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Wanderings, Wonderings
There’s a certain liquid but frictioned struggle when I walk through the grass in the morning after it rains. My feet, less sure now, more prone to missteps and the cruelty of unbalancing, skim through the green sea of clover and vetch, leaving long strokes like ski tracks behind me. But I do not turn to look at these tracks as I walk, because I do not trust my own footfalls. This, then, is what aging is: a gradual mistrust of all the powers and agile techniques and reflexive movements that I once took for granted, like a good Catholic who, when he sees death’s cowled head bobbing up over…
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Caught, Released
I’m finishing up a book, a profile of a very interesting man. The book is The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska’s Arctic Wilderness by James Campbell (2004, Atria Books, New York NY). Mrs. Orr and I first learned of Mr. Korth and his family a few years ago when we watched a Discovery Channel series about him and the few remaining homesteading families in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge in Alaska. We were quite taken with Heimo and his winsome family, and have followed them via interviews and profiles over the years. The series we watched was called The Last Alaskans, and if you can…
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Almost A Lot of Things
The other morning I bent to get a watering can so I could give some of my wife’s porch flowers a drink. When I looked down at the can, I saw movement inside. A butterfly was marooned inside, flapping its wings with less-than-vigorous motion. I reached in and scooped the little fellow up, then held him before my face. I have no way to prove this, but I could tell that the butterfly was exhausted. I held him on my hand for a minute, then called to Mrs. Orr and asked her to hold him on her palm so I could have some perspective for a photo. She whispered to…
- Bluebelle, Books, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Photographs, Reflections
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.…
- Books, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Lectio Divina, Photographs, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
A Catholic Christian
Jinx and I walked this morning under the coverlet of humidity that has parked itself over these mountains and announced that it will not be leaving anytime soon. The crickets and locusts rasped on in a steady note from the damp fronds of green in all directions, and we both walked more slowly than usual. I saw in my missal that today is the feast day of Saint Augustine, the revered Doctor of the Church. I prayed for family members as I walked, and I thought on the sorry things that mar the days in this age. While evil overtakes the Western world, the Roman Catholic Church has paralleled the…
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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…
- Books, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
Days and Days
The year has rolled back to the time when spider webs are more prominent in the mornings, especially with the dew hanging on the sturdy strands. This morning I saw one suspended beneath the maple in the back yard, the sun just starting to glance off the night’s architectural marvel. So much work. To be undone in so short a time. Such is the way of this world full of beautiful tragedy and melancholy art and small, fragile creatures with their arduous work and deceptive power. Speaking of the small creatures of the earth, Mrs. Orr told me something delightful last night. “Do you know what a group of ladybugs…
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Enmity Between
The first day of summer yesterday, and it felt like it. A heavy miasma of humidity hung over these mountains for the past four days, perhaps to be broken up tonight by the rain falling just now. The temperatures are supposed to be milder today, and perhaps the creatures of the land will calm down and be less restive. I celebrated Father’s Day by being snakebit. The dogs were at the side of the house, barking at something and giving it Hail Columbia when my wife went to investigate. She returned with the news that a snake was under one of the blueberry bushes. When I reached the scene, I…
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Down In The Dirt
Saturday was supposed to be a home day, a day of chores and catching up on rest and spending time with Mrs. Orr and sporting with Jinx. But a small possum made shreds of my plans and I had to spend much of the day undoing his damage, along with trips to town to obtain the needed materials for the repair job. So the hours unspooled and we found ourselves in stores and we found ourselves in a restaurant, and we found ourselves watching people and wincing at what they wore, how they spoke, how they acted. We were relieved when we found ourselves back on our road, greeted at…
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In the Lenten Season
Yesterday on Ash Wednesday, while Catholics were filing into churches (the few that are open, that is) to assist at Mass and to receive the ashes upon their foreheads. While this ancient ritual was going on, I was sitting in a podiatrist’s office, describing my symptoms and listening to the proposed treatment. The joint of my great right toe has been very stiff and painful for some time, and has been increasingly difficult to flex. It has begun to affect my gait, and I figured I’d better have it looked at before the warm weather arrives and my activity level increases with the arrival of grass and weeds and so…