Happy Hogswatch

We have once again immersed ourselves in the annual ritual of watching the film, "Hogfather", and I can only say that it has left me feeling comfortably grounded. It's not a cure for the yearly personal plunge into misanthropy, but Pratchett knows people without (apparently) disliking them -- as a species, anyway. He has a way of making straight sense of the swirling contradictions, which only send me into a tailspin of outward-spiraling ... disappointment. I am, I think, ready for the eggnog.

The light coating of snow helps, certainly. Not so much for instilling the holiday spirit, because the shoveling and slippery roads and wall of post-precipitation cold are just winter and nothing new or inspiring. But it's a dark time of year, and the white just makes it lighter. Probably a measurable physiological effect, and in that belief I drive down the road refusing to put the sun shade down so I get a double dose of insolation. Of course, it makes it harder to see oncoming traffic, but I come out of it that much more cheerful.

And then there's the ritual. Every year I look up in advance the Earliest Sunset, Solstice, and Latest Sunrise (in that order -- I crave order), and mark them on the calendar.* Then I mark the progress of the light, count the days and try to keep my bearings through the mad howl of the OTHER holiday ritual -- the expensive, highly sweetened and emotionally-charged one.** And then I watch "Hogfather"+, and I listen to Death's explanation for the necessity of belief++, the clever perennial deception which allows our species to build a safe framework in which to evolve, and I have some hope once again. The manifestations of that belief may be some of the most dangerous things we can inflict on ourselves and our biosphere, but on those rare occasions when we manage to get a handle on WHY we believe, perhaps we can turn them to the good.

That's my hope, anyway. So a Happy Hogswatch to all.

*December 8th, December 22nd (for we on EDT), and January 5th
**Yeah, there's the religious bit, too, but I'm just not a fan. The metaphor is so hopelessly muddled, it doesn't really say anything to me.
 +Don't worry, I read the book first.
++Not just deism and such -- big stuff like justice and compassion

Interlude

This is short because it is late, and I am tired.*

No poetry, I haven't a poetic bone in my body. I leave that to dad. He writes awesome songs too, you know.

Whilst trying to figure out how to begin this post I tried the old trick of closing my eyes, opening a book, and letting my finger fall on a random word.  I landed on “me,” which was singularly unhelpful.

So here’s me at the moment. Bulleted.

• ·         Tired
• ·         Happy
• ·         Excited
• ·         Pensive
• ·         Distracted
• ·         Stubborn
• ·         Looking forward to Christmas and the New Year

Honestly, why couldn’t it have been a word like “police”?  That could’ve been fun, but no cheating. 

Happy Gigantic Winter Party everyone!

*Not as tired as some people I know. All I have is post-finals brain. I haven't stayed up 'til five in 3 months, clearly I'm doing something wrong.

This is what happens...

... because Willa just can't be bothered to put a post in here. This is a poem I wrote because I get up too early and don't take enough naps. And a Vogon friend of mine said he quite liked it, so I thought I would share it. Really, Willa, you need to write something here so I won't do this again.*




                 Dawn  11/30/11

Because I know the patterns
of the brighter stars,
when dawn breaks through,
below the cloud deck
and above the spikes of fir
and winter-naked cherry,
it's clear to me when cousin planets
wheel around and bend the lines
we draw for constellations.
Saturn visits Virgo, paired with Spica;
Mars in Leo,
all for an eye's blink
of cosmic time.

And I, in early pre-light,
have seen them,
glimpsed in one fragment planet-dawn.
In another moment:
The sun has risen,
the clouds covered,
the moment gone.



*someone, please, stop me!!

Snow Guys

When my kids were small and the snow was right, we went through a phase of rather elaborate snow sculpturing. Sometimes they were the classic fortresses, but if so they were more decorative than defensive. It was always more interesting to build towers and bridges. And significantly more engaging than that was the construction of snow guys. They had to be snow guys, because "guy" was really pretty non-gender/non-species specific. Bizarre was good, taller than the builder was almost inevitable. I seem to remember horses, dragons and any number of Calvin and Hobbes-inspired creatures sporting extra appendages and large teeth. Once the temperature started to drop and the construction-grade snow was refreezing, I always enjoyed looking out over the yard full of our handiwork and imagining some sort of life there -- static, albeit; a moment of alternative reality frozen in mid-expression. But all that energy put into their creation, how could they not somehow embody a bit of life, even if it would never express beyond their moment of stasis?
          The other morning I went to the barn to do chores, only just awake. And it was just after 5:30, so there wasn't much light -- more from the waning moon than waxing dawn. And whether it was a residual bit of dream from the sleep I'd just left, or some other inspiration from still having a soft night brain, the sight of the horse walking the fence line anticipating her breakfast suddenly made me ask the question, "Why life?" Well, I guess the obvious answer is "Why not?" And since I'm neither a philosopher nor a scientist, I can't really have an informed opinion. But it was amusing for me, because the minute I was watching this horse, I was also thinking about the Big Bang*, and all that energy starting from zero and endlessly dissipating. And when I considered it like a clock running down, each moment somehow less energetic than the previous moment (however time might be quantized), that was when I found myself marveling that life would trouble to be at all. Like gravity drawing matter together to form stars, galaxies and planets, is life as easy and predictable an expression of the aging universe as any star? Life is a medium for burning energy, after all. And the universe specializes in this, although admittedly it works against itself, what with that endless expansion business. Then there's that whole embarrassing mess with Dark Energy** which lends more than a little desperation to the scenario.
         Well, I've thought enough about that for now. It's clear why religions are so popular amongst so many members of our species. Sometimes I crave those boundaries, too. And sometimes when the snow falls wet, and it's just right for sculpture, I'm suddenly seized by a knot of creative energy -- who knows, maybe nudged to coalesce in me by a random wave of Dark Energy. And I'm inspired to dress up and go outside and build a snow guy -- a great huge snow guy, taller than me, with multiple heads and teeth like daggers. And when it looms all menacing and ugly in front of the gate, I'll pause for a brief meditative moment, hold my breath and feel its moment of frozen reality. Scary stuff, indeed.


*Dull, dull, yes, but what's in a name? -- well, in this case, everything (as it were)
**Yeah, we're good with names.

To Market

I spent a fair portion of my day yesterday piping at a local Farmers’ Market.  It was pretty awesome. I was just busking, but the citizens of Troy were kind and either way it was certainly quality practice time. 

I got more than money, too. I garnered a bag of fresh, lovely greens, and the vendors across the way who were from a local orchard gave me a bottle of cider and an apple. Best of all, a very young boy, who signed his name “John,” drew a picture of me*^ piping and left it in my case. That’s definitely going on my wall.

I also met a very nice relative of mine, previously we were only known to one another via the magic of the internet. It was, all in all, a very rewarding morning.

Farmers’ Markets, and particularly this one, are great places to watch people. There are the people who don’t seem to see or hear you, the people who shuffle by looking guilty, the people who nod stiffly and avert their gaze, the people who smile and enjoy and drop a bit of money, and the moms and dads who I watch out of the corner of my eye as they put a dollar bill in their 3 year old’s hand and make the familiar gesture to my case, “go ahead and drop it in. It’s safe.” ** To all of them I extend my hearty thanks, they all provide something.

Then there are people who come up and start dancing and clapping, which is interesting and entertaining, or people who try to talk to me while I’m playing assuming, I think, that I can talk because my mouth is free,***  unfortunately for them, I cannot. It takes all my powers of concentration to summon even the phrase, “thank you” while I’m playing. To do that I have to tilt my head to one side so all my remaining free brain cells can roll together in order for me to form an understandable word. Even so, whatever I’m trying to say still sometimes ends up rather garbled.  More often I try to stick to nodding and smiling. No matter what some of the hardcore feminist authors I’ve had to read lately say about women smiling too much, I still feel that it's a pretty good way to get you into, or out of, almost any given situation, or at least make it better.****^^

*I’m assuming it was me anyway because I was the only person there with pipes; I have super-cool purple eyes in the drawing. 

^Oddly, this is not the first time this drawing thing has happened.

**I try not to look too scary when I play, it was easier in this case because I was using bellows pipes.

***These asterisks are to represent all the dirty jokes I didn’t make here and that you may be thinking.

****Unless, for example, you’re a little kid and you’ve just accidentally set the house on fire, a situation where you’ll almost definitely smile and where you definitely shouldn't do so when you have to go explain to your parents.

^^ And I don't mean smiling in a "womanly wiles" way. 

Island

I've spent a bit more time on the island lately than I probably should. Every time sit in the boat and push off from shore, I feel a little twinge of guilt. From somewhere low in my stomach, it spreads up through my chest and out my arms as I start to row. But soon the effort of powering the boat and holding course drives it away, and by the time I scrape bottom at the island, I'm only thinking about pulling the boat onto the beach and making my way to the hut. I'll want kindling, and a fire; fresh water and coffee from my stores, and a tin of something salty and food-like. I will eat, clean my dishes, and watch the fire until the stars come out. Then I 'll sing the three songs I know; the tragic one, the happy one, and the sad one. The flames will flicker down to coals, and I'll retire back into the hut and dream myself awake, and wonder when and where I left the island. And where did all these people come from?
     There are a lot of us, aren't there? Many individuals, yes, and small groups and large groups; clusters of belief and bastions of defense. I was watching the Canada geese on the neighbor's pond, and they seemed to be doing the same thing. There were posturing geese and conforming geese, geese with mostly family matters on their minds, and geese that seemed to be trying to drum up a following with load proclamations and preaching. Conflicts, of course, although nothing deadly as near as I could tell. I don't know what they were saying, because they're geese. But you could see ideas rippling among them like wind on the water. (That's a goose simile, which they don't use because it's very cliche. Obviously.) And predictably enough, most of their conversation would have to concern the fact that they were all, without exception, assembling there at the pond with the full intention of leaving and going South for the winter. Lucky geese.
      Today for the first time this season, the weather man has threatened us with "significant high elevation snowfall". I'm not happy about this. Only this morning I was reading in a gardening book about growing winter vegetables in an unheated greenhouse in a zone 5 climate. I was excited about this, and I looked out the window at the cold rain falling on the remains of this year's garden and suddenly I felt very, very tired. I don't want to garden now. I want to rest up for next year, whiling away the winter with the seed catalogs and watching the swirls of snow drifting over the barely discernible bumps of the raised  beds buried somewhere there below.
     And when I'm tired of that, I'll make myself a cup of coffee and retreat to one end of the couch. Some dog will jump up and curl into a warm, snoring doughnut shape against me. And I'll cradle the hot cup and close my eyes and push off from shore, dipping the oars into the water with just a twinge of guilt. Before long, I'll be well away. And soon enough, I'll be back on the island.

People

Hello there,

It’s been a while and dad’s done double duty in my absence. Many interesting and wonderful things have happened to me since I last posted. This piece though, is just a small thing.

I walked by a woman the other day on my way to class. She was sitting at a picnic table under one of those giant cloth umbrellas that may or may not be called giant cloth umbrellas, and she was smoking a cigarette and staring reflectively into the distance.

We had actually worked together, back in the days when I was a (somewhat reluctant it must be admitted*) worker in the college's catering business.  Only a couple times however, enough to justify comfortable eye contact and a smile, and at most some pleasant small talk. Today was no exception, I had decided she was too deep in thought to try an initiate contact, but just as I was about to continue on my merry** way she spoke up and said “gorgeous day isn’t it?” To which I made all pleasant and necessary responses until we’d thoroughly discussed the glories of the weather and made our farewells.

Of course it left me wondering what she was really thinking about while she was sitting there. It really could be anything. I remember when a friend of mine asked me what I was thinking because she said I was looking very intense and far away, or something along those lines. I replied, with some enjoyment, that I had been thinking about how much I like bagels.

So what had the smoking lady been thinking about before she decided to appreciate the weather with me? What she had for lunch? Her significant other? Her daughter? Pain in her left foot? The weather? Politics? The question of why anyone would make a smurf movie?

I haven’t the first notion what was going through her head. Or anyone else’s. Many people cause me to run along this thought pattern. Not the ones who obviously have some sort of agenda. Anyone with platinum blond highlights, high-heeled fancy boots, lots of large ugly jewelery, a giant handbag, perfectly straight hair, and  brand name clothing I generally*** am not as interested in. But people who have obviously seen something of life that changed them; parents, bag ladies, bus drivers, in short, anyone who hasn’t had an unusually easy life, intrigues me to an extreme. Sometimes, when I’m not totally wrapped up in my own small and wonderful**** life, I wish I could stop all those people and ask them questions, with no awkwardness or worries about time and social rules, and not just discuss the weather. And don’t even get me started about passengers I see on the bus*****…

*It was the uniforms that really got me, and I spend a significant amount of my time running around in a kilt…

**Approximately, I was probably on the way to documentary class, which I enjoy. I probably wasn’t whistling though, so on a scale of 1 to 10 for merriness I’m going to guess I was around a 4.5.

***I do form some opinions about people based on their clothing, I admit it, and on their bearing. In fact more on bearing I’d say. However I’m perfectly willing to change my opinion about someone if I get to actually know him/her well.

****Well, I think it's wonderful, but then, I'm biased. I'm also using the word "wonderful" a lot lately.

*****Many of them it probably wouldn't be a good idea to talk to. Some telepathy would be useful here, but not too much.

Happy Holidays

A moth just went fluttering by the window, out of the dark and against the glass, and reminded me of a snowflake from a somewhat different time of year being tossed up out of the night. More often than not I have to shine a flashlight out into the storm to really be aware that snow is falling. But if the weather is particularly fierce, the flakes waft up against the glass and you know they mean business. Okay, it's only late September. It could be two or three weeks before we see snow. The Equinox is tomorrow morning at 5:06 EDT, and I won't quite be awake to greet it, although I'll be there 24 minutes later. Close enough; it'll be dark, either way.
  
My holiday season begins with Halloween, actually, and includes about ten major and minor events, give or take. There can be others, but it's exhausting enough already. In recent years we've cut back a bit on some of the celebrating and found that we didn't really miss it. Any parties that want to spring up spontaneously and stomp around the house boozing and singing the night away are welcome, to the point where I really just want to go to bed. Then they can booze and stomp on out into the snow -- maybe go play with the goats. Alas, goats are diurnal, too, and don't really appreciate being awakened at odd hours any more than I do. The horse would probably enjoy it, though. She's a nut job from the get-go.

So, it's merrily on into the long, dark night. I like the way it sparkles and smells of spices and cold. There will be appropriate food and drink, the actions of strongly encouraged ritual, the opportunity to deny all of those and still find a way to mark the passage of all those metaphorical mile markers. Coming out the other side, I'll set my sights on May and be ready to think about gardening again.  Oh, yuk. I still have to finish digging the potatoes, don't I? I could die right now and be so invested in the patterns of the future, I wouldn't know it. Anybody have anything they need to tell me?

trash stream

My mother was riding along as I was driving off to Montpelier to fetch my daughter from the bus stop, and she noticed that someone had taken trash from the side of the road -- coffee cups, beer cans and such -- and stood them up right in the middle of the road! Sort of unsightly, she thought. She's the kind of person who collects trash in a bag when she goes for a walk. Very admirable behavior, certainly.

I, on the other hand, am the sort of person who takes trash from the side of the road and stands it up right in the middle for all and sundry to see and, very often, run over. Bud Ice cans -- the very tall ones -- make such a nice scrunchy wet sound when they roll with the undercarriage of a low-slung Toyota. Most drivers are very good at avoiding such strategically placed ornaments, and it's no easy task getting enough of them in the way that they can't all be missed.

And why do I do this? Why don't I just be a good citizen and bloody well collect the garbage and take it home --  out of sight, out of mind? Well, that's it exactly. Here's the thing about roads -- while I know we're not the only species to have them, still in some specific way they very much define what we are as humans. And the profusion of detritus that we so easily scatter from our personal conveyances define us as well. I like to emphasize that point.  If I just collect the stuff and take it home to the trash, I deprive all and sundry driving down the road of a perfect opportunity to contemplate the true nature of our species. A bag full of McDonalds leftovers -- half a shake and some sandy fries -- speak volumes about the kind of creatures we are. Bud Lite, Diet Pepsi and Twisted Tea all placed like Space Odyssey monoliths down the center line are a message to the multiverse: this is what we are! We drive our roads, doing things and being purposeful. And this is the mark we leave to show where we have been and what we have accomplished. Our lives are short, but we leave our mark, and we will not be forgotten.

A bit of fiction

(I keep getting bothered by reality, here's a counter to that).

Bernard was a careful man. He was the proud and occasionally unscrupulous proprietor of Satan’s Bathtub, the most popular club/bar/restaurant on this side of the fence. When he first showed up and bought the old warehouse people had figured him for a new wannabe gang boss. When he started cleaning the place up for business though, they became curious.

Bernard had a knack for reading people and playing a crowd. He could tell what kind of music to play at any given time and truly understood the importance of a good groove. He was able to guess what kind of wine a rich politician’s wife would choose (not that they got many like that at The Tub) and he could convince a wild patron to put away his gun and have the person calmly sipping beer and discussing his or her deep psychological problems as if they were chatting about the president’s dog.  He could rile people up or make them laugh. He had a glib tongue and used his physical appearance and charm on men and women in equal measure, though in very different styles.

Bernard believed in using what tools you were given and being successful with them. People were his favourite tools. So when the hooded man came up behind him at the table where he was tallying the day’s profits and clapped him gently on the shoulder,  he rose politely and began assessing this new opportunity.  

“Mr. Houston,” the stranger said, “it’s good to see you again. We have considerable ground to cover in a very short period of time. If you would be so kind as to resume your seat, my colleague and I will join you.” A third person emerged from behind the curtain of the small stage in the corner. Also hooded, it was impossible to see his face at the moment.

Bernard smiled. “I’d recognize that dramatic entrance anywhere. So glad you boys finally caught up with me, it’s been a long time.” He sat down again. “Cigarette?” Both men accepted.  They sat together, looking like nothing less than a scene from a dreadful old movie about King Arthur. Bernard thought perhaps they should have gone with suits but it wouldn’t do at the moment to point out their out datedness. 

***

At around 5:30 in the morning Bernard was clearing the table of ashes, bottles and glasses. There might have been a faint trace of a frown on his normally smooth and ridiculously confident features. If one watched closely he might appear to pause as he walked through the door to the kitchen and place his hand on the door frame briefly. Only the empty air of the club would be able to tell what he said but if the building could have puffed itself up with pride and glanced around smugly, it would have.

quickweed

Yes, there really is a plant called quickweed. It's some of spring's earliest green around here; it self-seeds and will grow anywhere, doing well in good soil and holding on in poor soil. It sprouts so quickly and abundantly that other more useful plants don't stand a chance. I had a visiting friend, upon seeing the vegetation growing in front of the tractor in the doorway to the shed, comment that I obviously hadn't used the thing in a while. "Not fair," I rallied. "That's quickweed!" I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what it might be good for. I can't believe it doesn't have some long-lost herbal application. But the animals won't eat it, and although the bumblebees spend a lot of time humming around in the minuscule blooms, I can't help but think it's only because it's the most abundant flower within easy flight of their nest. Or maybe it's because they're bumblebees; sort of the working class Joes of the ever-industrious bee world. Plain yellow mustard to the honey bees' Grey Poupon. Bumblebees use bad grammar and swear a lot, but they get the job done. "Goddamn quickweed, " they say, "but it's a flower, ain't it? So let's get on with it. Hey, you gonna' finish that doughnut?" Salt of the earth, bumblebees.

So I pulled the quickweed in front of the tractor and tossed it out into the horse's paddock. For a startled second I thought she was actually trying to eat one of the plants, but on closer inspection I saw that I had pulled a dandelion at the same time and she was nibbling at that. Then I started the tractor and swung around to hook onto the manure spreader. I haven't used the spreader in a while and I wanted to make sure it still worked, what with sitting out in the weather and suffering from some mechanical neglect. I really need to start chiseling away at the horse's manure pile before winter. I never finished cleaning it up last fall, and it's beginning to take on personality. The quickweed likes it, of course. Great huge plants grow out of the edges where the manure is closer to soil and particularly fertile. So I hooked onto the spreader and dropped it into gear and took off across the paddock just to see if the beaters would turn and the apron chain advance without anything going "bang" and causing me to use language befitting a bumblebee. Everything worked well, at least running empty. But the real show was watching the horse take off across the paddock at about warp eight, bucking and kicking like a ... well, like a horse being spooked by a manure spreader. She wasn't frightened, of course, just needing an excuse to be an idiot, which she did magnificently. The joke is on her, I predict. She's pretty fat and poorly exercised, thanks to my neglect. She might be lame in the morning. She went off to her shed and stood there, puffing and looking big-eyed and alert.

I ran the spreader back and forth over a vast expanse of quickweed before I decided exactly where I wanted to park it. It has a soft tire which I need to pump up before I can put any weight on it. I flattened a lot of quickweed, but I know it'll spring right back up. You can pull it in the garden, and if you don't shake out the roots and expose them to the sun, it'll grow right where it lays, sending down new roots out of the stem where it touches the ground. I pulled a few more manure pile plants, just for fun. The horse came out of her shed and sniffed at them, but of course she didn't eat them.