Renewal

I spoke earlier of transitoriness. Today I am reveling in rebirth. Is it simply a lawyer's tautological fault to now wonder if rebirth and newness are not exactly the same thing? After the dogs roused me from sleep this morning, demanding that I get my lazy backside out of bed, let them out and feed them, I made a cup of coffee and went to sit on the deck. It's quite early by Sunday morning standards, and the raucous excitement of the day has yet to begin (read: the neighbors haven't fired up their lawn tractors and other gasoline powered yard tools). What I do have is an incredible symphony of birdsong from the heavily-wooded ridge behind my house.  The flutes and oboes of the little songbirds, the percussion of the woodpecker, and just now two Sandhill cranes flew over and added an untuned bassoon note. I don't think I had ever consciously considered the sound of cranes. At first I thought it must be a young crow, but it was the cranes. Although we had a gullywasher of a rainstorm day before yesterday, there are no frogs in the chorus today.  When I have early morning moments of birdsong, I always recall Vienna. One morning, about 200 years ago, I was up early and sitting on the minuscule balcony of my room in a pension. It was spring, so it was probably quite early as the sun tends to make an appearance earlier there than in our southern climes. I recall being truly enchanted by the sound of nothing (it seemed) but birdsong in the middle of that very old, very lived-in city. It was a feeling I have had many times throughout my life of being part of an experience familiar to millions over the history of mankind. Birdsong in the morning. Sun on your face in the afternoon. The sound of the ocean outside the window. It's rather a wonderful feeling of connectedness. Of being part of the human experience.

Rebirth, you say, let's get to the rebirth part. So, I'm sitting here on the deck and I suddenly realize (being in a contemplative mood) that the big lavender plant in the blue pot has come back like gangbusters and there are actually tiny blossoms starting on the tips of some of the branches. The hydrangea plant, still in its plastic nursery bucket, which I fully intended to throw away last summer, has a fine crop of new leaves and will probably be fine if I get busy and properly pot or plant it in the ground. The huge pot of several heuchera plants that I planted several years ago has survived another winter and is putting out a fine crop of various colored leaves. I believe there is already one blossom inflorescence popping up, too. My tautological question is this; are these something truly new and different this year or are they a rebirth of the same being from an earlier time? Or is it too lovely a day to be splitting those hairs?

My corgis are looking distinctly seedy at the moment. Their contribution to new birth is to shed impossible quantities of their rather fabulous coats. This requires a solemn and Herculean effort to remedy (if one is of a tidy bent) and the final disposition of the fluffy piles of dog hair so removed is a real poser. Pumpkin, the antique miniature dachshund, is strutting around with a smug expression on his wizened little face; his ancient coat is so fine and thin that he requests we refer to him as "Slick." He is a strange little fellow. The corgis all have fine white feet, it is a breed characteristic. The gardener comes regularly now and part of his routine is to cut the grass in the dog yard. We also have had a good deal of spring rain lately. So, in this season of rebirth or new life, the corgis all have a slightly green tinge to their fine white feet where they are not sporting a rusty tinge of red from the clay walk around the edges of the dog yard. It's all quite vernal and interesting. "Slick" keeps his dainty little paws quite shiny and black; they remind me of the descriptions of Hercule Poirot's patent leather pumps ...

I stayed up too late again last night doing something, the importance of which completely escapes me this morning. I had every intention of slogging through the dog routine this morning then going back to bed until a civilized hour. It is my intention to drive to Chattanooga today for the gala annual opening of the Sunday Market. I am hoping there are some vendors there with interesting plants for the deck. And to see what spring vegs are on offer for my table. In this season of rebirth and new life, I think I'm glad I stayed up to hear the morning concert.

This picture I cheerfully admit I have appropriated from the collective works (or mindless wanderings) of David Brian Williamson of St. Helens, Oregon. Hey, Dave, if you're gonna put it on Face Book, assume it has gone public! I'm not sure if this is rebirth, renewal or Seaside, Oregon Rock Stars; I just know it's a great photo and I wanted to share it. And it's better than that duck butt one he posted earlier. Well, it's a bit more ethereal ...

Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evils in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they may have is not ours to rule. (Tolkien, LOTR)

Transitoriness

Today we speak of the inevitability of change. I will be the first to admit that I simply loathe change for change's sake. And the older I get, the more I long for some sort of stability. Some promise that things will be as they were. To be honest, though, the older I get, the more I realize that this is probably just a form of fear and laziness in equal parts.

I was sitting on the deck this afternoon after work, knitting my little heart out (there's a baby on the way and I adore the mother, so I have to do something personal), and listening to The Milk Carton Kids. If you are a fan of early Simon and Garfunkel you must look these kids up. They are a wonderful duo who play and sing and startle me with their percipience. I suspect I know a lot more than is ever

swimming close to the surface of thought, but these kids actually put this stuff into prose and sing it. Because it was, initially, background noise to what I was doing (mindmush after court) I didn't realize how closely I was listening until one of the lyrics smacked me upside the head (as they say in The South) like a mallet. It was something to the effect that you must let it go before you can see where it is going to go. How do the young know these things so long before someone as ancient and craggy as I figure it out? Are they that much more sensitive? Are they that much smarter? Do they read that much more? Or have I just been so fearful that "letting go" (whatever that means) is simply too frightening to contemplate?

I have a lovely framed document in my bathroom (that temple of serenity where I find the strength to face the day) which says, essentially, that I must take the leap. I see this every morning as I sluice off the dross of the previous day and consider the immediate future. I wonder, though, if I really see this as an affirmation of my choice for change? My former cousin and now girlfriend-forever, Carol, regularly posts bits from a website called The Tiny Buddha, which usually make a good deal of sense. They usually say something to the effect that change is inevitable and it behooves us to allow the river to continue to flow. If this is a fact of life, why is it so very hard to accept?

This is a concern of the moment because I was in attendance at a function last night as a judge (of sorts) and suddenly realized that another judge, a woman who I considered a good friend for many years, is now no more than an acquaintance. Nothing momentous happened. Nothing irrevocable was said or done. It was simply borne in upon me that our friendship had simply run its course and we no longer had anything in common. We had nothing to talk about that would hold either's attention for more than 27 seconds. It was with great sadness that I took a deep breath and ... let it go. I shall always treasure the time as friends. I shall always be grateful to her for being a friend when a friend was needed. I hope I was the same for her. But, alas, it is done.

And, so, we move forward because anything else is impossible. Change will take us, whether we invite it in or not. Best to be philosophical about it and see what it wants. Eh?

You can have fantasies about having control over the world, but I know I barely have control over my kitchen sink. That is the grace I'm given. Because when one can control things, one is limited to one's own vision. 

(Kiki Smith; artist)

No Tiaras for Car Wrecks

Today I am to speak to the high school seniors, et al., about the legal consequences of vehicular homicide. Annually the local schools participate in what are charmingly referred to as "Mock Crashes" at the beginning of the prom season. The reasoning, as I understand it, is to try to make them more aware of the dangers of being irresponsible on prom night where motor vehicles are concerned. I suppose they have some sort of instruction about all the other ways they can be irresponsible that night, but today we are only staging a car wreck. There will be people there from the Emergency Services Department, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, local law enforcement, etc. And the Old Bat in Black to talk about what can happen after all of those people have had to deal with the physical mess of a car wreck in which people were killed.

What on earth do you say to a bunch of old children/young adults who feel they are on the verge of doing mighty things? After years (and years and years and ...) of dealing with teenagers in and out of court, the one thing I know is that they think they are invincible. Not in an arrogant, psychotic fashion, but in that way that youth has always been. Death and disfigurement are things that happen to "other people", "old" people, or at least to people you don't know. When it has intruded into their lives at all, they react like thunder and then move on. It is not my intention to belittle or diminish in any way the very real grief they feel, but like many other things associated with the teen years, it passes away in the rush toward adulthood that most other young feelings do.

I wrote the bit above a few hours ago. Now I have had an opportunity to consider the matter after the fact. I was impressed anew at the amount of hard work that went into staging this thing. The scenario included two couples in the car, each a boy and a girl. We are not yet to the point in this small Southern town that we might consider something else. It appears that the young man driving had been drinking

The Wreck

something and flipped the car in a one-car accident. A boy and girl were killed in the crash and the driver and the other girl survived, although both were seriously injured. There was lots of shouting and running about. Sirens were making a great deal of noise as the sheriff department arrived, the big fire/emergency truck arrived, the State Highway Patrol arrived, the EMS ambulance arrived. I was certain my dogs were positively wailing while all this was going on. The officers leapt into action, taking statements, moving bodies and doing field sobriety tests. I was standing on the side watching with a dispatcher from the sheriff department and the doctor, who is our local medical examiner. I observed to the dispatcher part way through all of this that she and I were watching what the police people were doing and Dr. Roberts was watching what the medical people were doing. We all agreed that we needed to find a way to expand our horizons! We also noted that it never goes that fast. But I'm not sure that it would hold the attention of a bunch of digital-age teenagers if they had to stand around for the hours and hours it really takes to work one of these messes.

The Assembly

Thereafter we wandered into the gymnasium (since the local high school does not run to an auditorium) and the assembled speakers were lined up in a row of metal folding chairs. Each chair had a piece of paper on the seat with the proposed occupant's name on it. However, since the name most approximating mine was spelled incorrectly, I felt I had every right to move the tags around and sit where I wanted to. The whole thing reminded me too much of the execution of James Connolly by the British after the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Adding to the somewhat surreal aspect of the proceedings was a vigorous sprinkling of orange shirts throughout the assembly. You must understand that our corrections department uses orange scrubs/t-shirts for the prisoners. So, when I see a whole bunch of them together, my mind registers "inmates." Each of us took a few moments to explain to the kids what our role in an event like this would be. By the time they got to me, I told them that I and the attorney sitting next to me were the only ones who probably had never been to the accident site and never actually saw any of the carnage firsthand. I think they were starting to glaze over when I started talking about sentencing ranges and where a convicted defendant, juvenile or not, would be incarcerated. I may have got a couple of them back when I told them about the possible effect of a felony conviction on future background checks. By and large, though, I got the impression that they were thinking that this was all very interesting, but what does it have to do with me? I am, as you know invincible and immortal. I am Teenager. Alas.

And now I'm doing the mental calisthenics required to go teach at the college this evening. Blessedly, it is the last night of proper classes. Next week we have a field trip to that yearly mock trial exercise that the criminal justice department enacts at the courthouse. Very invigorating and exciting unless you happen to work there all the time. Oh well. I had two prosecutors and a defense bar attorney in the class last week speaking about their jobs and educational background. I asked one of the students who is involved in the mock trial to explain the fact situation; after which we lawyers all looked at each other and said, "It sounds like a game of Clue!" Again ... oh well. The week following that is final exams and then I am free as the proverbial bird (after I slog through grading).  I shall be thrilled.