Duality - Blog Prompt #6

It was the best place. Kiawah Island, a barrier island off of South Carolina's Atlantic coast and about an hour away from the artsy, historic city of Charleston, was the best place I've ever visited. Home to the Kiawah Island Golf Resort, the 13.5 square miles of the island is only accessible by bridge and then by special permit provided to residents, vacationers with reservations, and guests on a special guest list, which is checked by security at the gated entrance to the island--the only entrance and exit available.

Residential homeowners, 98% white and 100% filthy rich, drive the one main road of the island, past the resort, to the northern part of the island, where their enormous mansions are protected from vacationers by a second gated security checkpoint, but if said vacationers are riding rented touring bicycles on a bicycle path, they can pass through without stopping to gape at the homes they'll likely never afford except in their quaint American dreams. So why, then, would I, a person so opposed to corporate monopoly and "the 1%" adore this place?

It's not a tourist attraction in the usual sense. It's a nature preserve. Through the Kiawah Island Natural Habitat Conservancy, there are protections on the marshes, the beaches, the flora and fauna. Life takes on a different stride here. It becomes that laid-back, Southern island life one might expect. Most people use bicycles to get around. The beaches are pristine and never overpopulated. Deer abound in the woods and marshes. Hundreds of species of birds are within sight or earshot at all times. Alligators share the bike paths which wind around their marshy ponds. Raccoons, foxes, opossums, bobcats, coyotes, rabbits, squirrels, snakes, toads, frogs, salamanders, loggerhead turtles, egrets, herons, eagles, and hundreds of other types of animal life abound on the island. There are forests, marshes, beaches, dunes, ponds, streams, and of course the ocean. Life slows down when sharing a vacation with nature.

My family has taken vacations to the resort island sparsely, as it is expensive but definitely worthwhile. We kayak, swim, read, laze about in the sun, ride bicycles, cook out, visit the resort restaurant where we ask the chef for his special recipe for sausage gravy. We go crabbing and catch blue crabs in the Kiawah River which we bring home and make into Lowcountry Boil. We sit on the balcony of our condominum at night and listen to the tree frogs while we wonder about the loggerhead turtles laying their eggs in the dunes.

We do not bother with time, cell phones, the internet, or television here. We do not ask if we can come and go. We simply come and go when we please. We spend all day outdoors exploring every inch of the island from the watchtowers we climb to peer over the marshes to the manicured lawns of mansions on the northern part of the island. This is where nature has become the sublime.

How, then, could this also be the place of my nightmares? How could this place have ruined my life? And why would I be so desperate to get back after several years?

I didn't know when we were there. It wasn't until hindsight showed me. He met someone there, someone he stayed in contact with behind my back as I pretended we would get married. And when I found out, I hated Kiawah Island more than I've ever hated any place, any nature, in my entire life. I never wanted to see it ever again.

Though I have no bad memories from that last visit, my emotions skewed the way I thought of the island. I despised the happiness it brought, the out-of-towners who pranced around in skimpy bikinis and stole boyfriends from long-term relationships. I despised the families with young girls, the homewreckers. The nature could not save the face of the island in my mind and heart. I never wanted to return ever again. How could such a paradise lead to the biggest emotional breakdown of my entire emotional-fractured life?

Now, a year and a half out from my discovery, on the brink of the biggest achievement of my life, I long to return. I want to save the island from my personal vendetta. I want to see it in its beauty, in its entirety. I want to separate the plants and animals of my heaven from the anger and hatred of my hell. I must face my fears. I think of the Litany against Fear from the Dune novels: "I must not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. Fear is the little death which brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Only I will remain, with the alligators and hawks, the saltwater sea breezes and the bivalves, the horseshoe crabs and the endangered loggerhead turtles. We will all lay our eggs in the dunes, protected by the lights-out ordinance so our creations can find their way to the sea.

Cemetery Surprise - Place Prompt #6

Sunday, April 1, 2012 - 1:28 PM - 58 degrees - partly cloudy and warm with a soft wind

I dig my fingernails into the ground, cake the dirt beneath them. I pull up the plant, cut into the rind with those same nails, and peel to see what's beneath, peel again to see what's beneath that, keep peeling until the pulp of it, juicy and wet with a slight floral fragrance, makes mud of the soil at the tips of my fingers. This is how I discover the nature of Homewood Cemetery, like fruit in my hands.

Today, I want to revisit the first pond I found during my initial visit to the cemetery. Mainly I want to see the weeping willow again, thanks to a post by a fellow student which mentions their mythology. But it happens to be right beside the pond, and I know much will have changed between the cold, cloudy winter day on which I first saw it and today.

Movement to the left. There are bodies, two of them, with arched black necks and faces striped with white cheeks. Canadian geese-- I know them well from the flocks that hunker through the winter at the YMCA pond back home in South Carolina. I grin at the connection, feel as if I am an old friend to this place which now gives me little gems to spark my memories, good emotions. Homewood and I are more than acquaintances now, and we can have these private moments together. Homewood might have peeled some layers on me, too.

A splash. Something has glopped into the pond near my feet. I don't see it, but I notice the abundance of lily pads lazing on the water, sunning themselves beside the reflections of cottonball clouds and fresh trees. Were they here before? I don't remember them, though I'm sure they were. I wonder why I didn't make the connection between them and my horse pond in SC before. We have those, too.

As I stare at the wavy trees and shift the focus of my eyes from their reflection on the surface to the muddy browness beneath the pond, I see an orange fish flutter by. It looks like some sort of koi, and I wish I could jump in and take a picture. I imagine how the fish flies through the water, much like the grackles and robins which sprint from tree to tree above me. I hear their calls, bright, alert, confident.

A ratta-tat-tat-tat-tat. A ratta-tat-tat-tat-tat. There is a woodpecker somewhere in a section of trees farther down the lane from where I am by the pond. I think of tracking it down, wonder if it is a red-headed woodpecker like the ones back home. Everything reminds me of home today, and I realize it might be because this is my new home now. I know I will be here beyond graduation now, and perhaps these happy little connections whisper to me, "It's okay."

Before I can make the decision to go, though, something else catches my eye. Another kerplunk into the pond, and I see frog legs dart swiftly, stretched behind the thick body, beneath the lily pads.

I am making my way around the pond. There are two boys coming around the pond in the other direction, and once we are on the same side, they stop, staring into the thick of reeds at the back of the pond. I hear a rustle between the dry stalks and look as two turtles rush into the water. The boys laugh, and I wonder if they had anything to do with the hustle of the turtles. It annoys me, but I can't make assumptions. I walk closer to them and they take the hint, see my raised camera as if I'm waiting to take a picture but they are in the shot, and begin walking past me. They don't know I actually took a picture of them.

I rest at the edge of the pond where they had stood, see one of the turtles floating in the middle. The red and yellow stripes on the sides of its head are familiar. It's a red-eared slider, and again, I've seen plenty back home.

As I continue my slow meander around the pond, I pass the reeds, which still look sound, still sound decayed, hollow with the wind. They look like giant matchsticks with the fuzzy heads on their stalks, and I know they'd go up in flame quite readily, too.

On the other side of the pond, another red-eared slider. I sit on the edge of the pond in front of the weeping willow, which I've saved for last. Honeybees buzz around me, play tag with delicate white butterflies which land in the mud, seem to eat from it. I consider how this goopy brown substance as a background only makes their whiteness sparkle more.

And then the weeping willow. I duck beneath and between the strands of its branches, peer out to see what this tree sees everyday.

I peer at its gnarled trunk which only gives it more of an elderly, wise appearance.

Under the falling strands of the tree, it is quiet, shady. They seem to block out some of the harshness of reality-- the bright, the loud, the very realness of everything. Flies and gnats buzz, and it smells like a bouquet of flowers though none are near.

I decide to head back to the car after spending some time peeking at gravestones behind the flexible limbs. I walk up the hill, my visit complete. Out of the corner of my eye, I see an old drainpipe, red and crumbled. I can look up the pipe, and were I to walk up the hill a few steps, I could look down into the other half of it. I only notice it in passing, as it's one of those examples of decay I love-- these things stand out to me.

But then movement makes me stop. I saw something gray withdraw into it. I am sure it's some kind of bird; I see what must be fluffy gray down from a puffed, fat young bird. I see it again, but it looks more like a rabbit.

I wait, and then it pops out again. It's not a bird at all. It's a groundhog! I am excited because I've never seen one in real life and I am so close to this one (within a yard or two). We play hide-and-seek for several minutes. He pops his head out and stares at me, retreats back into the pipe. He pops his head out and stares at me, retreats back into the pipe. I take his picture each time, demanding that at least one turn out well.

I then leave him to his privacy and mosey up the hill, head home. I love this getting to know, this becoming acquainted, this dating of the cemetery. And now that I will stay here in Pittsburgh a while longer, I think I'm ready to call this a second home.

Emotive Powers - Blog Prompt #5

When I cry, it rains. Every major distressing life event I've experienced has been capped with grayness, oppressive clouds bearing down on the ground in an effort to become one with the earth, to suffocate me, to give in to my wishes.

With my tears, I control the atmosphere, give hardier physicality to the tiny, personal, and ultimately worthless drops of salty water that trail my cheeks, stain my lips brighter with their moisture, a crude lip gloss. They do not satisfy me. They are not enough.

I must escape the binds of my own body, bring my emotion to the masses of air and cloud, move them with my hefty shudders, the puffs of sigh escaping from my mouth. I must become something bigger than myself, than what plagues me. I must give it to my land, drive the cycle, give growth to what surrounds me even as I shrivel myself, drain all my waters into the ground, let it soak the life from within me, give it up to the sky until the stuffing bursts open, falls to the ground again.

Is it an heaving cry? Let there be thunder, mimic the groans of grief from my belly! Let there be lightning, imitate my flashes of memory in their destruction! Is it an angry cry? Let there be hail, mime the pounding of pain through my head! Let there be wind, tornado or hurricane, enact the rampant flutter of my heart as it explodes in my chest! Is it a soft, silent cry? Let there be sprinkles or glitters of snow, blanket and cleanse my soul.

Or is it a joyful cry? Let there be life from whence these tears stream. I'll find a field, crank up my music, dance for hours in trance on my own. For I am the Goddess of Rain. It is I who bring the waters or drought.

Cemetery Awakening - Place Prompt #5

Saturday, March 17, 2012 - 12:36 PM - 67 degrees - sunny, warm, and breezy

Today I decide to be stationary. Each time I’ve come to the cemetery, I have moved, walked around or mulled about, sometimes for hours. Today, it is warm, the sun shining from a crispy blue sky, and it’s a lot like spring, almost summer even. I want to sit in the sun, feel the warmth of it, laze about, take in just one particular view of the cemetery as its life is more alive than in winter.

There are birds sounding everywhere. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced here before, that flat, motionless, lifeless terrain I described in my first visit. I’ve come to an aviary, but I cannot see the birds. They want me to listen, to enjoy their music. I wish now that I had been schooled in picking out the calls of various birds so as to know which are with me today. I know some, but they are in South Carolina. I can tell you what a mockingbird sounds like as it dips and dives onto Ticky Tac to protect its territory; I can describe the buzz of hummingbird wings, so close in memory that I can almost hear it right beside me.

I look down, to the left, from the weathered concrete bench on which I sit, overlooking the steep drop and rise of the cemetery before me.

The grass is short and green, except for patches where it has grown taller, somewhat ragged, but still bright. A fat bee buzzes in one of these right beside my leg. I don’t draw back like many people might. Years of working at the barn have made me accustomed to certain insects, like these bees, and other“creepy crawlies”-- giant writing spiders, snakes and skinks. I feel anaffinity towards this bee, wish there were flowers near for him.

I turn to survey the land beside and behind me. Most of the trees are still skeletal, save for the evergreens. But I notice a tree in bright pink bloom hanging over the edge of the drive to my left.

To my right, in the distance, there is a bush that is blossoming white flowers that remind me of daisies upon closer inspection, though I know they're not.

I notice the weeping willow which I had seen on my first visit, remember how its strands were brown. They are green now.

I would like to see all of the trees full and bushy. They don’t look like they’ll ever grow green again, even in this awakening of life.

There are birds that have flown to the grasses before me, allowing them to see me now. They hop around, fly into one another, chirp. I think they are robins, but the sun is in front of me and they are more like shadows from this angle. One lone bird has flown to a patch of shadow beneath the bare, angular limbs of a tree, sits alone, seems to do what I am doing—contemplating the land. This one is definitely a robin. I know from the way it moves in the grass before I see its red breast. They were all around in my suburban yard while I was growing up. My attention is drawn to the shadow in which it sits, a dark reflection of the skeleton growing above it. I realize I love the shadows of these trees as much as the trees themselves.

As much as I like this cemetery, the way it is more alive, and how I can see differences from all of the past times I have visited, part of me misses the cold, seemingly lifeless place with which I first became familiar, the way I had to patiently wait for it to divulge its layers. Change is difficult, they say, and even such a change, which many would assume to be a good one, is somewhat sad to me, makes me nostalgic. Still, I do like seeing the evolution of this cemetery. It's amazing that this is the same place in the photos I took before.

Today, human life in the cemetery is much more apparent as well. There is a group of people walking in exercise gear and sunglasses. Several cars have passed near me in the cemetery proper, not just on South Dallas Avenue to my right. And yet more people walk by. It’s strange to see a place of death come to life, sustain it. It’s also strange for this cemetery to be so open to public use. No one is afraid of the dead here.

The sun starts to burn my arms. I can feel the heat from my skin as I’ve sat on this bench for a while now. The breeze sends ripples through the taller patches of grasses and seems to blow on me to cool the burn, much like my mother would do when she poured hydrogen peroxide on my cuts. I wonder what it is about the sun that makes people feel lazy, the breeze that makes people calm, want to let their hair down to feel it runs its fingers through their hair. I wonder now about this place, how much it reminds me of South Carolina, how it’s that same sun and a similar breeze, the same sky which nurtures me there, 600 miles away. I’d love to be at the barn today. I can almost feel the muscular sway of my horse beneath me as we laze through the woods. But I've got a thesis due on Tuesday!

For Better or For Worse? - Blog Prompt #4

Ahh, Pittsburgh. You were one of the most booming industrial cities at the height of the Industrial Revolution and for decades thereafter. According to Pittsburgh Green Story, from 1850 to 1980, your waters and heavens were polluted as you rose to power because of your love affair with coal. A short natural gas flirtation occurred in the late 1800s, at which point you seemed to clean up, but it wasn't meant to last. You returned to your roots, deep under your ground in fact, where the black gold pulled you back under, sunk its claws into you.

Look at you now! Your skies are blue and clear, your parks green and flourishing, even your cemeteries inundated with plant and animal life. Chatham University is not only an arboretum in itself but is also a leading force in sustainable living within your limits. And one of your daughters, Rachel Carson, is a legend in the environmental movement.

But not all is well in your belly. There's more than just black gold down there, and it's as invisible as air. The natural gas, clean and cheap, within your Marcellus Shale is said to be environmentally better than the coal which coats your stomach, your breath. But is progress always so easy? Of course not.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it's called in the press, is the process by which companies extract the gas from inside you. How can anyone come to possess something which is intangible? Marcellus Shale Protest explains: "Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well." Wait. Millions of gallons of water? "Proprietary" chemicals?! Of course sand is dirty; it looks like the natural gas industry is, too.

Just how much better and cleaner can something be if the effort that goes into it is polluted? Contaminated "wastewater" is treated, but up to 50% of the initial amount used is lost forever. Still, in Butler, PA, C. says that she can light the air surrounding the water coming out of her faucet on fire with the flick of a lighter. Apparently the treatments to clean the used water are working, which is phenomenal news since the industry is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

As the VOCs, or valatile organic compounds, are evaporated off of the water recovered, it combines with diesel exhaust to create ozone plumes that stretch for miles. So much for the cleaner air, it seems, but who cares, since the industry is exempt from the Clean Air Act.

And those ill people and dead animals which show up around fracking-developed areas? It's got to be unrelated. After all, those signs posted in the Allegheny and Moshannon State Forests touting toxic water were put up by hoodlums.

Pittsburgh, your people have done something amazing, though. They've stood up for their rights and yours and banned fracking within your body. But it's all around you; it won't stay away. There's no way to cut off your length of Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers to exempt them. There's no way for you to stop the wind blowing the ozone into your heart, to exempt your air.

Is it really worth it? As it's been said, how much cleaner can an industry be if it's already polluted?

The Minutiae of Decay - Place Prompt #4

Friday, February 24th, 2012 - 12:53 PM - 52 degrees - gusty and raining

Today, I look closer at the land of Homewood. After my last visit, in which I walked much of the cemetery paths in overview, I want to focus on something smaller.
I am surrounded by hills and curves. I like this land because it appeals to my love of unconventional lines-- I don't like angles and straight, flat shapes. I prefer movement in shapes, and this land certainly has it. The hills roll, undulate around me, drop and rise beneath my feet. Even the man-made roadways wind.

Grave markers are placed perpendicular to the flat horizon we imagine the sky must have, but the perspective of these hills makes them appear slanted. Some truly are slanted, and others have fallen over as the surface beneath them has eroded.

The trees mimic these stones (or is it vice versa?) and stand at strange angles to the surface of the earth. I imagine how their roots, like the bodies of the deceased, must plunge deeper into the hillsides that rise to one side, shallower as the land falls away on the slant below them. Are the graves dug to be flat, accounting for the angle of the land? If so, the head of the graves would be covered with more dirt than the feet. Or are these bodies lying at a slant, too, ready to slide down the hills? I wonder how we humans must change the way we manipulate the land in even a graveyard to account for these things.

There is much to learn about this land, what lies below the grassy surfaces, in the cracks between and beneath gravestones. I find that there are layers of roots and chocolate-colored dirt below the moss and dead leaves. The dirt is hard-packed, similar to the red South Carolina clay I dug my fingernails into when I was a child. It is also packed into rocks of various sizes, as if someone had rolled them, wet and muddy, and let the sky bake them into shape. I don't know how much of this is natural, though, since the ground here has obviously been worked over and over for decades. How much of this dirt has been brought here for filler and topper? I wonder when I also see that some of the mud is black and fine, rich like peat, and other is sandy, grainy and pale. How much can I know of the veracity of this land when the human imprint upon it is clear?

In the distance down a muddy lane of tire prints, I see some fencing, chairs set next to a tree. There are no graves that way, leafless woods on one side, a green field to the other that I know must be waiting for more death in order to become useful. I trek towards the fenced area, wondering if the path I walk is set to become a road when this area becomes harvested. It is flat here, too, unlike the majority of the cemetery. Is this even Homewood's property? I know Frick Park extends from across Forbes Avenue and meanders alongside this end of Homewood.

I find deer prints in the ruts left by trucks and marvel at the symbolism-- animal/city coexistence that amazes me, as I've written about before. This time, my picture turns out, and I like the way I could follow the prints and find where the deer have gone. I almost take that detour, but the call of the fences is growing.

I reach what seems to be an abandoned network of gardens. Fences are down, gardening tools are strewn about, and nothing seems to be growing. The sites are fenced in, creating square after square, each in proportion to the rest. There are paths down and across the grid to allow access to the sites in the middle. Despite the precision of the layout, the area is unkempt and unsightly. It reminds me of the backyards I've seen in trailer parks across the south. I have no idea what this place is.

I've never felt the eeriness I've heard associated with cemeteries in Homewood until now. I catch myself looking over my shoulder into the distance grayed by rain as if expecting someone or some animal to emerge. This place embodies a new decay, the decay of human leftovers, perhaps even the decay of human interest. This is what we leave in our wake when we decide not to clean up after ourselves, I think.

Maybe it marks the decay of my comfort, too, because I find that it's gone. I attempt to take a picture of a children's lonesome plastic rake through the holes in a fence. My camera chooses that moment to malfunction-- it just won't take the picture. It does not freeze (when I move the camera, the image on screen moves with it). It does not shut off. It looks like it wants to take the picture (when I press the button, the screen changes in the usual way that it does when capturing an image). And yet, it does not actually take the picture. I turn the camera onto a window shutter that is resting on two metal sawhorses-- what was needed with a window shutter in a garden, I do not know. But the camera screen fades to bright white, the slowly the image returns. I try to take the picture of the shutter; again, the camera does not do it. I turn it off then back on, try it again, and there it goes-- it works!

I'm not superstitious, and I have no idea if I believe in ghosts. But I am human, and odd occurrences in creepy abandoned places certainly fuel my imagination. I know there's some explanation for what happened since I am just learning this camera D. let me borrow. But I decide not to stick around and leave the cemetery for the day. I may be goth, but even I get scared!

Later, I call Homewood's administration office and ask the lady on the phone about the area I visited. She said that it's the Homewood community garden, which provides a 20-foot by 20-foot gardening plot to urban families. It has a long waiting list, she said, and directs me to the website. I find that the website has not been updated since 2010, when 120 people were on the waiting list for a small plot to grow fresh plants. I realize that the plots probably haven't been kept up because of the winter season. Still, it's hard for my mind to make the leap from the creepy, abandoned area I witnessed to a fruitful, vibrant community of gardens and gardeners. I'll be interested to see if they are in use later this year!

Language Fluency - Blog Prompt #3

"Heels down, toes forward, not out. Grip with your entire legs, not your knees. And sit on your butt, not your thighs. You want the back pockets of your jeans between you and the saddle!"

I spoke these words to my horseback riding students, ages five to eighteen, for seven years. But I've been married to the horse as a species for nearly twenty-one. The seven years I spent taking care of a barn full of equines, in particular the domesticated subspecies equus ferus caballus, delved me into their nature more than any series of riding lessons ever could.

Horses have been evolving on our planet for over 50 million years. They began as eohippus, a four-toed dog-sized creature that roamed several continents, including Europe and North America, during the Tertiary Period and Eocene Epoch. They began to be domesticated for use by humans between 4000 and 3000 B.C. Horses helped further human development through their use in agriculture, warfare, and transportation, among other endeavors. It is only relatively recently in their history that horses have been seen as companions, athletes, and recreation.

I often wonder what initially drew me to the equestrian lifestyle, because I don't remember. Was it the language of their bodies? I did not know when I was five that a horse gives away what it's looking at through the direction of its ears. I didn't know that, unlike a dog, a horse is annoyed when it swishes its tail. How could I have realized in my childhood that a colicky horse drops its head to the ground, paws the dirt, nips at its belly, circles tightly and falls to the ground, where it attempts to roll the pain away? One thing I quickly learned is that ears flat against the skull, whites of rolled-back eyes, and lowering of the head meant agression, or, in my 5-year-old mind-- "Watch out!"

I became obsessed with one specific breed of horse above all others. Sure, Miniatures and Shetland ponies are adorable. Quarter horses and Clydesdales are strong and sturdy. But it was the elegance and flightiness of the Arabian that I fell for. The way their tails are naturally held higher than those of other horses because they have one less vertebrae in their spines. The way their faces dish in like the swoop of a girl's nose, the extra arch in their necks to match. The curve of their ears, tips that point towards each other, and the flare of their large nostrils, big enough to accept the oxygen necessary to support their actions. These short horses, many considered ponies because they are less than 14.2 hands high, were bred by humans for their endurance through the stifling deserts of the in long-distance races. Thoroughbreds just can't keep up for that long. Not everyone knows, either, that most Thoroughbreds can trace their ancestry back to three separate Arabian stallions, the most well-known called the Godolphin Arabian. The lineage of the Arabian breed is one of the oldest and most important in today's equestrian culture. Maybe it's the history, the ancient blood of the species, a connection to some pre-modern culture, that draws me.

But I think I had it right when I posited that the language of the horse drew me in. After all, I'm almost one myself. If you give me a horse and a roundpen, I can show you how to "join up," or assert yourself as the alpha of the herd then form a bond of trust with the horse on which you are working. This method is especially useful for wilder, less trusting horses. It's a matter of speaking to a horse as a horse, using your body to push the horse out from you, turn it around to go the other direction, slow it down or speed it up, and ask it to come to you, follow you, all from the ground, all without physical contact.

And so it is that I am a horse in my other life. My social skills, my ability to communicate with a herd of humans, detect body language and infer psychology, my fight-or-flight instinct, my sixth sense of predatorial people, my attempt to master my life, comes from my native language, that of the horse.