Dean at Home: The Pandemic Blog

Buried Treasure  Today smelled like an old photo album,  the one with the glue pages,  the cellophane sheets that peeled apart like lightning.  Today also smelled like cigarette smoke  and someone else’s sweat.  When I walked,  it felt as if water was seeping into my shoe,  the rain at once falling and not falling,  raining and not raining.  I wanted to call you,  but I did not have your telephone number.  I wanted to thank you,  because sometimes we just want to be held.  Everything is a mirage you said,  and I agreed  except by then  everything had faded and I could only see people,  their arms,  their legs,  no faces.  They say all smells are memories,  that every scent evokes the lived experience of other scents  and there is no such thing as a disembodied smell.  We remember with our noses,  I might have said.  And if I had,  you would just stare an...

Joy One chicken is Houdini,  always breaking free,  turning the leaves by the asparagus patch,  inspecting the mulch at the foot of the pear tree.  Always the showman,  the showgirl,  the show lady,  the show off,  she comes running,  or paces the length of fence waiting to be let back in  so she can run to the feed can and eat like  she has been holding her breath since morning.  She runs with excitement  and a little joy.  She can’t help herself,  or I can’t help anthropomorphizing her little dance,  like the world is too hot to stand two feet on.  I once possessed such joy.  Perhaps we all did.  Imagine returning to that joy,  a running dancing for joy kind of joy.

Silent Sonnet #1 A curious fox,  a busy rabbit,  a whole field of deer looking warily in my direction.

Rendered Every day,  the grocery store poet said to me.  Every day I write my list of things to cross off.  Every day,  said the car mechanic poet.  Every day I shape letters out of oil stains on concrete,  on coveralls,  on receipts for services rendered.  Every day,  the dog walker poet said to me.  Every day I pick up shit in my bare hands.  I looked at her with sad eyes.  The day was wilting slowly,  like it was uncertain of the time.  I could smell someone smoking a cigarette  out behind the cafeteria.  A large military cargo plane pushed its way  through a slow sky.  But I,  said the dog walking poet,  was the first one to hear the peepers.  I could taste the air like a worm tastes the earth.  Place it on me, the dog walking poet said.  And I placed the fanged spider upon her curled pate.  You could do worse than writing poems about dog excrement,  she said....

The Joy of Carrots  I wonder when I first had pistachios. I do not think they were common things in my childhood, not like the ubiquity they enjoy in today’s grocery store. Back then they were as uncommon as avocados, or pomegranates. And they were dyed red. After eating a bowl full of pistachios your fingers and lips would be stained red with flavor. Something changed, and suddenly there was pistachio ice cream, pistachios crumbled and sprinkled on cake frosting, pistachios rolled into croissants. Now I come home and eat them like raisins, no more red dye, and for as long as the sleeve of nuts last, they become a part of my daily sustenance. There was a time, when I was working as a guitar builder and helping my mentor teach a class on guitar building. His class was pretty expansive and drew students from across the country. Some were looking to start a new career, but most wanted to own an instrument they created with their own hands, and some were mainly purchasing a unique expe...

Sukiyaki I always enjoyed the idea of cooking. In high school, I took all the levels of chef’s class. I met my freshman year girlfriend in chef’s class. Maria was proud of making spaghetti sauce from scratch, which I didn’t really fathom, but she was Italian, and I imagine had a much more authentic and pure vision of what spaghetti sauce should taste like. I didn’t make red sauce from scratch, but I emulated my father and cut up lots of vegetables, whatever was in the refrigerator, stir fried them, then mixed them into a jar of whatever red sauce was handy, and seasoned with pepper and slices of cheese. When chef’s class made pancakes, I went rogue and made the crepes my father made and what I grew up eating, but I have since learned they are not really crepes at all, but some interpretation of crepes that some people find disappointing, much like I imagine Maria would have felt about my spaghetti sauce. But I didn’t know better then, and made a big show of not following directions, an...

Every Day Changes I went on two long walks today, dropping off my car at the tire store before work, and walking across town to my office, and then returning on my lunch break to pick it back up. This morning was chilly and drizzly. Not enough to open my umbrella that I carried, but cold enough that I wore my hat and gloves. This afternoon, it was edging towards the 60 degree day it was to become. Students were out on the lawns and buds were incipient promises on the ends of branches.  I have always enjoyed walking, not with the passion of a dedicated hiker, but as one who allows the momentum of a moment to propel one forward. I’ve walked across cities, hiked across countrysides, and yet walking in rural Massachusetts happens less than one might expect. That is why, I don’t really mind my distant parking lot, particularly now that the days are not so cold. My parking lot at work is far enough that my watch thinks I am engaging in an exercise routine. I park at the top of a steep hi...

Where the Rubber Meets the Road Sometimes the universe sends a little twist that makes one question humanity in a way that subsequently makes every individual suspect. One seemingly kind mechanic who offers to do a favor, like fasten down a loose heat shield, but then tries to say the brakes need to be redone and the tires need to be replaced in a few months, when I know full well that I had the brakes done in December… and the tires, I’m not sure, but they don’t seem old enough for a change. So I drive off without commitment, the heat shield still rattling, and have to spend another half day at a different mechanic waiting to get my brakes checked and confirmed as ok, and the tires confirmed as ok, and heat shield just removed… and then my left front tire starts leaking air. A third mechanic shows how the tread is worn thin on the inside edge. There’s nothing to be done he says, and wants to sell me a set of tires I’ve never heard of before.  It is exhausting going through the wor...