Like a sh1t don't stink

Coming back from Summer holidays in 1974 a new term was loose on the street. No more were girls frigid or as nervous as cats or dark horses or up tight. No, over night they were now stuck up and losing some perennial battle of the bulge and doing special exercises, the bigger the better to fill the sweater, as the schoolyard taunt went. And the girls said of each other they walked around like a s-h-one-t don't stink. It is difficult to understand why they were hating on each other so much. But like good little trolls and girls, we followed along, hair ratted up, belly buttons showing--whether innie our outie be. Monkey see monkey do.

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Sweaters were in, too, even thought it was just past Labour Day. Sweaters were cool unless they were made from a pattern and therefore looked too ethnic. Style from the Fifties was unforgivable in the age of white platform boots.

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Somehow life settled down that Fall, and we all got through. Perhaps Indian Summer made us whole, with or without Duffy Bucks.

Dirty Old Mitchell hadn't published his How I Spent My Summer Holidays, even though he had probably written in long since--such was the white rabbit. Dare to follow him down that rabbit hole. And some of us did, but it was Who Has Seen the Wind we were reading, and we all grew up in a CPR blueprint town, with a grain elevator and a Main Street and spring water on tap somewhere close to the highway.

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We were all in need of a great deal of forgiveness then. Christina Rossetti was right to ask on our bald headed prairie or in our foothills nest,

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:
But what the leaves hang trembling,
The Wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Say a little prayer for I indeed.

Comments

Of course she's not a true red

As the parent of a "ginger", and having red heads on both sides of the family, and having married into two Irish families, I know first hand that ginger covers the whole spectrum from strawberry blonde (to my way of thinking a classic ginger!), to orange (carrot tops), to a real rust red (what my father in law would call a true red). When Pat Todkill first set eyes on his granddaughter, he remarked, "Of course, she's not a true red". For one thing, Emily the Elder lacked freckles on her face and upper body. For another, she really was and is a strawberry blonde. A further observation. Even people with the raven blackest hair have rust red lights--caveman red, soot covered ochre if you like. Woolly mammoth red. Sometimes it takes just the right light to pick out the smoldering ember, but beard and eyebrows tend to incorporate the tell tale ginger strain, like chili pepper in a spice jar of mixed pepper corns. And, of course, brunette...

Animals and aliens

When you think of Orwell's Animal Farm , you get stuck on the idea of some being more equal than others. But world peace, galactic harmony, the celebration of diversity and the active practice of inclusion are all achieved in science fiction by casting minorities in the role of animals and aliens. Star Trek comes to mind in this regard, where even hippies were disposed of, Federation style, as sensitive dissenting aliens, not forgetting Spock with his pointy ears! And then there were Wookiees, still man's best friend. Viewing animals as humans--anthropomorphizing--or treating different races as aliens, all of this is shape shifting. This shape is my shade, there where I used to stand--that's Steely Dan.

The city mover beat me to the chicory this evening maybe if I had passed by earlier I could have caught a glimpse of them but they will rise Phoenix like from the close cropped pile of grass and weed and present their brash and uneven beauty once again before the need for carpet and trimming loops of magic made by subterranean rug weavers is once again mandated and duly executed by the city crew in the burnt orange cabs of their ride along mowers browning the backs of their hands and letting the heat weather beat their faces to match the cabs and fulfill some unspoken contract between landscaping and maintenance and the gods of Chance Fortune as ever favouring the bold there will be other routs of the mover before the Summer is done and more rain hopefully if I can contain the fear of thunderheads building and more returns of visible biodiversity Nature never surrenders unconditionally but like a lover choosing her battl...

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