Earth-Moon Kugel, Virginia Science Museum, Visited August 13, 2021.
I tried moving the kugel ball myself, but it wouldn’t budge, so now I sit on one of the stone benches that ring the plaza. I’m dewy and aromatic with sweat. The world is falling apart. I spent the day roaming Richmond. I’m dehydrated. Do you know what it feels like to be dehydrated on a hot day?
When I was younger, did I care? I’d run and run in the sun, every day, all the time. I’d sweat every ounce of water out and never get dizzy, except maybe a couple times. Now, at my age, it’s dangerous. Even to walk this much is dangerous without the constant intake of fluids. I’m only 44. If it’s risky now … imagine! It can only get worse.
What is the Earth-Moon? Why is that what it’s called? Also, who cares what it’s called? It’s a big gray stone ball that has a map of the continents engraved on it. It’s the biggest one of its kind in the world. So what?
Did I mention I’m exhausted and searching, still searching for some sort of purpose to this day of roaming? I set out to develop a method to write about places, to discover a poetics of experience-in-place that would make sense to me, an experience that I expected would be derivative of Basho’s but not the same. But I started on this path a long time ago. It has been years already since the idea first came to me as something I could act upon. So far, this is just another disappointing day in which I learn next to nothing and add it to all the almost-nothings I’ve accumulated on days like this.
Has the accumulation become a pile of anything? Specifically, have I learned to express anything that isn’t a lament? Am I any nearer to excitement and enthusiasm, the kind a child who learns something new expresses when they explain it to adults?
That’s what I’m going for today. I would like to express the kind of enthusiasm that makes people interested in their own lives by way of what I’m saying, to make them think about what they’re thinking about as they read.
What am I enthusiastic about in this instance? I’m enthusiastic for Richmond, a place I don’t really love. I’m happy for Richmond to have this big grey stone ball on display – the biggest of its kind in the whole world. Richmond needs something to be proud of besides its stupid Confederate heritage.
What else? I’m excited to tell you a story, the story of the child and his wish. It goes like this:
I sit on one of the stone benches watching the kugel ball. Five VCU students approach the globe, press against it at the same time, and it moves. Once the kugel ball is moving, it moves with ease, and moving it is easy. It spins on a sheet of water. The heaviest matter(s) spin much easier on water. The heaviest objects move much quicker when pressed upon together.
An ant crawls on my knee. I blow on it, but it clings to the fabric of my pants. Its claws grip the fibers. It doesn’t fall, but it responds to my breath and changes direction. Now it is lost in the valley between my knee and crotch. With my middle finger, I flick it off.
Now here comes the child. He is given a penny to throw into the water.
His parent says, “Make a wish before you throw it in.”
The child holds onto the penny with one hand. He makes a fist to hold that penny fast.
He plunges his other hand into the water and out comes a quarter!
The adults laugh.
They say, “Now put that back, or you’ll take someone else’s wish.”
The child hesitates. A penny in one hand. A quarter in the other. So young and already he’s confronted with the distinctions between possession, use, ownership.
He stands still for so long that it becomes awkward, so long it creates anxiety in the adults who stand beside and above him. No longer laughing, they plead and coax the child to relinquish the quarter back to the water, to make a wish and kiss his penny goodbye.
The story is not over.
An entirely different set of children approaches the kugel with their guardians. They take a group photo.
As they move away, one child lags behind. He sticks his hand in the water.
Before he gets much further in his mission, an adult notices him and reprimands him.
DON’T PICK THAT UP! THAT’S PEOPLE’S WISHES!
Pitiful, these attempts and failures to instill a sense of wonder and fairness in a world where money and wishes are weird and unsustainable role models.
But here come the VCU students again, and there is something beautiful about friends together, doing something as silly as pressing on a big grey stone globe.