Day: September 14, 2013

Atherton, Calif. is as beautiful a town as it is historic, it evokes the great California dream. It can be disquieting too. It is one of the most lavishly landscaped and lovingly maintained communities I have ever seen, the houses gated, protected by alarms and call boxes, new gabled mansions sprouting on the ruins of the fabled California ranches, the bunkhouses of the American dream in the booming post war years.

The big news in this lovely California town, blessed with almost perfect weather, lush vegetation, just south of San Francisco, north of San Jose is the invasion of the tech people, the children of Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter, all headquartered within a few miles of Atherton. Here, young people, some barely out of college are buying viable ranch houses, bulldozing them to the ground and building two story mansions with columns, gabled roofs, basements (rare in California) and giant family playrooms. The lots are small and expensive, often an acre or two, the new homes expand to fill them, they go on and on. We met one nanny who was given a new Mercedes SUV to drive her charges around during the day, their parents were rarely home. This is the land of iron grilles, brick sidewalks, tall bushes and trees blocking out neighbors and traffic. There are call boxes in front of most houses to request entry, there are no poles or wires in the streets, no potholes or bumps either.

All day, landscape workers line up outside the mansions in their battered pickups to trim the lawns and gardens of the very young and the very rich. I can’t help but think of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Gatsby in his mansion. How much does any one family really need in a world of dwindling resources?

Yet it is one of the most beautiful places, I loved walking around looking at the beautiful trees, the designed homes, the people were gracious, warm, inviting. I wonder if I were one of those Facebook millionaires, would I bulldoze an older house, and built a new one right on top of it?

I hope not, I think not, but how do I really know what I might do, I went mad and broke restoring Bedlam Farm’s old barns and I could get into a lot of trouble with an architect and millions of dollars in the bank. I would love to visit Atherton again, it was mesmerizing, a fascinating and uniquely American place, a window into the best and worst of the American idea. If I believe the novels and movies and cautionary tales, then I have to believe it won’t last, it can’t last. Those big houses seem unsustainable to me in our increasingly unsustainable world. The American Dream has always been a roller coaster.  It never stays up or fails to go down. You might think these new princes and princesses of the tech revolution would know to build smaller and more sustainable homes, structures that don’t cost a fortune in taxes and require platoons of helpers to maintain.

Or have I just grown too small and narrow and cautious as I get older? I don’t want anyone to begrudge me my dreams, and I don’t want to begrudge anyone else’s. I hope they are all happy in those big homes, even as the long time residents shake their heads at the invasion and the great changes it has wrought to Atherton. I had a wonderful time in Atherton, I have to say I loved being there.  More than once, I saw homes I would love to live in. And I am lucky that when I got home, Maria and I looked at one another and gave thanks for our small farm in our humble county. I don’t think there is anyone here who would knock our small farmhouse down to build a McFarm over it’s foundation.

It is always enriching to see other worlds, always a blessing to come home.

Puppies up for adoption at the Silicon Valley Humane Society.

The first thing I noticed at the Silicon Valley Humane Society was it’s size, it looks like a small modern airline terminal. The second was it’s quiet, you would not know there were rabbits, cats, dogs all around. The third was the enthusiasm and commitment of the staff, everyone a warrior for animals, an advocate for their humane treatment, rescue and placement. I have been in raucous intake units where terrified animals are poked, prodded, tagged and crates.

It is not the case at the SVHS, the dogs are examined carefully in quiet well lit rooms by trained and gentle staff members, they are kept from arousing and frightening situations and this is picked up by the people who come into consider adopting them. The animals are calm and focused. This dog had just been brought in and I thought this photo captured the feeling well.

Coming home:

To the bray of a donkey.

The smell of a farm.

The soft clucking of hens.

The sad cry of hawks.

The ewes calling to one another.

The barn cats coming through the mist.

The morning sun over the barn.

To my life.

In a small room in an outbuilding of the Hubbard Hall Arts Center in Cambridge, N.Y. this morning – our little classroom theater was closed due to rains – some lights were lit, some creative souls came together to find their voices, start some blogs.

One student  – Melissa Carll – helps run a nature preserve and is seeking to improve their blog, another, Jim Reid, is a former Protestant Bishop who wants to write about ageing and retirement, a massage therapist named Mandy Meyer-Hill wants to find her voice and use her blog to help people heal, Athena Burke, a well-known singer and spiritualist, wants to build an online community of music and affirmation,  two writers  – Lisa Dingle and Roger McManus – want to get published. Lisa Dingle, a member of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm,  is driving over three hours each Saturday to take the class – and some more students are coming next Saturday. The “Art Of The Blog” class is underway for the next four Saturday mornings.

I enjoy teaching small workshops, I love preaching that writing is not the province of the tormented few,  and I’m grateful to be supporting Hubbard Hall, the creative locus of our small upstate New York town. It is a great group of feeling and thinking and mindful people, we got far in two hours, we will go a lot farther.

One of the most interesting and anxious of the students was Elizabeth Nichols Ross, a Funeral Director, Minister and technophobe. She works in an industry everybody will use but nobody wants to talk about,  and she officiates at weddings as well of funerals. She wants to minister to both ends of life. She is not fearful about life or death but was nearly traumatized by the very idea of starting her own blog, she didn’t even know what a blog was. Elizabeth looked ashen during the class, baffled by the very idea of what a blog was, but she followed the simple and easy blog set-up  instructions written by Rachel Barlow, a gifted writer in her own right, a blogger and  student in my Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop and a technical whiz.

I know Elizabeth, she is thinking a lot about her life and where she wants it go, she is thinking a lot about life and death. She went home after the class, read Rachel’s wonderful instructions and put up her new blog in a few hours. Late this afternoon, “Celebrating Life And Death Along The Way” was launched. I believe in the power of the blog to give people voice, to connect them to like-minded souls, to change lives as my blog has changed mine. Elizabeth is warm, funny, honest and she will write about life and death in compelling and relevant and sad and funny ways, just the way she talks about it. I was moved the class, by the student’s spirit and yearning to communicate.

Life is a daily opportunity and we can live it in fear and anger and resentment or we can live it. I look forward to the other candles being lit, one by one, to the other voices being raised, to the other ideas and emotions being shared and finding their place in the world. I told the students that blogs are a coming out, an affirmation of individuality. The class is a gift to me, and Elizabeth has given me the first present, lit the first candle. If you can, welcome her to this world, to the Ministry Of Encouragement. She has started off on a new chapter that just might alter her life, and the lives of others.