Mind Thing

Let it go. Almost everything is invention, fiction. There's a guy I know from the bar in the pub, an interesting person, and smart, even, in some ways; in other ways he's a stupid bigot. I don't understand how so many people fall into that category. Maybe it's why so many. I never wanted much, I still don't understand that, caring about the trappings. Though I do, of course; collect objects, do what I want, believe what I want. But I don't care if my silverware matches. For that matter I don't care if my socks match. I was writing a country/blues song about a bird-dog with brown eyes. I made another iteration of corn and oyster stew that was so good I thought I might die of joy. I steamed the oysters open in a cup of white wine, with shallots and some red pepper, caramelized, several twists of fresh black pepper; and the broth, with the sweet corn juice, was an incredible base. I fried the oysters, rolled in masa, very quickly in hot peanut oil. This made a very good chowder, actually better than very good, this made a chowder to stand up and take notice. What does 'good' mean, and 'very'. Corn milk is the next thing, the transition dish is kale cooked with creamed corn. Kale stewed in corn milk, with salt pork, is quite good. Actually so good that I forgot what I was doing, heating water to wash dishes, harvesting rain. You should taste this, the sweetness explodes on your tongue. Paw paws, and persimmons, that have a shelf life of maybe an hour; certain apples that turn brown right away. I can usually find a hold for my hands, then a knob where I can anchor a foot. That jump (climbing, in my case scrambling) occasioned by the book about Pueblos in the southwest, and remembering finding that corn. Cedar Mesa and Comb Ridge. There's a small side-canyon, I'm sure it has a name, with one of the few water sources. You can smell it long before you see it. The green. There's a natural tank between Monticello and Moab, in the badlands to the east, on the north side of a butte, that holds water for most of the summer. It's mostly hanging plants there, but you can still smell it before you see it. One spring in Colorado it rained for a couple of days and the air smelled different, I hiked up the steep mesa behind the house, and on top, usually just rocks and cactus and withered bunch grass, there was a riot of flowers. It happened one time in the ten years I lived there. I couldn't do the drive anymore, but there was a 'road' that went up to Yankee Boy Basin, maybe 11,000 feet, summer lasted 20 or 30 days, and you couldn't move without crushing alpine flowers. A spring started there, a beautiful thing, bubbling out of the earth, melted snow. There was still un-melted snow a thousand feet above. A great place to camp but in the morning you sensed you might be at the perfume counter in Wal-Mart. I couldn't eat anyway, until I got back down to Ouray, the drive down was worse than the drive up, then I'd wash my face and hands, and eat like a lumberjack. It's interesting how memory works. A smell or a sound or a specific green chili sauce. Everything is in play. Michael said he had a Kim Chee starter. Dried powdered shrimp? Something like that black Mexican corn mold?