GRUMPY OLD BASTARD ASSHOLE

Rain all day, sometimes big rain. Wind. Yellow leaves fly through the air on the way to the ground. This year, the trees with the yellow leaves turned first. The trees with red leaves are largely still green. We'll have an extended fall color season this year. First yellow, then orange, then red. The color change is so particular year to year, I wonder how it can be said what weekend will be the peak time or what kind of a coloration it will be. I don't recall but one prediction being accurate, the year the talking heads said it would be a poor year for color. It was a dry year. The leaves just turned brown. I pay little to no attention to predictions for what kind of winter we'll have. Already, I've seen two projected forecasts for the winter. One said it will be long and extra cold with much more snow than ever. The other said it will be the mildest winter ever. Winters are like Nascar races: impossible to predict. We've had four days and nights of dense fog accompanied by sprinkling rain, until today when it poured in torrents. It's on the verge of tiresome. Yet, no matter how muddy the ground gets, I prefer wet to ground so dry it cracks and the springs dry up. Springs are largely dried up anyway. So many exurban houses in the landscape draining the underground water. Wells have to go deeper and deeper. The society of waste comes to the mountains, drains the water, poisons the land, dismisses as ignernt hillbillies the people whose home this land is, impatient, intolerant, wanting everything now, just like on tv. I was about to compare it to white people pushing the Indians off their home continent, killing them by the millions, and say the exurbanites are all but killing us. But, they are killing us with cancer. County government doesn't care. The ones poisoning us are paying more taxes than we are, so we have no voice. 

I'm seeing an experience a few weeks ago when I was introduced to someone I already knew, though wished I didn't. She looked at me, nodded and turned away. I said in my head, Thank you. A few months ago in the coffee shop I mentioned to a woman I was talking with at the bar I watch Nascar races. The one above who nodded, who I was not talking to, said, "They just drive around and around in circles," smug, proving she's more sophisticated than I, doesn't waste her college-educated intelligence watching working class tv shows. I wanted to be vulgar, nasty vulgar, the kind of vulgar that makes an enemy for life, though condensed and softened my response to, "In the very most minimal way of looking at it, yes." Her nose shot straight up and she was gone. Again, I said in my head, Thank you. Made an enemy for life without even trying. It hurts so good. Such moments remind me that I left the city for the mountains to get away from people like her, the white middle-class suburbanites. Now they've packed in around me so tightly I am glad the Republicans are squeezing the middle-class into the working class. I actively despise how they regard and treat the mountain people. I told Selma at the beginning of the coffee shop that when the right people find this place, I'm gone. Turns out, Selma was Cuban and the right people stayed away. Now Becca has it and she's run off the wrong people, so now I go in there and all I see is the right people. I have no reason to be there. The people I used to go in there to see have been run off. Not high end. Not PC enough. The end came when a country club woman in there said to me, "I bet YOU voted for O-BA-ma." I said, "Sure did. He's a sharp stick in the Republican eye." She said, "I'm a con-SER-vative!" I thought, duh, and said, "I'm a SO-cialist!" I don't want this kind of conversation, ever, anyplace, with anybody. The coffee shop is past tense for me. Another one of those moments when I get with self and say, I didn't come here for this shit. 

The fun part in saying I'm a SO-cialist, she told within a few days everyone she knows that knows of me, he's a socialist. Hooray. Five or so people I never want to meet will see to it for me. I don't even have to think about avoiding them. They avoid me first. I'm pretty sure I have a name for being arrogant among those people. I can easily give them cause to call me much, much worse. Recalling a line from a Steven Segal film. A woman warning him about the people he's going up against, they're bad, really bad. He said, "I'm worse, much worse." And a line from Runaway Train when Voight was told he was a beast. He said, "Worse. Man!" That's how I feel in the company of people that look down their noses at the mountain people. I want them to call me arrogant. I want them to call me as bad as they can make it, inspire the people they talk to to avoid me, so when they're introduced to me they nod, turn away and think: asshole. Alas, I have some neighbors, the most openly fickle people I can think of, fake from the surface to the core, totally informed by tv, Republican, Christian, who once wanted me to be their friend. Didn't last long. Didn't get started. They really tried my ideal of loving neighbor as self. The closest I can come is to allow them who they are, recognizing we do not connect in any way. I'm old enough to know from repeated experience that attempts to go against the recognition never works, leads only to hard feelings and another cluster of enemies, their gossip circles, for life. An aunt passed to me something her husband told her when he was living, If you don't want it started, don't start it. Confucius could have said that. Often I am called to remind self of original purpose coming here, none of it social. 

Talking with my friend Jay at Chris Cox's reading at intermission, he was saying he has too much going on, too much he's involved in, it's stressing him. I said, Man, you don't need that shit. You live on a mountain. Get to know your mountain. It will be your friend. I mentioned that I've had spells of involvement in more than I was comfortable dealing with, going to meetings. Periodically, I've had to pull back to the people I care about who care about me and let the rest go. He's not of that kind of temperament. I didn't want to tell him to do as I do, because my way is not his way. I only told him how I've solved the issue for myself. Not to say do it my way. Only to illustrate how I chose for my own circumstances. He will find his way according to his own circumstances. I wouldn't want to influence him any other way. He's not as comfortable yet with being disliked as I've become. Or so I guess. It would not do for me to advise him. He has good brains. He'll figure it out. I just wanted to say he can find a solution to his satisfaction. If I were to hear myself start a sentence, you should, I would have to do penance for at least two days. First thing I'd do is retract everything said, immediately. Then I'd go inside to the place that sentence came from and educate self again that I have no right, any way I look at it, to presume to know anyone else's should, when there is no should to it. I can't name my own shoulds, sure as hell can't name somebody else's, especially when I don't even believe it is a word worth being in the language. I don't, and would not, rule the world, so I just don't use the meaningless word. When I don't use it, it's not in my world. I feel like I've found a good balance of involvement / non-involvement that keeps me engaged without stress. It has not always been this way. It comes from allowing the flow and flowing with it. Now that I think I've found my own flow, it feels really awkward when I step outside it. I have to pull back into it. As I get used to it, it becomes easier to keep in tune with and easier to jump back into when distracted out of the flow for a period of time. The flow is in my center, feels like solar plexus is where I connect with it. In my own flow is where I belong. I want for nothing else.  

photos by tj worthington

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BIRDS OF AIR BELLOWS

       trees of air bellows

Several sun shiny days in a row. Long-sleeve weather, but not sweater except for when the sun goes down and the cool wave of evening moves in. When I step outside the door, the birds fly away from the bird feeder and the ground under it in a flurry of fluttering wings, an explosion of parts going off in all directions. A wall I built of placed rocks several years ago about waist high, maybe ten giant steps long, and filled in behind it broken cinderblocks for drainage, then rocks, then gravel, is full of chipmunks. By now dirt has come in and grass grows there. I had to raise my parking space when the State put the paved road through here. They raised the road a meter. The wall is now a chipmunk apartment. I suppose they use the spaces among the broken parts of cinderblock. The race of the chipmunks to their apartments through the dry leaves on the ground, the sound of running through the leaves coincides with the flutter of half a dozen or more sets of wings and the involuntary chirpings of the birds taking off.



I feel a little guilt for messing up their lunch, but I pay it no mind, because they wouldn't be having lunch if I weren't putting it there. These warblers I didn't know were around here. They're of the woodpecker family. This morning I saw a big pileated woodpecker fly through the barren trees across the road. They fly like jets. The warblers can walk under, around; upside down doesn't matter. They walk around a tree trunk like a woodpecker. They go searching for bugs too. They stab at what they're going after, bug or seed, but just once at a time, when a woodpecker goes like a burst from a machine gun. The warblers fly like darts with wings. I toss seed onto the ground too, for the birds that like it on the ground and for the chipmunks. If they like the birdseed, I'm glad to feed them too. Like what morsels are left of Caterpillar's food in the morning I put out for Martha the dog. Because it's "catfood" doesn't mean a dog can't eat it. She loves it.



The leaves are gone from nearly all the trees by now. Some oaks hang onto their leaves. We had a good display of leaves this year. At the peak, a big wind came and blew quite a few off the trees; then the next day rain and wind that dislodged some more. By the time that run of weather had passed, we had about half the leaves that were left, and the rest fell to the ground soon after. By today, the leaves are mostly gone. It's strange to step out the door one day and the trees are bare. Heading into winter. Another 6 months of wearing sweaters. The birdfeeders will be as busy then as they are now, if not maybe more. I know the argument about not feeding the birds so they won't overpopulate their natural resources, which they will do. I figure everything is so out of whack by now, if I feel like feeding birds, I'm going to feed birds. I like watching them. Bought a 40 lb bag of sunflower seeds. The birds gobble them up. Any left after dark, the coon that lives near here will take what the birds leave.



A squirrel drops by during the day for some nibbles. He or she lives near here. I don't worry about the squirrel. Like the birds, the squirrel needs some of the handouts at the homeless shelter. The squirrel jumps to a tree, runs up the trunk, out on a branch, jumps to the branch of another tree, travels through the trees to get away when the giant steps out the door. Yesterday I was outside the door for maybe fifteen minutes. The birds started to chide me from nearby branches. They were afraid to fly to the feeder with the giant outside. As many as flew away when I went out were letting me have it. Get back in your house you big old giant. Go on, get outta here, we're hungry. They know I put the seed in the feeders, because they see me do it, every day, morning and afternoon. They fly to the trees and watch. The return after I'm in the house long enough to suggest I'm in for awhile. They know the score. I loved it that they felt like they knew me well enough to talk to me.



They know I'm the giant that lives in the house, the giant that keeps the birdfeeders with seeds in them, evidently seeds these birds like. If these feeding stations of healthy bird food will benefit these birds through the winter, I'm glad to pay for the seeds. They're the same birds every day, the birds with territories nearby. They know the lion lives in the house with the giant. Sometimes the lion gets out and curls up on a spot of sunlight near the birdfeeder and watches the birds, flying candy bars. The lion is old and heavy, doesn't attack the birds, but still, they're cautious. The dog comes around sometimes during the day. The dog can't catch them, but they don't chance it. The dog is unpredictable what it might do. I can't have chickens now. My grandmother taught me a love for the birds. She had a special affection for birds. She kept a singing canary in a cage. When one died, she'd get another. She knew how to doctor them. She grew up with chickens. The birds at the feeder satisfy interest in birds. They keep me in touch with bird nature.    

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STRANGERS AND LEAVES OF COLOR

       trees of air bellows

This morning I talked with a woman who was recently retired military computer in-charge type role out of Washington DC. She had a brilliant mind. Fast. I was interested talking with her to get a feeling for her vibe coming out of military life in DC, working with computers. Serious computers. We spoke a little bit about politics, cautiously, peripherally, and I mentioned seeing Oliver Stone's film, W., reporting it's a brilliant film. I was beginning to see she bought the package of successful government employee belief system, and we'd best stay away from that subject. She mentioned something about Stone's "spin." To be clear before we went further, I said, "His spin is mine." I liked her, found her alert and, like I said, brilliant. When I meet someone with a good mind, I don't want to waste time on politics. Let's talk about something interesting. She left not long after finding out I'm a lefty. I don't believe it was because of that, because I took her for not of that small a mind. She wasn't. But I wanted to steer her away from politics before it got started. Or at least define where we're coming from.

It's interesting talking with people who are essentially random people from anywhere on earth. The experience with my store helped make me fluent in talking with strangers. It's such a tightrope walk in this time when a conversation between a couple of strangers often amounts to establishing our places on the status ladder. It's rare a man doesn't play rooster games. I actually don't find one gender easier to talk with than the other. It's all about individuals. Some women are open-minded, allowing people, some are shut down control freaks. Same among men. You just don't know who is what until you talk some and establish some points of view. Some people are easy, non-judgmental, relatively uninhibited about allowing true self to be seen, and some are the opposite; judging everything you say, everything you're wearing, behind mask on top of mask on top of mask. In that way, speaking with strangers is a risk, albeit minor as minor gets, setting oneself up for varieties of judgment. How you handle that is don't give a shit. Judging is what people do. Like gossiping is what people do. It's happening in every collection of people. It's the nature of what we're like as people. Judgment is self-undermining, which is why Jesus recommends against it. But if you don't care, go ahead.

And there is something enlightening in a minor way visiting with strangers. Getting to listen to and talk with someone whose experience is different from my own in about every way is a refreshing interlude from habit. Like a French doctor on vacation riding a motorcycle on the Parkway. He was kind of interesting to talk with until his inate superiority apparenlty needed establishing. I turned away and let him talk with whoever would listen. In cities you see strangers everywhere you go. The strangers here are people passing through or new in the county. It's interesting to talk with someone from Michigan passing through who played acoustic guitar and sang with Wade Mainer in Michigan, in Mainer's old age. I like to allow the person not from here to talk as much as they like. I like to hear people tell me their stories. It's a form of movie. I started to say an audio form of movie, but the visual is there too, the story teller. I love it that every person has thousands of stories that are their own. Every one a valid and good story. I don't mind when they're embellished with lies. That's part of human nature to make ourselves look better than we think we look. It's the self-serving nature of the subjective, which makes the subjective so unreliable for fact finding, but great for story telling.

The leaves have about peaked here at Air Bellows. The colors are full and vibrant. Yellows, oranges and reds mixed with plenty of greens. We haven't had a freeze yet. Like last year, they are turning without the frost that I believed started them turning. Temperatures at night have only been to 38 or 39 when it's below 40. Who knows what the trees know? This weekend past was perhaps the weekend for peak colors for the people who drive to the mountains to see the leaves. This coming weekend might be better. I doubt it. Right now is as good as it gets here on the mountain. Down the mountain it's less colorful. The next couple weeks will be beautiful colors and spaces opened up that all the leaves obscured. We'll soon be able to see through the trees again. Then the trees will be gray lines on white snow, like a pencil drawing on white paper. I'm imagining this next week will be the peak all over the county. It's beautiful landscape to drive through. 

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THE COLORS OF AUTUMN

When a country is in harmony with the Tao

the factories make trucks and tractors.

When a country goes counter to the tao,

warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

There is no greater illusion than fear,

no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,

no greater misfortune than having an enemy.

Whoever can see through all fear

will always be safe.

Tao Te Ching #46

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AUTUMN LEAVES

red yellow green

Woolly worms are crossing the roads. My first year in the mountains Tom Pruitt told me the lore of the woolly worm, making certain I didn't think he believed any of it, just telling me what he's been told some people believe. Black at front and back and orange in the middle. The amount of black in the front told how long the first part of winter would be, then the orange is the mild spell in the middle of winter, how long it will last, then the black at the end tells the last part of winter. Already, I didn't believe it, because I'd never seen two alike. How do you choose the one to go by? This year all I've seen crossing the roads is solid black ones, which I would interpret to mean a long winter of steady cold like last winter. Having already said I don't believe it, I do find it interesting the woolly worms over the last few years seem to be more and more solid black. Don't take this for a face. I've not done a scientific study, just drive-bys, sometimes rolling a tire over one, sometimes not. I try to avoid them, but sometimes see one roll up into a fuzzy marble in the rearview mirror.

My friends Lucas and Judy Carpenter arrived Friday for the weekend. The leaves started turning that night. Then the next night more, and by the time they left today the mountains were almost in full color. It's an unnatural turning according to what I've seen over the years. We have not had a night below freezing. I was told in biology class that a membrane where the stem of the leaf joins the branch closes after a freeze, the leaf gets no more nutrients and dies, changing colors along the way from vibrant green living leaf to dried paper on the forest floor, nutrients for the roots next year after they dissolve into the soil after rain and snow. Talking with Jack Nichols today, he said it's so dry the leaves died from lack of rain. That's what I see the leaves doing, just dying. They curl up and turn brown after one or two days of color. Curious. Every Fall season is different like every winter is unique to itself, like every Summer and Spring. I've never seen this before. I suspect Jack has seen it before.

Uploaded 16 videos of Skeeter and the Skidmarks' show last Friday night. It took until today. I wasn't home much, in and out. In, I'd set one to uploading and leave, come back and start another one going. That was every one I'd recorded. I started at the beginning and kept on going. Everything they did was dynamic. They had the groove. They were flowing with each other musically and flowing with the audience too. Their groove encompassed the whole place, everyone concerned. During a couple of them, I remember Whiskey Before Breakfast being one of them, I started grooving through the camera, moving in a flow with the music. Sometimes I like to move the camera around while the music is going. Including the heads of the audience is the best learning I think I've had from the experience. It seems to add to the spontaneity of the moment. The 17th one was Dori's Work Song, put up last so it would be at the top of the list.

As usual, I was grateful for the opportunity to archive almost an entire show of Skeeter and the Skidmarks in the time they're preparing their 3rd cd 15 years after the 2nd. Their first round of playing a few months ago at the Front Porch, they were mighty good, but this time they were on top of it. They were feeling good together and the music was flowing. I wanted to get the entire show, but needed some still shots and a bit of rest for my arms. I'm better now at holding the camera still than I used to be. I don't want to hold it too still, however. I like movement of the camera. Makes the video feel alive, like it's a living eye seeing through it, which is indeed the case. I love this inadvertent role as video recorder of some of the best music going on in SW Virginia. I like things that just happen like this die. It just happened. I had no dream, no ambition to do such a thing. Never entered my mind until I did it. That tells me it's in the flow, that I'm in my flow. That's where I want to be.