Thursday, December 24, 2009

These Winter Days

No matter what your belief system dictates about today and tomorrow, things just look different today. Unless you're a kid, you have to take an extra few seconds to figure out what day it is when you wake up. I noticed on my early morning walk that people are up and about doing things in their homes that necessitate different rooms being lit up early and that many have turned on their Christmas lights already. Decorations look fresh and festive but I know that Saturday they will look redundant and out of place as we begin to wane from the Season. This is the next to last day when I can get away with eating a homemade peanut butter chocolate at nine in the morning and won't find bits of ribbon in odd corners. The Santa collection still looks fun and jolly. The drive to my sister's will be magical and lit with reds and greens that suggest the holiday spirit rather than to serve as directionals. The sky will have a special light at times even if it rains all day. We will laugh and smile and feel the warmth of this special day and be grateful for all that we have received today and throughout the last year. Merry Christmas to all and sundry who have in some way visited Owl Grove this year!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Three Books: Thanks for the books, KW; and thanks for the memories Lee and John

As usual, I am living my life around the books I'm reading. I almost always read more than one book at once and they are much of the time being read while I'm re-reading something or another that I'm teaching. But for now, since we're on Winter Break (what we used to call Christmas Vacation), I can read just exactly what I want to and don't have to drift back to this or that title in The Writer's Presence or spend more time thinking about Hamlet's precise age.
So right now I'm working with three titles: The Help, Generosity: An Enhancement, and The Humbling. The first was a piece of escape reading about African American women powering themselves up in the early 60's. This easy read took me back to my own young days when I didn't much care to discuss Civil Rights with my dad but felt a certain energetic and smug rightness about what I thought and felt. I distinctly remember sitting next to him on the couch, both of us rigidly erect as we watched and listened to Martin Luther King, Jr. The tension between was sparking and zinging like power lines in an extreme wind storm.
There's lots to be said about Generosity-surreal description and endless lists that remind me of Umberto Eco, characters who seem to be existing in stop-time animation, genetics, CNF, reading student journals, and the whole power of creativity. But I don't know enough about Richard Powers to present even a semi-qualified discussion. What I feel compelled to suggest is that the way he presents the writer/narrator is fascinating. Just about the time I had totally forgotten about the first person perspective, Powers reminds us readers of his relationship not only to the narrative, but to the characters themselves. He is especially involved with the character of Thassa. The whole book moves on both a realistic and a science fiction plane at the same time. This book is probably more important than I can even guess.
Then there's Philip Roth's The Humbling. I can't resist Roth. Again, I am taken back to my youth. Portnoy's Complaint was a book I didn't dare let my family even see. But I reveled in it and felt that immediate kinship with it maybe because it became almost a character itself in teacher-student relationships in our English department office at the end of the 60's. It was simply a title that meant enlightened and intellectual rebellion if I would have dared to list it on my then favorite book list.Now I take Roth very seriously. He is a true and real writer and I am really wanting the time to absorb this book.
Today then, I wrapped countless gifts, baked those damned snowball cookies that have so many names and have to be rolled not once but twice in powdered sugar and create a sweetish, white smog in the kitchen and planned an art project all upstaged in my mind by these three books. As a reader, that's how I live my life.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Not Exactly An Owl

Bobbie has a new bird friend and it certainly isn't an owl and she certainly isn't trying to escape its attention for the simple reason that it is actively seeking hers. Each early morning as she makes her first dog trip into the patio urging Baby to do her potty thing QUICKLY, the littlest of hummingbirds is waiting in the rafters for her to bring the warm (that is, unfrozen) nectar for her. (I don't know why we have assigned a female gender status.) As Bobbie holds the feeder at waist or chest height, the bird comes right to her and lights on the perch to get a good, long drink. Bobbie holds it several seconds saying that she barely breathes so she won't interrupt the feeding. Then the little thing hovers as she slowly raises the feeder into place. Then she removes herself to watch the bird get yet another long drink before it buzzes off.
Bobbie says the bird was so close that she could see its eyelids. She reports that she was as enthralled with this encounter as she was with the owl of last spring that sent us into the adventure of the year. But this bird encounter reminds us that maybe sometimes it's okay to interfere with the natural order of things. In this case, the hummingbird actively responded to human presence by taking the food from Bobbie's hands. If it hadn't, it might have been death by starvation for the little thing who had grown dependent on the feeder.
So remember to keep up your feeder food during this bitter cold weather. Remember, too, that the birds need plenty of water while everything is frozen up. Bird food and water could become one of the gifts you give back to nature this holiday season.