We live these days in a kingdom of moisture. A couple weeks ago, it was hot and dry. Now it’s hot and humid. Dew is heavy on the grass. Evening thunderstorms thicken the air. Our windows fog. Walking is best in the morning, unless you want to saunter.
Yesterday’s gospel was a story that always rankles me. Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus, are entertaining Jesus. Martha is running around playing hostess while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to him talk. When Martha complains to Jesus, he says, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.”
Every time I hear this Bible passage I want to scream. This is because I identify with Martha, even though I’d rather be Mary. I love to sit and talk about ideas, but I can’t unless I know the homefront is secure. And the tension between these twin impulses makes me anxious.
So when I heard this familiar story yesterday I sat with my hands folded, waiting for illumination. “If I had to choose, I would side with Martha,” the priest said. “But good deeds are spoiled by bad attitudes.” Ahhh. Yes. That is true. It removes none of the injustice. My blood still boils. Someone has to cook the food, make the bed, sweep the floor. There will always be people who roll up their sleeves and others who wait for the sleeve-rollers. But attitude is important, and it’s good to be reminded of that from time to time — even from the pulpit.
Yesterday morning at 5 a.m., a 3.6 magnitude earthquake shook the D.C region. I missed it, asleep for a change. But it made me think about other minor earthquakes I’ve experienced. One was in New York City. That tremblor woke me out of a deep sleep; I thought the boiler in our apartment building had exploded.
The mind seeks explanations — a passing jet, a roll of thunder — because if the earth is not solid and grounded, then what is? But such is the nature of life that even that which we think is certain sometimes turns out not to be.
Scientists interviewed about yesterday’s quake said it was nothing to worry about, that it’s just part of the “creaking and grinding” of our old planet, like the “settling of an old house,” the newspaper said. Even the ground beneath our feet needs to shift and stretch once in a while.
In the archives of suburban history it may not amount to much, but I’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. For trees on the south side of our street to lean over and touch the trees on the north. For a meeting, a confab, a treaty of trees.
I’ve longed, of course, for the passage of green, the sympathy of branch upon branch, the slightly lost feeling I get when I’m passing through such a shaded spot. In my mind’s eye are the great tree tunnels of my past, most notably Pisgah Pike in Woodford County, Kentucky, where the great, gnarled osage orange trees bend their way across an ancient, stone-lined lane.
We’re not there yet in Folkstone. I doubt our oaks could contort themselves so; they are tall, skinny trees, more vertical than horizontal. What we have this summer is a start, a first glancing touch. A promise of green tunnels to come.
Yesterday after a swim I looked at the sky, bright blue with dark clouds hovering, and I realized: Summer is half over. This is not a happy thought. So I pondered midpoints, the balance inherent in them, the way they help us see forward and back.
Because we vacationed in May this year, the summer seems lusciously long and uninterrupted. Seems precious, too. Use it all, I tell myself. From beginning to end. From early each morning till late each night.
Sometimes after dinner I slip out the garage door and walk down the street for a few minutes. Unlike my daytime walks, which require tennis shoes, sunglasses and earphones, these impromptu strolls are completely come-as-you-are. I walk toward the sunset, which is better viewed from the open area at the end of our street. And I walk slowly, meditatively. The point is not to move quickly through the landscape but to let the landscape seep into me. I pass two split-levels, four colonials, three flagpoles, two front porches (one of them brand-new) and our community meadow. Sometimes the stars are peeping out of the darkening sky. Before I know it, I’ve come to a house where the light shines yellow through the front windows, a house with a small grove of oak and holly in the front yard. It’s for this that I’ve walked — for our house, in perspective.
So into this age of iPhones and iPads and Kindles comes Nicholas Basbanes’ book A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World. And we think we have problems. In ancient times, books were threatened by scarcity of materials, by fire-loving fanatics, by bookworms (the real thing) and by textual transmission. Instead of a book failing to jump from hardback to paperback or paperback to e-book, in the fourth century books might not make the cut from papyrus to parchment. My mind is filled this morning with phantom books of the past. What wisdom do we lack because some ancient author didn’t make the grade?
Last night’s respite from midsummer heat gave us the excuse to turn off the air-conditioning and throw open the windows to the night air.
Fans whir, crickets sing, a faint smell of loamy earth wafts through the house. By the middle of the night the fan has sucked in enough cool air that I pull the comforter up around my chin.
It’s the best kind of chilly, air that is moist and moving and full of sounds and smells. I’ve missed it this summer.
Darkness in the morning. Rain steadier than what I thought we’d get today. Everything left out on the deck: wooden rockers, chair cushions, one very soggy beach towel. For weeks the sun has ruled; there’s been no question about it. Every day a sunny day. And now today, something different. A new game in town. It’s refreshing. As long as it doesn’t last.
It’s July 9. The firecrackers aren’t snapping and the flags aren’t flapping. What remains for me is the memory of James Cagney as George M. Cohan in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I can’t stop humming “It’s a Grand Old Flag,” “Over There” or “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” And I can’t forget the sight of that powerful little man going into one of his tap-dancing riffs. He is the essence of jaunty, of sticking out one’s chin and plunging into life. Was our country ever that innocent and optimistic? I replay the final scene of that movie, Cagney dancing down the steps of the White House after telling his life story to President Roosevelt, and I think yes, maybe it was.