Missed Opportunities

I could easily have gotten to town yesterday, out and in, but I just wanted to stay home. The ridge is so beautiful, under a white mantle, and the Pileated Woodpeckers are back. I think it's a breeding pair. They acting like newlyweds. He's showing her all the good trees and she occasionally pecks him, out of mischief. It's cute. Birds of a feather. I have some more wood to carry, and thirty minutes work with the electric chainsaw, then I'm set for the next cold spell, which I hope will be the last serious cold of winter. I'm sick of it. I've learned my lesson, and I'll be better prepared next year. I wasn't ready for a winter this severe, and it's made a believer out of me. I can keep from dying, but barely. In a way, it feels good, that I can survive, in other ways I wonder why I'm playing this game. I love it, for one thing, never knowing what's coming next. Tends to keep you occupied. Not unlike basket-weaving, or braiding a rope, just a thing you do, to pass the time. Now, make that clear to a bunch of Chinese students that don't speak good English. Or try and relate to your illiterate neighbor. Just saying. Nothing seems that far fetched. An algorithm for happiness. (Written last Sunday, I think, after I'd already sent a post.) Monday the power was out. Tuesday the roads were a mess. Just an inch of new snow, but it must have started as some other form of moisture, because the city and county police reported a record number of accidents for one day. It was very slick. Fortunately, it just lasted a couple of hours. Sometime in the next few days I'll be able to drive in, restock the larder, and get through the rest of winter. Sara and Clay were back, for the opening, Sunday, and it was great to sit on the loading dock with Sara and have a smoke. The potter, Carol, was down from Columbus, with the repaired wall-hanging, we talked about the piece failing and what that meant about the materials. Stress Failure. I find failures more interesting than successes. What you learn. Staff meeting, then we moved the piano back on the stage so that it could be tuned for the Sunday musical event. I have no idea what the event is, all I knew is that we had to move the piano. It lives, most of the time, on a rolling platform at one end of the classroom, downstairs; where the loading doors into the backstage of the theater are located. In defense of the people who designed and constructed this, it was a fucking bank, the walls were very thick, in some situations there weren't any options. The problem is, actually, that the idiot who designed the rolling platform for the piano, used swivel casters, and they don't need to swivel, it would be much better if they didn't. All the casters have to do is roll three feet south, then the same three feet north; as it is now, four people struggle to overcome the load that's placed on that moment of inertia when a large swivel caster needs to change direction. In my witting about it tonight, I solved the problem, made it a one person, five-minute job. We just replace the casters, and it suddenly takes one person five minutes. I can't believe it took me so long to see that. Walking in tonight, I wanted to get a fire started, left work early, as is my want, when the temps dip this low. Don't let the olive oil freeze. There were tracks everywhere, as the critters prepared for the next arctic blast, they all seem to know that the forecast was for more bitter weather. I follow their lead. Read more...

Making Sense

Between a rock and a hard place. I could go on. Something happened. I was washing dishes, mostly spoons and forks, and I was thinking about making sense. I'd found a note, scribbled on an envelope, at the bottom of the driveway, and I could make no sense of it. The language, the grammar, the syntax, the spelling, everything was wrong. I knew who had written the note, and he speaks ok Appalachian English, but he must have quit school after the third grade. The note must have been left under the wiper blade on B's truck, at the bottom of the hill, and I finally figured out that it was asking for help in getting an old man home. I'll have to ask B about it. Talking skills and writing skills are very different. What caught my eye this morning, I'd never noticed this before, I was walking down the driveway, stopping every fifty steps for a sip of coffee (a sip of coffee involves taking off a glove, rotating that little cover, looking down, to see where the hole is, so that you don't pour coffee down your front). Looking down, I saw these little prisms on the ground, I'm sure they have a name. Several people will tell me, it's one thing I can count on; drops of water condensing out of the ground into the air. The frost coming out. It was beautiful. Didn't have to be at work until 1:00 but I went in early, to take advantage of the hot running water, and to have lunch at the pub. The water level in the Ohio is up another ten feet and the lower road, below the floodwall, is inundated. The wrack field is extensive. Emily was on the front desk, so I could cloister myself upstairs and resume my Carter research. An odd occurrence on Friday, one of the ceramic pieces, a wall hanging, failed. A piece that had never been hung before, and I had said to Charlotte, when we were hanging it, that it was too heavy. These pieces are lovely, a clear plastic base, with the mounting feet attached, then several layers of thin white porcelain held off the base on clear posts, all held together with epoxy. The piece that failed was the widest and heaviest. Thirty-six inches between the two attachments and it simply de-laminated in the middle. Stress. So the potter came in today, Carol, with her husband, Mark, and we discussed what had happened. I'd saved all the pieces, to show them (Stress Failure Analysis) and we all agreed on what had occured. For one thing, when they were seating the clear plastic spacers they pushed too hard, and most of the epoxy had been squished out. I told Mark that he might experiment with a Mapp gas torch and see if he could just bond the plastic directly. It's what I'd do. Two factors in play: shear, and cohesion. I don't trust glue when it comes to shear. A spirited conversation in which we were trying to make sense of what had happened. They took the piece home, to repair it; but they also pulled and tugged on the other pieces, and found one other that needed a minor repair. Another problem is that the sheets (or slabs) of porcelain are not exactly flat. They warp, slightly, in the firing, and that adds to the confusion. An interesting afternoon. At some point, poking among the broken pieces, I thought of the phrase disjecta membra, five years of Latin comes to tell, "a separated part" a "rejected piece" but it actually comes from Horace, disjecti membra poetae, which means, roughly, limbs of a dismembered poet. A sobering thought. In my reading yesterday I came across an apocryphal story about Mohammed's favorite camel, Al Kaswa, that is said to have kneeled when Mohammed was reading the last of the Koran to the gathered faithful in Mecca. Also that he had a white mule by the name of Fadda. (I think the camel was merely signaling it was time to go home, they kneel that way so you can mount, and who wouldn't love to have a white mule, a pale sterile hybrid, reminding you of your failures.) On the way back in, walking up the driveway, I heard B before I saw him. I knew he was splitting wood, to carry out halves or quarters, from where he'd sawn the last tree. He's a bulldog on this. I stop for a few minutes, he's not aware of my presence, and watch him deal with simple problems, how to carry a specific piece of wood. We finally make eye contact, and he allows he's going into town tonight, and driving back in with supplies, did I need anything; yes, I said, a dozen eggs. Read more...

Colloquialisms

Got a card from one of the Chinese students I spent a day with last year. He remembered me fondly, had found ordered and read a couple of my books. Said they had helped him enormously on getting a handle (his phrase) on how English is actually spoken. Colloquialisms account for a great deal of our spoken language. Pegi is full of them, and we were the only two at the museum today, so we chatted a bit. Chatted, also, with an older couple, about the Gough paintings. Working up my rap. I don't want to step on Mark or Charlotte's shoes, they're both wonderful docents with the show. Way better than me. But the Art History teachers tend to specify me as their docent of choice, mostly because I know the Carter collection so well. We'll work it out. I could do a very nice lecture on Weyth And Gough. Not so strange, actually, because I knew we were doing this show two years ago, which is why I undertook the study of Weyth and his work. The similarities have a lot to do with depth-of-field, incredible attention to detail, and a surreal knowledge of tonal values. Walked in without crampons for the first time in three weeks. The rain and the warm temps has every creek raging and the Ohio has flooded all the bottoms. Life as it should be. It's going to be beautiful, when all that floods freezes next week. I have to spend a couple of hours in the woodshed, Sunday or Monday, to get ready for another week of very cold temps, but B or both of us might be able to drive in with supplies, right after the driveway refreezes, if there isn't too much new snow before then. Supplies would be good, maybe a chocolate bar; this time of year I chew on a sliver of ginseng that's been soaking in grain alcohol. The main thing, about living alone, is that you don't have to compromise. When an owl wakes me, three in the morning, I go out to pee and look at the moon; boot up this paragraph, pour a wee dram, roll a smoke, and read out loud. Later today, Saturday, I'm staff at the museum. Emily has the desk, TR is attending a pre-nuptial Catholic retreat (anabasis, I have to laugh, the word actually popped into my head, Xenophon, and other famous retreats, Napoleon withdrawing from Russia, history redrawn by the weather), Mark and Charlotte are away, and things will be quiet. I might read some Carter letters. I might stare off into space, seeing where things might go. To a large degree, I'm not accountable, which I attribute to living alone. A tree-tip-pit is better than no home at all. Read more...

Flood Warnings

That time of year. You live near a large river, that feeds from the north, and carries runoff from ten thousand small drainages; at snow-melt, late winter, early spring, this is what you get. Big rains and thunderstorms tonight. It could be a mess tomorrow morning. High winds too, on the leading edge of the next cold front. I had to reattach all of the labels in the main gallery, the new directors had chosen an egg-shell finish for the big new paint job, and suddenly the little loops of blue painter's tape I've always used to attach the labels to the wall, were failing. Switched to poster putty, which is what Charlotte told me to use, though I've been unhappy with that in the past, because it had left an oily spot on the wall. She swears it's been improved. Whatever. Spent most of the day taking labels off the wall, removing the tape (made a cool tape ball), cutting poster putty into small pieces, affixing them, then repositioning the labels with my story-pole. A mindless task. The artist, Alan, and his dealer, Tim, from Columbus, were at the museum most of the day, lunch with the directors, talking about the catalog (a big deal, costing thousands), and the major opening next Sunday. I just want a punch list, with an order of priorities. I haven't been able to get to the compost heap for three or four weeks and I really need to clean out the refrigerator, this week for sure; do my laundry (my office smells like dirty socks) and rent a motel room, so I can take a bath. Thunderstorms moving in, I'd better go. Five hours later, the intense rain tapers off, the power comes back on. I'd built a very good fire, topped with a Red Maple knot, and the house was so warm I let it go out. It's a big event, when the electricity kicks back in: the fridge starts, the radio cycles through its functions, the computer says "Please Wait", and the light in the back entry comes on. Two in the morning, I get a wee dram, and roll a smoke, listen to the staccato drum beat of rain and drip on the roof. Well and truly removed. It's not even that I can't buy into the system; I could, I think, if I applied myself, but I'd rather be alone, and listen to the rain. Read more...

Hard Rain

Hard rain falling. A real thunderstorm, lightning illuminating the hollow, rolling thunder. The snow on the roof has compacted to about six inches, and should slide off at any minute, with a bone jarring thud when it hits the back porch. Always a shocker, usually three in the morning, and it's like an earthquake. Gets your attention. I checked the catchments, for the culverts, walking in yesterday, and they're running free, which is good, because they'll be carrying a fair bit of water. The Park Rangers know their local geography, and have taken the level of water way down in Turkey Lake to allow for the sudden influx. Upper Twin Creek and Mackletree Creek will flood out, Turkey Creek, where it flows over the spillway, will be running in spate. I put out buckets, under the eaves, to collect the runoff, I might not have to melt any more snow this winter. Boiled rain water (in southern Ohio), which I've been drinking for weeks, is metallic and slightly astringent. It's not unpleasant and it makes a good cup of coffee. Doctor TR, from his kit bag, had recommended that I try taking an aspirin for my hip pain, and It works. I'm not one to mask pain, generally, I've always been of that school that says my body is telling me something, so I tweak my diet or my routine, and I never think about taking over-the-counter willow bark. But it works, and I walk without a limp, and face the next day. Getting back down the hill is problematic, but I have a plan. I'd saved a piece of triple walled cardboard and I have two ski-poles. I think I can just slide down, and use the poles as brakes. Getting back up could be a problem. But I'll cross that bridge .Overslept, but got to work in time to help load the Ron Issacs pieces; Charlotte and Emily on transport detail. I spent the rest of the day putting things away from the last installations. Getting out and in today were as bad as yesterday, but tomorrow will be even worse; supposed to be 60 degrees and the frost will be coming out. Serious mud. The water level at the lake rose five feet in 24 hours, and now a flood of napp coming over the spillway. The lake is still frozen, but the water pressure lifts the ice at the edge of the spillway and the water escapes in a flood. I sit there for a few minutes, watching, and listening to the incredible roar. Three crows were very unhappy that I didn't bring them a snack. The geese and ducks are all gone. A lovely Sparrow Hawk in a dead tree on Mackletree, such a beautiful bird; I raised one, a spring on Cape Cod, and the staff at the Playhouse got me a lovely early reprint of Frederick The Great's excellent book on falconry. They paid $35 for it in 1970, and it's worth $500 now, it's in the vault, at the museum, along with a dozen books of similar value, and a couple that are worth more. Some of my Salt-Works Press books are worth a fair amount of money, but they need binding. If I cleaned out the chainsaw room, and turned it into a bindery, I could do very well with that. And there's the Edward Gorey stuff. And a couple of things I printed for the University of Mississippi, some signed broadsides, Robert Penn Warren, and the like. I held back a few copies, I was, after all, the printer. Read more...

Hard Slog

Tough hike, maybe the toughest ever. Fifty degrees today, and the snow on the driveway is rotten. It's like walking in six inches of oatmeal. Had to slam every step down, so as not to slip. Totally exhausting. Almost had to go back to town, as it took three tries to get the Jeep up unto the bottom of the driveway. Fixed EXIT lights at the museum, then sorted bulbs, so I could replace some that are burned out in the permanent collection. Sore shoulders, from shoveling snow, but I wanted to get a path cleared outside the back of the museum, the width of our property, and get it salted. The footing was treacherous and I imagined lawsuits. Couldn't wait to get home, though I knew the driveway was going to be a mess. Fortunately it's not supposed to get below freezing tonight, but the next time it does the roads will be black ice from the melting piles of snow. The city is out of road-salt and the county is using fly ash mixed with sand. Everyone's vehicle is filthy. This morning I had to knock the ice out of wheel-wells of some lady's car, because she couldn't make a turn. Fifty again tomorrow, then sixty on Thursday, then back into the teens by the weekend. The frost is so deep into the ground, just enough will thaw to make everything a mess. The good news is that B will probably be able to make a run in, with his truck and its aggressive tires, and bring in supplies. We both need everything. I haven't had an egg in weeks. I'm going to take off a day, this week or next, and cook a butt-kicking brunch, bacon and chorizo, eggs on top of potatoes, a sliced avocado with lime juice, buttered toast with English marmalade. I'll make enough meat and potatoes to eat this meal twice. I seriously love a good breakfast, whenever it occurs. Cook the potatoes in the chorizo fat and don't salt anything, several twists of black pepper. Read more...

High Ground

Determined to get home, I shaved one more time at the museum, stopped at Kroger, and headed ridgeward. Supposed to get to forty degrees in town, which translates to thirty degrees on the ridge (sure enough, hours later the icicles on the front of the house are not dripping). The roads in town are a total mess again, though they should be dry tomorrow, but once I got out of town Routes 52 and 125 were clear. Four-wheel drive on Mackletree, compacted snow and black ice, but I didn't meet any other vehicles. Bottom of the driveway has about ten inches of settled snow, but the Jeep got in fine. Parked, arranged my pack so that there was a decent surface against my back; things that poke, in a soft-walled pack, are a pain. B had broken trail, up the hill, and it's wasn't too bad, you just have to concentrate on where every foot falls, which means no looking around, so I stop every fifty paces, specifically to see. Many tracks. The large buck again, but I've yet to see him. Twelve inches of snow at the house. I had a fire all laid, so I just had to strike a match, dump my pack; go back out and shovel a path on the back porch and clear the ends of the two steps. A tough hike, from the top of the hill to the house; it's only a couple of hundred yards, but, unlike the driveway, there was no trail. The sun came out, when I was halfway home, and it was utterly blinding. I remind myself to get a pair of sunglasses from the Lost And Found at the museum, and keep them in the car. Tracked in a lot of snow, but I swept it up before it melted (the house was pretty cold) after going out to the woodshed for an armload of wood. Put a frozen block of ham and bean soup on the coolest part of the stove, to heat for dinner; I'll make a corn-pone later, with dried eggs and dried milk. Might be able to bring in a load of supplies at the end of the week. I'll be in the throes of a mud freeze-thaw cycle, but there might be a morning or an evening when I can drive in and out without totally fucking the driveway. Toward such end I make a list. It's a long list, it's been a brutal winter, and I'm out of almost everything. I'm out of sugar and salt, for God's sake, and I don't use much of either. The olive oil was solid again. I need some relief from this. Melting snow to get water for my morning coffee seems cool, but it's actually a pain in the ass. Any given year, I'd rather be at Cross Creek. Wondering where my freak flag would fly.You, I suspected as much, a blues cord, something about a lost relationship. Tom Rush. I feel like some old engine, done lost it's driving wheel. I have to take a nap, the hike in is difficult, and takes a toll; so when I get a good fire going and damped down, I crash on the sofa for an hour or two, dead to the world. When I wake up, it's midnight, and so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Wind, from the northwest, sings in the stick trees, and the earth moans, but the chatter is gone. Stripped bare. I manage to get a wee dram and roll a cigaret, not without some difficulty, nothing is easy anymore, my hands don't work and I don't see as well as I used to. Chalk it up to friction. Eventually things wear down. Even mill-stones. I'm so happy to be home I could dance a jig, but I'm careful, lest I fall, and I limit my celebration to sitting quietly and considering the heat-death of the universe. Read more...

Failed Attempt

Awoke early to a little more snow, an inch or two, hard to tell, with so many accumulations. Sunday, and there is absolutely no traffic, so I decide to make a run for the ridge. Take a sponge bath, shave and wash my hair, taking full advantage of hot running water, then a quick stop at Kroger. Lovely drive through the white countryside. The last couple of miles, through the State Forest is particularly beautiful, despite the fact that I can't actually see the road. Access to the driveway is tricky, with new snow on top of compacted refrozen ice, and I knew the hike up the hill would be treacherous. Sure enough, even with the crampons and my mop-handle walking stick, I took a fall. I was prepared for it, threw my stick aside (you don't want to fall on your mop and die the Janitor's Death) and took the blow, such as it was, into deep snow, on my right side. Sat there for a few moments and realized that I probably shouldn't go any further, turned around, slid back to the Jeep, beat a slow retreat to town. Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. Better safe than breaking a hip and turning into a human pop-sickle. I wanted to be home, but there's no percentage endangering life and limb. Besides, I have so many writing projects right now, and I work so slowly, that a dedicated day, in a warm space, with running water, seemed quite attractive. And it was. I'd work on one file for a few hours, then save it, and work on another. Mid-afternoon it was briefly above freezing and I walked over to Kroger for a bag of roasted peanuts, then walked down below the floodwall, leaving a trail of shells. The scene, at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio rivers, was stunning. The trees, along the banks, up to their knees in snow, and the banks themselves a palimpsest of tracks: muskrat, feral cats, and the various shore birds. One track I noticed for the first time this year, on the ridge and on the river bank; an approximate circle, six or eight inches in diameter with a bird footprint in the center, surrounded with a bilaterally symmetrical circle of brush strokes around the perimeter. When I first saw it, and then thereafter, I'd think about it, but I couldn't make sense of it. Filed it away in that folder labeled "Things I Don't Understand" which is a folder so large that it's become an entire drawer in one of my filings cabinets, alphabetical and divided into sub-sets. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was walking in with a heavy pack, achieved the ridge, and stopped at the print shop, to sit for a few minutes and rest my weary bones on the little covered deck outside the entry. It's only a hundred yards to my house from there, but I wanted to stop, almost always, and allow some mediation. The outside world and the inside world are separate things. I've learned to be still for long periods of time, and had assumed the position, elbows on knees, head cupped in hands, thinking about nothing. A grouse entered, stage left, and the snow was so thick that when he ruffles his wings he makes a mark in the snow. That's what that is. Wing-tip marks in virgin snow. I should have guessed that. After the fact, it's so apparent. What you see is what you want to see. Read more...

New Snow

Five inches of new snow in town, so I made a good call, not going home, because there's probably twice that on the ridge, on top of eight inches of crusted old crap. No traffic, nothing stirring when I go outside for a walk. Everything is covered in snow. Very beautiful, in an urban way. The ridge, I know, is drop dead gorgeous right now, but I had to be in town. Mark and Charlotte came in, and left immediately for Springfield; TR and Emily came in, to open the show, though we all knew no one would venture out in weather like this. At the official opening, March 2nd, there will be a crowd, but today was very quiet. Fine, from my perspective, I spent most of the day thinking about the way one artist influences another, thinking about what Alan owes to Andrew Wyeth, what I owe to G. Spencer Brown. Late in the day TR came upstairs, and wondered what I was doing after work. I told him I had no plans, and we went for a beer. Conversation, and banter with the staff. We're thinking about doing an opera, and we talk about that, feeling each other out. We agree about a great many things, I defer to his sense of composition. What I'm talking about, in the text, is the source of inspiration, whatever that might be. The honey is those moments when you are drawn completely into a thing: prismatic light through ice on branches, the return of a specific woodpecker, the way the smell of my feed-cap always reminds me of my grandfather. Nothing feels more comfortable than being within yourself. A down bag on an air-pad is pretty good. If someone else has made the coffee, fried some Cutthroat trout with eggs, and the toast is acceptable. My idea of a cruise. I have to go. On the ridge, nothing ever seems artificial; it's always actual. Read more...

Another Opening

Stayed there much traffic much in town last night, as I had to close the museum, then docent the parents of a Cub Scout troop (working on a project in the classroom) through the permanent collection. Then had to stay again tonight, because we worked late and then it was snowing like crazy. Yesterday Charlotte asked me to hang some ceramic wall-pieces upstairs. She's a potter herself, and she had stayed late, the night before, installing some lovely porcelain bowls, carved and pierced, some of them in the actual design of some famous crop circles. Interesting. The wall hangings can only be described as landscapes, fence-rows and fields, and Charlotte had put this show together, to go with the downstairs show of Alan's landscapes. She'd tried and failed twice hanging a wall piece, and asked me how I would do them. She was using the wrong kind of screw. The pieces mount on Plexiglas feet with a slot in the bottom. Very precise. So precise that I start each screw in a hole I punch with an icepick. Each one must be driven level and straight. I'm good at this because I've driven thousands of screws, probably tens of thousands. There are nine or ten of these pieces, and it took most of the morning; then I started working on mounting and trimming the labels. Charlotte placing them with the appropriate pieces, and today I attached them all to the walls. Mark did the lighting. It's a beautiful show. Then we all three worked on the punch-list to clear and clean the galleries, though, if truth be told, if I can't get home, I doubt there will be much traffic. Still it's glorious, that after six weeks we're an art museum again. I put on my crampons and walk over to Kroger to get some wasabi almonds, and some sweet-potato chips, I have whiskey and tobacco, it's not so bad. Read more...

Slow Start

I expected to start hanging right away today, but Charlotte was still tweaking the arrangement, so I did some chores and ran some errands and left at four, which I certainly won't be able to do for the rest of the week, because both shows open Saturday. It's supposed to be zero again tonight, and I had to get home and build a fire before dark. Walked in with a medium pack, which is getting old, I'm getting old, and it isn't getting any easier. When I get home now, the last few weeks, change out my outer layer, build a fire, put away the groceries, I'm already spent. Maybe I could read an article about braising lamb shanks, but I couldn't actually do anything. It's exhausting, carrying a pack up the hill, watching where every foot falls. D called, to tell me it was going to warm up next week. He's been to my place enough that he knows what I'm suffering right now. I was thinking about a movie, walking in this afternoon, a short movie, 12 or 14 minutes, no words, just the sound of the wind in the trees, and a fairly close shot of feet, plodding in snow. The title might be It's A Difficult Day. There's a whole series of these films, Splitting Kindling, Mopping With A View, The Last Time I Saw Duck Hill, and they don't so much mean, as they imply. Went to bed early, so comfortable in my down bag on the sofa that I didn't get back up to stoke the fire, very cold in the house this morning, 2 degrees below zero outside. Made a coffee and left. When I got to the museum Charlotte was already there and had started hanging the painting show, and I finished. 76 paintings hung in eight hours, which must be a record. It's one of the most beautiful shows ever. Alan Gough is a wonderful painter, mostly of landscapes, and I can't wait to see them lit. Mark and Charlotte will do that tomorrow while I make the labels. A lot of labels. Probably 120, which, what with the trimming, will take most of my day; then I can spend Friday putting things away and cleaning and we can open both shows Saturday at 1, which has been the plan for over a year. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have said it was impossible, but despite the weather, it will actually happen. Openings always require a burst of activity, whatever the discipline, but this one, with the transportation and the installation in below zero temps, has been particularly trying. Coupled with the walking in and out, I've rarely been so tired. Read more...

Grandfather Dream

Joel mentioned a piece I'd written 15 years ago. I remember, quite vividly, writing it, late one night. I was doing some work on Thomas Jefferson's father's house (Peter), and living there, in the house in which Thomas was conceived. It was a cold snowy winter, much like this one, and I couldn't keep the house warm. In spite of, or because of, the great duress, I wrote well and dutifully that entire winter, produced a book that was, in many ways, better than anything I'd ever written. Predicated on a simple and direct language. And the little piece Joel had mentioned, it's only two pages, was at the heart of a sea-change in my writing. After the conversation, I found the piece (number 22 in Notes From The Cistern) and reread it. I think I'll read it at Chautauqua. It's rather elegant, in a minimal way. All of which parlayed into a dream about Old Tom. I worshipped him. His practical knowledge was boundless and he had great compassion for the suffering of others. In the dream he was slopping the hogs and talking to himself, I could almost touch him. Grandma, who was a harridan, and a Holy Roller to boot, loomed in the background. Then we were sitting out in the backyard, chickens everywhere, having a root-beer float. Barking dogs wake me. Such an abrupt transition. It takes me a minute to realize where I am. Fucking dogs, man, and I don't want any part of their digging through the compost heap, so I go outside with the wrist-rocket slingshot and sting one on the ass with a cat's-eye marble. Scream at them, like a monster from hell, then go back inside and make a cup of tea.The problem with incidents in the night, is they wake you completely, I'd rather just go back to sleep, but can't. A wee dram, roll a smoke, and write for a couple of hours, then, finally, another nap. When I wake up again, the sun is in my face, I make a large coffee, drink a protein shake, start a fire and go out to the woodshed. Saw up a some very dry oak branches with the bow-saw, then split kindling, then make about ten trips to the house, filling all the allotted spaces. Enough for the work week. 23 degrees today, zero tonight. Tough hike out in the morning, but I've got a big show to hang. Trashed the house, as you might expect, all those trips out and in, a cursory sweep is all I give it, because I had to stop and get out of my boots, my toes were frozen. Strip off the outer layer, add a pair of socks and my bathrobe, and hang it up for the day. Stoke up the fire with a few knots to get the stove very hot when the temperatures drop after dark. The kitchen sink is about six feet from the stove and I get it warm enough, finally, to shave. Made a pouch of Ore-Ida Baby Red mashed potatoes for lunch ($1), it's supposed to be four servings, but I usually eat it in two; I had the second half with minced onions and cheese, run under the toaster oven. Would have been even better with some bacon bits, but alas. I was on my knees (with a foam pad) splitting an oak table top I'd pulled from a dumpster into kindling, and I was thinking about Wittgenstein. About a particular quote, which is the usual way he occurs to me, out of the blue: "It is not something behind the proof, but the proof itself that proves." Think about that for several hours. I made a corn pone from dried eggs, powdered milk, and rain water, it's pretty good; actually very good, slathered with butter; and I feel good too, working outside, using my upper body. I'll have to be careful, walking out tomorrow, to not get giddy. If I fall off the edge of the driveway, I am well and truly history. I shan't, though, because I'm as sure footed as a mountain goat. Read more...

Waiting For A Train

So quiet, it wakes me. A few distinctive sounds, intermittent, as the stove cools down. In the dark, warm enough, in my layers, that I was sleeping on top of my down bag, with just an army blanket. Must be at least twenty degrees outside. Snowing again, that's the damper. I can just hear a train, across the Ohio, carrying coal downstream to the power plants. Swing my legs around and feel for my slippers. It's very dark. Find my headlamp and go out to pee. Brisk, but calm, and I was correct, 22 degrees and not a creature stirring. Feels almost balmy. I'm at a tipping point here. I don't want to be the Facilities Manager, and I'm tired of being the janitor, fuck a bunch of toilets and dirty floors, I have other fish to fry, it's not that I can't (though that's part of it} but I don't even care to try. This weather has me a little depressed. Two more inches of snow last night and more in the forecast. It hasn't been above freezing, on the ridge, for more than a few minutes in a couple of weeks. Two Pileated Woodpeckers were the high-light of the day. I needed to get out to the woodshed today, but I blew it off until tomorrow. Spent most of the day rereading MFK Fisher's translation of Brillat-Savarin. Her notes are wonderful. My good friend Joel called from Atlanta and said that I was crazy to live the way I do, and a day like today, I almost agree. Certainly need to lay in more supplies next Fall. Mostly for variety. Beans and cornbread are fine, but I wish I had some wasabi almonds right now. A spirited conversation with my Mom, and she agreed with Joel, that I was crazy. When the sun was setting, though, it was like living in a crystal palace. Make no mistake, it has been a hard winter, but a frozen world has its moments of glory. For about ten minutes today, from a clear sky, it rained those tiny prismatic pieces of ice. It has a name, which I once knew, but can't remember now, and it was so beautiful it took my breath away. A strong aspect of this life, is that it's so elemental. It becomes Basho's winter haiku. He nails it. Haul water (or melt snow) and chop wood. Spring will come, you might make it through. And that's part of it, the uncertainty. But it's the natural beauty that actually drives me: fox track in virgin snow, two crows fighting over a frozen mouse, or the growth rings in a round of Osage Orange I cut by hand, to feed the fire. Gives me something to think about. Read more...

Knight Gambit

I'd crashed early, layered deep in long underwear, tucked into my down bag, and when I needed to get up and pee, six in the morning, I lurched into the pile of books neatly stacked next to the coffee table, and about a hundred books and magazines, with their slick covers, slid down to the angle of repose. An avalanche of reading matter. A mess that I merely pushed aside. Outdoors, the ridge was so white and crystalline that it seems to glow in the pre-dawn. I pissed an arrow in the snow, pointing in the direction of due south. Compasses don't work on the ridge for reasons B and I have discussed at great length, but our dead reckoning agrees within a degree or two, so I'm reasonably sure I'm pointing in the right direction. Hot switchel with a wee dram of rum is a great way to start a cold day, a drink usually made in gallon jugs, placed in a hole in the ground at the end of a field one was plowing with a mule, to keep it cool. I've had it that way, often flavored with sumac, but I love it hot. Water, with local molasses or honey, and a splash of apple-cider vinegar. A simple thing, and cheap, that seems to prevent colds. I stamped a path, out to the woodshed, and split a couple of knots, started a good fire. I'd put on a crock pot of grits, overnight, in a small pot designed for dips, picked up for ten bucks at Kroger, perfect for half-a-cup of grits and two cups of water. Pound out a couple of rounds of pork tenderloin and fry them quickly in olive oil; grits, an egg on top. I keep a few small cans of mushrooms around, and one of those, with it's juices, stirred into the blackened butter/olive oil makes a fine sauce. Sop up the juices with a piece of pita bread. Ah, pilgrim, I must say, it puts a smile on my face, to eat like this when the world is frozen around me. Stir fried shrimp tomorrow, and there's a story with that too. I saw that Denise (the sea-food lady) was putting a sign on the precooked baby shrimp for half-price, grabbed a bag and made it to the cash register before the change was made in the system (Monday morning is the time to do this) and they not only have to give it to me for free, but they have to refund my money. I actually make five dollars on this meal. Do this the same way as the pork fried rice, but cook the rice in clam juice, those baby shrimp are almost tasteless. I keep a fish sauce around, that I wouldn't actually recommend; that's made from rotting fish-heads in the sun. An acquired taste, based on a Roman recipe, garum, which is way to the left of anything you ever considered. I like it now, on plain rice, with butter and black pepper. It reminds you that you're never more than a few steps away from death. Rotted fish heads, really? you're eating that? Read more...

Cross Purposes

I could subsist on rice and beans for months, I often have, a little fried salt pork and a pone of cornbread. Just got back to the ridge and it's incredibly beautiful. There had been a small ice storm and nothing had melted, everything prismatic. The ice has encased the snow on every twig and branch, and it sparkles. Left work at four, stopped at Kroger and picked up what I thought I could carry: cream, whiskey, tobacco, a pork tenderloin, 4 pounds of baby purple potatoes, coffee, a couple of protein drinks, ramen noodles, a pound of dried navy beans, a piece of salt pork, a bag of onions; a few other 'personal' items, toothpaste, baby powder, and some ginseng I scored from my dealer. Maybe a thirty pound pack. Nothing to obsess about. You just stop more often, look around, consider where you are. I confuse the present and the past because that's the way it happens for me. One thing reminds me of another. I made it home, though it was a tough hike, having to anchor every step with a very specific down-beat. A bull-dog hike. It's not even half-a-mile, but it's all uphill, and it's cold, and the six inches of settled snow is crusted and requires constant attention. I'm not sure why I do this. Surely I could have an easier life, buy a suit, sit at a desk, but the easier answer is never enough. Start a hot fire with poplar and red maple, heat some soup, turn on the radio. First thing you know, after you put on an oak log, is that things are warmer than they were. And it's quiet. I do love when it's quiet. Read more...

Pattern Recognition

Help me Lord, I'm feeling low. Has to be Bonnie Raitt. Then Paul Simon, Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes, a great blues set that ends with the Grateful Dead covering The Reverend Gary Davis. It's so quiet, I realize it must have snowed again, and sure enough; what a damper that puts on sound. I should be able to make it to the museum tomorrow, for the carpet guys, allowing two hours for a thirty minute commute. The roads are bad, sheets of ice, and everyone's in a hurry; but I figure to drive at about ten miles per hour, slow enough that I can stop for any eventuality. With daylight, I see that I'm not going anywhere. They were calling for an inch of new snow, but there's already eight inches and it's still coming down. A miscalculation on my part, not going to town yesterday. Winter Weather Warning in effect until ten in the morning, but at ten it's still snowing and the clouds are leaden. I haven't heard a snow-plow go by (one of the only sounds I would hear) which means they haven't salted the hill on Mackletree. I might be able to get out this afternoon, more likely tomorrow. I had a jar of high-quality roasted pepper chili base, a can of beans, and a pork tenderloin, so I made a kind of chili. B came over, and we talked about supplies as we're both low on everything. I was melting snow all day for wash water. Lovely outside, but hard on the eyes. I have to wear a ball-cap inside, so that I can see my computer screen. B thought we'd be fine, going out tomorrow, and he'll break trail. If I get safely to town, I might stay there a day or two, just to be close to the pub and to Kroger. This is brutal; B said he felt like a punch-drunk fighter, cornered, and I certainly agree with that. The ice storm of '04 was worse, but it wasn't so cold. Now I just tuck my tail between my legs, try and find a comfortable position. Read more...

Ground Fog

Saturated air. Can't see the other side of the hollow, can't see anything, actually. Even the trees close to the house are veiled in a gossamer haze. The moisture condenses, and water is dripping everywhere, though it isn't raining exactly. The rice dish, because I got five meals instead of four, comes down to $1.05 a serving. I might go back to the museum tonight, it's supposed to get much colder and snow, to be there for the carpet guys tomorrow, and also to follow the Super Bowl, as text, downloaded as a delayed play by play. The advantage of this is that I could read at the same time. Funny, B and I were talking yesterday, about life on the ridge, and we used the same language, he even mentioned that he didn't like having to concentrate on every single step, because he failed to look around, so he stopped more often, which same, I had just noted; also that the silence is sometimes over-whelming. I was carrying a stick of wood from the print-shop porch to the woodshed, and the only thing I could hear was a train carrying coal on the Kentucky side of the river. Our hearing is so acute, because we listen for danger, like peripheral vision. It's all about staying aware. A state of mind. A three thousand page novel that recounts going to a country store for some chewing gum. A Faulkner nightmare in which the sentences go on for pages. A short story that expands into a novel. Simply walking across a frozen river is not the same as the Red Sea parting. Or maybe it is. I guess it depends on your state of mind. I elect to stay on the ridge. It's much more interesting. Read more...

Into the Woods

B came over, late morning, to ask could he cut up the latest windfall oak. A large tree that just pulled up it's root-ball and toppled. A lousy day for being in the woods, but what the hell? He cleaned that larger branches (dry, and held off the ground) for me, cut up the trunk for himself, which he'll have to split before he can even carry out the pieces; said if I needed wood, to come over with my wheel-barrow and rob his woodshed. I'm fine for now, though I need to spend an hour or two in my woodshed tomorrow. All in for today, carrying wood out of a tangle of green briar. I rough-stacked it under the porch roof of the print shop and need to get it to my house (100 yards) tomorrow, where I can cut it up with the electric chainsaw. The last leg of the driveway, along the ridge to the house, is a muddy mess, and I'm hoping for a light freeze tonight, so I can carry the rest of the dry stuff home tomorrow morning. I made three trips in the late afternoon, but by then my boots were caked with mud and I was trashing the house when I came in for a cup of tea and a smoke. The obvious question is why I choose to live this way, and there's not a clear reason. Because I can, because it's cheap, because I like not being disturbed; but also because I like the challenge, and because it keeps me outside, in the natural world. At one point today, deep in the thicket, B and I were taking a break, we'd both found dry stumps to sit on, and we didn't talk at all, listening to the bird-song I'm physically shot, not the man I used to be, but god-damn it was a beautiful day; blue skies and temps in the forties, I had to shed a few layers, and at one point I was so inordinately happy that I feared for my sanity. "How could man, how could men, confronted thus...". All good, despite the pain in my shoulders and the fact that I'm dragging my left leg in the snow, I still prefer this to whatever might be the alternative. It starts to rain, a staccato beat I know will change to sleet and then snow. Another round. Read more...

Heavy Slog

Had to bring in supplies for the weekend, and it was above freezing all day so the driveway snow was rotten. Makes for a difficult hike. The museum was warm at last. The carpet guys were in, to do the back stairs and the stairs down to the classroom. I have to meet them on Monday, so they can finish. Mark and Charlotte are making arrangements to pick up the two shows I need to install before February 14th, and I imagine I'll have to spend a couple of nights in town, as I won't be able to miss a weather day what with a fairly tight schedule. I'm copacetic with that, as I have some free beers coming to me at the pub. I'm given to believe that Miles Davis made up the word copacetic, but I don't know if that's true or not. I've had a picture of him, push-pinned to the wall, wherever I've lived, since I first heard Bitches Brew which I rank in the top ten recordings of all time. I must spend a few hours Saturday or Sunday filling the wood stations, cutting up more of the detritus in the woodshed. Then, in the spring, I can start filling it full of oak for next winter; and I have to finish sealing the floor insulation, which would decrease my heating needs by 25%. Those two things for sure. I joined AAA and AARP today, covering my ass, I needed a Plan B supplemental program, AARP looked like the best buy; and I joined Triple-A because I'm going to be on the road this year. I was exhausted, dealing with the cold, and hiking in and out, so I crashed early, knowing I had a couple of days off, and not particularly concerned with staying on any schedule. About three, there was a ruckus at the compost pile. Two red-eyed coons, hissing at each other. I couldn't make out what they were fighting over. I left them alone and turned on Black Dell, made a cup of tea, rolled a smoke. The ridge, blanketed in snow, with no wind, is very quiet. Talking to myself, an internal monolog that's a cross between serious documentaries and ESPN. One minute I'm thinking about ice, what I watched at the confluence of the Scioto and the Ohio; and the next I'm remembering that flash of leg I saw at the courthouse when I went to pay my land taxes. Fourteen years today, that I've lived in this house, longer than I've ever stayed anywhere; it comes to bear, being a military brat. A sort of minor epiphany. I'd strapped on my headlamp, gone out to the woodshed for an armload of wood; brisk, but nothing special, and there's a mink, all sleek and irritated. I think she's eating grubs from under the bark of the red maple, but she seems embarrassed to not be killing chickens. Mostly, what minks do, is kill chickens. Read more...