All It Takes Is A Little Love

When my husband was in graduate school his professors often invited him and a select few of his classmates to discussions at their homes. He took me along as an observer and the experience was delightful. Sitting in a small circle among people with brilliant minds reminded me of the Parisian salons of great authors, artists, and philosophers who ultimately influenced the world with their creative inventions. 

I usually sat mutely listening to the parlay of ideas about society and history. I was like a child with a big bowl of delicious ice cream lapping up the collective knowledge that hurdled the conversations forward. Many times the more experienced professors served as foils for the graduate students, asking them difficult questions, challenging them to defend their positions with logic and facts. I reveled in being present for such a glorious confluence of ideas. 

I learned about the cultures of ancient societies and the ideologies of modern day political thinkers. The students and their professors debated the very structures of how we humans choose to live in different parts of the world. They discussed the good, the bad and ugly of society, often finding flaws in the most admired civilizations and glimmers of brilliance in those most feared. I began to realize from those intellectual soirées that we humans have been searching for the best way of living since the beginning of time. I saw that even my great American democracy was founded by colonial intellectuals who forged a Constitution based on their studies of other great thinkers about society. 

Like the students of those informal convocations that I attended there have always been groups of people focused on open dialogue about human efforts to forge a way of living that creates better opportunities. Because we are each individuals with differing needs and desires the odds are fairly certain that we will disagree on what an ideal way of living should be. Thus from Socrates to Jame Madison to Karl Marx humanity has debated the possibilities of  how best to live together. In all likelihood the discourse and disputes will continue until the end of time.

We should not fear controversial ideas. Nor should we want to study only a watered down propagandized form of history. The more truths that we know, the better we will be to make our own informed decisions about the issues that have plagued societies since the beginning of time.  Unraveling the red thread of civilization is sometimes smooth and sometimes knotty, but always essential. It may frustrate us to face ideas outside of our bubbles of comfort, but having an open mind actually makes us stronger. We don’t have to feel guilty about the transgressions of our ancestors, but we should all want to learn from them. If the founders of the United States of America had been unwilling to question the status quo we might still be members of the United Kingdom. 

I truly love the Advanced Placement courses that my grandchildren took while in high school. I enjoyed the lively conversations I had with them as they breathlessly told me about things they had learned. They widened their perspectives without being propagandized. They learned how to consider the pros and cons of a challenging situation. They had to see the world from many different perspectives. 

Now that they are in colleges in different parts of the country they are learning about new cultures, different American experiences. Their professors are challenging them the way my husband’s professors confronted his thinking and asked him to consider views beyond the narrow constrictions of his upbringing. They are growing and becoming the kind of citizens that the world needs for the future. They excite me with their evolution as they use their new found knowledge to parse ideas with deep analysis rather than emotion. 

We sometimes fear that if we or our young are exposed to philosophies contrary to our own that we will be filled with guilt and confusion. I have found the opposite to be true. We become better able to discern the difference between lies and truth. We develop confidence and trust in a society that allows us to see reality as it is, not just as we wish it to be. Nothing makes any of us more angry than learning that facts have been purposely hidden from us. While honesty might initially be painful, it ultimately makes us feel more self-assured. 

I wish I could find a group like the one I sat with so long ago. I always felt the essence of what it means to be free in those sessions. I cherished my citizenship most when I saw people saying shocking things and not being imprisoned or silenced. The mark of a great democracy never lies in hiding from our divergent ways of thinking. It is to be found when we are not afraid to speak our minds or even to walk away. I want our young to know that kind of freedom.

I’m seeing and hearing the signs of spring. There are more birds chirping in the trees and on rooftops than there have been for many weeks. Weeds are popping up in my garden to herald the coming season when my amaryllis bulbs will burst forth in glory. My azalea bushes that suffered greatly during the brief freezes of winter along the Gulf Coast have already begun to bloom, even as their branches have not yet filled out with leaves. Days are longer and the world seems ready to rise again from its winter slumbers. 

I enjoy spring where I live as much as I enjoy the fall. While northern climes are still encased in snow and ice I put away my coats in favor of lightweight sweaters. My years old fur lined boots return to the back of the closet where they will rest until a rare freeze comes our way many months from now. It’s time to prepare for the burst of nature’s glory that brings flowers in March, not May. It’s a grand time to be outside now because the summer will be hot and humid and sometimes unbearable. 

Spring is a metaphor for things both poetic and spiritual. In my old occupation as a teacher it meant rushing to complete the the required curriculum before the testing season measured my success and that of my students. It was such a flurry of activity that the time from the end of February to the end of May seemed to pass like the blink of an eye. I only had time to tend my garden on the weekends when I would work in tandem with my neighbors who were also pampering their plants and their grass. 

When I retired I had more time to devote to the tasks that bring me so much joy. I was able to spend an entire day feeling, seeing, hearing the glorious symphony of the earth coming back to life. It was a soul soothing project that reconstituted my optimism each year. It reminded my of my roots, my ancestors who labored on the land, my grandmother who was a wizard of botanical magic. Somehow the mere act of putting my hands into the dirt let loose enough serotonin inside my brain to keep my spirits high for months to come. 

This year’s prelude to spring feels different from any I have had before. I have not yet been able to balance all of my responsibilities well enough to carve out a time to spend communing with the tiny bit of nature in my yard. I have to work around the needs of my father-in-law who is now a member of our household. He is a man of routine who also thinks of things that must be accomplished at the last minute. I can no longer rush outside early in the morning to engage in my gardening, nor can I work past five in the evening the way I have always done. I have to stop and start rather than becoming totally engrossed in my work. The effect is somehow not as pleasant as it has always been. 

I suppose that I too am a creature of habit but as I grow old I realize more and more that nothing lasts forever, not even treasured routines. Change is as inevitable as the seasons or an unexpected mid March frost. Like the plants that I attempt to revive I too must be wiling to undergo the cycles of life like those that affect the living things around me. I suppose that is I why I love nature so much. It fights to stay alive and often surprises us just when we think that it has lost the battle. 

One year I neglected to cover one of my most cherished hibiscus plants during a freeze. It looked totally dead and even many weeks into spring showed no signs of life. Somehow I was not willing to give up on the little bush so I dug it up from the ground and replanted it in a pot that I moved to an isolated spot in the yard. I checked on it periodically all throughout the summer until around August a tiny green sprout seemed to pop out from the trunk. Slowly a couple of leaves formed but not much else. When winter came I stored the sickly plant in the garage where it stayed safe during the coldest months. That spring new growth came quickly, but no blooms. I literally wondered if I had only saved a weed when almost two years later a beautiful flower burst forth. 

Living a good life requires patience and time. We will face challenges that seem capable of killing our spirit. With persistence and care we sometimes find that growing is disruptive and difficult. We may not see our progress for a very long time and then suddenly we will realize that we have indeed adapted and flourished. We leave the doldrums and feel a profound sense of accomplishment.

I love spring. I’ve already had a head start on the season. I’m pruning and fertilizing and mulching and purchasing native plants to accent my roses. I’m also adjusting and adapting to all the newness that is perhaps the most exciting aspect of life. 

It was a lovely early morning. I was completing the Wordle puzzle of the day while the sun slowly began to rise. The house was quiet as my husband and father-in-law continued to sleep. Only the sound of our heater humming to keep us warm on a cold winter day echoed in softly in the background. I felt blissful as I sipped on my tea and enjoyed the slow start of a new day. 

Suddenly the annoying roar of a leaf blower assaulted my calm. The darkness had barely gone away and yet there was a horrible drone that made my stomach clench ruining the peacefulness that had only recently hovered over my early morning rituals. Nothing about the moment felt right at just past seven in the a.m. I arose from the comfort of my chair to see who and what was daring to destroy the calm. I saw a landscaper working just down the street happily doing his job unaware of the commotion he had created. 

Of course I understood that he no doubt had many lawns to manicure before the shortened winter day turned dark once again. He was no doubt a hardworking man eager to take advantage of the first light of day, but did he really have to wake the dead with his raucous noise before eight in the morning? Had he even thought about those who might still be trying to sleep? I’m guessing that he never even considered such things. He was awake, so he assumed everyone else was as well. Never mind that a slumbering baby might now be crying or that an old man would be startled awake sooner than usual. Does he even realize how the loud drone of his blower at such an early time sets a disturbing tempo for the start of the day?

I know I sound like a grumpy old woman. I used to roll my eyes when I read about townships that outlawed blowers entirely or crafted rules that only allowed them to be used during certain hours. I found such ideas to be invasive, the stuff of demanding people who were unable to adjust to the needs of workers whose livelihoods depend on being the early bird. Suddenly I too was grumbling and complaining about noise like a grouch. Had I become a curmudgeon without even realizing it? Was I really so tied to my morning routine that I would not even be willing to show compassion for someone with work to do while I reveled in my retirement?

Once I quelled my irritation I felt a bit of shame. The commotion of noise only lasted about fifteen minutes and then it was silent again. I was none the worse for the brief interruption. My heartbeat slowed again and my breathing became calm. Perhaps it was silly of me to overreact. Still, I wonder if maybe a compromise might be in order. Perhaps such noisy work should not begin until eight in the morning. Maybe we all need to bend a little the help each other. Perhaps neither my routine nor his have to be set in stone. 

Life is like my morning was on that day. Things often happen when we least expect them. We make our plans believing that they will be fulfilled only to be faced with the unforeseen. It jolts us, makes us anxious, but if we wait just a bit most of us adjust to whatever situation has come our way. We’ve had a lot of adapting to do in the last few years. Our world has seemed to be spinning out of control. We have been jolted. Our routines have been tested. We’ve disagreed on how to deal with the many issues that strain our patience. 

Our challenges have been way more significant that being annoyed by the sound of a loud blower early in the morning. Many of our issues have been a matter of life and death. We’re all reacting to the startling feelings that such things cause. We want to blame someone, become angry with someone, when we really need to first calm down, allow our hearts to beat slower, our breaths to come more easily. When we quell our anxieties we are much more likely to realize that we survive best on this earth when we are able to work together with all of the flexibility that such an idea implies. 

The simple truth is that our world has been pounded by a novel virus that did its best to overwhelm our hospitals and our medical communities. We had to react with so little knowledge. We had to make decisions quickly. There were bumps and misfires just as such situations always cause. Those leading had to move quickly with very little knowledge about what was right and what was wrong. Over time as they learned more and more about the virus they were able to change. Missteps were not nefarious. They were only the result of needing to respond to the emergency without hesitation and then adjust and readjust as new information became available. We all participated in the scientific method at its best.Now that we are moving into a quieter phase of the endemic version of the virus we can still our hearts, slow our breathing. Our goal should not be to punish anyone who attempted to help us, but to study the situation and craft plans for the future health crises that may come our way. Even as we do this, we need to understand that our best laid plans may often go awry.

I overcame my anger over the leaf blower. I eventually understood that the poor man doing his work had no ill intent even if he did create a furor. He eventually went his way to tackle the next job. In truth any harm he had done in so crassly awakening the neighborhood went away as quickly as the sound of his droning machine did. There was no need to accuse him of being inconsiderate because I don’t think that was his intent at all. I was fine once I thought things through. Everyone was fine. Our little cul-de-sac returned to it’s peaceful routine. Perhaps that is what we all need to do now that the biggest danger of the virus seems to be dwindling. Nobody intended to make things hard for us during the last few years. The intentions were to keep us safe. How can we complain about that? 

If only everything in life were simple. How wonderful that would seem to be! Having an easy answer for every situation we face would appear to make all of our decision making so much less stressful. Anxieties would melt away, or would they? 

If we’ve lived more than just a minute we’ve learned that life can be complex, difficult. There is rarely a single answer for anything other than adding two plus two. Thinking and then doing is an intricate process that often leads to disagreements and taking sides. How and what we choose to do or not to do, say or not say affects our lives in so many different ways. If we are wise we will realize that there is rarely one way of believing or doing things that works for everyone. Thus we tend to become more willing to accept our differences as a necessary given in life. 

Religion and politics often ask us to choose one or the other. Proponents of a particular set of values and beliefs want to think that they have found the one and only valid way to approach life. In truth the “facts” that they present to persuade us to accept their philosophies are often more likely to be only “opinions.” 

History is replete with individuals or groups insisting that their views are the only valid ones that we should consider. Humans have been divided and conquered from the beginning of time by arguments that favor one person, group or country over another. In spite of a multitude of religious beliefs we are encouraged to embrace only one as the truth. So it is also true of political, cultural and societal canons. Unraveling the tangled ball of human ideas is a lifetime project that never seems to have a clear conclusion. 

We appear to agree that it is wrong to kill another person, but even that concept becomes blurred when we excuse ourselves for ending lives in war or punishing a criminal by death. We say that we should not steal from others, but we have been known to take the freedoms of other humans and then find excuses for misappropriating their liberties. Looking away from our contradictions and pretending that they don’t matter can be more comforting than facing our complexities and asking, “Why?”

I have greatly enjoyed my work with young people because they are never afraid of pushing back, noticing contradictions, thinking about fairness. Sadly as adults we too often squelch their attempts to make sense of the world around them. We may hide controversies and insist that they accept a standard point of view in an effort to protect them from unpleasantries. Instead we may find that allowing them to question the status quo and respecting their thoughts as they proclaim them is a better way of helping them to begin the process of making their own decisions about how to take on the looming specter of adulthood that lies before them. 

A toddler will ask “why” a hundred times a day, but as children grow older they often learn that asking too many questions, seeking too many answers is not always admired by society. They begin to hide the true thoughts running through their minds and seek like minded people to reinforce their beliefs rather than feeling free to explore the many ideas of humankind. Their natural inclination to constantly seek real answers begins to shrivel up and fall victim to propaganda and even lies. 

As a teacher I encouraged my students to have the courage to ask questions, lots of questions. I often explained that authoritarians throughout history have attempted to deny people the freedom to think out of the box. We talked about the torture of Galileo for daring to claim that the sun is the center of the universe and not the earth. I told them about political regimes that first imprisoned the teachers and journalists and historians to quiet the sounds of their voices. I suggested that having a variety of books to read was one of their greatest freedoms because in many times and places what people might choose to read was constricted to conform to a particular set of beliefs. I even reminded them that slaves were often kept ignorant of learning to keep both their bodies and their minds in chains. 

I remember one of my students returning as an adult to tell me that he had seen such constrictions on the freedom to think when he served as a soldier in Iraq. He spoke of how he thought of my insistence that unbiased education should be one of our most cherished freedoms. He saw firsthand how outlawing openness of thought created violent governments rather than functioning democracies. He fully understood the importance of allowing the free flow of ideas.

In the present time we seem to be engaged in a dangerous culture war in which many among us want to encase prohibitions into law. Some worry about exposing our children to what they see as radical ideas. They view open dialog as being propaganda rather that the exercise of freedom. They want to “protect” the young from thinking that runs counter to their own, little realizing that a curious young person will always find a way to seek the truth. They do not seem to understand that discussions without condemnation lead to better answers than groping in the dark. 

I trust the young. I know them to have good hearts and excellent minds. They are more than willing and capable of learning not “what to think,” but “how to think.” That process often requires thinking out of the box and considering all of the many points of view. I believe in the long run they will be better able to make the difficult but informed decisions of adulthood when we have challenged them with a multitude of ideas rather than feeding them only what we want them to believe.   

I’ve always had a thing for documentaries. I’m up for watching even the ones that don’t appear to be particularly exciting or interesting. I usually learn something new no matter what the topic might be. Some of the stories stick with me for days like a little worm moving around in my brain. After the viewing I find myself googling for more information, a deeper understanding of what I have seen. I think about the issues and the people long after I have watched the accounts so carefully crafted to command my attention in today’s world of twenty four hour news, podcasts, and human interest programming. So when my daughter told me about Grey Gardens, a film from an earlier time that had somehow eluded my attention, I had to find out for myself what had so fascinated her.

Way back in nineteen seventy five when I was a very young mom running after my pre-school aged children Grey Gardens premiered in New York City with great fanfare. It instantly became a cult classic as well as a model of filming for future documentarians. It focused on two women, an aunt and a first cousin of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The two had become the object of curiosity when the story of their downfall from high society broke the news mostly because of their connection to their famous relative. The once well known socialite ladies were living in squalor inside a twenty eight room mansion in East Hampton, an enclave for the rich and famous. 

A news story depicting their predicament and noting their relationship with the former first lady revealed that dozens of feral cats were roaming freely through the rooms. Holes in the roof and the walls attracted raccoons. There was no electricity or running water and every nook and cranny was piled high with refuse, empty cans of cat food, and feces. Paper and household items were strewn everywhere. The once lovely gardens had become like the briar patch in the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. The mother and daughter had themselves become a conundrum given their backgrounds. It was difficult to know whether they had somehow become mentally ill or if they were simply and exceedingly quirky. They became fodder for gawkers. 

Eventually Jackie O and her sister Lee rescued their aunt and cousin by helping to restore the home to a somewhat sanitary state of its former self. Crews came to repair the roof, the plumbing and the wiring. They removed the animals and the trash. They patched the holes in the walls and painted the rooms. Both Jackie and Lee lovingly visited with their Aunt Edith and cousin Edie, known fondly as Big and Little Edie. Lee also contracted with a film crew to document the quirky duo as part of an effort to create an historical record of the Bouvier family. The result would be different from the initial plan as the brothers realized that in the footage of the interesting mother and daughter they had the makings of an astounding documentary. They called it Grey Gardens and it took on a life of itself, attracting the attention of artists like Andy Warhol  and Calvin Klein. It was an instant classic and model for documentaires to come.

Edith Bouvier Beale was a beautiful woman who married a wall street lawyer and lived a life of privilege and luxury. She had three children including her eldest daughter, Edith Beale, who attended finishing schools and came out at debutante balls. Both women were beautiful, but the younger Edith was particularly striking and is said to have been offered proposals of marriage from Joe Kennedy, Jr., J Paul Getty and Howard Hughes. She was a stunning blue eyed blonde haired beauty who longed to be an actress, much to her father’s sorrow. Her love of singing and dancing and acting seemed to come from her mother, Big Edie, who fancied herself a woman of great musical talent. 

Little Edie lived in New York City as a young woman while her mother stayed back at the elegant home in East Hampton. Eventually Big Edie received a telegram from her husband informing her that he was filing for a divorce. His settlement would be to leave her the house and a stipend of one hundred fifty dollars a month, which was actually rather generous given the times. Sadly Big Edie had no idea how to run a household on her own, especially one that was so large and eventually she enticed Little Edie to return to East Hampton to help her. The two women would spend the next many decades in obscurity and poverty becoming more and more isolated from the world. 

Their story is a mix of contradictions. They developed a love/hate kind of relationship in which Big Edie dominated Little Edie who longed to be independent of both her mother and the house. They quibbled constantly but also seemed to enjoy each other immensely. Little Edie lost her lovely golden locks of hair and out of necessity created coverings for her head out of whatever fabric she might find. As her figure changed she fashioned quirky clothing out of tablecloths and recycled and reconfigured skirts and dresses. She had a flair for fashion and even though she had aged somewhat prematurely, her beauty was still apparent as was her creative bent which had never been adequately satisfied. 

Big and Little Edie were women of their times and stations, trained from their youth to be beautiful extensions of wealthy men. They had grown up in a gilded age of servants and opulence. When all of that was suddenly gone, they struggled to survive on their own, but somehow managed even in terrible conditions. They both lived in a kind of time warp of fantasy punctuated by reality with Big Edie insisting that life had always been good and Little Edie longing for the freedom that she believed had been stolen from her. 

The story of these two women is so fascinating that I watched the documentary and also the television movie of the same name that featured Drew Barrymore as Little Edie and Jessica Lange as Big Edie. I found myself haunted by their story because it was so indicative of the fate of women in their era who had to fulfill their obligations as wives and caretakers first and foremost without allowances for their own dreams. They lived well or horrifically at the whims of the men in their lives. Remaining true to their own personalities was difficult given the dependency on men that most women of the times had to patiently endure. Both Big and Little Edie struggled to maintain their identities but never totally gave in to the demands that had been made of them. Along the way they became caricatures of themselves who seemed comical but were actually quite strong.

Big Edie died a year after the documentary premiered and Little Edie eventually realized her dream of entertaining by performing in a Greenwich Village cabaret. She finally sold the house known as Grey Gardens and toured the world. Later she settled in Florida where she lived well into her eighties celebrating her life her own way just as it should always have been. The house where the two Edies once lived has been beautifully restored by powerful women, artists who were allowed to be themselves and succeed. Somehow the circle of the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale, Edith Beale and Grey Gardens has been completed just as it should always have been.