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Joke, No Joke

Dear Maria,

Thanks for the birthday wishes, much appreciated. I did, and only half in jest, joke about becoming Medicare eligible at the beginning of the month. Milestones, you know. And I did once again trot out my standard line about how being upright is all right, not only for my birthday but for a friend as well—older, by the way.

Jokey, but not.

Yesterday the odometer in the truck rolled around finally to 160,000 miles. Not bad for a 2006 that had 35,000 miles on it when I bought it in February of ’07. Hit this mark as I pulled into my driveway after several errands. Made me laugh. I did think that 10 years from now I can be the old guy with that old truck in the neighborhood.

Spare me the retort—too obvious by a million miles.

I have been thinking about your—what would be the word—lament, or uneasiness, or uncertainty about the worthiness of doing the work that you gave so much time, obviously, and effort to for more than 3 decades.

You did the work earnestly and honorably, diligently and passionately. Your employers got their money’s worth, and someone—more than one, no doubt—had a better experience as a result.

And there is that whole modeling behavior element. Surely you were watched doing the job, and so you demonstrated a way of going about the work and your replacement may draw on your example.

Pointedly, I trace some of my efforts in the classroom to a particular teacher in high school. I hope that my work, my approach, served some students well. Some of those students are themselves teaching now, and perhaps they continue directly and/or indirectly under my influence and they will have students who become teachers. And surely my teacher had teachers who influenced him. A long thread reaching back, to be sure, and spinning forward I hope.

Maybe my mantra of one, one reader or one neighbor or one student being reached or touched in a positive manner seems too limited in scope. But that one-at-a-time count can add up, or so I have come to believe.

And then there is that whole example by failure. I’ll save that for another letter—or a book.

I know you are counting the days for your homecoming. Here leaves are yellowing, the grass is showing signs of slowing down—that mowing thing, and August nears its end.

Be well.

Fondly,

srk

Small Matters

Dear Maria,

Thank you for the picture of the Gambel’s quail, which was a new one to me. Take a look at the Eastern kingbird, which was a new one to me here. Two hung out on our fences in the evenings over a week or so, and then gone.

I am sorry, of course, to hear the length of your stay is now uncertain again. Frustrating for you, obviously. Maybe the kids can get out there again for the holidays—which must seem very far off and so I guess the notion is not so helpful. But, maybe.

How amazing that at Saguaro you should run into your friend from junior high days. And she, too, has two children. Sounds like that visit was good medicine.

My coincidences of late are pretty trivial. I mentioned to my parents that the goldfinches were all about the sunflowers among the apple trees in the mornings and evenings. The next week, I read Thoreau make the same observation in one of his journals—goldfinches and sunflowers. A small detail, but I found the shared experience kind of heartening across the years and miles.

The other moment happened last night. I have mentioned several times to folks that I am fortunate not to be stung given the number of bees around the lavender, milkweed, and Roses of Sharon. When I am sharing their space, I do tell them not to waste their energy coming after me—why not talk to them? Nothing lost one way or another. And so far, so good.

Except, except, wasps are also in the airspace. Last night, somehow, one managed to get underneath my t-shirt as I brought my stuff inside for night. I shook my t-shirt unaware of exactly what was under there, and then, pop! That electric pinprick. I pulled off my shirt and shook it and the little demon dropped down on the floor. Oh, yes, I stomped it into the oblivion.

Truth be told—and so no heroic spin—no swelling, not even a mark, and no soreness after 5 minutes or so.  Feel free to laugh, or at least chuckle.

The past week, more and more geese are overnighting on the lake—40-60 now. And more seem to be coming in for a break during the afternoon. Early in August, I know, but days shorten and the sun shifts a little more southward. So the shade says.

Of course, your summer is summering hard on. 

What awaits is hard to say. Do as well as you can. Many look forward to your return home.

Yours,

srk

Luxury Time

Dear Maria,

I hesitate to tell you morning temperatures have been in the low 60s for 3 days. Didn’t hesitate enough, huh? Look at it this way—oh, never mind.

What made me think of you—yes, there was a prompting. Isn’t that how it typically goes? Anyway, I was sitting out back reading and after an hour or so, the thought came to me that I was in luxury time, at my leisure to let the minutes evaporate in a sense. Time for me now nearly never seems to need a chokehold.

Which is what you seem to be struggling with, now that you have the time to sit and think, or to read, or to paint. Okay, maybe you don’t think now—yikes—is the time. I would argue, or at least suggest, now now now.

Maybe the tug of duties at home and at work keeps you from being able to just let the days be as they come. Perhaps being told a homecoming is in the offing within a month, maybe two, unbalances present and future.  

I don’t know. Nothing new there.

Thanks—I guess—for the link to the article on the lawsuit filed by Detroit students for not being taught to read. Of course, no inalienable or constitutional right exist to be literate, but we might hope that if so much money is going to be spent, then we damn well ought to at least make sure kids can read. But by gawd, they’ve got to keep going forward chained to the calendar of testing and grade cohorts.

Don’t get me started.

Lost the squash to the bugs, cucumbers are good, tomatoes and melons still developing. The rosemary—no surprise—and the lavender are thriving. The nursery has been plagued with mildew and fungus. I am attending to the damage.

Thanks for the kind words regarding my little volume now out in the world. Others, too, have been so very supportive, so very kind. Humbling. Heartening. My mother was very pleased, and so the rest is lagniappe.

Soak in the moment as you can. You will be back in churn before you know it.

As always, still,

srk

Current Events

Dear Maria,

Now summer arrives after you have seen a raft load of triple-digit temperatures. A 96 here this week sets the high mark so far for this season. More heat to follow, no doubt.

Glad to see you in good form while visiting Santa Fe. I have not been in that area of the world since ’98 and can only wonder at how much it has grown or changed. True locals like those anywhere that became a destination must think newcomers and tourists the root of all ills. At least tourists spend money, taxes included, and go home.

I always flinch on behalf of the locale when I see articles about best places to visit, to retire, to move, to discover—an odd notion that. National news outlets touting geographic gems? Shut up.

No danger of such reportage here in Lyman even as Greenville gets a fair share of media fanfare.

My news is of the backyard sort, squash and tomatoes sighted, cucumber and melon vines developing, a pair of robins collecting nesting material. The first garlic, a bit of a revelation when fresh from the garden to the sauté pan. Not so pungent a taste, lightly aromatic—with the added quality of being an antidote to vampires, of course.

As for other news, I am mostly sure that the parents I know, have known, would do anything to keep their children safe, to make their lives better. Fortunately, overwhelmingly, those parents never faced such dire circumstances as seen elsewhere, and likely never will.

Broadly, one thought on the matter I have in mind. Better to live in the location where people flee to than from. No point in chewing too much on this bone as even more broadly, to me it seems, politics and power make pawns of us all.

I am glad your family is safe and well, I am glad my neighbors’ families are safe and well, I am glad my family is safe and well.

Glad, too, that you are feeling perkier. So, to better days ahead.

Yours, truly,

srk

 

Harvest

Dear Maria,

Greetings from Rainlandia, which is a bit of an overreach but not by as much as I would wish. Of course, in your current circumstances rain would qualify, I reckon, as a novelty.

I heard through the grapevine you chafed a bit at the notion you are convalescing. Well, that is not a terrible thing, is it? Maybe the word seems old-fashioned, or maybe you think it suggests some malingering on your part. Poppycock. You’re doing what is sensible and needs to be done.

At least you’re getting plenty of sun. I could send along a photo of gray skies—dozens and dozens of photos in fact—well, you get the picture. And, yes, I exaggerate. At least the plants and trees and the first of the vegetables are thriving.

Turns out some of last year’s cucumber seeds seem to have borne winter well and are growing in the nursery bed with the burning bushes and crape myrtles. Note to self on that front. Seriously. Will be interesting to see the results.

Not that I am lashed to a harvest as if life depended upon the haul. Fortunately. Just a new shoot here or a tiny leaf there, or a bud or a peach, as part of my daily prowl services my expectations. Well, hoping for a bit more peach-wise.

You, on the other hand, have an end very much in mind. I get that.

We are, as we have been, living in two very different spaces the last few years. And not just geographically, though dramatically so now.

Really, I’m thinking more about time than space. The luxury I have to carry such a short list of have-to-get-done items allows for watching birds or the clouds or the kids next door rather than keeping my shovel moving. Melon seeds sown Wednesday rather than Tuesday, just fine. Squash or cucumbers to be picked—if or when it’s time for them, then that suits.

Okay, okay, I admit my personality may be the greater variable. Do you think? Go ahead, laugh out loud.

As for you—tell me about your Santa Fe visit after you get back. Take pictures. Enjoy the kids when they come out this summer.

Be well, be good, behave. Indeed, convalesce.

Always,

srk

Around the Bend

Dear Maria,

Thanks for the photos. Perhaps email will do just fine. Still not as satisfying as unwrapping a letter, so to speak, but the words mean the same and that is all that matters in the end.

I do understand what you are saying about the desert, the quiet. Coincidentally—and nothing more than that—I thought about the desert in January. We had a couple of unseasonable shorts and t-shirt days, and as I sat out back and looked at the winter woods, I thought how noisy the visual. How a desert landscape would be so much quieter, so less busy.

I am sending along one picture. You will laugh. Just days after I wrote in Miscellany about leaving the area around the lake untended by my hand, the beavers decided to execute a major water release. One day-long flush, and then a shorter one the next. Lake at the lowest level since 2009 according to a neighbor.

Have no idea how long to full bowl, if ever. The local engineers will manage that issue. Along with the rains.

By the way, 3 baby herons and a set of 6 and a set of 10 goslings this spring. Gaggle right there.

And I do understand what you are saying about knowing what the future holds. Timetables like 3 to 6 months, or maybe a year, hardly seem meaningful guidance. Especially when you try to consider the needs of your family and your role at work.

Let me go with the obvious—too obvious, I guess, but. You need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.

I suspect on that front—what waits ahead—there are two types of people. Those who want to see around the bend and the others, not so much. Of course, if you knew how your storyline would go, you would rethink some decisions. But the not knowing is the great democratic equalizer, and so we all do the best we can with what we can know in the here and now.

We shall see when we shall see. Trite, but true.

I saw the other day the temperature was scorching hot out there. Good grief!  Summer will be an inferno I reckon.

Stay cool, be well.

Yours,

srk

Tucson

Dear Maria,

Bird Nerd Alert: The other day I fired off a text to a neighbor that read “Hawks together. Dead pine. To the west.” I believe you would be one of the very small flock of friends to chuckle at that impulse. You may own up at your discretion, of course.

Otherwise, spring here comes in fits and starts—no explosion like a fireworks finale. More a rolling out, one week cherries blooming behind the Burger King, before that redbuds opening between the elms next to the Bi-Lo, this week the daffodils in my front bed that is such an eyesore every gardener in my family, this generation and all others before, is shamed.

But, spring and warmer.

Although only some yardwork is getting done, I pace myself fully aware we will scarcely recall how the world without leaf looks by the end of the month. The nursery, too, is very work-in-progress, the early stage. But come May.

I am deeply sorry to hear of your setback. At least the prognosis is good—or that is your word for it—and the kids are old enough to mostly keep their equilibrium as needed. Not that they won’t feel the distance and some anxiety.

Not how you thought the next stretch would go, but being blown off course unexpectedly is part and parcel of the ride. Vexing. Nerve-wracking.

Sorry, no need to belabor all that.

As for Tucson, all that came to my mind was Linda Ronstadt and the university of and desert—like of that I would know—and close to the border. Very close in my mind’s map. Tucson to Tucumcari. Hey, this isn’t Telluride. Okay, done with this nonsense. Hmm, you can be our personal correspondent from the Far West.  

However, your request that I serve as your state and regional reporter-at-large would be better served by a friend that, oh, takes the local paper and hangs with folks who chatter-up such matters.

Politics? Well, I would be unlikely to have Vlad, Xi, Kim, and Rodrigo over for a poker night, but I’m not a leader of the free world of a sort. 

I do feel your exhortation to write more often, and will, and willingly concede to emails so that I may include pictures—might shorten the text as a picture is, you know. Anticipate garden/nursery photos. Oh, and Max. Who turned 6 Sunday. Hound.

Hug the kids for me. Let me know you are settled in safely, and before long I suppose we will think you Countess of Cacti. Or not.

Your friend, in all things,

srk

A Wintry Mix

Dear Maria,

Ouch! I hoped you forgot my prediction regarding Trump’s blood sugar level. Unlike him apparently, I can drive by a Krispy Kreme and my A1C goes up 2 points. These days, a handful of sweet potato tots and I think I’ve summited the Everest of desserts.

Your robin story made me laugh out loud—with you, not at—and I am very sorry about your new car. But 100 robins, wow! I rarely see more than half-a-dozen robins at a time here.

A number of our local birds out back have settled the winter fling, or at least the mallards and eider ducks have. The geese, not quite. A few weeks ago the males regularly were thrashing about at each other, and yesterday an interloper was given a hostile reception down by the dam. I suspect rapprochement will reign soon as we tick away days until spring.

As for the predators, the pair of Red-shouldered hawks are back on the scene after seeming to vacate during the bad cold spell at the beginning of the year. I’ve seen them together half a dozen times during the past few weeks. Day before yesterday they were sitting together in the grandfather tree I sent you a picture of last summer. Truth be told, I misidentified them as Cooper’s hawks until taking a look with my glasses on. Just let that reality go without comment, please.

Oh, did I tell you about seeing one of these hawks sitting in a birch behind a house two blocks away? Yep, about 10 feet high—here’s the kicker, someone there is a pigeon fancier and has a kit of birds—7 to 12—that I often see circling the neighborhood in the morning when I walk Max. Conjures up gruesome buffet perhaps, but a hawk’s gotta do….

We’ve had another light snow and then yesterday a wintry mix of sleet and ice and rain that now is long gone. May touch 60 degrees a few times in the next two weeks. Still too early to post the days-to-spring or days-to-last-frost countdowns. Yet.

So I content myself with paging through seed and plant catalogs, and some days slipping out and snipping a few small interior branches off the elms and crape myrtles. Or just standing out in the nursery and thinking about when the plants and trees will break leaf after over-wintering in pots.

I suspect you will be at the roses in a few weeks. Lucky girl. Hugs to the family. May send along a story next week. We’ll see.

As for my dream last week that ended with one of those dramatic movie voiceovers proclaiming “Your next president, Jeff Sessions”, ‘nuff said.

Yours, of course,

srk

A Singing Day

Dear Maria,

A warm holiday greeting to you and the family on this cold, breezy day. Despite the sunshine, high won’t make it to 40, and our coldest days of the season so far are on their way. Of course, always warmer for you—and so then that hotter than hot in August. We gets what we gets.

The family Christmas mob scene was great fun as always. Four generations, 32 of us. Santa was good to me, practical things, which I like. Like lined garden gloves. The family is catching on.

Very little work going on out back. Did make around 1000 hardwood cuttings a couple of weeks ago. Got the almond trees in, so the orchard area is pretty much complete. Blueberry bushes planted, too.

I still get asked about my daily routine and keeping busy. Honestly, never think about it. Time is no longer so neatly fragmented into stages—certainly no bells ringing every 50 minutes or so. If while puttering about something like the geese catches my eye, then so be it.

The chore can wait while I watch the males rise up on their tails and thrash the water with their wings. Entertaining to watch the rest of the flotilla turn in unison toward the posturing combatants. Or maybe it’s the heron across the way being fussed at by mallards that gives me pause. Or the bluebirds one morning out in force.

As days glide by, oddly the weeks jet by. Hours are mostly meaningless. Only the occasional appointment or lunch rendezvous tethers me to the clock. Bills keep the calendar in play—that, and a countdown to the average date for the last freeze.

Forgive me for setting aside your questions about current events. I’ll offer up one apolitical observation on the basis of scant evidence—imagine that. Trump, if he receives a serious medical exam, will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and an A1C of 12. There, you heard it here first.

One afternoon a few weeks ago, I watched my neighbor tenderly lift his youngest daughter out of their van and carry her into the house. Broken leg for that 5-year-old. Several minutes later the 5-year-old neighbor on the other side was singing her heart out. I didn’t know the song, but it had the feel of a Disney epic.

Maybe that best gets at the heart of life now—despite difficulties that may arise, singing days prevail.

I trust life tumbles along comfortably for you and your tribe. Best wishes going forward into 2018.

Yours,

srk

The Daily Bonus

Dear Maria,

Okay, so I meant sort of monthly updates. Blame days that allow the pause button to be pushed. Little timeouts for me to savor a cup of coffee or take in the geese splashing in the lake or watch the neighbor children chasing about as they play. Days do not rush by—snap, snap, snap—but rather ease by. Some event that I think of as just last week more likely was the week before.

And now it is November. As to the question of the leaves changing color, yes they are. But the temperatures are so mild that several butterfly bushes are blooming again, the nandina are growing, and a number of plants in the nursery are acting like it is the growing season. Even the lilac transplanted from my sister’s backyard and one of the rescue crabapples are breaking into flower.

Go figure.

As for the geese, yes they are still coming in nearly daily. We had that stretch where nearly every evening 60, 70, and even a few times over 100 would fly in to overnight. Now the numbers are much fewer and the pattern is more erratic. Hard to know which birds might be on the move south and which might be part of the overwintering bands.

Oh, finally, after more than a year, saw the first Red-headed Woodpecker out here last week, which seems very unlikely given the many trees that could be worked over.  Or maybe it was the week before.

I am certain it was last week that while sitting out back after sunset I watched a Cooper’s Hawk glide no more than 10 feet above me and across three backyards into the shadows of the trees towards the dam. For those few moments time slowed down, a bonus at the end of what was most likely a good day.

Most likely I say because as I told a friend, my days are very nearly all cake and some are served with extra icing. Each day typically offers something special, something beyond the expected, often obvious, but I suspect not much effort would reveal a highlight from each day. Appreciation of, gratitude for—the daily bonus.

With the days shorter even more so now—dang time change foolishness—the seasonal pull increases despite the weather to date. Hope the holiday season ahead promises many good moments for you and your family.

And then 2018? Impossible.

Always yours,

srk

Some Trees, the Woods

Dear Maria,

Your namesake hurricane laying waste along its path and 28 years ago, Hugo. Only coincidence the timing of this letter, but hard not to note. As I told my mother this morning, Hugo ignites our memories without the prompting of photos.

Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes—so many terrible trials for so many, many people.

As to some of your questions—and numbered?—the nursery idea is rooted in a 3-year plan to be growing 2000 trees and shrubs. At least. No, really. Right now my last inventory counted 152 items that could be sold, but generally I bought small to grow tall. How’s that for sloganeering? And pretty much this year is a lab with a lot of surprises, aka steep learning curve.

Part of that curve is discovering I enjoy more one Chinese wisteria coming up from seed than the 20 river birches adding a foot or so of growth this season. So, plant 5000 seeds? I’m thinking about it.

My youngest neighbor—I am, or very nearly am, the senior citizen on the cul-de-sac. How the heck did that happen?—he worries about my little growing adventure. He frets about the costs and thinks I work too hard out in the sun. His observation: I don’t know anyone who ever bought a tree. I told him my doctor would approve the pushing, pulling, lifting, and digging. Rather all of that for me instead of repetitive exercises. His response: You can work out in a gym. And so it goes.

To be fair, he mows the slope between our yards to keep me off of it with my push mower, and I have no doubt he would lend a hand with a heavy load. He loves his kids and seems to have a mostly easy-going hold on life. A good neighbor, as they all seem to be in this neck of the woods.

As for the birds, the usual suspects. More particularly, two sightings of bald eagles so far, a Cooper’s hawk 30’ away on the back fence the other morning, a bluebird and a goldfinch landing together in one of the rescue willow oaks, over 100 geese coming in last night to overnight on the lake. May not be the cranes at Gibbon or flamingos at Nakuru, but I find the comings and goings of my—my—geese amusing and comforting.

My seasonal lament is always the same, the shortening days. I drink my morning coffee on the patio now in the pre-dawn coolness before the geese are stirring. But life remains good, and that is no small thing as we both know.

As always, my very best to you and the family.

Yours, srk

In Time, Just

Dear Maria,

I will freely admit chagrin. 

And you may be assured that on your behalf I have been chided, admonished even. Rather than the opinionistas, your birthday card clucking about my 64th has put me in my place here at my desk again. After nearly 9 months. Oh, yes, I checked.

And you were right about how settled into this new landscape I have become. As you know, I have had yard canvasses to work with before, but never quite so large and quite so blank. The house sits up on a bit of an unshaded knob to be thoroughly broiled by the solar engine, and so I have planted 12 trees intended to produce shade asap. Of course, I am willing to anticipate results that may be 3 to 5 years out, or even 10-15 should I be shuffling around this property then.

I did tell a former student that I seem to have a temperament for delayed results. Indeed.

Then one thing led to another--how banal that phrase, but onward--and I planted a number of fruit trees--apples, peaches, jujubes--and then cucumbers, squash, melons, tomatoes, and beans. Oh, and I started a nursery of trees and plants, which now has about 40 different species growing in around 300 containers. 

No doubt you are laughing, or smiling wryly, to think of me planting for food. Blame one of my neighbors who is quite the gardener. He corrupts me with the vegetables, and I retaliate by talking up trees and shrubs. We toss cherry tomatoes to each other from yard to yard. My mother is calling us the Hardy Boys of gardening. He would be the younger Joe in this duo.

I am still out of bed before dawn each day. Now morning coffee includes rounds to check on what is breaking leaf, fruiting, blooming, or in some kind of trouble. The rhythm of the days turns by the arrival and departure of geese on the lake, the first birds of the morning, the last few at dusk. 

In truth, I am at a point where I often can be wrong about the day of the week--twice in one week, as has happened. Daytime heating dictates my activities more than the calendar, clocks run forward without signifying much by way of beginning or ending times. A day, a week, an hour or two, all ease by. 

But now you are reinserted into the rollcall of what deserves attending to. I will stay in touch. Exactly when, well I cannot say. 

May all be the very best for you and your family.

Yours, 
srk

A Season's Concession

Dear Maria,

Greetings! A seasonally appropriate 28 degrees this morning, and so I must concede, fall has arrived. Despite some mornings in the lower to mid-30s, because the highs, like several of the past few days, have managed to climb into the 70s, I ignored the calendar. Not today. 

Today is resignation day. Winter is going to come.

You know I have only half-jokingly referred to this place as Camp Reflection—the pun, obvious—but the character of the place lends itself to frequent pauses to, well, reflect. Were it a summer camp, the kids would be long gone, the last few senior counselors would have turned the bunks, locked the windows, and stored the canoes and kayaks in the shed. The pantry would be nearly empty, just enough for the senior director to see the place through the winter.

Yep, that would be me. Yep, feeling a little swelling of melancholy in the chest. So now I write, you are thinking. Lucky you.

No geese this late afternoon as I walked Max. In fact, very few birds today. Yesterday could have passed for Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson out here. Did see what I am pretty certain is a tree swallow, but it is most likely merely pausing during its migration. Beautiful bird.

Oh, by the way, speaking of writing—and I sort of was—thank you for telling me the other day that one of my posts didn’t resonate with you. I could hardly take anyone seriously who said they liked—liked, which now is even a more vapid word thanks to social media—every post, every story, every poem.

However, to chew on if not eat my words, thanks for liking the little haiku that tallied around 1/15^th the views my open letter to Trump received. That minor foray into the current situation resulted in a 600% jump in readership and more likes and more shares than anything I have ever posted. Go figure.

Regardless, most likely, it’s back to the landscape for me.

Minus the melancholy. Besides the seasonal shift brings the holiday sprint. Thanksgiving was 34 of us—final accounting in the hands of tabulators—and was good-spirited as always. I might even throw up some lights in the crape myrtles out back, which would give my neighbors across the way something to look at and would most likely amuse my neighbors on either side.

I am sure your family’s gathering was warm and fun—and the temperature as well. Enjoy the pleasures of the season. Perhaps we will put a little extra emphasis on the word peace when we ask for Peace on Earth this go-round.

My best to the family and friends and colleagues.

As always, yours,

srk 

In Absentia

Dear Maria,

Ouch! Okay, okay. No matter how gently delivered, I feel your reproofs—truly, I do. Hey, I can be sensitive.

As to the first matter—no letter since the relocation—no excuses. I know you prefer opening a mailbox and tearing open an envelope as you walk back to your front door. I get that. And since the blog posts from here are fairly general, I won’t claim any kind of equivalence. All that would do is fuel more scorn from you.

Simply, then, the move turned out to be the right decision at the right time. Reconnecting with family on a weekly basis—or at least some of the 31 who are 25-35 minutes away—certainly has been good for me. Max has settled into a routine of barking at neighboring dogs and patrolling the backyard fence. Every day, nearly, is outdoors, outdoors, outdoors. My new playpen suits me—the kudzu battle, planting trees and setting gate posts, and managing the lake and dam, including the beaver dam. All good.

Several others have asked me about the election, and honestly my response was pretty muted. You know I maintained an awareness in absentia after a few mocking posts about walls and guns. For me, the tone became sort of the verbal equivalent of some minion chewing off his own hand in Penny Dreadful. I am at the point in my life of why subject myself to that stuff.

Of course I am aware of what was at stake—is at stake.

I did watch Trump’s victory speech. The man was tired, and well he should be. Our process for vetting the candidates is brutal. Otherwise, I don’t what to make of him. I read very little beyond headlines and a few lead paragraphs, and I am no psychologist, pundit, or political savant. As for the daily routine and minutiae of governing, I am guessing he will lose interest. The Republicans in Congress after assessing his tolerances for policy may have a field day legislatively—I don’t know.

I can say—and for no other reason than a sense of schadenfreude—watching Cruz et al call him Mr. President for the first time might be entertaining.

To be sure, Trump is no more than a set of ideas-elect. If he said anything to win, to make the sale, then it will interesting to see how his customers respond when he doesn’t deliver. Just don’t know.

Here’s what I suspect—based on no deep knowledge or insight, but why stop now—that 4 years from now the divisions of class and race and gender will be mostly the same, that poverty rates will be essentially unchanged, that income inequality will be more or less the same, and that the Democrats will be hard pressed to find a champion to win the day in the lists.

Short of an enormous economic breakdown that unleashes chaos in the streets, or some horrific war that tears into our country’s soul, more of the same from my perspective.

I did post on Facebook that I believed the Nation would endure. Deliberately I did not use the word Republic. You know I am at heart, in my mind, a longstreamist, and I know that aggravates the dickens out of you.

Certainly such a kerfuffle is enough to cement our friendship for an eternity. Promise to write with a holiday update. Maybe even by then the beavers and I will not have gone to war.

Best wishes to you and the family.

Always yours, srk

Taking Leave

Dear Maria,

Greetings! From a bit further, oh let’s call it north-northwest by my reckoning. Appreciated the card and even more the kind words. Several others were of your mind that I seemed anchored to the Charleston area despite my raising the notion of moving in this direction last year.

Just before I found this property, I heard myself say out loud that life for me was “more about preservation than exploration”. I know, I know. Chew those words up and spit them out. A few weeks later I was stomping around outside here at the new place for the first time, and 48 hours later the contract was signed.

Sometimes you have to yank the tablecloth off the table—dishes, too.

Of course, my sister’s branch of the family—or more accurately, pretty much an entire tree—has been suggesting the time for this move was due, and I was of the mind that there would be a Yes in due time. So far in a week 20 of the 31 have come out. When I say out, I mean no more than 25-35 minutes.

Sorry we missed each other the last time you were in town on what I named the Meet for Lunch Farewell Tour. Would have taken a year to hit all the spots to my taste in the Charleston area food-wise, and the tour really ended more a whimper, less a bang. Not that it was all about the food. No. Really. But as with any move, all suddenly picked up pace and the next thing I knew I was having to accept that I would not get in all the goodbyes as I would have wished.

As for Max, he spent the first 4 days here going to the front door and looking back at me—despite his toys tossed about the living room, his quilt behind my big recliner, his food and water dishes on the floor at the end of the bar. Then, morning 5, he strutted around the backyard, announced himself to the surrounding pack by barking with a bit of fur up, and trotted with much purpose the inside perimeter of the fence. Guess he lives here now.

As for me, settling in slowly—my desk, my bed, my chair, my coffeemaker, etc. What I do know is that often I will have a thought that connects me to one of my friends left behind, the kind to be shared face-to-face and then the natural flow of conversation that goes from there. Always the case, I have found, with any place that it’s the people, the camaraderie, the friendships. I will miss many, no doubt.

Turns out that I do know several folks from back in the locale who live around these parts now. Up here. Uphill. Upstate. Wait until I send you a picture of snow—then you’ll believe I’m not in the Ladson Metro anymore.

Lyman Metro?

Be good, be well, behave. A bit foolish as a sentiment. But you know the rest. May you and your family be blessed. Come see me.

Always, srk

Summer's Heat

Dear Maria,

Good morning! The summer air was hanging hot and humid at sunrise, and only now at mid-morning is the breeze bringing some relief. Even Max contained his enthusiasm during our daily stroll at 6:30—tongue hanging, head lowered, gait slowed.

Had the happy occasion to spend some time with my kid brother and his youngest son this past weekend. They were in Greenville, and so 28 of the clan gathered for a cookout. Of course, it was the hottest weekend so far. Of course, we stoked up two grills. Hot weather, fire the charcoal. And we even think it grilling season—heat for heat, hot hotter hottest.

How hot this summer gets, well that remains to be seen.

As for your questions—or better, your fears for how goes the world these days—I have no answers. Not that I don’t have some thoughts—okay, opinions—and you know how that goes with me.

What I can say is that I am not afraid for family and friends much beyond whatever I might have thought 5 years ago or 10 or 20. Not that the landscapes are exactly the same—culturally, politically, economically.

However, I have not yielded to fears of an existential nature—that some apocalyptic or seismic shift is about to take place. Call me naïve, or even ignorant, but since few nations disappear even as empires may rise and wane, I think the union survives.

As for day-to-day existence, our quality of life, I can’t imagine much of a redesign by broad strokes. Yes, the Information Wars rage, but I do not see a shooting war here at home. Yes, threats are being fomented here and abroad, but I do not see the populace brought to its knees in abject servitude.

Come back in a 100 years or 500, and my tiny voice could well be the small utterings of a blind fool.

We are always at now, not then and not to come. Or not much beyond, speaking for myself, another two decades or so. Not predictive, not expected—just hazarding a guess.

You might think what is unspoken here is a callousness toward the tragedies of the day. Not at all. I flinch at the ugliness of violence, I ache when I think of family and friends left behind, I yearn for peace between peoples.

But, I choose not to live life as a raw wound.

Well, that should teach you to ask for my thoughts—don’t get me started as the saying goes. I trust you and your family are doing well and will suck the marrow out of the summer season.

Wow! Just watched a male bluebird and a female cardinal sit on the same limb together not even 2 feet apart. They were staring into the neighbor’s backyard and then zoom, off they went together. I may not have seen it all yet, but that is one less item to come.

On that note, I remain yours.

srk

Slacker!

Dear Maria,

You’re right, I have been slack. Slacker than slack. And don’t be nice about it. When you’re right, you’re right. However…

Uh, nope, I’ve got nothing.

Bluebird tally, I’ve got that. Two new males and a female. Watched one of the young males go after a target 80 or 90 feet away from the condo. Couldn’t see if he made the hit because he flew away from me into a neighbor’s Leyland cypress.

Oh, saw a kite last week—first sighting. I’m guessing it’s one of the pair that summers here. Our local hang-about hawk is still providing the early morning alert. Not sure how that works out territory-wise, but given the number of squirrels about, perhaps they achieve some kind of psychic bird airspace treaty. Or do they buzz each other in intimidating fashion. I would guess they don’t want to go at it talon and beak. But these matters of contested airspace are above my pay grade.

Spring was in hyper-drive. Viburnum bloomed this year, ligustrum are blooming, and the roses skipped the mass bloom and went right into mass bloom and spiking with stems carrying multiple flowers. Lantana are flowering, the plumbago are ahead of schedule, tea olive were spectacular and now the jessamine is perfuming the patio. Yep, pretty darn good.

As for the news of the Cruz missile crashing, I have nothing to say. As for the election upcoming—or as it appears it will go—I have nothing to say. Oh, I have my opinions—going with silence as a virtue even as I am sure we will see more and more quotations extoling speaking out being the higher virtue. But, it’s only May.

Coming up on 3 years out of the classroom. It struck me—more a thwack than a bolt—how some students who sat in front of me when I was in my late 20s might have blossomed were they to have been with me when I was in my 50s. And the reverse could surely be true. Speaks to my sense that you do the best you can where and when. No great insight there, but better than suggesting giving 110%.

No specific plans for much of anything this summer, or May for that matter. Lollygagging. Now that suits my pay grade.

Have fun. Pat the kids on the head, which should make them roll their eyes.

Yours, srk

P.S. The fall from the back of the truck was a short one and gave me a moment or two to watch a few fluffy clouds float by. The blue sky took my breath away. All good.