The other day, a friend sent me this interview with the late, Native American author, musician, activist, John Trudell, on “Becoming Human”, where he said, among other ceiling-shifting things, that we, as humans, should “recognize ourselves and give thanks to our intelligence in a daily, ritualistic way.” This really flipped me over. I’d had it all wrong, propelling myself, always, by stick, not carrot.
How to make it right? What could my ritual be? I stood at the stove, like most days, stirring soup that didn’t really need stirring, to sip the broth. I could hear Gram say “more salt”. A pinch from the bowl tossed into the steam, and there it was…
A pinch of salt in the pot - the earth back in my mouth
A body’s ashes to the sea.
A pinch of tobacco to a chosen tree
Full circles.
Salt is one of the only earthly elements that the human body needs. Some intelligence in us has always known this and compelled us to seek salt, wherever we are, and distill it, from the mine, from the brine, even from the blood of deer. We collect it from the earth and store it away inside us until we spend it, in great floods, during times of our most earthly ordeals - sex, wailing, running for our lives. We wouldn’t be able to give these things our all if we weren’t brimming with salt. This intelligence is the one I’m giving thanks to. And what better way than by tending to my body’s basic needs - making sure I’m properly salted. I’m not all body, though, I can go days without noticing it, really. I’m mostly something else. How do I salt that part of me?
A friend sent a surprise in the mail this week, another sent a poem. One licked my face when I got home, and one answered all of my questions with care, and I felt my tepid spirit turn absolutely robust.
Salt can make you think it’s purely elevating the flavor of food, and it is, but by way of grounding, really - drawing from the deepest root - each crystal a mirror, doubling the reflection of what the true flavor is and bringing it to us more clearly - this is a pot of pinto beans, this is an August tomato, this is skin, tequila, chocolate, butter.
It’s the same with friends. This is you, this is me, this is we.
We sniff out friendship, innately, the same way we find salt - that same old knowing.
I don’t care if you’re a starving prisoner of war, you’re gonna befriend a bird to share your breadcrumbs, and if you’re lost in the desert, you’ll fill your mouth with sand to suck the salt. Needs are needs, which seem so basic when I remember to think about them, but for some reason, they’re easy for me to forget. If I’m cooking dinner and it’s missing… something, I’ll be rummaging around, like “where’s the damn saffron” when it really only wants a pinch of salt, and if I, myself, am feeling a little flat, which I’m prone to do, the answer is rarely a trip to the coast of Basque country, it’s probably a text message away.
Salt and friendship are my most reliable buffers against madness.
Almost anything is tolerable when I have them.
When I don’t, it’s a special kind of hell.
“… when had you last a great conversation, in which you overheard yourself saying things that you never knew you knew, that you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you’d thought you had lost, and a sense of an event conversation that brought the two of you onto a different plane, and then, fourthly, a conversation that continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterward?... If you find yourself saying “I haven’t had one for a long time” you should think of where you might find it - maybe some friend that you haven’t visited, and go and be with them…” - John O’Donohue
George Sprague was the saltiest, friendliest guy you’ll ever meet - I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Here’s a poem I wrote about the day we met. If you’d like me to read it to you, press play at the top of the page.
George Sprague - first friend in Acadia
We pulled into the dockyard
looking for lobster
and rolled the windows down
to sniff the salt
Four fishermen turned their heads to watch
Elbows propped on the truck bed
Dangling their beers
Wetting their whistles for supper
When the tide is out
the table is set
The silver one shouted
“You lost?”
“No” I answered
“Yes you are,” he teased,
“Maine plates but there’s no rust on your rockers” he pointed
They all laughed and swigged their beers
and I knew I was home.
He putted me out to his holding tank
And filled my crates with crabs for free
“This’ll keep you busy”
He boasted
“You know what they say about idle hands.”
He tossed me a cold mop of rockweed
“For the pot.
Don’t forget your butter and brandy”
The sky reached after the setting sun
Settling down from slate
to gull grey
to beach plum
to rose hip tea
poured over the mussel blue mountains
to the west
We swam home
under the mackerel sky
and boiled
while it turned wet seal black
We broke down the hard bodies
and sopped up hot butter
We did not forget the brandy
Or his easy friendship.
To hear one of the most beautiful conversations on friendship, time, and beauty, do yourself a favor and listen to this episode of On Being with guest John O’Donohue.
If you’d like to learn how to harvest your own sea salt, you can read this recent piece of mine: 3 Things to Forage in Winter
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