You and Me Together

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Clouds spread like spilled cream and filled the little valley. It was October, 2003 in Rice Cove. Two weeks earlier, I had transmitted a first tentative electronic hello to the world: a blog post using dial-up and flying blind.

Clouds spread like spilled cream and filled the little valley of Rice Cove, North Carolina in early October of 2003. Two weeks earlier, I had transmitted a first tentative electronic hello to the world: a blog post using dial-up and flying blind.

IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO, (nearly a decade), on a mountain top in Rice Cove, near Asheville, North Carolina, when I first heard the word “blog.” Such an ugly little word to have become the source of so much joy, learning, sharing, revelation, satisfaction, and friendship. Blogging uncorked an artesian bubbling up in me that has been seeking the air ever since. Ten years from that first quavery “is anybody out there” post, whatever else I might do with the rest of my life, a passion for writing every day has become the sustaining, joyful core.

Almost everyone who reads this has a similar story to tell about their own blogging journey. We are a small cohort within the blogosphere that’s  unconcerned, unaware, or disdainful of the concept of search engine optimization. We’re high touch bloggers in a high tech medium. Together, we learned how to fly.

Strangely, writing online has given me a practice which has now become the backbone of writing WBOIF (without benefit of instant feedback). If I had a platform to continue blogging, whether a passionate advocacy, or something to share or teach about writing, or nature, or travel, then I wouldn’t quit for anything. Hear me, Elizabeth, Richard, Dave, Wally, Mira, Deanna, Denny, Kathleen, Dick, Gully, Susan, Meg, Loretta, Charlotte, Verna, Cheryl, Whiskey, and Kate? But I believe the next decade for me is on the page; in my scribbles, not the screen.

And so, this is my last post. Sure, you say. You do this at least once a year. Not this time. It’s like molting or morphing; I don’t know what exactly, only that something fundamental has changed,  a natural, organic process, and very comfortable.

I appreciate and salute you. Let’s celebrate ourselves. 

You and I, we’re not tied to the ground

Not falling but rising like rolling around

Eyes closed above the rooftops

With eyes closed we’re gonna spin through the stars

All the way to the end of the world

To the end of the world.

Dave Matthews, from You and Me, the Dave Matthews Band

Turn the music up way loud, feel it, and smile.

All my love.

Corkers

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Corkers

Click on the image to enlarge. Worth it for the facial expressions.

They made me smile, too. Funny how dusty old objects that have been living in the back of a cupboard for years can spring to life in a camera’s eye.

These figural liquor bottle stoppers are going to a new home in a few days, along with all sorts of other clever, or pretty, or delicate, or antique bits of someone else’s (sadly long dead) memory banks.

We have been the curator of their collections, but believe the statute of limitations on our responsibility to maintain their treasures has passed.

Buck and I have found a couple of nice gentlemen who are experts in the business of antiques, collectibles, and the accidental “stuff” that someone acquires when somebody dies and leaves it to them. We don’t want to burden the next generations with silver to polish (or not), crystal to wash, and gew-gaws to dust.

I don’t really need to make photos of everything that’s going out the door. The fellows will provide an inventory. But it feels right to preserve the memory, essence and a sense of time and place, and so I began photographing each item before wrapping it in tissue or bubble wrap.

I’m sure all the pictures won’t be evocative like this one, but I’m enjoying the process. Each has a different mood, depending not only on the object itself, but the time of day, angle of sun, or no sun at all. I think the description for this process I’m searching for is contemplative. I like preserving these objects this way. It’s mysterious, but I can see them becoming more than they are, achieving an added dimension, and beginning to reveal their stories.

A Writing Space That Sings

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REMEMBER A FEW DAYS AGO WHEN I POSTED A PICTURE OF AN OLD DEER BLIND that I declared I was going to turn into a tiny writer’s hut steeped in splendid isolation?

Buck did his part. He hacked a path to it with his antique 60 horsepower Case tractor. I took loppers and trimmed away undergrowth and overhanging branches. My romantic’s heart was going pity pat all the way. Then I removed the tiny lock and opened the door. Cockroaches leaped out. The smell coming from the old sculpted shag carpet that Harold and Buck had glued to the walls for warmth and soundproofing years ago was, um, how shall I put this? Disgusting. Yes. If I’m shooting for precision, that’s the word. Then there is that charming bright blue object that appears to be secured to a wall with string. Oh! It’s a homemade urinal. Wonderful. Aren’t boys delightful? I left the door open, took a step back on the landing and pondered. Nothing wrong with this a little elbow grease can’t fix! Hey, I’ll even bring over that pot of fragrant orange mint I have out in my herb garden.  If I put it right under my nose, this could work. Or, I could strip out all that yucky carpet and paint the walls and floor in Day-Glo colors. I walked back to the house wondering whether I could link a bunch of outdoor extension cords together so I could carry the shop vac out there and vacuum up all the bugs and spider webs.

Dreams are fantastic. I always pay attention to mine and enjoy them, even though I hardly ever have a clue what they might mean beyond that I ate too many cut red peppers on my veggie pizza or too much dark chocolate before going to sleep. But the Snake Dream I had that night was something special. Memorable. Have you ever been bitten by a snake in a dream? Wow. That will stick with you. It was a diagonal slash across my poor left index finger. Fortunately, it’s still numb on one side from my biscuit/knife encounter. The weird thing — well, the whole dream was weird — is that the wound produced a cut that bled chartreuse. Ha!

The next morning, Danny the air-conditioning guy, came to replace a no-longer-functioning thermostat. Buck was outside fiddling with his pick-up truck. I waited for Danny to come in the house. He didn’t. I kept on with whatever I was doing.  Then I looked out and saw that Buck’s truck was gone. Danny’s van was empty. They came back in about 15 minutes. Buck’s rifle was on his shoulder. Danny had seen a 5-6 foot rattle snake in the road near the stream bed where I walk every day. They didn’t find the snake. Buck likes snakes; understands generally how they behave, and is not quick to kill one. But a big rattler and my bare ankles traipsing up and down that path every day worried his mule. I thought of my dream the night before. I thought of the old deer blind. I thought of the brown and black widow spiders that I’ve photographed around here.

And then I had an epiphany. And I laughed.

Our house has a second floor with a guest room and covered deck, two unnamed storage rooms across a sort of bridge (I’ll post a picture sometime), and an open area at the top of the stairs that was originally planned for Buck’s work space. He even put an old desk he bought from the company he worked for and had the top refinished with smooth black laminate. So, in my mind, this has always been Buck’s space, and I essentially forgot about it. But you know what? He’s holed up in what we call the “Lodge.” It’s the original part of the house. It’s not exactly a “man cave,” but it’s a place where he can leave all his papers out and know no semi-OCD individual who hates dust will move his motes around. I come in and hang out with him there when we collaborate on editing decisions on his manuscript, or when we want to have lunch together and shoot the breeze. I keep my jogging shoes in there under his work table. Sometimes I entice him out for a walk (like today).

I asked him if he minded if I used that space. He said he’d be very pleased if I could get some use out of his old desk. I spent an hour cleaning and organizing (no snakes or spiders), and have been working up there every day for the last week. At night, I eat fig newtons and drink a glass of milk while I read, and listen to owls through the open window. No computer or phone allowed. It’s like being in a tree house. A big, beautiful, clean, good-smelling tree house with its own pool table. It sings.

One Ping Only

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“MR. WESTMARK, ARE YOU EXPERIENCING ANY PAIN?” The nurse’s round, pink face and pear-shaped body makes me think of a giant bunny. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a fluffy cotton tail beneath his scrubs.

“No,” Buck said.

“Would you confirm a few details for me?” Once Nurse Hare has Buck’s full name and our phone number, his computer screen fills up with personal archival information from every encounter Sacred Heart Hospital and Buck have ever had, except maybe for his birth, but that happened in 1937 at the old hospital over on 12th Avenue.

“And can you tell me why you are here today?”

“Well, it’s probably nothing.”

The nurse tilts his head, waiting.

“It’s a funny feeling, right here, where my heart is. Like a wave. Doesn’t last long. Doesn’t hurt. Feels electrical. Kind of like what I had a month ago, but those just felt like extra thunks. Lasted about a day and a half. This is different.”

A white hospital bracelet materializes in Nurse Hare’s hand and he has Buck’s wrist ensnared within it quicker than a New Orleans’ cop making a wee hours arrest. I watch his smooth professionalism from where I stand two feet away, leaning against a file cabinet. He continues to puff out questions like soft clouds, all the while taking Buck’s temperature, pulse, and blood pressure, looking without looking, assessing. “Are you feeling that sensation now?”

“No. I feel fine.”

“When did it start?”

“When I got up this morning. Happens every five to 20 minutes. Umph. There’s another one. So, around lunchtime, I called my internist, and he wanted me to come over here and get an EKG.”

Nurse Hare completes his intake and gives Buck a paper with a number on it: 94 — not such a bad number to have, since it’s based on a triage designation. He points to a room visible through a transparent plexiglass wall on the other side of the main reception area, and tells us to watch the screen and listen for a doorbell sound and that number being called. We move in that direction like obedient, slightly confused, sheep.

By this time it’s nearly 2:30.  A TV suspended in one corner is set to the Weather Channel. We and others in the room gawk at the image of a large tornado that has touched down near Gulfport, Mississippi. The storm is headed our way. Great.  When a tall young guy in blue scrubs calls #94, (no doorbell sound, nothing on the electronic screen),  we meet him at swinging double doors. I tell him I am going to run out and move the car from the Emergency Room’s 15 minute zone and will be right back. He explains that Buck will probably be back out by the time I return, that they are going to do an EKG and get some blood, and then it will probably be an hour or so until they can “kick somebody else out”  and have a bed ready.  Did he say bed?

They disappear into the back-shop.

Out front, several city police cars have two men and a woman sequestered within their bulky circle. The woman wears cut-off jeans and a green tank top that shows tattooed cleavage and rolls of fat between where her top ends and the shorts begin. That scene, plus the scudding clouds and swirling wind, add to my sense of unease. I run to the car and drive across the street to park at the very front of the shopping mall parking lot. It’s a lot easier than riding around trying to find a parking space on the hospital grounds. I feel strange and exposed while I wait for the walk signal to cross 9th Avenue back to the Emergency Room. The sky looks like it’s in a bad mood. I smell rain. Where is that tornado now? I know Buck is okay. Isn’t he?

Buck is back in his seat by the time I return. “The tech said he didn’t see anything that would raise any flags on the EKG.”

“Good. What happens next?”

“We wait, damn it all. Here I rush us down here and take up the whole day and nothing’s wrong.”

I smiled. “I can live with that.”

He laughed. “Yeah, well, I take your point.”

He pulls a full legal pad stuffed with several stapled inserts from his black zip-up case and goes to work editing a section from his manuscript draft. I flip open my Kindle Fire and read a few chapters of Natalie Goldberg’s latest, The True Secret of Writing. Between the Weather Channel’s doom-like forecast, the cop scene outside, people-watching and eavesdropping, I don’t get far in the book, but far enough to read her description of visiting Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, and noting that Death in the Afternoon is one of her favorites.  I have specifically, maybe immaturely, avoided that one because I think it’s about the glorification of bull fighting. But now, my fingers moving as I watch that tornado on the flat screen, I find I have instantly downloaded Death in the Afternoon into my Kindle library.

I hear a child call “Mama? Mama?”

A woman speaks. “Here it is, Mama. Here’s that cheeseburger you wanted.” A shapeless old white-haired woman slumped in a wheelchair  falls upon the greasy package like it was her last meal.

A Chinese man walks in with quick, short steps, his face set in worry lines. Heads straight for the security guard standing almost at attention beside the reception desk. “O.R.? O.R.?”

Finally, the guard comprehends. “Third floor.”

The man spots a nearby elevator and starts walking. He turns back to look at the guard.  ”Here? Three?”

“Yes.” The guard nods.

I’m at the desk to ask a question and overhear this exchange. “You get some of everything here.”

“Yes, we do.”  He is a tall black man, mid-fifties if I had to guess, with a baritone voice, military bearing and wise eyes.

We have been waiting for about an hour when a man in jeans overalls and a brown t-shirt comes in, accompanied by a large woman in baggy fuchsia shorts with her blond hair pulled back in a pony tail. She walks to an empty row of chairs in front of us, but he stops and sits down beside me. She calls to him and motions, but he says, “I’m wore slap out. I’m taking a load off.” Her eyes dart around, but when she sees he is not going to get up, she walks back and sits by him on the other side. The unmistakable odor of fresh excrement wafts over Buck and me. We don’t look at each other, but silently, simultaneously gather our things and go around the corner where we spy four empty chairs right beside the automatic front doors. They open every few seconds, bringing in a new wave of humanity on a tide of fresh, humid air. It is the best seat in the house.

A man arrives by ambulance, covered in hives, unable to breathe. His wife stands in the front entrance, explaining this to someone on a cell phone. She sounds calm, almost nonchalant. When she walks by, I catch a fragrance of fresh soap and strawberry shampoo.

Buck writes, strikes over, writes again. I start reading Death in the Afternoon.

A disparate gaggle, two women and a man, comes in the door and stands a foot away from us. “I was callin’ and callin’ her cell phone and she don’t answer it. Finally, she picked up, and I got her talkin’ to me but she was talkin’ real slow. When I got over there, she was gone, and they cain’t find her. ” The man mutters something. I smell nicotine and booze. A nurse herds them to a far corner, where I see her explaining something to their bowed heads.

Technically, Buck and I are violating the rules of the way the ER is organized. We’re sitting in Reception, rather than one of the three holding pens set aside for those who have already been “received.” I see the battle-weary woman, an efficient traffic director, exchange a look with Roosevelt, the tall security guard, but they don’t ask us to move.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m., a tech fetches us and we follow him to Cubicle 9. The obligatories follow: shirt off, gown on, lie down, blood-oxygen, blood pressure and heart monitors up and running, messy stab for an unneeded port in his well-muscled right arm, and several Residents come in to talk. By this time, Buck and I both are more than eager to get out of there. Knowing we had to come. Knowing he really is fine.

There’s talk of premature ventricular beats which are generally benign, heads nodding in the right direction about the cardiology appointment we already have upcoming, and discussion of his great-looking runner’s legs, and overall fitness. The patient doesn’t take any meds; has an athlete’s slow heart rate. All good. They leave.

We yank off the EKG sticky pads. Buck gives me one of his trademark sharky grins. “Well, Twitchy Baby, looks like it was one ping only. Let’s go home and get us a good drink.”

Repurposing an Old Deer Blind to a Writing and Wildlife Observation Space

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Shoot from the lip instead of the hip

 

I’ve thought about this for years, but never taken any action. This old deer blind hasn’t been used for a long time. It’s close enough to the house that I can see it when I move from the clearing in front (past the oak that’s always wearing red blanket lichen) toward the gate, which is just over a third of a mile. Buck is going to bush-hog a path to it for me. We’ll check the wood stringer steps to be sure they’re still safe, and the inside to be sure wasps or other critters haven’t taken up residence there.

I have visions of heading over there real early most mornings with a thermos of coffee, a spiral notebook, and my camera. It may not be as idyllic as I imagine. But at least there’s no phone ringing, and I swear I won’t take my smart cell phone, so there won’t be any internet temptation, either.

I’ll post pictures as we chop out a path. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Where do you write?

Inspiration from David George Haskell’s book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature

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I wasn’t expecting to have to run back inside for a jacket for my morning walk to the gate, but I did and was still cold. It was right at 50 degrees with a chill stiletto wind that slips down around your neck  and makes you hunch up your shoulders.

The pictures here are ones I took this morning. There was a low cloud cover, with just enough light so that the camera did its point and shoot thang without the flash. So, there’s a little story in the captions. You’ll be seeing lots of these sorts of photos as the year moves on. I want to document the plants here in a slightly more orderly way than I have in the past. Probably because I’ve just started reading David George Haskell’s highly recommended book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature. I’d like to take my fingers out of all the other pies they’re in, and hide out to read this book with no interruptions. Thanks to my friend, writer and the BBQ/coffee king, David C. Bailey, for giving me a head’s up on this one. I’m no scientist, but I am surely a loving observer.

I believe that the forest’s ecological stories are all present in a mandala-sized area. Indeed, the truth of the forest may be more clearly and vividly revealed by the contemplation of a small area than it could be by donning ten-league boots, covering a continent but uncovering little.

The search for the universal within the infinitesimally small is a quiet theme playing through most cultures. The Tibetan mandala is our guiding metaphor, but we also find context for this work in Western culture. Blake’s poem “Auguries of Innocence” raises the stakes by shrinking the mandala to a speck of earth or a flower: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower.” Blake’s desire builds on the tradition of Western mysticism most notably demonstrated by the Christian contemplatives. For Saint John of the Cross, Saint Francis of Assisi, or Lady Julian of Norwich, a dungeon, a cave, or a tiny hazelnut could all serve as lenses through which to experience the ultimate reality.

~David George Haskell (from his Preface to The Forest Unseen)

Florida Anise (Illicium Floridanum), photo taken at Longleaf Preserve on April 5, 2013 on bank of natural spring, where it blooms this time every year.

Florida Anise (Illicium Floridanum), photo taken at Longleaf Preserve on April 5, 2013 on bank of natural spring, where it blooms this time every year.

 

Photographed at Longleaf Preserve on April 5, 2013. We were leaving town for several months back in the year 2000. My step-daughter had given me several iris plants, and I had bought a couple, too. Some had yellow flowers, others purple. I slipped them into the stream-bed muck, hoping they would like having their feet wet all summer. Ever since, they continue to thrive and divide, and make a big show for us each Spring.

Photographed at Longleaf Preserve on April 5, 2013. We were leaving town for several months back in the year 2000. My step-daughter had given me several iris plants, and I had bought a couple, too. Some had yellow flowers, others purple. I slipped them into the stream-bed muck, hoping they would like having their feet wet all summer. Ever since, they continue to thrive and divide, and make a big show for us each Spring.

 

Purple Thistle (Cirsium Horridulum) Easily recognizable, a weed seen in ruderal spots nearly everywhere. This one was photographed halfway between house and gate at Longleaf Preserve on April 5, 2013. My husband, Buck, didn't run over it when he ran the bush-hog yesterday because he knows I have a soft spot for blooming thistles.

Purple Thistle (Cirsium Horridulum) Easily recognizable, a weed seen in ruderal spots nearly everywhere. This one was photographed halfway between house and gate at Longleaf Preserve on April 5, 2013. My husband, Buck, didn’t run over it when he ran the bush-hog yesterday because he knows I have a soft spot for blooming thistles.

 

Each fall, Buck and our friend Harold bush-hog the clearing all around the house and plant it with oats, wheat and rye. Deer, bunnies and other critters nibble it and sleep in it all winter and then they eat the seeds. It's a real boon for our wild turkeys and migrating birds. This is how it looked today, April 5, 2013.

Each fall, Buck and our friend Harold bush-hog the clearing all around the house and plant it with oats, wheat and rye. Deer, bunnies and other critters nibble it and sleep in it all winter and then they eat the seeds. It’s a real boon for our wild turkeys and migrating birds. This is how it looked today, April 5, 2013.

 

Henbit (Lamium Amplexicaule) is an annual broadleaf weed. It prettifies our clearing every year and makes for unhappy golfers and happy bees. You can guess which one I care about the most. I took this photo this morning, April 5, 2013 at Longleaf Preserve.

Henbit (Lamium Amplexicaule) is an annual broadleaf weed. It prettifies our clearing every year and makes for unhappy golfers and happy bees. You can guess which one I care about the most. I took this photo this morning, April 5, 2013 at Longleaf Preserve.

 

See caption on the yellow iris for an explanation of how this stunner came to live in the stream-bed. Photo taken at Longleaf Preserve April 5, 2013.

See caption on the yellow iris for an explanation of how this stunner came to live in the stream-bed. Photo taken at Longleaf Preserve April 5, 2013.