London weather came to Maple Grove last month. Drizzle and mist. The earth breathed exudations from both cradles and graves for Halloween. Pumpkins grinned malevolently and scarecrows had their moment of animation. Irish fetches roamed the earth and everyone pretended they saw one.

I would’ve fired the groundskeeper here at Sullivan Manor for gawking at the spectacle of spectors, but I am the groundskeeper. So, I just watched languidly as the lawn tried on Halloween costume after costume in different color schemes, courtesy of sleepy trees getting ready for bed. Gold, tan, orange, crimson – fashion sashes of falling leaves undulated their colors like chameleons on a catwalk. It ended in a rush of narcissism that left the trees naked and foolish-looking. They no longer gossip from on high about my nearly naked Goddess in the Garden. The leaves whisper contritely at her alabaster feet now…final prayers before sleep.

I have my own seasonal rites. A better name might be quirks. For instance, I don’t know why every November I consider buying myself a Medieval Savonarola chair. They look uncomfortable as hell, but something about the regal symmetry appeals to me. And eyes. Eyes have a sudden enticement for me come fall. Young eyes, old eyes, sad eyes, wise eyes – seasonal nuances of light achieve “a whiter shade of pale” and glisten in every glance and gaze. I am mesmerized by the clarion look of human eyes in autumn.

They say eyes are the windows of the soul, but windows can be shuttered, veiled with white sheers, draped in black, or even opened to expose interior façades made only for show. Still, we trust them more than doors. They give us candid glimpses of truth. Just peeking out peripherally before opening their doors, we sense their mood and tone. Face to face, we gather their indecision, their fear, their joy. We analyze them analyzing us. Reassurance, laughter, agreement, doubt – optical hints shape the conversation.

Spontaneity makes us trust, while calculations are a red flag that leaves us wary. Those who have no guilt or conscience to give their eyes away are the hardest to read. Their eyes well up with sincere pain or simmer with self-righteousness. They have rationalized, justified, and martyred themselves. Having fooled their own minds, they fool ours.

But there are pure eyes too, wonderful eyes just begging to be read. If a candidate for romance lets you look into their absolutely naked gaze, it can sear your heart. This is what makes falling in love so paralyzing to the mind. It can happen in a moment. Something in your bedrock radar locks in with recognition. Forgotten dreams come rushing back. All things ever lost, abandoned, burnt to the ground or shot through the heart are suddenly in play again. No polite barriers of propriety, no guile, no contrived guidance to control you, just that first sensory spark of passion, followed perhaps by the hum of a voice, a fragrance, and the pleasant radiance of heat and aura coming from the seraphic presence. And at every stage, it’s the eyes that confirm it, the eyes are the messengers, the “eyes” have it.

All that said, have you ever witnessed people less able to see eye to eye as in today’s society? Social distancing, masks – it’s more than a pandemic. A friend of mine posted this on Facebook: “So many people out there hustling for more stuff, fame and status. I’m over here busting my ass so I can afford to disappear into a witchy cottage in the middle of the woods somewhere where no one knows my name.”

It resonated with me and I responded that when I tried to disengage from the gerbil wheel of pursuing fame and fortune (never did run the race for love) by moving to Minnesota, it was for similar sentiments. Finding escapes from social mores, trends and fallacies is definitely a need in my life, but abandoning people isn’t. I need to give and to communicate. What I looked for in Minnesota was a “back 40” to live on but close enough to civilization to hit it with a rock. What I found – or what found me – was a haven on a lake, and the second largest municipal park in the country less than a mile away. And love. Love found me. All that aside, no independent thinking person can watch the dumbing down and disintegration of founding American values such as responsibility, resourcefulness, self-reliance, law-and-order, the work ethic, risk-taking, incentive-based economics, et al, and not fantasize isolating themselves from the crumbling standards, victim mindsets, and low expectations that dominate culture and politics today. Kindness, caring and compassion come through high respect for the potential of people, not through weakening and devitalizing them with mindless political correctness. If you inflict that on them, you truly make them victims. Victims of you. Survival, and the capacity to be charitable, come with managing resources without condescension, not in squandering them in a mindless, blubbering gush of emotion and ulterior political motives.

Demonizing and overwhelming ourselves with faux guilt and irrational compassion that cannot sustain freedom, choice and opportunity is the most insidious undermining we have ever faced. The almost forgotten lessons that came with America’s flowering to become the greatest, most free, incentive-driven, rationally compassionate society in history are being systematically bled out. And killing the Eagle kills the Golden Goose.

That’s why I understood my friend’s post on Facebook. The drive to just isolate oneself from the political madness of our weakening culture is attractive. But isolation is only avoidance. “No man [tsk, tsk, politically incorrect] is an island.” And there are ways to regain perspective, self-respect and foundational values without “disappearing into a witchy cottage” or surrendering to becoming a social insect existing for the good of the State. One of those ways, for me, has become watching a TV show called “Alone.”

I’ve never had cable TV, but I guess the show is part of the History Channel and you can pick it up in a variety of ways OTA or off the Internet. Those hard lessons we have lost still survive in the hearts and minds of people like those in “Alone” who ultimately seek an extreme and revelatory test of themselves in the wilderness. But no one has to “disappear into a witchy cottage” to find themselves. Generations of every creed, color and culture have done it within the prospects of American freedoms. “Trick-or-treat” should not become a political ultimatum replacing the dignity of individuals who obey laws, respect positive cultural values, and utilize opportunities available to everyone through education, personal responsibility and their own willingness to work. It does not begin with telling children they are victims or perpetrators. It begins with expecting them to live up to their potential within a proven system of laws, choices and opportunities. We reap what we sow.
 

My warmest thanks for your friendship this Thanksgiving. The dozen photos below are as follows: #1-5 some of my autumn haunts; #6 retro pix from swimming days; #7 only trick-or-treat photo I took; #8 a nice couple – fir tree and gold lotus – just married, I think; #9-10 arboreal beauties; #11 yours truly #12 autumnal sunrise over lake behind my house taken by my friend RR.

Thomas "Sully" Sullivan