Life on the Edge

A salute is an arm extended or a rigid military snap to the forehead.

A pledge of allegiance is the right hand over the heart.

An oath is the hand placed on a religious text.

A prayer, however, whether one is kneeling, standing, sitting, prostrate or lying on one’s back in the water, is one palm against the other and gently touching the lips.

Hands closed in prayer. Such a universally accepted symbol of peace and gratitude.

A fur seal last Sunday reminds me that today, Thursday, millions of families in America will be doing just this as thanks is given for the rich and bountiful harvest present at their Thanksgiving Day tables.

Let me also give thanks. And, by way of creating a framework to hang my reason for giving thanks, I offer first this poem from Robert Hayden.

Those Winter Sundays

“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?”

Second, an excerpt from an email sent by my friend, Clare, after spending the weekend here with her daughters, Brook and Kate, and partner, Jeff:

“A few months ago Brook shared with me her deep fears for the world, for what the future would hold, would there be clean water, would bird flu kill us, if she was expected to be a decision maker of the future, what chance did she have if so much was destroyed.  As a mother I would love to make the world safe and nourishing for my children.  I am trying to seek out positive news, to show Brook people doing good work, to nurture hope and a feeling of safety and to do so I feel I need help from other adults who believe in goodness.  Thank you for being who you are, doing what you do, and being willing to have pesky visitors like us.”

The above poem and email might exhibit some disparity, but what I’m trying to explain is that any goodness coming from me is only because of the nurturing—and lack of it—surrounding my childhood.

Bless my parents. Both held down full time jobs to support a family of five children. Leaving early, coming home late, could there ever have been enough time for them to cuddle and soothe the fears of the crying child, the lonely child? Could there ever have been enough?

Whatever portion of my adult self still harbours a sense of abandonment, this same self is also capable of, yearns for and is skilled enough to create a place of refuge that offers up to today’s children a working reality of positiveness and caring.

I as “wounded healer” is too one sided an argument because, although not always felt or appreciated at the time, there was an abundant measure of love dished out by my parents.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am deeply grateful for the whole chaotic, touching, delicious mess that was my childhood. It has led me unwaveringly to the bounty that is today. For this, with palms touching and pressed against my lips, I thank my parents, Paul and Etheleen, for their struggles in juggling the lot of us.

Let me also give thanks to the young family of Clare, Jeff, Brook and Kate for cheerfully fixing up the garden domes this past weekend so that there will be wholesome veggies on the Windgrove table to share with all.

Here’s an interesting fact: If all the 6 billion people on this earth were to be placed in Tasmania (about the size of Ohio or Ireland), every person would have the equivalent space around them of a small back yard in which to live. Considering how over populated the world is, this almost seems an impossibility. Just goes to show that the problem the world faces isn’t so much the numerical number of people, rather their consumption habits.

If humans were equally spread around the globe, there would be so much space between each human that they wouldn’t see each other. They would then, should they desire company, be forced to make friends with all the other “people” in the animal and plant kingdom.

Yesterday I went for a walk around the Peace Path in order to visit my nearest neighbours and said hello to around 50 wallabies, one echidna, 2 blue tongue lizards, 3 yellow crested cockatoos, 2 wedge tailed eagles, 2 kookaburras, 12 pademelons and a wombat in a burrow. And this was just the animal kingdom.

The deck (with picnic table) on the ocean side of the house looks out to Storm Bay through about 75 wind shaped silver-peppermint gum trees. These “tree people” with their dancing arms doing a mass South American salsa, are alive with individual personalities and whenever I walk among them or sit on the deck with them, it is hard not to feel a real presence.

Little wonder, then, that last evening when Australia played Uruguay in the final match for a qualifying position for soccer’s World Cup, I took my TV out of the closet and onto the deck.

I mean, really, who would want to watch such an exciting match as this all by themselves?

The game went into double overtime and finally settled with a penalty shoot out. The trees enjoyed the night in.

Upon returning from Hobart yesterday (about the time the sun was just beginning its descent over the edge of the world), I walked out to the Sunset Bench with its new deck. It had been built by Pino and myself just two days earlier and I had quickly come to like, even as one sat firmly on the bench, how the deck floated and nudged one’s spirit over that edge and out over the water.

The difference, however, between sitting on it the first couple of days when Bill’s and Pino’s energy and friendship were still amply present at Windgrove and last night when, once again, I was alone, was starkly evident.

It had only been a few hours since I had left Bill and Pino in Hobart to begin their journey back to America, and as I approached the Sunset Bench and saw it positioned empty out in space, the not-unexpected sadness of their departure stripped some of the color from the day. The deck and bench hovered black and white tempting me to “take a seat”, but it was difficult to climb on board for I feared something could take hold of me; something that I had kept pushed down for years.

The sadness I accept as a consequence of love. The fear, I will work on.

Oh, to embrace life fully—to embrace even friendship fully—is to spread the jam of bitter sweetness upon the bread of one’s existence. Get used to the flavour, I say. It is most nourishing.

*************

This morning the color has returned. If you don’t believe me, just take a walk with me down the Peace Path. Hidden in the bushes and floating two feet off the ground is Bill’s sculpture, “Fishing for Peace”.  Made up of found objects from the beach and my studio, this little boat of blue, maroon, orange and yellow will bring joy to anyone.

It gladdens the heart.

Weighing in at 1000 pounds and over ten feet/3 meters in length, the top half of the Gull Stone Bench has finally been hoisted into position within the circled native grass sanctuary overlooking Roaring Beach. After ten years in the making, walkers of the Peace Path now have one more place to rest and enjoy the view. It’s a stunner.

Everyone has heard variations of the following, but it bears repeating. Three people are all at the same construction site doing the same thing. When asked what they are doing the first person says, “Making $20 per hour” and the second person says, “framing up a wall”. The third person, however, says, “I’m building a cathedral”.

Having Bill and Pino around Windgrove for the past two weeks clearly demonstrates that their approach to work falls into the third category. Nothing is too difficult to do, or too demanding or too “un-vacation” like. The days spin with creative energy, resourceful work and playful banter. Their motivation stems from a philosophy that work of any sort can be worthwhile.

Jared Diamond writes in “Collapse” about how the younger people are leaving the farms in Montana for a more easy, more prosperous life elsewhere because they view their grandparents has having had to work too hard with little to show for it. Diamond then writes: “Montana farmers today who continue to farm into their old age do it in part because they love the lifestyle and take great pride in it. Jack Hirschy is still working on his ranch today at the age of 83, while his father Fred rode a horse on his 91st birthday.”

The clue that seems so obvious to me, but not to the younger people Diamond writes about, is that the farmers doing the hard, hazardous work are in their “80’s and older” and all the more happy for it. How many CEOs live this long?

Contentment and a long life do not always flow out of a cushioned life.

Let me add, however (before I scare off any future applicants to the artist-in-residence program), that along with the wonderfully hard work at Windgrove there are many options (and time) left open for play.