Names are important—there's a Chinese proverb that goes "Calling things by their right names is the beginning of wisdom"—so I wanted to find something good to call my little blog. I wanted a name that would at least hint at my approach, which is to avoid commenting on the media world (too much competition, and I'm not really interested) and focus on daily life, real life, the Big Stuff (birth, death, etc.) and minutiae all jumbled together like in a rummage sale. And I thought about it, and rejected lots of silly ideas. But more and more, I kept going back to something that happened back in ninth grade.
We had a science teacher I'll call Mr. H., not so much to preserve his anonymity as to fuzz things up in case it was someone else entirely I'm thinking of. Mr. H. was a science teacher out of Central Casting—balding, horn-rimmed glasses, short-sleeved dress shirt, and (of course) a bow tie. He wasn't hip. But he was very, very cool. Today I might call him "authentic"—he'd learned to be what he was. And he was one of those teachers who really do have a passion for their subject.
One day Mr. H. led us all outside and across the playing fields to a section of the school's campus that was still woodsy. Inside the woods it was dark and cool, and we couldn't see what he was leading us toward until it was inches from our faces—a net, like a badminton net but made of the finest possible threads, stretched out for some distance at head height among the trees.
Without too long of a wait, a bird had flown into this net. They're called mist nets because, of course, you can't see them. And neither can birds. But their motion carries them forward, the net sags forward and down, and before the bird knows what's what it's gently but firmly held. We crowded around, and Mr. H. just as gently removed it. It wasn't highly colored, a warbler of some type, I suppose. What I remember as most marvelous were its legs. I'd never seen a healthy bird that close before, and I couldn't get over the impossibly fine machinery. How could those slender twigs be part of such a vividly living creature, how could they serve it, how could all of it be? It was one of those moments in which one part of life's near-impossibility brings home to you the idea that all of life is just as marvelously improbable.
Since then, I became a writer of sorts, and I've thought about how writing works a bit. The words aren't the thing, that's flat. You need to get that straight right away. I will never construct words as marvelously that damned bird's leg. It frustrates you. You want to make the thing itself, you want people to call you a creator and so forth. But it ain't gonna happen.
But what you can do is make a net of words well enough that they're capable of trapping, for a few moments, something of an otherwise fleeting impression or fragile memory. That's difficult, but not impossible. It can be done, with work. The words can convey something, enough for a longer look at that impression, that memory, that whatever.
That's why it's called The Mist Net Chronicles. If something strikes me, I'll try to record it so that other people can check it out, see what they think. It takes some hubris to even try. But it takes humility, too. I'll give myself credit, once in a while, for fashioning a net that works well. I'll take the credit for their authorship. But I'll never be the author of the birds. God? Hazard? Those are our two best guesses so far. But not me, gang. I just make nets, and spread them where I think we'll catch something worth looking at.
If you want to know more about me and what I do for money, you can check me out at my website. You can also get in touch and I hope you do.