Sea Wisdom

There are times, for reasons I cannot explain, when melancholy descends. I’m not sure melancholy really nails the state of mind I am trying to describe. I’ve searched for the correct word...the definitive word for that feeling. Stress isn’t correct, nor is depression, nor worry. Should I be required to create a word for it, what would it be? Overwhelmsion? That word might almost work. Even if it remains unnamed, when the mood strikes, I know that if I go to the sea my fuzzy head will clear, my spirit will be lifted, and I will return home a little more like myself than when I set out.

It was overcast and humid this morning, but I held out hope the rain would wait. Shorty, almost 91 years old, and I set out for the beach to look for shells. I put on my yellow sunhat that looks like Pooh’s rain cap and handed Shorty her straw hat. She didn’t take note that it was her very own garden hat, nor did she question why it was hanging in my hall closet, nor why her suitcases were in the back seat of my car. I hope she will not ask but I plan. After she has gone upstairs to bed this evening, I will sneak back outside and carry them in. I will unpack them quietly and launder the clothes she will keep and then those we will donate and put them into the appropriate stacks. This evening, as she has done for the last few days, she will ask me if her house is ready and when she can "go home." Once again I will not tell her the truth. "In a few weeks," I will say, but I will not be completely honest. I will not tell her she is to live with me now. I will not tell her yet. Not today. Soon. But not today.

Eventually, however, the news must be broken and the storm will come. When that happens, after it happens, I will find some time to take myself down to the sea and sit on my favorite bench swing and look out toward the horizon. I can breathe there...breathe in that briny oxygen. I realize it is only an illusion, but I cling to the faulty reasoning that nothing really bad can happen within sight and sound of the waves. The birds soar and dive and soar again...with a silvery fish plucked out of the surf as easily as I would pluck a flower. I cannot pretend to know the names of all the sea birds I watch. I recognize the pelican, of course, and the gulls. But is that little bird who runs so quickly on such short legs a sandpiper? Is that larger, longer-billed bird pecking in the wet sand a tern? Every time I go down to the sea, I vow to buy a bird book "soon."

Today, we walked a good portion of the beach. It was overcast and, although humid, the wind blowing off the ocean was cool. We didn’t find any shells of note, but as Shorty correctly pointed out, "We need to come when the tide is just going out." In the days when I had a boat we would run out to Little Tybee, not accessible by land, and find lovely shells. The children were young back then and I would tell them not to take shells that were being rented by hermit crabs. Those shells were their homes, I explained. Some of the shells collected in those long-ago days are scattered here and there on bookshelves and tables in my home. They adorn a picture frame. A bag of them is tucked into a drawer awaiting some long forgotten project. One small scallop shell is attached to the end of a ribbon bookmark. Every now and then I’ll pick up a conch shell and listen to the roar of the waves and I imagine I can hear my own words whispered back to me, "Don’t take that one. That one is someone’s home."

The summer people are almost gone. In another month the beach umbrellas will have been folded and carried away until next season. Those of us who remain, who do not come in search of a golden tan but who long for oyster season and squally seas and stinging salt spray, will be there listening for wisdom in the rush of the waves .

...And As It Writes, Moves On

I was having lunch with some friends the other day. One of these friends brought a bag of books with him which he was passing along to another member of our happy little group. The recipient of the books (a retired judge - a very fine one too - and a huge fan of Flannery O'Connor) announced that he had read 74 books this year (I thought I detected a certain melancholy in his voice at having so much time on his hands after leaving the bench) and he was quite pleased to have some new ones in his reading queue. The conversation began with books - what each of us was reading, what we had just finished - but wandered inevitably to politics - a subject which usually gives me indigestion and not, to my mind, a fit topic over lunch - which eventually settled into a discussion about the present state of our educational system - a topic which gives me heartburn - and then gradually, but inevitably, meandered into what schools used to teach but no longer do.

And so the litany began: "Music," decried one. "Civics," another. "Spelling," said a third. "Penmanship," I offered. Three sets of steely, wise old eyes turned toward me, and a quiet descended as my lunch companions pondered penmanship. "I haven't even heard the word, penmanship, in decades," one murmured. "We used to call it cursive writing," mused another. I had recently downloaded "Not That It Matters," by A.A. Milne, a collection of essays; and, as luck would have it, had just finished reading, "The Pleasure of Writing." This lovely serendipity filled me with a certain smug self-assurance that I could contribute something semi-intelligent to the conversation (for I was in the company of some very heavy-duty thinkers.)

"Milne," said I, "wrote about his joy in going straight from breakfast to his blotting-paper and a fresh piece of foolscap and brand new pen nib." They listened, perhaps only politely, but perhaps interested in what A.A. Milne had to say about the act of putting pen to paper. "He said, 'When poets and idiots talk of the pleasure of writing, they mean the pleasure of giving a piece of their minds to the public; with an old nib a tedious business'." The attention of my luncheon companions seemingly secured, I continued. "He wrote that they do not mean, as he did, the pleasure of the artist in seeing beautifully shaped "k's" and sinuous "s's" grow beneath his pen nib...or how a new sheet of paper filled itself magically with a stream of blue-black words." Silence for a few moments. I was depressing everyone, I feared. "Cursive writing is lost, I'm afraid," said the judge, sadly shaking his head and raising his martini glass. I think I saw a glint of a tear.

We sat quietly contemplating how wrong things had gone and how fast they had gotten there. I wished I had never mentioned penmanship, never started the conversation going in the direction of the lost art of letter writing, of the laziness of saying OMG, or IMHO, or LOL instead of using a correct sentence. The gist of the conversation rocked along those lines, and I began to feel like an old stick in the mud. Someone who doesn't know who - well, here I was going to insert the name of some rock group, proving I was totally "cool." But I can't think of one, so I guess I prove my own point. Trying to turn the mood around, I pulled out my Kindle and pointed out how incredible it was to be able to download an entire library into one slim device. How lovely is technology! We didn't have technology back in the penmanship days. "Why can't we have both?" someone replied. We sat in silence for a little while longer. Another round of drinks came, and then lunch.

We were eating at an inn that is centuries old, in the part of the building that used to be the vast wine cellar, with its walls and arched doorways of red brick. The tables are set with heavy silver and linen table cloths and napkins. There was a time when, to get a table for lunch, one had to arrive well before noon. But on this day, my three companions and I dined alone. We worried that perhaps this lovely old inn might one day simply fade away. Perhaps, like penmanship, it must make way for something else.

Gumption

"I wrote about people who had gumption, and people who didn't," Margaret Mitchell mused when speaking about her only novel. That comment by Mitchell reminded me of one particular Christmas holiday. In my junior year of college I read Anna Karenina followed immediately by Gone With The Wind - both for the first time. I checked them out of the St. Teresa library and carried them home on the train, reading along the way. It was a serendipitous approach; if I had planned it, I could not have picked two books in which the heroines were so opposite in nature. Simply stated, one heroine had gumption and one did not.

Gone With The Wind turned 75 this summer, and many Georgians are making a pretty big deal about it. It was here, after all, where the novel was born and where almost all of its action takes place. My personal celebration involves re-reading it on my Kindle. Although Savannahians consider Flannery O'Connor and Conrad Aiken home-grown literary heroes, we have a soft spot for Mitchell and her (many would argue) masterpiece as well. Certainly, Savannah is given more than just a passing nod in the book, although it doesn't receive much attention in the movie, and I find myself re-reading the descriptions Mitchell gives of my adopted city. She describes very deftly the soft and luxuriant accents of its inhabitants (not the twang one hears in the southern states to the north of us, nor the drawl of the southern states to the west).


As its backdrop, Gone With The Wind juxtaposes the elaborately rich plantation system made possible by slavery, and the bloodiest war in American history which ended it. Nevertheless, this is Scarlett O'Hara's book from first page to last. I can think of no other heroine with enough muscle to hold her own and demand top billing over such dramatic surroundings. (The anniversary of GWTW has also re-opened the debate over the obvious racism exhibited by Mitchell's novel, some of which is painful to read. Nevertheless, slavery is a dark part of our history that doesn't go away simply by ignoring it existed.)

One of my first mentors was a venerable old attorney who practiced in the low country of South Carolina. Imagine Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, and you've got a very good picture of my friend. He looked like him, he spoke like him, and he had all the noble attributes of Finch himself. He lived in the same antebellum mansion his family had occupied for over 200 years. I would have given just about anything to have spent a weekend exploring the attic. Around the corner from his house stands another antebellum mansion, built in the same era, by a several-times-over-great-uncle, with the initials B.B.S. Before the Civil War, the family acquired an island off the South Carolina coast ( long since made into a golf resort) on which one of their plantations was built. There they grew cotton and indigo and experimented with citrus trees. Today, one can still see the ruins of the "big house," the smoke house built of tabby, a few hints here and there of other out buildings...and the family cemetery - lovingly preserved. Decades ago, my friend took me to the island and pointed out the gravestone of his several-times-over uncle. The ancestor's portrait hangs in the clubhouse dining room, and he took me to see that as well. I looked into the face of one of the handsomest young men I have ever seen, peering down from a gilt frame (my friend later gave me a copy of that portrait) and fell in love - with B.B.S., surely. But I also fell in love with the low country and coastal Georgia. After the Civil War, the island property was lost for failure to pay the taxes - something Scarlett would never have suffered without a fight - since Confederate money wasn't good for much...other than using it to light one's pipe. A few years after it was lost, word came to B.B.S. that the island was on fire and the house was destroyed. "Thank God," he is alleged to have replied. Better it be "gone with the wind" than in the hands of the Yankees. My friend said that according to family legend, the mistress of the plantation had her finest china buried on the property when word arrived that the war had been lost, planning one day to return and retrieve it. If the story is true, it remains buried somewhere along the dirt road that leads to the ruins.

Nothing good can be said of a system that relied upon slavery for its survival. And yet, there is something undeniably romantic about it as well. Margaret Mitchell captured all the romance of the Old South without ever addressing the moral and social disgrace that accompanied it. It was startling to me that the Civil War, just ancient history to those of us raised in the North, was constantly debated and discussed in the South - even to this day - and kept alive with family stories and wounds which are kept open. This reverence isn't very hard to understand when one remembers that most of the fighting and dying happened here, on southern soil, and that brick and mortar and stone reminders still stand as tangible reflections of a lost cause.


I can't remember if, during that winter long ago, I noticed the stark contrast between Scarlett O'Hara and Anna Karenina, a tragic heroine totally devoid of gumption. I can't help but believe that if Scarlett was to stand in front of a moving train, it would be her intention to overthrow the Engineer and commandeer the locomotive - not fall under it in despair. Doubtless, she would have declared Anna silly and mealy-mouthed - but she may also have grabbed her by the shoulders and given her a good shake - demanding she snap out of it...advising Anna that she should wait and think about it tomorrow. There's always hope if you just wait until tomorrow.

Fish Art

I've promised myself to spend some time at the beach this summer. I am debating whether it should be a requirement for anyone who has an e-reader and lives near the shore. In fact, after some sober thought, not spending time there with my Kindle in hand feels somehow...wrong. In my mind's eye I see a chaise lounge, and a floppy hat, and roaring waves. In my head I hear that cute Kindle jingle and I have the urge to follow it as I would the siren's sound. Unfortunately, there are things that should be against the law at the beach. It should, for instance, be a criminal act to manufacture string bikini's in anything larger than size "small". In my beachdom, Speedos would likewise be banned. But I digress.

I found a nice shady place to park the car and located a bench swing, where I planted myself for blissful reading and gull watching. (I snapped the view from my little perch and share it with you here). The Kindle performed splendidly. I had just finished The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katharine Green and was well into The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart - both very engrossing Who-Dunnits. The idea that I was carrying 78 books on my person made me giddy! I'll finish "Staircase" well before next Friday when my four-day weekend begins. Who will sit beside me on the sand? Sheridan Le Fanu? Rafael Sabatini (Captain Blood might provide just the right swash buckle to fit the bill)? H.G. Wells? R. L. Stevenson? Such heady problems almost make me swoon.

While out at Tybee Island, I came across the most funky looking little shop advertising "Fish Art," which conjured mental images of flounders dressed in smocks with little berets on their fish heads...holding palettes of the most beachy colors. Fish Art sounded like something I should not miss. I've made a mental note to wander around the studio next weekend to delve more deeply into Fish Art (or Poisson's d'art?) What's that, you say?? Poison dart? Could there be a hidden meaning in the name of this curious little shop? Or could it be that I've been reading too many mysteries after all? Come Friday, I shall investigate further and report my findings. Fish Art? An innocent and unintended play on words? Or something more sinister?

I had almost forgotten what fun summer can be. I feel like a kid again...when every summer day is an adventure waiting to unfold.

Do You Kindle?

I love books...the smell of books, the feel of books. I love holding a book in my hands, especially a new one with a pristine cover. I love fanning the pages of a new book and inhaling. There's nothing quite like the excitement of getting a new book and the anticipation of sitting down to read it. And we won't even talk about opening a box containing more than one new book and the delicious agony of trying to decide which one to start first...or the quiet thrill of walking into a bookstore. Not everyone shares this love affair, but those of you who are kindred souls...you know exactly what I mean.

Because I love the physical book so much, I wasn't convinced an e-reader would ever be a good fit for me. But I recently received a Kindle from my eldest child as a gift. The first book I downloaded was Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was free and, as I had never read it, I figured it was as good a place as any to take the Kindle out for a test drive. I'm not an electronic gadget type of person, but it was easy to set up and easy to use...even for me. There are a lot of features I haven't used yet, but I expect learning will be fun.

Because the font size can be changed, a simple adjustment enabled me to read without as much eye strain, and even without reading glasses. I don't know why, but I think I was able to read faster. Perhaps it only seemed faster because I was able to read for a more sustained period of time. Once accustomed to the feel of the Kindle in my hands, and getting lost in the story, I forgot I wasn't reading a glue and paper book. The sensation of being transported was every bit the same.

On the second day, I sat outside on the patio, and found it very easy to read in bright sunlight. Like a paper book, however, care must be taken. Outside the birds were chirping, the sun was shining, there was a breeze. Suddenly the dog jumped the fence and ran down the street. I put the Kindle on the deck chair and ran after him. I forgot about it; it rained. Early the next morning, I let the dog back out on the patio and to my horror I saw my Kindle still on the chair, covered with drops of rain from the night before. I was lucky. I figure that since its designers knew the device would be read outside, at places like the beach, they tried to make it somewhat impervious to weather. I am grateful to them for that, but it was a wake-up call. Instead of losing one book to the elements, it could have been a very expensive mistake. (Especially since I would never have admitted the blunder to my son; he'd have been so disappointed. I would have been forced to buy another Kindle to take its place rather than "come clean" and my secret would have been carried on my guilty conscience to my grave.)


I have since downloaded many more free titles by the likes of G.K. Chesterton, Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse, and E.L. Voynich. Within seconds, I can increase my classics library ten-fold without spending a dime. And since the Kindle is so light and easy to carry, I always have it with me and always have something really good to read, just in case...like a literary diabetic who has to keep blood sugar levels stable. But, as much as I have found a new thing to love, I have also come to the firm belief that the physical book will remain alive and well.

Electronic readers have their own limitations. For instance, I miss the dust jackets. Let's be honest. I will be making a trip to Barnes & Noble to purchase Medium Raw in hardback, not the least reason being the delicious picture of Anthony Bourdain on the cover, which I will invariably clutch to my bosom repeatedly. There are many joys in reading. Drooling over a "hot" author is one of them. There is also a satisfaction that comes with shelves groaning under the weight of books. It is the same satisfaction one has in opening the door to a well-stocked pantry: jeweled jars of jams, and pickles, and home-canned tomatoes, and covered bins of pastas and bottles of sauces...lovely vistas of largesse...the comfort that comes with the knowledge that there will be sustenance.

I just purchased my first non-free Kindle book: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. At $9.99 it was hardly a splurge, although it felt like one. It's easy to get used to "free."

I could be wrong, but I do not see the end of the physical book on the horizon. Nevertheless, the Kindle's Welcome Page says, "We hope you'll quickly forget you're reading on an advanced wireless device and instead be transported into that mental realm readers love, where the outside world dissolves, leaving only the auhtor's stories, words, and ideas." That much, it does.

Creating A Monster And Other Pursuits

[Tap...tap...tap....Pssst.] This is The Curious Reader speaking to you in hushed and muffled tones from the confines of a little dialog box buried somewhere inside blogspot[dot]com. Grad is off doing goodness knows what while I languish. No one to speak to, nothing to snack on, and no vodka with which to make Cosmopolitans. Oh, sure...create me and send me out into the worldwide web, give me a taste of all the goings on in the blogosphere, let me see the bright lights and hear the lively conversation, and then suddenly and without any warning walk away and jolly it up without me. What is it, Grad? Was I sucking up all the attention? Was I having just a little too much fun for your liking?

Ladies and gents, please ignore that little blog-beast behind the curtain. Truth be told, TCR, as much as I love her, is a voracious attention fiend, always tugging at my elbow and demanding to be heard. Discipline isn't her strong suit and neither is sitting quietly in meditation (something she needs to learn and which might do her some little bit of good). With her it's always talk, talk, talk - and I quite frankly get weary just thinking about what she might spout off about next.

I am always promising myself some time off...off to explore different horizons and drink from a different cup. But I haven't had a chance to do any of those things. TCR won't appreciate it (since the only thing she need worry about is unloading what is on her semi-clever mind), but I do have a job that has kept me very busy of late - a fact that my banker, bartender and bookie appreciate. Actually, I don't have a bartender or a bookie but I think it makes me sound more intriguing to suggest I do, don't you?

However, lest you think I am just one note, I've been up to something else. I don't want to say anything more, since I believe in jinxes, but it involves stringing words together. I've been a little busy with that. Oh, but there's more.

Did you know that there was such a thing as Home Farming Day? Neither did I. As background, sadly I had to have three large trees removed from my property: two lovely magnolias and one eucalyptus. Along with the trees went a very large holly bush that stood about 8 feet tall. They were crowding the house and their lovely branches were rubbing against my brand new roof. The eucalyptus tree was dripping its fragrant sap all over it. They had to go. Nevertheless, when the arborist came with his crew, I had to leave. I just couldn't bear watching them kill my trees. As I drove away, my throat felt as though it was stuffed with a hot mitten. But when I returned to the scene, a chink of light filtered into my dark mood and I started dreaming dreams. There was suddenly sunlight for a vegetable garden! One small drawback. The sunny area was in the front of the house, not in the back, and we have restrictions in the neighborhood that involve curb appeal. I threw caution to the wind and decided that I'd plant my farm smack dab in the front of the house and let the complaints fall where they may.

A trip to the hardware store (which, by the way, had just expanded it's garden center) was in order. And now, instead of boxwood shrubs along the front walkway, like everyone else, I have broccoli, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, poblano peppers, cucumbers, cayenne peppers, basil, Thai basil, and bell peppers. I checked my darlings this morning and found two very tiny baby tomatoes and one small, still green cayenne pepper. The zucchini plants have blossoms as do the eggplant and the poblanos. The broccoli is growing tall but as yet no sign of buds. I am a little concerned about the cukes, however. They're looking a little puny. There are also no signs of neighborhood unrest over Farmer Grad's little experiment. If it stays that way...and I have a bumper crop...I am not adverse to sharing.

So, you see, with work and farming and "something else" I haven't paid very much attention to TCR, and it is simply driving..her...mad. I hate to even brush by in thought the possibility of...should I speak it...retaliation. No, no...how ridiculous. Even so...do you think I should unplug my computer before turning out the light at night? Sleep with one eye open? Hmmm. Oh, tut tut. Silly, silly Grad. TCR is my creation, after all. Merely my alter ego. I mean, it isn't like that "Hal" computer or that horrid "Chuckie" doll, right? Right. Not to worry. Well, I must run. Time to mulch.

Heh, heh. You think so, do you Grad? Sleep well, my friend. Sleep well.

Why I Was Gone

The funny thing about getting sick...for those of us who have very little practice at it...is knowing when "sick" is "sick enough" to stop and take it easy. I don't and therefore I didn't. I tried to remember the last time I went to a doctor for any reason. Eight years ago? Ten? Perhaps even longer than that. I think it was the time I tried to feed a feral cat which mistook my finger for a nice piece of liverwurst. Had it been a raccoon, I would have had to go through the series of rabies shots, but there weren't any reports of rabid cats going around so the doctor figured I was safe in that respect. Since a cat's saliva is pretty toxic stuff, however, I did need an antibiotic regimen. The bite hurt like the dickens, and continued to hurt long after it healed. I still have a scar on that finger. I think that was my last visit to a doctor.

We were never coddled much as children when we were sick. We were expected to rise above such trifling matters as colds and sniffles and broken arms. When Pestilence came knocking, we simply refused to answer the door. It is amazing how well that philopshy works. Toughing it out is a dominating trait on both the maternal and paternal branches of my family tree. Strength was as much admired as being able to play the piano or perform complex math problems. My Dad and his family spent a lot of time talking about being strong. Tough, even. As if to prove that particular point, my Uncle Joe showed up for Thanksgiving dinner one year when I was around 7. My mother had set the table with her best dishes, and she wore her prettiest dimity apron as she proudly carried the turkey, brown and glistening, to the head of the table, where my Dad sat with carving knife in one hand and sharpening steel in the other. Before us were bowls and platters of potatoes, dressing, gravy, creamed onions, spinach souffle...you name it...the delicious smells wafting across the lace table cloth. Nevertheless, Uncle Joe asked only for horseradish... which he ate directly from the jar...with a spoon. "It makes you strong like bull," he announced to the three small children who starred saucer-eyed at him. It was the most memorable Thanksgiving of my entire life.

So, together with the stress of a very large trial, and some significant maintenance on the house that needed completion, and my in-bred ability to ignore anything short of the major malfunction of a vital organ, I ignored the signs that I was getting sick, had gotten sick, and would continue to be sick unless I broke from family tradition and actually sought medical treatment. It's a good thing I did, I guess, since willing myself well didn't seem to be working. The two weeks I dragged myself into work because I was far too "busy" not to tackle my desk were a false economy; I eventually had to stay home to recuperate at least that long, so I got behind anyway. Where is the justice in that, I ask? A respiratory infection (but short of pneumonia) which started out as a simple allergic reaction to pine pollen was the final diagnosis. I am afraid Uncle Joe is spinning in his grave. I can almost hear the incredulity, "Pollen got you, you say? P-o-l-l-e-n!?"

Time for redemption, it seems. Pass the horseradish, please.