I was sorely tempted to range beyond the boundaries of my property and head to the broad, open wetland that is the heart of Hartley Nature Center. The nature center is across my neighbor’s property, a five minute walk. I was relishing the descriptive possibilities, the mounded beaver dam, the bent and swaying grass, the meandering stream. The open and expansive wetland, ringed by hills, gives one the feeling of truly being away from it all.
But then I saw the ducks. They waddled to the edge of our yard, as they have the past two springs, and sat down, webbed feet disappearing beneath them. Mallards. The male with a striking green head, yellow beak, brown breast, and mottled white body. The female, slightly drabber with a sort of camouflaged array of brown feathers. Every year they herald the true arrival of spring, finding a quiet corner of our property to sit and rest.
After a few minutes they waddled back off into the brush. My boys and I decided to look for them. Soren, age 5, insisted on bringing his spear—a long wooden branch with a fork duct taped to the end (long story), even though I implored him that we were just out to look at the birds, not to disturb (or kill) them. We ducked around our pitched and leaning garage, as stealthily as we could. Gingerly parting thorny plants, we came upon the stagnant little pool, and there they were.
‘Shhhhhhhh’, Soren whispered. Eli pointed wildly, but miraculously did not make a sound. We hunched down to get a better look. They were within ten feet of us. The female’s head was rooting about underwater, in search of food. The male, its luminous green head turning back and forth, was keeping watch.
The three of us watched, silent and transfixed. What an odd little patch of the earth to hunker down in, I thought. The stagnant water is barely ten feet around, tucked behind a decaying garage, surrounded by brambles. Given the wetland of the Nature Center close by, our little swamp seemed like a sub-par choice. But they have claimed it as their own, as have we.
As we padded silently away, Soren turned to look back. Overcome with the pent up silence, he finally gave in to his impulses. He advanced a few steps towards the swamp and let out a loud whoop. The ducks took to the air and flew away.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
prompt entry 8
I have learned to slow down. I have learned to sit still. I have learned that the winter woods contain marvels. I have learned that blue moss grows on some of the trees on my property. I have learned that I don’t need to be gone for a month to be recharged by the natural world; a few focused minutes might even suffice. I have learned to listen, to look, to quell the internal chatter that draws a curtain between myself the world. I have learned that my trees have burls. I have learned that my little parcel of earth is big enough to pique my curiosity for years, provided I pay attention. I have learned that others find the notion of escaping to the wilderness to be an archaic, worn cliché. I have learned that I still want to escape to the wilderness. I have learned that blighted, overlooked landscapes can be rendered beautifully, but that such a rendering requires love and dutiful attention. I have learned, again, that my obsession with canoes is unbounded. I have learned that the sight of my own kids tromping about outside fills me with an unspeakable joy. I have learned that sometimes it is o.k. to rage and rant; I have learned that sometimes ranting defeats the purpose. I have learned that there used to be a river in L.A., and then there wasn’t, though there might be again. I have learned that one can write interestingly about nature in L.A. I have learned that I enjoy the lyrical, provided I get heaping doses of bedrock to anchor it. I have learned that my own interests tend towards the margins. I have learned Annie Dillard is a liar. I have learned that Updike’s characters have ‘burnished feces’. I have learned that I’d much rather sit with people face to face than communicate over the ‘interwebs’. I have learned that having to slow down and write out my thoughts crystallizes them in a way that blathering on in a classroom doesn’t. I have learned that I still miss the classroom. I have learned of a great many writers new to me. I have learned that those familiar to me still seem like old friends. I have learned that my ambitions are modest, though I may be feinting a bit. I have learned that an engaged instructor makes a lot of difference. I have learned to appreciate, to question, to defend, to defer, to speak up, to pipe down, to expand, to explore. I have learned. And for that I am thankful.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
place entry #7
The snow is gone now. The bullfrogs are croaking in the swamp by the garage. Purple crocuses are pushing up from the earth, little cups of beauty in the drab, brown world. The trees are still bud-less and barren, though I’m on the lookout for new shoots. At the edge of my yard, past a tangle of brush at the edge of the swamp, sits a pile of garbage. There is a rusted out water heater, mottled and flaking; a Minnesota license plate from 1974, the year after I was born, which gives me a sort of carbon dating to the pile strewn about; a coil of rusty barbed wire, balled up like a tumbleweed; the remains of an old picket fence; broken glass, a green wine bottle half buried in the dirt, two tires, and a stack of moldering lumber.
Each spring I tell myself that I’m going to rent a dumpster and clean up the place, but for some reason I keep putting it off. The pile is out of the way and inconspicuous; you’d have to know it was there to find it. I wonder what prompted my great-aunt to discard things in the woods; she kept an immaculate garden, and planted row after row of flowers. The garbage in the woods seems inconsistent with what I’ve heard and know about her.
Some of the trash, I assume, predates the license plate, is of a time when our land was a working farm and garbage collection a city construct. The garbage, however unsightly, is in a sense a link to the past, and a link to my ancestors. It reminds me of a time when the land was worked and used, not just appreciated as an aesthetically pleasing place to sip coffee and gaze out the picture windows. Besides, would taking it to a landfill be any different? Maybe I’ll keep it here and see how long the earth takes to reclaim it all. As a reminder of our past, and our future.
Each spring I tell myself that I’m going to rent a dumpster and clean up the place, but for some reason I keep putting it off. The pile is out of the way and inconspicuous; you’d have to know it was there to find it. I wonder what prompted my great-aunt to discard things in the woods; she kept an immaculate garden, and planted row after row of flowers. The garbage in the woods seems inconsistent with what I’ve heard and know about her.
Some of the trash, I assume, predates the license plate, is of a time when our land was a working farm and garbage collection a city construct. The garbage, however unsightly, is in a sense a link to the past, and a link to my ancestors. It reminds me of a time when the land was worked and used, not just appreciated as an aesthetically pleasing place to sip coffee and gaze out the picture windows. Besides, would taking it to a landfill be any different? Maybe I’ll keep it here and see how long the earth takes to reclaim it all. As a reminder of our past, and our future.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
prompt entry 7
My kids call it the ‘poking tree’; the old dead oak in the woods behind our house. The tree is thick enough that I can’t link my arms around it. Looking up from the base, its branches splay out to the sky, dwarfing the other trees in the immediate vicinity. There three ragged gashes at the base of the tree, the biggest about a foot wide, extending about 10 feet in the air. The heart-wood, in these exposed sections, has mostly decayed and spilled out in a saw-dusty pile around the base of the tree, which allows a clear view through the gaping holes. The remaining heart-wood is dried out and brittle; we reach in and dislodge large chunks; they are honeycombed and as light as Styrofoam.
Each time I go to the woods I half expect the tree to be toppled over and resting on the leaf strewn ground. The whole weight of the tree is dependent on the exterior bark, which is deeply ridged and fissured, about two inches thick. But it seems impossible that the tree can buck the wind with so little anchoring it the earth. Yet there it is every time, still upright, majestic at a distance, critically injured up close.
I think of our own lives, of the roots that we sink, and the foundations we use to help us reach skyward. Can we be similarly eaten away from the inside, whittled down to an exterior husk, and yet remain standing? Without exterior cracks, a means to survey the damage inside, do we have any way of knowing who is alive and growing, and who is already stunted and dead?
My kids grab sticks and poke at the holes in the tree. Sawdust spills out and falls to the ground. I want to grab a pile of sawdust, a hunk of honey-combed wood, the tree’s lifeblood scattered uselessly on the ground, and shout, ‘Don’t ever let this happen to you.’ But they are mere saplings, supple and strong, too young to be hollowed out and decayed. I let them take in the dappled sunlight, and hope my own looming shadow doesn't get in the way.
Each time I go to the woods I half expect the tree to be toppled over and resting on the leaf strewn ground. The whole weight of the tree is dependent on the exterior bark, which is deeply ridged and fissured, about two inches thick. But it seems impossible that the tree can buck the wind with so little anchoring it the earth. Yet there it is every time, still upright, majestic at a distance, critically injured up close.
I think of our own lives, of the roots that we sink, and the foundations we use to help us reach skyward. Can we be similarly eaten away from the inside, whittled down to an exterior husk, and yet remain standing? Without exterior cracks, a means to survey the damage inside, do we have any way of knowing who is alive and growing, and who is already stunted and dead?
My kids grab sticks and poke at the holes in the tree. Sawdust spills out and falls to the ground. I want to grab a pile of sawdust, a hunk of honey-combed wood, the tree’s lifeblood scattered uselessly on the ground, and shout, ‘Don’t ever let this happen to you.’ But they are mere saplings, supple and strong, too young to be hollowed out and decayed. I let them take in the dappled sunlight, and hope my own looming shadow doesn't get in the way.
I grab a stick and join in the fun.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Place entry #6
What a difference a few weeks makes. Duluth is in the thick of the warmest March in recorded history. The high temperature has been above freezing since February 26. We’ve even bumped up against sixty degrees. As a result, our snow is all but gone, except for a dirty patch on the north side of the house that is shrinking daily. Last year, we had snow in the yard past Easter.
The grass has not yet recovered. It is dull brown, as flat and matted as slept on hair. But there is some give to the ground now, and the faint earth smell—life and decay—a welcome change from winter’s sterility. It seems cliché to gauge your life by the seasons. But it also seems perfectly natural. The changing seasons provide a backdrop to measure against, a change that prompts thinking about more and other changes.
Today the boys and I played in the yard. Eli is big enough to climb the small ladder to the playground; last year he more or less rode on our hips. Soren can swing under his own power, one of many things he can do on his own. Our boys are growing up. Eli, at two, parrots everything he hears in a lilting, sing-song voice. Soren, at five, questions everything. Both are learning to be independent, are already growing away from us, as they ought to.
Crows caw noisily from the red pines. Eli shoots back a perfect imitation that warms my heart. Last year at this time spring was a cruel joke; winter still held us fast and would not relent. At the cemetery where we buried my dad, the wind whipped the priest’s words away as soon as they left his mouth. The color guard blew a hurried taps and retreated to a van. Our own grief and solemnity was scuttled by the cold; we bobbed from left to right, drew inward, stomped feet, and fled to the cars the moment things ended.
For weeks afterward I felt that numbness, the cold having worked its way to my core.
This year, with my boys twirling in circles together, and falling in a heap in the brown grass, I can see that spring is the season of new life after all.
The grass has not yet recovered. It is dull brown, as flat and matted as slept on hair. But there is some give to the ground now, and the faint earth smell—life and decay—a welcome change from winter’s sterility. It seems cliché to gauge your life by the seasons. But it also seems perfectly natural. The changing seasons provide a backdrop to measure against, a change that prompts thinking about more and other changes.
Today the boys and I played in the yard. Eli is big enough to climb the small ladder to the playground; last year he more or less rode on our hips. Soren can swing under his own power, one of many things he can do on his own. Our boys are growing up. Eli, at two, parrots everything he hears in a lilting, sing-song voice. Soren, at five, questions everything. Both are learning to be independent, are already growing away from us, as they ought to.
Crows caw noisily from the red pines. Eli shoots back a perfect imitation that warms my heart. Last year at this time spring was a cruel joke; winter still held us fast and would not relent. At the cemetery where we buried my dad, the wind whipped the priest’s words away as soon as they left his mouth. The color guard blew a hurried taps and retreated to a van. Our own grief and solemnity was scuttled by the cold; we bobbed from left to right, drew inward, stomped feet, and fled to the cars the moment things ended.
For weeks afterward I felt that numbness, the cold having worked its way to my core.
This year, with my boys twirling in circles together, and falling in a heap in the brown grass, I can see that spring is the season of new life after all.
Prompt entry #6
I am drawn to wild rivers. Rivers are the highways of the boreal forest, and the canoe is the perfect vehicle. For me there is nothing like tracing a river from source to outlet, sampling its various moods along the way. When you dip your hand over the gunwale you can feel the river pulsing with life.
On placid stretches, we lie back and let the current do the work. The canoe becomes a piece of driftwood, pushed wide on the bends, spun slowly in swirling eddies. Putting paddle to water is a means of imposing your will. There is risk in this, as it can cultivate an attitude of fighting against the river. To paddle is to eventually learn that the river cannot be conquered; it is bigger and deeper and more powerful than we are. It is best to work with the river, to use the inexorable current to help us place our canoe where we need it. This can involve some paradox; if we are caught in a fast moving stretch of water, and need to move towards the left bank of the river without slipping further downstream, we cannot simply paddle harder to power our way over, though this is a common instinct. If we do, we will get flushed downriver more quickly, toward the very thing we want to avoid.
The best strategy is to paddle backwards, keeping even with the shore—neither slipping downstream or working our way back upstream—and to angle the stern of the canoe towards the place we want to go (in strong current the angle needs to be small, lest we get spun around). As we paddle to keep the canoe in place, the current catches on our angled stern and ferries us to the spot we need to be. At the first few backward strokes, when we are trying to halt the canoe’s momentum, we will feel as though we are fighting the river—surely this can’t be the right strategy. But when the current grabs that angled end and we sense ourselves being moved to the left without so much as a stroke in that direction, we know the river is on our side, that canoe and water are one.
At the approach of rapids, I get a hollow ache in my gut, something like an acidic spurt of acid courses through my system. I am not an adrenaline junky; the river is not my wild version of an amusement park ride. I hear the rapids before I can see them, like a train in the distance. As I gaze ahead, moving slowly now, careful not to drift past the point of no return, I spot the dancing waves glinting in the sunshine. We pull over, drag the canoe half out of the water, and make our way downstream on foot, hopping from rock to rock, or bashing through thick riverside alders. It is important to go all the way to the end of the rapids, no matter how laborious, and asses it from the bottom up, plotting a strategy and gauging landmarks as we go. If the rapids are too big or complex, it is time to take to the woods and hope for a well-worn portage trail. More than likely, however, the portage will be a faint meandering thing, thick with mosquitoes and chock-full of blown down trees. No matter. Better to spend a grueling hour to get past 100 yards of churning river, than lose our boat and gear in a capsize.
If we do decide to run it, there is always fear in the gut and a hollowed out feeling in the arms. Back in the canoe, at the top of the rapids where the current runs strong and black, before the frothy turbulence, nothing is as it seems. The landmarks that stood out so clearly from the riverbank are obscured by our water-level vantage point. Often, at the brink, one of us is forced to stand—a frantic, wobbly move—in a last attempt to get our bearings. By then we are committed, and plunge into the dancing waves.
********************************
On the last night of our honeymoon, close the terminus of where the river flows into Hudson Bay, 10 miles or so upriver from the little town with its little airstrip where we would be ending our trip, we camped on a small island covered in long, swaying grass. It was early September and the nights were getting cold. We went to bed early with that feeling of anxiousness and excitement that accompanies transitions. We had been on the river close to a month; our daily routine had become a lifestyle, as automatic as breathing.
Sometime in the night I awoke, unzipped the tent, and gazed out. Our tent faced upstream, only a few feet from the water’s edge. The river was swift and shallow, undulating in the moonlight and spilling past our little island on its course to the bay. Tomorrow we would rejoin the flow, but tonight we were perched on the edge of it. I looked upstream to where the river turned round a bend, and thought about the miles that had led us to this spot: the glass calm lakes, the damnable wind, the days of bright, unbroken sky, the calluses etched on our hands from thousands of paddle strokes. We had spent days paddling in silence, had learned to make decisions with an unspoken nod, had started conversations that lasted for a week or more. I felt sure, sitting there in the moonlight on that little island, that the river had worked its way into us somehow, that we were all forever intertwined. Though we would leave and fly away and the river would freeze and thaw and flow again, I knew we would still be able to draw strength from it, even years from then.
And I was right. We did. We do. I gave silent thanks to the river, zipped the tent shut, and went back to bed.
On placid stretches, we lie back and let the current do the work. The canoe becomes a piece of driftwood, pushed wide on the bends, spun slowly in swirling eddies. Putting paddle to water is a means of imposing your will. There is risk in this, as it can cultivate an attitude of fighting against the river. To paddle is to eventually learn that the river cannot be conquered; it is bigger and deeper and more powerful than we are. It is best to work with the river, to use the inexorable current to help us place our canoe where we need it. This can involve some paradox; if we are caught in a fast moving stretch of water, and need to move towards the left bank of the river without slipping further downstream, we cannot simply paddle harder to power our way over, though this is a common instinct. If we do, we will get flushed downriver more quickly, toward the very thing we want to avoid.
The best strategy is to paddle backwards, keeping even with the shore—neither slipping downstream or working our way back upstream—and to angle the stern of the canoe towards the place we want to go (in strong current the angle needs to be small, lest we get spun around). As we paddle to keep the canoe in place, the current catches on our angled stern and ferries us to the spot we need to be. At the first few backward strokes, when we are trying to halt the canoe’s momentum, we will feel as though we are fighting the river—surely this can’t be the right strategy. But when the current grabs that angled end and we sense ourselves being moved to the left without so much as a stroke in that direction, we know the river is on our side, that canoe and water are one.
At the approach of rapids, I get a hollow ache in my gut, something like an acidic spurt of acid courses through my system. I am not an adrenaline junky; the river is not my wild version of an amusement park ride. I hear the rapids before I can see them, like a train in the distance. As I gaze ahead, moving slowly now, careful not to drift past the point of no return, I spot the dancing waves glinting in the sunshine. We pull over, drag the canoe half out of the water, and make our way downstream on foot, hopping from rock to rock, or bashing through thick riverside alders. It is important to go all the way to the end of the rapids, no matter how laborious, and asses it from the bottom up, plotting a strategy and gauging landmarks as we go. If the rapids are too big or complex, it is time to take to the woods and hope for a well-worn portage trail. More than likely, however, the portage will be a faint meandering thing, thick with mosquitoes and chock-full of blown down trees. No matter. Better to spend a grueling hour to get past 100 yards of churning river, than lose our boat and gear in a capsize.
If we do decide to run it, there is always fear in the gut and a hollowed out feeling in the arms. Back in the canoe, at the top of the rapids where the current runs strong and black, before the frothy turbulence, nothing is as it seems. The landmarks that stood out so clearly from the riverbank are obscured by our water-level vantage point. Often, at the brink, one of us is forced to stand—a frantic, wobbly move—in a last attempt to get our bearings. By then we are committed, and plunge into the dancing waves.
********************************
On the last night of our honeymoon, close the terminus of where the river flows into Hudson Bay, 10 miles or so upriver from the little town with its little airstrip where we would be ending our trip, we camped on a small island covered in long, swaying grass. It was early September and the nights were getting cold. We went to bed early with that feeling of anxiousness and excitement that accompanies transitions. We had been on the river close to a month; our daily routine had become a lifestyle, as automatic as breathing.
Sometime in the night I awoke, unzipped the tent, and gazed out. Our tent faced upstream, only a few feet from the water’s edge. The river was swift and shallow, undulating in the moonlight and spilling past our little island on its course to the bay. Tomorrow we would rejoin the flow, but tonight we were perched on the edge of it. I looked upstream to where the river turned round a bend, and thought about the miles that had led us to this spot: the glass calm lakes, the damnable wind, the days of bright, unbroken sky, the calluses etched on our hands from thousands of paddle strokes. We had spent days paddling in silence, had learned to make decisions with an unspoken nod, had started conversations that lasted for a week or more. I felt sure, sitting there in the moonlight on that little island, that the river had worked its way into us somehow, that we were all forever intertwined. Though we would leave and fly away and the river would freeze and thaw and flow again, I knew we would still be able to draw strength from it, even years from then.
And I was right. We did. We do. I gave silent thanks to the river, zipped the tent shut, and went back to bed.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Prompt entry #5
Ah, the flush of a toilet. What could be easier? Pull a lever and the refuse swirls away forever. No need to think about it. Gone are the days of the outhouse, the sprinkling of lye, the pervasive odor, the mound of refuse so disgustingly visible. The sewage treatment plant; it is one of the sure signs that we live packed together. Sewage treatment is inherently a good thing, of course. 80,000 people congregated in one spot are bound to produce a lot of shit and piss. But our own implementation of that sewer system was far from perfect.
Duluth has a sewer run-off problem. Houses built before 1970 had foundation footing drains connected directly to the sanitary sewer system which, during periods of heavy rain or melting snow, can overload the system, producing sewage backups that eventually make their way into Lake Superior.
Like many environmental problems, there isn’t one simple, easy fix, nor is there one culprit that can shoulder both the blame and the cost. Should the cash-strapped city of Duluth pony up or should its cash-strapped citizens? I wonder, though, about the decision to hook the sewers up this way in the first place. Was it an act of ignorance? An expedient short cut? Short term thinking? Or was it simply an honest mistake?
Since the majority of Duluth is perched on a hilltop overlooking Lake Superior, sewage run-off finds a quick and easy path directly to the lake. Given Lake Superior’s size, it is tempting to think that our sewage overflow is mere drop in the bucket; the fact that Lake Superior is the cleanest of all the Great Lakes makes this a tempting mindset to adopt. But, of course, we must act. After all, what better example can there be for environmental irresponsibility than to foul up the source of your own drinking water with excrement.
The outhouse carries some of the same risks. If improperly constructed or placed, it can leech harmful bacteria into the water supply. Of course this happens on a one to one scale, providing the outhouse builder with an incentive to do the job right. A well placed outhouse, one that does not receive too much use and is placed in the right soil, will harmlessly break down the refuse. There is a lot to be said for this simple, organic solution. There is even something to be said for the smells of an outhouse, and the view to the outside world an outhouse normally provides. It is a humbling reminder that we are of this earth, that we, too, are animals that piss and shit. That our waste must be accounted for.
Duluth has a sewer run-off problem. Houses built before 1970 had foundation footing drains connected directly to the sanitary sewer system which, during periods of heavy rain or melting snow, can overload the system, producing sewage backups that eventually make their way into Lake Superior.
Like many environmental problems, there isn’t one simple, easy fix, nor is there one culprit that can shoulder both the blame and the cost. Should the cash-strapped city of Duluth pony up or should its cash-strapped citizens? I wonder, though, about the decision to hook the sewers up this way in the first place. Was it an act of ignorance? An expedient short cut? Short term thinking? Or was it simply an honest mistake?
Since the majority of Duluth is perched on a hilltop overlooking Lake Superior, sewage run-off finds a quick and easy path directly to the lake. Given Lake Superior’s size, it is tempting to think that our sewage overflow is mere drop in the bucket; the fact that Lake Superior is the cleanest of all the Great Lakes makes this a tempting mindset to adopt. But, of course, we must act. After all, what better example can there be for environmental irresponsibility than to foul up the source of your own drinking water with excrement.
The outhouse carries some of the same risks. If improperly constructed or placed, it can leech harmful bacteria into the water supply. Of course this happens on a one to one scale, providing the outhouse builder with an incentive to do the job right. A well placed outhouse, one that does not receive too much use and is placed in the right soil, will harmlessly break down the refuse. There is a lot to be said for this simple, organic solution. There is even something to be said for the smells of an outhouse, and the view to the outside world an outhouse normally provides. It is a humbling reminder that we are of this earth, that we, too, are animals that piss and shit. That our waste must be accounted for.
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