Plying our Manly Oars

Here's me and Brant leisurely winning our first canoe race--on the Susquehanna no less... love that name. We didn't get the mid part where we have another quick spurt to catch up to the leaders, you get a pretty good sense of the chaos and the sweet, sweet victory.

Falling Water

The school was going, so I went a long to Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water near Mill Run, PA. This is my second visit to the the home that was to Wright's career exactly what Xanadu wasn't to Gene Kelly's. No, this was Wright's Batman Begins, injecting new life into what everyone thought was a career that had seen its peak. But now Falling Water is on a list of 12 places that will change your life, 28 places to see before you die, and the top 50 places to blah blah blah. It even made my mother not begrudge the conservation society its "outrageous" entrance fee. And in that, it is one of a kind.

It's also beautiful, the home, and harmoniously built for its environment. My first visit to the house didn't leave me wondering about just how harmonious art deco right angles and geometric patterns were with the lines of nature. Where were the really organic lines of a Gaudi or a Ghery? In the rough hewn lines of the floor and wall stones, I suppose, but still, there was something that was making me buy less this, "harmony with nature" aesthetic it was selling. Though the spot on the wall where the water from a local spring seeped through the masonry, ran through a channel in the stone, then through a crack in the floor to continue to the river was fairly harmonious with its surroundings as were the beveled, mold-less windows that allowed outer walls to become inner and vice versa. The light and dark of the house echoing the light and dark spaces of the waterfall was a nice tough as well. And the family of lady bugs crawling on the cieling of the guest room. Nice touch, Wright. Very nice.

So, while I accepted less readily the "harmonious with nature" line they were peddling, due to its multitude of sharp lines, the house does integrate the setting--which is gorgeous--with its construction and abstracts, very successfully, the natural features of the land to achieve a home that really is a work of art and one which, just like it did 12 years ago when I first saw it, make me cry that I will never be able to live there. I try to comfort myself with the idea that it would be possible to live in an equally beautiful house.

But I doubt that's possible. Honestly.

Oh, and Dad, that's me at Falling Water in the fall. Eat your heart out.

Liza Lou

I was read to as a child. I attribute my continued love of reading to that fact. One of the most memorable childhood stories was “Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp,” by Mercer Mayer. My dad marshaled a host of voices to enliven the episodic adventures of a young bayou girl who’s daily errands took her into the Yeller Belly swamp which was also the haunt of witches, ghosts, ghouls, devils, and trolls. Good child fare. She uses her wits to get the better of them and keep her and her little opossum safe.

A possum. It reminds me of another being-read-to-as-a-child story. My parents had a British friend who came and read me a story about an Opossum. I don’t remember the story, but I remember how odd I thought it was that some people—British ones—put an O in front of possum. Opossum. Seemed unwieldy with the extra letter/vowel/syllable. Sadly the internet wasn’t around to instantly assuage my curiosities at the time. Still, opossum or possum, they were adorable fare for childhood picture books.

So, it was with no small delight that I found there were often opossums prowling about my new neighborhood (ie. Pennsylvania). My first night, dazed and bleary-eyed, driving into town, a white critter appeared in my headlights. On many nights, on many suburban streets, I’ve seen similar specimens of North America’s only native marsupial and it was with no little dismay last week when I turned one into road kill.

Distraught, I called any and everyone I could think of to vent—yes, while still driving, but, no, I didn’t hit another. It was horrifying. A hyper-real horror where, rather than the actual possum I’d just hit and who’s body heft I’d felt filtered through galvanized rubber and steel, I kept seeing Liza Lou’s possum looking startled with it’s big eyes at me, the reader/driver child/man, after sauntering away from Liza Lou’s side while she was telling the swamp devil that she had the parson’s soul in her molasses jar.

But before he could say, “a chicken crossed the road, frogs’ll cross it too, if you’re not real quick, you’ll end up in a stew,” the car shuddered, the darkness took the possum, and I was on my way, a slightly sadder man.

Finding a Home

There are a couple of flash back blogs I'll do of my last days in Provo this summer, but I wanted to post some pictures of a dreamy neighborhood here in South Harrisburg I went through while trying to find a home. It's right along the river and was the a place the man who owned the local lumber mill made for his workers to live. It's the first place to flood in Harrisburg--which it did a couple years ago so some of the new homes are built with only a garage on the first floor with a latticed wood garage door and balcony and living room on the first floor with arched floor to ceiling windows and fine bricks. It would be heaven to live there, I think.

And let's go back to that word "home." I think that's why I'm having such a hard time finding a place to settle in. I can never get all of the pieces together. It'll be a good price but really run down, it'll be in a great place but my front balcony is a smoking nook for other tenants, it'll be not too far, but only one shared bedroom, it'll be in a lovely neighborhood but with an extra $500 tax--should I worry about this one?--it'll be in a lovely neighborhood with a place for a canoe near the river, but it won't actually exist... that's a real sad one.

I do get hopeful every time. There was a studio apartment I wasn't too thrilled about, but after sleeping on a couch and having nothing but a small suitcase to live out of for more than a week, I was going to take it. No year lease, just sweet freedom and paying for what I get. But no laundry. Kind of lame. But livable. We'll see. And the shared room... also perhaps livable. We'll see. Still looking and having an okay time doing it. And if that canoe heaven turns out to be real... it's far from campus, but oh, man, that'd be the life!

Namers Ltd.

The other day, don’t know why, I was told that my perfect job was to name things. A namer, I suppose. At the time I had maybe made up a punny nick name for some thing or other, but the next day, walking around the tree streets I started thinking of the names of trees. Hawthorne. Osier. Weeping Willow. Beech. Oak. Sycamore. Rowan. Mountain Ash.

Then I started thinking about how “intuitive” these names are. Weeping Willow is an easy one since it has all those drooping branches like one who might be weeping. Actually it works on many levels. The drooping branches can also be falling tears, or perhaps, in summer, its concealed interior is a perfect place to cry.

But what about the willow part? It perhaps relates to Willows, but that just leads to another association. But what about Osier, is there something there that indicates its wispy branches? Is there something sinuous and strong inherent in Beech? Howthorne’s do have a thorniness to them, but do they have a haw-ness? Doubtful, though I’m sure one could be instructed.

Then I did some thinking of the names of birds, or even the names, sky, moon, morning. I loved testing the sound and feel of the names—mainly of trees—and wondering about how they related to that which they named. I spent a lovely walking doing this, and I think I could spend a lovely life doing the same.

Sadly, most everything’s named already. How lovely must it have been for Adam, God bringing him various creatures, plants and animals, mutable and new, and invited him to attach a name. A certain collection of oral movements, expelled breath, and vibrations of the vocal chords. Eden, where the connections between thing named and name were new and known.

So, if anyone needs anything named, let me know. I’d like to start building up a resume. And, speaking of expelled breath, I’m looking for the word/name for when one expels breath quickly out of the nose or mouth as if in disgust. Similar to a pshaw, but not so heavy handed.

PS. My favorite tree is the Magnolia—again, where’d that name come from? Though I do like that it has a combination feel of broad, delicate, and strong. But that’s probably just what I associate it with because of my feelings about the tree. And that’s another thing I’d love about naming, thinking of what feel certain collections of consonants and vowels would take on through association with thing named. Anyway, they’re in bloom right now. Go find one to sit under right now; the blooms don’t last.

Ambidextrous

It was from a picture of Danny Kaye, a still from one of his movies, that I had my first dream: ambidexterity. It had all the purity of childhood dreams. I can’t remember a particular reason or purpose for this dream, but there was something utterly delicious to me in the ability to write equally well with BOTH hands! I’m failing utterly to recreate the loftiness I felt about this dream. There was some exquisite joy to be had in this rare skill. Everyone could write, but who could write equally well with both hands? No one I knew.

And perhaps that was the joy. As the seventh of ten who wasn’t as important as my naughty older sisters, or as good an artist as my older brothers, or as good a singer as my younger sisters, it was something I could do that no one I knew could do. That was unheard of in my world of second-place ribbons in running, spelling, et al. I was good, but unremarkable, so unlike an ambidextrous man.

Some dreams need to be kept close and nurtured in the dark like beans rolled in a damp cloth sprouting in my Jr. High shop locker. But I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know there were dreamers and pragmatists. So I took my dream and excitement to my mother and told her of my dream.

“Who would want to be ambidextrous?”

Her words crushed me. I was too shy a child to defend myself. What if I lose my right hand? No problem, that’s what! What if they have a contest in school where they tie your good hand behind your back? I’d be ready! What if little miss Kinghorn looks over while I write her love notes with both hands at the same time? World class reciprocal crush, that’s what! But none of these scenes were lighted on the stage; the curtain had already come down.

Such was the death of my first dream.

Until last week playing the Napoleon Dynamite board game. One of the tasks requires you to draw with your “bad” hand. My sister said she could do that task as she was ambidextrous. My heart stopped and I travelled back in time, aghast.

“You taught yourself that?”

“Yeah.”

“I so wanted to do that as a child. But told mom and she thought it was a dumb idea.”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell mom.”

We won that round and the game, and instead of crying for that first, lost dream, I thought, it didn't have to die. Even though it’s kind of pointless now that I type way more than write, even though I still have a working right hand, even though miss Kinghorn is probably now Mrs. Kinghorn, and even though—bitterest of all?—it won’t even serve to make me special or unique in the family like I once dreamed it would. It could still make me smile.

Or maybe I need to look at some other dreams and decide which one I ought to unearth and give a second, if stumbling and zombie-like, life.

Kaleidoscope

What do you see? That’s the delight in Kaleidoscopes, I suppose. I remember a cheap one in my house that I played with near the patches of sun thrown through the living room windows onto our tan carpet. A cardboard tube covered in red paper, I held its clear, sleekness in both hands, the better for twisting and tumbling what looked like left over pieces of plastic from more expensive toys. This was the bologna and hotdog of the toy world.

At first I turned it eagerly, excited to rush to each new collection of reality made fantastic through multiple reflection. The colors and shapes slid and plopped into new and infinite patterns again and again. Sometimes I’d be shocked by the intricacy, sometimes the banality, of this closed magical tube of infinity.

Then I stopped turning it. I held it in one place when I realized the patterns don’t repeat. They’re unique in the world. This cheap, left-over plastic aided by three mirrors was forming unique patterns that would only be seen by me, and only once, before disappearing forever. I felt strange to be responsible for these fleeting and unique patterns, to know that their existence required me to hold them indefinitely.

But I couldn’t hold them indefinitely, so I dropped it on the ground, imagining the pattern newly created by the fall looking for an eye that would not. And there I left it forever after because soon I stopped picking up kaleidoscopes altogether. They made me feel old.