Human Contact

The woman was alone.

I saw her sitting on the bench, alone--but was she really alone? I was there too, not that far away, watching, close enough to see her clearly, her coat buttoned up to her chin, perhaps a bit too snugly, slightly constricting her throat when--if--she swallowed?

But warm. Well, warm enough. It looked like wool, her coat, her yellow coat--who would buy a yellow coat? But she had, and cinched it right up to her chin. The yellow wool looked scratchy to me and gave a sallow tint to her face, her middle-aged face--not young, but not that old either, a wrinkle above her jaw line, but not so deep, showed she knew how to smile.

Actually, she was smiling now, as if there was something to smile at....What? How? Why would she be smiling on such a cold day? At a squirrel? I saw no squirrel, too cold, even for rodents, and not a bird in sight.

But she was definitely smiling now, almost grinning as if she didn't care about the laugh lines caused by real smiles.

Smiling at me?

Well, possibly. I'm smiling now too, caught in her good humor across the park, noticed  the glint in her eye and felt the smile coming on my own face just as hers did.

She is alone, and I am alone, but we are both smiling now, really smiling. It is enough.

Refuge

The sun was shining, there was a slight hint of spring in the air, and the woods....or forest, as in deep forest, as in Robin Hood and his Merry Men forest, beckoned. He'd explored it before, of course, extensively, daily, walking the edges of the woods, truncated now by fences--other people's back yards--so he knew there was scant mystery in his forest, but still, it is what he had...and, thus, was his.

Nobody else went there, at least not when he was, not so early in the morning, just as the birds were waking up, and the first squirrels descending from their nests, ready for a nut or two. He too was always hungry in the forest--his mother said he could spend 21 minutes there every day before being home and at the table for breakfast, then brushing his teeth, the rituals of being a kid--but those 21 minutes in the forest were his, bargained up from the 15 she had started with...and with his phone in his pocket so he could call if there was an emergency.

Emergency! What emergency could happen in his forest? He ritualistically turned off the phone as he entered, and switched it back on as he left.

What did he do there? Throw rocks at squirrels? No.

Dig holes in the underbrush? No.

Pretend he was an outlaw? a pirate? a bad guy? one of the merry men? No.

He sat. 

He watched.

He listened.

He sat in the same spot every morning, his back against a willow tree, his willow, and listened as the morning began--to the chirps, scratches, whistles, the breath of wind stirring the day, beginning the next thing that would come.

She'd asked him what he did in the forest.

"Nothing," he'd said, knowing that wasn't true, not really, but how to explain.

"That's impossible," she'd said, a bit too loudly. "What do you do? Answer me!"

So he lied. "I explore," he said. "look around, dig stuff up, throw rocks at the squirrels....but I always miss. I don't hurt anything."

That was true...and the rest satisfied her.

Then he ate breakfast and got on the school bus--another day perfectly begun.

Never Too Old

    "Let's count the stars," he said.

    "Count the stars? That's not possible!" she said.

    "Not possible?"

    "Right. Glad you agree. There are too many to count."

    "But, if we started now--look! There's one....and another...:

    She started laughing, muttering 13, 14, 15,16, under her breath, shouted out, "20! You're right--there's number 20. Do you see her?"

    "Her?"

    "Or him. Gender is hard to tell at this distance." She had turned away, so he couldn't see her face, couldn't see the grin, the-making-fun-of-him smile that he knew so well and, actually loved, not that he would tell her.

    "One hundred!" she shouted triumphantly, and started running across the field, towards more stars.

    "Two hundred!" Another triumphant shout. "Two hundred twenty-two!" Her favorite number-222.

    He laughed then and took off after her. She'd be easy to catch, easy to tackle from behind, easy to love. He should know. They'd been counting stars for years, after supper, after the dishes were done, and the kids in bed."Let's count stars," one of them would say and out they would go.

    "Two hundred twenty-two," she shouted again and that's when he caught her, when he always caught her, kissed her, and when they were younger, they had stayed there, laughing and kissing, not even pausing in the dewey field to look up at the sky.

    "The heavens," she always said.

    "Ah, the heavens," he said always. "The heavens....are here, right here."

    "Yes," she said. "Yes, under the star-filled..."

    "...heavenly..."

    "sky."

PB Gourmet

    I am too old to eat peanut butter, she thought as she stabbed her knife in the Skippy's crunchy. She'd never seen a recipe for peanut butter anything in Cuisine or the one copy of Gastronomica that she'd paged so long in the check-out lane that the cashier had rung it up before she could slip it back on the rack. Fine. It looked good on her coffee table, and owning it didn't mean she had to actually read it, especially since peanut butter wasn't even listed in the index where it would have fit nicely between Peach, Poached in Spiced Red Wine and Pecorino Romano.

    She preferred it on toast, the peanut butter amply spread the second the toast popped up, so it melted into the toast, a perfect pairing. She could eat it plain, perfect and plain, but she seldom did, even though she had often noted that peanut butter plus whole wheat toast was a complete protein, improved, nay, amplified and perfectly partnered with a properly ripe banana, a perfect combination until....

    Well, she didn't even like to think about it, the day the new neighbor, the overly intrusive, over-dressed (in stockings and high heels!!) new neighbor rang the door bell, stepped in as soon as Mildred got the door open, and gushed, "Hello, we met at the neighborhood gathering, and I've been dying to get to know everybody better so I'm stopping at every house, ringing the tiny little doorbells and...Oh, my god, what am I smelling?"

    It was the melted p.b. on the still warm toast, getting colder by the minute. Mildred's first instinct was to say, calmly, "That's my lunch, my favorite sandwich from my childhood that my grandmother...." but the intruder not only teetered in high heel shoes, she spoke with a fake British--or was it French?--accent, and wore an emerald pendant that swayed seductively with every word. She was obviously waiting for Mildred to speak, to admit that she was eating an unsophisticated, mildly embarrassing, p.b. and banana sandwich.

    What to say?

    The woman was tall, too tall, and now actively peering over Mildred to spy on the plebeian and too obviously aromatic sandwich she'd been enjoying.

    There was nothing to say, no way to account for her lack of sophistication, her inclination to stutter, no way to hide the blush rising in her body, but to smile ruefully, shake her head, murmur, "I'm sorry, but we don't want any," and gently (yes! gently was possible) close the door.

    Which she did, and made it back to her lunch before the toast was stone cold.

The Choice

The Choice

    She got up too early--again. Dark outside, cold inside. Too early. Nothing happening, nobody needing her.

    Well, the cat did, the insistent, early morning cat always awake when she got up, rubbing against her ankle, ready to sit in her lap when she stopped pacing, eager to stretch out on the book she was trying to read, ready always to be petted, adored, comforted.

    Until he wasn't. Which is what she loved about him. She must have been prescient when the kitten showed up on the doorstep, the scrawny, demanding, scrappy kitten. When she'd opened the back door, the cat strutted in like he belonged, which is why she named him Solomon...because, even as a kitten, he was kingly. Or wise? (Well, yes, to show up at her door.) Or demanding? or just because....

    Well, they were both up now, coffee made, warm milk already half gone in Solomon's dish. 

~

    "Who warms milk for a cat?"

    "He likes it that way."
    "Well, I don't." Carl's last words before he erupted and stormed out, slamming the door, yelling, accusing...how to describe that morning, an eruption--yes, an eruption, an eruption from a spewing volcano.

    His final words, his ultimatum, floated down from the ether of first light and greeted her every morning.     "It's the damn cat or me," he'd shouted, sputtered, spewed like the human volcano he was.

    "It's the ...."

    "I heard you," she'd finally said, "and Solomon is staying."

                                                                             ~

    Last words. Proud words. But she still woke up too early every morning, haunted by her  Solomonic choice. Harder than she expected and still unsettling, until the cat, Solomon, the cat, rubbed against her ankle as she warmed his milk.

    They'd both chosen wisely.

More

    The child was lost, but didn't know it, not yet. She had been digging in the garden, "the wannabe garden" her mother called the scraggly strip of dirt along the fence, the"garden possibility," her father said.

    The child simply called it the garden and planted things there. Seeds from oranges and plums...she really wanted a plum to grow there...and other smallish things that she loved: her broken fingernail that bore a strip of red polish, a marble bluer than the sky, a picture of a baby from the newspaper, and rocks.

    There were so many pretty rocks, free for the taking. At first she lined them up along the fence, but the more she dug the tiny graves for her seeds, the rocks began to disappear in the holes she made in the garden, and that felt right to her.

    But she needed more. She had heard her mother say it, in the high voice she used on the phone, "We need more."

    More in her mother's voice sounded like a new word, an important, desperate, desirable word, something essential, so the child opened the gate to look for more.

    Not on her block. She knew where everything was on her block, but, perhaps, the next block or the next or the next would have more. So she kept walking, and picked up "more" when she saw it--a scrap of yellow cloth, a broken pencil, a glove. She almost walked past the glove because her mother had two hands, and would need two gloves, but then she thought, logically, maybe an extra glove was exactly right, so she picked it up too, slid her other finds, her more, in the palm of the glove and kept walking.

    Maybe now her mother would be happy.

She's Golden

        Her fingers were freezing, even the thumb. Not the palms of her hand or the wrist, arm, elbow, shoulder, not even that other extremity, her feet. Just fingers.

Her fingers.

Ungloved. Well, yes. Unmittened too, and, yes, her feet, legs, arms, torso--the torso always--were completely covered. So, she jammed her fingers under opposing arms and considered the day ahead.

An excellent day not to leave her room, not to go to work. Ah! hold that thought! An excellent day to stay covered and warm for one more day, just one more. 

Monday was gone.

She'd managed to stay home all day Monday. (Yes, it was a holiday, so she had a valid excuse.)

But today? A Tuesday, not a holiday, not a possible option even for a woman with fingers stiff with gold. Gold? ( She'd thought gold instead of cold!)

An omen. A sign. She was like gold. Not the woman with the golden arm, but, yes, with the golden fingers. Now there's a thought, she thought, and threw back the blanket, leapt out of bed, went straight to the bathroom to see if her golden fingers showed up in the mirror.

Well, no, they didn't. No color on her fingers or hands at all. But now, she was up, may as well brush her teeth, wash her face, get dressed, etc., etc., etc. And yes, even go to work, but now in a self-congratulatory mood.

Which made her happy. Another feat of imagination and drama got her up and going, ready for the day, any day, even a Tuesday.

Rescued

     Dixie snores. Loudly. And wants to sleep on my bed. Preferably in my bed, under the covers, with her head on my shoulder, only that flat, damp nose showing.

    She's a rescue dog, so I let her that first night, poor thing. That's how I thought of her--"poor thing" with a noticeable limp, and an ability to purr like a cat when you pet her.

    Okay, the dog doesn't have that inner motor that cats perfected eons ago. Her purr is more of a moan, a grumbly, smoothed out moan of contentment, bordering on happiness. How can I resist happiness?

    So, I let her sleep with me. She's a rescue dog, right? And this is me being noble, kind, compassionate--all those qualities I admire and aspire to. A pet lover. A dog lover, aka a good person.

    She's my first dog--probably destined to be my only dog ever, but nobody ever mentioned slobber to me when extolling the virtues of their "best friend." Or snoring. Who knew that dogs snored? Or peeing in the middle of the night, whining until I get up--well, I'm awake anyway because of the snoring--so I get up and let her out

    I made a list, ready to show it to anybody who asks how Dixie is doing. (NO, I didn't name her that--she was already named when I got her. I tried changing it to Ethel, but she only comes when I holler "Dixie.")

    Well, I suppose having a dog named Dixie isn't the worst thing. Too cute for my taste, but I've never been accused of being cute, so I can get over that...and she is really very,  very...attractive...for a canine.  

    Yes. Okay. I like Dixie, but I won't be one of those dog owners who go on and on about their dog all the time so stop me after I tell you what she did just this morning....she was so cute, adorable really, when....                

Just in Time

"Why is that bird staring at me?"

        "What bird?"

"The one in the trees."

"There are a lot of trees out there."

Which was true. They were in a cabin in the woods--A hovel, he had said.

A rustic retreat, she had said, and held up her phone. "Look at the descriptions again. 'Retreat to the tall woods to find beauty, discover nature, and rest in the calm and mystery of nature.' So the bird is part of 'the calm and mystery of nature.'"

"Mystery just about says it. I think that bird knows me, knows something about me."

She got up then, and stood beside him at the window. "I don't see a bird."

"I told you. In the tree." He put one long arm around her, pressed his head to hers, so they were facing the same way. "There," he said. "The bird with the big eyes."

"Big eyes? Must be an owl," she said, willing to play along even though she saw only a shaggy willow bereft of visible wild life.

"Oh," he said. "That's it! A wise old owl. I should have known. Look at those eyes, how still the bird is, penetrating, almost freaky."

"No," she said, "Wise like you. That's why she's staring at you."

"How do you know it's female?"

"Ah," she said, "because she's seen you, and can't look away. Women know these things."

"You're making this up," he said.

"I don't have to," she said. "You started with the imaginary owl."

"You don't see it, do you?"

What a question. Well, no she didn't see an owl, imaginary or real, because the timer was dinging, the three-minute eggs well on their way to hard boil. "No," she said, "but the timer..."

"Look up," he shouted.

And she did look, just in time to see the bird, a giant bird, rise out of the old willow as if being released--or reborn--into another day.

"Oh!" she said. "Oh, look at that!"

"Worth a hard boiled egg?" he said.

And it was, even though he was right, again.

Miracle

Miracle

"The sun is shining."                        

    "So?"

"Well, look at it, the morning . . . "

"I'd go blind if I look at it."

"I didn't mean directly. What I'm trying to say is that every morning of our lives..."

"Did you make coffee?"

She nods. "The sun rises..."

"Doesn't actually rise, you know?"

"I know. But when I look out the window and see that glorious..."

"Where's my cup? I don't see my cup, the black one with...."

"I know. The Viking." 

She holds the cup up, pours the coffee, half a cup the way he likes it, gives it to him. "I was just thinking," she said, "that the sun is a miracle, a gift that happens...."

"Every damn day."

She nods. "I wouldn't have said damn."

"I know. That's why I said it for you. It is a miracle!"

"Really? You think so?"

"And a blessing."

She is silent for two minutes, which is a miracle. He waits. He doesn't even taste the coffee. He lets her take it in. He waits.

"It is a miracle," she says again.

He nods. "And a gift every day, freely given."

"Yes," she manages to say, "yes" and he turns away to drink his coffee so she won't know he knows his agreeing with the trite miracle of the sun moved her to tears. Job done.

"Damn good coffee," he says.

Another gift.