Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Neighbors

  • Among the Amish

    Among the Amish

    In keeping with the modesty of our Amish neighbors, this morning I would like to offer an understated but respectful nod to the family who have been helping us maintain and nurture Rosslyn’s grounds over the past year. No personal portraits and no names. No website and no Instagram handle. But plenty of respect and gratitude to the kindhearted, hardworking men and women who help empower our stewardship of Rosslyn’s ample responsibilities and resources as well as groundskeeping at our ADK Oasis Lakeside and ADK Oasis Highlawn guest accommodations.

    Among the Amish: One Horsepower (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Among the Amish: One Horsepower (Photo: Geo Davis)

    I’ll allow these images of horse and buggy to stand in for the individuals whose disciplined humility belies their industry, tenacity, and spirited nature.

    We’re grateful to our Amish community for assistance nurturing Rosslyn’s organic vegetable, fruit, and flower gardens; our holistic orchard and vineyard; and 60+ acres of landscape.

    […]

    One nearby Amish family has been trafficking between our properties, learning quickly what each garden, each plant, each property needs. (Source: Amish Assistance)

    Pam’s gratitude for their mettle and endurance is especially notable, as circumstances have obliged her to evolve her business in an increasingly administrative and organizational capacity. Juggling a half dozen properties within our extended family (as well as additional properties for other clients) and project managing demanding construction projects for us leaves little opportunity for gardening, orcharding, landscape maintenance, wood splitting, and countless other chores that our Amish friends have willingly taken on.

    Among the Amish: Buggy & Barn (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Among the Amish: Buggy & Barn (Photo: Geo Davis)

    Amish Buggy Haiku

    Air conditioning
    even when the horsepower
    is pausing to graze.

    There’s something slightly pastoral, slightly romantic about the buggy and barn snapshot above, and perhaps the haiku as well. And do I close with another gratitude, for life and work among the Amish offers this additional perk. Recalibrating and picturesque, their welcome presence and participation affords us opportunities to pause and contemplate a life lived differently from our own. And oh-so photogenic!

  • Fences & Neighbors

    Fences & Neighbors

    Fences & Neighbors (Geo Davis)
    Fences & Neighbors (Geo Davis)

    Many of us are familiar with Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall“. In particular, this legendary refrain has become a sort of aphorism in the worlds that many of us inhabit.

    “Good fences makes good neighbors…” — Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

    As an down-to-earth consideration of this metaphorical truth — one side spoken but unreflective and presumably intransigent, the other side less certain, wondering, questioning — the poem puts the reader in a queer spot. Perhaps both sides are familiar. Perhaps both the conviction and the questioning dwell within us. And yet we likely fall on one side or the other. Perhaps we allow the wisdom of the ages to guide us.

    The gaps I mean,
    No one has seen them made or heard them made,
    But at spring mending-time we find them there.
    I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
    And on a day we meet to walk the line
    And set the wall between us once again.
    We keep the wall between us as we go.
    To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
    — Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

    Somehow we’re all too often willing to accept that reinforcing a healthy distance, insulating ourselves, separating and protecting ourselves will serve us well. Or at least it will avoid the risk of commingling and wandering and trusting and… And what?

    Near the end of the poem Frost offers a counterpoint to the deeply etched aphorism.

    Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
    What I was walling in or walling out,
    And to whom I was like to give offense.

    Fencing In/Out

    If uncertain who or what or why we’re fencing in and out, we still come up with reasons to reinforce delineating habits. Clear boundaries minimize disagreements. Clear boundaries underpin understanding and consensus. Borders, margins, limits yield the unknown known. Corralling and framing and stockading simplify and clarify. Yes. Usually. But at what cost? Who is hurt? Who is offended? What discourse and interaction is hemmed out?

    This evening I unwind a day of reminders that too often we follow the protocols of our forbears without pausing to wonder if they still serve us. Without pausing for compassion, to question whether they serve other, even those we assume that we are serving.