Update: Merwin the Mouse

If Merwin weren't so minute and darling, we would have less trouble doing away with him.

As it is, Martin and I spent a good deal of last night chasing Merwin around the house. Yes, after a last snide comment that the mouse was my spirit animal and only existed for me, Martin finally saw him. "He's a little guy," he said, and he is. He's like a storybook mouse; he's got tiny black pointed ears, an intelligent face, and gleaming black fur.

But he does NOT belong in our house, even if he is handsome. I can see Merwin in a little cozy hole under the garden, with a potbellied stove, a thick rug, an easy chair, and a cup of Earl Grey. Hold on. Maybe he's a green-tea mouse. It's hard to tell.

Anyway, last night Martin armed himself with a bowl and a plate. I went nowhere without a chair to stand on. At one point, we got Merwin cornered in the front hall closet. Martin crouched down with his bowl--I was terribly impressed at his bravery, but as he said with bravado, "I've been this close to a black bear. What's a mouse to me?"

Merwin kept poking his little black nose out into the hallway, whereupon I would shake a hand towel at him to make him retreat back into the recesses of the closet. We finally blocked off his escape routes, I perched on a chair, ready to inch the vacuum cleaner forward, thus coaxing Merwin to flee into Martin's blue bowl.

"All right, easy now," Martin instructed, as I lifted the Dyson. . .slowly, slowly. No sign of whiskers or tail anywhere. We let out our breath, studying an apron that had fallen in a heap, wondering how the little rodent had hid so well. . .and then--shazam! Merwin scrambled down from the bottom of the vacuum, where he had jammed himself into the roller, and he was off with a flash of brown fur.

Discussion followed as to where he might have hidden next; under the piano or in the sun room. Martin sauntered around the room in a non-threatening way, calling, "Come on, little fellow. . .come on. . ."

But Merwin was gone for the night. The problem is, we're getting a bit fond of him now. His speed and sneakiness is impressive and we're gaining a begrudging respect for his intelligence and downright cuteness. I even found myself thinking that I should perhaps leave him a little treat for the night--a bowl of Kashi Autumn Wheat crumbs. . .Yes, Merwin would love that.

But in the wee morning hours, I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. I had been awakened by the sound of tiny squeals, accompanied by the scattering of--not one--but many little feet. It sounded like a herd of mice, with Merwin right at the front, leading the brigade with a toothpick lifted like a sword. . .I found I did not like the reality of a full-scale invasion.

And what's the old adage? Where there is one mouse, there are always two? Or three? Or an army?

Martin tried to convince me the hubbub was only a group of swifts in our chimney, but I think he might be trying to protect Merwin with smoke and mirrors. The thought of our little mouse smashed in a trap does fill me with regret, but I know, no matter how admirable Merwin is, he has to be digesting food. . .and excreting. And when I find the little black pellets in my dishes or towels, Merwin's days will be numbered. Poor little guy. If only he would see reason and leave quietly. I'd even send him off with a good supply of Tetley English Breakfast. Or maybe Orange Pekoe? It's hard to tell.

I'm sorry, but I haven't had the time to post photos recently. I wish I could post a photo now of the stunning colors outside of my window, but the second-hand rendering would just be a disappointment, anyhow.

It's raining, so the garden path is a dense, layered, carpety sort of green, and the different tones of red and white in the brick path Martin lay are as faceted as a cut stone; then there's the lupine blue of the shed, edged with bright white, and the flowers themselves: pumpkin-orange cosmos against pink coreopsis, traffic-cone nasturtiums, the delicate, yellowy lace of dill, the Queen Anne's Lace ruffling up everywhere because we can't be bothered to pull it up.

And now I come to the real drama of our lives these days: one wee brown mouse. This chocolate-colored mouse appeared last week while I was watching TV; he scooted across the floor, spotted me, and skittered back into the sun room. Since that time, he has appeared multiple times and each time he is more brazen in his entry and less fast to disappear. Last night, while I was reading, he ran into the living room again, heard my voice, and came straight for my feet.

EEEEEKKK!

I am silly around mice.

I would not put my feet down for the rest of the evening, and Martin had to come into the room and fetch things for me.

Then Martin had a dream, in which the brown mouse appeared, pleading with Martin to spare his little life.

This morning, at BREAKFAST, mind you, while I, Martin, and Bea were drinking our tea, the mouse twirled across the pergo, gave a little bow, and ducked under the dishwasher.

EEEEEEEK!

The mouse! I yelled, The MOUSE IS HERE! He will be waiting for me when I return from class! I will never be able to put my feet on the floor again!

"He's just a little mouse," Martin said, "And besides, I'm beginning to think he doesn't really exist."

I have seen this mouse, in Martin's company or alone, about five times at least. Martin has never, ever, not even for an instant, spotted it. Except in his dreams, and those dreams are not helpful for one resident of Porter Street who KNOWS the mouse will march over her feet, playing cymbals and a bass drum and sticking out its tongue, with a whole band fleet of mice behind it.

It is kind of a cute little guy, and if I were desperately lonely or in prison for ten years, I would be tempted to befriend it. But, matters being as they are, I want him to just GO AWAY. Maybe I'll try to talk to it nicely and reasonably, or write a letter and leave it in the crack in the sun room floor. He seems like a pretty rational fellow.

I am hearing nothing on my creative writing these days.

At the end of the summer, I got a piece of fiction taken by Literary Mama and I am waiting for a contract from Ladybug Magazine for a children's story, so I'm excited about both those things. I also received about ten hundred million rejections, which is, in a way, better than silence.

And in keeping with my impatient personality, I would like to hear from some other journals, even though--and history tells us it is so--the answer will probably be "This piece is not right for our publication. . .Best wishes. . ."

Perhaps my impatience derives from a deeper source: the complete absence of my own creative writing right now; it makes me churn deep down. I feel as though I stop hearing, seeing, tasting as well as I do when I am writing. I am WRITING, of course, in the form of my weekly column for the newspaper, and I am teaching my class at the U, which I'm enjoying immensely, but something feels a bit off, as if I've left the kettle on or there's something sour in the fridge that I've been avoiding for a while. And it's forming a nasty yellowish pool that will stick to the sponge when I finally address it. . .speaking of which, I think I have some rather mature tuna fish on the bottom shelf. This is not a metaphor. I really do.

On a different note, Beatrix seems to have given up her naps, which means less quiet time for one mama. What in the world?

It seems I have given up titles. I never was any good at them anyway. Did you know columnists never title their own columns? It is done for them, and it feels a bit as if you're having your shoe laces tied for you after dressing yourself. It actually is because of the lining space and is a formatting issue. . .and Bea's up again, and I'm gone.

I just looked outside to the flash of blue and white lights sparking over the wet pavement.

"How we doing?" a male voice said, loudly, and with a certain weight of authority you only hear from police officers and such.

The guy didn't have his lights turned on, and an amicable exchange followed, closing with the two men wishing each other Bon Nuit before they coasted from the curb, one toward home, the other to prowl the streets for another few hours at least. I also saw a police car crawling through our graveyard tonight, its headlights flashing over grey gravestones. The cause? Drug bust? Maybe just a quest for some peace and quiet? It is a nice graveyard, up on a hill over town, frequented by deer and shaded by huge oaks and maples. I like taking guests there sometimes. We always stop by the mausoleum and look through the bars to the stained-glass window, which depicts a sour-looking woman in a stiff collar, two mounds of severe brown hair, and what I can only term "wall-eyes" though I don't suppose that's the right term anymore. One eye looks to the right and the other to the left, and the stained glass is lit from behind just right and flanked by rows of stone coffins on either side.

Did I mention I want to be cremated? Please, nobody preserve my image in stained glass. I think a nice park bench with my initials, under a tree but not covered in bird excrement, would be nice.

I was going to write about an awful thing that happened close to where we live--a murder/suicide--I interviewed a pastor who works in the community this afternoon for the column this week. But it's too heavy, a whole ocean of misery. Much easier is the tiny blips that color our moments: eating chips and salsa tonight with the girls, the rain that hit the back of my neck as I closed the shed doors, the flashing squad car lights just now, how it all turned out so amicably for a man who might have gone home with a ticket, but didn't.

In this world, mapped with sorrow, there is joy, flashing like sudden light off a window. It blinds me sometimes.

Mostly there are everyday moments of working, cleaning, sitting and rising, the talk, laughter and complaints of the children, the daily hum of routine: brushing teeth, showering, carrying plates from the kitchen table to the counter. There are little eddies of stress and fury, of disbelief in the craziness of my children. . .Oh, no, you DIDN'T. . . .

and then there are moments of wonder, like last night when I looked out of the upstairs window and saw our groundhog and our racoon perusing the brush pile together as if they were old pals out for a night on the garden, or the girls brushing our big stuffed lion's mane and loading him with bows just like Dandelion, or Bea finally falling asleep, swiftly and mercifully, after crying all evening. And too, there are moments of gratitude, like the first blast of hot water on the back of my tired neck, a cup of tea sipped hot instead of luke-warm, the flame of a candle in the evening, a familiar and welcome face unexpectedly at our door.

Ah, the days are too short. I drove up with a friend to the next county to pick up bushels of MacIntoshes and Johnnygolds and the trees and brush sang out that this world of ours is toeing the edges of summer, applying its last makeup and about to whirl out onto stage in full costume, no rehearsals anymore, and I was surprised. Is October really almost here?

Friday Night Picture Show

The water is vastly colder than it looks. Orcas Island, Puget Sound, Washington. Martin and our bro-in-law, Luke.










Feelin' groovy.

Energies

My loves, I have good news. Apparently the British lottery has awarded me their highest prize. I just got the message my e-mail. I have many, many plans. And I think all my friends will want to share in the cash cow so get your proposals together now. . .

Actually, I do have good news. We were granted an extra hour of time tonight, so instead of the hour closing on ten, it is only almost nine. Elspeth did not practice piano at eight, as we thought and cursed ourselves, the gods, and our schedules for our lack of time management, but at seven! Martin and I were generally starting to be a little grumpy until we realized that I had set the clock ahead by an hour--joy was ours. One more hour tonight to pursue our own peaceful edges, to make lunches, to drink Sleepytime tea.

Also in the jubilant Cockroft news: Elspeth can now play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on the piano all by herself. She was so excited by this that she sprung up from the piano bench and streaked through the living, dining, kitchen, and hallway rooms, giggling and clapping. Then she plopped on the bench long enough to plunk it out again, shouted, "CLAP FOR ME!" and did the lap again. This happened at least three times.

Merry, who also recently started piano lessons, approaches the instrument this way: seriously, with respect and a trembling sort of confidence that she will be able to read notes and some day run her hands over the keys like Keith Jarrett.

As I reflected over the phone to my mother, Merry's energy is like a stone, deep inside of herself. It's focused, private, intense, serious, still, contained. Elspeth's energy is like water, flowing like a mighty river that's skipped its banks, soaking everyone and everything in its path. Even when in her most intense concentration, when she's drawing, her energy is something wild to behold, and when Martin's dad walked over and looked over her drawings, he was astonished by their order and vision. "It looks like she's just scribbling over there!" he remarked, and indeed, Elspeth at work is a startling vision; she seems to tremble and jerk all over, her pen or crayon stabs the paper as if she's trying to kill it, and her hair falls into her eyes.

And Beatrix's energy? Maybe a brook? It's certainly not as wild as Elspeth's, though when she skips her nap, as she did today so we could drive down to an orchard to buy a couple bushels of Jonagolds, she's a force to be reckoned with. Here's a little piece of no-nap insanity; she stripped off her clothes, tore around the house, then froze in the hallway to hiss, "PISSHHHHH!" as she peed all over our wooden floor. I barely saved my slipper.

Martin's creaking up the stairs. Time to make lunches, I think. . .

Apparently, my left shoe is very squeaky. Every time I walk up and down the hallway of the English department, it speaks: scrinch, scrinch.

I pack my class of twelve into a tiny conference room for workshops. It's very cozy and very warm. I feel as though I should bring candles in glass jars and pass out hand rolled cigarettes (only in this room should we inhale deeply and into rattling lungs). Somebody should brew black coffee in an old rusty percolator and we should sip it with deep grunts. It should slide like syrup over our tongues and we should have at least a few brown teeth and some deep wrinkles around our eyes. Somewhere out in the hallway someone should be playing the accordion, slowly and sadly.

Someone should read an essay that sounds like Hemingway. There should be bulls and red capes and women who speak little. Red bottles of wine atop trains and on tables in dirty cafe corners. A cat who sleeps all day on the bosom of a large, wrinkled woman, a woman whose fingers stink of garlic, whose eyes are full of rivers.

I wonder if I could book such a workshop room?

I, the undersigned, promise in good faith to exclaim, "ZOUNDS!" as a matter of habit, starting twenty minutes after this troth is published.

Too, I will accompany said exclamation with an upraised fist and expression of genuine astonishment, thus convincing hearers of my absolute fidelity to said "ZOUNDS!" whether the occasion suit or whether it be of questionable timing.

Signed: Kimberly Long Cockroft
in the year of our Lord 2011

The Misfortune of Others: It Makes Me Laugh

The rain, it's a poundin' down outside the windows. Sounds like there's a wall of water headed our way. I'm struggling against the soothing white noise, actually, because Martin's grading a stack of poems and I should be writing reading questions but I feel so alienated from my blog writing lately I thought I should come by for a visit. And the warmth of my slippers and the weight of the day easing into the comfort of evening tempts me to slip into an early sleep.

I just read a funny blog entry on "Days Under the Sycamore" (link below right) wherein my friend Sally and her family go for a lovely stroll up a ridge, enjoying the September evening sunlight gleaming on fresh-cut piles of grass waiting for the hay baler. It all sounds pretty bucolic until their son, Will, withdraws a stick from the earth and lets loose a mass of swarming bees. The family of five, covered with these buzzing horrors, tear down the hill, shrieking all the way, and the boys sprint the half-mile or so to the van (leaving their parents in the dust) where at least one of them has to be strapped in practically naked because he's covered in bee stings. Once they've recovered, Sally has to wonder cautiously back up the road, retrieving the clothing they had stripped off and flung asunder in their hasty retreat.

The whole story gave me quite a chuckle, even though it includes bodily injury to people I love.

Martin is half-asleep now and resorting to food to keep himself awake through the rest of the poems. Last night I tackled a mountain of prose, so I have less sympathy for his poetry. Oh blast. He brought back chips. I have sworn to eat better and now the bowl of chips is. . .within. . .my. . .reach. . . .

I may have to get myself some Fruity Kix to stave off temptation.

And now, to Huxley and Africa.

Happy evening to you all, and if anything really bad but not permanent happens to any of you, please let me know so I can laugh heartlessly at your expense. Thanks.

Just an update to my wall obsession. Four things happened:

1. I drank tea

2. The sun came out and we went out and I commiserated with a couple root-bound house plants out in the clear, crisp air and then I freed them from their gloomy pots and introduced them to their new homes

3. My daughter, Elspeth, finally stopped talking back to me after every sentence that left my lips (she drew by herself for twenty minutes, a sure-fire cure for grumpiness)

4. I dropped my children with a couple warm people and attended a reading; listened to fiction from a talented college student in a vintage dress and poetry from a man whose craft and images blew me into another place entirely, where there are no walls that block the elements from me (it wasn't Martin; it was another man, Bob Randolph, who punctuated his poems with a little harmonica, guitar, and finally a pair of zennish cymbals)

So, basically, using Martin as my example,
I went from this

to this.

Take Down the Wall!

It's the kind of grey day that makes you long for new, sparkling things. Right now I am longing for a view from my kitchen, which entails knocking a wall down, installing a header, and building an island in the space. Easy-peasy, right??? Right? Well, the contractor who gave me a quote a year ago has since moved to Delaware and I am a defeatist who took that as a sign that it's not the wall's time. Listen, honey, all I want is some natural light in the kitchen. I have one window now over the sink that looks to. . .my neighbor's wall. It's pretty.

My mother is a big proponent of signs, of things that "aren't meant to be." This sounds wishy-washy on paper but it's actually a pretty good way to live, most of the time, because then you can just let go of something and move on. My mother's belief in signs is rooted in faith; my belief in signs is rooted in far murkier territory. An inner exhaustion that is too weary for my years? Yes. An edge of cynicism that gives way to laziness? Perhaps. For instance, if I nail up a curtain rod crooked, I can almost convince myself that was the way it was meant to be, after all, and that I can learn a lesson from living with a little imperfection: relax, take a deep breath, and let go.

But this wall in particular has been informing my weak longings for years. Maybe it's because we spend so much time in the kitchen, or regularly pack the space with dozens of people (not to mention Martin's students twice a year). When I say "regularly," I mean, often all week long. We have a very open house, which is lovely, but it makes me wish our kitchen were a little more spacious.

But fast on my heels is Guilt. How dare I complain of a perfectly pleasant, functional space? In some parts of the world, my entire family would live in a room that size, plus my Grandma and Mother and Father and an uncle or two. And maybe the goat. I am not being snarky, I am chiding myself as I will so often do, for the rest of my life. And that's not a bad thing.

Still. . .that wall. I've wrapped it in psychology (ie., I have inner walls I need to take down; I feel trapped; yellow wallpaper stuff, etc.) to explain my obsession. I've wrapped it in politics (take down the walls that separate us, barriers of ideology, etc.), and I've surrendered to the conclusion, many times in the past six years, that this wall needs to stay where it is. It's a thick, plaster wall that has existed there for over a century.

Once I told a contractor that I'd trade him one of my children for the removal of my wall. I was half-joking. I also tried to give him all our kitchen cabinets in exchange but he didn't bite.

Anyone know anything about putting in headers?

My sister recently e-mailed me a link to an article that should be dear to every Wordie's heart. It made me ashamed of my limited vocabulary, and also sad that I could not wrap my tongue comfortably around the word pusillanimous. Why is it our words generally get so much more vague when there are so many succinct words out there, if we can only claim and utilize them? Are we cowards, or just lazy?

Here it is; click on it: FWIW

Listening to Stories

I've been memorializing Sept. 11 victims by listening to NPR's StoryCorps recordings. They are two-minute conversations or reflections, and it's amazing how much can be packed into two minutes. I've been sitting here listening as I watch a squirrel wrestle a walnut off our tree. I remember clearly where I was on the day itself, standing pregnant with Merry, looking at the footage on a classroom TV, realizing that my high school freshmen would never forget that day. At one point, someone suggested we turn off the TV, but it was important to watch, to be part of the tragedy. I looked outside to the lawn beneath a great pine, finding comfort in a squirrel, to whom the day was as sunny and normal as ever. Later I excused myself to call my mother back in Illinois, to make sure that my father, who was traveling that day, was okay. Deep down, I knew he hadn't been on the destroyed planes, but I wanted an excuse to hear my mother's voice.

It's easy to feel detached now from the tragedy that has been so wrapped in political agendas. But listening to the simple stories of victims and their loved ones has refocused me. Beverly Eckert's reflections on page two are particularly moving. Listen to them here: http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifNPR STORYCORPS: SEPT. 11.

At the end of the day. . .

At the end of the day. . .There has to be a song out there that starts with that line. It sounds like a song from my childhood but I don't know which one or if it ever existed. Bea jumped into her first day of school with penache and confidence; when I dropped her off she touched my pants leg and then disappeared into a cluster of children, and when I picked her up she raised her chin in the plucky way she has and announced: "I didn't cry!" Later she explained that some kids cried, but she didn't, and then she sang the Eency Weency Spider for me.

And so it happened that for the first time in our family's history, three children were at school at the same time. So, too, were Martin and I at school. We even ate an early lunch together in the department's conference room and as I ate my pbj and peeled my banana, it did indeed feel like the long old days of school.

My writing is clunky today. I can hear it rattling out of me in fits and starts, like a car running out of gas. This morning in class we listened to NPR's Sounds of Summer Summary--which basically consists of quintessential summer sounds (clink of ice in a glass, a lawn mower, the whine of a mosquito, the cheers of a Little League game. . .). I asked the students to pick a sound and write about a memory it sparked for them. I picked the mosquito and sat down to write, but getting words down on the page was as awful and hard as wringing water out of a rock. Some days are like that, I guess.

I've been reading more lately, which is lovely and may account for the fact that my writing has partly dried up for a while. I find that when I am deeply in a story, I can't focus my mind and my imagination elsewhere. I have to finish the book, shake my head vigorously a few times, and refocus on another story--hopefully the one I will write when I finish rereading "Flame Trees of Thika." I don't know how many times I've read Elspeth Huxley's childhood memoir, but I am enjoying it this time as if I never encountered it before. I assigned the book for class and I am cramming the margins with pencil marks and underlining especially wonderful lines and I know I will never be able to read this particular copy again unless I erase all my marks. I intensely dislike reading books covered with another person's scribbles; it feels as if someone is reading over my shoulder. However, reading a book closely in order to teach it requires that I form a more dynamic relationship with the characters and the richness of the text.

Oh, my heavens. I just reread the paragraph above and hey--do you think I could run on more sentences than I just did?

Better stop while I'm ahead, people. Back to Elspeth (who is my daughter's namesake, of course), back to Kenya's colonial days with its charming, philandering English colonials who seem better than the horrible colonials who beat their servants. Back to Kikuyu myths, to pet chameleons, to coffee bushes.

Ninety and then Sixty. . .(we're moving in the right direction)

The rain is dripping and plunking off the thick leaves of the Bird Tree (actually a young Black Walnut) outside the dining room window, and the smell of a chicken stewing fills the house. It's thirty degrees cooler today than it was on Saturday, when Martin, the girls and I swam through the soupy air down to the Monongahela River, where crowds of artists and families had gathered for the Arts Fest. Martin and I are in a band (Martin on guitar and vocals and me on vocals only plus the occasional egg shaker), "The Unreliable Sallys" and we had an hour long gig, which is much longer than usual. My eyelids were sweating and Amy, our lead singer and songwriter, was so warm she had to step away for breaks to mop her face. We sang some good Louisiana and Texas tunes, so the weather felt just right--bayou-like. The girls sat on a bench and behaved fairly well (Bea spent much of the gig on my hip) except when Elspeth shimmied down to sing in Martin's guitar mike and later hiked up her mother's dress to an unacceptable height. Some people dance and march around the stage; I chase children.

Oh, I love it when September feels like real Autumn. I feel like lighting candles, baking bread, stewing apples. I feel like rearranging furniture, packing the larder for winter, double checking the shelves for tea.

Friday Happy Hour: Now Less Time Away Than it Was Yesterday

The first week of school lays you flat. Right this moment I am a fish that flipped for a good long while, eyes fixed in that fishy expressionless terror, scales gleaming in the late summer sunlight. . .now my gills barely move, I am breathing my last and reconciled.

All right, so that's a little dramatic. Still, there was a seed of weariness that I felt in my right shoe at the beginning of the week, but I've walked on regardless and the seed has blossomed into a tree; I have born fruit, big pears like the ones we caught Grassy Sam, our resident groundhog, feasting on yesterday. We just let him keep on, ridiculously satisfied that at least someone is harvesting our garden this fall!

What's up with the metaphors today? When I get tired like this, happily tired, actually--I lose the ability to think in Roman Numerals. I go mosaic and begin rambling.

*Beware*

Oh, and grandparents, the first-day-of-school photos are forthcoming. I promise!

I whipped up a quadruple batch of pumpkin bread and wrestled my numerous pattypan squash into a submissive curry soup before they could keep breeding in the corners of my kitchen. I have only two more to chop to pieces now and a hefty zucchini which is sitting by the cutting boards like a beaming green Buddha.

I think Bea is on the loose. One more day to Friday happy hour. Maybe I will even get to have a conversation with Martin--a real one--this weekend. One can hope for a brief cessation of wild activity. . .

Oh, and PS., my story, "Birds in Snow," was given an award of distinction from Midwest Literary Magazine. If you haven't read it, you can now by clicking on it down the page at right.