North wind, with clear cold weather.. Big waves breaking on the small island off our beach. The wind is cold but not freezing. Somehow the teeth are not as sharp or the wind has warmed. Dot is sleeping under my cot, because she has tired of tearing up my office and I got mad at her for trying to eat my good Bible and my latest copy of The Alaska Quarterly Review. If that makes me seem very pious or learned you shouldn’t be impressed because after all somehow they were on the floor where a young dog could find them.
The Bible was my good one because in was the one I bought for Nelson Bentley’s “Bible As Literature” class back at the University of Washington where we read the whole damn thing front to back and discussed it for it’s literary merit and the themes, humor and historical lessons. This was 1976 I think and Nelson was a generous grader so many people signed up including varsity athletes. As long as you did the work and handed in your assignments and gave it an honest effort you could pretty much count on getting an A. What he didn’t like were Christians who only knew how to talk about scripture as a means to “testify” about their conversion to the Holy Spirit. Nelson was very loving and understanding about these conversions but he had to gently remind such students that, particularly when studying the old testament, there was much more to consider in terms of literary value: such as irony, metaphor, symbolism but for Nelson he mostly loved the humor. He loved God’s sense of humor, I remember he particularly got a kick out of how after Jonah had gone through all of his travails and been swallowed by the whale, been spit up, crawled across the desert and sat praying under a shade plant, God had commanded a worm to go eat the roots of the shade plant so that Jonah would have to sit in the sun. Nelson found the image of God… the creator of Time, The Universe, All Matter, Everything, took time out of what must be a pretty full schedule to discuss with a single worm His plan for Jonah and this single shade tree.
Anyway, I didn’t want Dot to eat that particular Bible with my notes and underlining in it. Later she started to eat my copy of Firecracker Boys by Dan O’Neill and I have to say I got so mad at her I smacked her with it and now she is sulking under the cot.
Some books must be saved.
Young Dot trying to con her way into the hot tub.
Anyway… I’m having trouble distinguishing what is a weekend and what isn’t anymore. I don’t see anyone but Jan (up close) and Susie (our terrific neighbor) from at least six feet away. I don’t go into town. I don’t play music with anyone, which I really miss. I don’t go into town for a cup of tea which was my only social interaction during my usual writing life. I also don’t go into the University to harass Jan and her students which I also used to enjoy. Jan still goes in for a few minutes or longer each day but her students don’t usually. They are all dutiful scientists and know their germ theory.
I cook. Which I have to admit I need to get better at. It was pointed out to me by Jan recently that though I cook a lot at home. I do most of the shopping and planning too. I cook like a man. I had not considered this… but when she mentioned this, it’s true. I essentially cook a couple of steps up from the way I cooked as a cowboy on a wood stove: Lots of beans, meat, biscuits, I like salad, and roasted vegetables, But essentially when I think of cooking my imagination runs to getting a fire started and letting the wood burn down to coals. Put a kettle or pan just above, or right down in the fire and start burning, or boiling something. I think this is how many men of a certain age think of cooking as if we were all characters in Lonesome Dove, and there was nothing better than drinking whiskey and farting after dinner.
Okay… I’m not necessarily that bad. But I do make chili a lot. I will make a quiche every once in a while. I blame being dyslexic for my aversion to recipes. but that’s not really it. The truth was my mother cooked like a man… in fact she was a terrible cook. I loved her all her life, and I never really knew she was a bad cook until my older siblings pointed it out to me later in life. My brother’s wife was an excellent cook, and I always found it curious that meals were so pleasant at her house. Literally, I was almost thirty until I figured out that paying attention to what your did while cooking… making smart, creative decisions made the whole eating thing that much more enjoyable. In our house growing up, meal time was all about conversation and your contribution to the discussion. Not the food. I shit you not. My father ran meal times like a board meeting. When he asked you about your day, you had to give a full detailed report. Even when I was seven year old if I had dared to say, “Aw nothing… nothing happened.” He would ask me if I had been in a coma. Boom. So I ended up giving a detailed report of bicycling with Ann Randlette and where we went and what kind of bike she had and what we did after and her little brother Peter and her Brother Bob and how we were planing to float model boats on a pond and set them on fire, which my dad didn’t really approve of but he much more approved of that than having a dullard for a seven year old son and a dinner companion.
What I’m getting at is this: cooking is a good thing to work on during this time of isolation. Cooking and conversation. I’m not making giant steps. Tonight I’m making chicken chili with different kinds of white beans onions, mushrooms, salsa, cumin salt and pepper and slow cooked. Then I’m going to try to cook cauliflower with some cheese sauce. Still pretty farty but good.
I will also call my oldest sister today. I haven't spoken to her in a while to see how she is doing with the isolation. She just lost her wife a few weeks ago and it is hard. Our son Finn is down in LA and he reports that they have Skype calls with her and he has taken soup over to her house to leave with her. Finn’s wife Emily also cooks and helps look in on my sister, which is reassuring. Mary… that’s my sister has two children down in LA so that’s a comfort as well. Her kids have enough money to weather a storm and that is very good.
Money… we can all worry about money. Isn’t it amazing in America that even the very rich worry so about money so much? We used to worry about just having enough to eat, but so many people now worry if their children will have enough money to send their children to the best colleges without incurring any debt? Who has THAT kind of money? Why worry about that? But I was lucky, when my father disowned me halfway through my college years, Jan and I managed to get me through the last two years of the University of Washington, Jan was a seamstress part time and I was a horse shoer. College was manageable. Now it isn’t.
Why? Who gets all that money? I don’t really know, or why it’s so expensive. I ‘m past worrying about college now. But I know many of you aren’t. You want your kids to go to good schools. But here’s what I think now… while we are talking to loved ones and learning how to cook during these weird times. Think about the future. Think about options for your kids. What new things can you do, can they do other than spend a shit ton of money on getting a degree? Maybe we can all lobby to make sure state education should be really sufficient. Not exclusive. Not “the finest” maybe our kids will have to really work at other things to become “the finest” No school should guarantee you a good life just by it’s name. That’s what I think. If a State School is affordable and “good…. sufficient” and by that I mean gives a young person the tools to go on a make something of themselves. To be able to write, to calculate. To put together an application and to go out and put together an interesting plan for a business or an artistic endeavor. Or maybe our kids should learn a trade like horse shoeing and become poets. That’s what I did. Stupid and reckless. Then I moved to a town with no horses. Even worse, so I became a Private Investigator… another dumb life decision. All I’m saying is: have fun cooking and don’t worry so fucking much. Things have a way of working out, if you can avoid taking meth or staying drunk most of the time. Things have a way of working out if you can assume kindness in other people. Things usually will work out.
And if they don’t… you die of the fucking virus and that’s a shame but there is no sense in worrying about that either because we are doing our best about that too.
I’m sorry if I’m becoming the prophet of the self evident. I learned it at my father’s table.
With only love and good wishes.
Hard northerly wind:
the ocean like a river
hissing by our house.
jhs
One of my snapshots from the desert which reminded me of “The Tears In Things” the little poem above.
