Attraction

     "Mosquitos love me," she said. "I can't get out of the car."

    "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "We drove all this way. It's a short walk."

    They had driven miles out of the way so she could see something special, a mythical lake in the deep woods, a lake which now looked more like a pond-- even he would have to admit that--a pond, in the woods, miles from civilization, a pond--lake that she'd expected to see from the window of the car, the moving car, but now they were there.

    The pond teamed with life, with a buzz of energy, a buzz she recognized all too well, a mosquito buzz of want, of need, of hunger for a taste of blood, for her blood. Yes, of course, birds in the trees, singing; there was a duck . . . or was it a goose? with an insistent clack or click or whatever you call it, a dog barking somewhere, probably scaring the goose/duck, a hawk circling above, and, no doubt, a bear somewhere, waiting just for them. The great outdoors.

    "Mosquitos love me," she said again.

    "Easy to understand," he said, as if it were a compliment. "Glad they're not bees or wasps."

    So, yes, they were there, in the woods, in the Lost Forty, the uninhabited Lost Forty, forty acres lost to civilization, so he could show her his boyhood haunts, the scenes of his tales: swinging on a vine in the woods (his Tarzan imitation) when the vine broke, and he fell 50 feet; the place where he'd surprised a bear, a mother bear with cubs, who came after him,--an example of his youthful exploits, and, if she was honest, that was part of the attraction: the light in his eye, the glow when he began a tale of teenage daring do. And so, he had somehow talked her into this excursion in the woods, to the deep woods. "To know me better" he had said and, she had to admit, even now, that she did want to know him better. 

    "Are we really going into the forest?" she asked. 

    He grinned. "Of course." So, yes, they were going to the woods, the deep woods. It all happened in the forest, he'd said, in the virgin woods of the north, the forests of his now mythical youth. Which is why they were now at the Lost Forty in northern Minnesota, home of mosquitos the size of baby robins, she pointed out as soon as she realized how far from civilization they were.

    He laughed at that. "An exaggeration," he'd said. But now they were there, actually there, the car parked, him out of the car, waiting for her to get out.

    "Mosquitos love me," she shouted through the closed window. 

    "Easy to understand," he shouted back, blew her a kiss, bowed, opened the car door, and offered his hand. "But there probably isn't a mosquito for miles. Nothing flying around. Nothing in sight."

    Which was true until she got out, took three steps and, even he had to admit, she was swarmed by . . . mosquitos.

    "Everything is attracted to you," he said, in the tone of somebody offering a compliment. "I understand that!"

    He droned on a bit longer, stringing together compliments as she ran around to the driver's side, swatting and cursing all the while, yanked open the door of his car, slid into the driver's seat, revved the engine, and, steering with one hand, swatting mosquitos with the other, careened out of the Lost Forty.

    Hitchhiking was also prominent in his mythical youth. . . he'd get home all right.    

  

Teacher

     "I want to tell you about my cat, my Buddhist cat."

    I nodded, and tried not to smile, or, rather only smile and look receptive. She was old, quirky old, and Mother had told me--ordered me--to be patient with her which, in those days, I interpreted as "Keep your mouth shut."

    "He practices walking meditation," Nanny was saying. "First thing in the morning, he rises, stretches, walks the perimeter of the bed, then the room, slowly now because he's old, like me, but he is mindful."

    "Mindful?" I had to ask--mindful must mean full of mind, or something like that.

    "Yes," Nanny said. "That old cat is mindful--first thing I noticed about him when he showed up at my door. He was slow, took everything in, step by step. He smelled, he touched, he stopped for a second before moving on, the most Buddhist feline I've ever known."

    I remember now that I almost laughed at that. Buddhist feline!? Luckily, I held it in, and said just the right thing. "Tell me more."

    So she did, this grandmother of mine, my oldest relative, a woman with an occasional crack in her voice but, in my memory, a gift for eloquence, patience, and love.

    The cat, her cat, the cat she named Teacher, knew himself, she said, accepted himself, accepted himself as a cat with the power of smell and consciousness. "I know Teacher would like to be outside, in the fresh air, but I can't let him out because of the birds. His feline instinct would take over."

    "Feline instinct?"

    "The hunter in him. Birds are food, so he sits at the window . . ." she pointed to the window next to her chair, "and watches, is mindful of his ancient instincts. He watches, and I watch. We are mindful together.

    "That's it?" I said, I hope without showing my incredulity at her romantic account of an old cat.

    "Yes," she said. "It's enough."

~

    That was more than 60 years ago, but the memory still soothes me, slows me down, calms me every morning, and makes me grateful for two of the best teachers in my life, Nanny and her cat.

    

House of Cards

    The new guy fired everybody. He swirled in, looked around, and fired them all because he thought, no he knew that he was smarter than everybody, especially the people entrenched, (one of his favorite words, entrench), the people entrenched in their bureaucratic cubicles, doing what they did the way they had always done it, following the law, without . . . without . . . without what? Without considering how the smartest man in the world would do it?

    "I'm smart," he explained, more than once. "I'm smart and, from now on, we will be the greatest . . . " The predicate of the statement never mattered. It was the seductive assurance, the outrageous proclamations, statements that sounded like promises, guarantees if you didn't look too closely, statements that encouraged, even reassured, many of us.

    Oh, there was muttering at the water cooler, even a bit of laughter, muffled laughter--what's going to happen if he does what he says, takes over every business on the block, in the neighborhood, on the other side of town, in the next state? Then what?

    Well, the new people weren't worried. They put on their jackets, their matching outfits, sat at the desks, shuffled the papers, turned up the sound, and proceeded to do whatever could catch his attention. It was a blitz he bragged, a purge. Singlehandedly, he was making the company powerful again, great again, the greatest.

    Yes, it was a seductive swirl of action. The company rose and fell, rose and fell, until the last bold assault, aided, he had bragged by AI, AI who was never hampered by stale protocols, practices, guidelines, or laws.

    "It's the wild, wild west," one complainer said, a complainer who was quickly eliminated and, thus missed the satisfaction of watching it from the inside, the whole tower of cards slide, fold, crumple, then collapse--a collapse, well, yes, a collapse, but, as he pointed out, it was the greatest collapse ever.

Much Ado

    The car wouldn't start.

    Nothing turned over. No sound Silence. Profound silence.

    Well, that's not exactly true. There was a low grunt, a kind of gasping, a last effort sort of gasp and, yes, a grind from somewhere deep inside the car.

    "Grind is never good."

    "Yes, I know. Neither is silence."

    It was easier to talk about it as they were deciding, no, contemplating, considering what to do. The battery? Or . . . .

    "Could be, but I don't think so."

    "But that sound, that grinding sound . . ."

    

    "Leading to nothing, so . . . "

    "Much ado abut nothing," she said.

    He laughed. Muttered something about glory, overcoming obstacles, then got out of the car, slammed the door, and raised the hood.

    She watched him scowl at the still and silent car innards as she rifled through her purse for the AAA card she thought they had . . . or once had . . . or meant to get . . . couldn't remember.

    It was a dance, a minuet, a prelude to the waltz, the giving over to a problem that might be solved if you just figured it out (1) by staring at the inner workings of the beast long enough--which he excelled at--or (2) dragging out the owner's manual--the researcher, her strength, both on the way to find a solution together, maybe even simultaneously.

    "I think . . . " he was saying.

    "It says here . . ." she said.

    "That we should call Triple A," uttered. . . or was it muttered . . . simultaneously, and so they did.