What Do You Hear in the Quiet?

Last night I cooked a whole chicken I'd retrieved from Freezer Camp to prep for soups and casseroles, along with a batch of bone broth for the winter. I thought back to being a kid and eating chicken noodle soup when I was sick.  I was actually a pretty tough child, breaking my arm twice in the course of the summer one year, the first, running and tripping on a tree root (while likely carrying scissors), the second a major spill off of my bike while my brother and I were playing "Man from Uncle", 3 days out of the first cast (Mom was NOT happy).

But if my brother or I got a cold or the flu, we were kept in bed, snug and warm, and left with a little bell to summon Mom if we needed anything.  We didn't abuse that, not bothering her unless we needed to, but something was comforting, knowing that if we needed a drink or just a hug, she was there. Mom herself was battling cancer, and we had that intuitive sense, even that young, that our troubles were little compared to hers, and we tried to be quiet and considerate.

For on such mornings, there would be no noise in the house, but for Mom's labored breath, and occasionally the little tinkling chime of an etched metal bell.

That bell is one of the earliest memories of sound I have.  There were others; the sounds of the kitchen filled the air as Mom baked something. I remember the sound of the front door, a heavy hardwood door that shut with the announcement of "Dad's home!" Dad would walk in and kiss my Mom. Not a peck on the lips, but a long kiss, and she'd giggle, there with flour on her face, and that is the sound I first remember.

As I prepare something to nourish me again, I think of such sounds - from here within the silence. When I think of "quiet," I think of being out in the woods. Morning in the forest, the world is silent but for the draw of your breath.  People talk of the quietness of the wilderness. But is it? Is any place? Indeed, not the city, from which we shout our way home each day, automobiles yielding not by law or logic, but by some order of survival of the fittest.

When I was first drawn to the woods, seeking quiet and perhaps sustenance, I never realized the varied depths of sound in the woods. First, there was my own sounds, body defying that bitch that is gravity, hauling myself up the tree stand with all the tactical grace of a draft horse. My breath came in hot, wet bursts, and every step seemed a kettle drum in the darkness. When I got up and settled, I expected only quiet, my senses tuned to anything that would indicate a whitetail was headed my way.

The first sound you'll hear when you are in the woods is the birds. A woodpecker off in the distance, the sound stopping as abruptly as it started, as if it were only an echo you heard. Then, the soft chirps and peeps as the sun first comes up. The sounds of that time when the owl ceases flight, passing the baton to the predators of the day as the wet, grey light illuminates their flight. Then silence, as overhead the form of a hawk passes, the sparrows cry but a dinner bell of a feathered hors d'oeuvres. It's a melody of life, gone silent in fear as the whoosh of wings sweeps overhead. The hawk is gone, riding an updraft away to a tune only he can hear. As quickly as it was hushed, the sounds are back, as I settle back into the blind to the chorus of hungry birds.
But morning passes, and the birds twitter off into the serene efficiency of food gathering. The quiet hangs pensively between trees and rocks that alight with small creatures, freed as prey of the night, searching for food. Rivers move in the distance, the streams complain, a fish jumps, the sound at the limit of your hearing as the forest floor, green with calm, pools around all.

Sounds emerge and fade -

The wind through the treetops as a thunderstorm does a drive-by.

A dying tree tapping its own chest, then falling into sleep as the wind finishes its work, leaving without notice.

The slick of a knife as it cuts into the apple that is lunch.
It's not easy sitting still, sitting in what others would call silence, listening only to the hearts' whispered confidences, conversing silently with your own regrets.

But if you are patient and completely still, you may hear it in the distance. Not the birds nor the brook, but the soft crunch of leaves, scarcely a sound yet, almost sound anticipated, yet to reach the ear. There it is again, drifting into your hearing, then ebbing away again, sound dying softly on a trail that's leading away from you. It's gone.

You tell yourself it was a three-legged, one-eyed, scrawny button buck not worthy of the shot, while down inside you have a mental picture of tines with a spread of two and a half feet and a form that blots out all sound.

You knew there were deer here. Creatures living in the shadowy limbo from which time began, moving around and away from time, away from you. Forms moving right around you, as your heart sounds out that beat of time, going too fast. If only you could see with the eyes that all hunters have. You know they are close, moving in and out of the sun's glare, flirting with you with grunts and snorts, hot air from soft muzzles, challenging you to the duel that only one of you will win. They drink from quiet pools in which autumn leaves slowly die, drifting on the cold waters with the motion of sleep.
You've seen the signs, the rubs, the scrapes, those measured indentations made of testosterone and bold youth. Signs of the whitetail, rising out of the deep quiet and the sleep. Look quick, listen close, for soon the marks would be gone, disappearing with astonishing speed as leaves blew past, as if relinquishing themselves back to the earth, where you, the hunter, are but a transient.

Do they hear me? The sharp intake of breath in the cold air, the hammering of my heart that to me sounds like a cacophony. That sound that pounds in your ears, and you imagine every creature in the forest can hear it. When the hunter's urge comes on full, strong, legs, arms, and muscles, ready. Memories from the times before memory existed, wired into us, come from those who survived. The moment passes, and the sound is but a tree limb coming down; you are left with the clear lucidity that adrenaline brings, resting your hand and quieting your heart. Be still, so we are not heard. Be still so no one notices the trembling of your form, the tear as it forms in quiet pools, still, as your body trembles with anticipation.

You're only a few miles from a road, and if you listen, the tiny intrusions of civilization are heard; the sound of a train, way off, a laboring sound of groaning metal; later in the afternoon, a plane overhead, small sounds that seem foreign out here, and you brush them away with the flies. That world can wait; this is your world, now, all that you need as you hear the sound of your watch and the sound of the train dying away, running through another world that you know exists, but you do not occupy.

The outside world fades back to hush, rising only to the occasional stammering of an angry squirrel, who doesn't stop even with cross hairs pointed at him. Do not fire, you tell yourself, as the sound would clear out everything around. Stop, look, wait. Listen.

Then you hear it. The sound is but the slightest of soft breaths in your ear, a tug at your heart, the course of blood through your cold hands, the mute tremble of your thighs. There, upwind, the slightest of pause amongst the leaves, as if something was also listening for you before advancing. The sound stops. The tiny hammer of your heart is an ocean in your ears. The sound starts. Crunch. Crunch. A snort. Testing the air, testing you.

You can not hear his heartbeat, only your own, but as he comes into view, you can see the flinch of muscle and hide. Flesh driven by a heart that is insular, standing with a form that, without sound, infers weight and speed. It's speed that will take him far from you if he senses that heart of yours which beats too loudly, with strength born by rending it and building it back up again.
Then, as suddenly as the sound comes into your field of view, it stops. Stops, as everything- animal, vegetable, mineral, the trivial uproar of a squirrel and the sun, coalesce into one sound of shuddering breath inward. There he is, fixed in the hot, philandering wind, a beam of sun against the massive rack, as he turns, sniffing, listening for danger. One more moment, one more breath, and he'll have you. Instinct draws up the gun.

The birds explode into flight, the noise shattering the lie of silence. The whitetail bolts with a clamor, faint and fading as he breaks the barrier of life, moving on with a boom heard across heaven.. . .

.. . that boom, the sound of a truck door outside, slamming shut, bringing me back from the forested recesses of my daydream to the room around me.  The world has gone back silent again, but for the sound of my breath,  Up on the shelf, sits a metal bell, the ancient etchings upon it dusty; coalescing, into a sense other than sound, a scent, a touch, the whisper of comfort and the smell of hot chicken broth, there in a room only fierce with the sound of alone.

I pick up a little framed photo of a red-haired woman and child, as outside, the melodic chime of birds in the trees calls upwards to heaven.
 - Brigid

The Games We Play

I've always avoided discussing politics and similar topics on here, and I will continue to do so. However, after seeing that Cracker Barrel changed their famous peg game instructions to make it more "award for showing up" worthy, I just. . . well. . . .

. . . had to come up with my own.

If you have more than one casing left, you are an Eg No Ra Moose :-)

Finding Your North Star

It's a little hot right now for camping, but it is one of those activities I genuinely enjoy. When I was an airline pilot based in California, I used to head out to the Sierras every time I got a few days off, in my SUV, with nothing but a sleeping bag, a fishing pole, and a cooler of pop and sandwiches.

I then didn't go for years. A thousand-mile commute from where I was based as a pilot to where I lived took away that urge. Then, later, with another job that had me on the road constantly, the last thing I wanted to do on my time off was be away from my own bed. 

So being free to pack up and go anytime I want now is so liberating. But oh, has the world of camping changed. My first trip was to a small state park, a day’s drive east of home. What I didn't know was that in the last 20 or so years, camping has evolved from the basics—tents, beer, and sandwiches — to the "established campsite".

As I pulled into the park, I could only think of that Joni Mitchell song "They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot". Instead of sparsely isolated spots of dirt where the remnants of a campfire might be found, there was what appeared to be the parking lot of the Mall of America, except with RVs.

In Campsite #179, a 300-pound man in a bathing suit (my eyes! my eyes!) was trying to adjust his cable antenna (do they still make those?) on top of his $125,000 "camper".  From somewhere in the bowels of this getaway vehicle, his wife and kids were "roughing" it by not having Netflix.

In Campsite #180 just feet away, a couple was arguing about the fact that the wife had left the cappuccino maker at home, while what was either Katy Perry or someone strangling a weasel played loudly enough to disturb anything hibernating within 75 miles. 

I drove further in, hoping for some of the peace and solitude I craved only to about veer off the road as a chipmunk, with a yellow plastic radio transistor collar, sped across the road, followed by about a dozen screaming children and what was either a small scruffy dog or a rat with hyperthyroidism leading the pack, barking in a high pitched tone that would have broken glass.

I turned back and went to the gate where I'd paid my fee to drive through and see a tree, and then I asked the ranger. "Can I just go in deep in here and pitch a tent to stay overnight away from everyone?" And he said, friendly but firm, "No. You must be in one of the designated sites, but there's plenty to do. Here. You can have site # 278," as he handed me what looked to be brochures from a Las Vegas hotel. "The showers are to your left, the recreation hall to your right, don't forget the group nature walks". He smiled and held out his hand. "That will be $32.00, please." "$32 just to throw down a sleeping bag with my dog?", I said. “The website said it was only about $20."

 

Apparently, I didn’t factor in the extra charges if it’s a weekend, if you want a shower, or if you’re breathing or. . . . "

"In a designated pet camping spot only, which is an additional $2, of course," he said, peering with a smile into the back seat at Barkley, who was starting to growl. "And the dog must be on a leash at all times. It's policy".  "Don't you have something for about $10.00? I pleaded.  I'm just here for the night and don't need to use the showers." That's what the 5 gallons of jugged water in the back of my jeep is for. Check for neighbors, have gun handy in case of bear, take off the clothes and pour it over my head. . voila' shower! It worked in the wilds of Alaska and Africa; it'll work in Pennsylvania. 

"I’m sorry, but the pricing is on our website, Ma’am." (Ma’am?!) Barkley was growling in earnest now, looking as if he wanted to eat the ranger’s hat . . . to start. I gave up. "Does #278 have a fire pit? I'm looking forward to some hot dogs and campfire chili."

"Fires are not allowed in your  particular campsite, Ma'am," the ranger said (I swear one more "Ma'am and I'm going to smear the Ranger Rick here with peanut butter and let Barkley out of the truck)."If you wish, however, you may purchase a burrito at the snack bar.” Burritos? No wonder the only raccoons I saw were in organized groups wearing authentic ski masks.

Granted, I was probably “safe” from four-legged predators. No bear or mountain lion could get through the 12-inch gap between Winnebago’s, though I figured the raccoons would use drones to get any food hoisted up a tree branch at night.

Suddenly, the sky lit up with someone’s leftover fireworks from the 4th of July. Seriously? If I wanted to play with a cannon, I could have stayed home.  

I bid the ranger good day, turned around, and drove until I found some land that didn't look to be privately owned. In the ascending hills, I hiked for a while and pitched my tent. I didn't have a microwave, but I had a small, carefully managed fire, one that burned bright. In its light, my hair was like fire and points of fire burned in my eyes as I savored all of it, woodsmoke and bug spray, paper plates that got all soggy and fell apart, the sounds of the crickets as the sun set, the sun's dying rays reflected in my drink as Barkey snoozed happily by the fire.

As I drifted off to sleep, the branch of a tree brushed against the tent opening, driving in the forlorn scent of the wild. From a distance, a sound, not civilization, but simply the hoot of an owl, felt more than heard, pressing against the night until nothing was left but a dark impression as it flew away. 

There is no video streaming service, no internet, no phone. There is a watch in my backpack with a compass, but even that is not carried to keep track of the time, but only to put time aside so as not to spend my breath trying to conquer it. There is just me, my dog, and the vast summer sky, languid and empty of geese, news helicopters, or the late evening conga line that is Midway Airport at 9 pm. Above me, just the North Star blinking in that vast and empty gesture that is all promise, even as it remains out of reach. 

This is why I come out here, for those times when I don't wish to sacrifice the wonder of the present moment to work, civilization, or noise. I love a broad margin to my life. And I've always been a loner. I can sit in the faded sunlight of a doorway between two giant trees, from dinner till dark fall, rapt in a revere amidst the forest, in undisturbed stillness and solitude.  As darkness settles on me, I wonder about the lapse of time, the evening seeming like a mere moment, time like a season in which I grew like flowers in the night.

Like flying, time spent in the woods is not subtracted from my life, but is simply over and above my usual allowance. Oriental philosophers talk about contemplation and the forsaking of work, and I realized out here what that means. Out in the woods, I don't care how the hours went; the day advances as light comes into it, it's morning, and now it's evening, and nothing memorable is done. My days are not days of the week, minced into hours and deadlines of a ticking clock or an airline schedule. Let mornings be lazy, afternoons pass by in long walks through the woods, the splash of a paddle in the water, and if the day becomes wasted in the warm rapture of a sunset as nature sings its song in your ear - what's the harm? 

THIS is my North Star.  Unidentifiable sounds in the darkness that make you hold your breath at the bottom of your sleeping bag. A good book read with a dying flashlight until sleep came, shadows dancing on the wall of a small canvas tent, and the musty smell of freedom and adventure. A time when growth may not be on the surface but may be internal, as the days quietly drift by in the warm embrace of the woods. - Brigid

Where's Brigid (A Tutorial)

It started with plaster raining on my head while making dinner. Apparently, the 115-year-old chimney had degraded to the point where it was letting water into the attic (and subsequently the kitchen ceiling).  The chimney had to come out.  But it vents the furnace!

We started with redoing the ceiling down to the bones (not just the plaster) and new drywall around the chimney.  An antique light fixture that had been out for a while was finished up, and the entire ceiling was replastered and painted (and the walls where they needed some minor repairs). 

I didn't cry when the original red in which the kitchen ceiling was painted sometime in the 60s was covered up.

Then, to tackle the source of the leak.

A new vent had to be installed through two floors, two walls, and the attic roof before the chimney could be removed.

$15,000 was the low-end quote.

We did it ourselves. 

The closet was the juncture where the new vent would go. Did I mention a 370-pound gun safe that had to come out?  Oh, and that pesky hot water line in the basement?

Once it was reinstalled (you have to pull out the walls and the floor to get that baby out of there now (the wall was rebuilt, the trim and hanging fixtures reinstalled.

It was time to run the new vent up through the second floor and through the roof.

I don't know WHY this old chimney was leaking.

The new vent system is up and running. Tomorrow, weather permitting, the chimney above the roofline will be lopped off (and hauled away) and that area reshingled.  The business that did our roof will do that, the one part of this I didn't want us to DIY (I just don't bounce the way I used to, and that roof has a steep pitch).  

So folks, that's how Brigid and Partner in Grime have been spending their summer vacation.  OK, and building miniature catapults to lob small rocks at one another while playing Mexican Train Dominoes. . . . 

 

 1

On Creativity

Outside of the glow of a small window, evening air breathes against the glass, leaving an invisible print of its presence. The streetlight comes on early, with the overcast skies, bright as a spark that fell unaware on an uncaring landscape. The sun lies low and flat under low clouds, as out on the street, a ragged bus drives towards the setting sun, like an animal being driven to its death. People are on the way home, the sound of traffic, the admonishment of a horn, the squeal of a tire. Everything is noise and motion, leaves crushed under the tires, birds taking flight from the trees.

Inside, there is only peace. For she had already worked a full day, arising when some people were going to bed, getting back to a room where she should sleep, but could not.

She sits at a narrow table, spread fingers splaying out thoughts while the last of the light wraps around the strong beat of her heart. Outside lies a world forgotten as the words fly, sullen clouds and dead ashes swirling, branches stirring like water, drowning in the fading light. She works until the words are freed, then pours a cup of tea to ready herself for a sleep that is but a distant memory.

Miles away, he works late, bent over a shop table, hands scarred and toughened by work, stitching, molding, creating something that will hold a life, even if occasionally the process does draw blood In the corner a fire, warming his hands, driving him to completion, even as his breath quickens with the effort, drawing into his lungs, the searing dark.

They both work, as they are happiest, without witness or judge. One crafts something gently and tenderly with a soft rein of thought, while the other takes that which was once living but is now not, writing its story, tearing down and rebuilding with the ransacking of innermost fears.

Both of them are artists, and both of what they create is art. What defines art, and what makes an artist?

Art is the province of every human being who holds within them talent. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing limited to drawing or sculpting and the like. It's simply a part of your inner self. I know artists who write, who craft with wood, who create things from fine leather, who take photos, who play an instrument, all leaving that permanent mark of their soul's occupation.

Creativity for these people, the expression of it, through picture, word, or craft, is a way of celebrating, of showing what it means to be alive, there in the unbeatable odds against it. Life, by any reasonable measure, is impossible, a human body that is as strong or frail as just one cell, with random acts of irrationality and loss wearing us down, pulling the color out of our blood. Yet, for some of us, we keep drawing in breath after breath, pulling in precious moments of oxygen with the remnants of our happiness, until our blood darkens with strength, slowly filling up those empty chambers in our hearts.

For the artist, creating is a way of taking that breath, of saying in the face of all that impossibility, or dangers that lurk in the dark streets and minds of man, just how worth celebrating it is to just be here. I am here, I created this, this little piece of me, whether you like it or not, it IS me, and it will be here long after I am gone.

Like breath, it builds on just small intakes of life, of thought of the movement of hands, the cut of a piece of wood, the downward stroke of a pen. It is not done with haste or without thought. Art can be built from the soul's imperfection, but it can not find breath with the spirit of impatience, for it is only slowly that you can hear the wind with your eyes or taste the sweetness with your ears.

Growing up in a small town left something with me that remained, despite the urgent need as a teen to get away from it. Patience. For nothing much happened there. Certainly, nothing happened fast. A parade could last two days, it seemed, and if you wanted something fixed, you usually did it yourself, rather than making a phone call to someone with tools and a credit card reader.

Behind our Sixties ranch home was open land and a small rural highway. There were no "Coming Soon! Starbucks" signs. There were cows, nothing on the horizon but the shifting of rumps, the clang of metal as they swung their heads, checking to see if you were bringing cow chow. That was years before the escape to the big city, when mornings dawned early and loneliness roosted in the rafters.

But as a child, all of that seemed larger than life, just as it was familiar and unchanging. Days dawned slow, and time rose and swelled like the curve of a woman's breast. My Dad went to work every weekday, was home every night at the same time. Friday was steak and Westerns, eating on TV trays, Saturday was chores and grilled burgers. During the afternoon, we explored, cheered on by the sawmill buzz of a lawn mower, the sound of the ice cream truck. Sunday was church, sports for my Dad, and more outside play for us while Mom curled up with her books or the ceramics she liked to make and fire.

On those days of play, it seemed as if time itself was suspended, hanging in the air like a curtain, waiting to be opened, lying on the ground to be picked up and put in our pockets, with that piece of string and the little bazooka army guy. We'd play hard all afternoon, there in time's motionless shadow. It was only with the call of Mom's voice for dinner that we realized we'd been outside 7 hours, drinking from the hose, dashing in from the gunpowder dust of August to grab a homemade cookie, in furtive raids.

Years later, I would wake, the city near, waiting for the phone to ring, or the next morning to roll around. My body wakes in its own time zone, regardless of the country or county I'm in. The days are filled with rushed deliberation, deadlines, and demands, as everyone expects answers within an hour —the time we've come to expect any problem to be solved, thanks to TV. It's food on the run, and conversations stammered like an old typewriter, noise and air, sweat and motion.

When I was called, I usually didn't rush to get there. The first responders had done their business; what waited for me wasn't going anywhere, nothing left but the tragic, unspoken bones that would wait for me forever. But once I'm there, time was a blur of heat and sweat and thought. The sun fell, the night grew cold, lights were brought in, and I realized I'd not been out here one hour; I'd been out there for ten.

It is all such things that go into what I wish to say or do, the creation of that which can't occur without your past, a recognition of not just that which is good but the keen edge of a blade that hovers above. Such things make it easy for days such as Saturday, when I will spend nine hours, over time, creating, not what would be defined as art, not something to hang on the wall, but simply two dozen tiny French pastries, made by hand, with layers and layers of dough and butter, formed and shape. They are not things to last, but things to be consumed, with a cup of hot coffee, Strauss on the stereo I sit beneath the art I have collected, above me a signed painting by Bev Doolittle, a piece of art that cost more than some of my cars and of which I would never sell, for it speaks to me of something within me, something only heard as the steady, soft foot of horses in snow

Indeed, we all have our own tastes. I prefer older pieces over modern or abstract ones. I like to look at it and see something I have seen or experienced. Artists of the 17th and 18th century could depict in layers of paint hundreds of years old, a drop of blood on a singe fox whisker It's that tiny drop that draws your eye, that you can't help but stare at, waiting for that moment when it will drop to the ground, to be consumed by the earth. 

But I am not immune to the power of modern pieces, where the artist's vision of heaven and hell, earth and order, passion and prayer might be revealed in pieces of forged metals, depicting in its hammered burden, the secret bridge between religious and sensual ecstasy, a cry out into the night. I am not unmoved by operas that do not calm the waters, but rather, strike up against the rocks, as if the sea were howling for the moon, the depths wishing their darkness to be heard.

Whatever type of art draws you in, we are all strengthened by the growing number of craftsmen and women, people who live to create, to express their joy in living, through their thoughts and hands. When an artist is alive in any person, regardless of their work type, they draw people in. They educate, provoke, and enlighten, opening our minds to discovery. Where those who have no such talents are trying to close the book, the artist opens it, showing there are still many more unwritten pages. The world would stagnate without them, just as the world is more colorful with them; for they make us think and feel and strive and, more importantly, question, as they gain in the work, not outside of it.

And so this evening, I will create, as the words flow from my fingertips. It may be ignored, it may simply be consumed later, without taste, but as I close my words and prepare my bed, the gilded evening light, a sieve for the moon, pours down like molten silver, and I am content. As I breathe in the oxygen, formed from the earth out of the chaos of gases, I am alive, and that's something I would not give up, even if what I create becomes only dust.

I look outside to a world stilled with time and darkness, people home to their lives where they build and create that which makes them happy--food, craftsmanship, words, a home. We are all the artists of our own lives, and our audience is simply our own happiness.

Because the true artist would create even if they had no audience. Yet they regard their work as a means of talking with mankind, not with their lips, but with their mind. Creativity is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. If they are recognized and earn something for their creativity, that's a good way to further it. But even if not, they would still have spoken.

And we are all the better for it.

--Brigid