Last last night Sonsie came home, creeping from point of cover to other cover.
Hamish reported nothing on the Western Front. Perhaps the enemy was gone;
perhaps someone lay silently in ambush. All fell safely, though not early, to
sleep. We were about to lose an hour to the clock change.
We were awoken betimes by noise. Someone let his or her dog out first thing
and that dog complained at length, which disturbed the chickens, which bothered
Hamish sufficiently to risk breaking a Rule; he woofed once or twice inside the
house. “There’s something that may need your attention here,” polite as
anything. I solved the problem by taking him outside, which somehow shut the
other dog up. I put food out and let the chickens run free. The sun was up.
There was a glorious day in prospect, the first in a while. So why not?
It has turned out to be the kind of day where you sit on a garden bench and
wonder, resisting, at least for the nonce, the inner voice that lists what
needs to be done. “Be the flower," Alberti tells us in Book II of Della
pittura—or so Simon Schama tells me. I can’t manage that exactly, but I
notice the forsythia’s intense yellownesss, which was barely there a couple of
days ago. It echoes the bloom of daffodils. And how marvelous are crocuses.
I encourage those plants that are struggling up through the mulch of downed
leaves. I say farewell to those that are heading towards the great Wisley in
the sky. (Doesn’t Wisley sound like a plant heaven? It’s actually a famous
garden to the west of London, so a kind of terrestrial heaven). From the back
of the house come contented chicken noises. It’s warm enough for them to be
taking a bath.
I very aware that I have heard them without my aids in, which means that the
neighborhood is unusually quiet. No cars going by, no lunatics babbling with
phone bits dangling from their ears. Today there are no leaf blowers, no
machines for digesting tree bits, no compressors running power washers. It’s
as if some Early Spring Sprite has sprinkled fairy dust all over and everyone
has decided to sit on a bench and ignore the inner voice that lists what needs
to be done. Or maybe everyone else was woken early and they’ve all gone in for
a nap?
This week at least one chicken—Mimo probably—has been making, “I’ve laid an
egg” noises, but we haven’t found any eggs. When I tackled her on the subject
she got all huffy, explaining that her "art practice has moved towards
performative egging *on,* and a general rejection of materiality. I avoid
privileging the body.” I encouraged her to apply for grants. She said she was
too busy.
“With what?”
“We’ve developed an interest in arms control.”
“Oh yes?”
Pecorino came up, “We’d like to control your arms.”
“Because?”
Appenzeller came out from under the Juniper, “He does ask probing questions
doesn’t he?”
Mimo, “That’s gods for you.”
Appenzeller, “Shrewd.”
Pecorino, “No connection with small rodents.”
Appenzeller, “Not what I meant by ‘shrewd.’”
Pecorino, “Well why don’t you say what you mean?”
Mimo, “*I* did. We've developed an interest in arms control.”
Pecorino walked in a circle of affirmation, “We certainly have.”
Me, “What do you want? A ban on assault weapons?”
Mimo, “No idea what they are. Aren’t all weapons designed for assault?”
Me, “I believe they are. Just some of them work differently from others. Some
are semi-automatic.”
Appenzeller seemed delighted by this notion, “You mean there’s a kind of
assault where you can sit back on your perch and press a button…to get rid of
predators?”
“If you own a drone.”
Appenzeller flapped her wings, “Sign us up!”
Pecorino, “That’s the stuff to give the troops.”
Mimo, “Bugger squawking, give us drones.”
I considered cracking a joke about bagpipes being weapons of war, and drones,
but I decided it would take too much explaining. “I thought you were
interested in arms control?”
Mimo, “We are. We want to control your arms…”
Pecorino, “So you drop more food.”
E. organized a rite of Spring. Not the one a student recently told me
about—stripping off completely to circle ancient stones in Cornwall. E’s rite
involved cider. Maybe the student’s one did too? I asked her how the dance
felt.
“Cold,” she said.
Not today it wouldn’t.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
