Author Archives: Patricia Wild

Thank you, Nathaniel

Last week, while visiting Monteverde, Costa Rica, where its extensive rainforest’s exquisite beauty is accessible and preserved, I had the opportunity to visit its Butterfly Garden. Not actually an outdoor garden but rather a series of buildings and enclosures, each featuring a variety of butterfly species which illustrate a particular feature such as camouflage or mimicry. Our tour began in one such building—where our guide, Nathaniel, an attractive young scientist from Ottawa, held forth on rainforest creatures such as tarantulas and scorpions and cockroaches. (Since each tour was to enter and exit each building en masse, so as to prevent any of these gorgeous creatures from escaping,  I think the grand design for his holding-forth was to make sure everyone who planned to join us was actually there.)

As Nathaniel offered detailed and humorous descriptions of the intricate and intriguing mating rituals of various creepy, crawly creatures, I found myself saddened by what’s currently happening to scientific research; the same sort of academic pursuit which, over time, had resulted in his fascinating monologue. And told him so as we began to file out.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “There’s lots of us who are passionate about research! It’ll go on.”

Of course! Just as Mother Nature finds the most impressive ways to ensure a myriad of species’ ongoing survival, so will dedicated, knowledge-driven people under the age of fifty pursue their dreams. That’s how they’ll survive! And later that week, in the quiet, held worship at Monteverde’s Friends Meeting, it came to me that such passion is another variety of Love/Light/Spirit/God, isn’t it?

Who Tells The Story?

[Full disclosure: Your storyteller grew up pre-Title IX ; she’s never played on a team.]

What I’d most wanted for my eightieth birthday was for as many of my far-flung grandchildren as possible to come for Thanksgiving/my birthday celebration. And had been beyond ecstatic when five grandchildren were able to come!

Given how rich and family-full those precious late-November days had been, and given that I am now officially old, you’ll understand, I hope, why the extraordinary story I’m about to tell slipped my mind until this week.

I’d been seated in my living room chatting with two granddaughters, one on her Salt Lake City high school’s lacrosse team, the other on her Sleepy Hollow, New York high school’s field hockey team, about a recent incident here in Massachusetts—when a transgender girl on a soccer team had injured an opposing team’s player.

To my recollection, the story in the local news had focused on parents’ outrage; implicit in this telling was the injured player’s victimhood. Which, of course, I’d reacted to. Of course you’ll react when your children are hurt. Of course! Any loving and protective parent would. I’d reacted as a no-stranger-to-victimhood woman; I’d reacted as a mom. And as the mother of four daughters.

My two sports-playing granddaughters had a completely different reaction, however. “Grandma,” they’d gently reminded me. “We’re on a team. We know each other. We have each other’s back. We practice. We have plays, strategies. If there’s an aggressive player on the other team? We know how to counter that.”

Oh.

 

Bend like Insight Bends

Nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker has been quoted by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But without attribution.  For it had been Parker, not Lincoln, who’d first said, “A democracy—of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.” And it had been Parker, firebrand abolitionist from West Roxbury, Massachusetts, who’d first stated, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” Which, a century later, Dr. King would amend to, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

So, given its history of academic sloppiness, that I’d recently misquoted Parker/King might be forgiven, right? Well, actually: no.

I’d been telling my (adult) daughter about my walk to yoga class. Still grumbling about the recent election, buffeted by rain and a heavy wind, I’d suddenly remembered that Parker/King quote. “And you know what?” I told Allison excitedly. “In that moment? Even though I was pissed and my umbrella kept collapsing, I realized that I do believe that arc moves towards justice. I know it’s crazy, I know it’s taking much much too long, I know we’re in for truly grim times. But I still think that it does!”

” ‘Bend,’ ” Mom,” my daughter corrected me. “It’s ‘bend.’ Not ‘move.’ ” And we’d talked a little about why Parker/King’s verb was more precise than mine. And then we’d marveled at what an unexpected, counter-intuitive, yet incredibly transformational moment I’d had!

Sunday,  at my Quaker meeting, why-bend-not-move became even more clear. A speaker, referencing “The Course in Miracles” noted,”A miracle happens when your perception changes.” Later, in silent worship, I reflected on that. And saw, as if an animated line on a chart moving across a screen or a sheet of paper from left to right (But not Left to Right), how a long-held belief might move from left to right but how a shift in perception  might bends that line, that long-held belief towards something New. True but a capital T. Different. Something more Spirit-centered, more lovingkindness-imbued.

Justice demands we shift. Consciously shift. To interrupt. Bend better connotes that interruption, doesn’t it.

May collective miracles bring us closer to justice for all the people, by the people.

 

When the Planets Align

Sunday afternoon, on the sidewalk in front of my house, I randomly reunited with a neighbor who’d moved away years ago. In his early fifties now, he, his curled-haired younger brother, and his Greek-speaking parents had lived catty-corner from us. When his doe-eyed mother and I bumped into each other, I relied on my baby-talk Greek—”Good morning/afternoon/evening.”; “How are you?”; “Wonderful!” for our chats. He’d gone to elementary school with my oldest daughter. ( I remember he’d seized the school’s copy machine during recess to print out anti-Ayatollah posters. My daughter does not.) One Greek orthodox-so-a-week-later Easter, his father roasted a lamb in their tiny yard. I remember how earthily delicious our whole neighborhood smelled. I remember that his mother became ill; how her lovely eyes clouded. That when I asked “Ti kanete?” she would shrug. And then, one day, the whole family was gone.

It took me no time to grok why, on that glorious early fall day, my former neighbor hugged me so hard. His parents gone, his brother struggling, his old neighborhood much changed since he was a little boy, he must have felt a little lost, a little sad. A little at sea. It must have seemed as if no one and no-thing remained from his childhood. Indeed, he kept saying “You’re the only one left!” And would hug me again. Having lost my sister and my brother in the past two years, I know exactly how it feels when no one’s left who’d shared your childhood memories. (My beloved, remaining brother is ten years younger. Our childhoods were rarely experienced side by side.) So how amazing, how touching, how serendipitous that, just as he walked down our street, I realized I’d left my sunglasses in the car. And had just stepped outside to retrieve them.

Aren’t these sun-lit moments all the more precious, wondrous, extraordinary because we know how close we’d come to their not happening?!

 

“We understand the assignment!”

This will be brief:

A huge fan of Kamala Harris since she’d run for president, I’ve owned a “Kamala” baseball cap since May 0f 2019. (Or as we say these days, “pre-COVID.”) After that debacle of a debate, I’d been wearing it— and having uplifting, positive, chance-encounter conversations with women of all ages. Lots of thumbs up, too. (from men, too, of course.) Within an hour of Biden’s history-making announcement, my hat and I  needed to get to Harvard Square; a middle-aged man, walking in the opposite direction, saw us. And stopped, right there, on the sidewalk: “Wait! What? How did you get that so fast?”

Sweetheart? Women have been wearing this hat for centuries. We’re more than ready.

We understand the assignment.

T Is For Tia—and Also For Terrific!

Saturday, an exquisite, sunny day in greater Boston, I was seated on a crowded T car when a multi-generational, Spanish-speaking family got on and, miraculously, found seats nearby. Even the two little girls’ balloon-made unicorn and blue-eyelashed doll got seats. Not enough room for the whole family to sit in a row together, the older girl, maybe ten, and her unicorn sat on my side of the train and next to her aunt—I’m guessing that’s who she is. The doll, her sister—or maybe her cousin—her grandmother, and two hot, tired adults, a young man and woman busy on their phones, faced us. Like many grandmothers, Abuela sat in the midst of her family closely watching her family’s going-ons.

As the Green Line train screeched out of  North Station towards Union Square, it became clear that the child beside me struggled with anxiety. Something my daughters and I know a little something about. Everything  she saw out the dirty T window alarmed her. And so began a running dialogue in English: “Oh! A wall. I hope we don’t hit it. What if we crash? What if we roll over? What if we . . . ”

“Tia” intervened—also in English: “We are completely safe, ” she assured the stressed-out child in a firm, quiet, loving voice. “Smart people have already thought about every single thing, every single problem that you can come up with. They’re very well-trained, they know what they’re doing. And very smart, very hard-working mechanics work on these cars, too. They fix things. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

Now I know as well as “Auntie” that our T has a host of problems! But Auntie didn’t go there. She expertly did what nurturers are supposed to do: help a stressed child feel safe. Soothe. What I especially admired about this care-giver’s calming-technique was how she invoked an entire community of caring adults whose job it is to make sure everyone’s safe. Legions got your back! (Am I imagining it or did her “smart people” hint at the link between education and community and how you too, Mi Sobrina, could be one of those smart people who do stuff to help keep us all safe?)

This brief exchange reminds me of how blessed I and my daughters and grandchildren have been by our “Aunties” be they actual relatives or de facto Tias and Tios, who’ve jumped in, nurtured, soothed, offered much-needed advice. What a blessing!

What Part of Community (Path) Do You Not Understand?

Another  guerrilla gardener has struck! Another delightful installation along Somerville’s newly-created community path, built strictly for bikers and walkers, this little glimpse o’ beauty near the East Somerville T stop. Power to the pinwheel planter! And kudos, too, GG, for that desperately-needed greenery you’ve encouraged. “Green the Green Line,” indeed! You rock!

For, as an avid bicyclist-activist—who shall be nameless—recently noted about that chain link, gravel, and asphalt-centric space, “I’m really excited it’s finally done. But why does it have to be so ugly?” An excellent question. And I’d sure our community path’s countless users ask the same thing. All the time.

But, hey: we don’t call ourselves Villens for nuthin’. In the spirit of Elfland (Remember Elfland?), in the spirit of Honk!, in the spirit of all the people who’d contributed sculptures, gardens, and other installations along the older and established Davis Square community path, in the spirit of those community activists who’d fought for a Green Line extension in the first place (How our two, new Green Line branches have actually worked out is a whole other subject), and , yes, in the spirit of taggers, too, let’s keep this guerrilla gardening going. And growing.

Let’s plot!

Guest Author, Irene F. Ficarra (1912-1993): “What I Remember About the Molasses Tank Explosion”

[While delving into my “Women’s Writing” file* recently, found this horrifying, first-hand account written by Irene F. Ficarra, one of my writing students back in the 80’s. As I have been exploring how better to lift up forgotten women’s voices, I’ve decided to “publish” Irene’s recollection of January 15, 1919 this week.]

Trigger alert: Gruesome details.

“I was about 7 years old and the memory of it all is very vivid. My father worked for the Western Electric Company which was located in South Boston at the time. My mother worked as a “chocolate dipper” for a candy factory called Lowney’s which was situated where the Coast Guard Station was later located. We lived right off Commercial Street opposite the chocolate factory. My mother came home for lunch that day and heard the noise of the explosion; the screams of  the excited Italian neighborhood brought everyone to the street.

My mother announced that she should call my father’s place of work and tell him to come right home. When he got home everything was in total confusion and rush. Fire engines and ambulances kept a steady line to and from the molasses tank. I remember seeing one of the ambulances going by and the bodies were stacked on the floor of the vehicle. One of the heads was almost severed from the body and molasses and blood were mixed. It was an awful sight.

An extension of the MBTA then known as the Boston Elevated Railway passed along Commercial Street on its way to Rowes Wharf. Steel girders supported the tracks. The force of the escaping molasses caused these seemingly invincible uprights to bend.

The father of a friend of mine worked in the Boston Navy Yard. In spite of the fact that the Navy Yard and the molasses tank were separated by the Charles River, there were casualties at the Yard. He was one of the casualties.

It was a day that I will never forget.

*Where I found “Lowell Offering,” a collection of poems and essays written by “mill girls.” More to come from those forgotten voices!

“Sensible and Human Things”

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atom bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting with our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep.

[C.S. Lewis, 1948]

Climate disruption and endless war and global health issues and political unrest undeniably lurking, looming, can we be sensible and human? Can we, despite our fears and how numbingly and satisfyingly comforting it is to scroll, scroll, scroll, can we keep on keepin’ on? Can we co-create the just, equitable, radically-inclusive world we yearn for? Can we remember to be silly? Can we celebrate this precious gift of life. Loudly? And together. In a park, maybe, or having taken over city streets. Let’s sing together, not just “Amazing Grace” or “This Land Is Your Land,” but maybe something written in this century.  (“Imagine”!) Let’s dance as if  no one’s watching. Let’s shout out whatever/whoever is precious: our grandchildren’s names. “Guernica.”  Mount Ararat. Blue Whale. Lake Superior (which, let’s face it, really is.)

Let’s be grateful.

Let’s get to work.

 

“Who Are You Wearing?”

“I think she looks almost what you call a Quaker” [Middlemarch.] 

At first glance, I must seem a very bad Quaker. A member in fairly-good standing with a religious sect that espouses simplicity and claims a shade of gray for its very own, my palette is comprised of shades of red—which, felicitously, includes purple. But having just finished Sofi Thanhauser’s excellent Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, I am freshly reminded that my clothing choices—most bought at Goodwill or the Material Aid and Advocacy Program’s semi-annual tag sale—should reflect another Quaker value: integrity.

I remember the first time I thought about the history of my clothing, my cotton clothing: The waterfront director at a  camp in the Adirondacks the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college, while I lifeguarded up north my family moved from Lynchburg, Virginia to Huntsville, Alabama. At the end of the summer, I flew to “Huntspatch”; my parents, my two brothers and my sister picked me up from the airport.  My family chattering around me, I stared out our minivan’s window at what seemed mile after mile of flatness slathered by mini-malls. When we finally turned off the highway we were surrounded by cotton fields. And Black teenagers, crouched low to the ground, picked that cotton, their long bags snaking behind them like contrails. I will never forgot my double shock at driving past this mid-sixties version of slavery—and that my family continued to chatter. In the brief time our New England-based family lived in Alabama they’d already become inured to the sight of underage workers picking cotton? What?

Did I stop wearing cotton? No. I’m not Lucretia Mott. But when I do, sometimes I remember to ask myself the same question fashion journalists ask on Oscar night as the glitterati parade by: “Who are you wearing?”

 

 

“(Mill)Dam!”

[Faulkner Mill, North Billerica, MA]

Where there is a mill there is a river. And a dam. Currently (no pun intended) interested in that mill—once owned by ancestors of mine*—I am therefore interested in that river: The Concord.

You know who else was? Henry Thoreau. Who, for a week in August of 1839, along with his brother, traveled along the Concord River. As the brothers’ dory approached Billerica, they noticed that the salmon, shad, and alewives had disappeared. Thoreau wrote this:

Poor shad! where is thy redress? When Nature gave thee instinct, gave she thee the heart to bear thy fate? Still wandering the sea in thy scaly armor to inquire humbly at the mouths of rivers if man has perchance left them free for thee to enter. . . . Armed with no sword, . . . but mere shad, armed only with innocence and a just cause. . . I for one am with thee, and who knows what may avail a crow-bar against that Billerica dam?

The original mildam had been built in 1710; in 1721, another irate Concord resident, Dr. Jonathan Prescot and his buddies indeed took a crow-bar to that damned dam and nearby grist mill. (Was Dr. Prescot an eco-warrior? No. The dam had caused flooding on his property.) Subsequent reiterations of that milldam, its falls powering several mills, including the side-by-side Talbot and Faulkner Mills, prevailed. (The story of the Faulkner Mill—and the wealth it generated—is a story for another day.)

Until now. 

Wouldn’t Thoreau—and all those poor salmon, shad, and alewives—be amazed!

* Keen eyes will notice that mill owner Luther Faulkner’s daughter was Amy Prescott Faulkner Wild. She was my grandfather’s mother.