On the walk from the car to the front door of Jim’s Apple Farm, you start to think it must have been a good year for pumpkins. The lot is lined with them, hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes – your choice, only $2.98. When you reach the door and push it open, you forget the pumpkins, forget the cars buzzing past on Highway 169, and forget the week on which you just closed the door.
It’s the polka music that gets you. It’s the 2/4 beat oohm-pa-pa of tuba paired with accordion that calls up the bohemian in you and makes you forget the life you forged for yourself long before you were ever qualified to make such decisions. Suddenly you’re a child skipping between apple barrels and tables piled with strudel and pie. You see the jars of pickled eggs, pickled beets and pickled pickles, but the table of homemade fudge is far more appealing and even that doesn’t hold your attention for long because behind it are bags of colored popcorn stretched out like a rainbow and beyond that, more tables spread with more than 200 varieties of candy.
The 2/4 beat ends, replaced by a 3/4 beat. You’re heart stops racing and you examine the candy that sweetened your childhood – wax lips, candy cigarettes, licorice pipes, snaps, rock candy, Swedish fish, Blackjack, root beer barrels and jawbreakers. Slowly, nostalgia wanes and you recapture a remnant of the self that stepped out of the car earlier. You came in for apples, you remind yourself. So you step over to the tasting table to see if there’s an apple that tastes better than the tart Haralson, the variety that pulled you toward the parking lot in the first place. There is. It’s called Honeycrisp.
But your senses get bombarded again, this time from the ovens in the back where dozens of pies bubble. You recall that you hadn’t eaten dinner and the individually wrapped bars of strudel are more temptation than one hungry human can bear. You grab one, and then grab a bag of Haralsons because the Honeycrisps are too expensive. Then you head for the register, trying not to notice the caramel apples sitting on the counter.
You pay the young man who has spent his entire day among the sweets in order to pay for his education. He’s ready to leave too. You exchange smiles, grateful for the chance to escape this den of temptation, this barn-full of fruit-filled pastry and candy concoction. You’re back among the pumpkins. And then you’re back in your car. The strudel is gone.
Before you turn back onto the highway, you make one quick scan of your radio looking for polka. Nothing. You frown.
15 September 2007
14 September 2007
Along the migratory trail
Every fall, monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico. By instinct alone, the butterflies go to the same mountains that their ancestors left the previous spring. Somehow, they find a place in they've never before been. This one stopped by Four Cedars Farms for a rest the other day. I trust it has perhaps reached its destination by now.
13 September 2007
Transitions don't mean we're broken
Writers are natural eavesdroppers. It’s not that we’re purposefully nosy or rude; it’s simply that the conversations underway at nearby tables are often far more interesting than the one taking place at our own.
Two weeks ago, for instance, Jim and I were out for breakfast. While he poured over the sports page and I engrossed myself in the Jumble, a young couple took the table next to ours. They were students enrolled at the nearby university, using pancakes as a platform to get acquainted. I was quickly struck by the exchange taking place inches away. The young man was especially enthused to tell his pretty date details of his family and anecdotes from his upbringing. But it was she and her idealistic aspirations for her future who captured my ears and made it increasingly difficult to get six, six-letter words unscrambled before our waitress would deliver my eggs.
The auburn haired woman seated on the same bench as me told her date she didn’t want to be one of those people who at age thirty or, God-forbid, age forty, decided they didn’t like what they were doing with their life and had to change. She was determined to plan better, she told her suitor; she would be absolutely sure about her future before stepping even one foot into a post-graduation career. There would be no crisis looming for her in her middle years. It was all a matter of careful planning she told him.
I smiled as I refilled my coffee cup.
In my study on life transitions, I’ve learned that everyone should expect, at the minimum, two transition periods in life. The first transition occurs when we go from dependence to independence; the second occurs when we’ve aged sufficiently that we seek a deeper understanding of our existence. Call if the why am I here transition, perhaps.
What’s interesting about the first transition is that it extends far beyond freshman move-in day at college. The transition from dependence to independence starts at college but continues, for some, nearly a decade. The search for independence includes college, the year or two you take off before entering graduate school, those first few jobs that don’t quite challenge, perhaps one or two or three moves, a couple different apartments, and maybe even a stint in the army. It typically isn’t until between age twenty-eight and thirty-two that the transition from dependence to independence is complete; that’s when a person finally gets a handle on that career thing, or his or her relationship, and finally arrives at something that feels like home. The completion of this transition manifests itself in putting down roots.
The second major transition period comes years later, when those roots we sunk in our late twenties have developed into the mighty oak tree that’s become the envy of the neighborhood. What happens during this transition is the days shorten, the nights cool, and we, the mighty oak, start shedding our leaves. It’s not unreasonable for us to panic during this transition; after all, everything we’ve always been depended upon to provide — shade, shelter, curb appeal — starts to drop away as its loses its meaning. As our dried up leaves spread across the neighborhood lawns and our branches go increasingly bare, we wonder why it is we have to lose everything that made us such a wonderful tree in the first place. But winter and loss is part of the cycle and come spring, we’ll be transformed. We just have to have faith that, this time, spring will follow winter as it always has. Standing in the midst of everyone, our bare limbs exposed, we have to have faith in the natural processes. And we have to trust God.
Whereas the first life transition frustrates us, the second can be downright terrifying. But neither transition occurs due to a lack of good planning or poor vocational counseling. Transitions are simply the cycles of life playing out in high definition. They are naturally occurring like the change of seasons. Transitions should be examined; they should be expected. They should not be viewed as a long-range plan gone awry.
I wanted to bend over and tell the red-haired girl this, but instead I solved the Jumble.
Two weeks ago, for instance, Jim and I were out for breakfast. While he poured over the sports page and I engrossed myself in the Jumble, a young couple took the table next to ours. They were students enrolled at the nearby university, using pancakes as a platform to get acquainted. I was quickly struck by the exchange taking place inches away. The young man was especially enthused to tell his pretty date details of his family and anecdotes from his upbringing. But it was she and her idealistic aspirations for her future who captured my ears and made it increasingly difficult to get six, six-letter words unscrambled before our waitress would deliver my eggs.
The auburn haired woman seated on the same bench as me told her date she didn’t want to be one of those people who at age thirty or, God-forbid, age forty, decided they didn’t like what they were doing with their life and had to change. She was determined to plan better, she told her suitor; she would be absolutely sure about her future before stepping even one foot into a post-graduation career. There would be no crisis looming for her in her middle years. It was all a matter of careful planning she told him.
I smiled as I refilled my coffee cup.
In my study on life transitions, I’ve learned that everyone should expect, at the minimum, two transition periods in life. The first transition occurs when we go from dependence to independence; the second occurs when we’ve aged sufficiently that we seek a deeper understanding of our existence. Call if the why am I here transition, perhaps.
What’s interesting about the first transition is that it extends far beyond freshman move-in day at college. The transition from dependence to independence starts at college but continues, for some, nearly a decade. The search for independence includes college, the year or two you take off before entering graduate school, those first few jobs that don’t quite challenge, perhaps one or two or three moves, a couple different apartments, and maybe even a stint in the army. It typically isn’t until between age twenty-eight and thirty-two that the transition from dependence to independence is complete; that’s when a person finally gets a handle on that career thing, or his or her relationship, and finally arrives at something that feels like home. The completion of this transition manifests itself in putting down roots.
The second major transition period comes years later, when those roots we sunk in our late twenties have developed into the mighty oak tree that’s become the envy of the neighborhood. What happens during this transition is the days shorten, the nights cool, and we, the mighty oak, start shedding our leaves. It’s not unreasonable for us to panic during this transition; after all, everything we’ve always been depended upon to provide — shade, shelter, curb appeal — starts to drop away as its loses its meaning. As our dried up leaves spread across the neighborhood lawns and our branches go increasingly bare, we wonder why it is we have to lose everything that made us such a wonderful tree in the first place. But winter and loss is part of the cycle and come spring, we’ll be transformed. We just have to have faith that, this time, spring will follow winter as it always has. Standing in the midst of everyone, our bare limbs exposed, we have to have faith in the natural processes. And we have to trust God.
Whereas the first life transition frustrates us, the second can be downright terrifying. But neither transition occurs due to a lack of good planning or poor vocational counseling. Transitions are simply the cycles of life playing out in high definition. They are naturally occurring like the change of seasons. Transitions should be examined; they should be expected. They should not be viewed as a long-range plan gone awry.
I wanted to bend over and tell the red-haired girl this, but instead I solved the Jumble.
12 September 2007
A riddle about change
If you stand on the banks of a river and step into the water, then step out, and step in again, have you stepped into the same river or a different river?
Greek philosopher Heraclitus answers: "Into the same river we step and do not step. We are and we are not."
Greek philosopher Heraclitus answers: "Into the same river we step and do not step. We are and we are not."
11 September 2007
A lifelong dream fulfilled
People often ask us if buying the farm is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. When we say no, that owning a farm never occurred to us, not even once, not until we saw Four Cedars Farms, they seem surprised.
Early in our relationship, before marriage, before kids, before serious employment, before the house in the suburbs, Jim and I had talked about leaving our hometown and seeking adventure in some exotic destination, far removed our parents, our homes and the traditional path toward the future every one of our friends seemed to be traveling on. We were convinced that if only we could go someplace we’d never been, the adventure of it would eclipse any of the mundane activities we would certainly participate in there, such as studying. For a reason I could never explain, Michigan seemed to fall within the definition of “exotic.” Neither of us had been there, it had good skiing and cherry orchards and three great lakes, all displayed in an attractive brochure; we quickly decided the first place we’d unfold our new life together, this life of adventure, ought to be in Michigan. Never mind that neither of us ski; it was Michigan or bust!
Well, we didn’t get to Michigan until our oldest moved there a few years back. When we look behind us to the path that led us here, we realize we did travel the safe and familiar roads, the paths that gave the children stability and our family economic security. Our life evolved so quickly, we never really revisited the idea of escaping to someplace exotic. (Well, there was that one week in Grand Cayman.)
When we stumbled upon Four Cedars, we were simply looking for a place to get away to on weekends, perhaps to fish, or sit in a lawn chair with a good book. There was nothing outlandish to be said about those goals for a middle-of-the-road middle age. Then, we stumbled upon a farm for sale… .
There was nothing beautiful about this farm when we first laid our eyes upon its grounds and buildings. It was rundown, neglected, in need of the kind of love that turned Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree from a shedding twig into a thick spruce. It needed a handyman like Jim. But from the moment we laid our eyes upon this property, we felt adventure awakening deep within us; it was that feeling we shared in the late 1970s, a feeling we both thought had died decades ago from neglect. It was a desire to take to a world we hadn’t ever seen. To learn from the ground up.
This farm was miles from our hometown and our families and the traditional path on which most of our middle-age friends now travel. It represented an entirely new experience, too, because neither of us had ever before lived anywhere outside the Twin Cities. It would require us to learn, together, and to view each new day from a different perspective, to discover something about each other and something about ourselves. In a way, then, this farm gives us everything that we thought Michigan would so many years ago.
Perhaps you could ask me: Is owning a farm the fulfillment of a lifelong dream? If you asked, I would say, yes.
Early in our relationship, before marriage, before kids, before serious employment, before the house in the suburbs, Jim and I had talked about leaving our hometown and seeking adventure in some exotic destination, far removed our parents, our homes and the traditional path toward the future every one of our friends seemed to be traveling on. We were convinced that if only we could go someplace we’d never been, the adventure of it would eclipse any of the mundane activities we would certainly participate in there, such as studying. For a reason I could never explain, Michigan seemed to fall within the definition of “exotic.” Neither of us had been there, it had good skiing and cherry orchards and three great lakes, all displayed in an attractive brochure; we quickly decided the first place we’d unfold our new life together, this life of adventure, ought to be in Michigan. Never mind that neither of us ski; it was Michigan or bust!
Well, we didn’t get to Michigan until our oldest moved there a few years back. When we look behind us to the path that led us here, we realize we did travel the safe and familiar roads, the paths that gave the children stability and our family economic security. Our life evolved so quickly, we never really revisited the idea of escaping to someplace exotic. (Well, there was that one week in Grand Cayman.)
When we stumbled upon Four Cedars, we were simply looking for a place to get away to on weekends, perhaps to fish, or sit in a lawn chair with a good book. There was nothing outlandish to be said about those goals for a middle-of-the-road middle age. Then, we stumbled upon a farm for sale… .
There was nothing beautiful about this farm when we first laid our eyes upon its grounds and buildings. It was rundown, neglected, in need of the kind of love that turned Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree from a shedding twig into a thick spruce. It needed a handyman like Jim. But from the moment we laid our eyes upon this property, we felt adventure awakening deep within us; it was that feeling we shared in the late 1970s, a feeling we both thought had died decades ago from neglect. It was a desire to take to a world we hadn’t ever seen. To learn from the ground up.
This farm was miles from our hometown and our families and the traditional path on which most of our middle-age friends now travel. It represented an entirely new experience, too, because neither of us had ever before lived anywhere outside the Twin Cities. It would require us to learn, together, and to view each new day from a different perspective, to discover something about each other and something about ourselves. In a way, then, this farm gives us everything that we thought Michigan would so many years ago.
Perhaps you could ask me: Is owning a farm the fulfillment of a lifelong dream? If you asked, I would say, yes.
10 September 2007
Listen to old words a new way
Years ago, I was acquainted with a man who, like me, had been raised Catholic. He married a Methodist woman in the early 1980s and each remained faithful to the tradition of their upbringing for the first few years of their marriage. After awhile, though, he began to frequent his wife’s church and eventually, he stopped attending Catholic services altogether.
Part of me sympathized with this man. I think it's very important for a husband and wife to share the same values, and certainly a family routine is less complicated when spouses are actively involved in the same faith tradition, especially when children enter the family. Yet, I was also troubled, not because of his decision but because I didn't know what thought process brought him to this change. (I'm a writer; I dig the thought process.) I wanted to ask him about his switch, but hesitated because I didn’t want him to think I was judging him. His situation didn’t raise my ire; it simply piqued my curiosity.
When we were alone for a few minutes, I looked for some insight by asking him one simple question: “Do you miss the Mass?”
“It never changes,” he complained. “The readings I hear are the same readings I’ve been hearing since second grade. It’s always the same.” I listened to him describe how vibrant the service at his new church was, how he was captivated by how they “mixed things up.” I left our conversation with the sense that the tradition of his youth had gone flat for him, that he needed more stimulation. He needed things outside of him to change so he could stay engaged.
Well, it’s true that the readings used throughout the Catholic liturgical calendar do repeat, if not every year, every few years. It’s also true that the format for the Mass hasn’t changed all that much through the centuries. Yet even though the Scripture text may not change, we do.
I can listen to the story of the prodigal son today and contemplate it in an entirely different way than I did when I last heard it. When I was twenty, the message embedded in the story of the Good Samaritan was much different than when I heard the same story, the same words, read to me this summer. I am a different person than I was while in grade school, while in high school, when I was thirty; even since Spring, I have grown and evolved. I have changed. And so the same words strike my ears differently each time I hear them.
I think this man was misleading himself when he felt tradition ought to change in order to hold his interest. Tradition isn’t meant to change. If it was, we'd call it trend.
But we are supposed to change. And when we do, when we evolve and grow, we bring richness to tradition that will keep it vibrant and relevant for a lifetime.
If you embrace tradition, there’s no need to "mix things up." Listen to those same old words; just make sure you bring your freshest self to them while you do.
Part of me sympathized with this man. I think it's very important for a husband and wife to share the same values, and certainly a family routine is less complicated when spouses are actively involved in the same faith tradition, especially when children enter the family. Yet, I was also troubled, not because of his decision but because I didn't know what thought process brought him to this change. (I'm a writer; I dig the thought process.) I wanted to ask him about his switch, but hesitated because I didn’t want him to think I was judging him. His situation didn’t raise my ire; it simply piqued my curiosity.
When we were alone for a few minutes, I looked for some insight by asking him one simple question: “Do you miss the Mass?”
“It never changes,” he complained. “The readings I hear are the same readings I’ve been hearing since second grade. It’s always the same.” I listened to him describe how vibrant the service at his new church was, how he was captivated by how they “mixed things up.” I left our conversation with the sense that the tradition of his youth had gone flat for him, that he needed more stimulation. He needed things outside of him to change so he could stay engaged.
Well, it’s true that the readings used throughout the Catholic liturgical calendar do repeat, if not every year, every few years. It’s also true that the format for the Mass hasn’t changed all that much through the centuries. Yet even though the Scripture text may not change, we do.
I can listen to the story of the prodigal son today and contemplate it in an entirely different way than I did when I last heard it. When I was twenty, the message embedded in the story of the Good Samaritan was much different than when I heard the same story, the same words, read to me this summer. I am a different person than I was while in grade school, while in high school, when I was thirty; even since Spring, I have grown and evolved. I have changed. And so the same words strike my ears differently each time I hear them.
I think this man was misleading himself when he felt tradition ought to change in order to hold his interest. Tradition isn’t meant to change. If it was, we'd call it trend.
But we are supposed to change. And when we do, when we evolve and grow, we bring richness to tradition that will keep it vibrant and relevant for a lifetime.
If you embrace tradition, there’s no need to "mix things up." Listen to those same old words; just make sure you bring your freshest self to them while you do.
09 September 2007
Driving in the dark
Author Annie Lamott says that writing a book is like driving at night. You know your destination, you can picture it in your mind, but all you see is the stretch of road that falls under the beam of your headlights. So you have to keep rolling forward, confident in a destination you can’t see, concentrating on what lies immediately in front of you. You go forward slowly. Your journey at any given moment is a length of thirty feet, forty feet tops. That’s where the writer’s work is done, right out front, in the headlights.
Being in transition also is like driving at night, I think, except the destination is undetermined. You don’t know what it looks like and can’t picture it because you’ve never been. You know you’re headed somewhere, but that’s all you know. So, you worry about the climate, or if the people will be nice, or if you’ll be happy once you arrive. And you worry that you’ll forget the route back, you’ll never again see your old friends, never again see the house in which you were raised. You’ll begin to think that old adage about never being able to go home again might just be true.
I have a friend who seems troubled by a transition that threatens stability, which he defines as “knowing where my home is.” I’ve had another woman tell me recently that “home is where your mother is.” Transition guru William Bridges says as people move toward the autumn of their lives, their transition is an effort to regain the “inner home.” I presume he’s really saying transition is our clumsy attempt to get our arms around the spirit that dwells within us. All of these perspectives on home are worth pondering.
I have another friend who lost her father to Alzheimer’s disease; her family’s experience is included in the anthology Voices of Alzheimer’s. She tells me people with Alzheimer’s universally express a desire to “go home.” I find it fascinating that when all else is dissipating in their minds, Alzheimer’s patients fixate on “home” as a destination they believe will give them respite from the ravages of their disease. Peace. I guess home, as a concept, is one deeply embedded in our tissue.
Of course, home can be where you came from, where you are, or a place you’ll find at the end of a long journey; it just depends upon where you happen to be along life’s highway. My favorite thought on "home," however, comes from a Virginia-based folk singer: “Home is where my heart’s at rest.”
Being in transition also is like driving at night, I think, except the destination is undetermined. You don’t know what it looks like and can’t picture it because you’ve never been. You know you’re headed somewhere, but that’s all you know. So, you worry about the climate, or if the people will be nice, or if you’ll be happy once you arrive. And you worry that you’ll forget the route back, you’ll never again see your old friends, never again see the house in which you were raised. You’ll begin to think that old adage about never being able to go home again might just be true.
I have a friend who seems troubled by a transition that threatens stability, which he defines as “knowing where my home is.” I’ve had another woman tell me recently that “home is where your mother is.” Transition guru William Bridges says as people move toward the autumn of their lives, their transition is an effort to regain the “inner home.” I presume he’s really saying transition is our clumsy attempt to get our arms around the spirit that dwells within us. All of these perspectives on home are worth pondering.
I have another friend who lost her father to Alzheimer’s disease; her family’s experience is included in the anthology Voices of Alzheimer’s. She tells me people with Alzheimer’s universally express a desire to “go home.” I find it fascinating that when all else is dissipating in their minds, Alzheimer’s patients fixate on “home” as a destination they believe will give them respite from the ravages of their disease. Peace. I guess home, as a concept, is one deeply embedded in our tissue.
Of course, home can be where you came from, where you are, or a place you’ll find at the end of a long journey; it just depends upon where you happen to be along life’s highway. My favorite thought on "home," however, comes from a Virginia-based folk singer: “Home is where my heart’s at rest.”
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