Journal of a Sabbatical

December 26, 1999

to save at the spile and waste at the bung

Today's Reading: Winter from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, From Ponkapog to Pesth by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master translated by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi

brattling

a rattling noise

alar

1. of a wing

2. having wings

3. wing like, wing-shaped

imbricated

overlapping evenly, as tiles or fish scales

spile

1. a plug or spigot as for a barrel

2. a tap or spout driven into a maple tree to draw off sap

3. a heavy stake or timber driven into the ground as a foundation or support

bung

1. a cork or stopper for the hole in the side or end of a barrel, cask, or keg

2. a bunghole

Thoreau's entries for the 26th of December don't mention Christmas or Boxing Day or whatever, either. It evidently wasn't a big deal to him or maybe even in his time in Concord. I had to look up a lot of words in his description of the way the pond and environs looked after an ice storm. Once I found out what brattling meant, it seemed like the perfect word for that sound of ice coated tree limbs in the wind. My favorite entry was for 1860, on the division of labor:

To such an excess have our civilization and division of labor come that A, a professional huckleberry picker, has hired B's field, and we will suppose is now gathering the crop, perhaps with the aid of a patented machine. C, a professed cook, is superintending the cooking of a pudding made of some of the berries, while Professor D, for whom the pudding is intended, sits in his library writing a book, a work on the Vaccinieae, of course. And now the result of this downward course will be seen in that book, which should be the ultimate fruit of the huckleberry field, and account for the existence of the two professors who come between D and A. It will be worthless. There will be none of the spirit of the huckleberry in it. The reading of it will be a weariness to the flesh. To use a homely illustration, it is to save at the spile and waste at the bung. I believe in a different kind of division of labor, and that Professor D should divide himself between the library and the huckleberry field.

Hear! Hear! More time in the huckleberry field!

But do I tear myself away from the dusty old books and go out into the bitter cold? Nope. Nancy and I decide to stay in for a cozy morning/early afternoon and then head to Cambridge for a late lunch/early supper at the S&S Deli. Something about the day after Christmas sets up a craving for potato pancakes. Or something equally fried. We were not disappointed.

Neither of us had been to New Words in quite awhile, so we took advantage of being right across the street to stop in for a browse. Just can't get away from those damned books. Well, maybe if there was an ice covered huckleberry field right across the street... Anyway, Nancy pulled a book by/about Chiyo-ni, the woman haiku master, and asked if I had ever heard of her. I said of course and told the famous story of how she sat meditating all night on the theme "hototogisu" assigned by her haiku master until dawn came and she heard the cuckoo (hototogisu is often translated as nightingale but is in fact a species of cuckoo). Completely open to the moment, she has like this glimpse of enlightenment and writes "repeating /hototogisu, hototogisu --/ day dawned" a haiku totally without artifice or comment an "enlightenment" haiku. So, like the first page I turn to in the book explains that the hototogisu story is not true. Not true? Next thing you know they'll be telling me that Basho never walked north of Edo! But her actual spiritual journey is every bit as moving as that mythical story. I read for a long time while Nancy continued to browse, and I finally decided I had to buy the book.

Nancy bought a book of poems about endangered species by a local Boston area poet whose name now escapes me. The image of a roseate tern like the inside of a shell sticks in my mind though. The poems are extraordinarily well observed. The poet must have spent a lot of time in the "huckleberry fields" looking at what she was writing about.

After browsing, we drove around East Cambridge to look at the Christmas lights. We discovered a couple of years ago that the folks in East Cambridge are particularly fond of huge light up nativity scenes and other outsize decorations. My two favorites were a light up nativity set up on a fire escape - just the basic JMJ figures - and one with a yard full of mixed metaphors with snow men gathered round the manger to worship the holy child as Santa and Mrs. Claus look on surrounded by red-nosed reindeer and camels laden with gold, frankincense and myrrh. Our Lady of Fatima was appearing to the assembled multitudes too. Hmm, appearing to her younger self? There wasn't one square inch of yard with nothing in it. It was too funny and too obviously sincere to be taken as a sacrilege. The impulse in the human spirit to light up the dark December nights can take some interesting turns.

I come home to the flashing lights of a fire truck in the parking lot and a gas company truck blocking the car that is blocking my parking space. Yikes! My heart is in my mouth. This is one of my deep primal fears, coming home to fire trucks. I park in a space by the pool and walk over to the firemen asking "where's the fire?" They answer that it's just a smell of gas that I'm safe. How do they know I'm safe? I walk over to my back door and notice people standing outside one of the other units. I ask if they are OK. Umm, would they be standing outside in the freezing cold in their shirtsleeves if they were OK? But they reply that it's just a smell of gas and the gas company is taking care of it. By the time the gas company truck and the car blocking my space leave, I'm too tired and cold to go back outside and move the car. I remind myself not to panic if I wake up in the middle of the night and don't see my car in my space.

Gotta get out into those huckleberry fields more often...