{"id":1632,"date":"2019-04-16T09:19:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T09:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2019-04-16T09:19:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T09:19:31","slug":"housesitting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/uncategorized\/housesitting\/","title":{"rendered":"Housesitting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"text-align:right\">3\/19\/19<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m housesitting, and a Carolina Wren lies by the window of the screen door on my grandparents\u2019 porch. Its eyes either closed or slurped out by insects that fit through the screening. A minute pang follows that consideration; they\u2019re closed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I water plants, check the thermostat, make sure I didn\u2019t track in dirt. I retrieve a newspaper bag from my grandmother\u2019s quintessential grandmother-bag-stash. I go to the porch, my hand in the bag, a sanitary glove. Death is messy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A shovel is in the shed, and then a hole is in their backyard. A root is severed, and it wasn\u2019t a metaphoric umbilical cord. The wren is placed in the hole, sprinkled with birdseed and flowers from a traveling grandmother\u2019s garden. The hole is filled in, a brick placed on top, more senselessly sentimental birdseed, more flowers, placed in each of the brick\u2019s three holes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A week later, when the plants need watering, the grave has been robbed. The brick lies like a desolate bridge across the grave, the hole beneath riddled with claw marks. I don\u2019t dare search for the corpse, for its eyes were closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drew Lanham killed a sparrow and I killed a dead wren. I think of blogging and take an unnotable photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later, a red ant drowns in a small, flooded pit in the woods, a sinkhole maybe. A friend and I watch it, remorselessly call it a spider. I take a video, my mind again swimming with thoughts of blogging, and rescue it in return for its performance. Do ants have actor\u2019s guilds? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drew Lanham killed a sparrow, Johnny Cash killed a lone rider, I killed a dead wren, and I recorded a then-dying ant. Would Lanham have filmed the sparrow\u2019s death, if given the chance? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_7117-e1555402940653-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1633\" width=\"292\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_7117-e1555402940653-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_7117-e1555402940653-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_7117-e1555402940653-1200x1600.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 292px) 85vw, 292px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3\/19\/19 I\u2019m housesitting, and a Carolina Wren lies by the window of the screen door on my grandparents\u2019 porch. Its eyes either closed or slurped out by insects that fit through the screening. A minute pang follows that consideration; they\u2019re closed. I water plants, check the thermostat, make sure I didn\u2019t track in dirt. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/uncategorized\/housesitting\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Housesitting&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1675,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions\/1675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}