Monthly Archives: December 2017

Dad handed me a golf ball and his hunting knife.
Said to hold it firmly, cut quite carefully,
A little at a time, and I’d see something surprising.
As I cut, the tight and hard skin started separating.
Beneath it was enticement.
Brown bands bound with such tension
That, when cut, their explosive force
Pushed the skin apart more rapidly,
All the insides wanting out.
One more cut, and ah!
With the pling pling pling of the breaking bands,
Off came the hard white shell,
And I was showered with strips of brown rubber.
Still there was more, and I cut further,
Laughing as the lively bits spat all over.
At last, I saw a black grape sized ball beneath.
Was this the end of fascination, and what should I do
With this spongy thing?
Dad said “Keep cutting, unless you want to bounce it for awhile.”
Too curious for that, I chose the cutting.
Inside of the black grape was the final fluid,
The lifeblood.
Green syrup seeped.
Crestfallen.

In a different season, one Christmas, unasked for,
Was a present I was told to leave until last.
Dad had gotten it.  I knew by his wrapping.
He’d always use the same paper, no ribbons or bows.
He had thought to go the hobby shop and bring it home:
A miniature steam driven power plant.
You had to fill the boiler with water,
Then place tiny white blocks of fuel in the burner underneath.
Light with a match, wait until the steam started simmering,
Then tweak the big flywheel, and Magic!
A piston slowly started pushing, but, ah, it stopped.
Wait for more violent steam, and a whistle blew!
You tweaked the wheel once more, and it went and it went.
It was a moment between us, and I’m sure my young eyes
Must have brightened for him then.

More than five decades have gone.
Him along with them.

The tiny white fuel blocks had a name stamped upon them.
“ESBIT”
If you have never seen Citizen Kane, look up this old film.
Then you will understand that ESBIT was my Rosebud.

Awkwardness, embarrassment, and ridicule are some of the things that natural daydreamers must live with, and more so if they talk too much.

Some of the most permanent and recurring etchings in my own psyche must be due, I think, to happy chemical accidents within the cerebral cortex.  I’ll second guess you now by saying that I did grow up in the 1960’s, and, yes, I did experiment with some questionable substances for a short while.  May or may not have had a lasting effect on said area of the brain.

Inspiration for this little essay came from recent scientific articles about new discoveries, and from my overactive daydreamer’s imagination.  My triumphs and my tragedies have, most times, resulted from absorbing the world in an emotional, empathic, and imaginative way and then communicating it back, in the same manner.  Practicality was not my strong suit, but I was bright enough in that area to make a living.

These episodes of the dreamer’s lucidity come to me higgly-piggly, sometimes unwanted and inconvenient.  There are others, though, that I struggle to express the effect of, and can say only that they may be of wide welcoming vistas, singularly comforting and reassuring emotions, strong senses of deja vu, or short spiritual experiences of joy.  I have learned to hold these very closely and secretly, especially after being effectively told that I was a seer of “Ice cream castles in the air”.  Certainly, some of the lyrics of this song (“Both Sides Now”) by Joni Mitchell are a dead ringer for my feelings.

The human mind, from the caveman to the great philosophers, musicians, artists, and geniuses like Einstein, surely is a wonderful piece of work.  I imagine that its potential is unlimited, and that whatever we can imagine will one day be.  As in this song:

“Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.  The future’s not ours to see.  Que sera, sera.” *

*By Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

Image credit to:  http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/sep/13/physicists-in-tune-with-neurons