Reclamation

Do you remember my new friend, the one who asked me to learn gun handling and go to a shooting range with him? It turned out that he wasn't really a friend after all. I haven't heard from him since that first week or so, and he hasn't responded to a message from me in about a month. I've been busy, so I haven't made a huge effort to contact him, but I have sent the random e-mail here and there and received no replies to any of them.

The last time we spoke, he told me his doctor found a heart murmur or something. He said the docs ran a bunch of tests, but he wasn't going to worry about it until they told him it was time to be concerned. When I didn't hear from him, I wondered if he was alright. All I have is his work e-mail address, and even though he's a tech junkie who connects to his work computer from everywhere he goes, including his phone, there was the slight possibility that he wasn't responding because he was missing work. I admit, I was a little concerned. Not enough to call him or go by his office, but concerned nonetheless.

But I saw him on campus today. I was riding my bike home when I saw him crossing to the sidewalk about 40 yards ahead. It took me a moment to register that it was him, and by the time I got to where he'd crossed, he'd already moved along the sidewalk a considerable distance. If I'd bumped into him naturally, I'd have spoken to him easily, but chasing him down seemed weird under the circumstances. So, I pedaled on without stopping, but now I'm really wondering what's going on.

Obviously, he doesn't want to be friends. That's fine. I don't really want to be friends with him either. It doesn't matter what his reasons are. Who would want to hang out with someone who doesn't want to hang out with them? That would hardly be a satisfying relationship. Besides, he's irresponsible and immature. This isn't sour grapes talking. His primary activities outside of work amount to smoking pot, playing video games, and going to the Bay Area to visit his folks. He's only 25. Maybe I'd just been trying to be young; I don't know. But that sort of behavior didn't suit me even when I was young.

The problem is, I loaned him some books. They aren't valuable at all, just some paperbacks. Nor are they favorites or anything. But they are mine, and I would like to have them back. My last couple of e-mails to him have been related to this issue, but he has ignored them. So, what should I do?

Nth Degree of Separation

I called him "Blue Boy." Of course, he isn't actually blue, but he wears blue. Blue jeans, blue jacket, blue helmet... even his bike is blue. I first noticed him because he comes through my crosswalk every morning almost precisely at 7:45, and that just happens to be the time that I need to move from one side of the street to the other.

See, the schools in my burg have staggered start-times so that the high-schoolers, who travel west through the intersection where I work in the mornings, come earlier than the middle-schoolers, who travel east. Consequently, midway through my morning shift, I have to change curbs in order to most effectively assist the kids in their crossings.

After a couple of weeks of observation of Blue Boy, I learned to rely on his timing. I didn't even check my watch anymore. I just waited until I saw that familiar blue form pass through the crosswalk to alter my standing position.

My reliance on him caused me to observe Blue Boy more closely, to pick him out of the crowd. He is handsome in an Aryan sort of way. I catch a glimpse of his blond hair beneath his helmet and notice the aristocratic shape of his nose as he breezes past me. He sits on his bike with confidence and skill, and his blue eyes never flicker for an instant in my direction, even when I have to stop him until there is a break in the flow of traffic to allow him to cross. He glides down the hill behind me and turns the corner to cross the street with speed and absolute silence. In a town where most kids say "hello," "good morning," or "thank you" as they cross, or at least make eye contact and nod, his lack of acknowledgment smacks of rudeness. I determined for myself that he is haughty or at the very least callous. The exactness of his timing every day and the unvarying monotony of his clothing contributing to my impression of him as cold and aloof.

Then one day, I noticed that Blue Boy's blue jacket is a varsity letter jacket. Surprise. He is an athlete and no doubt popular. Or that's what I first thought when I noticed it. Then I wondered at the fact that I had not marked it before. One can believe a letter jacket to be a symbol of elitism and discrimination or as a mark of pride and achievement, but regardless of the significance one places on the sign, it has more meaning than the nondescript "blue jacket" I had labeled him with up to that point. How could I not see it?

The next day, Blue Boy wore a hooded sweatshirt of a much lighter shade of blue than the letter jacket, and as soon as I saw it, I realized that this was not the first time I'd seen it. He frequently alternates between the jacket and the hoodie, and perhaps even other garments as well, but I had failed to take notice of this either.

I began to be aware that I had not seen Blue Boy at all. For my own purposes, I had branded him with a moniker that segregated him from the mass of his schoolmates and learned a few of his routines, and from this paltry evidence, I had constructed a profile for him that may have little or nothing to do with the boy himself. I mean, for crying out loud, I call him "Blue Boy," and in my mind, that is his identity. How could he be more than a cardboard cutout of a person? He is a color, not a reality.

One day not long after I made this observation, Blue Boy was accompanied by another lad. This one, about the same age, was of a completely different disposition. He is friendly and perhaps a little geeky. His clothes reveal somewhat less attention to fashion than many of the youths I see, and he never passes up the chance to speak to me. On more than one occasion, he has even initiated a brief conversation when he has had to wait for a pause in traffic. I'd never heard Blue Boy speak before, never seen him pay attention to anything in his surroundings as he sped past, but here he was, riding slowly in pace with this other kid. He talked animatedly, telling the other boy some sort of story about something he'd seen on TV or a movie. They were clearly friends.

I stood in amazement. Not at the boys, but at myself. Granted, I have little contact with these kids, so it is only natural that my assumptions about them are flawed and inaccurate. But it got me to thinking about how little we know anyone and how much we think we know. Do we really see others or do we always only see ourselves? I may never know Blue Boy's name, and I may never see more than a shallow surface, but I like to think it will be his and not mine. Do you think that's possible?

Little Suprises

I haven't felt much like blogging lately. Not that I've been in a bad mood. Sure, the extreme heat, horribly dry winds, and forest fires we've been experiencing have somewhat squelched the high I was feeling a few weeks ago, but I'm in a pretty good mood all the same. It's just that now that I am finished with my classes until fall, I have more free time, and I haven't been inclined to spend it sitting at the computer. You know how it is.

But I had to share this one really cool thing that we just discovered. Darling Wife had the dogs out in the backyard for their... er... comfort, and she called through the window to ask if I had ever seen a hummingbird's nest. I remarked, "Only in pictures." She then asked me what they were made out of, etc., and explained that she thought we had one in the tree in our back yard.

I went out to investigate, and sure enough there it was. Here are a few snapshots for your entertainment. Cool, eh?













If you look closely at the last one, you can sort of see that they are made out of moss, and... get this... spider webs. That's why it's white. And that's probably why it nested here. Plenty of webs for its use... that and the feeder by the back fence.

Golden Days

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Do you know the scent of jasmine?

Not that sickly sweet, heavy perfume that air fresheners and candles call jasmine, but the light, flowery fragrance of spring in the tropics that defines true jasmine. Certainly it's strong, but it's also fresh and soft, not cloying and stifling like the artificial wannabes. As I ride my bike around the city, that fragrance pervades everything, and I think that the ambrosia of the Olympian gods must surely have smelled like this.

The poppies, the orange-colored California Golden Poppies, are also in radiant bloom right now in more abundance than I have ever seen them, delicately tossing their happy faces in the breeze beneath the more subdued and stately tea roses that seem to have appeared full-grown in front yards all over town.

I never cease to be amazed at how much a pleasant landscape lifts my spirits. And yes, I am in a good mood. I realized that quite unexpectedly last week. I am happy.

I'm not quite sure why. Oh, I could give you reasons. The flowers and mild temperatures are one. Did you know there is rain in our forecast for this evening? I know that means very little to those of you in more moderate climates, but for us, this is a big deal. We haven't had rain since early February and didn't expect any until October. It isn't supposed to be much, but OH HOW EXCITING it is! The realization that the fiscal outlook for Darling Wife and I is not quite as bleak for this summer as it has been in years past also adds to my pleasure. Or maybe it's that the school semester is winding down, and for the first time in a decade I am not stressed by that. I do have quite a bit of work, but it's all manageable, and its impending hiatus is pleasant to think on. What is more, my father and step-mother will be visiting us in a couple of months for the first time ever, and it's possible that another friend may drop in for a few days next month. These visits promise contact outside of our own domestic sphere as well as some nice tourist activities beyond the boundaries of our central valley home. What's more, we have plans to visit Boston briefly at the end of June when we travel to the northeast for my nephew's high school graduation. I can't tell you how much I long to see the cramped old metropolis! And finally Fergus continues to amaze us by how cute and well-behaved he is. He adores our company so much that he hangs his head in sadness when it's time for him to leave us at bedtime, but he always goes without fuss or difficulty. He has never once chewed up a shoe or piece of furniture, and he went for a long walk with us yesterday with a jaunty trot and hardly a pause to sniff a shrub that surprised and delighted us both. He is truly a joy, better than either of us could ever have hoped for.

But all of these reasons, and the many more I could give, don't quite explain why I am in such high form. But I guess I really shouldn't search for reasons. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.

they're gone

Have you ever seen that scene toward the end of Fried Green Tomatoes in which Kathy Bates's character discovers Jessica Tandy's character sitting on her suitcase in front of a vacant lot where her home used to be?

If you have, then you can picture what I must have looked like when, walking home from work this afternoon, I saw a bare spot where "my" bee colony had been only a few days ago. The only evidence of its existence were some twigs lying on the ground with the torn remnants of honeycombs clinging to their surfaces.

At first, I thought the high winds we had last night and this morning might have blown the hive down. I searched frantically in the grass and bushes for its crushed remains, but there were none to be found.

Then my eyes lit on the smooth stub of the tree branch where the limb containing the cluster had been cut away. The clean whiteness at the site of amputation seemed so casual... so matter-of-fact.

When I reported the presence of the colony back in the fall, I expected this to happen. I thought the campus community would rush to remove this threat to the safety of students, faculty, and staff. But when my report was greeted with disinterest and nonchalance, I assumed the bees were safe in their new home, at least from the campus authorities. And as the fall gave way to winter and then spring, you know how much I came to regard the bees, stubbornly clinging to survival under the harshest conditions and despite all odds. I should have known that it was merely bureaucratic slowness and academic insouciance that preserved their meager lives for a few paltry months of struggle instead of any strength of will or determination on the part of the bees, their famed busyness availing nothing in the face of the constant, inevitability of red-tape bound progress that would eventually catch them up.

I would like to think that some eager bee-keeper scooped up the little colony and gave it a nice warm home in a box in his back yard, but I know too much of the ways of the world to trust to that shallow hope.

Is it silly to feel so strongly over a bunch of bugs? Especially when I violently destroyed several members of the same species when they invaded my home via the chimney on Monday of this very week? Is it hypocritical and ridiculous? I think maybe it is. But as I stood, staring at the emptiness where for so many weeks there was buzzing life, I cannot help but feel a profound sense of loss.

Hanging On

They are alive... Or at least some of them are... Or rather, the community survives.


I take comfort from that. The "expert" was wrong. They weren't frozen, or starved, or eaten.


But what about the individuals, the ones whose bodies I witnessed curled up on the ground among the grass. Do they matter as long as the hive lives on? I think the bees, if they could say anything, would say not. It's not like they had individual lives separate from the hive.


Still, a note of sadness creeps into my joy at their continued, stubborn hold on life and a university tree.

The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.

I hear the call of the Red-shouldered Hawk most days as I ride to work in the morning. On occasion I see her, gliding gracefully across the heavens, and I think how beautiful, how noble she is. More than once, I have seen her engage in battle with my own enemy, the crow. Crows are troublesome and messy creatures that will have no other soul at peace while they have air in their breast to cry out with a tumultuous uproar. They swoop and harass the hawk as she goes on her way struggling to find food for herself and her young or as she sits in a treetop taking a much deserved rest from the hunt. But she does not allow these raucous creatures to trouble her. She dives and tacks with skill and nonchalance. What a fine beast she is, I think, as I ride along, observing the aerial drama.

When suddenly it occurs to me that she is a predator, a cold blooded killer that ends the life of others so that hers might continue a little while longer. Why is it that we think raptors so admirable and respectable, while we disdain and belittle the skulking animals that are their prey? Is it because of the skulking? Do we think that mice and rabbits like to scrabble around in underbrush and dark corners, that they are just naturally happiest wallowing in the poorest and most degrading existence while the raptor soars through the sky in unbounded freedom? Or is it possible that these more humble creatures long, as we do, for more than their lot but are are forced to slink in the shadows to avoid the sharp talons and ripping beaks of those we hold in such esteem? Can a rabbit be noble, can a mole?

Empty Nest

Think back to the last time you moved... or perhaps the first time. Remember what it felt like to walk through your apartment after all of your things had been taken out? These rooms that have been as familiar to you as your own hand suddenly seem strangely unfamiliar. The physical space is the same, the walls, the windows, the cabinets and floors. You can remember when you made that special dinner for a friend or lover, standing at that stove, lighting candles on a table that stood just there. You burned the chicken a little, but the wine was nice. Or you recall the hours you spent on the sofa in this living room, reading or watching a movie, by yourself or with friends. Those were pleasant times when you snatched a few grains of sand away from the worries of the outside world. And even if you didn't like the color of the walls or the shape of a certain corner, you were home in these rooms for a time. All of that is still here in the shadows of the mind's eye. But now, with all of your personal touches gone, all vestiges of you removed from the space, leaving it bare of personality and foreign as the first day you moved in, the very fact that the space is still the same when everything else that made it home is gone is precisely what makes you feel uncomfortable and lost there. If it were truly and completely different, it would no longer have meaning to you, and you would feel nothing. But its closeness, it's familiarity is what is unsettling when it is now so unlike what you know. Freud called this unheimlich, unhomely. It is not not-home. But it is not home. It is un-home. Recognizable as home, but not at the same time.

This week is spring break week at the university where I work and also at the high school where Darling Wife teaches. She is home with Fergus, but there is no break for me. My campus is not closed, and the staff must still work, unless we take vacation leave, which I do not want to do. So, I sit at my desk in a mostly empty building on a mostly empty campus in a mostly empty town. The students that normally fill the place with superficial cell phone conversations and drunken stumblings are all gone, and there is an eerie silence to everything. Certainly they are annoying when they are here and sometimes even seriously disturbing. But how strange it is when they are not here... how unheimlich. One almost wishes for them back....

....almost.

Homing in on Home

Darling Wife and I had a lovely weekend. Our friend from across the northern border came to visit on Saturday, and we spent a relaxing day sitting on the balconies and in the gardens of wineries, sampling the wares, and catching up. The temperature was an absolute perfect 74 degrees Fahrenheit; the sun was warm on the skin; and a gentle breeze kept us cool. Even Fergus had a good time as people everywhere fussed over him in excited tones and rubbed his fur in every direction while he wiggled rapturously around their feet.

Then yesterday, we attended a triumphant celebration of the resurrection of our Lord at the nearby Episcopal church, tidied the house a bit, and took a long walk through the burrowing owl habitat. Again, the weather was near perfect, and the pace was slow and pleasant. The air was perfumed with sage and rosemary from the wild shrubs flowering alongside the adjacent field, and cottontails chased one another long the hedge. California seems like not such a foul word at times like these.

During the afternoon, I phoned my family back in Tennessee. My sister and her family had descended from the frozen depths of Minnesota to spend the holiday there. Everyone was at my brother's house where they were eating and chatting and planning an Easter egg hunt after lunch. That is, everyone was there but me.

But even as I experienced the familiar longing to be home, sharing in the familial camaraderie, I knew that I would not be happy if I were there. It is merely the shadow of a place I called home in a distant time when I was some other person, and I don't belong there anymore. Oh, to be sure I miss it. There are certain things, certain people and places, that will always pull at my heart with all of the power of bittersweet memory. But that's all it is, Memory. There is no living reality there that I am part of, and there hasn't been for a long time.

No, as I've written many times before, the feeling I was revisiting was merely a desire for "home" in a vague and intangible sense. And as much as I might try to trick myself in that telephonic moment that TN is that home, I know better. In quiet moments, when I allow my soul to drift into imagination, it is not the cotton delta, central plateau, or eastern mountains of Tennessee that I journey to. It is the downs and dales of England that call to me the strongest, and their echo resounds along the American north and mid Atlantic coast. Perhaps there I will find harmony.

And if I stay away a bit longer, it may be that the thin air of California will further refine the sound and allow me to home in on it with all the certainty of a migrating swallow, returning to build a nest in the same British riverbank after the long journey home from a winter Mediterranean exile.

Green Acres

As an amateur gardener, I really have no problem with altering the landscape. And I don't see any reason we can't plant flowering shrubs from China or bulbs from Brazil in our gardens, as long as they don't get out and compete with native species. (Coming from a state overrun by Kudzu, I am intimately aware of how dangerous this can be.) However, as I rode my bike to work this morning amidst the spray of sprinklers, I could not escape the feeling that something is wrong with our attitude to our environment.

The movement among plant biologists here is toward native plants or plants from the Mediterranean, plants adapted to the incredible variation in temperature and rainfall seen in the central valley. At every possible opportunity, they advocate making these choices when landscaping . And I think some people listen. I do see selections of native grasses in some "lawns" and cypress trees between properties. But by and large, I see sprinklers.

Of course, I can understand the desire to have a well-manicured lawn and lush foliage framing one's home. Not everyone likes knee-deep, half-dead stands of native grasses along our front walk, and some of us dislike stands of scrubby blue oak trees surrounded by swathes of hard, dry dirt. We like to feel we sculpt our property, make it our own. We like to feel we are in control of it. We like to feel that it is beautiful... according to our own subjective definition of that term.

But as water supply becomes increasingly problematic and the inevitable pools and squishy places, breeding grounds for West Nile-carrying mosquitoes, present themselves behind shrubs and at the edges of curbs, I begin to think that perhaps we need to wise up. If we don't like the flora and climate here, we should go where we do rather than vainly trying to force nature to conform to our image of home.