Preface: I love Robert Thorogood’s series, The Marlow Murder Club. The characters are quirky and eccentric. (Or maybe I just wish I had a river to swim in outside my door.) This is the first time I have read one of his books on Kindle. I’ve listened to the “Marlow” books via Audible.

This review contains spoilers. And I really felt like including quite a bit of snark after my 3 am adventure with this text. So, I wrote it here instead of on Goodreads.

3 am. Wind blowing. Blinds rattling at the windows.

I got out of bed and looked outside to see how the deck and pond umbrellas were faring, and decided to run outside and reel in both of them.

Returned to the house. Climbed back into bed.

Eyes wide open.

<Sigh>

Ok. I decided to start a new book on Kindle.

This seems to be murder mystery summer for me, so having finished Book 3 or 4 (I have forgotten which) in another series by another writer, I chose Book 1 in a new series. And snuggled into the covers expecting the comfort of a cozy mystery and a segue back to sleep. Thus began my journey into A Meditation on Murder.

Prologue. 

The screaming begins in the prologue. 

It goes on for 3 pages of my Kindle edition. 

It is presented to the reader like this: 

“It was half an hour later when the screaming started.”

I read that sentence several times, and my response was the same each time. 

“The screaming” felt like a character introduced into the text.

Not only does “the screaming” go on for 3 pages of the text (yes, in a Kindle), but it doesn’t stop. 

The screaming begins (as stated above) and then the writer has two paragraphs describing where some of the characters are and what they are doing–some finishing breakfast, some already wearing robes, and one sitting and sewing. We are also given the description and name of a structure where the screaming seems to be located and a brief idea of the materials used to build that structure. 

So “the screaming” doesn’t seem to imply a need for urgent action. At least, not at first.

The inserted descriptive material comes before “a second scream joined the first” and the person sewing [finds] herself hurrying toward the screaming. (Apparently, she has no volition?) The sewing person is joined in running toward the screaming by a “tanned and taut handyman” and a description of what he is wearing. Note: this guy has a tool belt, and despite his obvious volition, he can’t seem to recall what tools are hanging said toolbelt.

The screaming is still apparently going on during all of this description and a subsequent scrabble at the door of the location of the screaming. This location doesn’t seem to have a door handle. Sewing person and handyman finally enter the location of the screaming and sewing person also begins to scream.

This scene is set after the first character the reader encounters manages to exit his bed and dress, but not before the reader learns that he considers wearing a watch a form of enslavement, the bed he steps from is “mahogany, Belle Epoque,” the floor he steps on is imported from Thailand, and the mirror he sees himself in is “gilt-framed, Regency.”

So. Many. Asides. 

And of course there is this: “he couldn’t hide from his past forever, could he?”–pondered while he drinks green tea, and (spoiler alert) he is the cause of all the screaming that continues as the Prologue comes to an end. He is the murder victim.

My own screaming began as I turned the page and encountered Chapter One.

Note: I am wide awake now, and I’m irritated.

In Chapter One, we are introduced to the detective. 

Consider this description of Inspector Richard Poole’s mental reflections, having been awakened by a frog croaking outside his window in the early morning hours. The frog is croaking, we are told, “inexplicably.”

Hang on. The very next paragraph tells us where Inspector Poole is living. Are frogs “inexplicable” on a tropical island? At night or in the morning? And don’t frogs usually croak without giving an explanation for doing so?

The writer goes on to tell us: “But then, Richard thought to himself, this was entirely typical” (the frog, I assume) “because if he wasn’t being assaulted by frog choruses in the middle of the night, it was torrential downpours like a troupe of Gene Kellys tap-dancing on his tin roof; or it was whole dunes of sand being blown across his floorboards by the hot Caribbean wind.”

Did you get all that? I’m still back on Gene Kelly tap-dancing, myself. And that inexplicable frog isn’t so inexplicable after all, hm? Maybe just inexplicable because the frog is missing the rest of the chorus?

And then we have a description of the humidity–illustrated by a box of crisps mailed to Richard by his mother.

“The one time he’d received a precious box of Walker’s crisps in the post from his mother, the crisps had gone soggy within minutes of him opening any of the packets.”

Ok. That’s all I needed to tell me the humid air renders potato chips soggy moments after they are opened. Ah, but this writer really wants to hammer that idea home:

“It was like some exquisite punishment that had been specifically designed to torture him. The insides of each packet contained perfect crisps right up to but not including [?] the precise moment he opened the packet and tried to eat one, at which point they immediately went stale in the sultry tropical air.”

An old colleague of mine once had the temerity to suggest “Dickens was paid by the word. That’s why his books are so long!” Dickens, however, quite intentionally included descriptions and asides. Consider how Dickens set the mood for Bleak House with a full page describing the fog/smog that becomes a character in the text. It’s everywhere in that text–smothering, stifling, and ever present, obscuring the landscape and the identities of the people in Dickens’s fictional world. It’s relevant. It sets the mood. It becomes a character that has real meaning and importance in the text.

This packet of crisps is no relevant character.

In fact, we quickly abandon them and are asked to consider the Inspector’s nightwear. Apparently, he wears Marks and Spencer [pajamas] and kicks his sheets into a frenzied ball before he manages to get out of bed. 

At least the murder victim in the Prologue emerged from bed with a bit of style.

The screaming from the Prologue and this introduction to the Inspector would have caused me to fling my Kindle across the room if it had been a paperback book. But I persevered. It was 3:30 am, and I was wide awake. 

I pondered: how to sort out what is important from what I really don’t need to know? 

Let’s review: Ok, the Inspector wears pajamas to bed on a tropical island which doesn’t seem like a logical choice to make given the “slick of sweat” described just before the name brand of the pajamas appears in the text. (Given that illogical choice, can he actually solve a crime?)

The guy killed in the Prologue seemed entitled and full of himself without the branding of his home furnishings. (The watch commentary and the lush, manicured lawns of the hotel he owns might have been enough.)

Where is the writer’s editor in all of this?

Ah, but there is a lizard. And I am very interested in Harry, the lizard. He’s unobtrusive and he lived in Richard’s home before Richard moved in. He has squatter’s rights. Richard  has named the lizard Harry. He is bright green. But I’m worried about Richard. This creature he has taken the time to name is now the subject of a darker thought: he ponders getting “rid of the bloody creature.”

Alas. I shall never get to know any more about Harry. Or the “inexplicable” (yet entirely explicable) early morning frog. Who also needs a name.

Why? Because even if I could convince myself that things will get better after this Prologue and beginning of a first chapter, consider Richard’s introduction to his colleague who merely wants to ask for his lunch order:

“Camille was bright, lithe, and one of the most naturally attractive women on the Island, but as Richard looked up from his reverie–irked at the interruption–he frowned like a barn owl who’d just received some bad news.”

I wish the writer would decide if this is a murder mystery or a lengthy descriptive discourse with a few animal motifs. 

So I’m left with this conclusion:

The lizard and the frog should write their own murder mystery. I think they could find room in it for a frowning barn owl. It could begin with an “inexplicable” wind at 3 am.

Feed stores can be dangerous places to visit in the spring. Especially dangerous if you are inclined to swoop in and pick out tiny, cheeping and feathery things and bring them home with you. It sounds simple at first: they need food, water, warmth, and you will provide all the snuggling necessary to make your new little friends feel happy and comfortable.

Soon, if your experience goes at all like mine, your little friends will feel very comfortable and whatever room in your house you have chosen to be their shelter for the first few weeks will begin to take on new character in the form of scattered shavings, a few chicken droppings that you have failed to clean up, and the sounds of cheeping at increased volume.

You might ask yourself at this point: what have I done? What have I gotten myself into?

Or you could be like me and return to the feed store. Why? Because I have always wanted a couple of little black ducks. That’s why.

There they were: one was all black and one had a yellow patch on her chest. I didn’t know then, and through the fortunate intervention of whatever fowl deity determines who lucks out, I came home with two adorable female ducklings. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, and if I hadn’t brought home two females then, it may have informed my decision-making later on. But there I was: snuggling and fussing over two adorable black ducklings with tiny feet and a lack of coordination that kept me laughing.  

I knew one of them had to be named Daffy. (If you’re a fan of Daffy duck cartoons, this might make no sense, but Daffy was her name from the beginning.) We called the other duckling Dolly. They made a thorough mess of the laundry room because ducklings are, well, ducklings after all. 

Fast forward to an “emergency” phone call that pulled me out of class one day the following fall. Our daughters were enjoying the backyard and the fowl, and apparently the ducks were having a really good time. 

“Mom? I think one of your ducks is a male.”

“Um…I don’t think so. There are two eggs every day, and ducks only lay one egg per day.”

“Well…one of them is ‘acting’ like a male, Mom.”

“Hm…well, I have to get back to class now…”

And that should have been my first window into the characteristic behavior of ducks and what my life with ducks (and chickens) might be like later on.

Spring arrived, and with it–a dog who decided to adopt us. She was just passing by, tired and thirsty and on the run. We checked with animal shelters, ran newspaper ads, and almost were persuaded to adopt “Lucy” (as Steve called her) when her motivation to join us became all too clear: “Lucy” was interested in our fowl, and not in a good way.

I’ve never heard Maile scream quite like this before. Lucy, who had been showing her inclination to chase down all things feathered, had managed to escape through the back door and had grabbed Daffy. The next few minutes were full of blood, feathers, shouting, and panic. Someone grabbed the dog; I grabbed Daffy and wrapped her in a towel. I (or someone) called the local animal hospital and thankfully they were open just long enough for me to dash over there with Daffy. The vet stitched her up (stitches everywhere) and sent us home with antibiotics. For the next two weeks, Daffy lived in our second bathroom. I visited several times a day, and learned how to wrap up a duck tightly in a towel, pry her bill open with one hand, and administer liquid antibiotics with the other hand. The aftermath of all of this care was hard on the bathroom but had a pronounced effect on Steve, who swears he will never be able to look at split pea soup again.

She persevered and healed quite nicely from that misadventure, but when her feathers began to come back in, she was rapidly beginning to turn white, with a smattering of black in her plumage. In fact, Daffy outlived her early partner, Dolly. (Oh, and Lucy found a happy new home with some people who had just lost their beloved dog.)

Of course, since I still felt the pull of the feed store in the spring, I acquired several new chicks and—I couldn’t resist of course–two new black ducks. No sooner had I added them to the flock, but I popped in to “visit” our closest feed store and boom: there they were–two little ducks, one with intriguing coloring, and the other, a small fluffy yellow duck who followed the other duck everywhere it went. 

These last two already knew something I didn’t know. It quickly became apparent that “Wilson,” the duck with interesting colors was male. And Sierra, the little fluffy one, was his adoring female companion. The two black ducks, you ask? Yes. I also had acquired a Clarence and his little friend, Sierra.  

One day, before the big sexual identity reveals, I took all the little ducks out to meet Daffy. They followed her all around the yard. It was my very own Make Way for Ducklings moment, but as Daffy came past me with this little flock of admirers, she cast a significant look in my direction that clearly read “What have you done to me?”

Ah cuteness. Ah serenity. They all loved dipping in the pond. They all loved scouting the weeds at the edges of the yard together, and they seemed like their own happy and innocent little ducky community. 

And then came the day that a battered and bedraggled Daffy emerged from the chicken house one morning, and I was aghast at what had happened to her. Apparently, those two male ducks were just a bit rough. I doctored her wounds, and she wiggled out of my arms, determined to…not flee. Not hide. Nope. 

She began to bob her head, playfully calling to the male ducks over her shoulder. She was her own provocatively styled Mae West!  This was not “Hey! Stay away from me!” This was: “Hey boys, I’m back!”

I relayed this story to Steve over pizza that evening. Daffy was, by this time, an older duck in my estimation. Suddenly, we had two active male ducks, and she was living her best life! Steve put it this way: Daffy became eligible (in duck years) for Social Security and discovered her sex life all at one time!

We couldn’t keep Clarence and Wilson. That’s a story of my own failure to understand the nature of male ducks and their proclivity for sexual encounters with both ducks and chickens. 

I’m apparently still learning that lesson, because I acquired two other ducks two years ago, and again: one is a male. Nigel and his friend, Penelope need a new home. We may have a lead.

Meanwhile, Daffy and Luna have enjoyed a peaceful co-existence with our current chicken flock. Daffy, at 10 years of age, has waddled (ever more slowly) out to the orchard with the chickens and Luna, and back again at night. She has brought up the rear of this parade for the last 2-3 years, sometimes tripping over obstacles, but mostly navigating the distance successfully with pronounced and cumbersome, but successful momentum. A couple of nights ago, Steve said he just reached down and carried her most of the way to the barn for the night.

Last night, just as I was dropping off to sleep, someone in the pen was quacking loudly. I sat up, wondering if everyone was all right. But the quacking settled down. Steve found Daffy quiet and still this morning–no signs of distress. But she is gone. I will miss our sweet girl.  

Spring has sprung

The grass is rizz

I wonder where

The flowers is…

Lester W Damron

As I write this, it’s not Spring, but I was reminded of Spring and warmer weather this morning at 5:45 am when I sat down at my laptop and reserved a campsite for August. 

Not just any campsite, and not in just any campground. I have been camping every year of my life (with the exception of 3 or 4 summers) in this particular Oregon state park since I was eight years old. 

So, that’s about 60 summers of camping. 

In my earliest memories of camping at Cape Lookout State Park, our family would arrive at the park in the evening, roll up to the main gate, and request a trailer site. Trailer sites were in scarce supply, and RVs weren’t even heard of, yet. My mom would hop out of the car and register us to occupy a tent site for the first night with the always available offer of “Check out what is available in the morning, put something in the site you want to reserve it, and come back here and register for the site. Then, you can move right in.

Mom would jump out of bed early the next morning and scout the campground for a departing camper. The “something” she put in the site was usually me–sitting in a lawn chair, blinking blearily in the early morning light. Not always, though. There were mornings when I woke up to the sounds of the trailer being hitched to the car, and my mom and dad moving us, while still in our beds, to our new campsite. 

There’s nothing so predictable and inevitable as change.

Fast forward a few years and the park began to require reservations made in advance.

All very civilized, though. Mom would write a lengthy handwritten letter to the helpful park rangers requesting a trailer site for as many nights as we were allowed. As time went on, she included a letter from my older sister’s family, requesting a reservation before or after the one mom reserved. I believe there was a stipulation at one point requiring us to exit the park for a day or so before we could return and begin a new reservation. 

The peak experience of making reservations in this manner was achieved one summer when 3 different branches of our family converged on one (previously peaceful) campsite in the D Loop. 

My mom, aided by two of her sons-in-law, was working through the tedious task of “leveling” the trailer on its supports and plugging in the sewer, water, and electrical hook ups. My dad was sitting by the fire telling stories with my older brother who, not-at-all-a-camper, was also sitting in a chair, having dropped by to tell stories as well. I’m sure there were at least 2 small dogs involved in the proceedings, at least one of them prone to barking at everything and anyone who might walk by. I was putting up a small tent for Steve and me, and my younger sister was doing likewise for she and her husband. Our campsite was thus a somewhat chaotic hub of activity, to say the least. Suddenly, an official pickup pulled up to our site and a park ranger launched himself into the middle of things. “You’ll all have to leave!” he shouted. “This campsite is reserved.” 

“I know it’s reserved,” my mom responded, calmly. “I reserved it.”

“No!” he responded. “This campsite is reserved for Steve Allen. He’s a construction worker!”

Steve and I looked at each other. “It’s Ernie,” I said, quietly. 

I’m not sure how we kept from laughing. 

Maybe we didn’t.

My brother, ever ready with a witty remark intended to cause more confusion, said “Steve, just give the man $20. That’s what you do with these civil servants.”

In all the ensuing noise and conversation, I don’t think Ernie heard him say that.

At least I hope not. 

But I am sure that’s when the laughter spilled over. 

This particular park ranger was one Steve and I had encountered the year before when we camped in the park by ourselves. We’d pulled in, late at night, requesting a tent site. 

“Do you need e-lec-tricity?” was our greeting from the ranger. He sounded robotic, and we had to have him repeat the question. 

“No.” We managed to respond, and he asked us which loop in the camp we preferred and assigned us to a campsite.

Throughout that camping trip, we saw Ernie (as we decided to call him and not his real name) on his “rounds” throughout the campground. He would appear in a small off-road vehicle, driven by another ranger. Ernie was equipped with a clipboard, and we could see him checking off campsites, campers, and issuing various instructions. To the unwary, having camped overnight without a reservation, this meant an early-morning wake-up call from Ernie.

Why Ernie? Based on that first encounter, Steve and I named him Ernest (Earnest) D. N. C. (for Does Not Compute). We had decided that Ernie’s favorite season at Cape Lookout was Discovery Season, when few campers were present. 

Fortunately for all of us involved in the chaotic D Loop experience, my mom had the presence of mind to have brought a copy of her letter requesting the reservations. She’d carefully made a series of them including one for my brother-in-law (the road construction worker), for herself and my dad, and for Steve and me. We sorted it out, but Ernie walked away shaking his head at us.

And so, there I was this morning, pondering past reservation-making and sitting with my finger poised over my laptop keyboard, ready to punch a button “book this site” as the second hand on my watch crept toward 6 am, when the site and the dates I wanted it for became available.

Somehow, I see Ernie’s fingerprints all over this “new and improved” reservation system.

Original. Unique.

Those words are inadequate.

She is sixteen. 

I could have written some of this about her when she was ten. Or twelve. Or fourteen.

I have suggested she is a living embodiment of Scout (from TKAM), and I stand by that description. 

At once: witty, determined, laser-focused on the world around her, opinionated, and in possession of an ability to cut right through the bullshit to the heart of the issue.

I’m not saying she’s always exactly right or that I agree with her completely.

But that is what makes listening to her so intriguing and important.

She is uniquely and irrevocably her own person.

Her focus is scientific, beginning with her early focus on the lives and behaviors of birds. And yet, there has always been a fictional narrative structure to her imaginative world. The world populated by train cars and the family automobiles was real–so real, that she worried every time one of our vehicles went to the auto repair shop for routine maintenance. Her aunt’s car had a name–Olga–that made the narrative even more immediate and believable. 

Nowadays, her imagination propels her into exploration of science fiction at an analytical level. Her sense of logic (even present in her earlier fictive worlds) quickly singles out and sidelines any element not in accord with the established canon of Star Wars. This has led to numerous family discussions over dinner since her opinion is at odds with other family members.  

I’m noting all of this because I can understand why she is a singular and discerning person in the narrative audience. Which is why she is content to be a confident opinion group of “one” amid many differing opinions.

She’s writing. 

She enjoys writing. 

That day has come as I always thought it might.

And that brings me to this:

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”—Margaret Atwood

“Tigers are easy to find, but I needed adult wisdom to know dragons. ‘You have to infer the whole dragon from the parts you can see and touch.’” —Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee is once again being challenged by a school district. It contains language that “makes some people uncomfortable,” so it’s no longer required reading for the school district’s eighth graders. It’s available in their library, though.

I’d like to see how many times the book has been picked up and thumbed through in that library, now. If anything is guaranteed to increase the popularity of a book, in my experience, it’s when well-meaning, but misguided parents and teachers decide to “ban” it or make a fuss about its language or contents.

My sophomore year in high school, the book, Valley of the Dolls made its way around our class room, moving from hand to hand, friend to friend, with muffled giggles, whispers and stealth. It was easy to find what the fuss was all about; the risque parts of the book fell open for our eager eyes. Steamy sex. Drugs. Corruption of young minds by the best selling novel of that year. (And one that was strictly forbidden by our parents.)

I remember packing up a picnic lunch with one of my best friends, Jane, and riding our bikes along a country road, finding a comfy spot beside Pine Creek and settling down to chat and laugh. Just warm, summer breezes and all the time in the world away from adult supervision and peer pressure. Jane’s mother worked in the local drugstore that sold paperback books. Jane had managed to grab one of the paperbacks that had been set aside to send back for credit on the store’s next shipment of books. She proudly produced a copy of the novel, Candy, which we devoured over the next few hours. Candy was the story of a free-spirited young woman, experimenting with (gasp!) sex. (Well, that’s as much as I remember about it. Obviously, I only connected with the tigers that afternoon.) The book was later made into a movie starring Ringo Starr (as a Mexican-American gardener!), Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Walter Mattau, and a few other recognizable actors. The book was intended as satire. I’m not sure Jane picked up on that, and I know I didn’t. That would have meant inferring the dragons to be found. We were far more interested in the salacious details. 

Having confessed that, do I think either of those popular novels “groomed” Jane or me? Maybe. But not in the way those who seek to ban books might believe.

Jane went on to be a bank officer and immerse herself in the theater scene in San Francisco. I took a more extended route into academia, where I have immersed myself in literature and teaching academic writing. I consider those first experiences with “forbidden fruit” an impetus for both of us–to keep dragon hunting our way through literature and the arts.

Harper Lee’s novel has made the American Library Association’s banned books list nearly every year since 1966, when it was banned from Hanover, Virginia schools for being “immoral.” Another frequently banned book is one I have taught in my Multicultural Literature course—Toni Morrison’s Beloved. A Republican senator referred to it as “smut,” and school districts have banned it for being “sexually explicit.”

Those tigers. So easy to find.

Try the hard questions: Who is this novel really about? Who is Beloved? And what about that dedication: “Sixty Million and more”?

Or how about the peculiar experience of reading the chapter written from Beloved’s point of view?

Here be dragons to be inferred.

One evening recently, I began a discussion of Isabel Allende’s short story, “An Act of Vengeance” with a group of students. We began with tigers.

“How did you like the story?” 

Various responses: 

“It’s sad.”

“It’s dark.”

“It’s surprising at the end”

From me: 

“Ok. But, who is more ethical or moral in this story?

Or—who holds the power? And why?”

I stood back to watch the fireworks. Watching them struggle to “infer the dragon” from the parts of the story I hoped they could “see” or “touch.”

Literature isn’t easy.

There, I said it. 

This is the “good stuff.” I want my students to be uncomfortable. That is how they attain adult wisdom. Wrestle with this idea; grapple with that one. Recognize that you see this text just a bit differently than the person sitting next to you and maybe completely differently than the person across the room. If everything is comfortable and easy and we all agree, what is being learned?

Last week, I saw a photo of a library cartful of books that have been banned from a Florida high school. I zoomed in on the photo to read the titles on the book spines. And there it was: two copies of a book I have assigned for my class this semester, The House on Mango Street. So a question for the dragon hunters enrolled in my class: Why is this book being banned from a high school library?

Literature requires thoughtfulness and a willingness to read something more than once. Even more, it requires the reader to recognize that although many things are being said, much remains unsaid. Some ideas must be inferred. 

Dragon hunting. That is what I really teach.

“I don’t like spiders ‘n snakes, and that ain’t what it takes…”

These are the words my brain sang to me when I woke up this morning. Just the one line because my brain is apparently searching for the rest of whatever this tune is.

Apparently, I have recurring earworms this week. It began a few days ago when my local public radio station presented a segment–”People born on this day,” and began listing various celebrities/writers/public figures. Playing in the background of the segment was a song written by one of these notable persons of the day–Bobby Goldsboro. The tune was instantly identified by my brain as Goldsboro’s hit tune from 1968,  “Honey.”

The segment began innocently enough with the opening stanza:

“See the tree, how big it’s grown,

But friend, it hasn’t been too long,

It wasn’t big”

Oh, ok. So Bobby Goldsboro was born on this day, and I remember this song.

But then the song continued to play as the announcer continued to list the names of the  birthday people.

“Seriously?” I asked the the radio in my car, faithfully streaming all of this information. “You can stop now.”

But it continued. The list of notable people ended, and the song continued as the announcer continued to speak, giving updates for what was ahead on the station, next.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Just stop!” 

But it was too late. The song was embedded in my brain.

And my brain continued to play the song right through the chorus:

“And Honey, I miss you.

And I’m being good. 

And I’d love to be with you,

If only I could.”

“Please!” I cried, as I pulled into the garage and shut off the radio as well as the motor of the car.

And then “WHY?” I demanded of my brain, as it continued to faithfully replay the song, as I hung up the car keys, took off my coat, and deposited my wallet and cell phone on the kitchen counter.

I poured myself a mug of coffee, switched on my laptop and sat down to read email and write. And as I sat, contemplating the blinking cursor at the top of a new blank document, the following words stubbornly demanded my attention:

“I laughed at her, and she got mad,

The first day that she planted it, 

‘Twas just a twig…”

Disgusted, I got up, grabbed my coat and hat and ran outside to set up the chickens and ducks for the day. Herding the chickens to the orchard and getting everyone set up with treats and food was a distraction. A welcome one. There is always a chicken to have a discussion with when she refuses to leave her favorite lilac bush base–always able to find bugs and worms that are far more interesting than I am. Iris didn’t disappoint me on this day. I finally tucked her into the orchard safely with her flock, and headed back to the house.

And as I took off my coat and gloves and grabbed a bit more coffee, I was viciously ambushed by this:

“I came home unexpectedly,

And caught her crying needlessly,

In the middle of the day…”

“ARGH!” I yelled to the empty dining room. “Stop this NOW!”

And my brain faithfully responded with:

“And it was in the early Spring…”

And then it happened. My brain stalled out on the words. 

Mercifully.

Or so I thought.

“Is that it?” I asked my brain. “Are we done?”

I turned on my laptop, sat down, and savored my first undisturbed sip of coffee.

I opened my blank document, gazed at the blinking cursor, and tried to recall what I had been thinking about earlier that morning. The thoughts that compelled me to sit down and write this morning…

But no! That line kept returning and my brain stubbornly continued to search for the rest of the stanza. 

I tried singing the song out loud. After all, the reason my brain kept replaying the song is because I was alive and actively listening to the radio when Goldsboro released this tune and won the Grammy for Song of the Year. So, yes, I can sing this whole song except that line that my brain continued (despite my efforts to quash it) to search for the words to complete.

So I resorted to the worst possible song I could find to play, loud as I could play it, and sing along to.

It worked. Goldsboro and his song shut off in my brain.

And, yes, the words to the replacement song took over. Haunted me all day.

So what to make of this latest earworm about spiders and snakes? Yes, I can hear the line being played by my brain, and I have no intention of looking up what the rest of the song sounds like, or what it is. 

It can’t be good.

News item: Man carrying flowers hit by car downtown.

“near or in the crosswalk”

Consider the “reporting” behind this story.

“Hey, I saw some emergency vehicles near Main and Browne this afternoon. Does anyone know what happened?”

“Some guy was crossing the street and he got hit by a car.”

“Whoa. Was he hurt?”

“He was in pain.”

“So he was conscious?”

“Yeah, he was talking. They took him away in the ambulance.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No, but he was carrying a bouquet of flowers.”

“Was he in the crosswalk?” 

“Don’t know. He wasn’t lying in the crosswalk afterwards…”

A news item is born. 

“Man carrying flowers”

How about some more details?

The man, who was crossing the street in the crosswalk with the traffic light granting him right of way, was carrying a vase of fresh flowers and also an open umbrella. It had been raining off and on that day. The umbrella was lying on the street, inside out, when his family arrived, panicked and afraid because all they knew was that he’d been hit by a car and was lying in the street.

More details: he was wearing what had been a crisp white shirt, fresh blue jeans, and a sport coat. When his family arrived, he was drenched from the falling rain and lying on his backpack. 

“near or in the crosswalk”–that short bit of reporting struck a nerve with members of the man’s family.

You see, he had waited on the corner for the walk sign, then checked for any oncoming traffic and made his way a good 10 steps out into the street when he was suddenly struck by the car, lifted into the air, and found himself looking at his feet which were mysteriously now above his head. The vase of flowers–vibrant red roses and dark pink chrysanthemums, meant for his daughter for her birthday–flew from his hand and shattered, spilling the flowers onto the pavement. The blooms lay in disarray, some still clinging to one another as though determined to remain arranged, while others lay about singly.

This was an abrupt ending to a joyous celebration the man carries out every year. His daughter’s birthday is an event he brings his unique, heartfelt, and particular expression to. He has been known to drive downtown just to choose flowers from a particular store because they are fresh, vibrant, and arranged so carefully. On this particular day, he rode a bus from the valley, having rearranged his schedule just to be with his daughter and his wife downtown, then shopped for the flowers and a box of chocolates, and began walking along Main Avenue, checking for his family members in their usual haunts. He sent his wife a brief text message asking where they were, so when her phone rang a few minutes later, she said “Oh, here he is!”–and thought he might be having trouble finding them.

The voice on the other end asked for her by name and then said “Your husband is all right, but he has been hit by a car on Main and Browne. He is here with me, lying on the street.” Confusion and shock. Then both women reacted with their own unique styles–one in full flight, the other more slowly, as though swimming through air suddenly made of gel.

As they rushed to get to him, both were confronted by impatient drivers (half the street was blocked by the car that struck him) and helpful passersby who were directing traffic. One driver decided it would be faster for him to sweep between the sidewalk and where the man was lying so he could be on his way. Things to do; places to be, after all. This detail stood out vividly to the man lying in the street.

When something catastrophic happens, we are often reduced to nameless beings identifiable only by something we’re wearing, or something we’re carrying, or something we’re doing. “Man carrying flowers.” The woman who drove the care that hit the man was distraught and even called the man’s wife on her cell phone to check on him is represented only as “the driver of the sedan.” The sedan is given more characteristic description than she is given. At least we can picture a sedan in our heads. What does “the driver” look like or sound like? The off duty nurse who called me is someone who doesn’t even appear in this account, and yet she was central to reuniting “the man with flowers’” family with him as he lay in the street.

Those flowers. Emergency personnel helped gather the flowers as the man was loaded into the back of the ambulance. They handed the now-sad little remains of the bouquet to his wife, who rode in the front seat of the ambulance. The flowers looked alien inside the ambulance cab and even more alien when the ER nurse put them in a plastic cup of water in the man’s hospital room. His daughter could not even look at them.

Orange cat swimming.

Furious orange cat swimming.

No—outraged, indignant, and drenched orange cat propelling his body with determination through flood waters. 

Determination? Resolve. 

This is a cat who intends not only to extricate himself from the sea that has suddenly engulfed his normally dry environment, but a cat who seeks retribution for this indignity and punishment from whoever is in charge.

I don’t believe he’s blaming God or whatever gods cats venerate aside from themselves. I’m sure he’s thinking “stupid humans did this, and as soon as I find one, there will be hell to pay.”

This cat has not found himself suddenly dunked into the relatively pristine waters of a northern Idaho lake. Nor has he suffered an ignominious and sudden plunge into a swimming pool or a toilet bowl by miscalculation. 

That would be horrific enough.

What this cat is experiencing is a sudden and horrifying immersion into an overwhelming volume of fluid containing horrors seen and unseen. Will something pull him under? What’s that “thing” floating by, now? How much longer will this hellish experience continue? Will he be able to find a sufficient piece of dry land where he can lick himself clean and dry off? And, will he die if he attempts to lick off the toxic waste?

This cat is all of us.

Printed newspaper headlines used to “scream.” I’m sure they still do, but they don’t hit most of us with the same impact they once did. Now, we have notifications. They “pop up” incongruously throughout the day on our ubiquitous array of personal devices. Floodwaters of information—all of it distracting, some of it useful, and much of it toxic waste that appears to have been sent from the yawning gates of the abyss.

Keep swimming.

Like the cat, I am searching for a place to get rid of the accumulated debris clinging to parts of me and attracting more and more detritus to drag around. 

This would be a good time to withdraw to a cabin in the woods, go off the grid, and let this country and the rest of the world figure out what happened, how to fix it, and what happens next. I’m sure the cat is with me on this plan. All we need is dry land, a nice warm fire, and a chance to sleep off this nightmare.

Last summer, during our annual pilgrimage to the woods of Northern Idaho, our family fell into the familiar circadian rhythms of waking early, walking the dogs, fixing breakfast and wandering down to the lake for the first plunge of the day—adults nursing early morning mugs of coffee and the kids dragging along sand toys and inflatable water toys in our wake. We hiked, read, talked, played and swam, and let the sunrise and sunset determine the beginning and ending of everyday. 

Although I could paint this as a remote wilderness excursion—it wasn’t. We work at making it a time “off the grid.” If we wanted, we could wander down to the resort lodge and watch television, surf the news via WiFi, or pick up shipments from Amazon. We choose not to participate in that continuation of what we all have waiting for us at home.

We do wander down for the occasional latte, draft beer, or decadent dessert.

We participate in movies on the beach once a week (with candy from the store and popcorn).

Otherwise, we are left to peacefully exist in a bubble that has few technological intrusions. We read. We laugh. We talk. We put puzzles together. We build with legos. We color. We rent a pontoon boat a couple of times and venture as far as the upper lake on an excursion. Occasionally, we encounter lightning, wind, and high waves, and we appreciate the calm after the adventure. And we eat an amazing amount of food.

The bubble of this idyll is only penetrated by the “need” to communicate by cell phone since some of us have to commute back and forth during our two week stay. I say “need” because we send lists of needed supplies to those of us who are commuting between home and our idyllic refuge. After all, we have to replenish the amazing amount of food. As it turns out, my cellular network only functions in this paradise if I stand on the farthest reach of the public dock or take my phone to the middle of the lake in a canoe. This last action isn’t always a practical solution.

Thus, I found myself trying to find the best possible connection last summer, standing on the public dock, cell phone in hand. The only other occupants of the dock were a man and woman who clearly wanted to talk to me. Sigh. 

I was annoyed. And then I realized that my annoyance with them is wrapped up in my usual eyes forward, stuff to do, please-don’t-pull-me-into-your-business-when-I’m-on-a-mission attitude I assume at home. 

Wasn’t I in the woods to shed that everyday demeanor?

So I smiled. I greeted them. I listened. For a very long time. (Apparently, my impatience didn’t slip off with the rest of my everyday skin). I learned where they were from, where they lived now, where their cabin is (up the road), how many children, and how many grandchildren they have. 

And how very happy they are that the grandchildren are gone now from the cabin.

(At this point, I began contemplating the cabin full of four grandchildren and two daughters that I had left behind to place a quick phone call.) 

Gone? I’m no grandparent “saint,” but I know that if my grandchildren and their parents weren’t visiting the cabin with me, my days would soon feel empty and the hours would seem very long. Our rented cabin is boisterous, overfilled with toys, activity, and food, and aside from the hour or two I take to hike with Nellie (the now-exhausted labrador) or to read a book during rest time—I love the mayhem of our woodsy paradise.

My wandering thoughts were pulled back to the couple on the dock when the female member of the duo exclaimed, suddenly: “But I miss my Fox News! I can’t get Fox News at the cabin!”

Dumbstruck. 

Like the orange cat, I began to sense that these were dangerous waters approaching. Nope. Not going there. Stay on dry land.

I tried to keep my face neutral as I backed away, citing the cell phone as my excuse. “Well. Gotta’ make this call! Nice talking to you. Enjoy your time!”

Next time, I’m going out in the canoe.

Two. “Just enough,” you said, “for dessert.” “Just enough,” you said, as I munched one and absently nodded my assent.

Two hours. Just enough time to check us off your “list.”

To regale us with details of your recent endeavors–highly successful. To provide detailed information about your sons’ lives and latest pursuits. To share pictures and even a story about buying a used car.

Two hours. To direct the conversation and skim over our lives. What did you learn about our lives during that visit? Beyond the superficial–”and how is your family?” Do you know their names? Anything about them? 

Two chocolate almonds: just enough. 

And that seems to be the point, after all. “Just enough.” 

Last winter, Steve and I immersed ourselves in several serialized BBC adaptations of Charles Dickens’s novels. We also watched as much of Dickensian as the BBC made (this was my second viewing), but Steve got extremely annoyed because I kept hitting “pause” and then explaining…”Ok. Remember Bleak House?” Because he read Bleak House years ago. He would impatiently nod, and I would continue, “Ok, this is the backstory of Esther’s mother, how she came to marry Lord Dedlock, and the circumstances of Esther’s birth…” and he would look at me, blankly. He clearly wanted to continue with Dickensian, uninterrupted, and I really can’t blame him because the BBC put together a plotline including an entertaining portrayal of Mr. Bucket along with characters from several of the Dickens oeuvre–all interacting with one another in the same section of London–impossibly but intriguingly (especially for a Dickens fan) put together. I don’t think the series got rave reviews, and it was canceled after the first season that ended with someone about to jump off the top of a building. 

Interruptions. The jarring and sudden imposed pause in someone’s focus and concentration. Interruptions like that annoy the viewer. My intention was to add another layer of understanding to my partner’s viewing. Or, at least, that is what I told myself each time I hit the pause button to articulate the connections between different Dickens narratives made by the screenwriters and “helpfully” provide insight about how the backstories they included fit with the texts as Dickens wrote them. 

Ah. But something else was going on here. Thus, my partner’s increasing annoyance with me. All of this was self-aggrandizement. I’ve spent time reading and analyzing the works of Charles Dickens, savoring each narrative, and relishing his penchant for creating a world full of cleverly named characters. I was showing off. And it was interfering with my partner’s enjoyment of the production we were viewing. 

I didn’t stop there, by the way. When we watched the BBC production of Bleak House, I hit the pause button again and pointed out, “Ok, remember in Dickensian…” and he managed to put up with me. 

The epiphany about my behavior occurred this winter while I was reading a book written by one of my colleagues. Increasingly annoyed by the many parenthetical asides this writer has included in the text, I began a “book review.” 

The book is Quarantine Life from Cholera to Covid-19, by Kari Nixon PhD. Kari is my colleague in the English Department at Whitworth University.

The introduction to her book recounts the scrupulous academic research Dr. Nixon put into writing this text. I didn’t set out to write a review of the book when I began reading it. Quite simply, my motivation for reading it was to understand my colleague just a bit more. Her research connects contagion with literature. And while I’m not someone who holds a PhD, I have a Master’s Degree in Literary studies that renders me more than just a little curious about how her research has connected the two. 

Dr. Nixon employs a narrative style and tone that make the reader feel as if they are participating in a conversation about the topic over coffee with a group of similarly interested friends. She manages to make what could be considered an unpleasant topic approachable and intriguing. Nixon obviously wants this text to appeal to a broad audience so that audience understands more about contagion and pandemics and the public response to them. It’s an important and complex topic she presents to the audience in a non-intimidating manner.

To be fair, not all of the asides the writer includes are distracting. Some of them add a dimension of empathy and understanding about the topic. One early aside that is especially helpful is her  inclusion of the fact that bleeding a patient was no longer a common practice at the time of one tragic narrative the writer includes. She goes on to suggest that had the woman about to lose her child known that, she might have realized that the doctor was all out of ideas. This highlights the tragedy of the child’s death and helps a 21st century audience to respond with empathy. It’s an effective strategy for keeping the writer’s audience engaged with the text.

At this point, I found myself offering the writer a high five for an excellent connection with the audience. And again, a few pages later, in the middle of another compelling narrative, the writer includes her own feelings–a response to what another mother must be feeling. In doing so, she personalizes the text, but then–BANG–the pause button. Briefly, yes. But she includes a parenthetical aside about creativity in “naming practices.” 

At this point, I had to close my copy of the book and place it firmly to one side. That intrusion was both distracting and dismissive. In the 21st century, in my partner’s family and my own, I could easily list half a dozen people who have the same first name. We often laugh about it. But it’s not something that belongs to people of a certain time. And certainly, an opposing argument could be made about “naming practices” that could be considered overly creative. 

Admittedly, that is one small aside, and maybe it’s more of a source of annoyance for me than it is for other people. But it is one of many in this text. One or two instances of “we’ll get into more about this later” or “I told you we’d get back to this” aren’t overly intrusive in a text of less than 220 pages. But this text contains quite a few “Hey, remember me? The writer?” moments.

Some of the more distracting asides that are sprinkled throughout the text involve the writer’s qualifications. Her ethos. As someone who teaches academic writing, I feel qualified to comment on this element of the book. As I remind my students when they assess a writer’s ethos: focus less on a writer’s academic credentials and scholarly publications and pay attention to what the writer seems to know and understand about the topic. Nixon’s qualifications shine through her careful inclusion of historical narratives and researched sources that connect with her topic and the arguments she is making. We, the readers, don’t need to be reminded of her qualifications by either footnote or parenthetical aside. We “get it.” Nixon is eminently qualified to write this text. 

Dickens was a master in the art of writer intrusion. My favorite moment occurs in the text of Bleak House when Jo dies. Dickens, the social reformer steps forward in the text and offers this commentary: “Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.” This commentary is not attributed to any character in that scene. It is Dickens’s own assessment and condemnation of what he was seeing everyday on the streets of London. And then he continues with the rest of the narrative. He doesn’t tell us he is qualified to offer this assessment. He just offers it. And it is left to the reader to pause and reflect a moment on how fiction amplifies life.

And yes, I just conflated a strategy from a fictional text with something a writer is doing in a nonfiction text. But both are concerned with engaging their audience. And one manages to do so without constantly reminding the reader of the writer’s qualifications.

I’m left with this overall thought about the book: it reads as a published work that can’t quite decide what it is. On one hand, It reads as the script of a presentation–one given to a fairly well-educated audience with a real interest in the topic. But it also reads as a trade publication that includes such scholarly moves as the  introduction of source material, explanations of that source material, and then footnotes attributing those ideas. In either case, I don’t believe  many of the parenthetical intrusions by the writer into the text add anything to audience appeal. They serve to distract the reader’s focus away from the topic at hand (here is a source, and oh, by the way, this source is my mentor) and undermine the writer’s appeal to ethos. I think the writer could have eliminated most of the asides, and then this book would read as a well-organized and readable trade publication about an important topic–well supported and researched. It is important enough that I believe she should take her text, condense its most important ideas, simplify sentence structure, include some well-chosen asides, and present a Ted Talk or a similar presentation.