Count, O Man

The morning light was odd, just a bit more muted than usual, the greens and silvers magnified, the air still and mostly dampened except for a lone Carolina wren with her martial piping from the fence. Jinx slept under the car last night, no doubt enjoying the soft breeze and lack of rain. The frogs were hopping all about when I went outside with Dixee. They always make me jump when I am still soggy with sleep, their sudden motion so low to the ground awakening some ancient fear of things that hop and slither and coil, the things that are blinkless and slick-skinned.

Leaving the farm for the day, leaving in the morning calm, leaving with the scent of my wife’s hair still with me, I noticed how the wild roses and sweet peas along the road, pink and delicate, were coated in gravel dust, even though last evening had been rainy. Rabbits peeked out and fled from the grassy borders — I counted seven of them — and pockets of mist sat still on the shoulders of the Clinch mountains. I imagined that if I were inside those pockets, I would inhale until my lungs could take no more, feeling the cool droplets of moisture, feeling hidden, feeling quiet, feeling whole.

On the drive down to where the noise and the lights wait, I thought of my life, of where I am now, of the path I’ve followed that’s led me here. I am sometimes prone to feeling sorry for myself, but I try to catch myself when I do this and head it off before the Poor Me’s get too entrenched. The two things that help me the most in this regard are (1) reminding myself that I have made all the choices that have led me to where I am — no one did it for me or to me, no one compelled me to make these choices — and (2) counting my blessings.

The second thing might seem precious or trite, but it is very helpful to me. Things like the presence of my wife in my life, the kindest and noblest and most normal human being I’ve ever known. Things like things like being able to walk down a road with my dog, as opposed to being pushed in a wheelchair. Being able to enjoy scrambled eggs, as opposed to starving, or receiving nourishment through a feeding tube. Visiting the grandchildren and watching them be willful or pouty, as opposed to visiting them at a funeral home and seeing on their little Cupid-bow lips a smile crafted by a mortician. Getting tired while mowing the grass, as opposed to sitting in a city apartment and listening to sirens and gunshots and thumping “music.” Being able to read and write, unlike at least two adults I know who have had to expend enormous effort their entire lives faking it and pretending that they could decipher the squiggles on papers and signs. Even the feeling of being an odd duck, out of step with so much around me, because it is a blessing to be out of step. Or so I comfort myself.

The work day was hard and bitter, full of the little landmines I navigate every day. But when I rose through the mountain pass and reached the twisting lane of crushed gray rock and finally passed beneath the arch of trees lining the driveway and saw that spotted dog with the ridiculous ears and the diamond-shaped mark on his forehead leaping to greet me…when I thought of kissing my wife and hearing her soft Texas accent in my ear…when I thought of sitting in my chair and drinking in the sounds of my own home…the harsh things of the work day faded into the kind of remote memory that I will not retrieve if I have any say in the matter.

The world and its system is dirty and cruel, relentless in its probing and invasion and corruption and infection. But the world that was created by miraculous love and artistry is still here, and available to me if I squelch the vileness and choose to see the beauty and the good. It’s very tiring to do this day after day, and some days I am too weak or too distracted, and the bad stuff flows over me like the tidal waves that batter and bash surfers.

But the beauty is there. I try hold onto this. I look and I watch and I hold on. And I count. I count rabbits and blessings.

~ S.K. Orr