At Sea in an Open Boat: God’s Dog, the Sound of Steaming Coffee, a Fairy Godmother…

[Image: “Aloft (Redwood City, California),” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

We were traveling down in Florida over the last couple of weeks — from the Panhandle down to South Florida and on up to Jacksonville — tying off some loose ends of our erstwhile life there, and visiting family and friends to boot. As a result, I never got around to posting anything at all a week ago: the first missed “whiskey river Fridays” post in a long while…

So, let’s wrap today’s post here around several passages from the river‘s entries during those two weeks. First:

Beyond the wall of the unreal city, beyond the security fences topped with barbed wire and razor wire, beyond the asphalt belting of the superhighways, beyond the cemented banksides of temporarily stopped and mutilated rivers, beyond the rage of lies that poisons the air, there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then—

May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God’s dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night.

(Edward Abbey [source])

…and then this:

Breathing Space, July

The one who’s lying on his back under the tall trees
is also up there within them. He’s flowing out into thousands of twigs,
swaying to and fro,
sitting in an ejector seat that lets go in slow motion.

The one who’s standing down by the docks squints at the water.
The docks age faster than people.
They have silver-gray lumber and stones in their gut.
The glaring light pounds all the way in.

The one who’s traveling all day in an open boat
over the glittering bays
will fall asleep at last inside a blue lamp
while the islands crawl like huge moths over the glass.

(Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Patty Crane [source])

…and finally (italicized portion):

If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts. [Such as:]

…That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack.

That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work.

(David Foster Wallace [source])

Then — as per usual, seeming to me somehow mystically and/or at least vaguely thematically linked with the whiskey river selections — consider the following:

“I might be able to still enchant the babe,” said [fairy godmother] Agnes a bit doubtfully. “Even if we miss the christening. But it doesn’t take as well, not with humans. You lay a name on them and suddenly their whole future is rolled out like dough in front of you, but it doesn’t last. Life starts to bake it pretty quick.”

(T. Kingfisher [source])

…and:

A large guerrilla party formed in one of the suburbs, setting off on their own to fight the victorious enemy.

The madmen suffered a terrible fate: they were disarmed, divided, forcefully washed, given new clothes, and made to listen to music, eat luxurious food, and revel in company with beautiful women.

Many took their own lives, many were put into lunatic asylums, while most, disgraced and ridiculed, victims to the temptation, returned to Principal City.

(Yefim Zozulya, translated by Vlad Zhenevsky [source])

…and:

The Applicant

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit—-

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
You have an eye, it’s an image.
My boy, it’s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

(Sylvia Plath [source])