Introduction to the latest issue
Sep. 13th, 2005 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanI just wrote an introduction for the upcoming new issue of The Urban Pantheist, and you're all my editors. Let me know what you think (too sappy? too disjointed? too irrelevant? I'll shut up, sorry.)
Most of the articles in this issue are the direct results of trips I have taken with my father over the years. When my first marriage fell apart, he suggested that we take a summer vacation together. Each subsequent summer we went somewhere new, somewhere fantastic that neither of us ever thought we would go. We have been to Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon rainforest, the Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica, Alaska, Easter Island, and Chile together. Any one trip would have been the trip of a lifetime, and yet we have had several. Alexis is kind enough to understand the importance of the adventures my father and I have, allowing me to go with minimal protests, which she is entitled to.
My father’s wife, my mother, no longer recognizes him, or any person, due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. My father to this day is dedicated to my mother, visiting her several times a week, sometimes several times a day. Though she no longer knows him, he loves her, and can provide comfort and personal attention that the overworked and underpaid nursing home staff cannot. He holds her hand, feeds her chocolate (and on their anniversary, lobster) and sets the radio to music she would have liked. He is well known to the other residents of the nursing home, and he knows them all by name. They notice when he misses a day, especially a day fraught with significance—those Hallmark holidays that nursing homes mark with cardboard decorations and visiting singers. “Missed you yesterday, Frank, you go away on another one of your trips?” Never mind that the home is filled with people who only see their families at Christmas time.
It pains my father that the fact that my mother is in a home means that he has the freedom to travel. I know he would trade it all if she could say his name, or hug him back. Her imprisonment in her body, and the institutional care it requires, is the worst thing in my father’s life. He sets off on trips wracked with guilt. He knows his experiences will be priceless in and of themselves, and that his stories and photographs will make him a better teacher. He only wishes that the woman he loved could come with him and share these experiences.
My mother inoculated me with her love of nature. She taught herself to know the birds and plants in our yard; I still have some of her field guides, with her notes and check marks. We lived in rural New England, and went for walks in hilly mixed deciduous forests. Until I was seven, we lived on a property that had a stream in walking distance, with skunk cabbage and salamanders. I remember vividly, my mother handling a turtle we found on the side of a road, discovering a leech on it, and removing it with the help of her ever-present lit cigarette. She encouraged my habit of rolling over rocks and logs to see the scurrying and wriggling creatures underneath. She began to fade away into illness when I was still an adolescent.
My father is a history teacher, and throughout my life I remember him taking us to old mills, and to read the plaques on statues in the town greens. When we travel together, we gently try to encourage the others’ interests. I ask what he wants to see, and he says, “Some place with birds,” or “Let’s go see some animals.” I know his interest in birds and animals isn’t that great, but he wants to indulge me. It makes me feel a little guilty—we should see some historical stuff, too, Dad. But recently I realized: he wants to see the living part of my mother, the part of herself alive in me. The excitement I get when I see a bird, new to me and utterly common to the locals, that may come from my mother. Or, when in a busy city, or a place renown for its historic monuments, I suddenly stoop to examine the weeds; that’s something my mother might have done, too.
Nature is my first joy in life. If I lost everything and lived alone in poverty and misery, I’d still take notice of the pigeons and dandelions. If I can be said to have faith in anything, it would be that nature will continue no matter what, and that it is always worth paying attention to. For that I can thank my mother.
On our most recent trip, my father admitted feeling inadequate; that sometimes he feels as if he hasn’t accomplished anything meaningful in his life. I was stunned. This is a man who has taught public school for nearly 50 years. There are people ten years older than me, who consider my father to be the strongest influence in their lives. We can’t go out for a meal in the town my father teaches in, without someone recognizing him; and they usually express gratitude. Students take his classes not because they like the subject, or because it’s required of them, but because they want to be close to him. I understand.
To have meant so much to so many people, and still feel that you need to do more; that’s what it is to be my father. I admire him so much, and I am honored to join him on his travels. I can only hope that I can express a fraction of the wonder and excitement of our trips together. These articles are about urban nature, about how nature exists, thrives, and changes under the pressure of humanity. Life changes in proximity to the works of man, but it always continues, it always finds a way to go on living. That is what life is for: to go on living.
Most of the articles in this issue are the direct results of trips I have taken with my father over the years. When my first marriage fell apart, he suggested that we take a summer vacation together. Each subsequent summer we went somewhere new, somewhere fantastic that neither of us ever thought we would go. We have been to Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon rainforest, the Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica, Alaska, Easter Island, and Chile together. Any one trip would have been the trip of a lifetime, and yet we have had several. Alexis is kind enough to understand the importance of the adventures my father and I have, allowing me to go with minimal protests, which she is entitled to.
My father’s wife, my mother, no longer recognizes him, or any person, due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. My father to this day is dedicated to my mother, visiting her several times a week, sometimes several times a day. Though she no longer knows him, he loves her, and can provide comfort and personal attention that the overworked and underpaid nursing home staff cannot. He holds her hand, feeds her chocolate (and on their anniversary, lobster) and sets the radio to music she would have liked. He is well known to the other residents of the nursing home, and he knows them all by name. They notice when he misses a day, especially a day fraught with significance—those Hallmark holidays that nursing homes mark with cardboard decorations and visiting singers. “Missed you yesterday, Frank, you go away on another one of your trips?” Never mind that the home is filled with people who only see their families at Christmas time.
It pains my father that the fact that my mother is in a home means that he has the freedom to travel. I know he would trade it all if she could say his name, or hug him back. Her imprisonment in her body, and the institutional care it requires, is the worst thing in my father’s life. He sets off on trips wracked with guilt. He knows his experiences will be priceless in and of themselves, and that his stories and photographs will make him a better teacher. He only wishes that the woman he loved could come with him and share these experiences.
My mother inoculated me with her love of nature. She taught herself to know the birds and plants in our yard; I still have some of her field guides, with her notes and check marks. We lived in rural New England, and went for walks in hilly mixed deciduous forests. Until I was seven, we lived on a property that had a stream in walking distance, with skunk cabbage and salamanders. I remember vividly, my mother handling a turtle we found on the side of a road, discovering a leech on it, and removing it with the help of her ever-present lit cigarette. She encouraged my habit of rolling over rocks and logs to see the scurrying and wriggling creatures underneath. She began to fade away into illness when I was still an adolescent.
My father is a history teacher, and throughout my life I remember him taking us to old mills, and to read the plaques on statues in the town greens. When we travel together, we gently try to encourage the others’ interests. I ask what he wants to see, and he says, “Some place with birds,” or “Let’s go see some animals.” I know his interest in birds and animals isn’t that great, but he wants to indulge me. It makes me feel a little guilty—we should see some historical stuff, too, Dad. But recently I realized: he wants to see the living part of my mother, the part of herself alive in me. The excitement I get when I see a bird, new to me and utterly common to the locals, that may come from my mother. Or, when in a busy city, or a place renown for its historic monuments, I suddenly stoop to examine the weeds; that’s something my mother might have done, too.
Nature is my first joy in life. If I lost everything and lived alone in poverty and misery, I’d still take notice of the pigeons and dandelions. If I can be said to have faith in anything, it would be that nature will continue no matter what, and that it is always worth paying attention to. For that I can thank my mother.
On our most recent trip, my father admitted feeling inadequate; that sometimes he feels as if he hasn’t accomplished anything meaningful in his life. I was stunned. This is a man who has taught public school for nearly 50 years. There are people ten years older than me, who consider my father to be the strongest influence in their lives. We can’t go out for a meal in the town my father teaches in, without someone recognizing him; and they usually express gratitude. Students take his classes not because they like the subject, or because it’s required of them, but because they want to be close to him. I understand.
To have meant so much to so many people, and still feel that you need to do more; that’s what it is to be my father. I admire him so much, and I am honored to join him on his travels. I can only hope that I can express a fraction of the wonder and excitement of our trips together. These articles are about urban nature, about how nature exists, thrives, and changes under the pressure of humanity. Life changes in proximity to the works of man, but it always continues, it always finds a way to go on living. That is what life is for: to go on living.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 03:53 pm (UTC)I'm crying now.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:31 pm (UTC)Do you have anything in hand that you could contribute?
Beautiful!
Date: 2005-09-13 04:07 pm (UTC)This is also a really loving tribute to your mom, who's thoughts and feelings will live on in your memories and stories, even if her mind is, for the most part, gone.
Thanks for sharing this with us all.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:45 pm (UTC)Don't change a thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:50 pm (UTC)Another odd connection we have -- I'm actually the managing editor for a journal for activities to do with Alzheimer's and other dementia patients. I can offer you some suggestions, if you wanted, of small things your dad can do with your mother.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 06:47 pm (UTC)A sons admiration and love for his parents, and the gifts they have given him, could never be irrelevant.
Don't change a thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 09:24 pm (UTC)Well written.
And incredibly relevant, too.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 09:24 pm (UTC)