Impressionable, Part DCXIII

So, we can’t drink the water in Austin. The recent rains have more than filled our water supply. The Highland Lakes are filled and before the rains ended there were 4 floodgates open, with threats of opening four more. I believe that they did open at least 2 more, and I didn’t hear anything more about it. All of this led to silt in our water supply, which could, in turn, lead to bacteria, so on Monday they issued a boil water warning. I’ve not seen Austin go through anything like that.

It really makes you realize how extraordinarily spoiled we are. We use clean water and take it for granted in unimaginable ways. My friend that runs the cafeteria where I work struggled that first day. I mean, she’s still struggling, but she’s gotten her footing a little. She had to turn off the ice dispenser, couldn’t make coffee (horrors!) or ice tea. She couldn’t even wash the vegetables, so she couldn’t serve hamburgers because there was no lettuce or tomatoes. Plus, could you wash the dishes? Probably not. She began boiling water to get through the rest of the week.

Restaurants of all sorts had to adjust. For the most part they would not serve fountain drinks because there is no clean ice. Coffee shops couldn’t serve coffee, except the pre-bottled kind. They even warned us to use hand sanitizer after we washed our hands.

But, not being able to sit in a coffee shop and chill after work has been the biggest loss for me. I understand that there are millions of people who live on Earth who don’t have access to clean water, and I understand that I might be whining just a tiny bit. It’s just eye-opening, more than anything. And, I’ve become accustomed to stopping at a local coffee shop, opening my journal or my laptop and writing. It’s a way to transition from work to home. It’s some beautiful alone time in a crowded space, a way for me to relax. It’s a very precise way to relax and one little slip-up like not having clean water can really turn it on its side.

Today (Friday) it occurred to me after work that Round Rock has a Barnes & Noble, and that Round Rock has it's own water system. A quick call to them confirmed, by a rather puzzled clerk, that their cafe does, indeed, sell coffee. I told him that I was calling from Austin where coffee shops could not make coffee. God has forsaken this city – probably not for the first time. Damned liberal commies.

Also, I suddenly need a dictionary. I listen to FiatLex, a podcast by Kory Stamper and Steve Kleinedler, who are lexicographers and have begun sharing the joys of their trade with the world via books and this lovely podcast. I’m also reading (or listening to) Kory’s book, Word by Word, and plan to read Steve’s soon. So, after all this dictionary business, all it took was a gentle nudge from Steve on the podcast and I suddenly needed to buy a dictionary. I asked them which I should buy, if they had a recommendation. The FiatLex Twitter account responded (in all caps) that I should buy Steve’s new dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, Fifth Edition: Fiftieth Anniversary Printing. (ISBN 9781328841698 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.)

In B&N I looked at the tweet again, found the ISBN and made my way to the customer service desk. Because of the internet, I was aware that they did not have this book in stock. I was also aware that none of the B&N’s in the Austin area had it in stock. But, I let them do their work, look it up and then offer to order it for me. As they did I thanked them for having coffee, which, again, invoked a puzzled look until I, again, mentioned that I work in Austin. Nods all around and murmurs of amazement. (Honestly, during the rains a bridge over the Llano river was washed away. I know that sounds prosaic, but to see on video a large bridge that people regularly drive across being up to its asphalt in water, and then to watch it break apart and crumble was unbelievable. Huge chunks of broken bridge were rolling around in the current of the river.)

I also commented to the lovely people at the customer service desk that I was shocked that there wasn’t a line of people beating a path to the bookstore to order this dictionary. It was just released this month and it’s the fruit of years of work by dedicated, intelligent and highly quirky people. It was all rather tongue-in-cheek, except for the emotion I felt as they ordered the dictionary for me. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t walk out with it today. Okay, I was a lot disappointed. But, I felt so grown-up. I just bought furniture for the first time in my life, and now I’m going to buy my first dictionary. I’m becoming an adult, in spite of myself.

Pum-Kin in a Tree

There once was a beautiful cat named Pum-Kin. He was mostly orange with white spots on his little face, like backwards sports player eye black. His orange fur was fluffy – so very fluffy – and had white spots accentuating his body in just the right places. He pranced around on white tufts of furry feet and a glance from his lovely visage would cause an average human's heart to melt into butter.

He lived in the back yard of two kindly men who made sure that there was food in a dish for him. While he appreciated the food, he wasn't quite sure that he trusted people enough to actually snuggle with them. Sometimes he'd let one of them scratch his head, because this is the price you have to pay to keep a food supply. But, for the most part he kept himself at arm's length.

One time one of the kindly men put his food on a nice table about two feet from where it usually sat on the back porch. This was very confusing for a pretty cat named Pum-Kin, who wasn't the most intelligent thing ever to walk on four feet. But, he was very pretty. Another time he had to share his food with a skunk named Trevor, because even though he wasn't the brightest star in the galaxy, Pum-Kin knew better than to go to battle with a omnivorous black-and-white New World mammal of the weasel family.

One day, in the middle of Central Texas' excuse for a winter – meaning that the temperatures had recently gotten as far down as 35° before returning to the 50's – Pum-Kin decided to climb a tree. He wasn't quite sure why; there is just a need inside every cat to be on top of something they see. You may have noticed this tendency in your own cats, especially if you've left a piece of paper laying about. It's just something that cats have to do, a mysterious call of nature. So, one afternoon, after having seen this strange short tree for years, he finally decided that food wasn't going to be served any time soon so he may as well have a climb. This didn't go so well for poor little Pum-Kin. He got stuck and tangled and didn't quite know what to do with himself. Fortunately, one of the kindly men wandered by. Unfortunately, the kindly man had a camera.

Poor Pum-Kin

Perhaps now you understand why pretty little Pum-Kin is reluctant to trust humans, even kindly ones with food.

Autumn 2017

Autumn is in the air. It was this morning, anyway. This is Central Texas and the temperature is still in the 80's – if not the 90's – during the day. But, we can pretend. I lift my head and try to get a whiff of that technicality in the air, the one that says that the autumnal equinox has already passed and it's time for the leaves to change colors, the temperature to drop and the nights to grow spooky. I can almost taste the nostalgia. It is October.

Being that it is under 100° I felt compelled to be outside today. I love front porches and I live in a house that has one. Oddly, I never use it. (Actually, for reasons I can't comprehend, the front door is nailed shut, which speaks volumes for why I don't use it. But, we're gonna let that go before we start a fight.) So, this afternoon I dragged the two rocking chairs and glass-top patio table to the driveway and swept the wooden floor and tried to get the cobwebs down from the walls and ceiling. There was one wasp nest that I didn't want to disturb, (and I didn't want to get sidetracked by getting rid of it.) I then turned my attention to the much-neglected rocking chairs. 

They are nice chairs – made from wood and painted white. There have been a couple of storms that blew rain and dirt on them, though, so only the residents of this household were aware that they were actually white. To most people they were a dull brown. I had more success cleaning the one that was further away from the northeast side of the porch. The storms that came tended to blow the dirty rain from that side, as wind blew across the dirt driveway/parking area. As I was cleaning I saw a spider and before I could catch myself he had been washed off the chair. What if that was my father trying to visit? Sorry Dad. 

After all that I poured lime-flavored Topo Chico over ice and sat on the newly cleaned chair on the sort-of cleaned porch with only a few mosquitoes and a tiny wasp nest that I hadn't disturbed so I felt comfortable that they weren't angry at me. Tired. I'm probably still anemic; that much activity should not have made me as dizzy as it did. However, let's lose about 30 pounds and see if we don't feel better. I hope I do; I'm running out of possible reasons for the anemia.

As I recovered I sat thinking. I thought about what I would like to do with the shrubs, how to trim them to make the house look better and keep from blocking the view from the porch. It was hot, but a breeze came by every once in a while and felt very nice. I got up to refill my Topo Chico and saw Dad again on the door. This time I just said, "Hi Dad" and kept going. I didn't knock the spider off.

The family across the street was cleaning a building in their back yard. I know this because the woman was "directing" activity the entire time I sat outside. She was yelling almost nonstop about every conceivable thing – related to cleaning or otherwise. Next door to them a Mexican man rode up on his bicycle and leaned it against a tree near the house. After a few minutes another man rode up and they sat together on that porch, chatting quietly. 

This is the small town I live in. This is what I call home. I'm not really used to it. I need to take tips from my friend, Tamara, who is a yoga master at keeping things tidy and de-cluttered. For the most part it's easier to take a nap and forget about it, but I could learn to love being home so much more if I spent a few minutes a day keeping things up. That's a lot of work, though. I need a nap just thinking about it.

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Glass for refreshing beverage next to my ever-present notebook. And pen. On the Front Porch.

A Leaf Blowing in the Wind

As I was driving this afternoon I came across a Historical Marker – one that I must have passed many time before. It is for the town of Kimbro, TX, an unincorporated entity that was founded in 1870 by Swedish, Danish and German immigrants. There are a lot Swedish towns scattered across the fields around this area, though as far as I can tell not many of them actually exist any more, except for their small cemeteries. Kimbro has a City Limit sign on highway 1100. Manda, Carlson and Lund just have historical markers and roads named after them. New Sweden has a church and a somewhat larger cemetery, though no town in the way that people think of towns now – a geographic location with crossing streets and avenues. Here there are fields of corn and other crops, and the occasional house. I read that general stores and schools once existed, but they are no longer around. (One of the schools has its own historical marker.)

Maybe I'm still tired, but walking through the tiny Kimbro cemetery made me a little sad. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez observes that a new community has truly planted roots when it buries its first citizen and establishes a cemetery. I feel a little like a leaf blowing in the wind. Like I don't have a community of my own. I know that this could be perceived as a slap in the face to all of my family and friends, and I assure you all that it's not intended this way.

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Gravestone in the Kimbro Cemetery. Very faintly you can see the steeple of the New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church on the horizon.

I have lived in Elgin, TX off and on for over 10 years. This is my third time living here, as a matter of fact. I know people here; I have friends. However, the feeling remains that they are all Barry's friends, and mine by extension. When I walk through the town I resist the temptation to like it, though the houses and trees are very appealing to me. I resist the temptation to fall in love with the house I live in, though I love the wooden floors, the front yard and the front porch. I've left so many places and I don't feel that I have ever learned to belong anywhere. 

I think the geographical aspect is key here. Yes, I have a large family, but none of them live in Elgin with me. I could live in Boerne, where I graduated high school, but I don't know that this is the best thing for me at this point. I want to find a place to put down roots and call it Home. That requires action on my part, and I don't seem to be good at that particular skill. I am sitting in a coffee shop writing these words, because I couldn't think at home. From the time I first lived on my own (150 years ago), I've always avoided being home. Friends have commented on this all along. It's easier just to be somewhere else.

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New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church

Churches also hold a community together. I have struggled to find a church, and I have enjoyed being a member in several throughout the years. There are two problems: One is the fact that I'm gay and this tends to go against Christian theology. The other problem is me. I admit it. I am not good at getting up on Sunday mornings and going to church. I'm not any better at Saturday evenings. The Catholic church has been the most comforting for me. I love the ritual of Mass. The reading of the Psalms is particularly comforting and I've spent a lot of time reading the Liturgy of the Hours. But again, as soon as I commit to doing it, I fall off. (I am such a large part of my own problem it's amusing.) New Sweden has a beautiful church, and the sign promises that everybody is welcome. But, I'm not Swedish and I don't know these people and while I'm certain that I would be welcome there, how long could it be before I truly belonged? Would I ever? Could I? My track record isn't good.

So, where will I be buried when I die? Let's pretend that's not as morbid as it sounds. So many people are choosing to have their bodies cremated. My Aunt Roslyn was cremated when she passed, but none of us knows where the ashes are. Her husband said that he put them where she had requested, but hasn't told us where that is. It seems like a nice idea to have a place – a physical place that I could go to visit her and think about her. A grave, for instance. A grave is in a cemetery and a cemetery is part of a community and do I have a community? I mean, a town – a physical location with crossing streets and avenues, with people around that I belong to and who would claim me. Would people visit my grave? That's such a quaint, Old-World mentality – as foreign to me as the continent of Europe itself. It seems nice, though.

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Gravestone in the Kimbro Cemetery 

I sometimes feel that these words that I write are me – the only roots that I am capable of putting down, the only hope I have of being remembered. My published books will be my grave, their covers my gravestone. People will visit me by reading my words.

I am truly feeling like a leaf today – lost and blowing in the wind. Maybe that's just who I am, and maybe I should embrace, rather than fight it. The North Wind calls and, again, I must move on. Maybe I'm just low on iron, and all of this is just a physical reaction. Maybe I'm just tired. My desire to create something beautiful out of all of this is matched only by my desire to lay down for about an hour and let sleep carry me away in its loving arms. When I wake will this all be gone? Will sleep gently stroke my face as it hands me back to wakefulness, who promises a new world, a new beginning and outlook? Perhaps these emotions will have ebbed with the circadian tide? In which case, I am glad I took the time to write this, so that I can remember how I felt. Because this is a powerful feeling, and it bears remembering.

Boerne – Dickens on Main

My mother emailed me last week to see if I wanted to help her get her Christmas decorations from the attic and set up her tree. It was a little out of the blue, but I've been meaning to visit anyway. It's a shame that she should have to email me to ask; I could have offered. But, there are sisters, brothers-in-law and nephews who live in or around Boerne, and who tend to do things like this for her. It made me very happy that she reached out to me.

So, on the Friday after Thanksgiving I took a drive up to my hometown of Boerne, Tx. My route home is generally dictated by which part of Austin is my beginning point. From the Northwest, I would go west on 290 to 281 South and see the towns of Dripping Springs and Blanco. That route shows off the Hill Country, with vast expanses of trees and views from atop the elevations that give this part of the Edward's Plateau its name. But, I live East now, so I take the toll road around Austin and end up on the interstate, going south through the bigger towns of San Marcos and New Braunfels – part of what is now called the IH 35 Corridor, and it includes outlet malls and lots of shopping centers. Either way, I end up on SH 46 West and get to see a nice part of the Hill Country, even if I miss 281's elevated section of it.

I love my mother's home. It brings me great comfort to be there. But, she didn't live there until I had left Boerne to go live in San Antonio – the nearby 'big city'. When I lived in Boerne I wasn't quite the level-headed person that I am now, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that I wasn't particularly fond of the memories of that town. I don't know that the town was particularly fond of me. But, I was a disaster, so it's possible I misunderstood. My brother, my sister and I (the last 3 of 8 children) have had to learn, and relearn that a lot of what we experienced here was due to us (or our quirky family), rather than the townsfolk itself. 

I arrived at my mother's house and soon my sister, Marty, came over. My brother, James, and his wife stopped in to tell Mom hi on the way out of town, back to West Texas. Then my brother-in-law, Glen, came over to bring me a bowl that I had left at their house last July. (I love being in a family where somebody doesn't think twice about getting up and taking a glass blow to another house if asked.) There I sat on my mother's sofa with all of these people around when my cell phone rang. Somebody very dear to me has been struggling and is currently resting and recovering. Even though it was rude, I didn't want to miss the call, so I snuck out of the room to talk for a few minutes – a precious few. He sounded good. He's clearly getting better, but there is still a very large hill in front of him to climb. When he had to get off the phone, I went back into the living room with the others. Marty was heading to her daughter's house to watch her grandkids and give her daughter a chance to rest, but before she left she invited me to Dickens on Main – an event in downtown Boerne. They close off Main Street and all of the shops stay open until 10. (Most of them.) I thought that would be nice to see, so we made plans for her and Glen to swing by later for me.

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After lunch I handed Mom a couple of boxes from her attic. Then there were some that were heavier, so I just went up and down the ladder bringing them down. After several trips she asked if that was all, that she hoped that was all. I looked and let her know that there were five more boxes. It's amazing how things like this can kind of accumulate without one realizing it. We found the box holding the artificial tree and managed to get it assembled in the living room, and the lights on, which was an ordeal. One would assume that if you plug the beginning of a string of lights into the wall, then there should be an end to that string – an end that the next string could plug into. This has been my experience for my entire adult life and even before. I'm not saying that the other ends of the strings of lights were incorrectly designed; we just couldn't find any of them. I ended up plugging three sets of lights into the extension cord, which was dangling in the tree from the string of lights on the top section – on the back side, against the wall. My mother was ready to chunk the whole thing onto the street and go buy another one, but that would involve getting into the car and going to a store, which neither of us was inclined to do at that particular moment on the Friday after Thanksgiving. By 6 o'clock we had managed to put up the tree, get the lights to come on and decorate it. Kind of sad, considering how much time we had had, and how many other boxes there were to go through. It was her plan to get rid of a lot of it. She would need a house twice the size of hers – without any other decor in the way – in order to use all of it.

Mom and I rested. She decided that her knees hurt to much to go downtown with us. Around 6:30 Marty and Glen came by to pick me up and drive us to downtown Boerne. Glen from the backseat asked, "Marty, where are you going? Marty, where are you going?" in a childlike voice. She patiently explained her choice of routes, given that Main St. was blocked off. We parked a few blocks away and wandered through the crowds. There really was an impressive number of people out and about that night. All of the buildings were decorated and covered in lights, there were vendors and food trailers and pockets set aside for events, like 'North Pole Plaza', 'Tiny Tim Square' and 'Dickens Village'. Some places had fake snow coming down (because we're in Central Texas and that doesn't really happen naturally.) Marty wanted to see a performance called Bah Humbug, (in Dickens Village) which turned out to be a brilliant one-man show of A Christmas Carol. It was pretty incredible how he narrated and played the part of every character – including scenes in which two or more characters spoke to each other. He turned back band forth, switched hats and costume pieces, changed his accent and we more or less forgot that we were watching a one-man show. We were just watching the story being performed, and it was spot on! (From what I can find, it was put on by The Company Theatre, and acted by Damian Gillen. I'm trying to confirm.)

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Bah Humbug, a one-man show of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

After the show we had a hot chocolate at the Daily Grind/Boerne Grill. We could have gone to any number of trailers that were set up along Main St. serving food and drinks. Right outside of The Daily Grind, for example, was a stand that sold coffee and beignets. The line for that booth went across the 5-lane street. There were trailers selling gorditas, popcorn, kettle corn, roasted/carameled pecans, kebabs and more. Blocks and blocks of people wandering the streets, a few in period costume. Some of them were in their 20's and without children. On a Friday evening. Hanging out in downtown Boerne. This was definitely not the town I left so many years ago.

Later, on the way back home, Glen sat in the backseat saying, "Marty, where are you going? Marty, where are you going?" When we got to the street my mother lives on he changed it to, "Now we going right." Apparently this is how their granddaughter rides in the backseat. 

The next day Mom took me to breakfast and then we continued to assert Christmas into her home. After we tired from that we went to visit downtown in the daylight. While driving her in her car, I mentioned to my mother that the car behind us was driving very close, and that they seemed to be in a hurry (somewhat sarcastically.) Her reply was simply, "Well, you drive pretty slow." Not really a criticism, but since I brought it up... (I was trying to see how my hometown had changed!) Fortunately, I turned and the car behind me went straight.

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First we visited The Christmas Shoppe on Main St. to taunt Marty while she worked. She mostly ignored us and tended to the actual customers. (I really wish that I could juggle. I would have taken three of those oh-so-fragile glass ornaments and gone to town.) Then we walked to the Dienger Building for a coffee. Years ago, when my mother worked for the Boerne Public Library, it was in this historic building. It was a beautiful library and loved by the community. They outgrew it about the same time that she retired. Now the building is a coffee shop/cafe/store (The Dienger Trading Co.) and they seem to be putting the building to good use. My mother walked me around, showing me where this small nook of tables had been the reference room – with beautiful large wooden tables for people to use while they researched – and here was where the 1614 Low German Bible had been on display. We had coffee with Natalie, who has adopted my mother as her own and who is now the assistant director of the beautiful brand-new library a little further along Main St. 

Soon afterward I left my mother, letting her finish working through the boxes and boxes of Christmas. I had helped her set up a delicate glass nativity scene. I had lingered in her home, which I always find so relaxing. I had a couple of gifts to deliver from Mom to another sister in San Antonio. So, I took my leave of Mom and of Boerne, Tx. I'll go again, at a time when it isn't so hectic and visit the walking trails they've put in, visit the park by the river, which is now closed to vehicles and part of the Cibolo Nature Center (another trail, as far as I can tell.) I spent years swimming with my brother and sister in that creek in that park. I'm not sure I want to go back, but I would like to see what they've done with it. You can't go home again, but I suppose if you hadn't been particularly fond of it, and you keep your expectations low, then you might have a pleasant experience.