field notes:

10.26.2002

Aaaaah. A peaceful moment in which to write. It's like a soft, comfortable chair in a cozy room at dusk and a good book and perhaps a glass of really good wine. A moment that is just right; a place where slipping into the space between the worlds is possible. In Ireland it's called the crack or craik.

In popular usage the word has come to mean a good party. But I think it's deeper meaning is about finding access to the other world -- the place that is more than just these appearances and everyday chairs. If you go to W. Ireland, I'm told, and ask where's the best craik, you'll be looking for the place where the conversation is likely to slip into that other place.

Ireland is a place like that. There are fairy rings and cairns and craiks and people who feel their connection to the earth in an everyday kind of way. I haven't been there...but I'm told.

Here in Inverness there's a lot of activity as we prepare for winter. Firewood is stacked and covered with plastic tarps, squirrels are busy in their upstairs lairs, and the ubiquitous oakmoths are laying eggs everywhere.

I have finally figured out why they only have highly successful years every few years. The moths are supposed to lay their eggs on the underside of oak leaves so that emerging larvae next spring will have proper food immediately available. But if the oakworms that preceded these moths have eaten every leaf from every oak tree as they've done this year, the moths must make other arrangements. They are laying their eggs everywhere. I just scraped eggs from a pair of pants I'd left out in my bedroom; eggs cover the succulents outside my door as well as the ferns covering the hillside. After a couple of good rains, or a dousing of the garden hose, many of these eggs will be washed away, finding their way into the creek and into the bay, food for some lucky crab, or dissolved into fish food. The worms that emerge from the eggs that manage to hang on will have to find their way up to the tops of the oaks before they're able to feed, and that lower the mortality rate of that generation.

I've noticed a particular group of moths who've emerged from their larvae underneath the woodpile tarp, which is clear plastic. They fly in the space that exists, they mate, and they will lay eggs all within this plastic world. At a certain time in the afternoon, if you walk nearby, you can hear their fragile wings beating softly against the tarp, but it is a soft sound -- unpanicked. They don't seem to mind the limitation, unlike flys who hurl themselves at windows when trapped indoors. Yesterday, I meant to release some of them. One end of the tarp was unfastened so I lifted the logs holding the tarp down. I pulled at the tarp and no moths flew out. I had to dislodge them one by one from the places they were holding on to -- be it tarp or wood. I guess I did it more for myself than for them.

Here's a wonderful poem I found this morning in Orion magazine:

Prayer

I'm cutting my swallows from black silk,
China's best, Father, so that when flying
they meet with the least amount of resistance
and thank you again for the abundance
of insects over the green rice fields
this evening, the water bumpy with frog eyes
reflecting a pink west flowing sky

Now I'm sewing into the material
my red heart because the dead, lately,
have been a little noisy in my sleep
and about this prayer, Father,
I don't want any confusion --

I'm mud deep here
in love and would like to stay on
a while longer at least until I get the sun right,
its light over the rim of this bowl
we all eat from, and to watching,
while I'm at it, the little spot fires
appearing over the back of my hands --
my age, a quiet invitation
to bird watching
where light around the grey heron,
alone in the water,
dies down, in time, to black,
and what the imagination can rescue.

-Tom Crawford
posted by Lisa Thompson on 10:25 AM link | comments []

10.23.2002

In the last year my dog has gone from immortal to aged. The first signs were a chronic limp on her front leg which I tried valiantly to normalize. We tried prescription anti-inflammatories, new zealand mussel, x-rays, glucosamine and good old advil. Finally it became clear to me that it was here to stay. I stopped playing throw the ball with her because it increased the limp. I still didn't believe she was getting old, not really. But that first symptom was followed by a general creakiness in her rear joints, a slight glaze over her eyes, and unbelievably, times when she wouldn't go for a walk.

I was devastated. My one and only was going to die someday and it hit me hard.

But I realized on our walk this morning that I'm used to it now. She's an older dog. She still loves to swim and I try to provide her with one every day. She still has the power to knock over small buildings when she wags her tail, she can hardly contain her enthusiasm for visitors, and people still ask me if she's a puppy because her coat is so shiny. But she's old.

It's not the worst thing, frankly. I'm finding that she's a better companion than ever. She'd rather have affection than food and she is content to just be near me. She looks into my eyes quite often throughout the day, and holds the look until she finally lays her head back down. She didn't look into my eyes at all her first three years.

I find that I don't mind my own aging so much either. It's been said before, but youth is overrated. As I've gotten older my values have deepened. I'm more interested in stillness, and in the spaces between events than I used to be. I'm more interested in friendship than sex. I'm intensely curious about what's right around me, and not so anxious to keep moving as I used to be. I like to get a good night's sleep, and I don't worry that I'm missing something -- I know that I'm missing a lot, and for the most part I don't mind. I have what I have and it's pretty good.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 9:37 AM link | comments []

10.20.2002

rationale for not writing.

I've been wrestling with my old friend sciatica for the last five days. It's amazing the reductionist powers of pain. Life is distilled to its necessary core: the course of a day is measured by levels of pain -- from mild to unbelievable; the simplest tasks like picking clothing off the floor are demanding and the accomplishment of them rewarding; reading and writing become distant memories. At the peak of the pain, I remembered other occurences of pain and those times in my life became vivid again. There was a time when I felt this searing knife down the back of my leg for well over two years. That's why I call it my old friend. Maybe more like an old companion -- one that is always there, or inevitably just around the next corner. The weird thing about pain is that you can get used to it. Pain pills taught me how to do that. I took only one because the grogginess that follows is miserable. But I discovered that it didn't take away the pain, it did allow me to drift away from its grasp and find sleep.

I think I'm on the other side of the peak of this episode. My day has been more than just struggling from one uncomfortable position to the other...and here I am writing. yeah!
posted by Lisa Thompson on 4:32 PM link | comments []