Lent’s Edge
Surprising to step out on a day like today and pull warm air into the lungs and feel the spongy earth beneath the boots and listen to the disagreements and opinions of two hundred of birds at least and to walk to the weeping willow and pull a strand to the face and see up close the little lettuce leaf buds dotted along the limb, the limb slender and useful as a pencil lead, the limb pliable but cold still, drooping towards the warming earth, conserving its energy, gathering its strength, biding its time, talking to itself as I do when I walk in the fields. Surprising it is. Yes.
The new job has been stressful (because of equipment and electronic issues) and lovely and challenging. A woman I know asked me yesterday, “And you like working at home? Because I hated it.” And I looked into her face and knew that I could never help her understand my lone ways, so I just shrugged and said, “It’s more than I could have hoped for.”
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We received word that Jinx and Bluebelle’s original owner has died. He of the sloppy dog care, the steak knife-wielding girlfriend, the syrupy-spit-filled mouth, the glittering narcotic gaze, the freewheeling life, and the Jaysus-haunted pew, gripped by hands and their nails as black as coal dust or a King James Bible, hands as clammy as baptismal water, quick as a deacon’s wife’s tongue-dart.
Perhaps somewhere on the other side of this thing I will see him again, and we will talk of dogs and breezes and flannel and embers and bacon and reloads and trucks and deer. Or perhaps we’ll walk through other doors, speak in other languages, pull other boots onto our feet.
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Tomorrow is the last day of this month, and two days later, the Lenten season begins. Remember not to deny yourself anything TOO costly. Else your teeth might fall out. Or you might get the Covid. Or you might find Russians climbing in your window.
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Bluebelle has an intrusive snout. She plants that sharp implement beneath your hand or your elbow, and with a quick flip, knocks the book from your hand or dislodges your arm from the other spotted dog. She seems to be very aware of what she’s doing. Her dislike of books almost certainly stems from bad teaching early in her education.
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Take a bite of sharp cheddar, then pop a fried pork skin into your mouth. If you are indifferent to this combination, you have no business doing anything except perhaps volunteering to protect Ukraine. And incidentally, when did it stop being “THE Ukraine” and just slink into “Ukraine?” Probably about the same time Bombay became “Mumbai” and Peking became “Beijing.” Probably about the same time tornadoes became “tornadic activity” and people stopped contacting each other and began “reaching out” to each other, as in “I’ll have my assistant reach out to you for that info.” Oh…..it sounds so warm, doesn’t it?
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Warm is coming, and the pruning shears and the clippers and whispering to me even now in late February, guilting me into employing them in their violent acts of shaping and fashioning. Every season creeps up on me; every season takes me unawares.
Thou old fool, this night thy soul is required of thee.
~ S.K. Orr
3 Comments
James
Good to hear you are settling in to working from home. I tried it a few times and it worked out better than I thought it would, but eventually ended up back in the cube again (40 mile round trip commute and all). I needed the seperation of work and home.
We still have patches of snow on the ground from the last heavy fall and I don’t believe we are over it yet.
I’m looking forward to warmer weather for three main things.
1. Being able to wear a short sleeve tee shirt without a long sleeve shirt to cover.
2. Not having to make a daily trip to the garage for bags of pellets to feed the stove.
3. Being able to slip on a pair of Romeos rather than lace up boots. (Nothing wakes you up faster than a shoe full of snow).
admin
Good to hear from you, James. Yes, I’m settling in, slowly but surely. Almost got my routine down. I understand what you meant about the need for separation of work/home. If what I am doing was unstructured, I’d have that problem, too (which is the main reason I’ve never been able to get any of my manuscripts published). But in my new job, my duties are very clearly delineated and structured, so I’m not tempted to waste an hour on a search engine rabbit trail or stare out the window at the lovely doves sitting on the birdbath.
It made it up into the mid-50s today, but I could NOT get the house warm. Or more precisely, I couldn’t get my feet warm. It was sunny and lovely outside, but I was all numb-toed and ice-heeled, and even when I went outside with the hounds from time to time, I kept my feet of
claydry ice.This is the first year in my entire life that I have not had a heavy sense of regret at the passing of wintertime. I have a LITTLE twinge, since the warmer weather brings in the noisy, bustling season and the diminishment of the long, cozy, wood-stove-and-candle evenings. But my bones are realists, and they proclaim hourly that the warmer months will be kinder months, and I am inclined to believe them, so I am a man of changes, and you CAN teach an old dog new climate tricks after all…
I had to look up Romeo shoes, having never heard of them. I feel that I need to do an intervention with you. Them’s some pretty fruity lookin’ boots there, brah.
Just cheeking you.
Mrs. Orr and I are simply looking forward to Porch Life. Just to be able to sit out front or out back without an Arctic parka and to enjoy the sun and breeze. And birds, birds, birds, to paraphrase Motley Crue.
James
A simple “Logger Up” would suffice SK.
I look at them as heavy duty house slippers. Greatly appreciated after a long day of tramping around the brush in laceups. Especially usefull on cold winter nights when the dog needs out.
Just make sure the walk is shoveled, any snow over ankle deep will wake you right up!
Take care brother, and enjoy your new found freedom. Next milestone…retirement.