Swamp People

My favorite summer read so far this summer has been Atchafalaya Houseboat: My Years in the Louisiana Swamp (listen to the author on NRP here).  Even before the final section of the book, I knew that Gwen Rowland would be one of my idols.  Indeed, after living on a houseboat in the Louisiana swamp, and a patchwork of jobs, she talks about how sustainable agriculture has been one continuous thread throughout her life.  

I know that I romanticize houseboat living, but I've always dreamed about it, especially after last summer's few days in Amsterdam and Seattle.  This book makes it seem even more incredible - a bed suspended on ropes from the ceiling (I imagine being gently rocked to sleep by the wakes of passing boats), catching and growing as much food as you possibly can (that freshest of fresh taste every single day), bathing in the tea-colored river (nothing is better than being submerged in a good river), visiting amazing people such as Alcide Verret by boat and swapping stories (french-press coffee and homemade goodies to accompany the tales - I don't even like coffee!)...





The photos, by C.C. Lockwood, are just magical, and truly make this dream-like account seem possible, livable, if only we try hard enough.  

Water Water Everywhere

That "comforting blanket of humidity" has turned into an utterly stifling quasi-fog over the last few days.  My sunglasses fog up before I even make it out the door, and it's pointless to dress in anything nicer than gym clothes if you will be spending extended time (more than 3 minutes) outside.  My all-black interior and exterior, AC-less car has been firmly parked in the shade and not touched all week.  This heat has driven me to swim.  

I always joke with people that I couldn't live without the water nearby, that it runs in my blood, that I'm more comfortable in the water than on land.  Lately I'm truly starting to believe this.  Maybe it's just because it's too darn hot to do anything else, but I've been in love L-U-V with the pool this week.  And not just being in the pool, but with being underwater, even though there's nothing to see really.  I'll swim laps underwater holding my breath because it's just too wonderful to come up.  Or I'll lay on the bottom of the pool observing the fish-eye world, enjoying my 360º vision.  Or perhaps I'll float just beneath the surface, amazed that I can see my reflection as if in a mirror at just the right angle.  

Today in the pool I thought about how wonderful it would be to own a scuba tank so that I could stay underwater in the pool for even longer.  Of course, this is an entirely ridiculous use for owning a scuba tank, but that's how badly I wanted to be able to stay underwater.  Maybe I should sign myself up for some dives, but nothing here will ever be able to compare to my Hawaiian scuba initiation.  

(Beautiful photo from Daniel Balda)

Lovely Sounds of Summer

One of the things I love about summer is the sound of cicadas. I love that they are so loud that you can hear a faint hum even from inside the house.  I love feeling such a grounding sense of place when I walk outside in the evening to the comforting blanket of humidity and their overwhelming sound.  When I was little I used to get so excited (I still do) when I found their "shells" on trees in the yard.  I also love that we get them every year, so I don't have to wait seven years to hear them.  

(Photo from Great Plains Nature Center)

Charleston Farmers' Market

This weekend I went to the Charleston Farmers' Market to do a survey of variety like I did at the Santa Cruz Farmers' Market.  I was absolutely blown away by the numbers.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, Charleston seems to have a market with farmers, but not a farmers' market.  Here are the results from my survey.  It was relatively casual, so there may be some errors.  Also, I did not include vendors selling prepared foods (i.e. - to be eaten there, such as crepes), which would change these percentages even more out of favor for the farmers.  

7 (9%) were Animal Product Vendors (eggs, meat, cheese, milk, honey, shrimp, etc)

10 (12%) were Fruit and Vegetable Vendors 

18 (22%) were Processed Food Vendors (pasta, bread, spices, canned goods, kettle corn, olive oil, herbs, etc, and non-food farm products such as flowers)

46 (57%) were Non-food Vendors (art, jewelry, hats, candles, etc)

Musings on Immortality

I've been thinking recently about death.  I just finished a futuristic novel, in which at the very end the main character says of himself and his former lover, "They're dead."  Which at first seems to be a lie, neither are, in fact, dead.  But the reality is that neither of them survived this traumatic event in history in the sense that once it was all over - the world completely changed and their love destroyed - they were completely different people, unable to quite overcome their past.  In some sense their former selves have died.  

Also in this same book people are searching for immortality, which in the end is a futile attempt.  Everyone trying to achieve permanent youth is completely obsessed with youth.  They talk of aging and eventual death (for those not seeking immortality) in a censuring, scornful way, yet in their search for eternal youth, death is all-consuming.  

I just read an article in the August issue of National Geographic about robots ("Us.  And them.") which brought up this issue of immortality again.  The caption below one of photos states that "LifeNaut...is exploring robot-human fusion as a technological path to immortality."  This seems to me to be a gross fallacy.  Didn't any one of these people read the book Tuck Everlasting in elementary school?  I can't imagine being so narcissistic as to want to live forever.  (Another great example?  Let's take a brief look at Exhibit A: Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter.  The list goes on and on and on...)

Death will always be the great unknown, but it is a journey that we must all take.  And that is really what makes life worth living isn't it?  The ever-present threat of death?  Knowing that you won't alway be around makes you savour the present ever more.  

I hope that wasn't too depressing, I've had the perfect trifecta of events leading up to this, and I had to get it off my mind.  

(Photo from National Geographic by Max Aguilera-Hellweg)

Do You Know What It Means?

I just saw this video for Mat Kearney's "Hey Mama," and I got instantly homesick.  It's filmed in New Orleans, and it made me want to go back there so badly.  I don't think I've ever felt this before about a place.  My chest hurts when I think about what I'm missing.  Last night I fell asleep thinking about how much I wanted an orchid cream vanilla snowball from Plum Street.  

The man in the umbrella hat at 1:05 always stands on the corner of Decatur and Canal preaching with his bible.  I miss seeing him, I miss the silhouette of those Mississippi bridges, I miss the heat, I miss the streetcars, and I miss that sheer joie de vivre.  


(I added my pictures to the Santa Cruz posts yesterday.)

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Music

Day 12: 


Today we had a wonderful feast in the evening - the always beautiful and delicious salad (edible flowers are possibly the best garnish in the world), quinoa salad, chili, grilled salmon, local chicken sausage, and veggies, and the dessert of the course - strawberry shortcake, accompanied by wine and beer. We finally broke our meat fast, and it was so, so amazing. It was a superb last supper. 


After supper we sat around in the amphitheater and had some music. We had a lot of guitars and voices, a fiddle, a tambourine and a percussive frog. We had some Mexican tunes, some Johnny Cash and Americana, a few Chinese songs, and La Bamba with additional agroecology verses. 


One woman absolutely loves to dance and just couldn't sit still the whole time. She turned around to those of us sitting and said, "I don't know how you're not dancing. Isn't that the point of music? What's it for if you're not going to dance?" I think this is the best outlook on life and I will try my hardest to keep this in mind when I leave Santa Cruz. 

A blackbird flying from its perch on a stalk of grass.