- Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Photographs, Reflections, Saints
Something In The Air
We awoke to one of those days that couldn’t be more perfect for the Orr temperament if we’d sat down with a Weather & Scenery Catalogue and ticked off all the boxes for the Saturday we were ordering. A muted, witchy glow of cloud-shrouded afterthought of a sun, leaves layered like the scales of Jonah’s fish across the slippery skin of the mountain earth, the rain as fine as the mist at the produce section in the grocery store, the stillness and sacredness that churches and even libraries once had but will never have again. When I swung my legs over the bed and touched the floor, the Spotted Southern…
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A Wanderer Forever in the Streets of Men
Ever since I discovered him by playing book roulette at the local library, Loren Eisley has been one of my favorite writers. An anthropologist and nature writer, Eisley was “discovered” by Ray Bradbury, who read one of Eisley’s essays in a science magazine and wrote him, saying, “You need to write a book.” Eisley took Bradbury’s advice, and I’m grateful he did. Eisley’s brooding prose saturates my mind every time I pick up one of his books. My favorite of his works is his guarded, haunting autobiography All The Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life (1975, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY). I want to share a portion of…
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No Such Things
All across this country, animal shelters are full to bursting. In the region in which I live, I’ve noticed that the majority of dogs in shelters are some variety of the notorious pit bull. The dogs themselves do make warning lights go off in my head when I see them. I have been around a few pit bulls that seemed friendly enough, but their very appearance puts me in mind of monsters like the uruk-hai: creatures bred specifically for a malign purpose. Yes, yes, I know, I know. There are no such things as bad dogs…only bad owners. Every time I have expressed my unease with this breed of dog,…
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A Season
The day has been remarkably cool and breezy, the middle of June but feeling more like early October. This morning, I stood in the parking lot at work and drank in the sight of a rainbow that seemed to stretch from one end of town to the other. The center of the bow was obscured by a charcoal-and-pink cloud that looked like the smoke from a cursed city afire. I watched the clouds and procrastinated entering my building, and I wondered what other symbols of goodness and blessing will be hijacked for unsavory causes and purposes. This past Saturday marked three months since Jinx came to live at the farm.…
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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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The Strange Power
“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” ― Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses Yesterday marked six months to the day that our beloved dog, Bonnie, died in her sleep. I don’t ponder it as much as I once did, but each time I remember the moment that I realized Bonnie was gone, I feel as if I have been kicked in the stomach. The sense of her being stolen from us is as raw and punishing as it was half a year ago. My grief for my dog caught me by surprise. I never expected to mourn an animal the way I did Bonnie.…
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Under A Pink Moon
Have you ever noticed it? The way an approaching change in weather can be detected by all creatures beneath the gaze of heaven? Birds will skim the sweet grass, seeking insects before a drenching rain, and cows will lie down in the fields, resting the joints that the coming showers foretell in them, just as the stooped farmer feels the same ground-glass ache in his knotted knuckles. The very trees seem to face the wind and cross their arms, wondering if this will be the toppling day, or if tomorrow will see them still stretching above the quilt of still things, the soil and dirt that listen, that are aware,…
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Even Within A Mere Ninety-Six
At the end of a trying day, I was driving home through the late winter mist, watching the cars near me for the too-frequent signs of someone texting while driving, thinking of the long walk I would take Jinx on after I got home and fed him supper, determined to find a way to control some of his excess energy. My phone rang. My wife was calling. “I have some sad news,” she said. “Okay….” “Helen [our nearest neighbor, from the next farm over] called me. A man came by, and he was looking for his dog. It was Jinx.” I felt my throat close like a fist. “Oh…
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Luck Of The Paw
I took off yesterday from work so that I could take care of some things on which I’ve been procrastinating. It was Friday the 13th, so it seemed an appropriate day to venture out and seek accomplishments. The main objective was to take care of some business with the Veteran’s Administration. The closest VA center is located a few towns over, and we got an early start. My wife and I found our way to the sprawling campus and were surprised at how busy it was. Friendly guides were everywhere, helping the incoming veterans to park and to find which building they needed to transact their business. We watched silver-haired…
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Memories Of My Dog
Some years ago, there was a television commercial for cheese, an ad in which people were shown doing all sorts of risky and humorous things in order to acquire a piece of golden cheddar. At the end of the commercial, a mellow male voice would intone, “Behold the power of cheese.” We saw this power in action a few times with our dog Bonnie. One wintry day several years ago, Bonnie was outside exploring. My wife heard her run up onto the back deck, and so she went to let the dog in. When she opened the door, she saw Bonnie holding the rear half of a large rabbit in…