Archives for October 2009

She stood on the porch under the grey morning sky, photographer’s eyes keen on the juxtaposition of silver and gold that greeted her on this, the final day of the natural year.  The strong winds of the night before were still gusting high above the ground; a harbinger broom that had come through to sweep the leaves from the trees.  What would normally have been a rather dull scene was oddly bright, for every horizontal surface was temporarily coated with the fallen leaves and her small world felt just a little larger as she looked up and was able to see more of the sky once again.

It was a warm morning, all things considered.  Though she knew the behaviors of the wilds portended a long, hard and bitterly cold winter, for the moment, at least, spirits both corporeal and non- would find themselves in relative comfort as they geared up for the annual celebration.  Indeed, the small backyard was filled with the usual ragtag assortment of furred and feathered visitors, all eagerly awaiting her distribution of treats.

She filled the big feeder, left a few small piles of nuts to minimize furball squabbles, took a few deep breaths of the sweet-smelling air, and with a small prayer of thanks went back inside.  The house was still quiet and she could hear the wind as it sporadically reached down low to race along the street.  It was all about the wind, she thought; quite rightly symbolic that it had come through with such cleansing power last night.  This was the time for fresh starts, for new beginnings, and the near-naked trees represented in some small measure the nakedness of her circumstances.  Circumstances not entirely unwelcome but, as is usually the case, change does not come easy and her recent losses, while clear signs of where she was headed next, had not come without emotions of the most tearful sort.

Having been quite literally too busy to eat for most of the past week, she decided to do something different this morning and put two eggs into a pan of water on the stove.  It reminded her of her late grandmother; they had shared many happy breakfasts of boiled eggs with toast in this very house and it seemed fitting to start this special day that very same way. As if another sign, the eggs cooked perfectly and, though not one overly fond of bread, even the buttered toast was delicious.  when she finished, she thought to herself that even the king’s chef could not have made anything more tasty, nor more suitable.  She took a last swig of coffee and felt prepared to tackle the never-ending chores that awaited her.

Just then, the clouds parted and the sun made a brief appearance to gild the tiny landscape in beckoning brightness.  With a mess of furballs vying for treats on the back porch, on a Saturday morning the temptation was too much.  She pulled on a fleece-lined jacket, grabbed her big camera and went outside.  Positioned off the porch towards the middle of the yard gave her a splendid vantage point to document the furry feeding fun.  She was rewarded by the appearance of the tamest of the chipmunks, who was making its final, furious forrays to stock its burrow with foodstuffs before heading underground to hibernate for the winter.  Bold as brass, it gave her a smile as it marched right up next to the larger squirrels and vacuumed up the smaller pieces of nuts right out from under their noses before hurrying off again.

It was a few moments in heaven.  Too much time had been spent working and on other pursuits; with every click of the shutter she felt her Self moving cloer to its normal state of balance.  To some, the day’s results would be “just some pictures of squirrels”, but to her they were a key part of her life’s work and each bushy-tailed life she recorded had, in so many ways both large and small, touched hers and thereby given her gifts both immeasurable and of lasting consequence. 

“Just some pictures of squirrels” in many ways defined her and when she finished, it was with both a lighter step and lighter heart she returned inside to tackle the mundane housework.

The last month had been so hectic that something as simple as the laundry had been ignored until the day she realized she was wearing her very last pair of clean underwear.  Wearily, she loaded the washer and later, even more wearily, she moved the clean, damp clothes into the dryer.

The next morning she made her way downstairs to the laundry room.  Opening the dryer, she was greeted by a big, fluffy pile of white.  She reached in and pulled out a sock. A thick, white athletic sock; her favorite kind.  She found a mate for the sock and then pulled out a white t-shirt.  Suddenly, she found herself smiling.  This was another one of her favorite work-at-home “fashionista-not!” items and it occurred to her that it had been far too long since she’d worn them. 

She pulled out a white pair of underwear, thinking happily that, at least for this early-morning moment, today was a good day.  She’d be wearing her comfortable uniform of well-broken-in jeans with a clean white t-shirt and white socks; clothes that, to her, represented both simplicity and the fact she was able to work from home.

And somehow, it made the long day still ahead of her welcome.

She had caught the vaguest scent of the winds of change long before they had begun to blow.  It was no surprise, then, when they arrived in earnest and her world began to spin, and then her world began to crumble around her.  The devastating death of her familiar had shut her heart firmly against the possibility of further pain, and as event after event showed her more and more clearly the direction in which she was to head, she found herself moving towards it without hesitation.

For several weeks now, she had been actively searching for a new house.  The one that best suited her needs and the one she wanted the most remained just out of reach, however, and now, cash poor, she cursed her lifelong habit of financial generosity.  But it was what it was, she told herself; though no longer quite such an optimist, she still had faith she would end up exactly where she most needed to be. 

And so it was that despite the utter, aching exhaustion of having worked an ungodly number of hours this particular week, the evening found her feeling rather happy.  It was a quiet kind of happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time; if pressed to explain it, she would say it was as if great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.  A great weight she hadn’t even known she’d been carrying.  But she knew its source.  She had made the decision to sell a valuable piece of old jewelry and had just sent it on its way to be repaired before being put up for auction.  An auction that would be one of the financial keys to a new home.

She had felt little more than simple resignation for so long now that the evening’s touch of happy anticipation caused her to wonder if it might not be time to check the numbers of the little stack of lottery tickets sitting next to her computer.  She bought them quite regularly, just one ticket containing one randomly-chosen number, but had fallen into the habit of simply setting them aside, ignoring the results of the weekly drawings.  It had finally dawned on her that she preferred the possibility that she might be sitting on a small windfall rather than face the reality of seeing her dollar had been wasted.

One of her friends had recently teased her about it; reminding her that if she was holding a winner her life could become just as she wished, with no more worrying about how to pay the bills each month and no more aggravation from the demanding job at which they had met.  She had explained her reasoning but laughingly agreed that it was rather stupid, for how much grief would she have saved herself by now if one was, indeed, even a small winner?

The hours passed and finally grew late as her thoughts continued; she glanced at the little stack of small papers.  There was really  nothing to lose and everything to gain, but she still couldn’t bring herself to go through them.  She’d been disappointed so many times in her life; perhaps that is the price one pays for being an optimist, she thought to herself.  But weary to the very core of her soul, she had learned to shy away from self-created disappointments, particularly when it was so darned easy to do so.

She turned off the computer, turned off the lights in the office and went to bed, leaving the little stack of small tickets untouched.  And leaving her little bit of hope intact for another day.