Taking Root

Last year I wrote about leaving our house behind for another family to use. Leaving the house was hard. Leaving the yard that we spent years nurturing was really hard.

Len and Pippa on the back deck of the old house

When we bought that house, we were the fourth owners in just over 20 years. Like many houses in our northern town, it had been owned by one family after another who perhaps knew they would not stay. Maybe that's why no one had had put much time or effort into the little yard. There was one spruce too close to the house, a pyramid cedar, and a scraggly lilac. You could see right into the neighbour's yards. The first year we were there, we planted 9 trees. We added more over the years, along with some shrubs and numerous perennials and even a tiny raised plot for tomatoes. By the time we left, our modest and somewhat exposed yard was a green bower, shaded on all sides by growing things. 

Back yard 

Every time we planted a tree in our little yard we would ask, "How big is this thing going to get? Will it be too big for the space?" And then we would shrug and say, "How long are we going to live here anyway? Not long enough for any tree to get too big."  That wasn't true. We stayed for 14 years. Long enough for the apple to produce more fruit than we could ever eat. Long enough for the volunteer mountain ash we dug out of our previous yard to tower over the store bought mountain ash, the amur maple, the columnar cedars and Hart's grade one spruce tree.

We had many failures in our tree planting adventures. A Chinese weeping willow from Hole's Greenhouse was a gorgeous tree for many years until a harsh winter caused it to die back. It kept regrowing from the base but it was no longer a tree- it was a weedy shrub that was impossible to kill. We had a fabulous flowering plum that thrived for years and then faded away and died. A hybrid rose that bloomed for years and then gradually died away. 

The maple thriving in the back corner

Our biggest challenge was in the back corner where a greenhouse had once stood. Try as we might, we could not get anything to grow there. We first tried a silver tip maple that lasted a year, obviously not hardy enough for that zone. Once we planted a Russian Olive, knowing that several neighbours had massive ones. Surely it would live. But no. It was frustrating.  Around about that time, a maple started growing outside our bedroom window. The key must have blown over from the Tange's massive tree across the street. Under the window was no place for a tree since it was in a narrow passageway between two houses. But we let it grow because I loved seeing something green instead of a blank wall. However, it did not take long before it was just too big for the space. "Let's dig it out and stick it in the hole in the back corner," I suggested. By then this thing was a good 8 feet tall. My husband had to hack out most of the root since it was growing right up against the house. "That's not gonna live," we said as we stuck the bare root in the sad mix of clay and old muskeg in the back corner. But if we didn't transplant it, it was going to die anyway. It didn't cost us anything but labour. And it obviously liked our soil and climate. Darn it if the thing not only lived, but flourished. 

Unlike our previous yard, the yard in our new house has not been neglected. Under the stewardship of its only owners, every inch of the yard has been meticulously landscaped and loved. The plants have been fertilized. The well-placed trees and shrubs have been pruned. When Jack and Nancy designed their yard, they designed it for the future. They grew a garden that they could enjoy for years. And now it's ours.

It is odd, tending someone else's garden. But it has also been fun discovering what grows. What plant is this popping up so soon in the front yard? Oh, it's a bleeding heart! The bears seem to like the shaggy nanking cherries-should we take them out? But oh no, look at how beautiful the blossoms are, how sweet it smells, how many bees buzz around. What are these, cropping up all along the retaining wall? Anemones nodding their white heads. Clematis creeping up the wall. The climbing rose. A little patch of rhubarb, nothing like abundant plant from the last house, which pleases my husband who apparently doesn't like rhubarb. Peonies that I was never ever able to get to grow in my muskeg based dirt. 

Peonies in the back garden

At the edge of the property, a patch of native mahonia aquifolium blooms. Oregon Grape. It has planted itself along with a little nanking cherry and a willow. Found throughout the nearby forest, its early yellow blooms have the most amazing smell. Its holly like leaves last year-round and its bitter fruit makes a lovely jelly.

Mahonia aquifolium

Towering grasses and Humpty Dumpty dwarf pines and a massive maple whose red leaves are a sight to behold in fall. There is almost nothing to do with this yard but to enjoy it. 

Sir Isaac and Guapo under the maple

Still we want to make it our own, just a little. We are trying to figure out where to plant an apricot tree and how to protect it from the deer and bears that wander freely through the unfenced neighbourhoods. There was a dead plant out front. "I think a hydrangea would do well there," I said to my husband. As he was digging out the old plant he said, "Did you know they used to have a hydrangea here?" For sure enough there was the old plastic tab of the previous hydrangea, a pink one, just like the one I bought with my Mother's Day gift certificate from my daughter. 

Deer hiding under the mountain ash

One of the clematis in the back is dead so I dug out a wild clematis columbiana- a native species also known as "virgin's bower" - from the wooded lot next door and planted it next to the dead one in the garden. It had an impressive root system and I am not sure if it will survive. It is is a native species, and like that volunteer mountain ash in our old yard, I hope it will take root. But I also know not all wild things can survive in the richer soils of the domestic garden.

Clematis Columbiana in the wild

Whenever I stick a new plant into the ground, I talk to it and encourage it to grow. "Bloom where you're planted' is nice sentiment. But it doesn't always apply to plants. Some plants cannot grow wherever we plant them, no matter how much care we give, any more than they can thrive wherever their seeds blow. But according to the saying plants and people are supposed to thrive wherever they find themselves. 

The McNaught descendents, Beaverlodge Alberta

My ancestors were pioneers. My great-grandparents and their many descendents have transplanted themselves far from where they were born, working hard to flourish in new environments from the Peace Country to southern Alberta to Vancouver Island to California to France to the UK. My husband's family is much the same. Some places are easier than others. Just as it is for plants, some species are best suited for certain environments. Some can adapt better than others. The ground may be fertile for a maple or a mountain ash, but not for a Russian Olive. The weather will be ideal for rhubarb but not hydrangeas. 

Some species will take root, but others will find their environment too inhospitable. They may find their tender new growth eaten alive by animals or insects, mowed down by weed wackers, destroyed by herbicides or even blasted out by a tiger torch. Or they might try really hard for a long time but be taken out in a single season by unexpected events. Or eventually they may succumb to the elements, wither and die. While some invasive and introduced species survive by nature or nurture, sometimes the indigenous species are all that will live. 

Arrowleaf balsalmroot, a native species in the forest nearby

Unlike plants, humans can try to create their own environment, water and fertilize and create their own little microclimate. Sometimes that works. But if you are fighting Mother Earth, eventually the real nature of the place will win. You might survive but you'll never blossom.

I have always tried to bloom where I was planted. Tried to live my best life no matter where I have lived. I haven't always succeeded. Sometimes I wonder if it's not just easier to relocate to a place where you fit in instead of constantly battling elements outside your control. 

Will we thrive here? Right now we are finding the climate and soil pretty sustaining. Let's see if those roots will hold. 

nicola vs chair

The chair wants to be pink.

I want it to be white.

For the past three weeks we have been engaged in a battle of wills- me as the aggressor and the chair as the passive-aggressive “victim”.

 

In the middle of moving, for some reason, I decided to refinish this chair. I tell myself that I do not want to move it if it isn’t worth fixing.  But I don’t think that’s the real reason. As I dismantle so much of the life I have spent the past thirty years building, part of me wants to hold on.

 

My parents bought the chair- a decrepit platform rocker- along with a matching loveseat, at an estate auction near Beaverlodge in the early 70s. At the same time, they bought the oak table that currently sits in my dining room, the 6 chairs now owned by my middle child, and a spool bed now owned by my sister. While every other item has been refinished, reupholstered and put to use, the chair has languished in basements, garages and storage sheds for the past 50 years. The upholstery has faded to an ugly green-gray. Pieces have fallen off. The wood seat, replaced at one time with plywood, is mildewed and rotting.  My dad tried refinishing it once and could not get past the red stain that someone, long ago, had applied. A stain that permeated the wood.

My friend Kelly volunteered her husband Bruce to rebuild the seat, so that problem was solved. He is a master at fixing things.

I decided to paint it white to go for a shabby chic look. 

I should have talked to people first but instead I gave it a good wash with mineral spirits and sanded it down lightly before I started painting. The stain immediately bled through. I painted it again. And again. My friend Sheila said to use Bull’s Eye primer so it covered it over with that. Again and again. Still pink. Whatever stain was applied is resistant to change. The chair wants to be pink. My English teacher friends said try shellac primer. So I used that. Better.  But still a little pink.

 

The painting gives me time to think. I think about our upcoming move. We have lived in our current town for 30 years and in our present house for 14 years. Why are we moving? Moving away from our dearly beloved house and a community where we have great friends? A place where we can go to the local brewery and always find people to visit with over a pint? But our kids have moved far away and we want to be just a little bit closer to at least one of them. I do not like the politics of this place and I know I can’t change it. I don’t like the long winters. After the fire, I thought I could help remake the town into something new and better. But it will always be what it is. Part of me feels that if we stay, I will become like this chair, gradually fading away to nothing. 

I need something to restore me.

 

When I move, what will change? Will a different life be a better life? After 30 years here, how much of me has been imbued with the culture and landscape of this place? How much of me will be resistant to change? We would like to move to the Columbia Valley. An acquaintance said, “Oh, then you’ll be mountain people.” We also thought of Vancouver Island, to which my brother’s partner said, “Oh, then you’ll be island people.” Are we mountain people? Are we island people? What would either of those identities entail? The only true geographic identity I have ever had is being a northerner. A northerner, with all the stubbornness, resiliency, “can-do” attitude, creativity, and self-sufficiency that entails.

Can I be something else?

 

I think I am winning my battle with the chair.

 

It’s almost white. But I’m not done yet.

 

I know that when I am finished, I will always see a little pink. I will always know that under the paint, there is a stain embedded deep in the wood. A stain that cannot be removed. Like the chair, for good or for ill, I will always be stained by my history and geography and all those who have impacted me. Whatever replaces the north as home will only ever be a layer over my true self. Underneath, I will be a northerner wherever I go.

Roots and Branches

Roots and Branches

When I was a little kid I remember sitting down with my granddad to look at a tiny toy dresser that he had given me for my dollhouse.  “Just imagine,” he said, between puffs on his pipe.  “This was made by a little Chinaman, sitting in a dark and smoky room there in Hong Kong, gluing the little pieces together by hand.  Every day, just gluing these little pieces together for pennies.”  Together we marveled at the time and effort the little “Chinaman” had put in to making this exquisite piece of furniture.  Together we wondered about his world, so far away. 

My grandfather George Martin

My grandfather came to Canada from England as an orphan.  Working for the Bank of Commerce, he met and married my grandmother, a fifth generation Canadian who had recently arrived to pioneer in the Peace country.   As they left behind their known worlds for their grand adventure, globalization and pluralism were powerful forces in their lives, even if they were not words in their vocabulary.

My grandmother Marion McNaught

In World War I, granddad reached the Front, from which he sent along a steady stream of post cards and letters describing the people and way of life he found.  My grandmother soon journeyed across the Atlantic to be closer to him, working in a munitions plant outside of London.  In retirement, granddad worked to relieve bank managers in the Far North, sending home many letters describing what he found there.  To her dying day, my grandmother considered pieces of land on which a person could still homestead. 

My grandparents’ legacy has never been lost on me. My husband and I met in Shanghai and have since dragged our kids through North, South and Central America, Europe and Asia.  As I walked the streets of Hong Kong with my own small children, I wondered about that Chinese labourer, sitting in his dark workroom.   His reality was not so different than the one Grandad and I envisioned.

How do you teach a child empathy?  My grandfather imagined with me the life of a man whose days were spent gluing together children’s toys for a meager living. Together, Grandad and I explored a foreign territory that was at once strange and enchanting, yet one to which we were deeply connected. Even though he did not realize the term “Chinaman” was less somehow acceptable than the term “Englishman,” his respect for other cultures was readily apparent.  Even though he had never heard the term “global citizenship,” he understood that it entails both an appreciation of the life-enriching power of diversity and outrage at disparity. I only hope I have been able to do the same for my own children and for my students. 

Originally published as "How do you teach empathy to a child?" 06/04/2010 in ATA News Moot Points.