rebecca soble

Yesterday at my local mom-n-pop grocery store, I bought eight lemons for fifty cents each and two limes for sixty-five cents each. At the checkout, the late-teen cashier rang up my purchase. I guess something was awry with her register’s multiplication function, because she ended up charging me fifty cents for all the lemons and sixty-five cents for both the limes, a total of $1.15. I waited a couple seconds to see if she would catch the error, but she was just waiting for me to pay the total she quoted to me. It was tempting.

“I don’t think you charged me enough.”
“Huh?”

“The lemons are fifty cents each, not fifty cents for all. The limes are sixty-five cents each. That should add up to more than $1.15, don’t you think? Wouldn’t 10 pieces of fruit usually cost more than a dollar?”
“Huh?”

I don’t think she ever really understood what I was saying. We did the math together out loud. “Fifty times eight is $4.00. Sixty-five times two is $1.30. For a total of $5.30.” And that’s what I paid her. I was amused to see that she had no problem figuring out how to void the previous total before entering the new one.

I don’t think the local high school is a bad school by any stretch. Is it that we have become so dependent on computers to do basic math functions for us that we stop even doing estimates on our own? It amazed me that she couldn’t see that the price she told me wasn’t anywhere near realistic.

I have to admit I was relieved that I didn’t have to calculate 7.25% sales tax in my head.

I have to accept that there will be times in life when things flow easy, like the creeks that rush with melt in springtime.  And then there will be times when everything is a tangle that must be worked through with effort.  Like now.  These days, these weeks, these months, everything is complicated,  requiring more steps or hours than they should (or than I would prefer).

I feel like time is rushing and I’m just barely keeping up.  There must be some mischievous sprites — some pudgy giggly things with pointy ears — intentionally throwing wrenches into my works and dreaming up new things for me to do.  Many are things that I choose to be doing, but there’s far too many things in the category of “annoying overhead”, including the recursive and never-ending activity of just trying to keep on top of of all the things in that overhead category.  I’m constantly revising my mental (and paper) lists, worrying about forgetting something, and forgetting things a lot more often than I’m accustomed to.  I feel like I never get enough rest.

I’m not willing to give up the “wants”, I’m not able to give up the “needs”, and it just doesn’t seem possible to shake off those dastardly “others”.  So my goal is to find a way to keep some inner peace in the middle of the maelstrom.    Laughing with friends helps.  Yoga helps.   Springtime will help.  And wringing the necks of those little sprites will help, as soon as I can figure out where they’re hiding.

If you’ve noticed me in recent weeks walking the creek, meadow, and roadsides around town, you’ve probably also seen that I’ve been carrying a book. You’ll have seen me here and there stop abruptly in the middle of my stroll and start riffling through the pages. I’ll look up now and then, keep flipping pages, perhaps kneel on the ground or peer closer at what appears to be just weeds. The more often I go, the less stopping you’ll see me do, because I’m acquiring a new body of knowledge.

The book is the Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers, Northeastern and North-Central North America. The book is written and illustrated by Roger Tory Peterson, one of the world’s most renowned naturalists. The book’s major division is by color, and then within each color the wildflowers are broken down by family, with a symbol of the general flower shape as a guide. In the beginning it’s a little daunting to try to find one plant (especially if it’s white or yellow) but after a while the symbols become more familiar.

I love learning about the wildflowers on several different levels. One is just about me as information collector — any information that comes in interesting sets seems to intrigue me. Aside from that, I like developing my observational skills. I like that now when I walk through a meadow I see it differently than I did before - instead of being a simple mass of green, there is more specificity, I see individual plants and have a better understanding of my surroundings. (Some information gathering about grasses would also be a tremendous help with that.)

I like knowing which flowers are native and which are alien, I like knowing which ones are closely related to each other, I like learning the little tricks for identifying (plants in the mint family have square stems). I’m looking forward to seeing how the wildflowers change with the seasons (I’ve only been doing this a few weeks). I like quizzing myself as I walk - see a plant that I know I’ve looked up and scour my brain for the name. And of course, I love the names: May Apple, Chickweed, Stitchwort, Northern Bedstraw, Wild Madder, Yarrow, Boneset, Plantain, Chicory, Oxeye Daisy, Fleabane, Mullein, Coltsfoot, Cinquefoil, Trefoil, Purslane, Hawkweed, Vetch, Valerian, Marsh Mallow!

I’m happy to report that it is 70+ degrees right now at 5:03 ET in my sunny rural backyard. And the magic that is wireless broadband lets me tell you all about it at the moment of experience. From even this far away I still have decent signal from the router in my kitchen, so I plan to spend a lot of time working outdoors, putting my laptop batteries to the test (or buying one of those heavy-duty outdoor extension cords).

I’ve been walking around my new town in the evenings. The first night I brought my iPod thinking I would want it just as much as I did in NYC where it became my constant companion, my life’s soundtrack. But I noticed right away that I didn’t want the headphones in my ears. I’d rather hear the sounds around me than even my favorite music. What are the sounds right now? I hear a woodpecker tapping persistently at a tree, I hear children playing a few yards away, I hear the low growl of a truck out on the main road, wind chimes tinkling, and the ubiquitous neighborhood dog barking. Someone trying to start their lawnmower, perhaps for the first time this season. But all these sounds are pure background, not a single one is loud enough or close enough to be invasive. Last evening’s walk was filled with the sounds of twittering birds, saying their good nights as the dusk fell and the stars came out. It’s still early for the buzz of insects but that will come soon enough.

I like it here. Welcome spring, we’ve been waiting for you!

In Memoriam
heckle (hecky, heckle-dy), 1989-2004
he was an elegant gentleman of a cat, silky black tuxedo fur with just a few patches of delicate white. stretched out in a patch of sun he measured almost three feet from nose to the tip of his lovely tail. he was a loving companion to his favorite people and courtly to new friends, both human and feline. his presence in our lives was a blessing and his absence leaves too much space in the house.