Erin Go Bragh[less]!

I'm not a whit Irish, in spite of the red hair. Still, any day celebrated with parades, singing, dancing, and green beer is my kinda holiday. To kick things off, look up Saint Dymphna for a lesser known bit of Irish history. And here's my poetic tribute to to the wee lass, a little opening prayer for the day and for whatever compassion we can muster for one another...

ST. DYMPHNA

            patron of the mentally ill

In fitful dreams I find you shivering

in rowan and ferns along the Blackwater

river, wreathed in St. John’s wort

& anointed with yellow-rattle,

half-starved and wrapped in a celtar

cinched at the waist with an oak rosary,

humming strains of your mother’s brief

lullaby. But your father was a chieftain

and knew the magic, found you anyway.

Grief or madness drove him to finger

your small bones for signs of her

in the curve of your emerging breasts,

the winged cup of your pelvis, your

silky down, and you a fugitive

child with courage enough to keep locked

that garden gate, though he found you

again, sealed the gate forever. Forsaken

daughter, in my own trembling delusion

I am your Síle na Gigh, we offer up

a novena to our Mother and for nine days

I give you this blessing too—my stone lap

cushioned with heather & moss, pillow

for your bruised and worried brow.

(Amen.)

Bee Wear...Be Ware...Beware!

It's the Ides of March, and it's been in the 70's here in South Dakota the past few days. The crocus, daylillies, and chives are coming up, the robins and redwing blackbirds are back, my grass greened practically overnight, and I saw my first cardinal today. But this ultra-spring weather isn't fooling me. Prairie people know better than to rip the Mortite putty off the windows too soon. So here's my annual cautionary "Ides of March" poem, lest we get too lax...

THE IDES OF MARCH

The seer was right to warn us,

beware the ides of March.

It's a dangerous time, peering

through iced windows at the jeweled

tease of crocus and daffodil.

We've weathered another season

of deep-freeze, locked up tight

in muscle and mind. We're tired

of winter's grey and gritty leftovers.

But this is no time to get careless,

toss a floorboard heater through

the beveled glass and go out,

where Spring flashes her flannel petticoat

embroidered in pinks and greens,

leaves us gaping, breathless,

in air still cold as a knife blade,

stripping off the down.

A Young Pea's Fancy Turns to Love

It’s EXACTLY like Tennyson said here on the Row: In the Spring a young peacock's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Our pea-flock is holding steady at 13. The pea-massacre stopped (after some critter or critters took 16 birds since last fall), and I think I know why. A few weeks ago, someone nearby shot a doe. She ran into our shelterbelt to die, which makes me sad (thank the Universe I didn’t know right away, or you can bet I’d have been out there with gauze, a pillow, Polysporin, tweezers, a canteen and my surgical suture kit). But it was also a prairie kindness. Over the next couple of weeks, we watched the deer carcass disappear bit by bit. It had been dragged from the grass onto the trail, then ten feet down the trail, then another few feet into the tall grass—kinda made us think our critter may have been coyotes (plural), to drag a full-grown doe that far. Anyway, there’s hardly a sign she was ever here, except for a few bones and tufts of whitetail fur. We think this deer distracted and fed the varmints that had previously been feasting on peacocks.

So the peas are fattening up at their all-you-can-eat corn & cat food buffet, and they’re up to their spring tricks. Our yard is not unlike a giant singles bar. We have 4 breeding males (the ones with the long train feathers) divvying up the peadom into quadrants. They occasionally pick fights. Or they chase each other in circles around a tree, pump, pergola, car, etc., then face off for mid-air sparring with shivs...er...bony spurs on their legs. The hens hang back, look bored, fluff their feathers, pick lightly at the snacks, and compare notes on whether the size of a train really matters.

The boys are also doing that amazing peacock mating dance, often just outside our back door on the patio. They raise their trains and spread the feathers, vibrate their train, tail and wing feathers, bow their heads, and high-step…backwards. You can see Francoise doing his dance here, and at the very end of the vid, you can hear the fluttery feather vibrations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31yGZUszW5o). And, of course, the peacocks have all started doing that voodoo they do so well, the infamous mating cry that sounds like an old woman yelling, “HELP! HELP!”

The hens are wearing their “I could care less what you think” brown & buff. If a careless hen wanders too near a displaying male—maybe she’s on her way to the bathroom to check her beakstick—he’ll charge her, madly honking, with his train fully spread & quaking...much like the 20-something guys I’ve seen at our Little Town watering hole. Even our youngest male, with no long train feathers at all, will raise up his tail feathers and strut, while the girls at the birdbath roll their eyes and giggle.

At this point, the hens are smart enough to know that the weather is still too unstable to head out to nest in the tall grass—still too much danger of another heavy snow or a hard freeze. But soon, probably very soon, even their fancies will turn…

Lifting the Winter Veil

In spite of mostly mild weather and little snow, it’s been a long winter on the Row. Heart attacks, ditch adventures, crazy scheduling, and more work than I can shake a stick at (though shaking a stick at it might have felt pretty good), have kept me fairly crabby. Add to that a little northern plains SAD-ness (seasonal affective disorder), and it’s a brutal mix.

But I’m coming around. I've spent most of this Spring Break turning inward, doing some long-needed self-healing. I’ve been doing 20 minutes on the treadmill daily to Donovan, Todd Rundgren, Bonnie Raitt, Neko Case and Zappa, for example, and if I call it "movement therapy" instead of that "E" word, it feels okay.

I'm also doing "contemplative therapy," which includes 20 minutes of daily sitting meditation (thanks, iPhone, for the singing bowl timer app), and daily contemplation on a lojong saying. Lojong is a series of 50-some aphorisms that are part of a Tibetan mind training practice called Tonglen. Today’s saying is “Don’t be swayed by external circumstances.” Pema Chodron interprets this lojong to mean that whatever one wants (joy, love, peace, etc.), one should breathe that out for others. Whatever one doesn’t want (sorrow, misunderstanding, anxiety, etc.), one should breathe that in to acknowledge & heal both in self and in those in the same boat. A good reminder about the true nature of compassion.

I've also been getting some "solar therapy." It’s been sunny and in the 40’s here lately, which means more time outside. Fat robins have been wandering in for a couple days, and the snow is melted except for the shadows on the north side of the house, and in the tallest grass out on the pasture trails. For the past few days, huge flocks of noisy geese have been sailing over the house in lopsided V’s.

Today is "music therapy." Two women friends are coming over to play gee-tars and sing. We call ourselves the Nickerettes. We mostly play for our Sisters of Perpetual Disorder (SOPD) dinners, so no pressure--just lots of good fun and sweet harmonies. And for my "culinary therapy," I whipped up some glazed cinnamon scones and good strong coffee. There may even be "wine therapy" later at our Little Town watering hole.

It can sometimes be a slow, hard climb out of the winter doldrums. But I like to think the wait makes me even more aware of and grateful for the re-birth of everything (including myself) in the spring. Healing comes. As the poet Sara Teasdale said, “A hush is over everything, silent as women wait for love; the world is waiting for the spring.”

Forgive me St. Frances, for I have sung...

I started playing my Ovation guitar and singing at open stages in Omaha when I was 18. By 19 I had my first gig—two little hippie chicks doing an acoustic duo in the “folk room” of a seedy bar in Council Bluffs. By age 24, I was singing in a folk duo with my ex, in a midtown hotel lounge, 5 nights a week. And I played and sang in duos, trios, or bands for the next 20 years or so. So music & me? We go waaay back.

Anyhoo, it’s the beginning of Spring Break here in Little Town, so Ray and I switched off our work minds and spent the weekend soaking up local music. On Friday night, we went to our favorite Little Town watering hole, where some of Ray’s band buddies have a standing Friday happy hour acoustic gig (check out the Public Domain Tune Band, missing their awesome bass player in this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJWunou64M8). These guys aren’t just fun, they’re virtuoso musicians. Then last night, Ray and I headed to the Big City to hear another stellar musical quartet (East of Westreville doing a Dennis Westphal song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Odm2-xKLI). These four friends play roots-ish stuff, with two guitars and string bass, and those spine-tingling tight harmonies.

I am SO grateful to know and to get to hear dozens of incredible, “undiscovered” musicians here on the prairie. But the weekend of music might also have been just a song or two too much. It’s left me in a pale blue haze I need to shake off—I think once you know how it feels to be doing it, it can break your heart just a little to only be watching it. So I’m lifting up a prayer to Saint Frances Gumm (Judy Garland), to help me over this tiny chasm and to ease me into my week-long celebration of spring…

ST. FRANCES GUMM

patron of girls who must sing

Saint Frances, sixteen lifetimes of loss

spilled from you in a voice too big to hold,

echoed in the hearts of girls lost on stage,

rainbows tattooed on scooped-out pelvis

or small of the back. Nailed each night

to a marquis, you lived on spoonfed hosts

dipped in sorrow and sweat, just enough

to keep you thin, hungry, dancing at the speed

of light. Swaddled in organza and sequins,

humiliated and adored, you paved us a golden road

into the starlight—you, with hips too big,

crooked mouth made perfect in grownup red,

full lips teasing a mic, stand-in for men

who urged you on, filled you to bursting

with fairy dust until broken glass at your throat

felt like a kiss. Saint Frances, bring the house lights down

to hide my trembling joy, keep me from back alleys,

the bottle, the temptation of dreamless sleep,

the bite of a mic’s metal on my teeth.

Bless me with songs like blood, songs

that pump and clench my heart like a fist,

songs that soothe this radiant net of nerves,

songs that pulse in my heelbones,

cradled in rubies and glitter,

clicking for all they’re worth.

(Amen.)

A Mochajava State of Mind

Today, most of the northern half of South Dakota is hunkered down mid-blizzard. I-29 is closed from Watertown north, into North Dakota. It’s the last day of February—practically spring already—and I guess Jack Blizzard wanted to make this leap day extra special, lest we let down our prairie guard too soon. Here in the southeast corner of the state, we have only a little dusting of snow, but the 35-mph winds whip it into the air, turning our little farmyard all grey and blizzardy. I have a pile of papers to grade, but thankfully, I don’t have to leave home today, so it’s a delicious, woodstove-fired, coffee-fueled, tucked-in day. 

And speaking of coffee, part of my utter joy at staying home stems from long, lingering, pajama’ed coffee mornings. You can read about the coffee origin myth, and my own re-discovery of the magic brew during my college years, on this previous blog post: http://uncanneryrow.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post.html

But my obsession with coffee goes back much further. When I was in 3^rd grade at Florence School in Omaha, Al Vaccaro dared me to eat a whole clove of raw garlic. I felt compelled to take the dare, both because Al was my boyfriend and often brought me snapdragons to school (making Lori Boonstra, my arch nemesis, gloriously jealous), and because, well, I’ve been a rebel from the get-go. It didn’t take Mrs. Lindsay, my teacher, long to discover the shenanigans. She marched me to the cafeteria, where the Evil Lunch Lady made me chew up a few…my life will all make sense to you now…coffee beans! 

Lunch Lady’s evil deed was designed to override my garlic-breath, but what it actually did was to set me on a path that would eventually become my passion. My kitchen is decorated in "coffee kitsch;" I own every kind of coffee apparati made (Bunn auto drip, Moka espresso pot, French presses, Melitta, etc.); I have a potted Arabica plant in my greenhouse; I collect coffee cookbooks; my anniversary present from Ray was a burr coffee grinder, for which he scored major partner points; my entire wardrobe is various shades of brown and black. As the song goes, “I love the java jive, and it loves me.”

So I’m settling in today with my second pot of elixir, and I thought I’d offer a bit more coffee lore to warm up this snowy South Dakota day…

Today, nearly half of the coffee plants in existence are the progeny of one tree that was smuggled into Martinique by a French soldier in the 18^th century. 

The coffee beans we know & adore are the pits of a cherry-like fruit that grow on evergreen trees. Coffee trees (cultivated to grow only 10 feet high for easier picking) cannot tolerate frost, and they prefer volcanic soil, indirect sunlight, and high altitude. The higher the altitude, the better the coffee. The annual yield of a coffee tree is about a pound of beans.  

There are only two species of coffee, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica is the stuff most of us drink. Robusta is generally lower in flavor acids and higher in caffeine but is sometimes mixed with Arabica to give the brew an extra caffeine kick.  

Contrary to popular belief, the darker the roast, the less caffeine, since caffeine is broken down in the roasting process. Espresso roasts have the least caffeine.  

Coffee is the second most widely used product in the world after oil. We drink 1400 million cups per day, and it’s the world’s most popular drink after water.  

Coffee was declared illegal 3 times by 3 different cultures: (1) In Mecca during the 16th century; (2) By Charles the II in Europe; (3) By Fredrick the Great of Germany in 1677.  

Medicinal Benefits – People who drink coffee have less colon cancer, Type II diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, gallstones, and cirrhosis of the liver. Coffee can protect your teeth from cavities, and it can help manage asthma and help stop an asthma attack in progress if no meds are available. People who smoke or drink alcohol and also drink coffee get some protection from liver and heart problems.

Other Coffee Uses – sprinkle used coffee grounds around your garden plants to stop snails and slugs, and to keep cats away from the garden. Coarsely ground coffee makes a good exfoliating facial scrub. Greasy pans can be cleaned with the leftover ground beans you used to scrub your face. Rubbing coffee beans between your hands for a few seconds will get rid of food prep odors, and you can suck on a coffee bean to freshen your breath (or chew a few, if you’re a daredevil 3^rd-grader).

Midwestern Manners

I'm sure Jack Blizzard is somewhere snickering in his sleeve. On my way home from town yesterday, I ran onto a patch of ice, and MiniPearl (my Toyota minivan) and I slid off the road into a snow-filled ditch. When something like this happens, it reminds me why I love living here in small-town mid-America: The people here are awesome.

My slide into the ditch was a beautiful, almost graceful movement that seemed, as the cliché goes, to happen in slow-mo (imagine Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G Minor wafting through the Universe as a soundtrack). Mini and I scuttled along the shoulder for a bit, then arced sideways (pirouette?), left the road, and drifted down, down, down until we settled, tipped sideways toward the passenger side, in about 3’ of snow and a good 6’ below the road. Amazing little ice-ballet that actually took only seconds.

Thank Skadi (Norse goddess of winter) there were no trees, fenceposts, road signs, or cows. Thank Skadi MiniPearl didn’t tilt sideways another foot or two and roll. Thank Skadi I was belted in and didn’t fly into the windshield. Thank Skadi that ditch was full of cushioning snow.

So there I was, sitting at an odd angle in Mini, eye-level with the road I’d just left, and bracing myself on the passenger armrest so I wouldn’t fall into the passenger door. I was chock full of adrenaline and too fight-or-flighty to reason out what to do. So, of course, I called Ray (in his car, driving home from work), who told me to call my daughter, who gave me the number of our Little Town tow guy. Thank Skadi for cell phones.

I knew it would take Tow Guy a while to get to me, so I took a quick inventory and made sure I wasn’t hurt. Then I just sorta settled in. It was actually a beautiful day out there. Except for the deep ditches, the landscape in that area is very flat and open. The wind was gusting west to east, toward me, and the gusts picked up snow from the open fields, blowing it along the ground in horizontal sheets (hence, the sudden ice on the road). But the sun was shining, turning the snow into brushstrokes of glitter. The sky was a subdued greyish-turquoise and mottled with clouds.

I thought maybe I’d meditate, both because I had the time and because it would ease the adrenaline rush, but then the miracle of prairie neighborliness began. Every car that passed me stopped to make sure I was okay, except one (I have your license plate number, pal, and I’ll be turning you in to the Midwestern Mandatory Hospitality Police). One man offered to make calls for me. One woman offered her husband’s tractor to try and pull me out. One woman offered her home, in case I wanted a warm place to wait for Tow Guy.

Tow Guy finally showed up, a white haired grandpa-ish guy in his 60’s or 70’s, in a light spring jacket, with no hat on. It took some time, some careful maneuvering of his truck (which slid at one point, and I thought, oh great…), hitching, unhitching, and re-hitching, but he finally got Mini up on the road again. When I said I didn’t have any cash, he asked if I drove to town every day. I said yes, and he said I could just stop by Monday and pay. No invoice, no I.O.U., no collateral…just stop by Monday. Then he said, “Drive slow.” I said, “Yes, sir.” That may be the first time I’ve ever addressed anyone as “sir,” that’s how brimming with gratitude I was (I am).

I’m a little stiff and sore today, maybe from the sudden pre-crash muscle lock, or from bracing myself for a half-hour while I waited for Tow Guy, but I know I got off easy. Mini’s undercarriage is packed with snow, ice, and mud, so her wheels don’t wanna turn right now, but I think a good car wash will fix her right up. I have no desire to go outside today. I have some good movies on DVR, a fresh pot of coffee, Advil, a heating pad, and some homemade minestrone soup. And maybe I’ll knit up a quick winter hat to take in on Monday when I stop to pay Tow Guy.