• About Judith A. Ross

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

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“P.S. Today Is One Hot Scortcher.”

19 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by judithar321 in environment, health, mid-life transition, politics

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Catherine Tumber, climate change, fishing, grandchildren, grandparents, heat wave, humidity, letters from home, Moms Clean Air Force

The spelling is imperfect, but the card and note inside are priceless. My grandfather sent the card to me while I was away at overnight camp. Somehow, I have managed to hold onto it and other letters from home (more about those in another post) throughout several moves and numerous decades.

But my Poppy’s P.S. on this card comes to mind whenever we have a heat wave.

Other than his interesting spelling — which I’m just now noticing — I am also focusing on his choice of words, especially the word “one.” Back in the early- to mid- 1960s when the card was sent, we’d have the occasional oppressive day here in the Boston area — a real scorcher. It almost always cooled down at night and the extreme heat rarely lasted more than a day or two.

This week has been one of several this summer when we’ve had a whole string of days with high humidity and temperatures reaching well into the 90s. A few mornings ago, I walked into our kitchen to find that the outdoor thermometer read 80 degrees. “One day soon we’ll be waking to 90 degrees,” I commented gloomily to my husband. Indeed, I am dripping as I write this from my non-air-conditioned home office.

Many of you know that I write about climate change, air pollution, and their effects on children’s health for Moms Clean Air Force. But while I think everyone should understand the facts about climate change, I also want them to know that we can design, build, and act smarter so that future summer mornings don’t have to be even more oppressive than the ones we are living through now.*

I am fascinated by the idea of understanding and planning for the environmental impacts of what we do. While we must continue to demand that our representatives in Congress crack down on corporate polluters, and that both of our presidential candidates address this issue, I also find it comforting to talk about how we can do better in the future.

That is why I recently interviewed my former high school classmate, writer and historian Catherine Tumber, about how small cities may hold the answers for greener living.

“Renewable energy requires land for solar farms and wind turbines,” she told me. “And next generation hydropower requires special waterways. These smaller cities have those resources, making them a great asset to environmental health. Coal energy is a big polluter. These places have the resources to develop the alternative if we just have the political will.”

You can find Cathy’s book, Small, Gritty, and Green here.

My grandfather would be just as proud of me for writing about these issues as he and my mother were of his big fish in the photo below.  And he would be horrified to know that there would be a question about the safety of eating any fish I catch today.

He adored his grandchildren as I will my own if and when they materialize. And I’ll want to make sure they have the extras like he did (note the “Enclosed $1.00 for the cat’s milk”), but I also want them to have something that isn’t an “extra” at all: A planet where they can play outside, breath easy, catch—and even eat—a big fish or two.

*In this week’s New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert explains that global warming works on a time delay, writing “Behind this summer’s heat are greenhouse gases emitted decades ago.” She also notes that “Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the [climate change] issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.”

The Mystery of Memory

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by judithar321 in art, books, inspiration, meditation, writing

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves", family, Karen Joy Fowler, memory, psychology

My grandparents lived in a brick house with black shutters. It sits as it always has on a tree-lined street and maintains the solid address of 25 Cabot Street.

As you face the house, the driveway and yard to the right dip down at a steep pitch, flattening when they reach the back yard, making the lawn’s grassy slope a safe place for rolling or sledding, depending on the season.

The yard behind the house abuts a neighbor’s, and when my grandparents lived there, it was home to a couple of pear trees and my grandfather’s rose garden.

25 Cabot Street-photo-2

These are the facts as I remember them, and snapshots like this one verify my mental image of the place.

But the remainder of my memories of that house and its inhabitants — the scratch of my grandfather’s whiskers when I kissed his cheek, or the smell of the single rose he’d place in a vase atop a mahogany hutch in the living room — are mine alone. I don’t know what my brothers see and hear when they mentally walk through its rooms, if they do, or if that house haunts their dreams the way it does mine.

I loved my grandmother, but I adored my grandfather, and he adored all of us. Again, I have evidence: a photographic proof made in his basement darkroom with notes.

Poppy's proof

Poppy'snotes

Because he died a few weeks before my 11th birthday, my recollections of drawing with him at our kitchen table, or counting sidewalk cracks as we took our ritual Sunday walk around his neighborhood come in snatches like a crudely edited home movie.

My feelings connected with a time so long ago that ended too soon were reawakened as I read Karen Joy Fowler’s latest novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which explores the tricky terrain of memory.WE-ARE-ALL-COMPLETELY-BESIDE-OURSELVES-jacket_300x450-200x300

Rosemary, the story’s narrator, was five years old when her sister Fern was abruptly removed from their home. Rosemary’s earliest memories are of living on a farm, where she was heaped with attention, and where she and Fern were always together, a tangle of limbs on their mother’s lap. Until one day, Fern was gone.

What happened? The memories Rosemary has held onto for years are a quavery, incomplete version of events. Her older brother’s memories are another, more judgmental accounting of what happened and why. Eventually, Rosemary’s instincts reveal yet another story.

When an early connection is abruptly cut off, the depth of that loss is something one could spend a lifetime pondering and exploring. After years of tamping down some important truths, Rosemary eventually releases her memories and unravels the mystery of how Fern came to leave.

It is a fascinating read and well worth the tears that come during its deeply satisfying conclusion.

I’ve never had a sister, and I’ve never lost a sibling. Yet I understand what it means to lose someone important during your formative years. Their absence and your imperfect memories may haunt you. But you also might realize that some love is powerful enough to shape and sustain you long after time has reduced its face and voice to shadowy afterimages.

 

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