"Haven"

A walk in the woods

Sometimes country living just means taking a walk or enjoying a little green space.

Leaving one's inside quarters to experience blue skies, fresh air and the growing things that are determined to thrive anywhere can be plenty, depending upon how one looks at it.

I feel I live in a haven (rural Wisconsin), but it's easy to see that everyone everywhere experiences haven.

I think of  my mother-in-law in her neighborhood in Santa Ana, California. Santa Ana is like any American town--divvied up into sections, some more "desirable" than others, depending on who is doing the considering. It has a richness in cultural diversity and particularly so in the Hispanic population.

One might observe that my mother-in-law's neighborhood never held a gated community status, but she was up every morning with the birds, tending her shrubs and flowers so artfully established by my father-in-law in the early years of their marriage.

How fresh and inviting her haven always felt. With benches and chairs amidst the multi-layering of vivid colors in plant life, her yard was so inviting I remember that friends often drifted in to while away a few moments of their day. Her sense of belonging to a neighborhood that thrummed with vibrancy in sight and sound held great appeal; although that district definitely had issues, I never heard her note any of it with adjectives like "noisy," "congested," or "dangerous."

For the most part, people who live in an urban environment do so by choice, and wouldn't have it any other way. For the flavor of nature, a walk to a local part or a back-yard oasis makes it all good.

For ourselves, we went the extra mile (actually two thousand miles) to create our backyard oasis. Our neighbors, most of whom were born and raised here, are of true rural stock. They raise chickens, milk cows, go hunting and fishing, and grow gardens and hundreds of acres of crops. We take walks, ride bike (my husband), go antiquing (me), watch old (and new) movies, tend the grandbabies, and sit on the porch with lemonade and magazines.

Hmmm....come to think of it, we live like more like city people than rural folk. But as any person envisions their idyllic surroundings, we dreamed this and count our blessings that it's come to pass.

It's not that we haven't tried to extract more from the land. We have lived "country" for most of our married years, here and in Colorado. We have raised chickens for eggs, tapped trees and made maple syrup, picked our wild fruits to make delicious jams, gathered morel mushrooms to enjoy with our steaks (homegrown by friends who raised the cattle) and grew gardens to can extensively.

It was all rewarding, and it was all work. Now don't get me wrong--we're not afraid of hard work. We don't lead sedentary lives and it's hard for either one of us to sit unproductively for long, at least during the daylight hours. It's not usually until night falls that watching a movie even feels right, although the hour approaching dusk often finds us with the magazines on the porch.  And well that should be.

We have learned as many do, that when enthusiasm for any project runs its course, DO THE MATH. Most self-accomplished endeavors pay both monetarily and spiritually. When they cease to do both, it's time to pick another venture.

How then DO we extract from the land that feeling that we are living a country life?

As anyone does. We look at what we have as precious, and we nurture and tend it.  In Garden Grove (also in California) my mother grew a spectacular bougainvillaea shrub along one side of her house. Out back, my dad grew tomatoes, chilies, lemons and nopales (cactus paddles).

From his own imagination, he dismantled an old wood cookstove and built a stone framework to reposition its various sections into a beautiful outdoor barbeque unit. One side boasted an uprising, stone-encased grilling rack complete with chimney stack, and the rest of it was stove--four burners with a utility/spice shelf above and a warming oven below. In readiness for this unit, Dad poured a concrete floor, set down a long picnic table and a permanent canopy overhead. He added a refrigerator nearby, stocked it well, and waited for the family gatherings.

With a garden-like backyard and all of that going on, I like to think this haven in the late 60's and early 70's was an early outdoor kitchen and that my dad was a man ahead of his time.

My grandma Rosa (Dad's mother) also created her piece of paradise in Placentia, once more in California. Her small acreage harbored many kinds of fruits and florals, but it is the likes of her geraniums that I have yet to see again in my lifetime. Grandma trained and nurtured her red geraniums so that they flourished skyward on both sides of the fence.

Both sides of the fence belonged to Grandma, because her little namesake restaurant was next-door. The eatery bragged an outdoor patio with a stone floor, my dad's work again. The fabulous geraniums and other flora lushed the setting into a tropic-kissed haven for diners. Such a haven it was that although small, I couldn't think of a prettier place to hold our wedding reception in 1973.

Grandma too was ahead of her time. She created an appealing outdoor eatery with European-like flavor (which was in actuality reflective of her own Mexican heritage) in the 1960's, and I think now that no bistro I've ever seen has held a candle to it. It was a haven for many people, including herself.

I have to say that our haven in Wisconsin bespeaks almost purely of God's handiwork. Yes, we "tweak" it all the time. This involves alot of detail and many hours of tweaking at that.

But it was presented to us as a generous piece of natural land, and as you know, nothing is prettier than what God creates as nature. Keeping with its flow can't be a bad thing. If we don't use the land by planting it, raising animals on it and so on, we can still feel we are living a country life in the simplicity of just ENJOYING IT.

With this thinking we (my husband) scoped the place to expand on its natural flow in trails. For country-living pleasure we (this means we) take walks, many of them. We breathe fresh air and see wildflowers and wildlife, we get exercise and always come away with never-failing gratitude, even awe.

Less in land would be plenty I'm sure, but more is what came with when we found this place. About this we've always felt that the place more likely found us, and maybe it is because it knew (God knew) that from it we would create HAVEN. Here on earth, that's pretty close to HEAVEN.

Lemonade!!!

"Marty"

Everybody loves a winner--but do we really?

Seems like alot of times we just want to tear a winner down. Sure, we wish our friends and families well enough to support their dreams and ventures, and help them approach the entry halls of success. Especially with our children, we hope mightily to see them ensconced in their dreams, no holds barred.

But when we see someone peak at success, making for a sphere of happiness that eludes our own selves, are we as generous-minded as we know we should be?

Most of us can acknowledge a modest level of envy toward others who seem to "have it all."
After all, we're only human and our own lives may feel plenty full of stress instead of a richness in attained goals. So this envy is purely natural. We can be reasonably happy for others and still lament for ourselves; this we know is the way of the world.

None of us wants to admit (even to ourselves) when envy has turned a corner and the realm of bitter jealousy has been entered. When we not only can't be happy for someone but are secretly peering for signs of a downfall, this is a shame on us and not a status we want to own.

Selfishness is an interesting thing. We pounce upon the trait in others and disown any fragment of the quality for ourselves. God forbid we be accused of selfishness; it is a crime worse than almost any other. Thinking of all the judgmental possibities that could arise from such a subject, I nearly halted blogging about it. Selfishness is not a topic warm and fuzzy, and any one of us can potentially find it another of us. (While not seeing it in ourselves.)

Thus, on the day I scratched the surface of the subject, I also scratched it off my list of possible blog entries. It was a cool and blustery Sunday afternoon, and I decided to watch an old movie instead.

The movie playing on the old movie channel was "Marty," a fifties-era classic wherein the title character (an Italian-American male in his thirties) so moves his audience with his life of loneliness that the actor (Ernest Borgnine) won the Academy Award that year, 1955. This was no small feat against contenders like James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy and James Cagney. It is said that Borgnine's audition for the part put all present to tears, and cinched the role.

If ever there was a movie that impresses upon us the tragedy of selfishness, it is this one. And so the subject again became mine--meant to be.

Have you ever seen "Marty?"

Marty and his widowed mother live together in an urban house, where Mom's life centers on church and Marty. Their home is a nest she has feathered like a pillow, something also known to smother.

Marty is a humble meat cutter who works hard and spends his leisure time dutifully enjoying Ma's homemade meals and then regularly walking downtown to meet up with his equally single, Italian-American buddies. Marty's crowd looks to be a tad on the "loser" side, nice enough boys who stay out of trouble-- but each lacks the charisma to ever come close to the persona of a "chick magnet." Women are not an easy part of their scene, and when they are, that scene is often fraught with rejection.

One evening on the dance floor, Marty musters his wherewithal to ask a girl to dance and suffers acutely the rejection he fears. In a scene away from his scene, a young woman suffers a competing blow of rebuff when the man she has been "set up with" decides he wants to ditch her. This fellow seeks out Marty and offers him five dollars to take responsibility for his unwanted date and somehow get her back to her home.


Despite inferences from his pals  that the girl is not attractive, and quite to his surprise, Marty and the girl, Clara, (played by Betsy Blair) "click." They enjoy long, heartfelt conversation and learn of their differences but also experience undeniable camaraderie.

Clara is a teacher to Marty's butcher, but this is just a momentary deterrent to Marty's psyche. The evening ends brimming with promise and in no time at all we witness Clara's introduction to Marty's mother, and we marvel at his plans to ensure a better future by opening his own meat market.

Alas, this is where envy, jealousy and selfishness rear their ugly heads. The people in Marty's life cannot wish him well. They all point to Clara's homeliness; the fellows straight out call her "a dog." Clara is not a dog. She is average looking, just right for the average Joe, or average Marty. She is a dear girl, smitten already with Marty, able to see their differences as contrasts rather than reasons for discord.

Marty's mother, who has lamented that her son has yet to marry the perfect Italian girl to provide her with grandchildren, cannot abide Clara. She points out that Clara is not good-looking, is not Italian, and what was she doing anyway in a dance hall--one step from the streets? I don't like her, she pronounces, and suggests forcefully that Marty not bring her home again.

Marty's friends find themselves roiling in agitation that their co-hort is on the brink of a new life--one that will end their lonely boys society and one that guarantees Marty a happiness they fear they will never have themselves. In their covetousness they can do nothing but try to coax Marty away from all his promising possibilities. This they do by endlessly ripping on Clara. Poor sweet Clara is called "a dog" so often that sadly, heartbreakingly, we are horrified to hear Marty cave into the pressure of his peers and refer to her as "a dog" as well.

And thus we see both Marty and Clara lonely again. Their respective scenarios are pathetic; those of us watching want to shake some sense into Marty, for while Clara longs for the phone call he also longs to make, he instead reverts to a pointless session of "hanging out" with the guys again.

The selfish entreaties from those who most care for him convince Marty that going for happiness is not for him. Pulling their pal back into their familiar void puts them back onto equal ground, and all (except Marty) feel better this way.

Do we all feel better to keep those in our circle on equal ground, more for the worse than the better? Does
misery really love company? Can we really only be happy for others as long as their happiness and success don't exceed ours?

And what about jealousy and resentment over physical traits (beauty), personality and charisma?

On a recent "Dancing with the Stars" segment it was revealing to hear one of the male judges effusively flatter a male (heartthrob type) dancer, then declare his hatred toward him--said in friendly humor, of course. How many times have you heard (or taken part) in admiration of someone's physical persona only to realize if that person were just a little less gorgeous, you'd feel better?

Happens all the time, with most of us, I venture to say. Like the inherent good in people, we are also given tendencies toward failings, too. Our struggles with generosity of spirit are perhaps tougher than the ones we have about money. If good will doesn't usually cost a dime, why is it sometimes so hard to give?

I don't know the whys and wherefores of this, but I'm pretty sure the sentiments are universal if not shared by all. Is there a sense that there can't possibly be enough good to go around in this life?

For a great ending to a somewhat tortuous (but engrossing) story, Marty (back to Marty) gathers his wits and declares emancipation from his loneliness. He boldly stands up to his friends and literally bolts from their presence to race to a phone booth to call Clara.

We are left to consider their lives will be lived happily ever after.

I can't imagine anyone seeing this movie not feeling blissful for Marty and Clara at this conclusion. And here lies the question--if we can be happy for strangers, and fabricated strangers at that, can't we do the same for all in our own real lives?