Wonders
Another time I saw another wonder: sharks off the Atlantic
coast of Florida. There is a way a wave rises above the ocean
horizon, a triangular wedge against the sky. If you stand where
the ocean breaks on a shallow beach, you see the raised water
in a wave is translucent, shot with lights. One late afternoon
at low tide a hundred big sharks passed the beach near the
mouth of a tidal river in a feeding frenzy. As each green wave
rose from the churning water, it illuminated within itself the
six- or eight-foot-long bodies of twisting sharks. The sharks
disappeared as each wave rolled toward me; then a new wave
would swell above the horizon, containing in it, like scorpions
in amber, sharks that roiled and heaved. The sight held awe-
some wonders: power and beauty, grace tangled in a rapture
with violence.
We don't know what's going on here. If these tremendous
events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield
of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what
is it in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they
ignite? We don't know. Our life is a faint tracing on the
surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners
on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view,
look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's
going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question
into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that,
choir the proper praise.
Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Walking
Part V, Teaching a Stone to Talk
We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do
with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry
teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind,
or until the pagan gods slip back to their hilltop groves,
all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it.
We can stage our own act on the planet--build our cities
on its plains, dam its rivers, plant its topsoils--but
our meaningful activity scarcely covers the terrain.
We do not use the songbirds, for instance. We do not
eat many of them; we cannot befriend them; we cannot
persuade them to eat more mosquitoes or plant fewer
weed seeds. We can only witness them--whoever they
are. If we were not here, they would be songbirds falling
in the forest. If we were not here, material events like
the passage of seasons would lack even the meager meanings
we are able to muster for them. The show would play
to an empty house, as do all those falling stars which
fall in the daytime. That is why I take walks: to keep
an eye on things.
Annie Dillard
Part V, Teaching a Stone to Talk
We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do
with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry
teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind,
or until the pagan gods slip back to their hilltop groves,
all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it.
We can stage our own act on the planet--build our cities
on its plains, dam its rivers, plant its topsoils--but
our meaningful activity scarcely covers the terrain.
We do not use the songbirds, for instance. We do not
eat many of them; we cannot befriend them; we cannot
persuade them to eat more mosquitoes or plant fewer
weed seeds. We can only witness them--whoever they
are. If we were not here, they would be songbirds falling
in the forest. If we were not here, material events like
the passage of seasons would lack even the meager meanings
we are able to muster for them. The show would play
to an empty house, as do all those falling stars which
fall in the daytime. That is why I take walks: to keep
an eye on things.
Annie Dillard
Monday, June 09, 2008
We Buy One More Day
She purchased three sections of 6x6 Cedar
privacy fencing for her yard. One is propped
against the maple, whose branches have weathered
the storms of a drunken great-grandfather
and four tornadoes, whose proximity to the property
line is just a tangent, whose presence now leads
her to believe she can no longer hear the night
noises--the dogs barking, the drug deal going down,
descending within earshot. Another one is placed
on the hosta path that leads to the shed she and her beloved
erected, a teak rocker placed upon it like a king's crown.
She tells me the comfort she feels sitting there in the shade,
rocking away in the chair her husband loved. The third
has found its home beneath a table and four chairs,
a tiki umbrella protruding from the middle, shading
only one half of the table half of the day. These purchases
have bought her more than they appear to be worth--
a night's sleep, no bugs on her feet, a shady place
to rest a weary body, but I don't get it. I want to say
the words which formulate in my mind and dissipate
in the early afternoon heat, how one little piece
of fence won't stop the noise, how the bugs will simply
crawl over the wood and find a way to touch your feet
no matter what you do, how the rocker sat for years
on the ragged earth without complaint and looks no worse
for the wear, but I just tell her about what I bought:
two new bras and a package of panties, a new dog toy
and some treats for Molly, the cordless phone with caller
ID so she'll know who called, a bag of heart-healthy nuts
for those of us nutty enough to believe its all about how
and what you eat, who keep finding one more reason
to invest in longevity, as if longevity had no mind of its own,
as if in doing these things one of us could prove we tried.
She purchased three sections of 6x6 Cedar
privacy fencing for her yard. One is propped
against the maple, whose branches have weathered
the storms of a drunken great-grandfather
and four tornadoes, whose proximity to the property
line is just a tangent, whose presence now leads
her to believe she can no longer hear the night
noises--the dogs barking, the drug deal going down,
descending within earshot. Another one is placed
on the hosta path that leads to the shed she and her beloved
erected, a teak rocker placed upon it like a king's crown.
She tells me the comfort she feels sitting there in the shade,
rocking away in the chair her husband loved. The third
has found its home beneath a table and four chairs,
a tiki umbrella protruding from the middle, shading
only one half of the table half of the day. These purchases
have bought her more than they appear to be worth--
a night's sleep, no bugs on her feet, a shady place
to rest a weary body, but I don't get it. I want to say
the words which formulate in my mind and dissipate
in the early afternoon heat, how one little piece
of fence won't stop the noise, how the bugs will simply
crawl over the wood and find a way to touch your feet
no matter what you do, how the rocker sat for years
on the ragged earth without complaint and looks no worse
for the wear, but I just tell her about what I bought:
two new bras and a package of panties, a new dog toy
and some treats for Molly, the cordless phone with caller
ID so she'll know who called, a bag of heart-healthy nuts
for those of us nutty enough to believe its all about how
and what you eat, who keep finding one more reason
to invest in longevity, as if longevity had no mind of its own,
as if in doing these things one of us could prove we tried.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Rotten potatoes and lye soap
You can tell a lot about a person
by the kind of potatoes you find
in their kitchen potato-holder thingees.
I found a rotten new potato (which of course
was not new at all but very old, juices running
into the bottom of the plaster-cast chipped
china mosaic container I keep my potatoes,
onions, and garlic in). You can tell when
they're giving up or giving in--people, that is.
If you want to do a mental check, just ask
them where they keep the potatoes.
I don't know where I've been for some time now.
Today, I left here in search of fresh kale
and happened to think about the Farmer's
Market, which is open on Wednesdays
and Saturdays. No kale, but I bought fresh
asparagus, two huge tomatoes (as it's too
early for home-grown here, I hope these
aren't the tainted ones from New Mexico
or Texas, as my mother pointed out
when I stopped by her house to take her the bar
of lye soap I bought her at the market), and
lye soap.
The couple there were a stern looking
pair, and the woman chided me for coming early
and asked me to please respect the 12:30-6
time the market's open if I come again, which I
probably will even though I don't appreciate
being spoken to like I'm 5 years old, but it
was worth it to get my mom her soap. I don't
know why I thought about it, but she was happy
I did. She uses it for a variety of things. Me--
I'm just plain scared out it. I'll stick to my dial
and dove.
So, I brought my mom soap and she
sent me home with about a bushel of string beans
and an Annie Proulx book (she said she loved
Brokeback Mountain, which took me off-guard
but I made sure not to look surprised). She makes
comments on a regular basis that would lead
me to believe she would not consider reading
a book about gay cowboys. And I'm not sure what to make
of her comments, so I just don't say anything.
However, after reading BB Mtn, she bought more
Proulx, she likes her work so much.
So I drove to Kroger and bought some kale
and white sweet corn-on-the cob. Tonight
is veggie night. Kale, asparagus, broccoli, corn
and salad with radicchio, frisee, romaine,
arugula, fresh herbs (chives, cilantro,
dill) radishes, red peppers, scallions, bean
sprouts, carrots and feta cheese.
I'm tired.
*********************************************
...Once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined
the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the
jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle
had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled
and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly
won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air
a few weeks or months before he was shot: was the whole
weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur
pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach,
gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast,
bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?
...I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I
come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to
live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don't
think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in
particular--shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail
high, walk with my footprints precisely over the
prints of my hands?--but I might learn something of
mindlessness, something of the purity of living in
the physical senses and the dignity of living without
bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we
live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last
ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should,
as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that
for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time
and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering
nothing, chosen the given with a fierce and pointed will.
From: Living Like Weasels
Teaching A Stone To Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
Annie Dillard
You can tell a lot about a person
by the kind of potatoes you find
in their kitchen potato-holder thingees.
I found a rotten new potato (which of course
was not new at all but very old, juices running
into the bottom of the plaster-cast chipped
china mosaic container I keep my potatoes,
onions, and garlic in). You can tell when
they're giving up or giving in--people, that is.
If you want to do a mental check, just ask
them where they keep the potatoes.
I don't know where I've been for some time now.
Today, I left here in search of fresh kale
and happened to think about the Farmer's
Market, which is open on Wednesdays
and Saturdays. No kale, but I bought fresh
asparagus, two huge tomatoes (as it's too
early for home-grown here, I hope these
aren't the tainted ones from New Mexico
or Texas, as my mother pointed out
when I stopped by her house to take her the bar
of lye soap I bought her at the market), and
lye soap.
The couple there were a stern looking
pair, and the woman chided me for coming early
and asked me to please respect the 12:30-6
time the market's open if I come again, which I
probably will even though I don't appreciate
being spoken to like I'm 5 years old, but it
was worth it to get my mom her soap. I don't
know why I thought about it, but she was happy
I did. She uses it for a variety of things. Me--
I'm just plain scared out it. I'll stick to my dial
and dove.
So, I brought my mom soap and she
sent me home with about a bushel of string beans
and an Annie Proulx book (she said she loved
Brokeback Mountain, which took me off-guard
but I made sure not to look surprised). She makes
comments on a regular basis that would lead
me to believe she would not consider reading
a book about gay cowboys. And I'm not sure what to make
of her comments, so I just don't say anything.
However, after reading BB Mtn, she bought more
Proulx, she likes her work so much.
So I drove to Kroger and bought some kale
and white sweet corn-on-the cob. Tonight
is veggie night. Kale, asparagus, broccoli, corn
and salad with radicchio, frisee, romaine,
arugula, fresh herbs (chives, cilantro,
dill) radishes, red peppers, scallions, bean
sprouts, carrots and feta cheese.
I'm tired.
*********************************************
...Once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined
the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the
jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle
had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled
and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly
won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air
a few weeks or months before he was shot: was the whole
weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur
pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach,
gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast,
bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?
...I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I
come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to
live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don't
think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in
particular--shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail
high, walk with my footprints precisely over the
prints of my hands?--but I might learn something of
mindlessness, something of the purity of living in
the physical senses and the dignity of living without
bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we
live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last
ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should,
as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that
for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time
and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering
nothing, chosen the given with a fierce and pointed will.
From: Living Like Weasels
Teaching A Stone To Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
Annie Dillard
Monday, June 02, 2008
The Mind
"It can never be satisfied, the mind, never." Wallace Stevens
wrote that, and in the long run, he was right. The mind wants
to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not.
The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness;
the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity,
and God. The mind's sidekick, however, will settle for two
eggs over easy.
The dear, stupid body is as easily satisfied as a spaniel.
And, incredibly, the simple spaniel can lure the brawling
mind to its dish. It is everlastingly funny that the proud,
metaphysically ambitious, clamoring mind will hush if
you give it an egg.
Further: while the mind reels in deep space, while the
mind grieves or fears or exults, the workaday senses,
in ignorance or idiocy, like so many computer terminals
printing out market prices while the world blows up,
still transcribe their little data and transmit them to the
warehouse in the skull. Later, under the tranquilizing
influence of fried eggs, the mind can sort through this data.
From: Teaching a Stone To Talk:Expeditions and Encounters
Total Eclipse, Part IV
Annie Dillard
*********************************
My mind settled for srambled eggs with a dash of hot sauce,
fresh cilantro, and shredded provolone. It also enjoyed
a cup of 100% Kona coffee (a gift I brought my son from Naples--
can't get any decent coffee here, but they had a place
called The Bad Ass Coffee Company and they had quite a
selection--$24.95 for an 8 oz. bag of 100% pure Kona beans--
my son loves it!).
It then worked a crossword puzzle and word jumble
and felt quite satisfied and somewhere nearing
its normal "now this is what you do every day"
way of viewing my little world.
Then it promptly told me if I wanted to lose some
of this fat a** and lower my cholesterol levels
and blood pressure, I should probably go take a walk
NOW because it's already 80 outside and terribly
humid. And then it said, Round up Molly and take
her, too. She needs her excercise. So, I did. And
we walked 1 3/4 miles, and then my mind said,
It's hotter than hell out here already--you want to fall
over from a heat stroke? And look at your poor dog,
her tongue nearly down to the ground, her eyes
looking into yours, beseeching you to take her home
to that cool house.
And, so I came home. And I am cooling off but
my back is soaked and my hair is sticking
to my face, and I'm still sweating. But my mind
is telling me it's all worth it. What else do you have
to do with your life?
And I suggest to my mind that it listen up for just
a few minutes while I tell it about the special
project I have in mind, thank you! You see, mind,
I say, I really do have lots of things to do--really--
don't try to convince me otherwise! I have designed
a pattern to paint on my porch floor. I tell my mind
how clever I am to have come up with the design,
how much money I am saving by not putting in a new
floor (which I couldn't afford to do anyway but I don't
have to tell my mind everything), about how great
the colors are going to look, about how nice it will
be to sit out there once it's done and I move the furniture
back in and put some plants out there.
So, I am going out there to start on my project, mind.
I hope you don't mind!
(I think the sun may have fried a bit of my brain this morning).
"It can never be satisfied, the mind, never." Wallace Stevens
wrote that, and in the long run, he was right. The mind wants
to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not.
The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness;
the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity,
and God. The mind's sidekick, however, will settle for two
eggs over easy.
The dear, stupid body is as easily satisfied as a spaniel.
And, incredibly, the simple spaniel can lure the brawling
mind to its dish. It is everlastingly funny that the proud,
metaphysically ambitious, clamoring mind will hush if
you give it an egg.
Further: while the mind reels in deep space, while the
mind grieves or fears or exults, the workaday senses,
in ignorance or idiocy, like so many computer terminals
printing out market prices while the world blows up,
still transcribe their little data and transmit them to the
warehouse in the skull. Later, under the tranquilizing
influence of fried eggs, the mind can sort through this data.
From: Teaching a Stone To Talk:Expeditions and Encounters
Total Eclipse, Part IV
Annie Dillard
*********************************
My mind settled for srambled eggs with a dash of hot sauce,
fresh cilantro, and shredded provolone. It also enjoyed
a cup of 100% Kona coffee (a gift I brought my son from Naples--
can't get any decent coffee here, but they had a place
called The Bad Ass Coffee Company and they had quite a
selection--$24.95 for an 8 oz. bag of 100% pure Kona beans--
my son loves it!).
It then worked a crossword puzzle and word jumble
and felt quite satisfied and somewhere nearing
its normal "now this is what you do every day"
way of viewing my little world.
Then it promptly told me if I wanted to lose some
of this fat a** and lower my cholesterol levels
and blood pressure, I should probably go take a walk
NOW because it's already 80 outside and terribly
humid. And then it said, Round up Molly and take
her, too. She needs her excercise. So, I did. And
we walked 1 3/4 miles, and then my mind said,
It's hotter than hell out here already--you want to fall
over from a heat stroke? And look at your poor dog,
her tongue nearly down to the ground, her eyes
looking into yours, beseeching you to take her home
to that cool house.
And, so I came home. And I am cooling off but
my back is soaked and my hair is sticking
to my face, and I'm still sweating. But my mind
is telling me it's all worth it. What else do you have
to do with your life?
And I suggest to my mind that it listen up for just
a few minutes while I tell it about the special
project I have in mind, thank you! You see, mind,
I say, I really do have lots of things to do--really--
don't try to convince me otherwise! I have designed
a pattern to paint on my porch floor. I tell my mind
how clever I am to have come up with the design,
how much money I am saving by not putting in a new
floor (which I couldn't afford to do anyway but I don't
have to tell my mind everything), about how great
the colors are going to look, about how nice it will
be to sit out there once it's done and I move the furniture
back in and put some plants out there.
So, I am going out there to start on my project, mind.
I hope you don't mind!
(I think the sun may have fried a bit of my brain this morning).
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