Beginning Again - By Way of Introduction

Like many Americans, I found the last several years disruptive, to say the least. Now finding myself in “after times” – still captured in the splintering of old ways, but looking to the making of a new community in its aftermath - I often question assumptions I had long taken for granted about my place in the world and the responsibilities I carry as counselor and citizen. A sense of purpose remains indispensable, yet I cannot simply return to my prior life. In casting for answers, I found this quote from James Baldwin:

When all that love and labor seem to have come to nothing … not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.*

To begin again. Where and doing what? I love my family and my home in rural New York where they live and gather. But I am also at home in Dublin, with its streets full of people from across Europe and the steady hum of traffic. I know the law. Sometimes I even love it. But I am unwilling to have it dominate me another day. And I have a fantasy carried from my teen years in Texas: me (10 pounds lighter, of course) in jeans and a soft shirt, with a boy’s short haircut and a small satchel containing a sketchbook, a 2B pencil, a small tin of watercolors and a collection of travel brushes thrown across my shoulder. Free in New York City, in Woodstock, in Dublin, in Stuttgart. With no demand on me except my own need to draw.

Can I begin again to meld these disparate loves and fantasies into a reasonable facsimile of the good life? Where, doing what and of what service? For my part, I am looking at the fight to mitigate climate change writ local and personal. Land use law is law that can benefit from illustration. Can I light my client’s interest with a woodland garden watercolor far more pleasing than an acre of treeless turf? Can I help match permaculture garden design to zoning law? Can I find you a tax benefit for choosing native plantings? Can I find any benefits created for corporate agri-interests able to be scaled to advantage individuals and small farms? Can I at least figure out how to take back a neglected garden from Japanese Stilt Grass?

Over the last 18 months, this vision has sent me to the New York Botanical Garden for classes in horticulture; to the Land Conservancy Trust conferences for discussions of conservation easements and title insurance; to the Woodstock School of Art to hone my drawing and watercolor skills. In entries that will follow, I plan to share this experience – and hopefully some useful networks and resources. But most importantly, I have met a lot of people along the way who, like me, put together a list of loves and “may I never do that again” activities and set about building a different life more suited to their selves. You are the core of my education. You inspire me and you don’t think I am crazy. I am looking for more of you.

* For this quote, the concept of the “after times”, and a good bit of insight into my own state of mind, I am grateful to Eddie S. Glaude Jr. and his book Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.