My Dearest Son

Sunday, September 16, 1979

My Dearest Child,
On the opposite page, I have taped a picture of myself taken not long after you were conceived.  You will have seen many pictures of Dawn and I by now, but I think this is by far the best likeness of me I have ever had taken, so I include it here. I wore glasses then, too, but as I often took them off to do important work - write, read, talk, so I didn't include them here.

 We all have a mental picture of ourselves, no matter what our actual age.  Our own mental image - who we expect to see in the mirrored surface of a window as we walk down the street.  This picture represents how I imagined myself for years.  I would have been 21 at the time, I think.

Thursday, Sept. 28
My Dearest Son, if that be so,
Today I am frantically working to find you a name.  In less than two weeks, I am told, you will be born.  Are you feeling confined in the womb that has nurtured you for so long? This, my baby, is not the last of these wombs, from which you must birth out.
As to your name  - I am trying to find a name that will convey all the hopes and dreams I have of and for you, yet still give you the freedom to be who you want to be.  Right now I am taken by the name Deror - it is Hebrew for freedom, or free flowing.  Freedom is the most important thing or state of mind we can have and my hope is that freedom will always be paramount among your concerns.
Besides, having a name like Deror will set you apart, your name will have a magic which none of your peers can take from you.  this being apart is a good thing, I think.  It is in this loneliness that creative ability and art comes.
I hope that is not to heavy a burden for you to carry - such a name and such a setting apart.  I think it will be a good one - for we all carry burdens, the rocks we push up hills only to see them fall again and again.  Let us at least be happy in the struggle.  You know that I love you and apropos that is a quote from Rilke:

"All we can offer where we love is this: to love each other; for to hold each other comes easy to us and requires no learning."
                                                                         Requiem

But for now, my love must be nurturing and holding.  And preparing.

The first thing that surprises me is that two weeks before she was due, we did not know Morgan's gender.  How innocent compared to the other pregnancies, miscarriages and births, that we should know so little about what was going on in the womb.  We did have a sonogram, but it apparently showed nothing conclusive.  We still have it, in the fireproof box of course, with the birth certificates and other important papers.  Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like . . . to have a son instead of daughters.  Would I have been a better father, or worse?  A better man?  What would have been my expectation for my son?  It seems like I was already freighting his life with my expectations.  What if he had grown up to be a jock?  or a stock broker?  This short journal is a treasure of what ifs and the gender of my children is certainly an interesting hypothetical topic;  as it was, three for three.  I can only hope that if Morgan, Emica or Breanne had been a boy that I would have striven to give him the same nurture and caring; the same generosity and discipline; the same love, in other words, that I have tried to give to my daughters. . .  and received in return.

A Bourgeois Beginning

Recently I discovered some pages from a journal I intended to keep for my first child.  On the one hand, knowing now what was to come, they seem sad.  But on the other hand, they are an honest reflection of what I was feeling those last heady weeks before Morgan was born.  And, perhaps, there is message for my other daughters. . . or not.  Who knows.

September 7, 1979

My Dear Child,
I am endeavoring to keep this journal for you, that someday you may read it and experience your youth from my perspective as your father.  As much of our childhood as is retained (albeit in our unconscious, very often) just as much is lost from us.  Of my own past I know not as much as I would like.  About my parents, your Grandparents, there are mysteries only hinted at and never made clear to me.
But this is a book for you, not necessarily for me, yet I must begin with our past - yours and mine.  Our name is French and in the form BOUTILLIER was granted to our family in 1593, in Lorraine.  Tradition has it that our family were Huguenots - French Protestants and were expelled from France for that belief. However, another story claims we were given land in New France for helping Napoleon, the latter is rather suspect, as Canada was controlled by Great Britain at the time.  In any case, the family settled in the St. John valley and adjacent Aroostook county - as did the Bakers and Lovelys, your Grandmother's family.
The significance of all this lies in our bourgeois background.  Huguenots were traders and merchants - entrepreneurs who built and strengthened the capitalist system.  There lie our roots in a revolutionary class and we must be proud of that.  We are and always have been of the middle class and can do not otherwise, I fear.  

What makes me sad about this passage is the comment about not knowing, or better - remembering, my own past.  This is true.  It is amazing to me when I get with my sisters and they remember so much about our growing up. . . . I remember very little.  What amuses me is the statement about being of a 'revolutionary class'.  I was being very specific concerning that reference and it demonstrates, I think, an understanding of the role of classes in history beyond the typical characterization of 'bourgeois' as stupid or boring, or anti-revolutionary.  However, it may also have been a recognition that we are what we are and that I was always going to be the middle class son of middle class parents.  We were not going to ever be proletarian, working class in the revolutionary sense that the bourgeois were revolutionary in contrast to feudalism.  But then again, neither was Lenin or Marx.

And now the rallying cry is not "Workers of the World Unite", it is "Save the Middle Class".  What we took for granted 30 years ago seems like a dream today; that an education and hard work could create a secure world to live in.  At the time, I assumed we had a choice which side of history we would fall on, I am not so sure my children feel that freedom to chose between being middle class and working class.  One small step, one missed payment, one lay off and they are in danger of tumbling down into the pit from which it takes generations to claw your way out of.

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When a French Name is Not French.

After doing some antiquing in Boutiliers Point, we were on our way West along the southern coast of Nova Scotia.  The weather turned very rainy that day and we weren't stopping long anywhere.  One of the locations Dawn wanted to visit was Lunenburg, since her family is German and we thought the weather might clear and give us a chance to walk around this UNESCO World Historic site.  No such luck.  It was pouring rain when we arrived and we were both too discouraged to get out.  However, this town with its historic downtown and waterfront (which we drove through) and Bluenose Schooner make this place at the top of our list of places to visit on our next trip to NS (and oh, yes, we definitely want to come back.)  On our way out of town, however, we stopped at the tourist center and made this discovery, the Monument to settlers from Montebelaird.  The original Boutiliers, came from this French speaking, but independent, Protestant principality along the French/Swiss border in 1752, at the invitation of the British government.  They were part of a group of German, Swiss and Montebelairdian settlers meant to act as a counterbalance to the Acadian population in Nova Scotia.  The Acadians, celebrated in Longfellow's poem Evangeline,were descendants of the original French settlers.    As such, their loyalty was often in question in British eyes.  The French in the early part of the 18th century still controlled a significant part of the Maritimes from their fortress in Louisburg.  Although the Acadians requested that they play a neutral role in the British-controlled Nova Scotia, eventually, in conjunction with the French and Indian War, as it is known in US History,they were deported from the province in what was known as the Great Expulsion. This photo is of a monument on the waterfront in Halifax that shows the forced migrations of the Acadians.

In 1752, Bouteillers (Boutiliers) arrived from Montebelaird region to settle in Lunenburg and surrounding areas.  They were meant to replace the Acadians and support the British Crown. Hence, in my opinion, the reduced importance of speaking French in the family.  I knew of no relative in our family that spoke French, going back to my great grand parents.  The strong ties that bind French Canadians - language, history, and Catholicism have always been missing from our family heritage.  Now I better understand why. These were folk who were looking to adopt the language and customs of their new Mother country - Britain.  There would have been no harkening back to the good old days in France or Montebelaird.  They would not have been leaving their homeland to extend their country via her colonies but to create a new life in a new land, to create a nation that would become Canada.

So at least now, I have a place to start and a confirmation that our family came to Nova Scotia, not from France (although Montebelaird would be incorporated in 1793 into France), but from an independent nation. And that they were, as always maintained, huguenots- French Protestants.  Now to start making the connections between those settlers and the family branch that wandered into Aroostook County, Maine and became my ancestors.

What's in Name Part Two

In my last post, we were on our way to Boutiliers Point in Nova Scotia.  When we arrived, the first stop was the St. James Anglican Church graveyard.

It was kind of creepy, as Dawn pointed out, that the graveyard was virtually filled with Boutiliers.  There were monuments to veterans and victims of the Halifax Explosion of 1917. One of the most moving and mysterious was this one that listed an entire family of various ages.

Of course, it would only be a matter of time until . . . .

The freakish thing, of course, was he died just a year after I was born.
Here are a couple more views of the outside of the church (that is Dawn in the foreground) and what we took to be the Point opposite the church.

In my next post, I will reveal the truth about why we don't speak French anymore in our family.

What's in a Name

Boy, I didn't realize what a hiatus I had taken from this blog until I opened up today! Almost two months of no postings is not good! However, we have just returned from our Summer vacation and I am full of enthusiasm for doing the things I enjoy like this blog. For our vacation this year, we spent two weeks touring Nova Scotia.  In part we went because we haven't been there and I was particularly interested since my family originally came to the Americas from there. With some superb hasty coordination from Dawn, we were able to get to Moncton NB in one day and be on the peninsula of Nova Scotia the next.  We drove around about two thirds of the perimeter of the province, including Cape Breton Island, in a clockwise rotation.  Most of the time we had good weather, with a few spectacular days, a few very rainy days and most days very good. We had considered camping, but decided at the last minute to leave early and Breanne and Evan had the equipment so we stayed in a combination of settings from a hotel one night, hostels, two college dormitories and the remainder of the stay in B&Bs.

As I said, I was interested in finding my family roots.  I knew there was a Boutilier's Point northwest of Halifax, but was surprised when our drive took us past a location called Boutiliers Cove as well.

In the nearby graveyard attached to the Anglican church, we began our search for relatives.  I do not know of any specific names to look for, but we found several Boutiliers in the graveyard, often the graves of infants or children.  One of the oldest stones in the yard also gave us an important clue to look for.

This stone was interesting on two counts, the alternative spelling of LeBoutillier and the fact that Susan was married to the son of Loyalist parents.  I knew from family tradition that Boutiliers were Huguenot, that is French Protestants, and that this spelling had been used in the past.  There has also been a tradition of Loyalists in the family (those who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American War of Independence).  If the family arrived in Nova Scotia in the 1750s or 1760's as tradition always had it, Susan would most likely have been a daughter or perhaps granddaughter of an original Boutilier settler, having been born in 1784.

Another interesting stone related a twin tragedy of a brother an sister, both of whom died at age 19.  the young man in on the battlefields of France in 1918.

We got back on the road again toward Boutilier's Point, but before arriving, I noticed a monument in front of a Royal Canadian Legion Hall. It confirmed that Robert was not the only Boutilier to have died in World War I and II from the area.

Eventually, we reached Boutilier's Point, where a few surprises awaited us. I will relate them in my next post.  Be sure to check out the Location marker for a street view of St. Peter's Anglican Church yard and Boutiliers Cove.

The Horse Show by William Carlos Williams

My mother is in the hospital today recovering from knee surgery.  However, she suffers from some mild dementia and is having a very hard time understanding why she has to be in the hospital and why she can't come home.  When I first read this poem, I thought it was about Flossie, WCW's long suffering wife, but, of course, on re-reading I understand now that he is talking about a conversation with his mother and she is confined to home or hospital. The poem  is in the form of those conversations about nothing . . . . and everything  . . . that characterize hospital discussions.  We try to act like there is nothing unusual about one person being in a bed and surrounded by family, catered to by strangers.  And it is unusual to actually talk to someone without them doing something else - watching TV or preparing a meal. . . just to talk.  About what? I think those hospital conversations share something with poetry as well. While consciously mundane and ordinary, they have hidden in them the kernels of  much more profound and serious matters . . . matters of life and death.


The Horse Show


Constantly near you, I never in my entire
sixty-four years knew you so well as yesterday
or half so well.  We talked.  You were never
so lucid, so disengaged from all exigencies
of place and time.  We talked of ourselves,
intimately, a thing never heard of between us.
How long have we waited? almost a hundred years.


You said, Unless there is some spark, some
spirit we keep within ourselves, life, a
continuing life's impossible-and it is all
we have.  There is no other life, only the one.
The world of the spirits that comes afterward
is the same as our own, just like you sitting
there they come and talk to me, just the same.


They come to bother us.  Why? I said.  I don't 
know.  Perhaps to find out what we are doing.
Jealous, do you think?  I don't know.  I 
don't know why they should want to come back.
I was reading about some men who had been
buried under a mountain, I said to her, and
one of them come back after two months,


digging himself out.  It was in Switzerland,
you remember?  Of course I remember.  The
villagers tho't it was a ghost coming down
to complain.   They were frightened.  They
do come, she said, what you call
my "visions."  I talk to them just as I
am talking to you.  I see them plainly.


Oh if I could only read!  You don't know
what adjustments I have made.  All
I can do is to try to live over again
what I knew when your brother and you
were children- but I can't always succeed.
Tell me about the horse show.  I have 
been waiting all week to hear about it.


Mother darling, I wasn't able to get away.
Oh that's too bad.  It was just a show;
they make the horses walk up and down
to judge them by their form.  Oh is that
all? I tho't it was something else. Oh
they jump and run too.  I wish you had been
there, I was so interested to hear about it.

The New Trampoline

This poem was written in April, 1996 when the girls were little. I wanted to relate their joy and exuberance on the trampoline with the journey they were about to take.  It is also a reflection of differences between them.  Recently, I was touched by something Breanne told me about how magical her childhood had been; how she imagined a world of secret places around our backyard.  I always imagined our home to be too small and dull, but I should have trusted in the powers of a child's imagination to transmute the ordinary into the extraordinary.


The New Trampoline


Early Spring, between snows, we set up.
Stretched black skin between silver springs
Round eye to heaven, door and navel.
The elders hold the blanket corners.


The youngest daughter and her friend are first.
Tentative steps around the edges, then a timid bounce.
Giggling they gambol like newborn kids, hand in hand.
Each leaps higher, nearly airborne.


But the eldest daughter will lie spread eagle, alone,
Counting clouds in a cloudless sky.
Expanding upward to the edge of the earth
And beyond that blue bowl to the stars above.


I might give her a compass for that airy journey
I think, but remember, alas,
She must find her own way 
Beyond this gripping earth.
My silent task, at last, to break her falls
Again and again.








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