I walked out the back door this morning, which I can do, now that the big branch of the weeping cherry tree has been cut away. The upper section near the question-mark curve also had to be taken down, alas, but at least the part that holds my feeder is still intact. The workmen gingerly took the feeder down and put it in my study, where it promptly fell over and scattered millet and grapeseed and sunflower seeds all over the carpet. I had to crunch through a good bit of it to get out the door this morning, but I managed.

The weather has been cold for a few days, but it's been the kind of cold that feels like the cool edge of something warmer, rather than something cold in and of itself--it's the first splash of water as you jump into the swimming pool, rather than the penetrating chill of an ice bath. The sky this morning was a pleasant mix of pale milky clouds and patches of watery blue, and as soon as I walked out into it, sniffing the first vague hints of a season still only worthy of whispers (shhhh!pring), I heard them coming.

The honks of Canada geese are part of the landscape around here. Our campus has several small ponds where flocks of them congregate, but since the Rapidan River flows nearby, we'll see a larger skein of them flying overhead on the way to the river on a regular basis. I'll often hear them winging over the house at night, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, I'll come out as they're heading over and get a look at them.

This morning I saw them from my porch, just as the leaders came into visibility from the far side of the gym roof in a gigantic and horribly lopsided V. From where I stood, the right segment of the V was about three birds long, while the left side just kept growing. It was as if someone had sent an avalance of geese rolling down across the sky. The honking wouldn't stop. And then another V of geese appeared from over the field house.

I headed quickly out to my driveway to attempt a count. A hundred, easily. No, more like two. And all headed south. Their strings were starting to overlap, but I could see that this was one of the biggest single flocks I'd ever seen--and then I saw another smaller group winging in from over near the river. Two-fifty. The sight of the monstrous skein of southward-bound geese seemed to stagger them, and their formation wavered before it flew into the bigger group and was assimilated.

They were headed straight for the river, and I was still staring southward. And then I heard more honking behind me. I wheeled and spotted another skein, more regular in shape, cleaving through the sky in the wake of the squadron ahead of them. "Three hundred. Easy," I muttered to myself. And I felt just a little more certain, even though the birds weren't flying in the right direction, that spring is on its way.

I know they're becoming nuisance birds, and I'm sure they're creating havoc on a golf course somewhere near you, and for that I'm sincerely sorry. But any bird that can turn a Wednesday morning commute into something stirring is worthy of a tip of the hat. Branta canadensis, I salute you!
3:00 PM

.................................

LBJs


*I'm sick. I started feeling nauseated while driving back from yesterday's debate tournament, and when I got home I was feeling just about dead. I snagged a bottle of ginger ale from the vending machine, went home, and fell into bed with a thermometer in my mouth at 7:30. 101.5 degrees. I finally crawled back out of bed at 10:00 this morning. My stomach feels like I've been doing sit-ups all night, but at least I haven't vomited--there's always a silver lining. I've had a cup of Earl Grey, and now I'm making myself some chicken broth. I don't know that I'll be going to dinner tonight, though.

*The weeping cherry in our back yard took a hit from Thursday's ice storm. There are three big big curling branches that splay out from the main trunk at about five feet above the ground. One goes more or less straight up, and at about twenty feeg it suddenly flips over in a strange question-mark shaped curve. Another shoots up slightly to the right, then straightens out and begins branching. The last juts toward the house, curving up to about ten feet, then dipping back down a foot or two, then taking a sharp bend toward the left; this is the branch which holds up my bird feeder.

Unfortunately, the ice seems to have put serious cracks in the third branch, and did so right at the point where it makes the sharp bend. As a result, the end of the branch and all the smaller twigs attached to it are now drooping down onto our back porch. The main weight of the branch is still in the air, but the twigs are blocking the path from the back door to our driveway. I suspect the branch will have to be trimmed, probably right at the sharp bend. It'll be a shame to lose all those leaves in the spring. At least I don't think I'll have to move the feeder.

But I've also just noticed that the question mark curve in the main branch has now been decorated with a huge, naked crack. It's horizontal from where I sit, but that means it's running along the branch, and it extends for at least three feet. I don't think that would be a crippling blow to the tree, but I'm hardly an expert.

I love looking at ice storms, and have for decades. At night, I'm easily transfixed by the sight of a street light framed by the silvered outlines of every twig and leaf in sight. But the next morning, looking at the fallen branches, seeing the violence of splintered and twisted wood... it's easy to feel guilty, let's just say that.

*I just finished Tobias Wolff's new novel, Old School, and I'm very puzzled. I've admired Wolff since I first read This Boy's Life, one of the seminal books in the recent explosion of the memoir as a literary form. His later memoir, In Pharaoh's Army, was also excellent, and his books of short fiction (including The Barracks Thief and The Night in Question) are also wonderful. I knew, therefore, that I was likely to find the writing in Old School right up my alley. Moreover, since the book is set at a boys' boarding school with a strict honor code, I knew the subject matter would be something I could appreciate. And sure enough, I found it completely riveting. The narrator's voice is compelling, and the dilemmas he faces are described with honesty and beauty. It's a great ride.

That said, there are two things that bother me. One is the ending, a twenty-page section that works well on its own, but I'm not sure if it's the way to end the novel. For one thing, it seems only tangentially related to the main story, as it focuses on a minor character; as an interlude, it might work, but it's a peculiar finale. Moreover, it's not told in the first-person voice of the rest of the book. I'm not one who feels POV should remain fixed; in fact, I just finished Amanda Eyre Ward's wonderful Sleep Toward Heaven, which uses three points of view (third-person present, third-person past, first-person) to tell the stories of the three main characters, and the device works absolutely beautifully. In Old School, however, the book's strength is the (nameless) narrator's voice; you see what he sees and feel what he feels because he is telling you the story, and telling it in a way that is painfully true. At the end, though, he's telling a story about someone else. You don't exactly lose his voice, but you feel as though a veil has come down between you and the raw beauty of personal experience. It reads like a short story Wolff wrote and set in the same milieu as the novel, and that he wanted to include in the book to give it a bit more heft. I wish in some ways he'd left the book a bit more slight, but also perhaps a bit more potent.

The other thing that bothers me is that this is touted as Wolff's first novel. Certainly it's the first I've read, and the first since he came to prominence. Apparently, however, he did publish a novel in England back in 1975, titled Ugly Rumours. He's apparently disowned it, which is of course his prerogative as the writer. At the same time, I'm not sure Old School should be promoted as a debut novel, as even the experience of writing a bad novel must have contributed to making Old School as good as it is. And if it's up for awards as a debut novel, which I've heard it is, I've got even more concerns. The irony, of course, is that Old School deals with questions of honesty, authorship, and honor. It confronts the fact that literature's power to connect us to others' experiences can sometimes make us feel we have experienced what we have not. If the heat of good fiction can melt and deform truth in this way, however, shouldn't we be especially careful to handle such fiction with care? I for one am wondering whether Wolff shouldn't have put on a thick pair of non-fictional gloves before picking this book up to promote it.

But despite all that, it's one of the best novels I've read in the last year. Don't miss it.
9:37 AM

.................................