Charles, their barn, milk jugs, Marilyn’s garden (behind white fence)
Some forces act with the slow persistence of wind and rain on rock. Intentions can be like that. My 22 days with Charles and Marilyn began 18 June 2012, at the onset of the hottest drought period on record in the Midwest. Daily highs regularly topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Now in their mid-seventies Charles and Marilyn were retiring from their eleven acre home of 42 years to their small Indiana town of origin. I came to help them move, and what I gained was forged from their wind-and-rain intentions.
Marilyn tended her quarter-acre garden. Each morning and evening she visited the garden to water, weed, and arrange her inventive natural pest control mechanisms. Her verdant garden was beyond organic; it was intimate. I was delighted when she asked me to help her spread mulch to combat the drought. Marilyn was tending a garden that would bear fruit she would not see. Their move would be complete before I left. The new owners would be unlikely to continue tending the garden this season. They would be overwhelmed with settling into their new home.
Marilyn’s garden extended to community. She started and grew a yarn spinning group called BoPeeps. BoPeeps is a collection of women now bound by more than the yarn they’ve spun. She had grown the group in both numbers and depth over several years. They are now bound by invisible threads of trust. Marilyn extended her craft, like a Trojan-horse-of-kindness, to create a community of yarn spinning inmates in the local women’s prison. When Marilyn speaks of these women, she speaks from the care of relationships spun with dignity.
These are only a few of the gardens Marilyn has nurtured. In her absence they continue to nurture those who tend to them. Some of her gardens will be abandoned to the hurry of future stories. Yet her tending was its own value. Many gifts of Marilyn’s intentions are obscured, visible only in the broad periphery of what they’ve made possible for others, and visible in the landscape of Marilyn’s embodiment.
Charles grafted trees. Nearly two hundred trees stood in his orchard when I arrived. An uncounted orchard of trees had been planted and had passed. As unusual as it is for one person to plant an orchard, Charles’ orchard was even more unusual. Charles called his orchard a “Carya Grove”, an orchard of mostly slow growing hardwood nut trees of the Hican variety (a cross between Hickory and Pecan trees). Hican trees require nearly twenty years to mature and to bear nuts. Charles’ choice of experimental trees revealed his deliberate practice of patience, his practice of taking the longview. If they survive, his recently planted trees will likely mature after he has passed.
Charles’ trees were suffering the drought. His young Hican and fledgling Dogwood trees needed water. His recent tree planting went beyond his orchard. During the previous few months Charles had cleared invasive Honeysuckle and planted about 70 Dogwood trees around the perimeter of their property, some on untended public land along the road. It was his silent parting gift of beauty to the future. Charles had no automated irrigation system for his orchard. Irrigation was rarely needed in Indiana. Charles did have a less automated backup irrigation system; I was about to become part of that system.
Before I describe his irrigation system, let me tell you about another expression of Charles’ patience. When Charles began planting trees he also started restoring antique tractors. In thirty some years he’d managed to restore over fifty tractors. He revived them from the past and offered them to unknown futures. All of his tractors, save one, were auctioned to various new caretakers during the previous year. I asked him if he’d added a name plate, or written his name, on any of the tractors. His simple “no” told me that credit was outside the point.
Charles’ irrigation system was comprised of the remaining tractor, a small farm trailer he had restored, fifty antique metal ten gallon milk jugs (he’d collected from auctions), and our bodies. We filled each jug from a hose. The hose was connected to a well pump with 70 yards of pipe hand dug and laid by Charles over thirty years earlier. Filling the fifty milk jugs took over an hour-and-a-half. Next we filled the small trailer with fifteen jugs per trip. Charles drove the tractor into the orchard and along the perimeter of the property. We took turns lifting the ninety pound jugs from the trailer to quench thirsty trees. We delivered nearly 3000 gallons of water over the next few weeks.
Between watering sessions we spread mulch. We neatly cast chips around the perimeter of each tree to slow evaporation. I recall when I became weary after six hours of hard and fast mulch spreading. I suggested that we quit and continue the next day. With a pleading spark in his eye, Charles responded: “Let’s finish. We can work slower.” I reluctantly acquiesced. A half hour later I was delighted. Balance had returned as my energy recovered to keep pace. What a gift. Charles’ was reminding me of the wisdom in slowing down to accomplish more. He had demonstrated the efficiency of patience for the past week, and long before I came. Charles embodied the strength and patients of thoughtful determination. He awakened me from my fog of hurry.
So, we delivered water to trees and groomed a garden that the new owners were unlikely to tend. For Charles and Marilyn the point was not whether the future would unfold as they preferred. Their work was consistent with their values, their discipline. Their work worked on them. The trees and garden are (or were) an ephemeral message, a manifestation of intentions expressed to reinforce their values. Their practice was, and is, their point. What alternative could be more honest, life serving, or hope engendering? Charles and Marilyn had practiced their love toward the world for so long that they would be aliens in their own bodies to behave differently.
P.S.
Some forces act with the slow persistence of wind and rain on rock. Charles and Marilyn forged themselves using eleven acres and 42 years under the back-pressure of their disciplined intentions. We can also be forged by another force, the force of what we see.
Seeing is the gift of filtering pattern and form from clutter. Seeing is our gift for looking through time and space to discern patterns disguised amid the noise, to see patterns obscured in fleeting and glacial changes. Seeing is detecting the force of intentions influencing our clumsy dance. What we practice seeing changes us. We are forged by what we see.
Charles and Marilyn would be uncomfortable if I leave you with saintly impressions. Like all of us, their dance is often cluttered with mixed intentions. Their life includes the beautiful human mess of groping to find their way. With that said, the pattern of their kind intentions is discernible in their lives. This piece is my practice in seeing the wind-and-rain intentional forces Charles and Marilyn have used to forge themselves. When I see them, their gift of intentions forges me.