SPRING 2006George A. Crispin
Woodbury MM
y wife's birthday was approaching. It was a benchmark year for her. I wanted to make the occasion something special, so I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. I know her well enough to know that candy will not impress her. Nor will dining in a fancy restaurant. Nor will clothes suffice. I expected something unique, for she is unique. However prepared I was for the unusual, I was nonetheless caught off guard. Her response was that, along with her traditional request for birdseed, a deer lick, and garden gloves, she wanted a "Home Day."
By her definition a "Home Day" is a day when we as a family stay at home, we do not leave the farm. It is a day when we use as little machinery as possible. It is a day when we do not turn on the television, radio, or computer. And, for her birthday, it is a day when she gets to organize and direct the activities. She gets to choose what work we do. By contrast, I become a willing slave. But, after all, it is her birthday, and I have birthdays too.
Home Day was Saturday. My son had no school. We arose early, together in anticipation of the day before us, ate breakfast together, and began the day together. I faced the day with some trepidation for I knew my wife's appetite for labor when her "work fit" is on, and there were many projects long overdue. My trepidation was not unjustified, as I was about to discover.
The first job she had selected for us was to remove two stumps that protruded in our path through the wooded perimeter of our property. It is a path we travel frequently, and they were a nuisance and a cause for much stumbling. Thus, we had long ago decided they should be removed. Removing stumps can be fairly easy. With a chain saw you cut them off at ground level and put soil on top. In time they rot and disappear. But today the rules stipulated no machinery. After two hours of digging around the stumps with a shovel, and chipping away at the roots that cleaved dearly to the earth, the stumps rendered up their residence in the ground, leaving us covered with sweat and exhausted from the effort.
This was only the beginning. There was the task of transplanting trees from the crowed herbage to spots where they would better thrive with more light and space and better soil. More digging and hauling followed. Then there was the gathering up of assorted trash that had accumulated over the years, varying in size and weight. The worst was the discarded and forgotten window sash, complete with glass that had to be removed. All of this was stored for recycling on trash day. There followed the drainage ditch we were digging for runoff water from the garden. The digging alone was not that difficult. It was the roots that snagged our efforts. Roots. Dozens of roots. Roots that, though thin, refused to be cut or broken. Roots that bounced back every time they were struck. Roots that seemed to grab one's shovel as if in defiance. I found words about to be formed that no child or wife should hear and that demanded the immediate censure they received.
When it seemed that all our energy was gone, there were still the chores to be done. The animals require hay, grain, water, and bedding every day, no exceptions. As the sun slowly drained the gold from the sky and bled its red coloring into the horizon, the last remnants of my energy drained as well. Six o'clock is the news hour. I am a news junkie, and the developments of the day at that hour every evening find me in front of the television. But this was no ordinary day. It was my wife's birthday gift; it was Home Day.
One consolation for my hard work was the promise of a back rub for muscles that were by now screaming. Dinner was a perfunctory nibbling, then a shower, after which I fell into bed. Once there I knew it would be only minutes before the comfort of the bed would take me into the land of forgetfulness and rest. The last voice I heard was my wife thanking me for the wonderful Home Day and offering me the promised backrub. I declined; I was too tired.
Love is what we give to others. In those terms I gave my wife much. I gave her the promised Home Day. But in hindsight I now realize that I received much as well. It was a family day. We listened with our hearts to each other's needs. We were all together all day. We worked on projects that benefited everyone in the family. There was the peace and quiet that comes from hearing no machinery. There was quiet conversation and pauses for silent reflection. There was the fulfillment of knowing that we could, if necessary, achieve much with our own hands. We did less to pollute the environment. Our son came to know better that he was a valuable, contributing member of our family's economy. He learned some valuable skills, such as removing stumps and transplanting trees. He was outside in the fresh air all day and not watching repeated cartoons. We gained a greater hands-on appreciation for the relationship between the human environment and the environment of nature. We bathed in the charm of each other's company. We learned that love is giving, and that love is receiving thankfully. And, most of all, my wife was ecstatically happy all day; she got her Home Day.
In this time in the history of our culture, when the diversions of television, computers, cars, gadgets, and busy schedules run our lives, we would do well to have more Home Days.
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Sunday, March 05, 2006 at 05:41 PM
