Of course, heading for the orchard I spied Apolena picnicking on the gallery patio.
"Apolena," I said, detouring onto the patio, "how does the sun find you on this fine day?"
"It has found me," she said, securing her fork behind her back. "Bright in the garden today."
I plopped my dusty boot on the bench of her picnic table. "Ya, and I bet all that bright makes for much burning."
Apolena looked confused.
"Burning," I said. "Your eyes; they're burning in the sun, right?"
"Oh, yes," she said, smiling. "But not burning much." Apolena raised her fork, stirred the air in front of her eyes. "Do they look burning today?"
"No, but they do look hot." Normally, I wouldn't have been so fresh with a girl. But this was Apolena, fresh from the Czech Republic. There, most likely, 'hot' didn't mean sexy; just meant a lot of Fahrenheit.
"Anton, you know Ezra?"
"Sure, he's your Photo prof."
"I like Ezra's corners." Apolena pointed her fork at each of her high cheekbones. "When Ezra smiles lines get in his corners. Sabina in Photo says Ezra has eyes from bedroom. I never heard this. Is that what Ezra has; eyes from bedroom?"
Before answering, I had to, one, damn Ezra; two, smile my ass off. Hard to damn a guy, though, when one's smiling so hard ones corners hurt.
"From bedroom?" I said. "Sabina must be mistaking lines for wrinkles. No, Ezra's eyes may have been from the bedroom at one point. Of course, now, they're well on their way over the hill."
Apolena stuck her fork in her food container, took a bite. Watching her chew I felt that tug again to go to the orchard. But how could I leave Apolena now, swimming in the bedroom of Ezra's eyes? So I hit her with my usual: A barrage of Czech Republic questions.
Between bites, Apolena answered my questions. For a twenty-two-year-old she had a mature perspective on life. In our first talk she had talked consumerism; couldn't believe all the junk her material-girl peers were lusting after here in the states. Today, she was all bent out of shape over Americans wastefulness.
"I couldn't believe my eyes," she said, referring to what she'd witnessed recently in a Book Arts workshop. "The instructor showed us how to make a medium base out of the yellow . . . how do you say; the yellow of egg?"
"Yolk," I said.
"Yes, yolk. And she used, I think, twenty-four yolk. And then she just threw in the garbage the, ah, how do you say; the white?"
"Egg whites."
"Yes, whites. I couldn't believe. She just threw all white away. In my country we'd never throw white away. We waste nothing. We stir white into some . . . something to eat."
"Here's the deal, Apolena; in America it's patriotic to waste. Why? Because waste is the engine of our greed-based economy. Still, though, life in the states ain't all bad. How about you; ever think of moving here?"
"I'd like to. But they won't let me to."
But they won't let me to.
Apolena went on detailing immigration laws, but I couldn't follow her; my mind busy tying my hands behind my back. No, a Czech Republican opens her mouth; six words of English come out. And all the wasteful American male wants to do is wrap his preserving arms around that flashbulb of innocence; never let it go out.
Hands secured, I talked Apolena through her lunch. And, I would have talked longer, but the Photo Major had to get back in the dark--the dark room.
With Apolena walking off to the east, I wanted to yell out, "Ya, well, maybe I got a place to get to myself." I didn't yell out because, in truth, I couldn't think of a place I had to get to. Yes, hard to think when a guy's starving to death and his food source is walking off. In lieu of thinking, I stared at the panel at the base of the gallery.
Entering the orchard I slowed. Because the two acre filbert orchard had been left to go, it had gone the way of nature preserve; dragonflies darting about, squirrels doing their high-wire acts, jays grab-assing in the canopy, steeling one anothers nuts.
Years ago a matron of the arts--on a whim--bought an overgrown filbert orchard. Why? "Because I liked the spirit of the place." When ACCW needed a bigger campus, she gave the school the ten acre orchard to build their new college upon. Why? "Because I thought the spirit of the place and creativity would make good bedfellows." Her only stipulation: Leave two acres of the orchard to go. Why? "So the spirit of the place might have a place, boneheads."
And, oh, what a priceless place that orchard left-to-go turned out to be. Not only a sanctuary for wildlife, but a place to go for every cut of human imaginable.
When I started working at the college, I'd go to the orchard to hide. Turned out the orchard wasn't a good place to hide; always someone or another nosing about. In the mornings it was the open palms of the fertile earth mamas, blessing every bird and bee. In the afternoons it was the closed fists of sterile city-slickers, cursing every path for leading them in circles. Yet, exiting the orchard, these same slickers couldn't see their soiled shoes for the treasure of nature they carried in their open palms.
Curious, I started surveying the orchard goers. "I needed to get out of doors," most would say. "How I ended up down in the orchard, I don't know."
Professor Ned, the closest thing we had to a scientist at the art school--and, by the way, the most successful artist on our faculty--would say, "That's because the orchard lies below the studios, and humans, like apples, fall."
My take was less Newtonian. I believed humans were drawn to the orchard because humans, not all that long ago, had taken a wrong turn. A turn out of the open bog of spirit, a turn into the closed culvert of science. And now we gravitated towards overgrown orchards, empty lots and whatnot, because the spirit was there, the spirit we'd turned our backs on, the spirit we longed for now that our mad science experiment had wrung the heart out of us.
I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote, "Inside we are children; indoors we are lost. Outdoors we are open, sense something is that way. Home is that way. So we go the way of the overgrown orchard because hope is that way, the arms of our mother are that way; the warmth that will enclose us before it gets dark."
Descending into the orchard, I stopped for a time in the five clearings that served as classrooms for the college's summer camp for kids. Perhaps what had called me to the orchard had come and gone, for though I looked high and low I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, I saw a gleam in a thicket, thought that was my good fortune.
But, having thrust my hand into the thicket--to collect my good fortune, I could see I had erred; just a broken beer bottle some art student had thrown against the barrel of cast concrete--that campus ashtray I'd rolled all to hell down here years ago. Oh, the hells I went through years ago. Of course, I wasn't the type of guy who kicked himself over the hells of years ago. I was the type of guy who embraced today.
Licking the blood from my thumb, I searched out that patch of tall grass pressed flat by a certain someones sweet bottom. Yes, pressed flat just yesterday. No more had I taken a stand in that blessed circle when I heard a bird song rising from the bramble: "Here for years, for your tears."
I was a birder of sorts, and we birder of sorts sought to identify what bird have you. I bent over, but couldn't spot the bird for the bramble.
Here for years, for your tears.
If memory served, it was the song of the Golden Crowned Sparrow.
I heard in my head, then, another golden birdsong: "Every one has little bugs inside." The clean voice of the orchard woman was so familiar I had to look into it.
Walking out of the orchard, I filed through the voices of the women of my past. Who had had that clean voice?
"Every one has little bugs inside."
But no, I couldn't place the clean voice, nor could I see the dirty stepping stones I was scissor-stepping along. All I could see was the orchard woman, sent down upon this hard planet to soften my stay. So what if she's but twenty-one. Hell, I was born in December. That entitled me to a little May every now and again, right?
Years ago a matron of the arts--on a whim--bought an overgrown filbert orchard. Why? "Because I liked the spirit of the place." When ACCW needed a bigger campus, she gave the school the ten acre orchard to build their new college upon. Why? "Because I thought the spirit of the place and creativity would make good bedfellows." Her only stipulation: Leave two acres of the orchard to go. Why? "So the spirit of the place might have a place, boneheads."
And, oh, what a priceless place that orchard left-to-go turned out to be. Not only a sanctuary for wildlife, but a place to go for every cut of human imaginable.
When I started working at the college, I'd go to the orchard to hide. Turned out the orchard wasn't a good place to hide; always someone or another nosing about. In the mornings it was the open palms of the fertile earth mamas, blessing every bird and bee. In the afternoons it was the closed fists of sterile city-slickers, cursing every path for leading them in circles. Yet, exiting the orchard, these same slickers couldn't see their soiled shoes for the treasure of nature they carried in their open palms.
Curious, I started surveying the orchard goers. "I needed to get out of doors," most would say. "How I ended up down in the orchard, I don't know."
Professor Ned, the closest thing we had to a scientist at the art school--and, by the way, the most successful artist on our faculty--would say, "That's because the orchard lies below the studios, and humans, like apples, fall."
My take was less Newtonian. I believed humans were drawn to the orchard because humans, not all that long ago, had taken a wrong turn. A turn out of the open bog of spirit, a turn into the closed culvert of science. And now we gravitated towards overgrown orchards, empty lots and whatnot, because the spirit was there, the spirit we'd turned our backs on, the spirit we longed for now that our mad science experiment had wrung the heart out of us.
I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote, "Inside we are children; indoors we are lost. Outdoors we are open, sense something is that way. Home is that way. So we go the way of the overgrown orchard because hope is that way, the arms of our mother are that way; the warmth that will enclose us before it gets dark."
Descending into the orchard, I stopped for a time in the five clearings that served as classrooms for the college's summer camp for kids. Perhaps what had called me to the orchard had come and gone, for though I looked high and low I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, I saw a gleam in a thicket, thought that was my good fortune.
Licking the blood from my thumb, I searched out that patch of tall grass pressed flat by a certain someones sweet bottom. Yes, pressed flat just yesterday. No more had I taken a stand in that blessed circle when I heard a bird song rising from the bramble: "Here for years, for your tears."
I was a birder of sorts, and we birder of sorts sought to identify what bird have you. I bent over, but couldn't spot the bird for the bramble.
Here for years, for your tears.
If memory served, it was the song of the Golden Crowned Sparrow.
I heard in my head, then, another golden birdsong: "Every one has little bugs inside." The clean voice of the orchard woman was so familiar I had to look into it.
Walking out of the orchard, I filed through the voices of the women of my past. Who had had that clean voice?
"Every one has little bugs inside."
But no, I couldn't place the clean voice, nor could I see the dirty stepping stones I was scissor-stepping along. All I could see was the orchard woman, sent down upon this hard planet to soften my stay. So what if she's but twenty-one. Hell, I was born in December. That entitled me to a little May every now and again, right?
****
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