Category / Bunberry

by Sixer

Garret Sketches: a Prelude

I’m sitting at the top of my world. My tray of tea things – really just a cookie sheet and some dirty dishes – grows cold beside me as the gray sky brightens towards noon. I call it my garret room, as if a word alone can turn the overwhelming clutter into something poetically dismal.

“Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey,” sings my computer, and I have another sip of cold Earl Grey.

I’m going to write a story about cosmos. I’ll title it “Past a Field of Cosmos,” and I’ll laugh at the misunderstandings that arise. Cosmos are my favorite flowers. When I can come up with a universe delicate and bold enough for them to live in – when I can paint with words that breathe like Monet’s Water Lilies from a distance, and show all the wonderful detail of a Robert Doisneau print under scrutiny – I’m going to write about them. I’ll write and show people how the world can exist inside a single flower.

Until then I sit here and make little pen sketches – 650 words or less. They die before they live. Already forgotten by the time I go back to proof read. If I had a little more of the starving artist about me I think they could really be something. Pathetic, you know, in the Victorian sense. But I find that I have a much higher value on food than on sentiment. I like it, sure, but you can’t live on weepy-eyed pessimism – you need something with strength and vibrancy at least now and then.

So I practice vibrancy in the sketches. Imagining the click-click of my keys as the scratching of a feather pen and the sharp return of the space bar as the report of a type-writer. One day I will be able to work words out of iron and harness a star to shine amongst my thoughts, but until then I send these sketches out to the world like little paper lantern-wishes. May they each shine brightly in the dark, little as they are.

by Sixer

The Sight: a Sketch of Distinction


In front of my house is a step. The step goes down once, hesitates for a moment, and then joins the sidewalk proper. People walk up and down the sidewalk all day with their dogs and never look to the right or the left, but if they did happen to glance past the sidewalk’s edge they’d see a little strip of green, a little white picket fence and then, beyond that, the lake. The lake is amazing, having both reeds and a little peninsula to give it distinction from a mere water reservoir. The green banks slopping down to its edge, and the half circle of trees which form a backdrop for it, all add to its pastoral dignity. It is also populated by ducks and Baltimore Geese. Where these go when the lake freezes over I do not know, but the moment it thaws you can be sure they will be back again, paddling around in it. Now that the days are getting warmer I notice the ducks are not as active in the afternoon, but they’re still there in the mornings. The geese seem to have finally left for good, but then who can tell with geese.

The sight of geese and ducks no longer seems special enough to take pictures of, although they lend my house that quiet air of untouched country-side which, in the suburbs, is more precious than a thousand feather beds. But Wednesday the ducks were replaced by a more esteemed visitor. I almost missed it, walking down the sidewalk and not looking either left or right, but something always pulls my eye to the lake and there it was. Glorious, but unfortunately, not showing me its best side – and besides, my grouchy little camera was sulking that day and refusing its batteries. So  I sighed and moved on, wanting to share my excitement with someone but unable to.

But Friday morning, when I came out of my door, there it was again. A magnificent sight in such a humble little neighborhood as mine. I grabbed my camera, with it’s newly charged batteries, and snapped a quick picture. It came out like this:

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Undaunted, I adjusted a setting and snapped again. It came out fuzzier than the last time. I switched to manual and focused in~out.

Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuur.

Certain settings would let me see the unbelievable thing on the LCD screen in lurid detail, but try as I might whenever I pressed down to take the shot, the focus would shift and the whole photo would be gone – lost in a beautiful indistinctness. After ten minutes the camera grudgingly gave the photo below, and though at first I thought it was just as bad as all the others,  now I don’t know but I rather like it. After all, it captures the surreality of the moment, the hazy aura of imperial pomp. The more I think of it the more it makes sense on an artistic level. Of course something this majestic  would be undefinable, and an exact representation of the moment could only be conveyed by admitting that that very representation was unattainable. And so I present to you a sight so rare even cameras tremble, The Emperor of Fowl:

As Unattainable as Perfection

by Sixer

Better than a shooting star

A Gaggle of Arugula

Sprouts are up in my garden! Only a few, out of dozens, but oh! Just seeing these little bits of green gets me all excited. I had given up hope, and then one small plant (I think arugula) sent up it’s tiny first leaves.

Then it snowed.

But when the snow melted, there were the leaves still fresh and green. And the next day they was joined by five or six of their closest friends. I planted Sweet Peas and Nigella in the same half-barrell as the arugula, but so far all the sprouts seem to be spinach-y. I’m happy with just this though, so happy that when I discovered these I nearly flipped:

A Crest of Cress . .. or s it a sample of cilantro?

And that’s why you have pictures today. They’re sprouts in the bottom-most pot of my herb tree! The sad part is I really can’t remember which these are. Cress? Cilantro? Mustard greens? I kept playing with the order, and now I don’t know what I finally settled on. I’m pretty sure it’s not the mustard greens but I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer before we find out exactly. Just another mystery added to the already inexplicable magic of gardening.

I was taking these pictures with my grouchy little camera and it shut off after only five shots, which is probably why I managed to make it to work on time. But taking these photos I discovered another sprout, this one in the pot number two. And this morning I finally braved my indoor seeds (which have been giving me a pretty cold shoulder) and found two nigella sprouts. It’s funny how elated I feel over such a little bit of green amongst the cocoa-coloured brown. These plant-lings are like stars, both visually and symbolically. Little bright reminders that something is at work, that life is happening, that quiet triumphs occur everyday, even if no one is noticing. They make me excited for warmer weather and the new discoveries implied therein.  

by Sixer

Voices of Spring

I cannot hold them in any longer. I must put them down by pushing down on plastic keys to let them spill out, tumbling across the page on a carpet of red dots, like the tender toes of carelessly happy children prancing across the hot summer sands.

See what I mean? I have been going on like that, inside my head, for days now and it simply has to stop. One cannot think so convolutedly, as if their brain was awash in commas and dashes and every side an aside. That is, one can, I have at least, but one ought not to if they can help it. All I need to do, I think, is tell you about the first voices, and then maybe they will stop possessing me with their elegent and heavy prosery and leave me to return to thoughts more appropiate for plodding along in contentment. What were the first voices? They were what I heard Monday night, what I heard right before bed and in bed and doubtless all through my dreams, like a soundtrack on endless loop. I do not think the crickets were out in full force when I left for Gerogia on Thursday, but they were singing like the world had no beginning Monday evening. I can hardely belive that the sound I heard that evening was made from a tiny thing like a cricket. Even accounting for the echo on the lake, they’d have to at least be camel crickets before I could take you seriously. If you were to explain that the sound was made by a fwooper or Gullinkambi I wouldn’t even blink. “Oh, that’s what it is?” I’d say, and think myself a dunce for having to ask. But crickets? How could they make such a loud, deep, almost monotons mass of undulating sound, penetrated only by the rough bass of two or three rythmiclly inclined frogs? I think we have become too trusting, to believe that of a few spiney hind legs and the general silence of night.

So yes, since Monday night I have been a little insane. Of course, I did spend all of Monday making kimchi (and I have pictures, so you will be hearing of it soon). Wednesday I relaxed a little and rolled an old Jack Daniels half-barrell into what counts as my front lawn. I filled it with dirt and scattered in some seeds. Then I dug out one of the really sad azalea bushes that came with my house and planted my pots into the ground instead. The effect is much lovelier, but now that I’ve seen how rocky and full of clay the soil they had to put up with is, I feel sorry for being so mean spirited toward the azaleas.

The pot stacking went well, but the structure is rather wobbly. There’s a bit too much of the iron bar showing, and I’m unsure if I should ignore it or buy another pot. Of course, bribing an nice, slightly taller and stronger perons to pound the bar another three inches into the ground would fix both problems, but I feel I have very good reason to be cautious about driving iron into this ground. I live in a condo, and there are all kinds of mysterious boxes right behind my pot tree, boxes with cords undoubtably running under the very spot I’ve placed my creation. Any how, the pots have survived one night, though someone’s wind chime was going off last evening, sounding exactly like the tinkle of shattering pottery. I dreamt I opened my door and all the pots were scattered around the pole in shards. “Oh well,” I shrugged. “I kind of saw that coming.” I didn’t realize this was a dream until I’d been awake for about an hour, and it really didn’t seem important enough to get up from what I was doing and go check on them. Still, I was really pleased to find everything not broken and in shambles. Pleased enough to ruin all my previous attempts at blasé.

There. Silence. The crickets have worn themselves out. I‘ll add of picture of the pots in the morning if I can, until then good night!

Updated 3/28: Finally pictures!

Just the FactsDown the Rabbit Pole

by Sixer

In the Interim before March

I have photos for you, reader. Photos that I took especially for you about three or four weeks ago. Here’s the first one:

Bobbin Ring

Isn’t that grand, aren’t you happy I’ve finally put it up? It’s of one of my most miraculous Christmas presents ever, one made possible by my grandparents (thank you, thank you, thank you!). It’s a sewing machine. In a table. Straight from the mid-century.
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Made by singer, it’s part of the Golden Touch ‘N Sew line, model number 620. Whoever had this previously {{1}} [[1]] yes, I bought it at good will – I’ve actually seen two more since then, but none of them in as good of shape[[1]] took their ownership seriously and not only greased the gears to within an inch of their life, but also carved their SSN into the machine’s bottom.

I’ll let you ponder that a moment.{{2}} [[2]] . . . If it helps any, they carved “US consulate” above it and “NPSmith” below. It still seems a little extreme.[[2]]

When I took these pictures I also took the time to oil all the moving parts because, let’s be honest, the moving parts are the best thing about this machine. The only place I couldn’t get into was the bottom. The plastic cover for it is badly buckled, and three of the four screws are completely stripped. That being said, the rest of the innards were amazing to behold. I love seeing the metal all shiny and purposeful!

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So, how does this thing actually preform? It works real nicely for straight stitching. I got it to zig-zag for a bit too, but then I adjusted something and now I can’t figure out how to get it to zig-zag again. The lightbulb holder was a little black when I got it, and I managed to finish melting it out after my first test run with the machine. Hot bulbs in plastic casings seem like a easily foreseeable issue, but maybe age is more to blame than engineering.
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The machine came with the original manual and almost all of the accessories, tucked tidily away in the bottom drawer of it’s table.  For this model that includes special fashion discs for making pretty stitches, however as of yet I haven’t been able to get these to work either. This is probably because I haven’t spent that much time trying, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something was a little out of place inside.

Anyway, isn’t she just brimming with potential? I foresee lot’s of adventures ahead, Lady-Kin – welcome to the family!

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