Sharks and Sundry

We announced that we would go to the beach for spring break. There were squeals and shrieks and general loud cheers of excitement. And then there was Phoenix, bringing down the hammer. Making me regret those years of Wild Kratts cartoons even though I really love the Kratt Bros. I mean, at least he has some facts to go with his fears. In my day, I just had fear and the Jaws soundtrack in my head.
But as with every Phoenix Moment, there is no actual conversation or reply necessary - he performs the running commentary and Q&A and ignores any of our attempts to correct his science.

"Whoa. There will be sharks in that water. Can the sharks come up to the shore? I know they can come to the shore. Maybe only the baby sharks, since it's shallow. How many sharks are harmless? And how many have sharp teeth? Will there be whales on this beach? Water snakes? What IS an eel, exactly? And how far away is the deep part? We're gonna die there. We will go in that water and get eaten by a shark. I am not going near that water. Will the sharks be able to jump over into the pool? Maybe just a small one will. Like, just to check it out. I'm gonna want you to hold me in the water. Even in the pool. I won't be using a float or anything you will be right with me."

Like rainwater down a drain spout, we just let him chatter. And then finally I have had enough and it's my turn to chatter, and I'm louder.

"We will go there and we will enjoy being away, and seeing the beautiful water and the warm sand and the sparkly pool and we will just feel how nice it is to be AT THE BEACH. And I am not worried for one minute about sharks because I am 39 years old and I grew up an hour from the ocean and I have never seen a shark any bigger than my arm, swimming free in the water. And PLEASE stop saying that we will die because that is just wrong."

But I am not a negotiator, or I would know by now to Never Engage. Because he will take a twist, and the conversation will suddenly step into the heart of existentialism.

He replies, eyebrows raised:

"I can say we're going to die, because we will die sometime. Everything dies. Everything. Like that little mole in the backyard or Pop-pop or Mamaw. Well, that's great. We're dying. Sometimes it might be a shark or a snakebite. There ARE snakes in the woods, and they will bite you. I don't know why everybody has to get all mad at me and be mean."

So we're going to the beach! Hoopla!
It's gonna be great.

Menagerie in the Yard

This morning the small inhabitants of my home accosted me, with accusatory demands for a mouse.
Not just any mouse, but the Four Dollar Mouse. (Which makes it even more of dreadful of me to say no.) This Four Dollar Mouse is talked about in wistful tones, and the low, low cost meant to dig the knife in deeper. Like, "You will buy us a FIVE dollar pizza, but not a FOUR dollar darling, living creature to have and to hold??"

I tell them we have a house full of predators: cats, dogs and Phoenix, who is certainly part raptor and whether I mean raptor as in bird of prey, or as in velociraptor, I am not sure. Distract and divert, that's my game. Bring up the thrilling chase of a predator! The poor cowering mouse, alone in a house of meat-eaters!

It doesn't work.
It's my parents' fault.

The next part of the accusatory demands go like this: "Yeah, well tell us what animals YOU had growing up." And here goes the litany, rather than the lies, lies, lies I should spill out of my mouth.
("None! We had no pets. Only books and dustballs. And the occasional bat.")
I shouldn't blame Mom, I know she was a victim of the menagerie that our house became.
My Dad could not say no, and since he is no longer here to argue, he is getting thrown under the bus. I feel certain that if I had pressed him hard enough, he would have found a unicorn and tethered it with starlight in the backyard.

But in the absence of unicorns, he sure did deliver: A breeding pair of German Shepherds, and dozens of wonderful puppies for years; a pony named Spanky, handily delivered in the back of a pick-up truck; a smelly goat named Thomas; inside kitties and outside kitties; colorful finches in a cage on the stairway; an Appaloosa horse named Liz; white geese, farm chickens, Bantam chickens, ducks, goldfish, and a terrarium of lizards captured from the yard. And water turtles from the river. And a Cairn terrier named Sidney, who was an inveterate leg-humper. I have the nagging feeling I'm forgetting some.
And I can't deny, my brood is right - it was a perfect pet-ridden childhood.
But I'm still not buying a Four Dollar Mouse.

The Tree and the Thoughts It Brings

I'm captivated by this towering, old tree a few steps into the woods in our backyard. Interested in such a way that I walk to the back window several times a day to look at it. I step out onto the deck and shift sideways, looking for the perfect view of it, with the hill rising at its base. I think about designing our backyard, and benches come to mind. Ornate, lovely benches to sit alongside of it, and complement the graceful lines of that tree.

It's got a little magic to it. Feels like anything that has been around that long must have a secret.

I trimmed branches and brambles in a path through the woods, intending to wind up at the tree. I know that if I sit under it, I will think strong thoughts and imagine fantastical things.

I remember at 14 I would lay in the tall, soft grass underneath a willow and write, and think and watch clouds. That was when I started with poetry, and would draw pages full of word-association bubbles, with spindles to connect the ideas. That was when I let the words run through me and out my fingertips for the first time. That was a magic of itself, like letting An Other take over and say things you didn't even know you had inside.

It still feels that way, when it steals me over, and I feel that I have to get away quickly and let it flood in. That the connections have to be made and put down when I'm tapped into that moment. Right? You sense the stream passing by and through, the stream of the poem or the scene or the beginning of something. And you just have to let it pour on through.