The Last Day of Class

One thing I love about academia is that every once in awhile, you get to start over. This builds in an element of optimism and refreshment that is simply not replicable in any other profession that I know of.

I loved my spring semester students: they were grownups, grad students who did what I asked and more. They were wonderful writers, deep readers, critical thinkers. They were talkative and funny and they seemed to bond with each other. I can't believe I get paid for this -- they were great. The class, called "Green Ink: Writing the Earth" took them into substantial considerations of their own memories and relationship with nature, and they read classic essays by Emerson, Thoreau, Fritjof Capra, Wendell Berry, William Cronon, Barry Lopez, Lame Deer, Joy Williams, Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, Edward Abbey, Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula LeGuin, and many others. They attended and critiqued a conference featuring Whole Communities founder Peter Forbes, whom they found pleasant enough but unsatisfyingly general. They met Michigan poets Keith Taylor, Alison Swan and Terry Wooten. They remembered and examined many experiences with their changing worlds: a lake losing its water in Northern Michigan, a run-in with zebra mussels, a patio that became the focal point of a dying marriage...they were heroic in their writing.

And after class tonight, I stopped by East Village Magazine and had a couple of fingers of Irish with my friend Gary. Two days before the Summer Solstice, the sun took its time setting over our really beautiful blue collar town. I'm very fond of this old burg tonight. Now it's time to gear up for the big shift to the City of Angels.

Birdie 911: Behaving Like a Human

So, taking out trash I came upon a little bird sitting on the walk. Just sitting there, making hoarse little chirps. You know there's something wrong when a little bird doesn't move. I went immediately into "high-voice" koo-kooka-choo, Hey little birdie, where's your mommie? etc. etc. and still the little critter didn't budge, except for a little hop and then another, though his little bright eyes looked terrified. I saw no blood and his wings, folded around fledgling fluff, appeared fully formed. I deposited my bag on the curb and when I turned around, baby birdie was still there, a little puffball, black and white, a nuthatch I think. I bent down slowly so as not to alarm him and just as I did, a big UGLY yellow cat with a half a tail -- one of the feline thugs of the neighborhood -- slithered out from behind my house.

I stood up and hollered, "Don't even THINK about it!" He sneered but moved his evil boniness off behind the garage.

I suspect there was a narrative arc, as we say in the writing biz, in process, but non-human animals don't engage in spoken word to fill the gaps. They don't give a damn about audience, purpose or any other rhetorical niceties. It's all show-not-tell -- they just want to eat. But I didn't want Thug Kat (K seems to suit him more than C) to have this particular baby for dinner right in front of me. I wasn't in the mood.

I went back to the house for a handful of thistle seed and a soft black towel. The birdie didn't go for the seed, but he seemed quite comforted by the towel, and let me pick him up gently and move him to the back of the house, where I thought I'd hide him in some shrubs. At first he didn't like that idea and climbed up my arm. As much as I felt impelled to do an Albert Schweitzer I didn't like the idea of a wild bird climbing up my body, so I nudged him down, reining in my cognitive dissonance, and got him to step off the towel into a branch of the overgrown privet. He seemed at home there and let out a bunch of little mommy calls. Unfortunately I didn't hear a response, though it's common to hear repeated nuthatch spondees on the trunks of old spruce and maple around here.

My neighbor's grown daughter Amy came running out because I'd left the front door open. She wondered what was going on. There've been a bunch of breakins on our street and I think she worried my open door signaled one in progress. It's good having neighbors who care.

No, I told her, only a poor little birdie, maybe fallen from the nest. But by the way, that piece of rhubarb pie you gave me Sunday was fabulous -- still warm, and a flaky crust! She wanted to see the birdie and we located it, up a few more branches. Nuthatch, she confirmed. Big enough to defend himself I think, Amy said. After rhubarb pleasantries, standing around peering into the shrub, we left the birdie there.

What's a person to do? There's no safe place: cats, I know, climb trees. I suspect I held off the cycle of life for only a brief interval. Did I help? I suspect I only helped myself, salving a moment of reflex compassion. On the other hand, I was a human animal, doing what I do, just like Thug Kat doing what he does. It's interesting the universe accommodates both leanings.

Mary Helen Blew Me Kisses

Sunday report: At 9 a.m., I rolled out of bed. I pulled on my "Minot Beavers" sweatshirt and old black pants, carefully backed the Honda down the driveway (always an accomplishment when I've just waked up), and cruised down Court. I timed myself just right: there was a train drumming along the tracks between Dort and Averill, but the last car slid by when I was a half block away. (I wish I could say it was a caboose because I love that word, but...it was an ordinary greasy black oilcan. Well, there, I've said caboose anyway) The arms went up just as I got there, so I actually didn't have to brake. And then I got cafes mocha and NYTimes for my next door neighbor Mary Helen and me, enjoying the old Neil Young tunes they were playing. When I got home, I went through Mary Helen's back gate as I always do and I could see her up, padding around the kitchen in her PJs.

I love Mary Helen. Soon after I moved in and my first New Yorker arrived in the mailbox, my mail carrier casually said one day, "Did you know both you and your next door neighbor get the New Yorker?" I don't know if that's legal to say, but I appreciated it. We started comparing notes over the back fence. One glorious Sunday morning that first summer, we caught each other goofing off in our respective backyards. She called over,

Some keep Sunday going to church
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a throne.

Any lapsed preacher's daughter worth her salt knows that Emily Dickinson poem well, and I couldn't believe I had the great luck to have a neighbor who would quote ED over the back fence. I'm terrible at memorizing poems, but I ran inside and pulled the rest of it up on Google and gave it to her on a notecard:

Some keep Sabbath in surplice,
I just wear my wings
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.

God preaches, a noted clergyman,
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of going to heaven at last
I'm going all along.

Anyway, usually, especially in winter, I never go in when I drop off her paper -- just leave the decaf mocha and paper on the table in her sunroom, her two little doggies Nannie and Zooey barking exuberantly. They know me, which is nice. From the kitchen window, Mary Helen blew me kisses. It was raining, and I like that, too. The air smelled great. It was a heavenly Sunday.