 |
| Look at All that Water |
"Tom and I walked quickly into town where we could see only three or four lights. Almost everyone was asleep. Near the town was a big river, a mile wide, and very quiet at this time of night."
– Twain, Huckleberry Finn
– Twain, Huckleberry Finn
"Like any reports in this world, the ones that follow are only as reliable as the reporter, who in this case makes no special claim for himself, except that he too stock of things every day during the growing season of 1995." – Carl Klaus, from My Vegetable Love
June 14
Shores
If I put myself in the moment properly I realize that I can twist my body around from facing the kitchen counter and look out the back sliding glass door of this nice little place off the Black River -- running into the Big River in just a couple of miles – and watch all the action of the back bay, including, just now, a quiet train of geese glide from a thick green shoreline, seemingly gaurded by a handful of oaks, lush as moss finally now in mid-June, over to the docks, full of pontoons. That's just the beginning. Across the way is a gem of a neighborhood, and I wonder, almost daily when I give myself a chance, how more folks don't know about this stretch of houses whose backyards aren't yards at all, but beaches, truly, and strictly speaking. Boats are set up either on lifts or floating, rarely shaken, for the no wake is important back here when sand in the back yard and any rippling wash that keeps coming up on shore will surely lap as much back into water. Folks here in the back bay don't like losing parts of their backyard. We're only a quarter mile from the LaCrosse airport, which sends up a smaller plane or two this way, but nothing severe, enough to keep up interest, nothing more, nothing less. Fisherman troll the back portion slow and sure, often standing with their back up against those fisherman seats, hats on, poles up, line frequent and, I must say, the catches fairly lucky, mostly the rough stuff like sheepshead and even gar, but the occasional northern can be stole I've been told. Blue sky. Good neighbors. Keep the town out of mind. You get the idea. Huck Finn talks about this kind of stuff in the first few paragraphs of the book named after him. River life. Water. A culture. A place that is in perpetual flux, unpredictable, lovely to look at, below the surface, most of us hope, healthy and holding so much life that when we dip our toes into the mix there is still a certain kind of hair raising thrill that maybe, as my youngest daughter says, "a shark down there." I'd like to spend some time in life rededicating another look at water. I think I like shores, a lot. Where land and water meet? Are you kidding me? The world right there, considering both art and life, both big ones I'd say.
Writers, like everybody else who try to do things daily, need some accountability. As someone who writes, almost daily, the flame of inspiration, well, it comes and goes. Should sound familiar to just about anybody who has walked the earth. One day things look fun, an adventure; another could go kiss gristle. I've always found the best writing subjects are the ones right under your nose; the key isn't really floating around out there in the ether of ideas, but instead they are the home ground, so to speak, but seen with either new eyes or maybe more particularly important for us, with appreciative eyes. I've noticed over the years that everybody, again, who walks around this earth long enough seems to be challenge here and there with the idea of appreciation. Huck Finn says he needed to get away from his nice house in order to live the way he needed to. Why is that? Nice houses are something like self-sculpted dreams. But there's big problems when we get what we want: we tend not to want it any more after we've had it. I don't think Huck even wanted it in the first place, which makes him a true river rat and not just a wannabe. Oh what the hell, let's admit it now: I'm a wannabe river rat, but maybe, just maybe, a bit of a Hick Finn down there in the soul, so I will make a deal with myself, how's about take a look at the river a little differently than I have; take a look at the Yahara River, Madison, where I live across the street, a little differently and instead of analyzing it with the modern scientific eye, let's just see if there's still a little adventure out there, a little romance (yes, it CAN still exist), and talk about it some in an essay a day for a year. What do you say? Are you game?
June 14
Shores
If I put myself in the moment properly I realize that I can twist my body around from facing the kitchen counter and look out the back sliding glass door of this nice little place off the Black River -- running into the Big River in just a couple of miles – and watch all the action of the back bay, including, just now, a quiet train of geese glide from a thick green shoreline, seemingly gaurded by a handful of oaks, lush as moss finally now in mid-June, over to the docks, full of pontoons. That's just the beginning. Across the way is a gem of a neighborhood, and I wonder, almost daily when I give myself a chance, how more folks don't know about this stretch of houses whose backyards aren't yards at all, but beaches, truly, and strictly speaking. Boats are set up either on lifts or floating, rarely shaken, for the no wake is important back here when sand in the back yard and any rippling wash that keeps coming up on shore will surely lap as much back into water. Folks here in the back bay don't like losing parts of their backyard. We're only a quarter mile from the LaCrosse airport, which sends up a smaller plane or two this way, but nothing severe, enough to keep up interest, nothing more, nothing less. Fisherman troll the back portion slow and sure, often standing with their back up against those fisherman seats, hats on, poles up, line frequent and, I must say, the catches fairly lucky, mostly the rough stuff like sheepshead and even gar, but the occasional northern can be stole I've been told. Blue sky. Good neighbors. Keep the town out of mind. You get the idea. Huck Finn talks about this kind of stuff in the first few paragraphs of the book named after him. River life. Water. A culture. A place that is in perpetual flux, unpredictable, lovely to look at, below the surface, most of us hope, healthy and holding so much life that when we dip our toes into the mix there is still a certain kind of hair raising thrill that maybe, as my youngest daughter says, "a shark down there." I'd like to spend some time in life rededicating another look at water. I think I like shores, a lot. Where land and water meet? Are you kidding me? The world right there, considering both art and life, both big ones I'd say.
Writers, like everybody else who try to do things daily, need some accountability. As someone who writes, almost daily, the flame of inspiration, well, it comes and goes. Should sound familiar to just about anybody who has walked the earth. One day things look fun, an adventure; another could go kiss gristle. I've always found the best writing subjects are the ones right under your nose; the key isn't really floating around out there in the ether of ideas, but instead they are the home ground, so to speak, but seen with either new eyes or maybe more particularly important for us, with appreciative eyes. I've noticed over the years that everybody, again, who walks around this earth long enough seems to be challenge here and there with the idea of appreciation. Huck Finn says he needed to get away from his nice house in order to live the way he needed to. Why is that? Nice houses are something like self-sculpted dreams. But there's big problems when we get what we want: we tend not to want it any more after we've had it. I don't think Huck even wanted it in the first place, which makes him a true river rat and not just a wannabe. Oh what the hell, let's admit it now: I'm a wannabe river rat, but maybe, just maybe, a bit of a Hick Finn down there in the soul, so I will make a deal with myself, how's about take a look at the river a little differently than I have; take a look at the Yahara River, Madison, where I live across the street, a little differently and instead of analyzing it with the modern scientific eye, let's just see if there's still a little adventure out there, a little romance (yes, it CAN still exist), and talk about it some in an essay a day for a year. What do you say? Are you game?
No comments:
Post a Comment