The sub heading is ‘As climate change dries out Europe, the Netherlands, a country long shaped by its overabundance of water, is suddenly confronting drought.’
According the article, and who am I to question the NYTs, “The Netherlands’ success at getting rid of excess water helped it become an agricultural powerhouse — the world’s No. 2 exporter of farm products after the United States. This year, though, drought and energy concerns caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine have prompted anguished debate about whether it is sustainable for the Netherlands to produce so many of its famous tulips, plus so much cheese, meat, fruits and vegetables.”
Growing up with a Dutch Heritage in West Michigan, I could verify several things in the article.
The story of the Netherlands’ centuries of struggle against water is written all over its boggy, low-lying landscape. Windmills pumped water out of sodden farmland and canals whisked it away. Dikes stopped more from flooding in.
Boy Howdy!
Working in all that boggy land, why do think we wore those wooden shoes!
Mr. Zhong interviewed a Dutch Farmer names Peter van Dijk, who grew, what else. blueberries!
Mr. Zhong also interviewed Gertjan Zwolsman, a policy adviser and researcher at Dunea, a drinking-water company who, in a comment about the bog land now garden spot of Europe as saying, “There is nothing natural about the Netherlands.”
Lastly, Mr. Zhong quotes Mr. van Dijk again, saying “Changing farmers’ minds can be delicate work, “Dutch people don’t like to be told what to do.”
heartsick with horror to endure infinite misunderstanding
Adapted from the short passage in the book, Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1929) that reads:
Lying darkly in his crib, washed, powdered, and fed, he thought quietly of many things before he dropped off to sleep – the interminable sleep that obliterated time for him, and that gave him a sense of having missed forever a day of sparkling life. At these moments, he was heartsick with weary horror as he thought of the discomfort, weakness, dumbness, the infinite misunderstanding he would have to endure before he gained even physical freedom.
Heartsick with weary horror.
Discomfort.
Weakness.
Dumbness.
The infinite misunderstanding.
From the pen of Mr. Wolfe (and the editing of Maxwell Perkins), these are the musings of an infant child in a crib.
An infant with all of life to look forward, or at least, look ahead, to an entire life filed with discomfort, weakness, AND dumbness.
The infinite misunderstanding that would have to be endured.
Only to get worse with time.
Only to get worse with age.
As Big Bill put it:
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. the way to dusty death. (Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5)
Still can hear the line from the book, “Shoeless Joe” that says: “I wish I had your passion … However misdirected it may be, it is still a passion. If I had my life to live over again, I’d take more chances. I’d want more passion in my life. Less fear and more passion, more risk. Even if you fail, you’ve still taken a risk.“
But more drawn to the line from the movie, Field of Dreams that states: “The man’s done enough. Leave him alone.“
just ‘not right’ you know? touch of the flu, a slight sprain a tad overwhelmed
I am not sure how bad a ‘touch’ of the flu is.
I am not sure how bad a ‘slight sprain’ is.
How much overwhelmed is a ‘tad overwhelmed’?
You got the flu or you don’t.
It’s sprained or it’s not.
If things get worse, are you more overwhelmed?
Then just ‘not right’ does seem to work.
It is not right.
It is not what I would choose.
Is it not all the way to being wrong, well, gee whiz.
Then I think of this line from Wobegon Days, by Garrison Keillor.
When I was a boy, if I came around looking glum and mopey, [my mom would say], “What’s the matter? Did the dog pee on your cinnamon toast?” and the thought of our old black mutt raising his hind leg in the pas de dog and peeing on toast made me giggle.
Well it might be just ‘not right’ but no dog climbed up on the table and peed on my toast.
And the picture does make you laugh.
And I don’t feel so fluish.
My ankle doesn’t hurt.
And I seem to hold off the incoming tide for a bit.
And I’ll go make some toast.
Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a family of 11 kids, we all had our days and we all had our favorite things to do.
My little brother Pete loved to have toast for a snack, morning, noon and night.
We could be watching TV and Pete was gone soon to return with a plate of two pieces of cinnamon toast.
It could be late at night.
Middle of the afternoon.
For some reason it was those moments when our family would return from being somewhere, anyway, the store, a family party, church or anything where we were all gone and we would pile out of the car in fall into the house and Pete would make a beeline for the bread box and the toaster that stick in my mind.
We all knew about his habit.
And we all knew when he made toast.
We all knew because Pete never ever, so far as I know and I will have to check with his kids, learned how to operate a toaster.
Or, Pete like burned toast.
For him, the smell of burning toast was the signal the toast was done.
I don’t know what you remember about your home as a kid but in the days before people started burning popcorn in a microwave, there was few household smells worse than burning toast.
I came to hate and still hate that smell.
I would see Pete get up with the ‘I need toast’ look in his eye and start feeling just ‘not right’ right then.
It made me sick though I am not sure if it was the smell or worrying that I would have to smell it the rest of the night.
And then Pete would get up and burn some more toast.
He would come back to the TV room with his plate of charcoal and I would ask him, why, why do have to burn it.
I think I even offered to make toast for him.
I can smell it to this day.
The next time I am feeling just ‘not right’ you know? A touch of the flu, a slight sprain or a tad overwhelmed, I am going to think of a dog coming in a peeing on Pete’s toast.
Not sure what good it will do but I bet it will sure make me feel better.
incongruous range of turmoil and misery and stupidity
These last weeks have made it difficult to write both haiku and essays about haiku.
I watch TV and its about the war we can’t do much about.
I pick up one book and suddenly I am back in the refugee crisis caused by the Spanish Civil War.
I pick up another device and without any indication of where I was going, I find myself in Carville, Mississippi and learning about a US minimum security prison that shares housing with the national leprosarium because all persons diagnosed with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) in the U.S. were required, by law, to be quarantined and treated there.
While at the same time, my job is to sell sunshine and beaches online.
Going mad, using both definitions of the word at the same time.
You bet it has been difficult to write both haiku and essays about haiku.
Good gracious, but what is wrong with me today?
What worked for me in the past was to get back to the roots of all this and focus on word usage in my reading.
I came across this line from the book, How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton,
I have been avoiding this book because no matter how I try I cannot get into Proust.
The legendary Civil War writer Shelby Foote loved Proust and claimed to read the complete In Search of Lost Time (all 9 or is it 10 or more volumes) at least 10 times.
But I cannot get it going so I did not want to know how Proust could Change my life.
Anyway I was paging thought the it and there was this:
However brilliant, however wise the work, it seems that the lives of artists can be relied upon to exhibit an extraordinary, incongruous range of turmoil, misery, and stupidity.
Now on usage, it is a wonder.
Not just turmoil, misery, and stupidity.
Not turmoil, misery, and stupidity that works together and builds on itself.
But incongruous turmoil, misery, and stupidity.
Incompatible turmoil, misery, and stupidity.
Turmoil that rejects the misery and the stupidity.
Misery that cannot relate to the stupidity and the turmoil.
Stupidity that cannot understand the turmoil or the misery.
All adding to one vile brew in my brain.
And not just incongruity in my turmoil, misery, and stupidity but extraordinary incongruity in my turmoil, misery and stupidty.
I think … I am … does not preclude us from morning prayer of thank you
Last night was Robert Burns Night.
According to Wikipedia, Burn’s Night is when Scots eat a Burn’s Night Supper or the traditional meal of haggis, neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes).
Never had haggis.
Maybe never will.
Does anyone know if sheeps stomach tastes like bacon?
Haggis is just one of those things I doubt I will ever grasp.
I think the secret of eating haggis must lie in the what renowned Chef Paul Bocuse said in an interview you can watch on YouTube.
Chef Paul was asked when being a chef was the most fun.
“1946, 1947,” Chef Paul said, “People ate anything!”
The post World War 2 era in France and the over all lack of food and those French cooking dishes that were created helped me understand much about French post-war cooking.
That, I think, the amount of available food in Scotland, might explain Haggis.
As they used to say about Chicago, Hog Butcher for the World, “We use everything but the squeal.”
I, as I said, cannot grasp haggis and I also, truth be told, cannot grasp the poetry of Robert Burns.
Alistair Cooke, in his book/show, America, when writing about the word skills of Abraham Lincoln said, “We know that he steeped himself in the subtleties of Shakespeare, the cadences of the Bible, and the hard humanity of Robert Burns.”
Because of this line in the show which I watched when I was 12, I felt I needed to steep myself in the hard humanity of Robert Burns.
I just can’t get there.
Not sure why.
Wikipedia states, “Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, the National Bard, Bard of Ayrshire, the Ploughman Poet and various other names and epithets, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide.“
One of his poems starts out:
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a pannic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I don’t see the roots of the Gettysburg Address here.
I remember reading about William Shirer (CBS Radio Commentator and author of “Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich“) that he could never, ever understand the attraction of James Joyce until he was at a bookshop in Dublin and happened to catch a reading of James Joyce BY James Joyce.
I may have the reverse affect here as whenever I try to read Robert Burns, I imagine the Michael Palin/Monty Python sketch of a scots poet send up of Burns and it is all over for me and Mr. Burns.
But listening to London Radio, I am made aware of Burn’s Night.
Which brings to mind the famous Selkirk Grace.
Some hae meat an canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit.
Which, in english, says:
Some have meat but cannot eat, some have none that want it; But we have meat and we can eat, So let the Lord be thanked.
And the last line, And sae the Lord be thankit, got me to thinking about giving thanks.
And thinking about giving thanks got me to thinking about this clip from the movie, St. Vincent.
Cannot watch this clip or even think of this clip, that I do not feel better.
I like the IT Crowd.
I like Moone Boy.
Chris O’Dowd, in this 90 second moment, does his best work from the movie St. Vincent.
The way he rolls with the classroom and maintains control reminds me so much of the way so many of my teachers rolled with me in class and still kept control.
I take my hat off to them and thank God for their presence in my life at that time.
God, Thank You.
For those teachers.
And for so much more.
Neither here nor there, but Katherine Parkinson’s (IT Crowd) jaw dropping performance in the movie, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society made my jaw drop.
No Haiku For You 