Grapes in the Alley
Lessons from ‘the other’ grandfather
When my wife and I bought our house I told her I wanted to manicure the ally. In typical wife fashion she said, “You're going to do the front lawn first right?” Then I got “the look.” Of course I wanted to mow the front yard. The thing is, I want to be one of those guys that landscapes the alley. Or rather, I want to be the kind of man that landscapes the alley. Truth is, I haven't done it and for that matter I struggle to even mow the front yard.
In high school the alleys were the place that everyone went to do something bad. There was the occasional sex, but more so it was drugs or even just cigarettes. Everyone knew the place behind the grocery store in between the building and the dumpster where you could buy pot. The alley was the place to hide. The place where you did something that you didn't want others to see or know about. Not every city has alleys but where I’m from there are alleys everywhere and today for my run I decided to run down one. I don’t know why I did. I know what’s back there, but for some reason today I was surprised.
The smells were awful. They were as bad as the alleys behind restaurants. They were as bad as the alleys in NYC. No matter the place alleys are nasty. They are the place where things hide. Where the trash is. Where we dump stuff we don’t want. And even for the criminal mind they are a place to look for a weakness to break into your house.
Running down that alley got me thinking about my life. I began to wonder what there was in my mind that was in an alley. What am I hiding away from myself, or others? As I began to think I realized that the things in the alleys of my mind had ruined my life; or at least they were trying to ruin my life. For starters the reason I was out running in the first place - I'm overweight and out of shape a desperately trying to fight it. And while my mind makes a strategy for getting my body back, it is being undermined by the alley trash. Hidden back there are beliefs that no matter what I will fail. Beliefs that I can be strong and in shape by doing things I did when I was a teenager. Beliefs that if I just burn enough calories I will lose weight and what I eat doesn’t matter. Trash. Trash. And more trash.
For many of us there are even worse things like porn use, abuse, self-loathing, depression, anger, denial and hosts of other things. Things that we hide and wouldn't tell others. Things that we are in fact ashamed of. Things we would never mention to our moms or a new girlfriend. Things we keep secret. When you see men who tumble from the highest success for prostitution or drug use and you wonder, how did they go from so high to so low? It is because of a cancer in their mind that was never surgically removed. We know that character is what you do when no one is looking but we still struggle. I say we must embrace the ally. What would it take to start spending time back there? This is why religions, morality and virtue, or therapy help people so much. Get back in that ally in your life and start making an assessment of what is going on. Face those demons. Name them. And kick their ass. Make it matter because it does.
I still haven't fixed my ally at our new house. I remember my grandfather though. He had grapes in his ally.
Grapes with manicured vines and terraces to grow on. They were surrounded by bricks with grass that was fertilized and meticulously cut.
Viticulture is no small feet. I remember being 6 or so and going back there to eat grapes. It wasn’t a gross place. It was a place I wanted to be, sitting in the alley eating grapes. Unfortunately he wasn't a great man. On the surface he was. He was a doctor and a medic in the Marines but not a great man. Eventually after his death, the dirty nauseating alleys in his mind were exposed. And now that is his legacy. Someday I might get the ally manicured but until then I want to focus on my mind, my heart, and my legacy.
It sucks to spend time in the alley. It stinks back there. I don't even like taking the trash out let alone spending lots of time back there. You might find things that you don't want to know are there. You might find used condoms, drug paraphernalia, or just lots of trash. You might find a demon that you are not sure you can kill. It is much easier to spend time on the front of the house where people notice your work. Compliments can be powerfully intoxicating. The thing is it only takes one ignored cancerous cell to claim a mind. And for us to be men that leave a legacy.... To be men that live to our fullest..... To be the kind of men with landscaped alleys - we must care about the recessed hidden places in our lives. We must be willing to roll up our sleeves and start cleaning out the trash. We must plant new things and have the perseverance to cultivate them and the patience to wait for their fruit, season after season. We must care about the ally as much as the front yard. My memory of eating grapes is completely overshadowed by the real legacy my grandfather left. I want better for my grandchildren. I owe it to them and to myself to leave something more by doing what my grandfather wasn't willing to do. And hopefully someday when I'm old, they can eat grapes in the alley too.
This piece was originally written as a guest submission to The Art of Manliness. Their website reports they are not taking guest submissions. Thank you for reading.
