BUILDING: 04/20/2013

the two Quercus lobata  leaves

posted by nettie lane
(in the wake of manhunts and violence)

Tonight, during the downpour, I will not write with blood or sing a victory song.  I have no tune to expel.  No 'eye for an eye' melody.  I am almost too weary for understanding.  No...I am too weary for understanding.

I know this moment will pass, this place where there is no room left in my cells to breathe in the history and the ‘now’ of humanity. Where the half-empty cup overflows with all the pain and violence, a deluge of disconnection, a torrent of ‘senseless.’ Not just for this land that receives and responds to the weight of my footprints, but for all the lands and all the footprints.

Tonight, I will listen to the relentless and determined rain and think of the earth accepting the infiltration of these miraculous waters. Freshwater. Percolating downward and giving us life, animating our soil.

Last week my housemate showed me a handful of beautiful, rich, dark earth. “Wedding compost,” he said.  My puzzled expression rewarded me with explanation. Two and a half years ago when he and his wife committed to building a life together, all the food scraps, paper plates, cups, flowers, etc. from their wedding were composted. I look at the reincarnation before me. It is gorgeous fertile gold. This soil will continue to live inside them as it nurtures the summer garden. They will feast on wedding tomatoes, wedding peas, wedding arugula and wedding salad greens. In Fall they will harvest wedding potatoes and store wedding winter squash. They will continue to compost. And through destruction and patience, will birth another cycle of fecundity. They will continue their cultivation. Building up, breaking down, building up.

This all takes time, precious time. And persistence.

In 1995, I planted my favorite oak, a Quercus lobata or Valley oak, as part of my wedding ceremony. It was barely an inch and a half tall, but with a long and eager taproot. I remember telling it, "one day I will sit beneath your shade and marvel at your canopy."  

For our wedding day, in lieu of presents, we asked people to contribute to the altar. The ceremony began with a walking procession from the gathering house past the pond (where my brother and friend were playing guitar and fiddle in a rowboat) and into a redwood grove. We each carried an oak seedling--our contribution. Later, after the salve of time, we would joke that perhaps our downfall was bringing two trees to the altar instead of one. 

A few days after the ceremony, with permission of the owner, we planted the trees on the property. It was meaningful to have them at the place where we were wed, but also, we were moving around a lot and wanted our trees to have a more stable upbringing. We carefully chose a location, taking into account the view they would be looking at for hundreds of years. We planted the trees, giving them the space needed. I remember how far away they seemed from each other. They were so small! We used a stake-pounder and made a square enclosure with sturdy metal wire for deer protection. 

We married in June and for the rest of that California summer, and until the rains came in November, we would drive out and lug 5 gallon buckets filled with water up the hill to give our trees a drink. We did this again the following summer. We knew the importance of early childhood development! We wanted our trees to have a solid foundation and be as free from stress as possible. 

I seem to remember going on my own for a third year, but sporadically. For you see, by the third year, we were separated. Ours is a backwards story. We were together nine and a half years before getting married. Altogether, we shared twelve years. The relationship didn't last, but the trees just kept sending their roots deeper and spreading their branches wide. 

And so things changed. The elderly owner of the property died and a younger man from San Francisco bought it. I would still trespass to visit the trees. Then one day, I was invited to a potluck that brought me right past the property. So I stopped in for a visit. And to my shock and horror, one of our trees was gone! And in it's place, a big charred circle of black. It was like someone tore my leg off! I was pissed. Furious. What the hell happened???

I went to the gathering and when my friends greeted me I unleashed my ‘upsetness.’ Imagine my shock when they said the owner of the property was at the party. What? I just stood there with my mouth open (this time silent) in shock. Gulp, Ok, let's meet the bastard. I drew up all my non-violent communication skills and had a conversation with him. Long story short, the tree was "in the way" of his burn pile. I remember thinking, how can I come to some place of connection and understanding when his viewpoint was exactly opposite of mine?  Nature was to be dominated and used solely for human purposes. No intrinsic value. No thought of moving his burn pile (the hose reached there so it was more convenient). I was on a mission though to make sure my one remaining tree would be safe. So we talked. I told him the story of the wedding, the planting and taking care of the trees. This doesn't have a happily-ever-after ending where he saw his reckless ways and repented by doing good environmental works around Sonoma County. From what I gathered, he was a city guy who bought a beautiful place in the country with acreage but had no clue to the real work involved. So Nature had become a hassle. He did say the other tree was in a better location but he refused to promise the longevity of its life.

I'm happy to report that it is still standing. 

My ex-husband and I retain a loving friendship. He has since remarried and has two beautiful children. We have kept in touch by phone and email. He is always the first one to call on my birthday. A few years ago, I happened to be traveling through Cleveland where he and his family were living at the time. I stayed for two days and we had a great visit. To be with someone with whom you can feel comfortable even when many years have passed, who has known you through mud and sparkle, with whom you have shared a beautiful, painful, wonderful, loving history and have carved a deep friendship which has weathered and aged to a soft patina...truly...that is one of the most satisfying treasures in life.

The last time I was in California I went to visit our tree. It was like seeing an old friend. I actually felt giddy and elated. I really did. It was a hot day and I refreshed myself in the shade. I leaned against the trunk. I noticed the lichen, the shapes of the leaves. Some were larger than others due to their location. I talked to my tree. Gave it an update on my life. Sat in different positions to see how the tree saw the world. I found last year’s leaves on the ground, brown and intact, and took two. I wanted to send one to my ex-husband. 

Now it is late and the rain has lessened. I fill my cup with these stories and they quench my tired soul. They are like tree rings, recording and building majesty one year at a time. Trees offer a wonderful perspective on life. I highly recommend befriending one. Or better yet, planting one.

Isn't this the most beautiful tree you've ever laid eyes on?

BUILDING 04.19.2013

By Melody Washkevich

One lamp lit the bedroom.  I lay on my back with my knees up and he lay to the side of me with a hand on my belly, an arm under his wavy brunette locks and his attentive eyes on my lips as they spoke the written word from the book I grasped.

This and many other activities became our spiritual rituals.  Day to day. Just to get by. Just to not feel like we were losing grasp on the life and lives we had. We would lay in bed, I would read. I would lay in the tub, he would read.  I’d lay on the table, he’d sit next to me, the doctor would read.  Hope and love is all we had as glue to bind us together for as far as we could tell the rest of the world around us was falling apart. Laying and reading, laying and reading.

Under his fingers the undulating and rippling of things to come responded to the vibrations of the words I spoke which sounded something akin to:......baby is starting to store minerals iron, calcium and phosphorus. This will aid in bone development. Your baby may be sticking out her tongue to test her environment....And each night we would learn new and seemingly pointless facts of growth and development from within. At times, I wondered if we even really cared about the daily readings or if it was just something to get us through a moment in time. A habit to get us to the end.

Under the water my pasty yellow skin soaked in the warmth of temporary relief. Belly, breasts and knees like islands in the too small tub.  “Whenever you feel your body begin to surge, actively think “release” and “let go” of tension. There is a time for experiencing that uterine wave......” I’d listen and he’d read.  Affirming to me me that this was all going to be fine.  We would survive this and live.  I never cared much for the words.  I hate them now.  His soothing voice echoing in the confines of the room healed my perpetual heart wounds.  After he’d read he’d kneel by the tub and cautiously put his hand on my tight, unnatural body attempting to provide comfort where I would never find it.  My ribs protruded, my pelvis and cheek bones were merely curtain rods for skin.  His strong hands did not provide physical comfort in the fluorescently lit bathroom but his presence was more than enough for me to not fall to pieces.  He knew all this.

“412. That is your liver enzyme count, Melody. That’s toxic. You have to go back to the hospital.  Also your potassium has dropped again. We just don’t know what’s going on.  We think a referral to Darmouth is in order.”  Every word a midwife or a doctor spoke was simply a story.  It had to be. I couldn’t associate the words with my life, my body.  The story I was watching was tragic but not mine, no.  I had to dissociate.  Day to day.  Just to get by.  Go to the hospital for three days, get well enough to get home, lay in bed and read, lay in the tub and be read to, go back to the hospital four days later. This is what got us through it all.

Just to build a baby.

BUILDING 4.18.2013

I once lived with my family in a triple decker in Somerville, Mass. (My father says Summahville. I do too sometimes. When I've had a bit to drink or when fatigue is washing over me, the tongue of my childhood comes back to me—not that I ever wanted it to go.) My grandfather had bought it decades before, my father's father. In it, he and my grandmother had raised six children, living on the top two floors and having a tenant on the first. My father was the youngest, still is I suppose.

I was born at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, and I was brought home to this house on Lowell St. in Somerville. And two years later, my little brother was brought there too.

My brother is deaf, and my mother hard-of-hearing. I grew up with two languages: American Sign Language and English. My first sign was "milk," my first word "hi." I signed before I spoke.

I've never had any problems with hearing. I suppose one could say I was lucky in that regard, but from the way I've been raised, I don't perceive deafness as unlucky. I don't perceive silence to be taboo, or unwanted. It was my existence too, and continues to be.

Silence was my home, is my home.

Conversation came at times, catching up after school with my mother or my grandmother—who continued to live on the floor below us. I could hear the sound of my father's Chrysler mini-van coming around the corner from Barstow Ave. I'd announce his arrival. My mother could always rely on that. The sound of the TV I remember, all those shows that I watched day after day with my brother, side by side: Darkwing Duck, Square One, Punky Brewster, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Saved by the Bell.

(I watched Seinfeld with my grandmother too. She made me toast and tea. The glass kettle whistling away in the kitchen.)

My brother and I shared the couch and the remote, each of us on our separate cushion, passing the remote back to the other every half hour.

I knew some signs, but not all:

no

stop

thank you

you're welcome

please

my turn

share

food

drink

ready

want

now

Those are just some that come straight to mind. Our vocabulary was limited, but it was the vocabulary of young brothers. As we grow older, our lives grow more complicated, and the language between us has been striding to catch up.

My brother still looks for his place in life, as do I. 

When he was younger—when we were younger—he'd play with legos. He had several bins full, the accumulation of many sets all mixed up. The sounds that he would produce!  Croosh crooosh croooosshh! as he searched for the perfect piece. The brrrr beh beh beh noises that his lips would create, as he moved his car creations along the floor—the sounds of engines that he'd felt, many times, deep in his chest.

He built within his silence as a silence built within me, in Somerville, on Lowell St., in my grandfather's triple decker home.

BUILDING 4.17.2013

by Shannon Herrick

House of Sticks

One at a time, I lay them in place.

I thought it would be fine, so long as I stacked them neatly and carefully. 

One for mother, one for daughter, one for lover, friend, cousin, artist, etc...a tidy new brick for each tidy new role that comes my way. The mortar recipe is a specialty of mine...hope with not a small pinch of unrealistic expectations. 

It really shouldn't be a surprise when the wrecking ball comes.

The Wolf has sophisticated equipment these days.

It was long ago I tried the straw thing, and I hadn't yet learned to weave when she blew down my house of sticks. After all that, bricks seemed a logical choice, but we adapt...she adapts. 

The problem was that I tried to make them all the same size and shape, force them into a grid, all the pieces of myself. Where was my foundation? Daughter, Sister, Granddaughter Where were my studs? Friend, Lover, Mother My joists? Observer, Teacher, Artist

Rubble, all of it, when I realized that I had made no frame, and unrealistic expectations spoil the mortar. 

So now I build my house of sticks. I choose each carefully, supple and green, weaving them in and out of each other. Daughter-Friend-Teacher inextricably linked. Mother-Lover-Artist a strong web ensnaring round objects and confounding The Wolf. She doesn't like tricks. It was easier for her when I thought I could be everything all of the time, in equal parts. When I thought I could spread the mortar thinner to make it go farther. When I thought I could remove one brick entirely without disturbing the integrity of my house. 

Now that I know I cannot be any one thing without the others, that sometimes I must be one much more than all the rest, but always still the rest, the house around me grows in strange shapes as I weave in all the little things, the quiet things. Baker, Knitter, Listener There must be hundreds of sticks now Nurse, Farmer, Runner and I continue to weave them tightly Giver, Receiver, Secret-Keeper and it grows and grows, every piece strengthening my web of protection from the wrecking ball, from her. She's the one I'm not weaving in, the stick I set aside for kindling.

With this construction method, my mortar is patience with not a small pinch of love. It will never be finished, and that's okay. I say goodbye to The Wolf, watching her slink away into the woods.

BUILDING 04.16.2013

By: Michelle Stephens

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

― C.S. Lewis

I watch with admiration and a little envy as my daughter confidently walks up to another child at the playground and says, “Hi! Want to play with me?” And, just like that, they are friends. No awkwardness, no judging, just friends.

This is a trait that she did not inherit from me. I find the whole making and building process of friendships to be daunting. Nothing sends me into an anxiety fueled spiral more than having to introduce myself to someone new. My confidence runs one way while my social skills dart the other. I am left in the middle, staring at this new person with the social grace of a drunken lepar. This is not the best foundation in which to start a friendship.

I have started to build a few new friendships in the past year only to have the foundation crack and crumble. The common ground that initially brought us together became our demise. It happens quickly and often without warning. Sometimes, you work really hard to build something beautiful. You become inspired and work day and night. You put a lot of yourself into it. Once it is completed and done you step back only to realize the inspiration that drove you to create this beautiful thing is gone. All you can do is be grateful for the process, for the experience, and walk away. Walk away and try again.

Other friendships build so gradually that you can not pinpoint the moment you became friends. I have one such friend. Our foundation is strong with many similarities. Our lives have overlapped for years. Slowly, from a friend-of-a-friend to acquaintance to a full fledged friendship. The base was worked on, unknowingly for well over a decade. Each interaction making the structure stronger. And now, just recently, a shared project. A shared passion. All of this created a comfortable relationship.

A good friendship is worth it. Like a building with a strong foundation, it will stand the test of time. Sometimes all it takes is the courage to walk up to someone and say, “Will you play with me?”

BUILDING 04.15.2013

There are those people who meticulously build up their dish racks full of plates, pots, bowls, and wooden spoons. They build the shapes into some perfect piece of practical architecture. They scrub, they rinse, and deliberately insert. Everything is neatly stacked and proud in their rubber lined, or metal shined, articulated spaces. These people know logic and geometry; they are a different type of grown up than me.

They don’t need to question the stability of their mountain, which is indeed what I make, a mountain. I somehow avoid the obvious structure, and just begin piling. I opt to set edges against edges; balancing bowls on the ribbed bottoms of plates, resting spoons inside of mugs, mismatched chopsticks inside of Kombucha bottles, and huge pots on top of all of these things. When I add the last dripping dish, I slowly remove my hands, and make a little wish to steady the mountain. The whole thing shimmies like a very mild earthquake until everything shifts into a more comfortable position.

Once the dishes have dried, those that were deliberate and organized, never have to think about the task of unraveling their mess, because there is no mess. They casually remove dry dish after dry dish, stacking them neatly in their cozy little cabinets. When it’s time for me to pick apart the pieces that populate my sink, it’s like a game of metal, ceramic, and glass Jenga. With each dish I remove, there is a clanging and a clinking. Perhaps, I’m just building some tension with a little noise, to better experience the silence. Perhaps, I'm just a sucker for sound, and little bit of chaos.

Let’s keep going...

I don’t want to talk about building.

I don’t want to talk about my favorite buildings, because I have so many, and that would take too long.

I don’t want to talk about many years of building friendships with people who are no longer building friendships with me.

I don’t want to talk about how much I wish I could build more things by hand, or how much I judge myself for being more comfortable with building relationships and experiences.

I don’t want to talk about building a connection with my dad after he died, and how it's better, deeper, and more dynamic than the one I allowed us to build when he was living.

I don’t want to talk about the fact that choosing to build a specific home or career in a specific place on earth, is inherently the death of so many other ways of building those same things.

I don’t want to talk about building there, when the ground feels so sturdy and ripe right here.

BUILDING 04.14.2013

I’ve always had a thing for abandoned buildings. They’re such blunt culminations of time, showing the scars and fingerprints of every lovely and terrible thing to ever happen within their walls.

I had been admiring The Wellington for years. The way it loomed over State Street in ominous and crumbling beauty left me breathless more than once. I wasn’t the only person with a deep love and curiosity about the building; I often met people who were eager to tell their stories or share rumors and theories.

“On the wall in a sub-basement,” one friend recalled, “there is a suicide note written in Chinese.”

Suicides, weddings, murders, births; the Wellington had seen it all. So when Chris invited me to climb to the top with him on New Years Eve, you can imagine how my heart raced.

Seeing it from the sidewalk, even with its impressive stature and a shadow that consumed a two-block radius, didn’t prepare us for the baffling amount of stairs. Our legs turned to jelly from the climb, and our lungs burned fiercly from the icy air, dust, and asbestos.

After every few flights we’d stop, finding it harder and harder to catch our breath. Each new floor broke us into manic laughter as we realized, again, that there were even more flights to climb. Until there weren’t.

The sky was clear and starry as we pushed through the emergency exit door to the rooftop, with a rusty creak that harshly pierced the wintery hush of the city. The brightness and fresh air were startling for a moment.

We stood on the edge of the building, squinting at the people below who were gathered like ants to see the fireworks usher us into a new year.

“Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one...”

And with warm hearts and frost-bitten hands, we watched the sky explode.