the cassandra pages

Cineaddiction, with updates

Late night at the Montreal film festival

It's World Film Festival time in Montreal, and for the first year since we've lived here, we've actually been in town during the festival -- so we bought a coupon book of ten tickets, used it up, and are well on our way to finishing a second. The movies are being shown in theaters an easy bike ride from our place, and every one we've seen has been memorable. The problem is picking from the hundreds of films being shown. Here's our list so far:

1. Full Breath - a Russian film shot in a fishing village in the Crimea, about two couples, both of whom are mismatched in age, and the lure of country life for city people and vice versa. Not a great film, nor a great screenplay, but I loved being taken to a place I'd never seen before - and to listen to Russian being spoken for two hours! The director was there, and at the end he stoodin the door, stooped and hopeful,  as we all filed past him: he spoke no English, and all I could say was "spasiba."

2. Los Borgia - Italian/Spanish, a costume-drama, elaborate set, big production film about the Machiavellian intrigues of the Borgia family in Renaissance Rome: the father who was Pope, the sons who were a general of the Vatican armies, a cardinal, and a drunken fool cuckolded by his brothers, and, of course the daughter, Lucretia.

3. The River - a Canadian film by a new director, shot in Saskachewan, about two young people who are misfits in their small city because they're both artists who dream of being in Paris or New York like the people they admire - Joni Mitchell or Jack Kerouac, to name only two. They become friends, and support each other in their first steps toward art, and it gets more complicated from there. The audience burst into applause ta the end, and when we walked out, there was the guy who played the lad int eh movie, talking to filmgoers just as he had playing the young writer in the movie: "No, really, tell me what you would have changed about it, what didn't work for you?" This one was preceded by a short film commemorating Bosnian Muslims who were massacred their Serbian neighbors on a bridge in a small town in 1992.

4. The Knot - a hugely ambitious Chinese film that follows the lives of two people - and the history of China and Taiwan - for six decades. It's a little self-conscious, but the cinematography was breathtaking, the acting terrific, and an excellent story and screenplay.

5. Proshaj, Yuzhny Gorod  (Goodbye Southern City) - Ajerbaidjan - a very depressing, bleak film about the influx of Armenian refugees from Iran into Ajerbaidjan, interreligious tension, and thuggish Russian  self-interest, manipulation and violence. I'm not sorry I saw it, but it was a difficult one and also quite confusing to figure out who was who and why they were acting the way they were.

6. Wal-Mart Nation - A Canadian documentary that focuses not on Wal-Mart itself, but on the people who devote years of their lives to opposing it. Pretty good and quite nuanced and homegrown, when one now filters "documentary" through a Michael Moore lens. I think it will play well in Canada, and less well in the U.S. because it is both gentler than American society expects and, like I said, more nuanced, but I much hope lots of people will get to see it. One of the film's strongest points were its interviews with people who've written books about Wal-Mart or mega-corporate culture and its effect not only on domestic American society but the world; Joel Bakan, writer of the documentary The Corporation, raised the important point that to some extent Wal-Mart, because of its size, ubiquitousness, and success, has become the scapegoat for huge corporations in general. The director, Andrew Munger, was sitting in our row and this was his world premiere, which was pretty cool; we talked to him afterwards. Very nice guy.

7. Lezioni di Volo (Flying Lessons) - my favorite so far. A beautiful story about two unmotivated rich Italian teenagers who flunk out of school and go to India together for no real reason except to escape their nagging families, though one is an adopted Hindu who's never been to his birthplace at all. Within 24 hours they’ve lost all their money, passports, phones, and clothes --- and the movie gets progressively more interesting from there. In Italian; I hope this will get wide North American distribution - it ought to.

8. A Winter's Tale - A Canadian picture, about violence in the black community in Toronto, that has gotten some of the most appreciative buzz during the festival. Again, the director was present. It reminded me how fiction can sometimes do more good than documentary/non-fiction by telling a human story rather than preaching with facts: this film will do a lot to illuminate the human cost of the influx of gangs and drug dealing in one of the most non-violent North American cities. Made by blacks, it raises issues about black family culture and male attitudes toward education, women and money, as well as tension between people of African and West Indian origin. I know it will help here in Canada where these problems are not yet endemic, but I hope it gets distribution in the U.S. as well.

9. 53 Days - A Spanish movie about 53 days in the lives of three people, each of whom faces a challenge that requires making a large change. I found this one fascinating, especially in its portraits of women. It's such a quiet picture I can't really describe it. Thinking about it this morning, I realize the whole movie used muted and neutral colors; I don't remember any bright color in the whole thing. Very good.

10. Mutluluk (Bliss) - Turkey - The largest crowd we'd been part of during the festival was at Theatre Maisonneuve last night for the screening of this Turkish movie about a young village woman who has lost her virginity under unknown circumstances; the family, commanded by the village's tribal leader, calls on the woman's eldest cousin to kill her and end the shame she's brought on the family. He takes her to Istanbul but finds he can't carry out his task, and the two of them embark on an odyssey  that, predictably, brings out the conflicts between modernity and tradition in present-day Turkey. That predictability was the film's biggest weakness, I thought. The movie had some good aspects - beautiful scenery and an appealing heroine - but I found it unbelievable and the most Hollywoodish of all the films we saw - it will probably get worldwide distribution and do its part to perpetuate Western stereotypes of uneducated Islam. It was odd how this big-budget film's lack of nuance was so apparent after a week of seeing smaller-budget films. After most of the others, I was moved by the creator's vision and determination to illuminate some aspect of human behavior and emotion. After this one, incredible images remain - of Istanbul, sheep herders in rocky villages, snowy mountains, blue coves in the Mediterranean - but I felt manipulated.

It's been a busy, somewhat stressful work week for us, and we've gone to most of these late at night, riding home up the Berri bike path at midnight or even later, then getting up early to continue working. I'm definitely short on sleep and feeling sorry I no longer can drink caffeine. Today, though, I got my hair cut (Veronique again) first thing in the morning and then J. met me and we went to two movies during the middle of the day, joining the hard core film buffs who sit on benches inside and outside the theaters with their complicated horaires (schedules) planning their day at the festival, because you can only exchange your coupons for tickets one day at a time.

I love the blinking, disoriented, slightly illicit feeling when you emerge from a dark theater into midday sunlight, and rejoin the oblivious world that has been bustling outside, while holding inside your head the sensations of the cinematic world you've just been so engaged with. And then you walk around with it in the daylight like a secret, an affair, without the slightest anticipation of loss.

The bright end of a weekend

The high point of the Pont Jacques-Cartier (Jacques Cartier bridge) at about 7:30 pm tonight.

We've just come back from a long bike ride on a gorgeous evening here in Montreal - up over the Jacques Cartier bridge before sunset, a tour of Parc Jean Drapeau (where Expo was held), back across the river and along the docks, around the grain elevators, into the old city to watch the moonrise from the poplar-lined walkway above the river, then back up the long hill to the Plateau and home. After waking up to rain yesterday morning, it's become a gorgeous weekend where we worked a good deal but also went to a Russian movie, shot on a small fishing village in Crimea, at the Montreal World Film Festival, and ate some good food with friends: Turkish mezze on Friday night, a great homemade taco dinner at a friends house last night. All the posters and papers are talking now about "la rentrée," the French word that basically means "back to school." If it was indeed the last weekend of the summer, or close to it for many people, it was a really nice one.

But I'm going to stop talking and turn it over to you, Cassandra readers: where were you and what did you do this weekend?

Graces

We had the great pleasure, on Wednesday, of meeting Margaret, whose blog I've been reading for some time, and her husband during a recent trip they took to our city. They were even more delightful in person than I had expected, and barely a second elapsed before the words lifted up off the screen and became spoken ones, illuminating all sorts of questions and tantalizing gaps in-between. In the brief two hours we had before they had to leave (we had just returned to Montreal in time to catch the very tail end of their visit, which Margaret had written about and photographed on her blog) we went out for coffee, sat and talked in the sun on a Chinatown bench, and had a fast dim-sum lunch. Margaret, who hails from southern New Hampshire, is a friend of Gene Robinson's and an Episcopalian who has done lot of work for the diocese as well as her home parish; she's a prolific published writer; a lover of roses and furry creatures; a NH state legislator...needless to say, there was plenty to talk about, and we were happy to see that our spouses seemed to be deep in conversation too. I'm already looking forward to the next time!

Grace Paley at an antiwar demonstration in Hanover, NH, early spring, 2002. Photo by Jonathan Sa'adah, copyright 2002.

But, like our visitors, we were also touched by loss yesterday, with the news of the death of Grace Paley. We were acquainted with Grace most closely through living in the same area; by being friends with her daughter and step-daughter; and through our shared antiwar activism. During the long run-up to war in Iraq, Grace was often present for the weekly Friday street-corner protests, her wild white hair flying out in all directions -- only rarely under a warm hat -- her keen eyes sparkling with determination, indignation, amusement. She was the kind of person who had the courage to be the only one holding a sign, the only person standing on the corner: diminutive in stature and huge in spirit. If she had never put her pen to paper, I'd remember and be inspired by her for that.

But Grace did write, beautifully. One of my happiest memories of her is the evening when she was installed as Poet Laureate of Vermont. Her friends and admirers, including several of the former poet laureates of the state, filled the beautiful legislative chamber at the Vermont State House, and after a speech by the governor, and poems by the other laureates, Grace came to the podium, spoke briefly, and read from her work. The governorship had recently passed from Howard Dean to a Republican, Jim Douglas, and one sensed a little tension in Douglas's remarks. But that didn't stop Grace from saying exactly what she wanted to say, gracefully, but clearly: that life is beautiful, and a gift, and that we are responsible for the way we walk upon this earth during our brief time here.

She had been ill for a long time, but like my own mother, she bore it with her characteristic stoicism and determination; mostly, you wouldn't have known.  The most memorable poem she read that night was about sitting and watching her husband, as an old man: deeply affectionate, without a drop of sentimentality. In the best tradition of Judaism, Grace understood her own humanity as a quality that connects us, and whether that meant loving her grandchildren or advocating for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, she expressed it in a way that shone a light into the world -- a light she now hands to us.

A tribute at NPR includes audio and other links to Grace Paley's work.

Old Friends

We've been friends for more than twenty-five years, celebrated together, grieved together, supported each other, worked together on projects, gone on trips, cooked and eaten many meals. I'm thinking not of just one friend, or two, but a number of old friends who live in Vermont or close by in New Hampshire, who we haven't seen much for the past three years. During our last few visits down here, we've been trying to rectify that.

There was a thunderstormy night, a month or so ago: a spontaneous dinner with friends - two couples - both of whom used to live in our village but have built new houses up on a nearby hill. We ran into each other at the post office in the late afternoon, then all brought whatever we had in our refrigerators, ending up with bowls of summery salads, bread, shrimp, fresh green beans, strawberries, ice cream. The sky grew black and just as we were about to eat, the power went out. Lightning raced, jagged and yellow, from cloud to cloud, lighting up the entire sky. We watched from the plate-glass windows in our secure aerie as the electrical storm buffeted the valley below, and sheets of rain pelted the avant garde corrugated metal siding of the new house, and talked about the years past and new possibilities now that children were grown and settled, and former dreams and passions could be reconsidered.

A few nights ago, another dinner, at our house this time, with a beloved friend whose husband, a very fine painter, and mother both died this winter. How strange to welcome her, alone. We talked and talked, about art and life, shed a few tears, drank two bottles of good wine, ate another summer supper of grilled steak and salad and little fresh carrots glazed with boiled-down butter and maple syrup, and a plate of tomatoes and basil that looked like a painting itself. Another day, out of the blue, a phone call from another friend, one of my oldest here, who surfaces in our life now and then: always loyal, always loving, always pretty much the same as he's ever been. We're just thirty-two years older now than when we met, and without saying it, know that time seems quite a bit shorter. Last night, an impromptu dinner with our Iranian friends, whose father is dying...

Yesterday morning, I went to my old church and sang with the choir, lingering afterwards to talk to the people who were my family here for more than a decade, then standing outside in the sun while another dear friend watered the church gardens, his green silk bow-tie still in place. They're installing their new rector next weekend,and asked if I'd be still be here, and able to come and sing with them: this is the culmination of a long, long saga in which I was very involved for a time.

"No," I said, "though I feel like I ought to be."

"So do we, Beth," one of my best friends said, smiling gently. "Not to put too fine a point on it!"

These long relationships are irreplaceable, and I cherish them. If we've seemed to neglect some of them, or distance ourselves, it was not from lack of love, but from the need to separate from this place enough that the pain of leaving didn't hold us here, making it impossible to put roots down in a new home, and begin new friendships that I can already see will be equally important and sustaining. But now that we've done that, and have a sense of belonging and comfort in Montréal, I see us reconnecting, reassuring ourselves and others that we see these relationships as lifetime ones. We find ourselves especially appreciative of the friends who have understood and patiently waited for us to do what we needed to do, or who've come to see us, called, and written.

This is such a different place from the online world I inhabit so much of the time, with its other set of expectations and rewards, and its radically different concept of time. I appreciate, especially, the ability to relax into sharing sensory input across a room, or a dinner table, and to use my sense of touch to communicate something rather than my overdeveloped ability to describe things. It is a respite from the fatigue of working words.

Lamps in the Storm

We've just had a thunderstorm here in Vermont, and now, the rain having turned to mere drips, the slightly brightened but fading skylight has become a strange, intense yellow. During the storm it became quite dark, though we still had power, and J. and I ate dinner in the candlelight of a beeswax candle set in a wooden hurricane lantern. The lantern was made many years ago and given to my father-in-law by an old man, a farmer, who was his friend and parishioner. It's hung for a long time in the pass-through window of his kitchen. At the end of yesterday's visit he insisted that we take it, I think because J. had known the old man a little bit and had once admired this handiwork.

J. tried to refuse, as he had on several other occasions. "It looks good right here," he said. "This is where it belongs, Ivan gave it to you." But his father insisted, and finally we relented and took it off its hook and carried it out the door, after thanking him. The lantern is simple and beautiful: not a fine thing, but a utilitarian one made with someone's careful hands. It felt like it fit in our home immediately, and using it for the first time tonight had a significance we felt but didn't speak of as we ate our dinner.

My father-in-law had said, "I don't have any premonition of -- the end -- but it has to arrive eventually - I can't just keep declining forever! The people here all want me to reach 100. But,"--he leaned closer and spoke conspiratorially-- "I don't think I'll make it."

"You might," I said.

"I don't think so," he replied, matter-of-factly.

"Don't you think you'll have some inkling...some feeling that it's coming?"

He shook his head decisively. "I used to think that. But now I think I'll just go to sleep." He looked directly at me . "And that's OK! I love to sleep!" He laughed but I saw a glimmer of something else in his eyes and immediately was suspicious; this was what he'd been telling himself, then, trying to convince himself and now us, that this scenario was all right. But he didn't quite believe it.

"That's why I want you to take Ivan's lantern now," he said firmly. "I worry about what will happen to my things. I know it's silly, but I do. My books...you know, my niece was here, and she looked at all the shelves and finally picked out three books that she said she'd like to have, and she took them. And now I miss them! It's as if all these things belong together. I don't like the idea of them being divided and separated -- but what can you do?"

"Then why are you insisting on us taking the lantern?" J. said.

"That's different. You should have it, and this way I know you have it and not that someone else came in and said, 'Oh, that's nice, I think I'll take that.'"

I looked over at the side table next to his chair, with his phone and the old radio and the small statue of Socrates, which is really the only thing out of his rooms that I would especially like to have someday. The first time I met my father-in-law we sat on opposite ends of a couch, surrounded by books, and he asked me about my education, raising his eyebrows approvingly when he heard that I had studied ancient Greek at a university he respected. I knew nothing about him then; I'd already made the mistake of bringing my big dog to the house of Christian Arabs with Muslim sensibilities. The dog had been banished to the kitchen  and he laid in front of the wood burning stove, lifting his head to whimper in protest now and then, while the humans ate a meal in another room and then sat and talked. I was a girl of 26 then, hoping to make a decent impression on the father of the man I'd fallen in love with. And so I saw the look and knew I'd said something, possibly, to redeem myself from the same fate as the others before me. That was twenty-eight years ago; here we still were, watched over by Socrates.

Yesterday I realized I'd never picked the statue up; I'm not sure I've even touched it. It's rather ugly: a shortish man in a toga, decidedly unhandsome, with a snub nose. "What does Socrates think?" I asked.

He smiled. "Actually, I have things I need to say to Socrates!" he said. "It's another project I have in my head. I have my notes - most of them are in Arabic, in my study, and when I find the notes and sit down to write -- I can't!" He shook his head again and gave a rueful laugh. "All these good ideas about how Arabic arose out of the tribal languages and the languages of the villages...how you can see it in the Arabic proverbs, and how Arabic in turn influenced Greek...Oh well, they're all are coming to me too late! Too late! When I can't make any use of them."

"But they're of use to you, they give you something fascinating to think about," I said, silently adding, "especially now when you can't read anymore, when you can't write, when you have so few people to talk to about these ideas."

"It's too bad I've lost touch with that former student of mine, the one who's in Saudi Arabia. He was very knowledgeable about Arabic literature. I wonder if he's still alive." He shrugged. "Oh well!" he said, brightly, and changed the subject.

Au Secours!

What happens when you filter a subject like Québec not only through French (as in from France) eyes, but through The Wall Street Journal? Well, this. It's an article about why the French immigrate to Québec -- and why they go back home. Readers of this blog will understand why I feel no comment is necessary; however I can't resist a couple of quotes:

Their bitterness is palpable. Quebec is described as a matriarchal society ("Feministan") with failing infrastructures ("Kebekistan"). The Quebeckers are described as "intolerant racists" who speak an outdated and incorrect language, bask in their own ignorance and suffer from an inferiority complex that results in a loathing of "maudits Français" ("damned French").

and

Language is only one aspect of the cultural divide faced by the French immigrant. The basic cultural precepts are also unique. "I know I shouldn't say this but I find the Quebeckers very… Anglo-Saxon," admits Françoise, as though this was the worst kind of insult. With their more right-wing economic vision, a culinary approach that is a long way from its French origins and policies based on individual freedom, the Quebeckers are first and foremost North-Americans.

Rightwing economic vision?? Huh?? An "ïmpure"culinary approach? Most definitely! But Anglo-Saxon? Horrors!!! (via The Montreal City Weblog)

---

Now for a more home-grown Montreal moment: Today I was talking to a friend who's a priest. She' also hails directly from that glorious "Feministan" mentioned above. So, she was on her way home after church, and was wearing a short-sleeved black clerical shirt with clerical collar, a white belt with metal trim, black shorts, black sandals with high heels, and snazzy designer sunglasses. After receiving our amused compliments, she said she had been walking to church through the gay village this morning, wearing that outfit, minus the high heels (she power-walks in running shoes because she's losing weight) when a young man came up to her and said, in French, "Hello, madame, that's quite an outfit!" She said thank you, and, realizing he thought it was, well, an OUTfit she had put together, added, "Je suis une prêtre!"( I'm a priest!) He drew back in astonishment and said, "Madame!! Comment ça??" - but that wasn't a reaction to the fact that it was a real clerical collar and not a costume, but that she was a woman and also a priest! So she had to explain how that could be. Catholicism still runs pretty deep here, even if nobody goes to church anymore.

We also heard that a male priest friend of hers had been solicited by a hooker recently, on the street, and when he had stopped, slightly astonished, pointed to his clerical collar, and said, "Mademoiselle, je suis un prêtre!" the woman had merely given an expressive French shrug and said, "So?"

(Excuse me, but did someone say this place was Anglo-Saxon??)

La cathédrale verte

We had been walking well over an hour, mechanically swatting the mosquitoes and horse flies that buzzed around our heads, through overgrown fields bordered by white birch and pin cherry, and then into a sandy clearing where thin soil was covered by moss and lichens and dotted with the first seedling pines, as thickly sown by the birds and wind as radishes needing to be thinned in a child's garden.

Then we entered the woods and began an upward climb along an old fenceline, thrown up when the farm was abandoned some forty-five years ago, now all but obscured in the tangled forest of hemlock, maple and birch. The footing was rough and we moved carefully, the four of us keeping sufficient distance between us to protect the follower from a sharp whip of a branch in the face, but close enough to see and help if someone stumbled. G. carried her secateurs, the heavy pruners she used to clear the old path during this once-yearly circumnavigation of her 150 mountainous acres; when we came upon a fallen tree or limb too large for the secateurs' throat, we all helped to pull it out of the way. The path had been marked at the time of her purchase, a dozen years ago, by bright pink plastic streamers - forester's tape - tied at eye-level on branches, but the markings were far apart and occasionally one had fallen with its branch or disintegrated, as even plastic will do when exposed for years; we needed all four pairs of eyes to keep ourselves on the trail.

Wherever a little light could reach the forest floor, bunchberries, the ground-hugging variety of flowering dogwood that defines these acidic northern woodlands, grew so thickly underfoot that you couldn't avoid crushing a few; there was gold-thread, and partridge-berry, and dense carpets of various lycopodiums - clubmosses or ground pines - that have become rare further south; partly from habitat destruction, partly from overharvesting by New Englanders who traditionally used them for Christmas wreaths. Everywhere there were ferns, and mushrooms in dusky shades and lurid bright colors, and in a few places, rare, shy woodland orchids.

Up we went, and down into a wet swampy area, and up steeply once again onto a moss-covered small rise where the early afternoon sun streamed in, warming the soft ground beneath us and turning the furry moss from emerald to chartreuse. "C'est une belvedere, la," remarked G., smiling beneath her beige cap with its rolled mosquito net above the brim, before plunging down the steep hill again. Her partner, S., took the lead then, and after another twenty minutes of walking, she stopped suddenly and stood very still, pointing with one finger, as a large partridge emerged from the brush ahead of us, ruffled its neck feathers, and disappeared quickly into the trees.

It had become very dark under the trees, nearly all conifers here, with a greater predominance of cedars, tall and gnarled, with beautiful smooth reddish roots polished like mahogany. S. unrolled her mosquito net over her head and secured it around her shoulders. We heard running water. "La rivière," announced G. and soon we saw it; rushing water dark with tannin, running incongruously and unseen through the middle of these deep woods. "There used to be a huge beaver dam here," G. continued, quietly, "up above here - they had created a veritable lake. And then one year, they simply moved on and abandoned it. You'll see all the dead trees." My three companions stood near a large cedar, talking, while I moved away to the south, edging closer to the spongy bank of the stream; insects hummed in the steamy air; a huge dragonfly rose from a clump of reeds and headed downstream. I sat down on a sphagnum-covered stump and peered into a pool of water above an eddy where a school of striped minnows swam back and forth. A small frog jumped into the water before my feet and disappeared.

"Will they think I'm being unsociable?" I wondered, after a little while, and got up and rejoined the group. For the past hour, my thoughts had been full of memories: of my mother, with whom I had walked in similar, but less extensive woods, and who would have been as captivated by this one as I was, and of Herm, my mentor, a biologist and skilled woodsman who had taught me where my mother's knowledge left off; his love of primitive plants - the ferns and mosses, lichens, liverworts, horsetails and clubmosses - had transferred to me, along with his battered, water-damaged Peterson guide to the same, dropped in a stream much like this one on a walk with me more than forty years ago. I smiled at G.: "I'm very touched by this sort of place, thank you so much for bringing me here," I said, simply, and she smiled back, understanding showing in her eyes. We walked ahead for a few hundred metres; the forest became even darker, trees meeting over the stream. Narrow shafts of light filtered down from the tall canopy onto the moss and shiny russet roots of the cedars; water dripped from leaves above us, and everywhere lush moss crept up the sides of rocks, of fallen trees and their upturned roots, beckoning us to sit, watch, listen.

The stream had divided into two branches, with a small island in the middle. I looked for a crossing place where the rocks rose above the water, relatively dry, at stepping-stone distance, and carefully made my way to the island. The others followed. We sat on a fallen tree, and on rocks, and were silent, each with our own thoughts. Mine were awe, gratitude, and a feeling that I was not alone. I looked out into the forest, my eyes following a path from tree to tree. "Herm," I asked in my head. "Are you there?"

J. came and sat close to me. "What are you thinking?" he whispered.

"I was saying hello to Herm," I said. "I've felt like he was with me for the past half hour." He nodded and smiled, not judging.

Who's to say? Perhaps some of us leave this earth, and some do not; perhaps the spiritual world does not exist at all except in our emotions and longings, our hunger for companionship on this lonely journey of walking with our own mortality; perhaps immortality is to be found precisely in this act of acute remembering, when time and separation dissolve into presence. I do know that on the rare occasions when I am filled with the kind of awe and gratitude that take me beyond inadequate language and the naming of those emotions, beyond self at all into some sort of space where I simply am, along with everything else that is, that has been and will be, it is generally not in the man-made world, but in some place such as this: untouched yet created; quiveringly alive; evolving and dissolving back into the elements from which it was made, continually animated once again into new life by water and light. The one-celled microscopic life of the vernal pools and stream; the moss's spores on their hairstalks, stretching a determined inch toward the distant sun; the marvelously adapted primitive plants that once towered above forest floors like these old cedars, long before flowering plants even existed, let alone frogs, partridges, or clumsy two-footed naked beasts in sewn clothing.

We rose, and set off again, uphill and away from the stream, leaving it to its silence, and the remembrance of dreams.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Entwined

Thank you to everyone who commented on the previous post...I suppose 26 years does make us somewhat qualified as "elders" when it comes to talking about marriage, but I don't really feel that way because this partnership is both familiar and ever surprising. It changes naturally, and also because of the unexpected: as a wise surgeon friend used to tell us, "you never know when life will throw you a curve ball."

In the comments, Lorianne asks if I might speak a little about what I learned from my brief first marriage, and what couples should NOT do, as opposed to some of the things I suggested they should. Well, OK, even though I am a believer in "being careful with your 'shoulds'" I'll give it a try. And I also want to make it clear that I'm talking here about all committed relationships, not just marriages, especially since many same-sex couples don't yet have the benefit of the choice to marry, but are equally committed to staying together.

What I learned:

Don't marry for the wrong reasons: for example, because you don't know what else to do, or because you're afraid to break up or be alone, or because you have a great sex life but not much else in common. Many couples already have warning signs that the relationship is troubled, unsatisfactory, or incompatible in certain ways. We certainly did. Marrying won't fix it. Neither will having a baby, buying a house, moving, or a lot of other things people do to try to "make things better." Some people marry out of duty, or because they don't want to hurt the other person. It's a lot better to suffer the pain now and break up than to have to disentangle your lives later when children, family relationships, and common property can make it much more complicated and painful.

Don't rush into it. People have a lot less pressure to marry quickly now, and I think that's good. It takes at least two years for clear eyes to see through the intensity of the physical passion and romance that often dominate a young relationship. A lot of failed, short marriages might not even happen if couples just waited until the relationship got more mature. Though we didn't see it or acknowledge it, the relationship with my first husband had peaked and was already on a downward trajectory when we had the ceremony; it only lasted another year and a half - and we had lived together for about the same amount of time before marrying.

People's true colors come out over money. Know your own and your partner's attitudes about earning, working, spending, and saving. Talk seriously and honestly about how you're going to handle your money ahead of time, and identify potential problem areas. How did your families of origin deal with money? If you are very different about this aspect of your shared life, it's going to make big problems and you had better think about it now. J. and I have always pooled all our money and we have very similar work ethics, while in my first marriage my husband and I had separate checkbooks and very different attitudes about work, spending, and saving - as well as the role of money in our lives.

It's hard to sustain a relationship when your basic values are quite different. As with financial matters and attitudes about work, couple who are far apart on social values, politics, religion, child-rearing and so forth tend to have a lot of trouble. I think it's much more possible to bridge ethnic and cultural distances in a marriage - as we've done - than to live with someone whose basic outlook on life is very different from yours. My first husband was much more conservative than me politically, he was very secular, and less open to people of other races and social backgrounds. We had quite different educational backgrounds too. He was interested in having a good time -- and he was a lot of fun -- I was much more serious and intellectual. These basic difference affected our choices of friends and how comfortable we felt with each other's friends from before the marriage, and certainly afterwards: a clue we should have picked up on a lot more quickly.

Are you complementary as well as compatible? Differences can be exciting and also useful. If you like to cook and she doesn't, that can be just great so long as she's willing to handle something else, like the bookkeeping.

Know how you both deal with difficulties like conflict, disappointment, failures and insecurity. Is your partner jealous? Insecure? Demanding? Are you? Do they need a lot of time alone, and can you handle that? Are they loyal to their other friends? Do you have constructive or destructive arguments? When you have individual problems, do you include and confide in each other? Is your partner your best friend? Do you truly comfort each other? Do you feel you both have the maturity to handle a major problem like serious illness, or the loss of a job, or an enforced move?

How does it feel when you work together on a project? Does one of you need to "be the boss" all the time, or is there give-and-take? Is there genuine respect between you?

Are you genuinely giving and supportive of each other? When you look deeply into the relationship, do you feel that this person really knows you, and cherishes you for who you truly are? Do you really know and cherish them? What matters to them the most, and are you willing to help and encourage them in that direction, or do you perhaps feel dismissive or even threatened by it? How well do they know and respond to you in that regard? Do you have hopes and dreams in common? Can you say that you really like this person as well as love them? Has your relationship already grown and deepened over the time you've known each other?

Can you imagine growing old together? My maternal grandparents were married more than 60 years, and my parents nearly that long. When I told my grandmother that  J.and I had decided to marry, she was happy, and said, "If you and he think you'll always be glad to see each other and have something to say to each other when you wake up in the morning, and don't go to bed angry with each other, you'll be OK." I can't say we've never gone to bed angry, but we certainly try not to, and we're still happy and grateful to see each other when we wake up. I don't think we've ever felt bored with each other, which is good, since we are actually growing old together now!

None of us are perfect. Failures happen, but every relationship has its positive aspects. I'm very grateful to my first husband for many things he taught me - both in a practical sense, and about myself -  and for all the good times we had together, not to mention the fact that without him I doubt if I would have moved to New England. I'm very sorry for the ways in which we hurt each other - but I think and hope we both grew as a result. We've both been married to other people for a long time now; I'm not sure we would have been as wise in our second choices without the experience of the first one. Life goes on, and we have to pick ourselves up, learn from the experience, and have the courage to risk our hearts and love again.

Love on the Tracks

In the comments to the previous post, Planethalder (happy birthday today!) asked for some wisdom about growing a marriage to 26 years. I'm not sure I can do that; every relationship is different and all have different joys and stresses, plus the simple fact of fate - the changes and life events none of us can control. Lots of long marriages are more the product of inertia or passivity than active work, and in some the reality is that one person has compromised and given much more than the other, to maintain some semblance of harmony. So the mere fact that a marriage endures doesn't say that much. But if both people say they're happy, and that the relationship has been fulfilling and part of the source of that happiness, then that's another story. Since J. and I are both in that latter category, I'll try to offer a few thoughts.

Each of us is responsible for our own happiness. People who don't love themselves have a hard time loving others and being in relationships; people who are excessively needy have unreasonable expectations. Marriage doesn't mean less of a commitment to work on yourself; it means more of it, and that continues forever! A loving partner can be a mirror, but that mirror has to be held up in love and trust. Neither marriage itself nor the other person can make you a happy or serene person; you have to find that inside yourself and bring it to the marriage. If each person tries to do that most of the time, then there is resilience in the relationship that can help during the times when we do feel less than whole and need to lean on the other person.

A promise to stay together requires loyalty and steadfastness. You have to accept that there will be rough times and conflict. We've had our share. But we have tried not to see leaving as an option; our marriage is like a room with a door that we close when things get difficult, and we go into that room and try to work things out together. We don't go running to friends to family to complain or escape; we've also asked for help when we've really needed it - not so much from professionals, but from trusted, often older friends who we talked to together. If you need help, don't be afraid to get it, but pick your counselors very carefully and do it together.

Good communication is key, but it requires work. We have always had a business together too, which creates changing demands on our time. We regularly have to sit down and reassess who is doing what, and if things feel fair, balanced, equal, and if not, we change the balance so it feels better. Don't get stuck in ruts; be willing to shake things up, change responsibilities.

Both of you have to be willing to compromise, both on big things and little ones.

Nurture your intimacy. Keep your sex life alive.  Enjoying each other, choosing to spend time together, making time for intimacy and laughter are crucial, I think. It's so easy to get caught up in responsibilities and daily life and taking care of other people rather than each other, and pretty soon one of you feels  neglected and hurt. Don't forget each other or take each other for granted. Praise each other, and affirm and nurture the things that are of deepest meaning and importance to your partner.

Remember that you've married his or her family too. We have to accept the other people who come with the marriage, and learn to love them even if it's difficult, and even if they are quite different from our own family of origin. Lots of marriages break up over this; it can take a lot of work to figure out how to deal with the in-laws. The key for us has been acknowledging that by forming our own union, we became our own family, and that took precedence over previous family ties. If you're firm about that and set boundaries that are acceptable to you as a couple, and start from that place, a lot of external family conflict, manipulation, and  misunderstanding can be avoided, and the family dynamics will have less chance of negatively impacting your own relationship.

Consider that there may be a higher purpose for your partnership. It's often helped me to step back and think about why my husband and I are together. Whether you have spiritual views that include this sort of thinking or not, it helps to remember that committed relationships give us one of our best opportunities to grow, both individually and together. We are meant to grow throughout life, to become more fully human and more fully who we are meant to be. Relationships can help or hinder that; sometimes of course, we've gone as far as we can and the relationship can no longer serve that purpose. Love is a very healing and powerful force and if we go in the direction of love, with patience and a sense of wanting the best for the other person, the rough places can sometimes become plain, and a way opens.

We've been lucky, too: we found each other and it's worked out, and some of that is simply good fortune as well as work. The end of a marriage is not necessarily a failure; it happens. I had a brief first marriage that ended in divorce. I learned a lot from it, and we both moved on.

I hope that helps a little; may your marriage be happy and fulfilling for both of you!

High Summer

Yesterday, a letter to a friend:

Hot here – blueberries – corn – northern orioles and goldfinches and a fat woodchuck in the garden, waddling around totally unafraid with a big green apple in his mouth. Last night a bat got in through a crack above the screen and was flying around at 3:00 am in the bedroom – this is a normal summertime occurrence. We got up as it flew swooping circles around the room, then closed the bedroom door, and slept in the living room. In the morning I found it fast asleep behind the mirror above my dresser, so we took the mirror off the wall, put a little plastic container over it, and took the whole thing outside. The poor little bat was shaking when we uncovered it on the back porch, and panting with its mouth open; often they make a loud "get away from me!" squeaking sound but this one was mute in its fright. So I talked to it and told it to calm down and we left it there and went away; in a few minutes it must have taken off. Later on I took duct tape and taped the wobbly bedroom screens to the frame so that not even a bat with a collapsible body could squeeze through.

Wednesday is our 26th anniversary. On Sunday we drove up into the hills and hiked in to the spot where we were married. The trees have grown up a lot and what was once a near-360-degree view of Vermont has been reduced to glimpses in several directions, but it was just as beautiful as the morning we stood there waiting for the people we loved most to walk up the path through the field of Queen Anne's lace and black-eyed susans to witness our vows. A new friend went with us on Sunday, and as we stood on the ridge, remembering, she asked if we had written our own ceremony - yes - and then, what had we promised each other? "Well, not 'to obey!'" I answered, laughing. "We promised to be faithful and to stay together, and to give each other room enough to grow."