David's Writing

David's first term at college this last fall involved a lot of writing.  It also involved having fellow students do critiques on each others' projects.  David came home one day after class and was disappointed because he said he writing didn't 'sing.'  I read some of the stuff he had written and he was right.  It came of as cold and technical.  This last term he took a writing class that he had before, but the credits didn't transfer.  He really didn't want to take this class because he thought it would be a waste of time.  The professor met with each student individually at the beginning of the term and asked what they wanted to get out of the class.  David told her he wanted his words to 'sing.'  The following is the result of getting exactly what he wanted out of the class. The last part of it is a little more personal than I would have liked, but the piece would be incomplete without it.

The Symphony of the Slough

            We moved up to the Columbia Slough last spring.  Our 800-sq. ft. house was built as a fishing cabin in the 1920’s and the street upon which it lies—less than a mile from the I-5 Bridge—has only three houses on it.  We are sandwiched between the south bank of the Columbia and a swampy and dark section of the slough just north of Marine Drive and barely east of MLK.  But it is another world.  It describes a symphony no less rich than the paean of forests primeval; the traffic noise does not intrude but rather plays descant.

Sight

            When the sun breaks through the clouds, coruscating like the fingers of a kind and benevolent God, the tiny droplets of rain on our newly-green lawn turn it into a carpet of rainbows. And all the little birds fly up from their shelter in the trees of the slough, and down from the velvety green darkness of our neighbor’s enormous cedar tree, to roost in the bushes—bare-limbed still—that surround our feeders.  Their vibrant colors—the bright yellow and shocking black of the goldfinches, the tuxedo-formal black and white and suede of the chickadees.  The grosbeaks so embarrassed that not just their faces but their whole heads are red.  And best of all is the iridescent magenta of the Anna’s Hummingbirds—a year-round resident of the valley—that glistens in the scintillating light like the jeweled mantle of a Russian Orthodox icon in its reliquary.

Smell

A contradiction in terms: I hate mowing the lawn, but I love fresh-cut grass.  I hate the stink of my mower’s oil-guzzling old engine and I hate the roar of it that hurts my ears.  I hate the fact that—no matter how careful I am—I will kill or maim at least one frog in the process.  But once it’s done?  I love that sweet, tangy scent of fresh-mown fescue: a balm to my soul even as it is the bane of my hay-fever.  And digging in the beds to pluck those early, persnickety weeds… it’s always easier to get ‘em while they’re young.  The rich, loamy soil—a mix of ancient river-silt and hard work: it smells not of pennies but of gold.  It smells of the future: of the tomatoes, the flowers, the bush beans, that will soon thrive in its embrace.

Sound

            It was such a mild winter that a few of the frogs never bothered to hibernate at all.  Most are no larger than the ball of my thumb (and many far smaller than that), but their voices are surprisingly loud.  One amorous little fellow has staked out the space beneath our bedroom windowsill all winter long.  His mating songs project so well that I spent several evenings searching the room for him and wondering how he managed to evade our indoor-only cats.  And with our recent, warmer weather, dozens of his brothers have moved back in all around us; not content with nocturnal serenades, their croaks and chirps join the birdsong all day as well.  I especially love when their chorus acquires a percussive beat from the raindrops—the snare-drum of the vinyl porch-roof, maracas on the windows, Jamaican steel on the cars and cans in the driveway.

Taste

            The worst part of winter—harder far than the darkness, the cold, the rain—is the fact that I have neither garden nor farmer’s market available.  Still, we have quarts of tomatoes—their sweet-tart bite a reminder of past summers’ bountiful harvest in our garden.  And spiced cherry jam, whose dark decadence recalls trips to North Plains in autumns past.  Sweet corn in mason jars—with just enough salt and garlic to bring a summer’s creamed corn alive in winter’s clutch.  And my mother’s Bread and Butter Pickles: made with our own cucumbers and seasoned with mustard and dill, are summer under glass.  We are already plotting this year’s garden, but we have stowed reminders of seasons gone by in neat rows of carefully labeled time capsules by Ball Glass.

Touch

            Maybe the best thing about winter is the cold.  Russ is always so warm.  In the summer, we both tend to retreat to farthest edges of our bed to escape each other’s heat.  But when it’s cold, we cuddle.  I really think that’s the best thing about being married.  Don’t get me wrong: the sex is great: when you know your partner’s buttons you can push them or teasingly avoid them as opportunity—and depravity—presents.  But when it’s cold, that’s when the true test comes into play: are you gonna accept my iceberg ass, my Antarctic belly, into your Saturnalian heat?  And you always do.  That might be the best thing about winter: it may be too cold and dark and depressing for hot and sweaty monkey-sex, but it is just cold enough that I know I love you and you, me.