Daily Archives: March 29, 2008

Faith and Spirituality, Family

A Parent’s Pain, A Young Man’s Journey

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42  bar falls 30.04 2mph S dewpoint 20 Spring

Last Quarter Moon of Winds

Joseph called from OTS.  He sounded dispirited, demoralized.  Drill and military courtesy have tripped him up thus far.  His commander has talked about recycling him if he doesn’t improve.  He had strings on his uniform, two demerits.  Other things, two demerits.

After he hung up, I went into a tail spin myself.  When I drove over to Lauderdale for the Chinese New Year’s celebration, I found I couldn’t listen to the lecture on the Ming Dynasty because the obvious dismay in Joseph’s voice distracted me.

It reminds me, as I write this, of the first day of kindergarten.  I dropped him off and he began to cry, to run toward me as I turned to leave.  My instinct said turn around, scoop him up and take him home.  Try this next year.  Maybe.

The pain, the deep heart pain, a parent feels when their child struggles has got to be the worst agony of all.  Joseph is so dear to me.  My instinct is to get in the car, drive down to Maxwell AFB and take him out to dinner.  Have a talk, cheer him up.  Nope.  This is a road he has chosen and one only he can negotiate.  If necessary, of course, I’ll be there if it doesn’t work out, but until then he walks on his own.

I can, and will, write him letters and leave messages on his cell phone.  Kate and I will send him cookies, but the rest is up to him.

I’m ignorant when it comes to military life, so I don’t know how much of this is the process of breaking down and building back up or how much of it is genuine peril that he won’t finish.  One thing I have learned about him though is this, when he sets his heart on something he has a dogged persistence that makes things happen.  So, based on his past behavior, I have confidence in him now.  The pain, though, is still hard.

Friends, Garden, General, Great Work, Our Land and Home, Politics

Plants and a Particular Location + Gardener = Dialogue

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40  bar falls 30.27  6mph  SSE  dewpoint 24  Spring

          Last Quarter Moon of Winds

Ah.  Can you feel the sigh?  A weekend with no outside obligations at all.  I plan to do clean up, plant some more seeds, read, maybe watch a bit more of the NCAA.  How about that Davidson, huh?  Took out Wisconsin.  That’s a student body of 1,700 versus one of what, 30,000?  I will read chapter 3 in the Permaculture design book for sure, perhaps polish off a novel or two, maybe start writing one of my own.  I have an idea that’s been bouncing around for some time now.

Tonight at 5PM I get to celebrate Chinese New Year again with the CIF guides.  I look forward to this each year, this one especially because I’ve done my homework on China and Japan over the last few months.  Saw MingJen, who organizes this event, on Wednesday at the Naomi Kawase film, The Mourning Forest.

If you can, would you write Hillary and tell her to get out now?  We need a chance to even up with McCain and a bitter end to the Democratic primary race just lets him have the field to himself.  I don’t have anything against Hillary, in fact she and Obama are about a horse apiece politically, but Obama has won the field, has the delegates and deserves his chance.  Hillary will have another shot.  She’s established that a woman can run as a serious candidate, a remarkable and historic achievement in itself.  Nothing in the feminist revolution demands that women win all contests or get all the jobs. 

Snow continues to retreat in our yard, but slowly.  As in years past, the Perlick’s grass is almost fully visible, while ours remains under 6-8 inches of snow.  They face south, we face north and that makes all the difference.  Spring comes to our property about a week later than theirs, weird as that is. 

On Thursday I followed the dog tracks in the snow and went out to check on my trees planted last spring.  Some animal, either rabbits or deer, have eaten the tops of them down to the garden hose I put around them as protection from mice.  I didn’t think tall enough up the food chain.   These were the trees I planted nearest the area we call the park.  Further north, also on the eastern edge of our westernmost woods, another group of oaks, white pines and Norway pines look like they’ve done well over the winter. 

This is the nature of gardening.  Try this and it works.  Try that and it doesn’t.  Listen.  Repeat what worked, change what didn’t.  Plants and a particular location engage the attentive gardener or horticulturist (as I’m beginning to think of myself) in a constant dialogue as shade patterns change, seasonal sun shifts become more understood, rain falls or does not fall and various cultivars and seeds prove well suited to the site or not.  This dialogue is multi-lingual as one party communicates in one language and the other has to translate, but it is true discourse as each can alter the others ideas.