Hawk Eyes

I ask myself every so often – usually while in the throes of a headache or in a routine with little time for writing – whether I should give up on this project that creeps slower than I thought. That’s a serious question when so many more immediate or important needs loom over each day. Yesterday was that weighty kind of day when I sat at the morning table rather than writing at the morning table, not unusual of late . . .

I noticed a large hawk perched in the tree outside the window, at first just his tightly folded back side looming in my range – a foreboding figure cloaked in a dark spread of cape. Its head began to turn nearly 300 degrees from one side to the other, as I thought only owls could do; its head would turn to the right and continue over that right shoulder until its head faced over the left shoulder; and having done that, it would turn its head to the left and continue round until it was looking over the right shoulder – and after I had seen its beak and features from all these many angles, and it had sort of proven to me all that it could do with its limber neck, that is when it carefully turned its body around, as a tightrope walker might do, upon the branch to face me so that I could observe it front wise too – and there it remained for more than an hour. Its mode was not hunting but observation, sometimes directly at me in the window, sometimes at a squirrel obliviously eating nuts on the ground eight feet beneath the hawk’s talons, sometimes at a thing in the distance or nearby. I took many pictures, and His Majesty was not bothered in the least by my clicking and flashing and occasional bumps on the window pane – eyes like a hawk, as the saying goes – and so I knew this hawk was not oblivious to me, but somehow even wanted me to see it perched there on the branch like an answer to a prayer – for that’s what answers do, I thought, they just sit there, present themselves, don’t ask or deliberate or shift or fly away – they present themselves, as is, as are, as am. Take it or leave it. That’s how the hawk sat there.

I got up with trepidation and quiet to fetch my book, Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, which is about the meaning of various animal totems and sightings, the spiritual meaning for ourselves as we sight these creatures and interpret them in context of the circumstances or questions in our lives – and yes, the hawk waited for me; almost, I would say awaited my return, for I saw its eyes fix upon the window till I got there and sat down again – they are messengers, the book says, and they represent creative energy and a long range view of creative projects. They are also great protectors of that energy – certainly I saw its aspect of protection in that great dark cape it presented to me at the first sighting, as though showing me what massive wraps were at its disposal – that – and then of course the circular eye watch, like a beam of light from a lighthouse, to show me what kind of range it took to guard me. Then I thought about the stance it took – patience in observation – I kept thinking of that word, stance . . . was that it’s message?  And what about patience?

In this case, there really is a full circle (300 degrees, anyway) happy ending to the dark morning, as it began, because I started to write something I had been putting off for a long time, and finished more than I would have thought – through the clatter of other needs and voices at my side – a stance.  In the end, it was that hour long stance of patient observation that moved me . . .

Double Helix

Back from a three-day respite at the beach – a check-in with my favorite spot on earth, water flowing at my feet, footprints made and washed away almost before I had time to turn around to watch them last briefly. As usual, there is so much to write, but not much time for the written word . . . and like cherry picking when the tree is full, I begin by nibbling . . .

I awoke to the words of an Eric Clapton song, “If I could change the world . . . “ – But why? I no longer want to change the world. I always saw writing as my personal way to change the world. A noble goal, I once thought – but finally, off the hook, relieved that I don’t have to do that. Those footprints in the sand don’t have to last forever – after all.

This new insight may come from age and reality, but also prompted from a book which I avidly read on the beach as the waves tumbled to my feet – The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner, a book about the happiest and least happy places on this planet. I especially enjoyed reading, and re-reading, the chapter on Iceland because I’ve always been fascinated by everything Icelandic – its history, landscape, personality, lore – especially the sagas from a thousand years ago. Iceland is – and this is no shock to me but is meant to surprise the readers of Weiner’s book – Iceland is the happiest nation of people on this planet. The author has traveled the globe and discounted out the most suspected reasons for happiness: good weather, personal success, financial security, political stability, religiosity, ritual, etc. – and the answer comes that Icelandic people are happiest because of an inherent creative spirit that is not reserved for a few so-called successful artists, but a way of life for everyone.  

Weiner writes: “In Iceland, being a writer is pretty much the best thing you can be. Successful, struggling, published in books or only in your mind, it matters not. Icelanders adore their writers. Partly, this represents a kind of narcissism, since just about everyone in Iceland is a writer or poet. Taxi drivers, college professors, hotel clerks, fishermen. Everyone. Icelanders joke that one day they will erect a statue in the center of Reykjavik to honor the one Icelander who never wrote a poem. They’re still waiting for that person to be born.”

Icelanders write, but they also love to read what others have written – whether in published format or by the guy next door. “Better to go barefoot than without a book,” is an Icelandic saying. Reading and writing and telling stories -- also, music compositon and visual art -- is the Icelandic way of occupying the winter hours, most of which are shrouded in complete darkness for months at a time. No one is expected to become famous from their art, or to change the world, or to make millions of krona, or even to be recognized. Art is fun, to be enjoyed – and to be shared around the hearth or in the mead halls.  I guess we Westerners would call that unambitious.

Another noteworthy quality of the Icelanders is their high level of tolerance for the idiosyncrasies of others – their ancient heroes are the likes of Ref the Sly, Gunnlaug Wormtongue, Sarcastic Halli, and Thorstein Staff-Struck. Women were no less independent, the most famous being Gudrid the Far Traveler who is said to have crossed the Atlantic eight times and dubiously lost two or three husbands. She gave birth to her first son, Snorri, in what was to become America 500 years later, that is once the European man named Christopher Columbus made his “discovery” official.  In old age, she summed up her life's accomplishments by saying that Karlsefni (one of her husbands) told the tale of these voyages better than anyone else.

Icelanders expect failure – even applaud it – because that means a person has challenged the impossible. Failure, they say, is living proof that the goal was a mammoth one, one that took on the brutality of existence. That’s what they admire – the attitude of challenge and all the endless creative ways to accomplish a goal – and then, best of all, the stories about what happened.  

There were times on the beach last week when I deliberately walked a weave-through pattern to the footprints of those who had walked earlier that morning:  a man with a very high arch – a child about two or three years old – a flat footed person of short, husky stature – a large dog – our prints became woven together like a grand helix – and, there, I had added my strand too – and all lasting no longer than the time it takes to turn around and watch them fade.

4 HA-HA

As a remembrance of my mother who passed away two years ago this week, I made a batch of her famous “club sauce” which she always made in late August or early September as a way to use up the season’s crippled or twisted tomatoes still hanging on the vines – and to be enjoyed on meatloaf through the winter months or given as gifts to those who praised the vinegary-sweet-peppery concoction. Club sauce – my mother couldn’t remember who first handed out the recipe, but the name came from a lifelong "club" of hers that formed amongst six or seven young WWII brides who lived together in housing projects financed by the army while their husbands served time overseas. She used to say that she never laughed so much or so hard as that year before the war ended when this group of women banded together as sisters to teach each other the fundamentals of cooking and house tending – and in some cases, childbirth and child care – skills that would become the work of their lives once the war ended and their husbands returned safely home.

I had been thinking about her for a week as I stalked farmers markets to find the farmer who might have the right kind of leftover tomatoes at the right price – as well as the “18 long skinny hot red peppers” that her scanty, handwritten recipe called for. When all ingredients had been procured and the day came to make the club sauce, I first fixed a large pot of tea – and instantly felt her presence in the kitchen as a sort of guiding force in the making of it . . . some small voice told me I was being too heavy on the sugar, not heavy enough on the onions – something told me – though if it was her, I think she might have warned me about the juiciness of the tomatoes (and what I could have done to thicken it up a bit), and also how to “hotten it up” since the peppers I bought were not as fiery as the ones she used to grow . . .

. . . nevertheless, what yielded were 22 pints of jarred and labeled club sauce, arranged neatly on the kitchen counter just as she would have done after a long day of canning – to admire and enjoy the artistry of practical work for several days before taking it all to the fruit cellar for the winter. On one of these several days I happened to be driving home after a morning of errands when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a car with a woman inside who looked so much like my mother that a wave of unsolicited comfort rolled through me. Intrigued, I glanced in the rear view mirror every few seconds to catch another glimpse of her familiar face, noticing that her headlights were shining brightly on this horrifically bright sunny day. That seemed odd, and I laughed to think about it – the only person on the road with brightly shining headlights on a sunny day. In a brief second, I took in her short, silvery grey hair that was smoothly trimmed and close to her head – she was always proud of her silver hair and the bit of natural wave it carried. The sun sparkled off her hair as it beat into her car window. On another glance I took in the heavily wrinkled lines that ran along either side of her face from her nose down to her mouth, forming brackets to her upper lip – I believe cosmetologists call those the nasolabial lines – and there’s not much that can be done about them. She always said they made her look “crabby.” Another glance, I took in the reposed half-grin of her mouth that was familiar to me when she was content or in a detached thinking mode. She often looked that way – as though she were enjoying some private joke while the rest of the world hurried on. I took in her stooped, narrow shoulders – so familiar – and her hands which were clasped firmly on the steering wheel; she was a careful driver who would not take her eyes off the road or her hands off the wheel. In this case, she seemed to keep her vigil straight on a daughter who spent too much time looking in a rear view mirror. The only feature unlike my mother was the pair of dark sunglasses – since she never wore them – but even those were oddly shaped just like her reading glasses. Maybe she was trying to disguise herself!

I studied all these particulars as a whole when we both stopped at the red light and I had time to study her image in my rear view mirror for a minute or more. I’ve never been so grateful for a long red light as this time when I could keep my eyes fixed on the rear view mirror where her image was perfectly reflected. I heard my own voice say aloud – to myself, but also to the spirit of what I saw and felt – I said, “So you’re watching over me, aren’t you ma?” Just then, although she too was alone in her car, the woman grew a large grin across her face, stretching and taking in the length of those nasolabial lines on her face. I was grateful for all that extra saggy skin on her face because I saw that it accommodated a larger grin. In the mode of her full smile, she looked even more like my mother . . . even more so . . . and I smiled in my own car too. Feeling braver, I said aloud again, “I knew it, I knew it was you, and I know you’ve been with me all week . . . “

I had more to say, especially about the making of club sauce, but the red light turned green and we were both obliged to move forward. I glanced in my mirror once we had crossed the intersection, and I saw her right-turn signal blink, which meant she’d be leaving me soon. Just as she was about to turn right and I was to continue straight, I said, “So what was that all about if you can’t follow me home to see the 22 jars of club sauce on my kitchen counter?” The woman’s car turned right, and the car that had been behind her suddenly passed and pulled in front of me to stop at the next red light. The car’s license plate read, “4 HA-HA.” And then I understood – it was her answer to me – for the fun of it.

Club Sauce, the recipe
36 lg. tomatoes, peeled and cooked down slightly
6 lg. onions, chopped
18 long skinny hot red peppers, ground
6 cups white vinegar
6 cups sugar
6 Tbsp. salt

Add all ingredients except hot peppers, cook slowly for 2 or 3 hours, will thicken slightly. Add hot peppers and cook a little longer. Process pint jars in hot water bath for 20 minutes.