human species — love, honor, integrity, good deeds, art literature, our very appreciation of beauty in the natural world — depends on our being alive and receptive and responsive. At the same time, we all need reminders of the wonder of life, such as this one I found in the words of a Western painter:

...You’re a little biological entity that has some very miraculous sensory organs, and you have a brain so you can organize it and understand it partially. And you’re fragile. You live a very short time in a hostile, and yet friendly, universe because you evolved in the ecology in which you live. And you can either shrink from the world in fright and try to avoid the reality of your perishability and sense of being no more, or you can throw yourself into it and say it’s an adventure. And I’m going to drink it to the full and experience what I can and record what I can, and distill and understand what I can. 

- Wilson Hurley, painter, in an interview, in WILSON HURLEY: A RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION

Reader, thank you for your message and for the subject heading you gave it: “Grateful.” I am grateful for your words of encouragement! It helps to know that anything I’ve written was able to help someone else! 

Look for the singing bird

The truth is, though, that I do not put my whole life online in this blog (or anywhere else), and if you think I don’t have dark nights of the soul, you would be very mistaken. Sometimes (though these have been uncommon lately, I’m happy to say) I even have dark days of the soul. Thinking that warm spring days had arrived, for example, I found it difficult to be plunged back once more into freezing nights and winter-cold days filled with bitter, relentless wind — and the coincidence of learning, as another overcast morning dawned, seeming to dawn with grudging reluctance, learning that same morning that someone I had believed was dedicated to the betterment of the world and the downtrodden is working instead with very different aims than those he states publicly — well, that coincidence brought me very low, very low indeed. And even on the best of days, a dark current often runs intermittently beneath and behind the brightness, because the general direction of our government these days and of world governments and societies in general is not one I can see as “bending toward justice” or likely to create a better life for future generations. 

It is not disagreement, as such, that weighs heavily on my heart but the hatred and vitriol that too often accompany it. Why should other Americans brand me an enemy because our beliefs about the country’s good differ? Was one bloody Civil War not enough? This hatred makes my heart heavy. The wise counsel dialogue, and I have tried to initiate dialogue — on violence and on partisan politics, attempting to allow myself to be vulnerable in hopes that those who see me wrong would not see me as an enemy but as someone with whom they could share not only their views and beliefs but also their reasons and feelings. What I got back, other than encouragement from friends already in agreement with me, was a resounding silence.

So if you see me as flying above political tumult and dwelling in another, simpler, more lighthearted reality than anyone else, you see a partial picture at best! Should I correct my presentation of self by including pessimistic gloom, despair, and nightmares in these posts? And if I’m not going to do that, why even mention the bleak side of my mind and heart today?

Little tree of thorns

Thorns, yes

But it is also full of life

I asked a friend, a writer and artist, how she managed to maintain her sunny, upbeat attitude in today’s difficult national climate. I wish I could remember precisely her response, but it went something like this: “I’m trying to lead with my strength.” Happiness was not her only emotional state, you see, but the one she chose to share with others. She chooses, continually, to share her strength, rather than her weakness.

Painter Wilson Hurley was not unaware of his own “perishability” but chose not to dwell on that and live in fear. Neither am I unaware nor unaffected by the ills of the world and the horrors perpetrated by mankind, but I refuse to let that aspect of reality blind me to the wonders of life and the world, which are equally real. (Besides, as I say, my attempts to invite dialogue on the sorrow and anger infecting us all went nowhere, and beating a dead horse is the last ploy of the defeated.)

“Il faut lutter,” my friend Hélène wrote to me long ago. “Il faut se blinder contra la vie.” She had lived through war, had lost her husband to other women (not one but many), had no children or any other living relatives, and her old age was spent in poverty, every day a struggle — but she never, even while retaining a sharp mind and keen awareness of world events, never lost her charming, childlike joy in pleasures that required no expenditure of money: the song of a bird, a letter from a friend, sunshine through her window falling on her “little garden” of potted herbs. These were her armor, talismans in the struggle not to lose her love of life. She was really not barricading herself against life, you see, but only against life’s sorrows, and she used life’s joys for her barricade. Even that doesn’t fully capture it. Rather, the joy in a bird’s song for a while took precedence over any other thought or sensation. My friend was not hiding from reality behind a barricade of birdsong, because the singing of the bird was as real as anything else and worthy of attention. 

What brings us joy is as worthy of attention as the flaws of the world we would mend if we could. Is that better? We will be here only a short time, and each of us has a different way we can help others. Sharing joy can be one of those ways, as my American artist-writer friend and my Parisian friend Hélène showed me. 

So I am not going to delve publicly into my fears and sorrows here on “Books in Northport” and only bring them up at all to say to anyone else who feels sad or fearful or pessimistic or hopeless, today or any other day or night: You probably feel alone, but you are not the only one. To be alive, to be human, is to struggle.

But where do you, where might you, find joy? What do you, might you, love? This winter I find my bliss in the sublime indifference of mountains and desert I love more each day, as well as in the companionship of my husband and our dog and our neighbors. Also in the peaceful nearness of cattle and horses. The occasional butterfly on a warm day. And all these are real aspects of the real world.

Passing through

What the future holds, none of us knows. We are passing through life, and all we have is today. For now I am here. And so, if I can share even the smallest quotient of my happiness or maybe “inspire” someone else to find it wherever he or she may, please consider these seasonal retirement postings as my “mite” for the collection plate. For now, it is what I have to give. On my good days. And if you want something cheerier from me today, go back to March 28, 2015. The sun sets, the sun rises. 

Sunrise