Just Stopping By--Dead Man's Sink and Monarch Butterflies

Monarch butterflies on Baccharis halimifolia (salt-marsh elder aka Consumption Weed)

Secret Aging Man (SAM) and I both agreed on Saturday morning that we were ready for a change of scenery. How about the Aucilla River Sinks Trail? I had received a forwarded e-mail from someone earlier in the week. It promoted an upcoming field trip to this place, known for its abundance of wildflowers and unusual geologic features. Perfect for us! we thought--that is, until we met the man in the cherry-red truck.

Josh, he said his name was, and, now that I think about it, I don't think the name was a coincidence. We were lost, you see, having driven down dusty back roads for the better part of three hours. The map we had printed from an Internet site was pathetic, and the Suwannee Water Management District signs weren't very helpful either. True to our low-tech nature, we didn't have a GPS device on hand to direct our course and pinpoint our destination. Enter Josh, the man in the truck. Ya'll aren't from around here. Plannin' to drive that car down these here roads? Why yes, we're looking for this trail, you see, and we've been driving down these roads for a while now, looking for it...

Monarch butterflies not too proud to share the feast with some Common Buckeyes

He told SAM to pull up behind him just past the intersection of two more dusty roads. They both got out of the vehicles, he proceeded to introduce himself and his "wife" (who looked about 14 years old, according to SAM), and then he gestured in the direction of one part of the trail. The men walked several yards in that direction, and I missed most of the rest of their conversation while I waited in the car. I did hear something about Dead Man's Sink, people never being seen again after straying too far from the main road, and this here bein' drug runnin' country. By the time SAM made it back to the car, I had already made up my mind. Let's skip the Sinks Trail and go to St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge instead.

We were both glad we did, because the Monarch butterflies were just stopping by on the way to Mexico, and the Muhly grass was showing off its pretty pink fluffiness all over the place.

Muhlenbergia capillaris seen at St. Mark's NWR

After driving around for hours, a walk was just what we needed. It was a sunny and very windy afternoon. Unlike Maria in James Joyce's story "Clay" (Dubliners), by the time we were ready to go home I wasn't "coloured with shame and vexation and disappointment" for having lost something because of confusion--plumcake in her case, time in ours. My cheeks were almost as rosy as Muhly grass from the sun, the wind...

Love is...a blind--for bird watchers

and the afternoon's adventure shared with my cohort in confusion.

SAM and Walk2Write on a trail at St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge

(I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls...But I also dreamt, which pleased me most, That you loved me still the same...)

Progressively Profligate Pumpkins

"When Pumpkins Drink" Original Source: Unknown. 

I know. It's shocking. I thought I should warn you in case you're planning a Halloween party. The repeal of the popular-with-Progressives 18th Amendment (Prohibition or Volstead Act) should have excluded pumpkins. They are, after all, naturally seedy characters and prone to this sort of behavior. Keep your sharp knives, booze, and car keys as far away from those pumpkins as possible.

I'm Sorry For Being Such a Lazy Blogger, But I'm Still on Twitter!

You know how people put themselves on budgets to stop wasting so much money and maybe save some of it? I've never been good at budgeting money. Hey, I came of age when people in the U.S. started thinking that money grew on trees. Maybe they (we) were right. If there's not enough in the Treasury to pay the bills, just borrow like there's no tomorrow and print more of it!

Now instead of just money (or the lack thereof) being a problem for me, time has entered into the picture. Or rather, it has fled the scene. So I don't get to prepare those elaborate posts like I used to, and I don't get around to visiting my blogging friends like I used to. Bummer!

Anyway, since I have a time deficit, I thought the best way to make more of it (for blogging) was to save it for important stuff. I'll let you know when I figure out what that might be. In the meantime, you can still find me on Twitter, tweeting about things I find interesting. Check out the new button on my sidebar. Please stop by and say hi on Twitter. And if you tweet, let me know. I'll try to keep up with your chirps or whatever they're called. Birds of a feather, you know?

Down to One Comment? 'Nuff Said.

Down to one comment? Well, there was that odd so-and-so I deleted who said something about American women not being worth their salt. Would it be weird to say that I've been waiting for this moment? The time when comments of mine haven't exactly been spilling over to fill someone else's cup. Or the time when my thoughts haven't been vibrating at exactly (let's be real: not even close to) the same frequency as the places where those comments are frequently made? It must be something in the water or the air. Or should I call 1-800-BAD-DRUG? Gotta blame someone or something. Nah! Just the fact that human nature is fickle, blogs are finite, and life goes on in a different direction.

'Nuff said.

One Anguish in a Crowd, Do You Hear?: Things in the News That Fire the Imagination and Make a Sound

If you live in New York or somehow keep up with the news (Internet, television, newspapers), you know there's a lot of stuff going on. Things to fire the imagination, if nothing else. Besides the Palestinian statehood issue being discussed at the United Nations, former President Bill Clinton is heading up his annual Global Initiative meeting. Today marks the last day for panel discussions among leaders from around the world. Lots of interesting topics on the agenda. It's not yesterday's news. You can watch it and hear it happening live right now. Better hurry, though. Time's almost up. Then it will be history. Stuff to write about.

One hundred days from today, the year will end. There were as many days left in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 1863. Ever wonder how the idea of slavery stoked the American literary imagination during that time and even before when the Fugitive Slave Law was in effect? It's not difficult to find plenty of examples. Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Emily Dickinson....

Poets with an ear to the ground, listening to friends, neighbors, pastors, families talk about their fears, hopes, and plans for their place in this country's future. Poets reading the newspaper articles that carried details of bloody battles like the one at Antietam. Letters from loved ones wounded on the front lines made it clear. From a military standpoint, that particular battle was a draw, meaning nobody lost or won. From the standpoint of political strategists on the Union side, it was declared a victory (Lee withdrew his troops) and gave Lincoln the fuel he needed to stoke the fire of public opinion. An Emancipation Proclamation, an Executive Order, was written, not a repealable thing, and the rest is history.

One Anguish--in a Crowd--
A Minor thing--it sounds--
And yet, unto the single Doe
Attempted of the Hounds

'Tis Terror as consummate
As Legions of Alarm
Did leap, full flanked, upon the Host--
'Tis Units--make the Swarm--

A Small Leech--on the Vitals--
The sliver, in the Lung--
The Bung out--of an Artery--
Are scarce accounted--Harms--

Yet mighty--by relation
To that Repealless thing--
A Being--impotent to end--
When once it has begun--

(a poem by Emily Dickinson, c. 1862)

Moon to Earth: Testing 1, 2, 3?

Tuesday, in case you didn't know, was a full moon day. Nothing out of the ordinary. A full moon appears with great regularity. If it didn't, we'd be in a boatload of trouble. Tides wouldn't occur as scheduled. The whole rhythm of the planet would be off, and time wouldn't occur as we know it. The moon has such an effect on the Earth that the rate at which we are spinning around the sun is slowing ever so gradually while the moon's rotation is accelerating. According to this site, nineplanets.org, it's only about 1.5 milliseconds per century, but the moon is ascending to a higher orbit at the rate of 3.8 cm per year. The Earth is in a constant state of torque, thanks to the moon.

As SAM was leaving for work Tuesday morning, the sun's appearance on the eastern horizon was heralded--or was it eclipsed?--by the setting of the moon in the western sky. The sight of it was just too beautiful to ignore.

Tuesday evening, I was sharing a meal with a group of people. We were celebrating the end of one term and looking forward to the beginning of another. One of the women in the group asked me how I had done on a test the night before. I had missed one question. I hate you, she said. Really? No. She laughed. She didn't mean it. Still, the words somehow stung. Should I fail so that someone else can feel good about herself?

Last week, another woman in our group started a lively discussion with one of those "what if" questions. She asked us if we (the women in the group) would be willing to carry someone else's baby (an implanted embryo, previously frozen) if the mother of the egg and the father of the sperm were unable to conceive in the usual fashion. While we puzzled over the question, she added that allowing the pregnancy to proceed would keep the embryo from being discarded. Various opinions were voiced, and even the instructor chimed in. An Arab-American and devout Muslim, he agreed with me that life is sacred but added that it would be foolish and just plain wrong for a woman to carry someone else's baby inside of her womb. If the real parents could not have a child in the normal way, it must be some kind of test for them. Warping their usual orbit around each other. Making life just a little less harmonious, synchronicity askew. Causing them to ask. Why?

Life does that to us. Torquing, twisting, testing...1, 2, 3. I remember my dad, with a wry smile, asking, Why me, Lord? whenever something bad happened to him. He used to tell a joke about a nice guy named Marvin whose whole world began to fall apart around him. Marvin would ask the Lord why? but was always met with silence. His friends had plenty of reasons why and weren't shy about sharing them. They thought Marvin had become such a loser because he had done something wrong. Marvin kept denying it and proclaimed his innocence. No one believed him. According to the joke, not even the Lord did. Finally, the Lord spoke to Marvin and his friends. There's just something about you, Marvin, that really pisses me off.

My dad usually had a great sense of humor, but I never thought that joke was funny. It's a perversion of the book of Job in the Bible. The part about the friends is true and so is Job's claim of innocence. I guess it's difficult to believe that anyone could be that righteous. Unstained. Faithful. Impossible? Why?

If I have put my trust in gold

   or said to pure gold, 'you are my security,'

if I have rejoiced over my great wealth,

   the fortune my hands had gained,

if I have regarded the sun in its radiance

   or the moon moving in splendor,

so that my heart was secretly enticed

   and my hand offered them a kiss of homage,

then these also would be sins to be judged,

   for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.

If I have rejoiced at my enemy's misfortune

   or gloated over the trouble that came to him---

I have not allowed my mouth to sin

   by invoking a curse against his life---

(Book of Job, 31:24-30)