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Bears All Her Sons Away
I stepped outside with the dogs into a morning blanket of warm mist and fog, a sultry Woden’s Day in the mountains, and I breathed deep. The fog muffled the cow-calls and the birdsong, and the dogs disappeared into the gray air as they went to do their business. One of the female hummingbirds zoomed out of the gloom, right up to my face, cocking her head with a curious gesture that drew a laugh from me. She retreated to the feeder and breakfasted while I stood and absorbed the last quiet I would probably know on this particular day. I felt a tinge of sadness, and wondered why. And…
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Endings And Beginnings
At 458 pm on Tuesday, I walked into the office manager’s lair and said, “Think fast!” She looked up and I tossed my keys at her, underhanded. She moved pretty adroitly for an obese diabolical narcissist, and she caught the keys. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “Good luck.” I didn’t say a word to her. Walked out and was met by one of my coworkers, who embraced me and told me she was going to miss me. Then I walked out to the lobby where two more coworkers were busy and said, “Girls? Adios.” They both turned to me, and one of them said, “Good luck.” The other walked towards…
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Seasons Of Life
Things have shifted, and now I am detaching from some things and moving towards some new ones. A time of nervous stomachs and pleasant anticipation, a period of feeling overwhelmed and unprepared, a stretch of unsettled hours, of feeling my age, of pushing out again into the waters of hope, watching the clouds and the horizon. It’s lighter in the mornings now, and I see the bicyclist on the shoulder of the road each day on the way to work. I lift my hand and breathe a blessing and a prayer, and as always, I wonder where he is going and what he does and how his day and his…
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Winter Solstice
The longest day of the year, significant to my ancestors, my people, those who endured in silence the things that make me wince and retreat. I love this day, and I do not love what comes after it…the gradual truncation of the nights and the incremental encroachment of more and more sunlight, until that day comes, that day that comes every year, that day when I go out into the world of men and hear a stereo in a car or see a female dressed like a camp follower or wade through deluded suburbanites jamming the aisles of the store where I’m trying to buy a spark plug and they’re…
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Farewell, Miss Barbara
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home yesterday to pick up a couple of things. The store, part of a small, local chain, sits at the foot of a mountain next to a bank, a gas station, and a fast food joint. The adjoining mountain is part of the store’s charm; in all weathers, the sheer slope with its trees and crags rises up in a dramatic sweep when one steps out of the store to return to one’s vehicle. The mountain looks almost like a dormant volcano, with its near-perfect cone shape and its accompanying sense of looming and watching. Waiting. Patient as a jove. When…