Here’s a story about something that happened to me the other day.

I often find myself sitting in one park or another during the lunch hour. Portland(Maine) has many different city parks, large and small, although it sometimes seems that very few people have heard of more than Deering Oaks and the promenade parks. In this particular moment I was in Lincoln Park, which is quite an old park that dates back to just after the great fire of 1866. It used to be a bit larger than it is now, but that’s probably a story for another time.

The concrete paths in this small park are lined with benches which take a beating during the harsh winter months. I was sitting at one of these, reading a magazine about whatever is going on in the world today, when I noticed a pigeon sneaking up on me.

There was something a little bit off about this bird. The feathers on its wing were a bit untidy, and it lacked the usual radius of reticence that you come to expect from birds. It kept eying me as it tottered around, and I developed a nervous concern that it was coming to give me a peck.

I shooed the bird away, but it returned almost immediately, and again I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was trying to sneak towards me. I stood up and waved my magazine at it.

At this point, several things happened. A number of additional pigeons dropped out of the sky directly at my feet, beating their wings furiously and squawking. My sneaky pigeon lept straight up into the air and started to fly away. As I stepped back in dismay, a huge brown shape whistled past my left ear.

When I looked up, I saw a very large wide-winged bird chasing the pigeons. After a moment it swept up into the air and lit on a power line with a grace that made me realize immediately how much it wasn’t a seagull. When I got around the fence to get a better view, there was a red-tailed hawk staring down at me.

This was a juvenile bird with a bright white bib of feathers around its neck. But it was still the biggest and baddest bird I’ve ever seen in Portland. After a minute or so, it swooped down again to hunt for squirrels across from the fire station.

When you live in a city, it can be very easy to think of nature as a quiet, unobtrusive zest you install to improve your view. But it’s reassuring somehow to know that the unexplained, exhilarating wild can still come crashing through.

When I was sixteen years old, like many Americans, I got my driver’s license. Among many other things, it opened up the possibility of regular trips to the comic store across town. In between buying some really embarrassing manga, I also liked to visit the adjoining martial arts supply store and gaze with pubescent admiration at the selection of sharp objects.

The owner was fairly skeptical of selling to anyone under eighteen (and in fact, it may have been illegal) but he consented to sell me a moderately sized, cheap folding knife with a partially serrated edge. It was the kind of stupid purchase that is unique to the adolescent male; born from a need to establish cool, but at the same time resigned to the reinforcement of geeky lameness. There will always be a friend with crazier parents than you, and that friend will have a samurai sword.

After a month or so of learning to open the knife with one hand, I pretty much forgot about it. I had a brand new tanto blade, after all. (Which eventually wound up in the hands of my college campus police, but that’s another story). A quick fast forward past my college years, and I’m living in Maine, discovering the joys of being adult and having to do things for yourself… and my folding knife resurfaced. And began to prove itself to be the easiest, most convenient tool for about a hundred little things.

Right now I’m packing my (last?) apartment up in preparation for a move into my (first) house, and each and every piece of packing tape gets severed neatly by the inexpensive, durable tool I bought as an irresponsible plaything fourteen years ago.

It’s a good thing human beings can learn, because we start out stupider than just about everything.

Going Back to Bed

Up early, trying to muffle
the sounds of small tasks,
grinding, pouring, riffling
through yesterday’s attacks

or market slump, then changing
my mind—what matter the rush
to the waiting room or the ring
of some later dubious excuse?—

having decided to return to bed
and finding you curled in the sheet,
a dream fluttering your eyelids,
still unfallen, still asleep,

I thought of the old pilgrim
when, among the fixed stars
in paradise, he sees Adam
suddenly, the first man, there

in a flame that hides his body,
and when it moves to speak,
what is inside seems not free,
not happy, but huge and weak,

like an animal in a sack.
Who had captured him?
What did he want to say?
I lay down beside you again,

not knowing if I’d stay,
not knowing where I’d been.

-J.D. McClatchy

Descartes tells us that monkeys could talk if they wanted to, but they have decided to keep silent so that humans will not force them to work. The Bushmen of South Africa believe that there was a time when all animals could talk. Hochigan hated animals; one day it disappeared, taking the gift of speech with it.

-Jorge Luis Borges

The Vigorous North is a blog by a Portland(original flavor) resident about the intersections of nature and human development. It’s good stuff, and it led me to this awesome Google Maps mashup showing live ship locations. So now I can check and see what’s in harbor without walking up to the bridge!

Nature’s trying, consarn it! It may not be green, and it may squelch under your feet, but the wind doesn’t bite so much, and the birds and squirrels are giving outdoor living a try.

Here’s a lovely poem by the current Poet Laureate. I can testify that the desire to strip away things that are needless is as powerful, once begun, as the desire to build luxuries.

That Will to Divest
by Kay Ryan

Action creates
a taste
for itself.
Meaning: once
you’ve swept
the shelves
of spoons
and plates
you kept
for guests,
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder,
not to dismiss
rooms, not to divest yourself
of all the chairs
but one, not
to test what
singleness can bear,
once you’ve begun.

You have to love it in Maine. Otherwise you might go crazy.

Yeah, I don’t post much. What can I say; when the ground is full of snow, it is the time to snowshoe.

Anyhow, if you have ever wondered how horrible a Metafilter post about the Tao te Ching would be, it turns out just about this horrible.

EDIT: Actually, after I posted this the thread resolved itself into a dew, or something, and now everyone is understanding everyone else. I suspect tachyons.

I am going to continue to post here (just remember, fitfully!) so here is my full disclosure: scholarship is NOT what I’m doing here. This is about my personal, fuzzy, squishy, wet human experiences. If this fills you with a crazy rage, please go play some racquetball or something and for all our sakes, don’t read my blog.