Happy New Year! In medieval Europe, the Christian era (and each year within it) began the day the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would become pregnant: March 25, Lady Day, exactly nine months before Christmas. Split between two years, March counted as the first month on the Julian calendar then in use. That made September, October, November, and December months seven through ten, or septem, octo, novem, and decem in Latin.
A slight miscalculation of leap years gradually threw that calendar out of sync with nature and the sun. By 1582, it was ten days off. That year Pope Gregory reset the calendar to scrap the ten extra days, start the year on Jan. 1, and fine-tune the leap year formula. Human nature and politics haven’t changed much. Then as now, anything my rival or enemy proposes, I must reject. While Roman Catholic countries promptly adopted the Gregorian calendar, Protestant nations decried it as popish. Britain and its colonies kept the archaic one until 1752. March 25 remained the legal first day of the year, while some began to greet the new year informally in January. Imagine historians interpreting English sources from the 1600s. Was a letter dated March 10, 1668, written before or after one dated November of that year? The ten- or later eleven-day difference between England and most of the Continent muddied diplomatic correspondence. Imagine George Washington revising his date of birth from Feb. 11, 1731, under Britain’s old calendar to Feb. 22, 1732, under the new one. He celebrated both birthdays to the end of his life. Image: Johannes Von Gmunden, calendar, 1496.
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I’m home from vacation and down with a cold. The laundry is washed and the mail sorted. Now I want to do nothing but read and sleep until the sniffles dry up.
Do you ever wonder how hard to push yourself? Grit involves the self-discipline to persevere now for future success. Delayed gratification is about putting off a pleasure now for the sake of a larger reward later. Skip that cake if you’ve started a diet. On the other hand, consider the workaholic business executive saving up toward a peaceful retirement of fishing and hiking. Why not fish and hike more now and retire with adequate but modest savings? Surely it depends on the person, the situation, and the day. Too much stress is bad for blood pressure and the heart. Too little stress gets nothing done. I try to think “choose to” instead of “have to.” I’m happier with clean clothes and a clear desk, but I choose to wash dishes by hand rather than replace the broken dishwasher until I have more energy. How do you decide how hard to push? Cool ocean breeze. Sun warm on the face. Roar of crashing waves. Pacific Beach in San Diego is a feast for the senses even when I close my eyes.
Last time I visited this city, I loved the stimulation of exploring a different tourist site each day. This time my travel companion and I rarely ventured more than a block from the beach. Watching her frolic in the sand as she did long ago, growing up by Lake Michigan, I realized vacations aren’t just about novelty. They’re also about ways new discovery intertwines with the deep comfort of the familiar. To revisit happy childhood memories warms the spirit. To start and end a vacation day with rituals from home sets a framework for the excitement in between. To re-enter an eatery I first tried yesterday begins to feel like home today when the server welcomes me back. I’m learning to appreciate both the adventure and the comfort, and the ways each enriches the other. English gives lefties a bad name. The word sinister (evil) comes from Latin meaning “on the left side.” Gauche (awkward, tactless) is from French for “left.” The word left itself appears to derive from an Old English form meaning “weak or foolish.” It’s unkind to give a left-handed compliment, complain that a dancer has two left feet, or denounce an idea as out of left field.
As for left’s opposite, the Old English root riht meant just, good, or correct. Adroit (clever, skillful) comes from Old French for able, handsome, skilled in combat, or on the right-hand side. Latin dexter (on the right-hand side) gives us dexterity and dexterous, synonymous with adroit. Left-handers no longer get burned for witchcraft, but our words insult them at every turn. They are not alone. Paddy wagons carted drunk and disorderly Irish off to jail. To be gypped was to be swindled by a Rom or “Gypsy.” Hysteria (Greek for “uterus”) was an affliction of women. American Indians lost their homeland to white settlers circling the wagons and holding down the fort. World War I veterans might bristle at the use of basket case for stressed-out folks who never lost limbs in battle. Which of these linguistic connections have faded into history, and which still carry insult or offense? It’s a matter of respect to avoid terms that feed discrimination or negative stereotypes, as experienced by the people affected. Until left-handed people complain of sinister and gauche as derogatory to them, I’ll probably go on using both. Image: Prehistoric wall painting in Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands), Argentina. One advantage of cleaning house only occasionally is my housemates’ appreciation when it’s clean. If it were always pristine, no one would notice.
I’ve been watching a lecture series on particle physics for non-physicists. Segments involve relativity, which I struggle to grasp beyond the Newtonian basics. Relative to my house I’m sitting still at the computer, but relative to the sun I’m hurtling through space. My head is the same height relative to my feet, whether I stand on a creek bed or a mountaintop. Compared to other people’s suffering, my troubles are trivial. Can relativistic thinking ease my anxiety or grief? Not always. My peace shouldn’t depend on someone else’s pain. Sorrow isn’t a competition. Thinking I shouldn’t hurt, just because others hurt more, adds shame for feeling what I feel. Worse yet, telling people “Count your blessings” or “Others have it worse” trivializes their emotions. Yet in stressful times, when I acknowledge the stress and do what needs doing, one type of comparison keeps me going: then and now. I recall a long-ago time of feeling utterly helpless and alone. The point is not that I’ve been through worse, but that I’ve come through worse. I survived in the past; I can survive again. I’ll be all right, relatively speaking. Image: Cube of theoretical physics, drawn by CMG Lee. The refrigerator died. All the perishables that hadn’t already perished moved onto the wintry porch. The furnace went on the fritz. All our lap rugs and a space heater came into the living room. With fridge failing to cool and furnace failing to heat, I wished we could average the two for perfect comfort.
Even in the midst of trials and tribulations, I know the difference between crises of the present and those that matter in the long run. In my experience, a graph of personal troubles would not resemble a straight line or a bell-shaped curve so much as a two-humped camel. One hump includes missed flights, malfunctioning appliances, and troublesome calendar conflicts. They drive me to tears and then fade into memory. The other hump includes losses and traumas that change a life forever. They sink into the bones and may resurface years later, out of the blue. “How are you?” is a more complicated question than it sounds. For me, how I’m doing operates on two levels that don’t always match. The mood of the moment overlies a separate baseline for the year or the season. In a season of grief, I have sometimes—not always—laughed at a good romantic comedy. In a tranquil time of life like the present, losing the use of a refrigerator and a furnace in the same week stresses me out. No point fighting it. We feel what we feel. Below the stress, though, I try to remember that this too shall pass. Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning, “Andrea del Sarto” Or a woman’s reach. What Barbie left me mulling has less to do with feminism or patriarchy than whether expectations of perfection boost or squash self-esteem. As a schoolgirl I brought home the happy news that I could be anything I wanted. My spoilsport father said it wasn’t true. Alas, he was right. Spectacular achievements take not only grit but some innate skill and some degree of luck. Not everyone who aspires to be an astronaut, a U.S. president, or an Olympic athlete will become one, no matter how hard she strives. Will she feel like a failure, as I did after an unsuccessful job search, or will role-playing with those Barbies inspire a healthy interest in science, politics, or sports? Some say perfection is excellence taken even further. I’d suggest the opposite. Perfectionism promotes limits. Don’t try new things you may do poorly. Stay within the safety of the known. Pursuit of excellence, on the other hand, opens a world of possibilities. Some will work out; others won’t. You win some; you lose some. Adventure. Explore. Ask questions. Admit your mistakes. You may not reach Mars or the Olympics, but you may discover places you never dreamed of—and have fun along the way. Photo: My grandmother’s, my mother’s, and my best dolls represented neither babies nor fashion models but girls a little older than ourselves. A cacophony of whistles and squeals drew me from the computer to my office window. A large, gray-brown fluffball rolled and tumbled in the dormant garden. It took me a moment to recognize it as a noisy pair of groundhogs, perhaps in the act of courtship or mating.
Groundhogs (aka woodchucks, of the squirrel family) are territorial and mostly solitary. From spring to fall we watch our resident groundhog Chuck dine on coneflower blossoms or stand tall to survey his domain. After three months of hibernation in his burrow, he comes out about now for his one semi-social season of the year. In a practice unique to groundhogs, the male emerges early to check his territory for the burrows of potential mates. He visits each female in turn for an overnight of cuddles and bonding, then hibernates another month before reappearing to mate with them all for real. His only role in raising the pups is to guard his territory against intruders. Where last week’s fluffball fit into this cycle is a mystery to me. Even February, my most difficult month, offers unexpected delights for the taking. My challenge is to notice more of them, without needing whistles and squeals to force them on my attention. Sources: National Wildlife Federation and Wildlife Animal Control. Image: Groundhog male, photo by Susan Sam, Michigan. If asked the cause of the Civil War in one word, I’d have to name slavery. South Carolina declared independence after Lincoln’s election as president, “whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.” According to its Declaration of Secession, the 1860 election culminated 25 years of “increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery.” Although the immediate trigger to cannon fire a few months later involved a state’s right to secede, that issue arose from the South’s commitment to slavery.
One-word answers are for promoting an agenda, not for exploring history. Cause-and-effect narratives are rarely so simple. Causes of resentment between the agricultural South and the increasingly industrial North were as old as the Republic. Then as now, states that feared or resented control by national majorities have claimed states’ rights on policies from tariffs and slavery to marijuana, abortion, and guns. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes federal law supreme over any conflicting state law. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states any powers not given the federal government. Between the two, “states’ rights” can mean almost anything. Curiously, while we tend to associate states’ rights with the South, it was northern states that claimed a right to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The act required northerners to return people fleeing slavery and punished anyone who helped them. South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession names thirteen northern states that “have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.” In other words, when it came to preserving slavery, northern states had no rights in the face of conflicting federal law. No, friends, states’ rights weren’t even a secondary cause of the Civil War. They were only an excuse when they happened to favor slavery. Image: John Magee, “Southern Chivalry – Argument versus Clubs,” lithograph, 1856. Preston Brooks (SC) beats Charles Sumner (MA) over slavery in the U.S. Senate chamber. Viking, Scottish, and Irish culture revolved around honor, shame, and violence in response to insult. Honor culture came to America with the Scots-Irish who settled in the Appalachian South. Status rests more on birth and family than individual achievement or guilt. People are expected to know their place. Disrespect is the greatest offense. To appear a loser is worse than to know oneself a sinner.
This helps me make sense of the history I learned in West Virginia public schools long ago. We took pride in the Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, born in Clarksburg just up the river, and the legendary freedom of mountaineers. We deplored tobacco plantation field slavery but condoned household slavery as benign. We interpreted the Civil War as a conflict over states’ rights, not slavery. Nobody likes to lose, but it is worse when losing carries dishonor and shame. From a Northern, guilt-and-atonement viewpoint, the Confederates fought to preserve slavery and lost. From a Southern viewpoint, honor was at stake. Flags and monuments are not about remembering history, but rather about honor and respect. “You lost, get over it” means nothing except as a further insult. Image: Henry Mosler, The Lost Cause, 1869. Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. Archives
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