I’m not a hiker, generally speaking. I confess to being bored with the short view from the paths of my native New England woods. Dirt. Pine. Stone.
But to my surprise, I loved hiking the Dales. Little Agill Head, Ingbergh Brow, Garden Fell.
Am I choosing only the most scenic names? Fair enough, consider Grouse Butts, Middle Tongue, Devil’s Apronful. And there’s the lack of true paths; one walks upon trod grass by a stone wall enclosing a sheep or cow herd, which senses immediately that I am not a farmer.
The Dales consist of gray limestone covered with a shallow layer of soil dotted with peat bogs and laced with dung. The land does not support trees; instead it comprises green hills and moors. Moor from the Norse for dead land or swamp, which the land must have been at one time. Now, the gray limestone supports long vistas—green field upon green field, stone wall upon stone wall, far into the mist. Time Stopping. Breath Deepening. Heart Opening.
I am in truth, more of a homebody than a hiker. Sipping coffee, I peer out the northern window of my New England kitchen at the sparrows and their comrades—Squawking Starling, Chirping Wren, Crooning Mockingbird—during their rotating visits to the garden.
Last spring I added a new vista, courtesy of a western window recently uncovered in a renovation. As the sun sets, the light scatters across the kitchen floor and table, warming the room at the end of the day.
The view from the western window beckons unpleasantly. It is a narrow side yard, legal only for a home built in the 1800s: four feet to the property line, four feet to the neighbor’s house. Little grows in the dense shade and swampy soil, which is inhabited mainly by rats that occasionally emerge from their tunnels. Puce-green Siding. Climbing Algae. Wobbly Fence.
The yard begs for transformation into something green and decidedly other, though transforming it would be a challenge given its size, shadiness, and damp soil. It was my daughter who helped me to see what I was missing, when, for a high school art class, she painted, of all things, the western view.
She’s had her eyes to the sky since she was a baby. “Look, mom!” I follow her toddler fist as she points—a pale moon here, a pink cloud there. “Look, mom!” My eyes scan and scan; where could she be pointing? I kneel at her side to better trace the vector of her arm. I squint. There it is, a faraway speck:a bird soars.
All the years from toddler to teen she’s been pointing out the higher view to my skeptical soul. In her painting she captured what I failed to see in the western view: how the creaky branches of the old maples filter the late sun; how the sun in turn broadcasts through the leaves—now green, now gold, now black, against the darkening sky. Thus, pessimist though I be, I am uncharacteristically excited about trying to transform the western view. It will be a challenge, but I have had some training.
Twenty years back my parents helped with the backyard, which frames the northern view and provides a home to the raucous birds. Back then I was excited to have managed to afford a home in the city, despite the generous amount of fixing-up it needed and the strange backyard of packed-down, gray ash-dirt.
On my first Memorial Day there, one of the home’s former inhabitants stopped by to tell of growing up in it with a family of eight brothers. All eight served in the military; only seven came home, prompting his Memorial Day visit. Watching us work, he explained that his father had kept them warm with a coal furnace that replaced the room-by-room coal stoves, their ashes dumped into the backyard. The mystery of the ash-dirt solved!
My parents, who grew up on farms, are good with the land and, like all old farmers, are hard workers. When they came to see the “new” house, dad was most concerned with the ash-dirt pitched into the dirt-floor basement and the possibility of rain flooding the cellar. But he also appreciated the opportunity for an improved view.
In their seventies by then, they helped grade the small northern yard, sectioning the majority into raised garden beds. Dad coached as I muscled a bucking tiller to add peat and manure to the ashy soil. Mom accompanied me as we marched back and forth in close formation, picking up spent coal and also, inexplicably, pieces of broken glass. Where did it all come from? Back and forth we walked, buckets in hand. Clink. Clink. Clink. For years after, the rains brought up more shards. But now, after many years of layering, the ash blooms: Bee Balm, Fox Glove, Lambs Ear.
My parents, now in their nineties, cannot travel, nor can they grade, till, or march. My daughter, now in her twenties, is away. So I am left to contemplate how to improve the— Small, Pitiful, Forsaken—side yard. Upheld by the spirit of old farmers, and borrowing optimism from those we love, I take up the shovel. Shady grove. Setting sun. Western view.
Author's Comment
I am fascinated with the mystery of how things emerge and intersect when we sit down to write. While decoupaging a map I’d brought back from the Yorkshire Dales onto a cigar box—intermittently staring out the window—I was thinking “I have no idea what to write for my essay class.” As I started to write about that deplorable side yard view, memories of times my perspective changed came frothing up, resulting in this piece. The side yard now is now planted with shrubs and perennials.
This debut novel provides a wonderful sense of 1970’s New York City. Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, squalid six floor walk-ups and posh co-ops, streets crowded with hustlers and cabbies, all come to life. The bars Michelle frequents have characters right out of central casting. The reader becomes submerged in the sights, sounds, and smells of NYC.
Beck-Clark does a great job of tackling weighty topics in a way that inspires introspection without detracting from the narrative flow. Given the exploration of trauma, it might not always be a comfortable read, but it is an important one. - Erin Britton, San Francisco Book Review
The novel’s plotlines are excellently woven throughout, and the novel’s narrative moves ever forward, with several twists and turns maintaining the interest of the reader. The characters are fully developed as the reader gains a large measure of intimacy with them, identifying with their struggles and motives. At the end of the day, Beck-Clark succeeds in spinning a true to life tale of Holocaust memory, trauma, and recovery, that is both sad and inspiring.
- David Keenan, Manhattan Book Review
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For more information: www.denisebeck-clark.com
Jenny Moye was born in Ohio and received her PhD in psychology at the University of Minnesota. She is a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, specializing in geropsychology. Her creative nonfiction explores life transitions. She lives in the Dorchester section of Boston with her family and opinionated cat. She thanks her essay-writing teacher and class and Persimmon Tree Editor-in-Chief Margaret (Peggy) Wagner for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
Judith Beth Cohen has published a novel, Seasons (2015), excerpts from which appeared first in New American Review, and a short fiction collection, Never Be Normal (2021). Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines, including The North American Review, New Letters, High Plains Literary Review, and others. In March 2023, she was the featured writer on