Blog-azic

I went out back behind work yesterday (building 11), into an area where the scrub woods, pines and young hardwoods, are bisected to open a wide shady space. The space has been un-neatly filled with various plant debris (clippings, dirt, defuncted annuals), probably by Cisco facilities. You can walk over the mounds of detritus to Lake Betz (the northern side). I walked there sloping from pine to grass to soggy ground, cattail muck, recurred bramble thorn, a trampled deer path. I stopped short when a noticed a patch of grey under a beech tree. I went down - yoga squat - close to mud, close to grass sweeps where something goes in and out of the lake, brown water but settled and clear, trying not to disturb the solemnity. After a few minutes, I bowed and humbly picked my way back through the brier as the heron watched. That little natural jaunt sort-of changed me in a way that slowly washed off as I waded through the next day. We left North Carolina on I-77 north, and I felt like I sa

Winnipeg was unlike I’d ever seen. Maybe because of repeated visits (this my fourth), maybe because of nostalgia, I found myself seeing more in this trip. So many murals, patient trees, people bundled for the weather (which was mild). I walked one evening to a Safeway grocery (against advice from a customer-colleague) in an aging neighborhood. I distinctly felt like a foreigner, like the cashier and I were speaking different languages, like I felt in Mexico City. Most nights, I ate a quiet, deliberate dinner at Stella’s at Plug In, a hip restaurant near my hotel, while reading a thick biography of Dr. King, musing about duality - not good and bad necessarily, but inner and outer selves, being great and being average, being remembered and being forgotten. The last night, I lay in bed feeling anxious and defeated, having been reminded by a conversation with my trainee that I gave up on the hardest (networking) test I’ve ever taken. Then today I thought, “I’ve found my limit, and

I’m bound for Winnipeg, the fourth and maybe last time to support a long project I’ve been assigned. It’s a dirty and cold city full of elms, tall with up stretched arms and down turned finger (spooky looking at night). These past months have past by very peacefully, and I haven’t had the strong urge to blog through it. Though I would like to save some memories before the end of the year. I spent the morning with Adella. We laid on the futon in her room for a while, looking at the oak trees out the window, talking about the bells, laughing at Benji, wiping up drool. I’m sure there will be a time when such unabashed affection will only be a memory. Susan let me alone with her the other night, and I handled all the night wakings. Certainly a tiring event, but also it feels good to be so needed by her. Susan’s folks were visiting last week. It did feel good to have them, and I think it’s very good for Adella. We need to get back to Ohio. Maybe Cincinnati. Yesterday, w

Susan wanted a walk, so we drove down a big hill to the bottom land of Woodcroft and walked back on the Third Fork Creek Trail. While we were still on the Woodcroft Trail, I noticed the mature oaks and beech trees lining the road. It made me think that this was a rich forest before it was developed. Perhaps there are small pockets remaining where it is still wondrous (though, it has been called one of Durham's dirties waterways ). Some early morning, while Susan and Adella are still sleeping - or perhaps they'll come along - at about 6 am, when the unrisen sun starts to grey the horizon sky, and as the birds are joyfully singing about lush spring, I’ll come here with Benji and sneak about, sweating under a heavy wool shirt (to keep away the mosquitoes), looking for adventure. As it stands, we had a small adventure yesterday on the trail. There were massive ants swarming the parking lot we used. We grabbed Adella and Benji and set off. We decided to walk without a wrap, and

It could have been a week cooped up inside, a lack of sleep, new parenthood, etc., but Bolin Forest has never looked so full of wonder, so mysterious, so lush, and has never felt so familiar. The clear cut is just as chilling and stark as ever, but we spotted a barred owl on its edge. In fact, we walked in such a deep silence. It felt restorative and refreshing, like the cold, sparkling creek. In a clearing under the deep beech shade we stopped. Sun rays struck downward and dust caught in micro currents reflected the light. A pair of titmice made soft and curious contact calls between tree branches, not unlike the ornate sweep of the cardinal’s song. Afterwards, we went to Weaver, which is remaking itself new, and talked honestly with one another and tried to make ourselves new, too.

Mystic mountain sailing through time. Hillsborough is a fog creeping up your feet. Mountain laurel testifies in your quarry pulpit: “Stone feels harder in brutal sun.” Sourwood choir sings the refrain: “Thin detritus feels drier in humid air.” The woods were somewhat moist. I mean, Occoneechee Mountain is always dry, but in mid spring, it felt not so parched. The southern heat is only beginning. Jessica and I ran along the loop trail with Benji along side off lease, over tumbling ground, rock strewn. Over and back making small talk. Down by the Eno, in the northern shadow of Occoneeche, we got to the meat of the matter: grown up things, middle age things. It’s the summer of our lives, and, say, is it getting hot in here? I know she wanted to stay longer and explore more. Admittedly, so did I, but I was thinking of getting back for story time.

We left in high pollen, kicking up clouds of yellow dust in our wake. When we reached Virginia, the trees were still leafing, but once we climbed the Shenandoahs, the trees were winters’ brown. In West Virginia, they became tart, yellow green again. Athens was a bit of a whirlwind. Susan stayed at the BnB while I went to pickup takeout Casa. The city was jumping, but then it was an exceptionally warm spring Thursday - the weekends begin for many students on Thursday as often a class will not meet on Friday. I drove down Mill Street and the shirtless college boys didn’t stop their game of catch football as I passed. They simply chucked the ball over my car. When I finally returned to the house, our old friends and their kids were there. The house was a jumble with a baby crying, children running, and adults shuffling behind. For the kids, I bought a simple bag of Nilla Wafers with “artificially flavored” boldly advertised on the package. It wasn’t until dark settled when the hous

We all woke up slowly today, stretching, yawning in a lost blanket, white sheet Highway. While Susan nursed, I picked up a book of Norse mythology and read aloud the story of Ragnarok, sad but hopeful and new, bittersweet like a good cry. The story drew a bold line between the past (the old stories of the gods) and the future (the end with fire and ice). In the are between the two (the present), lives we, human kind. Later, as Adella had her biweekly cranial massage, I drifted off in a daydream thinking about my own mythology: my twenties. Being adventurous parents, we drove Morgan Street downtown instead of going right home, then, north on Person, past the iconic Krispy Kreme to the Yellow Dog Bread Company. We ordered coffees and a loaf of sourdough bread, but mostly sat in the car while the sky let down it’s rain and Susan let down her milk. Nursing, I think, is like a running gag taken too far. The key to comedy, and all life really, is repetition. Being now hungry and a

I bent down on my hands and knees, put my nose to the stump, and took the last thing the tree could give me: the scent of live, fresh wood, it’s dying breath. Part of me wondered at the morbidity of the scene , the chainsaw carnage, the massacre of a mature forest community. "Here I am romping in sap blood and drinking the smell of rotting flesh," I said. All the same, I had to understand the extent of the damage. Years ago, I walked into this same stony woods alone. I was young, yearning for forest solitude, wanting to explore my new home. By a vernal stream in a little fold of the land, I harvest yellow poplar bark and made a basket. A wild hare hopped along the stream. The moon was up early, waxing gibbous, chasing the Sun, which lay on the western horizon. The sky was a perfect Carolina Blue dome, unbroken by clouds. Benji and I drifted our separate ways in the cut. Soft mud swallowed my boots. Dusk descended as I regressed. The world was shadow. I found my