September 10: Locusts, Down's Syndrome, Complex Innocence

In 1921 a Russian naturalist named Uvarov solved the mystery.  Locusts are grasshoppers:  they are the same animal.  Swarms of locusts are ordinary grasshoppers gone berserk.

Grasshoppers gone berserk.  Creatures transformed through drought or other natural calamity into something dangerous.  Great hordes of locusts swarming over farmland and field, pillaging and marauding like shoppers on Black Friday, leaving behind shreds and stalks.  Nature can be cruel.  Locusts and tornadoes, tsunamis and earthquakes.

I have a sister with Down's syndrome.  All my life, she was a loving presence.  Everybody loved her.  When I was in high school, the members of the football team loved her.  I never went to a game, whether it was homecoming or playoffs.  My classmates came to my house, picked up my sister, and brought her to the football games.  Like I said, everybody loved her.

As people with Down's syndrome get older, they can sometimes change.  Alzheimer's disease and dementia are fairly common.  There's a genetic link between Down's and Alzheimer's.  Over the last few years, my sister has become a different person.  She asks the same questions over and over.  Although she's always been stubborn, she was never mean about it.  Now, she will become downright physical if things don't go her way.  She's punched me on more than one occasion.

I'm not sure if that means that my sister is developing Alzheimer's.  She's certainly not the girl who went to high school football games with my friends.  It makes me a little sad.  Sometimes she's the sister I remember from my childhood, but, more and more often, she's belligerent and downright mean. 

People who are not around her on a daily basis don't recognize how different she is.  In small doses, she is still sweet and funny, hugging everybody, saying, "You know, I love you."  To those closest to her, however, she is just not the same.  Of course, I know she's still the sister who I grew up with, but I miss the simple innocence.  Her innocence now is more complex.

I love my sister.  It's tough to see her aging and changing.

Saint Marty prefers the grasshopper.

I just needed a good laugh . . .

August 27: Grasshopper, Transformation, School Clothes Shopping

A large gray-green grasshopper hit with a clack on my shirt, and stood on my shoulder, panting.  "Boo," I said, and it clattered off.  It landed on a grass head several yards away.  The grass bucked and sprang from the impact like a bronc, and the grasshopper rode it down.  When the movement ceased, I couldn't see the grasshopper.

This little passage is all part of a larger section of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in which Dillard discusses grasshoppers and locusts and transformation.  Summer is coming to an end, and the landscape is changing.  The hot August days are giving way to the cool of September.  The world is transforming, like grasshoppers whipped into a locust frenzy.

Summer in the Upper Peninsula is winding down.  Next weekend, it's Labor Day, sort of the unofficial end of the summer season.  In the United States, it's one last time to go camping or travel or grill hamburgers and hot dogs before the festivities of autumn begin in earnest--school and Friday night football and, for me, teaching.  It really is a time of transformation.

My brother took my son on a fishing trip.  Picked him up yesterday and will return him on Sunday, much dirtier and happier.  This afternoon, I will be taking my daughter school clothes shopping, if I can get past the eye rolling and sighing.  She will complain because I am forcing her to alter her plans, which probably entailed squirreling herself away in her bedroom with her new phone.  However, eventually, she will enjoy herself.  Or I will drop her off at a homeless shelter.

I find this time of the year a little disorienting.  Half the people I know are still in summer mode, and the other half have already slipped into fall  mode.  We all have our feet in two seasons, not willing to let go of one, not willing to step into the other.  We are half-grasshopper and half-locust.

Me?  I think I'm coming down with a cold.  My throat is a little scratchy,  Hurts to swallow some things.  Of course, it could be allergies, as well.  I have never really suffered from seasonal allergies that much, but I have to admit that I'm getting older.  My body may be going through a little transformation of its own.  Or it might just be a coming-of-autumn cold.

Stay tuned.  Saint Marty may be growing wings and antenna.