Dreaming of Possibilities

I just finished a book about Harlan and Anna Hubbard, a couple who chose to live a simple life on the banks of the Ohio River. Written by Harlan, Payne Hollow details how the Hubbards lived their day-to-day lives: building their home mainly from scraps offered by the river and the woods; foraging, gardening and raising goats for food; chopping wood; canning; doing laundry by hand.

Harlan has this to say about their choice:

"To buy bread and coffee, beans and bacon from the store and pay for such inferior provender...does not appeal to us at all. We catch fish for our own eating, get all our living by as direct means as possible, that we may be self-sufficient and avoid contributing to the ruthless mechanical system that is destroying the earth" (page 162).

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Native

It’s a rainy day today.  As I walk to the library, people pass beneath bright umbrellas.  A little boy splashes in a puddle and giggles.  Inside the library I tuck myself into a corner and set down my computer and my bag of crocheting.  A woman punches numbers into her calculator and frowns, pencil poised over her workbook.  She’s got an open can of Red Bull with a yellow straw poking out of the top.  She takes a long drink and stares out the window before returning to her work; jamming her left hand into her hair and resting her head there. 

I pull out my book: Becoming Native to this Place by Wes Jackson.  In his essay “Nature as Measure,” Jackson says that we cannot just save the remaining wilderness we have, but must work to save all the other places in our lives—the places where we live and work and go to school.  “Either,” Jackson says, “all the earth is holy or none is.”
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Ignorance...Bliss?

The other day, someone decapitated my hosta plants with the weed eater.  My husband pointed the finger at Squints; Squints blamed my husband.  Today, in order to save what remained of the plants, I decide to expand the flowerbed in which they were planted, digging out six inches or so to allow the mower to pass by and leave my plants unscathed.  I go to my compost pile, full of worms and broken down fruits and vegetables, and incorporate a few gallons into the soil. 

Squints comes out and begins mowing the lawn.  I stand back and admire my work and move on to my tiny vegetable garden, sowing seeds into the soil: lettuce, cucumbers and Trail of Tears black beans, so-named because the seed line was carried on the trail by the Cherokee.  I pause for a moment thinking of the memories contained within those seeds.

The air cools.  I head inside.  I have another project.

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Stuffed

I headed out to the fabric store the other day to pick up some candy boxes my sister had recommended.  The curb in front of every house was filled with piles of post-Thanksgiving and Black Friday stuff; stuff no longer needed; stuff to be discarded in the landfill: flat screen TVs; a sofa; a stuffed Shrek sitting in the lap of a giant stuffed bear. 

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Cowboy Coffee

Well, our coffee maker has officially died.  One morning, about eight weeks ago, it refused to draw up water into the filter basket.  A tap to the back of the machine solved that problem.  Then the power switch blew.  It went slowly, briefly glowing red when switched on before winking back out.  But the machine still worked: We just had make doubly sure it was turned off at night.  We’ve been limping along this way for several weeks, the prospect of our morning coffee always dubious, and at 6:00 in the morning with still no heat (my repair man forgot to order the part), having doubts about your coffee is troublesome.

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Absence

Well, we took our kitchen table to the basement to make a study area for the kids.  Hopefully, this will help to keep the house a bit neater: Rather than stacking backpacks all over the house, the kids will take them downstairs.  But this absence of the table leaves a surprising emptiness in the kitchen.  It makes it look as if we’ve just moved into the house or are in the process of leaving it.  So we take our meals in the dining room at the table my grandmother gave my husband and me for a wedding gift.

“We need a new table,” my husband said as he banged his head on the kitchen light yesterday.

I wanted to buy a table made locally; a table made by people who live close to me; by people who take pride in their work; by people who take a product from start to finish.  But we didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars.

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Falling

“Mom?”  Squints shouted down the stairs, even though he knows we have a rule in this house against shouting.

“What?”  I shouted back up the stairs.  I was busy crocheting; crocheting a hat to go with the scarf I made him last week.  After that I’d have to make hats to match the scarves I’d made my daughters two weeks ago.  I took up my crocheting again and began counting stitches to see where I’d left off. 

“You know how my glasses are always slipping off my nose ever since Zoe crashed into me?”

“Yeah?”

“They just slipped off.” 

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Detachment

I see that the temperature is supposed to go down into the forties tonight.  This morning, I threw open the windows to chase away the heat and the humidity that has hovered in the air since May.  The flies appear to have been listening to the weather forecast: A group of them has taken up residence in the kitchen and I find it fair sport to chase them with a dishtowel.  It’s a battle I often lose.

A couple of days after I lost the War of Tug with Destructo, my eye started flashing—a quick burst of lightning that disappeared immediately.  The flashing began on an inconvenient day: the day of Filibuster’s photo preview: The studio owner greeted us warmly at the door and seated us upon a plush velvet couch before a gigantic movie screen.   She dimmed the lights.

My eye flashed.

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Two Miles and Twenty Cents a Gallon

I saw him behind plate glass as I exited the bank: one-third of the way up the window, a four-inch long praying mantis.  Perhaps he was checking on interest rates.  Or maybe he was just grasping on for dear life, still in shock from the earthquake or in preparation for the upcoming hurricane. 

He must’ve been reading the papers or listening to the radio: Everywhere, people are being cautioned to ready themselves; to have food and water and travel plans worked out.  I have made no such preparations, although I did fill up the gas tank at the local—expensive—BP yesterday.   My usual trick is to just put a couple of dollars into the tank at the pricier place then limp as quickly as I can into the station two miles and twenty cents a gallon away.  I told myself, watching the dials spin wildly behind the glass, that I ought to fill the tank now, just in case.  But the truth of the matter is I’m too lazy to stop for gas again so soon.

* * *

Thanks to the library book sale, Squints is the proud owner of thirteen cookbooks.  He’s got one on desserts featuring Cool Whip in every recipe; a casserole book that employs Campbell’s Soup on each page.  And, although we have no pot, he picked up a book on fondue.  But there are a couple of promising books: Street Foods shows how to make food popularized on the city’s streets: Philadelphia cheese steaks, corn dogs, pad Thai.  And the sandwich book looks interesting: For lunch yesterday, Squints made me a double-layer banana peanut butter sandwich with cream cheese and an interesting concoction of brown sugar and cinnamon topping.   While I proclaimed it delicious, I decided to split it with V.  Filibuster eschewed it entirely, claiming to be full, despite the fact that she hadn’t yet eaten.

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Wild Roses Along the Shoreline

I am an ornament upon their pristine lawn.  They gather in my honor.  Dutiful lips offer dry kisses.  They come bearing gifts: large boxes with colorful ribbons which they set at my bunioned feet.

A little boy in a cowboy hat is placed before me.   “Help Great-Grandma,” a woman says.

“I don’t want to.”  The boy frowns.  Perhaps he fears me.

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Manufacturers Rule

When I was very young, our milk was delivered.  Once a week, the milkman would drive up in his truck and put the milk in the metal box on our front porch.  My sisters and I looked forward to these deliveries: You never knew when the milkman would deliver a quart of ice cream, too.  We’d walk through the front room and open the screen door leading to the porch.  We’d open the metal lid and take the milk into the house and put it into the refrigerator.  We didn’t want it to spoil.

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Not All That It's Fracked Up To Be...

My esteemed Lieutenant Governor recently announced that our drinking water will not be affected by fracking.  A toast to Lieutenant Governor Cawley.  Drink up.  And if your tap should catch fire, just think of it as having your water already boiled for tea without the unnecessary middlemen of a stove and tea pot.  Now that I’ve been reassured, I can put my brain back upon the shelf and forget all this controversy about fracking.  If the Lieutenant Governor says it’s safe, well, then, it must be.

* * *

Squints, V, Destructo and I went to the used bookstore the other day.  The owner stood at the register, sorting out recent acquisitions.  Near the front windows, a barrel-chested man with a beard and ponytail laced with gray stood puzzling over a massive book with a yellow cover. 

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