Category Archives: Meditations

Not that bad

A friend called today and said, “Well, I hear you’ve been having a real winter up there.” It certainly sounds that way on the news, with all the reports of snowstorms in New England. But so far I have found this to be a relatively mild winter here in New Bedford. The harbor hasn’t frozen at all this winter, except for one day when a little bit of ice formed in one or two tiny protected backwaters. And there have only been three of four days when ice or snow kept me from walking as far as usual: we have had snow, but always followed by a warm spell that melts all the snow away.

From my point of view, this winter feels milder than the last two winters. And it’s not just my point of view — the waterfowl agree. I have seen about half the number of wintering waterfowl on New Bedford harbor this year, probably because the birds are dispersed over the many inland waterways and ponds that aren’t frozen. Had this winter been as bad as the last two, I think I’d be seeing lots more waterfowl on the harbor.

Pigeons in winter

This afternoon, Carol and I took our usual walk along Route 6 across the harbor to Fairhaven. We talked about this and that, part of the ongoing conversation that people who have known each other for a long time have. The wind swept down from the north, picking up cold and dampness from the harbor; it cut right through my windbreaker; it was exhilirating but draining; Carol walked on the lee side of me, letting me act as a windbreak for her. “Boy, that wind is cold,” I said. And just then a pigeon came flying down towards where they all roost under the bridge, flaring its primary feathers as it rode the wind currents. I thought it was enjoying its ride on the stiff north breeze, and for that moment I thought that maybe the pigeons didn’t mind the cold and liked the stiff north wind.

But on the walk back, Carol pointed out dozens of pigeons roosting on a sheltered rooftop, where they could be out of the wind and warmed by the sun.

Not noticing

I spent this morning driving around to local graveyards, looking for 18th C. gravestones to photograph — I’m giving a talk on 17th and 18th C. gravestones at the Whaling Museum in a couple of weeks, and I needed to get some visuals for the talk.

Had I spent the morning driving around in some other place, away from home — even had I been just twenty or thirty miles from the New Bedford area — I would have had much to write about. Travel has a way of opening our eyes; we laugh at tourists who come to our home town, and walk slowly, gawking, and stopping to take photographs of everything; but then when we go someplace new, we behave in exactly the same way.

Since I stayed near home, I didn’t see much. Even though I drove to one place I hadn’t really seen before — the Hixville section of Dartmouth — I didn’t pay any particular attention to it. I drove to it, found the cemetery I was looking for, quickly took photographs of a few gravestones, and left; all without having noticed much of anything beyond the gravestones.

On volunteering

I spent about six hours today — most of the day — putting together a draft of a Web site for South Coast Sustainability Network, a local environmental group. At the end of the day, I realized that I don’t enjoy volunteering which requires me to hunch over a computer screen all day.

My job as a minister is mostly sedentary — I sit in meetings, I respond to email, I write sermons, I sit and talk with people. Yet before I became a minister my jobs were far more active — I worked in a warehouse, I sold building materials, I worked for a carpenter. In my core, I need to be physically active. With a sedentary job, I am not enthusiastic about spending my non-working hours at sedentary tasks. In fact, after spending six hours today working on that new Web site, I was so antsy and so desperate to do something active that I actually lifted weights — and I hate to lift weights.

The problem is that most of the skills I bring to community volunteer work — knowledge of the Web; moderately good committee member; not bad at publicity and marketing — these are all sedentary skills. Maybe what I need are volunteer opportunities that allow me to be outdoors and active.

I think my goal for this new year is to come up with active, outdoors volunteer responsibilities to replace the sedentary, indoors volunteer responsibilities I now have.

Sisters

My sister Jean is back east for a holiday visit. She is staying with my younger sister Abby in Acton, Mass. Today I drove up there to hang out with them. First we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant with my dad and his friend Rhoda. Jean forgot her reading glasses, and asked us to read the fortune from her fortune cookie to her. Of course we didn’t read her the actual fortune, and made something up: something about being sure to rely on the wisdom of your brothers and sisters. Dad and Rhoda were tolerant of us. After lunch, dad and Rhoda had to run some errand, so Jean and Abby and I decided to go browse in bookstores.

Then it was time to go get a cup of coffee. “Show Dan your video,” said Abby to Jean. Jean, who is the Photographer and Writer of us three, showed us the video she shot on her cell phone. It was pretty cool. Jean said she was going to shoot another video while we were having coffee, and of course Abby pretended to pick her nose, which led to a number of booger jokes. We left an extra big tip for the waitress.

Abby invited us to dinner at her house. Jim, her husband, took it in his stride when all three Harper children descended on his peaceful house. Abby showed me the gorilla puppet that Jean got her for Christmas. It was pretty cool. At the dinner table, Jean and Abby and I competed to see who could tell Jim the best story about the stupid things we did when we were kids.

After dinner, Jean and I took turns making the gorilla puppet talk. Abby, who of the three of us is the acknowledged Expert on Children’s Literature and Toys, brought out a monkey puppet from her vast puppet collection. When there are puppets among the three of us, they take on distinct personalities, and we talk to them as if they are alive. Jim started to askance at us, got up to get another beer. “Um,” said Abby, “I think Jim’s getting kinda creeped out by the puppets.” We stopped. I decided it was time for me to leave — I had a long drive ahead of me, and besides no one should have to put up with the three of us Harper siblings for very long.

I got home about nine o’clock. “What did you do?” said Carol.

“Brother and sister stuff,” I said. Carol is an only child, so this didn’t mean much to her.

“Like what?” said Carol.

“Making fun of each other,” I said. “Teasing each other. Being stupid.”

Carol stamped her foot. “I want to do all that,” she said. She wishes she had had brothers and sisters. I didn’t tell her about the booger jokes; I figured I wouldn’t spoil her idealized notion of what it’s like to have siblings.

So much for winter

The latest news is that some scientists now believe the Arctic ice cap could be completely gone by 2013 (link). And the tropical disease chikungunya has appeared in Europe for the first time ever (link). Seems that in spite of the denials and unscientific pontifications of people like Rush Limbaugh and Georgie Bush, global climate change is real, and it’s happening all around us.

Today in New Bedford, after some snow and seasonal temperatures, the warm weather returned, with temperatures hitting 52 degrees F (11 C). A heavy rain squall has washed away most of the snow. Predictions are that high temperatures will range between 40 and 50 during the week ahead. All this matches the predictions for global warming in this region: snow during the “shoulder seasons” in early December and late spring, while the rest of the winter stays mild.

Right now, it’s 50 degrees and warm rain is pounding on my skylight. This is not the New England I grew up in. It’s kind of depressing.

I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas
‘Cause global warming’s put an end to snow….

Snowflake

This morning I had to drive the six blocks to work. It was gloomy, gray, rainy, and raw. When lunchtime rolled around, I was tired of sitting in the office staring at email and talking on the telephone, so I wanted to walk back home for lunch. But when I got outside, it was snowing.

Snow, I thought. Blah.

I decided that I had better drive the car back right then and put it in the parking garage, in case there was enough snow to make the roads slippery. So much for my lunchtime walk. I walked over to the car feeling low, and just as I arrived at the car a snowflake landed on the driver’s side window. It was huge, as snowflakes go, perhaps an eighth of an inch across. It was fluffy and fat and white, and I could clearly see its six outstretched arms.

Wow, I thought.

I got inside the car, and looked at the snowflake from the inside for a moment. It looked as if its crystalline structure was fantastically complex, but it was really too small for me to see clearly without a magnifying glass. Then I started the car and drove off to the parking garage, completely forgetting about the snowflake until now.

Just want to claw my eyes out….

In the church office today, Linda, the church secretary, mentioned that her allergies are bad.

“Mine too,” I said. “My eyes are itchy.”

“I know,” she said. “My eyes are really bad.”

“I just want to claw my eyes out,” I said. Which will sound disgusting, unless you too suffer from allergies in which case you’ll fully understand why I said that.

“Yup,” said Linda, “claw them out, put ’em in a glass of water, and rinse ’em off. That would be great. I’m using my eye drops all the time. I wonder what’s causing it, though. Usually when we get the first snow, that’s the end of allergies. But not this year.”

“Maybe mold?” I said. Mold is a huge problem in old buildings in New Bedford, because the climate is so damp. “Except that we live in a brand new building with no mold at all, and my eyes have been itching at home, too.”

“Well, I noticed a lot of the trees still have leaves on them,” said Linda.

“Leaf mold?” I said.

“I’ll bet that’s it,” she said.

“You know,” I said, “I thought I’ve had some kind of lingering cold for the past month, but I’ll bet it’s allergies. Itchy eyes, congestion,…”

“…Headaches, tired all the time, fuzzy thinking. Yup, sounds like allergies, doesn’t it?” Linda said. “We need a good cold snap to put an end to this.”

I’ve never had allergies in the winter before. This may be a small but unpleasant side effect of global climate change:– perhaps allergy sufferers will no longer be able to count on respite from allergies in the winter.