Ordinary Beauty

Like, very, very illegal.

Driving with a dog on your lap.

Driving with no hands on the wheel.

Driving with your appointment book open on the steering wheel and both hands on the appointment book and a cell phone tucked between your ear and your shoulder.

Not to mention text messaging while doing 65 mph down I-5. For 15 minutes.

Okay, maybe all of that already is illegal. Maybe there should be a way such drivers can be forced to partake of an ACCIDENT simulator–like a flight simulator, but with breaking glass and blood.

I stopped at the red light. A woman on the curb was all in her running gear, a black band wrapped at one knee and black shorts and a red jersey. Not just red, but brick, or maroon, or blood. The sky’s light was dimming so it was difficult to put an exact name on the red of her jersey.

The sky had also been dumping rain for the previous 17 minutes or so, and the woman was soaked, in spite of the red ballcap on her head.

I sat in my car and thought about her efforts to care for her body–she looked appropriately sleek, well-burnished. I thought about myself, Back In The Day–in the day when I worked my body, sometimes three hours a day, sometimes a little more.

It was good times, it felt right and good. Of course that was WAY back-in-the-day, when I was just a girl. I ran. Distance. Miles and hours a day.

My coaches were great. Inspiring. Capable of guiding young girls in healthful ways.

That was then. Running in competition. Running behind someone, running to stay ahead of someone–running to do my best, better than my last best, running to win. Not like the running that we grown-ups end up doing in our work, not that frantic Must Keep Ahead. It was something more beautiful.

I miss that spirit. Those times. My round belly shows it.

I cleaned out my handbag. Deep-clean. The kind where you dump out everything and then pull the lining inside-out and shake again. Take a damp rag to it, dust out the cobwebs.

I found unintended souvenirs of my last few weeks. Glitter, honey-dust, “Sweeney Todd” ticket stub, sticker from the top of a bottle of tasty bubbly, and a dime or two.

Seemed more interesting at the time, while I was cleaning and shaking these tidbits loose. But I guess that is how life ought to be–more interesting at the time, than in the telling.

I have a gigantic crush on raccoons these days.

At this moment, there are four of them in our pond, a mom and her triplets. They are fishing for the peanuts I’ve thrown in there. When Hannah found out we do this she said, “You’re encouraging them?!!??” And, we confessed, that yes, we do.

People who are just generally scared to drive, should absolutely never be allowed behind the wheel in spanking new automobiles–their fear of dents and scratches only magnifies their pre-existing paranoia, further impeding the flow of traffic.

It is 2:12 a.m. and I have been awake for awhile now. Long enough that I got hungry, and so, sleep slipped even farther from my possibilities.

So I arise and aim for the kitchen. In the dark outside I see that I left the extra porch light on, and then I realize that the bright light is moon-light so I go outside to play in the dark, using the moon’s glow to cast shadows–magic night-shadows with spooky velvet qualities.

I was somehow into my forties before I learned that there are (naturally lit) shadows at night. I was in Humboldt county in the hills of an old horse ranch above the ocean. All the homes there were “off the grid” and electric light was precious, so nighttime outside was mostly dark, except when the moon lit the hills.

We went walking in the full-moon light–like some folks go window shopping after-hours downtown–a stroll in the hills knowing that somewhere out there there were coyote and skunk and fox and bear. And we played games with contorting our shadows and waving our arms about. The stars were thick, creamy, magic. And life was silently affirmed.

I see the fresh-blood-red throat of a Pileated woodpecker up there in the cherry tree. I hear the drone beat of another drilling the trunk of a tree in the ravine. A myriad of chirps and twitters cascades from the branches of the plum, the apple, the big-leaf maples. I cannot identify all these little birds by sight. Finches, sparrows, nuthatches, juncos, towhees, and chickadees. The simplest ones have a beautiful song which they shower upon me from high in the cedar.

I am conditioning the Stellar’s Jays to associate my whistle with the availability of peanuts. I whistle, then throw a peanut or a few out on the ground. The Jays follow, one or two, or sometimes there are five here. They shop amongst the peanuts on the ground, picking up one shell of nuts, dropping it and picking up another. Amy says they are weighing them, and I believe she is correct. The more skilled of them can take one shell into their beak, and then a second one too.

I am in love with these Jays. Their clever ways. Their method of holding the peanut shell tight to the branch as they pummel it with their beak until it yields and cracks and the fibrous hunks of the shell drift to the ground. The nut revealed now, and they pummel it more and more, until it is in pieces just the right size for eating. Then it is all eaten, and I whistle again, toss a peanut to the ground in front of me. Immediately, down he flies from the branch, ready for more.

My dead parents visit me in my dreams all the time. It’s nice, really. Odd, but nice to see them, nice to be with them.

It is odd. Typically, we are doing something ordinary together, like cleaning house or working on some other project. (Last night, we were cleaning up some old furniture in the house that someone was coming to buy.) And it’s present tense, something happening today. And there they are, mom and dad, chatting with each other and with me, and so on.

Usually, at some point I realize, they’re dead. Sometimes I even say to them, “But you’re dead.”

This has been going on ever since mom died. That was ten years ago. She’d come and be in my dreams, and dad would be there and everything would be going along like it used to when she was alive. Now that dad has died, too, it all just keeps going along as it has for fifty years–me, mom, dad–just doing life.

I like that they are in my dreams so much. It is comforting, and every once in awhile they transmit some “lesson”. However, most of the time it’s just normal occurance kind of stuff, and it is soothing to have them, and, especially on dad’s part, I feel like they are still looking after me.

A big thing that I’ve learned about death is that no-thing, no one is ever completely gone. I think I like that.

This was my mom and dad’s home. Now 1/3 of it is mine. Let me tell you, 1/3 of a log-house and 140 acres, well, it doesn’t amount to much if you cut it apart with a chain saw so it’s in thirds! So, it is for sale. And maybe you or someone you know will buy it? It’s an amazing beautiful part of the world. Only $425,000.00. Here’s the blurb:

Turn-key ranch / lodge / personal hideaway, or your new, full-time residence.
Approximately 50% in timber, 50% in rolling hills and pasture. Year-round springs.
3 bedrooms, 2 baths, library, Japanese tea house, attached greenhouse.
New Milgard windows throughout. 2” x 12” pine floors. Wolf range.
Panoramic views. Build your own heli-pad. Deer, wild turkeys, eagles, owls.

Whoa. All of a-sudden, I’ve seven Evites awaiting me. What a swell party girl I am. (Okay, so two of those Evites are for events I am hosting, but, whatever.)