a double first cousin

Lelia Ann Dickinson Smith

the last of my wife's double first cousins!

we can enshrine in our hearts the brother, the sister, the parent,

sometimes, though, a few of us can have a connection

in which the genes and life experience can bind us

in a love for one whose mother was sister to our mother,

whose father was brother to our father,

such was the light upon the world for my wife,

the double first cousin named Lelia Ann Dickinson Smith,

when we would be blessed with time with her,

her smile, her piercing intellect,

the robustness of her soul,

her gift with the piano,

made our moments together shine with a light

that was so right that it hurt,

we savored our time with her children,

with her son Gavin whose brilliance of intellect

honors his mother and father,

and whose perseverance during trying times

must have inspired both his wife and parents,

his soul full of love and rightness,

with her daughter Katherine, 

whose joy in life as a toddler enchanted us,

as did our visit to her world in Oahu,

the beauty outside parallel to the beauty 

inside the people of the family,

her daughters as full of light as Lelia Ann was:

Lelia, whose wonderful children 

helped draw Lelia Ann back to the mainland,

Olivia, full of the wisdom and joy of those islands,

Marley, full of her self and the joy of being,

I only knew this family through occasional interactions,

but I know my wife,

and I know that Lelia Ann and her family

are close to Joan in ways and depths

I can imagine but not know in my heart,

just hours ago Lelia Ann breathed her last

and left our moments together for the last time,

I celebrate her life as a gift to the world

we can honor but never deserve.

by Henry H. Walker

September 15, ‘26

appreciating a world-view

 

let's get cereus

I have long felt a gulf

between the world I can readily know

and what is really out there,

particularly as to the reality other people live,

time moves on,

and I suddenly realize

that another I care about

is dealing with scary realities,

suddenly I wake up,

no longer cocooned in the protective layers

my own life weaves around me,

I feel the other's world, just for a bit,

but enough to activate the love within me,

I feel the tragedy coming at them,

and I fear how alone it might feel for them,

I make the effort to jump into their world,

and I am with them, a bit,

and I care for them, a lot,

today, I read a Facebook entry from a friend,

the actions he described, the words he used,

challenged me to understand, to realize,

the incredible loving effort he gives to every day,

to his business, to people he knows and cares about,

to plants he can nurture for years,

to asserting hope and beauty in a world

often driven to despair through others' malevolence,

he perseveres despite how our world can seem to not care,

he described his years-long effort to get a night-blooming flower, cereus,

to manifest here, hundreds of miles north of where

he and his mother savored it years ago,

it bloomed the other night, and was gone by morning,

yet this bud, unlike so many before,

endured and opened into its transient glory,

what he wrote about it all was wrenchingly powerful,

expressing what all of us who believe in a better tomorrow

should learn, should realize, about faith and effort,

that if we work toward wholeness, toward rightness, toward beauty, 

however fleeting its manifestation,

we help to show the universe

that each of our lives is worth the investment.

Randy's cereus picture

by Henry H. Walker

September 14, ‘26

a grand partnership

 

as a village raising the kids

when I worked in middle school,

I knew the challenges of those ages,

we worked hard to support the students,

to develop and adjust program,

so that we could help the individuals 

come into the fullness of realizing who they are,

of realizing what gifts are inherent to them,

of realizing how to share those gifts in service to others,

then from that position of self-awareness and strength,

we could seek how the individual

could connect into larger and larger wholes,

when I would ask my advisees 

what they were most proud of during a term,

I didn't hear about tests, or projects, or sports, or theater,

instead "my friends" would be the answer from person after person,

validation of self a gift from those friends,

the students before us were already

well on their way to definition and expression of self,,

often in a continuity from their earliest days,

even at the early school as 3-5 year olds,

the students live the truth of who they were before birth

and the lessons learned from their earliest childhood,

their prospective teachers work 

to visit them at home before school starts, 

to appreciate their present,

learn their back stories,

 and get ready for the new chapters,

throughout C.F.S. at its best, each unit of the school 

sees truly the students before them,

appreciates all that is forming true,

and strives to create whatever way

might help in their learning 

so that tomorrow builds upon today,

as each expresses their own truth,

as each learns the truth of how the world works,

and expresses the truth of the joy of learning 

that should infuse us all,

I was lucky to be able to attend some upper school senior seminars,

where the understanding and discussion felt like the best

of what I remember from college,

and I saw the students as they must have been about age 6,

when gifted teachers supported them in getting the trick

of letters becoming words, of words becoming sentences,

when a campus early school teacher celebrated her students hugging trees,

I felt a continuity of that early time with upper school students

going to the Galapagos to marvel and learn,

each member of the whole staff is of the village 

raising these young people,

the more the grand work is a partnership,

the better for the students, 

and for the school,

and for the world,

as educators, we are challenged

to see each student as who they have been, 

as who they are now,

as who they can become

if school and self work together,

to allow each student to birth their best.

by Henry H. Walker

September 14, ‘26

our huge backyard

 a bobcat ambassador

just got a text from the caretaker at our Gatlinburg cabin:

"Opened the door to see a young skinny bobcat 

trotting along the treeline back to the trail."

my dad used to say that out our backdoor

we have over half a million acres in our backyard,

valley and mountain slowly return toward old growth,

two sides of our land border the national park,

on one side, a former cornfield a hundred years ago, then pine woods,

now maturing toward the richness of cove hardwood,

from which a rich diversity of fauna can appear,

on another side,  right by the edge of LeConte Creek,

the water draws the eye and the ear and the soul toward harmony,

black bear often cross over from their world into ours here,

a few times I have seen foxes visit and claim this territory,

I've heard of river otters visiting the creek,

and I have savored great blue heron checking out

what its waters can feed them,

we love our windows and our screened porch,

through which birds and bears 

and rhododendron flower

can visit our eyes,

through which the clear mountain creek entices us

to get lost in its magnificence 

and be soothed by its murmuring voice,

countless times: "Is it raining?" 

"No, it's the creek,"

we can walk out our door and pass through a green veil

into a natural world from which we came,

and into which we return when we act upon our need

for what Wendell Berry would describe as 

"the peace of wild things,"

borders intrigue us, frontiers,

where one world intersects with another,

the beach must be that for many,

the edge where comfort and control meet the ocean,

where what it reveals

is but an appetizer for what is within it,

perhaps the skinny bobcat is an unconscious ambassador

who doesn't want to interact with us, to know us,

but, like the bears, can put up with us near its world,

where it can still be who it is,

despite how alien our worlds can be to it,

if our yards can produce a meal of squirrel,

it will chance putting up with cultural contagion

for the hope of a good meal,

less hard won than in the national park.

by Henry H. Walker

September 8, ‘26