excerpt on desire

While I have never wanted to be a boy (that is, of course, apart from the various port-a-potty encounters where the ability to stand while peeing would be a very useful skill, indeed), I love the imagery in this passage from Steinbeck's, East of Eden. The thought of being so committed that a child concocts an elaborately organized system of procedures one must go through to get that which she desires. It is as if, the child has an innate sense that desire acquired, costs. There is work involved. Whether it be an internal work, or the work of a contortionist, there is work involved.



"My sister Mary did not want to be a girl. It was a misfortune she could not get used to. She was an athlete, a marble player, a pitcher of one-o'-cat, and the trappings of a girl inhibited her. Of course this was long before the compensations for being girl were apparent to her. Just as we know that somewhere on out bodies, probably under the arm, there was a button which if pressed just right would permit us to fly, so Mary worked out a magic for herself to change her over into the tough little boy she wanted to be. If she went to sleep in a magical position, knees crooked just right, head at a magical angle, fingers all crossed one over the other, in the morning she would be a boy. Every night she tried to find exactly the right combination, but she never could. I used to help her cross her fingers like shiplap."

Pilcrow

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30 and counting

this last photo c/o L.A.

the finickey nature of memory

"I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The Water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thing and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years, the people forget about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all mem0ry of the dry years. It was always that way." -steinbeck

fish or fountain?

"Mom, if I take and drink of water and then just squeeze my face like this, I could be a fountain!"