April 8: Old Snakeskin, Alberta Clipper, Eula Biss

Yesterday I set out to catch the new season, and instead I found an old snakeskin.  I was in the sunny February woods by the quarry; the snakeskin was lying in a heap of leaves right next to an aquarium someone had thrown away.  I don't know why that someone hauled the aquarium deep into the woods to get rid of it; it had only one broken side.  The snake found it handy, I imagine; snakes like to rub against something rigid to help them out of their skins, and the broken aquarium looked like the nearest likely object.  Together the snakeskin and the aquarium made an interesting scene on the forest floor.  It looked like an exhibit at a trial--circumstantial evidence--of a wild scene, as though a snake had burst through the broken side of the aquarium, burst through his ugly old skin, and disappeared, perhaps straight up in the air, in a rush of freedom and beauty.

Dillard sets out to find spring.  She is being hopeful.  February is not always the kindest of winter months, and yet she troops out into the woods, looking for green signs.  Blades and buds and blossoms.  Instead, she finds garbage--a discarded aquarium and a snakeskin.  Nature reclaiming, making use of something alien to create something new, fresh life.

Today, hardly any snow fell in my little corner of the Upper Peninsula.  Snow fell, but not enough to shovel.  That doesn't mean I can stow away my shovels in the garage.  There are still purple blobs of winter weather sitting on the map of the U. P.  This weekend is going to be cold and white, like a Trump family reunion.

I'm not going to complain all Saturday and Sunday about gray skies and Alberta clippers (I have no idea if what we are about to experience is the result of an Alberta clipper, but I've always wanted to use "Alberta clipper" in a blog post).  You're all probably getting tired of my weather rants, anyway.  So, tomorrow I promise to write about something besides precipitation that needs to be plowed.

My daughter's friend who's a boy has been staying with us this whole week.  He has helped me shovel a few times.  He's a good kid, quiet and funny.  My daughter met him at Bible Camp in the summer.  He came last Friday, and his presence in our house always seems to be accompanied by tremendous winter storms.  I'm beginning to think that he's some kind of weird changeling snow child.

He'll be here until Sunday night.  Long enough to help me shovel a few more times.  I'm going to miss him when he leaves.  Last night, he accompanied me to a reading at the university.  The readers were Eula Biss and Jen Percy, both fantastic essayists.  He came with me alone, to "bond" with me.  After the reading I took him out for ice cream at Dairy Queen.  Yes, I went on a date with him, and I enjoyed myself quite a bit.

Plus, my daughter's friend helps me shovel.

If Saint Marty could adopt this kid, he would.

February 18: Grasshoppers, Divine Plan, Winter Weather

I had stepped into the meadow to feel the heat and catch a glimpse of the sky, but these grasshoppers demanded my attention, and became an event in themselves.  Every step I took detonated the grass.  A blast of bodies like shrapnel exploded around me; the air burst and whirred.  There were grasshoppers of all sizes, grasshoppers yellow, green, and black, short-horned, long-horned, slant-faced, bad-winged, spur-throated, cone-headed, pygmy, spotted, striped and barred.  They sprang in salvos, dropped in the air, and clung unevenly to stems and blades with their legs spread for balance, as redwings ride cattail reeds.  They clattered around my ears, they ricocheted off my calves with an instant clutch and release of tiny legs.

Dillard is constantly surprised by the natural world, whether the reflection of clouds in Tinker Creek, praying mantis cocoons, or hoards of invading grasshoppers.  In Dillard's mind, there is something sacred in the very messiness of these phenomenon.  She does not see the universe as a victim of chaotic happenstance.  There is an order (even if we, in our limited human way,) cannot see it.

Tomorrow morning, I am supposed to teach poetry to my son's second grade class.  Tonight, winter has returned to the Upper Peninsula in the form of freezing rain and snow.  Winter weather advisories are in force until early Friday.  My daughter just danced through our living room, announcing that she could hear rain slapping the kitchen window.  She is hoping that the rain will beget ice will beget snow will beget ice will beget a school cancellation.

I, on the other hand, am not thrilled with the notion of a school cancellation.  For the entire week, I have been preparing my poetry lesson.  I have my visuals done.  I have my handouts copied.  All week long, I have been showing up to work early, working late, in order to have enough time off for this classroom visit.  And now, there may not be school tomorrow.  Messiness.  Chaos.

If I were Dillard, I suppose I would be looking for some kind of divine plan in all this.  Perhaps I am being spared some kind of tragedy.  Or, maybe, I needed the extra sleep.  I am too tired to contemplate God's mind right now.  If there is school tomorrow, I will show up and teach my son and his classmates about poetry.  If there is no school tomorrow, I will go back to bed.

For the record, Saint Marty does believe in a divine plan.  Also for the record, he hates grasshoppers.

A completely unrelated cartoon . . .