Building Air Castles

Reprint from Life Unplugged Column, Tucson Green Magazine. May

by Susan L. Feathers

Each of us is building something, whether bird, ant, wind or water - or human being. But only humans can build an air castle. Let me explain.

During the worst years of the Depression, my grandparents invented the game called Building Air Castles.

The game was born on the front porch of their country home in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, on the wide porch where an ample swing hung at each end. On summer nights fireflies illuminated the porch with flashing lanterns. My grandparents cuddled up together with tinkling glasses of sweet tea and mint to commiserate at the end of the day.

Granddad and Mamaw owned a small farm where they raised a few head of cattle, pigs and chickens, and harvested abundant vegetables from my grandmother’s big garden. She canned peaches, rhubarb, tomatoes, green beans, and pickled cucumbers. Granddad, a beekeeper, prepared jars of golden honey. Mamaw made jams and jellies from the berries she picked on the hillsides and Granddad cured hams in a smoke house. He was an accomplished carpenter and she braided rugs. I remember going there and feeling safe from any assault the world might deal.

But my Dad describes the darkest time of the Depression, when chronic hunger stalked the hollers of Watauga, Tennessee and he remembers being hungry most of the time. As grain ran out so did the pigs and chickens, all eventually slaughtered for their protein. And so, too, the fresh eggs and milk, and the cream all faded into memory. Gradually the mason jars full of the season’s bounty emptied as seeds were no longer obtainable for gardening. Turnips, potatoes, and onions became the main fare.

There was no work to be found anywhere. Idleness invaded the mind and eventually affected the hearts of many people. Hopelessness lay on the small community like a dread disease passed from house to house.

And so, one quiet night my grandparents headed for the swings with their sweet tea, and Mamaw cuddled up in the curve of my grandfather’s big arm. They pushed off and rocked to and fro in silence and the embrace of a lasting love and true friendship.

These were the elements that birthed the game.

My grandfather made the first move He said out loud a statement about a recovered time. Mamaw must have listened intently and as if stepping onto its moving flow, she added another statement, humorous perhaps, as was her tendency. Thus they began a repartee, each building upon the ideas or vision of the other, sometimes zany, seemingly impossible outcomes, but freeing, exhilarating inventiveness! They swept aside prevailing assumptions, shattered the collective psyche of their village and nation, and built an “air castle” – a vision of what could be.

Over the last few years I have thought deeply about this story and see its value for my generations’ time. We are not certain about a future without oil, with warming of the atmosphere, with lost confidence in government, and when the harder we work the less we have to show for it. We have lost trust in the American Dream.

Well, maybe its time to rework that dream. And, I can think of no better way to do that than to invoke the element of play, of invention, of humor - of working it together as my grandparents did intuitively. We need a lot more imagination to create a vision we can all “get behind.”

So I am opening a new round of Building Air Castles with this column. Here is my first idea for you to build on. Just add your own to it. Let’s see where it goes.

So here I go: Tucson neighborhoods form solar cooperatives. Not only are they selling energy back to the grid but everyone now has equal access to cheap, abundant energy. It was made possible by substantial rebates from the federal government and community workshops that taught neighborhood associations how to do it.

Your turn... Write to info@writeforchange.com. Next month I will publish the ideas submitted so others can build on them.