Mrs. Orr
-
A Day No Chests Would Swell
When I arose this morning, I tiptoed out onto the back porch and sat for a long time, listening to the mountains come awake, watching the woods and fields shake off the night’s humid blanket. I checked the dogs’ water dish and saw that some insects had perished there during the night. There were two daddy long legs, which have the habit of trying to drink from the dish at night and falling in and drowning, I lifted the little bodies with their curled-under legs and placed them in one of the flower boxes, where I knew the ants would soon find them and do their recycling job. Then I…
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Firth of Jelly
Early this morning, Bluebelle went to the patio door, huffing and rumbling. I didn’t look outside to see what might be causing her displeasure, but instead let the dogs out into the backyard. Then I returned to the patio door and looked out through the blinds. A young buck was feeding with quiet deliberation among the young grapevines and tiger lilies between the trees lining the driveway. I managed to get a couple of photos of him, marveling at his movements, delicate and powerful, and also shaking my head at Bluebelle’s ability to hear this silent creature at least thirty yards from the front door, with Americana music playing in…
-
The Value of Moments
This morning, this gray and dripping morning, I walked in a neighbor’s corn field, thick-grown with silage for his cows. Except for the soft sighing in the tops of the trees in my woods behind me, the silence was deep and cyclical, like a tide, like a black spot in space between two stars. I stood in the chest-high corn plants and listened, and heard nothing but breeze, and I listened again, and inexplicably, a song came into my head, a song I have neither heard nor thought of in years. I walked on through the corn and then at the perimeter found some bear scat. A calf watched me…
-
Snippets
I let the dogs out into the back yard while my wife was drying her hair tonight, just as full dark settled down onto the green slopes. Looking north, I saw a series of silent flashes, looking just like artillery does from a distance. But the boom-boom-booms never came, never rolled towards me. Silent and silver. Heat lightning. I opened the door and called to Mrs. Orr, and she came outside. After we watched for a minute, I took two chairs down into the yard and we sat for a while and watched the quiet light show, including the lightning bugs that danced in the woods and along the fenceline.…
-
Summer Comes In
While the spotted twins snoozed on the back porch this morning, I walked for an hour and inhaled summer’s new air, holding it in my lungs like a stoner, letting it absorb into my body and give me a morning buzz. The neighbor’s feed corn is thigh-high, the leaves grinning their green grins beneath the sun’s path. While I leaned against the fence and scanned the rows, I could still hear the dogs — two yappy Dachshunds and a basset mix — carping about my temerity in daring to pass their house on the way to the pastures. I knew that if I was near Jinx and Bluebelle, I would…
-
Still Here
The days have sifted through my fingers and are piled in drifts at my feet. Where did they go? Where? We’ve been mired in things automotive, trying to get our car back from the body shop, who ultimately didn’t total her, but said she is fixable. We’ll see. I’ve also been spending quite a bit of time researching jobs. I was so excited to get my current work-from-home position, but the phrase “out of the frying pan, into the fire” has taken on a new immediacy for me. At my age, finding something rewarding and do-able is daunting. Still, one must try. All this to say, I’m still here, dear…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints
Memorials
I walked the road the other morning alone, leaving Jinx and Bluebelle to romp in the backyard while I strolled the mountain lane, and I noticed how the gravel at the edges of the road had been ground down by the tires and tires and tires until it resembled nothing so much as gray aquarium rock. If I had one of those glass boxes full of water and marine life and topped with a humming light — I’ve never in my life owned an aquarium, and usually only think of them when I read Loren Eisley, who spent a childhood making and stocking his own — I would scoop up…
-
Brevities
This morning my wife headed down into town. She had only been gone about fifteen minutes, and I had just poured myself another cup of coffee and wedged myself between the spotted twins on the couch when my phone rang. It was Mrs. Orr, and I immediately knew something was wrong. I heard her address me by the term of affection the grandchildren use, PeePaw, and I heard something in her voice and said, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” And I listened as she told me that she had just gotten down to the bottom of the mountain and was near our little post office when two deer streaked out…
-
Mother’s Day
First things first — a happy and blessed Mother’s Day to all of my dear readers who are mothers. May your day be peaceful and may your hearts find some happiness in thoughts of your children or of your own mother, even if you are in the midst of sadness today. I remember Mother’s Day in churches in my younger years. Many of the Protestant churches had a tradition where all of the mothers would receive a red rose, and the non-mothers and the adult men would receive a small rose bud…red for those whose mothers were living, and white for those whose mothers had died. Several years ago, I…