Slouching Towards Peshawar...

Dear Maria,

Go figure, only two weeks since I explained away commenting on current events, but I can’t avoid reacting to the massacre in the school at Peshawar. Not that in this particular case my words matter. Maybe a global collective of words might spur someday an end to such evil.

I know that is an old-fashioned word, evil. The violence traded between the factions grinds on for all its historical and cultural and political reasons, but I do wish that those who would commit such heinous acts would just cloak themselves under the banner of evil rather than some dogmatic creed or political party or nationalistic tribalism.

Am I naïve? You know better.

To what end? Even if there are people who freely want—irony duly noted—to live under the Taliban’s regime, millions do not. Millions. It seems to me a foolishly and tragically ghoulish errand.

Of course, to a less violent extent, those that hate under any banner other than hatred—oh, just once to have them own their hatred. Just claim out loud, “We hate because we hate”. Hatred in their own names. Bigotry in their own names. Racism in their own names.

Comes from within, that choice. And therein some form of hope that pushback may come from those who would not harm neighbors, who would not slaughter children, who would not destroy themselves and the world. But, violence only begets more violence it seems.

Mourn the loss of lives unfulfilled, pity those left behind in the wake of the carnage.

Yes, I am more than usually agitated—detachment only goes so far. Better to concern myself with friends and family, to celebrate the holiday season, to look forward to what joys the approaching year may bring.

The birds continue to be, if not festive, at least entertaining. Sparrows were swarming the feeder yesterday morning until a mockingbird swooped in and drove them off. After lording over the scene for several minutes from on top of the crook that holds the feeder, off he flew. This morning, the bluebird couple checked out the condo, and that they will return early spring to start a new generation gives hope—along with all the babies that have come into the world among my acquaintances, and the babies that will join us next year and the years to follow.

Hope, the thing wrapped in a baby blanket. Amen.

Be well this season, and savor it all.

Yours, srk

 

A Grand Unified Pick-up Sticks Theory of Everything

Dear Maria,

Watching a Red-bellied woodpecker clinging to the birdfeeder this chilly morning. He does not feed like all the other birds but is deliberately pecking at whatever it is that interests him that is above the feed line. And now a cat is easing through the garden towards the feeder. Max? Oh, he is sleeping a couple of feet from the sliding glass door.

This cat is the same one that once upon a time would sometimes come over the fence and nap in the garden between the japonica and the tea olive. I haven’t seen him, well, since Max’s arrival. Apparently, they have not met. Yet. So the birds have flown and cat and dog snooze. Peace on earth, indeed. With a glass wall, of course.

You will be glad to know I took your advice and stopped inflicting my domino theory of human interaction on folks, but don’t get too giddy. Now I am going with a much more refined version of my Pick-up stick theory. Oh, yes, those pick-up sticks from our childhood.

Don’t pretend you’re not curious. Goes like this: You drop your sticks—and here’s the refined thinking—and everyone else in your life is also dropping their sticks and the clincher, an unseen hand is dropping sticks. Fate, luck, destiny, nature. God.

Each move you make may or may not help you, may or may not help others. And the others are picking up sticks. And the invisible hand. Someone might come along and take a stick without leaving any behind. Someone might add more to the pile and just move on. But the sticks never disappear, players come and go, the game never ends.

Good luck, then, to all with control issues. Ties in nicely—or so I think—with my “Didn’t see that coming” mantra. I’ll let that ray of brilliance dazzle you some other day. Lucky girl.

Chilly days ahead, but sunny, and so a rake surely is in the forecast. No doubt your pulse is quickening, the holidays upon us. Tis a great season. Hope all is well and you will have plenty of time to enjoy the family.

Yours, and still just,

srk

 

 

 

Of Matters Unspoken...

Dear Maria,

Sure enough, leaves falling and temperatures in the 70s. Ah, the holiday season here in the Lowcountry. Thanksgiving dinner last week with four generations at the table—well, life reaffirmed as a series of renewals. At one point I think I was sharing a recliner in violation of a house rule that calls for only two bodies at a time. I know I count as two, and the three little guys who piled on took us into misdemeanor territory. Throw in the sometimes two, sometimes three young girls crowding into the mix, and Uncle Scott got a good old-fashioned mugging. Great fun!

Last week, a former student—they are all former students now, but I can’t seem to drop the phrase—asked me why I didn’t say more about current events in my posts and comments. I took that to mean the news on the national and international fronts, politics, local affairs, and perhaps more understandably, education. All I could say is that I am superficially aware via headlines and some articles but am reluctant to wade in on specific events that are beyond my knowledge of what is or is not going on.

What should I say about a news item like beheadings? An answer on my part becomes a kind of fill-in-the-blank.  I am: appalled, horrified, repulsed, disgusted, sickened, bewildered, aghast—and? Physical violence, one against another or writ larger group against group, will not come to a halt in my lifetime. Does it matter if I think human beings will never exist on this planet with doing physical harm to one another?

Not that I am without opinions obviously, but for my part I do lean more these days on the notion of what is actionable. A former colleague—see, there it is again—and one of my closest friends sent me the Rolling Stone article on rape at UVa and asked for my feedback. Didn’t want to read it, but I did. As I wondered again at the use of physical force (if the story is true), which is hateful to me, I thought to ask how a rapist would explain his actions if confronted by his daughter, or would the rapists want their daughters attending UVa. Or sisters.

Sure, I suppose it is possible that one of my questions could find its way via social media to those involved in such activities or right on the cusp of joining in, and perhaps my thoughts would give one of them pause. Possible, but improbable.

So much in the world is mind-numbing and heart-wrenching, to be sure. As it goes these days, fortunately, I am nearly never asked to ponder much of anything serious for public consumption. Head in the sand? Yes, with all due self-awareness. I would rather run a load to the dump for a friend, or pull someone’s empty garbage can back into the garage, or pick up the tab for lunch.

Or let nieces and nephews pummel me into submission. And thankfully.

Hug the ones close at hand, be sweet, and take care,

srk

 

 

The Family Thanksgiving Tree...

Dear Maria,

You know how it goes, a little warm-up, followed by thunderstorms, followed by a cool-down, most likely until the other side of the Christmas season. What other people seem to have in store temperature-wise and/or by way of snowfall—well, they have my condolences. This cold snap has finished the lantana and nearly done in the plumbago. But the roses may have a few more blooms left in them over the next two, maybe three weeks.

From my perch, a chair maybe five feet from the sliding glass doors, I can see a street over one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood. Of course, my two white oaks are of good size, too, at least forty feet I would guess. And I can also see on the left the little plum that I put in two years ago and over to the right, the crape added this spring.

Over the years I have planted dozens of trees, the oldest a Bradford pear in Northbridge Terrace some, oh, 18 years ago, I believe. It dominates the corner where I placed it—yes, I have driven by and taken a look. One of my children, of a sort.

Four weeks ago, or maybe five now, I happened to tell two good friends—on separate occasions—with the irony duly noted, that I think I would make a good father now. I know, I know. Much credit to them that they did not verbally, not even visibly reveal any astonishment—true friends, the two of them. Of course, I can imagine the howls of disbelief to chuckles to outright derision on some fronts. Eye-rolling at the very least.

Begs the question of “Why now?” to be sure. Certainly flies in the face of my definitive declarations against fatherhood for 98% of my adult life. Yep, I did the math. You know very well that my ego several times and rightfully so was handed to me on a platter these last few years, and without the demands—self-inflicted to a degree—of that other thing I did as my daily bread, I find myself standing much revealed to be in a very different place these days.

Fortunately, my siblings and their children have enthusiastically rewarded me with the role of uncle, which is essentially to always be the bringer of ice cream. Not the same as parenting, I am all too aware. And I am also lucky to know a number of folks with babies and infants, and so I can delight in the cooing without dutifully dealing with the pooping.

This week a number of the family, more than 20 or so most likely, will gather for Thanksgiving, and while we are not perfect in our roles—not even in something so much easier as being an uncle—we are rooted deep and spread wide. Thankfully. Just like your family.

So may your holiday be a happy occasion, and safe travels to all who must travel some miles to join in the festivities.

Kindly and warmly,

srk

 

Tea Olive, Polar Vortex, and a Jackass...

Dear Maria,

Warm greetings to you, just days before cold weather comes swooping down our way. Yesterday morning as I deadheaded the roses, I got a good dose of sweet air from the tea olives that are now blooming. Nice. One of this season’s roses sent a shoot up through the leaves of the new Japanese maple. The headline is obvious: Knockout TKOs Maple with Uppercut. When the bloom is fuller, I’ll post a picture to Facebook.

While checking out at Publix today, I told the cashier and the bag, uh, man—do we still call them bag boys or bag girls? I am sure I am in the wrong, but certainly another chance to crack a joke or three. My comment to them was that placing just-baked sweet potato pies right inside the entrance of the store was cruel. Cruel? That my life is so good that torture comes in the form of a dessert that I can’t slip by.

Of course, I am thankful for how well it goes and have taken to telling folks who ask how I am that if I complain, please shoot me, or at least rough me up a bit. And now just two weeks until the tribal gathering and a chance to soak in the blessings of my family. Reckon sweet potato pie will be included on the menu?

Was reminded again over the past week more than once that there is no point in wondering what another person is thinking. Just turns loose the mental monkeys to romp about the cage. Okay, maybe not as compelling as Macbeth raving about a mind full of scorpions.  I tried to practice Thich Nhat Hanh’s sense of watching the other person handle the moment or moments—badly paraphrased, but I am too lazy to run down the quotation.

So rather than the mental churn, I tried telling myself several times a day, oh this is how the experience is being processed. Of course, someone may do the same with me. “Oh this is how Kaple handles this moment.” Like an adult? Like a saint? Like a jackass? Well, I hope the moments of my jackassery—jackassedness?—are fewer and fewer.

Alas, the forecast for a lingering polar vortex early in November—well, let’s keep warm thoughts for our friends and family who live closer to the northern rim of the country. Here, nearly 70 for now and lunch on the patio.

Stay sweet, stay warm, and stay sane. The holidays come.

srk

 

WWWWD?

Dear Maria,

Had to laugh this very chilly morning when a mockingbird had the temerity—yes, the temerity—to perch on top of the bluebird condo. I don’t know how far the three male bluebirds came distance-wise, but they zoomed into the oak nearest the house, and in less than ten seconds the mockingbird retreated high into a neighbor’s pine. The bluebirds disappeared back into the direction they came from a moment earlier.

I thought I might have seen a squadron of bluebirds late yesterday afternoon. After I cleaned and refilled the bird feeder and the birdbath, a swirling fly-in of small birds came calling. The aerial comings and goings included Tufted Titmouses—Titmice? Not likely, but what do I know—White-breasted Nuthatches, Carolina Chickadees, at least one House Finch, and a pair of Carolina Wrens that kept to the bath and the patio. But, no bluebird patrol to be seen. Of course, none of the afternoon’s visitors landed on the condo.

The unwritten rules only occasionally allowed two species to be on the feeder at the same time. More often than not there would be a bird or two that would speed in for a landing and the feeding bird would rocket off to a nearby branch. No physical contact—or at least I didn’t see any—but sometimes a bit of threatening fluttering was the persuader to get a bird moving off. The nuthatches were the most flagrant aggressors.

All done in a matter of fifteen minutes or so. Max watched the flurry with some interest, but with nothing like his enthusiasm for getting out the door and after squirrels.

Thanks for your kind response to one of the poems I published. Well, I say published, but for a number of friends and family, posted would have to be the word. Several folks have asked if or when I might publish something, and I understand that they mean as in book form. Of course, I am much more the fan of the physical book, but for now I am releasing some of my writing via Blogger.

Several times in front of my classes, I voiced my belief that a number of self-publishers and writers who relied on publishing houses would have enthusiastically embraced the new media. A guy like Walt Whitman? Leaves of Grass, one tweet at a time. Or Emerson, or Thoreau, or Pound.

And now, posted thoughts, feelings, secrets even—stuff that may be shared with strangers around the world. Ebooks, blogs, posts, tweets. We are nearly all of us publishers now.

For me, one reader is enough. Not my livelihood. Obviously. By the way, hope you are finding some time to write, a little at least.

November and the season’s energy are soon to build. Good wishes to you and your family.

Yours, srk

 

 

Joy, Illimited...

Dear Maria,

Decided to dash off a letter to you in between a list of chores. I know, of course I could spread them out over a few days, but sometimes I get to leaning forward and gather enough momentum to seem busy.

Did set the bluebird house on a pole that I told you about last week. Gave the obligatory speech on how great odds were against any kind of action this season and that even next spring was a longshot for a couple-in-residence.

So? Two mornings later I was waiting for a delivery of three crape myrtles, and while I mostly stared off into the sky, out the corner of my eye I saw a bird streak up into the neighbor’s tree. Yep, a young male bluebird. Then a finch came in, followed closely by a young female bluebird. Those two bluebirds were the first I have seen at that location all season. In my mind, of course, I was convinced the bluebird pair were eyeing the new bird condo.

Late that afternoon, as I took a break after getting the Dynamite crape settled into the ground, the male went to the roof of the house and made a quick survey of the terrain, and then the female flew over and took a quick peek inside. This moment for me capped an hour of digging, and watching an infant on her blanket find her way to a game of peek-a-boo, and laughing as a two-year-old dragged over a level nearly as long as he is tall.

The sky was a high, clear expanse of blue, the sun was warm, and for a stretch, life was a joy to experience. You know I am stingy with words like joy and happiness, but even I succumbed to a feeling “of joy illimited”. The moment was more skylark than thrush, but Hardy’s phrase wins out.

Okay, I am enthusing about birds and kids and trees. Good stuff. There’s my more typical restraint. Better? Colder weather on the way this weekend apparently and before long, less and less to do in the yard as the days get shorter.

Maybe I’ll wax on about scotch and books and boats next time. Until then, may some joy come your way.

Just, for now, srk

 

Say It With Me, Timing...

Dear Maria,

A little melancholy this morning, but even that phrasing is too strong. Absurd, too, having spent a quiet half-hour on the patio. The lantana and roses have bloomed with great vigor, and even the mums I stomped into high grass last year have flowered. Too beautiful to feel anything less than delighted to be alive.

Caught up yesterday with a great friend after a year’s absence—impossible to be that long, and yet so quick in its passing. Remains a matter that perplexes me, how time’s arrow speeds on its course while I am only barely getting around to stringing the bow.

While I got after a sausage and peppers sub at the neighborhood Italian place, her good-natured grilling about how my life was going kept me reassessing the past two years. She, too, shared the twists and turns of her year, and I think we both agreed that a stretch of calm was very welcomed. That letting the universe come to me thing.

Hard to see the rapids for the rapids sometimes. A look back from a flat stretch, a needed vantage to understand how much has been withstood and to provide a respite. Of course, a little rest and back into the rapids. There will always be rapids.

So much of life strikes me as timing—yes yes, timing is everything, or so I have heard, too—but at any given moment with others, catching them where they are and where you are is the X factor. Even as simple as one person having a good day when you are not, or the other way around.

Or changing your mind about sharing what’s on your mind or in your heart. To speak or not to speak. To plunge forward or restrain yourself for a day, a week—forever. We are all in our moments that lead us forward into this future or that future. Blindly. There’s a rub.

Today, I am setting up a bluebird house for a friend. Coincidentally, yesterday afternoon as I stood out on the patio, taking in the scene, a young male bluebird came from over my left shoulder, dipped down to eye level, and then did a power climb nearly straight up 20’, all the while his back to the sun.

The color of his feathers does not exist in the world except for the sky when it is perfect. And then he was joined by another whose coloring matched his. Impossible. While they swooped and circled about the trees, an older male settled on the bluebird condo. A good scene.

Melancholy? Absurd.

May all be well for you and yours,

Always, srk

 

 

Pacing Guides...

Dear Maria,

Thanks for lunch the other day. I know the demands on your schedule—hope my recently buoyed mood was a bit of an antidote for the stress you have been battling. This morning I’m sitting at my desk, watching the elms shimmy in the wind. Storms forecast for later today, and the warm humid air earlier pretty much gave that likelihood away.

Most of us around here had a chance to experience a Saturday a week ago that was so sublime that there simply could not have been any violence in the world that day. Yes, I know better, but hope flings itself eternally forward.

The great hawk—the one of big-shoulders, larger than any hawk I’ve seen before—made another visit the other morning. His seasonal rotation through my little section of the urban forest means that nothing moves while he is in flight and squirrels will be killed. But he is especially attuned to the weather and was about only while we had that cool spell. The smaller hawk that has been announcing sunrise all summer returned a few days ago after being knocked off its perch by the master of these skies.

The first flowers on a loropetalum have appeared this weekend. Not on one of the 4-footers out back that have been in the ground four summers. Instead, out front on one of the six added this May. The runt of that litter that has suffered all summer and that I had most doubts about. Made my morning as I tugged up weeds and Johnson grass. The elms are heavy with flowers as they were last year—another harbinger of a tough winter of cold and ice?

The tether that links me to the calendar remains, but knotted more by the agenda of other’s than my daily or even weekly rhythms. I know it is Homecoming Week at Ashley Ridge, and I can laugh about it being time for me to be finishing up with Macbeth and touting the witches’ brew as a recipe for Halloween. Yesterday, I went out to the mailbox and checked even as I knew since it was my kid brother’s birthday that it was Columbus Day.

I continue to tell my mother that I am letting the universe come to me. I tell my former colleagues that I never feel the need to catch my breath. Life meanders along, the sunrises and sunsets to float me downstream.

Maybe you are drinking a cup of coffee, feet up, sitting on the porch as you read this letter. I like to think so.

As it goes, and yours,

srk

 

 

Billions and Billions of Ones...

Dear Maria,

Finally—Saturday was a hit-the-jackpot kind of day that makes short work of memories of rain and humidity and the heat index. Bluebirds fluttered about their condo, and Max galloped around the backyard nearly all day. As usual, as you know, I will temper my delight with the knowledge of the roller-coaster ride weather-wise that is coming this season. But, for that one day….

You know I have kept my nose out of the daily news mostly since my retirement save for science stories and some sports. The headlines are dosing enough, and without a television, the noise is my life is mostly music, birds, dogs, and some traffic. Oh, and the occasional jet coming in from the west.

Right on cue: A small plane is buzzing overhead. So, those too as well.

The ongoing violence in the Middle East fills columns and propels the yap-fests, of course, but the radical Buddhists in Myanmar determined to crush Islam in their nation is the story that to me screams volumes about the horribly mistaken notion of exclusivity.

Make others’ othernesses a monolithic monster and the hatred begins. All Muslims are…, all Democrats are…, all billionaires are…, all Russians are….  Seven billion individuals on the planet and folks are hunting for oneness?

I did see that a fatwa condemning ISIS came out of Saudi Arabia—yes, I read it. My hope, which is also so very far-fetched, is that every young person in the world between 18 and 30 will decide that enough with violence already. Naïve, I know.

Hold on for a moment. Pulse good, bp holding steady. I have good books to read, good friends to visit, and a supportive family. Scotch is on the shopping list, along with some potting soil.

Life is good.

Hope the turn into October feels like some forward progress for you. Holiday madness looms soon enough.

Yours, srk

 

In My Mind...

Dear Maria,

Well, I can vouch for only 12.5” of rain in the backyard gauge this month as I was not paying much attention to rainfall amounts the first week or so of the month. There is a promise—but no guarantee—of a string of days where the sun might dominate the sky.  Seems more necessary as we just slipped under 12 hours between sunrise and sunset.

Did manage to do a little yard work here and there, and one morning saw a ruby-throated hummingbird and a bird that looked like a goldfinch with the color scheme reversed. Or so I think I saw. Fluttering about the garden and then up into an oak, the bird never allowed me a good look. Not long enough to be sure.

Perceptions, you know how they go.

The other day at lunch I confessed to a young friend that I feel a little longer now the ache of muscles pushed beyond the normal day-to-day routine. As if somehow to counter that reality with what doesn’t ail me, I followed up by insisting that my mind seemed no different to me these days than 10 or 30 years ago. Her take was the opposite, that her mind seemed wearier, but she thought herself physically strong. I’ll spot her the childrearing and a demanding fulltime job. Indiana had it right, perhaps, about the miles.

I spotted myself the accumulated experience of the world as a plus to offset what my mind may be losing. To never address the topics that were a part of 31 years of teaching makes me wonder about how quickly that bucket of knowledge will leak away. No more Keats, Oxford commas, Transcendentalism, and on and on off the top of my head. To be fair, I have several times confessed to never wanting to say anything ever again about any of what was my bread and butter for three decades. Interesting.

Of course, not knowing is not the same as forgetting. Wonder when I will forget whether I knew something about Yeats. For the present at least, sometimes I find myself thinking that something or other is something I once knew.

If the transition is slow enough—guess I’ll never know, will I?

Another overcast day, Max anxiously chewing his rawhide bone, and I with too much time on my mind. Again.

As for you, be well.

As always, srk  

 

Memory Sticks, 9/21/89

Dear Maria,

A couple of days of cooler temperatures and drier air in Greenville and Max and I agreed to lengthen our stride during the morning walk. Stars out, very nearly the last sliver of the moon, and a quiet that needs to be heard to be appreciated. Makes for a quick forgetting of sluggish, muggy mornings.

Speaking of remembering—chuckle or groan? A friend of mine ask me recently if while sailing I had been in a storm. A few times, but one very particular night remains vividly in the memory. During an evening race that took us offshore, we were caught coming back in between the jetties when a 60-knot microburst struck us from the north. The roar of wind and rain, the sound of a rescue chopper hovering to pull folks from a boat wrecked on the south jetty, the flashes of light that revealed the rocks to be a mere 6’ from our stern as two crew members fought like devils to get our genoa back on the foredeck.  Seven to eight-foot swells chased us home all the way to The Battery.

Of course, you know experts insist that the more senses involved, the deeper the memories. Another night, another storm, and all of us here remember. Hurricane Hugo.

That roar—like a shop fan a hundred feet tall. The muffled booms of heavy pines thumping the ground and the vibrations felt inside the house. Sea water around my ankles during the eye of the storm as I went out to the street, trying to take in what was happening in the darkness of that night. My neighbor hammering down a few pieces of plywood on his roof before the engine reignited.

And to think I slept somehow as the second phase of the storm was winding down.

The next morning—two thoughts about the moment I stepped onto the front porch. Too much sky, there was too much sky showing, and left behind, only a few trees where once had been a solid massing of green in every direction. And the smell. The scent of pine as if my face had been shoved into a bucket of crushed needles, or a thousand neighbors had massed their Christmas trees in front of my house.

We had been bombed.

The sound of chainsaws, the smell of grilled food. The aching muscles, the relief of a hot shower. The voice on the radio out of Jacksonville. The neighbors’ cheers when learning The Citadel beat Navy. The thwack of the morning newspaper landing in the driveway.

Oh, yes. I remember. Twenty-five years ago. Deeply held, that memory, eyes open or eyes closed. You should have been here. Maybe not.

Here’s to slipping by unscathed one more season. Have a great week.

Yours, srk

 

 

Teetering, Tottering...

Dear Maria,

Good morning. Cool—sort of—and damp. Same air hangs over us like a wet towel around our necks. At some point….

You’ll laugh to hear that I trotted out that somewhat suspect teeter-totter analogy again this past weekend. A friend and I got into a discussion about expectations in a relationship—her emphasis was romantic—and I did a ten-minute monologue on how relationships were like riding a teeter-totter. She probably felt like I wasted half of her lunch hour.

I still think there is some merit to the notion that at any given moment balance is unlikely between friends, lovers, family members in the give and take, the ups and downs that occur between two individuals. Go ahead, groan. My friend cocked her head to the side and gave me the look for that one. So that’s been done.

Of course, I keep thinking about boyhood friends who would without warning slip off their seat and boom went my rear end. Funny—or not—I don’t remember a girl ever dropping me on my behind like that. Okay, maybe I don’t want to remember.

Listen, some folks are never going to keep the ride going, or at least not by much of their effort. Maybe it’s like swinging. Some folks never want to take their turns doing the pushing part. The work.

I know, I know. You’ve heard this line of yapping before. Just living for the dream, an easy rhythm that finds balance in the ups and downs of the ride.

Oh, about reading Living Buddha, Living Christ, I recommended not so much as a lesson in Buddhism—might read Watts for that. The sincerity of the book reminded me of Thomas Merton, and a connection does exist coincidentally.

Last week the heavy vine that is working its way up an oak out back showed a few yellow leaves. Now, a few have appeared in the elms out front, and the crape has three red leaves. Yes, I counted. Hope springs for fall to come calling.

And I am glad I read the latest from Murakami. Not recommending it exactly—that issue of tastes—but I found it more engaging than 1Q84.

Okay, enough. On balance, doing well.

Yours, srk

P.S. Tell me you didn’t think of someone who left you up in the air.

 

Bird Week

Dear Maria,

Greetings! Still summer despite what local school calendars proclaim. For me, the past week was my own version of Bird Week—obviously, Birdnado would be overkill—and a week for processing very difficult news for a number of folks in my community of friends and colleagues. Of course, Shark Week was much more dramatic than my bird moments, and I have friends who can tout encounters with bears and foxes or the wily coyotes that are invading the local landscape. But, me? I have birds.

Monday, as I went across the street for the mail, a bluebird streaked overhead and landed in the neighbor’s no-so-healthy poplar. Before I could turn around and head back to the house, another two bluebirds flew into the cover of yellow and green leaves and suddenly a half-dozen flew out, all in different directions. Now, I hadn’t seen a bluebird for nearly six weeks. Maybe more—uncertain because I don’t keep a bird-watch journal. Late that afternoon I saw a young male bluebird perch of the top of the condo out back for a few minutes. So, was that their version of divvying up the local real estate for next spring’s hatch?

Had to water around mid-week as no rainfall for a while—much to Max’s relief, no storms to send him under chairs or into closets. When I slid open the patio door to go turn off the sprinkler, nearly two dozen crows rose up from behind the knockouts and japonicas, where they were out of sight until I flushed them. They rose four or five at a time and then off to the neighbor’s stand of trees. Soundlessly. Very disconcerting. I thought I ought to write a poem about the moment, but I figured Mr. Stevens had done enough with black-feathered birds. Perhaps I should get out the book on symbols again.

I have already complained about the hawk that sounds off just before dawn with its loud and persistent cries, but she—or if a young male, he—got an aggressive visit from a large male Thursday morning. The small hawk flushed two kites out of one of the tallest pines on my side of the street, and within a minute, out the corner of my eye, I saw the second hawk flying up from a lower vantage and then land on top of the smaller bird. There was much flapping and shrieking, but the summering bird took off pretty quickly with the more powerful interloper in pursuit.

The big hawk that prowls this neighborhood doesn’t usually show until October. Don’t know if this is the same bird, but I haven’t seen or heard another hawk or the pair of kites for three days.

A flurry of action, a flurry of sad news, and just seven days passing by. In the news, a tragic car accident that hit me hard, hard in the heart, and news of cancer striking again and again. Seems so often these days we hear that word, cancer. Like some muffled cadence, again and again. Even in the quiet of my routine, a retreat of sorts, life pushes ahead, sometimes a thrashing.

Two house finches are tumbling about in the young elms. Ever onward, we go.

A very warm wish for peace and safety for you and your family.

As before, just, srk

 

Memories, Moments, and Dinosaurs...

Dear Maria,

Thought I might dash off a quick note as I know I promised to write more often. After nearly two hours outside this morning, Max is sacked out in the foyer. The cooler temperature had him just standing out back for stretches, nose lifted, taking in the fresh air. The kind of morning that is very nearly life-altering, but I won’t say fall-like, not yet.

A recent dust-up at a local high school over a student writing about getting a gun and killing the neighbors’ dinosaurs led a former student of mine to recount writing a gruesome little tale in my class one day. Apparently, rather than call for an administrative strike, I read it out loud on its merits as a narrative. I say apparently very pointedly because I don’t remember the moment at all. The student, yes, but not the assignment, not the particular work, not the moment in the classroom.

Perhaps I would have handled the moment differently ten years later or two years ago. I don’t know. Even if I could remember the event, I might not be able to recapture the tone of that class period—how was I feeling, what kind of mood the class was in, did I have some agenda in mind other than plot construction.

A moment in a life that is a stream of moments—well, so many, so very, very many that are not life-altering. But, a few may be—maybe only one.

The other evening I was being tailgated for about half a mile on the way home from Barnes & Noble. The front half of the sedan’s hood behind me was hidden from my view, but I could clearly see the driver in my rearview mirror applying eye makeup as she looked in her rearview mirror, using her left forearm to steer her car. We were moving along at 45 in a tight pack of vehicles on a divided stretch of a four-lane highway.

I tapped my brakes a few times, but she held her pace and distance. I could only watch ahead for even the slightest need to brake. Had I slammed on the brakes, she would not have been able to stop in time without crashing into me. Later, I wondered whether she was running late because her boss held her at work a bit longer than scheduled. Just a few minutes beyond what she expected. Maybe a child dumped a plate of spaghetti on the floor ten minutes before the babysitter arrived. Or did she build in applying makeup in the car to her travel time to be on time.

At any moment….

Right on cue, Max is nosing my hip and arm. Outside again to enjoy the lovely day. Good call, Max.

Hope all is well in your direction.

Yours, srk

 

 

Timelines...

Dear Maria,

Seems impossible and unforgiveable not to mention the death of Robin Williams. The comments from friends and family—so personal, this communal sorrow—expressed so eloquently the shared loss. Almost as if the moon were no longer in orbit.

What more do we need to learn than that today there are the individuals who share our world with us and tomorrow that may not be so. Fragile beings we are, and all us with no certain future here save our mortality.

Fortunately, I still had as a defense against the gloom the memory of an afternoon with two students—both wonderfully bright and thoughtful and articulate—who spoke to a sense of being on a timeline for reaching certain milestones. Each felt the markers ahead that would define their lives. Completing college, getting on with a career—which for these young women will most probably come to fruition.

Of course, I spoke to uncertainty, that life would come as answers to questions that may never be voiced. My trump card was the same one I always toss onto the table—not becoming a high school teacher until I was 27.

That autobiographical note perhaps speaks more to my lapses in judgment or a lack of direction, but even so I claim it also makes the larger point that life may not be a series of dots connecting.

The past few weeks, Max has decided that we should move our morning walk closer to sunrise, and this morning after the high school bus chugged through the neighborhood and as the first light touched the treetops, off we went. A slender hawk has become our morning herald as her shrieks begin at dawn. I watched crows fly at her to ruffle her feathers, but she held fast to her limb and continued her shrill cries.

Max never lifted his nose from the ground, and the elementary schoolchildren gathering on the corner were too stunned to care either. And so all that human energy that must be expended to push through the first day back in the classrooms is unleashed yet again. Clocks and bells and calendars to the forefront for so many of our friends, our colleagues.

For me, after two mugs of coffee, Max’s low growl from the foyer and the hawk’s morning call are enough to set the day in motion.

Be well, and may what unfolds only bring goodness into your world.

Yours, srk

 

 

Sugar, That Is Sweet

Dear Maria,

Rain, rain, rain, rain, no rain. And no rain today. No one wants the suck-the-life-out-of-you-heat that can define an August around here, but we don’t want cloudy skies either. Maybe time to move to Oahu. Oh, right—two hurricanes pointed that way.

A few days ago, in some sort of fit of I don’t know what, I decided to check the sugar count for one of my favorite 16-ounce coffee and ice cream slurps. Okay, I didn’t want to see the number 66 as in grams of sugar. My frame of reference is a snack bar with 6 grams. Hmmm, 11 snack bars at one sitting?

Next mistake, checking on how many grams of sugar in a teaspoon. Only 4. So I’m essentially putting 16-plus teaspoons of sugar in my grande serving. I didn’t want to know that. At least I don’t put sugar in my morning coffee, so I have that going for me.

Need a feel good about myself moment. Let’s see, switched to brown rice and wheat pasta. Check. And check.

I’m hardly one to be a food scold—or a scold about much of anything for that matter. Anyone who has seen me chow down half a pizza or a ridiculously huge serving of shrimp and grits, or been along on the once-a-year mecca to take on a sausage cheeseburger, would thwack me upside the head for any pretense of better living through better eating.

I do remember an article in Esquire many years ago touting a simple strategy that urged reducing caloric intake by 10%. Leave it on the plate, leave it in the cup or glass. For me, switching to a 7-inch skillet upended my version of serving size. True confession: Measuring out a third of a cup of cooked rice crushed my spirit. I am a half-cup-serving guy now.

Of course I am going out for lunch today. Maybe going with the fish tacos, maybe going with chicken quesadillas. Definitely going with the pecan pie—sans a la mode.

Hey, I’m no paragon of dietary virtues.

Have fun, and be sweet.

Yours, srk

 

Summer Daze...

Dear Maria,

I think my lapse in writing was due to a wretched combination of heat and humidity, but now a week of cooler weather is in the offing and I want to get my homework done so that I may have more time to play outdoors. Forgive me my absence and my fuzzy reasoning which is nothing more than good old-fashioned excuse-making.

Thanks for sending along the article your governor’s rather sudden change of heart regarding Common Core. Now that I have enough time to read articles from around the nation—and even enough time to follow links found on links—I find myself bemused by the rhetoric being twirled about in the name of political posturing. I would be more than bemused but am held in check by the plight of classroom teachers who must surely feel bewildered by what seems to be the test-of-the-month proposals that some administrators and elected officials are bandying about publically.

Of course, since I don’t feel the classroom effort in such a visceral fashion these days, perhaps being amused might be the zenith of my reaction to the ongoing bombast coming from all directions. On more issues than education.

So I have a notion to take a look at correlations between poverty rates and low-performing schools. Or to wonder about some sixteen-year-old fleeing parents and family and friends and, by traveling the length of Mexico, hoping to arrive somewhere with a future that might offer more than violence. Careful where you relocate, kid.

And thank you for adjusting your admonition from last year’s “to stay in the fight” to a more benign “at least to think about the issues”. My default—albeit simplistic—is are my ideas actionable? And the answer is, please. No. Or, no when I choose not to pick up a shovel and get back into the trench.

Keep sending me links to articles you think important, and I will read them and sometimes let fly—ideas only, no bombs bursting in air. The tasks in my world now are writ smaller, to wit, I listen (and in this art I will need much more practice), I encourage, and I offer up a prayer as needed.

Apropos of nothing in particular, the cardinals have become the new bullies in the trees—the young elms out front and the oaks in the back that are closest to the feeder. Apparently the bluebirds are summering elsewhere.

Keep cool.

Warmly, srk

 

 

 

 

With No Egrets, For Now

Dear Maria,

Perhaps it was no-egret Saturday, as only blue skies and an early sun greeted Max and me when we were out at the school last weekend. However, a bit earlier than usual for us. The ebb and flow of days, I guess. Or maybe there truly is something to the notion of different rhythms to the seasons. I know I have eased up—if one can slow slowed-down.

Of course, I don’t have that day count clicking along in my brain, or at least not with any urgency about getting my mind right and energy up over the next four weeks or so. I do wonder about folks who have their two-week hiatus maxed out as they feel they must vacation like it’s 1999. Always sad to hear of a vacation getaway rained out—a lot riding on that little piece of the year.

The acoustic lilies bloomed, finally. Last fall when I took the bulb out of the pot, it broke into several pieces, and so I put a few in each of three holes in the garden and this past week, two plants bloomed. A third has produced a shoot but is not nearly ready to flower. I may have dug that third hole in a less than fruitful spot. Location, location, location.

Nonetheless, the lilies are lovely and the lantana and plumbago and Rose of Sharon are blooming, and the roses are recovering from the War of the Beetles, the grass is green, and the trees are growing. An unremarkable birthday is in the offing, many books are readily at hand, health is good, and were I to complain about—well, about anything—I should be slapped upside the head.

This week several references to the Iroquois notion of responsibility seven generations out have surfaced in some of my reading. One article pegged it at 150 years, a simpler notion I suppose. Who is thinking now about how actions will impact family, the community, or the world in 2164? Imagine someone in 1864 thinking “Whoa, this might not be such a good idea for folks in 2014.” Or, “This is a great idea for the future that is unimaginable.”

Maybe the phrase should be our reach exceeds our foresight. A rough phrasing, that may—or should—give us pause. But, we are not allowed to slow down for fear that something might not be done. A moment, lost.

Enjoy the summer as it unfolds further.

Yours, truly, srk