snakes

Some of my favorite snake encounters I've already shared in my blogs. The five snakes that showed up in the creek bed here in central Texas in 2011 were quite wondrous, as was the huge black snake sunning in the garage in south Louisiana in 2007 or 8. That snake was a sublime presence.

There are lots of scare stories about snakes.  The movie about snakes in the hold of a jet plane escaping into the passenger cabin was quite melodramatic, I understand. Most people are startled and somewhat anxious near snakes, myself included. As a kid, we found some snake eggs in a friend's yard - small, white, and rubbery. We were fascinated and yet a little unnerved, even though the eggs presented no risks to our well being.

Once I learned that according to Asian tradition, my birth year's mascot is the snake, I tried to let go of my fear. Snakes are normally reclusive. Perhaps it isn't danger, but the natural power that emanates from them that keeps us at a respectful distance.

fish & grubs

What fish are to the waters
grubs are to the lands.

Would this be accurate?

my fingers drum
my face grows damp
the white rectangle
stares right back
the empty page

I've been thinking lately, not so much about ballet, but about the imagery of ballerinas twirling in the traditional uniform of ballerinas: the tutu. This is not only an image from ballet, but in skating, particularly ice skating - the twirling dancer on ice. I think about ballet and tops and martial arts - how the sharp spinning edge of the tutu cuts through the tension of the air.

I don't have much to say, really. This morning, I was drawing. Yesterday, I drew a toad stool. Today, using the back of that page, I traced some of the lines that bled through the paper.  This was something different from the recent flowers and windsocks and rabbits and jellyfish and squares and triangles and suns and moons. A pink tutu filled the page. I've never worn a tutu - and really don't know a whole lot about ballet - but there it was - a lot of pink on white.

I'm at the library right now, and when I got here, I pulled three children's books off a shelf, kind of randomly as I usually do, without looking at the fronts of the covers. The illustrations and the stories help clear my mind before my own work. I used to write children's stories many years back, and I'm curious about what is currently popular.

One of the books today is about a robot kid who moves to a new town and meets up with an alien kid at the new school. Another is in Spanish - it's about feelings - los sentimientos. The third is called 'Todos Los Tutus: deberian ser rosas'. I don't know much Spanish, but I think this means something like 'All the (something something) pink tutus'. The cover art is of two funny kids in pink tutus.

sauerkraut and pickles

Sauerkraut and pickles are canned foods that have a long history. Sauerkraut is a cabbage dish pickled in vinegar, salt, and other seasonings. Pickles in the United States are most commonly cucumbers, but there are also pickled green beans, carrots, okra, onions, beets,and other vegetables. In Korea, kimchee, like sauerkraut, is made of cabbage and other vegetables, but kimchee is pickled and fermented in large casks, and tends to be quite spicy.

Fresh cucumbers, cabbages, and carrots are part of a summer diet. In summers past, humans ate foods from the fields and gardens, and also prepared some of the excess for storage. Such stored foods saved lives during harsh winters or during droughts.  

In the winters, cold weather dominated many parts of the world. The land might be icy and white with snow. People went to their sheds and cellars, and retrieved the pickles, sauerkraut and other foods canned, salted, or sugared during the summers.  These foods kept folks happy and well-nourished until winter faded and spring sunshine and rains crept back in, when edible dandelion leaves, mushrooms, wild berries, and other delicacies started to return, when farmers tilled their fields, and families planted their own favorites in back-yard gardens.

Dance can be a kind of geometric art in motion. Square dancing is a good example. Traditionally, each square includes eight dancers. The four sides of the square are sometimes called North, South, East, and West. Each side has two people, traditionally, a guy and a gal. They are called partners. Outside of the square is a caller, who sings out the moves. 'Swing your partner' is a basic move where the guy and the gal link arms at the elbows and skip a circle in place on their side of the square. All four sets of partners do this at once. Other moves direct each dancer to their 'corner'. The corner is the person closest to the dancer along the adjacent side of the square. Another simple call is 'Dosie-Do your corner; now Dosie-Do your own.' Each dancer folds his or her arms almost at shoulder level. First they meet up with their corners and circle each other, then return to their partners and circle each other. More sophisticated moves involve weaving back and forth in a ring.

We spent a few weeks in PE at school ('physical education') learning square dancing. This was during the era of the twist, the watusi, the frug, and the mashed potato, so we acted like the old-fashioned square dancing was kind of - well - square. But it was a lot of fun - and a bit of a challenge. Sometimes we crashed into a funny pile-up when we confused left and right, or didn't have the move down yet. Some friends and I some time back spent a part of an evening watching square dancers via youtube.com. The dancers in country-style costumes moved in synchrony, creating kaleidoscope-like images when watched from above. At the corners, and along the lines of the square, there arose twirling colorful circles. Each dancer was separate, yet they moved as a whole, as though invisibly connected.  We hadn't meant to watch video after video of square dancers, but it was visually fascinating.

Children in many schools in the United States of America learn fundamental skills of reading, and writing, and arithmetic, and demonstrate those skills in tests administered by the teachers, and tests required by government accrediting organizations that have agreed upon standards of expectations in different areas of study.

Children also learn applications for these skills that are useful in day to day life. They learn to read a clock, and how to use a calendar. They learn how to figure out how much an 8 percent tax will add to the cost of what they buy at the corner store. They learn if the grocery store sign says 'bananas - 89 cents/lb', how to figure out how much might one banana cost. They learn how big is an acre; they learn how much could one million dollars buy, and how much a dollar buys. They learn which coins add up to a dollar, and how much change should they get back if they buy 69 cents worth of gum with that dollar. They learn how to read and use a recipe. They learn Roman numerals, which are still in use here and there. They are introduced to numerous games and sports, to singing and musical instruments, to many of the arts. They learn the history of our government, and some of the basics of what is acceptable behavior in our culture, and what is not. They also learn lots of our culture's trivia that we assume everybody already knows. They learn about people around the world. They learn about animals around the world. They learn some of the histories - geologic, natural, and political - of the continents on our planet. They learn what has been discovered about the stars in the sky, the planets, moon and sun. They learn about explorers past, and those present - explorers of the lands and oceans, explorers in space. They are exposed to poetry and literature of varied cultures and eras. They learn how to use a library for entertainment, and to locate information. There are many practical skills that are gained in school, including, how to get along.

Some school experiences are great; some can be troubling. Usually, as in all of life, it's a bit of a mix. Some say we spend too much of our childhoods in school, a kind of jail-like experience. Some say we could be well-educated in less than the traditional required 12 years (summers off; 13 years including kindergarten) for a high school degree. There are many very different approaches to learning with different pros and cons. My own experience, overall, was a happy one. I looked forward to the start of another school year each fall. It was a healthy way to socialize with lots of other kids, and to experience the joy of learning.