Not this one. Too noisy. Imagine your bedroom window just a few feet away.
The title of this Wobbly is How Installing a Fountain is Like Writing a Poem. You may not give a hang about my latest struggle with a fountain. But we can’t help writing about the things that gnaw on us, right? The things we want to give some shape to. The value isn’t in the subject, but in the passion. I assure you I have collected a considerable amount of passion about this subject over the last year or so.
Not this one. Our pool has no outer ring. Imagine walking by when the wind’s blowing.
Being in charge of installing a fountain is like writing a poem in that you start at knowing nothing, seeing only as far ahead as the next line. I volunteered, with a resident friend, to co-handle this project when our “Rainman” statue was spirited away by its sculptor. We had some vague ideas about how to proceed. Rainman had been tall, and we wanted to see some height on a new fountain.
The process of collecting enough money for this—and it was a considerable amount—I will skip here. Let’s just say, responsibility weighs heavy on my soul.
Pumps and nozzles is what it boils down to. How high, how powerful. Too powerful and the people who live directly above complain of the noise. Too small and, well, that’s where we are now. The landscape designer said we should build a heap of rocks with water flowing over them. (Some residents didn’t like that idea). Or, have multiple sprays all turned inward toward the center—a bowl of water, essentially. But no, we had him make a tall geyser. Too much! Even without the nozzle, the burble was too loud. So he took out that pump and put in a smaller one. We tried nozzles that flower the water outward—but the sides of the pool are soaked if there is any wind—we tried nozzle after nozzle: pulsing, rotating, fanning.
One kind of nozzle. Imagine how easily these little spray tubes can clog. Yes they can, I promise you.
If you’re a writer and you’re still thinking poem, I’d say it’s not unlike trying a word, a line, rejecting it, trying again. I am nothing if not stubborn. I know what a poem can do. I know how it can be made, and I will hold on with my teeth the way your dog clamps down on a rag when you’re playing. I do not let go. I am tired, so tired of this fountain, but there’s nothing to do but keep on.
The pool lights are not yet working properly. The landscaper, after working with us all summer, trying nozzle after nozzle and three different pump sizes, is off working on a job in another town. He’ll eventually be available again, but not now.
Poems, all writing for that matter: you muddle on. You don’t know what to expect of it. You aren’t sure where it’s going or if it’s going anywhere. You are in the middle of a mess of words you made and you can only keep going.
Ice Towers. Imagine just one of these. Perfect!
We are understaffed here, as is true everywhere. But one of our truly wonderful staff has come to my aid. He, like me, seems to be itchy when things aren’t going well. He takes on the challenge. He suggested an “ice tower” nozzle, which seems just right. It shoots up a bit, but it’s filled with air so that the sound is muted. It will be our solution, when it’s finally working properly.
In the meantime, algae. Before we realized it, we had a pool full of algae. What next? Frogs? Locusts? I bought a bottle of algae killer, but apparently, my hero staff person says, the algae has gotten down into the inner pipes. We’ll have to drain the pool to clean it out.
We have bought a small pool vacuum, I have personally bought a skimmer net and recently a grabber device to pull out the filter without wading into the pool.
The fountain was drained just yesterday. We’re on it for next spring. Just wait.
Stop! The question as a writer—let’s say a memoirist--is how much detail do you need? Do you need to lay out every single fact? E.E. Cummings said, “whenever you think, or you believe, or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself… the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”
The issue is feeling. But you can arrive at feeling through detail. You just have to know how much detail is enough. Picture me, looking out our third-story window, the first snow of the year having drifted down in the night. The lights are still on in the pool. (They’ll shut off as it gets lighter.) The lights are on full-bright because I don’t know how to operate the Bluetooth device to change them, and the contractor isn’t available yet. There’s a clog, so the spray is barely a few inches in the air. Could you as a writer find a way to show that frustration, that despair, that irritation, that weight of responsibility?
You let the feeling show itself, the slump of the shoulders, the small sigh. But not defeat. This is the point in your writing when you will need courage. You don’t know what the next move is, but you move into it.