Things I didn’t know

Like, you can eat elm seeds

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April went by quickly this year. I was consumed with moving: packing, unpacking, agonizing over stuff I want to shed but don’t know how to. I can’t just throw unwanted books and fabric in the garbage. Can I?

Still, I adhered to April’s monthly resolution: untax, relax and reboot. Because amid all the clutter and chaos, I was able to take time off, time out, time to sit quietly, time to write mindfully.

Despite the confusion of our living room, still cluttered with cardboard, Robert and I are rising to meet the challenges of our new life together.

We’re still unpacking, but at least we were able to clear a path to my desk, in front of the window, with the lamp. I have dozens of “shoe boxes” of quilting scraps that I am trying to pare down. Photo © Fran Gardner

Triad

I have chosen three words. Strike that. They have chosen me. They coordinate and connect in ways I didn’t anticipate.

They are

• Agency

• Flexibility

• Flight

Agency

This word has several meanings. One is being the cause of something. Agency is the tool we use to make things happen.

We are agents of change, or agents of sloth and permanency. Which to choose?

Consider the tide. It muscles in, it fades back. Always on the same beach, but never in the same form. The water flows where it will, shifting the sand. Every wave strikes the beach in a different place.

Our perception shifts. We think we are on beam, seeing the solution on the horizon, when we drop our eyes and look at our feet.

Oh, no, the feet are treading another path! Who is in charge now?

We are, still, when we reassert ourselves.

Agency denotes power and purpose. We are the agents; we are in charge.

In our awareness
We see past our goal.
Is the goal still worthwhile?

Flexibility

Here is the chameleon.

Photo by Zdeněk Macháčekm, Czech Republic, for Unsplash

A shape-shifter, it adapts effortlessly to new environments. It becomes part of the background, but it never loses its essence as a chameleon.

Say we blend in like that. From the background, we watch and learn, watch and learn. We discover what’s real and true.

Let’s invite that flexibility, that ability to change while being the same, into our lives.

Let’s cultivate the ability to blend in, to be unnoticed while noticing everything, all the details, all the time, our little antennae quivering with newfound knowledge.

Be flexible.
Be willing to change.
Be a chameleon.

Flight

I have agency, I am flexible. I stand at the pinnacle of truth.

Yet I am aware of surrounding chasms. I could fall into any one of them—fall, dissolve and die.

I flee toward death—we all do—yet I am still of the material world. I am molecules and atoms, inseparable from leaf mold, moss and stardust.

What am I fleeing, when I am part and particle of all thing?

Stop! Stand and fight. Flee toward the problem. This is easy to say, but it is hard to do. It is rewarding to do.

And we can do it.

We are steadfast.
We are warriors.
We are fierce.

Winding road

It’s hard for me to photograph a quilt. This one was on my bed. I machine pieced the squares but hand quilted the quilt. Photo © Fran Gardner

A detail of the Winding Road quilt shows some of the hand quilting, It was idiosyncratic. Photo © Fran Gardner

The pattern is called “Winding Road.”

Here is an essay that’s a winding road.

Vocabulary

You may remember that I introduced you to “corybantic” in a poem a few posts ago. C’mon, did you really know what that word meant? I had to look it up when I found it in Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett.

It means wild or frenzied, as in movement.

I came across another “c” word this week: chelonian.

It was in a book I got from the library, Uncanny Valley, by Anna Wiener. Her book is about going to work in the corybantic atmosphere of Internet development early in this century.

How I found this book

Uncanny Vally was one of a few books on a bookshelf in one small panel of a graphic novel, The Infinity Particle, by Wendy Xu. Other items on the shelf were Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli and Tech Won’t Save Us, which is a podcast.

The Infinity Particle was recommended to me by Amy Cowen, whose Creativity Matters podcast and Illustrated Life Substack I ferociously recommend.

In Uncanny Valley, the adjective chelonian is applied to a certain rich man who invented a form of online selling. (He’s unnamed, but who else could it be?) She calls him “a chelonian ex-hedge funder.”

Chelonian refers to certain reptiles, namely turtles, tortoises and terrapins, but I’m thinking Wiener was tending toward “reptilian.” For that meaning, chelonian is a mighty fine word.

Context

The bookshelf with Uncanny Valley is one panel on page 201 of The Infinity Particle. The rest of the page is devoted to a brief discussion of the 19th century mathematician Benjamin Betts, who  “attempted to visualize human consciousness as a series of mathematical models.”

The polymath Maria Popova,* whose writing as The Marginalian is more thoughtful, cerebral and heartfelt than mine by orders of magnitude, devoted a posting to Betts in 2012.

She says this about his work:

Primitive and metaphysically clouded as they may be, his diagrams endure as a visionary early attempt to map human consciousness at the improbable intersection of mathematics and moral philosophy, long before the birth of neuroscience and even before the dawn of modern psychology as we know it.

Here are a few examples of Betts’ work, mapping mathematical equations:

*Please let me know if you are familiar with The Marginalian. Leave a comment.

The end of the road

The winding road might end up at a fanciful house like this. For a while, I was making up a house block every day. Now, I do a writing exercise. I am agonizing whether to keep the vast stash that allowed me to find the images used in this block. Photo © Fran Gardner

Another winding path . . .

A foot, a thumb

I’ve always known that a foot, the measurement, is based on the actual length of a foot, but not till this week did I know that an inch is the width of a thumb. And yes, my thumb is about 1 inch at the joint.

This is useful info. I carry measurements on my body. Even encased in ankle-foot orthotics (braces) that fit into oversized shoes, my foot is about 11.5 inches long.

Also useful: A yard is the length from my nose to my finger tip when I extend my arm to the side. Good for estimating fabric.

How do you measure?

I was able to measure both my thumb and my foot because I keep a ruler on my walker. The great thing about using a walker is that you can carry all sorts of things around the house with you: Books and pens and mesh bags with indispensable items like nail clippers and a tiny multitool.

My multitool includes various wrenches, a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a lever and a saw. The hole is to attach it to a keychain.

One of the things I always carry is a foot-long metal ruler that I liberated from The Oregonian (it was useful in the backshop that doesn’t exist anymore now that page design and makeup are done on computers). It’s called a pica pole: inches and agate etched on one side and picas and points on the reverse. I use it to measure things, and also to tear paper with accuracy.

Back to the Uncanny Valley

I learned about the width of my thumb in a posting on Mike Sowden’s Everything is Amazing Substack.

It’s ostensibly about why the US doesn’t use the metric system, but it takes many delightful detours. One of those mentions Robert Macfarlane, the nature writer, crediting him for reviving “the language of landscape.” Macfarlane’s books include a favorite of mine, The Old Ways.

And another thing about Macfarlane: He and Johnny Flynn have written and recorded a number of songs. One of them is called “Uncanny Valley.” Same title as the book by Anna Wiener.

Harvest from the trees

I have photos that show more elm seeds, but I like this one with the plucky dandelion pushing up through the pavement. Photo © Fran Gardner

In April, the air is filled with the golden seeds of elm trees.

Coins on the wind

Elm seeds dancing, on the wind glancing
On breezes they lift, pirouette and shift
To lie on the land, in the grass, on the sand.

What can they teach us, how can they reach us?
Turning, returning, just for our learning.
How to give all in a brief shining fall
Then rest in obscurity, retaining their purity.

Samaras are edible elm seeds. Chef Alan Berg describes foraging for them in mid-April. He harvests the seeds from the tree, not picking them from the ground.

He says the best species for eating is Siberian elm, Ulmus pumila. This invasive, non-native tree grows in Oregon. You could eat seeds from the American elm, Ulmus Americana, but they have a fuzzy coating you might not like.

Here is a giant, ancient elm as seen from inside the Central branch of the Multnomah County Library. Photo © Fran Gardner

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Lilacs

A friend was complaining about the lilac bush someone gave her a few years ago. It finally bloomed, she said. But the flowers are raspberry pink, not purply lilac as in a traditional bush.

She says she’s thinking of moving the plant until I ask her whether she likes the flowers. Not as lilacs, but as flowers.

Stop, reconsider, see the issue from a new angle.

My friend realizes she likes the flowers. And now she likes the bush.

Is there something in your life, today, that irritates you? Something that is not quite right? Step back, circle around and look again, from a fresh angle. Maybe you will decide you like the flower after all.

Final words

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Think about it.

And thank you, thank you to all the loyal readers, paid or free. I appreciate every one of my readers. Without you, I would be talking into a void. And I don’t like that idea. Not at all.

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