The Pages of the Days

Jinx and I were on the road this morning while it was still dark. Dark in terms of “the sun hadn’t arisen yet,” but not in terms of a lack of light. God held the full moon above us — I believe the almanac named this one a Cold Moon, but in Texas, since it’s occurring in August, it’s a Comanche Moon — and the shadows the dog and I threw on the road were black and stark and eerie. Adding to the atmosphere were a witchy mist floating in the hollers and the calls of screech owls and hoot owls haunting the humid air above the dark fields.

During this month in AD 1429, Saint Joan of Arc, that holy slip of a girl, was preparing to attack the English-held city of Paris. I thought of her this morning and wondered what the early morning air looked and sounded like as she examined the topography of the coming battle area. Did she enjoy the birds, and did she pay attention to them while her army was on the march through the French countryside? I am a man of doubts and half-measures, and I take succor from the natural world. Did the Maid, brimming with faith and confidence and conviction, feel her spirit soothed by the diamond reflections of dew on grass blades even as that same dew condensed on her gleaming armor?

When Jinx plunged down a hill into a pasture, he surprised a herd of deer grazing under the glowing orb of moon. I counted three young bucks and about a dozen does as they flashed their white tails and soared over shrubs and logs with their winged hooves. The spotted dog didn’t give chase; as soon as he saw the herd break for the far ridge, he stopped and stood with his tail wagging, watching them with what looked like appreciation. Then he turned and trotted back to me, grinning as if to say Man, weren’t they something?

Jinx was in a psychotic mood last night, and I still can’t figure out what set him off. He kept grabbing the tail of my t shirt whenever I walked near him, setting back on his haunches and pulling with all his weight. This of course got me to laughing, and Mrs. Orr as well, and the laughter was gasoline on that particular fire, and he kept at it. I sat next to him on the loveseat in hopes of calming him down, but he just moved his attack to my sleeve. I picked up a book and was reading for a bit, and then realized that Jinx was still gnawing on my sleeve, his eyes half-closed in dreamy delight. When I got the t shirt sleeve out of his jaws, I saw that he had chewed some nice dime-sized holes in it. I scolded him while stripping off the shirt and tossing it in the garbage. When I donned a new shirt, Jinx got a gleam in his eye that I was only able to dim by threatening him with a squirt bottle full of water that my wife sometimes has to use on Dixee during her barking jags. This morning, he was back to normal, and walked with me under the moon in a quiet and companionable manner.

Tonight I will need to replenish the sugar-water in the hummingbird feeders, as they drank them down yesterday in a flurry of activity. Knowing that their migration will begin soon makes me wistful, remembering how empty the air around the farm seems every year when they take that last sip and then whir away towards the southern lands where they will winter. Because I do not believe animals incapable of deep or complex thought, I find myself wondering if they ever think of this little farm during their months down there, if they look forward to returning to the dense woods and lovely mountains of this region, if they daydream of morning glories and zinnias and lantana and honeysuckle.

These things I love…my wife, my family, my dogs, my few acres, the sights and sounds and scents of the woods and fields and mountains…these things are words and punctuation on the pages of my days, and I read them with complete absorption. I love them so. Even as I grow old and brittle like the leaves up there on that oak, even as I grow slower and wearier like that bee there on the flower, I love these things so.

I will take them with me someday, these pages. I am confident of this.

~ S.K. Orr