I’m sitting in bed at my Aunt’s senior condo in Corryton, Tennessee. Linda and Stewart picked me up at the McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville last night. When I got to the condo I unpacked and for the first time switched to the small room with the double-bed instead of staying in the master bedroom with the king-sized one. I’m not sure why I didn’t do this before. There is too much real estate on that big bed. If I end up in the middle and wake up thirsty I can’t reach a glass of water on the night stand. It’s like being parched in the middle of a desert. If I want to check the time on my phone, I might as well commit to getting up and making a cup of tea as swimming to the other side’s night stand.
On the drive, Aunt Linda told me, “the place is exactly as you left it.” That’s true except for the little piles of desiccated bugs in numerous spots along the laminated hard wood floor, around the front and back door, and under the kitchen cabinets. The bugs are attached in strings of spider webs like buoys. Pull on one and all the others come trailing along. Each pile is the domain of a single spider no bigger than my thumbnail. Some piles are abandoned and others still have the resident arachnid moving quickly (or in some cases slowly) to escape the raft of buoys swept into the dustpan.
The bugs appear to be Armadillidiidae (aka roly polies) that have had all the fluid sucked from them and crunch under the foot like tiny, dark, round croutons. I wonder how this many roly polies make their way into the house? I never see a live one inside when I’m here. Do the spiders put on tuxedos and invite them in with a big smile saying, “Come into my parlor?”
Beneath the pile of corpses are lots of tiny white dots that appear like flicks of correction fluid. To the touch they feels like hardened paint. The first time I encountered them I got out a putty knife to scrape them up. That was before I discovered they’re water soluble. They disappear instantly with a damp rag. Is this spider shit? Sometimes smears of light red are mixed in. I suppose this is the blood of the prey.
I unpacked my suitcase into the empty dresser and relocated a bookcase across the room to access a plug behind it. There are plenty of plugs in this room but this one suits my computer best. It seems that in their effort to make computers lighter and promote the cloud-world Apple is trying to get rid of holes on its machines. Mine has two of the same kind, both on the left side so if I can find a plug over there it makes for a more seamless, wired experience. All the better if I can also exit my bed from the right.
Today I will go out to my land and ponder the small efforts I can make toward a more seamless experience there which means a walk in the woods without spider webs in the face or ticks questing at the tips of leaves in hopes of attaching to my clothes. That means hacking away at the jungle to keep it at bay.
Eventually the seamlessness might encompass a cabin door with barely a sill to sweep my foot over, a fire place with logs piled up and kindling crosshatched beneath a grate awaiting a match, a full bookshelf illuminated by a lit lantern, a comfortable reading chair, a nice loft bed.
For now, it’s enough to dream of these little things, to go out to the woods and play, moving ever so slightly in that direction.
I’m happy to report some progress. My driveway permit was approved last week and the county installed the required double-walled culvert pipe that I purchased over the phone from the local Farmer’s Coop. The permit for a driveway is the only thing I needed approval for and once the county approves it they are the only ones who can install any required drainage–and every driveway needs drainage. You are at the counties’ mercy for this one thing and it won’t happen without them. I could build a 16 room “cabin” and they wouldn’t care. They don’t care about building codes or sewage or burning piles of trash. It’s all about making sure that water doesn’t pile up on the road.
After putting in the permit many moons ago I was loosing patience. A week before the end of school I called the highway commissioner’s office and spoke to the secretary there for about the fifth time.
“They’ve been so busy with these downed trees. That’s all they’ve had time to do lately,” she explained in a wonderful sing-song voice.
The slow way she said downed trees I could almost see them falling.
“Yes, but it’s been two years since I put in my permit application and I just want to know what is going on and if there is something I need to do to make this happen.”
I told her I don’t have any place to park on the land and how I need a place to unload things and how I’m going to be building a cabin, etc, etc.
She found my application. I heard her shuffling through papers.
“Here it is sitting right on the desk,” she said.
I told her that I would be calling every day until I found out about the progress of my application.
“Well you go right ahead and call sweetie. We don’t mind talking to you.”
Jillian who’d overheard my conversation from the other room congratulated me on not loosing my cool. And then I didn’t for the next two days when I kept calling.
My appeal won out. The secretary mentioned a worker in charge of putting in the drains and he called me for better directions to find my proposed driveway. I was at work and almost didn’t answer. The caller ID said Morristown, TN and I hadn’t known anybody there since I was in a British bedroom farce in that town after my stint at trying to open a restaurant with my mamma almost 30 years ago.
I didn’t hear from him for another week so I texted him last Thursday and instantly got back a message that said, “Installing as we speak”. I leapt for joy.
Then this picture came through after his crew finished putting in the pipe:
Was it time or persistence or kindness that got the job done? I think the best answer is yes.
All’s swell that ends swell.
Spotty West Goes East 