Twisted Wood

Posted on December 20, 2008 in College Possessions

Objects arrive in your life and, once there, there’s no getting rid of them. I hold a few of these to be precious, such as the cane I bought twenty nine years ago [[Dikti|outside the Dictaen Cave in the mountains of Crete]]. There’s a picture of me in the Pomona College annual, the Metate, showing me holding it high backed by a herd of sheep. “The happy shepherd,” my classmates joked, “but did the sheep mind?”

That cane has served me well in recent weeks as my feet troubled me with swellings of the gout, a sprained ankle, and a deep cut from walking two miles in flip-flops. But what I have wanted most to do with a cane is to tap, to make a sound with it, to knock on doors, and to break glass. I fancy myself among the Luddites who made their points using sledgehammers — except I would do no damage.

There’s a story about the Emperor Norton. When he saw a cartoon of himself ingloriously dining at a saloon buffet accompanied by two mutts reputed to be his dogs pasted on a bistro’s window, he pulled out his walking stick and rapped at the glass until it cracked. “This will not do!” he asserted. His protestation went unheard, however, and the legend that he and the two dogs were of a unit persisted after his death ((For the facts of Norton’s relationship with Bummer and Lazarus, visit http://www.notfrisco.com/colmatales/norton/norton2.html)) . His collection of walking sticks, twisted or carved into fantastic shapes, vanished.

An online friend says that the consciousness of things endures whether we keep them or not. I disagree. The sense and the fact of loss would be ruinous if this artifact disappeared. My wife would not have it when her knees gave out or when we went on hikes. My eyes will not be able to linger upon it in remembrance of the short forests and winding roads of central Crete. What will I use to signal my rage, my wanting, or my disgust when a stroke has taken away my voice? For this reason, I do not lean hard on this treasure. I must have it there in my final moments when in dementia I decide that I, too, am an emperor rather than a shepherd.