couldn't drag me away

I had high hopes for the wild ponies of Assateague—I imagined their majestic manes streaming in the tempestuous Atlantic winds, sinews straining as they raced across the rolling dunes. I saw them rearing fiercely in the sunset, whinnies echoing above the roar of the waves. (And yes, I maybe envisaged myself clasping my arms around their necks, swinging up upon their sturdy backs, yelling like a banshee and riding like hell.)

Perhaps it was my former dealings with the bears in Yosemite, the moose in the Maine, or the stampeding elephants in South Africa that filled me with romantic expectations. But the wild ponies of Assateague were anything but—it turns out that they’re not even ponies. And they certainly are feral: they show little regard for the beachgoer who may not wish to sunbath in their excrement. The small herd near my campsite did maintain a frighteningly obsessive habit of relieving themselves directly outside the entrance to the chemical toilets—although every day the placement varied every so slightly, a strategic deviation that kept campers on their toes and confirmed certain suspicions about the neuroses that develop during decades of in-breeding.

What the eager visitors do not yet realize, as they pay their $15 entrance fee, a fee that will permit them to scout out a towel-sized claim of feces-and-cigarette-butt-strewn beach front; as they toss their park pass in the windshield and excitedly tamp on the brake—it is their first wild pony and the thrill of the spotting makes them forget the vehicles that pause politely behind them while they click their cameras with frenetic abandon—what these eager visitors do not yet realize is that these wild ponies, descendants of the noble Misty of Chincoteague, descendant of the fierce Phantom, descendant of the shipwrecked ponies who swam to the island years ago (or, the Park Service gently apprises us, more likely the descendant of horses brought to the islands by 17th century agrarians who wanted to avoid fencing laws and livestock taxes): yes, these ponies of ponies are actually the squirrels of Assateague.

Do not feed the ponies. Do not touch the ponies. Shoo them away when they come near—clap and shout if you must. They may look docile, but they are prone to wild and unpredictable behavior. And while they might relieve themselves outside the chemical toilets with predictable alacrity, they certainly do engage in wild and unpredictable activities: nuzzling scantily-clad young ladies on the beach, rustling through the recycling in the middle of the night, standing stoically near one’s campsite for mysteriously long periods of time. (The gentlemen, I must note, also wantonly exhibit that which makes them men—I can say nothing of the gentle, as one of my companions recalls an earlier visit to the island, where she and her busload of classmates witnessed a very graphic rendition of the procreatory act.)

The ever-amiable Park Service does its best to defend the dear ponies: they remind visitors that the horses are “tough enough to survive the scorching heat, abundant mosquitoes, stormy weather and poor quality food found on this remote, windswept barrier island.” I will concur that unless one plans appropriately, food and drink is scant on the island, and that heat, mosquitoes and stormy weather appear in abundance. But the ponies' curriculum vitae fails to impress. For once upon a time I harbored childish ambitions to be a horse (don't ask), but alas, I am not, and despite domestication and a lack of equestrian attributes, I too survived life on the island and all the rigors and dilemmas of a holiday at the beach.

Misty of Chincoteague, it turns out, has not. I am sad to report that she, the equine heroine of the children’s classic (a surprising number of people I’ve spoken with are familiar with this book), passed in 1972. But never fear: if you wish to brave the mosquitoes, ultraviolet rays and horse-awn tourists, you can go see Misty, glassy-eyed and stuffed, in full taxidermic glory.

But please don’t touch.

paling in comparison

Well, we all know who Tina Fey will be spoofing for the next two months (I'm being optimistic here).

Why do I feel like they're trying to tug on the heart strings of my double X chromosomes?

When CCR sang "I ain't no fortunate son," I don't think they were arguing for the senators and governors and representatives to march their children and past experiences down the corridor to the sacrificial alter [ahem]. I don't think this is what Biden and Palin and McCain and Obama intend, but the specters of a child with Down syndrome, sons in Iraq, x & y chromosomes, melanin and a tortured body flit about the campaign speeches and television ads.

how cool will it be!?

Currently, barackobama.com opens with a nice graphic and the sweetly rhyming phrase "Who Will Be Barack's VP? Be the first to know." Us Virginians and pseudo-Virginians are crossing our fingers for Governor Tim Kaine. And we're eagerly awaiting the news. It's just a bit unfortunate that the slogan sounds remarkably like an ad for a home pregnancy test.

And just in case you aren't obsessively checking the NYTimes for the announcement, the campaign can send you a text as soon as the decision is made:

Barack is making his decision and will be announcing it any day now. If you haven't had a chance to text "VP" to 62262 pull out your phone and do it now! How cool will it be to know before it's announced by Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric, or some other news outlet?

Um...I want to know too, and yes, before Katie reads it off the teleprompter. But is this how the campaign thinks we want to be spoken to? Barack, he's so cool! I agree, but please--I'd like a little substance with my exclamation points.

vaccumming the valley

This is Barry K-, president of the Plains District Memorial Museum. Here's a truncated version of an article I wrote for a local publication:

Barry King was plagued by a triad of problems. Or, rather, the old feed mill that he hoped would house the Plains District Memorial Museum suffered three afflictions. Asbestos. A leaking roof. And pigeons—or rather, piles of pigeon guano.

“In my mind, every time it rained, I could feel the raindrops on my head,” said King.

The building is a much-needed upgrade from the museum’s current location, a small garage brimming with Virginia artifacts from decades and centuries past. It took the dedication of dozens of volunteers, a number of fundraisers and generous donations, a few negotiations with the electricians, and a visit from a pigeon abatement company to ready the mill for moving day. Today, a few buckets still collect raindrops in the back section of the building, but the front room—a spacious area complete with museum-style lighting and climate controls—will open its doors in September.

Now King’s task is to fill the mill. “I’m in vacuum mode,” he said. “Do you have any old ledgers?”

Unlike a typical diviner, King sniffs out history, and is not afraid to ask his friends and neighbors about the contents of their attics, basements, and sheds. “Once you start to smell the ancient dust, it gets in your blood,” said King.

gonna look both ways

The funny thing about documenting sprawl is how the experience literally reinforces the very definition of suburban ooze: its utter inaccessibility to anything but a car. You want footage of the land where the Wal-Mart was supposed to go? Park on the slender shoulder, slog down the hot asphalt, past shrieking cars and belching trucks. Wade through the bracken in the ditch. The crickets will leap in fright. To get a shot of where the Wal-Mart ended up, tripod off bank ATMs and lean against street signs. Cross highway traffic with a prayer that if you get hit, your camera will survive. (Don't worry, mom: I'm gonna look both ways before I cross the street. Three times.)

What is most disturbing, in the end, is not the tireless uniformity or the men who yell out car windows but the anomaly of a footed figure. That what everything thinks is bizarre is not a girl with a camera, but a girl--if they notice you at all.

If I can't be a health teacher

...I can at least write about it.

When I think about statistics, it is often in the form of those textbook charts and graphs: HIV infection rates appear as progressively darker blots around the globe, scars on Haiti, Lesotho, Indonesia. A large dark circle surrounds New York City, where infection rates are the highest in the country. But there is a smaller, darker circle inside this one: take the train up to the Bronx, near Yankee Stadium, and walk north (beware, Dorothy, this isn't Manhattan anymore and your ruby reds may have a hard time on the steep hills).

This is Highbridge, where AIDS is the leading cause of premature death, where three in 100 people are HIV-positive. This may not sound like much, but what it means, on the ground, is that many of those people you walk past know someone--an aunt, a brother, a best friend--who is positive or even deceased. And this makes me think of other circles: the circles of privilege I tread in, where life can be lived at the extreme reaches of advantage, circles that are lightest or darkest based on the merit of their designation, whether it be infection rates or income or Internet access. I observe this not with overwhelming and impotent guilt--as Paul Farmer astutely notes, guilt can be an extremely productive emotion [pg. 93]--but certainly with a sense of guilt that demands justice, a guilt that insists we dive into other circles and blow their borders asunder.

And yes, please, please, please use condoms.

P.S.

Due to a somewhat nomadic childhood, I kept a fairly significant correspondence during my early years, much of which I have reviewed and culled during this past week.

When my family moved in third grade, my former classmates sent me letters, all in cursive, all in proper letter format on yellow and blue-lined wide ruled paper. The pedagogue in me appreciates my teacher's creativity: while the content of the letters is middling, it was the perfect thing to cheer up a homesick nine-year-old while practicing penmanship and letter writing.

The culling carnage was rather drastic (yellow and blue-lined wide ruled paper recycles well, I hope) but I couldn't resist recording the following from two of the letters:

Larry W- closes his letter by informing me that: "P.S. I have a hermit crab."

...and Chadd K- writes:

"Dear Sara,
Hey Sara! Guess what are [sic] class got a new student in are [Chadd dear, we need to work on homonyms] room. Her name is "Brenda." She still isn't as good as you."

If I recall correctly, "Brenda" was the daughter of the couple who bought our house (it was a very small town). After we moved, there was a rather unfortunate incident involving our homemade swing set: we left in the winter, and my father intended to return in the spring to extricate it from the frozen Pennsylvania ground. (My father has carpentry in the blood. Suffice to say it was a well-built swing set, involving post holes and cement.) Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication that remains nebulous to this day, Brenda's father and my father exchanged a series of heated words (an anomaly for my father; I can say nothing of Brenda's) and my siblings and I were never to swing on that swing set again.

In summation, despite the fact that my father spent this past Sunday's morning exhorting us to seek justice rather than revenge (he also has preaching in the blood), I have just taken my score-long revenge: Chadd K-, dear boy, I agree completely.

Say yes to Michigan!

There is a surprisingly extensive list of songs about Michigan. Where, one wonders, are the songs about Connecticut? Of course, this is the only state where residents can hold up the palms of their right hands and point to where they're from. Now I can say yes to that!

A few for your listening pleasure:

see all of Greetings from Michigan by Sufjan Stevens

Half Acre, by Hem (you'll know it from the Pay it Forward-esque insurance commercial, which, mercifully, is only one minute long and thus far less painful than the movie. You may decide how you feel about a company reminding you to do what your mama and papa taught you--not to mention anthropomorphizing itself as a paragon of responsibility. You know, in the great sellout debate, what I find most disturbing is not always the artist's willingness to sell their music to the Man, but the fact that the music I love also appears to be the Man's favorite too. While Andrew Bird's whistle really shouldn't fetch any price, I am glad he can make enough to keep himself in glockenspiels. It's just unnerving to hear his melodies trickling from the television. Or maybe it's the editorial hack job meted out on his music.)

Michigan, by the Red House Painters (I keep trying this band but they never take. They're one of those bands where the first 45 seconds of a song writhes with promise but by minute two you've memorized their three power chords and pasty lyrics and the incessantly nasal drone of the lead vocalist. In fact, your time would probably be better spent waiting for the seventeen-year cicadas to emerge. They'll be here, in Michigan, in 2021.)

one writer's beginnings

During the years 1999 through 2001, I had the following pieces published in a certain secondary school's literary magazine:

1999
a. a poem about a family returning from the beach (narrator: middle aged man)
b. a poem about the eating habits, or lack thereof, of girls from the West and girls from impoverished countries (and on her plates/are the remains of food she hates/sandwich crusts, broccoli stems)
c. a poem about 43-year-old man's nostalgia for childhood
d. a short story about an incarcerated woman giving birth*

2000
a. a poem about domestic abuse
b. a short story about a mentally unstable woman miscarrying her child and subsequently drowning herself**

2001
a. a poem about a poor mother trying to make a life for her son
b. a poem about a bi-racial relationship

I wonder that my family did not worry over me, but clearly they were not too concerned, as I never appeared to have a curfew and was mostly spared from what one of my siblings refers to as "Monologues with My Father."*** In fact, I may have been entirely too wholesome--I even cried over the only C I've ever received.**** Ultimately, I say that the mildly amusing list is evidence of the mind's potential for empathy and imagination (however maudlin)***** rather than that of a disturbed teenager.

*Rather than a product of my imagination, this one was inspired by a photograph.
**This one is the most painful one to reread. Did I actually write this? I'd like to blame it on reading bad fiction from The New Yorker but my mother refused to buy it during the Tina Brown days.
***If you know our father, you'll know who did the talking.
****Algebra, and in my defense it was not due to an inability to comprehend algebra, but a habit of wavering attention...sometimes due to writing the pieces listed above.
*****A final comment: while a rereading of the above pieces may find one turning certain shades of pink and/or crowing with laughter, my use of figurative language and experimentation does show a spark for the craft***** (although I promise to never ever again refer to the embrace of a bi-racial couple as like an Oreo cookie).
*****Two selections:

The handcuffs and shackles lie there in metal crumples like serpents...

and, in a variation on the serpentine theme:

Coming back from the beach
My wife and daughters burnt red,
Faces like shining Buddhas.
A week later
Their bodies emerging, snakes
From decaying skin.

so gallantly streaming

It is the last game at the old minor league baseball stadium (it will be torn down for a local university's expansion). Dear, dear L- agrees play tripod girl and accompany me to the last game--although we soon learn there is actually a make up game on Monday night (more about that later). We waltz across the field in search of Bobby W-, owner of the Turks and, coincidentally, my camera's first quarry. Unwittingly, he drives away in the golf cart; we make chase, as do the eyes of the baseball team.

Somebody yells at Bobby to stop. He flips the cart around and, taking our hands, asks which one of us is going out with him after the game. I smile sweetly and ask him to submit for the camera--considerate subject that he is, he whisks us off to the outfield and answers my questions against the backdrop of the stadium and the familiar tinging of baseballs and bats. (He played on this field in high school; later in the evening he gently grasps his son's neck as they prepare to bid farewell to the turf).

Back to the stadium go we, where we meet an older, even saltier gent whose name I can't recall, but who Bobby informs me is loaded--loaded, I tell you! They are astounded to learn I do not have a boyfriend, and equally aghast when they hear that L- is a married woman. Indeed, there is nothing quite like discussing one's love life with old men while at work. But in between compliments and flirtations, they give me some good tips for shooting the game, and I mainly laugh when they tell me later that I'm a young 26, although I remind them I'm but five and twenty.

L- waits patiently in the stands while I capture b-roll and interviews; it is my first time at the ball field and I am sad that it is going--there will be another ball field, but how can you reproduce the stains and dirt and scents of over sixty years of baseball games? I dread the sterility of the new diamond, the erased echoes of girls and boys flirting in the stands in the golden light of a dying summer day, the undamaged scoreboard. What words have smashed against these walls? asks Maya Angelou. For is it not comforting, endearing, hopeful to think of visiting a dear, dusty place and adding one more evening to the strata of memory?

But it seems there will one more memory to bring to the sod and discarded peanut shells: L- and I had an offer we could not refuse, an offer that involves warbling the national anthem at the final final make up game. I fear she will win the harmony argument, leaving me to that eyebrow-raising high A--or is it a C? Unpatriotic as I may appear, on Monday night, Veterans Stadium will indeed be the home of the brave.