Chemotaxis Reigns!

     

1975 twenty something

        Last week at one of our virtual events, a storyteller read a poem she wrote when she took an anatomy class years ago. The poem was filled with the names of the bones of the head – and the words sounded so erotic! We were all fanning ourselves by the time she was finished. And I was reminded of a much lesser poem filled with biology terms - a poem I wrote one day in college when I should have been studying. And here is the story that goes with the poem.

       During my entire senior year of college, there was a guy I hung out with at the library before and between classes most days. After a while I realized I liked him a lot. Sometimes we hung out at the bars or college parties together too. It was clear though, I liked him a whole lot more than he liked me.

       Heavy sigh.

       And one Saturday morning, when I should have been studying my histology notes, my mind kept drifting to plans for that evening. I was going out somewhere with friends, I can’t remember the occasion now, but I can picture a bar – maybe that's all we were going to do, hang out at the PM - Park Meadow, or Allens or somewhere. My young man was going to be there too.

       So, I sat at my Grandmother’s dining room table with my textbooks and notebooks open that morning. The plan was to study all day. But the histology terms kept mingling with thoughts of the evening, and that, you know, was the perfect mix for the creation of... a poem!

       The day soon became devoted to the creation of lines that rhymed, anatomical terms swirling with romance. Ah, and you know it is so sad because I was not even a silly teenager at that point. No, I was a goofy twenty-something.

       I liked the finished product – it was so clever

       That evening, I took a ragged folded piece of paper from my pocket, trying to underplay my excitement, and I showed the poem to my young man. He was a biology major too, and even though he was not taking histology that semester, he could surely have appreciated the wittiness of the rhymes, the genius of my ability to turn a phrase. But the poem did not turn his mind to thoughts of romance, alas, or even acknowledgment of what a fun person I was.

His loss.

One day three years ago I wrote up a story about an awkward gift I had once given a guy. (Hey! that one can be my next post!) And afterward, the memory of the histology poem came to mind. I did not have a copy of it anywhere, but the more I thought about it, the more I was able to reconstruct. Proof that I am still so tickled by my cleverness after all these years! After googling a few vaguely familiar terms, the entire poem was back! And here it is today:

Through the interstitial lamellae

That have too often clouded the view

In a distant far off osteon

I first set eyes on you

Though others lay down matrices

Creating a diversion

They could never osteolyze

The desire for my canal Haversian

Tonight, at last chemotaxis reigns

And all my dreams come true

For in the nearest Volkmann’s canal

We shall have a rendezvous

Tonight we meet and as the saying goes

Rightly when two lovers meet

Together we shall

Anastomose

       Well, I did not promise you it was good poetry!

      And not even a good poem could have helped me get the guy. Not that it was an awkward gift – for our whole beyond-the-library life was awkward.

      But the poem made me smile back then. And it still does.

20200818 65 Chemotaxis Reigns

The Sound of One Girl Shoveling

 

     

Mike nesting another afternoon

     Tuesday Mike came home at noon, and from his little nest in the living room, he spent the afternoon attending a virtual industrial hygiene conference! I was scanning an old folder from one of my piles next to the computer here in the sun-room Then I ate a leftover half a burrito for lunch at the table in the sun-room while watching a new episode of the Young and the Restless on my iPad. Next I mowed the yard, neglecting to wear a face-mask and getting consequent yard dust stuck up my nose! Returning inside, I wrote out three get well cards to friends, hurrying before the mailman came down the road. And then I contemplated a shower.

Nesting in the morning

     While doing all this puttering, I was wanting to start the dishwasher. But the noise from the dishwasher might interfere with Mike and the conference. It was fun to hear Mike move from room to room virtually. He is always good at making small talk. After a while, I realized Mike was visiting vendors, just like he was at a live conference – stopping and introducing himself, describing what he does and where he works, then saying well, it's time to move on. And then he would do the same thing all over again – the only difference being the other side of the conversation at each stop and the occasional expression of genuine interest in what was being vended.

     The only difference between chatting with vendors from the living room and doing it in person was no freebies! No pens, sanitizers, stress toys – shucks! But then again, being perched in one's nest has tons more advantages.

Mike nesting after work

  Getting the dishes done before dinner was not imperative, and yet, it kept cycling back to the forefront on my list of things to do. Finally, I heard the words of my Uncle John, and I turned on the dishwasher.

     Was the noise going to bother Mike?

     Not at all.

     When I moved to my grandmother's for college, she was living in the upstairs of a duplex owned my her son, my Uncle John, who lived in the downstairs unit with his wife. Uncle John was a truck driver, a proud teamster, who drove at night. He would get home around 8 or 9 in the morning and go to bed. After the first snowstorm of the first winter my freshman year, I thought I'd shovel the driveway. There was no snowblower, neither was there a truck or person hired to do the job.

     Shoveling the driveway was a big task, and scraping the cement when I finally reached the pavement, was noisy. I tried to do it as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb Uncle John's sleep inside. After a while, I saw blinds rise, and Uncle John opened the window. Both arms were stretched at the top of the window ready to pull it closed again as he leaned out smiling at me. I figured it was a polite smile as Uncle John looked to see what the noise was all about.       

Uncle John, Aunt Ruth 1978

“Hi! I hope I didn't wake you with my snow shoveling?”

     “No one has ever been bothered by the sound of someone else shoveling the snow!”

     Truer words were never spoken!

     And no one would ever be disturbed by of the noise of someone else vacuuming the rug.

     And no one in his right mind would complain of the sound of someone or something else washing the dishes.

     None of that is noise at all, no, it is music to one's ears!

20200813 64 The Sound of One Girl Shoveling

Breakfast of Champions

Three years! That's how long it took me to pass my beginner's swim test when I was in grade school! I would go on Saturday mornings all the way in to the Hamburg High School pool for lessons. Often riding with my best friend, Diane, and another classmate, Jane, who lived further up Heinrich Road, on the section that was years later pinched off by the highway that came through, our parents took turns driving. Well, I'm assuming now that they took turns, the only one I remember driving us is Jane's Dad who would have us in stitches laughing the whole time. And I guess we did not go every Saturday morning, but it would be several Saturdays in a row – perhaps it was Saturdays during the school year.

And in spite of my thinking how mortifying it would be to come home with a bad report card, it seemed to be all right that I kept failing my beginner's swim test. My parents thought it was funny that I was too weak, too uncoordinated to swim. And I don't recall trying particularly hard to master the techniques, no personal pressure. So it took me three years. Did Diane and Jane fail alongside me? Likely not – it's just in my memories they were there with me the whole time.

Now our instructor was an older man, Mr. Roerke – something like that, and he was only old to me because he was perhaps a little older than my parents. He was slightly famous – the superintendent of the Hamburg School system! I did not know what a superintendent was, but figured he was someone of authority and I should maybe be afraid of him.

First thing he would make us do when we arrived for our lesson on Saturday mornings was......get in the water!

Oh, but I always wanted to ease myself into the pool. After all, the temperature would take some getting used to!

But no! He was not going to wait all day for kids like me to have that luxury.

“Best thing is to just jump in!” he would bellow to all of us, good-naturedly, but still....

So I would jump in, or, if already trying to ease in, I would take the plunge. And a shock would whip through my system and I felt like my heart would stop!

“No one ever had a heart attack jumping into a swimming pool!” Mr. Roerke would shout and then chuckle above the splashes.

I read just recently, in Google, so you know.....people can indeed get a heart attack from the shock of submerging into cold water! So there's that.

Of course, the Hamburg High School swimming pool was not that cold, and as a healthy child, my heart was hearty. But sometimes it did feel as if the ticker would conk out on me!

Once we were in the water, Mr. Roerke would tease us about our inability to climb back out again at the sides of the pool when it came time to practice dives. Our arms were weak – and not just mine, as we attempted to pull ourselves out, often falling back in the water again.

“Looks like some of you didn't have your Wheaties for breakfast this morning!” came his bellow as he stood so tall leaning over the edge of the water at us

How could a line like that not last a lifetime?

How many times have I said that to my kids, other kids, my husband, over a slip during the day, “Someone's missing Wheaties today!”

Mr. Roerke was never impatient with me or made personal snarky comments about my not trying hard enough – no pressure other than the jumping in and climbing out. And that was nice – compared to the rest of my schooling. I think it was the diving that kept me from passing the beginner's test three times in a row. And by the third time, I was afraid to pass for fear that the advanced beginner's course would require more strength and more diving and I didn't want to do it!

These days, on summer Saturday mornings, Mike takes us out on the boat. He drops anchor in the lake or one of its rivers or creeks. I ease myself and finally plunge into the water. The water is very warm, but I don't want to take chances on shocking the system because, you know, Google says....

couldn't find a noodle picture

And I don't swim much, but I can – it's just I find swimming a tad boring. Much more fun is being held afloat by one of those noodle things – basking in the water in the sun – stretching my arms and legs and toes. Mike and I often have the most unique chats on our noodles. One day I told him all about my grade school swim lessons, and not surprisingly, Mike found them to be believable! Getting out of the water, it's not Wheaties that help me get back into the boat, but rather a small ladder, and a handle.

When riding on Mike's boat, I am a good many miles and years and years away from Hamburg and those morning lessons – but I still smell the chlorine and hear the splashes and feel my youth again each time I take the plunge!

20200803 63 Breakfast of Champions!