Sugaring

Today's free write was motivate by reading the sugary vocabulary of Sugaring (the process of harvesting maple sap and making maple syrup). I came across a blog while doing research after a tiktok brought up maple syrup.

Sugaring

I’d never been sugaring before and I’ve never gone since. Sugaring is what they call the process of collecting tree sap and working it into syrup for pancakes. I used it on my eggs, shoe string hash browns, sausage, bacon… Maple syrup was ketchup, but for breakfast. And ketchup was for breakfast also. My grandfather took me, when I was nine years old, to a maple tree patch only he and a few of his maple syrup club friends knew.

As a nine year old boy it disagreed with me when someone would engage with me for morality’s sake and nothing else. “Why don’t you ask Winslow to come along with you sugaring this year? I think he’d like it.” I heard Juanita, my grandmother say to Bill, my grandfather. He was five foot eleven inches if he could stand up straight, but he’d broken ribs from a tree that didn’t like being cut down, his back during a logging trip to Wyoming, also by a disgruntled tree, a hip on some stairs that surprisingly moved out from under him, and his brain during a stroke of genius. After living in wheelchairs, walkers, and canes, his personality arched like limbs too big for the trunk and now he was unforgivingly five foot seven.

“Yes, but would Bill like it?” I thought to myself and Bill’s silence was enough as he walked outside pretending to ignore Juanita.

A week later Bill was at my house with his baby blue 1966 Chevy pickup. The truck had also once been five foot eleven inches tall before it had run into a cow and cracked the fender, broke the steering column, and had a stroke. The back was loaded with all kinds of equipment I’d never seen before. My things were piled on top. Camping things. I had a pocket knife, a flashlight, one change of clothes, and wet wipes my mom insisted I take. She was never coy about where I was supposed to clean.

I’ve never been able to sleep in a car and learned to spend my time like a dog, head out the window. Not literally, of course, as my dad had made it clear that a bus could come by and take your head or arm or hand and leave it at the next stop and what would you do without your head or arm or hand? What an unbearable life that would be. I spent most of the ride thinking about everything without a head, and then without an arm, and then without a hand and decided that I’d practice by not using my left hand for the remainder of the trip.

We arrived at the Sugarbush where the trees were tapped and we spent most of the day carrying small buckets of sap and emptying them into a container Bill had brought. He would take it home for the boil where the sap was turned to breakfast syrup.

The next day we started early so we’d have time to drive home after more gathering. This time Bill suggested we split up to try and get more sap, “You won’t get lost, and it’ll be good if you use both hands today,” he said and assured me there wasn’t anything but squirrels here anyway. I walked down a path I’d examined the day before, as there were more flowers down that way.

Bill had given me a hammer and a few extra taps and told me to tap any trees without taps, but only if I couldn’t fit my arms around it. I didn’t know anything about tapping trees. I did know that most adults, like Bill, prefer it if you figure it out on your own.

I pulled my left, handless stump from my jacket pocket and waved it around. My hand was back again and I wondered about what I learned with only one hand for a day. I wondered if I’d forgotten how to use my left hand so I pulled the hammer out of my bag with my right hand and slowly handed it to my brand new left hand. It still worked like it did before and that was a relief. I wondered, and wandered, a long while because I was now lost. Bill had lied. Adults were good liars. I thought about all the times my mother had told me how grown up I was. So I lied to myself as well as any adult, “You’re not lost,” I said.

“Lost?” A voice asked through the trees. It was a sweet voice and it contained trees, animals, fungi, and light. “I haven’t met a lost person in a long time,” it said, “I was beginning to think that maybe I was… lost.”

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” they replied, “We are – a lot of things, we suppose.”

“Is there someone I can talk to who knows directions back to Bill and his truck?” I asked.

“There is a tree that knows a lot, just through there,” and as soon as they said there a bush leaned to the left while some tall grass shivered to the right and they were both green. I walked through the new path and saw a large tree with golden leaves and a knot the size of a door near the base of the trunk. The knot was in the shape of labia. My mother was never coy about where I was supposed to clean.

“Hello,” I said to the tree.

Through the knot and the leaves a voice answered, “Hey.”

“Do you know where Bill and his truck are?” I asked.

“Yeah,” The tree said.

“Could you tell me which way to go?”

“Inside here,” and the knot in the tree opened. I could see August Strindberg playing hide and seek with Walt Whitman. Strindberg couldn’t find Walt and was frustrated and magic was rising from them. I decided to get a better look at just what was going on here. I couldn’t see Bill or his truck. I took a step closer and put my head inside the knot. It was warm and cool. Humid. Flannery O’Connor and Charles Bukowski were laughing about something down to the left. Out of the corner of my eye (I didn’t want to look directly at it — observer effect) I noticed Alexandre Dumas and Aldo Tambellini were having a heated, but amiable, argument.

I pulled my head out of the knot and looked up to the leaves, “I don’t see Bill or his truck,” I said,

“I thought you were going to tell me which way to go.”

“I did.”

“Could you tell me which way to go in order to get back to Bill and his truck, then?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Just through there,” a branch pointed west.

“Great. Thanks!” I said and turned west.

“Where are you going?” The tree called out after I’d taken a few steps.

“Home,” I said.

“But that’s not the way to go…”

“Oh… um…” I stepped back to the knot. “In here, then?” I asked.

“Yeah,” the tree said, “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s the way you need to go. There are a lot of people in here you need to meet.”

I thought for a moment and remembered Bill and his five foot seven-nes, “I’m supposed to get sap, though…”

“Nah. Bill’s going to be fine.”

I put my hand on the edge of the knot and my hair fluttered with the gold leaves. I climbed in and the knot closed behind me.

Anyway, if you’re reading this, Bukowski left a while ago and was supposed to bring back absinthe for Strindberg but we haven’t seen him and Strindberg is sober. So if you come by Charles, please let him know.

The Burden Of My Soul

For my writing exercise today I used a random quote from The Home Book of Quotations: Classical & Modern. It resulted in an interesting dive into a fairly personal and dark part of my past. Religion is a difficult topic as some find it rewarding and others find it destructive. I don't know why it happens both ways. What I do know is that I worked very hard for many years to be as obedient and thorough with my beliefs as anyone could be and I spent most of cognitive and emotional strength to do so. I am glad that part of my life has ended and left me with shattered pieces to gather and rebuild into a stain glass window, beautiful and magical, all of my own.

The Burden of my Soul

Age after age the children give

Their lives that Herod may still live—

-Winifred M. Letts, The Children’s Ghosts

I was eight years old when the burden of my soul was placed onto my shoulders. I remember imagining a large sack full of mistakes. My bishop was sitting behind a large redwood desk – dense and full of confessions. On top of the desk was my sackcloth bag. It was full and moved a little whenever I looked at it. My bishop’s head sat right above the bag from my tiny vantage point. I was a child in a room alone with an adult and the nightmare on the desk.

He asked me questions that I knew the answers to because I was taught the answers. I got every question right. The bishop smiled and showed me all his teeth. The last question was about Jesus. I needed to accept him so that he could empty out my bag, and I could start fresh and clean and light. I liked the sound of that. I’d filled the bag. It was my responsibility to get rid of whatever was inside so that I could feel like everyone else. Right.

I looked at my bishop's teeth, each one had a smile of its own, “Yes,” I said. The top of the desk immediately opened up into an abyss. It pulled on my heart and I wanted to look inside. My bag was floating above the hole and the contents began shrieking. A low voice came from inside the desk.

“Who are you?” It asked and everything shook.

“My name is Winslow,” I said.

“You have come to pledge yourself to me?” It asked.

“Yes.” I said.

“And you would have me empty this bag for you?” It asked.

“Yes.” I said.

“It is very full. It will cost a lot.” It said.

“How much?” I asked. I watched my bishop’s eyes widen. His smiling teeth were now hiding behind trembling lips.

“Your soul,” it said. I was pulled up out of my chair and was now floating above the hole. The bag floated toward my face, sliding its drawstring, and opened itself.

Inside the bag was my soul. It was a beautiful and broken soul. We were together for a long moment. I could see in its eyes the big bang and I could hear David Bowie singing Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide in the distance.

“Are you okay?” I asked, and was suddenly transported to the Back to the Future movie set outside the school on the night of the Enchantment Under The Sea dance. I glided by lights, gaffers, sound equipment operators, a cameraman, people busy with costumes, and Robert Zemeckis.

“Action!” and a slate snapped. I watched quietly. George McFly had just punched Biff and saved Lorraine. He reached out his rickety but constant hand, and out of breath from an emotional growth spurt, asked, “Are you okay?”

I snapped back into the room floating above the desk. The bishop, disturbed, looked into the hole. “What was that?” He asked. The hole ignored him but shook.

“A temptation,” it said.

“I don’t think I need to make this deal,” I spat out.

“Don’t be stupid!” The bishop snapped.

“SILENCE,” came from what was probably the deepest part of the desk. “Will you give me your soul, your pain, your questions, and fall freely into my eternity?”

“No,” I said.

The desk trembled and a hand covered thick in tar and feathers came from inside the abyss, stretching up toward the bag. I grabbed it first, looked at my soul inside, winked, and pulled the drawstring closed. I knew now - this was mine. I snapped my fingers and the sackcloth became an old leather fanny pack with a broken zipper and a side release buckle. I cinched the strap and clicked the buckle behind my back and was immediately let go of whatever was holding me above the desk. My back bounced off the edge of the desk, and I fell to the floor just as the hand stretched toward me.

“What are you doing!” The bishop screamed.

“I can take care of this on my own,” I said calmly, patting my fanny pack. The hand had grabbed the edge of the hole in the desk and was lifting out the attached body. The entire body was naked and covered in the same tar and feathers I had seen on the hand. It dragged itself out of the hole and onto the floor where I had fallen. It was lying prostrate with its eyes and hands and head extending towards me.

“Please,” a weak voice scribbled. I stood and watched it breathe heavily. It was old and decayed under the tar and feathers. “Please,” it said again, “I will die…” The voice hissed out of hole in a bike tire.

“I will watch you die,” I said. And I watched it die. And the bishop watched it die.