This week's treasures...

* heard two barred owls talking today
* saw blooming yellow lady slipper orchids
* saw yellow-billed cuckoos for the first time. i love their calls and hear them pretty often, but this is the first time i got a good look. what lovely red on their wings -- i never knew!
* got rained on

May flowers

Uvularia sp.



Viola hastata






Stellaria sp. (pubescens, I think, but got to double check)



Anemone quinquefolia

Well, I arrived at mt. lake just about darkfall. The '91 explorer made it all the way down I-81, and up the mountain. I was uber-excited by the novel (to me) cruise control.

As I arrived in Giles County, the sunset couldn’t have been better – the clouds had drifted down to settle around the summits and were tinted bright pink; the mountains in the distance a perfect backdrop blue. God, I do love it here. The deer pranced in front of my headlights and bumper as I drove up, reminding me to drive slooooowly in 2nd.

I arrived and met Dustin, Eric, Sarah, and a new assistant (ack, forgotten the name – my brain was completely fried). I ate my leftover quiche and salad I’d packed, to fill up after the honey roasted peanuts and milk I’d grabbed at the gas station earlier. Meanwhile, the mountain lakers went about their usual strange conversations. Dustin saw a bobcat (envy!), Eric bought grapefruits by mistake instead of oranges and was comically upset, which led to a conversation about how if you buy rotten fruit at Walmart you get a 110% return so always buy rotten food at Walmart, and we all learned from a magazine article on poop that poop, when it is healthy, is not supposed to float but rather if it DOES float, then you’ve eaten too much fat. Well.

Today was good because:

-I have dirt under my fingernails; first time that counts this season.
-Sunshine and blue sky today (and predicted for tomorrow)
-It was the first day that I have sweat instead of shivered up here.
-I got the bright yellow GPS to work after days of frustration. The satellites were beaming down on me with love.
-I found a plant that I have never found before. I have not checked the herbarium yet.... it smells strongly of moth balls.) See the Rhododendron prinophyllum above. Smelled great, too, unlike the herbarium.
-I got a rare 'good job' pat on the back from my mentor Henry because of the Rhododendron prinophyllum. The plant people currently think I'm cool, which may not actually be regular-cool, but why don't YOU try to be cool with plant people. It's friggin' hard.

Within and Without

i went down memory lane today when a friend sent me an old picture of me and i recalled that strange time in my life when i quietened and curled up and really began to get to know myself within my body. It started in Mexico, when I had enough time alone to think about it and was exposed to so many new things all at once. i'd walk to the store with my feet hitting the stones on the uneven pavement of the old roads of Xalapa and i'd see things out of my eye sockets and know that i was sensing and perceiving the world and that there was something in my head and heart and belly which only i knew. and the more time i spent with these things inside and started exploring them, the more i found both things i liked and things i despised. and, seeing my body as this vessel, i began to explore it as something separate: the bones, the blood, the muscles, the organs, and how they felt when i moved a certain way, or when i couldn't sleep because of the heat, or when i was wretching ill, or when my heart was light with music and dancing and good people, or when i did a handstand, or when i ate cold pepinos con chile que pica or warm elotes, or when i ate nothing at all, or when i sat in the shade reading a good book, or when i strummed a certain chord, or felt my voice vibrating inside my ribcage. i perceived everything firstly through my senses, and secondly through my own consciousness. i felt more a part of myself than i ever had before but more apart from everything else than ever before. i came home to the states and broke up with a long term boyfriend, and then began exploring books and libraries and abandoned farmlands and continued my self-exploration for years.

i was mad at the ex-boyfriend. he hadn't been nice at the end. there was a heated heady grumbling churning anger inside me. my roommate autumn played ultimate frisbee, so i decided to join her team. i needed something to do. my body exploration had left me sinewy with muscle, and my body got ansy with my bookishness and my anger. i balled up all the conflicting emotions into my fists and flung it far, letting the frisbee sail away across the field. it was satisfying. it was beauty. it was therapy. but i never was part of the team. i loved to run and i loved to sail my frisbee, but i did not do it for competition or winning or the drinking parties after the games or any of it. i just wanted to send my anger out on the wind and run the breath through my body until my muscles burned and ached. it was only then that i could sleep, cool as a cucumber in the summer sun. the rest of the time i spent in the library. everyone was worried about me, circles under my eyes, and hours in the library even on weekends. but, i wasn't completely unhappy, just dissatisfied about something, something i couldn't find in anyone else but my own thoughts. and i was learning so much all the time. my fingers tapped out words, my brain looked out my eye sockets and saw pages of meaning, my arms flung the frisbee, my legs pumped across the green, and i was somehow whole and apart and alive.

i left for the summer and went to the mountains, my haven during every summer since i turned eighteen. i worked for a man who studied snails. we'd go out for eight days on end and camp and the mornings would come, and every morning i'd coax my reluctant body into the ice cold streamwater to bend over measuring snails and stones and water currents. i saw many unusual things that summer. rare synchronous fireflies; the snake seller who was both a medieval fencing and a harley enthusiast; the best graveyard for mushroom hunting; the mossy headwater falls that you'd never know were there and were so beautiful unless you just happened by like we did; the biggest fish i ever caught; the flash flooding of the nantahala as our equipment began to float away. but i did not feel at home this time in the mountains. i was unsettled and homeless. there was never room for my guitar to come with us. and i began to realize all the things i'd left unspoken for the past couple of years that would never be spoken now. and all the chances that came and went because i was too inexperienced or surprised or caught offguard or shy or unsure or thoughtless to ever grasp. i turned 21 on the tallulah river, and the boys brought me blueberries for breakfast with my cereal. and then, like all the sixty-some days before, i coaxed my body into the cold water and bent over, watching for snails. and the days were so the same that i thought maybe i wasn't going anywhere at all. i was homeless, adrift on these cold streams with two men who couldn't relate with my identity crisis. and my consciousness did not want to be a part of my body at all. it wanted freedom, it did not want to be homeless, and it did not want to be where it was. but, it was stuck in my body. what was i to do?

i stayed in the mountains that fall, hoping the dissatisfaction would end with the influx of new people and with a stationary pillow to lay my head each night. there were twelve of us in the old house on horse cove road. sometimes, megan and luke and i would hike in the dark up to the rocks above the town and lay down with our knees sticking up in the air and watch the stars and the lights in the town and the moon. and we'd talk. josh would drive recklessly down the mountain to our internships and we'd get adventurous sometimes and go down the unknown ways, trying to find something new, like the waterfall we discovered. shelley taught me to meditate, and we learned how to smoke up with nathan. there were pranks and there were tiffs and there were secrets revealed. but, i was not whole and i lashed out in frustration at times because i was so disconnected from everything around me and from my body. i did like my work. i worked for barry, who had a white beard and was a little shy so he wouldn't sustain eye contact for long. but his tongue freed up when you rode with him in the truck up the watershed. the trees were turning yellow, and their leaves were beginning to fall in the buckets we'd put out. we put the senescent leaves in bags which we marked and put in our backpacks and then took back to dry and weigh and count, all very methodical, crisp and crumbly. i sang songs to myself while my hands did the work. barry talked about trees and family and politics and waterfalls. we found ginseng -- took the berries and sprinkled them and cut the stalk so no one would find it and it could come back next year. two windstorms came, then winter, and it snowed once, and then i left.

i moved into a house with trees in the yard and a woodstove. i walked uphill to class each day, reluctantly to some and happily to others. i rode my bike to carrboro sometimes, singing while the wheels hummed. some boys thought i was nice, but i wanted to be alone and free of the weight of my body. i played music in friends' houses. i got tired of school. i was going to grad school, i knew by then (i'd decided in the summer, haphazardly but certainly calculatedly). i was tired of silly school things, because i was smart enough to know how to learn things on my own. i only tried in the classes i liked, which was about half of them. i started working on a farm when spring came. my body worked hard, and i started feeling a part of it again. i'd lift the hay bales and trellis the tomatoes and scuffle hoe the beds and plant in the wet sandy mud, cool up to my arms, sun hot on my back, and my body felt a part of it all. i saw new bugs and birds and plants and thought new thoughts while i worked, and my fingers and arms became skillful, adept, and strong. buster the dog and i would go walking on tractor trails come evenings, before the fireflies were out, and we'd pass by a few abandoned farmhouses and tobacco barns and maybe see a crow or a turkey or a frog. the bobwhite called all summer and sometimes i'd call back, for i knew what it felt to be the loneliest, too. we called back and forth, checking to make sure the other was still there, still alone too. i took in a litter of kittens and they scratched and pooped and brought in dead things, but they bounced all furry through the tall grasses trying to catch grasshoppers. they made me laugh and would let me kiss their wet noses and sometimes they'd ball up with me on the couch. i bought rice and eggs and milk each week and ate off the farm. it was a good year for cucumbers, lord, to put it mildly. i ate at least one a day, on average probably four, when i couldn't quite wait for lunch. it all felt perfect, so expected and regular and alright. i don't think i was mad anymore, at myself or anyone else, and really wasn't exactly sure why i had been in the first place. but, i wasn't sure where i was going and felt like i might stay there, timeless, forever and ever. and maybe no one would ever know or care or think of me again, and no one would notice that i did not go on to grad school. the farm was my hide-out, my fort, my solace.

then, i moved to virginia and went into a whirlwind of classes and newness that was overwhelming. heck, i'd only just gotten a hold on who and what i was and then i was going to have to find my place in the workings of a city and a university and a society. i wasn't sure how i felt about that, but i holed up with my books and papers and words and found great things to occupy my mind. when i wasn't in school, i danced to take my mind off of it and to give my body free reign. by the end of the year, i danced with a group in a performance called 'slightly off', which was rather appropriate. i missed playing music, like i had on my cabin steps and on the porch steps of the co-op house and in my sister's living room. i needed music and understood that i craved it when it wasn't with me. i was dissatisfied and disconnected and more dissatisfied with the fact that i'd been dissatisfied and disconnected for years. maybe it was time to connect, and i decided to do it. i wanted to build bridges, and to find people craving intimacy like me, people who don't fit any real stereotype and could find beauty in the common and ordinariness of it all.

maybe i have; i don't know. it's been a few years and i think maybe i'm connected to something beyond the tactile. it's too recent to talk about any of the rest of the past two years. i can't process it yet because it's momentous and immediate, still affecting what I'm doing. i took up fiddling and playing more mountain music, became a yogi, fell in love and back out maybe, learned to hunt and use a chainsaw, and began learning everything i could about the dirt that passed underneath my feet. There is lots i could talk about but mostly the point is life is moving on. i constantly feel stuck on the point between two infinite realms, within and without, that ebb and flow in the chaos of an ordinary life. i've learned so much over the past few years it amazes me. but, i think the main thing I've learned, when it boils down to it, is that i'm a real person, with particular desires and troubles and woes and quirks and pastimes, and so is everyone else, that's all.

Making music, just like that

Thursday, April 20, 2006

I spent much of Sunday afternoon busking downtown. For a while, I sang, played, and talked with this middle-aged black guy who is a cook at Miller’s Grill and Bar. He was wistful about the days when he was in a Motown band in Hawaii. (“I made 1000 bucks a week. Lived in Hawaii. Now I’m 52…. I was the best trumpet player around.”) Then, he said he got too hard into drugs and messed up his life. He hurt his hand in a fight, so he can’t play, but he still plays keyboard by looping one hand playing so he can have two hands going. He still sings, too. He bought me a lemonade and repeated all this stuff over and over. I had fun with him at first, but after awhile, I got tired of his talking and wanting to sing songs with me that I didn’t know and had to try to pick out. We sang "My Girl" a few times.... He'd give a toothy grin, turn his face to the sky, and belt out in a rich voice, "I've got sunshiiiiiiine..... No, no, no, the guitar goes DUM, da, dum, dum, da, dum! Yeah! You got it.... I've got sunshiiiiine.... No, you forgot that guitar part... yeah, that... on a cloudy day...."

I didn’t make any money while he was there. But, I also began to feel good. Well, after all, it was a compliment that another musician wanted to share music with me, and he was obviously talented, even as a lonely, middle-aged man. So, I sipped my lemonade and let him raise my spirits as I was raising his, singing back, "Talking 'bout my girl." "Yeah!" he encouraged, and his eyes sparkled. That's how music's made, anyhow, just like that.

Rainy season thoughts

This entry was written before I got ahold of a paper that told me about the invasion and fall of Baghdad that was happening as I wrote, but its timeliness is impressive.

Sunday, March 23, 2003 in El Taxin, Mexico

I think the rainy season started this weekend, as did spring, in theory. Spring (in theory) starts everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere on the twenty-first of March, when actually the weather stays pretty much the same as on the twentieth. But, I don’t think a date was ever set for the rainy season of the tropics. You know when it’s here. Not that it was totally dry before. But now, it actually rains some. Before, it was this awful stuff called chipi-chipi, which is mist rain that just stays and stays. Rain is highly preferable to chipi-chipi because you get the wonderful comforting sound of droplets hitting your roof, immediately underscoring the fact that you are warm, dry, and safe. And even if you’re outside, you hear the drops on the pavement, the puddles, your rainjacket, your umbrella, the roofs, which all make a sort of lively music. Rain is lively. Chipi-chipi is gloomy. Not that chipi-chipi goes away in the rainy season. No. It’s usually there when it’s not rainy (for instance, now).

Earlier this weekend, it was less welcome when I was camping. I’ve camped in rain; it’s not so bad. But, when you’re in a leaky tent with a stupid person, it’s hell. Luckily, we were allowed to re-pitch the tent in the barn of the guy whose land we were camping on. The guy’s name was Carlos, a swell vaquero, who later helped us out of another messy situation when we returned to our tent in the middle of the night to find it invaded by ants for a crumblet of food my compañeros had mistakenly left there. Incidentally, they were entering and exiting through the holes Victor (our Mexican friend – or rather, Kayla’s.) had foolishly punched in the bottom of his own tent to drain it. Any dweeb-face knows this does not work. The entire weekend, I simply thought Victor was an idiot. I still do.

The worst thing about Mexican ants is they all bite. I have yet to encounter ones that don’t. I do not know the difference in evolutionary histories between the sweet, docile, harmless ants of North America and those of the tropics. I’ve no idea what benefits one for having stinging powers or not, or whether they’re just a separate gene pool altogether, but whatever it is, I wish the damn things didn’t bite here. And there are so many more here. But, to be fair, Mexico does have harvester ants, which I consider incredibly cool. And they generally do not invade houses and tents because they resourcefully grow their own damn food. They just trundle about in long lines carrying viper-green pieces of leaves three times their size. Amazing creatures....

I miss home. I want to feel American here, in the very best sense of the word. I’m not talking about the America that ruins small towns with Wal-marts and whose corporations fund the bombing of innocent Arabic peoples. No, I'm talking about American: the frontier, the land, the opportunity, the diversity, I dunno, Geez, loyalty to your buddies and using good sense, and, hell yes, independence. I guess I love it because I’m a classic American girl. And not in the 1950’s sitcom sense, nor the aforementioned power-mongering political machine sense. Being in Mexico, I’ve found a new love for my country and a new loathing for my government. It's amazing how few people in the rest of the world understand who an American really is.

On Yellow Mountain with Carol

An old journal entry--

Sunday, June 10, 2002

Around dusk, a cloud bank rolled in. The fog crept in through the valleys and crags first, and the bank followed behind. We watched as the cloud filled in below us. The breeze is pretty strong on the summit of Yellow Mountain, so eerie sheets and rags of fog came floating past us on top. The breeze soon turned to gusty, cold wind, and we were thankful for the fire. Eventually, the wind swept the fog away, and we could see all the stars clearly. I pointed out some astronomical things to Carol: the Big Dipper, North Star, Venus, Cassiopeia, Bootes, Hercules, and even a satellite bee-lining across the sky. There was no moon. I also explained some of the basics of astronomy – She knew nothing of it! – how the stars rise and set just like the sun and moon; that the North Star stays constant; that all the stars and constellations stay in the same order and formation. For some reason, she thought they changed and overlapped, since the stars are different distances from us. She was fascinated. I told her that constellations were different in different seasons because the Earth’s tilt is different, so it’s on different sides of the sun. If you really know your stars, you can tell the time by what constellation is overhead. She had never thought about it. To me, I had always thought this stuff was common knowledge.

When we went to bed, Carol had her sleeping bag, but all I had was a fleece blanket and the Therma-rest she’d lent me. I hadn't expected it to be cold; being from the coast, I'd never camped on a mountain summit before. I layered up, but I was still cold all night. I slept, but I don’t know how well I slept. I woke at dawn. The eastern sky was pink and gold, and the mountains were different shades of blue. I got up and made a meager fire with the little wood we had. It took all my effort to start it and then keep the blaze going. I blistered my thumb trying to light the kindling with Carol’s lighter, because my hands shook so badly. I ran all around picking up dry leaves and sticks to keep the flame going, at least until the sun was up enough to warm everything. Carol and I ate sandwiches and juice oranges for breakfast. Then, we broke camp. We hiked down but had to take a slightly different route than we’d taken to get up the mountain the day before, because we wanted to come out closer to the highway.

When we finally came out on Buck Creek Rd., we kept walking, hoping cars would come by that we could thumb a ride on. Few cars passed at first. The first place we came to was the dump, so we went in and asked this nice old man with a white beard and captain’s hat, who was sitting in an old orange armchair, if we could use the phone there. We tried the station but were informed that our two potential rides, Andy or Andrea, were not there. So, we kept going, singing songs from musicals in big boisterous voices. We started with songs from “Oklahoma”, such as “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No” and “Many a New Day”, messing up the words and making funny voices. Eventually, a young, sweet-looking woman in a red truck passed us a few times and then picked us up, saying she could take us to the end of the road to the main highway. We rode in the back and then hopped out. On Rt. 64, there were plenty of cars going by, and we didn’t have to walk far before a man with his old dad picked us up in a green minivan. He was going into Highlands and gladly took us to the station. He was a nice guy, from Florida, a math teacher nearing retirement.

Neither of us had hitchhiked before, so it was very exciting. We decided that hitchhiking renewed our faith in mankind, since we got such nice rides so quickly. But, as Carol put it, “I still wouldn’t want to test my faith in mankind too often, but it is nice to have it renewed.”

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Bobby and I went to the Newport Agricultural Fair yesterday. It was an old-fashioned country fair, with contests for the biggest vegetable and all.

We met this taxidermist who had his work on display. Bobby builds banjos, and is in the midst of building one for a friend, so he wanted to find a thin skin to use to make the banjo. He’s ordered calf skin but wanted to check out more local options. He walked in to ask the guy about skins. I think the taxidermist said his name was John, or maybe Bill. He had only the pinky and ring fingers on his right hand. As he talked, he would flick them out to the side in a sort of nervous gesture, and then rest his face sideways on his hand and stare at you. After we’d expressed interest in his work and Bobby talked to him about buckskins (which Bobby said were too thick), he began asking us about all his pieces:

“See that bear?”

We assented.

“Does it look real?”

“Well, yeah, I’d say it does,” said Bobby congenially.

“That’s a new mouthpiece in there I’m using. It’s great work. You put it in there. I had to paint it, though, all the details. The mouth looks real?”

We nodded, staring at the wide snarling mouth of the bear in what we hoped looked like admiration. John or Bill flicked his two right-hand fingers toward two skinny bobcats on display on the wall and turned is head to the side. “See those two bobcats?” he asked, speaking to me.

“Yeah…,” I said.

“Do they look real?”

“Um, yep. They sure do.”

“Them rocks look real?”

“Oh yeah, yeah. They look…really real.”

John or Bill looked very pleased with himself. We entertained a quick conversation about the variation in the coat color of coyotes as we eased towards the door. As we neared the escape route, John or Bill bounded across the room and shook our hands, suggesting we return around 2 or 3 to see him mount a new buck. We finished the exiting formalities.

As we walked down the hallway of the old school, Bobby said, "Did that guy creep you out, or was it just me?"

"Yeah... yeah, he did."

"Well, he is a taxidermist..." Bobby observed.

We made our way out to the truck and left the fairgrounds behind.

Writings, Spring 2005

Ok, I admit it. I'm being incredibly lazy and not really blogging at all. I'm going to put up another packet of old journal entries from last year that are really interesting. This was an especially meaningful time in my life because it was the last semester of my senior year of college, always a time of much introspection, nostalgia, and questioning about the future. Anyways, I think one of the reasons I use old writings a lot in this blog is because it gives me time to really think about what I've written before I decide to definitely post for the world to see. I think these are worth it:

Saturday, February 5, 2005
My day started early – 6:00 a.m. – as I entered the hordes of society for the distribution of tickets to the Duke v. UNC basketball game. My roommate and I waited on the Dean Dome steps and swapped stories – getting stuck in a tree and wetting the pants, various situations of being the beneficiary of avarian shit. A nice way to pass the time until we heard the blessed numbers called out “17522, 17523”.

I rejoiced in Saturday’s warm weather. In an early bout of spring fever, my housemates and I had bought some native flowering shrubs for the garden a couple of weeks ago. The warm, beautiful morning was a perfect time to plant. After some deliberation (“The Piedmont Azalea can grow 10 to 15 feet tall – We can’t plant it by the front door.”), appropriate homes were chosen for all. We switched off digging holes and battling off the evil English ivy. While taking plants into the backyard, we saw the red-shouldered hawk who likes to pay our yard a visit every now and again. First, we heard the fussing of littler birds and squirrels. Then, we heard the hawk: “Kee-yer, kee-yer!” We spotted him perched in one of our tallest trees, surveying the area. After a few more calls, he took off and flew right over our heads, so that we could see the distinct bands on his tail and pale underwings. Then, I planted a bunch of seeds I had gotten in cartons. My spring fever was satiated for the moment – hopefully to remain relatively dormant until around March 21.

I spent much of the day indoors, unintentionally. I did homework for a few hours and then fell asleep for a few more. I woke up to an empty cupboard, so I took a walk to the grocery store. There is a nice trail from our neighborhood which parallels the ramp from highway 15-501 to highway 54. I noticed what beautiful color the highway signs and stoplights offered through the foliage and chain-link fence against the blue sky backdrop. I thought, “Wow, even an ugly highway can be a little pretty.”

So, after my successful forage, I was still restless, so I took a walk to see how far I could get before dark settled in. I met one fellow walker, who greeted me: “Not bad for February, eh?” I tried to get to the Battle Forest trails at the back of my neighborhood, but the trails are off-limits at nightfall, and by the time I got there, the streetlights were humming pools of light in the seas of dark. I returned, and on my trek homeward, I looked up and saw Orion.

I really like Orion. He was the first constellation I learned. He’s so distinct and easy to spot – but so amazing. He contains Betelgeuse – our nearest star. Right at that moment, the light I was seeing and calling Betelgeuse had left Betelgeuse about 2,000 years ago – and the rest of the constellation’s lights even before that. And Orion’s sword contains a fuzzy nebula, which is swirling gasses around to form stars. And another reason I really like Orion is that I can see him anywhere – even in the light-polluted, street-lit Triangle.

Saturday, February 19, 2005
I've started seeing and hearing the red-shouldered hawk all the time.

Last Tuesday morning, it was just a beautiful morning (and day). It was warm, and I had gotten up especially early to get ready, without being tired at all, and all the birds were singing and out all over the place. I saw many birds that morning as I began my walk to school and I was taking note of them all: the oriole, the cardinal, the titmouse. And, as I rounded the bend in my road onto Arrowhead, the red-shouldered hawk was sitting on the lowest branch of a tree close to the road, so that I could see his every detail. Then, he spread his wings, and sort of slow-motion flapped his wings a couple of times and glided across the street just ahead of me, landing in a cedar tree.

There is something about seeing a majestic bird like that that makes you gasp. I don’t know why. They are – literally – breath-taking. When I think of that moment, I don’t just think of the hawk. I think of my sudden awareness of my breath, my breathing, the air. And the hawk, (s)he was breathing that same air. And, the cedar tree, was breathing, too, stomatally.

I decided there and then to tarry on my schoolward journey to see what the hawk might do. I was well rewarded for not rushing. First, I decided to try making a few hawk-like noises at it, which came out more like some rather embarrassing squawks. The hawk did not care to respond (I don’t blame him), and was probably very weirded out by such a broach of instinct (and rightly so). But, he also didn’t seem too bothered and remained pretty nonchalant. He plucked a bough from the cedar tree and flew off with it in his mouth. It was so symbolic. Peace. Shalom. He must have used it to build a nest (which probably means I’ve actually been seeing and hearing two hawks rather than just the hawk.); I can’t imagine any other reason for a hawk to behave that way. For me, it was a moment of presence.

I do not know what life means. But, for a moment, I knew that life is. We exist – the hawk, the cedar, me.

May-June 2005 (excerpts from the journal of a farm hand)

Since I don't write often and I'm too lazy to write something currently, here's some musings from early summer that I really enjoyed writing when I did my first 'real' farming job.

Monday, May 9, 2005
I’m spending my first night at the farm. As I sit here on my front porch (of my cabin - ~8 feet wide. Small, but enough for everything.), the first thing I notice are the sounds. Frogs croak in the pond, whirrrrrrt. A neighbor’s hounds are baying. Birds – many, I don’t know their calls. A crow flies by, near. I turn to look because I hear his wings . Crickets. Rustles. A little while ago, I heard a neighbor, across the pond I think, say, “I’ll be back in a little while,” and then slam a car door. A fish splashes. I can hear every little sound. The sun’s beginning to set, and I’m glad to no longer hear the buzzing of the daytime insects – the wood bees, wasps, black flies.

I really don’t know what to say. I’m happy here, just listening. My body is contentedly sore from the day’s work. I laid straw down for mulch, planted cucumbers, learned to scuffle hoe the beds, and set out stakes for tomato plants. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I feel healed. It’s all so familiar, but also a new experience for me. The frogs. The sunflowers painted on the faded table.

Well, it's time to turn in. The frogs have become much more vocal and the light is gone.

Monday, May 16, 2005
The crows are crowing relentlessly; I’ve never heard such a raucous. I went toward the noise to see what the commotion was about. I saw a couple of crows flying toward this one spot and a few flying away from it. It was just inside the woods on the western side of the property. I picked my way through the tall grasses hiding the least amount of poison ivy. When I looked inside the woods, the caws were very loud, but I couldn’t see the crows.

I think maybe they were roosting. I know nothing about crows, but that’s my guess. I’ve seen crows around here. They like to steal Daisy the hound’s dog food. Elise also mentioned that the crows ate a lot of the corn she sowed one year (she planted it deeper this year – about an inch). The crow has always been a dismal symbol in stories. I find it to be a fascinating bird that I realize, now, I’ve never noted before.

Ah, here we go. Pederson’s Field Guide says that the American Crow “may form large night roosts” and that they are found in “woodlands, farm land, agricultural fields, river groves, shores.” It mentions that the bird is “often gregarious.” So, the crows are being completely characteristic. And I learned something new.

Thursday, May 26, 2005
Today, I found myself spreading mud on my hands and arms to protect myself from the sun. Despite sunscreen, it is the only thing that’s stayed on and worked. I know some tribes in Africa (and maybe Australia too?) do that, and now I understand their ingenuity and resourcefulness. It’s the cheapest, coolest, most readily available sunscreen there is. The more I work with the earth, the more I come to these understandings, these small discoveries that have already been discovered by someone else. But not by me. The mud made my hands and forearms look like a toad’s. The clumps of sand caked in the loamy dirt gave this warty appearance that would’ve been perfect for the movies.

I’ve also come to appreciate my aging. Not physically, but in myself. I am aware that I’ve lived already a long time and that I have learned from my experiences how to know myself. For example, I have a favorite hat. It’s straw, so it’s cool. And it curves downward rather than upward for the most shade. It’s got a large circumference and has a tie under the chin so that the wind won’t blow it off. It’s perfect. The reason I know that this is the best hat I’ve ever had is because I’ve worn many in my lifetime; enough to make comparisons and say with satisfaction: “this is the hat for me.”

Wednesday, June 8, 2005
The late afternoon light is reflecting pink on a cumulus cloud above the pond. It is adjacent to a fluffyish anvil-shaped cloud – looking much less threatening than it probably is. We’ve already had a thunderstorm – came right after I finished work, bringing coolness and calm. Damp calm. And so, mist is rising off the pond from the warm earth and water, condensation rising, forming the clouds that drift over the pond and reflect the dying sunlight.

I’ve been thinking about discomfort. Sometimes I enjoy it, or my body does. These hot, too bright, too humid days are uncomfortable to work in. I sweat. My skin burns, toughens, thickens. And why? I knew it would be this way. And I’m content with my choice. But, I could’ve chosen something more comfortable. I choose discomfort, I think, because no one else does. It is a sure shot to time to myself to think and dream. It allows me ample observation. It gives me the fantasy of a pioneering, adventuresome spirit. It allows me small discoveries of myself and my surroundings. Uncomfortable places: wastelands, junkyards, bogs, fields, and forests full of bugs, poison ivy, cold, storms, overwhelming heat. These are the places that are truly mine merely because no one else wants them. Well, they want to know they’re there, but they don’t want to go there. I do.

But let’s snap back to reality, shall we? The weather’s still unpredictable. The anvil cloud’s getting wispy, but I hear distant thunder.