jumpingfish

“Please know,” Jenny said, “that we would love to have you stay here for the eclipse.”

It didn’t sink in at first that this was my cousin, because I had been texting about lightning bugs with her kids. (You can never be quite sure who is on the other end of texts to her.)

“Not sure. Probably not, because we’re going to use our PTO on a trip to Canada this summer.”

But it was Friday, and the living was easy outside on the Chuy’s patio. So it didn’t take long to reevaluate.

“Could I visit a class of yours and do The Jabberwocky?”

“Are you serious!?” 

A few minutes later, Jenny reported, “Julia and Katherine are screaming with excitement.”

“But do you think you can integrate it into your curriculum?” I asked.

“How could anyone not be able to?” she asked.

Days passed. A week. More.

“Have you given any more thought to coming in August?” she asked.

“I’m thinking that when I die, I’m not likely to say, I wish I had just stayed at home that August in 2017 when the lights went out in Kentucky.“

“He’s coming!?” someone on the other end replied.

And with that, our plans were made. 

He has a habit of sitting at his desk in the evenings. Sitting, writing — typing at the keyboard.

And between the moments when he’s writing-typing, the silence settles around him and a little voice sometimes speaks out loud.

On this night, the voice was visiting for the first time in a long time, because you see there had been a long hiatus in the writing so the voice had nothing to pester the man about. But not so this night, for there had been some writing in the days previous.

– Why do you write about these silly things?

You again. I can’t say I missed you.

– I mean, apples and sticks and banana stickers and silicone lubricant.

Silly things…

– Yes… and you do know the difference between caulk and lubricant, don’t you? Or did you lubricate those stairs with caulk, as you said!?

Lubricant. (But given a tube of real silicone caulk, who knows what I might have done! Don’t tempt fate with your hypotheticals.)

– I mean, don’t you have more important things to write? Isn’t there anything important going on in your life? Don’t you have anything of consequence to share?

Feeling a little vindictive?

– I am the voice of your audience. We tire of these things. Sticks!

Fair enough. You grow tired of common things. But you are free to leave. Don’t let me keep you. Still, you should know this: there is something worth knowing, something worth hearing about little common things. 

– But… sticks!?

Yes. Sticks. And I can tell you, my grandmother would have smiled.

And while we’re at it, let’s add fish and bees to the list. (Click the picture to enlarge.)

You might know what I’m talking about — sticks. You might know the thing my grandmother hand for sticks, for kindling. I think I’ve told you about it before.

I come walking out of the woods, out from under the canopy of the oaks and pines, holding a bundle of sticks in my hand. Kindling. Something to start a fire with. Something to put in a safe, dry place, because… well because you never know when you might need a bundle of dry kindling. Because when it’s wet and cold outside, it’s too late to collect it. Because it wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t wet. Because come springtime, someone’s gonna want to start a fire.

And so I come walking out of the woods with a bundle of sticks in hand.

My cousin chuckles.

“Can’t help yourself, can you?”

He might be smiling at me and that bundle, but you know he’s thinking of our grandmother and hers. 

1. The Assignment

It was a simple task. The kind of task they’d heard me talk about: Just give me a hole to dig. Or tree branches to cut.

“We’re going to town,” they said.

They selected a task: lubricate the attic stairs. They gave me a blue rubber glove, that I might not get sticky stuff on these keyboard fingers of mine. And they entrusted the tube of silicone caulk to my safe keeping. 

2. The Execution

It doesn’t get much simpler that this. Squeeze the caulk. Spread it out. Clean the glops. Spread them out.

And indeed, the attic stairs pulled down and pushed back much easier when the deed was done. That task complete, I tossed the blue glove in the trash and moved outside to the gutters, where there were many pine needles to extract (an obvious consequence of having a cottage in a pine forest).

3. The Post Mortem

They returned from town later. I heard them whispering in the living room.

I saw her pointing. “What is this?” was the question. Evidently a misplaced glop of caulk.

And then to my shame, he pointed to a streak of white caulk on the attic door surface, as if to wonder silently, “What on earth was he doing that he smeared it way over here!?”

A conclusion: There is no task too simple for this man not to get something wrong in the execution of it.

A corollary: Don’t trust this man to drain your pipes for the winter — which they did not do.

But one thing. There was no lost data. 

“No,” I said. “Don’t worry. I have a backup in the security deposit box at the bank. And I have another backup sitting unplugged on my desk. And I have a third backup that’s running continuously. So don’t worry; just replace the hard drive.”

Whitney sighed with relief on the other end of the line. He didn’t think the conversation was going to be a good one.

“It doesn’t usually go like this,” he said.

(Let that be a cautionary tell for you.)

And so you see, there is an explanation for the last four months. 

It starts with a PDF file and a spinning beach ball. There is that phone call from Whitney in the United States as the three of us drove across Ontario towards Algonquin Provincial Park. There are the abortive attempts to replace the hard drive and then the screen cable and then the screen and then the motherboard. And then there were the at-first abortive attempts to get this system functional again, ending with an unintended explosion of test messages and finally… Well, here we are.

The full explanation can perhaps wait for another day. Right now, I need to finish this shake and pour my coffee and get in the car and sit on the highway and… Well, make the donuts.