In the morning, I go up to the faculty lounge to get my lecture tea. Yellow chamomile in a blue striped cup. Anyone who has ever listened to me lecture will know the motions. I enter the room, squeeze the last bit of liquid from the tea bag, place my copious notes on a podium (or table if it’s a seminar) and begin.
This morning I am running early. Yes, really! I encounter a senior faculty member in the lounge. He’s one of those that seemed to me senior-ish when I was a law student myself, now almost 25 years ago.
Tell me, how long have you lived in Madison?
Oh, maybe 55 years by now. Why?
I want to know: is this the most beautiful fall you have ever experienced here?
Yes, definitely. And the driest. But seasons have been less and less harsh here for me.
For him? For all? Because with time, maybe everything appears less harsh.
It is still early afternoon when I leave campus. Classes are finished. I am back at my downtown loft. I put on a CD from the summer and stretch out on the couch. I let myself resurrect the image of the house I was so happy to get rid of this summer, the one in the suburbs.
(Truthfully....) I have not returned to my old neighborhood. No, I’m lying. I did go back, exactly once, a week ago, to show off the block to a friend who had never seen it.
When I had handed the keys to the new family, I felt relieved. The place was sold. The new family seemed happy. They had small children, they would fit in. But now, driving by in the evening I felt like a bullet had gone through me.
The yard was butchered. No, really, stripped naked. Forget the perennial beds – those were wild, imitating a cottage garden. Not everyone likes that. But what hit me was the absence of trees. The huge birch, towering over half the house, providing the dappled light that only a birch tree could display – gone. The crab apple with a million blooms – gone. That goddamn lawn is going to take over again, isn’t it?
My friend let me sit in silence for a while. I had nothing to say. This was not the house where my family lived. This is not it anymore.
Walking home from campus this afternoon, I pick a route that is exceptionally sunny. Warm. Quiet. In repose. Even the bicycles are resting.
A friend from the old neighborhood drops in at the loft. She has not seen it before. She marvels, she says all the right things, I love her to death…
Oh, did you see what happened to your old house? The desecration? The elimination of trees?
Yes…
The night ends with my adorable Torts group. There is a gathering. I meet them at this first stage of their night out. We take pictures. We tease – me, about their issues, they about my tattoo.
(the Torts women, with the prof in their midst)
It is close to midnight. The Torts students head out toward State Street, I head home, in the quiet of West Washington. Home. Where I set my priorities for the next day and the days after.
Your torts students are cute. But what about the guys? What did you all do to the guys?
ReplyDeleteBtw, my civ pro students are cute and smart.
Oh so funny, Saul, Tonya! As it happens, the guys are simply not as vain as we are and do not leap at the chance to be photographed over and over again.
ReplyDelete(In truth, they were off to the side talkin' sports, or whatever it is that guys talk about.)
Oh and Tonya, my students approach a level of brilliance that is astonishing. And they know how to sing (karaoke), draw (renditions of cases have appeared on the blackboard) and act (their re-enactment of Pasgraf was superb). So there.
I am sad for the loss of the trees. Two years ago I drove my children past the home I owned in Massachusetts before they were born. It was a similar experience, with some of my most beloved yard features (shrubs, trees, what-have-you) completely gone. The one thing I was happy to see is that the new owners had un-screened the porch, something I had wanted to do myself but never had the chance. At any rate the experience left me feeling as if I had a hole in my heart, and I realized that I would never go by there again.
ReplyDeleteYour torts group is adorable.
My former brother-in-law and his family bought my first house. My old last name was on the door knocker; it just made sense.
ReplyDeleteMy second house was sold to someone who wanted a dog. Big lot, backed up to woods. I've peeked in the yard since I've left, and I see my dog Cookie running out from the bushes. She died before I moved, but it's still her yard.
Joan and Belle: I suppose that I had at some level reconciled myself to letting go of the inside spaces. I hadn't counted on mourning the loss of trees. Who would want to eliminate mature trees? That take decades to reach their peak?
ReplyDelete