A Hand for St. Michaels

I live in St. Michaels. Weekends, here, can be a zoo.

                                                             

One day, while driving through St Michaels with my wife, Jo, I saw crowds of people swarming over the sidewalks, spilling into the streets like lava, heedless of the designated crossover lanes, wandering from one side of the street to the other, grinding traffic to a halt. “Alien invasion,” I grumbled. My wife, however, mused casually, “It’s fun to see people holding hands.”

I’d never noticed. People everywhere, young and old, were holding hands. I saw a side of St. Michaels I’d not noticed before. I thought only young lovers or parents with children held hands. Not so in St. Michaels. Aging people, their silver gray heads glistening in the mid day sun, wearing shorts and tee shirts, carrying shopping bags, walking lazily from one shop window to another, were enjoying St. Michaels . . . and each other.

In our world where “abuse” is common, sadly, the word “touching” has earned a sinister connotation. But we need touching to express affection and to feel reassured. We know that when nurses touch a patient, blood pressure frequently lowers and the patient feels safer.

Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami observes, "Based on what we’ve seen, when we get more physical intimacy, we get better relationships.” Stephanie Rosenbloom, writing for the New York Times has investigated hand holding among college students and writes: “ . . . there seemed to be two universal truths: that hand holding is the least nauseating public display of affection and that holding hands has become more significant than other seemingly deeper expressions of love and romance.” One student allowed, “It’s a lot more intimate to hold hands nowadays than to kiss.”

Like the art of love, holding hands requires certain skills to be mutually satisfying. In the case of my wife and me it means, literally, managing the long and short of it. Jo has longer legs than I have and stands a hair taller. I have a long torso but short legs. As hands hang at our sides, they don’t meet naturally. To complicate matters, she prefers holding hands with her knuckles facing forward. So do I. To make holding hands work for both, we trade off. She may lead off with her own hand holding inclination and shortly after, defer to mine. This respects preferences while mutually regulating differences. Regulating differences is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. In fact, our survival as a species will ultimately depend on it. A light touch helps.

With so much hatred and violence today, we hunger for signs of hope.  I propose a show of hands to applaud the gentleness of spirit that the town of St. Michaels inspires in its visitors, and yes, has also awakened in one of its more grouchy residents.

Day of the Monarchs

Lee Rail - Photo by G.R. Merrill

Just going with the wind while sailing that day was grand. But the wind suddenly stopped and the sky above the Chesapeake ceased to breathe. I was stuck in heat and stillness, my boat rocking in the small swells, while I got into a total snit.

A butterfly flying near the boat caught my eye.

She flitted past the boat and was gone. Another passed by, and soon another, and again another. They were Monarch butterflies in flight, all traveling southwest. Their migration was a part of their extraordinary odyssey of more than seventeen hundred miles, beginning as far north as Canada and extending as far south as Texas and Florida. I couldn’t take my eyes from them.

Some monarchs reached heights half as high as gulls I saw circling overhead. The Monarchs would exercise a short, nervous flapping of their wings, would abruptly freeze, hovering and then descend through the air as smoothly as milkweed seeds glide on a zephyr.  They knew just how to glide. Unlike other windborne insects I’d seen - bugs like wasps, Japanese beetles, ladybugs, dragonflies, and moths - these butterflies sought no refuge on my boat. They remained airborne, intent on their journey, tireless.  The monarchs were destined for their mysterious rendezvous.

A couple sported with each other. One would dart over the other in short, jerky movements, feinting and dodging like boxers.  It wasn’t combative, though, more playful, even affectionate I thought. Were they Monarchs in love? In any case, they were in high spirits. For two hours they flew by my stalled boat. I lost track of time. I forgot my impatience with being becalmed. I was wholly in the here and now, transformed. The show went on.

As the gliders passed high overhead, the sun illuminated the brilliant orange and the deep black scrollwork on their wings like the illumination of incandescent lights kindle the stained glass of Tiffany lamps.

A few, like tiny crop dusters, made low sweeps, close to the water, only inches above it. The sorties were nerve-racking for me because I was sure they’d wind up ditching themselves in the water. Not one ever did. Knowing your limits is a lifesaver.

A primal force as old as life itself guided these tiny pilgrims in flight. The cloudless beauty of the day and the sheer wonder of how nature assigned such a hazardous journey to such willing but vulnerable creatures seemed like a brief excursion into the depths of creation, the mystery of life. When the last butterfly disappeared in the distance, I felt sad that I could not join them.

Sometimes, when you’re stuck, out of control and in a snit, whole new worlds can reveal themselves to you. 

More Than Just a Pretty Face

One morning I rode my bike near a field of sunflowers. As I pedaled by, they were wagging their heads seductively like Sirens.

"Pretty Face" - photo by George R. Merrill

I got off the bike and approached them. The sunflowers I’d first seen from the road I saw only from behind. Now I saw their faces.  They were doing something no human being can do without harm: looking the sun squarely in the eye. They relish all the light that the universe throws at them. We often scramble for the shadows, too afraid that light will expose us.

Like congregations of a church, the sunflowers were in rows, dressed in their Sunday best, behaving more like Quakers who worship silently than, say, Episcopalians, who, throughout a service, chatter one way or another. The sunflowers rocked their heads side to side, as if listening to the breeze or to the sun delivering a silent meditation, and each flower in response, nodding a gentle assent.

Most faced the sun except those in one corner of the field. There sunflowers were turned every which way, as if uncertain, not sure of their place, like parishioners who come late to a service looking for a seat. I wondered why? Then I saw that shade fell in this corner of the field, and as the sun rose, exposing the sunflowers to the light, they were caught looking the wrong way and were now, in a manner of speaking, getting their heads on straight.

It had become murderously hot. Flies deviled me. Although uncomfortable, I felt a pure, spontaneous delight and I laughed out loud. Was anybody looking? Surely they’d think I was crazy. I wasn’t crazy but surprised by joy, and with the pleasure that comes from being surrounded with sunflowers’ radiant faces as they commune with the sun. They offered me their hospitality and lots of delight. I’d had my day in the sun and my heart was much the lighter for it. 

Methodist Flies

All flies are not alike.  Strange flies visit St. Michaels in late summer.  They’re like horse flies, large, gray with big heads and enormous compound eyes. They chase parked cars.

When I park the car they land all over it.  Why?

My car is not a sexy muscle car or a pricey Jaguar. It’s an old Buick LaSabre and like me, old but still running. Since flies have short life spans, I reckon they're anxious about longevity and seeking secrets to a longer life.

Grace UM Church, Baltimore

Some species have eclectic tastes. Every August fruit flies appear, first on a banana peel. By mid-September they’re feeding everywhere; on a bar of soap, clinging to towels, buzzing tuna fish cans. Some like cocktails. They settle around the rim of our glasses at happy hour. For a few, drinking is deadly. I’ll find several floating in my drink. For them one drink is too many, a thousand not enough. Survivors follow my breath even after I've finished my drink. They can’t get enough.

Some flies are spiritual. Years ago, my offices were located in a large United Methodist church. In the fall, flies would begin appearing in the building, particularly around the window casings.  They looked overfed and furry -  not like horse flies. We called them Methodist flies. We meant no disrespect.  It seemed appropriate considering where they lived.

The Methodist flies flew, not frantically as other flies did but languidly. They knew time was too precious to be flitted away.

They wafted slowly around like gliders following air currents. Some fell lazily on tables, others dropped straight to the floor. A couple sat on windowsills as if enjoying a leisurely view. A few reclined on their backs in the sun, buzzing contentedly, as though napping. A couple staggered as if drunk. Considering where they lived, I dismissed that idea.

Were they religious?

Had faith led them to a more serene and reflective approach to the brevity of life and to the immanence of death? Unlike fruit flies or horse flies that looked as if the devil were chasing them, Methodist flies seemed able to let go and relax, be at peace with life and with their maker. They surrendered to life on its own terms, living the present, not spending their days anxiously darting around.

Unlike other flies, Methodist flies linger well into the winter while fruit and horse flies vanish overnight when the cold comes.  They’ve mastered the art of longevity.  They live the measure of their days with an easy cadence. Methodist flies move gently, enjoying their environment, never in a hurry. Home, for them, is wherever they are.

Longevity is important but so is the quality of life. Health enters into the equation, but attitude counts for a lot, too.  A gentle spirit slows us down, the way deep breaths sooth our troubled minds. Whenever I see Methodist flies, my heart is strangely warmed.

Old Dog, New Tricks

          Old dogs can't learn new tricks? Sure they can. Some, like me, just love the old ones.

In her famous essay on photography, Susan Sontag wrote "Humankind lingers in Plato's cave, still reveling, in its age old habit, in mere images of the truth." I've been reveling in those images for over sixty-five years.

I started taking and developing black and white photographs in 1947. Soon black and white darkroom techniques will be as obsolete as Mustard Plasters and Burma Shave. The process is cumbersome and sometimes toxic. Photography has turned digital, a method far more efficient and clean. It allows the photographer unlimited control over the images.  It’s the story of an art that begun chemically – in the dark - and ending up electronically, in the light. I mourn the passing of the old ways.

There’s a story about an Indian tribe that lived high in the hills.  The natives spent their days going down to the river, gathering water in buckets and passing the buckets up, person to person, to the top, where crops were watered. Westerners, seeing the labor-intensive way the tribe lived, encouraged them to employ a mechanical irrigation system. It worked well and crops flourished. Now they had all the time in the world. The tribe, however, after a short time, began exhibiting signs of lethargy and depression. The men were quarrelsome and children misbehaved. Wives nagged their husbands. Their old way of life was gone. They weren’t sure anymore how to live.

The lives of these people had been woven around the tasks of fetching water. While the new irrigation system was far more efficient, it ended a way of life in which the natives had found meaning.

The chemicals and papers that I've used for years are harder to find. My way of life is inexorably disappearing. I’m not quarrelsome and my wife doesn’t nag me. But I am aware of how stressful the psychological and spiritual adjustments are when we can't do the things we've loved to do the way we always have. The renewed search for meaning, then, becomes a critical piece in my spiritual journey. 

Dealing with change wisely lies in being open to the future while salvaging the best of the past. Whatever treasured ways we have practiced over the years, although now less viable, most of them contain an essence, some timeless value we can continue to hold and cherish as we move on. My photographic experience is a case in point.

Digital photography offers immediate feedback. In classical photography, waiting and uncertainty are the signature features of the experience. For example, I see a potential picture. I trip the shutter. But I have no idea what I actually caught on the film. I have only the hope, the possibility. Taking the picture is only the beginning. In the darkroom I wait again for the negative image to emerge from chemicals. It looks ok, but I'm still not sure how it will print out. I then print it. The final image may turn out beautifully or it may be disappointing. In the meantime the task demands of me that I live expectantly, sustaining my hope throughout that something good will emerge but with the caveat that it may not. In either case I won't know for some time.  If I’m disappointed, I pick up and start again. Sooner or later, I know that I'll find what I'm looking for. The art of living expectantly is also a spiritual adventure. You start in the dark before you see the light. 

As in the mystic's meditations, the practitioner of classical photography is continually considering the light and darkness that is falling along his path. She or he looks into the shadows and the highlights for shape, coherence, the meaning communicated as shadows and highlights play off each other.

Things change. As I address the changes I will bring with me some of the precious moments in the darkroom when an image in the developer emerged from darkness into light and I yelled, "yes, yes" because I knew I had found just what I had been looking for. For this old dog, my memories of the magic in those old tricks will be a treasured part of me as I move on in a changing world.