I slept with my first beetle at age eight. Ours was a casual affair; two souls finding refuge on my grandmother’s pull-out sofa. But, as with many relationships, what began as a simple nocturnal arrangement between insect and boy soon became a complicated and crowded tempestuous two week ordeal.
I read somewhere (maybe In Style Magazine) that the meek shall inherit the earth. I don’t recall if this statement was intended as a proclamation or as a suggestion, but I do know that the meek may want to consider the tax implications of such an inheritance before they blindly accept this gift. At the very least, they’d need to sell off most of Europe and Asia to pay the federal government (I’m pretty sure the land bank would want a piece of the action, so maybe Canada should be liquidated too).
Night falls on Chappy. With it, falls rain. A mother and child run over the grate of the ferry landing, hopping puddles to the parking lot, where their car beeps a welcome unlocking. A captain waves goodbye and hopes for more CNN and less SUV. Mostly though, we are indoors now. We are stirring sauces. We are cleaning lint filters. We are watching the flames behind wood stove doors. We are working. We are playing. We are resting. We are, as we will be more and more, inside.
I’ve noticed lately how green nature is — it uses everything it makes. A leaf feeds the soil, a mouse feeds a crow, a sun feeds the plant. I wonder if there’s a lesson to be learned. Somebody should give nature an award or something — make sure it feels recognized.
Chappy doesn’t ask a lot from us. Just stay out of her poison ivy and ticks, and we’re good. But she gives a lot in return. More than one soul has been healed on a cool summer night, the stars, the owls, the salt breeze working in concert to soothe the senses.
If Chappy were to become a state — and I think that the subjunctive case is proper here as Chappy has yet to achieve statehood — then I believe it would be neither a red nor a blue state. No, I believe it would be more of a seagull gray. And the state would vote accordingly.
I’ve been wondering what the character of our Chappy is. I hear much about it being lost, but it would be a help if I knew what I was looking for, in order to find it. Maybe, as my housemate Bob suggests, one could find some answers in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Or Character Lost.
Kim lost her sash Friday night somewhere between the Chappy Ferry and Alchemy. Okay people, settle down! We’ll never find her sash if we panic! Let’s all take a deep breath. There. Okay, the sash is a deep gray satin, and comes to the name “Sashy.” If found, please call the number at the top of the column.
