Now, WHAT was that new subject I had in mind? (Ah, yes! “Work and Play”!!!)

Smoke from distant fires --

A few disparate items had been tumbling around in my head, and for a few moments they seemed to come together under a topic heading. What was that heading, though, and what were the thoughts I hoped to connect? I’ll just start tapping away while waiting for a return phone call or e-mail and see if anything thoughts fly back….

 

-- I’ve got it! I’ve got it! (So I went back and added it into today’s post’s subject heading.) Work and Play!!! That will, I hope, tie together some thoughts on dogs, art, me, women in general, jobs, and business. The return e-mail came, too, so everything is back on track for the moment. Remember, though, that the moment is always fleeting....

 

 

Work and Play: Dogs

 

Sunny Juliet is an Australian shepherd, and many friends assumed (and still do) that her breed is the only explanation needed for her demanding puppyhood, but Sunny was something else! Yet, “She needs a job,” people kept telling me. 

The idea that herding dogs “need a job” has entered the general American consciousness and is wisdom now repeated even by people who have no dogs of any breed. But practically perfect Sarah, hybrid border-Aussie, was “something else” in the opposite direction of Sunny, laid back and easy going almost from the day she came home with us at four months of age. Peasy, that beautiful Aussie boy with his tragic issues, learned quickly and was compliant in ordinary matters; his problems flashed out as unforeseeable exceptions. Sunny Juliet? I have never had such an opinionated dog in my life! She has settled down hugely in the past year, however, and we now live together in harmony most of the time.

 

Sunny loves to be outdoors. She loves to go rambling with me, exploring the world, and she loves to play, chasing tennis balls or a Frisbee or a stick or anything else I throw for her. We have yet to get back to the agility lessons, but she remembers “Jump!” and “Tunnel!” and does them beautifully on command. 

 

The question is, does Sunny need a job? That is, does she need sheep or cattle or, at the very least, a flock of ducks to move around? 

 

Here’s my answer: What Sunny needs -- probably what any herding dog needs and no doubt what most dogs need – is mental stimulation combined with physical exertion. 

It doesn’t matter at all to Sunny if she “accomplishes" anything or not by chasing a tennis ball (or jumping a hurdle). Her little mind goes on high alert when she sees me preparing to launch the ball, and she readies her muscles to spring, run, and catch -- or run, chase, and retrieve. Which way will the ball go? Where can she interrupt its trajectory? Will there be a bounce first, or will she catch it in flight? This is more than a game to her. It is an opportunity to use her skills, and she loves it. Her eyes tell the story. If she were herding sheep, the same mental calculations and decisions about speed and direction would come into play. “Into play” = working. 

 

You see my point? I absolutely believe that herding dogs do not differentiate work from play. They love activity and problem-solving, and they seem to love doing things with their humans. Right now Sunny is lying at my feet, waiting patiently for something to happen, some move on my part that gives her a reason to follow me curiously wherever I might go next. 

 

 

Work and Play: Art

 

Marsh marigolds, just because.

Many years ago, a guitarist in my life noted, “Other people work. Musicians play.” We do use those words. (“I have to go to work in the morning.” “Our band is playing at Music in the Park.”) And yet a musician, every bit as much as a carpenter or a nurse, has to learn and practice to acquire skills and keep them sharp. 

 

Is it society’s failure to value musicians and other artists sufficiently that their work is seen as play? Or is seeing art as play a good thing, reminding the rest of us to find joy in our daily lives?

 

“How long did it take you to paint that?” someone would ask the Artist from time to time, and he would answer, “My whole life,” and when we were in the car, slowly driving our favorite county back roads, he was always “working,” in that he was taking in the colors and lines and shapes and richness of the land. When sitting quietly, he might be thinking through an idea for a painting, but when standing at the easel, he would tell me, “You can talk to me. I’m painting, not thinking.”

Photograph of David Grath by David Brigham

 

Work and Play: Me

 

Someone at the recycling center north of Northport saw me the other day and asked, “What are you doing now that you’re not doing?” I was nonplussed. “Not doing”? It’s true that I took six months of seasonal retirement (maybe for the last time!), but I’m certainly doing plenty now! Cleaning and organizing my house after having to empty out the Artist’s studio last fall before I left; getting my yard and gardens in order; preparing to open my bookstore for the season – and that’s only a general outline, with none of the myriad details. 

And now we have a couple more cold nights coming....

Do I differentiate between work and play, or am I more like a herding dog, needing physical and mental activity but not separating it into work/play categories? That’s my question here.

 

Cleaning is definitely work. I won’t say that no thought and planning goes into it or that there’s no satisfaction in seeing the fruits of my labor, but I only engage in it as a necessity. Yard and garden tasks are different. Definitely work (my muscles make sure I get that straight!), but my outdoor projects are ones I choose, not burdens imposed on me, and even mowing grass is work I enjoy. 

I will be open as soon as possible -- but when? When the Fates allow!

My bookstore is chosen work, too (though not the cleaning part: that’s imposed by entropy, a fact of life). No one would start a bookstore and run it for thirty years without a love of books, and my bookstore is a world I have created over time, but it’s certainly more than play. I’m not “playing store.” Bookselling is my livelihood. 

 

Robert Gray wrote a piece recently in the e-mailed book business newsletter, “Shelf Awareness,” about how annoyed he gets when anyone thinks booksellers just sit around and play with their cats all day. You can follow this link and look for the last article in the issue if you’re interested in what what else he had to say. 

 

 

Work and Play: Women

 

I’ve often noticed that women tend to characterize their experiments and trials in the fields of arts and crafts or gardening as “playing around,” in situations where a man would never use such language. Do women (in general) take their activities less seriously than men? Are men (in general) more concerned with having their activities respected? Is “playing around” – with ideas, concepts, designs, arrangements – a belittling and overly modest way of speaking, or does it connote a joyful, playful, open approach to life?

Just because I love them!

 

Work and Play: Jobs and Business

 

A job, even when a necessity, can be chosen work, and a business had better be chosen if the business owner is going to be happy in it!

 

While either jobs or business can involve pleasure and even love, though, they generally need to be taken seriously, and I’d say this is especially true of a business. A job you can quit. Give notice, turn in your keys, and hit the road. Closing and then dismantling or selling a business isn’t so simple. It's more like giving up a home. – And before I am besieged with questions, No, I am not thinking of closing or selling my bookstore! I’m just thinking of ways that a starting a business and keeping it going are a pretty serious commitment.

 

 

So what is my ‘play’?

 

If my business is my work, and this blog is related to my work (sometimes very peripherally, I admit), and if the outdoor jobs I love are work (albeit happily chosen), and since I don’t play bridge or softball, do I not play at all? That would be pretty pitiful, wouldn’t it? 

 

Walking in the woods with Sunny, exploring and observing the natural world, my country drives and photography –all those I experience as play, so much so that I often feel as if I’m “playing hooky” from all work that awaits me in my house and my bookstore. 

 

But no – you know what? Learning and appreciating the natural world is something I feel a joyful obligation to do -- as if it is, more than anything else, my life’s most important work. My way of practicing gratitude for the gift of the world. So I guess, in the way I approach life, I’m quite a bit like Sunny Juliet!

 

Informational Postscript: You wouldn’t guess from the foregoing that I am in the middle of an infrastructure disaster at home, a combination electrical/plumbing crisis. If my bookstore isn’t open on Friday, as I’d hoped, this is the reason. Wish me luck, send good vibes, don’t ask questions! My plate is full enough as it is! Thanks --

Fleeting May! These blossoms are already gone!

 

The Ongoing Motor Home Debate: Man vs. Woman!

[Note to those looking for action and adventure: This post is all talk. For A&A, click here for a very exciting day in Willcox and here for sandhill cranes and my first trip to Mexico.]

David is attracted to the big American vehicles known as motor homes. I am not. He dreams of traveling in one, and his dream is my nightmare. He is drawn -- and I pull back as he tries to pull me forward. This struggle has been going on for years.

Almost every long-married couple (if your experience is different, please share it with me!) has recurrent, never-resolved debates, and some of them make no difference whatsoever. An example of such a trivial debate is ours over spotted horses: I love an Apaloosa, and David wouldn’t have one as a gift. To him, only a solid color (preferably black but definitely dark) is acceptable in a horse. I love a dapple myself. I also love a buckskin. I like black horses, too – just not exclusively. The bottom line, however, is that it is highly unlikely we are going to become horse owners at this stage in our lives. Nothing is riding on a decision. No decision is called for.

I wish I could say the same about the motor home debate, but I fear it could be otherwise.

Recently I had a couple of new insights into our different opinions. The insights hardly promise to resolve the differences, but they’re interesting, nonetheless – at least to me.

Last summer David spotted a motor home he considered an ideal size (which I saw as alarmingly, dismayingly enormous), and he began dreaming out loud about how wonderful it would be to take on the road. My reaction was: “It’s so big we would never be able to explore dirt roads or two-tracks. We’d be on expressways all the time (and I hate expressways). Furthermore, it’s so complicated, like hauling a house around, that you would be completely absorbed in driving and worrying about every aspect of the vehicle, and you wouldn’t pay any attention to me at all.” I summed up my view by telling him, “It would be, literally, hell on wheels!” He laughed and was unconvinced, but he did see, I think, where I was coming from. Whenever a car we’re in starts making a strange noise, forget conversation! How would it be, then, with all the potential for problems in a motor home?

Okay, now forward to this winter. A friend who came to visit us here in southeast Arizona is traveling this season in a small motor home. Her husband is back home in Michigan. She’s traveling with her two cats – and having the time of her life! David saw her vehicle as too small for us, and she admitted that when her husband joins her on the road from time to time, a larger motor home would suit them better.

She and David got into a long discussion on the merits of motor home travel, in general. He asked what it cost to stay places overnight. She prefers state parks to RV “campgrounds” (the scare quotes are mine, as you could probably guess; most people use the term with no irony intended) because the state parks are cheaper, but they’re still not cheap. David asked about mileage. Not great. My observation then was that considering the overnight fees and gas consumption, traveling in a motor home wasn’t much cheaper than staying in motels.

“But you can make your own meals in your motor home, instead of eating in restaurants,” my friend pointed out. She and David also raved about the convenience of being to “pull over and take a nap” whenever they got tired.

“A man convinced against his will/is of the same opinion still,” wrote Ogden Nash, and the same is true of a woman. But I was not even convinced. When I travel, I like eating in restaurants and not having to shop, cook, and do dishes! I like staying in a motel where clean sheets and towels are provided, and the bed is immaculately made and the bathroom has been cleaned by someone other than me!

The next day I accompanied our friend, in her vehicle, to a big truck stop out by the expressway, where she could “dump.” Need I say more? Offsetting all the “conveniences” of taking a home with you on the road, as I see it, is that you also take along all the concerns of having a home with you on the road. Locking such a vehicle involves much more than a click. Powering and fueling and monitoring all its systems is quite a job.

I would never want to be responsible for all the complex systems of such a mode of travel -- and, of course, I would not be if David were the driver and expedition leader, but then, neither would I have a relatively carefree travel companion, because, as I pointed out to him last winter, he would be constantly monitoring the house we were hauling around behind us. It’s no simple turtle shell! If it were not making some strange noise, he would be listening to make sure there was no strange noise. The concerns of traveling in a car would be multiplied and supersized.

Size – that's another issue.

Whenever my attention is called to a motor home, my first response is to its size. I tell David I would be embarrassed to be a passenger in one of the behemoths we see on the road. Besides the fuel expense and the mental energy one of those things would demand (detracting from my enjoyment of new scenery and regional culture), the sheer look of excess repels me. Our friend’s current vehicle is not like that. It’s modest in size and looks like something I could drive (if I had to). But David considers it “too small,” and Karen agrees that it’s too small when she and her husband are living in it together. But if it’s something I might have to drive, a pickup with topper or van with rear extension is as much as I want to consider.

We’re still stuck, aren’t we? Why? Is there any possible resolution? Maybe not, but that’s probably because we are trying to compare apples and oranges, and maybe recognizing that will at least shed some light on the debate.

Brian Wansink, a researcher into eating habits, writes in his book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think about the differences between what men and women consider “comfort food.” For men, a warm, home-cooked casserole or meat-and-potatoes meal is “comfort food,” while the phrase conjures up in a woman’s mind images of ice cream, candy, and snacks. Why? Because they have different associations with the word “comfort” and with the foods they put in the category. The foods men put in the comfort food category are those that make them feel taken care of. Is it any surprise that they imagine a woman taking care of them? And that where they see “comfort,” the woman sees “work”? Women’s comfort foods are those that don’t require work: they are “hassle-free.”

Men’s comfort: Be waited on!

Women’s comfort: Put your feet up and relax!

In the motor home debate, the key issue might be defined as “freedom,” and here again, what David sees as freedom, I see as work. Someone would be fixing those meals, doing that laundry, cleaning that vehicle. Not to mention that someone else – he – would be focused on the smooth running of the vehicle rather than on his companion and the world around. This, of course, is my perspective. The “freedom” touted by advocates, my husband included, looks to me like the complete opposite for both of us.

Can’t we stop and take naps in the car? I could relax pretty well with my feet up on the dashboard. How about you?

Of Mice and Men

What’s with me lately? Why are so many of the books I pick up not even from the most recent turn of the century but the one before my parents were born? John Burroughs, born in 1837, began keeping a journal at the age of 17 and continued until his death in 1921 (age 84). In addition, he wrote and 23 books of essays, three of them published posthumously. He lived on a farm in the Hudson River Valley and raised grapes but lived primarily by writing. Burroughs, along with Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman (he admired all three), preached a gospel of closeness to nature:

Let me work all day in my garden, the next day ramble in the fields and woods, with a little reading, and the third day I can give myself to literary pursuits with a new freshness and vigor.

- Journals, April 5, 1867

When he is telling of what gives him joy, or when he tells of some small event in a quiet day--such as bringing home in his pocket a cold, motionless mouse, making for it a nest in a bucket and bringing it back to life before releasing it again to the wild—he is at his most charming, but there is another side to Burroughs, the rush to form a hasty opinion and then state it as if it fell from God’s own mouth and he just happened to make the catch.

Religion, he says “is a sentiment, like poetry or art; ...not a universal gift.” I sense a kernel of truth there, but the pontificating expression grates on me. What does it mean to call poetry or art a “sentiment,” anyway? Religion, poetry and art nothing but feelings? Yes, one must have a feeling for poetry to appreciate it, but the feeling alone, though it may be one sort of “gift,” hardly makes a poet. And can Burroughs stop there? No, he must go on to say that what he calls this “sentiment” of religion “belongs to women more than to men, though the finest specimens of it are men, as in every other field... [my emphasis added, as if you couldn’t guess]. Meaningless, maddening, unsupported generalization! Yet one hardly knows where to aim an objection, since B. never made it clear what he was talking about in the first place.

In general, what annoys me most about these journals is a lack of wonder, an overabundance of certainty and the way he fell, time after time, to the temptation of sweeping, general statements, as if pronouncing Truth with a capital T. But there were other things, too. Little, niggling, jarring notes. For example, many writers I know live alone, and some of them live in the country, so when I reached the following passage I began to mark it mentally for an old friend:

I wonder [he wondered! Read on—did he really?] if there is another so-called literary man who spends his time as I do—in the solitude of the country, amid the common people. Here I sit, night after night, year after year, alone in my little Study perched upon a broad slope of the Hudson, my light visible from afar, reading for an hour or two each evening, and then to bed at nine. No callers, no society, no proper family or home life. Not in years has a person dropped in to spend the evening with me.

Well, but then he says that “Julian comes in” from time to time, and instantly I wonder, Who is Julian? He writes that in the morning he, the writer, may “lend a hand in getting breakfast,” and I recall (looking back, to make sure, to the list of important dates in his life that the editor has thoughtfully provided in the front of the book) that Burroughs married in 1857 and that his wife survived until 1917. No society? John Locke would have seen it differently! The shadowy Mrs. Burroughs turns up only on rare occasions, in a sentence or an enigmatic phrase such as when the writer mentions he might “lend a hand in getting breakfast,” but where there’s a wife.... I wonder! And yes, a short search turns up the fact that Julian was, in fact, his son.

“No proper family life” could mean any number of things. The marriage might have been unhappy. Perhaps the writer felt that his wife was not his intellectual equal. If you follow this link and read of the disposition of Burroughs’s estate, you’ll find another surprising revelation about this "solitary" life in the country, a revelation that answers, for me, another question I’d had when, after noting the almost complete absence of the author’s wife and son from his journal, I turned back and saw that his editor had been a woman. I’d wondered what she thought of the author’s pronouncements on women and the invisibility of the wife in the journals. Turns out his female editor was also his “longtime secretary and mistress,” who upon his death received as long as she lived all the income from his writings. The wife, I should note, had predeceased Burroughs, and Julian, the son, inherited all of his father’s not inconsiderable real estate. (The farm remains--at least, as of 2004--in the family.) Perhaps in the unedited journals the wife appears more fully--then again, perhaps not. My point is only that a life with wife, son and secretary-mistress is hardly solitary.

We all know by now that Thoreau’s little cabin was not far from town and that he didn’t live in it very long—two years and two months, by his own account. Still, he did live there alone, and no one has ever questioned that he built the cabin and planted his beans himself.

What put me on the trail of David Grayson? Probably nothing more than that I had Adventures in Contentment on the shelf between Burroughs and Thoreau. Long before the hippies of the Sixties, Grayson wrote (using these very words) of “dropping out” of the race for success:

One morning I wakened with a strange, new joy in my soul. It came to me at that moment with indescribable poignancy, the thought of walking barefoot in cool, fresh plow furrows as I had once done when a boy. So vividly the memory came to me—the high, airy world as it was at that moment, and the boy I was walking free in the furrows—that the weak tears filled my eyes, the first I had shed in many years. Then I thought of sitting in quiet thickets in old fence corners, the wood behind me rising still, cool, mysterious....

I remembered that Grayson was a pseudonym but nothing more than that. Beware research and the shattering of illusions! David Grayson was none other than muckraking journalist Ray Stannard Baker, and the retirement of “David” to the country with sister “Harriet” (as housekeeper, naturally) was a complete fabrication. Like Burroughs, Baker had a wife; unlike Burroughs, he didn't even live in the country. Baker stayed in the rat race, and he and his wife lived first in a Chicago apartment, later in a suburb of Westchester County. In fact, Baker liked the suburbs, admitting to his bride that he had had to revise his opinion of them when they settled in their home. Follow this link to read more about this writer’s relationship to women, how he wrote about women, and how women responded to his writing and speechifying.

Heaven only knows I am not opposed to marriage, and the suburbs are fine for many people who find that way of life congenial. Marriage and suburbs aren’t the problem for me. It’s that the idea of these men building myths of themselves so at odds with the reality of their lives makes me suspect almost every other sentence they wrote. Give me Thoreau! Give me Anne LaBastille! Give me Harlan and Anna Hubbard! Give me Wendell and Tanya Berry! I don’t need rugged, solitary individualism in a man before I can respect his views on nature. I do need honesty.

Here in our old farmhouse, with the winter's first snow lying all around, David comments, "It may be too soon to say anything, but I haven't seen any mouse activity yet." I tell him it is indeed too soon. The temperature is barely below the freezing mark. When the thermometer plummets, those mice will be running for shelter and all the peanut butter and crumbs left on the counter! "Here, mice! Your banquet table has been spread!" David thinks I'm kidding. Here's how our attitudes break down: We both think mice are cute. We don't want them in the house. He is the eternal optimist, thinking that this year they won't come in, while I am on perpetual sentry duty, scolding and banishing crumbs. We live in the country, in company with one another and Sarah. That's enough. The mouse chorus can get cozy under the snow.