"O! O! O!" I tell my wife, once again dropping the h off my O's to
signify great anguish.
"You're leaving the h off your O's again," she says, looking up
from her crossword puzzle. "I suppose that signifies great anguish.
Another minor psychic wound, I imagine."
"Tis not so deep as a well," I say, lapsing into an ex-English
teacher's last refuge by quoting Great Literature, "nor so wide as a
church-door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve."
My head is full of other people's language. My wife identifies it
for me.
"Mercutio," she says. "Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene l. So
what's your problem?"
"I don't wanna talk about it," I say.
"It's the election, isn't it?" she says. "But I don't believe
I've heard you quote Shakespeare in response to an election before.
Usually you make pithy little comments like 'The People have spoken, the
blundering blockheads.' Or 'They buttered their bread, now they can lie in
it.' Or 'To hell with democracy.'"
"It's not the election," I say. "It's autumn."
"Yes it is," she says. "It comes every year between summer and
winter and it's usually the nicest season we have. So why the great
anguish?"
"You don't understand," I say. "It's the season leaves fall from
trees."
She sighs and looks at the ceiling.
"You're anguished about getting old," she says. "The autumnal
angst of aging that precedes the winter of your discontent. Right?"
"Hey, play fair," I say. "I'm the one who gets to quote
whatzizname. And what's autumnal angst and winter discontent got to do
with my anguish?"
"Part of the regeneration cycle of nature," she says. "You know.
Summer maturity. Autumn old age. Winter dying. Spring rebirth."
"I'm talking about leaves falling off trees," I say. "That's all
I'm talking about. And I'm not getting old."
"Then why," she asks, "do you say O! O! O! without the h?"
"Because," I say, "this year I have no fallen leaves to turn into
compost to put on my garden next year. In fact, I have no garden. Thus I
say O! O! O!"
"So," she says, "it's finally out. You hate our new town house."
"No," I say. "I really really like our new town house. But here
there are no big trees for leaves to fall from. Thus I can't make compost
to put on my non-existent garden next spring. That's all."
She gives me a look.
"You don't have enough to do," she says.
"But I like being retired," I say. "Being retired has finally
allowed me to see time as but the stream I go a-fishing in."
"Thoreau," she says, "Walden, Chapter 2. Thoreau didn't have
enough to do either."
"Well," I say, "at least he didn't live in a town house without
any big trees to drop their leaves so a man could turn them into compost
for a garden he doesn't even have because he lives in a town house."
|
The Truth, Mainly
"You're coming unwound," she says quietly. "You need your nap."
"I don't need no stinking nap," I say. "I need dead leaves."
She goes to the garage and comes back with a rake and a garbage
bag.
"Here," she says. "Walk over to the park and get a bag of leaves.
You can make a nice little compost pile to play in under the deck."
"Hah?" I say.
"Then next spring you can put your compost in the flower pots,"
she says. "That'll fulfill your primeval need to regenerate. And it'll
get you out of the house for a while, you cranky old poop."
"I'm not a cranky old poop," I tell her. "Dammitalltohellanyway."
But I do get out of the house for a while.
I come back from the park with a bagful of leaves. I put them
inside a little column of chicken wire I refused to throw away when we
moved to the town house. When I wet the leaves, they're only about two
feet deep.
But that's still enough to be a working compost pile, especially
if I can find some chicken manure to help it along. I feel cosmically
comforted by a phrase that comes to mind about how nature grows such
sweet things out of such corruptions. I can't remember who said it.
And I have another thought: if sweet things can grow out of dead
leaves and chicken manure, maybe something good can come from
elections—even an election where 70 percent of us voted for a Defense of
Marriage Amendment.
I go into the town house all excited to tell my wife about it.
"Good news!" I shout. "Sweet things growing out of corruptions!"
"Walt Whitman," she says. "This Compost, line 43."
Then she smiles a seductive smile.
"Come on over here," she says, "you cranky old poop, you."
I come on over.
Retired English Professor Leon Satterfield writes to salvage clarity
from his confusion. His column appears on alternate Mondays. His e-mail
address is:
leonsatterfield@earthlink.net.
|
