Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Betty's House Dresses

My grandmother made house dresses look good. Both long and short enough to be practical, these dresses let her clean and straighten and garden and just plain move about. Mostly sleeveless, she wore sweaters, cardigans with pockets, for tissues and miscellany. One day, I will wear house dresses too, and hope that I look like her.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Dreaming of Luggage

In sleep, I walked into unfamiliar buildings with teeming shelves like an old library. I found the green backpack from ten years ago, and the black hanging bag for dress clothes and shoes (from when I used to wear them). Then finally a trunk full of camping and wilderness gear—lost, forgotten, refound—just in time for waking plans. 

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Cabin Dreams

Firelight makes the rafters blink with shadows coming and going. It will take another twenty minutes for the ash to win the fight, committing us to complete dark for the next eight hours. Our bed's in the loft, balcony seating for the whole cabin. Wrapped in a home-sewn bear and moose quilt, we fall asleep before the flames die.

South River Falls

The clouded sky makes the understory glow green technicolor against the soaked, black tree trunks and dark grey stones and slate. Thick, misted air proves that rain has been here, and will return at any moment. The stream is busting with water, tumbling out of its drought-drawn borders, down any channel it can find.

The Dousing

Deep in woods, we experience three degrees of rain. First the leftovers, shaken down from trees by wind. If it reaches us, it feels like grace. Then we hear new rain tapping down through leaves to our faces and shoulders, tiny cool needle pricks. A mile from the car, thunder. The dousing begins, and I am drinking from the sky. 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

As Good as Home

Three days tired, I've finally stumbled back to our front door. Lula, big as a farm animal, sleeps in the back room. Her ribs heave up and down, and she's almost snoring. If only I could have had a little of what she's got; if only a hotel room could take me to that place. The older I get, the less anywhere else feels as good as home.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Big Mess

"Big boss is in town," the cabdriver says, apologizing for the United Nations-inspired tangle. I wouldn't have known the difference. "Big Bush, big mess." Somehow, for the same reasons, the taxi's credit card reader doesn't work either. I let him dispose of me two blocks early; a city wind blows in some late September to clear my head.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sleeping in Times Square

Forty-two stories up, I might as well still be in flight. It took me ten seconds to get this high in the elevator; unnaturally catapulted. Just as a taxi hurled me like a roller coaster from airport to hotel. This is not my home. Sealed away up here, I could be sleeping on another planet; if I were sleeping. Times Square blinks behind my eyelids.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Cows on the Shenandoah II

I walk the country route along the river, in the margin of the asphalt where the natives drive too fast. Today I've walked farther from the monastery road than usual, and on a curve I stop. Right there, legs in the air is a toppled cow, car-stricken and long dead. It's hard to imagine how this cow got here, running for freedom, stopped short.

Younger and Stupider

Riding in the car, I say something, nothing in particular, and Chris bubbles out laughter like milk. It doesn't matter what I said. We're inhaling iced coffees, and it gives us the stupids. The same stupids that keep us up some nights like grade-schoolers. If only school had been this fun. Forty now, I'm younger than I was when we met. 

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Red Bellied Killer

I put cinderblocks there for a reason; mine, not the black widow's. I look down into the cave-sized hole from where that red-dot belly screams at me. It screams hospital visit, ruined plans, disaster. In my fear-soaked mind, I don't have dominion here, no matter how much bigger I am, no matter what kind of shoes I have on.

Champions at Breakfast

Roasted potatoes, both white and sweet. Thick crusted garlic bread, egg whites with baby heirloom tomatoes. Crisp gala apples. Breakfast at home, the near-October air recommends long-sleeved shirts and hot, good coffee. Saturday mornings make us feel invincible. Caffeinated, we think of a million ways to change the world.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Meeting Notes

The second hour into a five-hour meeting, I am counting the change in my pockets. My ears are scrambling the words reaching me from the front of the room. I don't not care; I just wish I were in the woods, listening to the trees instead.

Emergency

I wake in a burst to a siren's whoop. I am safe in my bed, warm and stunned from sleep. It must be my neighbor's heart; in five years I've grown fond of her and her heart. This time I can't watch the stretcher, her frail and strong body strapped in for transport. But I keep vigil, whispering to no one, please bring her back home again.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

River Trail

The trail, carved deep into the meadow, curves with the Deschutes River. On my bicycle, I feel like a ball bearing rolling in a groove. Progress takes me from the open land uphill into forest. At the crest, a horse and rider come out of nowhere, an orchestrated crash, reminding me that hooves made this path, and they were here first.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Cows on the Shenandoah

I walked to the river from the monastery where I was staying. This was farmland; no paths or trails. I wandered on a tractor road, past a working barn, over territory that rightly belonged to a herd of black and white cows. They pretended I wasn't there. But as I descended to the trees along the bank, I turned and saw them watching.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Waiting for October

In the back room, a warm lamp casts warm light on Billy the cat, curled up in Chris' empty chair. This is the axis of our home. Sometimes, all of the animals are in here with us, their happy, resting bodies strewn all over the rug. From my chair, I can't wait to watch October change the air and light, to hear dry leaves falling outside.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

White Rock Falls

Moss-covered rocks surround the shrunken waterfall. These rocks were under water in a more rain-filled season. It's as if the faucet's been turned to the right, but a pool at the bottom survives. For Lula the dog, it's enough. We throw a log in and she jumps for it; her own game of puddle fetch. Mouth full of soggy wood, she begs for more.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Manchester

In an old, new part of town, I forget I've been here almost forever. A community from a wasteland, factories now homes and offices and coffeehouses. Industrious, less and less industrial. Worn bricks with ghosts of old white letters glow from the windows from the new lives inside of them. In a sudden rain, I love this somewhere else.

Coxswain

I faced forward as the fragile rowing shell skated. Four oar blades dipping in, engaging, following through and resurfacing. My rowers faced me. At 5 a.m. we were alone on the water with the herons and sometimes a tugboat. It terrified me to play this part—pilot and commander. Then the weather changed in me and I found my voice.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

First Smoke

We hid behind the church, behind the playground. Me, my brother and Robbie. Robbie had the cigarettes; he was what our parents called a bad kid. We just thought he was interesting. Lighting up, it didn't matter to me that I'd spent most of my childhood so far in hospitals fighting for air. This was our chance to be interesting, too.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Salamanca

I watched birds rise and fall, black waves synchronized and maybe suicidal. With nervy speed they swarmed between tight stone walls—buildings against buildings, homes, storefronts, churches. Straight up, then down and forward, they flooded into the wider morning sunlight of the village plaza, more than a thousand years old. 

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Waylon and Willie

The horses took us farther into the Grand Tetons than we would have taken ourselves. I was on Waylon and Chris rode Willie; or maybe it was the other way around. The meadows swelled around us, and over our shoulders rose impossibly tall rock. Then into a grove of trees, we stopped at a stream and took our shoes off.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Park Sunset

The dogs burn past us on the city park trail's small loop. We keep our knees bent to absorb a collision, in case the dogs miss the narrow gap. The sky looks like mashed potatoes as the sun sets earlier than it did last week. We move to the lake for the swimming part of our evening; clumsy bugs bounce off me in the growing dark.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Nap Time

On the big white wall next to my bed, I was drawing dinosaurs. A mural of big, unfamiliar animals. I was supposed to be taking a nap, but there was no sleeping with a mind full of stories like this. In a different moment, I would know I had broken the rules. But this wasn't then yet. I was just following the lines my hand was drawing.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Permission

In the warm, slow river I waded with my best friend and his mother. We were little kids, so William's mom said I could take my shirt off too. It was an easy, kind moment. With permission to be the little boy I was, I let go of the little girl I was not. All by ourselves in the brown current, summer trees arching softly over us.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Not Sleeping

We pulled our mattress downstairs. In that wind, it felt wise to sleep (or not sleep) closer to the ground. Electricity gone, we used an old radio to feel out how long the night would last. Adrenaline and boredom drove Chris to open the front door, to see what we could hear — the slow thump of trees losing their grip on the earth.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Center

It was dim and busy in the back of the ambulance, moving me from one hospital to another. I was small, and my father rode with me. Because he was there, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I asked him to tell me when we passed our house; to know where I was in relation to the center of my universe. Truth was, he was the center.

Pig Brains

Afternoons in my grandmother's kitchen, our natural idleness would not stand. She put us to work. Scrubbing linoleum, squeaky olive and never that dirty. Sorting cans and jars that Grandma had canned and jarred. Or helping her cook up mysteries on the stove. Once, with a wooden spoon, she coaxed pig brains into my unknowing mouth.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Tree Feathers

Magnolia, holly, cherry blossom; these were my homes as a child. The cherry blossom was my least favorite to climb. The lowest branch was still too high. It took a long heave to reach up into it. One day I lost my grip, fell flat on my back and lost all my wind in one blasting sigh. Down into a bed of white blossoms, not quite feathers.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Mau-Har Trail

We sit in a cold pool in Campbell Creek, three miles in from the Blue Ridge Parkway. We descended through mountain laurel and rhododendron to get here, ankles bending and screaming. The dogs handled it like goats. This ice bath is our reward. We sit, before turning back around, back uphill, letting the sun and breezes find us.