Mulch

            I like mulch. A few days ago, a truckload was dumped on the large blue tarpaulin on a corner of our gravel driveway. It was actually a “half-truckload,” which I had ordered not knowing how big the truck was. I think the Nursery mentioned how many cubic yards made up a half-truckload (5), but that would not have been much help, even if I were paying attention.

 

            So, there it was – a small mountain of shredded bark and wood, staring at me accusingly, as if to say, “Your job is clear.”

 

            And that’s one of the things I like about mulch: my job is clear: Use a pitchfork to load it into my wheelbarrow, haul it to one of the open areas without flowers, dump it, and then spread it around with an iron rake. Then go back to the mulch pile and do it again. And again. And again. My goal: Use up the pile. It’s a great collaboration between pitchfork, wheelbarrow and rake, all orchestrated by me.

 

            When in the areas near our plants, I lift large handfuls out of the wheelbarrow to sprinkle onto the bare areas between plants, or toss with freedom and care. I might do a bit of weeding as I work, provided it’s one of the three species of weed that Kim has trained me – not entirely successfully – to identify. She joins in to do quite a bit of the garden mulch spreading, as she is worried when I get too close to valuable plants.

 

            What do we get when we are done? It’s a beautiful brown setting for our trees and flowers, an organic version of a well-framed picture. And what’s more, the mulch frame covers the ugly or boring stretches of our yard – areas that some people would fill with grass.

             It’s a setting that says “nature” in a way that a perfect grassy lawn cannot. I like being in nature Up North. And I confess to a bit of pride in my ability to do the physical labor. Kim has placed most of the plants, but I moved most of the mulch. And unlike my experience shoveling snow, if and when I keel over, I will have a soft place  to land.

            And no, we did not quite distribute all of the mulch – a small pile still calls to us in a way that only slightly admonishes. I like the way it reminds me how big the pile was a few days ago.

 

If Only . . .

 

            I recall reading years ago an article about the three major causes of stress. I do not, however, recall what those three causes are, so, instead, I will try to identify the chief causes of my current stress.

 

            Primary, of course, is a death in our family. The grief is intensified when it is your son or daughter, and in Scott’s case, there are lingering questions about the cause of death that stir anger into our grief load. On top of that, we are digging deep in order to support each other. So much of what the brain does is taken up with grief, or with speculating, “If only I had . . .,” that our thinking is often slow and confused – even more than we had been experiencing due to normal aging.

 

            Kim has realized that one way to lessen that grief-stress is to keep busy, and living here in the Bark House gives us – especially Kim – plenty of tasks inside the house and out to distract her from thoughts of her son.

 

            Another cause of stress, of course, is moving. As I write this the movers have hauled to the condo a couple of beds and a few pieces of furniture, and we have hauled many boxes containing kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, and fabric samples as we try to decide fabrics for the couch and chairs we are ordering. All of the packing duties fell on Kim, with my main job being hauling stuff out to the car and then up to the condo. The drive from Bark House to Nut House takes about an hour, and this week we are making the round trip four times, with some medical appointments mixed in with furniture delivery and meetings with decorators.

 

            I have taken on two major technical responsibilities, and they should be simple, but I tend to use my down time to worry, and these are what I worry about. First, we had two beds delivered by the movers, but I fear that some parts of the bed frames are missing. So, we have a guy coming to help put them together, and I hope any missing parts can be easily found. For example, I noticed that the full sized bedframe was missing all the nuts needed to attach the side rails, but I found eight of the right side in my little jar of nuts and bolts. I’m hopeful that the new queen-sized bedframe, still in the box, will be fully equipped. Getting those beds assembled is a big deal, for it means we can sleep there and, with a few food purchases, spend the night there. Seeing them lying there unassembled makes me feel incompetent.

 

            My second major responsibility is to get the television and internet up and running. We have a television but no way to attach it to the wall. We see a lot of wires and cables heading toward the small hole over the fireplace where the television will go. This week I went to Best Buy to get the mounting frame and make an appointment go have someone from the Geek Squad come hook everything up. I have been a Best Buy member for years, and when I renewed this year I thought I was told that home service calls would be free. Nope. When Best Buy is done hooking up the television, I will call to ask Spectrum to visit our condo to sell or rent me some stuff so the right signals go to the right devices. I have to trust that these geeks know what they are doing and not ripping me off. I just want my Netflix and the evening news, and I long for a good distracting series to absorb my grieving time.

 

            Our third cause of stress must be the noticing of our entirely routine decline due to age. I’m in good physical health, though my memory lapses are troubling. (Kim and I decided that when we can’t remember a word, often a name, we find a neutral word to substitute for the forgotten word until the carrousel comes around and delivers the right word. (I would tell you what our replacement word is, but I forgot it.)). I get angry when I forget stuff, and Kim has to talk or laugh me out of it. Again, grief takes up a lot of brain space, so some stuff has to be crowded out or drowned out. Moving into a former mental institution helps with the humor and Google tells me that electroshock therapy is more benign than it used to be.

 

            So, that’s how it is. 

“Goes With”

            I’ve learned a lot of things late in life. One of the most difficult ones – and I am far from mastering it, is the concept of “goes with.”

            Here’s a recent example: I took my shower after breakfast, dressed in my brown work pants and blue shirt, and emerged to where Kim was doing the dishes. She studied how I looked with a skeptical glance and then said, quietly but firmly, “That shirt does not go with those pants.” 

 

            My initial thought was, “Of course they go together. If I walk out the front door wearing these pants, the shirt will go with us.” Fortunately, I did not say that. Instead, I retreated to my closet, where my wardrobe is almost exclusively blue, black and brown, with an occasional white for those rare dress-up occasions. I put on one of my half-dozen pairs of black pants – retreating to a safety mode. Kim gave me a look. She was amused. It has become one of those games that married people play.

 

            I usually use clothing choice criteria other than “goes with.” A favorite: dirty, but not too dirty for yard work. Also: O.K. for kneeling in the dirt. Sometimes it’s: I think Kim liked this shirt the last time I wore it, but I can’t remember what pants I was wearing. I think clothing manufacturers should sew on a brief message, perhaps in code, indicating to men, what “goes with” this piece of clothing.

 

            And it’s not just about clothing. Some wines “go with” certain foods, which a waiter will happily explain to you if you are in a classy joint. And Kim has pointed out to me several times that a salad featuring citrus does not “go with” certain main course entrees – I don’t remember which ones.

 

            A television I saw several years ago opens with a truck pulling up in front of an old cabin tucked in the woods. It’s dark out – early morning. The driver is surrounded by fishing gear. His buddy emerges from the cabin carrying his gear, and as he approaches the truck, the driver asks, “Are you going to wear that shirt?” I’m not sure what the ad was selling, but I love it.

 

            Do women blank out on what “goes with” what – the way I do? How about gay men? Is it learned (and thus learnable) or genetic? Do I, at my age, have a fighting chance? Kim might answer, “You could do it if you cared . . ..” Or if I ever bothered to look in the mirror.

 

            I have written before about “How to Discuss Pant Colors with Your Wife,” and as I write this, we are choosing fabrics for the couch and chair in the living room of our new/old condo, which means choosing paint colors, rugs, etc. My goal is to choose colors that won’t require me to change my shirt to a color that “goes with” the room.

Retirement

            I’m not used to getting accusatory calls from the police, but that’s what happened. It all goes back to my snow tires.

 

            They were a bit worn – as happens elsewhere in my world as I get older – and my regular non-snow tires were also starting to thin. (My 2015 Highlander has 134,000 miles on it, and they may be the original tires.) So, I decided, following advice from Scott, to get new all-season tires, saving me the hassle and expense of changing tires twice a year.

 

            What to do with the old tires? The local shop where I bought my new tires disposed of my old snow tires, but I still had a set of four tires staring at me from the back of the garage, as I was unwilling to pay my shop $20 per tire for disposal.

 

            I vaguely recalled seeing something online about the local Conservation District’s holding days to turn in old tires, so I put my massive computer skills to work, and after an embarrassing amount of time, I found an item that said Monday, May 18, tires could be disposed of for free at the Department of Public Works in Elk Rapids, about twelve miles from home. Great! So, I loaded all the tires into my car, drove to the DPW site, which had nobody there and no evidence of tire collection. I figured that I must have arrived too early (8:45), so I unloaded my tires in the most conspicuous place possible, next to the front door, and left. All good! I was looking forward to a somewhat decluttered garage.

 

            Later that afternoon I got that phone call. It turns out that what I did amounted to some sort of large-scale littering, and offense that called for a hefty fine (amount undisclosed). I explained what happened to the friendly but skeptical police officer. He got on his computer and I attempted to guide him to the place on the internet where I found the information about turning in tires. I found the site on my computer but was unable to give clear enough instructions to the police officer, so he suggested that I take a picture of my screen with the information, so I could show it to the Township Supervisor. My hope was, in the officer’s words, that what I did could be written off as “an honest mistake” – a designation that I find applies to my actions more and more often. I tried to explain that if I were trying to dump the tires, I would not dump them in the most obvious place possible, with all the cameras recording my actions and my car’s license plate.

 

            At that point I noticed the date of the tire-article on my screen: April, 2019. I had somehow blundered my way into the Archives section of the Antrim County Conservation District website.

 

            As I write this, the issue is resolved. I phoned my friend, Don – a long-time resident of Elk Rapids. I told him my story, which he found to be very amusing, and he offered to talk with the Township Supervisor and the Chief of Police (“I know everyone!”) and deliver my tires to a local facility that only charges $5 per tire. This is saving me a lot of hassle, as our car is usually full of stuff we are carrying to our new condo.

 

            Later in the day Don forwarded me this: “Mr. Stringer . . . you no longer have to duck from the law, change your name or buy a different vehicle. I’m happy to say that your criminal record has been expunged and you are once again a fine upstanding citizen.” I told Don he has earned a meal at a restaurant of his choice - maybe Alice's.

 

  

Scott

 

            I sadly report a death in the family. My stepson, Scott, died suddenly while working on the 60 acres of woods surrounding his nearly finished home. He was doing what he loved, where he loved, and the death, blessedly, was instantaneous. We feel that sudden death is a good way to go, though we regret not being able to say good-bye to him, other than what we could say to his body in the funeral home. Scott was 57. We are still hoping to see him again. Kim wants one more walk in the woods with her son.

 

            Kim and I are devastated by our loss, as is Genne’ and our whole family. I will resist the urge to be philosophical, except to say that you never know when a person’s next moment will be his or her last, so make your loving appreciation clear.

Grandfather

            I wrote this poem several years ago. My grandfather was a successful writer in his day – novels, poems, plays, film scripts. He is, in a sense, a spirit guide. Even though I was only seven when he died, he stayed with me through his presence in his books and his portrait.

                        

 

                        Grandfather

                         for Arthur Stringer (1874-1950)

 

To-day I am sick of it all,

This silent and orderly empty life,

And I feel savage again!

 

Arthur speaks from the stern portrait

in my father's den: profile, white hair,

pipe, curling smoke against muted

leather bound books. Swaths of paint,

patches of canvas texture his skin.

He does not look at me.

 

I want to sit down with my soul and talk straight out,

I want to make peace with myself,

And say what I have to say,

While there is still time!

 

Reaches across that gulf, my silent father

a remote echo of his father, from his books:

mysteries, sleepless men wandering the city,

spies exposing spies, a woman loving rough

life on the Canadian prairie, gun runners.

Irish dialect poems. Bold for him in 1914,

Open Water:

 

God knows that I've tinkled and jingled and strummed,

That I've piped it and jigged it until I'm fair sick of the game . . ..

 

I cannot remember his voice telling stories

when I sat, six years old, at his tobacco

leather chair. Only the pauses as he hung

details in the plot and pipe smell:

the bear, the fire, the little boy lost

in the woods. Arthur speaks from just

behind my shoulder as I poise at my desk

to take it all down. David, he says,

and that is all I need. Remember me.

 

His voice flexes, surprising:

 

And deep beneath my music,

There's a strong man stirs in me;

There's a ghost of blood and granite

Coffined in this madness. . . .

 

Arthur. You

place your pipe in the polished stone ashtray,

rise from the canvas, turn to me. David.

Let's head north. Take our legs, lungs,

a pen. Into the steadfast North, the North

that is dark and tender. You clasp my shoulder.

Our shadows leave the room, get our gear

together, and head out. Desk bound,

we make for open water.

                                                                                    --David Stringer

  

Cold

            As I’m writing this, tomorrow morning’s forecast is a temperature of 9 below zero, with a wind chill of 30 below. In response, I decided that we will not go for a morning walk, and I’m not going to take the garbage bag out to the street.

 

            Several years ago, I read something about the origin of “wind chill,” a term that now has the appearance of mathematical precision – by which I mean it is measured with numbers. I think I read that a scientist in Antarctica simply gave his totally subjective opinion about how cold it felt with the wind blowing. He noted the temperature and wind velocity, and his opinion became the official “wind chill.” Once you do this sort of things two or three times, you establish a formula for how to combine temperatures with wind speeds, supposedly coming up with a number that represents what my weather app calls the “Feels Like” temperature. Tomorrow morning it will feel like it’s f***ing cold. If anyone is willing and able to correct my understanding of the origin of “wind chill,” please set me straight.

 

            Cold? I happen to suffer from an ailment called Raynaud’s Phenomenon. As much as I like to be associated with something called a “phenomenon,” the suffering I experience is cold hands and feet – most likely a circulation problem. I did some research online and learned that Raynaud’s is treated by wearing mittens. I do that often, and I catch myself walking around the house with my hands in my pockets. I’m sorry, but my phenomenon throws off my Feels Like temperature. No matter what the temperature or wind speed, my hands feel like it’s cold. Mittens help, but not when the feels like temperature for normal people is negative 30.

 

            The next question, of course, is what to do about the cold, especially my cold hands:

 

·      The obvious answer is to stay indoors, which is effective if you don’t lose your power. This does not get the path to the front door shoveled.

·      Drinking hot coffee helps when I come in from dealing with snow, and sometimes I put my cold hands on the side of our coffee machine.

·      A glass of port can help, whether or not you are cold.

·      Drying dishes that Kim washes can also be an effective treatment for cold hands.

·      I have also suggested putting my cold hands on a warm part of Kim’s body, and sometimes she even lets me do it.

 

            How else to deal with the threat of cold?

 

·      We put a wool blanket in the car – just in case.

·      I moved my wool socks to the front of my sock drawer.

·      I pay the gas bill and call them to thank them when they restore power.

·      I limit myself to about 30-40 minutes working in the snow – shoveling or blowing our long walk and the area of driveway in front of the garage.

·      I wear my favorite piece of winter clothing: a turtle neck collar that covers my neck and throat.

·      We keep dry firewood handy – though I realize that a conventional wood-burning fireplace causes more heat to be lost up the chimney than gained. Still, it’s reassuring to see it.

·      I check the weather app on my phone every ten minutes.

·      We think about a move south. We’ve tried Florida or Georgia – and at the moment we are thinking about a move about 45 miles south to a condo in Traverse City.

 

Remember when being “chill” was a good thing?