Fun with Harmony #1

Thanks to William over at Recently Banned Literature for the reference to this great little drawing program called Harmony. I've been having fun playing around with the various sketch modes.  These are my first attempts at, er, making art.  I didn't pick the subjects; they kind of just ... happened. I start out with one thing in mind but a mistake here, a misplaced line there, and all of a sudden it becomes something entirely else.

The creature at the top, for example. That started out to be a face looking into the distance. Something went screwy when I tried to draw his hair. It became horn-like. As there is no erase mechanism coded into this drawing program, I was forced to leave the "horns".  Then the nose wouldn't cooperate--the one I started to draw decided to switch species, to match the horns. Now it looks more like a deer--kind of. My "Man Looking into the Distance" suddenly became a shy creature unsure yet of its bearings. "Please don't delete me," it pleaded. That it's not identifiable as any known animal doesn't mean it can't be kept. All things are possible in art. At least that is my rationale du jour.

Drawing with a cursor is difficult, especially in the simple sketch mode. The slightest wiggle of the line and your drawing's ruined. You can't go back and correct it. Am still working at getting the hang of it. 

All these faces and the creature seem to have wanted to arrive through the lines and squiggles--so I let them.  I made a weird-shaped nose, for example, in Drawing #3 and the character that was emerging complained: "Where'd you ever learn to draw noses? I hate the hairdo you gave me. At least compensate by making me more elegant elsewise!" (So I added a pipe, ha ha.)

Or, I create a face with no ears [Drawing #5] and when I begin to add them, the face whispers: "Leave it. Ears are not necessary. I can hear without them." And while I'm pondering how that can be, they all now begin bugging me to tell their story.  WHAT story? I ask.  There are FIVE of you!! 

It is so strange, though.  When I look at their faces, stories start coming...

The Place Who We Are

Is home a place?  Places change.  We change.  What is it about particular places, though, that inhabit us (not, as is usually the case, we them)?  Last autumn I revisited a town in which I'd lived for 13 years and barely recognized it.  The memory of it, over the years, was far stronger, and much more real.  I no longer feel "at home" there, though in some sense I never left. 

Ruminating this morning on the idea of satisfaction with the whatness of now, of acceptance, of the embracing of where you are and what your life has become (in light of a friend's complaint that five-plus years and still stuck in the "same 'ol, same 'ol").  And then I came across this little poem:

New day. Same sun.
What you get is

what you've got, and
it is enough.

[Posted three days ago, at 4:37 A.M., by Tom Montag over at The Middlewesterner]

For those readers not familiar with poet Tom Montag, he's from the midwest and a number of years ago he became an intentional vagabond, driving from town to town, trying to grasp what exactly makes people "middle western".  But this poet's attempt to understand "who we are and of what are we made", I think,  transcends geographical boundaries:

~ ~ I saw the shadow of crow fly into me.

~ ~ Why am I so moved by this landscape, these scenes, that old farmhouse with windows boarded up? What previous life did I live that I have this intense connection? All the old cottonwoods talked to me like friends. Was I a cottonwood once?

~ ~ Why have I had to come so far to be home? All day the land spoke to me as I drove, this land of which I'd write. Every grove of trees wanted to whisper its story, every old house invited me inside to meet its ghosts.

~ ~  The symbols of ourselves rise above the line of earth - the windbreak, the water tower, the elevator, the church steeple. We are mere mortals yet we would be little gods of the earth, each with his own habitation, his own local place. We set our markers on the earth as if they would be shrines, places to pray for rain, to give thanks for good harvest. Places of refuge. Markers that say: "Mine." Yet as earth-bound as these symbols are, how they reach for the sky! How they fashion the light that swaddles them.

[From Vagabond in the Middle", #5 and #6]

 Long after the original journey has ended, Tom Montag continues to look, to listen, and to wait with patience, reporting, on his blog, on what he finds as true.

I want to share his poem with my friend:  "New day/same sun"  (in reverse:  same 'ol, same 'ol, but it's a new day!), and "what you get/is what you've got."  It is "enough."

And if it's not--then a different journey must begin.  Within or without, we all arrive there eventually--though, absurdly, may not yet realize we're already there.

Thanks for the insightful little poem, Tom.

______________________
*photo by awyn, "on the road" last weekend.

Little wolf song

Montian Gilruth of FunkyFreddy Republic, performing at the Montreal Musicians Meetup in July, 2009. The name of the song is 'Ti-Loup, by Ian Gray.

There's a place where you can go
and your dreams will live and flow.
In my arms I'll rock you, slow.
Close your eyes, 'ti loup.

'Ti-loup is a common French nickname for Petit Loup (Little Wolf), pronounced "Tee-LOO".

A lullaby to save to sing to little Calix when  he arrives in August.

Used Poems for Sale

__________________________

YARD SALE

USED POEMS

Saturday, June 5, 2010

10 AM to 4 PM

Corner of Lafayette & Grisham

NO EARLY BIRDS!!

___________________________

I had gone out for a newspaper and was driving home when I saw it.  The sign intrigued me.  It didn't say "Used Poetry Books" -- it said "Used Poems."  What's a used poem?  Used how?  Hmmm.  Perhaps it is the seller's own private collection.  He's used up the words and now wants to get rid of them.  There's a poet who lives in my neighborhood?  At any rate, it piqued my curiosity enough to make me veer off and follow the sign pointing the way to Lafayette and Grisham.

A small brown cottage with a mossy green lawn badly in need of a trim.  A row of identical cardboard boxes set up alongside the driveway.  A man in an emerald green shirt rearranging the contents of one of the boxes.  He must be the seller.  I pull to a stop and park in front of the house.  The man in the green shirt frowns and meets my gaze.  "The sign said no early birds," he shouts from the driveway.  I glance at my watch.  It's only twenty minutes past nine.

I was just curious as to your--er--books," I say.  "What kind of poetry ..."  but before I have a chance to finish, he comes over to the car window, puts his hands on the roof, and leans in to address me.  "They're not books," he says.  "They're manuscripts."  And indeed, on closer look, I can see no books in any of the ten or so boxes--only what looks like piles and piles of sheets of paper.

"Whose are they?" I ask.  "Who wrote them?"

"You can't look at them now," Green Shirt replies.  You're too early.  You have to come back at ten, like the sign says."   He turns around and goes back to arranging the boxes.

Not much arouses my curiosity these days.  Truth be told, I've been in a rut, but this man and his boxes of "used poems" got me wondering.  I used to write poetry, way back "when".  Nowadays I barely have time to read the newspaper, and the only writing I do is work-related.  The curse of middle age:  you start reflecting on resuscitating the best part of yourself while observing the rest of you start declining, one year at a time.  For some reason, I'm wanting to read poetry today.  Maybe try writing some again. It was that sign that did it.

And so after lunch I head over again to Lafayette and Grisham to check out this most mysterious yard sale.  A woman with a child in a stroller is bending over examining a manuscript in one of the boxes.  She flips a few pages, laughs, then tosses it back into the box.  "You got any toys for sale?" she asks the man in the green shirt.

"Nope.  Just poems."

The woman shrugs and walks away.  A few cars slow down in front of the house but no one stops.

"Hi again," I say to Green Shirt, as I turn off the ignition and get out of my car.  He's sitting on the porch steps smoking a cigarette.   He stares straight back at me, doesn't respond. 

I stoop to look inside the first box and pick up the manuscript the woman had been thumbing through.  At first glance it appears to be a group of untitled poems having to do with nature.  Strings of words such as "black trees in mist", "shadowy midnight moon" and "undulating waves that grab at hollow shores", etc. sail off the page in neatly typed lines seemingly unconnected to one another.  Although formatted as poems they are not poems at all, just line after line of random phrases, puzzling metaphors and ...  rambling nonsense.  This particular manuscript has 37 pages.

I put it down and pick up the paper directly underneath it.  This one is short--only four pages, neatly stapled in the upper left-hand corner.  As with its predecessor, it is undated, untitled, and the author's name is nowhere to be found.  The first poem begins:

Ephemerality transgressed

each crack in the stark formican table remembered

the distant bloat of wasted tears

cat food, toil paper he at the turn
turn off the light

"Turn off the light?"  I must have raised an eyebrow.  The man in the green shirt is watching me.

"Whose, uh, poems are these?" I ask.   "Did you write them?" 

He makes a grimace, the kind that announces you are sick to your stomach, and turns to look at a passing car.  I take that as a No.

"Let me take a wild guess," I smile.  "You're the former editor of a now defunct literary journal and these are rejected submissions that ..."

Green Shirt abruptly cuts me off.  "Nope."   He strikes me as someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly, or pompous pretenders either, and for some reason I'm suddenly embarrassed.  His demeanor quickly changes, as if he can read my thoughts.  "They're actually my brother's stuff," he says, stubbing out his cigarette on the concrete step.  He gets up from the stoop and walks over toward me.

"Your brother's a ... poet?" I ask, not quite daring to ask what has happened to him and why are you selling his papers?

Green Shirt the mind reader slowly explains:  "My brother's ill, you see.  It became necessary to ..."  He does not finish his sentence.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"These are his writings," he explains.  "They're all drafts, works in progress.  He's never finished them.  Just sits in front of his typewriter and whatever comes into his mind, he types it out, puts it in a drawer and never looks at it again.  It just got to be too much, is all."

I nod, as if that makes perfect sense, though it doesn't.  Shouldn't the disposal of one's entire life's work be up to the person who owns it?  Perhaps the brother's too far gone, as they say.  I wonder if he knows—that all his stuff is sitting out here in the driveway, up for sale.

I pick up another manuscript, a hefty tome of over a hundred pages.  Green Shirt recognizes it immediately and says, "That's his poem about the garden."  Poem, singular.  The whole hundred-plus pages are a single poem.  Green Shirt points to a small patch of dessicated flowers in a bed of weeds at a corner of the house, hardly what one would call a "garden"--certainly not enough to warrant writing a hundred-sheet declaration in verse about.  I open the manuscript at a random page:

vestiges of flotsam unrealized

shaded by benign neglect the roses

bloom crowding out the

don't forget to turn off the

light mud-clogged bird rot

everywhere

"Turn off the light" again?  This makes absolutely no sense to me.  I begin to suspect this brother of Green Shirt suffers from some mental disease.  "But why are you selling them?" I ask, thinking if you wanted to get rid of so much paper, why not just drop it in the recycle bin?  I can't imagine voluminous drafts of non-poems from an anonymous writer would generate much interest at a yard sale--in this neighborhood, anyhow--and I say so (more kindly stated and in less detail, of course) to Green Shirt.

"Because I'm tired of keeping them,” he says.  "He keeps writing and writing and writing and there's nowhere to put them anymore.  The basement is full.  The attic is full.  There are boxes and boxes of them in the garage.  He won't let me destroy them."

"Your brother is certainly prolific," I say, envious, trying to remember the last time the poetic muse deigned to visit me.  "Does he know you're, uh, selling them?"

"It was his idea,"says Green Shirt.  "It's the only way he'd let me move them out of the house.  He seems to think no one will realize their true value and at the end of the day they'll remain unsold.  Then he can bring them all back in.  I'm afraid it's starting to look like he's right.  You're the only one to show even the remotest interest."

Green Shirt suddenly blurts out:  "Look, I'll sell the lot of them to you for $15.00."

I am stunned.  What would I possibly do with a dozen boxes of someone's old personal draft manuscripts?

On second thought, there might be interesting material to be found in this collosal collection of poetic gibberish.  I begin recalling my increasing stuckness, hours facing a blank sheet of paper trying to write even the most mundane thing.  I can't even find words for habitual business reports.  And this fellow's brother simply explodes with words.   Where has all my creativity gone?  I stare at the reams of paper overflowing from the boxes.  I'm thinking I might borrow a metaphor here and there, re-use some of the words maybe, to inject into my own now-stalled writing.  But no sooner has the thought arrived than it is summarily dismissed.  What was I thinking?  Have I become so desperate for inspiration as to stoop to using someone else's words?

And yet ...  the prospect of acquiring this avalanche of newfound creativity no longer seems so preposterous.  Not at all.  It's all in how you look at a thing. 

"Okay," I say, surveying the line of boxes again, mentally calculating the space it would require to transport and relocate them.  I wonder what my wife would say.

"There's only one conditon," says Green Shirt.  Oh oh.  Here it comes.  There's always a catch.

"Once these boxes have been removed, I don't ever want to see them again.  Do you understand?" he says.  "Under no circumstances can they be returned here."  Which seems fine with me.  I mean, if this crazy project turns out to be a waste of time, I can just recycle them, right?.   I begin thinking about the process of going through each and every manuscript, one by one by one.  Maybe it's the look on my face that hints to Green Shirt that perhaps I may be reconsidering my impulsive decision because he suddenly becomes more friendly.

"Look. If you agree to take all of them, I won't charge you a dime,"  he says.  "In fact, I'll even PAY you to take them ALL."

"All?" I say, confused.  "You mean ...."

"Yes," he says.  "All.  These twelve, and all the boxes in the attic, in the basement and in the garage.  The complete collection.  I’ll give you $200 to remove them."

Whoa, wait a minute, that's a whole different ballpark, mister.  Not that I can't use a couple hundred bucks.  I'm already spending  the money in my mind. But wait.  "Er ... how many boxes are we talking about here?" I say, reluctantly coming to my senses.  By his count, 12 in the driveway, 17 in the attic, 26 in the basement and 14 in the garage--69 boxes in total.  Think about it.  That's thousands and thousands of pages, billions of words.  My head reels.

Now, there is no way I can bring 69 boxes of anything onto our premises without my wife's knowledge or approval.  Green Shirt stands, his arms folded, an expectant, hopeful look on his face.  I imagine poring over the manuscripts page by page by page, looking for extractable items to fuel my dried up poetic wasteland. Be realistic, I tell myself. You can never hope to read them all. This will clearly take decades.  I would be dead before I got to even the fifth box.  Nevertheless ...

"Agreed," I find myself saying to Green Shirt, somewhat appalled at this newest bout of recklessness on my part.  And yet I haven't stopped myself.   He isn't smiling though.  Maybe he already knows it wouldn't work, that I'll suddenly realize what I'm getting myself into and change my mind, and he'll have to lug all dozen boxes back inside at the end of the afternoon, that the growing mountain of manuscripts will never end. But as it turns out, that doesn’t happen.  I may be compulsive but I've never renegged on a verbal agreement.

The rest of the day is somewhat of a blur.  I ask our next-door neighbor's son Chad to borrow his pick-up truck and help with the loading and unloading of the boxes.  It takes us, in all, three hours.  My wife is furious, isn’t speaking to me.  I don't know why she's so upset, we haven’t brought them here, to the house.  I’ve taken Green Shirt's suggestion and rented a storage bin at the edge of town--a whole large room actually--and put all the boxes there.

Well, as these things go, one does things on a whim and then regrets it.  A month has passed--my God, has it been that long?--and I've only gone through half of one box.  It is taking far longer than I'd anticipated.  There's so much there.   Some manuscripts are more incoherent than others.  Overall, I would say it's doing more harm than good, though, because now everytime I attempt to write anything, only his words come to mind.  Green Shirt's brother's words.   That was the whole point, though, wasn't it?  To find inspiration? But it's backfired, it's like catching a virus, now I can't rid myself of them, they crop up everywhere.

For example, last week at the supermarket when I consulted my grocery list I found some of Green Shirt's brother's words had infiltrated my pencilled notes:  "Bread, milk, bananas, urgency of malfaction, celery, neglect, coffeebeans, incommunicable with respite ...."    My wife has forbidden me to visit the storage bin but the words, alas, have taken root.

Then I'm out mowing the lawn today and all of a sudden who shows up, out of the blue, but Green Shirt.  Except now he has on a beige shirt with a soccer team emblem on the pocket.  He looks tired.  The man must have a difficult time of it, looking after his sick brother and all. I wonder if the brother ever noticed that all his drafted poems went missing and that they now belong to me.  I do not dare to ask.

"Hi Raymond," Beige Shirt says. Wow, he remembered my name.  And where I live. For the life of me I can't remember his name, though.  What's he doing here?

"You broke our agreement," he says.

"What agreement?" I ask, trying to remember what that might be.

"You left a box of manuscripts on the kitchen table yesterday," he says.

But that's impossible.  Why would I have done that?  I don't even go to the storage bin anymore.  Wife's orders.    How would I even have gotten a key to this guy's house?  This doesn't make any sense.  Beige Shirt looks at me, waiting for a reply.

"Perhaps it was my wife," I say, not sure why I've just implicated my wife as breaking into someone's house.

"Your wife is dead, remember?  Come on, we had a DEAL, Raymond."  Beige Shirt sounds miffed.

My wife is dead?!!  What is he talking about? I just talked to her.  And why is he calling me Raymond?  Who's Raymond?  Beige Shirt is clearly delusional.  I start to go inside the house, to get away from this man.  He's beginning to frighten me.  But he follows me!  I try to close the door so he can't get in but he's too quick and strong and pushes right in.  Then he gently closes the door.

"Go back to your room, Raymond," Beige Shirt says, turning and going into the kitchen.  MY kitchen.  The gall of the man, who does he think he is?!  Now he's lifting a cardboard box full of loose papers from the table, places it on the floor near the back door, muttering under his breath.

"Please.  You're not going to throw them OUT!!" I find myself begging.  "They're not ... finished."

A small panic overtakes me as I suddenly remember something.  I race upstairs, two steps at a time, to the attic.  Gone.  They're all gone!  I turn around and run down to the basement, sweating and out of breath.  They're all gone there as well.  "They're not in the garage, either," says Beige Shirt, waiting for me in the kitchen when I return.  "Don't you remember?  We put them all in storage."

"We?!!!??" I stammer, becoming wobbly in the knees.

"You and I, Raymond, don't you remember?  We drove them to the storage together."

"I can't drive!" I shout back, agitated that I remember no such thing.  "You know I can't drive.  And there is no way I would have removed my poems from this house.  No WAY!"  Beige Shirt ignores me.  "Who put you up to this?"  I demand.

I stagger back and lean against the refrigerator, trying to make sense of it all.  A face comes to mind.  It was that guy--the one who claimed he saw a sign for a yard sale and came looking to buy my used poems--he was the one who took them!  There was no yard sale.  Why would I SELL my poems?  We must go and find him. 

Beige Shirt sighs.  He's never understood poetry, he admits it, what people see in it, only that they go on and on about it, like Raymond does.   He's read Raymond's poems and finds them unintelligible, words without meaning.  He's shown Raymond's poems to other poets at the local Arts Center who tell him don't destroy them, you have no right.  But Raymond, he just keeps writing and writing and writing, vomiting words out of his brain into his fingers and tap tap tapping away all hours of the day and night on his keyboard and he never even looks at them again, like once they're out of his head, they're on their own.  Won't let anyone look at them either. He won't even show them to ME.  

I have to warn Raymond that Beige Shirt may not have his best interests at heart.  What kind of a person would sell his own brother's life's work?!!

  ~ ~ ~

It was the space, you see.  Beige Shirt looks out the window at the little non-garden.  It used to be a real garden but that was when he had time for such things.  Caretakers don't get a lot of time to themselves and anyway, Raymond would simply mow right over it, no flower was safe; it is only the imaginary ones, in his manuscripts, that get to live.

One more box, and so it starts again.  But he would deal with it. Hadn't he always?

Beige Shirt makes a mental note to take the box near the door off to the garage in the morning, before Raymond's awake.  

They just take up so much space, he says, to no one in particular.

 
-- Draft of a short story by Annie Wyndham

____________________________________________________

The inspiration for this strange little tale came from the words of a blogger friend, written in an entirely different context, namely:  "The already-used is exemplary” and “Poets take note."   I don't know why but it began writing itself immediately after my seeing those words.  That, and all the vente de garage signs I've been seeing in the neighborhood recently, and a film I watched last week called "Shutter's Island" combined to weave the tale, urging my fingers to Write it down, Hurry up and write it down Write it down Write it down, ha ha. 

And so I did.

No words

Birds, mired in oil on the beach at East Grand Terre Island

along the Louisiana coast yesterday, Thursday, June 3, 2010.

AP Photographer Charlie Riedel has filed the above images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island.  To see all 8 photographs, click here.

Over 1,300 comments follow, expressing shock and sadness and outrage.

I can't find words today.  Only a kind of stunned, and horrifying ... numbness.  From looking at only two photographs.

It's been 46 days ... and the oil's still gushing.

Remembering D.

Then and now. Where'd all his hair go? Is he wearing .... hearing aids?! There's a knowing in his eyes that wasn't there in that first, earlier session all those years ago, where he had his head down, his long hair falling over his youthful face as he sang fire and rain into his guitar. That voice--it hasn't changed.

There was someone I always thought I'd see one day again too--like in the song--but never did.   And everytime I hear this song, I remember ... that some things remain unfinished, like our ongoing conversations with the dead. It's been five years, two months and three weeks already. I always thought I'd see you, somehow, somewhere, someday ... just one more time.

We never did actually get to say it, dancing around the fact in a feeble attempt to stop time.  We talked about other things: a film you had watched, the book you were reading: Brian Moore's A Burnt Out Case.  What kind of book is that to be reading on your deathbed?  We both laughed.  Stage IV got you before you had a chance to call back.

Fire and rain ... and eyes that smile.    You again.  Still  ... there.

feu de forêt

Forest fires all over the region:  85 over in Ontario province, 52 here in Quebec,  2,500 people evacuated, including three aboriginal reserves.  The hot spot in the province has been the Haute-Mauricie region, just north of Trois-Rivieres.  There are nearly 1,000 firefighters battling the blaze; New Hampshire and Maine have sent up firecrews and equipment.[1]

The Montreal sky was thick with its fumes last night, continuing today.  Last night, even with the windows closed, the strong smell of something burning in the back yard, except it wasn't in the back yard, it was miles away.  We've had a water ban all week and probably extended now; no rain in sight, and if you get caught watering your flowers or lawn you must pay a $200 fine.


___________________
 *Photo by Linda Lemire, taken 2 days ago north of La Tuque.

Satire, Unarmed

Rydym ni fydd yn dawel

Vi kommer inte vara tysta

No anem a estar en silence. Ons sal nie swyg

Ne nuk do të jetë i heshtur. Мы не будем молчать.

מיר וועלן נישט זיין שטיל אנחנו לא נשתוק. Me ei saa vaikida

Mes ne tylėti เราจะไม่เงียบ ebudeme mlčet

Mi ne bo tiho. เราจะไม่เงียบ Vil ikke tie.

ема да бидеме безгласни. Mēs ne klusēt

Nie będziemy milczeć.私たちは沈黙されません

Við munum ekki þegja. εν θα είναι αθόρυβη

אנחנו לא נשתוק Não vamos ficar em silêncio

Nous ne resterons pas silencieux

Нећемо се ћути

ما نمی خواهد سکوت

ما نمی خواهد سکوت

We will not be silent

Non imos ficar en silencio

私たちは沈黙されません

Ние няма да се мълчи. اننا لن نصمت

No vamos a estar en silencio. Chúng tôi sẽ không im lặng.

Biz sessiz olmayacak. Kami tidak akan diam. Vi vil ikke være tavs.

우리는 침묵하지 않습니다 ħna mhux se tkun siekta.ما نمی خواهد سکوت

Wir werden nicht schweigen. Hatutakuwa kimya. Non saremo in
silenzio. Noi nu va fi tăcut .We zullen niet zwijgen Nem fogunk
hallgatn.Ми не будемо мовчати.Kami ay hindi tahimik. เราจะไม่เงียบ 

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

~~ Bertrand Russell

___________________________________________

Experimenting with words.  Can they together form a mouthless image that yet "speaks". 
Let's call him Art. He looks like a chunky-cheeked alien with a misshapen ear.

"Why am I all in red?" he asks.  "Red is the color of BLOOD.  And why is everything all black around me? Where is the light?"

"I don't know," I tell him.  "Will you pose for me?"

"What's in it for me?" he asks.

"I'll make you multilingual."

"Cool," he says.  "But next time make me more attractive.  You didn't give me a mouth.  I look distorted. Like a robot disassembling."

"To the contrary," I tell him.  "You're perfect."

"How so?"  .

"You're the ghost of the fallen, the forever silenced."

"You are not very good at this," Art reminds me.

True.  
"No one can see  the message or read the words--and even if they could, they wouldnt understand the language... So what's the point?" he asks.

Back to the drawing board.  I think about removing the Darkness.  Magnify and shine a light on the words, maybe. 

Oops, Art disappears, his eyes no longer open.  And he's even more misshapen than before!

Art protests at my little Art-as-Protest project, predicting:

"No one will get it."   Friends of Art will roll their eyes:  "Why did you give him only one ear"!!!?.  
You-know-who will shake her head and say: "Do you ever stop?"  

Sometimes.  But then I get reminded again ...

War at 11.  

"Pass the chips, please."

Saving Face

I saved a face today,
it was unintended.
A kindness rendered--an afterthought,
the focus shifting
     from self to other,
being right trumped by
letting go
     of being right
to save a friend
from truth's deep burn.

A turned-down light
still illuminates
     so that one can see.
No need to blind, disorient
with glare of detail.
He knows the that
but can't fix the how
nor change the pattern.
Stay or go, it's all the same,
the pattern's set, and yet ...

I saved a face today.
What prompted it?
A different kind of
shame.

______________
First publication.
*photo of  wooden ornament on top the radio, by awyn

Birdy Babbles, Bubbling Waters

Yesterday afternoon we took a little stroll on a path along the St. Lawrence River, sat on a wooden bench, then climbed onto a gigantic rock and watched the ships and barges sliding by on the water.  

One of the things I like most about this place is its quiet peacefulness and panoply of sounds:  the crunch of footsteps on the gravelly pathway, the groan of a tugboat lugging past, the swish of the wind as it touches your hair, the babble of water trickling over rocks on its way to the river, the twittering of birds in the branches of the tall trees nearby.  I tried to capture it in this little video with our new digital camera.  I'm not sure if you'd call this a creek, a brook, a stream, or simply a little rocky ditch.  Bird babbles throughout, and a loud joyful chirp at 1:11-1:12.  Stop the video at 1:13 and you'll see a tiny bird drinking from the water.

The filming was kind of shaky but it was my first try.  (I couldn't locate a dewobble button on the camera, perhaps someone in the future will invent one.)  I plan to get better at this.

It's really the sounds I like to replay.  If I close my eyes and listen, it's almost like being there again.

Later Has Evaporated

Procrastination and the Artichoke

The Problem:
X needs to be done. I don't do it.  I find some excuse to put off doing it.

Motivation:
Think of X's being done and how that'll make you feel. (Yay plus 1,000). Doneness is the goal.  The pleasure of arriving there, its reward.

What's stopping you?
That damn block. The one I've intentionally installed there to relieve me of the task of doing the task I don't want to do right now.  The one that charms me with: "Wait.  Do something else instead." 

Removing the Block:
Let's pretend Doneness is an artichoke heart.  Granted, one can buy artichoke hearts already extracted, jarred or canned and ready for consumption, but ...  it's not quite the same.  The tasty little ritual of getting to the heart of an artichoke, one delicious anticipatory taste at a time as you pluck off its green outer petals, is one of its pure pleasures.    The pleasure lies not only in the arriving at, but in the process while getting there.  Is my choosing not to do X because I find little or no pleasure in the process?

Understanding the Problem:
Let's address the process. The three most common factors that might prohibit someone from reaching a goal are:

1. The emergence or continuing presence of more compelling,
     immediate tasks.
2. Dislike or dread of the process.
3. Getting sidetracked by something else--or
     finding the process itself so engaging, one loses sight of the goal.

Assessment:
1.  Priority must be assigned.
2.  It's a question of attitude.
3.  Dscipline and stick-to-itivness must be installed.

Excuse No. 1:
I have no time.

Rationalization:
I'm overcommitted, too many irons in the fire.

Solution:
Hmmm.  You make time for doctor's appointments.  You find time for scheduled family and social events.  You set aside time to do the dishes and the laundry.   You have time to daydream and doodle.  Why can't you make time for finishing X?  Make an appointment with yourself, and show up to do the work!  Just DO it!

Excuse No. 2:
This other thing seems easier and much more fun at the moment.  

Rationalization:
Rather than do a thing, I find myself writing about doing a thing--otherwise known as "Procrastination by Way of Substitution."  I am substituting an additional, peripheral task to override my having to do a more personally important task.  Like Bartleby the Scrivener, I simply "prefer not to" right now.  I mean, that other thing can wait, right?   There is no actual deadline per se.

An Example of Stuckness:
I am reminded of an episode on the old TV sitcom "Mary Tyler Moore" where Mary appears to be in a funk.  She's unhappy with how her life is going, its weary everydayness and predictability is getting to her.  She wants to change things but doesn't know how.  (Procrastination presents a similar dilemma--it causes weariness and a desire to change.)  Mary  complains to Ted, one of her co-workers. Ted always seems so upbeat, nothing ever seems to get him down.

"How do you do it, Ted?" Mary asks, in desperation. "What's your secret?"
"Oh," says Ted, "I was like you before." (He proceeds to demonstrate how he used to be).

"I used to get up." (He rubs his eyes and makes a frowny face).
"Go to work." (He sighs.)
"Do my jobbbbbbbbbb." (Groans.)
"Come ... home." (He droops his shoulders and sighs again.)
"Eat my ... dinner." (Feigns poking at something with an imaginary fork, totally disinterested)
"Read the paper." (Slumps down in a chair, flips an imaginary page, exuding deep weariness).
"Go to bed." (Yawns, drops his arms, lowers his head, and closes his eyes).

Mary nods, as he has just perfectly described what she has been feeling, almost to perfection.

"So here's what you do," says Ted, straightening up.
"You--GET UP!" (He jumps up, imitates vigorously shaking himself awake, opens an imaginary window and takes a deep breath, then pounds his chest and says "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!", smiling broadly).
"You GO TO WORK!!!"  (He marches forward, arms swinging.)
"You DO YOUR JOB!!"  (Raises both hands, flings them skyward, and grins.)
"You COME HOME!!!"  (A big smile on his face at the word "home").
"You EAT ... YOUR ... DINNER!!!" (Rubs his hands together, giddily anticipating each tasty bite).
"You READ THE PAPER!!!"  (Sits back, chooses a magazine, crosses his leg, flips the page and reads).
"You GO TO BED!!" (Puts his head back, closes his eyes, stretches his feet, and feigns falling asleep, smiling).

Attitude ....

Solution: 
Change your attitude toward getting this thing done.  Focus less on the difficulties, monotony or tediousness of the process and view it as a way-of-life thing you do simply and effortlessly without analyzing it to death. 

Excuse No. 3:
I have a psychological aversion to being told to do something.

Rationalization:  Maybe it's a subconscious rebellion against "having to's" of any sort, some psychological carryover from childhood that somehow bore itself into my subconscious whereby the mere suggestion of a "have to" triggers an automatic stalling and evasive response--even if it's my own self issuing the command.

Solution:
Get over it.  The negative connotation attributed to your "having to's" is strictly perceptual.
Pick a deadline, get your stuff ready, schedule the time -- and just DO it.
Period.

Final Comment:
Pretend the above is a Note to Self written 5 years ago.  Folding it up and sticking it inside your desk cubbiehole to act on "later" is no longer an option.

There IS no Later.
Later has evaporated.
You've used up all your personal postponement and extension credits.
Time is up.

So.

START already !!!!

_________________
* Artwork  by Audrey Stiebel.

**The above refers to a large writing project I began more than eleven years ago (!!) which sits collecting dust in a box in the closet, never having progressed beyond the outline stage -- a novel-to-be, languishing in unfinishedness, along with a second, later book-in-progress, a dozen short stories, and several uncompleted articles--never revised, never sent out, word children hidden in a cupboard, waiting for .....   

They have been haunting me lately, taunting me beratedly, two fictional characters in particular, for my sheer, unabashed, continuing, willful  Neglect.  Which is what prompted the above mental kick-in-the butt to stop procrastinating already, and get back to work.  

If not now ... when?

Fiddlehead Time!

These squiggly-looking things are called les têtes de violon (fiddleheads)
because they look like the head of a violin

Our market had them for sale today, at $6.59/kg.

 This package cost me $1.12 Cdn.

The first time I ever saw fiddleheads was after I had moved to Vermont from Boston in 1998.  Some people raved about them, like they were the Greatest Thing Ever.  I considered trying them but had no idea what to do with them once I got them home.  They looked kind of strange.  Like disembodied little aliens.  Some people flat out hated them.  I decided to pass on it.  

These odd-looking things have been eaten for centuries here and in parts of all the Canadian provinces and territories, especially New Brunswick, southern Québec and southern Ontario, but they're also found in flood plains or near rivers and streams in the U.S., Japan, China, Siberia, Scandinavia, Belgium, France, and even parts of the Alps.  The Maliseet Indians of the Saint John River Valley in New Brunswick harvested them as a spring tonic and fiddlehead tea supposedly cures constipation.  I heard somewhere that fiddleheads are the Vermont State vegetable.

Anyway, about five years later, when I was now living in Québec, our next-door neighbor went out one morning down along the river bank and came back with a huge bag of fiddleheads that he had picked, and gave us some. The ferns look sort of like ostriche plumes, the coiled greens like a bag of eyes with tails.   "Look what Luc just gave us," I told my mate and opened the bag so he could see.  He made one of those faces, like he does when you mention the word tofu or yogourt (or goat milk or ginger or kalamari--all things I eat but he won't touch) and said "No thanks."  But I was curious, so found some recipes and decided to give it a try.

These greens are healthy for you, a good source of vitamins A and C, niacin and riboflavin, an on-line nutritionist writes.  You cannot eat them raw like a broccoli stem, though--you might get seriously ill.  I hadn't known that before so it was a good thing I didn't try.  (Not that I would have.)  They're not toxic but trust me, you don't want to eat them raw.  In May, in eastern Canada, they only stay in their coiled form for about two weeks before they start unfurling. Once the leaves grow beyond about 7.5 centimetres, though, the fiddleheads become just too bitter to eat.  So fiddlehead eating season is pretty short.

You have to clean them really well and boil them for 15 minutes (or steam them for 20 minutes).  You can then sauté them with butter and add a bit of lemon.  The taste is hard to describe:  it's sort of like a combination of asparagus and broccoli--some say it tastes like asparagus, green beans and okra.  I loathe okra, and cooked fiddleheads do not have the slimey texture of okra.  I can't reallly describe the taste but if it doesn't stir your taste buds, you can do other, more interesting things with it:  the Fiddleheads Violin Shop in Salmon Arm, British Columbia give their recipes for chocolate dip fiddlehead, fiddlehead pie, and cream of fiddlehead soup, for example.  And I've heard fiddlehead pizza's not half bad either. (They put pineapple on pizzas, why not fiddleheads?)

But really, this is one of those ordinary riverside greens that photographs particularly well.  These ferns absolutely bask in their photogenicity.

A Fiddlehead family

Out taking the air

Psychedelic Fiddleswirl

 You talkin' 'bout me, bub?

Guess I have to eat my fiddleheads alone tomorrow.  Maybe I'll try a Fiddlehead Quiche.

Is and Does, comingling

serving's what I do --

who I am is more than that

and I'm not for sale

______________________
*Photo by awyn, on St. Paul Street in  Burlington, Vermont, 2001.  The shop in which this gentleman mannikin resided is no longer in business.  A pity, really, because he was always so impeccably dressed and seemed to enjoy his role as Greeter of Customers, smiling at all of us equally, as if to say even the poorest and scruffiest of you deserve a taste of elegance.  I dare say, he never quite got the hang of those white gloves, though.  They came in only one size but trouper that he was, he pulled it off, exhibiting not a speck of embarrassment or chagrin.  A lesson for life:  You work with what you're got.  He made me laugh--a character and his caricature, totally at comfort with one another.  I wonder whatever happened to him, or if he knows how grateful I am for the example of the absolute joy of being allowed to Just. Be. Yourself.

Recycling Love

our mothers carry us "before"

in their wombs,
and After,

in their arms
holding us up
until we can walk ...

and always

in their hearts,

all the way to the grave

we carry them from "before"
in our genes
and after,
holding them up
when they can no longer walk ...
and always
in our hearts
and our memories
all the way to the grave

Thank you, Mom

Joe B. on going inward

Apropos yesterday's insanely long self-reflecting pseudo-poem I was interested to read Joe Bageant's column today where he gives his personal solution to something I've been struggling with lately, namely, the individual's response to particular devastating events and progressively alarming situations nationally and globally vis-a-vis human rights, the current wars, the deteriorating economy, the maddening political climate and/or our eroding environment.  Whew.  All the distressing stuff all in one big overflowing basket.

Some people work very hard, to address and try to alleviate certain of these situations, in however small a capacity.  Others  register awareness, are concerned, may even be well informed, but continue life habits that contribute to the very problems causing the concerns.  For most, it's all just something one sees on the news, nothing that affects one personally, except perhaps the vague awareness that money (i.e., lack thereof) seems to be a big problem lately.  Life is still lived, pretty much as it's always been though, nothing's changed, really, in one's overall outlook. People, in general, though, do seem more worried.  At least that is the impression I get from all quarters.

Writer Joe Bageant left the U.S. and moved to Mexico where he pens dispatches about America's class war, among other things.  He touched on a dilemma I myself have been wondering about, i.e., what can one individual do about the stuff that's happening lately?  These are not happy times.  They're becoming increasingly uncomfortable times.  You hear phrases like "another Great Depression coming" and "World War III" and  "Armageddon".  (Not that everyone believes these will really occur, but it's in the air, so to speak.)

Anyway, a few try to steer civilization in a more evolved direction by tackling one issue at a time, and are failing.  "Why do we lose the important fights so consistently?" Joe asks.  "What has kept us from establishing a more just kingdom?"  Something is missing, he says, and he thinks it is, in a word, "the spiritual":

... the stuff that sustained Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and gave them the kind of calm deliberate guts we are not seeing today. I am not talking about religion, but the spirit in each of us, that solitary non-material essence, none the less shared by all humans because we are human.

Of course this is where a fourth of the people stop reading.  It's those words  "kingdom" and "spiritual." 

While those elite forces can own everything around us, and have proven they can make life quite miserable if they care to, they cannot own that thing inside us. The one that gives out the last sigh before sleep, and travels the realms of the great human collective consciousness alone. This is the consciousness that ebbs and flows between all external events. There is nothing mystical about it. Go sit in any quiet place with your eyes closed for a half hour or so, and that self will invariably say hello.

And this is where half the readers left will depart, because of the words "elite forces", "collective consciousness", and "mystical", ha ha.

This is also the self that our oppressors can never allow a moment's rest. Because when it finds rest, it finds insight, and can fuse the spiritual, psychological and material worlds into some transcendent vision that can at last [be] seen and sought after. It makes Buddhist monks rebel in Sri Lanka and creates indigenous liberation theologians in Latin America.

And there go the rest of the readers, because of the words "our oppressors", "transcendent" and "Buddhist monks".

Okay, I exaggerate.  But its true.  Certain words are "buzz words" for certain people and when one encounters them, they immediately impart a signal to the brain that warns:  "Oh oh, don't go there.  The writer is a such-and-such."  I have to laugh.  I, too, react to certain buzzwords.  When I first landed on Joe's website many moons ago and saw the heading: "Deer Hunting with Jesus", I almost turned away.  Glad I didn't. What a character.  And I say character with the utmost admiration.  Joe is what many of us today are reluctant to be:  Totally honest about who we are and what we think.  Joe can be rather blunt.  He cusses and says things that make you squirm --'cause it hits home.  But he's right on the mark more times than not, and writes what many think but don't dare say because it's too, well, blunt--almost, gasp, revolutionary. Not everyone's style or way of expressing things.

Continuing on:

Fortunately for Wall Street, the world's bankers, the military industrial complex, there is science, which they love so dearly they purchased it outright. Scientism has successfully sold the notion that spiritual awareness is superstition. By that accounting, the mind is no more than the brain, and love is a body sack of chemicals interacting. (A stunningly successful new public relations campaign by BASF chemical corporation campaign actually declares that love is chemical. Its success both here and in China would give Orwell the heebie jeebies.)

I know about Orwellian heebie-jeebies.  Recent history's full of them, though often too subtle to notice, unless you're paying close attention.  Didn't know about the BASF thing though.

Joe, like his readers, is "ordinary and fearful," reminding us that we all "live on the same planet watching the unnerving events around us, things the majority does not seem to see."   And while bloggerdom and the Internet bring together many of us who've never met but somehow emotionally or psychologically connect with one another, sharing the same affinities/outlooks/concerns, etc.,  "beyond that, we are each on our own, most of our waking hours, for the rest of our days."  Something a little hard to acknowledge, for some.  Anyway, Joe plans to pursue the 'kingdom within', "which is individual and does not much involve rage or politics--in other words, shut my pie hole and grow stronger, and with luck, a little wiser."  So next year by this time (he says), he's shutting down his website.  He's already written his last book, doesn't plan to write another, and the connection with his readers, I guess, will end.

That's a weird feeling, you know, to be abruptly connectionless.  Imagine--everybody suddenly no longer there within a phone call or keystroke away--all those people, loved ones included, no longer "connected" to you.  You're on your own.  Totally.  I mean, what if it weren't just bloggerland or distant  friends, etc.  What if it were everybody you know, including your entire family,and closest and dearest companion?  I'm not being morbid here.  Thousands of people all over the world go through this, every day.

But playing the "What If" game is very practical sometimes.  You learn to devise possible solutions to imaginary what-ifs so that if the time ever comes--and it horribly, sometimes does--then you've at least once considered the possibility and it might be a bit  less soul-shattering.  Or not.  You never know about these things.  Basically I'm an optimist, my mate even more so than I. And experience helps.  If you ever got out of--at the time--a life-shattering situation, and are now okay, you can look back and see what worked and what didn't, how long it took, what you could have done differently, both before and after, etc.  You do this by going inward, and you can call the lessons learned "spiritual" or not, that's just a term--for getting in touch with the part of you that knows, even when you don't, and you sometimes have to just stop, and listen.  I think that's what Joe means by going inward.  It's at least what I mean by it and they seem similar--his version of it and mine.

I was still wondering though, whether individual responses have to be an Either/Or choice. Either join a group and raise a stink and fight the Whatever, or go get quiet and change your life and find your inner peace.   

In any case, you do what you can, where you can, when you can, and never stop.  It shouldn't be a sometime thing, though.  It should be a way of life.  Not everybody thinks like that, not everybody cares. And even if they do, is that enough?  What can one person do?  Well it's not just one person actually.  It's one person here, one person there; three people here, five people there; a hundred people here, five hundred people there;   a hundred thousand here, two hundred thousand there, scattered over many theres, and I think they're increasing rather than diminishing.  I could be wrong.  And never, of course, anywhere near the majority.  But still ...

How many dozens of people, in their small way, helping one another, tiny random acts that're never noticed, ever publicized, seldom acknowledged, completely forgotten, in every pocket of the universe -- they've got to count for something.  Calm , deliberate guts"  (Joe's phrase).  Not fearful, crazed and worrying, swallowed up in uncertainty, but Calm.  Deliberate. And with Guts.  A stance that could get you through just about any situation.  Gandhi had it.  Martin Luther King had it.  Aung San Suu Kyi has it.  Not just the 'giants' but all the others, mostly nameless people living (and sometimes giving) their lives for justice sake, have it.

Joe was right that no one can "own that thing inside us. The one that gives out the last sigh before sleep, and travels the realms of the great human collective consciousness alone."  

This is beginning to sound like a speech, groan.  What you call getting carried away in the moment.  Unintentional, but you see what words do to you sometimes, they open up all kinds of doors and stuff comes tumbling out, making you think, so you start thinking out loud, the fingers start tapping, you're suddenly a-sea in a wash of words, reader beware.  Good thing only three people read this blog, ha ha.  But thank you Joe, you ol' curmudgeon down Mexico-way.  A bunch of words on a webpage, a line in a poem in a library book, a random phrase overheard in someone else's conversation-- how the written or spoken word can jar the consciousness, bring understanding--or at least open the gate to it, instill one to action, give a sense of hope--all of the above. 

Going inward, not as an escape, but to draw from a well of resources you didn't know were there.  And not just "spiritual" stuff but ... Going for a root canal, even:  Calm. Deliberate. And with Guts.  So not just the biggies but the little everyday things as well.

Thanks Joe.

Update:
And thanks to another Joe (Hutchison by name) for sharing the "pale blue dot" and quote from Sagan, demonstrating "the folly of human conceits" of which we have many.   He was absolutely right (Sagan): "Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand," underscoring "our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another ... to preserve and cherish" it.
Amen to that!


________________________
oops, slipped off the Brevity Wagon again.

The That and the This: A Reminder

Every Wednesday, since 2004,
for the 330th time, they stand for 1 hour
a small group of grannies and gramps
Anne, 92, who came by bus
Lillian, 90
Jenny 65, undergoing treatment for breast cancer
Bert, 76, with his cane, for his bad knees
James, 73, a granduncle,
a few others who join them
out on the sidewalk
at 5th Avenue and Rockefeller Center.

How cute. Old people out on the sidewalk
protesting the wars
What absolute madness
what good does it do

They interfere with the routine.
That's the whole point.
People notice,
and either grimace or smile.
But it makes them think.
That's the whole point.

They put me to shame, these fragile elders.
I didn't participate in the march for peace
this or last year
figuring, what good does it do
who even listens? nobody cares, it's
like preaching to the choir
we're just another temporary
traffic obstruction.
One must get on with
one's life

My birth country has 700 military bases
in over 100 countries
uniforms with guns ... just in case
protecters.
Security's a big business.
war is so ... LUCRATIVE
millions to be made from protecting
securing, upgrading, preempting.
How you stay in business, you
expand, repeat
make the service never ending.
Differences are
never ending
like the wars to protect
those
differences.

Gotta give it to those gramps and grannies
they make me ashamed
of my
burgeoning Complacency.
All well and good
to just tend the garden,
focus on what's beautiful and positive
make the weekly grocery list
class tomorrow, errands, work
so many projects, so little time
what shall I write today
while half the world
starves or sinks
or bleeds.

Is activism, even the mildest kind
something one eventuallly
grows out of,
puts aside, succumbing to
detached observation,
a sigh, oh God how horrible,
then back to the everydayness
loaf of bread, quart of milk, eggs ...
They're still languishing in prisons
those writers. Women stoned to death
or buried alive
for having coffee with a male friend.
Veterans suiciding themselves,
children collaterally damaged
lands and crops and newborns poisoned by
depleted uranium
the gift that keeps on
giving
all because of war
against terror,
against freedom,
against thought
against
being.

And not just wars or
people tortured,
bees are dying
whales, birds, fish
disoriented, lost,
gorged with plastic
or slick with oil
be careful what you eat
we're running out of water
running out of time

Oh stop
stop thinking about such things
you'll drive yourself crazy
you can do nothing.
Go get some tea, think peaceful thoughts
go back to your garden
put on some music
write a poem
about the butterfly at play, teasing the cat
about the beauty of light
dancing through branches of cedar
and the oneness of it all.

And there they stand
that little group of old people
every single Wednesday
year after year after year
for the 330th time
one day a week
religiously
out on the sidewalk
saying 'Look'
look what's still happening
still happening.

Is this what life is,
learning to juggle
the That and the This
the Out There and the In Here,
the This mostly taking preference
... dominating
till the That reminds
that That's still that.

And what should one's response
be
stranger to stranger
are we all brothers?
just because we share a planet
doesn't mean ...
and animals are just
animals
right?
The garden is waiting
so's the grocery run
and those pressing jobs to finish
deadline was yesterday
what to cook for dinner ...
still ...

they got to me
those persistent old people
this morning
they got to me.
I used to be them,
standing on a sidewalk,
shivering in the cold,
me and 20 others,
trying to free Tibet,
while shoppers hurried by.

Iraq, the slam dunk war
shocked and awed into submission
Afghanistan that even Alexander couldn't tame
but those damn terrorists keep
popping up
every bloody where.
One can only stomach so much
pain and fear and outrage
it takes energy to keep fighting
it morphs into an aching sadness
decades pass and
the monster's still there
and you just get ...
Tired.

If you're gonna make war.
trickster says to me,
do it on your own complacency.

They shame me, these elders
I feel as they do
yet do nothing.
What can you do,
it's not enough--
for some--
to light a candle
they gotta
walk the walk ...
they=me
if not with feet
then using words
why not act using words
use your mouth, use your pen
write a poem

I'd write a poem
but what would it say
and how would it matter.
It'd never work as a poem
inner dialogues, self to self,
rarely do
it'd just be words tumbling over
themselves
groping for meaning,
choked by excess,
clumsy word-voices still trying to
find themselves
usurping a space
just because they
can.

but it would remind me ..
and I sometimes need

reminding

there is no either/or
my dear
it's all just "is"
and while some of us are
still trying to find our voice
other voices are being silenced

forever,

every
single
day.

remember that

Lou

Lou, brother of Li, son of Li-lou, left us yesterday. Not by choice. He was only 10 months old. 

He had been hit by a car--we think. Usually he showed up every morning on the back doorstep, to eat, and spent a lot of time in our backyard--sitting on the bench with his brother Li, in the little bed we made for them in the shed, climbing the branches, or scampering across the roof chasing butterflys. He and Li were inseparable, since birth. They'd sleep beside each other, wrapped in each others' arms. They'd wash and groom one another.

We watched them grow up, so to speak--how they first figured out how to get down from the top of the tall cedar tree, navigated the pointy fence top, saw their first bumblebee. They loved the snow, thought it was the greatest thing ever.  The very first big snowfall they were scampering out in it, burying their nose in it, chasing each other across the snowbanks, I never saw cats who took to snow like that before.   Lou was the quieter of the two, the one more gentle, more shy.  He had the most amazing green eyes.   Two unexpected little permanent visitors.  They played with our cats.  We had unofficially adopted them, making arrangements to get them vaccinated and spayed, after not being able to find a home for them.  The local SPCA is inundated with unwanted cats, some of whom are still sitting there, waiting for adoption, after four months.  In the meanwhile, we'd become attached to them, and they, to us.  

It was odd yesterday morning when Lou hadn't shown up to eat.  Later, I went out looking for him, and discovered him curled up in the box in the shed. He didn't seem himself. When I put food  in front of him, he was totally uninterested.  When I picked him up, he seemed limp and lethargic. He had trouble standing up, walked all wobbly and with difficulty.   There was something definitely wrong with him.

We took him to the vet and there was only bad news. There was a cut deep inside his mouth and blood in  his tongue, the x-ray showed a twisted misalignment and serious fracture at the back, and he was bleeding internally, caused, the vet surmised, by blunt trauma.   Possibly hit by a car, he said.  But when had it happened?!   That morning? We were up by 6:00 AM and heard and saw nothing. The night before?  How many hours had he been lying in the shed until I found him?  It was unbearable that he should have had to suffer like that.  But the worst news was yet to come--even an emergency operation, costing thousands of dollars, couldn't guarantee he'd be saved, be without pain or ever be all right again.

It all seemed to have happened so fast--a familiar little face every day for months and months, and all of a sudden ... he's gone.  Just like that.  His absence seems to have affected his brother Li as well; he seems to spend a lot of time now searching the woods for something. Last evening he didn't even play with the other cats, just sat there in the grass, as if waiting for someone.

Babies Lou and Li resting in the carport, last autumn

Bye Lou

you beautiful, gentle, wonderful little friend

Ain't the same around here without you no more

Pre-emptive ouching

Question: What time is your dentist appointment?
Answer: 2:30

That was a joke I once saw in a kid magazine.

My "tooth hurty" has been increasing the past week--the medication didn't work, and I went for a root canal last evening but the dentist postponed it because the tooth's too infected.  So he put me on a bout of antibiotics first.

I've had root canals in the past and contrary to the horror stories I've heard about excrutiating, mind-shattering pain, they all went smoothly and I didn't feel anything.  My current dentist couldn't guarantee that that would be the case this time. It's DEEP, he said, referring to where he'd have to go waaaaayyyyy down inside to drill. And apparently getting mildly gassed with nitrous oxide into Happy Land isn't an option. My dentist doesn't offer it.

I went home and googled what actually happens when you have a root canal. I wish I hadn't done that. "Sometimes it doesn't work", disastrous personal horror stories, and hints of what could go wrong and often does, plus nerve-jangling graphics of the entire procedure down to the last tiny detail, managed to instill permanent images in my mind (serves me right) that I can't now erase and which interfere with the calm reassurance coming from my mate that "It'll be okay. You'll be FINE. Stop thinking about it."

I know where this came from--this extreme reluctance to enter a dental office. In our small town when I was growing up there was only one dentist for the entire town--Dr. Carlson. Ask anybody who ever went to him and you will get the same reaction:  a pained expression and a sudden case of the shivers.  He was the dentist from Hell.  Cruel, sadistic and downright horrible, he had no patience for fearful, squirming children.  I heard that he actually slapped a child across the face once, telling him to sit still and stop being such a wimp. He instilled in two generations of children-now-adults the terror of all things dental.  What a legacy.

In any case, my day of imagined pain has been postponed, till the antibotics run their course. Then a root canal will be attempted, and if it isn't do-able (apparently it's a "difficult" one), the dentist will just take out the tooth.

I just want it all to be over -- like, yesterday.