I was reminded this morning of Henry David Thoreau, who wrote about his bean field in Walden, his famous journal of contemplations about living on his own in a rustic cabin, about Concord, about democracy, about his neighbours. Somewhat like Michel de Montaigne, albeit writing three centuries later, Thoreau seemed to find something to write about in every aspect of his two-year sojourn in the woods, no matter how mundane. And one of those things he wrote about was beans.

Yes: beans. The more you eat…

What triggered my memory of that chapter — I have not read Walden for a few decades, yet it remains with me — was the sight of our bean vines that had climbed up from the raised-bed garden bed below, wrapped themselves around the deck’s railing, and are now producing stiff fingers of green beans, soon to be picked for our culinary appreciation. The sun-worshipping vines continued to reach up and out, and, finding nowhere to grasp, they entwined themselves and other vines, creating knotted clumps of entangled vines.

Of course, our own little patch of beans is much smaller than the “two acres and a half of upland” that Thoreau hoed and planted. And we don’t have the woodchucks to worry us that he complained about, although chipmunks, squirrels, and the occasional rabbit can chew through some younger plants and early crops. But still, for that brief moment, sitting there and looking at the bean vines, I felt a spark of connection with someone whose writing I have long admired. Walden was important for me in the 1970s and ’80s, but since then I have only reread small portions of it. Years after I read them, his words were dredged from my memory vault. Memory is like that, triggered by random events, sights, smells, and sounds.

Mornings, in reasonably clement weather from spring through the fall, are a special time for us now that we are both retired.

We sit outside, on cushioned deck chairs, under a small porch roof, with a cup of tea, books (for me, a pile of them), and a few sunflower seeds to feed the marauding chipmunks. Sometimes Susan brings a tablet to check email and news. Me, I prefer to be disconnected for that brief time. I spend more than enough time online, connected to the rest of the world, reading news, doomscrolling, playing games, and responding to emails through the remainder of the day. Serenity is found in the brief time of disconnection and again at night when we read in bed before turning out the lights (our house rule: no devices or TV in the bedroom… only books allowed).

Being disconnected means I can pay attention to the things around me, not simply obsess over the screen of whatever device holds my attention. I can look up and around me, not hunched over a phone as I see so many people these days. I can see, even from where I sit, whether the potted plants on the deck need watering, if the few tomatoes we’ve seen mature this year are any closer to ripening, or how our potted avocado tree is doing outdoors. And, best of all, I can converse with Susan without the intervention of technology.

I can see the grackles flying in and out of the birch; see the squirrels play with one another scampering through the cedars; enjoy the antics of the two chipmunks who come up on the deck to look for handouts of sunflower seeds, but will chase one another away as if defending their territory from encroachments on their tame humans.

But I have digressed from the beans, all of which we grew from seed this year. We’ve harvested the bush beans already, those shorter plants growing in the lower bed, and have had three meals so far from them. A very few remain to be picked. The climbing beans seem to mature later and are just now producing their seed pods. I expect we will start harvesting them within a few days of writing this, and get a few more meals from them. The fecundity of these plants encourages us to plant more again next year. But that’s a decision we’ll make then.

Thoreau, ever the amateur naturalist keen to explore the wildlife around him, wrote in his chapter on the bean field:

Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the brown-thrasher—or red mavis, as some love to call it him —all the morning, glad of your society, that would find out another farmer’s field if you were notthere. here While you are planting the seed, he cries,—“Drop it, drop it,—cover it up, cover it up,—pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.” But this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I had entire faith. And I am not sure that the beans didn’t grow the better for it…
We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In the light of the sun the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden.

Our backyard is a quiet place; a small garden zone of comfort and relaxation, walled off on the east side with tall trees, the beds and spaces that shape it aesthetically created by Susan over many years, filled with flowering plants and ground cover, but no grass. And a very small space for seasonal vegetables. It’s quiet in the early morning — we’re usually outside by around 6:30 a.m., depending on weather and time of season (morning light and temperature). Sometimes earlier, if the light is right for reading. The sun doesn’t creep up to blast the deck until late morning, so it’s never too hot for us until then.

There are bird songs, chirping chipmunks, chittering squirrels, and the susurration of the leaves to listen to. The noxious rumble of traffic has not yet risen to fill the silence. The annoyances of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, weed snippers, egregiously loud pickup trucks, and nearby construction have not yet begun. It feels gently bucolic to sit here without the normal sonic distractions of daily life. So many of the reasons we love living in our small town are found right here in the morning.

Susan usually reads fiction; my preference is to read non-fiction (primarily science, history, and politics).

Susan and I read books differently. She opens a book and reads it, cover to cover. I, instead, bring a half-dozen or so titles outside (and have many more stacked beside the bed to read at night). I read a chapter or a section in one, then pick up another and read in it, and then another, and so on. She is a focused reader; I am a jackdaw, flitting from whatever title catches my fancy. She finishes a book in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks; I can take months, even years to complete some titles because I will often put them aside and only pick them up much later. Yet I continue where I left off.

I’ve been reading like this — many books at the same time — for many decades, and I swear it helps keep my memory functioning better because I keep so many books in mind, although sometimes it takes a few paragraphs or pages to remind me where I left off in some books.

I also, on occasion, reread favourite books with which I have a nostalgic connection, usually novels like Dune, Lord of the Rings, Wolf Hall, A Princess of Mars, and Gormenghast. But I will often reread philosophers and poets. I never seem to tire of reading Shakespeare’s plays, too.

In a separate chapter on reading in Walden, Thoreau says he “kept Homer’s Iliad on my table through the summer…” and, strangely enough, I, too, am reading The Iliad this summer (Emily Wilson’s translation, seen at the bottom of the rearmost pile in the top photo) among the many books in progress. He noted his appreciation of the classics:

My residence was more favourable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper…
No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself.

Thoreau grumbled that, “Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race,” with which I humbly disagree. The art of translation, as well as the number of skilled translators, has greatly increased since his day, and much of their work is brilliant. More than that, the percentage of people who have learned to read Latin and ancient Greek in Western culture is smaller today because neither language is within the curriculum of public schools now.*

If only those who knew the languages read the classics, their audience would be very small, indeed. Instead, we have access to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of works by classical authors thanks to the many translations into English. I would never have read Horace, Machiavelli, Aesop, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Homer, Seneca, Montaigne, Plato, Catallus, Omar Khayyam, or the Arabian Nights except for there being translations of them.

I should also add here that a very high percentage of people who read (or claim to read) their Bible do so in a translation, and would not be able to read it without a knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek under Thoreau’s ideal. Perhaps, however, that might be a good thing, given the number of hypocrites who abuse or misquote their scriptures in their English translations (read my earlier posts on the Talibangelists and their pseudo-Christianity).

And, too, our ” knowledge of the history of the human race” has expanded and grown since Walden. We have much better technology to share our knowledge. Yes, many people in today’s political climate — especially those in the MAGA cult and among conservatives in every nation (including PoiLIEVre’s Maple MAGA in Canada, and Nigel Farage’s Reform in the UK) — eschew knowing history of any sort (or at least accepting its lessons). But the knowledge is available, if they were smart enough or willing to learn it. And to read books about history, something fewer people today seem to be doing.

Unfortunately, deliberate, self-imposed ignorance is embedded deep in the MAGA and modern conservative DNA. But that’s another digression for a future post. This post is about beans.

Notes:

I was sorry that Susan’s brother, who came from England to stay with us for a few days this summer, left before we were able to harvest the beans for our shared dinners.

* I wish I could read Latin; I’ve tried to learn it, and have a shelf of grammars, textbooks, dictionaries, and bilingual translations. I’ve tried to learn it, pored over the books and lessons, but my poor, aging brain seems reluctant to keep more than a few scattered words in it. Still, I enjoy reading about Latin, and scanning through those textbooks. I make the effort now and then, but the language itself eludes me.

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