Burchfield: My Writing Teacher

Meg and I spent the morning at the Burchfield Art Gallery. My eye kept looking at his sketches and the paintings they became.

Barnspotting

Some men love beautiful women, some love fast cars, loud engines, bright colors. Me. I love old barns, those fading cathedrals of the American lanmdscape. Look fast for they will soon be gone, replaced by dry, humorless steel structures, durable, practical and dull. But not yet. Not while a few hardy souls endure to admire them..
Whenever I drive on the blue highways and lost backroads, I keep my eyes peeled. Even a mundane journey becomes an adventure when you are searching out these treasures.. I’ve even trained my family in the finer points of barnspotting. We search for sagging roofs and leaning walls. Even better if if they are located on an aptly named road. One favorite barn stood proudly on Hencoop road. And though the days of cows and hens are long gone in this part of the county, this particular barn has hung on long past logic and the push of gravity. The only animals inside are a flock of swallows who mark the season by flying elaborate parabolas in and out of the open loft door. It’s a hypnotic scene where time and space have diminished.

Today, I am standing outside my father’s old barn on Meacham Hill road. It has now faded to the color of last year's harvest washed by spring rains. The back end has collapsed. The sides have buckled dangerously. Is it strong enough to stand the strain of winter's greedy fingers?
Dad’s old barn was just like him: solid and built to last. It has heavy posts and hand cut beams that weathered ninety seasons of rain and snow and wind and sun. This cathedral of America’s agricultural past stood as a silent outpost, calm and surreal, in the face of history’s racing storms.
Like the stately barns in Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels, my old barn reflects and absorbs the sights and sounds of the timeless past. Scientists tell us that our sense of smell is the best memory cue. One step inside the barn brings unique odors found no where else. These smells conjure pastoral images which I can picture perfectly though I have never experienced them personally. The wood has sponged the seasons of birthing and milking cattle making them real and present even though a cow has not set foot in here for over thirty years!
We spent many summers here, far from the joys of television or the pleasures of baseball. Instead, my father bought bundles of hay so that my brother and I could dive from its loft. We created an amusement park in our imagination and the unique geography inside the old barn. A tough climb, we pulled ourselves up along the narrow ledge and swung our feet out over our heads. Imagine the world upside down, a spider's crawl, until we reached our goal. Swallows squawked, their slumbers disturbed. The ancient floor creaked with each step. Dust motes floated everywhere.
Although it was only a fifteen-foot drop to the ground, we felt we were on the edge of a sheer mountainside ready to leap into oblivion. The hay, waiting to break our fall, seemed hardly visible from this altitude.
"Brian, you can go first," I offered generously.
Brian made a determined effort to jump; a sick smile unfolded across his face. Bent legs. Arms back. Ready . Set. FREEZE.
"No. You're the oldest. You go first."
Already I could feel the cold sweat running sprints down my spine. Suddenly the world was completely silent. No flies buzzed. No winds blew. Time itself held its breath. I crouched down a little as though it would bring me a few precious inches closer to the soft bales below.
In that instant I became airborne. The exhilarating mixture of fear and joy suspended me somewhere between heaven and earth. I floated like a spider. I hovered like a hawk. I buzzed like a bee. I dropped like a stone. And then I was buried up to my neck in hay. Sweet hay. The last straw. Brian followed moments later screaming all the way down.
I will never forget the ripe smell of that hay, perfume for the sweaty backs of boys. We sang the music of childhood all that summer - jumping, falling, spinning, and screaming for all our lungs were worth.

Now I wonder how long this old barn will manage to stand? Already the bleak mountain nights of are notching a calendar of decline along its tired sides. Up above in the pure summer air, the stars whirl benevolently trooping from the woods and arranging themselves in familiar constellations. Autumn brings the promise of frost and heavy burdens for its sagging roof. But here in the bright Saturdays of summer, anything is possible. Life seems infinite and full of promise before the dark days of winter ahead. The old barn is alive, a slow growing crop at home in the living fields. I would hate to see it fall while the wind still whistles through its sagging rafters.
I would hate to see it fall while the swallows sweep its loft for nesting.
I would hate to see it fall while the eggs are cracking and another good summer waits right around the corner.

It is the summer of 1845. You have spent the last few weeks clearing some land near Walden Pond. The land belongs to your friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, but he is happy to lease it to you for the grand experiment. Experiment your call it. Like many events in your life you prefer to think of this as an experiment. A test filled with amazing questions.. What kind of life will you live. How close can a human live with nature. And so with an ax, borrowed from Bronson Alcott and with the help of a few close friends like Ellery Channing and Minot Pratt you have built a small home of your own for the grand total of $28. 16 1/2. Now, by living simply, you will have a chance to do the things you've always dreamed of. "Be self - reliant," said Mr. Emerson and so you will be self reliant. You will watch the cycles of the seasons, not from a distance, but from close up. Evenings on the pond are still. Only the cricket sings and the distant bells from Bedford remind you that you indeed are not alone.
You have looked at the grand mansions in Boston and the stately homes along the Main streets of Concord. They have many rooms but they don’t have room enough for you. Your new home, built with your own hands and furnished with your own heart, is just large enough to keep company out of the rain. Your great room is all the room outdoors: walking around Walden pond, trekking through the woods up toward Fairhaven bay, talking to the fishermen and ice choppers and woodmen. You need room to let your thoughts roam among the stars on the backs of owls when they hover in the night sky.
Sometimes the railway passes by. Its long mournful whistle summons you from sleep as it hurries passengers back and forth from Boston. The world is shrinking, but as people hurtle by they forget to notice the spider building its geometric web or the elegant sculpture of a snow drift. So now you are the self appointed inspector of snowstorms. You will survey the territories of the snow flake. You will take the time to look and see the stars wink on one by one, their beautiful light is reflected in the clear waters of Walden. For the next two years you will hear as you've never heard before, you will see as you've never seen before. You will walk in the dark and follow a light of your own making. After all, the sun is but a morning star.

On The Concord River

What is it about rivers? They pull us in and push us along. Sometimes, a river will sweep us away, but I think that is only because they get excited when we accept their invitation. Funny, I live right near a famous river, the Niagara. I have swam in it, boated on it, walked along it and have been hypnotized by it. Meg and I love to drive along the Niagara from Fort Erie to Niagara on the Lake. Such a slow and pretty drive.

Still, I don't feel the warm attachment to this river that I do for the Concord River in Massachusetts. The Niagara is a powerful god , a Poseidon the earth shaker, a ribbon of fear that sweeps toward oblivion at Niagara Falls. If the Niagara is time then the Falls are the fearful Apocalypse that lurks in the darker pages of the Bible.

The Concord is the river of peace. I prefer its Indian name, the Musketaquid or river of grassy banks. This river moves so slowly that Nathaniel Hawthorne, an avid boater, was never sure of the direction of its current when he lived up at Emerson's Old Manse.

I have walked and paddled on the Concord many times. It is never a fearful place, even when I was caught in a rainstorm a few years ago. The trees and bridges seem to spring up when shelter is required. The gentle river is always inviting and protective.

As I floated down the Concord with Meg and Nora just two weeks ago, I couldn't help but recall my secret image of this river as time. In fact, the Concord is timeless. We floated past 18th Century farm houses. I could clearly feel and see Emerson walking along the banks with Henry Thoreau. Their poetry was written on these waters. Geese still jet over our heads while frogs sit meditating on logs.

Back on land, time seems like a straight line as we mark off the days, months and years. But while we are carried along by this mystic water, time has no meaning. The Native peoples still make treaties near Egg Rock, while up ahead, stout Concord farmers trade their plows for muskets. The transcendentalists learn to see heaven on earth, and I float along through all of it in the company of those I love the most. Here there is no time only shared experience and visible manifestations of wonder.

The writing project.

Tomorrow I am off to the wnywp. This is a rite of summer and have been doing this for over 20 years. I look forward to meeting the new fellows and seeing old friends. The writing project have been the best experience I have ever had relating to teaching. I can't imagine where I would be without the writing project.

The Front Steps

Picture the old front steps. Wooden. Paint chipped by a thousand footfalls and the bounce of rubber balls. Porch- grey paint, tending toward blue, a nice contrast to the green grass. Just sit, back against the front door and revel in the twin comforts embedded here. Safe harbor to domestic comfort and launching pad for adventure just around the corner.

In the morning, my father would sit on these steps reading the paper. The sun was up, warm fingers spreading down through the branches of the ancient maple. Dad seemed energized by the tranquil early hour as he quickly skimmed through the morning edition digging for good news wherever he could find it. Quick check of the sports: Yankees in first. Beetle Bailey in trouble. All systems normal.

After five minutes, he'd fold the pages neatly and tuck them under his arm. There was something deliberate about the gesture. Civilized. A good man takes the world into his embrace, good and bad, and heads off to work. It gives one the sense of control, of leashing destiny into measure rectangles.

Later into morning the steps would be home field to all kinds of spontaneous sporting events, games fueled by the imagination and the economy of neighborhood numbers. There was Mini Baseball for the youngsters where hits and runs were determined by rolling marbles through the obstacles placed by nature and the cracking sidewalks. Scores were kept meticulously and on a slow day could run into the triple digits. As my friends and I got older, step ball became an obsession. All you needed was an even number of players and a ten-cent rubber ball. Hits and runs were compiled by the distance the ball traveled when smacked off the ragged edge of the second step. Foul balls were outs. Homeruns required the ball to travel across the street in the air. The batter needed a strong arm and enough luck to avoid fouling into the aluminum storm door. The fielder needed enough-speed and dexterity to prevent the score from running too high and reaching the shame of basketball numbers!

Evening crawled slowly. The steps became safe home for games of hide and seek. I remember one summer night in particular. A full moon made the neighborhood seem unusually bright. One group of kids sat talking on the steps, others, determined hiders, crouched laughing safe in the distant darkness. It was the end of vacation and the night was sweet with the lingering freedom of summer hovering right there above our heads. I sat with my back up against the door savoring this perfect moment. Bats jetted overhead gorging themselves silently on insects. I was intrigued by the coming darkness rolling down Cumberland Avenue. Soon I would venture off to High School and beyond. And yet here and now I was content with the feel of the front door at my back, and the beckoning view from up here on the third step of the old front porch. I peered down the block into the hazy distance knowing that soon I would leap from the safety of these steps into the arms of the unknown future. But not now. Not tonight. Not while there were games to play and the laughter of friends waiting to come safely home.

July 12

It's Henry David Thoreau's Birthday! Here is an excerpt of a novel I am writing about a kid named Nathaniel Hawthorne who may or may not be related to the actual Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hard to say at this point.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s incomplete History of America

by Tom O'Malley

Chapter One: My Name

You don’t know me but you think you do. My name is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ok. Go ahead and say it. It's not like I've never heard how that name sounds familiar. Everyone says something like "Nathaniel Whothorne"?

"Didn't he die about one hundred years ago?"

If it's an adult they say something like: "Where's your Scarlet Letter?"

So go ahead. I've heard all the jokes. That's what you get when your parents are both English teachers. Everything has some kind of literary connection. I also have a goldfish named Geoffrey Chaucer and a cat named Dante. Grandpa says he meows in Italian. Grandpa also claims to be the original Nathaniel Hawthorne and that his Great Grandfather was a judge at the Salem Witch trials. Course Grandpa also says that there's more than a little witchcraft in our family. Now that's one thing I really can't argue about. At least not after the things that have happened in the last few months.

Names can tell you something about the person who wears it. In spite of my name, I’m used to it. People expect me to be smart like the other Nathaniel Hawthorne. Even if I do something stupid, everyone assumes that it is really a smart thing to do.

Chapter 2: Canoes

Last Summer started out to be the dullest Summer I have ever had. The weather was hot, so hot that we didn't feel like doing anything. Oh we had our usual Tuesday afternoon baseball games, but what fun is it getting hammered by the Bedford Blues. Our team wouldn't be bad if you only had someone who could pitch. No. Make that someone, anyone who can actually get the ball over the plate. Things got so bad that my sister Amy was our starting pitcher. She was a little wild, but at least the Bedford team never got out of Concord without a bruise or two. Amy owned the inside of the plate.

Grandpa tried to coach us on off days. He was patient but that Summer my heart just wasn't in it. Aside from the weekly baseball beating we had our canoe. Amy and I spent many mornings drifting down the Concord river. There's something about the early morning air and being on the water. I like the mist and the warm sun filtering through. The river is like a curtain rising before a new play. Life is like a dream. Like I said it was a dull Summer, but somehow riding in the canoe was good medicine for all that boredom.

A lot of people come to Concord and never know which way the water flows. Amy and I would set out early and carry the canoe to Millpond and set it in just above the bridge by Route 2. A few dips of the paddle and we'd be on our way. There wasn't much to talk about as we glided silently through the morning mist. Unless Grandpa came along. Then it was non- stop talk. He made us be quiet so as not to disturb the fish. Then he'd proceed to go on about the days on the river when he was a boy, back during the Depression. We knew the whole tale by heart: How the boys made their own canoes, Indian style: first you find a dead tree. Next you hack away at the insides with your axe ( one you made in the basement cause of course there never was money to buy things in the store). Finally you waterproof the shell with a special formula handed down by word of mouth through ten generations. It's a family secret so I won't say a word here. "Those canoes were tough to handle, but they were faster and lighter than these new fangled plastic ones you kids are using."

To be honest I didn't always listen to everything that came out of Grandpa's mouth on those mornings. I'd just let the river take me along with the current, nod my head from time to time, and occasionally add a : "Really", or a "Wow!" or a "Come on!" just to keep him honest.

But occasionally a word or two would break through my daydream and sink in. In fact, if it wasn't for Grandpa, I never would have started my detective career and I never would have met Owen Brown and I never would have...No. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Chapter 3: The watch

That morning, Grandpa was going on about the Great Depression again when suddenly he jumped straight up in. Not a good move if you're in a canoe. All three of us almost ended up in the river. "My watch. Did I give you my watch, Nathaniel?"

I steadied the rocking boat and answered: "Your pocket watch?"

"My priceless pocket watch."

"No."

"Check your pockets, check your hat. Amy. Do you have it? "

"No."

"Check your purse. Maybe it's in the bottom of your purse."

"I don't carry a purse, Grandpa!" said Amy. "I'm not that kind of girl."

Did I mention that my sister considers herself a boy? Any mention of femininity concerning her is usually taken as an insult."

Now Grandpa was in a fever. "Check to boat. Check the river. Check your shoes." We checked every corner of the canoe, our clothes ( twice ) and I even jumped in the water a few times when Grandpa though he saw something gold glistening near the bottom. No sign of the watch - anywhere. Poor Grandpa. He went from a mad man pointing his finger here, there and everywhere there might be a sign of the watch - to a poor beaten man. Quiet. Face buried in his hands. Sad. We did our best to console him on the way home.

"The watch belonged to my grandfather. He worked the Fitchburg railroad when the trains ran into Boston five times a day. "

"Don't give up. Let's use a little logic." I was grasping at straws. Logic sounded good. "Assume the watch isn't on the bottom of the river."

"Why should we assume that"? asked Amy. She's what I call a skeptic. Never believes anything.

"Because we would have heard the splash."

Grandpa cheered a little. "Yes. And I don't think that I looked a the time after we set out."

Good. At least he was cheering up. Good old logic. "Ok. Let's work backwards. Where were you before we put the boat in the water."

"I took my morning walk. Had the watch with me because I set it with the bells from the First Church. They ring every morning at seven."

Grandpa's an early riser, even in the summer! "And then?

"Stopped at the Willow pond for coffee. Same as every morning."

"And then."

"I paid for my coffee. Had a whole lot of change. And I took the watch out of my pocket and set it on the counter. I must have walked away and left it setting there." And when he said that you could see the lights flashing and the bells whistling. Grandpa started to run. "My goodness. You're a regular Sherlock Holmes, Nathaniel. There's a reward in this for you if I find it." We were off and running - actually walking at a fast pace - all the way to the Willow pond. Grandpa did break away from us just before we got there and when Amy and I walked in there he was holding his watch and beaming. "Sit down kids, the ice cream's on me. All you can eat!"

July 11: Pat's Birthday

I thought I would reach back to my Journal for July 11th, 1985. It was Pat's first birthday and we were at Walden Pond. Here is a little snip of what I wrote that day reflecting on the first year of his birth..

"Here is your son, Meg" said Dr. Schulman who was holding our baby high enough for her to see. That baby had the unhappiest blue face I had ever seen. "What are you going to call him?" asked the doctor. Meg and I were both crying and laughing at the same time. We still hadn't settled on a name!

The assistants brought the baby over to the other side of the room where they continued to clean him off and weigh him. Our nurse Sarah invited me to come over and watch. When I got over there, the baby was still crying...screaming...while the attendants stuck tubes down his throat and in his nose to clean out the fluid. I guess I'd cry too. His skin was slowing getting pink as he struggled against these intrusions. I really became a father at that moment when I put my finger in his tiny hand and he gripped me tightly. I will never foget that moment as it has become symbolic for my feeling about my son and what we mean to each other.

Here, kicking and screaming for all of his 8pounds 3 ounces of baby boy lay everything I really believe in: hope, trust, love and the future. When he held on to my finger it was like a message from another world that all these ideas are real. I knew I was participating in a miracle - not of my own making - but a miracle that I was responsible for. With the birth of my son ( and later all of my children ) I was expanded into something more than an individual. I was renewed in a way I can't explain. I was changed into something more than I thought I was. I became a father.

Walden is a state park and a state of mind

Meg and I have been to Walden many times. We have hiked all the trails, swam in the pond and read all the books. No matter. It never gets old and we never get tired. That's because we can reach back to the 1840's just as easily as we can reach forward into the future. Here's why: time moves differently in this place. Everywhere we look we can see our children. In 1985 my son Pat celebrated his first birthday there. I the early '90's Sean played a tom tom when we paddled our canoe along the Concord river. We imagined Thoreau playing his flute, Hawthorne sitting on his porch at the Manse or Emerson writing his essay Nature in his book lined study. Walden is the land of ideas that seem to bubble out of the pond like a pack of minnows swimming toward the sun.

This year, Nora finally got to visit the Alcott house, a place where women have always been recognized and respected. I enjoyed watching her absorb the atmosphere as well as remembering reading Little Women with her many years ago. Time doesn't matter at Walden. This is a place of love.

A Perfect Day

Thoreau said that he had traveled widely in Concord. I can see what he means. I spent the day attending presentations from the Thoreau Society on everything from Environmental ethos to a wider understanding of the meaning of Cosmos. Cosmos was the Greek idea of ongoing creation. Thoreau once pointed out that the morning light on the doorstep is matter from a star. He was right about that. While I spent the day expanding my brain ( plenty of room there ), Meg and Nora were off to Boston on the train. They had adventures along the Freedom trail and the Boston Aquarium. In a few minutes I will pick them up at the station and the three of us will head to the South Bridge boat launch and paddle a canoe up to the Old North Bridge. There is something cosmic about this river as we float through time toward the place where our beautiful country began. This is what I call a perfect day, and I am glad I began it and ended it with my family.

Grandchildren rule!

Swimming With Henry David

Since I am on my way to Walden Pond, I fondly remember the day I went swimming with Henry David Thoreau. Follow the link and jump right in.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1002/p18s02-hfes.html

Find Yourself By Getting Lost

It was a beautiful fall day. Everywhere we looked, the colors were mesmerizing: red, green and golden. The floor of the woods was carpeted in Technicolor that made the ground seem softer and the miles shorter. I could not stop moving forward, breathless to see what wonders lie ahead. My partners on this expedition seemed less enthusiastic:

“How much longer dad?”

“How much further?”

“Are we there yet?”

I heard them on the edges of my reverie. “Don’t worry kids. I know this place like the back of my hand.” This was technically true. I never lie to children. Still, the beauty of the season and the brilliance of the day had hypnotized me with a siren song that I just could not resist. As if on cue, a family of wild turkeys crossed our path not ten feet away. We watched silently as the mother’s scratchy clucks kept the three babies in line. I wondered if they were lost. Then I wondered if the poults complained? For a few moments we were transfixed, connected to this place and absorbed in its perfect beauty. Then the children’s chorus brought me back to reality.

“Where are we dad? “ they sang. We were well off the beaten path. Briefly I thought about climbing a tree to scout our position from above. Instead, I settled on another tact, practical but mundane.

“This way” I waved confidently. The trees got thicker. Brambles appeared to multiply.

“No. This way.” I turned in circles.

Sean moaned. “Dad’s lost again.”

“Not really. Just a little turned around. Don’t worry. We’ll be back on track in no time at all.” Before I could take another step, they sang: “I know this place like the back of my hand.”

These taunts rang familiar. I have been lost in some of the best places: the green mountains near Bennington, Vermont, the hills of County Mayo, Ireland, and even on the confusing back roads near Ellicotville. There is something about the scenery that distracts me. I get turned around and forget where I’m headed.

Did you ever notice how often times being lost is a way of really finding something? That day in the woods we found ourselves connected to life in a more elemental way. Those wayward turkeys paid no attention to us, yet we paid careful attention to them and everything else in our surroundings. Being lost sharpens the senses and whets the appetite for adventure. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus spends ten years being lost and yet his finds included a Cyclopes, a beautiful siren song and countless stories to be told and retold at firesides down the centuries. Odysseus was such a wanderer that his name has come to describe the wandering spirit in us all.

Of course it is good to know where we are going. It is fine to have direction and purpose. And so we load ourselves down with the instruments of efficient travel: compass, GPS devices and even the old fashion road map. Ours is the age of no nonsense travel. No room for adventure and the sure pleasure of the unexpected.

We finally reached home after a labyrinthine journey of twists and turns. Our senses with filled to the max. The kids kept chanting “Like the back of my hand,” as we stepped out of the woods and arrived in the yard. But I didn’t mind. Like Odysseus, being lost wasn’t just a waste of time. It teaches lessons in patience and endurance. And best of all, it whets the appetite for home.

MEG'S KITCHEN

This is a blast from the past when summer seemed endless

by tom omalley

Summer lives here in Meg’s kitchen, fresh strawberries spread before us like the sweetest of dreams. This morning we worked hard and stooped low in the hot fields beneath the summer green hills of Salamanca. The pungent berry smell and the hum of insects lulled us into a lotus -like dream. The temptations were strong to just rest and eat,, but Meg made sure we brought the bulk of this harvest to our buckets. She promised pies. She promised jellies. She promised singing palates of joy if only we would restrain our appetites and keep picking. The pledge of strawberry short cake sustained us in our labors. It was an epic battle of body and soul.

Now in the kitchen we go about our work knowing that soon we will taste the reward of our labors. The summer sun is sinking, strawberry fingers gleam through the windows and spread themselves across the floor. Dried herbs hang on the wall in a mother’s alphabet.

Sean and Meg are busy mashing the fruit for jam. The steady rhythm of their work refreshes us. Pat, unable to resist the siren song of ripe berries, keeps stuffing his mouth with sweetness. Nora, the youngest, takes it all in. She remains patient and amused by her brothers - the strawberry juice of experience.

I am reading the Two Towers aloud to the kids while they work. We have been at this book for months, marching through middle earth in all of its splendor. Perhaps it is the perfume of strawberries, or perhaps it is the rhythm of Tolkien’s words, but we are all drawn in by his spell of magic until Meg’s kitchen becomes the bubbling domain of hobbits, elves and grim dwarves.

Tonight we have reached the part where Frodo and Sam step into Moria bearing the heavy weight of the Ring. The fate of the world depends on their steadfastness. All around loom mountains of evil: volcanoes, rockslides, Shelob the carnivorous spider, and the slithering Gollum driven by greed. The gazing eye of Sauron looms over all, lusting for power and blind to the possibilities of friendship and love. The words of Tolkien reach out to us in ways the movies never could. Frodo stumbles, and Sam carries him along.

Now the dark is rising. Soon Meg’s stove will warm the house and cauldrons of jelly will bubble before our busy eyes.

Frodo Baggins longs for the comfort of his hobbit kitchen, but trudges on toward the Dark Mountain cloaked in fear. He is borne up by memories of home, and the many friendships it contains.

This perfect summer day is fading, last light dropping beneath the window sill. I strain to watch my children as they grow as quickly as these strawberries. In no time they will be off on journeys of their own and Frodo will return to the Shire at last. In just a few more pages, peace will reign again in Middle Earth. The summer spreads it self before us, and Meg's jars of jelly will push back the darkness all winter long.

Genial Spirits Still Haunt Concord's Old Manse

I have been fascinated with this house for years. It predated the American Revolution and was the home to Emerson and Hawthorne. Check out my experiences at this fascinating place.

http://www.concordma.com/magazine/autumn04/oldmanseghosts.html