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| The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound-note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are.'
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long have we tarried,
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in the wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring in the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose!
With a ring in the end of his nose.
'Dear Pig, are you willing, to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day,
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon!
They danced by the light of the moon.
-- Edward Lear
This poem is the source of that most lovely word, 'runcible':
Main Entry: runcible spoon
Function: noun
Etymology: coined with an obscure meaning by Edward Lear
Date: 1871
: a sharp-edged fork with three broad curved prongs
-- Merriam-Webster
So there you go. See, I knew it was out there. For heaven's sake, don't over-analyze.
I will say that the author was the youngest of 21 children, made a living in illustration from the age of 15, wrote his Book
of Nonsense for the Earl of Derby's grandchildren, and traveled the world despite suffering all his life from epilepsy and
melancholia.
And yes, he ended up in some place named San Remo with a cat named Foss.
...I just remembered the beautiful pea-green boat. And something about a guitar.
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| I'm not sure which official in the world makes it officially not summer anymore. Just because you go to school- heh, or don't...- doesn't signal the seasons to change. I guess I'm grateful that the earth's axis is utterly unrelated to our feelings about the passage of time and when school should properly begin.
Usually, sometime in that gorgeous June-July stretch, you have a golden moment where it is summer. Almost like that moment where it is Christmas, only warmer and wilder and full of the moment that is, rather than what is to come. I can honestly say I didn't have a summer this year. Sometime as spring was well and truly ending, I went to Camp Deer Run and disappeared for ten weeks. The people who worked with me can't be offended; they should know very well what I mean. It was an experience so far removed from anything else I've ever done that it seems isolated in my memories, sort of shuffled off by itself. It was nothing like home; it was nothing like being overseas; it was nothing like... anything. Maybe someday something will be like it. Maybe not.
It was a time without rest. I think I took two naps this summer. I can tell you exactly when and where they were.
I found out a lot of new things. Clearing food out of a drain with your hands can be... normal. The Hermit's first name is Henry, and we were Sadie Hawkins dates in another life. I can get up and get dressed and go to work with little cubnuncheons every day, if I have to. Some of the craziest people in the world work at Deer Run. And the craziest people in the world are just people.
It's really... not the kind of thing you can summarize, box, even describe. It took the place of a summertime. It was hard- hard. And I, in all honesty, having had the experience and acknowledged it as worthwhile, may never do it again. I have aged more in this summer than in the last several summers combined. I regret the things I missed elsewhere, but there's little point in that.
I feel like this will have been a beginning for something, when I look back. My life is changing again, differently than when we left our home in Estonia behind, but another change. And it's the kind of deep unsettling that almost has teeth. These are the things we can't tell children when they wistfully speak of growing up.
It's scary, and the older we get, the less there is between us and what scares us. But there will always be moments of peace in everything- something unexpected, something good, something maybe very small. It just has to be enough to assure us that fear can't last forever. Sometimes we have to get up and pummel it- hard, long, slow- every day, for endless days. Sometimes it hangs on our shoulders until one day... it is gone. Fear cannot withstand movement in the right direction. Not forever.
Here's to fear. Here's to movement. Here's to the earth's axis, and all the summers to come.
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| Today I did an incredible thing. A remarkable thing. A thing made brilliant by its sheer normalcy and familiarity.
I learned how to work a cash register.
...sort of.
Fickle things. It was like working with an old woman. Or with... me! "No. You said 3.00. You did. Yes, you can change it to 2.50. But I will spew 5.50 at you. Okay, you can add another 2.50. Go ahead. We're at 8.00. Come on, sweetheart, I can keep this up all day!"
Sigh.
I also did other normal things, like make hot dogs and stir things and be utterly defeated by a pickle jar. A pickle jar. How... something.
But the cash register is what will probably stick with me. The sequence of input, the intuitive way the machine preys upon a tremulous soul... Like a computer. But so much more deviously simplistic in appearance. A computer, you expect to be smarter than you. Like a VCR. Or a baby.
But a cash-register... it's like a typewriter with menopause.
...the end!
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| Today I: learned how to work a radio, fished for dead frogs, and babysat strangers for hours. Oh! And I learned how to tread water. Which isn't so much like 'treading' as it is, 'here, kick like this and make your hands do indecisive things'...
I'm truly sleepy. Must be all that... outdoorsy... ness. | | |
| This is just a quick post to let everybody know that if all goes as planned I will coming with Mom to Tallinn next week. I am completely in shock and I know it's too good to be true, but when I wake up I will hopefully be able to express the incredible joys and fears there are in going home.
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