August 2: Generosity of Spirit, Triffids, Horror Movies

John Cowper Powys said, "We have no reason for denying to the world of plants a certain slow, dim, vague, large, leisurely semi-consciousness." He may not be right, but I like his adjectives.  The batch of bluets in the grass may not be long on brains, but it might be, at least in a very small way, awake.  The trees especially seem to bespeak a generosity of spirit.  I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany.  We know nothing for certain, but we seem to see that the world turns upon growing, grows toward growing, and growing green and clean.

Plants with semi-consciousness.  Dillard even grants the bluets and trees spirit and generosity.  What are the trees giving away?  Oxygen, maybe.  Green shade in the dog days of August, where there's no wind and the sun is punishing.  Certainly, in those conditions, shade seems like generosity.  But sentient plant life?

As a kid, I loved science fiction and horror movies.  One of my favorites was called The Day of the Triffids.  It entailed a meteor shower, the blinding of the human race, and six-foot-tall plants hell bent on eating people and animals.  It was every kid's nightmare--killer vegetables.  I have never been a fan of broccoli or brussells sprouts, and this movie proved how dangerous they actually were.

Of course, now that I am an adult, I have grown accustomed to greenery.  While I don't sit down and eat salad on a regular basis, I do like a good stir fry every now and then.  I can choke down baby carrots and, in a pinch, celery slathered thickly with peanut butter.  However, my consumption of vegetables is purely for self preservation.  I want to eat them before they eat me. 

I know that the possibility of a meteor shower turning the produce section at Walmart into a triffid war zone is not very realistic.  However, the word "triffid" has now become a colloquialism for large, menacing-looking plants.  Any large, menacing-looking plants.  I used to have thistles growing in front of my house.  Big, purple flower balls with menacing leaves that attracted all manner of stinging insects--wasps and bees and yellow jackets.  They were my triffids.

Why am I telling you all this?  I don't know.  I was flipping through my copy of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and happened upon the above passage.  It, in turn, reminded me of the low-budget horror movie from my childhood, which made me think of brussels sprouts, which dug up memories of those damn thistles.  Triffids, triffids everywhere.

That's Saint Marty's wisdom for this evening:  vegetables will kill you, given the chance.

Don't feed the plants!

July 27: More Chomped, Wasps, Ran Like Hell

Anything can happen in any direction; the world is more chomped than I'd dreamed. 

Dillard learns that nature is dangerous during Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  There's beauty in nature--waterfalls and cocoons and exaltations of larks.  There's also pain and death--rattlesnakes and floods and thunderstorms.  Dillard wasn't expecting to find so much peril in all the wonder.

Tonight, my son and I discovered a wasp nest.  Actually, it was more like a wasp condominium complex clinging to a shed in my parents' backyard.  Fat angry tenants buzzing in and out.  We stood and watched the show from a distance.

I kept telling my son, "Not too close, not too close."  I explained to him that wasps were sort of like rattlesnakes.  "There's venom in their stingers," I said.  My son nodded and took a step back.

The shed is made of corrugated metal.  It's been standing on the same patch of cement since I was a kid.  The wasps kept charging in and out of the nest.  I wanted to show my son something amazing.  Something he wouldn't forget.  I pulled him away from the shed.

"Watch this," I said.

I walked forward, got within a couple feet of the nest.  I reached up, made a fist, slammed it against the metal wall of the shed several times, and ran.

The wasps boiled out of the nest in an fevered cloud.  I could hear them buzzing like an overheated vacuum cleaner.  My son watched with eyes as big as fists.  They flooded and swarmed around their gray paper hideout.  It wasn't a beautiful sight, but it was impressive.  Like a forest fire or a sleeping grizzly.  There was the danger and wonder.

Eventually, one of the wasps came diving toward us, and my son screamed like a girl and ran like hell.  I wasn't far behind him.  When I was a kid, I fell into a nest of yellow jackets.  Got stung over twenty times.  I remember feeling like I was on fire.

Before my son fell asleep tonight, I said to him, "Stay away from those wasps, okay?"  He nodded and patted my cheek.  I watched him drift into deep, sleeping breaths.

Saint Marty knows that nature can be beautiful and dangerous.  Saint Marty's son knows it, too.  There are rainbows and wasps everywhere.