Doesn't the name Stillmeadow, as a place that is, evoke peace and quiet. A place outside the city where nothing but aspects of nature stop the eye's gaze. Maybe the road, and it should be a road and not a street, passes by, but not too close by. A still meadow. Now that has a lot of appeal to me at the moment. My monthly forays into the pages of this book, and into the inner space of my imagination are a very welcome distraction from how frazzled I have been feeling of late.
July is lazy in my opinion, or it should be anyway. It has a lazy feel in this chapter, too. Gladys Tabor writes about July at Sillmeadow in her usual meandering way. Some family news and reflections on the weather and nature in general. A few recipes are included, and a story or two about the dogs and grandchildren (not that I mean to pair them like that, but it seems in her eyes they are all equal. Everyone is family and so worthy of mention).
I think sometimes I reach for older books, books published in the early part of the twentieth century, to get away from the noise of today. I am finding that watching or listening to the news is increasingly dispiriting. I need to listen to it, but I don't want to. Part of the charm of Stillmeadow is the feeling of nostalgia the book has. It is a lovely escape, but Tabor is critical, too, of the world about her as much as she appreciates her family and home and the natural world. I sometimes think why didn't we listen harder then (this book was published in 1967) and do more, and every day I wonder if now it is too late and we are heading so quickly down a path that I wonder if we can ever turn back from.
So I have only two excerpts to share for July. One is a gentle critique, which now in hindsight feels even more critical for our lack of action. But I will also share one that is a bit more hopeful, as Gladys Tabor seems a most hopeful person.
"Nature replenishes herself unless man interferes. It was a man who made he dust bowl. As I read Stewart Udall's book The Quiet Crisis, I wished it were required reading for every American. It is a beautiful book, although parts of it are heartbreaking. It maybe that no country in the world has such varied natural beauty and wealth of rivers, lakes, mountains, plains, and forests. But we have been busy destroying it since we first took it from the Indians. It is time, now, today--not in fifty years when it will be too late--to realize we must conserve every resource. The quick dollars we acquire ruining the land will not feed our children and their children."
*****
"Perhaps, after all, our best thoughts come when we are alone. It is good to listen, not to voices, but to the wind blowing, to the brook running cool over polished stones, to bees drowsy with the weight of pollen. If we attend to the music of the earth, we reach serenity. And then, in some unexplained way, we share some of it with others."