Grand Night for Singing (Notes from the Field)

 May 1st Jim and I headed out on the road. We drove straight through to Chicago, a thousand-mile drive. We spent four days with Jim’s nearly-ninety-two-year-old mother. Jim focused on helping her sort photos for inclusion in her life history. I made a delicious (and I do say so myself) carrot cake and took a walk around Hyde Park one day.

We’re both fully-vaccinated and today is Day Fourteen for me. I’m gradually getting used to the idea that I could be out in public without a mask and not inwardly cringe when someone invades my six-foot bubble. I still wear a mask when I see non-family members, to comply with regulations and show solidarity.

After enjoying a two-day ‘getaway’ to Antietam Battlefield and Harpers Ferry, where we walked a tiny bit of the Appalachian Trail across a railroad/pedestrian bridge, we came to southeast D.C. to spend time with our youngest son, Sam, his wife, Savannah, and dear little Eliza and Link.

I’m sitting out on their backyard deck, listening to a bird “who is bound he’ll be heard…throwing his heart at the sky!” The trees are in full leaf. The cherry blossoms are long gone and the last of the azaleas are browning while the roses open up. In the distance I hear the sounds of the highway, DC-295. Many years ago I was camping next to a rushing stream in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The water ran all night, of course, and sounded a lot like constant highway traffic. When I returned home the sound of Bedford St out my bedroom window took on a soothing character.

I’ve always been aware that Washington is at least a month ahead of Boston in spring. In the nineties, when our children were all at home, I would drive to suburban Maryland to visit my oldest brother, Steve, during April vacation. When we lived in New Hampshire, we would leave a landscape that had barely emerged from winter and as we drove south the signs of spring appeared along the roadside: yellow forsythia in Connecticut, flowering trees in New Jersey and a riot of azaleas, red, white, and pink, in Maryland. The reverse trip at the end of the week rolled the film backwards, but in New England once again, I had hope that spring was coming: I’d seen it in the south.

With vaccinations going apace, I have hope that things will be different this summer from last.

I remember my anxiety on March 12, 2020, wondering what a ‘lockdown’ would look like. Would we be required to stay inside? What about grocery shopping? As it turned out, we had it relatively easy. I could go on walks and hardly encounter anyone. My garden never looked so good: I hired a teenager and three of his younger sisters to work with me. And the lockdown was an opportunity to test our food storage. Based on counsel from our Church leaders, we’ve stored food since we were married. Our basement has a year's supply of calories: various dried beans, rice, wheat, flour, and canned goods. We lasted six weeks without a trip to the grocery store. I was pleased.

This afternoon on the deck is restorative. I don’t often make the effort to sit outside. I haven’t spent the time just sitting: I’m too restless for that. But I have looked up from my computer from time to time, soaking in the deep green foliage and the songbirds.

Early Rising

I’m a columnist for the Cannon Chronicle, a semi-annual newsletter of the descendants of Alan Munn and Mary Parkinson Cannon. I’m married to the editor of eight years, so I’ve got this plum job.

My recent column focused on meditation. Since the pandemic began I have attended a weekday meditation circle on Zoom, led by Khare, a dedicated DBSA Boston (Depression Bipolar Suport Alliance) facilitator and student of meditation. With few exceptions, I’ve been at my computer at 8:30 a.m. every weekday since April. I’ve seen great strides in my ability to sit still and be present.

In my column, I sheepishly admit that 8:15 a.m. is early to me these days. Then I defend myself: I’m retirement age, why not sleep in?

Early rising is a complicated issue for me. Much like my desire to take as few medications as possible, I’ve always seen it as a moral issue. “Early to bed and early to rise,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, extolling the virtues of early rising.

As a child, I loved to get up early. I remember in second grade getting up at 5:30 a.m. to go to morning Mass with my dad. Then I’d sit on a bench at the bottom of the stairs, navy-blue beret jammed on my white-blond head, and ferociously read Robinson Crusoe. (I was an aggressively good reader from a young age.)

When I was around 14, I would get up early on summer mornings and ride my bike all over the south side of Westfield, NJ. The smell of the fresh new day thrilled my heart and I reveled in enjoying a morning that everyone else was sleeping through.

Having manic depression (bipolar 1), I find myself always second guessing myself. Is my early rising virtuous or is it a harbinger of mania? Certainly a symptom of hypomania, that delicious state ‘below’ mania, is a lessened need for sleep. How does that work? Days and weeks of 6, 5, 4 hours of sleep with ever-increasing energy. A pretty stupendous crash at the end, but a crash of the mind, not the muscles and organs (aside from the brain).

So, there ‘tis, to quote the emperor in Amadeus. The virtue of my youth slams up against current medical advice. When I wake spontaneously at 5 a.m. these days, within seconds I have three thoughts: Did I take my meds? Do I need more? Can I handle this myself without meds?)

 

Patriots' Day 1775

Our missionaries asked me to write up a description of Patriots' Day for their Church of Jesus Christ Cambridge Facebook page.

At about 10:15 p.m. on the evening of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere left his home in the North End of Boston and walked to his rowboat, hidden under a wharf. With muffled oars, two co-patriots rowed him across the harbor to Charlestown, within sight of the British Navy’s warship, The Somerset. He had earlier instructed another patriot to hang two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church: ‘two if by sea,’ after he learned from an informant that the army was planning a surprise assault that night. In Charlestown, Revere borrowed a horse and set off on his main objective: to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington that the ‘Regulars’ were marching to Lexington to capture them (and have them hung for treason.) Revere would never have cried out, “The British are coming,” he and the American colonists considered themselves British and were fighting for what they believed were their rights as English freemen.

 Revere was nearly captured by two ‘regulars’ in Charlestown. He successfully eluded them and changed his course to ride through modern-day Medford (Mystic) and Arlington (Menotomy). He reached Lexington without further incident, woke Hancock and Adams, and headed to Concord to warn the townspeople that the army’s second order was to capture the hidden munitions in their town.

Outside Lexington, Revere was surrounded by ten armed officers.

 “If you go an inch further you are a dead man!” one man cried.

The redcoats took Revere’s horse and left him to walk the three miles back to Lexington.

 

In Lexington, the redcoats arrived at dawn and were met on the Green (now known as the Battlegreen) by Lexington militia, armed and ready to bar their way. A shot went off, to this day it is debated by whom, and the tired redcoats started firing without orders. The militiamen returned fire and when the smoke cleared, eight colonists lay dead.

 The regulars continued to Concord, where the sought-for munitions had been carefully hidden among the houses of the town. About 100 regulars met an armed band of about 400 militiamen at the North Bridge. A firefight ensued and the redcoats fell back from the bridge to rejoin their main body.

 All day long, militiamen streamed towards the retreating army, coming from towns as far as forty miles away.

 Arriving back in Lexington, having endured attacks by militiamen all along the road, the beleaguered army met Lord Percy and reinforcements from Boston. From there, fierce fighting continued on the long march back to Boston. The troops were exhausted from their thirty-mile midnight march through a hostile countryside filled with ringing church bells, alarming the inhabitants of their ‘secret’ mission. Boston lay another ten-mile march away. In Menotomy (now Arlington), 5000 minutemen met the retreating troops. Lord Percy ordered a house-to-house search for snipers and the regulars ransacked houses and set some on fire.

  After the redcoats arrived back in Boston, militiamen successfully blockaded the narrow neck of land that connected Boston to the mainland, effectively laying siege to Boston and the occupying army. Less than a year later, the British army and navy left Boston peaceably on March 17, 1776. To this day, Boston schoolchildren enjoy a holiday, not for St. Patrick’s Day, but for Evacuation Day.

 

Boston saw no further action in the ensuing war, though many of its militiamen joined the Continental Army and fought valiantly for their independence.

Walking Paul Revere's Ride

    The other day, Jim walked to his barbershop in Lexington Center. He stopped at the Visitors’ Center and bought some history cards and a map of Paul Revere’s ride.

I had noticed that map last fall on a visit and was thrilled with his purchase.

Monday, Jim left for a 12-day road trip with his brother Jeff. Jeff’s wife, Nelly, died November 28. Jim and Jeff are both vaccinated, so the planned road trip (Salt Lake City to San Francisco and Seattle) commenced.

That afternoon, I walked the Minuteman Bike path to the historic Bedford Depot. I wandered around, finding the trailhead of the Concord Reformatory Trail and the Small-gauge Railway to Billerica. I passed by the Bedford Flag statue, my friend Brian's favorite monument.

In all, I walked 9.27 miles in under 3 hours.

I had spent Monday morning planning a bigger adventure: walking the length of Paul Revere’s ride. Tuesday morning I took an MBTA bus for the first time in well over a year, and the Red Line subway to North Station. I walked to Rachel and Paul Revere’s house in the North End and struck out for Lexington. I kept a comfortable pace, just under a 3-minute mile, and stopped for pictures of historic markers.

A detour to “Grandfather’s House” in Medford was delightful. It's a large Greek Revival house with imposing white columns. Tufts University owns the property and, yes, it is right on the Mystic River. There are even a few trees, though I'd hardly call it a woods.

I accidently got off High Street and walked over a mile longer than Paul’s ride. I’m usually a stickler for detail, but when I discovered my error, nearly 10 miles into the trek, I decided to press forward. Luckily I wasn't responsible to alert the residents of Medford's High Street between Woburn and Playstead Streets.

It was a delightful day, overcast and cool (48 degrees) to start, but the clouds lifted and much of the way was in complete sunshine. By walking, I got a real sense of the land and what Paul would have experienced (or rather, what the borrowed horse did).

The toughest section was climbing the glaciar-created Winter Hill in Somerville. The drumlin (an egg-shaped feature shaped by clay mounding under a glacier) has changed little since the 1630s, when Winter Hill Road was established (now called Broadway). Little geological change, but very different habitations and businesses.

    I saw no evidence of the “Winter Hill gang,” which was established in 1955 and, according to Wikipedia, is active in organized crime to this day. One of its most infamous members, Whitey Bulger, went into hiding in 1994 and was apprehended in Santa Monica, California in 2011. He was convicted of many crimes, including complicity in 19 murders.

           My feet started to get pretty sore around mile 13. A half-marathon is 13.1 miles and I've walked that distance many times. Last April 18th, I walked 16.59 miles in a 'virtual' half-marathon: a circuit to Bedford, Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington, including about 8 miles on the Battle Road in Concord.

    Now I've done 17.

Cocktails

 I just discovered something about my psychiatric medication regime. I take a cocktail.

Years ago, when I began attending DBSA Boston (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance) during the day, I heard about cocktails. “I take six different medications, a cocktail” someone would say. I would be grateful I wasn’t doing that.

Why was I against taking a cocktail of medication? For one thing, I’ve never really adjusted to the fact that I take any medication every day. “Better living through modern chemistry” has never been a motto of mine.

I’ve always assumed that it was somehow virtuous to take the fewest medications possible. I often wonder if I really need to take exactly what I do. The cocktail treatment is experimental, as far as I can see. I’m not aware of double-blind studies of the efficacy of any of the myriad combinations of psychotropic drugs. How could there be; there are so many possibilities.

Recently, at DBSA, I asked, “What exactly is a medication cocktail?” Several people assured me that two drugs taken together constitute a cocktail. In that case, I first took a cocktail back in 1996, when my psychiatrist added an anti-depressant to my lithium. And since 2003, I’ve been having cocktails every day: three drugs. Who knew?

Oma Duty

 For the past thirteen days, our big house has been blessed with additional occupants: three-year-old Eliza and twelve-week-old Link (Lincoln) (he was ten weeks old when he arrived) and their parents, Sam and Savannah. As I discovered last summer, when Eliza stayed with us for ten days while Sam and Savannah drove from California to D.C., tending young children is exhausting at age 64. Sam and Savannah have been working everyday (the only way this visit has been possible is with remote employment) and we've watched our young charges each afternoon.

At first, Link was evidently not happy with the level of care, and I put an emergency call out to my trusty Relief Society (our church's women's organization): baby swing needed!

The swing has made a huge difference to my sanity, just as when we had babies back in the eighties. Swings have changed over the years. Our lime-green thrift-store special sported a hand crank, four long, thin aluminum legs.  and a vinyl sling for a seat. The swing we borrowed takes two people to move and must be rated to withstand a magnitude five earthquake. It's electric and has settings for various sounds and music (who knew a child needs to hear "Greensleeves" in the first year of life?)

Link can get very hot and bothered, but when he's calm, it's magical. His dark blue eyes, startling under the mop of dark brown hair, sparkle and he chortles with glee. My heart melts. Every day he changes, a little more interactive, a little more in control of his body.

Eliza is a self-possessed young girl. I'm delighting in sharing my favorite children's books with her. Today it was Hey Al by Arthur Yorinks, illustrated by Richard Egielski. In 1986, it won the Caldecott Medal for illustration. She loves it as much as I do.

Piercing the windowpanes

 The late-winter sunshine continues to enchant me. It pierces the windowpanes and falls on the oak floorboards.

A friend of mine commented that the days will get longer in two weeks. Of course, the clock change doesn’t make the days longer, but sunset will suddenly be an hour later.

I remember how devastating daylight savings was all those years when I drove our high school students to early morning seminary class. Through January and February the sunrise gradually came earlier and earlier. Then, with an abrupt brutality, the clocks were set forward and our risings were plunged into darkness again. Then, as the equinox passed and Helios moved towards the summer solstice, the sun would rise over Route 2 again.

With the pandemic, I spend more time in my house, but I’m more in tune with the sun and seasons than ever. Last year I was out and about, rushing to appointments and in perpetual danger of being late. This year I watch the sun rise out my window and feel its energy at midday.