Telescope in the Corner, or Oh, How I Miss the Stars

It was the first Christmas after we got married, and my husband picked out my favorite present EVER--even though he shouldn't have spent anything at all. I've always loved the stars (my mama laughed at me when I proclaimed as a young teenager that I really wanted to be an astronomer), and my heart began to beat a little faster when I saw the tell-tale long box wrapped up under the tree that morning. It could only be one thing: a telescope!

And it was. A beautiful professional-quality star-gazing scope with extra lenses and everything. I loved it. I don't think the poor man will ever be able to top that perfect first Christmas present.

At that time, we lived in a lovely little rent house on the very outskirts of a very small town. You might even call it the country, for we had a couple of acres we could call our (rented) own and small wooded patches between us and any neighbors. Most importantly, we could see the stars. So although it was December and pretty frigid, as soon as night came I was out in the front yard focusing my new telescope on any celestial body I could find in the viewer. It's harder than you might think. The moon is easiest to locate, and so I started there.

You have no idea how stunningly brilliant our ordinary little moon really is until you've seen it close-up. Mountains and valleys, craters and shadows--I could see every detail. "Moonstruck," I think, means that you can't bring yourself to look away.

Finally I tore myself away from the moon and searched out the stars. Did you know stars come in different colors? Red, blue, yellow, icy green...they're breathtaking. I love the constellations (the ones I remember and the ones I always forget), the ancient myths and the new science that explains so many fascinating facts. I am intrigued by planets and black holes (though I never saw any of the latter), pulsars and quasars, red giants and dwarf stars. I never get tired of trying to see what astronomy books portray in such vivid detail; I could spend hours just...well, gazing.

Now, however, I live in the city. Every once in awhile I can pick out, say, Orion, with his bright sword belt, or maybe the Big Dipper--if I look really hard. Venus, the dazzling morning star, hasn't left me completely; even what my papa calls light pollution can't altogether drown her out. But the night sky here in the heart of Oklahoma City is never really dark, and so my stars remain, for the most part, hidden. Too many street lights, as beauty gives way to safety--and honestly, would I choose the alternative? Our neighborhood has its share of shady characters and "incidents." Still, I miss the stars, as my telescope sits sadly in the corner waiting for an opportunity to open the window on other worlds.

My water smells like a swimming pool

My parents have a well, which pumps out the best-tasting water in the world; my brothers and sisters and I love to go home just to drink the water. My grandma, who lives just across the field, has a well too--and her water tastes like rotten eggs. I'm not sure what makes the difference.

But I live in the city, and do not have the luxury of well water. This didn't bother me too much until recently, although I did finally install a filter under the kitchen sink so my husband would be able to drink the tap water without absolutely having to add lemon juice. It's been a ridiculously hot, dry summer, however, and I suppose the city has had trouble with its water supply, because lately I've noticed that the water in the rest of the house seems more and more chlorinated. Take, for example, the water in the bathroom. Can you recall the smell of a hotel swimming pool? That's what I get now when I wash my face...or brush my teeth...or take a shower. I guess, since I haven't had a chance to swim all summer, that I should count it as a blessing in disguise. But really, who wants to taste "swimming pool" first thing in the morning?

Gardens and Bees

My old house sits, covered with ivy and asbestos siding, in the middle of Oklahoma City. Not a sprawling metropolis like, say, New York City, but a city nonetheless. And still, though I've lived here now for something like six years, I can't quite get over being a country girl. Oh, I've lived in cities--loved life in cities. I love being able to walk to the grocery store if I want to, love being only five minutes away from almost anything I might want or need. But most of my childhood was spent far out in the country, with lots of brothers and sisters and a pond and blackberries and chickens and sometimes (to everyone's chagrin but my Mama's) goats. That's not an easy history to escape. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't forget the brilliance of the stars out there where the sky is ink-dark, with no city lights to dilute them. Blackberries just don't grow the same on a city lot, and I miss the sound of frogs down by the pond on a summer evening. Country is in my blood, I suppose.

That would be the reason that I have a struggling vegetable garden and two beehives in my backyard. At the end of every summer, worn out by the heat and a bit discouraged by the fact that all my plants have died, I think to myself: Maybe next year I'll just forget the garden. And every late winter, the bug bites and I begin planning how this year it will be different. This year, maybe everything will grow and I'll have so many tomatoes that I'll have to try sun-drying them. Unfortunately, I've never had such a surplus. Well, one year I did have so many cucumbers that we're still eating (and giving away) the pickles...but an over-abundance of tomatoes is still the gauge by which I measure my success. And by that measure, I have not succeeded. Still, something about the coming of spring always makes me want to try again. So I till a tiny patch of ground (without calling the utility company first) or spread out newspapers and leaves to try what I have been told is called "lasagna gardening" and plant with blithe disregard for the spacing recommendations on my seed packets. And sometimes I weed. When I remember, and when I'm not too tired, and when I can get out on a Saturday before the sun is high enough to bake me.

And the beehives? Most of my neighbors probably don't know it, but approximately 80,000 tiny golden insects live in two custom-designed (read: built by me and my long-suffering husband) top bar hives in my city backyard. So far as I know, they have never stung anyone but my dog, who foolishly tried to eat one. As I watched from my seat on an overturned bucket this afternoon, mesmerized by the spectacle of their coming and going, I tried to remember just how I came to choose this strange hobby. I think it was two winters ago after reading Chalice by Robin McKinley--a beautiful book. Something in the story caught my imagination, and the next thing my poor husband knew I was researching the best ways to start my own hives. The first winter, all my bees froze to death in the coldest weather Oklahoma had seen in decades. I opened my hives in February to check on my girls (all worker bees are girls) and found their little bodies still and silent. I cried the rest of the afternoon. Jerry, jewel of men, hugged me and told me not to give up. Accordingly, as soon as I could slow the tears, I found a supplier who was not already sold out and ordered two packages. Bees come in 3-pound packages--about 40,000-60,000 bees each.

Three months feels like forever when you're waiting on an order to arrive, but they finally came at the end of May. When I got the call from the post office and went to pick them up, the postmaster waved away my offer to show ID with a laugh. "Nobody else wants your bees," he chuckled. All ready with my sugar syrup, veil and gloves, I "installed" my bees into their new homes...and found that one of the queens was dead. Each hive has to have a queen; just like people, bees cannot thrive without good leadership. So I called the supplier and they sent a replacement as quickly as they could...but she died after I got her home. By this time I was frantic; I called a friend who also keeps bees, and he sympathetically rounded up a new queen for me. But it had already been a full week, and I think the poor things were in shock. Even now, in the middle of July, that first hive is still having trouble gaining its strength.

But the second hive--oh, you should see it! If I had read them a textbook on how to run a perfect colony, they couldn't do better. To sit, as I do, on a nearby bucket and watch their tiny striped bodies buzz in and out, so full of purpose and determination that sometimes they bump into my head because they're so intent on getting back to the hive with their loads of pollen or nectar...as I mentioned, it's mesmerizing. The sun blazes down, making me feel as if I'm on the inside of an oven, and the sweet smell of honeycomb fills the hot stillness, and I could sit there for hours.