v. lessons in leaves

Many discoveries in life are made by wandering aimlessly, and I
owe it to chance that I discovered the Blue Heron by such an accident. I was
taking a walk along the sea wall for my own peace of mind when I happened to look up and see a small, strange woman looking out at me. She was about four feet, twisted and broken looking, her forearms in stilts lifted her and she walked with her shoulders mostly, lilting to and fro.

Her name was Frances, she had red brown hair and bright blue eyes.
Inside the store she nurtured her children, bookshelves, individually
bought and so very different in shape and size, all organized how she
saw fit, owing to no one classification. She mothered over the place
behind thick glasses, being both kind and caustic, ordering people to
have a seat, clean up their mess, and keep asking questions. Frances
kept the coffee station well stocked and had a large section of
literary journals sent in from all over the world which I always
flipped through and never bought. It was a reader's store, and I was
instantly at home in the place.

Frances had lived in Small Wood all her life. I could not determine
her age, but she was roughly my mother's. She expected no pity or help
running the store and was happily married to an unsuccessful water
painter named Todd, who I'd met and chatted with at the video store once or twice.

One day, she produced a newsletter for me to read, titled "Egretta".
In it was contained a list of books and articles written by other
patrons of the store I had never met. Frances pointed out to me
a date and a time written on the back and explained to me that this
was the name of her reading club and that she wanted me to sit in on a
meeting.

Since football was done, I had far more free time on my hands, and I
really had no reason or excuse but to reluctantly agreed to stop in and see what this was all about.

Notes on the first meeting, a rundown of who is who and what was said;

Minutes of sorts, I arrived near seven-thirty in the Thursday evening.
It was dark and cold and wet outside, and I found the meager parking lot
of the B.H. filled to capacity by an old blue Datsun, a violet
Peugeot, a Plymouth minivan, and a wide Buick. I parked in front of a
neighbor's house, and made my way to the front door, which I discovered to
be locked with a note stating thus: "Come around back." I remembered
the back entrance from my beach walk, mostly all windows, and
rediscover it as such. I peeked inside and saw nothing, nobody, but the
door was open so I went inside. I heard voices coming from the store
room, which upon entering, is not so much a store room as a very well
furnished lounge and study area. The first person to break off
conversation and notice me is Charles, a man going grey and ripe
around the middle. He ushered me to a seat next to him, which I helped
myself to. He put a book in my lap, a very old leather-bound thing
with fine leafing and stitch work. "This was written by the founder of
the Boy Scouts, Lilly picked it up last year at a neighbor's garage
sale."

He pointed out the slightly worn exterior condition, the fine plate illustrations and
historical quality of the material to be found inside. It impressed
me, but didn't really interest me. I smiled and nodded along with his
evaluation.

A young woman poured me a cup of tea and introduced herself as
Imogene. She wore a faded comic book lettered t-shirt featuring an
ankh prominent, played with greasy black bangs, and pushed at a flowing boutique style
skirt that was opaque enough to not hide her legs.

Frances was talking with a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties,
wearing a pantsuit and expensive jewelry. They laughed and touched
shoulders, exchanged sly looks and shared history. When Charles
wrapped up his profound insight, she would reach out a hand to me and
say a name, "Lilly."

I asked a question, which was, "Are you two married?"

Imogene shifted uncomfortably, Lilly shook her head no, and Charles
said as much with a short series of dismissive coughs.

Charles, thoughts, comments, errata on;

Charles came to Small Wood sometime after his second divorce. He almost went to jail for having an affair with a student which would end his teaching career. He published a novel when he was thirty, a counter-culture sci-fi thing in which the main characters crossed into each other's lives deus ex machina, a breakdown in reality, one a drug user crashing down the fourth wall with the other, a programmer.The book was recieved with and was in truth due, no real acclaim. It was a generic rehash of most every plot out there, sublime in cliche. But reading it, I took away three truths.

Truth One: Charles was a firm believer. Give him an idea, however half-baked, and he'd gladly consider it. In fact moreover, he'd try to have you believe it, the longer he considered it.

Truth Two: Charles would never allow himself to be wrong. The world was an infinite kaliedoscope, according to him. Every word a reflection on the generous nature of our infinite realities. The way of the world was the fractal, the spiral staircase of logic and reason whereupon which nothing ever ended, where every opportunity was the birth of something new and beautiful.

Truth Three: Charles was absolutely certain he'd come to Small Wood for a reason. He knew, at the bottom of all he held dear, that he was here for a reason. That his role would be played here, that the answers the universe may never impart, were buried here.

Which brings me to the story of the metal detector.

Charles explained in great depth to whoever would listen, the absolute will of the universe. So much existed in this world to be discovered. Not merely the great and monumental like new planets, fuel sources, and philosophies of thought. More precisely what Charles was enamored with, the minutae, innerspace, microcosm. He turned inward, underneath, inside it all.

Charles had charts in his house, not of the large but the small. He didn't have a topographical map of Oregon so much as a corkboard tacked full of photos, clippings and post-it notes. A passion of his was scouring the coast with his metal detector, looking, not so much to find but as to connect with the same spirit of discovery as an olde world explorer, primitive mystic, baby child.

Returning to the machine he held in his hands on these journeys into the under in-between. It was radio shack era make and manufacture. Charles knew eveything about his machine. He studied how it worked, why it did what it did, and knew how to repair it on occasion. I am not concerned with transmit coils, induction balance, signal discrimination, or pulse induction. He would explain in detail the reason for being and then go on to where these manufacture choices would lead him.

The energy expenditure, the strength of the signal, all coming back to Charles at a particular point in time. He poured his faith into energy stored within battery cell, hoping to connect to the metallic resonance, some disturbance in sand or loose soil.

The machine to man. The man to the earth. He poured his fingers into it, pulled away the strata of nature's design, what it chose to conceal for however length of time.

What Charles found, what he had so desperately been searching for. Were almost always slag metal, coins of indeterminate make and origin. The sand not preserveing so much as stripping away humanity, returning buried treasure to the element it came from.

This Charles found beautiful, this was never his disappointment. He delighted in the discovery, the foreplay, the act of stripping away the pretext, of touching this virgin aspect.

Charles never expected to find a whole vehicle buried in the sand. It was near a riverbed, off the way of the roads and beaches. A 1969 Mercedes-Benz. Red, convertible top. Plates were not recovered with it and there were no serial numbers to speak of. Charles excavated the machine by himself over the course of a week, he'd rented a bungalowe nearby. The machine was in almost perfect working order. He gave it over to a mechanic, invested around two thousand into parts and labor.


He still had the car, he still persisted with his metal detector. He explained to me one evening, at a diner over hot coffee.

"The will of the thing. Either it wanted to be found, tired of staying dead and buried, or in fact I wanted it so bad, the universe up and gave it to me, said, here Charles, you've suffered enough. Have this. It isn't some kind of lottery, but you believe in this, and through this I'll show you just how much you don't know. Look a bit closer, what do you see. Is that yourself, or is it me?"


Imogene, further documentation, insight into;

Was seven years older than me, to the day. It was curious we had the same birthday, which in theory should have made us a lot a like. But we never really had much to share with one another, our lives were very different and very unappealing to the other. Still, there were moments that understanding got exchanged across the thin membrane.

She studied cultural anthropology. She hoped to travel the world and become apart of the global culture. She had a hard time with foreign language, despite a lot of effort, and secretly hoped that her mastery of the English language would be enough. She was a whore for grammar, which is perhaps why she and Charles got along so well. She liked smart guys who could talk for hours about life and their experience in it. The details that made up a learned education were big turn ons. Imogene had a thing for engineers and biologists, but it mostly just came down to getting them drunk and talking non-stop about things far over her head.

When she flunked out of her primary studies, she tried to coast along on her electives and ever slowly resigned herself to finding a way to crawl back to Small Wood and rediscover her place among the washed up forgotten. Her excuse to everyone but herself was this was how it was supposed to be, she played up her ordinariness, the fact she did not have enough money, good enough grades to support a four year college career.

In Imogene was an answer to the question, "Where do I go from here?" She had decided that life was a series of encounters, she would live in the present, give no thought to the future. In her was a simple basic desire to connect, learn from, and enjoy the company of others. The world was full of people, and people were the answer. She would give herself over to them.

She and Charles had shared company, nights infrequent. It was the tender grasp of two minds seeing understanding and then not. So much would be further muddled by lack of correspondence and miscommunication. There was an age difference, a physical attraction that was always see-sawing, hung up between desperation and ill-timing.

It was a fling, borne out of long nights without endings and days without proper starts. They were a couple in a loose sense, but the bond between them thick and messy. You could not sit between them without uncomfortability, there would be layers of meaning behind their comments to one another.

But this is not about them, this is about Imogene, who liked to read books about far away places she'd never get to, strange and exotic people she'd never know, unless they happened upon Small Wood. Her voice was strong and beautiful, so sure of herself. She was intelligent, well-read and attractive in her own way.

*If I developed an interest in her it was by accident. Nothing should have happened, but the curious interest, fascination, prescient hormone, was a long time coming. Her place in my life comes many years away from this small footnote. A weakness, I see developing, in my accuracy as a narrator. If these words you take as honest truth, I apologize. By honest truth, I mean all sides represented accurately and fairly. This is not the place for that. My voice is my own, all blanket judgements and basic misunderstandings aside. I approach this as an observer working backwards in my own life, profound insights gained in places such as these. I have no gift for knowing intrinsically.

Incidents involving Imogene before a time of great importance; Of
note, she found work as a barmaid at The Salty Schooner, a restaurant
dive bar hybrid that was rank in the stink of fishermen and their
coffer. I went there for lunch sometimes during a school day. She was
often my waitress. I would usually be reading a book for the thirty or
so minutes I had alone away from classes. It was a nice sort of
retreat, and I enjoyed her company. She tried to impress upon me the
wonder of coffee, but I stuck to soda and iced tea. My meal was usually
chicken strips and plank fries, or if not that, a Rueben sandwich. The
food was just okay, but the view of the bridge was nice. I liked the
empty booth and the old music they played there. It felt faded and
worn from memory.

Facts on Lilly, about her, the central role she played;

Lilly was also divorced, a concert cellist still active with the
Yakima Chamber Orchestra, and successful mother of two. Her youngest
daughter would graduate salutatorian a year ahead of me. Her
ex-husband, Patrick, kept a beach home in Small Wood, but worked most
of the year overseas for an international accounting firm. Lilly made
sure that their broken household was a happy one, and that the
splintered family unit worked as well as it could. She put aside
differences and hostilities with Patrick to keep the peace and out of
that consideration a new mutual friendship emerged.

In her words the only reason none of that came crashing down was
because, "We have such great kids."

Lilly was the driving force behind Egretta and never once missed a
meeting. Frances was one of her best friends and constant companions.
They took weekend trips to Portland to soak up as much culture as they
could with their allotted time together. They were a team, always
working in tandem to invite authors to local signings, organize
library charity events, and put out a community literary newsletter.

Lilly was an extraordinary young woman, beautiful, resourceful and brazen
intelligent. She kept a book in a shelf at the Blue Heron, signed by a
very famous and influential author. On the page it read,

"Dearest L –Return home safe in the months to come. I know you've read your old copy ragged, this in hopes there is still something left undiscovered. Write soon, learn me in the lessons of how very extraordinary you are. I fear how the days will feel longer in the absence of your company."

If there was one thing Lilly treasured above her family, it was her time spent as a muse, the life she lived in tune with the greater good of coaxing lasting art from the visionary paragons of this era. She kept this aspect of her life hidden to but a few, the glory of she once was, always will be, mostly forgotten. Shadows from her past had occasion to spill forth and the stories of these encounters wonderful, fantastic even.

At the Getty Mueseum, her eldest daughter would see a photograph of a naked woman, half in shadow, fading to black. She would try and place the feeling, this instinctual knowing recognition and she would reflect for some time on it and never begin to understand.

Egretta, the club and my place in it;

I was the new blood, the childe. I was mostly quiet, there to observe and listen and understand these people. When I happened to say my mind I found the response to be warm, agreeable and always unexpected.

It was a strange place to spend three hours a week. I took their instructions and parting knowledge home with me, used their insistence to dig deeper into the foundations of Small Wood, understand a fraction more of the greater puzzle.

I asked about ghosts, which resulted in a lot of nodding and very little in the way of storytelling. I inquired about their past and got smiles and personal looks. I realized that to this circle of friends, rivals and confidants, and I was the young enigma, the outsider, the unknown they were taking a chance on.

At the end of the first meeting, I was given a feather from the blue heron. I was told to place it in a book of great importance, to hide away from sight and age and never lose. They told me it was hand-picked especially for me, representing the molting of the first unused feathers from flight. It was an in-joke at my expense, but it made me smile and I suppose it made me come back and continue to ask questions for which they would give me precious few answers. The members of the Blue Heron enjoyed their place away from the flow of time, this world of their own creation, and welcomed me into it without question.