I-Thou Driving

Here in the Big Little, all driving is negotiated. When I first came here, I, of a rule-bound DMV regulation-adhering upbringing, was appalled. “These people have no concept of the Right of Way,” I frequently observed. It’s true. Left turns here, for example, are a breed apart from those where I grew up. In the Midwest, an oncoming driver sticks to her rights and the left turner waits in frustration for an opening. Seizing a too-narrow opening earns you wrath and danger. Here, however, oncoming drivers overflow with grace for would-be turn makers. Velocity slows, lights flash, hands wave -- all to encourage the turner to dash in front of the oncoming car without fear. The same is true for pedestrians hoping to cross and aspirant mergers from the right. Drivers from Chicago face a big adjustment when they move here.

Why this generosity? I think it’s environmental. Roads in the Big Little are narrow, mostly with only one lane. Cars waiting for a wide enough break in traffic can cause a big back-up behind. There’s always space between cars, but how is it apportioned? In many driving societies an unclaimed space between you and the preceding care is an effrontery, even a failure if left unfilled. It’s an individually consumed resource, claimed in quantities too small for social betterment.

Here in Big Little, the empty space between cars is more of a public good. it is granted to those who want to change directions, to cross over, or merge. By moving slowly, I create a space for you and all those behind you, who might be stuck for a long time as you wait to cross traffic without threat from a velocity-drunk self-maximizer.

But in the Big Little, it goes further than that. Not only do we let up on the accelerator – driving simply so that others may simply drive – we communicate about it with the aforementioned waves and flashes. Once, in Africa – in a capital city with terrible traffic jams - I discussed the road culture with a taxi driver. “We drive in negotiation,” he said. He told me that if he was in a real hurry, he tapped his left wrist; neighboring drivers would let him in. I haven’t tried that here, but our traffic is less acute and our negotiations less elaborate.

In driver’s education in Michigan, we learned the rules of the road created an automaton, with no personal initiative or creative decisions. This seemed right to me. Why trust your life to the individual judgment of others? But I’ve been often stuck trying to change direction in Michigan. “Why won’t these people let me in?” I once asked Owen when we were visiting. “They’re not from Rhode Island,” he said.

It’s only right to admit that I'm sometime terrified to see how the rules of the road can be improvised here. But there’s usually space for all. Not always, but often, those who share the road will recognize you and your need. “I-Thou driving,” I call it.

A Blue Jay's Wake

The first spring after Owen and I moved into our new house, we realized we had made a terrible mistake. In order to preserve the view from our deck, we had installed glass panels. These gave us a beautiful vista over the woods and lake, but were a deadly trap for birds. One week in the very early spring, as the first migrants appeared, we found three dead birds on our deck.

This was very disturbing to us, because we live with birds, two cockatiels and two parakeets. I love my pet birds for being active, melodious, colorful and affectionate, at least they seem affectionate, but saying so involves attributing human characteristics to animals, and that just doesn’t fly among critical thinkers, so to speak.

Still, our flock does seem attached to us. They pay attention when we say their names. They squawk when they hear us walk through the house and peep with seeming concern when we leave the room. They groom me; the parakeets stand on my head and preen my hair, from roots to tip, and the cockatiels pick at my freckles. They prefer being with us to being alone. I am their favorite perch, but it was on Owen’s lap that Pearl nestled down and laid an egg. The tiels march up to our unoccupied fingers and drop their heads, imploring to be stroked. When I kiss them, they close their eyes and tilt their small faces toward us in what seems a lot like pleasure. Hennie even clucks with quiet delight when I rub his head. Because we give them comfort and pleasure, could they have some sort of affection for us?

Of course, you might argue that vocal communication, loyalty to a protector and mutual grooming are merely behaviors to ensure the well being of the flock, not evidence of devotion. However tenderly I feel for them, and however receptive they are, I can’t say that they operate on affection as well as instinct. I can’t prove that they have a heart in anything but the cardiovascular sense.

So, I love my birds without knowing if they reciprocate. Whether their behavior is motivated by instinct or affection, I take pleasure in their company, their beauty, their grace, and I transfer some of this affection to the wild species moving with speed and strength through the treetops.

To protect the outdoor birds from our trap, we put hawk cutouts on the glass, and the next week we were saddened to learn it hadn’t been sufficient. Despite our efforts, we found a beautiful jay on the deck. It was big and heavy and a luminous blue with sharp black and clean white markings. It had a broken neck. Disgusted at our glass rail and at every bird-killing building in America, I threw its body off the deck into the woods below.

Later that day, Owen called me to the window. “Come to the wake,” he said. A raucous chorus of blue jays was sending up a mass caw. A half dozen of them were gathered about twenty feet above where I had thrown the dead bird. One at a time they swooped down toward the body. Returning to their perches, they kept up the noise. One robin in the flock raised a much sweeter song. Was it my imagination that it said, “Cheer-up, cheer-up, cheer-up?”

What function can it serve for birds to gather around death? Was this a display that those tiny brains and rapid hearts had registered a loss? To me, it seemed that we all shared the same grief. But when I stepped out onto the deck, they all flew away. I am, after all, human.

We put planters against the glass rail, and now pine trees warn the wild birds that our deck isn’t a throughway. We have had fewer strikes. Indoors, human-avian relations are at a high point. I believe that our flock is more than a functional collective. It is a community of three species bound by affection and familiarity. The outdoor flock doesn’t include people, but even so, I wouldn’t say that its relations are impersonal.

Why Beverly Van Beaver Dam?

I am a daughter of the Dutch diaspora, born in Holland, Michigan. I was raised a member of the Christian Reformed Church, went to Holland Christian High School, and Calvin College. The Holland/Zeeland area is now a more multicultural place than it was then, when it was considered funny to say “If you’re not Dutch, you’re not much.” We thought of ourselves as Dutch, in ways I can’t quite comprehend now that I know something about the Netherlands.

I’ve left West Michigan, and these days I “pass” as just another American, but inside I am still a tribeswoman. I am very strongly from somewhere quite different from most of America, from my current life, and from the Netherlands, for that matter.

I think if I were from an African American, Italo-American or Jewish community, the type well known from books and movies, it would be easier to convey where I come from. The thing is, West Michigan is a small place, and it's hard to explain, even to the people I know, that it's distinctive enough to merit explaining. And then, once I try to convey the specifics - no TV on Sunday, undistinguished cooking, much work, judgmental neighbors - it creates more sympathy than empathy. It's hard to explain the sweet experiences: the joy of potlucks, hymn singing, wry conversation. The community gave its members support as well as surveillance. The work ethic was not just anti-pleasure, but offered us pleasure in our products. We were not just stingy, but we believed that consumption was not the point of life. Garrison Keillor knows how to convey what's been lost as well as gained for those of us who have moved on from small town, church-heavy communities. But my stories aren't as good as his, and it's awkward to deliver fifteen-minute monologues in everyday conversation.

My mother was born in Beaver Dam, a village south of Zeeland. “Van Dam,” of course, is a common Dutch name. I am, however, American, from Beaver Dam. Why Beverly? What better name for a girl born in the late baby boom who appreciates alliteration?

Rest assured, this blog is not about my secret life as a West Michigan Dutch tribeswoman. But a secret tribeswoman is writing it. . .