Prompt Blog #7: A Sugar Maple

I laid my hands on its trunk and branches almost daily for three and a half years -in bouts of weather both frigid and suffocating, steamy. It stands, one of two trees, in that field in South Carolina. It is the larger of the two and more centrally fixed at the high ground, at the east end of the landscape. It's an adolescent tree, the circumference of its trunk is about twenty-four inches. Its bark feels supple, not hardened like some of the older Willow Oaks in Charlotte. It is still vulnerable. I wonder how it was left alone in that field, who it was that cared for it when it was an infant, who let it be and I want to go back in time and shake his hand. Someone with a mower had to have spared it. I imagine it was a farmer who had an affinity for the red leaves in autumn. He thought the field needed some color, some shade for future lovers, or dreamers. I always meant to take a book and a blanket there. I suppose I should make a point to now, even though I don't live there anymore.

It is a whole world -a whole ecosystem and for whatever reason, I could catch my breath there among the ants and beetles. We talked about sacred places this week. This is mine. I wonder if I could breathe a story as lovely as the one of the sisters ascending Devil's Tower. They are the stars of the little dipper. Desmond and I are the maple's children, covered by its shadows, its light, its sweet breath. There was no anxiety there.

The breeze blew there even on the sweatiest mornings out with Desmond. It was a good half way point on our walks, so I would plop down under the tree and loosen the lead on his leash. He'd sniff around, pushing his nose in the dirt and grass, kick his back legs up in the moss, walk in circles until he laid down. We'd spend about twenty minutes there every time we stopped. I took deep breaths, sort of meditating, reminding myself that life wasn't so bad when you stopped to pay attention to the fuzziness of the moss beneath a tree, when you stared up at the palm-shaped leaves, back lit and luminous. I got dirt in my nails, scratching at the ground. Once, I pulled off an injured limb and laid it at the tree's base, picked leaves, folded and tore them into bits, and wondered if I'd ever have the courage to write the truth, to write at all, to put a voice to it.  

Place Blog #6: Mae and I Face the World

In this week's readings, Couturier talks in "A Banishment of Crows" about what the Celts call "a thin place." This is in my mind today. I think about these geographic locales in which the past, present, and future are never far apart. Charlotte is my thin place.

I am having a bad day, anxiety wise. My chest hurts. My hands shake. My shoulders rise and knot. I came to the park later today -after my work. I'm wondering if that wasn't a mistake since I also skipped the morning walk with Desmond. I brought my papillon, Mae (aka "buggy"), with me to the park today to try to soften the edges a bit. Sometimes it's easier to be in the world with a dog, but Mae, she's just as anxious as I am. She barfed on the ride over.  She shakes now, too -she seems to be experiencing sensory overload with all the kids, people on skates and bikes, birds and the sounds of trucks in the distance.  I need to bring her out more often. The only way to cure her of her anxiety is through repetition. She flinches as three mallards fly toward us. Papillon means "butterfly" in French. I think of how Monarchs fly such great distances and how Mae came to be mine. All the things that had to happen. I had to lose a cat named Cosette whose favorite spot in the world was my shoulder. She had to be rescued from a puppy mill in Missouri by a group out of Atlanta. I had to find Papillon 911 rescue group and fill out a book of an adoption application. There was a home visit. They were thorough. They had to meet my other dog and make sure our home was safe. They had to pick her for me. They were our match makers. I had to drive to Atlanta to get her. It took months for her to settle into a normal life; she was so scared of everything.

She watches everyone that walks by -dog, goose, duck, or human. After about ten minutes of sitting at a bench, she licks my nose and settles into my lap; her shaking stops. I haven't stopped shaking, but it has lessened and if I weren't under dressed for early spring, I might let my shoulders down.

The ducks and geese seem quieter this time of day. All but the pair of mallards sleeping under the blooming forsythia are in the water, drifting. Mae drops a big, gloppy drool on my lap and snuggles up against my ribs. Her warmth and the chattering of the mallards is of comfort to me. My eyes are starting to itch because of the gathering pollen. There are yellow dunes left from puddles that dried after yesterday's rain.

A mockingbird seems curious about us -flits about from the pond wall to the tree to the ground beside us. There's no nest in the little cluster of birch trees next to us. The white spots on his wing feathers and his quizzical eyes make me happy I'm here. As soon as I try to take a picture of him, he flies away to the cherry trees, which are also in bloom. The air is thick with their smell. The sun comes from behind a cloud and warms us -human and dog sitting on a bench on a cool spring afternoon.

I notice a ladybug on the arm of the bench. Grateful, again for a moment of peace. One of the sleeping mallards wakes, flies to the water.

On the walk back to the car, I notice how much has changed -how everything is flowering. Mae still clings close to my side but at least she's no longer shaking.

Prompt Blog #6: The Charleston Area

August, 2008

It was the slow dive before the swell. That week on the Isle of Palms. I recall Faulkner’s Wild Palms, a seldom read piece of his where two lovers wreck each other. I wrote a piece about how modernist art influenced the structure, the bleed of visual artists. It was on my mind that day. We drove in at the wet simmer of a tropical storm; we couldn’t even see the river when we crossed over the new bridge with its stark cables jutting up like fish bones rearranged. They looked fragile but I had to trust the engineers. The rain slapped the speed out of our cars; it took twice as long to get there as it should have.

The house was a disaster zone. It would make the HGTV people cringe. It smelled like mold so much downstairs that the whole family –Ben’s parents and his uncle, and Ben and I all had to sleep upstairs; we were thrown together in a place with grungy furniture and damp carpet. It’s no wonder the place was pet friendly. It was a dump and to make it worse, we were all broke for that trip. We’d spent everything we had just to get down there. We all needed a vacation so badly. The year before had been a rough one complete with the loss of a beloved pet, a mistake of a move, and a mistake of a PhD program.

There was no way the weather was going to stop us from going down there. We had about three sunny days in the middle of the trip, but we didn’t let the rain stop us. We meandered the cobblestone streets, carted our umbrella down to the sea, snickered to David Sedaris and trashy magazines, learned about the local wildlife at the aquarium, and visited a preserved plantation house where we pondered how they cleared the land in the 1700s. Ben’s mom and I sat in the library of a guest house built on the property some time later and listened to a lecture about the history of the property. The lady told us of the descendant of slaves that stayed on as a caretaker for most of his long life. It’s all I remember. The live oaks hugged the ground and spread out like opening hands. We took a picture of ourselves, the manicured lawn in the background, our damp faces pronounced. I wore a turtle sanctuary hat I’d gotten at the aquarium. Her curly hair fell below her shoulders. We expected something lavish but the home was unfurnished and the paint was fading and there was visible damage to woodwork. The preservation was a work in progress.

The last night we ate at a fish shack on Shem Creek. Shrimp boats lined the docks. The air smelled like char and sea. They played 80s hair metal and Bob Marley. I drank icy beer and shelled peanuts and felt peace for the first time in a year, watching his family talk, smiling and drinking. The conversation faded into the din of the place and I sighed. Less than two weeks later we would find out Ben’s mom had breast cancer. We would hold onto this moment through the coming years of her treatment. 

October, 2002

We listened to Nine Inch Nails on the drive down. I forget which album. We bounced around in the jeep on a cool afternoon; the shadows had lengthened, the summer haze had finally dissipated. The hotel was nicer than we’d normally spring for; it was our first anniversary after all. It had historic reproduction furniture –a king sized sleigh bed, an armoire, and a view of a church built in the 18^th century. We dropped our bags and headed to the beach. We’d never been to the islands outside of Charleston and it was a perfect day for a walk on the beach. We took our Nikon we got as a wedding present from Ben’s uncle. The land flattened and it was just us. The photographs are singles of us, sitting with our pant legs rolled up, standing with feet in the ocean, gazing off at the sunset with sunglasses on. Later that night, he dared me to go into the hallway naked. It was only a split second but I did it and laughed for an hour. We created a breeze, the trip was so quick.

New Poems (In Progress)

The Smallest of the Tiny

Your brown eyes and wisped tail

Make me want to believe,

To recognize divinity,

Sanctity in a moment of grace

Your presence on that branch, solidified

In the crinkled leaves and busy creek

In the smell of fresh water,

Metallic and mossy.

But I see things you do not

A rage against the dying

My plight and yours

And I want to scream to you and yours

The trees and milkweed

The spacious trellis of sediment catchers

Along the banks

The rocks: human-placed,

Reticent against the currents

That I have lost my faith in greater things

And put it in the smallest of the tiny

In the pool that holds two mallards

Looking out for each other,

Taking turns tucking their beaks,

Reconnoitering the rim, standing

On one webbed foot.

Your size, your chirp, your black cap

Your fee-bee-fee-bay,

Your stillness, your rootedness,

Your charity, your dive and return

Test my failing faith like humans

At the fourth wall, flailing, climbing,

Begging to get in.

I close my eyes and listen.

The Coats of the Imperials

TC Boyle says it’s too late.

I sing an apology to the blue bird

And the trinity in the domesticated

And the predicament of the wild,

If that word means anything anymore

The wild is dying

The domestic is dying

As are we humans

On our way to overheating

Overeating

Over living our boundaries

Bodily and otherwise.

But still he’s writing

And going on Bill Maher

So there must be some kind of hope,

a thing, a thing, a mighty thing

Singing in the last of us

To know lions

The last of us to ignore

The last call of a generation

Or four.

TC Boyle is with me

On this blunted mountain,

In this sixty degree day in February

On the road to discovery

In the museum of natural history

In the twisted wing of a blue heron

In the absence of that British soldier lichen,

Its crimson tips, the coats of the imperials,

I’ve been looking for these years now

But it’s unable to survive cities

This Cladonia Christatella

To the Turkey

I wish I could tell you the impact,

What you did to me that day

When you hung by your feet from

A thick branch, a bare forest,

Feathers flying from the struggle

A family of artists and teachers,

Jewish and living above

The father’s glass-blowing studio,

Compact and soda free

His beard, his hand, veiny and exact

The knife to your throat,

The jerking, the quieting, the stillness,

The blood on the ground, steaming.

Place Blog #5: Wishing for Solitude

Baby pink camellias. Butterfly bushes. Bradford pear tree blossoms. Tiny leaves on the weeping willow where two weeks ago the limbs hung, bare. Daffodils. The temperature has risen above 50 degrees every day for the past few weeks. Beware the ides of spring. The geese forage for food. The geese swim in groups of three to five, little armies on patrol. The breeze cools my face, flushed from the knowledge of last summer's heat wave. I mourn winter.

A couple poses for photos, probably for their engagement. I feel my eyes roll. Her dress is too small for this weather; she tries not to hunker down into herself, looks like she wants to suck the chill bumps in with her breath and practiced smile. I hear several birds calling but I'm still unable to identify them by sound alone. I wonder about all the mulch they put down under the willow oaks and why. Won't it just wind up in the pond? Sediment.

There's a solitary white duck making his way to the geese. I wonder where she came from. I don't know why I assume it's a female. She follows close behind a group of four -the last link in the chain, dangling. A tow headed child wobbles toward the pond. Another group of geese scatter. I miss my quiet, rainy days here. There will be more and more people coming as days mount into warmer months. They've already turned the fountain back on and for a moment, I understand that cantankerous old Ed Abbey. Just leave me be. In the woods. To the woods. With the birds and the squirrels. But I won't abandon my car or live in a yurt, either.

A large goose sits down about twenty feet away. He preens. His neck bends impeccable shapes, reaching everywhere it needs to. Another dries himself in long strokes of beak down feather and simple shakes from head to tail like my dog the minute water hits him in our porcelain tub. Their heads glisten dewy black. The sitting fellow tucks his beak for a moment, then comments on the two that are either trying to mate or trying to fight, it's hard for me to tell from this angle. He repeats the pattern. I wonder if he ever gets rest.

The couple snuggles on a bench across the way. "Dude, this tree's kind of badass," she says, and climbs in.

It's a crepe myrtle. I'm allergic to their pink and white flowers. They bloom all summer. I'm starting to dislike them. I'm grouchy that way. The goose's tail feathers catch the breeze, tilt up. I long to run my hand over his neck and back. He moves further away.

Prompt Blog #5: The Trouble With Charlotte

I found a document written and published by Mecklenburg County entitled "State of the Environment Report" 2010. I spent a considerable amount of time reading some disturbing figures about population growth and the general environmental impact on our air, land, water, and waste facilities of such sprawl and over-development. It is true that Charlotte is not the same as it was in 1977, the year I was born.  According to this report, the Charlotte Metro area's "developed acres per person" back then was .056 acres. In 2010, the figure reached a staggering .41 acres developed per person. This one statistic says it all. Charlotte is suffering from over growth. While some cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland have been reeling from population decline, Charlotte has acted like a magnet for many of those employed by major banks who chose a more affordable cost of living than New York City. This does not account for all of Charlotte's growth to be sure, but it is rare to meet someone who was actually born here. Bank of America, IBM, TIAA Cref, Wells Fargo, and many others bring people in droves. While the city is suffering from the recession, it doesn't seem to be slowing development. I tried my hand at expressing how I feel about all this with a poem.

The Trouble With Charlotte

A rage in its center, pulsing upward

beating outward, veins reaching

all the way into the wilds

of South Carolina

a city willfully bellows,

sucking the air in

scratching it out in our throats

in the flat lines and hill sides

in the four wheels and escalades

on the bank side

north side oozing, thick with cholesterol,

ozone, and particulate matter,

erect heads, not even plastering,

pestering the carpool lane

to the IBM and Wells Fargo Complexes

Bank of America

spreading, like a galaxy of half walls and gray carpets

and industrial waste

scented with blue shirt starch and the steam of

chain restaurants stacked high with pseudo meats

and lifting burnt forests with a ball point pen

so soccer moms and dads and football players

can drive forty-five minutes to that new Brazilian

steakhouse that flies in seafood from Alaska;

sinking a fork into eighty-three pounds per person

vehicular emissions

south side biding their time in country clubs

licking up tidbits of the sewage treatment plant

over by the mall

and carrying the 3,325 pounds of trash

per annum, per body,

per pottery barn home delivery;

east side’s dredging up the past, talking about roads

and mass transportation and needing

a way out,

a way in,

west side’s gentrifying, newly developing,

putting a fresh coat of paint on re-use, mixed-use,

smart-use development, writing its spin,

a small town kid wanting to be “world class,”

desperate to fit in

the trouble with Charlotte is

all that breeding and importation

of the bodies and the breaths of

those born here or north or west and looking

for a better way of living

more square footage

for less

more acreage

for less.

Place Blog#4: Keeping the Anxiety at Bay

It's warmer today. More people are here, mostly pushing strollers. There's more animal activity. In the distance, there are sirens. Closer, there are starlings moving in unison, sounding an alarm.  I can just see them in the tops of pine across the creek -across the park where the land was graded into steps. Where I used to stare at the sky with my older brother.  I'm missing him today. He's freezing in Brooklyn, I'm still here in Charlotte. Still here, after all these years of hoping I'd be gone, too.

I walk a little ways down the green way, down the dirt trail by the creek.  The ground is hard, littered with gum balls from the Sweet Gum trees and the remnants of dead leaves. They're starting to get spidery and thin.  Today, there's a solitary mallard pair.The male stands guard while the female sleeps, her beak tucked in her wing. There's a patch of indigo near her tail feathers I never noticed before.  The male watches me. I walk on, my feet heavy, my shoulders slouched. I'm tired of the stress of a house in disarray and the pressure of impending work.  It's a struggle to be in the moment. A struggle to keep the panic attack from moving into my chest. I focus on breathing and walking and getting outside my dusty head.

The creek has momentum today.

I walk past a squirrel's tail. I hope he's okay and that somehow, I might come across a slightly grouchy bob-tailed squirrel. But that is unlikely.

I find a bench in the sun where the creek curves. Behind me, they have installed what they're calling environmental art to protect the creek bed from silt, debris, and other pollutants. It looks like a rolled up net of leaves. A snake made of tree remains. Birds are calling all around me. I don't hear any Carolina Chickadees though I was hoping to finally be able to identify a bird by sound alone. A cardinal lands on an infant cypress, but he doesn't stay long.

A small squirrel (with tail) runs up the tree next to me. Rather than lower limbs, the tree seems to have only sprouts of limbs, twigs really.  They look like twigs sticking out of a snowman. She alights and stops on one that's barely big enough to hold her. She's only about twelve feet away. I watch her eat her nut, hold it in her paws, drop pieces of shell, stare in my direction.  For a minute or two, she sits and eats. I try not to move. I think about how some people hate squirrels and some find them adorable. I'm usually one of the latter. At least I am until they start digging up bulbs I planted or knocking over bird feeders. She scrambles to the top of the tree. I'm grateful for the moment we spent together.

I walk back toward the car and spot a Carolina Chickadee with a family of Cardinals. I still don't hear its song.