by Joe McKenzie
Apparition: Well, you never know when your brain will want you to believe you are seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary making an appearance in Kansas. It’s a miracle! Driving north on S. 7th Street on a Tuesday afternoon, I saw a dash of blue and white in a 3rd floor open window at the old President’s Place apartments. Was that Mary? Was it a statue of Mary? I had to stop. Had a displaced resident left a small statue behind and a construction worker placed it on the open window sill? I zoomed my phone in and took a photo of a common plastic bottle of water. No Mary, but at least the water bottle was half full. My eyes had deceived me again. Or, was it my brain wanting me to believe? Still, searching for a miracle in downtown Salina made for a hopeful afternoon.
Devices: As in all your favorite devices - start streaming now. With our collections of electronic stuff, the official new word factory faltered when they had a chance to come up with a zippy new word for all these electronic toys. ET’s? The word device has been around for ages - staple puller, beer opener, all those scary things at the dentist office. Pliers are a common device of working people, but they are not going to stream a subscription based movie to their pliers. Yet. This tool is an old simple device. Yes, the word vice is contained in device, but, not in the device we call a vise.
Grass: We all love the smell of freshly cut grass, unless you have a thing, an allergy, an asthma breathing issue. It only makes sense that different grasses smell different. You may favor fescue. You could have a passion for a rye mix that you really know little about. It’s a confusing and yet satisfying mix of green smells. This growing/mowing season is leaving us. It has been a nice summer of VOC’s, that’s volatile organic compounds. It’s chemicals. Your brain probably anticipates these chemicals when your neighbor fires up the mower. Deep breath. Connect that scent of zoysia or Bermuda to the color green fading into a comfortable autumn. That’s one way we interact with and become part of our natural world. Or, just mow the lawn.
Dissonance: It’s like a science experiment as I carefully position a glass of Chardonnay under the huge industrial fan in the Courtyard of the Homewood Suites. First glass. The experiment has everything to do with the Mozart String Quartet piece named Dissonance being artfully and intensely performed on a quiet and sunny Saturday afternoon in September. The buttery yellow wine in the glass reflected the dark fan blades. The disturbed air stirred the wine slowly - and just as my hypothesis proposed, it was not in harmony with the music. That’s dissonance. Ah, but my mind wanders. Lost in the music?
Rain Tree: There is an actual Golden Rain Tree, but I saw some large old, shade trees in Sunset Park that had carefully developed a palms up approach to collecting water. They may have been meditating. Shh. So smart! They know they’ll need moisture. With experience, they know they’ll be dry spells and droughts. So, over many years they sent roots to the surface and managed to carve out small cups that hold the rain. This is also an example of nature’s patience. Of course, the squirrels might take a slurp too, but the foresightedness of these trees surpasses some of our human short-sightedness. Long word to describe our seemingly limited ecological vision.
