Harp Time Capsule

The low A string on my harp has broken and I need to get a replacement for it. I took the harp to a local musical instrument shop, but they didn't carry any strings and were unable to order any for me. The hunt for strings continues, and I may have to order them on-line instead of patronizing local music stores.

While I was looking inside of the harp, at the underside of the sound board where the strings are knotted in, I discovered a large slip of paper. When I pulled it out, I found the slip was really three cancelled checks from 1989.

The first check was dated May 7, made out to Here Inc. for $275.60. It was the check I wrote for my harp! I'd gone to an international folk dance festival in Minneapolis with some friends. On a long table in a hall outside of the main performance area, there was a collection of various nylon- and metal-strung NeoCeltic harps. I strummed a few, decided that the sustain on the metal-strung harps was cool but too long, and on impulse picked out my harp. 

(Cue Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero": "... he saw stars in his eyes / and the very next day / bought a gut-strung lap harp / from a funky folk store / didn't know how to play it / but he knew for sure / that one lap harp / played on the floor / was a one-way ticket / only one way to go....")

This set the stage for folk music performances; playing ritual music; Renaissance Faire busking; and moonlit desert nights in a white cotton duster, holding up my harp to the winds for an Aeolian concert.  It also set the stage for when Mark met me harping underneath the full moon during a gay men's spiritual gathering.

The second check—written in green ink—was from May 1, made out to Northfield Sports for $211.95 for my black-with-yellow-neon-highlights RollerBlades! 

In no time, I was RollerBlading backwards while juggling three koosh-balls by daylight and donning my big black-and-purple-cloak and glow-sticks and swooping around the Carleton College campus by night. There's nothing like a twilight RollerBlade humming Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre while bats flit overhead; or RollerBlading on a foggy December solstice full moon in a black cloak holding holly and a wooden skull in one's hand (and surprise gifting the holly to a corner store filled with Eugene hippies); or RollerBlading on Halloween wearing homemade cardboard owl wings and a white poet's shirt. And these were the Rollerblades I wore on a Rollerblading date through the parks of Eugene with Mark.

Sadly, the plastic boots fatigued and broke during a Halloween mishap in 2016 involving a lit pumpkin and a pile of leaves piled up against a street curb.

(Cue Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero": "...he saw stars in his eyes / and the very next day / bought some beat-up knock-offs / from a second-hand store / They weren't his old RollerBlades / but he knew for sure / that RollerBlades / laced up real tight / were a one-way ticket / into the pale moonlight....")

The third check, from July 22, written out in pink ink to Jacobson's for $33.87 records the purchase of a red-and-white polyester gingham picnic spread and napkin set, and possibly a picnic basket.

Jacobson's was a general mercantile store that sold household goods, some clothing, and possibly paper products. I'm pretty sure it had a portal to Lake Woebegone in it. This purchase involved 1) a younger, hopelessly romantic (or was that infatuated?), not-yet-out-to-himself version of myself (who wrote a lot of the kind of poetry one would expect from a self-closeted, twenty-something, hopeless romantic); 2) one of the women from Reed College that I had a huge crush on; and, 3) an airport layover where said woman-friend was flying away to start her Peace Corps mission (back when one could haul a picnic basket full of food and utensils right to a departure gate).  

This particular picnic spread and napkin set was sold to me by "Old Man Jacobson" himself, who after learning that I was looking for picnic supplies (and possibly reading the stance of a hopeless romantic heading off to one last Noble Farewell Forever), interrupted my browsing with his boney hand on my boney shoulder and the question, "Is she a classy gal?"

At least three replies—from snarky to star-crossed—flitted through my mind, but I settled on "yes."

"Then this is the package for you!" he said, and presented the red-and-white polyester gingham picnic spread and napkin set from behind his back.

"I'll... take... it," I said, and set the stage for a short picnic on the International Airport Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal concourse. Some stewardesses gave us two thumbs up as they walked past us. My friend flew out of the country, and I returned to Northfield.

I'm not sure what's happened to the spread or the basket, but some of the napkins still lurk in a linen drawer in the kitchen.

I played my harp at her wedding (in Oregon) ten years later. 

At the reception, the bride and her mother disappeared for a moment.  While the folks around our table speculated, Mark quipped, "They're having 'The Talk.' You know—'Honey, now that you're married there's something I need to tell you. They'll beg and they'll plead but you have to be firm: you need to keep separate checking accounts.'"

At this point, the bride reappeared, perturbed look on her brow and checkbook in her hand. We dissolved into laughter as she walked by.

Mark and I still keep separate checking accounts.  I'm pretty sure Mark does not keep any of his cancelled checks in any type of musical time capsule.

Dreams and Skies

The weather has been a rollercoaster this last week.  Earlier, we spent an enjoyable weekend basking in the sunny 50F weather; this last few days we've had snow and this morning it's 22F outside.  I'm not sure what the hummingbirds think about all of this as ruddy sunlight creeps into our backyard and I imagine they're in a torpor right now.  

Weird and vaguely erotic dreams this morning led to a Reed Dream.  There was a sequence in a dorm or similar student housing.  I was changing clothes?  and noticed that water from the leaking roof had made bulging trails behind the ceiling's and wall's paint/plaster.  At one point during the dream, I commented on the oddness of being a practically sixty-year-old college student, but this did not result in the dream becoming lucid, and instead there was a muddled moment wondering how I was paying for my housing if I wasn't exactly enrolled in classes.  

There's a break in my recall.  I was in a large, dark, brick hall, it may have been a library.  At one point there was a Christmas tree in the middle of the room.  Along one wall were a series of arches, stairs, and balconies.  I had an iPad, which I had been using to write.  A renaissance ensemble was singing a Mysterium (I forget the name of the piece, except that it has a boy soprano part that sometimes is sung with helium).  They were singing it straight, and a woman in a blue period dress was singing the super-high part. She was having a theatrical interaction with one or two male choir members, and I'm not recalling the plot.  

During all of this I was going to RollerBlade.  A middle-aged collegiate woman advised me I should put away my iPad, as there had been a rash of iPad thefts.  As I was putting the iPad into my canvas bag, it slipped out, dropped about two feet onto the brick/concrete floor, and cracked.  At first I thought it was just the safety case around the iPad, but it was the glass front, which fractured and offered sharp edges to my fingers.  I put the iPad back into my bag and started to strap on my RollerBlades.  Now that I'm thinking about it, these were my original black-and-neon-yellow RollerBlades.  I had difficulty getting the bindings snapped in place, as they kept crossing and doing phyics defying things only possible in a dream muddle.  I never managed to get both RollerBlades on, and only imagined gliding around the Christmas tree to the sounds of a celestial choir.

On the sky front, we had a break in the clouds and I managed to snap some photos of the Moon and Jupiter (and its moons), as well a Venus

Halloween 2021

This year's Halloween was not exactly a fulfillment of all my spooky cross-quarter hopes, dreams, wishes and desires.   There was no costumed ritual with mist and fire; there was no mystic visions or portents from Tarot cards.  There were no masks blurring boundaries between self and not-self.  

Mark and I did hike up to the top of Spencer's Butte with Aoife and had a token snack at the top -- it wasn't a dawn salutation to the sun, and I spilled hot tea on myself -- but the slanting sunlight through the clouds and river fog was picturesque.

Then it was off to Trader Joe's for party supplies.  

I had hauled the decorations from out of the attic about a week before -- this involved a lot of stooping, a head flashlight, and smacking into at least one roof beam.  

I'm thinking we need to re-arrange our front room a bit because right now it's in a COVID configuration that is too cluttered for anything but frat-house decor (this is mostly my fault, as Mark is our resident Marie Kondo) .   I am grateful that the lava lamps are out for a while, and at least this year we got the Trick-o-Treating cats out long enough to enjoy them.  

While shopping, I forgot to get Mark some Toblerone and earned the epitaph of Bad Husband.  To atone, I set out to the local Rite Aide for some Toblerone (and Almond Roca), which almost always involves standing in a line for way longer than one would imagine or wish for.  

We did have a tea party of sorts, but for various reasons -- I prepped the food too late, I was the only one into it, nobody on the very small guest list showed up -- it was particularly anemic.  Mark made some yummy cheese dollars.  I brewed a carafe of tea over a tea candle, and made cucumber savories.   I cut an apple laterally to make slices with stars at their centers.  Then I binged on Almond Roca and poured the extra tea into a thermos to save for later so I wouldn't over-caffeinate on a school-night.   

The little mini-pumpkins we bought this year had thick, hard rinds; this made it hard to carve them --  and while they came out adequately, I ended up with a broken mellon-ball spoon (a useful tool for carving eyes) and sore hands.  Eventually, they were hung on stakes in front of the house.   

The Child opted to spend all of ten seconds carving the pumpkin I'd saved for him by whacking it with a hammer to give it two dented eyes and a crack for a mouth.  

I did manage to carve a pumpkin and managed to get a Witch-King of Agmar vibe from it, so there was that.  And the jack-o-lanterns and candles were quickened with flames ignited by the focused rays of October 31st.

By five o'clock all the candles were lit, all the little treat bags Mark had decorated were ready, and the Trick-or-Treaters had yet to show up.  I figured it was time to thrown on the black and purple cloak, strap on the RollerBlades and wrist-guards, and glide up and down the street a few times.  I surprised one neighbor as I veered around a corner, and after her startled "oh!" we wished each other a Happy Halloween.

Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre played in my head as I swooped around.

It was enough.

Ides of Autumn

We've had a few days of cloudy weather, followed by a couple of nights where the temperature got down to the high 20's, and suddenly the days feel like Autumn.  Now that the sun is back, I really notice how much shadow covers the yard.  

Since it was going to be sub-freezing, I drained the fountain and took out the pump.  This made me melancholy, because now the the hummingbirds won't visit.  The first cold morning I put out a plate of water on top of the fountain's basalt column.  One of the morning hummingbirds zipped over the fountain, hovered around it, and I swear it looked over its shoulder through the glass patio door at me as if to say, "Unacceptable," and zipped over the house and away.  This is the sort of thing that makes me want to have a ritualistic re-filling of the fountain, which will probably have to wait until the March 20 Equinox.  

The second cold morning, all the zinnias durned brown; so did most of the grape leaves, which subsequently fell off of the vine and scattered along the foundation of the backyard-fort-turned-arbor.   

I suppose this will make the yard look seasonally festive this Saturday night.  In lieu of decorating the front, we've been decorating the back for a kind of private display.  I wish friends could come over in person, but with COVID-19, it's out of the question.  I suppose we'll have fun by ourselves -- Mark and The Child have decided that they'll put out Trick-or-Treat bags on a table and leave that out for anyone who wants to walk by the house.  And I still plan to RollerBlade in the full moon light.

RollerBlade Interlude

 (John RollerBlades up to Mark, who is walking back from the grocery store.)

John (reaching for a gallon bottle):  "I can take the water."

Mark:  "I've got it.  Do you want a macaroon?"

John:  "Sure."  (Takes macaroon, RollerBlades in circles around Mark.)

Mark:  "The Child called; he didn't know where you were."

John:  "He could have looked out the front window or something."

Mark (in teen voice):  "'I tried calling him, but his cell phone rang in the house--'"

John:  "He was sitting in the bathroom when I left."

Mark:   "--'I didn't know where he went; he didn't say anything.'  I told him he was being controlling and said, 'Maybe he's in the crawl space; or maybe he's checking out the water main.'"

John: (recalling Lenny and Squigy from Laverne and Shirley):  "Or maybe I was puttin' on my luv clothes."

Mark (taking in John's RollerBlades, shorts, wrist-guards, black T-shirt, and bike helmet):  "You're not getting anywhere tonight if those are your love clothes, Electra."

John (sings from the musical, "Starlight Express."):  "I am Electra / I'm a computer / (elaborate arm gesture) I am electric / the future is me // if you make me board (pirouettes on RollerBlades)  / I'll hit my keyboard / you'll be erased from my memory (pivots to a stop, brings right hand over head, points at Mark)  // AC-DC it's okay by me / I can  switch and change my frequency..."

Mark:  "Is that how it goes?"

John:  "Well, it's in the song."

Mark:  "No, I meant trains; can they really change like that?:

John (finishing macaroon):  "I don't know.  It's Starlight Express:  Cats for trains."  

Ides of Autumn Ritual

This October 31, the forecast for one-hundred-percent rain panned out; instead, it was a clear and dry night, and a half-moon rode the sky toward the west.  This called for RollerBlades.

I went into the garage and got out the bag that holds my old RollerBlades, my fingerless gloves, and my wrist guards.  My gloves have seen better days:  one of them has deteriorated so much the leather palm clings only by a few threads and is held in place because the wrist guards holds it there.  I looked around briefly for some glow-sticks, but I hadn't planned ahead.

I 'Bladed up.  First I clasped my black and purple cloak; the black has grayed.  It's easier to put the cloak on before the wrist guards, and it's easer to get the 'Blades on, too.  Then I navigated the concrete steps of our front porch and launched down the driveway.

When I RollerBlade in the darkness, I have to expand my awareness for cars and for any tricker-or-treaters who may be coming up the street.  I have to feel the pavement underneath my wheels, and be ready to shift my balance away from whatever stick or crack or gravel threatens to spill me.   And my hair trails behind me, and the moon is above me, and the shadows move with me.  Gravity is my dance partner, and there are stars, like an audience in box seats all around.

When trick-or-treaters come by, I like to lean against our dark garage door, a shadow on a shadow in my cloak, and then roll forward silently.  There's usually that moment where they're not sure:  is this a machine or a person?   Unless they're really little kids, in which case I unveil the candy first and kneel down to their level.  This year there were some adults returning from a shopping trip, so I swooped over to them, candy bowl extended, and wished them a happy Halloween.

But there weren't that many visitors, so I was back on the street, rolling between an aisle of trees in darkness, looking up at the moon, wishing that I was at a spiral dance with other cloaked RollerBladers, swooping through the night halfway between the gates of Autumn and Winter.