On Why It Is Absolutely Necessary to Talk to Teddy Bears

to have a friend who listens patiently

          to whatever you have to say

someone who will talk to you

          whenever you are lonely

                   or just want a friend to share with

someone who loves you just the way you are

maybe

after you have talked to your teddy bear

          long enough and often enough

you will learn to talk to

Mountain Lion

and Coyote

Wild Turkey

and Red Tail Hawk

Rattlesnake

and Cutthroat Trout

maybe you will listen hard enough

          in the silence of the wild

                   to hear them talk back to you

and perhaps if you talk long enough

          to Weasel

          and Squirrel

                   you will be able to talk with

Red Cedar and

Ponderosa Pine

Mariposa Lily

and Gentian

Black Oak and

Douglas Fir

maybe you will listen hard enough

and long enough

to hear them speak of patience

unconditional love

and the fear of chain saws

then

when you have learned from

a blade of grass

what it is like to wave in the sun

          and die

maybe then you will be quiet enough

and listen slow enough to be able to talk to

Exfoliated Granite

Rutilated Quartz

Schizt

Serpentine

Conglomerate

Rolled River Rocks

Basalt

and Bedrock

and if you are quiet enough and listen slow enough

you might learn from their ancient wisdom

          of patience and transformation

                   of fire and water

                             of earth and sky

and then you will respect the earth

          and all her children

So it could be.

          -Raven Joy

Chronicles of the San Juan Dump

     She remembered the San Juan Dump.  When she first moved into this little town, no… before, even before she moved to Nevada County in that torrential rainstorm, even before, when she had been visiting from the dark and dismal Central Valley, locked in fog, even then her lover had brought her to the dump, and spoken in reverential tones of its wonders.

    Her first home on the ridge was right on the outskirts of North San Juan.  Three blocks (long) to the dump.  She could go ever day if she wanted to.  And sometimes did.  Just for excitement.  And the wonder of never knowing what might be waiting if she only arrived at the right moment.

    All her needs were met by the dump.  Dishes, furniture, clothing, things she never knew she wanted till they appeared.  Locals commonly prayed to the dump deity for specific items, which would always turn up after being prayed for, but as with all prayers, they learned to be specific lest the dump deva misunderstand and produce something not quite what the petitioner had in mind.

    When she wanted a wok, she made sure to ask for the correct type of wok, stainless steel, and when it appeared, lo and behold it came complete with stand, lid, rack, and stirrer.

     She always laughed when she remembered the day, near Christmas, when she and her friends Eve and Mary had been out shooting a poetry video in nature, Joy reading her poems against backdrops of the Yuba River (too noisy), the Yuba Canyon (too vast), various trees and branches (often pokey), an old lumber truck (fun for exits and entrances), and at last, but most important, the San Juan Dump.

     These three were all members of a group of ecologically minded fashion designers who created their dreams out of trash.  Haute Trash was the name of their fashion show, a sell-out even at the Nevada Theatre in town whenever it was held.  The San Juan Dump was their patron saint and inspiration.  How could they film a video without ending up at the dump?  When they arrived, the scene was perfect for filming the reading of Joy’s poem, “The Librarian and the Poet” with a child’s rocking chair and a complete set of Classics in Literature strewn carelessly about the dumpster.  Joy sat on the pavement, leaned on the chair, and recited the words.  It was her favorite poem, the one she wrote after her first date with Coyote Poet Will Staple.  The background was too exquisite to believe.

     After the filming, the women poked around a bit, ever watchful for fashion of need.  Mary X reached into a boxful of books and pulled one out.

     “Look at this one,” she called out to her two friends, “what beautiful illustrations.  Come and look.”

     “Seven Arrows,” Joy exclaimed.  “I’ve prayed for that book for years.  And in hardbound,” she added as she grabbed the book out of Mary’s hands.

     “Well, umm, Merry Christmas,” Mary stumbled a bit but made a quick recovery.    

      “It’s your Christmas present I owe you for the earrings you just gave me,” she elaborated, as Joy, realizing the social fau-pax and bad breach of manners attempted to return the book to Mary with a sad look of longing for the long sought-after object.  Mary was referring to the auspicious circumstance, only hours before, when Joy had surprised Mary with a pair of handmade amethyst crystal earrings.  So Joy kept the book, and Mary was saved the embarrassment of an unreciprocated Christmas present, or having to shop.

     Joy had even found a lover there, River Ocean Mountain, beginning a passionate three-month long-distance love affair while he drove his semi across America with her heart dangling from his rear-view mirror.  She had come to the dump that day in red evening gown and glitter, left over from Halloween at the school and before trick-or-treaters.  Their eyes met, conversation flared, and soon she handed him her phone number with a tentative date for next Saturday.  She knew it proved you could find whatever you needed at the dump.

     The social life was often stimulating.  Friends, neighbors, could congregate amongst the treasures, sharing conversation and gossip, offering cast-off delights to one another.

      “Here, you have a boy about his size, look at this jacket.”

     “Over here, your daughter could wear this snow suit.”

     “I know this dress is just your size.”

     “Do you need a coffee table?”

     “How’s your son doing?”

     “Sorry to hear you guys broke up.”

     “So where are you moving to?”

     “Nice to see you again.”

Sometimes one could even partake of the local herb in the back seat of parked cars.

       Several people solved their housing problems, living rent-free on the outskirts.

       The professional dumpster-divers, looking mostly for aluminum or reparable appliances provided a familiar face and a sense of continuity and family. EZ and his three-legged dog always had a pleasant word and a cheerful smile, accepting contributions gratefully, provided pointer and assistance in return.  Joy had on numerous occasions asked for EZ’s help (he had a long hooked stick for retrieving low-level items) liberating some hard to reach treasure from the dumpster bottom.

      There was rudeness too.  Some new people took longer than others to realize the dump was a sacred resource to be shared by all, and failed to follow the sacred tradition where whoever first spotted and pulled an item out had first rights, even if it was too bulky to put in the car right away.  Tempers could flare, voices might rise, but in the end the dump was for everyone, not just the quick and the strong.

She forgot what it was like to shop for furniture, clothes, or kitchen items.  There were more of these than she could bring home.  She found clothes fancy enough for formal weddings, though uncertain quite what to answer when impeccably dressed strangers would inquire as to what shop this elegant creation was purchased in so they could shop there too.  Sometimes she enjoyed answering, in all seriousness, “The San Juan Dump,” just to watch their mouths drop open, then walk away.  Her son learned electronics repair from the multitude of slightly broken stereos, radios, and other marvelous wonders of the electronic age that are discarded as soon as a button breaks, a door falls off, a switch fails.  He learned to patch together pieces of broken equipment until a whole and functioning new synthesis was reached.  Her vacuum cleaner was one that had been thrown away because the belt had broken.  It was the best vacuum cleaner she had ever owned.

       And so the dump thrived and flourished.  Sadly, some dumpster divers, in their search for cash value objects, would toss everything out and leave a mess scattered on the ground for the Grass Valley Disposal truck drivers to rake up and shovel into the truck, giving a bad rep to all the honest and neat citizens who merely wanted to share in the surplus of consumerism, practicing recycling in its most beneficial form: re-use of manufactured objects.

      There were the powers-that-be who looked askance at the San Juan Dump, savior of those who lived on the edge; those very people whom the government often wished would just disappear, solving all their problems.  The community was threatened with closure of this local resource on a regular basis.  Meanwhile the high mucky-mucks were busy polluting the water table with their sloppy administration of the McCourtney Land Fill in Grass Valley, the ultimate destination of the trash and garbage deposited in the North San Juan Transfer Station.

       And, in one brief moment of administrative ingenuity, they decided to impose dump fees so that they could pay the fines they were being charged by state and federal agencies for the pollution.  It was the end of the San Juan Dump.

Sure, they kept it open.  Between 8:00a.m. and 5:00p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.  No children or pets allowed out of the vehicles, NO SCAVENGING!, high fences, a tollbooth, and they even took down the license number of your car, just to make sure you weren’t commuting from Yuba County to pay these high dump fees.  As predicted, the quantity of garbage being properly disposed of decreased dramatically.  The social atmosphere vanished.  Instead of the crowd of friends and loved ones gathering for companionship and the adventure of discovery, one could come to the dump time after time having no one to visit with but the paid attendant, and never seeing anyone dump off trash.  It was hard to imagine the dump fees ever paying for the high fences, let alone the wages of the full-time staff person.

      Coming a mere two months before the scheduled Haute Trash fashion show, the closing of the dump was a disaster for Joy, aka Recyclarella, and the rest of the trash designers.  Memos were sent to all landfill outposts to be on the look-out for crazed women sneaking in to scavenge in the name of fashion.  Although after petitioning enough authority figures, the twelve designers, names specified, were given special dispensation to scavenge until the fashion show.  But it was too late.  No one could afford to throw anything away anymore.  People were dumping in secret places, or just hanging on to those unwanted items collecting cobwebs in basements and back rooms.

       In desperation, Joy wrote a letter to the editor of the Grass Valley Union lamenting this tragic situation, which the newspaper titled, “No Good Trash.”  She was able to use this title of a bikini composed of red tape and dump receipts (yes folks, they gave out dump receipts).  She apologized for the lack of coverage this tiny bikini provided for her young model, Willow, citing the lack of people paying to dump, and the lack of receipts she was able to scrounge in two months time.

Eventually, life settled in to a new pattern.  She learned about recycling and how to go to the San Juan Dump only once every three months or so.  Her son gave up electronics so he could save the trees, and she lost her school job and took up writing trashy novels just to pay the bills.  Sometimes, when she drives to the dump on the wrong day and the fence is locked she wants to scream and toss her garbage to the wind, over the fence, becoming a criminal.

But she doesn’t.  She just drives on into town.  To shop.

P.S,  Later on, they stopped using the Grass Valley Disposal Site altogether and started trucking the garbage to Sonoma County, Joy’s birthplace.  So when she moved out of the cabin she’d been inhabiting when the dump was changed to pay for service, the ton of garbage and found items she had to dispose of went back to her native home.