I always like to begin with the garden, which has been enjoying a long spate of temperate wet weather. Even now in late July, much of our lettuce is still sweet and tender, and for sure this year there’ll be a bumper crop of beans, and beans of all kinds: string beans, pole beans, Hutterites, Canellinis, chickpeas, and so on. The potato vines are going gangbusters as well, though honestly, with potatoes you never can tell. Often enough, potato vines look as though they MUST be hiding plenty of treasure below-decks but then as soon as you start to dig--“ha ha fooled you,” they say, “I’m nothing useful to you, just a vine, with hardly any potatoes at all.” Potato vines like that are like jazz without swing. Or a Bible without Job. Or a conversation without two sides. Or a civilization without soul. Truth is, I consider every potato vine a potential imposter. Never trust a potato vine.
The work of performing my newest play, Myles to Go, continues on, like a sweetly extended dream. We’ve premiered it under modest lights. We’ve let it rest a few months. And now our next two performance venues are private homes. We’ll just show up with our props, including two vintage gas cans, a kitchen broom, a fish tank, a world globe, coffee cup, and rags. We’ll place these in the performing space as though we’re minor gods planting trees of some importance to the future. Then at the appointed time the audience will be seated, and a hush will fall over them, indicating their wish to be enchanted, and our story will begin. Sometime during the performance I’ll take a moment to reflect on what I’m doing. And I’ll probably say (just to myself) something like this:
“Here’s an authentic nine-volt nomadic activity: an event that requires very few material and energy inputs, but that nevertheless provides the essence of pilgrimage and travel, which is personal change and revelation by means of interaction with the Other. In this case travel occurs by means of artistically-induced sympathy, and involves a journey for the audience into other people’s lived experience. Yet note that what we’re doing needs no crude oil. No philanthropic grants. No Federal Reserve. No electrical budget. No parking lot. In the face of economic collapse it would prove resilient. Hard times would only increase the relevance of our performance style.”
There’s a good deal of hope to be found in all these thoughts, really there is. Civilization can founder in a host of difficult ways, and yet sturdy art can still be made and performed. Though I am also aware that some people who have seen Myles to Go, would say that my philosophy of performance--imposed upon the play today, as if collapse were already somehow a fact--logically entails obscurity for my work. No floodlights? No green room? No big-name stars? Is this really what I want?
Questions, questions.
To be honest, I don’t yet know how most effectively to give the play a life beyond my hands. But, in engineering a suitable strategy, it’s instructive to ask what the final goal of such an effort might be. Take the case of wildest modern public success; take the case of a run on Broadway. Would I want to see Myles to Go on Broadway? Oddly enough, I suppose my answer is no. Broadway uses too much carbon, and my play argues for a different world; it was born for a purpose different than any that such a venue would render service to. Of this I'm sure.
All this may seem silly to others, but it doesn’t seem silly to me. In making and producing this play, I feel as though I’ve experienced the arrival of something genuine and beautiful and whole, and I’m wary of betraying the mysteries and intentions that made that arrival possible. Every muse is a jealous muse.
But enough about doubt and gingerness! The play is good, and eventually will have a life beyond my hands, of that I’m also sure. Right now, while it’s still my own and no one else’s to produce, I’ll enjoy it as much as I can, and let its future come without any worries and hyperactive cares from me. Heck, I’ve got canning to do.
Speaking of, here at Sunnyside, we’ve been canning like crazy. So far this summer we’ve put up a slew of beets, a good deal of blueberry syrup and jam, as well as bread-and-butter pickles, chutney, and dills. Come August, we’ll be elbow-deep in tomatoes, which we’ll dice and sauce till we pretty much collapse ourselves! Then it’s on to conquer the peaches, apple sauce, sauerkraut, and plums. And the dry stuff too; we’re going to dehydrate fruit this year. And the freezer too, because we’ll be freezing plenty of soups and corn as well. And I’d better stop there, or I’ll get too far ahead of myself, and make myself exhausted ahead of the fact, I mean, just thinking about all the work.
Until next week then!
HB
Fumigatio Via Dolorosa, believed by many to be the last ur-saint left in our city, was entreated (recently) by a group of enthusiastic pilgrims to share some guidance on how to live life. At first he insisted that it was impossible to truly teach wisdom, except perhaps wisdom of the musical kind; though even that, he said, could be accomplished only by means of a carefully systematized program of instruction (in both performance and appreciation) begun by pupils at an early age.
When pressed however, he admitted that the following five proverbs, still current in one of the two dialects of the city, could be said to have originated with him:
- The cartwheels of children light the sun.
- Eat when you eat, sleep when you sleep.
- The sweet ring of thought, dunked in the experience of the senses, suffices as enjoyment to the wise.
- Consign clock and cares to the dusty shelf.
- The true book of faith is a lively romance.
“A great poet, whose work I love,” (he went on to say) “once said that it was impossible to live by more than a handful of proverbs. Choose this handful, and you will live a reasonably wise life. But above all, I prescribe good music; listen (whenever you come upon it) to good music, approaching it in the spirit of poverty and loss. Music is our most elemental muse, the art most reliably expressive of the nutritive deep. So music should be the worm ahead of you, as you seek the root-tips of the Tree.”
HB
In the dining room here at Sunnyside hangs a hefty chandelier. And this morning I counted again, just to make sure: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Space for eight bulbs. Whoa! Eight? Could eight really be necessary? Or eight times more useful than one?
It's not that we're against light. We're not. We appreciate light. The place is called Sunnyside after all. It's just that...well how much light does any modest-sized dining room really need? What we're talking about here is about a hundred and fifty square feet. So what's with the gazillion lumens? Better unscrew a few. Better keep the bulb census low. Save on energy. Cultivate common sense. Nurture a sense of proportion.
So how many bulbs should it be? Seven? Six? Five? Four? Three? Two?
The answer, we find, is one. One bulb for eating by. One bulb for playing Parcheesi by. One bulb for sitting across the table and chatting by. One bulb for writing in a journal by. One bulb for seeing where the table is on your way to get a cup of water in the kitchen (so you don't stub your toe). One. Just one.
Now it's true that occasionally there are times when a little more light is called for, so say my wife needs to illuminate a sewing project spread out on the table, or say I'm practicing recorder in the dining room, and I need to see the music on the stand just a little better, well, then we might reach up and screw a second (reserve) bulb in just a little further. Voila! The necessary extra angel of light has arrived and shall proceed to bless our activities.
I can't think of a situation where three bulbs would really be necessary here in the dining room. Much less eight. Maybe an emergency appendectomy, conducted on the table top? Maybe the king of Togo dropping in for dinner? Seems unlikely though, and in the case of the king's arrival, seems to me that in terms of ambiance a few candles would be more to the point. Anyway is there even a king of Togo?
All of which brings me to a phenomenon I've been considering for some time, and that I want to articulate here: a phenomenon that I think is a pretty universal law. I'm going to call it the Law of the First Bulb.
The Law of the First Bulb states that for any given prized commodity--electric light, maple syrup, wind on a hot summer day--the shift from having none of it to having just some of it, is the sweetest change you'll ever feel on account of possessing it. Try this: eat one chocolate, then eat a second (of the same kind). Notice that the second one's good, but the first one was way better. It always is. That's because that first chocolate was the one that transferred you from a state of chocolate loneliness to a state of chocolate intercourse. Whereas the second piece just extended the enjoyment.
Some would call this the law of diminishing returns. But I find that way of putting it unnecessarily dour. After all, why concentrate on the lack of luminous oomph in extras? Why not instead lift up the wonder of the initial gift? For instance when it comes to light on demand--what a gift it is, that first and foremost bulb! Just ask a kid with a monster under his bed. Or the reader at sunset. Or the hiker, who finds herself, as darkness descends, still short of her destination. It's all there, right there in that first bulb. Enough light to get you through. To keep your spirits up. To get done what needs to get done. To enjoy that favorite activity just a little longer. To arrive in safety.
Extend the compass of the law. In what other venues may just one of a thing be exactly, beautifully, even miraculously enough? One telephone? One car? One house? One garage? One million dollars? (Really is a second million necessary!)?
“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” says Richard the Third in William Shakespeare's play. He's having a bad battle day, and needs to get away, and for that of course he needs a horse. Now, just one horse will bring him from a state of horselessness to a state of horse sufficiency. Does he need two? No, not at all. All he can profitably ride is one, and besides, two horses wouldn't fit in the iambic line. “Two horses, two horses! My kingdom for two horses! On second thought, make it eight!”
Some of this, of course, is offered tongue-in-cheek. But! Consider that at one time a great deal of thought was given to the philosophy of numbers, and that a lot of thinkers in that strain--the Pythagoreans for instance--were pretty big fans of the number one. One represents unity. Wholeness. Completion. Self-sufficiency. No surprise then that ONE of any gift might prove to be all that and then some!
HB
It was early 1977, and my family had just moved from South India with its temples and monkeys and identical black bicycles to...well, to Minneapolis, with its skyscrapers and stadiums and malls. So this was a big move. I was eight when we moved away. My brother, whose story I am telling here, was ten. And it must have been soon after our arrival that this incident occurred.
The house in which we were staying was located on 46th Ave South, and it belonged to my grandparents on my father’s side. We were borrowing it, which worked out fine, because the two of them were down in Texas for the winter so that my grandfather could play some golf. He had retired recently and wanted to play the amateur circuit. They were to be away till the late Spring.
Back then the streets of South Minneapolis were still lined with elms. The houses had canvas awnings and stucco siding, and if you went inside of them, they smelled like roast beef and potatoes. The names on the mailboxes were names like Ellingson and Starr and Tollerud and Arnold. And of course ours said Bjornstad.
The nearest heavily trafficked street (or “main drag,” as my father liked to say) lay only about six blocks away. This was Lake Street. And right across Lake stood a convenience store, a Seven Eleven. It was to this Seven Eleven that my mother sent my brother Kris, one winter afternoon.
“For dinner tonight, I need some curd,” she said, handing him some money.
Now most American readers would probably recognize the word “curd” as something out of a nursery rhyme and nothing more: “Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey.” Otherwise the word here is rare and about as meaningful as “tuffet.”
But back in India, we had used the word practically every day, because practically every day, we ate the stuff it signified. Curd, when served with curry, cooled the mouth. Plus it added protein to the diet. And when you asked for it at the dinner table, you’d say “could you please pass the curd?” and it arrived in your hands and that was that.
Had my mother forgotten that Americans said “yogurt,” instead of “curd?”
Maybe.
Was she out of her mind anyway, thinking, back in 1977, that there would be yogurt available at the Seven Eleven on Lake Street and 46th? Probably.
But in any case, my brother took her at her word that the errand was possible, and headed out to the Seven Eleven for curd. Though as he left, my mother made sure to tell him--and with some urgency--NOT to cross the street unless the pedestrian light said WALK. Was that understood? If it said DONT WALK, he was not to cross. Was that clear?
Yes he answered, of course he understood.
About thirty minutes later, having successfully crossed Lake Street on WALK, he was at the Seven Eleven, searching for curd. It was, of course, taking him some time. After all, the stuff he was searching for probably wasn’t there, and even if it had been, he was searching for it under the wrong name.
He doubled down on his efforts. He continued to search the aisles: The gum and candy aisle. The snack-cake aisle. The aisle with the batteries and the headache medicine. He also checked and re-checked the fogged-up refrigerated cases containing the ice cream in boxes and the milk in plastic jugs...
Finally the cashier asked what he was looking for.
“Curd,” said my brother.
“Curd, what’s curd?" asked the cashier. What, was the guy kidding? What was my brother supposed to say?
Well so there was nothing for it. My brother left the store, and went and stood on the corner of Lake and 46th, and waited for DONT WALK to turn to WALK. It was winter. It was cold. It was taking a long time.
It was still taking a long time...
The DONT WALK wasn’t changing...
He stood there for fifteen minutes or so, waiting for the light to change to WALK.
“But so why did that happen with the light?” I asked my brother. This was just last week when he told me this story--for what I think was the first time--some thirty-seven years after it happened.
“What do you mean?” he asked, “why did what happen with the light?”
“How come it said WALK getting to the store, but DONT WALK on the way back?”
“I have no idea.”
“And how come you didn’t just press the pedestrian request button to get the light to change?”
“Because I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Mom didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
I considered this for awhile. Then I said:
“Seems kind of existential.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m thinking, if it had been me, I would have felt as if I was getting a DONT WALK signal because I didn’t have the curd. Because I hadn’t completed the quest.”
“That’s because you take everything so personally. You take the whole universe personally.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“Of course it’s true.”
“So what happened?”
“Dad came and got me. Mom must have gotten worried.”
“Figures, she didn’t come herself.”
“She was probably still fixing the dinner.”
So my brother told me this story just this last week. And I can’t get it out of my head. And what I’ve been wondering about it is this: how was his probable emotional state, as he stood on that corner, a ten-year-old, waiting, waiting, really all that different from mine now in middle age?
I’m serious.
Here I am, forty-five years old, and over and over again these days I get the feeling that the big quest on which I was sent when I was born, is just not going all that well. Whatever I was supposed to get; whatever I was supposed to achieve; whatever I was supposed to discover before turning around and heading back home--well I just don’t have it, or I just haven’t done it. I haven’t located and purchased the curd of life. And now it’s starting to get late and what do I do? How do I go back so empty-handed to mother earth? And I wonder if maybe others around me on this planet might feel the same way. Maybe, Dear Reader, you?
“So, what are you looking for?” people ask me, in so many words.
“Well,” I say, “you know, I’m looking for the really nourishing stuff--the curds of life.” And I’m picturing the sunshine and wind and rain. The laughter of friends. My own two hands in the rich black earth. Lots of conversations with family. Campfires. Hymn-sings. The superb pleasure of sitting in a circle in the living room, just passing around someone’s new baby, and commenting on how super-cute her cheeks are, while she gurgles back and smiles.
And of course I’ve HAD that. Sure, sure I’ve experienced all that. But the point is, that I want more of it, so much more, in fact, that it sometimes feels as though I haven’t even had what I’ve had. Plus, as my brother was learning that day at the street corner, the fact is that this whole project of curd isn’t something any of us can really do on our own. Like the angels that sing in choirs “alleluia” and the bees that dance in code, in the middle of a crowd of other bees, saying “here’s the honey, here!” we’re social beings. We're dependent on others for so much of the meaning in our lives. Which means that other people’s poverty of understanding and experience is our own. Inward, outward, material, imaginative, it doesn’t matter. Other people’s poverty is our own.
But these ordinary pleasures: why, in our time, have they become so rare and undervalued? Heck, I have to admit to that I’ve undervalued them myself. I’ve allowed my impatience with people to ruin time spent with them. I’ve devalued and avoided physical labor, simply because it was physical and somehow therefore “below” me. And I believed for ever so long that the only thing wrong with my own privileged life as a citizen of the richest country on the planet was that the privilege wasn’t spread around quite yet. But time would take care of that, right? Time and science and progressive politics and maybe a smattering of the stock market and the Federal Reserve. Right? Right?
I’m working on mending my ways, but it pains me to think of how much meaning and how much real honest life I’ve missed over the years on account of my participation in the "what’s-the-curd-of-life?" lifestyle.
Time to unplug all that smart-stuff and put the i-phones in context. Time to cool it on the packaging. The pure convenience. The consumption. And really cool it. Time for life, real life. Life with the grit in the gears. Life with the grubs on the leaf. Life lived in connection with the earth. Time to encourage other people, by way of example, to do the same.
Maybe my writing here at 9-volt amounts to a kind of penance for me. A way of confessing my collusion with the forces of depletion. A way of trying to nurture the many life-sustaining connections that for so long I have so thoughtlessly lived to prevent. A way of finding and staying happy exactly where I am, and not demanding more of what really does not inwardly satisfy. A way of accepting that others really do have what I need--that I just cannot find meaning on my own. A way of begging for my curds, with a bowl of words.
So how about it? Any curds for a needy nomad? Any curds? Anyone? Any curds?
HB
