No Matter Where You Go -- There You Are

One year ago today, we opened the door to our new house, uncrated the cat after 10 hours traversing the Washington/Boston corridor, inflated two air mattresses and went to sleep for the first time in Swampscott.  Through this blog, I have tried to share some of the high points and impressions with you in 21 posts over the last twelve months.  What follows is  my 22nd and final entry.  It is mostly a not very elegant way for me to share with you some photos I’ve taken that didn’t fit into previous posts.  I have enjoyed preparing these posts for you, but I sense that the novelty is wearing off among my loyal readers, and I don’t wish to overstay my welcome.  I will send abbreviated updates through regular FB comments from this point forward, and Trudi has her own FB page now through which to post her news, which she didn’t have when I began the blog.  

Several themes have characterized our first year here.  

First has been the constant drumbeat of getting this new (old) house into shape…. Installing new roof shingles and gutters, evicting squirrels from the eaves, swapping out the electric range for a gas model, replacing rotting cedar shakes,  rewiring to come up to code, patching the wobbly fieldstone foundation, replacing a WWI era sump pump, adding cupboard space in the kitchen and dining room and more.

Steve replacing rotten shakes

  

New corner cupboard

 

We have gotten pretty far through the initial punch list, and the house feels more like our home now than it did a year ago.  But we still have a couple of major projects for year two and beyond.

A second strand is the influence of the ocean that is woven into our daily lives.  Living as we do a five minute walk from Massachusetts Bay, we are aware of the Atlantic as a palpable presence all about us.  I shared some images of the New Years Day polar bear swim and the ravages of last fall’s hurricane in  previous posts.  This summer has introduced us to other local customs and activities.

A minister from the local Episcopal church participates in this season’s Blessing of the Fleet.

The Unitarian Universalist church we attend holds an annual Sunday service on the town beach.  Here the choir is rehearsing the morning's anthem “Take Me to the Water”.

A duct tape regatta in Swampscott harbor with proceeds going to an international charity is another water-related annual happening.

 Local churches echo the oceanic theme with Marblehead’s Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish and Gloucester’s Our Lady of Good Voyage steeple statue preserved in the Cape Ann Museum where Trudi is in training to be a docent along with a large collection of seascapes by Fitz Henry Lane and a room-sized model of the town in its heyday as a fish processing center.

Seaside-related artistic expression  has also included the  9^th Annual Revere Beach National Sand Sculpting Festival that we attended last week with Adella.

 

Finally,  we have found the need to preserve ties with old friends to be a strong one.  This is not  surprising after 36 years in Arlington.  We have returned to Arlington (I almost typed “home”) several times over the last year to attend events and spend time with Barbara and Tom Schelstrate, and are grateful for their generous hospitality.  

We drove out for a weekend on Cape Cod, largely so we could attend services at Rev. Mary Ganz’s new UU congregation in Brewster.  It was terrific to see her looking well and happy.  Trudi and I both do miss the poetry and thoughtfulness of her sermons.

We just returned from the Arlington UU Church Choir trip to Ireland and Wales.  It was great to sing outside the US and to see interesting places and sample lots of Irish whiskey, but the best part was to be back together with folks we have known and been friends with for years.  

The choir on the pier in Aberystwyth Ireland

Confucius is reported to have said “no matter where you go – there you are”.  As I look back on the motivations that led us to leave Northern Virginia for good, it strikes me that I may have been seeking a new start in my very late middle age, a way to keep the old routines built up over the decades from obscuring the richness that day-to-day life has to offer.   But as Confucius cautions, it is the same me, no matter if I live above or below the Mason/Dixon Line.  On the other hand, when granddaughter Adella takes my hand at the New England Aquarium and leads me to an exciting new fish she has just spotted, I am definitely Grampa Jim in a way I wouldn’t be if I lived 500 miles away from her.  May the wind always be at your back and thanks for reading. 

Going on Down to Jolie's Farm

A benefit of our move from Virginia to Swampscott that I hadn’t anticipated is the opportunity to volunteer at Revision Farm, the Dorchester urban farm where Jolie serves as Farm Manager.   I’ve helped out several times over the year we have been here, most recently spending several hours breaking up impacted soil beds with a pitchfork and planting sweet potato seedlings.

For those of you loyal readers who haven’t seen an urban farm, or who have been puzzled when Trudi or I talk about Jolie’s chosen profession, urban farmer, here are some photos to help you get a better sense of what Jolie is up to.

Jolie has put in a couple of years at Revision Farm, first as seasonal grower, and then as Manager.  I think this move into management has been a mixed blessing for her as so much of her day now is taken up with administrative work, dealing with city departments, vendors, and personnel matters that she laments not having much time to get her hands in the soil.  Fortunately, she has two excellent assistant growers, and enthusiastic volunteers to help keep the crops progressing more or less on schedule.   Jolie and her team coax bountiful quantities of bok choy, collard greens, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, string beans, flowers and herbs, a wide variety of tomatoes and more from what formerly were abandoned city lots.  She even has some honey bee hives at a satellite location.  This fresh produce is sold through a CSA and a nearby farmstand, and is consumed by women and children who are residents of shelter housing adjacent to the farm.

 Revision Urban Farm operates in the context of Boston Mayor Menino’s recently announced Urban Agriculture Initiative, which has as its overarching goal to insure that Boston’s residents “– particularly the most underserved--have direct access to locally produced fresh food, the ability to produce food for themselves, and access to education and knowledge about healthy eating.”

As I surveyed what Jolie and her associates have accomplished at the farm in the midst of densely populated inner city neighborhood, I was struck by their courage and unbridled optimism to maintain faith that if they do the right things with care, persistence and hard physical work, and if mother nature, city inspectors and the utility companies don’t throw them too many curve balls, the urban oasis they created can provide a bounty of fresh vegetables for their community as the tangible outcome of their efforts.  I’m reminded of Joni Mitchell’s words entreating us more than 40 years ago:  “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”