Emerson, Fertilizer and the Broth of Shoes
Ok. So I snuck off from work that afternoon. Lord knows I have the comp time up the wazzoo.
It was the idyllic perfect fall day. Brilliant sunshine. Cobalt blue sky. Just the tiniest hint of a nip in the air.
I went to Eisenhower State Park on the shores of Lake Texoma in Texas.
There I found a secluded picnic table where I could see through the dappled fall leaves to the royal blue waters. The sailboat would peak out from between the leaves as it gently moved across the vista of bliss.
As I sat there and listened, it was a cacophony of subtlety. The drone of some carbon guzzling contrivance . . . maybe power boat, maybe air plane. Too far away, too constant to tell. The squeals of children’s play from a playground over yonder. Two little birds, sassing each other out. But that rustle. The crinkled rustling of a micro-squall of wind herding along a horde of dehydrated disheveled leaves.
But to my purpose.
To read Emerson. Yes, that Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Another one of his essays.
This time it was the one he delivered to Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, on August 31, 1837. The American Scholar.
It was addressed to “Mr. President and Gentlemen.” Guess not to many lady scholars in Cambridge that night.
More gentle wind. More dappled leaves. More bird squawking. More children’s play.
And then, Emerson just said it. “That the first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature.”
Later, I would find that the next great influence into the spirit of the scholar “is the mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed.” But books are the best.
For now, with me at least, in that moment, nature was winning.
How can Nature not win? It was and is written by the finger of God.
And nature was awesome at this secluded table in a deciduous forest.
I could hear them coming.
There was a pathway just below the picnic table. Their chatter. Not recognizable. And then as they came into view, I knew why. Chinese. Father and two little boys and a little girl. All the same size. Maybe triplets. And as they past from view, I heard the ruckus. Somebody fell. Somebody was hurt. What they say in Chinese I don’t know. But nature’s inviolate rules of physics maintained their integrity when a little foot must have tripped on an exposed root. Soon, their dignity returned.
More words from Emerson: “When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings.” In so many words, save the books for when you have to use a candle for light.
And so, some quiet time for me of just listening.
Reading with the ears.
Nature’s transcripts.
Not Emerson’s.
And then the dang thing rang.
My cell phone.
My heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was a call that I was anticipating. But looking at the screen, it was Michelle, my daughter.
And so for the next hour, the business talk. Oh, we have lots to commiserate about with our business. Same occupation. Same employer. And the family talk. The non-plans for Christmas. The birthdays in the next weeks. The weather. And then politics. Libertarian daughter pitted against socialist father. Healthcare. Emergency rooms . . . the primary care physician for the non-insured.
And the conversation twisted to my remarking that it has been years and years since I ever went to an emergency room. It was when I had my scalp split open.
And she started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
I didn’t think she remembered, so I had to tell her. The time the dang fertilizer spreader fell off the hook in the garage and clouted me in the head, nearly knocking me out, and ripping a blood-gusher of a hole in my scalp.
Oh, did she remember.
She had been in the house and heard the reverberation of thunder emitting from the garage.
Clatter. And then “GOD!! DAMN!!”
By the time she dropped everything, she found me sitting on the front steps, ashen, with blood running everywhere.
And now she laughed some more. “GOD!! DAMN!!”
The picture was fixated in her mind!
Her father with a cracked crown. “GOD!! DAMN!!”
As she was laughing, I realized just how unflattered I must have been. And so, I too, started to laugh.
And at some point, one of us hit the “Call End” button.
Then back to Emerson. The third thing Emerson said about scholars is that there is some notion that a scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian.
I hesitate to even look up what a “valetudinarian” is. But Emerson did say, just before he said that, that “We all know, that as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge.”
Somehow, my idyllic day in nature, boiled-grass-and-shoe-broth-purgative be damned, did a little something to keep me from being a valetudinarian . . . whatever the hell that is. Must have really worked. ‘Cause it was an awesome day.
The Refectory Manager
It was the idyllic perfect fall day. Brilliant sunshine. Cobalt blue sky. Just the tiniest hint of a nip in the air.
I went to Eisenhower State Park on the shores of Lake Texoma in Texas.
There I found a secluded picnic table where I could see through the dappled fall leaves to the royal blue waters. The sailboat would peak out from between the leaves as it gently moved across the vista of bliss.
As I sat there and listened, it was a cacophony of subtlety. The drone of some carbon guzzling contrivance . . . maybe power boat, maybe air plane. Too far away, too constant to tell. The squeals of children’s play from a playground over yonder. Two little birds, sassing each other out. But that rustle. The crinkled rustling of a micro-squall of wind herding along a horde of dehydrated disheveled leaves.
But to my purpose.
To read Emerson. Yes, that Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Another one of his essays.
This time it was the one he delivered to Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, on August 31, 1837. The American Scholar.
It was addressed to “Mr. President and Gentlemen.” Guess not to many lady scholars in Cambridge that night.
More gentle wind. More dappled leaves. More bird squawking. More children’s play.
And then, Emerson just said it. “That the first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature.”
Later, I would find that the next great influence into the spirit of the scholar “is the mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed.” But books are the best.
For now, with me at least, in that moment, nature was winning.
How can Nature not win? It was and is written by the finger of God.
And nature was awesome at this secluded table in a deciduous forest.
I could hear them coming.
There was a pathway just below the picnic table. Their chatter. Not recognizable. And then as they came into view, I knew why. Chinese. Father and two little boys and a little girl. All the same size. Maybe triplets. And as they past from view, I heard the ruckus. Somebody fell. Somebody was hurt. What they say in Chinese I don’t know. But nature’s inviolate rules of physics maintained their integrity when a little foot must have tripped on an exposed root. Soon, their dignity returned.
More words from Emerson: “When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings.” In so many words, save the books for when you have to use a candle for light.
And so, some quiet time for me of just listening.
Reading with the ears.
Nature’s transcripts.
Not Emerson’s.
And then the dang thing rang.
My cell phone.
My heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was a call that I was anticipating. But looking at the screen, it was Michelle, my daughter.
And so for the next hour, the business talk. Oh, we have lots to commiserate about with our business. Same occupation. Same employer. And the family talk. The non-plans for Christmas. The birthdays in the next weeks. The weather. And then politics. Libertarian daughter pitted against socialist father. Healthcare. Emergency rooms . . . the primary care physician for the non-insured.
And the conversation twisted to my remarking that it has been years and years since I ever went to an emergency room. It was when I had my scalp split open.
And she started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
I didn’t think she remembered, so I had to tell her. The time the dang fertilizer spreader fell off the hook in the garage and clouted me in the head, nearly knocking me out, and ripping a blood-gusher of a hole in my scalp.
Oh, did she remember.
She had been in the house and heard the reverberation of thunder emitting from the garage.
Clatter. And then “GOD!! DAMN!!”
By the time she dropped everything, she found me sitting on the front steps, ashen, with blood running everywhere.
And now she laughed some more. “GOD!! DAMN!!”
The picture was fixated in her mind!
Her father with a cracked crown. “GOD!! DAMN!!”
As she was laughing, I realized just how unflattered I must have been. And so, I too, started to laugh.
And at some point, one of us hit the “Call End” button.
Then back to Emerson. The third thing Emerson said about scholars is that there is some notion that a scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian.
I hesitate to even look up what a “valetudinarian” is. But Emerson did say, just before he said that, that “We all know, that as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge.”
Somehow, my idyllic day in nature, boiled-grass-and-shoe-broth-purgative be damned, did a little something to keep me from being a valetudinarian . . . whatever the hell that is. Must have really worked. ‘Cause it was an awesome day.
The Refectory Manager
posted by The Refectory Manager | 10:13 PM
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