A Tight Band

Posted on September 16, 2019 by Doc Arnett

At the time Randa and I got married thirty years ago, we weren’t exactly flush with money. Rather than double our debt load for the sake of celebration, we opted for frugality. Randa reconditioned a wedding dress she found at a thrift store and we bought a set of used rings at a Saint Joseph pawn shop. All three items sufficed for the purpose.

Eventually, taking advantage of improved economic situation, I bought Randa a nicer ring. For sentimental reasons mostly, I kept wearing my original band. It allegedly had a few diamonds embedded in its upper side but not having a jeweler’s microscope, I couldn’t verify that.

About a year ago, the finger on which I wore the ring began swelling. At first, it was only annoying that I couldn’t get the ring off of my hand. Within a few days, though, the swelling caused discomfort. When the swollen area started turning red, I did what any man of elegance, dignity and means would do. I took a pair of diagonal pliers and cut the band. Then, with the aid of a small screwdriver, I pried the sides apart enough that I could slide the ring off. Thanks to such state of the art medical treatment, the swelling subsided.

I hated having to take that particular action but I’m rather well convinced that cutting off a ring is better than cutting off a finger. While I would also agree that losing a finger is preferred over losing a hand, I was happy to keep the choices from escalating to that level of consideration.

There are times when health or other factors of significance require that we sacrifice sentimentality or some other form of self-indulgence in favor of self-preservation. Sometimes it’s to save a finger; sometimes it’s for something even more important.

H. Arnett
9/16/19

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Cool and Soothing Waters

Posted on September 11, 2019 by Doc Arnett

Somewhere between Atascadero and Morro Bay,
Toro Creek Road makes its way up out of the valley,
over the mountain and back down
and over a bit more to the Forty-One running east to the coast.

My son and his wife spent just under three years
living here where the public part of the dirt and gravel
comes almost completely unraveled and then
makes its way up another mountain on private land.

In the span of three years, they saw deer and turkey
strut across the roads and fields between ruts,
caught bobcats killing their chickens, rattlesnakes in the yard,
and had a huge black bear prowling around just outside the kitchen.

Hidden in low branches beneath the squawking scrub jays
and camo’d for his chances at hunting turkey,
Ben twice saw a mountain lion slipping through the shadows
along the trace road leading up to the ranch.

Both of their boys were born here
while they lived beside the tiny stream coming from the springs
that seep from the ground and then follow their way down
beneath the pines and coastal mountain oak.

I have come here from Kansas to help Ben clean the house they are leaving.
In mid-afternoon in late August, we take a break,
make our way up the broken road then down a steep incline,
taking our time and moving carefully to the stream.

Water clear enough for drinking tumbles and gurgles over a stone lip
set among overhanging roots that droop their way to lower rocks.
A boulder the size of a truck rises up from the side,
its lower edges calcified and smoothed just above the surface of the pool.

We step into the stream, feet searching for the safe seams.
Ben moves into the deep but I pause for a moment,
feeling the cold working its way into my knees
while he sucks in the shock that always comes with such as this.

I look up through the trees, wishing the angle of the sun could find us here,
send some warming rays against the rocks of this tiny pool.
Lacking the faith it takes to move the sun or mountains,
I join Ben in the deeper cold of this good fountain.

Chest deep, we laugh together, feel the edges of ancient stones
and the soothing swirl of water drawn from the earth itself.
Water beads on our beards, mine gray with a few dark specks,
his thick and brown, not yet wrecked by the thirty years between us.

We talk about another dip we took together
in Kentucky’s Red River of the Gorge,
father and son, man and man, on an autumn day
over twenty years ago and two thousand miles away.

We climb up and out of the pool for a while,
move stones and pebbles and sand to form a makeshift dam
that in only a few minutes raises the water level by a few inches.
We step back into the deep water.

After the in and out, the water seems somehow a bit warmer
and we take turns bending our backs
against the soothing surge of the tiny waterfall,
marveling at how a stream this cold can feel this good.

After lingering a bit longer, we step from stone to stone,
climb our way up through the woods and back to the road.
Though there is still work to be done and other stories to be shared,
this alone is worth all the traveling we have done to get here.

H. Arnett
9/11/19

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Not Quite Paradise

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Doc Arnett

Given a long enough distance
every road seems slow.
Traveling through one universe after another after another
and even the speed of light seems a bit stifled
after a few hundred years, I suppose.
When are we ever going to get to the next galaxy?

It’s the getting to where we want to go,
where we want to both be and mean
that seems to turn traveling
into some sort of unraveling of mind and matter:
time freezes in the heat of the Mojave.

And yes, it is a dry heat,
but a hundred-and-ten degrees—
no matter how strong the wind—
still sends a shock through you
when you step out of the air-conditioned truck,
makes you pray that luck, karma, Providence,
and God Almighty
do not abandon you in this place.

Whatever it is in August
that you happen to taste in these long hours
of passing through this view that shifts about a bit
but never really changes
might be enough to help you be sure
to make arrangements
that you will always live somewhere
other than here.

We finish taking care of why we stopped
and somewhere between a mile and a year later,
pass by the half-pile, half-wall remainder of deep burgundy blocks,
miniature chunks of desert clay barely softer than rock
and the same shade caught in the sloping base of a distant mesa,
sun-burnt reminders that used to be abode and are still adobe.

There is no hint of doors or rafter or roof,
only one corner of what was once a window,
looking out from this small box at a life they could not sustain
in this particular place
and that must have made any place green
seem like a much better place to be,
no matter how high the humidity.

Every place other than Eden has its drawbacks
and even that sweet garden had its own path to destruction.
And though I’d definitely take Hawaii over the Mojave
as a place to live for a decade or two,
there’s still beauty in the desert
and typhoons can certainly ruin an island.

It’s not so much where we travel
as what we carry and keep inside us
that decides whether we live in purgatory or paradise.
Or someplace comfortably in between.
Are we there yet?

H. Arnett
9/10/19

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In Gratitude, Labor Day 2019

Posted on September 2, 2019 by Doc Arnett

They dig our ditches, mend our fences,
spend their days, their nights, their lives
building, making, stitching, sewing, mowing,
stowing, mixing, moving, painting, paving,
fixing, repairing, rebuilding, restoring.

They plant the seeds, pull the weeds,
trim the trees, harvest the fruit,
pack the meat, sift the wheat,
drive the trucks, hope for luck,
sweat and swear in the searing heat,
shiver and shovel in the aching cold.

They dig the coal, fuel the steam,
bear the brunt of others’ dreams,
raise their kids, polish their lids,
make clothes and cars they cannot afford,
clean the rooms where they cannot stay,
tend the courses they cannot play,
build toys and tools and trinkets.

They wash and wax and pay the taxes
that build roads, hire police, firefighters,
soldiers and millions of civil workers.
They furnish our food, weave our clothes,
make our cars, build our roads,
pay their bills and their tolls.

There are no medals and few parades
and yet all that we have, they have made.
Without them,
we starve and freeze,
or else die in the smothering heat.

So here’s to you,
you who labor and are heavy laden,
may you find rest
for your bodies and your souls.

And, thank you for your service.

H. Arnett
9/2/19

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Mixed Blessings

Posted on August 23, 2019 by Doc Arnett

In between these late summer rains,
I am mowing the yard again,
resenting the ridiculously thick and lush grass,
yet grateful as I pass the wildly growing hedge
that we set out along the edge of the yard
in last summer’s burning heat.

The yellow and green of fresh growth
on the privet bushes
has already half-filled the gaps
between the plants set a bit too wide
for a quick screen to replace the wooden fence
that burned a year ago in March
when a wild hare wind ripped a wire loose,
sending sparks arcing to the tinderbox grass
fifteen feet below the transformer.

It caught our deck on fire,
singed the edges of a few low boards of cedar siding,
destroyed one neighbor’s storage sheds
and damaged four other fences
before the firemen could get here
and root the fire out of its hiding in the joists below the decking.

And here I am,
fifteen months later,
mowing in the dark,
hoping I don’t leave too many long marks
of standing grass to amuse the neighbors
in tomorrow’s passing light.
(Braille might work fine for reading
but there’d be too much bleeding involved
to make it much of a method for mowing.)

In a normal year,
this yard would have worn a light brown crust
by the first of August.

Instead, I’ve got these clogging clumps of watergrass
making me stop every few feet
in this same spot where I just mowed three days ago.

But we had a month of good sweet corn,
six weeks of homemade salsa,
and the tomatoes are still ripening like crazy,
the green beans are setting on strong and solid,
and I’ve got some banana peppers that will set your lips on fire.

I keep thinking that the sweet potato vines
that have taken over half the garden and a corner of the patio
will eventually bloom
and there will be even more fruit
formed amidst the unseen roots
fed by this season of unseasonal rains.

H. Arnett
8/23/19

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More Than a Passing Blessing

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Doc Arnett

Some we see in familiar hallways
nearly every day of our work week.
Others maybe only once in a while.

Something about them—a kind smile,
a gentle word or some good thing we’ve heard
about them from someone else,
or maybe just the way
they quietly go on about their day,
taking care of whatever emerges
and pitching in to help others—

Whatever that something is,
it reassures us a bit about whatever else is going on,
reminds us that there are others,
gentle but strong,
good-hearted and honest to the core,
bearing their own unseen burdens
without resenting the world,
sharing wisdom and humor—
sometimes in the same sentence
and sometimes with considerable space in between.

Whether you call it “lucky” or “blessed”
you know that you and your life
are better for knowing them
and sometimes just seeing them
without them even knowing you’re there
is enough to make your day
take a turn for the good.

And in the finest of fortunes,
someone like that has decided
to share their life with yours.

H. Arnett
8/21/19

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Of Work and Caring

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Doc Arnett

I had opportunity recently to get to know a couple of my colleagues at the hospital a bit better. Short, private conversations that helped me better understand situations—and the people involved. Those brief talks gave me a different perspective, helped me know just a bit more about their walks beyond the tiled hallways and key-coded entries. Time spent with connections that help turn acquaintance into knowing.

We catch too few of such moments, I think. Too much of worry and business, too little of the sharing that truly makes us care. The knowing of one another that stretches our awareness, the bits of understanding that help form a picture of what lies behind the scenes. We gain the meanings of unspoken words, understand the shadows that sometimes drift behind the eyes. And in that growing insight, realize—again—how the stronger bonds of friendship can give such rich meaning and strength to work relationships.

Perhaps some sorts of work do not depend so much on such deepening. Some might argue that factories and offices, bridge work and street cleaning, and a great host of other occupations and undertakings can move along quite nicely without any sort of deep caring for co-workers. Perhaps so… but I am skeptical.

Even if we care only about the work itself, the accomplishment of the owners’ ends, I doubt that a lifeless formality produces more and better work. And if we care about the workers at least as much as we care about their defined duties and designated outcomes, then a bit of thoughtful reflection informs us that their caring about one another matters.

The willingness to pitch in and help carry the load when another is sick or injured or dealing with “stuff at home” is much more prevalent and powerful when we care about the one who cannot be there and care about those affected by the work. The desire to do excellent work is stimulated and strengthened when we feel accepted, valued and cared for. Both process and product are improved when the people involved have come to know and love one another.

Such knowing and loving depend upon us having a mind to occasionally take a bit of time to listen to one another and see the other in ways that go beyond the doing of duty, the taking of tasks. A caring that goes beyond what is asked and attends to what is needed.

H. Arnett
8/20/19

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Neighbors in the Hood

Posted on August 19, 2019 by Doc Arnett

As Randa and I ate our Saturday morning breakfast on the porch, I noticed a bunch of small branches and twigs scattered on the driveway. “Looks like we had a bit of wind last night,” I commented.

Further investigation revealed that, indeed, we did have a bit of wind. Small branches with their clumps of green leaves littered the streets and yards of our neighborhood, with the occasional accent of slightly larger ones as well. Most of the slightly larger ones—about one to two inches in diameter—were dead limbs, already stripped of their bark and weathered gray. As I drove slowly around the block, I saw a bunch of dead branches and, every now and then, green branches as much as four or five inches thick.

I was surprised that we’d had winds strong enough to strip that much from the trees, leave that much litter in yards and streets, and yet Randa and I both had slept right through it. But what I saw a bit later, though not especially surprising, was more impressive.

One neighbor was picking up branches from the yard of a vacant house while another was removing branches from the street. A half-block away, a third man cleared a large clump of Johnson Grass that had grown up around the guide wires of a large utility pole. That was also on a vacant lot but was right at the edge of the street near the busiest intersection in our neighborhood; it had been a small eyesore for several weeks.

None of the men were working on their own places. None were being paid for what they were doing. No one had even asked them for their efforts. They were simply doing things that needed done, working to make things better, pitching in to help out other people who might never even know the kindness that had been shown them. It reminded me—perhaps oddly—of the Carpenter’s account of the Good Samaritan. In that small bit of history, he taught us that being a true neighbor is actually a matter of chosen action, not an issue of ethnicity, religious or national identity or genetic affiliation. It’s what we do or don’t do that determines whether we are neighbors.

As I observed these men pitching in without deliberate cooperation, I took note that these are the kinds of things that decent people do. Little ways of showing love and concern. Things that make a place like this seem more like a neighborhood. Without these small acts of caring—and the large ones when they are needed—we’re not really neighbors. We’re just people who happen to live in proximity.

H. Arnett
8/19/19

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A Few Seconds of Courtesy

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Doc Arnett

I was waiting to pull out from a local auto dealer’s parking lot a couple of days ago, planning to turn right onto a four-lane street. The posted speed limit is 45 at that point and our 2016 Ford Fusion has pretty decent acceleration skills. I paused while a couple of vehicles passed headed in the direction I intended to travel. There was a bit of a gap between them and the next vehicle and I started to execute a snappy pullout into the traffic.

Something made me think, “There’s nothing behind this next car. I wonder how much longer I’d have to wait here until this vehicle passes?” Even though it violated my basic masculine nature and made me twitch inside, I decided to wait and see.

About three-and-a-half seconds.

Yep, that’s how long it took for me to be more considerate. Just over three seconds. Not even long enough for a good yawn. But enough time to be courteous and let the afternoon proceed more comfortably for both of us.

I could have pulled out and accelerated hard enough to be out of the way. The other driver could have easily moved over into the left-hand lane. Maybe if the Fusion and I were in good enough sync, the driver wouldn’t have had to even ease a foot off the accelerator or twitch the steering wheel slightly left.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve made a right hand turn into town traffic, pulled out into the near lane with someone coming in the left hand lane. And I’ll probably continue doing that, depending on traffic and degree of proximity to making it to work on time. In some settings, you either jump in or wait an hour or so for the morning rush to be over. But when I can take just three or four seconds and show courtesy to other drivers and my passengers, I’m going to go with that.

I should probably let Randa know about this new plan of mine ahead of time. Otherwise the shock of my patience and consideration for others might be more than she could bear.

H. Arnett
8/16/19

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Of Naming Rights and the Nature of Rivers

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Doc Arnett

I have wondered for some time how it is that folks decide what to do when two or three rivers come together. More specifically, how they decide on the name to be conferred upon that particular stream of water after the confluence.

For example, when the Allegheny, Monongahela, and the Ohio rivers join at Pittsburgh, was it just for convenience of spelling that folks decided that what kept going downstream from there would be called the “Ohio River?” Fewer letters, fewer syllables, simpler spelling and more convenient pronunciation? Makes sense, but then wouldn’t “AlMoOh” have worked just as well? “Allenongohio” was definitely out. While hyphenation might be the solution in some marital unions, the folks who have to paint signs for bridges would have had a conniption over what happened in Pittsburgh!

It certainly wasn’t ease of spelling that let “Mississippi” take precedence when said Ohio River joined it several hundred miles downstream. Is it just a matter of who’s bigger when they meet? Depending on recent rains upstream, I’m not sure the Mississippi is always sending more of the upper United States down to New Orleans when it meets up with its cousin at the pointed edges of Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri.

Of similar situation though smaller scale is the intersection of the Smoky Hills River and the Republican River near Junction City, Kansas. We recently passed by that connuberance on our way to a wedding rehearsal in Manhattan. Maybe that’s what got me to wondering about the naming rights in our culture.

Sometime a long time ago, the residents of the area or at least the ones who had a say in such matters, decided not to give prominence to either river. In fact, per their decision, neither river continues from that point on. I suppose “the Smoky Republican River” would fail to convey the sort of respectable image the dignitaries and other influential denizens of the area might desire. I’m pretty sure if it got put to a vote today in Topeka, it’d definitely be known as the “Republican River.” Instead those folks from back whenever decided the mingled waters that flowed from that point on would be known as the “Kansas River.”

Allegedly also known as the Kaw River, it slides, jags and jogs east for about a hundred-and-fifty miles. It ends, so to speak, at Kansas City, when it yields its stream—and surrenders its name—to the Missouri River. Even though the Missouri would never become what it is without the contributions of the Kansas, that’s just the way of the world as we know it.

Every river has its tributaries and those vary from other rivers that may rival the namesake in size, length and volume to the nameless ditches and tiny creeks that also feed into the system. It’s not the nomenclature or the recognition that measures our contributions to the flow of the stream. Every bit counts and every one of them does its part to add to the river—and depending on the exact nature of the rain—to also do its part to carry for a while the erosion of the fields and cut away at the banks.

Rivers and marriages are a continuous interaction of influence and terrain, each shaping the other, remaking what has been given into some new form, bearing what is born from all that it has been through and all that has come into it. Though each may be called “over” at some point, life still bears proof of their existence.

They all carry forward old ways, customs and habits born of ancient channels and yet occasionally cut a new path when the load of what must be borne becomes more than what can be carried through the old paths. And yet even in that, even in the raging flood, it is still a river.

And such it will be when it returns to quieter times.

H. Arnett
8/14/19

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