Rubber Boots: Then & Now

When I was a kid—about eight years old, I’d say—I got stuck in the mud wearing a t-shirt, underwear, and fuscia rubber boots. It was spring, and I could not resist.

Our land was primarily clay. I don’t know how things went when my parents actually farmed our small field, but the lowest part of the yard could never absorb all the rain that fell, and, after our ice rink melted, we had our own wading pool.

And so, one Saturday morning, my younger sisters, Josie and Abbey, and I went out to play in the mud. Our dad yelled some sort of warning but spring was in our ears and we didn’t hear a thing.

We ran, we splashed; we certainly soaked each other kicking the brown, ankle-deep water. It was only a matter of time before we industriously churned the giant puddle into thick, creamy mud.

The water clouded and thickened around us. The mud was caramel-colored; the same color as our house. It had a tantalizing suction and made an immensely satisfying sound when we pulled our boots out. We pumped our feet faster, marching in place and nearly falling over, laughing at the indecent noises we were making.

At last, tired, we stopped, still giggling. We were soaked. Our clothes were all various tints of brown. Life had never been better. Until we tried to move.

The clay had sealed around our feet and would not let go. We each tried one foot and then the other, nearly toppling over with the effort it took. We were stuck.

We were also too far from each other to lend a hand, and too far from the somewhat drier ground to hop out of our boots and still be allowed to walk barefoot in the house. Emboldened both by our silliness and our fear, we shouted in unison for our dad.

He came out of the house like a thundercloud—like a just-released-from-its-cage lion of March! He must have been watching the whole thing through the window. He stormed over to us and grabbed us, one under each arm like sacks of potatoes, and pulled us straight out of our boots!
He dumped us, unrepentant but chastised and quiet, back at the house. Our boots remained in the clay—pinks and fuscias in the thick toffee mud.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” he said. “Those boots can just stay there until you can get them out yourself!”


On Tuesday, I bought myself a pair of rubber boots—black; the largest candy-pink pair was just a bit too small. On Wednesday I wore them out for a walk with Jay, hoping for puddles and muck. Since the road was disappointingly dry I was perfectly well-behaved for the first half of our walk, looking at moose and deer tracks, inspecting the silver crop of pussy willows. But on the way back…

Jay asked me how my boots were for walking, and there was, perhaps, a hint of smugness in his voice. I had been wearing my new boots nearly non-stop for the last twenty-four hours. He was wearing his new and very comfortable running shoes. My socks kept sagging and my boot tops thwacked against my legs. Rubber boots do not “break in” quite the way running shoes do.

“They’re great!” I exclaimed with exaggerated enthusiasm. “It’s a good thing I wore them,” I continued, slopping down into the ditch that had become a small, gravelly stream.

“My feet would be totally soaked without them!” I stomped and squelched, heading straight for an especially gooey part.

“You’re going to get stuck,” he warned. I just smiled. There was no way. I was bigger, smarter, and my boots were taller—they were made for this!

“Oh, really?” I grinned triumphantly at him as I pumped my feet up and down in quick, sloppy staccato…and nearly pulled my saggy-socked foot right out of my boot! The flashback was instantaneous!

“Help!” I cried. The dry bank was too far away—I would have to dive out of my boots and walk home with dirty socks! Or worse, I was going to get hauled out and carried home under someone’s arm like a sack of potatoes!

But Jay, more like the lamb than the lion of spring (which is one reason I’m so glad I married him), reached out his hand. With some careful tugging and foot flexing, I escaped, boots and all. He shook his head and smiled. We walked on, staying on the solid, dryer high ground.

But somewhere—in a time and place that does not seem very far away when I feel the thwack thwack of rubber against my shins—Spring’s messiest child calls to me. I can still see a pair of size five boots in all their glorious pink, standing proudly in the mud. And I, thankfully, have still not learned my lesson.

April 23rd, 2009

Spring: Rubber Boots & Pussy Willows

I walked the driveway and picked pussy willows this morning. I had rubber boots for the muck and a buck knife for the unyielding stems; a dog for company and spring all around.

Of course, here late April spring is not the same as it is farther south. Here, closer to Canada than to Duluth, spring means still-frozen lakes ringed with cold water, animal tracks in the mud, and much-longed-for sunshine. It means birds—warblers who have been so long-absent their utterly decadent trilling stops me in my tracks; the echoing percussion of woodpeckers and the pileated’s other-worldly kuk-kuk-kuk-kaa! cry; the accelerating drum beat of the male grouse in love.


I was in town on Tuesday as always. I ran my errands, stopping at the post office and the library; I bought groceries…and black rubber boots. They were twenty dollars at Joyne’s Ben Franklin, and, as is my policy with all new shoes, they were worn at once. I kicked off winter without a backward glance and left my imitation Sorrels in the car; it was time to test my new boots out.

I went to Artist’s Point on Lake Superior, named for the beauty of the views it provides: sweeping clouds, glittering sunsets, November storms and a marina full of sail boats with colorful Grand Marais sandwiched between the water and the Sawtooth ridgeline. I had been gone so much in April that the last time I was there the lake was a splintered field of heaving blue ice. The rocks had been covered in frozen white like bridal giants or silent, hulking elephant seals—but now everything was alive! Everything was moving, pushing, pulling, sweeping back on itself and playing with the wind and the sky!

I couldn’t help myself—in those black rubber boots I became impenetrable. I became a child. At first, I splashed sensibly through small puddles with my jeans rolled up to mid-shin. But then I grew bolder; I strode confidently into the lake, misjudged an oncoming wave and soaked my cuffs! There was no point in trying to stay dry after that.

I did handstands on the rocks—moving closer and closer to the wet warning line that turned the pale stone to deep brown laced with red. The wind and the waves competed for my attention and then joined forces, the waves pulling at my ankles, the wind pushing insistently at my back, closer to the deceptively inviting blue-green water. The sun glinted off the big lake and I had to squint to see the Sawtooth Mountains extending to the south as if they would never end (and as if cities did not exist).

Why do we need more than this: lake, sun, small town, rubber boots?


This week, the first week of spring that I’ve been home, we’ve gone walking almost every evening. (“We,” being some combination of me, Jay, Kati, and the dog, Taffy). Last night we all took a new route and saw a moose as reward. We had turned around just before dusk and were less than a quarter mile from our driveway when Jay spotted it—a mangy-looking cow with half her winter coat, grazing in the far ditch. Taffy didn’t see it until we were only a hundred feet away. Jay had her collar in his hands and she went suddenly stiff. This was no deer! All the fur stood up on her back, from head to tail, and for the first time in our 3 ½ years together, she growled!

The moose looked up calmly, having heard us long before we saw her. She was as big as a horse, but still didn’t look full grown. Her nose was long, her dewlap a little brown tuft that dangled like an ill-fitting necktie, her legs spindly. She moved off into the evergreens a few paces; if we hadn’t watched where she went we would never have been able to pick her out—she blended in almost completely.

Jay took the dog home, and the moose reemerged, having found a good spot to munch on both balsam firs above and salt on the remaining heap of snow below. It was almost dark. She faded slowly into the shadows and the sound of her massive teeth on the balsams echoed down the road after us as we left.


Perhaps she followed us home. The pussy willows lining our driveway had already been picked over when I arrived with knife in hand this morning. Massive coffee bean imprints in the soft gravel matched the height of the nibbled off bushes. Taffy got one whiff of the tracks and let out a low growl.

There are no daffodils or crocuses or snowdrops yet, no blueberry or strawberry flowers, and only buds on the most impatient trees. But the lake is melting. The animals are out. The paths to the cabins are muddy enough for black rubber boots. And in between the burned and soot-black trees, gleaming like faery silver, there are pussy willows.




April 23rd, 2009.

p.s. Now the lake is completely open, save for a few nomadic floes of ice pushed our way by a westerly wind.

Rabbit Mittens

Old Missus Rabbit,
What do you do when
Winter comes?

Why we bundle up tight!
Snug & warm with our
warm fur muffs and our mittens.

But what do you eat,
you & your children
when the darkness is long?

Why we eat aspen & birch
& we nibble the bark
& we sleep in our nest & dream.

What do you dream of,
Missus Rabbit,
when the snow is thick?

All of us all, we dream
of Spring! Of tender
green shoots & running streams.

And when it has come,
the final Spring thaw,
what then?

Then we throw off our coats
& our socks & our muffs
& we hang our mittens to air in the sun.

Where do you hang them,
Good Mother Rabbit?
Have I seen them in the woods?

Yes, you have seen them
if you know where to look;
they are silvery bright & many.

Do you hang them on the fir trees
to dry on their
wide boughs?

No, no! Their needles
would stick in our paws!
We do not hang them there.

Do you hang them on the primrose
with thorns as clothespins?
Is that where I may find them?

No, no! My little rabbits
would be pricked by the thorns.
We hang them somewhere better.

Then tell me—
Where?

All of our mittens, every
silvery soft one
hangs on a branch of pussy willow.

And then Mrs Rabbit wiggled her nose & hopped off
to find her children
& Spring.

Featured Character for April

Old Mother Goof

Old Mother Goof gets things just a little bit wrong—or a little bit right! After all, she is the second-cousin-twice-removed from Old Mother Goose, so shouldn’t she know the real story behind your favorite nursery rhymes and fairy tales?

She may tell you what really made the cow jump over the moon; what the stars are made of; or how a pig, a duck, and a cow baked a birthday cake for Old MacDonald. Bring your imagination and your sillies, and be prepared to jump onstage with her for the goofiest fairy tales ever!

Storytelling Workshops & Residencies

Most residencies begin with an assembly storytelling performance. Course lengths may vary from one, four, or more sessions. If time allows, all programs may include performance/sharing for classmates, other classrooms or the general public.
Pricing is based on the MN State Arts Board standard of $250 per day, up to 4 or 5 classroom visits per day, plus one day for prep and teacher meetings. A typical week-long residency costs $1,500.


For grades K-3

Animal Stories of How & Why: an Introduction to Storytelling
Students create their own “pourquois tales” to explain how the leopard got her spots or why the fish lives underwater. Students become their animals, experimenting with voice and movement. A great pre-writing activity!

My Imaginary Friend the Superhero
An introduction to plot and character through drawing, movement, and storytelling. Students create their Imaginary Friend and his or her adventures—another excellent pre-writing workshop.

Letters From the Woods: pen pal with a Troll
Margareta the Troll is small enough to play leapfrog with a real frog--and she loves to write letters! Students practice friendly letters to enhance literacy and writing skills. Margareta's letters are beautifully done in calligraphy pen, accompanied by hand-colored maps, family tree charts and photos of plants and animals mentioned in her stories.
This "distance residency" may be coupled with "Telling Troll Tales"


For All Grade Levels

Telling Troll Tales
The Troll under the bridge gets a story all to him- (or her-) self as students let their imaginations roam! Students learn about setting, characters, climax and dialogue by drawing their own Story Stages and performing for their peers.

The Flip-side of Fairytales: Old Stories Get a New Twist
There's more to "Cinderella" than Disney's version! Students read and hear different versions of classic stories to discover what happens when Cinderella moves to New York City or the Big Bad Wolf isn't really bad. Using oral storytelling techniques and drawing Story Stages, students create and share original fairytales.

The Juicer: Comprehensive Creative Exercises
Great as a supplement to science, social studies and literacy projects. Students get outside the box using theatre techniques, guided imagery, movement and more!


For grades 4-12

Story Skeleton: The Essentials of Oral Storytelling
Students use traditional folk tales to learn the art of telling a captivating story. Topics include character vs. narrator voice, theatrical tricks and tips, audience participation and how to give constructive feedback. No memorization necessary!

Center Stage: Acting and Improvisation 101
For first– or second-timers. Students learn how to read between the lines, improvise and add dramatic elements such as movement and voice.

Becoming a Bard: Exercises to Awaken the Poet Within
An intuitive approach to bring out each student’s poetic expression. Students experiment with various writing structures/forms to find their own unique style in an encouraging environment.

[ Stage Right ]: Playwrighting
Students create original scenes and stories in large groups and pairs through improvisation and writing exercises as well as becoming familiar with basic theatrical terms.

Making History: See History Through Your Own Eyes
Oral storytelling examples and writing prompts lead participants through first person accounts of what life could have been like in the early 1900’s.

Making Myth: What the Stars Are Made of and More
Students uncover what questions and mysteries are meaningful to them and then create original myths. Grounding, meditative and encouraging.


For Teachers & Adults
This workshop is available in a 3 or 6 hour format

Once Upon a Workshop: How to Tell Stories to Children
Learn the elements of telling a good story to connect with students, take story time beyond the picture book and a history or science lesson beyond the text book. No memorization required! Practical, Interactive, Entertaining.

October in the North: We Wait

The office is noisy—walkie-talkie conversations crackling up from downstairs, the whackita-whackita of Jay’s key board on an uneven keel, and, after I tried to fix the “whackita” problem, the happy couple is… mad at each other.
I sat down to write about October…the Fall…In other words, to write down something poetic—not to do an annoyed piece about how I never have any peace and quiet to write and how my life as a writer is doomed and the odds are against me and my husband needs to work less so he doesn’t feel rushed and cranky and irritable and behave like an ass!

But that’s the thing about fall vs. summer, or at least the pre-Winter stage of fall we’re in. The colors are gone and the sun is unreliable, leaving us with bare or burned-bare trees, gray skies and cold winds most days; expecting us to make our own happiness.
I think often of Emily Dickinson writing, “April is the cruelest month.” She was, I think, referring to the unattractive revealing of all things hidden so forgivingly by the snow, now exposed, muddy, ugly—and unavoidable.
But October—or, since the months feel different this far north, let’s just call it what it’s been for two weeks: November—when everything is bare and waiting to be covered, can be hard, too.

Today the sun shone through clear skies right from the very start—the promise of two days in a row of actual light. I took my journal and sat on a chilly rock down by the water with a good view from East to West. The trees were rimmed with orange light, but as I wrote, the line of color faded and so did I. Would the rocks and trees and distant chapel on the island still seem hopeful and beautiful in the blank light of day? Or would I have to conjure up the beauty and optimism myself?
Imagine my utter surprise when an orange orb caught my eye! The sun was rising above the trees! After so many days and weeks of unchanging, unforgiving solid gray clouds that lit the day with nothing but ambient light, my internal clock was actually expecting the sun to set at 8 a.m.
Now it shines yellow on the cedars, who keep their winter leaves green, and on spruce (black and white), and red and white pine. Even balsam fir is turned the color of old army blankets in this angle of light.
The Ham Lake fire—in the spring of 2007—burned so much of this area, I’m lucky to have green trees to look at. Out across the water, not far from the chapel, the dull grays and blacks and reds don’t respond much to the presence or absence of the sun. Another lake, called Pincushion, got its name because of its stark, fire-sculpted landscape. The hill that rose up from the water on one side had once been topped with swaying pines. After a fire went through, travelers arriving at the landing saw only tall, jagged tree trunks, some black, some the bare gray-white of the exposed wood standing naked of its bark, poking up out of the mound of earth and rock. The likeness gave it the name it still has today. Around here, the trees seem to be stitching up the sky, dragging it down on cloudy days when there is some substance to grab at.


It was beautiful at the beginning of October, and I feel obligated to try to remember that. I had a friend take photos me—dressed as my newest character: a tree spirit with a half-mask and on stilts—amid the intense colors. My costume of camouflage layered with near-spring green, true red, glittering flecks of purple and russetty pinks matched the display of colors exactly.
Without its summer green, the black willow by the lake was accentuated—hunched and curved over itself, the bark even blacker in the damp of fall and the leaves like sunlit yellow feathers from some mythical goose. The aspen and birch were crowned in golden coins, and the poplar dropped leaves laced with blood red at their hearts.
The rosehips (the bulbs directly behind the pale pink summer blossoms of wild roses—full of seeds and very good for you) were absolutely scarlet—vermillion—crimson. They were the first to turn, as early as August and September—first blushing pink, then orange, then like miniature sunsets, descending into an array of cranberry reds. Now they are shriveled and puckered, but in the height of the fall foliage, they were still full and round and vivid.
Low bushy plants shot up in magentas, small fuzzy caterpillar plants turned even grayer against the backdrop of their brilliant neighbors. The tall grass lining the driveway varied between green and brown, gold and ochre. The blueberry bushes were my favorite and most unexpected—set against boulders of pale cloud-gray lichen, sea foam and velvety emerald greens of moss, the purple-tinged blueberry leaves were more vivid than the rosehips.
I took careful stock of the many now-disclosed patches, next to reaching spruces, or scattered like embers in the wake of the fire between the charred black trunks of trees. If I had to pick the best thing about summer in the far north, I would not hesitate to say, “Blueberries.” They were in abundance here, growing thick after the fire as they are known to do. There is nothing else that can make you feel so wealthy and satisfied as stopping every couple yards to bend and gather a handful of the purplish blue berries and throw the whole decadent fistful into your mouth. All summer I walked, looking not up at the trees or the summer sky, but down—scanning, panning left to right and back again, like a hungry black bear, searching for more berries to eat.

The cedars all turned patchy orange this year, alarming us. We thought it was global warming, but our resident U of M forestry graduate student told us they do this every few years—the coniferous trees do in fact shed some of their needles. Even the red pines were patterned with puffs of rusty brown.
The tamaracks, growing in the low, swampy areas, turned color later and until last week were still in their prime. Before the cold came, they were indistinguishable from their spruce and balsam neighbors, but suddenly, after a drop in temperature, the drive down the winding Gunflint Trail was lined with trees covered in feathery, downy tufts, all the color of goldenrod and spaghetti squash. The sudden coloring of the tamaracks gave the forests an ethereal feel—if the evergreens could magically change color, what would happen next?
And through it all, the true evergreens held the standard—the murky, mysterious depth of dark color that all the blooming soft-leaved trees make their debut and finale against.

It’s good to remember all this, being in the “in-between” season we are now. Since moving here, I have decided four seasons are not enough to be accurate. There are at least two distinct seasons between summer and winter: the color time, the moss and spider time, the waiting time of gray clouds. Even summer has its early stage of near-spring, then the wildflower time (and the disappearance of the rich silky moss, hidden by enthusiastic grasses); there is the berry time (strawberries first, then raspberries and blueberries), there is the heat and height of the summer with hot days and sweet lethargy; there is the time of cooler nights and the quick chilling of the lake; and there is a quiet, pensive time as summer moves smoothly into Fall.
It’s the cold time now. We have a reprieve today, but we aren’t fooled. We are waiting. There has been frost on the ground and some transient snow. It will get colder. The lake will freeze at some point and become safe enough to walk across. The snow will fall and we will put on our snowshoes or skis.
But for now, we are preparing; biding our time, like everyone else. The red squirrels gather up pinecones and eat the seeds, leaving piles of red-orange shingles on stumps and rocks; the gray jays and blue jays are bolder and more aggressive. I have not seen the pine marten since spring, but not doubt he is rifling through our garbage.
The wolf packs are out—I have caught lone figures in my headlights, running on the road, and one, easily matching me in weight, crossed right by our mailbox and disappeared into the trees on the other side. The scrawny foxes of the summer are thick and richly cloaked in readiness; the moose are patchy, growing their winter coats.
We are patchy, too—scrappy-looking with feelings to match. Sometimes cheerful, making our own entertainment, then at others, grumpy—bears ready for hibernation, unhappy to be disturbed from our pre-winter sleep.

Emily, or some other observant person commented, “Death comes to us all.”
So does Winter.
But not yet.

Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux, 30/10/2008

Pecan Pie & The End of Things

There was the sound of feet and voices outside on the jetty.
“Come on!” her brothers cried. But she stood, still and immovable and silent.
All around in the red-and-gray-and-green-moss world, everything was changing. The mist was taking over and she knew from all the childhood stories in the parlor that this was It.
“Come on, Juliet!”
But she stayed.

She was in both the kitchen and the living room, (the doorway between them very wide). The pocket doors were pushed in and she wondered what would happen to them when the time came. Would they remain standing, an entryway into a lost world, or would they rot and fall away like everything else? Would she?
Outside on the river, the motor sputtered and came to life—anxiously, it seemed to her; as if even the little metal boat wanted to leave the unnatural mist and the glades and all the uncertainty that clung to its damp shadows. Papa was already rotted in his wet grave down by the Cyprus tree, and Mama was surely gone entirely below the long dramatic tendrils of the willow. It had only been the children in the house, all grown, for so many years, waiting. Now the end of things was almost certain, and it would not be the end the family Christiane had hoped for. But there were still a few things to be done, and she hoped there would be time.
A low growl of thunder called from somewhere above the glades, a fly rose and battered the glass of the window. Juliet turned calmly to look at the oven, and a moment later, nearly drowned out by the roar of the river and the motor and her brothers’ last calls to her, the kitchen timer clicked back to zero.
“Done,” she said.
She retrieved the oven mitts from the counter; they were black and she had made them herself. The apron was already tied about her waist, a swath of gathered red and white that covered her skirt save two inches of hem showing blue below its checkered edge and reaching to her knees. She was wearing black heels to match the oven mitts as she always did when cooking, and her dark was tied up in a knot at her neck. Within the mitts, between the hem of her skirt and the patent leather of her shoes, and high up on the back of her neck where a wisp of hair curled in the damp, her skin was pale white and imperceptibly freckled. She smoothed her skirt beneath the apron and crossed the kitchen.

The oven was a great black and steel-gray beast, brought over from France by a relative on Daddy’s side, and the family secrets of brioche and crème brulée had been passed down through the generations that took their tutelage at its well-seasoned helm. Nothing had ever burnt in that oven, save one quiche made by Grandmère Rose years ago, but that was when Bonpapa had had his heart attack, and it seemed even the great oven had momentarily lost its composure from grief and shock. All the rich butter that Grandmère had insisted on using even through the Depression had taken its toll on the old man.
Grandmère had baked croissants furiously all through that long night, folding in the butter with angry, arthritic fingers. Her people had a streak of Flemish Belgian somewhere back, and so she did not speak but rolled and rolled in silence. Juliet had barely been ten years old then, but she was the only one Grandmère allowed to help her watch the croissants, when, after the sun began to lighten the sky she could take no more and fell asleep at the polished wood table, pastry still beneath her fingernails.
In the morning when the priest came to see the dead man laid out properly, the smell that met him struck him as heretical and ungodly. He had simply stood in the doorway and stared at them all, aghast, as they sat gathered round the table tearing creamy flakes of pastry with their bare hands, the butter running down their wrists and onto the tablecloth in oily, shimmering pools. He had not come back, and no Christiane had been buried in the Catholic cemetery since.
Now Juliet stood in the same kitchen and also baked to fend off death. Her heart pounded in her ears, but she thought of Grandmère, and her hands were still and steady as she pulled down the wide door.
The smell of roasted pecans and sweet brown sugar came tentatively first, breathed out like a sigh, a hint of chocolate lingering after it. Then the rain burst from the clouds and exploded on the house, pounding the metal roof and wrenching the gutters from the eaves. The syrupy smell of the pie matched it and poured out in a torrent of caramel, expanding, flooding, coating everything, even the mist that was now entering the house greedily, seeping in under the door jam and at the poorly-sealed window frames. The heat of the oven and the clammy cold of the mist reacted like an explosion and made a living corona of air currents around the pie and the woman who held it, steaming, in her hands.
“Ten minutes to cool,” said Juliet to the house and the mist and her own heart, beating loud and fast in her ears.
“Ten minutes, that’s all I need, and then it’s done.”

March, 2008