Mrs. Teabody Poses Some Questions about Walls

" . . . Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense."

 - Robert Frost

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall. . ."

One day as I sat on our porch, I heard a rumble and before I knew what was happening a large dump truck had driven onto the property adjacent to ours. Shortly after that, I heard the beepbeepbeep of a construction-style vehicle backing up and a few seconds later the truck tilted its bed and somewhere close to ten tons of "mixed materials" of asphalt and concrete cascaded toward our property. This was only the first of dozens of such trips. Someone somewhere was breaking up (or breaking down) a parking lot and what that "someone somewhere" no longer wanted was being hauled away to the woods, OUR woods, where nobody cares. It was not pretty.  During the succeeding days, more and more trucks arrived and the mound between us grew higher and wider and advanced ever so determinedly toward our property. And then one day: . .

Broken concrete

"I think that last load actually landed on us," I told Mr. Teabody. "We have to say something . . ." We checked our deed and did some figuring wanting to be certain we were right. When our property outline confirmed that we WERE right, we asked our neighbor as nicely as possible to stop. Our words fell on deaf ears. He continued to dump and the mound kept encroaching. We asked township officials to intervene. Surely dumping great loads of broken blacktop and concrete was environmentally wrong? Surely the law would protect us. Such was not the case. We were informed that unless and until he actually put materials on OUR land, we could do nothing. We hired a land survey and they constructed a "flags on sticks" outline of the boundary between us. Now we had proof.

As we had expected, our neighbor had dumped several loads of detritus onto our property sometimes as far as ten feet over the property line and onto our land. Furthermore, this mound consisted of broken shards of concrete, boulders of blacktop.

Now before we go any further, before you sit there in judgement muttering, "Why are you getting so bent out of shape?" or "Relax, Lady, don't get your knickers in a twist," 

I want you to take a moment and walk to your window. Look outside and onto your favorite part of your lawn or property. Got it? Now imagine having YOUR neighbor dump just ONE pickup load of broken up concrete ten feet onto YOUR property. Happy, are you? Pleased? Understanding?  Let me answer for you: you're pi$$ed. You've watched episodes of "Judge Judy" and "People's Court". You know folks get mad when leaves and tree limbs fall over a fence and onto a neighbor's property. This went way beyond that. What these actions said to us was that what we thought was of no importance to our neighbor. In most instances, I am just fine with that. Seriously. Live. Let live. But he'd crossed the line when he crossed the line.

Once we showed our neighbor how he had trespassed, we gave him a choice. Option #1 would require him to remove -- at considerable expense -- all the material he had dumped onto OUR property.  Option #2 was much kinder. What we asked instead was for him to cover what he had put on our property with top soil and plant it in ground cover, preferably grass.

Furthermore, we requested that he plant a row of barrier trees to mark our property line. Agreed. Agreed. Before too many weeks passed, the topsoil was hauled in and planted with grass seed but the promised row of quick-growing shrubs did not materialize. A year passed. We bought some bamboo, planted it ourselves. It grows, but slowly. With the screen of green leafy summer trees, we can almost forget about his trespass, but when the trees are bare, we have a different story.

All winter long we see far more of our neighbor's property than we want to see.  That being the case, I strongly suspect that he sees more of ours than he wants to see. Perhaps. Here we are living in the woods yet because of this dumping, this creation of  a twenty-foot tall artificial wall, we see weirdness. What we see (and FEEL) is a wall between us. Our neighbor's improvement plan became OUR business only when it came onto OUR property. His is a wall that does not serve US well, but it is one that gives our neighbor a bigger parking lot. However, in creating his parking lot and not respecting property lines, he changed much more than he ever intended. Where once there was a  natural forest filled with  naturally occurring boulders and brush, we now have a wall. Where once there had been an understood "live and let live" implicit agreement between us, there is now a wall of resentment, suspicion and distrust.

Now not all walls are bad.

Green Ireland is made into a puzzle by walls

Most people who visit Ireland get their first view of this island country from about ten thousand feet. Airports at Dublin and Shannon are not overwhelmingly busy and it has been our experience that Irish pilots get a kick out of sharing views of their homeland and deliberately cruise along at optimal viewing height, sometimes for a couple long minutes. Crisscrossing this verdant landscapes are more walls than you can shake a stick at. But have a look yourself at the photo above.

Dry-set stone wall in Ireland bordering a pasture

Ireland is an island hatched by walls made of rocks picked and stacked by hand and of natural living fencerows of longstanding.

Such walls protect livestock, define a property, control erosion.

This wall kept the Teabodys from laying siege to the castle.

These walls are constructed so well and so beautifully that they seem almost ornamental yet they effectively keep pasturing cattle inside and would-be visitors at bay. Note that these visitors above stand OUTSIDE the property. Most importantly the owners/builders have utilized materials at hand and they have constructed something beautiful, functional, environmentally friendly and enduring. Proper walls.

And that brings me to what I consider one of the best inventions for marking and securing one's territory yet doing so with both beauty and functionality: the Cloister. 

A cloister is defined as a covered walk in a convent, monastery, college, or cathedral, typically with a wall on one side and a colonnade open to a quadrangle on the other. Up until thirty years ago, I had never known that such a construction was called a cloister. Looking at this "hundreds of years old" one above, you can understand why anyone would love such a creation.  It meets all my criteria or as they say, it ticks all the boxes: beautiful, functional, environmentally friendly and enduring. It actually improves the landscape.

For well over a year Americans have been hearing boastful talk about building a massively expensive wall. In this case the purpose of the wall is to keep certain people out. Opinions about building such a wall range from open-throttle enthusiasm to downright disdain. I go back to Frost and ask his question:

" . . . Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense."

This begs the question: can you build a wall of any kind that does not deliberately or inadvertently encroach upon the territory of at least one other person either physically or emotionally? The truth is we all build all kinds of walls throughout our lives. Some of these are for privacy. Some provide shelter from the elements; some insure safety; some confine possessions. Some of these are short and ornamental; others are high and foreboding and made of stronger and often uglier stuff. And some of them are structures we build in our heads to keep the comfort or encroachment of others inside our control. 

 . . . Before I build a wall . . .

Yes, we need to think most critically before we throw up a wall of any kind; we need to consider to whom we are like to give offense as we intentionally and deliberately isolate ourselves from others. Because when we build a wall of any kind - - while it may serve well in its intended purpose - - it may create far more discord than having no wall at all.