Friday morning I was able to sleep in an extra hour and get up at six instead of five; because of jury duty, zipping over to the school to make sure classwork was in place before reporting to court was necessary. When you have a long term sub, may God bless them. My class had a series of different teachers over the week, and from the notes on my desk, several students partied to the video games in their heads consisting of no work and falling out of your chair, ...whee!
And I know what my kids were up to, especially since the large basket of pencils that was on my desk dwindled down to a few broken sticks in two days. What was left in it were pencils with snapped off points, which any teacher can tell because the break is even, as if done by jamming the pencil between the edges of two desks and levering a quick, painless annihilation. Oh ye six-year-olds, where have all the pencils gone? Monday, Viola Swamp will be back, that sort of whee is over.
But this Friday morning there was time, and the banana I had purchased was getting browner and smooshier every five minutes, soon to be useless for its purpose. You see, there was a video about hair treatments, and the Best of All was said to be concocted of a mashed banana, coconut oil, and honey. Well, when I was young, all sorts of fruits and vegetables would be pureed and layered on cheeks, feet, cuticles, and teeth. A beaten egg white would be painted on my face and allowed to dry, cucumbers sliced and placed over the eyes; honey, oatmeal, avocados and more slathered on for a quick complexion fix. Grocery cosmetics are familiar in my lexicon, so what could go wrong with a banana?
Time. The banana would be growing blue hair in another day or two if not used
immediately, so I got a bowl and mashed it to bits, which was mistake number one. I should have pureed it through a sieve. But heigh ho, I gotta get to court in three hours, shiny hair, here I come. Coconut oil is somewhere, but I did find the avocado oil, a stalwart stand-in for the requested ingredient. A good squeeze of honey, minutes of beating, and this stuff is still sort of lumpy, but the train is leaving the station. I applied the glop through chunks of hair, and wondered if I would smell like a banana in court. Top everything with a plastic bag to contain the enthusiastic mess, do up the dishes, feed the cats, throw stuff in the pile for AmVets, and fold some laundry. Bango! It's shower time, when the hair will be turned into glistening island magic, where you can shake your head like a pony and everything falls back into place.
First, a good long rinsing, more rinsing, and then lathering, scrubbing, rinsing, lathering, scrubbing, rinsing, conditioner, super lay-the-heck-down conditioner, and rinsing, rinsing, rinsing. The water traveling to the drain looked clear. Gotta go. Wrapped head in a towel, brushed teeth and then began to comb out the strands with a wide toothed comb. Except the comb wasn't exactly going through easily, but met with a few serious snarls that ended with me losing more hair than usual. Ow, hey, but keep going, now I gotta kick into gear so that I get there in time.
I lean over the sink, and still using the wide toothed comb, begin to blow dry, noticing that the hair is indeed shinier and smoother as the halfway dry point is reached. Warming the hair as it dries is creating an aroma which smells like Mom has banana bread in the oven. Maybe that will dissipate when completely done, there are products like that, aren't there? I stand up from leaning over the sink, and what the heck, it looks like a giant Hershey bar has sneezed into the basin. What on earth is this brown stuff?
Bits of banana were being flung by the comb as I dried, brown from oxidation and lord knows what. I looked in the mirror and saw bits of fruit salad in my hair, then looked at the clock; no time. I am pretty good in staying calm during stupid situations, and live in such fashion that people aren't surprised by what happens. It's decided to plow onward and get this crap out of my hair, which is definitely showing a healthy sheen most likely because of the avocado oil. A sacrificial brush is used to remove small bits, which to me as a teacher, look like lice eggs running through the strands.
I get 99% of it out, still smell like a fruit stand, and pull everything back into a knot with a clip, as the illusion of floaty pony hair goes the way of the dodo. Agh. A quick spritz with eau de foof will hopefully distract from the circus peanut fragrance, a hopeful slap of makeup to make it seem deliberate, and before getting dressed, a run towards the kitchen to make sure a bottle of water is by the door to take.
However, Roger has dug into the Supreme Supper enough to move the paper plate of cat food directly to the spot where my left foot lands. The black sock is now sporting a healthy dollop of something that could wake the catatonic, and I hop on one foot so as not to spread the godawful fish paste onto the rug. Bananas! Cat food! Swearing does not fix anything. Peel off the sock, wipe foot with a paper towel, and hop-run back to the bathroom to wash, and hey, look at the time.
I book out the door with everything necessary, and make it through check in before any one else on the jury arrives. As Alternate #2, me and #1 are sequestered away from those who can deliberate, and my newspaper in which I had planned on doing the puzzles is taken away. No reading materials. Except the book of stencils seems to be allowable, and I am able to trace the entire book onto plastic film for later cutting. I try not to smell like a banana for the sake of everyone around me, but how do you do that? Scrunching into a tiny ball doesn't change any aromas, all I can do is wait it out; happily, within a couple hours, I no longer waft fruity.
We are given lunch, and cannot leave the room without an escort; we two are called into the courtroom whenever the twelve jurors are, in order to have a written question answered, or to be given instructions as to breaks in the process. But then, back to the room. At the end, there was a hung jury and a mistrial declared, with 10 not guilty votes, and 2 guilty. I would have been a not guilty, for the first witness had an axe to grind with the defendant, and lied under oath, for her stories were not consistent with the record or the actual events. She was the complaining party, and sort of omitted that her boyfriend on probation was at the scene where marijuana and crack were being passed around.
Late in October, my favorite month, yet the trees in the city are just beginning to change colors. A patch of Coprinus comatus mushrooms are growing by the bus stop next to the parking lot, and it is funny to see a wild bit of nature springing up from the controlled, manicured grass. They are edible, but no alcohol within 24 hours of ingestion or a severe nausea can set in; these Shaggy Manes were once used as a cure for alcoholism in the late 1800s. Colonists also would pick them and leave in a bowl as they are a mushroom that desquamates, or melts, into a dark liquid to be used as ink. It's a pretty thing, and one of the last before winter.
Come, then, dressed for colder nights, longer nights when the constellation Orion come into the skies of the northern hemisphere. At his feet is the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, the dog star; it absolutely shimmers with intensity, flashing blue and red at a distance of 2.6 parsecs. It appears as one, yet is actually a binary system of Sirius A, the main star, and Sirius B, a collapsed star that is now a white dwarf. From our vantage point, it appears as the largest star in the nighttime because of it's closeness; if you watch, the twinkling seems to be furious, almost like flames.
Let the stars flicker above while you drop into your pillow, ready to give in to sleep and what dreams and thoughts arrive. Sirius the Dog Star hangs in the southwest sky, as part of the collar for Canis Major, an illumination of stories, mysteries, of age, and change. Trilobites came from 400 million years ago; it has been theorized that Sirius B was once a red giant that shrank to a dwarf, 150 million years back. What was that night sky like? How have the stars moved, the grand arms of the galaxy spun?
Here we are, you and I; stone sleeps, the house quiets, the air spills. Sleep well. Good night.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Guess What I Found
People go to Farmer's Markets, or out to orchards to pick apples where someone else did the tending and shaping of abundance. Providing a sense of what life was at one time, dependent upon the produce brought to the city by wheezy trucks and wagons, this sort of gathering fills a nesting instinct underscored by shortened daylight. We want to get ready for what we know is coming, at least here in the north.
Coming out of the stalls of the Market, you will see bushels of apples, squash, cabbages, and the last remnants of corn being carried to cars to be stored or processed into winter goods. People groan with the heft of 8-quart baskets, filled from trees found at local farms; take the kids, they will love it and maybe pet a horse, which is a good thing. Expose them to what sort of animal a horse is, and I don't mean one of those ponies outfitted in a harness attached to a rotating frame at the fair. Find them a horse to see run, touch, learn from. That is the earth, just as much as apples and more.
But if you weren't near a farm, or were strapped, or just wanted a peculiar, unique flavor, you went looking for it yourself. When I was young, my Mom taught me how to gather the tiny wild strawberries and thread them on a stem of grass if there was no pail to put them in. Wild strawberries spread by vining, and so fill prolific patches with the smallest of fruit; yet it takes a lot of searching to get anywhere near a pint. But crush them with sugar and spoon onto a slice of spongecake that Mom made, and it beguiled you to think of the redwing blackbirds that dived at you as you bent in the fields, gathering. Of the funny rock which turned out to be a fossil coral. Of the swish of a disappearing snake. Of the pheasant feather caught in the tall grass.
We kids would also be loaded into the car with baskets to gather maszlaki, Suillus luteus, a sponge-gilled mushroom with a slippery cap. This bolete has a symbiotic relationship with larch trees, one of the few conifers whose needles turn yellow in the fall and drop, like deciduous leaves. My father would peel the mushroom caps, string them, and hang the loops near the furnace in the basement to dry. It was one of the few things which made him happy. Ish. The aroma of a fresh Suillus is filled with pine, of woods, of humus, of tannin, of finding the sticky caps pushing through larch needles, of having olive loaf sandwiches that Mom had packed, hot cocoa in a thermos.
I guess memory motivated me, plus finding books by Euell Gibbons, a fellow who explored nature in terms most city people thought eccentric. His book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" became a credo for me; walk around and see what you can find. Recently, I've realized that I like finding things, thus the sea shells, the fossils, the fungi, and a number of etceteras. Japanese toothpick holders. Stuff I don't want to tell, and you don't wanna know.
And so, I began to include wild forays into woods, fields, and by the sidewalk; in Tonawanda at the corner of the street over, there grew a hickory nut tree that no one bothered with except yours truly. I'd get a brown bag and fill it with mostly unhulled nuts, then let them set outside until the green shells peeled away. Hickory nuts are miniature mazes of inner walls and cubbies, very difficult to shell, but I developed a technique requiring a croquet mallet which did less destruction than a hammer. Bits of autumn, taste from an older world. The tree was unfairly cut down for sidewalk repair, but what can you do?
I found another hickory way out in Wyoming County, a shagbark; I wonder what will become of the world without nut trees. Fortunately, there are ample black walnut trees through the city, if you don't mind the mess of the black hulls or stubborn shells. Chinese chestnuts grow in a local small grove on the side of a hill, the nuts are tucked in spiny husks, so wear gloves. The prize inside is worth it, and is sweet as cake.
Near the chestnut trees is a stand of wild apples, purple grapes that have gone wild, and a patch that yields Agaricus arvensis, the horse mushroom that has an anise-like aroma. Never take all of anything, you must leave most for the animals and for the living thing to proliferate. I have dug the crowns of dandelion buds before they sprouted, steamed violet leaves, chopped wood lily leaves into salad, and every year with a friend go out to a woods that offers buckets of wild leeks.
None of this tastes like anything you can get in the supermarket, but what if you don't have a car to get to the lands where these grow? Look around. The urban forager can come up with results found on scraps of land along streets and bike paths. It's a bit of fun, a side hobby of finding as long as you don't mind some folks staring (I don't), or getting permission if the yard belongs to a business (I do). Foraging does not include helping yourself to what's growing on private property, that's stealing, even if you don't think the inhabitants would want it.
I've been on jury duty, and live a 12 minute walk away from Family Court, some of which goes alongside on and off ramps, a one-way street, and under a bridge. On the walk home, I found catnip, a weedy plant that likes poor soil and is so much nicer than that from the shops, which is usually ground up stems. Free, compared with $4 a packet is lovely, but then, as said, the metro bus driver waiting at the stand watched what I was doing in the middle of a median running along an entrance ramp. Well, my cats will be pleased.
Further along, growing packed into the hard ground as they are wont to do, were several Agaricus bitorquis, also known as the Sidewalk Mushroom for they prefer the compacted soil found between curb and cement. Bus stops. Related to the supermarket mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, it tastes pretty much the same. With mushrooms, though, I look around for observers, as they like to rescue you from eating toadstools and will grab and throw what you have gotten far away from your body before hoisting you off to the asylum.
I knew about gathering the Slippery Jacks from childhood, but then took courses at the science museum from their mycologist, and a formal study of fleshy fungi in college. Identification of sixteen edible species keeps me happy, but believe, I very seriously check everything before tossing it into the fry pan. The most poisonous will grow alongside the innocuous, and tastes just as good. Amanita phalloides, A. virosa; both will kill you in the most sneaky manner.
First, only half a cap of A. phalloides can kill an adult human; it begins with violent stomach cramps, diarrhea, nausea, dehydration. After three days, you feel better, however, this is where the other poisons kick in and you end up with kidney failure, cardiac arrest, intercranial bleeding, and pancreatic inflammation. Death occurs in approximately 21% of those who have eaten this monster; others will need a liver transplant.
Have I seen Amanitas growing locally? Last one I saw was on my school grounds, and got it out of the way after donning latex gloves. The mycelium is still underground, the mushroom itself is the fruiting body of the business end of fungi. Just don't mess with anything, unless you are with a trained collector. I think I'm the only first grade teacher that yammers at the kids about Never Touching a Wild Mushroom No Matter How Pretty. And if you come over for dinner, I would never serve you anything gathered.
I picked the Agarics, trying to look nonchalant, got home and sauteed them in olive oil for lunch. They were good, and I'm still alive although it's only been seven hours. I'm happiest about the catnip, as the complex has taken to mowing down the patch that was on the other side of the fence. Catnip grows just about everywhere in a city, and once you recognize it's skunky smell, you can't mistake it for anything else. Come over, I'll show you, at least until the first frost.
Did you ever eat blackberries from the wild growing bushes? Wasn't it worth the few scratches from the thorns? Did you sleep better that night from being out in the fresh air, running around with the other kids? The warm days of autumn become chilly nights as temperatures fluctuate, living leaves curl back and crumple, Mom gets out the water bath canner and puts up applesauce for later days.
Finding where you belong, what you can do for the world, that's even richer than learning the ways our ancestors survived on what they found. Yet there is something to be said in awareness of seasons, of being congruent with time as we define it, of remembering when fruit trees open their blossoms. We look forward to markers of the passing of the year, when the first crocus appears, when the first red leaf drops.
What would you plant, if you have a yard? Lots where houses once were still have gardens run wild, overgrown but still there. An apple tree can last a hundred years, raspberry bushes will stretch out and spread; birds, deer, and children can still visit them long after you have left, and gather fruit by the handful.
Dip your dream oars into the ocean of mind, let go of the day and ponder the night when you are alone, inside yourself. I promise you there are gardens between the waves, built from your living kindly; a tree with a nest wherein resides your heart. Sleep, dog. Sleep, cat. Sleep, child once mine.
Coming out of the stalls of the Market, you will see bushels of apples, squash, cabbages, and the last remnants of corn being carried to cars to be stored or processed into winter goods. People groan with the heft of 8-quart baskets, filled from trees found at local farms; take the kids, they will love it and maybe pet a horse, which is a good thing. Expose them to what sort of animal a horse is, and I don't mean one of those ponies outfitted in a harness attached to a rotating frame at the fair. Find them a horse to see run, touch, learn from. That is the earth, just as much as apples and more.
But if you weren't near a farm, or were strapped, or just wanted a peculiar, unique flavor, you went looking for it yourself. When I was young, my Mom taught me how to gather the tiny wild strawberries and thread them on a stem of grass if there was no pail to put them in. Wild strawberries spread by vining, and so fill prolific patches with the smallest of fruit; yet it takes a lot of searching to get anywhere near a pint. But crush them with sugar and spoon onto a slice of spongecake that Mom made, and it beguiled you to think of the redwing blackbirds that dived at you as you bent in the fields, gathering. Of the funny rock which turned out to be a fossil coral. Of the swish of a disappearing snake. Of the pheasant feather caught in the tall grass.
We kids would also be loaded into the car with baskets to gather maszlaki, Suillus luteus, a sponge-gilled mushroom with a slippery cap. This bolete has a symbiotic relationship with larch trees, one of the few conifers whose needles turn yellow in the fall and drop, like deciduous leaves. My father would peel the mushroom caps, string them, and hang the loops near the furnace in the basement to dry. It was one of the few things which made him happy. Ish. The aroma of a fresh Suillus is filled with pine, of woods, of humus, of tannin, of finding the sticky caps pushing through larch needles, of having olive loaf sandwiches that Mom had packed, hot cocoa in a thermos.
I guess memory motivated me, plus finding books by Euell Gibbons, a fellow who explored nature in terms most city people thought eccentric. His book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" became a credo for me; walk around and see what you can find. Recently, I've realized that I like finding things, thus the sea shells, the fossils, the fungi, and a number of etceteras. Japanese toothpick holders. Stuff I don't want to tell, and you don't wanna know.
And so, I began to include wild forays into woods, fields, and by the sidewalk; in Tonawanda at the corner of the street over, there grew a hickory nut tree that no one bothered with except yours truly. I'd get a brown bag and fill it with mostly unhulled nuts, then let them set outside until the green shells peeled away. Hickory nuts are miniature mazes of inner walls and cubbies, very difficult to shell, but I developed a technique requiring a croquet mallet which did less destruction than a hammer. Bits of autumn, taste from an older world. The tree was unfairly cut down for sidewalk repair, but what can you do?
I found another hickory way out in Wyoming County, a shagbark; I wonder what will become of the world without nut trees. Fortunately, there are ample black walnut trees through the city, if you don't mind the mess of the black hulls or stubborn shells. Chinese chestnuts grow in a local small grove on the side of a hill, the nuts are tucked in spiny husks, so wear gloves. The prize inside is worth it, and is sweet as cake.
Near the chestnut trees is a stand of wild apples, purple grapes that have gone wild, and a patch that yields Agaricus arvensis, the horse mushroom that has an anise-like aroma. Never take all of anything, you must leave most for the animals and for the living thing to proliferate. I have dug the crowns of dandelion buds before they sprouted, steamed violet leaves, chopped wood lily leaves into salad, and every year with a friend go out to a woods that offers buckets of wild leeks.
None of this tastes like anything you can get in the supermarket, but what if you don't have a car to get to the lands where these grow? Look around. The urban forager can come up with results found on scraps of land along streets and bike paths. It's a bit of fun, a side hobby of finding as long as you don't mind some folks staring (I don't), or getting permission if the yard belongs to a business (I do). Foraging does not include helping yourself to what's growing on private property, that's stealing, even if you don't think the inhabitants would want it.
I've been on jury duty, and live a 12 minute walk away from Family Court, some of which goes alongside on and off ramps, a one-way street, and under a bridge. On the walk home, I found catnip, a weedy plant that likes poor soil and is so much nicer than that from the shops, which is usually ground up stems. Free, compared with $4 a packet is lovely, but then, as said, the metro bus driver waiting at the stand watched what I was doing in the middle of a median running along an entrance ramp. Well, my cats will be pleased.
Further along, growing packed into the hard ground as they are wont to do, were several Agaricus bitorquis, also known as the Sidewalk Mushroom for they prefer the compacted soil found between curb and cement. Bus stops. Related to the supermarket mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, it tastes pretty much the same. With mushrooms, though, I look around for observers, as they like to rescue you from eating toadstools and will grab and throw what you have gotten far away from your body before hoisting you off to the asylum.
I knew about gathering the Slippery Jacks from childhood, but then took courses at the science museum from their mycologist, and a formal study of fleshy fungi in college. Identification of sixteen edible species keeps me happy, but believe, I very seriously check everything before tossing it into the fry pan. The most poisonous will grow alongside the innocuous, and tastes just as good. Amanita phalloides, A. virosa; both will kill you in the most sneaky manner.
First, only half a cap of A. phalloides can kill an adult human; it begins with violent stomach cramps, diarrhea, nausea, dehydration. After three days, you feel better, however, this is where the other poisons kick in and you end up with kidney failure, cardiac arrest, intercranial bleeding, and pancreatic inflammation. Death occurs in approximately 21% of those who have eaten this monster; others will need a liver transplant.
Have I seen Amanitas growing locally? Last one I saw was on my school grounds, and got it out of the way after donning latex gloves. The mycelium is still underground, the mushroom itself is the fruiting body of the business end of fungi. Just don't mess with anything, unless you are with a trained collector. I think I'm the only first grade teacher that yammers at the kids about Never Touching a Wild Mushroom No Matter How Pretty. And if you come over for dinner, I would never serve you anything gathered.
I picked the Agarics, trying to look nonchalant, got home and sauteed them in olive oil for lunch. They were good, and I'm still alive although it's only been seven hours. I'm happiest about the catnip, as the complex has taken to mowing down the patch that was on the other side of the fence. Catnip grows just about everywhere in a city, and once you recognize it's skunky smell, you can't mistake it for anything else. Come over, I'll show you, at least until the first frost.
Did you ever eat blackberries from the wild growing bushes? Wasn't it worth the few scratches from the thorns? Did you sleep better that night from being out in the fresh air, running around with the other kids? The warm days of autumn become chilly nights as temperatures fluctuate, living leaves curl back and crumple, Mom gets out the water bath canner and puts up applesauce for later days.
Finding where you belong, what you can do for the world, that's even richer than learning the ways our ancestors survived on what they found. Yet there is something to be said in awareness of seasons, of being congruent with time as we define it, of remembering when fruit trees open their blossoms. We look forward to markers of the passing of the year, when the first crocus appears, when the first red leaf drops.
What would you plant, if you have a yard? Lots where houses once were still have gardens run wild, overgrown but still there. An apple tree can last a hundred years, raspberry bushes will stretch out and spread; birds, deer, and children can still visit them long after you have left, and gather fruit by the handful.
Dip your dream oars into the ocean of mind, let go of the day and ponder the night when you are alone, inside yourself. I promise you there are gardens between the waves, built from your living kindly; a tree with a nest wherein resides your heart. Sleep, dog. Sleep, cat. Sleep, child once mine.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Dream Fish
In the early morning, when the water hasn't awakened and lays still, if you are on a dock or in a small boat and see the flashing nova of a fish launching itself into a breathless world for a bug, or for joy, or just itchy fish-ness--the slap of its return to the water produces one of the emptiest, flat claps in nature. No resonance or echo, no depth or timbre; a fish hitting the water on an irrelevant morning is a final sound, a punctuational plunk to an ending thought you had, an answer from the unknown realm found on the wavering line between wake and sleep. (Waking fish, sleeping water. Sleepy human, wakey boat).
But it makes everything all right, evens out the cacophony found in the machinations of the city, the engines of plans, the grind of blade against soil and stone of furrowed acres. It contains familiarity, for we can imagine human hunger compared to piscine hunger, which causes the gilled desire to eat a filamented, armored bug, while our own wishes concern fish on a plate, dressed in crumbs.
The water itself is thicker than air, so sound has a more difficult time traveling through it, dulling whatever result. Rhythmic heartbeats of oars, oars, oars; an anchor sliding into the watery world, a capering fish; all finish in the identical invitation to a mysterious kingdom, you wouldn't know that you were on the same planet. The stillness of the morning, having been broken by the slap of a fish, settles again into a hushed atmosphere, as if framed by heavy drapery.
Sound underwater can travel for thousands of miles depending on water temperature and density; this sort of science is used by whales to bounce a signal between the ocean floor and the thermocline from hemisphere to hemisphere, where fewer encumbrances exist to break up the energy.
The whole physics thing is skewered, and you better get smart about it if you want to interact, for even though we came from fish, there is little left that points to similarities beyond the hypothetical reason men get hernias easier than women. (By the by, yes, I am an evolutionist. Don't mean to step on toes but if you aren't in sync with biological adaptation and change, they'll take you to the president's mansion, and by president's mansion, I mean nuthouse). Archimede's Principle, Boyle's Law, Gay-Lussac's second Law, Dalton's Law, Henry's Law, and Snell's Law are all part of watery curriculum, and essentially stand landlubber reasoning on it's head.
What does the clap of a fish mean? What does this happy, simple event do to your life? An arising to the atmosphere from below, a very different organism surfaces if only for a half-second, before going back under to continue it's living. Rather than an active response, I believe we humans go through more of a quiet recognition of disturbance, an acknowledgement that we are not alone, a gratitude. Perhaps it makes a search for one's own breakfast imminently necessary, a portion of toast, an egg, coffee or tea. The morning paper, if you are lucky enough to get one or have time for it.
Say hey to the fish, and any other early waking denizen of the deep, then trot back to the house, the cottage, the tent, the forest where sound is absorbed by leaves and ravines, but then there is much more usable oxygen. Some mornings will evoke an orchestra of claps if a swarm of mayflies has landed upon the surface or if the smaller minnows are caught in the high tide zone of the epipelagic layer.
Once or twice, I have been on a schooner and surrounded by a school of flying fish which elicited the impression of an audience clapping, a riffled deck of cards, a slappy tommygun. Years later at breakfast on a deck, millions of pilchards threw themselves onto the beach to escape the pursuing mullets, also in a froth, for they were being eaten by dolphins. The beached pilchards were grabbed by the screaming gulls as their fishy brethren were snagged by the mullets in a roiling, flappity mess of fin and feather. The dolphins were thrilled at the all-you-can-eat buffet, and repeatedly crashed into each other as if someone threw handfuls of jelly beans into a room of six year olds.
Because waves hit at a slant onto shore, the whole sea circus eventually traveled away, the brilliant silver of the unhappy sardines sparkling at the edge of the burbling, exploding tide. My eggs and toast were just as good.
Silent night tonight; this October evening the city is encouraging households to shine a blue light in memory of the officer lost in a diving accident. What went wrong has not been told or perhaps found, yet, except for that portion of the river is exceptionally dangerous, which is why it is used for training. A very fast current pushed north by the waters of all the Great Lakes creates a most unusual circumstance of 3,160 tons of water going over the Falls every second. Toss in debris such as stolen cars, shopping carts, boat motors, and the field of obstacles will then extend 100 feet out from the river banks.
It was a beautiful autumn day, the wildflowers and grasses have browned and are waiting for the first frost. I need to shake out and launder the heavier blankets, as the cats pile on at night, sleeping closer to each other than the usual warfare allows. The emptiness of the night draws me, the sequestering phase of this 24 hour division leads to the brain organizing the day's intake, repair, and regeneration. Images flash on a mental screen, pictures that make no sense except for the perception of being an observer, of looking through my eyes. My dreams rarely connect to anything. They are often repetitive, I revisit the same settings many times.
There is an Easter candy shop on a woods path, the chocolates set out on folding wooden tables; there is a Chinese restaurant in the basement of a hotel, and we eat while a tornado is wreaking havoc outside; I often buy my grandmother's house, or my Aunt Dorie's, and get to clean out the basement. My son is always 12 years old. Sometimes I lose my class of children in the school which is being renovated faster than I can remember, new hallways and rooms open and shut when I try to return from the office; my favorite is that of cars, I have cars. Foreign ones, old ones, a DeSoto, a Hudson, and they all run, are fun to drive; I fill them with gas.
But you, what are your dreams? Or do they elude you once you awaken, like a fish disappearing beneath the surface? I guess it's more of a release of tension, or the blood pressure medicine turning the crank. To have a small ritual before bed sets the stage for sleep, and so we have a glass of milk, brush teeth, hang clothing, turn out lights, unplug any scary things like the 1940's toaster, count children and animals, and tuck in. Good night, dear heart.
But it makes everything all right, evens out the cacophony found in the machinations of the city, the engines of plans, the grind of blade against soil and stone of furrowed acres. It contains familiarity, for we can imagine human hunger compared to piscine hunger, which causes the gilled desire to eat a filamented, armored bug, while our own wishes concern fish on a plate, dressed in crumbs.
The water itself is thicker than air, so sound has a more difficult time traveling through it, dulling whatever result. Rhythmic heartbeats of oars, oars, oars; an anchor sliding into the watery world, a capering fish; all finish in the identical invitation to a mysterious kingdom, you wouldn't know that you were on the same planet. The stillness of the morning, having been broken by the slap of a fish, settles again into a hushed atmosphere, as if framed by heavy drapery.
Sound underwater can travel for thousands of miles depending on water temperature and density; this sort of science is used by whales to bounce a signal between the ocean floor and the thermocline from hemisphere to hemisphere, where fewer encumbrances exist to break up the energy.
The whole physics thing is skewered, and you better get smart about it if you want to interact, for even though we came from fish, there is little left that points to similarities beyond the hypothetical reason men get hernias easier than women. (By the by, yes, I am an evolutionist. Don't mean to step on toes but if you aren't in sync with biological adaptation and change, they'll take you to the president's mansion, and by president's mansion, I mean nuthouse). Archimede's Principle, Boyle's Law, Gay-Lussac's second Law, Dalton's Law, Henry's Law, and Snell's Law are all part of watery curriculum, and essentially stand landlubber reasoning on it's head.
What does the clap of a fish mean? What does this happy, simple event do to your life? An arising to the atmosphere from below, a very different organism surfaces if only for a half-second, before going back under to continue it's living. Rather than an active response, I believe we humans go through more of a quiet recognition of disturbance, an acknowledgement that we are not alone, a gratitude. Perhaps it makes a search for one's own breakfast imminently necessary, a portion of toast, an egg, coffee or tea. The morning paper, if you are lucky enough to get one or have time for it.
Say hey to the fish, and any other early waking denizen of the deep, then trot back to the house, the cottage, the tent, the forest where sound is absorbed by leaves and ravines, but then there is much more usable oxygen. Some mornings will evoke an orchestra of claps if a swarm of mayflies has landed upon the surface or if the smaller minnows are caught in the high tide zone of the epipelagic layer.
Once or twice, I have been on a schooner and surrounded by a school of flying fish which elicited the impression of an audience clapping, a riffled deck of cards, a slappy tommygun. Years later at breakfast on a deck, millions of pilchards threw themselves onto the beach to escape the pursuing mullets, also in a froth, for they were being eaten by dolphins. The beached pilchards were grabbed by the screaming gulls as their fishy brethren were snagged by the mullets in a roiling, flappity mess of fin and feather. The dolphins were thrilled at the all-you-can-eat buffet, and repeatedly crashed into each other as if someone threw handfuls of jelly beans into a room of six year olds.
Because waves hit at a slant onto shore, the whole sea circus eventually traveled away, the brilliant silver of the unhappy sardines sparkling at the edge of the burbling, exploding tide. My eggs and toast were just as good.
Silent night tonight; this October evening the city is encouraging households to shine a blue light in memory of the officer lost in a diving accident. What went wrong has not been told or perhaps found, yet, except for that portion of the river is exceptionally dangerous, which is why it is used for training. A very fast current pushed north by the waters of all the Great Lakes creates a most unusual circumstance of 3,160 tons of water going over the Falls every second. Toss in debris such as stolen cars, shopping carts, boat motors, and the field of obstacles will then extend 100 feet out from the river banks.
It was a beautiful autumn day, the wildflowers and grasses have browned and are waiting for the first frost. I need to shake out and launder the heavier blankets, as the cats pile on at night, sleeping closer to each other than the usual warfare allows. The emptiness of the night draws me, the sequestering phase of this 24 hour division leads to the brain organizing the day's intake, repair, and regeneration. Images flash on a mental screen, pictures that make no sense except for the perception of being an observer, of looking through my eyes. My dreams rarely connect to anything. They are often repetitive, I revisit the same settings many times.
There is an Easter candy shop on a woods path, the chocolates set out on folding wooden tables; there is a Chinese restaurant in the basement of a hotel, and we eat while a tornado is wreaking havoc outside; I often buy my grandmother's house, or my Aunt Dorie's, and get to clean out the basement. My son is always 12 years old. Sometimes I lose my class of children in the school which is being renovated faster than I can remember, new hallways and rooms open and shut when I try to return from the office; my favorite is that of cars, I have cars. Foreign ones, old ones, a DeSoto, a Hudson, and they all run, are fun to drive; I fill them with gas.
But you, what are your dreams? Or do they elude you once you awaken, like a fish disappearing beneath the surface? I guess it's more of a release of tension, or the blood pressure medicine turning the crank. To have a small ritual before bed sets the stage for sleep, and so we have a glass of milk, brush teeth, hang clothing, turn out lights, unplug any scary things like the 1940's toaster, count children and animals, and tuck in. Good night, dear heart.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Me Six, Seven, Eight
I know a girl that I went to school with in the seventh and eighth grades at St. Andrew's, who wore coats buttoned up to her neck, shy, quiet, gentle. Her uniform was clean and pressed, a small gold cross hung under her buttoned collar. Her father was using her to make pornographic films with himself and his friends, you never would have guessed. I found out when she turned up in one of the therapy groups that I attended, except she was not much more emotionally older than that shy teenager she once was. Her face was blank, she was working with the counselor to achieve being able to leave her apartment without a panic attack. It never leaves you.
She remembered me, and was able to talk about what happened to her and her sister, that she had reconciled with her father, he had come over for a supervised lunch. What good did that do her? If mine had come for lunch and I had a gun, I would have cheerfully shot him.
My father had something horribly wrong with him, he hated women and would give Sunday night talks about how he beat a few up, they deserved it. His Catholic fervor was amped up to a scream by his alcoholism, but then it was the same thing the priests lectured on at Mass, what did I have to compare anything with? Don't think impure thoughts, but examine your conscience several times a day to check for impure thoughts. What an impure thought was eluded me, nor did I realize it wasn't meant for children, at least under the age of seven, the Age of Reason.
I was admonished by my father to keep my soul pure, but what on earth was that? I was also told not to eat a chocolate bar too soon after an orange, that if I drank milk, it was to be before eating my orange, that too much chocolate would give you worms, and if I swallowed my gum, my appendix would explode. At an early age, it came to be a given that my parents were not to be believed on things that had to do with reality. Nothing was real.
Yet, bolstered by Sunday Mass sermons and all the rules and regs held dear by the Church, there were some things reinforced by majority rule. The nuns who taught religious education suggested that we use Jesus as a playmate if we were alone. Good luck with that; I tried making mud pies with Jesus as my invisible friend, and decided that I was on my way to the looney bin. We were to pray to our guardian angel to keep us safe from sin, so I lay in bed many a night praying to the unseen force to please keep my father away, but no spear of righteous lightning ever saved the day. I was convinced that I didn't believe hard enough.
My mother wasn't Catholic, my father complained that she wasn't Catholic so he couldn't really talk Scripture with her, as if he ever did anyways. At least not in a studious way. He'd rip out choice lines that pointed out how women are unclean whores, how Noah's daughters got him drunk in order to lay with him, how honoring your father meant he could do what he pleased. Mom was sad all the time, wasn't allowed friends, and anything that she cared for would eventually get destroyed. Living was crazy, a whirlpool of threats and unbalanced reasoning, a maelstrom of God and molestation.
Thing was, and this reinforced the belief that women were expendable property, my adolescent cousin began his turn. He was a mess who slept on rubber sheets wired with an alarm that would sound when he wet the bed. My aunt and uncle lived next door to us, way out in the sticks, there were no other kids to play with except for my three cousins. Half the time I was forbidden to play with them, if my father had a slam down argument with my mouthy uncle, my mother's brother.
My cousin would pin me down and spit in my face, or jump on me, naked, from his bedroom or in their garage. When we moved away, it was glorious. I didn't tell anyone because it was all part of God's Bible that men had the upper hand, so to speak. Women were leeches, cesspools, harlots; be happy there's a roof over your head.
I still had my father to contend with, but since moving to the burbs, there was something different in the air; going over to friend's homes began an uncomfortable truth that the way we lived was not the way most other people did. Fathers were nice, if somewhat removed from raising their children, but they didn't make remarks about their daughters showing/not showing signs of puberty. No one said the words whore, or prostitute, or tramp. My father earned the reputation as the crazy neighbor, which flowed over onto me and my brother. No one wanted us kids over, if we somehow got hurt, they would be dealing with him, which they did not want.
Even so, a relative climbed into our bed when I was staying over with a cousin at their house; he kissed us, introducing his tongue into our mouths, something I had not experienced before. We were nine years old, it didn't seem like he was leaving anytime soon. His wife came looking, saw what was going on, and got the other company to haul him out of the bed. Everyone shushed us up when we complained about the taste in our mouths, that his tongue was used. Don't tell. Protect him, protect the family, god knows what would happen. You're lying. Tell the feeling when you go to someone whom you love, ask for help, and be told that it's a lie you made up for attention.
Men lurked behind doors, pulled up in cars to ask what time it was then exposed themselves; a group in a car slowed down to ask me and my friend if we would like to get raped. So many others, so much more. Going to get pumpkins, the farmer slid next to me and groped my rear while saying that the big ones were 'over there'. I was with a boyfriend who thought that was the funniest thing ever. He what? Said the big ones were over there, then squeezed your ass? Picking my son up from karate, the owner pushed me against the wall, I want you right there. I couldn't get away, thank heavens another mother came in. Chopping vegetables in a restaurant, what do you plan to do with that carrot, Susie? Ho ho. Followed into the house from the pool. Hired from the agency to "fill out" a party and show the guests a good time. If you didn't agree with the "good time" part, you weren't considered a team member and had other modeling jobs cancelled; I quit.
For the most part, men unsettle me. I like the idea of them, but you never know what they are thinking but wait yes I do think I know what they are thinking. It's not true, though; it can't be. Yet you read of women in far away countries who are shot for going to school, murdered for watching a banned movie, burned with an iron to the face for leaving the house. Living through the intensity of your mother being threatened with decapitation at least once a month, you believe it.
This is my story, not anyone else's, nor can it represent what anyone else has gone through, some more, some less. The Church still runs lives with sexual guilt; do you know that if a divorced Catholic remarries another divorced Catholic in a government ceremony, they are not to consummate the marriage, but live as brother and sister? Really? I cannot resolve my common sense with the Church and no longer consider myself a part, my God and their God are two different ideas.
But I like to imagine that I'm okay, lived through it, and continue to contribute and function. It takes patience to get to know me, I don't let many people in and am reasonably happy with cats. I'm working on that. Being more open, that is. I have enough cats.
The body of a young officer lost in an accident four days ago was recovered today; the swift current of this river makes for a murky bottom and dangerous undertows. A darling friend posted a photo of the moon hanging over Venus in morning display, a beautiful moment in time. Good and bad exist within the same hour, I like to imagine that good supersedes the remainder, yet it does not erase the memory. There is no medicine for that but to live.
Sleep then, safely, with or without angels. Your talisman is your knowledge of what was and what can be, your wishes, your love. No one can take that from you. Flow into the tides of night, stir the sky with your broom that whisks away the webs and clears the stars for them to shine. Brightly. Oh ocean, oh trees, oh animals except for the bitey, sting-y ones, how I love you, love this life. Let me live, if only in my dreams. Good night. You are safe.
She remembered me, and was able to talk about what happened to her and her sister, that she had reconciled with her father, he had come over for a supervised lunch. What good did that do her? If mine had come for lunch and I had a gun, I would have cheerfully shot him.
My father had something horribly wrong with him, he hated women and would give Sunday night talks about how he beat a few up, they deserved it. His Catholic fervor was amped up to a scream by his alcoholism, but then it was the same thing the priests lectured on at Mass, what did I have to compare anything with? Don't think impure thoughts, but examine your conscience several times a day to check for impure thoughts. What an impure thought was eluded me, nor did I realize it wasn't meant for children, at least under the age of seven, the Age of Reason.
I was admonished by my father to keep my soul pure, but what on earth was that? I was also told not to eat a chocolate bar too soon after an orange, that if I drank milk, it was to be before eating my orange, that too much chocolate would give you worms, and if I swallowed my gum, my appendix would explode. At an early age, it came to be a given that my parents were not to be believed on things that had to do with reality. Nothing was real.
Yet, bolstered by Sunday Mass sermons and all the rules and regs held dear by the Church, there were some things reinforced by majority rule. The nuns who taught religious education suggested that we use Jesus as a playmate if we were alone. Good luck with that; I tried making mud pies with Jesus as my invisible friend, and decided that I was on my way to the looney bin. We were to pray to our guardian angel to keep us safe from sin, so I lay in bed many a night praying to the unseen force to please keep my father away, but no spear of righteous lightning ever saved the day. I was convinced that I didn't believe hard enough.
My mother wasn't Catholic, my father complained that she wasn't Catholic so he couldn't really talk Scripture with her, as if he ever did anyways. At least not in a studious way. He'd rip out choice lines that pointed out how women are unclean whores, how Noah's daughters got him drunk in order to lay with him, how honoring your father meant he could do what he pleased. Mom was sad all the time, wasn't allowed friends, and anything that she cared for would eventually get destroyed. Living was crazy, a whirlpool of threats and unbalanced reasoning, a maelstrom of God and molestation.
Thing was, and this reinforced the belief that women were expendable property, my adolescent cousin began his turn. He was a mess who slept on rubber sheets wired with an alarm that would sound when he wet the bed. My aunt and uncle lived next door to us, way out in the sticks, there were no other kids to play with except for my three cousins. Half the time I was forbidden to play with them, if my father had a slam down argument with my mouthy uncle, my mother's brother.
My cousin would pin me down and spit in my face, or jump on me, naked, from his bedroom or in their garage. When we moved away, it was glorious. I didn't tell anyone because it was all part of God's Bible that men had the upper hand, so to speak. Women were leeches, cesspools, harlots; be happy there's a roof over your head.
I still had my father to contend with, but since moving to the burbs, there was something different in the air; going over to friend's homes began an uncomfortable truth that the way we lived was not the way most other people did. Fathers were nice, if somewhat removed from raising their children, but they didn't make remarks about their daughters showing/not showing signs of puberty. No one said the words whore, or prostitute, or tramp. My father earned the reputation as the crazy neighbor, which flowed over onto me and my brother. No one wanted us kids over, if we somehow got hurt, they would be dealing with him, which they did not want.
Even so, a relative climbed into our bed when I was staying over with a cousin at their house; he kissed us, introducing his tongue into our mouths, something I had not experienced before. We were nine years old, it didn't seem like he was leaving anytime soon. His wife came looking, saw what was going on, and got the other company to haul him out of the bed. Everyone shushed us up when we complained about the taste in our mouths, that his tongue was used. Don't tell. Protect him, protect the family, god knows what would happen. You're lying. Tell the feeling when you go to someone whom you love, ask for help, and be told that it's a lie you made up for attention.
Men lurked behind doors, pulled up in cars to ask what time it was then exposed themselves; a group in a car slowed down to ask me and my friend if we would like to get raped. So many others, so much more. Going to get pumpkins, the farmer slid next to me and groped my rear while saying that the big ones were 'over there'. I was with a boyfriend who thought that was the funniest thing ever. He what? Said the big ones were over there, then squeezed your ass? Picking my son up from karate, the owner pushed me against the wall, I want you right there. I couldn't get away, thank heavens another mother came in. Chopping vegetables in a restaurant, what do you plan to do with that carrot, Susie? Ho ho. Followed into the house from the pool. Hired from the agency to "fill out" a party and show the guests a good time. If you didn't agree with the "good time" part, you weren't considered a team member and had other modeling jobs cancelled; I quit.
For the most part, men unsettle me. I like the idea of them, but you never know what they are thinking but wait yes I do think I know what they are thinking. It's not true, though; it can't be. Yet you read of women in far away countries who are shot for going to school, murdered for watching a banned movie, burned with an iron to the face for leaving the house. Living through the intensity of your mother being threatened with decapitation at least once a month, you believe it.
This is my story, not anyone else's, nor can it represent what anyone else has gone through, some more, some less. The Church still runs lives with sexual guilt; do you know that if a divorced Catholic remarries another divorced Catholic in a government ceremony, they are not to consummate the marriage, but live as brother and sister? Really? I cannot resolve my common sense with the Church and no longer consider myself a part, my God and their God are two different ideas.
But I like to imagine that I'm okay, lived through it, and continue to contribute and function. It takes patience to get to know me, I don't let many people in and am reasonably happy with cats. I'm working on that. Being more open, that is. I have enough cats.
The body of a young officer lost in an accident four days ago was recovered today; the swift current of this river makes for a murky bottom and dangerous undertows. A darling friend posted a photo of the moon hanging over Venus in morning display, a beautiful moment in time. Good and bad exist within the same hour, I like to imagine that good supersedes the remainder, yet it does not erase the memory. There is no medicine for that but to live.
Sleep then, safely, with or without angels. Your talisman is your knowledge of what was and what can be, your wishes, your love. No one can take that from you. Flow into the tides of night, stir the sky with your broom that whisks away the webs and clears the stars for them to shine. Brightly. Oh ocean, oh trees, oh animals except for the bitey, sting-y ones, how I love you, love this life. Let me live, if only in my dreams. Good night. You are safe.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Basket Raffle
Going out to a park alone can be tricky and nerve wracking; every twig snap signals sudden death by raccoon or bear or sasquatch. But going to the woods is one of the most energizing and restorative activities, for who doesn't like picking up acorns, hickory nuts, leaves, or just breathing the oxygen given off by the trees? Your head clears, filled with dreamscapes of green.
So I don't go, but was looking for an outdoor activity I could do by myself if no one else was around. Walking was okay, trotting down to the lighthouse at the end of the berm and back was a short half hour; going for a walk around the downtown buildings was spooky on the weekend, for downtown no longer has shoppers for the disappeared stores, and the only place open besides a few restaurants is the central library.
Last time I went there, it was pandemonium; quiet doesn't exist. C'MERE, YOU GOTTA SEE THE BABY DO BEYONCE, SING LIKE BEYONCE, WAFFLE. Waffle got out of her stroller, held her bottle like a microphone, and yelled "PUH HARRING ONNIT" over 'n over as if the needle was stuck in the groove. Staff are completely cowed, and if they try to conduct order, are told to go eff themselves.
Two years ago, my son and his wife wanted to give out fossils as wedding favors, which was a memorable idea. Buckets, shovels and a vague vision accompanied us to the nearby Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Preserve, where we dug in the mounds of shale left from the days that it was a cement quarry, and found scads of brachiopods and horn corals. I liked digging and banging rocks open a lot, became a member, and now have a go-to place for getting outside.
On weekends, the place is usually crawling with kids, which isn't a problem. Everything is a treasure, and you keep what you find. They yell amazement and success, or if very small, cry when summer heat becomes a weight. They don't bother me a bit, I can only hope their enthusiasm lasts into later decades. This may not happen as easily as expected, for the elephant in the room is a certain brand of adult.
When in a big box store, and a kid is acting up in a tantrum, it takes every professional atom in my body not to go over and correct the miscreant, elementary teacher style. But it's the same with adults. If a parent is bullying, or threatening a consequence without enforcement, I am just itching to correct them as well.
Parent: "If you don't stop, you will have to sit in the cart." No stopping. "If you don't stop, you will have to sit in the cart, I mean it." Behavior gleefully escalates. "Please stop, that's not how you behave, you will have to sit in the cart if you don't make a good choice. Do you want a Slurpee?" People stare at me because my head has turned inside out with the effort of non-involvement.
Or this, what I often hear at the fossil dig from a parent; Come here, let me show you, go in the water and you don't even have to dig anything, the fossils are right there. See? In the water. (Kid goes to dig in loose rock). No no no, Pancake, in the water. Come in the puddle, it's easy. I'm telling you. You have to look in the water. AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME? Get over here. You aren't finding anything, stupid; look at what I have already. You wanted to come here, why aren't you looking in the water??
Probably because the water is stale, smelly, dead, and the mountains of shale look like fun to climb. Fossils are everywhere, you could fall down and find them. Let the kid explore, just keep an eye on them.
Today, however, not the mother of the year made the visit a dramatic stage play, for which she should get an award. "This isn't what I thought it would be." Boy: "Look! I found a fossil! What is it?" "YOU KNOW YOU AREN'T BRINGING ANY OF THIS INTO MY HOUSE!" Boy, wistful: "I know." "THIS PLACE IS HIDEOUS. HIDEOUS! I COULD BE AT A BASKET RAFFLE."
Wicked my brain: You want hideous, take a look at that blouse you're wearing. You should go to the basket raffle, maybe win a new one. My serenity was being interrupted by this yowling. The injustice of bringing a child to dig fossils when you could be at the finest basket raffle, getting more crap that you don't need! What's in those baskets is dollar store hoo-ha, not a collection of china from Bergdorf's. She wanted a medal for being at this forsaken, grey quarry, when dish sponges from Taiwan were disappearing under her nose because she wasn't there to claim her prize of prizes.
"We're GOING! There's a basket raffle going on, don't you want to be at the basket raffle? This place is awful." The term "basket raffle" was blasted ten times in two minutes, and I was ready to crawl into the subterranean muck and hide with the trilobites. Or, ninja throw my rock hammer right center of her man bun.
The kid said nicely, "But I don't want to go, I want to find the one that looks like a shell. Can we stay five more minutes?" I will give her the credit of acquiescing for the five minutes, yet his plaintiveness broke a bit of my heart as it reminded me of myself when a kid, when my father would make me stay in the car as he took my brother out to toss a ball around at the park. You don't deserve to go.
One last halloo of "basket raffle" and they loaded up, I think the kiddo did find a few things from the chirps he made. Then I had peace until the Cub Scout troop showed up, but they were excitedly great, their parents were happily great, and the spot I found to dig was Devonian awesomeness. Accumulated was quite a pail full of various species of brachiopods, and the largest gastropod of one inch that the volunteer guides had ever seen.
I like finding things, it took me years to realize why I enjoy walking on beaches for shells, why digging for fossils is happiness, or why searching for wild mushroom species is exciting. Becoming a research librarian would have suited me well, but the career outlook was poor; here I am, better a teacher. But finding, it's discovery and recovery.
It puts things in place, familiar objects that have a noble stature in my mind. My godmother gave me my first seashell, simple fossils lay about on the ground where I grew up, and the curiosity of mushrooms has enthralled me since being a child. Talismans. What are yours? What gives you a place that is your own in this world?
Tonight there is a harvest moon hidden behind the remnants of clouds from the last hurricane. We are due to have much rain. It will run in rivulets through the loose gravel and stone, freshly dug this afternoon, releasing more fossils from the matrix of clay and shale. The nights are cooler, deeper in darkness, which now comes sooner in October; tuck in the children, the cats, the dogs, and yourselves. Appropriate to shake out the winter blankets, our sails for bedtime dreams loosed from the anchors of time. Dreams and wishes.
Good night, sleep well. Everything will be fine, I promise.
So I don't go, but was looking for an outdoor activity I could do by myself if no one else was around. Walking was okay, trotting down to the lighthouse at the end of the berm and back was a short half hour; going for a walk around the downtown buildings was spooky on the weekend, for downtown no longer has shoppers for the disappeared stores, and the only place open besides a few restaurants is the central library.
Last time I went there, it was pandemonium; quiet doesn't exist. C'MERE, YOU GOTTA SEE THE BABY DO BEYONCE, SING LIKE BEYONCE, WAFFLE. Waffle got out of her stroller, held her bottle like a microphone, and yelled "PUH HARRING ONNIT" over 'n over as if the needle was stuck in the groove. Staff are completely cowed, and if they try to conduct order, are told to go eff themselves.
Two years ago, my son and his wife wanted to give out fossils as wedding favors, which was a memorable idea. Buckets, shovels and a vague vision accompanied us to the nearby Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Preserve, where we dug in the mounds of shale left from the days that it was a cement quarry, and found scads of brachiopods and horn corals. I liked digging and banging rocks open a lot, became a member, and now have a go-to place for getting outside.
On weekends, the place is usually crawling with kids, which isn't a problem. Everything is a treasure, and you keep what you find. They yell amazement and success, or if very small, cry when summer heat becomes a weight. They don't bother me a bit, I can only hope their enthusiasm lasts into later decades. This may not happen as easily as expected, for the elephant in the room is a certain brand of adult.
When in a big box store, and a kid is acting up in a tantrum, it takes every professional atom in my body not to go over and correct the miscreant, elementary teacher style. But it's the same with adults. If a parent is bullying, or threatening a consequence without enforcement, I am just itching to correct them as well.
Parent: "If you don't stop, you will have to sit in the cart." No stopping. "If you don't stop, you will have to sit in the cart, I mean it." Behavior gleefully escalates. "Please stop, that's not how you behave, you will have to sit in the cart if you don't make a good choice. Do you want a Slurpee?" People stare at me because my head has turned inside out with the effort of non-involvement.
Or this, what I often hear at the fossil dig from a parent; Come here, let me show you, go in the water and you don't even have to dig anything, the fossils are right there. See? In the water. (Kid goes to dig in loose rock). No no no, Pancake, in the water. Come in the puddle, it's easy. I'm telling you. You have to look in the water. AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME? Get over here. You aren't finding anything, stupid; look at what I have already. You wanted to come here, why aren't you looking in the water??
Probably because the water is stale, smelly, dead, and the mountains of shale look like fun to climb. Fossils are everywhere, you could fall down and find them. Let the kid explore, just keep an eye on them.
Today, however, not the mother of the year made the visit a dramatic stage play, for which she should get an award. "This isn't what I thought it would be." Boy: "Look! I found a fossil! What is it?" "YOU KNOW YOU AREN'T BRINGING ANY OF THIS INTO MY HOUSE!" Boy, wistful: "I know." "THIS PLACE IS HIDEOUS. HIDEOUS! I COULD BE AT A BASKET RAFFLE."
Wicked my brain: You want hideous, take a look at that blouse you're wearing. You should go to the basket raffle, maybe win a new one. My serenity was being interrupted by this yowling. The injustice of bringing a child to dig fossils when you could be at the finest basket raffle, getting more crap that you don't need! What's in those baskets is dollar store hoo-ha, not a collection of china from Bergdorf's. She wanted a medal for being at this forsaken, grey quarry, when dish sponges from Taiwan were disappearing under her nose because she wasn't there to claim her prize of prizes.
"We're GOING! There's a basket raffle going on, don't you want to be at the basket raffle? This place is awful." The term "basket raffle" was blasted ten times in two minutes, and I was ready to crawl into the subterranean muck and hide with the trilobites. Or, ninja throw my rock hammer right center of her man bun.
The kid said nicely, "But I don't want to go, I want to find the one that looks like a shell. Can we stay five more minutes?" I will give her the credit of acquiescing for the five minutes, yet his plaintiveness broke a bit of my heart as it reminded me of myself when a kid, when my father would make me stay in the car as he took my brother out to toss a ball around at the park. You don't deserve to go.
One last halloo of "basket raffle" and they loaded up, I think the kiddo did find a few things from the chirps he made. Then I had peace until the Cub Scout troop showed up, but they were excitedly great, their parents were happily great, and the spot I found to dig was Devonian awesomeness. Accumulated was quite a pail full of various species of brachiopods, and the largest gastropod of one inch that the volunteer guides had ever seen.
I like finding things, it took me years to realize why I enjoy walking on beaches for shells, why digging for fossils is happiness, or why searching for wild mushroom species is exciting. Becoming a research librarian would have suited me well, but the career outlook was poor; here I am, better a teacher. But finding, it's discovery and recovery.
It puts things in place, familiar objects that have a noble stature in my mind. My godmother gave me my first seashell, simple fossils lay about on the ground where I grew up, and the curiosity of mushrooms has enthralled me since being a child. Talismans. What are yours? What gives you a place that is your own in this world?
Tonight there is a harvest moon hidden behind the remnants of clouds from the last hurricane. We are due to have much rain. It will run in rivulets through the loose gravel and stone, freshly dug this afternoon, releasing more fossils from the matrix of clay and shale. The nights are cooler, deeper in darkness, which now comes sooner in October; tuck in the children, the cats, the dogs, and yourselves. Appropriate to shake out the winter blankets, our sails for bedtime dreams loosed from the anchors of time. Dreams and wishes.
Good night, sleep well. Everything will be fine, I promise.
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