Wild Greens

Welcome to the March issue of Wild Greens. 

This issue is a study in contrast and balance, where both the “Tempest and the Calm” exist side-by-side. Physically, as when we watch the pounding storm from the safety of our windows. Temporally, as when we walk outside following a terrible storm to find that the world has changed entirely—because we have changed, because we are ready to see things in a new way, because we have been reborn.

In Maggie Topel’s digital logo for the issue, rain reigns in one corner, and in another, a misty sunbeam rises. Penny Nolte’s poem contrasts “The Windstorm” outside to the shelter within.

In Nasta Martyn’s ink and acrylic “Oblivion,” the wind becomes a mythological being.

Jim Wasserman’s essay, “Paths, Ruts, and Trenches” offers insight into how we respond to chaos and overwhelming choice by sticking to familiar paths— and ultimately how choosing what’s familiar can get us stuck in a rut. Christopher J. Martin looks for beauty in a winter landscape in his photograph, “Winter, Reconsidered.”

“Pastoral Moods and Variations,” a poem by Sarah Das Gupta, responds to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony to find calm within the seasons. Melissa Lomax’s pencil sketch with digital coloring portrays the inconsistency of weather in the spring.

Valerie Free’s short story “Ashore” follows a woman’s journey through danger on two fronts: canoeing down a roaring river with her family while she contemplates a marriage she has lost trust in. Georgi Bargamian’s poem observes the “Cacophony” of the poet’s birth (in March, a Pisces) and the calm of hospital procedures.

Grace Clark’s watercolor and colored pencil “The Calm After the Storm” depicts cat prints in the aftermath of a snowstorm. Hayley J. Boyle’s watercolor cover illustrates billowing clouds and the “Swell” of the sea.

In your tempest, in your calm, we hope that Wild Greens provides inspiration to weather the weather.

-Rebecca

The Windstorm

by Penny Nolte

Paths, Ruts, and Trenches 

by Jim Wasserman

When I was young, we lived in a neighborhood on the edge of residential development. Some of the area was paved, but huge sections remained fields, woods, and creeks. We kids traveled around without supervision, alone or with friends, seeing ourselves like a small pack of coyotes. I’m sure the coyotes saw us as just noisy, messy intruders, more nuisance than threat. 

We got around by way of paths. To be sure, we were less pathfinders blazing trails than path followers, going along lines rubbed free of grass and growth by older kids before us and before them, probably. We did it without thinking about it. After a while, of course, we didn’t need the demarcated lines, but we continued to use the paths. It was familiar and safe. It also meant we didn’t need to think. We could just amble along knowing we were going in the intended direction. 

We sometimes considered going off our paths, but a second thought would always ask, why? There were myriad other ways to the creek, readily available if we just thought for a moment. We had been so self-trained, however, to follow the path, that the possibility of alternatives didn’t come to mind. Even when one of us suggested we look for a different route, we weren’t sure. There might be interesting things to see along a new path, but who knew if there were also scary dangers, like vicious dogs or friends of our parents who would tell them they saw us going to the forbidden creek.

Looking back on this now, I smile. I moved on from childhood path-following to become a lawyer and a teacher, professions that advocate a “proper path” of procedure one should follow but also recognize the cleverness of successfully—and success is always the measure—going off the path in limited circumstances. Even more, I specialized in behavioral economics, the field in humanities that studies how people make choices and decisions, such as whether or not to follow paths, and why we choose certain ones in all aspects of life: economic, social, personal, and public. I taught the subject, as well as wrote several books on behavioral economics education. 

I remember all the path-following as a youth because I have come to see that the habit continues into adulthood—for all of us. Even as we gain more options of where and how we wish to go, we generally stick to paths, perhaps with some updating. That non-choice is also a choice, though one we barely take cognizance of. 

So, what happens when we tread the same path for a long time? The more that it is used, a path doesn’t just remain free of new growth; it starts to become a rut. It sinks under the repeated treading, especially in the middle. The slope then tends to guide our feet to the center where it is comfortably flat. We don’t think about it; it’s subconsciously preferable to yield to the downward slope towards the center flatness. Even if we are aware that our choice of exactly where to step is reduced, who cares? It still all goes in the intended direction.

If that rut were to continue to be walked on, it would, in theory, continue to sink. At some point, it would be a trench, the slopes turning into walls. As a kid, even small trenches were cool. You were inside and outside at the same time. The walls were comforting, like a mini fortress in case you were attacked by aliens or whatever was the latest enemy we kids turned into an epic battle to beat them back. 

Perhaps it was that same feeling that led to the famous trenches of World War I. They offered limited protection, only this time the danger was real. The enemy couldn’t see in, and entrenched soldiers couldn’t see out. The other side became unseen forces, more ominous for it, waiting for the other side. The danger even created an almost intimate bonding between comrades in the trench, aside from the surrounding muck, squalor, and death. 

Today, fewer of us, kids or adults, walk on dirt paths. We trod on pre-formed, unyielding sidewalks and floors. Even fewer people walk in ruts, and rarely is anyone in a trench. 

Except mentally, especially in our opinions. 

As I said, my field is behavioral economics. Saying that usually gets a silent, short nod at dinner engagements before the conversation is quickly shifted to more familiar ground.

So, let me demonstrate: Think as quickly as you can of a candy bar.

Whatever came to mind, the one you evoked, is at the front of a long list of candy bars you know of. If you had a choice, it would have the inside lane and be favored to win the selection. The question is, why is it there? 

You might, of course, start with how it tastes, but if we could travel through your subconscious, we might find a whole list of reasons, from past and present, that buttress the taste factor. Perhaps a celebrity you liked endorsed it, or a friend that you thought was cool, or a teacher or coach gave it out as a reward when you were younger. The candy bar maker gave out a free toy you liked as a child, or later sponsored an event. The bar might have been at eye level while you were waiting to check out at the store, offsetting the low-calorie, bland food you were buying. There might even be a commercial jingle that has become an earworm in your mind. 

All of these, and many more, to borrow from Nobel economist Richard Thaler, are nudges. No single one may be determinative. Rather, they all build up over time, like calcium drops form stalagmites, except the towering pillars of hardened rock are horizontal, becoming unconscious habits, or paths, of perception, opinion, and views of the world. 

To be certain, paths, ruts, even trenches, help us. They are shortcuts, heuristics, that help us handle the overwhelming amount of information bombarding us. A reliable source starts with a presumption of credibility. An unreliable source starts with a presumption of doubt. Why waste time reassessing all candy bars or opinions with every choice?

But like any shortcut, pre-decision judgment can cut off other possibilities, possibly better ones. We might even stay on a familiar path to our own peril. That’s especially true of trenches, which block sight of alternative paths of mental travel. I learned as a Boy Scout the heuristic not to eat red berries as there is a good chance they are toxic. True, but I could also starve to death in a field of wild strawberries.

It takes work to consider other possibilities, starting with the effort to recognize we might be trapped in a single, non-divergent path of thinking. So, start with the basic question, “Am I in a trench in this perception?” Do you know what other views there are and why they exist, and not just second-hand as reported by someone in the same trench as you? 

Should you even care about views that disagree or think differently? I think you should. At best, you find a better way to see things, or at least a modification of your own view. Absolutes melt in the face of others’ valid exceptions. 

Seeing new ways of getting to common goals can lead to combination paths, with more choices, formulated like the way various explorers contributed information from their individual journeys to create a more holistic, accurate map. At the very least, challenging our own perspective—I mean really questioning if it is the ONLY right view—will reinforce our belief if it passes muster.

Speaking of that military muster, let’s return to the famous trenches that made up the great battlefields of World War I. Lines were drawn, the other side was vilified and called evil, and the troops were put in trenches to only come out to fight.

Many have heard the tale of the first Christmas of the War, in 1914, when British and German troops came out of their trenches in some places to shake hands, exchange Christmas greetings, and even kick about futbols.

Less known about the incident is that, when the governments and generals heard of the incidents, of troops seeing their opposition’s humanity, the leaders condemned the out-of-trench meetings. Commanders deemed it “fraternization with the enemy” and said any further such action was treason that hurt the war effort’s plans for success.

So, the troops remained in their trenches, except to attack. The war dragged on for almost four more years, and when peace came, little was resolved despite the enormous casualties. 

Most of us are not in physical war, thank goodness, but we are constantly told we are in mental, moral, and cultural ones with viewpoints and beliefs outside our trenches, or even paths just different from the ones we trod daily. There are voices of supposed authority telling us that to even think of other paths is treason to our core beliefs, trying to remove what is and remains our choice. 

We can stay on our path, in our rut, even buried in our trench, ignorant of other possibilities. Alternatively, we can at least consider why there are other ways of perceiving, even believing, and what might those other ways add to our own understanding. 

That’s a beautiful thing about choice. Every new choice is a new chance to explore a new path. Always, starting now. 

Pastoral Moods and Variations

Ashore 

by Valerie Free

The waves slapped against the bow. “Turn back!” Suzanne didn’t risk turning to her husband in the stern. “Doug!” The canoe was veering far from the shoreline’s conifers and silvery granite, a landscape foreign and unforgiving. Nevertheless, it was solid land. “There and there!” Suzanne stabbed her paddle at the white crests midriver. 

“It’s nothing. We’ve paid for an hour, so enjoy the scenery and—”

“Scenery!” She tried not to tip the canoe. Did she have to remind him? “William!”

“Nodded off soon as we left the dock. His jacket will keep him safe. That’s why he’s wearing it.”

Suzanne rested her paddle across the bow, inched her head around. Her two-year-old was splayed between them, his life preserver thwarting any freedom of movement. 

Why did she let Doug convince her? Her husband, a keen kayaker, sacrificed running the rapids when Will was born. In his mind, flatwater canoeing was child’s play. She’d envisaged a lazy morning with bucket and spade. She never swam where her feet didn’t touch the bottom. She peered down. How deep was it? She envisaged them pitching overboard, her son’s lungs filling while his parents flailed in the current.

She thrust harder, but with Doug’s paddle in the stern as the rudder, her strokes were futile in countering his. 

“Suzie, where’s your sense of adventure? It’s beautiful out here.”

“And if we capsize?”

“Hold on tight to the side. But we won’t.”

“Will?”

“He’d float.”

Suzanne pictured her son’s head bobbing in foam.  

“Keep a lookout for rocks. Can’t see back here.”

“Listen, Doug. This is not—” She spun her head around. Doug’s wedding ring glinted as he cupped his hand behind his ear.   

Suzanne snatched another glance at her son, every swell rocking him deeper into naptime. Sweet Will, he’d come rushing into the world two weeks before her due date. She’d sensed something was wrong, but she had nothing concrete to account for her unease when she called Doug at work on a Friday. He was looking forward to his winter camping, his last weekend—before parenthood—to cross-country ski from hut to hut. He sweettalked her. Couldn’t let his buddies down. Early Sunday morning she delivered Will. Doug barely made it through a snowstorm to the hospital. She woke dispirited, all the life sucked out. Her mother lived too far away, the Canadian she fell in love with five years ago a stranger. She recoiled from his unshaven cheek when he bent to kiss her. If she were honest, his space in her heart was shrinking while her son grew into a fuller presence. 

“Watch it!” Doug bellowed just before her paddle scraped a boulder.  

The river was blackish, churning. She couldn’t distinguish the roaring sound for wind or oncoming rapids.

Suzanne pitched the blade deeper, drawing the water toward her, just as Doug had demonstrated dockside. She ignored Doug’s expletives, her paddle thumping the side, smashing her thumb. The canoe tilted. She didn’t stop until facing the forest and her paddle struck the riverbed. She looked at Doug, unable to read his expression under his visor. He stuck close to the shallows, working in tandem when she resumed paddling. Only when the dock reappeared did Suzanne rest, careful not to splash her son. 

“What got into you back there?”

She dangled her thumb in the cold water. Did she have to remind Doug how a toddler could drown in seconds? She didn’t endure thirty hours of labour for Will to die because of his father’s devil-may-care attitude. 

Doug steadied the canoe and she stepped onto the dock. She gazed at the cordoned section of the supervised beach. Children were floating, shrieking, ducking. She could almost glimpse her own small family at their riverside picnic bench, but no. She was homesick. Cucumber sandwiches, the Eastbourne pier, her dad’s canteen of tea, tinned evaporated milk. She was remembering another shore. Low tide’s rock pools. Leaping from one sandy islet to another.

She assembled snacks, juice boxes, and Will’s paraphernalia while Doug was buying fire starters at the camp store, ten minutes away by footpath. She bundled Will into the car and reversed out of their campsite. 

Later, she dialled his cell. 

“Where are you—I’m sorry we rented the damn thing. Suze?” Doug’s sigh coiled into her ear. He apologized again. Strapped into his car booster seat, Will studied his fingers before licking Cheerio crumbs one by one. “Where are you?” 

An ocean away, her childhood holidays as unruffled as the pools uncovered by the sea, her pacific parents stationed at the breaker where pebbles met sand. The scuttle of crabs, the coiled shell to her ear, straining to catch what every grown-up vowed was the calling of the sea. A crescendo hushing. She felt a pang for Will. She couldn’t re-create the idyl she’d known. What would her son remember in years to come? Her husband felt at home in the northern wilderness. The unrelenting bush. Remote river rapids. What did he know of true listening? A state of mind, receptive, attuned. Calling out for an echo, waiting to be heard.

Cacophony