Why Gertrude Bell Haunts My Dreams (August 08)

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Why Gertrude Bell Haunts My Dreams (August 2008)

We are into that period of the year when full moons are designated "harvest moons", for obvious reasons. While the romanticized image this conjures up is of pumpkins, cornstalks, and an overflowing cornucopia of disgustingly healthy foods, there are fraught harvests of all sorts happening all year long -- ones we don't intentionally sow and, if destiny is kind, may never need to reap. These are the kinds of harvests I think of when in a morbid frame of mind.

Human organs are "harvested" to sustain the lives of other humans, for example, and I harvested a ton of ice and snow off my roof last winter and got pneumonia for my pains. Now I read there is a good opium poppy harvest in Afghanistan, causing elation amongst dope peddlers and those who need to be opiated. Then, years ago I saw a troubling documentary film, showing disgraceful treatment of seasonal farm workers, called "Harvest of Shame."

I did nothing to deserve my preferential status of being born a white, middleclass, mid-20th Century American, a cook who at any time of year can stand in the pantry and dither over which of the many possibilities to choose from for the next meal. It is a dilemma most of the world's population desires to have and never will. I try to be grateful each day for this bounty, and for the rest of my unearned good fortune -- healthy genes, loving and helpful family and friends, the luxury of work that gives me both challenge and pleasure, and to be able to live surrounded by peace and beauty. What's a little snow now and again, or a bitey insect or two?

I think there are many individuals as fortunate as myself in this favored corner of the world, which is why it catches me off guard when I encounter someone who is outraged by the smallest inconveniences. We were hyper-miling our way to church the other Sunday morning, soaking up the sight of wildflowers and verdant hills, when a car zoomed up behind us. Impatient with our pace, our mode of saving gas, money, and wear and tear on the planet, the young woman at the wheel tailgated dangerously until she could sail around us two old geezers, giving us the Hawaiian Salute as she tore off at top speed. As you might guess, at the bottom of the grade we coasted gently up behind her car, stopped at the intersection light. Naughty persons that we are, we smiled and waved.

What I really wanted to do was to say, "Honey, the journey can be at least as rewarding as the destination, and if you continue to drive this way, your destination may be the morgue." Certain images haunt my dreams. One of them is of a rescue call I participated in years ago when I was an EMT. When my crew arrived with the ambulance, we were told there was nothing we could do. Then we saw why. By the whirling lights of police and rescue vehicles, a teenager's long, blonde hair hung from the window of a wrecked car, blowing like silk in the wind. In the crumpled car were two other dead girls, just children, really, looking for all the world like discarded dolls. Silently we left the scene of the grim harvest, scarred for life.

A more recent haunting resulted from seeing Sarah Day's impassioned performance in "Desert Queen" at American Player's Theater. The script, artfully and intelligently written by Jim DeVita, is from letters and books by and about Gertrude Bell. She was a remarkable English adventuress, archeologist, and secret agent, famous in her day but now largely forgotten. Ms Bell meddled in Middle Eastern politics well into the modern era, playing a significant role in persuading warring Sunni and Shia tribesmen to subsume their tribal identities into the fragile, cobbled-together state of Iraq. Ultimately, Bell was disillusioned and then disconsolate to see the unraveling of her hopes, and to face the mutant harvest of her life's work. To an uncanny degree, her words echo the concerns raised since day one about the wisdom of current American military intervention in Iraq.

In the performance, as Gertrude Bell describes a dawning awareness of her own and her country's naive entanglement in ages-old loyalties and blood feuds, the audience gasped and murmured. Then, as now, Westerners sailed into the Middle East ignorant (or disdainful) of the complexities of that culture, and we find ourselves mired as the Brits were then -- with our motives, like theirs, being an irrelevant mixture of pure and madly impure. Irrelevant, because in warfare, the innocent civilians, in whose name wars are supposedly waged, lose everything. It's enough to drive you crazy.

But enough. It's summertime and for us the living is supposed to be easy. May your garden, or the fields of local farmers who supply your wants, bring on a tender harvest of succulent melons with fragrant overtones of honey, and zucchini the size of propane tanks, not to mention sweet corn that is better than sex (to quote Garrison Keillor.) And, (swat*@!!,) may all mosquitoes disappear into the maws of giant, hyperactive bats.

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