Frogs and Ravens

NoNaShoStoWriMo

I've been intrigued by the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) concept for a while, but never managed to get up the energy to participate.  Partly it's the novel aspect of it - while writing isn't something that's especially hard for me, the vast, vast majority of my writing has been non-fiction.  The thought of coming up with something entirely out of my own head was freaky and daunting.  Then there's the page count - as someone who has written a book-length work (my dissertation and subsequent manuscript) I know how bloody much work it would be to meet the NaNoWriMo page count in a month - a month that includes Thanksgiving week and which corresponds with the most grading-heavy time of the semester.  Ugh, no.

Then a couple of my friends (Amanda, Jill) thought of the idea of doing something like it, only instead of writing a novel, we will write a short story, of about 7500 words.  If I'm organized, I'll post my progress here.  If I'm not, I'll post it at the end.  It will probably be crap, given my almost total noob experience writing fiction,* but hey.  Maybe it will be entertaining crap.  If nothing else, it will give me some practice in humility.

In-Spiration

The ladybugs are swarming, spraying over the walls like a cascade of red BBs fired into the sun-warmed brick.  You're supposed to get a wish if they land on you; if so my bank of wishes is now fully credited.  What shall I spend them on?  Right now, replete with the colors of fall, I feel no need to do so.  Perhaps I shall pile them up in the bole of a tree, to draw on in the dark hours of winter.

The crisp chilliness of the last weeks has given way to a lazy warmth, but there's an edge to it.  It's clear that it is but a pause before the plunge, the swooping down into winter that the shedding trees ride, naked arms raised to the sky. 

I've been running in the mornings before class, and I feel the seasons shifting around me.  My feet crackle through drying leaves and skirt soft mud; my nose takes in the smell of decaying vegetation with the air.  It's a curious dusty rot, smelling of stale herbs from the back of the spice drawer, and not the dank mouldering of spring or late summer.  I feel the sun on the tops of my feet, on my shoulders, beaming onto my hair - while the chill breeze makes my nose run and my ears burn.  Squirrels are running too, browning walnuts clutched in their jaws, tails fluffing up in anticipation of snow.

On the VFF forums there is much preoccupation with the looming promise of cold wet feet for those who wish to run outdoors, out in the world.  I am hoping that I am able to take in that experience and learn to enjoy it; would not I understand snow more when it seeps into the edges of me, caresses my toes, depresses beneath my soles, while I run, puffing out visible air and blinking flakes from my lashes? 

Or perhaps I will turn myself into a hamster on a wheel, pounding on the unvarying surface of the treadmill while my feet long for the caress of gravel and tree roots.  Deadened with music in my ears, thumping bodies on either side of me, I will turn inward, a tree drawing in its sap to prepare for spring, a beetle crawling into a crack to wait out the white world of cold.

I breathe in the world, and the world surrounds me, lifting my feet; I pat the earth with every stride, and the earth strokes the soles of my feet in return.  It is work, but life is work, and I feel alive, swirling in the leaves of fall, a bright figure dashing through the air to return to my warm brick home. 

Fly, ladybirds, fly.

September's Come

The sky was spiky with droplets of cold rain, the light flat.  A strange clarity lay over everything; buildings that one passed by without a glance on other occasions stood out, weirdly arresting.  Despite the midday hour, all was hushed, quietly full. 

The locust beans were shifting from yellow to brown, hanging in heavy curls like tiger-striped bananas, and beneath them the ground was strewn with shed leaves.  The maples have begun to turn, slowly, ineluctably, one leaf at a time.  Orange-veined scouts lie on the sidewalks, testing the journey for their still-green siblings above.

At night a storm boomed in, harsh white lights alternating with deep bass rumbles.  The air is quiet and smells of heavy rain.  In the morning, I discover that one of the tomatoes has been eaten, despite the cage, and a stalk of corn has been despoiled.  The rest remain, along with the peppers, tooth-scarred eggplants, and the lone zucchini, growing ever fatter beneath its canopy of leaves. 

Tail End of Summer

The sky has greyed and cooled.  The air hangs heavy with damp and the smell of dog food.  The clouds spit weakly, then settle back into looming sullenly, uncertainly.

Passing by the parking garage, its concrete walls undulate with the bounce of my steps, and the murmuring of pigeons tumbles down from their unseen rookeries.  Half-empty soda bottles gleam dully from their perches on stoops and walls.  Cigarette butts hunker in the sand of buckets, trying not to draw attention to themselves.  The smell of rotting fruit rises from the splattered sidewalk.  The bakery windows are empty.

Soon, school will begin.

Another Summer Sunday

It bounces off the walls of the abandoned buildings, off the display windows below.  It swings strong and sweet in air so dense it clings.  I follow this music to the end of the block, past the knitting shop, past the used clothing boutique, past the Menonite luncheon place, head tilted, eyes seeking.  The light of the  noonday sun reflects in the windows, reflects on my glasses, winking and shimmering along the broken panes and among the glittering bits in the curb.

The sound of the saxophone cuts through the humidity, the sleepy tedium of a Sunday in August, rich and pure as dripping honey.  And there, shaded by a tree, sits a man on the fire escape of the theater, playing.

I raise a hand, he nods.  A woman hears it, and smiles.  I walk on, music trailing me like heavy smoke, past two men talking, past a young man pushing a dead car, past buildings standing stoic in the sun.  The long pathway of the park stretches before me, another young man and his dog fading far ahead of me into the heated haze between arcades of cedars and pine.  The music of the saxophone player drifts in my wake, rising and falling in counterpoint to the drone of cicadas and sporadic traffic. 

I round a corner, and it thins into the heated air, is gone.

August Sunday

The shadows are black; the bright heat rises up around them.  Electric numbers proclaim: 84.  A pair of boots and shed overalls stand beside the fire truck, shining red in the sun.

Everywhere flowers are blooming and drooping.  A man cries out "beautiful" over my shoulder; sparrows hide among the wilting blooms fading from pink into lavender. 

Atop a golden tree in the bank parking top, a yellow bird sings, dodging the black crows as they crack the still air with their calls.  The wispy cries of chipping sparrows hang from the branches.  Across the asphalt, cicadas are revving up in an appropriate tree, locust beans curling down in the sun.

Above the bank, a single cloud wisps by.  The sky is hot and flat.

I walk through the deceptive oasis of the courthouse grounds, thick with shadows but none upon the walkways.  Bricks bake and shimmer.  A man is pressure-washing a sidewalk, the cool spray rising like steam.

A squirrel drapes its body along the branch, small arms hanging limp over the bark.  Wasps fly in and out of cracks in the wall, a zucchini furls its blossoms tight, and flies shine on the rough stones.

Inside it is cool, and dim, and the cat is yelling.

Michigan Observations

The waters are still and the light glowing amid shadows along the shore of Grand Traverse Bay.  Boats and ships quietly bob in their spotlights of late evening sun.

Above the blue of Lake Michigan in summer, an eagle flies past, a bulleting shape caught between blinks.

A sunset rich in oranges and pinks arises above the Manitou islands; at the tip of the north island is a patch of glowing neon pink.  Below, above, the sky and water fade into deep blue.

The beach is all but gone, diminished by a year of heavy rains.  Mucky weeds the dull green of murk swirl about our bare feet, hiding the rocks.  From a dead tree an abandoned water bottle hangs.

Campus Trail

I walk the narrow, muddy pathway, wending my way among the trees.  The foreground is an abundance of leaves and flowers, the middle a pattern of thin straight trunks against the new green of spring.  There is no distance. 

My forehead strikes a series of spiderwebs as the air condenses, a humid presence smelling of mud and honeysuckle.  I startle three white-tailed deer, brown shapes crashing through the green.

Beneath the mayapples are white flowers shaped like satellite dishes; above me are vines.

The world is green and brown, punctuated with snippets of white.

Late Spring

The semester is almost over and I am chafing at the bit, wanting to get out there with my camera and explore again.  (Stupid grading.)

The trees continue to green up as the wave of flowers ebbs, and the grass grows thick and long under the afternoon rains.  Birds have been making their nests, and the sides and medians of the roads are dotted with the swelling bodies of unlucky young squirrels and raccoons seeking new territories. 

Wanderlust is upon me, and I am stuck here with the blue books and the essays.  I am feeling irritable and ingrown, pushing against the walls of my responsibilities.  I want to shed the semester like a skin rubbed off against rough rocks and damp bark, gliding new and fresh over the muddy ground of spring.  If I look hard, I can see potential through the haze of my outgrown self.

The Clade

A new community environmental blog, The Clade, launches today.  Go check it out - there are a lot of good writers already signed up. 

(Good job, Chris!)