Shouldn't…but Do

Drizzle brings out the best of spring.  Unearthly toned greens, laden lilac bushes as purple as wine.  Even the beguiling scent of blooming viburnum does not dissipate in  moist air.

And a worm was trying to cross the road.  Not a small worm, but a a good 9″ nightcrawler.  Easy size to make the catch of the day – or become the catch of the day for nesting robins in the area.

With no company, it looked a bit odd there, a quarter of the way across the street and definitely not headed for safety.  Life is like that –  get up a head of steam and keep on going, even when safety, or comfort, is not assured – as it never is.

On rainier days when my children were younger we undertook  Worm Patrol,  rescuing wrigglers facing certain doom in gutter-fed pools of water.

Had to admire the goals of this fella, if it had goals.  But it was facing doom just as sure as those long ago wrigglers.   Without benefit of height, I doubt this traveler could appreciate the hazards it faced.  Present perspective counts more  than where you start out  – or end up.

I relocated that worm to a lush spot of what looked to be well-aerated lawn.  Maybe it cursed me for thwarting its endeavor – we cannot know.  Life is like that, too.

The maple trees are thick with seed helicopters this year.  Like leaves they blanket trees, and will soon blanket the ground.  One tree  releases thousands.

Seeds of ideas, abundant, ready to fly.  The wind rises. Soon, soon.

Faucets, hoses, switches.  Regulation.

In recent weeks, the bathroom light fixture once or twice refused to illuminate.  It gave up altogether yesterday.  My bathroom has no window, a barbarous feature that cannot be helped.  Lack of light means immersion in darkness.

The Neighbor, bless her soul, stood side by side with me on the bathroom counter last night, taking down the fixture  – connecting, reconnecting – lit by goose neck lamp.  She lost a sandal at one point, I had both shoes on, never did figure out the hygiene angle.  And Neighbor?  Apologies about forgetting the circuit whilst you were wiring – happy you are still with us.

Culprit was the switch – should have known.  Flipped off one too many times, decided it was done, leaving that most personal of spaces in a house – the bathroom – dark.  But unlike faucets that swamped, or fixtures that drained energy for years, this was a quick fix.  Cheap too – $.89 at the local hardware store.

When off, light switches deliver and rest in darkness.  When useless, they do the same.  Trick is knowing the difference.  Hard to be personal in the dark.  Let there be light.

April Fools Day.  Who is the fool?  One who deceives, or one who believes?

The adage fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me defines culpability.

Not a fan of April Fools Day.  Life brims with personal irresponsibility – senseless validation of individual drives and feelings through invalidation of the reality of others.

No one, particularly me,  needs another day dedicated to it.

In these parts, this was the winter that wasn’t.  By tomorrow morning the vernal equinox will deliver spring.  Already a cacophony of frog and bird songs fill the air,  pussy willows bloom along with forsythia  and neon green weeping willow foliage sways like sea grass.

Overhead today I witnessed a startling sky and cloudscape the likes I have not before experienced.  Startling not for appearance but for visceral presence and immediacy.  As if a door, a cleverly hidden corridor through which something more was possible.  Present long enough to catch the thought – but not its measure.

But clouds change quickly and soon the Cowardly Lion was a stone throw from the vertebrae of a prehistoric marine animal arcing down the vault of the sky.  Curiouser and curiouser.  I do love spring.

Fog reminded me of California.

Coastal morning fog, hugging trees, houses, the shoreline.  Not pea soup – but still humid, cloaking.

Morning commute, fog does not deter that crowd.  Sideline erasure renders a homogenous world.  Emphasis on destination, not journey.   A thousand lives, a thousand faces.  Tense 30-something in the crosswalk, relaxed 50-something waiting for a bus.

Any place, any day, decades  beyond or ago – the same lives pass by,  same frustrations lived.  Fog is a great leveler.

California freeways, semi-tropical, moving along, moving through – going somewhere, sometimes out of the fog.

Then and now fog burns off, detail returns, detachment subsides.  California dreaming.

Captain Jack is a fine but elderly dog who lives with the Neighbor.

In his youth, Captain Jack was swarthy, mischievous, he of gleaming eye, longish legs and shaggy coat.  His youth and middle age have passed and Jack, like most of us, is not who he was.

Jack’s cocked head has given way to occasional trembling, eyes are clouded, his hearing imprecise.  Back bowed, Jack is frail, uncertain, thin – and to my reckoning – halfway between here and somewhere else.  The Neighbor and her family are the best friends a dog could have, and as she says, Jack has good days and Jack has bad days.

Good or bad – today is a glorious day on the planet for dog or human.  Spring is coming, robins abound,  temperatures are rising, the breeze rustles chaff anxious to be off.

The Neighbor was out for a few hours, so I attended Jack.  With encouragement he stepped from his soft bed in the quiet house with rhythmically ticking clocks.  He hesitated on the back deck blinking, seemingly unsure where he was, or what to do.  In time he took a cue from nature and did his business, mustering teetering energy to navigate his return to the deck.

And there he stood.  Birds swooped and cartwheeled, the breeze blew, the sun warmed his fragile being.   His unseeing gaze seemed a fence or two beyond, where younger dogs ran and barked.  Head swiveling toward the house and back, a seeming unspoken question to the sky.  The interiority of  age is upon Jack, as I imagine it is upon all who gain in years.   Jack  seems living a dream world – but which is the dream, here or there?

Perhaps interiority leads to a greater world, away from the illusory, structured, busy environment that captures our senses while they still function.  I am guessing it is so.  In the dreams of dogs, it seems so for Jack.

Busy of late.  Measuring, pouring,  mixing words.  Storms pass, more to come.   But the road seems firm.  Even footing is good, steer clear of worn potholes glistening with flies, familiar stench.

In my neck of the woods winter has been mild.  What could have been snow today was rain – the story of the season.  Moisture delivered without treachery and transportation ill.

Now the sun is full out, sky is blue with high clouds kicking up at the rim of the horizon.  A large flock of crows caught my eye, heading north.  Smart birds those ones.

The light is long this afternoon, like a waning summer day, sepia tone overlay.  You know the look,  memory before your eyes.

What a gift to wander this world, walk its streets,  ride within a body that still works, feels deeply.

There is something to the light this afternoon – trying to tell me something.  What a gift to wander this world.