field notes:

9.27.2003

The weather has turned.

This unusual summer lulled me into submission. I think I've gotten soft. Yesterday's half-hour breeching sun was the first I'd seen of sunlight in days. The sky's cool grey has changed Indian summer into an idea, a hopeful memory. Summer always ends, but in a kinder fashion, by fading gradually from hot to warm to cool. This week she rather abruptly turned her back.

The truth is, it's a normal weather pattern for Inverness. Heat followed by fog. I'd just forgotten how abrupt the change can be, forgotten not to count on any particular weather, only to know what it is by looking out the window, always to dress for anything. This summer has been an incredible treat, but will prove to be a test as well.

Like a certain kind of love affair, this perfect summer has been bittersweet. We always knew it would end soon, that afterwards, it would become the standard by which we'd measure other loves, and that the comparison would always be unfair. In the middle of such a perfect summer, you may know these things, yet you still can't stop your heart from its embrace.

The best I can offer back is gratitude for the long, hot days; the ripe tomatoes, fresh salmon, berries, and pesto; the long swims in warm tidal water; for Mars and its benevolent light; for good friends, long talks, and year-round birds; and for the unbroken quiet of the season.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 7:20 AM link | comments []

9.25.2003

Last night as I read on the couch, the house got quiet enough that a mouse thought it was time to venture out of daytime hiding. When I went to the kitchen to make a bowl of ice cream and strawberries, I saw a strawberry top that was out of place. There was a little pile I'd accumulated throughout the day sitting by the sink, but here was one clear over on the other side of the kitchen. I picked it up and discarded the entire troop of tops. Apparently the mouse had been caught unawares when I came into the kitchen, no doubt struggling with the giant strawberry top migration. He'd just had time to drop the top and run for the nearest hiding place--behind the cookie jar, when I came in and turned on the light. As I stood slowly slicing strawberries, I guess he just couldn't take the suspense any longer. He made a daring leap across the stove, up onto the espresso grinder, and then a mad leap that took him right in front of my face, behind the espresso machine and finally, safely behind the refrigerator.

I set the live trap, but didn't catch him during the night. No doubt he had a nice little stash of strawberry tops and toaster crumbs set aside and never ventured onto the countertop again.

It reminded me of another mouse story. Not a gentle, mouse-goes-into-the-sweet-night story, but a mouse-goes-violently-and-suddenly to its death story. A story from another time in my life, another place. Our kitchen in Nayarit, Mexico, had a palapa roof and stick walls. We were used to mice, cotimundi, skunks, snakes, rats, scorpions, and some really scary spiders in our kitchen. We hung our fruit from suspended beams at night, kept food stores in ice chests inside the cupboards, took out the trash each night, but even all our tricks were sometimes not enough. Ocassionally, an extremely efficient crew of mice would vex us. They'd penetrate all of our defenses. We'd be stunned by their daring, their cunning. We didn't use live traps then, we just killed them. But some of these mice, you'd think they invented the traps--they were so good at getting the food and escaping just the same.

About the time of this story, we had a really daring mouse around. I'd be preparing a meal, breakfast or lunch even, and this mouse would peek its head out at me from between the spices. I'd scold it away. A real evolutionary wonder, this mouse. Not a trait we'd like to see encouraged: the audacious mouse.

One day, the man of the house and I were in the kitchen. We'd finished lunch and were talking. He was cleaning one of the household guns. It was a .22 caliber pistol that we used for target practice. The story of why we had guns, and the story of so many whys, is a long one. Briefly, the guns were for protection. Living at the edge of the jungle, in an "undeveloped" region of Mexico can be dangerous. There are bad men who could hurt or rob you, and you don't even know whether or not they'll be wearing a uniform. It's an ambivalent place. It's a bit like the Wild West, when the sherriff could easily be the scariest man in town. So, many expatriates have guns. It's illegal to have them, but they proliferate. It's the Wild West, after all.

There we stood, under the skylight we'd recently added to the palapa rooftop, enjoying a beautiful midday break, the one kitchen window framing the wild blue ocean, when the mouse, bold as you like, walked right out onto the edge of the sink, and stood there twitching his little nose, not at all intimidated. In one swift, natural movement, C. swung his hand around and shot the mouse. He fell instantly. Our mouse problem was over, for the moment. When you live with a man who's part McGyver, part Buckaroo Bonzai, you get used to moments like these. Still, it stood out. The Wild West wasn't "out there", it was right there in my kitchen, it was in my bed.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:32 AM link | comments []

9.24.2003

Overheard by a friend at a funeral last week: The priest proclaimed that Catholicism is for people who like happy endings.

Heidegger's favorite preposition: between.

from 'Walking Backward'

In our messy world, we all walk backward,
Each holding a potato that points to the grave,
The night of infidelity and longing goes on forever.

--Robert Bly
from The Night Abraham Called To The Stars

"computus philosphical and computus vulgar"

Time as measured by science and as to divisions of the church.
--Alexander of Villedieu around 1200

"I've been on a calendar, but never on time."

--Marilyn Monroe

posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:07 AM link | comments []

9.22.2003

As I woke this morning in bed, just as Prime's first diffuse light opened the world, I came aware to the smell of salt on my skin. Remembrance of last evening's immersion in the emerald green waters of the great bay. Her silky invitation. I swam without effort, without thought. Impulse guided my direction, my speed and my rest. I couldn't have named my stroke, nor told my thoughts. I lay on my back, body open to the sky, and felt the ocean's life swim beneath me. In the same waters, throughout the world, I listened for them. I heard only the hissing of shellfish within a vast unstill quiet in the waters stretching out from my floating body, and then the sound of my heart beating, articulating my flesh, insisting on my presence. Eventually, I always return to shore. Sad, on a day like that, to leave the water, but refreshed and renewed by baptism, annointed by the salt, the primordial wash; by the life-giving bouyancy, the sun-warmed, moon-fed waters.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 7:28 AM link | comments []