playing house, 1961

The playground in second grade had one shady tree. Sometimes we girls (it was an all-girls school) gathered beneath to 'play house'. We used stray branches as brooms, and swept the dusty ground until it was smooth enough to serve as the floor. We swept leaves into rows and rectangles to create the outlines for rooms in the house, and took turns being the mama, the daddy, the brother, the sister. Small piles of broken leaves filled our imaginary pots and pans, and we stirred the leaves round and round with a stick for a spoon. We brewed coffee and we cooked rice and gravy. We served it up to each other, eating and drinking and washing pretend dishes until the bell rang and it was time to go back indoors.

It is too early
too early you see
to be up on a Saturday morning
street lights still glowing
on the dark lane outside
below my bedroom window

but the hoards of mischief-makers
in the night life of the mind
are too disturbing
i must be up and going

down the steps
and to the blackness of the street
the air sweet with northerly breezes
and the fragrant promise - could it be true -
of rain. Count the blocks

to the suburban coffee shop
the 'OPEN' sign just lit
I sit
in solitary warmth
behind the pane glass window
and lift the flowered cup
to the clouded dawn

from 'The Famous Adventures of Richard Halliburton'

...We had no time to be conscious of the fact that we were four hundred miles away from the nearest spring of water, four hundred miles from the nearest human being.

Despite our long delay, with luck we might still hope to reach Gao before nightfall. But luck, this time, deserted the Flying Carpet.

The hot desert wind, which had been dead against us all day, seemed to double the force of its resistance as we left the tank behind. We were forcing our engine well above cruising speed, but the flatness below seemed to be standing still. We began to watch the desert with growing apprehension, fearful lest the sand spouts would spring forth any moment and recommence their diabolical dance.

By five o'clock we were struggling for every mile.

By seven o'clock there was still nothing but limitless Sahara in sight. The sun had gone down in flames, and a pale moon told us night was at hand.

We must land again while there was yet enough light, and resign ourselves to spending the night wherever the Flying Carpet stopped rolling.

Again on the ground, as a precautionary measure we anchored the airplane with sacks which we filled with gravel. For supper we allowed ourselves a small ration of water, and a can of beef. Then as darkness deepened, and the desert moon rose higher in the sky, we uncovered our portable phonograph brought all the way from California, and had a musicale in the middle of this still, dead world.

The full moon gave us ample light, pouring its glow over the vast rotunda that was our concert hall. Schubert himself would have been moved and subdued by the melody of his 'Serenade' spreading over the moonlit Sahara. The gentle, plaintive notes of the 'Song of India' ceased to be wearisomely familiar. They became soaring, pure harmony, true and beautiful. We felt we'd never heard this old, old song before. We played the 'Hymn to the Sun' from 'Coq d'Or'. The audacity of this clear clarion chant sent chills and fevers through our blood. Its cascade of icy notes pierced the night with sweetness and reached the stars and bade them listen to the miracle of music rising from the heart of the wilderness.


***
In the above passage from the autobigraphical 'The Famous Adventures of Richard Halliburton', the year is 1931, and Halliburton and his fellow pilot/mechanic Moye Stephens are flying across the Sahara Desert in Halliburton's plane, 'Flying Carpet', on their way to Timbuctoo. The work was first published in 1932 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company. I have the 1940 edition on loan from a public library in Austin. As with many books I have perused or checked out in the past three years, no matter what city or which bookstore, there are signs of unauthorized, at times offensive, editing in this copy, so I can't assume the authenticity of every word. But it is a beefy work, and there is plenty of narrative that enriches and expands the mind of the reader.

A book called 'Diario de Greg 3 - Esto es el colmo!' by Jeff Kinney spoke to me from the library shelf. It has a handsome green cover with a cartoon that looks as though it were torn from a lined notebook. I've never been taught Spanish - español - but I know a few words and so tried to read the first pages. I think the first chapter is about a family's new years's resolutions. It's a challenging puzzle for me to decipher, it being in Spanish and all. But there are lots of amusing sketches to keep me reading and guessing what the heck is going on.

turtle crossing the road -

A turtle was stranded in the middle of a busy highway a couple of weeks ago, looking about as though wondering, 'How did I get here?'

It was so small, and the cars and truck were so big. I don't know at what speed this turtle could travel, but the vehicles were flying by at 65 or 70 miles per hour. Turtles have these very sturdy shells that, across the thousands of years, have kept them safe from most predators. The shells make up for the fact that they don't move fast enough to outrun a fox or an owl. When trouble arrives, they tuck their heads and feet into the shell, and are about as vulnerable and unmoving as a stone. The predator leaves, and the turtle's head and feet peek out, and he or she goes on about their business.

The turtle's design comes long before the invention of trucks and highways - even the sturdy shell has little chance when up against a vehicle in motion. Cars may be the biggest threat to turtles. So when I see a turtle in the road, if there is some way I can pull over and carry it the rest of the way across, I do.

On this particular day, it was challenging. By the time I parked and walked back, the turtle was in a center turn lane, head, feet and tail no longer visible. A minute or two passed before there was a break in the traffic. I walked into the middle of the road, picked up the turtle and briskly walked back.

Part of the shell near the turtle's tail was badly crushed. Water and a bit of blood drained from the shell as I carried the turtle but I could feel it was alive. Because the damage was a relatively small area, I think it's likely that it could heal.

There was no creek bed or safe natural area apparent near where I found the turle. The wildlife rescue center I called could offer no help. So I found a quiet spot in a park in town with a bit of pond and some tall, woodsy trees, a half acre that smelled like wilderness of the past.

I've thought about the turtle once or twice since I left it. Maybe a kid took him home for a pet. Maybe the turtle found another turtle or two living nearby. Maybe the turtle will thrive and grow and still be in that bit of woods four hundred years from now.

hiking in the city -

Living in a city, it's easy to become focused on all that concrete and asphalt around you. Streets and freeways and colossal cloverleafs and parking lots and multi-storied garages - they are all a vital part of getting from here to there within motorized vehicles - and you have to watch where you're going. This morning, I was lucky, handed the opportunity to focus on other aspects of life on earth. I got into my car, and turned the key and all was silent. The battery was dead.

So, I hiked to and from my destinations. The best part of this slowed experience of morning was that which was wild, striding along one of those natural areas somehow tucked along the sides of the road and in corners of a city, just past the noise and vehicle activity. The grasses were tall - they whispered and nodded now and then to one another. Wildflowers - lantana and a variety of silver-leafed nightshade - were tucked near the scrubby shrubs.  The breeze was mild, and fragrant were the clusters of yellow blooms on tree branches above me. Then I was past it, crossing multi-laned streets again and pausing on the concrete islands between the rivers of cars.

Later, I came upon a mom and four young kids out for a stroll along the front yards of a row of houses. With that brief encounter came another entry into realness, that which is timeless and reaches across continents. This may sound a little exaggerated for a moment with a mother and children walking in the sunshine and the shadow of trees. But I've been in the car a lot of late - in the world of stoplights and heated pavement, horns and brakes and truck engines in neutral waiting to exit a parking lot into the flow of traffic. This morning there was another true world that thrives at the pace of a youngster's meandering.

Perhaps you could call it art. For certain it was a fad. For a couple of decades - the nineteen sixties and seventies - it was not uncommon to find in a home a bowl of plastic fruit. Often the bowl was of good quality - perhaps of polished wood and filled with realistic plastic bananas and apples. Grapes dangled over the rim of the bowl in an appealing way. Occasionally, you might find an orange or a plum. As a kid, I was fascinated. The plastic reproductions were usually quite authentic looking - not cartoonish - and pleasing to hold. 

Perhaps their popularity was practical - unlike with a decorative bowl of fresh fruit, there was no worry about spoilage. Though not edible, they still brought to mind the comfort of food, sunny fields, productive vines and trees. 

Plastic was still relatively new in the home - intrigue with something different and rather impressive could have led to an impulse purchase. Or perhaps it was just the in thing to do - we're in with the in crowd - we have a bowl of plastic fruit.

I feel a little bad about making fun. There was something reassuring to visit friends and discover the bowl of fruit on a counter, or in the center of a dining room table, an icon, gleaming and unchanging.

**
Glad to be back after a two-week hiatus from this blog - whale's breath. Buried within greater Austin, Texas - I finally found a place to live. The process of moving took time and the blog was set aside for a spell.

linda