division

an exploration of one–

Is disunity even possible or is it a mistaken impression? In the film Wall-E for instance, the plot brings the whole human idea of earth down to a forgotten model in the bridge of the Axiom. It’s so far from anyone’s awareness that awareness is even forgotten.  It’s just this one thing that got way out of hand—there were too many competing ideas about what it could and should be—and, to all appearances and perceptions, they wiped out every good possibility on Earth.  Except the idea of it and a stock of details a computer preserved.

In the beginning, all things flared forth from one point that went bang or pop or said “now” in God-speak—we don’t have instruments to confirm the way it happened, just consciousness and senses to assure us that it did.  But however it happened, there was one immeasurably small flip from nothing to something, from wasn’t to is, from unity to multiplicity of will.

In the film, which is a splendid concatenation of most of the motifs I know from the Bible, the only thing which remains is love.  Its various vehicles and offshoots don’t look like any Sunday School lesson I’ve read so far, but hey, this version saves humanity to give Earthlife another go.

After which, I suppose, we’d botch it up again after a couple dozen new millennia—dividing and dividing and dividing until, sigh, once again, we’re sorted, sifted, smoothed, sheared, slimmed, simmered, sunk down to the point of a single Idea that, by acknowledging, we are all saved.

breezecatcher

In a few minutes I’m going outside to hang laundry to dry.  It’s bliss.  We got an honest-to-goodness Breezecatcher Clothes Dryer from the Breezecatcher company of Dublin, yes, Ireland which, luckily, ships from Michigan.  It’s the same design all our Danish friends have in their back yards or courtyards–four arms on a pole in the ground, parallel lines with meters and meters of hanging space, spins for pinning and unpinning convenience.

Other benefits of our new Breezecatcher include these: sun- and breeze-dried clothing which smells great and probably has far less bacterial flora which can cause odors later; righteous sensation of me standing in the yard saving energy for my family; hideout for my smaller children when it’s fully loaded; getting the laundry done early enough in the day to hang before dusk; green bragging rights in a neighborhood less likely than most to hang its drawers outside; electric bill savings enough to have paid it off plus shipping and handling by the end of summer, probably.

Perceived drawbacks could include bird droppings and crisp cottons, but in truth, droppings are rare and the phrase “soft, fluffy towels” is, let’s face it, advertising copy from our grandparents’ generation, not an ethos.

A guy I heard interviewed on NPR, one who writes a column on frugal living, spoke about living within one’s means and mentioned that his family saves between $35 and $50 dollars a month by not using their electric dryer.  It might not be that much in our neck of the woods, but any penny helps.

I found one American-made brand on-line, but also found reviews about how fast its aluminum arms would bend and how likely it would need to be replaced yearly.

Ours is steel.

My grandmother’s clothesline was two poles with cross members–one in the border of flowers and shrubs around the vegetable garden, the other far out into the yard toward the pasture–with four swooping lines and several slim support poles that could be moved to lift the heaviest loads up out of the grass and clover.  When I was a child it served as a divider between the civilized land of grown ups nearer the house and the vast meadow of imagination toward the neighbor’s house.  When Grandma hung sheets, the land beyond the clothesline was entered through a snapping and whipping labyrinthine passage.  On the far side was the swingset (flight), the marble table Grandpa set on four sturdy treetrunk legs (laboratory, podium), two apple trees on mounds (jungle, sustenance, ammunition), the compost pile (worms for fishing), and what felt like acres of land.  On the far side I was horse, was falcon, was captain.

I have a Polaroid of the garden end of that clothesline taken after an ice storm.  The north wall of Grandma’s house is in the background, there are icicles on the line, and the gooseberry bush undergrowth is tall and uncontrolled.  The post itself looks like a Calvary-style cross–in snow.

So the Breezecatcher clothesline becomes the place where I can hang a whole slew of paradoxes, and there they flap–childhood, imagination, faith, family, and the life of the writer.

A breeze caught, after all, would cease to be a breeze.

thriving

Just today after so much rain there are lettuce seedlings in the eastmost raised bed. Four broccoli plants, cauliflower, yellow squash, and an eggplant are doing well in the fenced westmost one. There’s corn in that one, too.  From our bedroom window this morning I watched one of the adult yard rabbits circumnavigate that bed, pushing her nose in here, a few hops farther along, a few more hops.  She couldn’t get to the corn.  The beans in the north bed are faring less well–slugs and chipmunks, I suspect, have been feasting.  Unless the growing season retires first, we’ll have beans, though, since there are at least three bags of Kentucky Wonder seeds in the shed–vining and bush.  I’ll just keep seeding.

The end of the school semester collides with planting season, so our garden always lags a little. My grandmother who gardened would not have been impressed by my timetable.  She and my mother competed each year to see who got peas in the ground first; I seldom grow peas for having missed the cooler frost-free weeks altogether.  I’d like to believe she’d consider me at least a worthy gardener for raising food and flowers anyway on a city lot.  She’s been gone a long time, but year after year the dirt under my nails looks more and more like her summer hands.

In 2007, a friend gave me several broccoli plants and our whole family enjoyed the harvest.  Later that year her husband was tired–very tired.  He was diagnosed with a fast, aggressive sort of leukemia and within weeks their lives were upended.  We helped a bit where we could, but  2008 was very, very hard.  The last few bags of broccoli I preserved from their plants were badly freezer burned, so they joined our compost pile and will enrich whatever we grow.

Last week I visited their garden and it looked great–several weeks ahead of mine and lovely in its abundance.  A dozen or more kids were racing through the yard and house.  Lovely people, none of whom I knew, were chatting in the yard over cake and ice cream.  My friend looked great, and so did her husband.  We were celebrating the one-year anniversary of his rebirth via bone marrow transplant from his sister.  He tires easily, but is thriving.

It’s good to have friends–good to have a garden.