Summer XII. Rumination

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Summer XI. Break of day

A whole day’s walk yesterday with no plan; just a long ramble of hour after hour, entirely enjoyable. It ended at Topsham, where I sat on the little churchyard terrace, and watched the evening tide come up the estuary. I have a great liking for Topsham, and that churchyard, overlooking what is not quite sea, yet more than river, is one of the most restful spots I know...

The unspeakable blessedness of having a home! Much as my imagination has dwelt upon it for thirty years, I never knew how deep and exquisite a joy could lie in the assurance that one is at home for ever. Again and again I come back to this thought; nothing but Death can oust me from my abiding place. And Death I would fain learn to regard as a friend, who will but intensify the peace I now relish.

When one is at home, how one’s affections grow about everything in the neighborhood! I always thought with fondness of this corner of Devon, but what was that compared with the love which now strengthens in me day by day? ...

It seems to me that the very clouds that pass above my house are more interesting and beautiful than clouds elsewhere.

And to think that at one time I called myself a socialist, communist, anything you like of the revolutionary kind! ...

Alpha.

I suppose Henry Ryecroft would be some sort of Tory -- though God knows I could be wrong, as British politics are something of a mystery to me. He seems to think there is a Natural Order with people belonging to the position they were born to -- in either the sense of class or native intelligence and aptitude. I don’t see him campaigning for universal suffrage.

In the nineteenth century the French, or so I’ve heard, made the rural population more conservative by the simple expedient of giving them, or at least allowing them to acquire, a little land. People with a plot of land and a house tend not to be revolutionary in the 18th to 20th century meaning of that word. They are invested in the status quo.

As a Baby Boomer, I grew up as part of the Great American Suburban Status Quo. Everyone in my family lived in detached three or so bedroom houses with front and back yards and a garage. To this day I know of no one in my family, besides me, to live in an apartment between the time they were “established” as an adult and retirement. While it would be nice to have a workshop/storage area -- what many garages are used for -- or my own garden, I’ve never longed for the white picket fence ideal. There’s something to be said for being the king of your castle, but then there’s the moat upkeep.

Unlike Ryecroft, I own by “home” but I know damn well that any number of things can force me out. In the best of all possible worlds, this building would be fireproof, earthquake proof, and would have the sort of steel shutters I so admire on the street sides of European residential buildings... buildings that may well have seen more than one invading army marching past, or even a popular revolution or two.

The Great Stink.

Over thirty years ago the biggest nuisance for a person walking around town was dog waste. I was quite proud of my record for never once stepping in it. Then, to my amazement, pet owners were convinced to pick-up after their pets and the sidewalks became much more pleasant. Today the nuisance is not dog waste but human waste, and this time there are no responsible owners to clean up after.

I didn’t anticipate people picking up after their pets so responsibly. (I also didn’t anticipate people going outdoors to smoke.) And I didn’t anticipate that people would decide to use the streets and sidewalks as a toilet and no one would stop them. You win some and you lose some. Years ago we had to trim and finally remove some bushes in front of our building as they were hiding people using the front of the building as a toilet. Today they just shit right our on the sidewalk or in the street, so less for us to clean up. A small victory.

Someone might suggest that human waste on city streets is a sign of the fall of civilization, I would say it has more to do with so many feral and demented humans living on the streets. But it’s worth mentioning that sanitary streets were a novelty of the late nineteenth century. The “Great Stink” , the stimulus, along with the discovery of how cholera spread, for the implementation of “modern” sanitation in London, occurred the year after George Gissing’s birth. For most of human history city streets have been sewers and toilets. I’ve been known to refer to the stairs in parking garages as the urinals, but less than 500 years ago the stairs of a fine palace might also serve as more than just the urinal. The Great Stink would be a good title for a book about everyday life in Europe in any century before the twentieth.

The Tao of Puppy.

Walking across town today I spotted a puppy most of a block ahead of me. He was already bigger than most city dogs, but he betrayed his puppyness by his inability to move in anything like a straight line and by appearing to be made mostly of rubber. His tail, in particular, seemed to flop about as though stuffed with rubber bands and operated by a committee. I’ve read a bit about meditation, and I browsed, and was amused by, The Tao of Pooh, but I would be more attracted to The Tao of Puppy. Puppies are so wonderfully conscious and focused on everything about them. They greet everyone with loving enthusiasm and take nothing for granted. To be a puppy seems much better, and much more life affirming, than to be the most transcendent monk or lama or holy man.

On this same walk I passed the corner sign for our neighborhood fortune teller -- or at least the plywood structure of her sign sitting on the corner with the paper signage all ripped off. My first thought was that someone hadn’t appreciated their fortune. My second thought was that the voices in the head of one of our street crazies had taken exception to her signage. My third thought was that, regardless of the agent responsible, our fortune teller hadn’t seen this coming.

Next: Summer XIII. Town & country.