In Sam’s German conversation class, the teacher was talking about autumn festivals. He asked Sam what festivals happened in South Africa round about now. Sam said the problem was that it was spring in South Africa now. The teacher said, how funny to imagine that. So what are South Africans celebrating in South African autumn then, he wanted to know. Sam said ‘Easter’. The teacher said again ‘How strange!’
This reminded me of the writer David Sedaris’s story about his French language classes in which the Christian students are trying to explain Easter to a Muslim member of the class using their gappy French. I went to listen to it to see whether it was as funny as the first time I listened.
I did laugh again.
Autumn in Spring
Autumn made itself known to me by presenting something for my feet to do as I walk along Berlin’s cobbles. Other than walking, that is.
First, the silvery leaves of some much-hated (by our landlord) tree provided some underfoot crunch. Then, last week, I noticed that there were more acorns than usual to kick.
When we come back from the shops – heavily laden like donkeys wearing saddle bags full of provender – we kick acorns. I usually start, then Sam kicks it, then me again, until one of us kicks it under a car or across the road, and we have to find a new one.
I told Sam how, when I was at nursery school, we used to collect acorns for their cupules. We’d break the stalks off them, and then rub them against the ground or a rock to file through the closed end to make rings we would then wear on our fingers.
I picked a cupule up off the road to show him what I meant, but the shape was all wrong. The oaks near us throw off round oak nuts like I’ve never seen in South Africa. They’re good for kicking, but their thick woody cupules aren’t great for jewellery making.
The cupule came home with me. When I set it on my desk, I saw the inside properly for the first time.
Cutting fruit and vegetables in half and admiring the inside patterns accounts for the only time I spend in the kitchen having actual fun. I listened to Mary Ruefle read her poem ‘The Effusive’ the other day and just about shouted ‘Me too, Mary!’ when it came to this line:
‘I would rather read a children’s book than cook.’
The inside of the acorn’s cup reminded me of the many pictures I have saved on my phone in an album called The Universe.
Grass to our knees to please the bees
I was walking with someone by a little park where the grass is knee-high.
She said, ‘They don’t cut the grass anymore.’
I said, ‘It’s for the bees.’
She said, ‘It looks shit.’
For the rest of the day I had the Big Rock Candy Mountain stuck in my head.
The song paints the picture of a utopia that wouldn’t please my walking partner in the least.
Squirrelling
I was about to open a window the other day, when I noticed a squirrel on the grass. They’re so twitchy, I seldom get a chance to observe them, so I didn’t open the window because I wanted to watch it a while.
It drank from the bird bath on the grass and then it sniffed the ground all around. It stopped quite suddenly and started to dig. Then it stuck its head in the hole and brought forth one of those round acorns. It paused, scanned around, took two hops, dug a new hole with the nut in its mouth, dropped it in and covered it up.
There must have been squirrel logic at work here, but I couldn’t see why you would dig up an acorn and move it two hops when the streets are veritable ball ponds of acorns for the having.
Maybe the new hole was offering better interest rates.
Someone once told me that their method of saving was, among other things, to ‘squirrel away little bits of money in different accounts’. From watching the white-breasted little twitcher the other day, I feel like I understand what she meant in a new way. Squirrelling isn’t just about saving food for the lean months – it’s also all that anxiety that goes with being a saver and a worrier.
Whoever conceived the character Scrat in Ice Age has spent a lot of time observing these nervous little creatures.
Fitful wandering*
After work yesterday, I went for a long walk to listen to the alt-J album that was released last year called The Dream.
Walking and listening to music is an unusual pleasure I never allow myself back home for safety reasons. I used to save listening for the treadmill, but I don’t run anymore, and I’m too restless to just sit and listen to music.
The walk took me through a little corner of forest. On the way back, the setting sun had turned the top floor of a school building nearby to gold.
I brought home a little pine cone from the walk. I’ve been smelling it while I work, trying to describe its tangy leatheriness to myself. I haven’t found the words.
I’m reading a (magnificent, highly recommended) book in which the author says that she does not hold so much with the modern idea that since we have destroyed the planet we cannot write about nature with anything other than irony. I agree with her.
The smell of a pine cone is un-ironically wonderful.
Lots of love,
K.
*’Fitful wandering’ is a line adapted from a translated poem by Rainer Maria Rilke’s called ‘Day in Autumn’
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That oak nut's little universe - so beautiful.
Thanks for a lovely newsletter.
I never knew they were called a cupule, thanks for that and further enjoyment of your observations Karin. We have a rather skittish squirrel who visits most days and my favourite garden scenes is when a flurry of different birds and the squirrel are in harmony feeding from the bird feeders and using the bird bath together