It is mere coincidence, I am sure, that both Becky and I developed back pains at the same time. But we did, and so we both made appointments with physical therapists. We were assigned exercises, and we are working through them.
Restrictions on bodily movement is not easy to accept for active people — or inactive people, I am sure — but what are you going to do?
Still, we physically and psychologically needed some kind of movement, and we thought walking would be a good way to get us back to good backs. Occasionally we walk through Franklin neighborhoods because they are mostly flat and paved, which works well for our purposes.
A walk is an excellent opportunity to notice things, to really hone in on details. At one point on our stroll, Becky pointed out the round balls of color on the hydrangeas in the yard to our the left. About the same time I noticed to the right of the sidewalk walnuts which rolled and scattered like marbles when I kicked them. Round things seemed appropriate in that sunny October moment.
Things round like the initial O of October and the little O that follows behind.
Round things like the orange harvest moon and the spooky moans and “ooo”s of ghosts and the lonesome hoots of owls. Round like beads of glistening morning dew on the dormant autumn grass slowly finishing its role in the circle of the seasons or like the small white mushrooms strewn across the lawns for a brief hour. Round like a baseball which rounds out its season in October.
The O of Halloween is right there in its name. Halloween words and notions are all filled with O’s. Jack-o-lanterns glowing and grinning on porches; Shakespearen broomstick witches incanting toil and trouble into boiling cauldron bubbles; zombies, monsters, ghouls, goblins; bones and blood, howls and horror.
Back home after our therapeutic walk, I thought of a poem from a middle school text book I read years ago. I am glad I to have remembered it. Do I still have my old copy? Yes, here it is: “The O-Filler” by Scottish poet Alistair Reid.
We are told: “One noon in the library, I watching a man—imagine!—filling in O’s.” The O-Filler was “a little, rumpled nobody of a man” who with loving care shaded in each O to its edges “until the pages looked like villages and capitals on a map.” He watched the man all afternoon working patiently “… his O-so-patient shading/descending like an eyelid over each open O … oodles of O’s, multitudinous, O’s manifold.”
The speaker imagines how delighted the O-Filler is when he comes across “zoo” and “ooze” and the joy he must feel when he discovers “oolong and odontology.” The poet/speaker eventually wonders if he, who has been writing lines as he sat across from him all day, has accomplished anything “as firm” or “as fruitful.” He then musses that perhaps someday the O-Filler will come upon his poems, and the blinds will be drawn over all the O’s in his lines.
Although I am not advocating the vandalization of library books, there is something curiously pleasant about the idea that someone would take it upon himself the task of filling in all the O’s in a written work. I’m not sure I would have the patience for it. Then again, maybe it would teach me to slow down. Of course, if anyone thinks it might be good therapy to try O-Filling, you are welcome to use this column as practice. That is, unless you are reading it online.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
