I'm Fine

Her puttering around the kitchen, getting ready for holiday family diner, looking slight but I've come to know her well enough to not think her frail. I pouring coffee, the son-in-law, welcomed whole heartedly but still a bit of an outsider, just a little. She turns from the stove and moves to stand beside me at the counter. I see a look and think she’s trying to remember. Then I know there’s something wrong. Her right hand reaches for the counter and her face turns down. Gently I say her name and ask, “Are you alright”? She answers, “I’m fine”, a soft sing song voice. I don’t believe her.

Only five foot four, it’s not far from looking down, to face down in the brownies. The surprise is later when I can barely see the nose print and I expected forehead. As she’s leaning I’m moving behind her. As soon as she finishes bending enough to hit the brownies her legs give out. I catch her with two hands and am surprised how light she is. For a fraction too short to verbalize, I wonder what to do. I ease her to the floor.

I might have stopped to wonder then, but I didn't  I can’t find a pulse; I don’t try long, swiftly into the other room for the daughter. Nursing training; years ago but she remembers, prides herself on knowing what to do and I've seen her pressed before, she responds well in the moment. All these years I've never seen her out of a bed or room to room so quickly.

Not long in the kitchen and that small frame is moving, trying to get up but the body’s not ready. She speaks, she seems aware; she says she knows what’s wrong. “I’m fine”, the rise in pitch on the letters i, sing song. We help her up. Seconds and she’s going down again.

I have my phone in my hand. The daughters speaking with her, she doesn't want the EMT’s. Too bad, I've got the phone and I've seen too much to not call. We wait.

We try a chair because she won’t stay down with out being forced and that seems wrong though it may have been right. Seconds and she’s down again, slumped in the chair.

He’s in the bedroom still. I haven’t heard him stir. I think about him but go back to thinking about her.

No sirens, just a loud knock on the door. Five of them, her, the daughter, they fill the kitchen. I stand on the other side of the counter and watch. The daughter hears and points to the back of the house, “Get him before he finds a house full of people”. I turn and find him. I explain, just the basics. He’s past me and moving for her. I know his health is not great but all he has he invests in getting to her. She’s talking of some mysterious thing that happened before; he’s talking of this mysterious thing that happened before. She’s on the gurney and out the door.

Small mid-western town, early Sunday morning, I am surprised to find a bright, modern, well staffed hospital, the prejudice of a city boy. She’s in a bed in the emergency department by the time we get there. He can’t stand long so he parks in a chair below the foot of the bed, the daughter's at her head. Between them are four nurses, a doctor and I didn't count the equipment. I stand near him, near the door moving in and out as they shift machines and nurses back and forth.

Soon there are two daughters. They stand close together, close to her. The nurses bustle about. We wait. It quiets down. She’s getting stronger. Test results to come, we’re all hoping she’ll pass.

The daughters stand near her and talk, with each other, with her. I stand near him and watch. He doesn't hear too well and I know he’s only getting parts of what’s being said. I think about what that’s like, to be close, but removed. He looks at me and mater of factly says, “She’ll be alright. This happened before down in Florida”. I nod. And then a change, this tough old farmer who I’d swear never lets his emotions out, shows fear. “If she goes, I’ll die”, not a question, he has no doubt. Then fear turns to despair as dark and strong as I have ever heard and all he says is, “She’s my heart”. I just look at him not knowing what to say. He turns to look back at her. The daughters haven’t noticed.

I wonder if he’s ever told her, has she heard that terror in his voice? I’m sure she knows. She’s clever.

She’s fine.

Silence of the Prairie

Vast, not a large word but it seems to fit the best. Enormous, immense, colossal, imply mass. Vast has a sound that leaves space for the emptiness.

Flat. You might say gently undulating but you’d feel a sense of doubt. A few small farms but mostly the emptiness is relieved by scattered stands of trees. The mind tries to turn them into hills to ease the monotony of it. Here and there a field in corn stubble. Most are bare, dull, brown.

Some places you feel that the sky is hidden from you, by the place, by the hills, the trees, the buildings. Here it’s like being at sea; the eye is disappointed, unable to reach far enough to take it in. I've seen skies that seemed to be broken by the clouds. Not so this day, dark and light the grays seem melded together, one solid, yes, solid it seems, the texture, the form.

The silence also seems to go on forever. Standing here the wind has only me to break it. I turn my ear to just the right angle to get the sound and then I turn away.

The Hat

Oakland to Salt Lake, uneventful, layover, quiet, loading, sitting, taking off, nothing to speak of, and then.

I hadn't noticed during boarding, I suppose I was reading, but there it was, right in front of me, the one thing guaranteed to make women go soft and strong men cringe, a baby on an airplane.

We were at 30,000 ft and miles away before I heard him. Maybe he’d been sleeping. Now he was restless, maybe tired although it didn't sound like that characteristic tired baby cry, more like frustrated. He was loud enough. Poor mother was trying to settle him down but with little result. He just kept it up. I couldn't see either of them through the seat. I could certainly hear them. Him loud and amazingly steady, I wondered that he didn't seem to need to breath. Her speaking softly and the longer it went on the more desperate she sounded. Trying to sooth him failed, reasoning with him was even less effective. She made a valiant effort.

I took off the hat. I like this hat. I have in mind the first time I saw it in the catalog it had a leather brim but I didn't order till the next year and it came in canvas. Forest green canvas brim and a bold red canvas body. The white ball is great, not just a bundle of yarn with the loops cut short, it feels like some sort of hollow rubber ball wrapped in soft, fuzzy white whatever. Feels great, squeezing it gives you an oddly satisfying emotional response, sort of peaceful, calming.

I put the ball on the top of the seat back and slowly slid it forward. She must have been holding him facing me because the response was immediate. He went quiet.

I slid it down and then back up to the top of the seat and then started it down towards him again. Up and down a couple times and then… yes, a giggle, barely audible but there it was, well maybe a gurgle. I slid it down again and then as I was pulling it back up I felt him. He didn't try and yank it away as I had expected, just a gentle tug. I felt a moment of dread thinking how it would look after he started chewing on it.

We went back and forth a while. I’d pull it up and he’d pull it down, nothing violent, not a sound, just slowly, steadily, and back and forth.

I was surprised when he let go. I had expected a battle to get my hat back. Oddly, I wasn't satisfied. I pulled it over to my side and then pushed it between the seats. I’m already distracted from my book. I’m not ready to give up the game. I peek between the seats and see him smiling and looking and then he grasps it. I pull and he lets it go. I slid it over the top again and immediately he takes hold.

Here we stay. I can’t say how long, but we stay, each of us holding our end. We have no sight of each other, we make no sound but we stay. My mind wanders and I think of the importance of human contact. I wonder if this engagement between us has some sort of meaning. Is this him learning to interact with the unexpected? Is he responding to my hat because it is something new where his mother asking him to quiet down probably isn't.  Is it the soft furriness of the ball, or its squeezy nature, or is it my pressure, pulling? He knows I’m there, he saw me. Is it human contact or is it just the ball? And why on earth am I still pulling on this thing now that he’s gotten quiet? We stay, each pulling just enough to stay engaged.

The noise and jostle of landing breaks the spell. He lets go. I put my hat on and she thanks me over and over, relief plain in her voice.

I’m thankful. He never chewed on it.

I’ve just read Gibbings, “Thames Run Softly”. Good read. I have many books on the shelf where the author tells of some trip they’ve taken. Early explorers crossing the oceans for the chance to discover new worlds, others sailing far and wide for trade, some going out to battle for their country, some hiking across foreign lands and some just plain pirates but some of the best tales are told by those who went just to go, to see what they might see. So it is with Gibbings. He takes a small boat and floats down the Thames.

I have a long held favorite of these sorts of books, Harry Pidgeon, “Around the World in Islander”. Harry is more the rough sort than Robert. One a farm boy, ranch hand, gold miner, boat builder, solo circumnavigator, the other, engraver, author, teacher, amateur naturalist, still different as they may seem from that, the books read with a familiarity you might not expect. Both these men draw you in with simple honest caring, not boyish enthusiasm, neither was a boy when he wrote. You would expect that a voyage around the globe and a drift down the Thames would be much different stories. They are very different in detail. Robert tells about the particular habit of birds nesting on the shore, the plants and the fish in the river, Harry’s concerns are the mountains, the sea, the islands, the boat and the weather. They both like to speak with any and all they come across. Obviously due to circumstances Gibbings has more opportunity than Pidgeon. Gibbings is good in his stories of people, Pidgeon more the romantic in nature. A small flat bottomed boat, a 37 foot ocean goer, as I was saying to a friend the other day, scale is often determined by how you frame the view.

As I read I find a similarity of “voice”. I think that Harry and Robert could have enjoyed a beer together; I think they would have recognized in each other the pleasure of simply going into the world and looking about, one of my favorite pastimes as well. I am happy to recommend both books.

“From the top of those downs one can see a mighty long way on a clear day. There is however, nothing that is really spectacular, though much that is homely and lovable, in the gently undulating country, where farm succeeds farm, and fields of newly turned earth alternate with those whose crops are ripening to harvest.” Gibbings, cultured Englishman.

“At last we came down to where herds of cattle were grazing on a beautiful meadow. We found sweet oranges to quench our thirst, and rested in the shade of the trees. It was one of the prettiest spots in the world, and as I looked over the green valley nestling between the mountains, I thought I should like to settle there, and quit the tossing sea; but in the end I wandered back to where the Islander lay, and made ready to sail.” Pidgeon, Iowa loose on the world.

I have quoted a couple of the prettier passages, naturally. Looking back over this I remember an English teacher who lowered my grade for too many commas, it didn’t work.

The other night I had dinner with a friend, good man, good heart, seen enough of life to know what it is. He’s alone again and I’m coming on my twenty fifth anniversary. So we talked about relationships the how’s and why’s. I've kept thinking the last few days.

So many things must come together to have a relationship that lasts. So many fail at the start, from attitudes, expectations. It only makes it harder as you try and make it happen, harder still if you fight, from fear.

How to find someone, I’m no help, how to keep, perhaps.

Start with someone you like to hang out with and do. Don’t think about romance, don’t think about sex, and don’t think about what may be. Sit over coffee and watch passersby. Read the paper together. Go for walks. Simple things will tell, no movies where the two of you sit in darkness watching someone else’s fantasy, not the concert hall or playhouse. Simple quiet times will tell. Are you friends? The young and the ones not ready to go the distance are the ones that need romance. With experience we grow less fascinated with the drama, less susceptible, some of us even immune.

Sometimes a lover becomes a friend and it works. A more likely path is to fall in love with a friend. Start with something real. Nothing from Disney or Pixar, nothing ethereal, not gossamer but granite, and no shining polished slab, a chunk broken from the mountain, hard, plain, with sharp edges. Beautiful in its way but the look of it tells you there’ll be pain, if you look, if you see. Pain will always come, just as well to see it early and know whence it comes. The polish comes with time, with patience. How rough a piece can you handle? Don’t start with some monstrous struggle. What that means only you can know and you need too.

Deb and I have been together many years. We have our marriage. We have our love.

It is no clear sun shinning bright on us. That light makes hard shadows, places you can’t see into. More like a high clouded sky. Everywhere is lit, the shadows are open. There is nothing hidden, the truth of us is plain, easy to see and understand. It is no dream that keeps us together, but the simple truth of who we are, what we've been thru together, the bond that has grown stronger thru the good times and the bad. The commitment we made to each other, the stubbornness to see it through. No fairy tale romance, no plate of gold, more a fistful of rich earth, you can feel the grit and know the fullness of life within it. That is our marriage and I can think of nothing more wonderful, nothing I could treasure more.

Good luck.

 Aside;

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.       Joseph Conrad

Sausal Creek

Went for a walk Sat. Picked up the trail at the end of Bridgeview Drive in Oakland. My fav hiking stick, hazel and a Red deer drop, all the way from England via Ebay.

Nice wide path, some joggers, some dog walkers. I hadn't been on this trail before, I was pleased it wasn't more crowded.

Some nice views across the canyon.

After heading uphill a bit I found a trail down to Sausal Creek. Left at the post.

Good trail all the way down. I think 5 switchbacks, probably 90 or 100 nice long paces apart.

Once I got down I felt at home.

When I was 5 or 6 we moved to a house next to a large (to me) vacant lot, many trees, lots of brush. A creek ran past our back yard and cut thru the lot. I spent many hours wandering that lot and creek. That's when I started tuning creeks. I would shift the rocks at key points to get the sound I wanted. Maybe taking out the middles so the bass and treble had more separation, sometimes featuring one or the other, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. I still do it some times.

Catching crawdads, scrambling up and down the banks to no particular purpose,   idling,   listening,   seeing.  Still these places are special to me. I think most people favor the open hillside and grand view. To me those places can't compare with the pleasure of traipsing the creek bed. Judging which rock won't roll under my step, listening to the squirrels chatter, the birds in the brush. Sheltered from the sun by overhanging branches, the world seeming to be cut back to this close view. Alone, in such good company.