Gingko

First snow finds me baking pumpkin pies from my first pumpkin harvest here in the cove, rendering a sample batch of deer tallow, watching does forage snowy brush and Chinese herbs from my kitchen window, and marvelling my most recent significant accomplishment.

First, the pies. The variety used was "Long Island Cheese," a small-medium sized flattish tan-colored eating pumpkin. These actually did better than my butternuts this year, for some reason. The yield wasn't extremely high, but enough for me to eat on through the winter, and satisfactory for something that I just plugged in little starts of in gaps in the herb beds as an afterthought. The pies they produce are delicious. I know this because I have made 9 this week, and had enough left over to make a miniature in a ramekin and taste of it.
The tallow rendered nicely- yielding a half cup from the scraps I scraped off of a deer hide I recently cleaned up. The color was an amber when liquid and a creamy white as a solid. The smell is rather gamey, and I am unsure as to whether I will be able to tolerate it as a base of a balsam poplar bud salve I want to make with it.

pumpkin pies with tiny jar of deer tallow

Now for the recent accomplishment: Monday of this week I planted my gingko tree in the yard. This in and of itself is nothing noteworthy, as the hole was not particularly difficult to dig, and I plant trees regularly enough for the task to feel somewhat commonplace. However, it is the transferrence of the plant into the ground from its home in the pot where the accomplishment lies. It is an arrival of sorts. A benchmark no doubt. You see, I have had the gingko tree in a pot for 15 years.
I purchased the wee seedling from one Mr. Eidus for $5 back in 1998. I just couldn't pass the little guy (or gal) up- with its commanding singular presence in its very own division of organisms- its ancient DNA gracing our modern existence with ancestral dreamings and beauty of by-gone eras. I knew that it was less than ideal to purchase a tree as a transient youngster in my early 20s, but I remember thinking, 'I will probably have my own land in about 3 years, 5 at the most, and I can take good care of a tree in a pot for that long.'

Fifteen years, 8 moves, a few thousand cookies and about 500 gallons of Barry's Tea later, here we are, the gingko and me, with a piece of earth and a sweet cold spring to call home. I planted the tree in front of the western corner of the house, where its lovliness can be showcased, it has ample room to grow, and maybe someday in 15 more years, if we are both still here, he or she can shade me and my living room from the hot afternoon summer sun. What a thought. Just as I had absolutely no clue as to how the past 15 years would unfold at the time I first met the gingko, I realize now as I step into the next 15 that I am just as clueless as to what is to come. You just never know what is going to happen. Ever.

For Kieran

I ran over a toad today with my lawn mower. I didn't even see it there, which is slightly odd because I am always watching for things not to kill with my machines and movement. I just looked down, and there was a strange small pile of guts and organs, with two perfectly gorgeous little intact toad's feet. I got down and closely watched the eviscerated pile for a while, turning it over a few times with a stick. I completely expected the little toad heart to still be beating. But death must have settled very quickly because all that was there was stillness. How quickly Life can cease.
I am grateful for every dead animal I have studied over the years, and there have been many. Handling, smelling, taking apart, eating, burying, preserving, admiring. I have gained much respect and familiarity for the animal kingdom through experiencing the death of it. I still hang out with dead animals whenever I get the chance.
Perhaps it is precisely from learning just how quickly Life can end that it has come how much I favor studying living creatures these days. I am learning how to observe an animal in the action of living its brief and precious Life. I sometimes can't believe how long it has taken me to notice some of the incredible things that are occurring around me all the time! The pileated woodpecker slamming its spectacular face into trees all day to eat, to breed, to rest. The luna moth spinning its coppery cocoon out of leaves and what surely must be some sort of awesome bodily fluid to make that shimmery effect. The indigo buntings fighting for mating rights with that special female. The naked cicada subterrainously waiting for the moment when the stars are lined up and the fish are bitin' to emerge from the earth and climb a tree.
The first time I experienced a massive cicada hatch was 17 yrs ago, when I was living in Virginia. One evening or morning- I forget which-I was walking in the woods, and I stopped to just stand still for a few moments. I got the odd sensation that the earth was moving all around me. I looked down and refocused to discover that the earth and all the trees were covered with thousands upon thousands of cicadas in all stages of hatching and shedding. Imagine my surprise. They were absolutely everywhere. For the next several weeks, all you could hear was their hauntingly prehistoric-sounding chorus. "Pha-roah! Pha-roah!" is what they were singing. Or so said my favorite neighbor, Hobart Shiflett. He said some of the best things. The song of the periodical cicadas was the soundtrack that ushered me into the very beginning of my adult life. I turned 20 to this song.
They say this year is going to be another big one on the cicada front. Has it really been 17 years? Are these cicadas that are hatching out starting now the offspring of those thousands that crept around me that day in the woods17 years ago? They've been feeding on creepy crawlies down there in the belly of the earth while I have been up here coming into my own at my own special slow, 17-yr pace. I was standing on them the whole time.
Excuse me for saying this, but that blows my fucking mind.
Happy cicada emergence, Kieran.

**Author's note: The periodical cicadas (Magicicada) are a group of several species, which remain underground for 13 or 17 years, depending on the species, emerging in large broods to breed and lay eggs in tree branches in the early summer of their year. To be exact, I do not know which species I experienced in May of 1996, but for the poetic sake of this essay, I am assuming they were one of the 17-yr species.

Deepening

Being a non-Facebook-user, I realize that I have made myself a bit of an anomoly in this modern age. I am someone who likes to keep in touch and be connected to loved ones. I will not use this blog post as a platform to outline my reasons for choosing not to employ the most number one, widespread modern tool for being in touch (maybe later, if you're lucky). Suffice it to say, in spite of the availibility of daily images and tidbits from loved ones' mundane lives, I prefer what has very quickly become an old-fashioned way of being. Visiting face to face. Allowing real time to lapse between those visits. The shock and impact of the passing of time, witnessing change and evolution in increments that I feel my psyche can assimilate. I already find it to be shock enough for the system to get into a car (or, god forbid, a plane) and travel at about at least 20 times my natural pace through time and space to transport myself into another world for a spell, plopping myself into someone else's life, into another culture, another climate...

I so deeply cherish my long-term relationships with loved ones, particularly my small posse of friends who have been made like sisters, through time, shared joy and grief, the witnessing of each others lives. Through sacred pacts and marked commitments. The deepening of these relationships occurs in real time, over years, like the deepening of the self toward its own truth. Sometimes the deepening is bold and rushing, like a raging mountain stream during a flash flood, the cold water cutting dramatic grooves in a ravine. Sometimes the deepening is more subtle, like the slow, invisible growth of oak roots, creeping deeper into the cool dark hidden zones of the earth which sustains the fruiting above, the years of abundance and the years of scarcity.

Julie and I made ourselves blood sisters years ago in the youth of our lady-hood, a ritual among many in our comings of age. Those days were spent walking in the rain, worshipping the purity of the magnolia blossoms, frolicking amongst the fireflies, hunting out pockets of wild places in suburban Charlotte and memorizing them with the bottoms of our bare feet, teaching each other lullabies that we would someday sing to our children. With our sacrificed drops of blood, we made silent promises to each other and to ourselves.

Now, all these moons later, I look at Julie's twin daughter and son, and I am startled awake to realize I am beholding the fruits of so much silent deepening. I see Julie to the nth power looking back at me when her daughter watches me with the same intent that her mother has so many times. I am overwhelmed by the unfolding of a life. I watch Julie, swollen with the life blood of another fruit, laugh with her children. I listen to her sing those well-practiced lullabies and feel her teaching the wonders of the fireflies. I remember all that has led to this moment. This is real time.



Me, Julie, Forest, Lily and invisible little sister