dual personalities

Another week of breathless routine began with church, followed by a lovely afternoon in the woods.  The DH, son #2 and I spent a couple of hours pulling weeds and chopping wood at the camp.

He’s a lumberjack and he’s okay

While they did manly things,  I wrestled with  a nasty vine reminiscent of the one from Jumanji and this Kudzu covered house in Georgia.

Yes, that’s a house. I remember when Honeysuckle took over our back yard when I was growing up, but this is ridiculous. In any case, I did enough hard work to feel pleasantly stiff afterwards and we all enjoyed the fresh air.

It was late afternoon when I took this picture, hence the road was in shadow and the beaver pond still in sunlight. The sky was a gorgeous blue (the color of the water), but appears washed out in these pics. A beaver had been busy tidying the dam in the pond. Didn’t he do a good job? Unfortunately, because the pond abuts the road, trappers come as soon as they notice the presence of a beaver and that, as they say, is that. 

I have nothing else to show for the week, which, as usual, raced by in a blur of classes, meetings, grading, and reading. It was not unpleasant; just too hectic to enjoy properly. Even the dinner I had out with a friend on Thursday evening was rushed, as office hours kept me away ’til six and she had choir practice at 7. Busy as we all are, it is important to find little breathers during the week. Right now, in my first year class, we are reading James Welch’s Winter in the Blood, which takes place on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana (yes, nowadays they make Blackfoot plural). It’s  a sad, strange book, but the landscape — oh, my — I could live there, couldn’t you?

found at tripadvisor.com

Between working Sundays in the woods (when I can get them), I refresh my spirit with beautiful things — anything from photos of landscapes like the one above, to descriptions of imagined places like Fuchia’s attic in Gormenghast or one of Byron’s poems.  As much as there is “pleasure in the pathless woods” and the things we love, there is stress release. Have a great, stress-free weekend!

*Byron, “Childe Harold”, Canto iv, Verse 178

Recently, I found out about a wonderful group of Swedish scientists who, over the course of 17 years, took the trouble to insert Bob Dylan lyrics into  their academic papers. They didn’t get together and start doing this on purpose; first a pair of them did it in a joint paper and then they noticed others doing it too. Eventually, they decided to make it a competition to see who could include the most Bob Dylan references in papers before retirement. The catch is that the Dylan reference has to be relevant to the content of the article, and given that these guy are scientists, that’s no mean feat. For example, one titled a paper on whether blood cells can transform into nerve cells “Blood on the Tracks: a simple twist of fate” and another ended an article with “we know something’s happening, but we don’t know what it is.”

source: http://ki.se/en/news/here-comes-the-story-of-the-dylan-fans

This story reminded me that when I was in college, friends and I sometimes had whole conversations in song lyrics (yes, Joni Mitchell or Neil Young — go ahead and laugh). What can I say? It was amusing. I’m sure that the Swedish scientists find it amusing to refer to Bob Dylan, whom they revere. But isn’t that what makes all the reading and listening we do especially worthwhile? Being able to quote and make oblique references is not only satisfying, but it exercises our brains and helps us learn. Now I sound like a teacher, but this is what my students don’t get. I think I’ll tell them about the Dylan-loving scientists. Maybe they can relate. I know I do.

Perhaps I’ll take up the challenge, not with Dylan, but with, say, Mark Knopfler or the Tragically Hip. The possibilities are endless. Although it might be hard to use “Locked in the Trunk of a Car” in a paper on the Neo-Assyrians, “Yawning or Snarling” and “Brothers in Arms” have decided potential.  Who would you sneak into your writing?