A Good Knight

One thing I like about Arthurian literature is that the same story is told over and over again; one might even say that the creative emphasis is on delivery rather than content. I was fortunate to be reminded of this today in a used book store when I picked up La Mort le Roi Artu (in translation), not to be confused with the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, or Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the most well-known of the four.

In all these iterations of the fall of Arthur, one of the main themes is the question of what makes a good knight. Ideas of faithful love, honor, and bravery rise as answers to this question, as well as skill in riding and fighting, the literal meaning of 'chivalry'. If you ask who the Best Knight of the Round Table, many people might say Lancelot, who is essentially never defeated in combat, but whose affair with Guinevere is the largest catalyst of the death of Arthur and the destruction of the flower of chivalry. Another common answer is Galahad, who is even more unbeatable and perfect than his father Lancelot, but he is almost more of a priest than a knight, and he is barely 'of the Round Table' because his only quest is the grail and he fights more Round Table knights than he cooperates with. Tristram is another essentially unbeatable knight, but he shares all of Lancelot's flaws and fewer of his virtues.

If I was pressed to name the Best Knight of the Round Table, I would probably go with Percival or Bors, but I think the most interesting answer is Gawain. In most Arthurian tales, Gawain is often defeated and commits many sins, but he nevertheless remains one of the most esteemed and influential knights of the Round Table. There are many sides to this conversation, but for now I propose that Gawain is a good knight because he admits his flaws and shows contrition. This passage at the beginning of La Mort le Roi Artu gives a good example:

"The king [Arthur] had heard the rumor that Gawain had killed several [knights], and he summoned him before him and said:

'Gawain, I order you, by the oath you swore when I knighted you, to answer the question I am going to ask you.'

'My Lord,' replied Sir Gawain, 'since you have asked me in that manner I shall not fail in any way to tell you, even if it brought me shame as great as ever befell a knight of your court.'

'I want to ask you,' said the king, 'how many knights you think you killed, by your own hand, on this quest.' Sir Gawain thought for a moment and the king said again: 'By my oath, I want to know, because there are people who are saying that you have killed a very large number.'

'My Lord,' said Sir Gawain, 'you obviously wish to be certain of my great misfortune, and I shall tell you, because I see that I must. I can tell you in truth that I killed eighteen by my own hand, not because I was a better knight than any of the others, but since misfortune affected me more than any of my companions. Indeed, it did not come about through my chivalry, but through my sin. You have made me reveal my shame.'

'Certainly, my nephew,' said the king, 'that was truly great misfortune, and I am well aware that it happened through your sin. Nevertheless, tell me whether you believe you killed King Baudemagus.'

'My Lord,' he said, 'I definitely did kill him - and I have never done anything that I regret so much as that.'

'Indeed, my nephew,' said the king, 'if you have regrets about that it is not surprising; because, may God help me, I regret it too. My court has lost more in him than in the four best knights who died on the quest.'

Gawain is clearly a flawed knight in this scene, but contrast his admission of weakness with Lancelot's behavior during a fight with a young Gareth in Le Morte d'Arthur: 

"[Gareth] fought more like a giant than a knight; and his fighting was so passing durable and passing perilous, for Sir Lancelot had so much ado with him that he dreaded himself to be shamed, and said, 'Beaumains, fight not so sore! Your quarrel and mine is not so great but we may soon leave off.'"

Shame is mentioned in both passages; Gawain publicly accepts his shame and shows contrition, while Lancelot fights to preserve his image. Many years later, after being caught with Guinevere, Lancelot continues to fight rather than admit fault, to the point of killing Gareth (who loved Lancelot more than his own brothers) and destroying the Round Table. A full discussion of knightly shame would require many more sources; for example, Gawain's ability to confess sin and accept the consequences at the cost of reputation is a major part of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Just as Gawain's moral weakness is redeemed through confession, his relative weakness in combat leads him to be a more good knight, while not a better knight, than his stronger compatriots. There is an idea in chivalric stories that right makes might, i.e. whoever is on the side of justice will prevail in combat (which is why trial by combat is valid). Because of this, one might say that since Lancelot always wins battles, he must be the most morally upright knight. On the other hand, Lancelot fights just as well when killing unarmed knights to save Guinevere from the consequences of his actions as he does on any of his nobler adventures, and there are plenty of tales with evil knights who are strong enough to defeat all but the best from the Round Table. Therefore, I would say that an often-defeated knight such as Gawain shows more bravery in going out questing than an undefeated knight such as Lancelot or Tristram; it takes more fortitude to lose a fight and suffer for doing good than it does to go from victory to victory.

Anyone, then, with the necessary equipment and skill in fighting might be good at being a knight, but as Gawain shows us, it actually takes weakness to be a Good Knight.

Tire Repair

 I was one hour into my five-hour drive home from Atlanta when I noticed that one of my tires was losing air pressure. Even worse, the rate of loss was increasing, so while I thought at first that I could make it back home and deal with the issue later, it soon became clear that I needed to get off the highway. I took the next exit and checked my tire in a gas station parking lot, and found a large nail in it. It was more than I could fix myself, and my spare tire is one of those small ones not suited for long distances. Fortunately, since I wasn't too far from Atlanta, the area was pretty built up and there were several tire shops around-- I counted three just near the exit. Unfortunately, since it was 7 PM on a Friday, they were all closed.

I was marooned in an Americana wilderness of parking lots and plazas. I was pretty stressed at this point, but eventually I asked myself one of the questions I often use while planning things: what's the worst that could (reasonably) happen? The tire shops were right there, so all I needed to do was wait until they opened the next morning. There were plenty of stores and restaurants around, so I could get dinner and maybe even watch a movie or buy a book somewhere. I had a sleeping bag in the car so I could even get some good rest that night. It started sounding almost fun! However, I couldn't in good conscience consider myself stranded unless I made a genuine attempt to leave. Robinson Crusoe's adventures would seem much more artificial, for example, if he had the option to leave the island any time he wanted.

So, I looked online for all the tire shops in the area, and found one only two miles away that was still open. It had a lot of good reviews, and from the website (particularly the font choice), it looked like a locally-owned business. I called ahead to ask if they could do something about a nail in my tire, and they told me to come on over. When I pulled up to the shop, the guy I had talked to on the phone was outside waiting for me, and he seemed pretty friendly. The shop itself was a garage filled with stacks of tires, with a hydraulic jack out front to lift cars.

Since the nail was stuck in the edge of the tire, the diagnosis was that it couldn't safely be patched, so I needed a replacement tire. This ended up being quicker and cheaper than I expected; I drove away twenty minutes later with a fresh tire, $50 less, and an amiable wave. As I got back on the highway, I felt happier than I would have if I hadn't gotten a nail in my tire in the first place. Maybe it was the relatively painless solution to what I imagined would be a terrible ordeal-- after all, who doesn't enjoy a rollercoaster of emotion every now and then?

Critter Encounters

 I've been working in rural Florida this summer and have been impressed by the determination of all sorts of small creatures to get into my house. There are hordes of insects, frogs and geckos that congregate on the windows at night to look in at the light. A few frogs have made it in and I was once surprised to feel a frog jump onto my head while I was working at my desk. There is always one earwig in the shower, never more, never less. And a mouse, the smartest small creature here, took up residence in my kitchen, where I saw it licking my silverware clean late one night. I later opened an unused drawer and saw that the mouse had made its nest there out of some fluffy white material from who-knows-where. The mouse was home at the time and stayed perfectly still as we looked at each other-- it probably didn't know that the drawer could open, an unfortunate trait for a mouse house.

My car, parked in the shade outside, is apparently a mansion for small frogs. They settle under the hood by the windshield wipers and in the lining around the trunk. At least one has found its way to the interior, as I discovered while going 70 miles an hour on the interstate. It jumped onto my neck and I felt the cool moistness of its feet (distinct from the scratchy dryness of an insect) for a second before I spasmed it off and managed not to swerve out of my lane.

I had another instance of critter-caused distracted driving today, also on the interstate, when I reached down for my drink and felt a sudden sharp pain like a needle-prick. I was confused for a few seconds until I looked down and saw a large wasp that must have been trying to share my drink and had stung me on the palm. It was a real shock and the best I could do to react without crashing the car was to open all the windows and hope the wasp would fly out. Instead, it crawled up the dashboard and into an air vent, which I closed behind it. Now, I imagine that the wasp either made it out of the ventilation and is living happily ever after, or that it built a nest somewhere and I can expect dozens of wasps to come out of my air vents sometime in the near future.

This is why I work with plants: while they can have all sorts of thorns and poisons and irritating hairs, I've never had a plant jump on me in the car.

My Pandemic Experience

I'm eating a thanksgiving dinner alone today, like an unusually large number of people this year, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. On March 25, near the beginning of coronavirus spread in the US, I wrote the following as the start of a blog post on the topic:

"The number of COVID-19 cases is on an exponential trajectory at the moment, and it seems like a good idea to write a bit about the situation now because it's something I may be fortunate enough to look back on in the future."

At that point, I put off writing for another time, as with most of my other blog posts in the past few years. Luckily (in a very narrow sense), the pandemic is as relevant today as it was in March, so despite my procrastination I still have time to reflect from the midst of the event.

So far, I have been as fortunate as I hoped; my personal experience this year only involves the indirect effects of the virus. I was able to work remotely, and I was able to go and bunker down with my parents for April and May, the great lockdown. The highways were as empty as I had ever seen them when I was leaving Atlanta in late March, and the electric highway signs were flashing ominous messages like "Coronavirus: stay home" and "Wash hands. Cover cough." These highway signs have evolved over the months of pandemic; later in the summer I saw "Wear a mask, it's the right thing to do" and "Keep gatherings <10 people" and "Protect the vulnerable."

There was a lot of uncertainty in the early days. Masks weren't officially recommended yet and we weren't sure how paranoid to be about things like disinfecting groceries and receiving mail. As the months passed, we got a better handle on how to manage and mitigate risk to stay safe without going crazy. The phrase 'new normal' gets thrown around a lot these days, and I think it's a testament to human flexibility as to how normal pandemic life has gotten. Going shopping with a mask on feels natural now, and social gatherings have generally contracted in size or moved outside or online. I was perhaps better prepared than some to spend an inordinate amount of time in isolation; I've had a good deal of previous practice and if I'm going crazy I haven't noticed.

There's been good news about vaccines recently, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel and hope for a post-pandemic life in the not-too-distant future. Among other things, I'm looking forward to relaxed restaurant meals and in-person conversations with my coworkers.

Chocolate Mouse

A couple days ago, I was just going to bed when I heard a clatter from the kitchen. I assumed the spatula had fallen over or something and went to sleep. Yesterday, I saw a little pellet on the bathroom floor that could conceivably be a mouse dropping. I was suspicious, but not entirely convinced. I haven't seen any mice in the year and a half I've been in my current basement apartment, but there is a good chance that the recent cold snap could be driving some creatures to seek shelter in warm houses.

Now, the rodent menace has showed itself beyond a doubt. I have a cardboard advent calendar with one chocolate for each day, and when I came home today I found two of the cardboard doors messily chewed off and the chocolates missing. Even worse, the mouse hadn't chosen the right dates, so now I have to finish the calendar out of order.

In any case, I went into pest control mode and did a full inspection of my apartment. I found a few droppings along likely mouse runways, and a few other examples of nibbled cardboard. In the kitchen, an easily accessible sleeve of crackers was untouched, but the plastic lid of a container of cocoa mix had been aggressively chewed at; it seems that my rodent roommate has a sweet tooth. The next step, of course, is to take some time to design and implement an integrated pest management solution, but I have already set out two traps baited with chocolate.

A Week in the Woods: Day Seven

It was still drizzling when I woke up on day seven. I packed up what I could while still inside my shelter, then braced myself and stepped out. It was a bleak morning, which felt fitting for my departure from a spot in the woods that was comfortably familiar, if not actually comfortable. My aim when leaving was to carry back all the equipment I had brought in, so I needed to dismantle my shelter to get back the rope and plastic lining. The bed, which was just a pile of spruce boughs on top of some logs, was left intact and is still there for all I know, but the full shelter only exists in memory and this rare photograph.

I had arranged for a pickup near the local stream, and by mid-afternoon I had rejoined civilization at Squirrel Camp. We had a celebratory thanksgiving-style meal that evening, with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and stuffing. The week in the woods had been fulfilling in many ways, but perhaps the most gratifying thing was realizing that I had been missed.

In the following two days, I rejoined civilization to an even greater extent as we drove to Whitehorse and I boarded a plane back to the USA. Again, I took with me mostly the same things I had brought in at the beginning of the summer. I had a few new shirts and some gear that I had picked up in the course of work, but no real mementos. It's the stories themselves that have stuck with me, from staring at bears to swimming in glacial lakes, so I've tried to record some of them here before they fade too much. I don't know if I'm any more rugged than I was before my time in the Yukon, but I might be a bit more adventurous. I'm grateful to have had such a great opportunity, and if I can help it this won't be the last time I spend a week in the woods.

A Week in the Woods: Day Six

Day six was hard to distinguish from my other days in the woods. The rain from the previous night continued on and off, but my shelter stayed dry and I stayed warm. My reading went on at a rapid pace; I finished Robinson Crusoe and was left with whatever I could find of interest on my Kindle. Trips to the stream for water were a polished routine at this point, as were meals of peanut butter, granola, and fruit on my kitchen hill.

In the evening, I was visited again by a representative from Squirrel Camp, and we decided to do a bit of exploring-- after all, there is safety in numbers. When we had gone along the nearby trail for a bit and taken a few turns, we were surprised to see a clearing full of rusted cans. Other scraps of metal and wooden planks were scattered around, as well as a few glass bottles and other old 20th century objects. There were even a few 55-gallon drums lying around, just as rusted as everything else.

Our best guess for the origin of the can graveyard was some early road-building activities undertaken by the US army when the modern Alaska highway hadn't yet been completed. It was strange to see such a heap of human activity in the middle of nowhere, but it was a good reminder that while it's possible to go places where human's aren't very often, there's not too many places (on land, at least) that humans have never been. Following this line of thought can be useful when thinking about conservation and the role of humans in nature, but that's another blog post.

After poking at the abandoned cans for a bit, we headed back to my camp and tried to make another campfire, but it started drizzling again so we just sat beneath a well-leafed tree, nature's umbrella. The clearing was really starting to feel like home.