jumpingfish › version 3.0

Causality

Sun, 2 Oct 2016, 05:06 PM (-06:00)

1. Proximate Cause

When the the sun shines after the rain. When the air grows cool. That’s when the rain lilies bloom.

Close your eyes. Ignore the barking in the back alley. Ignore the traffic on the highway and the air conditioners across the street. (What are they doing running air conditioners on a day like this!?)

Close your eyes and shut that out. Listen to the birds. Feel the late afternoon sun. Turn your face into the breeze. And just look at those rain lilies.

2. Root Cause

Dude.

You, again.

You and your blue sky and gentle breezes.

I’m feeling good, what can I say?

Sun and rain and sky and flowers — is there never anything else to explain your giddiness?

Well, there was that ninety minute massage.

Oh. I see… Got any coupons?

Dude.

Back of the Pack

Sun, 2 Oct 2016, 08:19 AM (-06:00)

1. Hill at the Start

The run was no different yesterday that it has been on the last few Saturdays. I quickly found myself near the back of the pack. That’s just the way it is. Frankly, it just feels good to be running again, so it’s fine. And anyway the morning was mercifully cool.

The day’s route was difficult. There were hills. In particular, there was a big hill at the beginning, which meant that before we had warmed up, we were huffing and puffing. And on the far side of that first hill, the route descended steeply to Lamar Boulevard where we began a slow steady climb uphill again to the five mile turnaround.

Read that carefully: there was a steep descent in our run right there near the beginning.

In other words, on the way back, somewhere around the four mile mark, there was a steep quarter mile climb. And let me tell you, this is one of the steeper hills in town. I used to ride that stretch of 12th Street on my bike years ago when I was a student. Even on a bike, I usually had to stop and walk.

2. Hill at the End

That hill is waiting for us on our return.

I’ve fallen completely to the back and am running by myself. As the light turns green, I can see the other five milers getting near the top. I begin my climb, taking small and then smaller steps until I’m moving at what seems a ridiculously slow pace.

This isn’t running, you say to yourself, when you’re running a hill like that.

I pick my feet up just a bit, and now if feels more like marching in place. Yet I am moving forward. And even though my lungs are burning and the sweat is pouring off me, the air is cool and the breeze feels great.

I am going to make it up this hill without stopping.

3. Reaching the Summit

I look up.

The five mile group has reached the top. I see one or two of them turn in my direction. They seem to be waiting. I wave them on. They all turn toward me. Some wave. One jumps up and down. I can hear them shouting and calling my name.

In that moment, I am sprinting to the finish of an Olympic distance race. The stadium is packed. With the roar of the crowd ringing in my ears, I pick up my pace — even at this, the very steepest part of the vertical ascent. With the finish line just a block away, I pump my arms harder. I pick up my pace. And I finish hard. There are high-fives all around.

And in that moment, I can think of no downsides to running at the back of the pack.

Eco Park

Fri, 23 Sep 2016, 08:36 PM (-06:00)

Dude. Have you even looked for it?

For what?

For that tree. For those trees you say you planted way back then. For the trees you say aren’t there. That Google doesn’t show.

Yes. I’ve looked. They aren’t there.

You’re wrong, man. They’re there.

Show me.

Right here. Just south of the Eco Park Apartments, man. Just south of Eco Park Drive.

What are you talking about? I looked. The trees aren’t there.

Look for yourself, man. Here: just north west of that lagoon. Look at all those trees, at that woods.

What woods? There wasn’t a woods there… then. Oh, I see. Eco Park. What a nice sound that has. And… I think I can see my tree. OMG, this multiverse has fewer dimensions today than it did yesterday!

Tricked

Fri, 23 Sep 2016, 07:19 PM (-06:00)

They tricked me back then and had me plant a tree. Out on the west side of town. Dig a hole with others and put a young tree in it. They tricked me, and we planted those trees that I thought would grow into a grove. But they didn’t. I’ve looked at Google, and they aren’t there.

They tricked me back then and took me to an election night celebration. A middle school boy with grown-up high school girls in the big city on the big night after weeks of walking door to door distributing leaflets. “You’ll be able to tell them about the great election of ’72,” he said. But I can’t. No one wants to know.

They tricked me back then and took me to the moon. To the moon and to Mars. To Mars and to Jupiter. They said we’d go to those places, and I believed we would and couldn’t quite understand those who didn’t think we should. But we haven’t, and we won’t. The robots do it better, anyway.

They say we live in a multiverse. I say we do, too, because I find myself in a place where those trees don’t grown, in a place where that election is an embarrassment, stuck down here looking around in a place that I don’t quite recognize.

Oh my god, David. You can’t send that. Your mother will cry.

It’s not so sad. And anyway, it’s not really true. But still…

The Corner Spot

Mon, 19 Sep 2016, 01:40 AM (-06:00)

We were talking about the stories behind these pictures. So what’s going on with this one?

Hmm… there’s no stunning story, here. Yet…

First of all, this is the top of the hill where the breeze comes out of the west (to the right in the picture) and blows the mosquitos mercifully back into the woods. You can see the evidence on the left side of the frame, where one of the big White Pines, barely present in the picture, is leaning to the left, leaning with the prevailing breezes. That tree has been there a very long time, and it clearly knows how to go with the flow as does the young one in the foreground — the one that looks like a tetherball pole. That young tree was a volunteer just a few years ago. You had to be careful not to trip over it in the dark. But um… you can see that my just-a-few-years-ago must indeed be quite a few years, because, well, that baby tree’s done grown up.

Secondly, how many years have we hung our towels on that line? Summer after summer, year after year, I have photographs that feature colorful arrays of towel-and-swimsuit hanging there on that cord strung between the trees. In fact, that left-most towel, has likely been featured in family photos going back two generations. It is a good towel, and it has kept me warm when the air was cool and the wind was… making the trees lean.

Thirdly, this is the edge of the wild. When we were very young, the backdrop here was a solid wall of green pine needles on young White Pines. But those trees have grown and their green needles are now up high, out of the frame of this picture. So unlike back then, today you can gaze into the woods and follow the path down to the swamp with your eye, the path that used to disappear into the young pines. Mimi used to warn us about that swamp. I remember her telling Stevie to tell us about it and about the quicksand down there. It was years before I ventured very far that way, and I was stunned to discover how beautiful it was.

And finally, the tent. This is our spot. Somehow Ben and Trudy and I have come to earn this particular spot as our own. (Although, Ben has long since graduated to a tent of his own that he pitches off to the left.) Year after year, summer after summer when the family pitches tents up here, even if we arrive late, it seems this spot is saved for us. I’m not sure how we got this honor, but I won’t complain, as the view out the tent windows to the west has much to offer. Well… it wasn’t always this tent. This is our second. The first was a huge REI dome tent that saw some pretty nasty summer storms in this spot. One year, the rains were so bad that everyone got wet and the wind was so fierce that some tents ended up in the woods… everyone except us, because that REI tent stayed put and didn’t leak. Indeed, the rains came down so torrentially that year that this particular spot had standing water several inches deep, and the tent was standing in it, and even then it was dry inside. Have you ever heard of such a thing!? It was a good tent, and when I look at this picture, I don’t see the blue tent you see here, but I see that white and yellow and blue REI dome tent that served us so well.

Spiny Lizard

Sun, 18 Sep 2016, 06:21 PM (-06:00)

We sat in the front yard on the bench, Izzy and I. It was shady under the Monterey Oak, and we both needed to cool down. So we just sat there looking around and enjoying the breeze.

Then something caught my eye. Against the house. Behind the Coral Honeysuckle. In the dappled light. Between the vine’s leaves and the brown cedar of the trellis. There was a pattern that didn’t belong. Some kind of camouflaged thing.

It didn’t move, but it was the kind of motionlessness that leaves you knowing you’re being watched.

I kept my eye on it. Was it a snake? No, it was just about the length of an outstretched hand. Not a snake. And anyway, our rat snake lives in the backyard.

I looked down at Miss Izzy, to see if she saw it. But she was napping. I looked back up at the thing, and then it moved. One tentative flick to a different spot where the sun dapples fell differently on the vine and I almost lost it in the shadows. And then it moved again. And again.

There was a long, skinny reptile tail. And some cross-hatched, zig-zaggy lines. And then a Spiny Lizard head staring directly at me while I stared at it staring directly at me.

And then it disappeared behind the trellis and was gone.

Cold, Sweet Grapes

Sat, 10 Sep 2016, 11:48 AM (-06:00)

I started out slowly, quickly dropping toward the back of the back. When we got to the water stop a mere mile into the run, there were other people behind, but I kept going and many of them turned around at that point, so I was quickly at the end of our line of runners, I mean the very last person.

That’s ok. It’s meditation for me. Good exercise too, of course, but most of the time I’m entirely inside myself, so it’s not about the people ahead or the people behind. I’m fine finishing a workout dead-last. Which I did. Well, not quite. People continued to string in for a very long time, but these were runners returning from 20 and 22 mile runs, so… you know. Once upon a time, that was me. Not any more.

I sat for a moment in the shade under the Hackberry trees, stretching my back muscles and letting the mercifully cool breeze blow across my sweaty face. I took off my shoes and joined the others walking in a circle doing our foot strength drills (toes pointing in, toes pointing out, feet rolled in, feet rolled out, walk on your heels, walk on your toes).

“There’s some grapes,” someone said as I was just about done.

I walked around to the front, to that shady spot, and there was indeed a plate of grapes — frozen red grapes that were so cold the humidity was condensing on them as ice.

I took three and put them into my mouth one at a time, biting and chewing on each, relishing the coolness and the sweetness.

I have never experienced anything so wonderful in my entire life.

Taking Out the Compost

Fri, 9 Sep 2016, 08:45 PM (-06:00)

The compost pail was chuggin’ full. There were a day’s worth of coffee grounds from work in a Folger’s can on the counter. And there was a bowl of vegetable scraps from the tasty treat Trudy was preparing. Time for a compost run before it got dark.

This is the contract we have, the fair and industrious Trudy and I: she makes tasty treats, and I deal with the compost. (Who’s got the better deal?) So with evening setting in, I set out with my arms full. Trudy handed me the bowl of scraps with a twinkle in her eye and then quickly pulled the patio door shut.

It was dusk — that time that isn’t day and isn’t night. The time when things disappear from plain view before your eyes. The time when screech owls screech and scurrying things skitter around in the black shadows. The time of rummy-gumpshins and nick-tal-roos and wild augerhandles. (You know the kind of dusk I’m talking about?)

I walked thru the gate into that skinny slice of yard that we call our “Back 40”. I had to tilt my head to avoid the Common Hackberry coming up behind the fence. (I gotta cut that thing down this weekend.) But it’s leaves rubbed my neck, and I could feel my skin trying to decide whether to complain or not.

An owl soundlessly swooped before me and glided in an arc around the yard and into the alley behind us. I made a motion to set my load of pail and can and bowl of scraps down.

But I stopped short. Something wasn’t quite right. I squinted to see better in the dim light.

There was a snake. Lying still. Hidden in plain sight on top of the compost pile. Mottled pattern on scales against the mottled texture of dead, decaying leaves and grass. I recognized the markings: a rat snake. Indeed, it was our rat snake, whom we haven’t seen in a very long time, who we were dreading might have succumbed to the axe or shovel of a neighbor.

It looked at me. I looked at it. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then I tossed a chunk of watermelon rind, hoping to encourage it to move so that I might bury my scraps. It didn’t move. We both held our ground, staring at each other. Then I took a step forward. And with that, the snake turned and began to slither off the pile and into the undergrowth. It slithered shockingly quickly, but this was no small snake, so it took a fair while for it to clear the area.

I watched it as it retreated. I took another step, so that I might estimate its length: at least six feet long. As I said, no small snake.

When it reached the fence, the snake stopped to watch me, and then he slithered behind a sheet of corrugated metal leaning against the fence back there. (I need to do something with that some time.)

Big snake. Lucky us. The rats in the alley don’t stand a chance.

That Amazing Thing

Tue, 6 Sep 2016, 08:04 PM (-06:00)

It was a long weekend. It was Sunday, so we parked at Spec’s and walked to the Violet Crown Trail trailhead where we began our hike.

As we walked thru the Oak and Juniper and Elm forest, the path descended into a canyon. We stepped on white limestone ledges. Years and countless years of encroaching and receding Cretaceous seas. Endless years of shallow tidal marshes and lagoons. Of reef detritus and oolite shoals. Of carbonate muds and sands. Of waters lapping against reef trends. The hard, vuggy, cracked limestone remnants on which and over which we stepped.

We hiked back into time.

There were dry creek beds where sometimes the water flows and we thought on this day of this wet summer it might but it wasn’t. The trail flattened and the dogs began to pull. We heard the Mopac expressway to the west — the rush of traffic even on a Sunday afternoon. And we heard louder traffic on 360 ahead of us.

Wait… why is the 360 traffic louder? It shouldn’t be.

Is wasn’t.

That rush of traffic was in fact the rush of Barton Creek tumbling across a broken limestone shelf. The water was clear where it ran swiftly, and greenish-blue where it slowed in a lazy pool below the rapids. Sunlight fell in dappled puddles on the ground, filtered thru Sycamore trees growing along the water’s edge, growing in the creek.

This is the place we chose to stop. To rest. To drink the water we brought with us. To eat an apple snack. Under the Sycamores. Beside the rushing rapids. In the water. We sat in awe of that amazing thing.

Liiiiiife!

Mon, 29 Aug 2016, 09:31 PM (-06:00)