Living – Page 7 – sethlewis.ie

What Makes Our Town (Or Any Place) Great

What makes a town or a city a great place to live? There are many factors, of course, from cost of living to amenities and natural beauty and so on, but there is one factor that surpasses them all. This was pointed out to me by a man who has been dead for some time, G.K. Chesterton. He wrote about what makes cities great in his often surprising and famously thought-provoking testimonial work, Orthodoxy. Using Pimlico as an example—a village in central London which must have been dire in Chesterton’s time—he says:

“Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing—say Pimlico…. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved… If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great… Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”

A Fan

There is a simple machine in our house that gives me more happiness than is really logical or reasonable. Most of the year, it lives in the attic, waiting for the summer when the house warms up and we open the windows to let the breeze in (this is the only air conditioning system we need in Ireland). To help encourage that summer breeze inside, we take down the fan from storage and turn it on. I enjoy turning on the fan more than I can sensibly explain to you. I guess you could say I’m a fan of it. The sound of the motor and spinning blades resonates with something deep inside of me, which is strange, I know, but the breeze dusts off long-past memories of summer days and the places I used to spend them. In that mental swirl there arises an old and comfortable happiness, intangible but very real, and I can’t help but smile.

A Thousand Miles, And A Poem

This summer I’ve driven well over a thousand miles across the southern states of America. I’m thankful for good air-conditioning, good music, good company (my family), and Chick-Fil-A. I like driving, which certainly helps, even if I have to think hard to get in the car on the side that has the steering wheel, after living in Ireland so long. We’ve been down highways through forests that seem to never end and we’ve been down country roads through corn and cotton and tobacco fields that grow outside of small towns where people sell fresh peaches and watermelons from roadside stands. Every few minutes there’s another white steeple on another red-brick church. One of them was just letting out from some kind of event, and the people were leaving with take-away boxes of food which was probably fried chicken and green beans and devilled eggs or some excellent kind of pie. I would have liked to pull in but it would have been strange for us to arrive at the end as total strangers. I don’t even know what town we were in, because I don’t have to keep track of that kind of information anymore thanks to the sat-nav. I just follow the blue line, keep an eye on how much fuel I have, and enjoy the view. Eventually, we get where we’re going.

The Crooked Apple Tree

Beside a country road in Ireland there are two tall pillars marking the entrance to my friend’s home, down a lane that used to lead to a massive manor house. That mansion is long gone, but the stately pillars remain as crumbling reminders of its past glories. The gravel lane between them now winds its way to the old farm buildings on the estate, which were nothing but ruined walls until my friend rebuilt them into a home. Outside, the chickens wander freely with the dogs among the garden beds and fruit trees.

A Personal Update

It’s been almost a year since I shared a personal update on the blog, and life has been moving along. It’s never boring!

Our children recently turned seventeen, fifteen, and twelve, and Jessica and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary this year as well. I feel like our family has moved decisively into a new stage of life—a middle stage, I suppose—and I have to say that I honestly love it. I have loved the other stages, too, each in their own way, each with their own challenges and joys. I think the stage we’re in now is my favourite so far, though. It has its own unique challenges, but I do love seeing our children grow and mature, and being able to relate to them on a grown-up level. I also love the stability and depth of a romance with two decades of shared life experience under it. We still disagree and argue, of course, but we’re a little better at it, I think, and quicker to forgive.

Outrunning The Rain

Living in Ireland, I’ve gotten used to the rain taking its own sweet time. It softly falls for days or weeks on end, completely oblivious to how egregiously it has overstayed its welcome. In Alabama, where I grew up, things are different. The rain there waits and builds up and waits some more and then suddenly bursts out of the clouds in a mad rush to pelt the ground all at once with all the drama and thunder and sky-splitting electricity it can muster (and sometimes tornadoes).

Pruning (a poem)

Everything grows fast in the garden this time of year. The rose stems stretch themselves upward, then droop with the weight of their own blooms. The grape vine climbs the arbour, blindly grasping anything it can hold on to. The weeds come back, and come back again, from somewhere, everywhere, while the vines on the back wall grow in every direction at once. All of this growth is a beautiful, abundant gift, yet I know that if I leave it untended for too long, my garden will eventually become something else entirely. The strawberries will send runners into the grass, the grass will colonise the herb bed, the weeds will colonise the grass, and the roses will block the path with thorns. The longer I leave it alone, the harder I’ll have to work to reclaim it. And here, in the wild tendencies of my garden, I see a reflection of myself. That’s what this poem is about:

All Of It, All At Once

There was still an hour before I had to be at my first meeting for the day. The morning was beautiful, promising to be one of the nicest days of the year. I had to go outside. I didn’t know the area, but my phone told me there was a park in a nearby town I’d never been to. A few minutes later, I pulled in next to the jogger and dog-walker sedans—the family cars hadn’t arrived yet. The park was extensive. It was build around a lake, with ancient trees and well-maintained lawns, meandering paths, benches, swans, and the dawn chorus echoing in stereo surround-sound all around me.

One Day Leads To Another

I have learned over the years to temper my expectations about what can actually be accomplished in a single day. I’m not proud of this—I would be far happier if I could tell you that after consistently exceeding my own expectations of productivity I’ve had to adjust them in the other direction. The days are quick, though, and before I know it the morning is almost over and then after lunch the hours fly and it’s evening and I should really get to bed or I’ll be cross in the morning with my sleep-stealing self. I would love to do great things and see great progress today, but it’s hard to fit all those big, shiny things into one little square on the calendar.

The Secret Of Contentment

When I see the ruins of old cottages around us in Ireland, I’m always struck by how small they are, and by how dramatically our everyday living has changed. Even the best of the ancient castles are not nearly as comfortable as a standard modern home or apartment. They didn’t have flushing toilets. They didn’t have radiators or refrigerators or wifi. They didn’t have washing machines or cars or exotic foods from around the world available year round in local shops. They couldn’t order whatever they wanted from anywhere and have it shipped to their door in days without ever needing to leave the climate-controlled comfort of their own couch. If our ancestors could see us now, they would probably expect us to be the happiest, most care-free and content people to ever live. And they would be wrong. Our modern society is anything but content. We are plagued by anxiety, depression, relational breakdown, hopelessness, and despair. We promote mental health now more than ever, but the problems persist, and grow. Clearly, contentment is not just the result of having more wealth, more opportunities, more education, or better conditions. If it were, we should be one of the most content societies to ever live on planet earth. And yet somehow, contentment has eluded us. Have we been looking for it in the wrong places?