Raise a glass!

This weekend I'd like to raise a glass of Reed's extra-strong ginger ale to a whole lot of people who helped me get through a very difficult time. Ten years ago tomorrow I was diagnosed with stage 3 endometrial cancer with a bleak prognosis, and if I tried to list all the wonderful people who contributed to my recovery, we'd be here all day: the physician's assistant who told me I didn't have to live with pain and sent me to a specialist; the surgeon who found the cancer and the doctors and nurses and other medical professionals who treated me aggressively for six months and then watched and waited to see whether the cancer would return; the colleagues, friends, and family members who gave me colorful scarves to cover my baldness, drove me to the cancer center for chemotherapy, sat with me while I was drugged and loopy without laughing too hard, cheered me with cards, covered my classes, listened to my complaints, and encouraged me in a thousand different ways. I've never been able to personally thank the person who anonymously sent a case of Reed's extra-strong ginger ale to my office, but I'll toast that person tomorrow with the drink that always reminds me of how much we depend upon the kindness of strangers. There's nothing like suffering to remind us of how much we need each other, and I wish I could throw a big party to thank every single person involved in my recovery.

If you want to celebrate with me, raise a glass tomorrow and consider supporting my son's Velosano bike ride to raise funds for cancer research (click here). All together now: To life! 

A refreshing exercise in futility

The question, of course, is why bother trying to get more hummingbird photos? I have tons already, and it's not at all easy to get good ones because hummies move so quickly--and besides, it's hot out, hot enough to make sweat roll down my face and neck and back until I feel slippery all over, and it's hard to hold the big lens steady with sweaty hands. And then after all that waiting and sweating, I end up with photos that look pretty similar to hundreds of others I've taken over the years.

The answer, though, is that the experience is more important than the result. I'm outside under blue skies on a pleasant summer evening, and all around me things are happening. When I step out the front door, a spotted fawn bounds right across the front lawn and up the hill, and chipmunks are constantly skittering over the rocks along the edge of the driveway. Chimney swifts go chittering past overhead but a more distinct call directs my attention to the top of a telephone pole, where I'm just in time to see a red-bellied woodpecker feed its young. When the adult flies away, Junior sits there with his beak open as if to say, "Feed me! Feed me!"

And hummingbirds constantly zip and zoom to the three feeders, some standing guard nearby and then chasing others away. They perch on the power line, dip their long tongues into magnolia blossoms, swarm the feeder on the porch and then disappear before I can lift the camera to my eye. We were late putting out the hummingbird feeders this year out of concern for the phoebes nesting on the porch, but the phoebes have abandoned the nest so up went the hummingbird feeders. The one close to the main birdfeeding station gets little attention, but the minute I turn my back, I can hear the hummies right behind me visiting the one feeder that's outside my range of vision.

My presence out front scares away some birds, but I'm more interested in intimidating the pesky squirrel that has found a way to get up onto the biggest birdfeeder. I can look out any time of day and see a big bushy tail hanging down below the feeder while the squirrel gobbles all the goodies it can get, but it took a while to figure out how the squirrel is getting up there: it's climbing up a nearby maple tree and jumping from the end of a branch. Time to move the feeder.

I try to keep track of all the species I encounter but I quickly lose track. A pair of mourning doves is playing chase up on the power line while a bluejay dives into the canopy of the sweet-gum tree and little yellow butterflies go flitting past, and then something zips through the tall grass near my feet--a snake! My eyes dart from one flash of movement to another, trying to get a clear view of some brilliant flash of color before it disappears. It's hopeless, of course: I end up with the same old photos of the same old birds, but after sitting there among them for a time, I somehow don't feel like the same old me.

"Feed me!"

I can see you back there.

Mourning dove, before the chase.

Not colorful but curious.

 

Pardon the desultory dithering

When lacking a deadline, I dither;
My forward momentum just withers.
This midsummer malaise
Inspires me to gaze
toward August, too fast drawing hither.  

Shall I mow, write, or bake a lasagna?
Stay at home or proceed over yonder
to look at some birds?
Summertime's just absurd!
But I won't celebrate when it's gone (yeah!).

Okay, this is a mess. I mowed and made lasagna today but got very little work done because the weather was too gorgeous, which, in the summer, results in a nearly nonexistent internet connection at home. Yesterday: dark clouds, showers, thunder, and excellent internet connection; today: sunshine, blue skies, a nice breeze, and a connection that lasts a nanosecond before pooping out.

With no need to go to campus or drive to town, the biggest decision of the day is this: do I need the internet badly enough to merit driving five miles up the highway to sit in McDonald's eating something I don't need to justify using their free wi-fi? Or save it for tomorrow, when I'll be on campus? 

I dither. I mow. I make lasagna. And I look forward to the time when I'll be back in the presence of reliable internet and cell-phone access every single day.

Summertime. That's what I'm talking about.

 
 

June is busting out all over

First sunny day around here in eons and we weren't the only ones outside enjoying it: we saw cedar waxwings in trees above the creek and up the hill near our neighbors' donkey paddock. A big patch of milkweed attracted bees by the dozens to feed on their drooping clusters of blossoms, while other pollinators buzzed around blooming butterfly weed, black-eyed susans, horse nettles, and daisies. When the sunlight comes from the right angle, ditch-lilies along the creek appear illuminated from within, while the yuccas line the driveway with brilliant white blooms.

All those yuccas are offshoots of a single plant we dug up in our daughter's yard six or eight years ago. Now we have at least a dozen of them growing in our front yard, along the driveway, and near the bridge, even after two of them washed away in last spring's flash flood. And the volunteer hollyhocks are blooming again. They come back every year, but not always in the same place.

Earlier this week I was grumbling that it looked like the spring rains and floods would wash away any hope summer weather, but here we are on the first day of summer soaking in the rays and appreciating the summer colors. Rain is in the forecast again this evening and tomorrow while waters continue to rise in all the local rivers, but for a brief moment this morning, it felt like we might have a summer after all.

My daughter planted one hollyhock in front of our house many years ago, but they keep re-seeding themselves in different parts of the lawn.

All those yuccas!

Red-bellied woodpecker

Milkweed

Swallows were swooping above the neighbors' haymeadow.

Cedar waxwings.

Ditch lilies.

 

Grasping at straws in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I've just been reading very different texts about and by oceans: an article about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and a novel by Ocean Vuong. The Garbage Patch article will help me revise a scholarly article for publication, dealing with the way identity and narrative can be assembled from random flotsam circulating in unseen currents, while Ocean Vuong's novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous tackles a similar issue in fictional form. The novel is getting a lot of attention and raving reviews, but my response was mixed: I loved individual sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, along with the description of the parent/child relationship and the narrator's first experience of the world of work; however, I found the  totality underwhelming. It's possible, though, to enjoy individual waves without embracing the entire Ocean.

This, I think, is how my summer is going: waves of delightful moments interspersed with long periods of dullness. I might moan about mowing, but at least the task provides a shape to my days and offers measurable signs of progress. A week like this one, though, when the sun never comes out long enough to dry the grass and make it mowable, leaves me treading water in confusing currents. I do a little of this and a little of that, read an article, write some notes, catch up on e-mails, clean the bathroom, maybe read another article, circling and circling in the widening gyre surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of a disordered existence with no immediate goal and no unobstructed route toward more distant goals.

Today I'm hanging desperately to the buoy of my Writing Wednesday group, which, unusually, is made up this week entirely of people within my own discipline. We're all working on something, all keeping our heads above water by keeping our fingers on the keyboard, and all offering occasional encouragement in the midst of the morass of academic publishing. Sometimes I need to finish something small just to gain a sense of progress before I'm swamped by the next wave of deadlines and distractions, and if all I can do is write a three-paragraph blog post, then at least that's something. But when this is done I'll be back to work on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, trying to grasp handfuls of passing flotsam and make some sense of the floating detritus.

Love song to Lake Katharine

I really can't find the words to describe how much I love hiking at Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve, even on a day like today when there's nothing blooming, the trails are muddy, and tiny bugs keep trying to fly into my eyeball (WHY?). I've hiked there now in every season, seen deer mink geese squirrels chipmunks and all kinds of birds, learned to identify wildflowers I've never seen before, watched umbrella magnolias unfurl new leaves and then blossom and keep stretching toward the sun, sat by the waterfall and listened to wood thrushes and kingfishers and pileated woodpeckers, sashayed along the wide parts of the trails and squeezed through the single-file tight spots, fallen in mud and on rocks and alongside the creek, taken way too many photographs that utterly fail to capture the majesty of cliffs rocks caves, and developed such an urgent need to be there that I feel deprived if I'm away from those woods for too long. If I could find the right words to thoroughly describe the beauty and wonder of Lake Katharine, people would flock there from all over the place and I'd no longer have the trails to myself, so let's keep this as our little secret, okay? Just between us--my lips are sealed!

Okay, lousy photo, but it's exciting to see a wood thrush when they're so good at blending in.

Moonville and beyond

This should have been a canoeing day but my paddling partner is sick, still recovering from an upper-respiratory onslaught, and I can't lift the canoe on top of the van on my own so we decided to do something a little less taxing: a long country drive to Zaleski State Forest, where we found our way to Moonville Tunnel and Lookout Rock, two brief hikes accessible even for a semi-invalid who falls asleep every time he sits down for five minutes (a handy characteristic on this excursion as he slept through four separate road construction zones involving flagmen, heavy equipment, and diesel exhaust). 

I like going through Zaleski State Forest to canoe at Lake Hope, but also because I like the name. Growing up, I never encountered a Zelesky who was not a blood relative, and so it was exciting to come to Ohio and find a whole state forest bearing a variation of my maiden name. My people, my people! Except there were few people on the trail this morning for several possible reasons: (1) roads; (2) mud; and (3) mosquitoes.

The roads outside the state forest were a pain because of construction, but inside the forest they hardly qualified as roads at all. As I drove up a one-lane gravel-and-pothole path that snaked its way up steep hills alongside cliffs and around blind curves, I fervently wished that I'd had the foresight to buy a four-wheel drive vehicle, a desire that became even stronger when it came time to park in the mud along the lovely Raccoon Creek, where we walked through damp green overgrown woods where mosquitoes arrived in droves to welcome us to Moonville.

It was a town once, Moonville, but now the only signs that such a town every existed are the former railroad tunnel and the occasional glimpse of a vine-covered telephone pole decaying in the thick woods. Moonville Tunnel draws the ghost-tour crowd because it's rumored to be haunted, and it certainly feels uncanny to be hiking through thick woods and suddenly come face-to-face with a tunnel drilled under a hill in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason, but it makes sense when you realize that the trail is a former railroad bed. 

After a short hike we headed back to the car and drove just a half mile to Lookout Rock, but my goodness what a half mile that was! If we'd encountered a car coming the other way, one of us would have had to back up--on gravel, around curves, down a steep hill, next to a cliff above Raccoon Creek. The only place where the road was wide enough to pass was at the pull-off where we parked to climb Lookout Rock.

And there we found a whole different ecosystem: on the Moonville Trail we were surrounded by lush green dampness and overwhelming growth, but Lookout Rock took us into a sunny zone where low shrubs, lichens, and moss grew and where we saw some lovely wildflowers I could not begin to identify. We sat on the rock and looked into the canopy of an oak tree at eye level, careful to stay a safe distance from the edges.

It was not a particularly taxing excursion but, under the circumstances, it was enough. The forest roads alone constituted a white-knuckle adventure, and the constant need to swat mosquitoes gave our arms a pretty good workout, and if that doesn't merit an extra helping of homemade peach pie, nothing will.

Approaching the tunnel

Graffiti covers the inside of the tunnel

Telephone pole in the thick woods, connected to nothing

Moonville Rail Trail

A redstart, I think.

We didn't climb the sides of the tunnel because of poison ivy and mud.

Raccoon Creek.

Lookout Rock

Some sort of legume?

So many lovely mosses and lichens.

What is it?

More mystery plants.

 
 

A blow to the heart of the campus community

A few years ago I wrote about my experience team-teaching a freshman seminar course with a colleague who taught physics--and taught me new ways to approach teaching literature. "As iron sharpens iron," I concluded, "so one teacher sharpens another--and in the end, we all win."

I was  a winner because I had a rare opportunity to teach alongside someone from outside my department, a colleague who was among the most brilliant and kind people I've ever encountered. Our students won the chance to engage with challenging course material under the guidance of a professor who always pushed them to think, and think deeply, about interesting ideas. And our community has been a winner all along as my colleague sang in the annual production of Handel's Messiah, volunteered at the school where his wife teaches, or led local youngsters in learning about the physics of space travel in summer space camp.

Today, though, we're all feeling a little lost. When you get one of those e-mails from the college president with the subject line "sad news," you expect to hear about the death of some ancient emeritus faculty member or former trustee. No one expects the sudden death of a 46-year-old scholar at the height of his career, with no apparent health problems and five children at home. Suddenly there's a Cavendish-shaped hole in our community that no one knows how to fill.

Scholar, teacher, singer, father, friend: Cavendish McKay was a good man who improved the lives of everyone around him, as iron sharpens iron. I don't know any higher praise than that. He will be missed.