A month of Sundays

Four Sundays have passed since last I posted, and more than a month since anything of significance graced (?) this blog. Let’s catch up and be witty about it (I hope). In mostly reverse order….

Red oak with tree trimmers. Raleigh, NC. June 2023.

In the photo above a local tree-trimming service prepares to limb the dead branches out of this fine red oak in our front yard. Most of the branches overhang the street or sidewalk and thus pose a safety risk for anything/anyone who happens to be beneath them. I could try to describe where they are in that photo, but only one is distinct. It’s in the upper, left-center of the photo, a dark silhouette against the light green pines behind it. No, not that one. The one snaking down away from it. In all, the two-man crew lopped four main branches and about a half dozen minor ones. The thick end of the branches measured six to eight inches, and I got a nice box of firewood out of it all. This company has given up cutting trees down (losing 30% of their revenue stream in the process), focusing instead on maintaining the health of the ones we still have on this planet. Further, they offer to return your yard to a natural meadow state (for a pretty hefty fee), something we are seriously contemplating. They use organic, natural substances for maintaining shrubs and trees. They help support the native plants and help eradicate or tame the non-natives. I’m pretty stoked about it–if we go the full makeover route, I may give them free advertising by mentioning their name!

Backyard bird feeding station #2. Raleigh, NC. June 2023.

“Month of Sundays” continues: I’m embarrassed to put up such a mundane photo, but I’ve yet to take any good ones. Last Sunday we sat to enjoy this new bird feeding station erected the day before. The squirrel/raccoon baffle works, at least for squirrels anyway, and by including mealworms in the feeder on the right I’ve managed to entice the bluebirds to feed once again. (Haven’t seen them since I quit offering mealworms about nine months ago–long and boring story.) I’m excited to use a Nikon app to link my camera to my phone and take photos of the birds without being anywhere near either them or the camera. It should be good. (It may not work at all, but permit me my optimism.) Installing this pole system proved serendipitous: the same day I planned to install the new pole system, I found the nice, squirrel-proof feeder which normally sits on the pole in the background nearly torn off, likely by something big, like a raccoon, perhaps a possum. Three of four nut-and-bolt fasteners were gone, and it hung sideways by the final remaining one.

Not exactly another Sunday back: the penultimate day of May I spent preparing what I call Deconstructed Nachos. It starts with taking all those fading tortillas which we never can keep up with and turning them into chips. We had several avocados at peak ripeness; they became guacamole. Some heirloom beans (Buckeyes, I think) from Rancho Gordo received the Mexican-flavored cooking I favor, using a recipe from a book I’ve carted around for 45 years. Using the same cookbook, I turned them into a bean dip. Then we just dip the chips instead of piling the ‘stuff’ on top of the chips. Sometimes I’ll make a picadillo, but we skipped it this time, and indeed skipped the melted cheese on top. Goodbye May! You were delicious!

In the past two months there has been baking….

Poppy rolls from the book *From Scratch* by Michael Ruhlman, baked in a cast iron skillet. They held lots of shredded pork and coleslaw and were dressed with Lexington BBQ sauce. May 2023.

Hearth bread from *The Bread Bible* by Rose Levy Beranbaum. May 2023.

There was altogether wa-a-a-ay too much of this…

A fine grain-and-hop concoction in one of the new Teku glasses purchased from Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown, PA. I’m thinking it’s a Belgian-inspired brew from Haw River Farmhouse Ales. May 2023.

…and too little walking and exercising. If there had been more, perhaps I would have encountered more of these while walking….

Deer crossing where the City of Raleigh has built a drainage pipe under the road just north of our house by a couple hundred yards. This allows an unnamed creek to flow to Haresnipe Creek. May 2023.

I’ve now marked the first ten days of my 70th year on this planet. I’d like to think it’s time to get serious, but why start now? Seriously, I need less serious and more lighthearted enjoyment. Apologies for a rambling travelogue through my past two months. We’ll get back to Serious Stuff again. You’ll see.

is it me…?

Many an evening an inspiration strikes, and I dutifully grab a pad and write it down. About 90% of the time I read it the next morning and say to myself, “WTF?” This morning this is what I read:

Social Wallpaper

–you divert the attention from ME
sincerely recorded by brain-addled me

All I remember is saying this to my wife in the context of me pontificating (as I am wont to do), and exclaiming to her, “Wow! I’ve got to write that down!”

Yay.

We are not called

Cannonballs at the Tryon Palace, New Bern, NC. May 2009.

or, “To all who run toward the open field”

Not all are called to priesthood;
...to teach,
...to heal,
...to defend,
...to right wrongs,
...to lead,
...to agitate,
...to write
The Great American Novel.

Some of us pursue
not purpose but
meaning in being,
in "job well done",
in talents exercised,
in immediate
gratification for
problems solved,
purposes fulfilled, in
greasing wheels for
others, serving those
we do not know to
accomplish what we also
do not know. To add one 
rock to the pyramid
being built by us all.

Little cowboy cries for his boot

i sing the keyboard Selectric

(a first draft with apologies to Whitman lovers everywhere)

I sing the keyboard Selectric,
The keyboards which I loved and those few which loved me,
They will not keep up with my fingers nor respond to them,
But IBM corrupted me, charged me full of longing for the charge of the ball.

Who could doubt that once corrupted, we would conceal ourselves?
If once defiled, we would not attempt to defile others?
If the up-and-back could not salve our soul?
If the jittering ball were not our soul itself?

The love of its inky black nothingness of a ribbon, we scarcely balk to account,
That of the ball is perfect, and that of the ribbon is perfect.

The expression of its typeface balks account,
But the expression of a well-made page appears not only on the paper,
It is in the slight indentations felt on the paper's reverse, it is curiously in the non-smearing type left by supple wrists,
It is in the ball's walk, the absence of carriage, respondent to flex of wrists and fingers; cover does not hide it.
The strong black strokes jump from the rag cotton carrier,
To see it conveys the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see what life it might bring back to dead prose.

Bridge from Underwood to cathode ray tube, to green dots pointillistically imbuing meaning in blackness,
The thin dark lines of letters stringing meaning, the meaning within you and me,
The exquisite realization of print;
O I say these are not the parts of prose only, but of the writer's soul,
O I say now these black lines are that soul, meaning.

sucked dry

Intracoastal Waterway, Bogue Sound, NC. November 2016.

Did I say,
"nailed by meaning?"

Sometimes 
your lines suck
my lungs dry,
replacing my
oxygen with
amniotic,
fluidic meaning,
sustaining me
more than I
knew I needed.

The Joyful Quitter

Hello, I’m Ken, and I’m a quitter.

This isn’t the opening to a 12-step, I’m-so-ashamed program. The act of quitting bandages the abrasions earned by scraping your metaphorical knees as you learn what you shouldn’t do. Bandages shouldn’t be applied unnecessarily; so too don’t apply quitting without need. At best it looks stupid; at worst, it hampers your movement, just as an elaborate bandage hobbles you and can lead to permanent restriction.

We’re conditioned to abhor quitting. “Don’t be a quitter!” and “Winners never quit and quitters never win!” But what if you’re not in the right contest? Quitters may never win, but the untalented never win either, and there is no shame in realizing you’re in the wrong game: a five-foot body isn’t going to cut it in the NBA.

I’ve quit many a race. I regret few. I much more regret the months and months of anguishing about whether I should quit as I languished in a situation going nowhere. After the fact, I realized that I perversely reversed the thinking process, making the decision (without consciously acknowledging it) then searching for a rationalization to get to it.

Quitting can force itself on you. What blessed relief when something like an emergency appendectomy absolves you of all personal responsibility! Just lie there and let others administer to you! Or maybe a Tyrant-Disguised-As-Your-New-Boss suddenly makes the exit look exceedingly attractive. Or the ultimate quit occurs–your significant other stabs your heart by quitting the relationship. Take a moment to cry, then notice all the windows that opened when the door was slammed shut.

I can’t remember all the times I’ve quit, but I do still remember clearly one of the first when the 13-year-old version of me spent a couple weeks on the track team in junior high, a very round peg in a very square hole. I talked myself into a poor 880-yard run performance by saying things like, “don’t worry if you’re losing; someone has to finish last.” No surprise then when the last-place runner passed me and gasped, “why are we doing this?” before he made me the last-place runner! That was a Friday. I quit Monday. Sorry, Coach Skilstead, but I’m sure 57 years later that I made the right decision. Before I got out of high school I had quit vocal music, despite the fact I was good at it and it comprised one-third of all my classes as a sophomore. As I entered my senior year, I quit taking math classes despite being one of the best students in every class I took to that point. I mentally quit thinking I would be a journalist when I returned to creative writing as a senior. (But then I “quit” on that idea when I realized I needed the discipline of a deadline to get myself to the typewriter. [Typewriter! Look it up younglings!]

A good runner, way out front. Not me. This is my brother. Fall 1973. Spokane, WA.

Once upon a time I quit a college class called Introduction to Political Science. I sat down for the mid-term examination and found I couldn’t answer any of the questions–a Friday again, naturally. I caught up with the professor the following week and told him I wanted to withdraw from the class. He whipped out his gradebook, registered surprise, and said, “But you’ve got a B at this point and that’s one of the highest marks in the class!” I referenced the midterm and insisted.

I’ve quit church choirs. I’ve quit jobs, sometimes even without having another job to go to. I tried to quit a job for over a year in 2004 and 2005, but the company laid me off before I could line up something else. I indulged in The Big Quit, a.k.a. Retirement at the end of 2019, answering firmly the question, “What would you do if you won/inherited a million dollars?” I had always equivocated when the question seemed theoretical. I told my co-workers I would keep working “unless I felt I was depriving someone who needed a job”. Yeah, it wasn’t a million dollars, but that didn’t matter. I was outta there…but that’s another story for another day.

Recently a person whose work I admire here on WordPress said something about quitting, subtly invoking the tropes our society attempts to get all of us to believe in. Apologetic notes crept in. I hurt for this person, yes, but I enjoyed seeing the acceptance of quitting and the benefits it could bring.

Lately my brother ran into a mental wall which made him abandon his plan to visit us today (April 22). These enforced ‘quits’ don’t always sit well with a person, but I hope he can embrace the possibilities quitting can bring. I hope he can become a Good Quitter.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to absolve myself when I set aside books which fail to engage me. I’ll feel little remorse for giving up on all the gardening I thought I would do when retired. I’ll try to let myself off the hook for all the home repairs which haven’t been completed. I’ll give myself the freedom to pursue what I want when I want to. It’s been about seven decades–I’m still learning how to do this quitting thing. I’ll let you know how it works out.

a poor excuse

I notice I haven’t posted since April 10th, Easter Monday. Seems like more than 12 days. I’d like to come up with an excuse, even if it’s a poor one, but I don’t have anything leaping to mind. I could cite cracked ribs, but that didn’t seem to matter between March 13th and April 10th!

I have a piece to publish tomorrow. Meanwhile….

Sunlight on a wall of St. Mary’s Chapel, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC. April 2023.

Yesterday there was snow again…

Yesterday there was snow again and wind froze ribs on top of the drifts along the hillsides; sun shone through the copper grass that grew above the snow on Saint Joseph’s hill, and it looked as if the snow was all on fire. There were jewels all over the junk the brothers dumped out there where the old horsebarn used to be. A bunch of old worn-out window-screens were lying about and they shone in the sun like crystal.
Merton, Thomas. The Sign of Jonas (p. 317). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.