The English Geek

WCS Mini Gallery

(Thank you for your kind comments about yesterday's post. I'm still processing. I imagine I will continue processing for awhile.)

This month's WCS gallery is up and it's full of mini albums. For my contribution, I finally got around to making an album with my hiking boot photos.

Ever since the fall of 2008, I've kept the tradition of the Hiking Boot Photo.

On the top of every peak, I make all the people who are with us pause for a photo of all our hiking boots.

Sometimes I forget and then I have to improvise. Like, this counts as a hiking-boot photo, right?

As does this one, which only accidentally got my boot in it:

I am happy to say that I now have all of my hiking-boot photos from the past 3 1/2 years in this little 5x7 album. It's nearly full, though, so I need to get another one for our next years of hiking adventures. I kept the mini totally simple: the 5x7 photo on the left with the location of the hike added before I had the pictures printed, and a journaling card on the right with the details:

If you're of the scrappy persuasion, you should go and see the other minis HERE!

on Snow

Unrelentingly dry and sunny winter days send me for a tailspin. To my mind they are the canary in the coal mine, the obvious death that should be a sign to us that disaster is imminent. The combination of feeling like I'm the only person in the world who thinks that and the dread of coming disaster make me anxious. I yearn and hope and pray for the snow to finally come, Snow, delicate snow,/that falls with such lightness/on the head,/on the feelings,/come and cover over the sadness/that lies always in my reason (Unamuno). For the clouds to roll in and blank out the too-large-for-January sky and for the world to act like it is supposed to.

When did this anxiety start for me? I'm not certain. With the dawn of adult consciousness, perhaps, or the ecology class I took as a college freshman. And all the snow that never falls is now/back home and mixed up with other piercing/memories of childhood days (McClatchy). The winter I was in fifth grade we had one of the largest snowfalls ever. In the summer all that snow melt caused the lake to rise and flood the freeway; now there are dykes in place that hold it back. I remember driving to gymnastics and watching the slurry walls of sludge and concrete being nudged into place. Even more clearly I remember the snow day, and my mom was at the doctor with Suzette so I had to walk home by myself—I don't remember at all where Becky was—which wasn't a long walk, but cold in my thin corduroy coat with a hole in its satin pocket. Remember the quiet of the large snowflakes and how you could nearly hear them piling up.

I don't love snow sports. I tried skiing a couple of times but never had any proper lessons so it was a disaster. (There is an echo of the conglomerate of people I tried to ski with behind that sentence, entire autobiographies I could start from my small snow skiing forays.) I don't like driving in it, either; I am tense and terrified. I don't especially love sledding. I don't know how to snowshoe or cross country ski, the two snow sports which do seem appealing; the not-knowing-how has kept me from doing either one.

What I love is the falling, the piling up, the deepening layers. The transformation of sharp, dry edges to rounded lumps. The contrast between the literal coldness and the metaphoric blanket the snow covers the ground with. That was the deepest/I ever went into the snow. Now I think of it/when I stare at paper or into silences/between human beings. (shihab nye) I love listening, still, to the stillness. Love the way it conveys peace without ever saying it; peace while holding the potential, in fact, for destruction and ruin. I love the coldness of the transformed world, which tries to say nothing but what it is; The trunks of tall birches/Revealing the rib cage of a whale/Stranded by a still stream;/And saw, through the motionless baleen of their branches,/As if through time,/Light that shone/On a landscape of ivory,/A harbor of bone (Smith), love the light---the tiny bits of moonlight that seep through the dense clouds like snowflakes themselves---that makes night's bitter darkness less menacing.

At last, this weekend, the dry, sharp brownness of my world lost itself in whiteness. Not enough; barely a skiff. But enough to make me take a breath. To make my parched soul drink deep. To let me listen to the relieved whispers of my trees. mustn’t what lies /behind the world be at least /as beautiful as the human voice? (doty) The voice of the snow is also what lies behind the world and when the snow falls I hear a whisper of eternity.

January Blue

There's a part in Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle where she talks about people seeming to bring about a change in the weather simply by willing it. As if via our collective unconsciousness we are able to swing weeks upon weeks of dry, warm weather. Even when it's not the best thing for the world.

I've been thinking about that idea for the past month or so, as the calendar has rolled into winter---but the weather has decidedly not. Take today. Right now, it's 45 degrees outside. Sunny. And the slight breeze has a hopeful feel to it, like spring is coming soon.

Spring.

On January 4th.

And it's not like it's just a little break in the winter weather. Winter has never arrived. Even the mountains are barely white. Actually, they're mostly brown. If I look up the ten day forecast, it looks like this:

And seriously: don't let Saturday the 7th fool you. The chance for snow on that day? Thirty percent. Why even bother with the stormy icon when there's a 70% chance of no water falling from the sky?

But what's making me cranky are all the people wandering around enjoying the weather. If one more person says something like "isn't this weather gorgeous?" I might just lose my mind. Because, yeah, OK, it is gorgeous. If this were March I'd be singing a happy song. But it's January! Weather like this in January isn't gorgeous. It's unnatural. It's wrong and messed up and deeply disturbing.

In Utah, we always have a handful of days like this scattered throughout our winters. But six weeks of spring-like weather is not a good thing. The trees will start budding if it doesn't change soon. And then, one of two things will happen. It will continue on, and spring will be hot, and summer will be hotter, and people will want to do things like, you know, water their grass and their trees and their vegetable gardens. Problematic without any snow in the winter. Or, it won't continue on. It will just start late. And spring snows---the ones that persist into May---are just as unnatural as a snow-less January. The trees will get damaged, the fruit blossoms will be destroyed.

But the optimists---and even the normally-grouchies---just keep wandering around, praising the weather. Can't anyone see that this is wrong? is not how it's supposed to be? and it is proof for all the global-warming-is-a-myth doubters? Evidence that our world is seriously screwed up and that we're all going to hell in a hand basket. And sure, I suppose, in theory, the weather-lovers have a point: it's not like my lack-of-snow-induced anxiety is going to make it snow. I just don't know how they manage to enjoy it. 

I'm starting to think that Barbara Kingsolver was right. I'm thinking that the power of all that bright-sunny-weather-induced happiness and goodwill is working to keep the snow away. To which I say: enough of the cheeriness! Enough with the gorgeous-weather appreciation! Maybe if we all start grumbling and complaining, the world will return to its rightful January state: snowy, windy, and bleak.

Just exactly how it's supposed to be.

Exquisite Autumn

On August 31, I went running at 8:30. It was already hot, the heat wafting up from the sidewalk in little waves, a palpable thing to shuffle through.

On September 1, I went running at 8:30. I stepped outside into cool air, the temperature of shade even in the sun; an unruffled wind lapped at my heels.

I can't think of another year when fall arrived so abruptly. Although even in the mountains the trees haven't started changing yet, the air has here in the valleys. It's cooled off just enough that I can enjoy the sunshine on my forehead again. The light is a different color, too, that golden hue of summer's end. Now we're a week into September; it's rained once and all the other days have been deliciously warm.

This afternoon I ate lunch outside on our back patio. I read my book while I ate, something I nearly always do when I'm eating alone. I looked at the mountains; I let the sun fall on my legs. The impeccable timing of literature happened when I read this sentence: "Who could sit here and look at this and not believe in the good intentions of the world?" (from the novel To Be Sung Underwater  by Tom McNeal)

Today, in the middle of an exquiste, perfect, early-autumn afternoon, I believe in nothing but the world's good intentions.

The View from Here

A couple of days ago, in an effort to prepare ourselves to hike Timp next month, Kendell and I went on a hike. We've not hiked enough this summer, mostly because of time issues. So we decided to just go and hike. Up for an hour, down for an hour. If we didn't make it to the top, that would be fine. The top wasn't the goal; just the exercise.

For our first get-in-shape hike, we went to the Slide Canyon trail. Here, this is better known as the Y mountain. Because this particular mountain has an enormous Y painted on it. (For BYU.) We've hiked the Y several times, of course, as good Utah County-ites. But we've never continued on. The trail past the Y will eventually take you to the top of Y mountain. We didn't, of course, make it to the top of the mountain in our hour up. But we did hike through a landscape we've never experienced before.

This is an experience I love: going somewhere new. It also frustrates me to think I've lived my entire life within driving distance of this trail and I've never experienced it; it reminds me of how much more fully I should be living my life.

Once you leave the Y behind, the trail slants up and across the entire face of the mountain, until it finally curves around the south haunch and takes you east, into the canyon. The west face of the Wasatch mountains are visible from the main freeway, but the deep canyons are hidden. This one is steep, narrow, craggy with granite and crowded with trees. We didn't see another soul on the trail, save the eight lizards we disturbed. We hardly even talked, just pushed up through the trees.

Now, of course, I'm determined to go again when we have more time, so we can see the entire trail and get to the top. But for now, I wanted to just share this gorgeous sunset we experienced, coming back down the trail:

 
 

Here Comes the Rain Again

I love rain. It's my favorite kind of weather. I love waking up to a midnight rainstorm and listening to it hit the roof in the dark. I love how home feels cozier when rain is falling. I love the smell that wafts from concrete as the rain wets and cools it. I love puddles and rainbows and the birds made happy by an abundance of fat, dripping worms.

Plus, I live in the desert. Rain here is a blessing. Rain is rare. When it falls I think of the trees in the mountains, drinking deeply. I feel my own dry, dusty spirit reviving. The anxiety that builds deep down in me lifts when it rains because I feel that all will be right in the world. Rain in the desert is ephemeral hope turned to indelible moisture, at least for a few hours.

But, I confess: I cry uncle to the rain.

This May, we've had about four days when it hasn't rained. The snow continues piling up in the mountains. The clouds gather daily and the rain falls, and part of me revels in it, but by now the rest of me is water logged. The very anxiety that's usually relieved by the rain now burgeons each time I hear the wet patter on the sidewalk.

I live in the desert. I love the rain but my body is accustomed to endless sun. Dry and dusty is my spirit's natural state. Rain revives my secret places but too much, I have learned, drowns; I cannot keep my head above the rising water. By which I mean: it has been a long weekend in dark places. My eyes are tear burned even though nothing seems to matter enough to cry over. The only thing I want to do is sleep.

I need the skies to dry out and the sun to come back.

I Don't Like Bees

I mean, I like what bees do. I don't ever swat one unless it's in my house. I like that they pollinate our flowers and fruit trees and vegetable plants. I like honey. But me, face to face with a bee? They freak me out. It's the way they dart and buzz, and the way their creepy legs dangle down limply when they're flying around. How  you're supposed to be able to hold very still when one's buzzing around you, so it doesn't get you, but it's so very hard not to run away screaming and flailing your arms. The way they're supposed to be able to smell your fear and to want to sting you because of it. And of course, that ominous stinger itself.

Honestly: I'd rather have a spider on me than a bee, and I am none-too-fond of spiders either.

I think my anti-bee stance comes from the time I got stung as a kid. The hapless bee was simply hanging out in a patch of flowering clover in our grass, and I stepped on it, and it stung me, of course. It took another thirty years or so before I learned that bee venom in the foot isn't the most painful place to be jabbed. That'd probably be the eyeball, or maybe the tongue?

Still, I count it as a blessing that, despite the bees smelling my fear whenever they are near me, it took about three decades before I was stung again. The second time happened during a hike last fall. Kendell, Jake, our friend James, and I were coming back down the path after reaching Squaw Peak. (You can see a layout about that hike here; just scroll down a bit.) Kendell was farther ahead on the trail, and then Jake, James, and me in the back. Someone's pack must have bumped against a bee hive because almost simultaneously both Jake and James were bellowing and flailing their arms and swatting at themselves, and as I watched and tried to figure out what the heck was going on, another bee got me, right in the neck. (Cue shocked entire-body flailing and a thoroughly embarrassing wail, all of it completely uncontrollable. I'm glad there are no hidden video cameras in nature.) I think mountain bees are more viscious than suburban bees because I had an enormous welt for two weeks after.

Today, I got to mow the lawn. I say "got to" because these days, it's become a privilege. I love mowing the lawn, but I've also got two adolescent boys who need to learn to work. Today, I insisted it was my turn. It was a great day for mowing the lawn—beautiful and warm after a week of rain. I put my headphones on and sang along to my music and mowed away, happy as anything. Until, that is, a bee flew up the leg of my running capris and stung me. Cue shocked entire-body flailing and a thoroughly embarrassing wail, luckily drowned out by the hum of the mower. Because, yeah: I totally kept mowing while flailing. Only—not so straight. Well, straight into my gorgeous purple iris, which have just blossomed. Hadjust blossomed. Now three of them are decimated by the lawn mower and my spazzy lack of control.

I just don't get the bee. The suicidal bee. I might have brushed its flower while I passed it with the mower. Perhaps the mower sound sent it into a frenzy of anguish. Maybe it was just an easily-annoyed individual. Not that I can't relate to that. But what did it accomplish besides killing itself in stinging me? Other than a red welt and some iris that look like a machete went a little haywire around them? Wouldn't it have been better to endure the drone of the mower and the swaying of the flower, as opposed to the other outcome which is, you know, death?

Bees. Not only do I not like them, I don't understand them.

I Forgot

• the scent of outdoors when the soil is warm and you can nearly smell green things growing
• that perfect blue of the sky when it's warm and cloudless
• the happiness of green
• the lightness of wearing just one layer
• the pleasure of strolling down the street just to say hello to your neighbor
• the way the mountains nearly steam as the snow melts from them
• the sight of color and the lightness it brings to my heart
• the beauty of rosy cheeks
• the happy noise of kids playing outside: squeaking swings, rushing pedals, burbling laughter
• the way grass—still dry and crisp, but starting to soften and green—feels underneath naked toes

It won't last, of course. Tomorrow it will snow five inches, or hail, or fill that perfect blue sky with storm clouds. It won't stay 58 degrees forever.

But today the world has remembered: it is spring.

Second Day of Thanksgiving: Autumn

I think I've probably said this before: fall is my favorite season. The changing trees, the gorgeous colors, that chilly-warm thing the weather does and the blue the sky turns. The scorching days are past, but there are still flowers; we hike and rake leaves and go on random walks, just to get outside. Plus, it's full of anticipation, and in some sense anticipating the Big Three holidays is better than the actually holidays themselves. Plato suggested that we only desire what we don't have—once it arrives, we have it, so we don't need to desire it anymore. But there's something about that desire, that looking forward, that tingles autumn for me.

This autumn has been especially perfect—nearly too perfect. Indian summer for weeks, golden afternoons that were perfect for running through. A few big rainstorms, and then the warm days came back.

 
In fact, it was such a temperate fall that my sycamores, which usually just turn bronze (euphemistic for "boring brown"), turned dark yellow, the leaves edged with sienna and burnt umber. They've never turned this color before.

I'm grateful to live where there are seasons. I know that the places where it's eternally summer are desirable by lots of people, but not me. When the world is always changing, you notice the world. I am happy here, in this landscape, with its inconsistencies and changing temperament. I am grateful that fall exists and that I get to experience it by walking through the world.

"In Heaven it is Always Autumn" ~John Donne
      by Elizabeth Spires

In heaven it is always autumn. The leaves are always near
to falling there but never fall, and pairs of souls out walking
heaven's paths no longer feel the weight of years upon them.
Safe in heaven's calm, they take each other's arm,
the light shining through them, all joy and terror gone.
But we are far from heaven here, in a garden ragged and unkept
as Eden would be with the walls knocked down, the paths littered
with the unswept leaves of many years, bright keepsakes
for children of the Fall. The light is gold, the sun pulling
the long shadow soul out of each thing, disclosing an outcome.
The last roses of the year nod their frail heads,
like listeners listening to all that's said, to ask,
What brought us here? What seed? What rain? What light?
What forced us upward through dark earth? What made us bloom?
What wind shall take us soon, sweeping the garden bare?
Their voiceless voices hang there, as ours might,
if we were roses too. Their beds are blanketed with leaves,
tended by an absent gardener whose life is elsewhere.
It is the last of many last days. Is it enough?
To rest in this moment? To turn our faces to the sun?
To watch the lineaments of a world passing?
To feel the metal of a black iron bench, cool and eternal
press against our skin? To apprehend a chill as clouds pass
overhead, turning us to shivering shade and shadow?
And then to be restored, small miracle, the sun shining brightly
as before? We go on, you leading the way, a figure
leaning on a cane that leaves its mark on the earth.
My friend, you have led me farther than I have ever been.
To a garden in autumn. To a heaven of impermanence
where the final falling off is slow, a slow and radiant happening.
The light is gold. And while we're here, I think it must be heaven.

What is your favorite season?

Ah! Bright Wings

The city center of the town where I live contains the library, the city building, the courts and police station, a handful of baseball/football fields, the senior center and an arboretum. A library errand I needed to run today found me walking the length of the block, from the library to the senior center. It was chilly;  I was grateful for my scarf and wished for gloves and a coat. But the walking warmed me, and the expanse: still-green grass dotted with trees the late-afternoon sun lit on fire. I could have walked on the sidewalk, but I chose the leafier route and crunched through all those yellow skirts around the trees. I walked quickly so my meandering route wouldn't take much longer, but I concentrated on enjoying scuffing through every length of leaves. That delicate sound of scuffing leaves, a crackling susurrus; the hint of woodsmoke in the air; the chill on my hands but the warmth of the light on my forehead. Deep, cold breaths. It was exactly what I needed to lift my black mood, which had been scrawling itself across my psyche all day, making me doubt the efficacy of my existence. Say you could replace me with a laundry-doing, kitchen-cleaning, errand-running automaton, without pesky things like emotions and needs and foibles—wouldn't that be better? I felt, all day, like gathering up anything of mine and tossing it into the recycling bin, ridding the world of the evidence of my existence. Erasing myself. My walk pencilled my outlines back in, and while I perhaps still feel the futility of my efforts just as strongly, my hurting edges were smudged, made bearable.

 

I walked and scuffed the leaves, thinking of this poem (which I have blogged about before), which I always think of on certain bright-cold fall days like today, even though it is not a poem about fall, really:

 

GOD'S GRANDEUR

      ~Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge & shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast & with ah! bright wings.

Hopkins does this thing with praising the world that I so relate to. He was an ecstatic, able to see the joy in the small and the large aspects of the world. He wrote poems like that one, full of praising the world, of the setting forth of the world as a place of joy, but he also had his darknesses, too. (He has a whole series of poems we now call the "terrible sonnets," not because of the quality of the writing but by weight of the darkness in them.) I relate to that, too, and that combination—myself flayed black all day, then healed by goldenness and a long-dead poet's words who was, himself, flayed black but gilded—is what makes me love poetry.