All It Takes Is A Little Love

But for the serendipity of life I might have been an English teacher. After all I had imagined myself sitting on a high stool, swathed in a shawl, speaking of the human experience that is chronicled in literature and poetry. Because I had balanced my college course work with classes in mathematics I was instead redirected by the very first principal for whom I worked. I would end up spending most of my career explaining the beauty of the many threads of mathematics that tie together the inner workings of our world. 

It was an interesting and quite creative gig indeed, one rarely critiqued by students, parents or school administrators who often noted how difficult they had found math to be. I had the advantage of knowing things that sometimes mystified them. I’d often hear confessions of regret for not becoming better versed in the finer points of algebra or geometry. Most of the blame for that omission was placed on a lack of interest or a belief that nobody in the genetic line of the family had ever been particularly good at ciphering. Rarely was a mathematics teacher attacked for wanting to corrupt the minds of students with the highly structured scope and sequence of the curriculum.

On the other hand it seemed to be the English and History teachers who were the most likely to enrage protective parents who demanded that teachers proceed with caution. They had to carefully craft their lesson plans lest someone disagree with their methods or choice of books. While outrage was a minimal experience during my days inside schools, it seems now to have reached a fever pitch in which almost everything that teachers do is measured against the unique beliefs of individual families. Even the manner in which concepts are taught has come under scrutiny. It’s enough to drive wary educators out of the profession.

When I was in high school my English teacher was the king of his domain. He saw it as his duty to expose us to a cosmopolitan world view. As such we read books that challenged our limited thinking and expanded our willingness to think about differing ways of living. He took us to the Alley Theater to watch plays that were charged with adult topics. He told us about new books that were filled with controversy. He admitted that he wanted to make us citizens of the world. As a result he became the favorite teacher of virtually every student who ever sat in his classroom. We were fascinated by breaking the bonds of our isolated lives and learning about other cultures and lifestyles. 

Years later when I had worked my way up the career ladder to become the Dean of Faculty I watched another gifted English teacher expounded on the human experience with no holds barred. He opened the eyes of his students by showing them how intertwined we all are with a complex world. He allowed them to think for themselves and encouraged them to develop compassion for their fellow humans.

It pains me to observe the many misunderstandings about what English and History teachers are attempting to convey to their students. I can’t understand how being honest about what is happening around us can be misjudged as grooming or some kind of evil intent. Avoiding uncomfortable topics does not protect young people, but hiding reality from them might impede their growth into mature adults able to think critically about the situations that most certainly will challenge them. 

In the past year I have seen the difference between myself and my father-in-law who is only about twenty years older than I am. He grew up in a small town where economic and social divisions were pronounced. His worldview is defined by restrictions and the kind of thinking that comes from being unfamiliar with people not like himself. His upbringing is not uncommon at all for those in age group known sometimes as the traditionalists. His experience with other races or lifestyles has always been limited by the fences that were built to protect him.

By both happenstance and education my enclosures were knocked down. My life changed dramatically at several junctures and forced me into environments quite different from the one that my parents had originally designed for me. My education included the glorious freedom introduced by my English teacher and then expanded by other educators down the road. These influences have made more open to people who may at first seem unlike me but whom I ultimately know to be universally tied to me by our respective journeys through life. Good teachers have shown me how to relate with people from hundreds of years ago who may have been different in dress or custom, but who ultimately felt the same kind of emotions that I experience.  

Living out our lives can feel frightening and even dangerous at times. Going it alone or from the perspective of a limited range of people can make our journeys more difficult. Books and writings now being deemed to be controversial by those who would ban them are in reality a bridge to understanding and kindness. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Kite Runner, Things Fall Apart may cause us to cry or even become angry but mostly they demonstrate the resilience and goodness of people that helps them to defy even the most difficult situations with grace and honor. 

As a parent and grandparent I appreciate the teachers who have made my loved ones more open to new ways of viewing their fellow humans. Knowing about racism has not made them feel guilty, it has challenged them to be kinder and more fair. Learning about differences in lifestyles has not groomed them, it has made them more understanding and loving. Banning things is not the answer. Prohibition of alcohol quite clearly proved the ridiculousness of foisting a one size fits all way of living on an entire population. The much better way is to expand the possibilities of our young by helping them to become citizens of the world. The human experience is often more alike than different. Let’s help our children to realize that important feature of being part of the entire world, not just a tiny piece of it.

Rocky Mountain National Park is one of my favorite destinations. I would visit there at least once a year if I were able to do so. The drive from my home is a long one that winds its way through two possible routes both of which take me through small towns that sometimes look as though they have been abandoned. For a long time, what I did not know about such places is that they are remnants of one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the United States. These are areas in the Southern Plains where tall prairie grasses once boasted herds of buffalo that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They are in lands where Native American tribes roamed freely in concert with nature. They were once claimed by France and Spain. Originally they part of what was called The Great American Desert. 

After Thomas Jefferson purchased a huge swath of land from France he sent the Army Corps of Engineers to survey the land and determine how useful it might be for pioneers hungry to move west. The report indicated that much of the land in the Southern Plains was uninhabitable. Thus it became known as a desert best left to the buffalo and the wild grasses that grew there. 

The growth of the population of the United States in the years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War saw families continually pushing west in search of the American dream. Texas had gained its independence from Mexico and when it became a state it took on its iconic shape as it left part of its real estate to become the panhandle of Oklahoma. It stopped at the thirty sixth parallel so that it its borders would not go into the area that would have prohibited slavery.

The parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas that were adjacent to one another had mostly been ignored by settlers. After Native Americans were moved from their land, the territory became the domain of ranchers and cowboys raising cattle and horses on the wide open plains. The prairie grasses were a cornucopia for the livestock which roamed as freely as the almost extinct buffalo had once done.

With the coming of railroads states enticed farmers to settle in the areas that had once been thought to be unfit for growing anything but grass. With the lure of cheap land and a slice of soil to call home many Americans and even immigrants from Europe came to the strange places and set up homesteads in sod houses built underground. Aside from the German Russians who had grown wheat on the steppes of Eastern Russia, few who came were well versed in how to tame the land. All they knew was that wheat was in demand and so they began to dig up the grass that had secured the soil for thousands of years to plant the seeds of wheat that they hoped would provide them with the wealth they dreamed of owning. 

What they found was uncertainty. Some years were wet and the wheat crops were good. Other years were dryer than anything they had ever witnessed and nothing grew. They were held captive to the whims of nature but they persevered. World War I gave them an advantage because the war in Europe made wheat grown there rather scarce. A boon for the farmers ensued that enticed more people to come to set up farms. As they arrived more and more of the land lost the native grasses.

The nineteen twenties were so good for the wheat farmers that they plowed up more and more land and took out loans to build regular houses to replace their sod structures. They purchased cars and pianos and put wall paper on the walls. It seemed as though the naysayers who had warned then not to count on the land for their existence had been wrong. Towns like Dalhart, Texas, Clayton, New Mexico, and Boise City, Oklahoma were thriving as more and more grass disappeared under the plow. 

Then the dry years came in brutal succession along with the stock market crash that heralded the Great Depression. Not only did the crops not grow, but the banks that had house the savings for such years had failed leaving the farmers with no means of paying their debts or even purchasing food for their families. With the land lying fallow the winds created huge dust storms so incredible that they moved through the air like dark monsters. Everything was covered in dust including eyes and throats and lungs. The animals became weak and began to die. The people began to lose hope. 

It has been difficult to read about this man made tragedy in the pages of an incredible book, The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan. I have seen the remnants of the disaster that occurred almost one hundred years ago in places that might have survived the ravages of the nineteen thirties but for human ignorance, greed and hubris. As with all tragic stories there were warnings of what might happen that were willfully ignored. It only took fifty years  for humans to obliterate the animal and plant life that nature had so wisely nurtured for thousands of years. In spite of warnings from Native Americans, cowboys and conservationists the land was abused and its answer to the humans was to turn against them in the most horrific ways. 

Those places through which I have travelled time and again became known as the Dust Bowl. The horror of that era sent countless families in search of new places to live out in California and Washington State. It created a massive migration of people who may or may not have learned important lessons about being stewards of the land.

Eventually with the introduction of better farming methods some of the area became fruitful once again but the scars of that horrific time remain and the dust still blows through the towns. Dalhart is little more than a dot on a map, a little place with a grain elevator and a set of railroad tracks. In some places there are abandoned homes that still sit on land that seems to have been forgotten.

I wonder if we have really learned anything about how our actions affect the places where we live. Drought has returned again and become a kind of plague of late and still the building goes on in places that are already showing signs of running out of water. Rivers and lakes that once brought irrigation are barely trickles. The aquifers that provide precious water are being emptied faster than they are revitalized. Will we humans once again ignore the warning signs and send ourselves into desperate times? Will we wait until the pain is brutal to honor the land and do the things that we must do to assure our own survival? I wonder and my thoughts become quite dark. The stories of the past are our warning. I hope we head them.

I belong to various and sundry social media groups, but I have never bothered to join TikTok. Nonetheless I encounter snippets from that site quite often and generally enjoy the innovative posts that have come my way. One of the most unusual ideas I have learned about from TikTok is something called “bed rotting.” 

I have not taken enough time to thoroughly investigate this new trend but I get the idea that it involves spending time in bed that includes eating and entertaining in addition to sleeping. In other words it is abut staying in bed not so much to rest or recover from an illness, but just to escape for a time from the responsibilities of life. It is an intriguing concept that I suppose is somewhat similar if not precisely the same as what I have always called a “mental health day.”

I’m a rather energetic, Type A, go getter who adheres to a balanced routine of work, exercise and relaxation in generally the same parts each day. I tend to go through a typical day mentally meeting the demands of a self derived checklist of activities, grading myself on how well I have done in reaching my goals. It’s a lifestyle that has generally served me well, but now and again I wake up feeling as though I have hit a wall full force. On those days my level of motivation seems to be extremely low. I am tired and the aches and pains in my body seem more pronounced. I don’t actually have a fever or any kind of symptoms that might relate to an illness. I simply feel as though I have run out of fuel. That is when I decide that it is imperative to spend a day being uncharacteristically lazy. 

I give myself permission to accomplish nothing on my mental health days and I spend most of my time “rotting” in bed if you will. I take my meals there, read there, and periodically nap there. I might find a good movie to watch or take in every episode of a series. I vegetate alone with the blinds drawn shut and with news of the world unwelcome. 

It is not depression that puts me in that state. It is exhaustion from my attempts at creating perfect days, a perfect life. Sometimes I just need to let the dust accumulate on the surfaces and the crumbs stay on the floor. For a day I indulge in sloth without a shred of guilt. I know that it is something I must do to restore the energy that normally has me racing from one project to another. I’m like an electric car that needs a charge. I plug myself into the comfort of my bed and don’t budge until I feel the electricity coursing through my brain and my body once again. 

I’m not sure how I feel about the nomenclature of “bed rotting” because in my case an extended day in bed is more about recharging. The effect of my lazy day is stimulating. It enhances my abilities to work harder and longer. It brings me back to life. I know when I need such time alone as surely as when I notice that it is time to replenish the food in my pantry. Mental health days are a gift that I give myself whenever my energy and enthusiasm flags. 

I am known for being a bonafide introvert which means that I can be as social as anyone, but I regain my energy from being by myself or at least in a small group setting among people that I trust implicitly. I generally prefer social gatherings that are intimate rather than big parties that only allow superficial interactions. Such occasions are draining for me. They deplete my energy enough that I sometimes feel as though I am rushing toward the act of hitting a wall much more quickly than usual. I don’t always need a mental health day to recover from such gayety, but I usually spend a bit more time meditating alone after such celebrations. 

I can spend days and even weeks with a small group and not feel uncomfortable, but large reunions or travel groups bring me discomfort. I have to find quiet corners to replenish my energy and my joy. It’s one of the reasons that I have never been able to sign up for a cruise. I can’t imagine having to eat at a table with strangers and engage in a kind of forced party mode. I know such things are fun for most people, but they feel toxic to me. 

Ironically I never felt overwhelmed by working in classrooms filled with young people. My teaching work was challenging and tiring but it rarely depleted my energy, The dynamic was such that I knew how to control the pace of interaction and the joy that I felt from having an important purpose each day only added to my store of vitality. I had no need to rot in bed. 

I’ve laughed at the terminology used to describe the supposedly new trend of “bed rotting’ . Doctors and therapists are weighing in with discussions of the pros and cons of engaging in such a practice. They warn that it may be a sign of purposeful isolation or hidden difficulties that may lead to both mental and physical health issues. I tend to think that maybe it’s mostly just a way of getting away for a time.

I suppose that making a continual habit of staying in bed all day might indeed be a bad thing, but my own experience is that now and again it’s like taking a vacation without leaving home. It can be a joyful and restful experience that responds to the needs of the body and the mind to cool down and relax. It’s not for everyone, but for those of us who recharge in quiet ways, it is a godsend that allows us to get back to our Type A personality traits quickly. I for one intend to continue rotting in bed when the mood strikes me. It can be a wonderful panacea for the trials that we face.

I suppose that one of my pet peeves is observing how often we humans judge others. I’m not exactly a scholar of the Bible but there are certain words from Jesus that have inspired my behavior toward my fellow humans. One is his admonition, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” In others words, there are few among us who have never done anything wrong and yet we all too often find it exciting to hear about the hidden secrets of people who we know or think we have a right to know. Perhaps because we are all too aware of our own failings, it is a relief to learn that even the mighty have feet of clay. 

People have gathered to gossip for all time. If that were not so Jesus would not have needed to remind us to “judge not lest we be judged.” Somehow we believe his words, but still take delight in hearing about someone’s struggles, particularly if we have never liked that person. History is replete with scandals made even more difficult by whispers. Alexander Hamilton might have been one of the most important individuals in the early days of our nation, but he was not immune from wagging tongues. 

So it has been with people both famous and ordinary. Many private lives have ruined by those who seem to believe that they are perched on the moral high ground. They pontificate about how they would do things differently from those whom they have judged to be among the fallen. They spread rumors and boast of how shocked they are by behaviors that they are certain they would never embrace. Instead of showing compassion and attempting to help they place individuals in judgmental categories ranging from angels to sinners.

I know countless people who have struggled with addictions or who have loved ones who are afflicted with untamed cravings for drugs or alcohol or food or gambling or even money. They are good souls dealing with a heavy burden of sorrow and confused feelings about why such things are happening in their families. They want to do what is right, but knowing exactly what that should be is often confusing. They exist in a constant state of anxiety wondering whom they might trust and who will use their tragedy against them. 

There was a time when we were not bounded with twenty four hour news publicly analyzing every aspect of famous peoples’ lives. Perhaps the story of Princess Diana should be a parable of warning to all us who encourage and devour journalism that invades and judges the most private moments of an individual. Even the most elevated among us are ultimately human. Having their innermost secrets on display tears them down, often leading to tragedies that needn’t have happened. The salacious stories of Diana and the rush to get a headline by stalking her led to her death and in many ways to the emotional difficulties of her son, Harry. 

When we attack someone for our own entertainment we include all of those who love that person in the misery. The feathers of gossip fly everywhere  making it almost impossible to ever again gather them back. Just as we would not want to be on trial for each of our mistakes or for the times when we failed to be our best selves, so too is it wrong for any of us to think that we have a right to spread tales about the people around us or even famous folks whom we don’t really know. How can any of us ever understand the feelings of another or the reasons why they have behaved in certain ways that confound us? Why do we link the actions of one member of a family to others?

My Uncle William was one of the kindest most empathetic people I have ever known. He somehow understood the need for compassion even toward the most evil actions that people perform. He demonstrated this to me time and again. 

Uncle William was a mailman who worked his entire career in the same neighborhood. One of the homes where he left mail belonged to a widowed woman whose son was convicted of a heinous crime. The young boy had ultimately gone to the police to admit that he had been bringing victims to a man who would torture and then kill the innocents. The story of the crimes was almost unbelievable in its depths of depravity and made even more real to Uncle William by the fact that he had often stopped to talk with the boy on his route. 

In his usual mode, my Uncle William grieved for those who had been so viciously murdered, but he also found sympathy for the widowed mother of the boy who had been so heavily involved in the tragedy. He told me that she was a good woman who had struggled to keep her home and to provide for her son, but she pushed on in spite of the challenges. He revealed that the incident had broken her heart and his as well. He even opined that if he had known how desperate the family’s situation had been he might have done more to help both the mother and her son. What Uncle William did not do is attempt to repeat more rumors or judge anyone involved. His response seemed to be an understanding that circumstances can become so dire that terrible choices are sometimes made.

If only we encouraged more kindness and less revelry over the downfall of those around us, perhaps we might begin to heal as families and nations. We never really know what it may be like for those who are dealing with incredible problems. We only intensify the difficulties when we speculate or lay blame. Instead we might simply love those who are attempting to deal with the kind of tragedies that we hope we will never have to endure. We need to set down our stones and first consider our own defects before making ourselves judges and juries.  

Every human has a family saga which may or may not be known depending on how much our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles are willing to share with us. Tracking down my own history has been rather difficult given that my father died when I was only eight, a time before I had even thought to question him about his ancestors. My mother was mostly tight lipped, given to very little discussion about her life as a child or the stories of her mother and father. I have been forced to piece together an incomplete puzzle with many missing pieces and even contradictions. I have only been able to trace the long lineage of my grandmother Minnie Bell Smith. Knowledge of every other grandparent ends with mostly questions.

There are those who see little value in tracking down the names of the people whose lives trickled down to the moment of our own births. They seem to think that knowing our origins does nothing to change who we actually are, but I am of a mind that those names from the past provide us with important knowledge about ourselves. Through them we are able to follow the amazing journey of our little branch of humankind. 

Perhaps the most stunning absence of information comes from my paternal grandfather, the ultimate storyteller who inspired me to record my own tales of living. Even he was somewhat uncertain about just how he came to be. All he knew was that his mother died within days of giving birth to him. He thought her name was Marion Rourke, but I have been unable to find any evidence that she even existed. His father was James Mack, a man who was seemingly overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising a child alone. His response to the tragedy was to take his infant son to a woman named Sarah Reynolds whom my grandfather knew as his grandmother. 

None of these people show up in official records even though they presumably were living somewhere in either North Carolina or Virginia. Their connections with each other are not to be found in marriage licenses, birth records, or even census documents. It is as though all of them were flying under the radar, ciphers in their own presence. Years of research and DNA testing have yielded nothing to verify that my grandfather even had parents or grandparents, but of course he must have had ancestors like the rest of us. 

Grandpa told me that his beloved grandmother died when he was thirteen. Since he was a minor he had to have a guardian to administer the small inheritance that his grandmother left him. At court the judge allowed him to choose the person that he wanted to guide him into adulthood. Given his lack of contact with his birth father for most of his life, he asked the judge to name an uncle named John Little to be his official guardian.

John Little was an honorable man according to Grandpa. He had attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and my grandfather so admired him that he ultimately changed his own name from Mack to Little. He kept his father’s name as his middle name which became a nickname among his friends and coworkers who often referred to him as Mack.

I have found John Little and know who his family was. I can trace his ancestry far back in time, but I have never been able to find any kind of connection between him and my grandfather. I even tried contacting John Little’s descendants to find out it any of them knew how he was an uncle to my Grandpa. 

Unfortunately John Little died in Puerto Rico. A deadly hurricane had devastated the island country in 1900, and Captain Little was sent to help in the aftermath. While there he contracted typhus and died leaving a young wife and an infant daughter. It is likely that his early demise left much to be learned about his own story, leaving his descendants to wonder why I seemed to think that he was somehow one of my ancestors as well. 

We humans have a desire to know who we are, how our stories began. I can follow a thread all the way back to Norwegian Vikings in my Grandmother Minnie Bell’s line. I at least know who my Slovakian great great and great great great grandparents were even though I never had an opportunity to quiz my grandparents about their lives before boarding steamships and traveling to Galveston, Texas where their life in America began. 

Three fourths of who I am is hidden in the mists of history, but I have a determination to somehow solve the mystery. I am connected to my ancestors by threads that seem broken, but surely there is a knot somewhere that will lead me back along the journey that those people took. Somehow I feel them calling to me, wanting me to know them even in very small ways. I know that they matter. I believe that they want me to know them so that I might be the voice of their stories. Somewhere out there are the answers.