Technical Writer

A Letter Saved from 1840

Poking around an antiques show today in the small borough of East Berlin in southern Pennsylvania, I found a letter amid the saved treasures of long ago. The letter was addressed to Elizabeth in Boston, and that it was to be hand delivered by a Mr. Nichols was neatly written on the front, which was part of the back page of the letter itself. There was no envelope.  

Generations of the family had come and gone and this letter had been preserved and kept safely, but now it was for sale.  The thick, creamy paper is still supple, with just some small discoloration and disintegration along an edge. The letter was written by Susan Nichols to My Dearest Sister Elizabeth, 169 years ago. 

Susan's penmanship was the American Round style of that day, and the ink is now faded to a light brown.  She wrote with a fine line, and her words were most small and as delicate as spider silk. An exhaled breath could seem to blow them off the paper. The letter was long and after I accustomed myself to the faint ink and the penmanship of another time, I stood and read it--it took 20 minutes--and could not put it down. I ached with sorrow as I read, for you see, Susan was writing to the one person in the world, she said, to whom she could confide her grief over the death of her little daughter.  She knew her sister would understand, so lately having her own daughter so near the grave's door.  That little one was spared, but Susan's child was not.  Susan's own dear husband, Mr. Nichols, was no longer himself, for he had loved the little girl so.  Little Marie was her father's darling, and now the days for both parents were full of deepest grief that nothing could assuage.

Susan wrote on and her description of her sorrow was spent by the back of the paper.  She wrote about the neighbors, and the people of the church, and she asked to be remembered to her sister's children.  After vowing to visit soon, she wrote loving words of farewell.  She folded the letter but did not seal it, handed it to her husband, and bade him deliver it to her sister during his travels. He, being a gentleman of full courtesy, would not have read this letter between sisters.

The letter is real, and reading it, time dissolved.  I hope she achieved a measure of peace.

Tree Houses at Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens recently added a feature that was to be a temporary exhibition but is now a permanent part of the gardens, to the delight of all who love wimsey. Tree houses! These are every child's dream of a house in the woods.

The truth is that everyone who has ever climbed a tree house becomes a child, at least for a little while.

Here is a tree house as you approach it through the woods.  I imagine imperfections and knots in old, reclaimed wood that was used in its construction.  

What if the knot were in a timber that once was part of a mighty white pine growing on the banks of the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire in 1653? The pine could have been cut by settlers to supply the Royal Navy with grand masts for sailing ships. What voyages the knot would have seen, and a small child, working his fingers over the loose wood could knock it out and see through the hole grey mist arising over a distant ocean, and smell salt air, and hear the splash of a dolphin on the starboard bow.

The child returns over the long summer to the tree house and is drawn ever more into the sights of the great ship The Flying Heron, for such is what he sees through the knothole.  There is a little cabin boy on The Flying Heron who, weeping alone in his misery one night aboard ship, hears a faint sound from a patch of rough wood on the mast, and goes to investigate. He looks at the knot and it reminds him of his grandmother's garden in the woods back home. 

And then there are trees that are never straight and tall, but are the ground holders, able to withstand storms season upon season and inspire land use all around.  I know that Pierre du Pont loved trees, and he bought the old Pierce farm that became Longwood in the 1920s because he wanted to preserve the magnificent trees on the property.  DuPont expanded and renovated the house that came with the land, and the land itself he never tired of improving as a habitat for all green growing life.

Saturday Flowers May 23; no essay, just photo

Here are the flowers that will grace the kitchen table all week.   

The second photo is of the few remaining flowers this morning from the preceding week, actually 10 days ago.

Great Blue Herons in Frederick

Here is a handsome fellow, whom I disturbed early this morning by the side of Culler Lake in the center of my town of 60,000 people. Frederick, Maryland is fortunate in that Mr. Dulaney, who laid out the town in 1745, drew the city on both sides of Carroll Creek, which resulted in a downtown linear park that runs from Schifferstadt (www.frederickcountylandmarksfoundation.org), a sturdy German-built stone farm house constructed in 1758, and then away to the east, all the way through the center of town.  Baker Park, as it is now known, is a beautiful green swath that has kept the town lovely, and home to at least two Great Blue herons of my recent acquaintance, this fellow and another I saw flying toward the lake as I crossed the college campus a little later, on my way home.

Lengthening Stride

I arise daily around 4 a.m. at the behest of the cat, who makes certain demands and then after about an hour of those shenanigans, returns to peaceful slumber in her King Arthur Flour packing box. 

Truth be told, whenTammietta made the preliminary, delicate rustle this morning that if unheeded would rapidly escalate into a catarumpus, my husband quietly said, if you want to sleep in (4 a.m.!), I'll take care of her this morning.  I almost took the offer, but I thought instead of the pleasures of the cool morning alone in the streets and parkways that I would miss--the quiet time between 5:30 and 7 a.m., when of late I have been walking around Frederick.  

I drank a few cups of rooibos (Mma Ramatswe's red bush) tea this morning, had a bowl of cereal, read The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and when the cat returned from asserting her independence, struck out on my own. 

I am not alone at this time of day.  Joggers, runners, and dogs with their folks appear.  The nighttime crowd of party-goers and bar hoppers have been abed for awhile, and at 5:30, only a few early morning commuters are driving to the train station or setting off for the trip into Washington, which will take them one hour.  If they wait until 7 a.m. to depart, their commute time will double.

My commute is to my office upstairs in the house, so I can afford to spend the morning walking. I took my camera in case I found the Great Blue Heron, a young one, I saw high in this tree yesterday morning by the creek.  I'll post the picture when I find the bird.

I was startled by a couple of men who from a distance sounded like ducks with their cackling laughter. They were sitting near here in a protected area, and they must have spent the night in the local homeless shelter.  Their faces and bodies indicated lifelong alcoholism, and as I strode past and smiled to acknowledge them, they made rude comments.  Humph! I can stack my triglycerides against theirs any day of the week, and I'd bet that they could not walk 3.5 miles an hour if they tried.

He Must be a Narnian

An intriguing man parks his car next to mine in Terry's lot behind the houses on the other side of E. 4th St.  He is normal enough looking--slight, about 5'9", dressed as any 25-year-old fellow would dress when going out with his pals, and he has bright pink hair. I like his hair. It is neatly shaved over his ears, but longer on top, and he combs it straight up in a peak along the crown of his head.  When I see him I smile and think, Narnia for the Narnians!

Saturday Flowers May 16; Early Morning Walk

I am waiting for a little more light outside before I set off on the brisk morning walk that lately I have taken up.  I used to hike over hill and dale, but that was when I was living in rural isolation and my friends were whatever wildlife I could scare up in the woods or by the big pond on the other side of Stone mountain.  In those walks I have come upon deer, foxes, bear, moose, an otter or two, birds in size from the wren--little Druid bird, to the massive golden eagle, and once, a silent, Eastern coyote passed like a drift of smoke across the road just a few feet in front of me. I treasured every animal encounter on the mountain and felt particularly honored when its creatures allowed me to see their passage.

It is 37 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but I have the kitchen door open to the garden so I can hear the early morning birds in their second chorus.  The first occurs a good hour before dawn, and I missed it.  I have turned off the heat so the furnace doesn't clank to life on this May morning.  My husband is peacefully snoozing still, and I believe that he sleeps more soundly knowing that I am up and taking care of all matters.

I have written in months past about my life on Stone Mountain in the backwoods of New Hampshire, but I never discussed the kinship I experienced with the life of the mountain and the mountain itself.  It was on Stone Mountain that I learned to be in the woods in a non-disruptive way so that critters would not be too fearful of me upon encountering a human.

Another thing I learned while living alone for so long was how to project myself outside my body.  Let me tell you how its done.

After a period of silent meditation during which I called to myself the protection of all I honored--my fellow critters on Stone Mountain and the mountain itself, as well as the central figure of my faith, I would lie down on the floor with my arms and feet stretched out, and close my eyes. I would tell myself to feel my extremities, and then feel beyond them a few inches, then a few feet. Then I would tell myself to experience being outside the house, perhaps on the roof, or on the stone ridge near where the foxes lived, and see what I could see.  Mind you, I did this in incremental steps, over weeks, before I grew adventuresome in my travels.  The travels themselves will await another time to tell, but you can know that upon returning to my home, being my body on the floor, I always experienced a sideways jolt as if I were falling back inside myself, at an angle. It felt as if I had been upright before and suddenly found myself for that instant of reconnection inside a body that was lying on a different plane.  I got used to it.

It's time to go outside and take a walk through Frederick now.  The people I meet will be walking their dogs or running.  There is a nice camaraderie with these folks because we share the enjoyment of the fresh air and the quiet morning.

The flowers in the photo are Saturday's, and my walk is now.

On the Pope and His Compulsory Membership in HY

Moretta clears up an issue for me.  She wrote:

    It looks like enrollment was compulsory, but that his family was solidly anti-Nazi. In other words, the passive voice was merited. http://bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/topics/new_pope_defied_nazis.htm

It's always a good idea to have one's facts straight.  Thank you, Moretta.

The Trouble With His Holiness is Not Public Relations

When he was a seminarian in Germany, young Joseph Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth. This  statement is slightly different than the statement he made to a journalist in 1997, "As a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth."  (I quote today's The New York Times article by Rachel Donadio that appears on page A6, "Pope's Wartime Activities Resurface on Israeli Trip.")

As he put it, one could think that registration was something that happened to Joseph Ratzinger, who may not have had much say in the matter, if all seminarians were so registered as part of their priestly training.  Who knows?  In 1997, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger remarked on his membership in a way that made the morality relative to the times, for those who parse the shadows for motivation.  If I were to say, "I joined the Hitler Youth," then you might assume that I had some say in the matter.  If I say instead, "I was registered in the Hitler Youth," you do not know my part in it. 

I actually believe that the pope is a decent fellow, and as qualified as any to fill the shoes of the fisherman.  He is learned.  He grew up in troubled times. Beyond that, I do not know the man at all.  What I can tell you, however, is that he may be pope precisely because he is flawed and human, and has so much to learn, cast off, and even forgive himself for.

The humbleness of a pope and not the words of spokesmen or public relations managers is what matters because that is what remains, after misunderstandings, anger, and apologies are made.  It is humility this man may be learning, for his own sake. 

I have long believed that people are led to a religious life as pastors, priests, and church leaders not because they are so good at what they do but because having set their sights in a holy line of work, they accept the long road in present life that becomes a quick march to salvation or damnation, gifts and attainments notwithstanding, because every breath is taken in the present tense of the imperative to see Christ and to be so led at every step. It is personal, but people are watching.

One must also have the guts for the job.  Standing on the banks of the River Donau in Regensburg  three years ago, I watched traffic on the river and adjacent highway from a point next to a piece of the old city wall that was in disrepair. It looked like it had been bombed in WWII, I believe, and although I do not know this for a fact, I think the repairs were never made as a reminder to anyone who looked that war is hell.  War is no time to be passive when confronting faith, and I believe that when asked about it later, a humble person will speak plainly.

Azalea at Home

The azalea that lives on Rosemont Avenue, just past the college, was planted when the house Sped and Linda now own was built more than a hundred years ago.  

I had never considered azaleas as the independent denizens of their habitats they are until I was sitting on my friends' porch recently while the day lengthened into evening and the gusting wind that preceded heavy rain blew through the outer boughs of this beauty. In the inmost part of the azalea, a small bird sheltered undisturbed by the wind.

The house is protected from the street by the azalea, whom I suspect has a say in the comings and goings in this grand old house over the years.  Could the azalea have chosen inhabitants who would respect its dominion over the property?  Linda mentioned that she has trimmed it only few times, as when it began to take over the big porch a few years ago, where we sat now and talked, she with a bowl on her lap of blackberries and strawberries that she was trimming for supper. The little bird watched us on the porch, safe and sound.

Behind the house there is a garden that my friends have made with flowers and vegetables, and a thicket of brambles, and even a new compost bin.  The garden is abundant and verdant, possibly having been given the go-ahead from the azalea out front. When Linda tended her husband (who is healthy and well today) through a grave illness a few years ago, and never left his side for months at the hospital, the garden was untended by her, and left to its own notions.  When Sped returned home, one of the first sights he saw was the brick patio, and  growing over its surface between the bricks was a new garden of self-seeded petunias in full bloom, a pretty gift to him from the garden.  The petunias must have taken the hint to be confident in their own direction from the azalea.

Saturday Flowers, May 9

Refreshing, isn't this?  I get to look at this crock of flowers when I am in the kitchen, and I can see it now if I bend away from my grandfather's desk where I am writing, and look through the dining room into the sunny and bright kitchen.

My house was built in 1885 by a man who took a big risk in the housing market and built four row houses on East 4th St. that mirror each other inside and out. Totaling just under 1,000 square feet on two floors plus a basement, this is a tiny house by most standards of new construction, but I believe the popular aesthetic is moving away from large to small, and that many people would find this size house as perfect as do I.

What's not to like?  There is a library upstairs with a large drum table next to my husband's comfy leather reading chair.  The only one who can sit in this chair with impunity when the good professor is home is his little cat Tammietta.

There is a city garden, long and narrow, that is sun-dappled in the afternoon, and is planted in shade-loving perennials. There is a table and bench chairs by the house, and Adirondack chairs on a brick patio in the back of the garden. There are a few trees here and there in the adjoining gardens, and we have a silver maple, about 30 years old, that someday will tower over all, long after we are gone.

There is even a significant mystery beneath the garden's surface, a mystery shared by the neighboring house, and which we do not advertise.  Once upon a time, a neighbor was tilling a patch of ground to plant flowers and his hoe struck a rock beneath the soil surface. He scraped away the soil and found a small mound of stones, and pulling them away, he discovered larger pieces of slate and beneath that, a cross-hatch of railroad ties.  He did not uncover it all, just a few square feet, and a small aperture large enough that he could stick down the pole of the hoe, which swung free in the darkness. 

The neighbor called my husband to see what he had discovered, and between the two of them, they rustled up a 45-foot extension cord with a trouble light and poked it down the hole. The light was quickly overcome as they lowered it slowly down.  Lower and lower they dropped the extension cord, and they reached the end of the cord before they hit bottom.

The neighbor rigged up a camera on a board and lowered it down.  What we discovered was an old cistern built to take advantage of a natural cleft in the rock that formed one side of a 12-foot-in-diameter well, and at the bottom there is a tunnel, and in the mouth of that shaft, which leads east, there is a large, rusted piece of equipment.  We decided that there were too many neighbor children who would want to explore this discovery, which would be thrilling for 12-year old boys, and deadly.  The cistern probably has little oxygen at the bottom, and we do not know the condition of the walls, although they are dry. We replaced everything as we found it, and put a large stone on top of all, with pots of flowers to mark the spot. We sit out in the evenings, my husband with a cigar, the cat watching the squirrels, and I, pulling a few weeds and considering whether to transplant the hosta to a new location, and we think of the hole and its construction in the days when this end of East 4th St. had a livery stable and a blacksmith's shop where the houses now stand.

It is difficult to picture a world without me, but while I am not filled with Cleopatra's "immortal longings," I realize that someday in the distant future, my particular perspective will have given way to the sight and perception of others who will walk down my street and wander through my town, and I wonder what they will experience.  It is possible that two hundred years ago, others thought the same.

Saturday Flowers May 2 and Avon Breast Cancer Awareness in DC

Driving into Washington DC Saturday morning with Joe for his German class at the Goethe Institute,   I saw that today was the Avon Breast Cancer Awareness walk in the city, and snapped this picture on the way out of town. I saw hundreds of women (and a few men) walkers, a sea of pink T-shirts on a gray and drizzely day. Their men were route marshals, standing at street intersections in bright vests, and everywhere at the ready with first-aid supplies and water and a handy cell phone for emergencies.  It was rather touching to see brothers, husbands, fathers and sons participating in this way to support their loved ones.  Each woman raised at least $1,800 to walk.

  I came home and arranged the morning flowers for the kitchen table.  Here they are, a bright antidote to the rainy weather. As were the walkers.

A Thomas Hardy Afternoon

Today being May Day and a day of rain and mists, as the afternoon was lengthening, I took a country drive in the county and found Pennterra Manor, a fine, 2 1/2-story Georgian house built of local quarry stone well more than two hundred years ago. The house is hidden from easy sight of the main road and it is reached by following a smaller road that bears its name and that winds a mile through the trees and fields of the 300-acre home place, now protected by conservation easement held by the Maryland Environmental Trust and the Maryland Historical Trust. 

The house itself is on the National Register of Historical Places. Pennterra Manor is privately owned as a residence, so I did not take a photograph.  Here, however, is a link to copy and paste of a 35-year-old photo of the place.  The windmill in the photo is long gone.

http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/nr/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=361&COUNTY=Frederick&FROM=NRCountyList.aspx?COUNTY=Frederick

The scenic Monocacy River flows close by, and here is a photo I took this afternoon of a bridge over a little tributary creek that cuts across the property near the main house by the river. Below this photo is another, of two worthy citizens of Pennterra Manor farm, a Black Angus bull and his lady love. It is spring.