I don’t often read to Mimo, but we’d had croissants for breakfast and she was
delighted by the crumbs. The sun was out and the world was generally right.
Yesterday evening we enjoyed a play about correspondence between Robert Lowell
and Elizabeth Bishop. At the start they announced that in April the same venue
would host a play by David Ritchie, “The Bird and Baggage.” That’s the stuff
to give the troops! And then here was Christopher Walken explaining why he
doesn’t like punctuation (which was offered as an explanation of his unusual
line readings) and Olga Tokarczuk on, “What moves you most in a book?”
“Mimo, listen to this.”
“Whaaaaaat?”
“Nobel laureate.”
“Whaaaaaat?”
“Big cheese, speaking about writing.”
“Odd thing for cheese to do.”
“Here goes, ‘…literature is its own republic where people can live and work
together and, maybe more than anything, communicate perfectly—in depth,
empathetically, morally, intellectually and in a revolutionary spirit.
Sometimes a knowing glance and a single phrase will suffice for that perfect
communication. The constitution is made up of passages from great books, and
the history of the republic is also the history of literature, all the classics
and all the literary eras that preceded ours. The present day is a wild jumble
of voices, all very different from one another, yet often unintentionally
similar. Here trends prevail, sides are taken, elections occur in the form of
literary prizes and best-seller lists. There is also an opposition, and even
an underground. The strange thing is that fictional characters live alongside
the citizens of this republic, where they have equal rights.”
“Pefect communication sounds nice. But do they have crumbs?”
My mind has been in a kind of wrestling mode, thinking about the end of an
essay. Feverish almost, very Rupert Brooke in Berlin, or wherever it was that
he wrote about yearning for Grantchester and the contrast between the present
and his memories of honey and tea. I found myself singing to myself about
childhood in church, repeating the finish of a hymn, four words slowing, “To be
a pil-grim!” Mimo came running.
“Fear not,” I said, “it’s just a hymn.”
“I’m a her. But what was the song? Sounds like someone died.”
“That’s hymns for you. Dirges, some of them. Pilgrim means stranger or
foreigner, at origin. Did you know?”
Sometimes I begin conversations in the manner of nineteenth century explorers,
or someone trying to start a fire with wet wood, in full knowledge that I’ll
likely fail to communicate. I go ahead simply because the words are stored up.
Earlier in the week Mimo was enjoying the sun, of which we’ve had if not a
sufficiency at least a fair share this week, along with an east wind, which
means that warming was limited.
“Bacon fine?”
She nodded, “Very satisfactory.”
When I give the dog bacon fat on his kibble, I sometimes reserve a sliver for
the chicken, who is not going to die of clogged arteries.
“Would you say,” I said, stepping into terra wotsita, that it’s possibly to be
‘vaguely Wodehousian’? Those two words together showed up in my morning
reading and somehow they bother me. I mean, if we revere anything about
Wodehouse it’s how well he captures eccentricity. My sister thinks I’m a
little eccentric so maybe one *can* be a little like someone who captures small
eccentricity?”
“About the dog.”
“What about the dog?”
“He’s taken to sniffing the fort. A fort doesn’t need to be sniffed.”
“It does if rats are burrowing in, trying to eat your leftovers.”
“What? And what is your proposed solution?”
“Pee.”
“Whaaaaaat?”
“Why not?”
“Why not indeed.”
“The cats missed their box again, so I lifted out the plastic and carefully
poured what I’d trapped into the rats’ hole. That should give them plenty to
think about. Unfortunately it means extra dog sniffing from time to time.”
“Absolutely.”
“Well-defended, I am. Like the eighteenth green.”
Even I thought the reference eccentric. Possibly Dido has been feeding Mimo
descriptions of celestial golf?
How does one talk to a chicken about insurance? I get the original concept:
ship went sailing over the horizon, possibly never to return, so someone
offered to evaluate that risk and, for a sum, hedge it. Simple enough idea,
based on probability and human fears. A month or so ago we switched our home
insurance, paid with a credit card, crossed another task off the list. Then
came the inspector’s report. We had tree debris on our roof, which could
invalidate coverage. Well Yes! We do. It’s a metal roof and we have trees
and storms and seasons. The question I’d have thought an insurance person
might consider is this: which is preferable—someone falling off a wet roof, or
a little debris remaining where it is until everything dries out? The
inspector did not stop at this point: in their assessment, our house had
somehow shrunk both in number of stories and square feet. I dismissed the
whole thing as eccentricity of the modern world until there was mail saying we
owed them an extra twenty dollars. Plus ten dollars of late fee.
After about an hour on the phone with an agent, I stepped out to decompress.
Mimo, “How did it go?”
“They decided they owed me a refund of two hundred dollars, minus the thirty
dollars extra, including the late fee.”
“Wait, what?”
“Don’t strain your brain, it’s insurance people doing math. Stands the Church
clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?”
“Whaaaaat?”
“That’s Rupert Brooke, in feverish mood.”
“Who?”
“A man in the Republic of Literature.”
“I thought you said he was in gibberish woad?”
“Superbowl this afternoon.”
“Filled with crumbs?”
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
