Useful Fictions

Graces of simplicity. Scales, for instance, are invented boundaries. Reading about P.A.M.Dirac, it was said about one of his equations "that it made up in brilliance what it lacked in plausibility". Reading about Wave Theory, but I no longer remember why. Cold again this morning, so an early walk. Completely blue sky, naked trees, and I can see through the woods again. Back home a hardy breakfast of cheese grits with reconstituted dried apricots. I'd left out the books from last night, book-marked to whatever I was reading, thinking it would give me a clue toward where I was going, but I couldn't find the thread. Still, interesting reading, as I put books away. An older couple showed up today, wanting to visit the cemetery, so I took the clippers, walked them out there, and left them. They stopped back by the house for coffee and chatted family history. Ira said that sometimes, mid-winter, you'd have to build two bonfires to thaw the ground to dig a grave, and that they used a sled (he said sledge) and a mule to get the bodies up here. He was just a kid, but he remembered. When they left, I couldn't remember what I had been doing or thinking about, so I vacuumed up a bunch of spider nests and webs in places where I wanted to stack wood, and go look at the wood pile, high-grade out a couple of billets that will make fine starter sticks, set aside a couple of difficult crotches to split mid-winter, tidy up my act. I'm not a fan of Kraft, but as a fan of cheese I like the fact that the white extra sharp cheddar has a shelf life of 60 days, so with some black olives, sweet pickles, and maybe a few sardines, some shreds of watercress, I can make a meal. A lot of the cheeses I like don't keep well. I make a sauce for pasta from Gorgonzola that smells terrible, I always think it must be like eating Durian. Town tomorrow, it's been a week, I need some stuff, and the library called, they're holding a couple of books for me. I use the reference desk quite a bit, because I'm not very good at looking up things on their system. They're always glad to help. Eighteenth century flatware, sure; the roof of Westminster, no problem. I keep an index card with books they help me find. I come off as slightly eccentric but non-threatening. They sometimes ask me questions, like why I was interested in Eighteenth century flatware, or why was I suddenly interested in Black bears. These are sprite conversations, the reference crew at any library is going to be bright and quick. Traits that usually diminish as you move further into the hills. It's so much more difficult, living a hard-scrabble life, to think about doilies and trappings, the meaning of meaning, or to spend an hour thinking about a specific comma. Shovel a path, feed the goats, cook slop for the hogs, make cheese, bind books, read, try to write a simple paragraph. I still don't understand how you could possibly wear a starched white shirt and get through the course of a day. I sometimes have to throw away my clothes, and my only monogram is the name Frank on one of my heavy canvas shirts. I think he worked at a car-wash, there was some evidence of detergent, but he might have just been doing the dishes. The last of the re-fried grits, with an egg and toast. I haven't had a decent conversation with B for several months. He took on a brutal teaching schedule to pay for a new roof and I'm hesitant to go down there. He's spending more time with the grand-kids. I seem to be doing week-long retreats as if I were in training for something. The long haul. There's only been a time or two that I couldn't drive out and back in within a four-week period. Also, I must confess, I keep another plastic container, sealed with duct tape, filled with Ramen noodles and instant mashed potatoes, a few cans of sardines, and some corned beef hash, in case the weather turns off bad. I can always make cornbread. Simple enough, the usual one cup of cornmeal recipe, I can do it when I'm drunk; the difference, of course, is always the diameter of the skillet. A six inch skillet produces a cake, an eight inch skillet produces a pone. If you have a lot of skillets (I have a lot of skillets) you can end up with something approaching a tortilla. This is sinful, but I fry them briefly in peanut oil, and wrap them around a country pate, then bake them with cheese and watercress.