The Promise

     There is always light. It was his mother's favorite statement, her daily observation, her proclamation, her promise. He knew that, remembered it, even smiled at how annoying that daily, cheerful sentence could be when disappointment, loss, rejection was pulling him into the abyss his spirit seemed to favor.

    Maybe she knew that about him, the woman who had known him the longest, and who, he would admit only to himself, loved him the most. He'd have to agree that sometimes there was light, light to show the way, to illumine the potential, the hope, the promise, etc., etc., etc....but always?

    He called her Pollyanna when he was 17 and had just learned that word, the designation, the criticism of the perennial optimist. He'd been upset about...about...well, something, and she had said in the bright voice she'd perfected, "Well, tomorrow is another day, and there is always...."

    He'd stalked out before she could finish, maybe even slammed a door, which was made worse by the peal of laughter that followed him, that she knew he would hear.

    Well, it turned out she was right. All these years later, long after the weekly calls, the seasonal visits, long after the monthly letter in her perfect Palmer Method hand, long after she'd turned out the light and gone to her last good night, it turned out she was right.

    It was that promise, her promise, her words, that drew him to the window each morning. Eighty years old, alone, with a knee he couldn't depend on, hearing gone to hell, but his mother's words drew him to the window just as the sun rose and every day, winter, spring, summer, fall, there was light, always light--a new day beginning, and he was grateful.

    There is always light.

Morning Ritual

"Who names the birds?" It was one of her perennial questions, and he was used to it now, 25 years into what was already a long marriage, long in the sense of enduring. You make it sound like a punishment, she had said more than once when he bragged (his word) about their years together.

The daily Audubon calendar inspired unusually frequent conversations about the proliferation of birds in the world.

"King Penguins today," she said with a familiar incredulity coating each word. "Not Queen Penguin, Empress Penguin, no, it's KING Penguin... apparently for both genders." 

Her ability to speak in capital letters always impressed him. How did she do it? Well, he'd never ask, but he did wonder.

She tore the page off the calendar and held it up to the light--four stately birds--flightless birds, she would point out if he called them birds--how can they be birds if they can't fly? It was a logical question, one with an answer no doubt, but he didn't have time to google it.

The penguins were beautiful, photographed against a startling blue sky, all four of them stately creatures with heads held high, looking as majestic, as royal as any head of state he'd ever seen (which, of course, was none, at least none in person, but that was beside the point as he considered his response).

"Penguins are a miracle of creation," he began.

"Yes?" the sceptic said.

"As are you, as, even, am I. All of us alive, breathing, walking, talking..."

"...on this miraculous planet..."

"...we call Earth," he said, just as the coffee was ready and the thump of the morning paper hit their door.

Trump's return to world stage jolts global climate talks

    "Poor penguins," they said in unison.

Habit

    She peeled an orange for him every morning, a ritual she enjoyed, even looked forward to: the aroma of the citrus, the taut skin releasing under her fingernails, the hard, but pliable skin uncovering the soft curved fruit--every orange like every other orange, but different, individual, this orange sweeter--or more sour--than yesterday's, or juicier, or, inexplicably, too dry.

    "Good orange today," he said most days, well, every day. It was part of their ritual, their practice, their entry into the day. He made the coffee, she opened the orange, split it in half, and the morning began.

~

    But his question this morning stopped her. "Why do we do this?

    "What?"

    "No, I said why." He held up the naked, peeled orange, positioned it like a particularly valuable gem, or maybe an egg about to be boiled. "We do this every morning...but, why?"

    "Why?"

    "That's what I said, 'Why?'"

    "Easy to peel."

    "Well, yes, if you do it."

    "Habit." She knew that five-letter word would stop the questions, would elicit a harumph or swift sectioning of the apparently inexplicable existence of the morning orange. Habit! She knew he was dismissive of habits, of doing something, anything, that was predictable. Because of course, he was too thoughtful for habit, too considered, too smart. A thoughtful planner, not a slave of habit.

    Well, yes. He was a man with a deep sense of propriety, of purpose, of the well-executed plan, which he was now extolling in excruciating detail without realizing that his well-rehearsed monologue on the insufficiency of habit, blind habit, the knee-jerk quality of habit would mean that he was consuming his last pre-peeled orange. 

A Lesson

    The woman lost...to a man. Yes, of course she lost. But to a less competent man? Well, yes, that too. No surprise there.

    But to an unfit human being! That was the surprise, the shock, the incredulous finale to a season of lies, untruths, disrespect, name calling--the worst aspect of naked aggression, of win-at-all-costs....

    Happens all the time, and now it has happened again.

    She contemplated just staying in bed, turning off the phone, the radio, the clock, shutting it all down, rolling over and dreaming. Dreams were her comfort, her hope, her possibility. Not real--she knew that....but then she asked herself, what really is real? It's all a dream, this life is all a dream, here today, gone tomorrow--the insignificance of everything, and the deep significance of the same everything in the one, jumbled basket.

~

    Well, she sat up, finally sat up,  just as a bus rumbled past...ah, the buses are still running, and then she saw a squirrel, who, as far as she knew, never listened to the news,  saw the squirrel run to the end of a branch outside her window, bend it down almost to the ground before leaping off...and the branch snapped back.

    Snapped back? Just a branch, but a living branch, a branch forever attached to the same trunk, snapped back, lives, snaps back and offers a path to any squirrel brave enough to run its length.           The branch snaps back.

    There's a lesson there, she thought.  Something to know, to remember. Even a branch, a living branch, can snap back.

    Well, so can I, so can we....with damage and scars, but we can snap back, one moment following another, we can snap back.

    She threw back the quilt and got up: time to begin....something.

Resplendent Limits

 "Who names the birds? And why the Latin name in parenthesis? As if Pharomachrus mocinno was the real name, but we monolingual English speakers have to have it transcribed into something we can understand." 

    "But even then, there are problems or, at best, inequities. The aforementioned Ph-- Mo is, in fact, the Resplendent Quetzal. Well, there's a bird worth getting up for, worth walking to the window to gaze at in wonder, to tell your friends you saw and, in these days of a camera  in every pocket, to take a picture. And how did the obviously foreign Resplendent Q get to Minnesota? Not the bird itself, of course--too resplendent for ordinary folks like us. But even its existence--how do we know about it?"

"Well," she paused in her morning monologue, looked to see if he was listening. He was or, at least, appeared to be.

  "Well," she said, and turned the page of her Bird-a-Day calendar, "Well, it is followed by a normal bird, the Yellow-throated Warbler, a squat, plump species well-suited to northern climes and, no doubt, more comfortable on my desk. A bird we might actually encounter, get a glimpse of on a short walk, or, better, see on a hike in the woods. An ordinary, but pleasant, encounter."

"Hmmm," he said.

"But, the Resplendent Quetzal! That would be like drinking Chardonnay and eating chocolate torte (what really is a torte--just a fancy cake, right?)...eating a chocolate torte for breakfast, then feeling queazy for the rest of the day."

She paused.

He appeared to be listening, had lowered his tablet, maybe even turned it off, and was waiting.

"Well," she said. "We'll never see it. Probably foreign."

"Or worse yet, a migrant."

"Yikes! Obviously illegal," she said, and threw the Resplendent Q, now crumpled into a paper ball, at him. "Your problem now."

He caught it, did his practiced pantomime of eating and swallowing it, and they both went back to reading the news of the day.

Soul Mate

     We were friends, long-time friends, soul mates, sisters in friendship, blessed with proximity. I could see the light in her bedroom; she could see the glow from the fireplace in our living room. I heard her dad leave for work at 7:22 am every morning, exactly 7:22 am, not earlier, and never, ever later. I heard the roar of his Mustang (1965, pristine condition, not a scratch on it, etc., etc.), heard the solid slap of the garage door meeting the pavement, and the final squeal of his departure. Then it was quiet, and the whole neighborhood took a breath and relaxed.

    We never talked about her dad--or the weight of fear or . . . what is the word? the right word? Trepidation? The caution of living with, with what? Not exactly fear, but close: worry? anxiety? Even I knew that a wrong word or glance could set him off. We never talked about it. I couldn't, wouldn't. The contrast was too sharp, too painful--my dad was calm, quiet, sweet, and, I know now, shy...but hers?

    Well, we never talked about it.

    It was the light in her bedroom that I waited for each morning. It blinked on a minute after the departing roar of the Mustang, and then I knew she was up, getting dressed, brushing her teeth, the routine begun, and soon I would knock on her door--or she mine (our morning competition--who would be first.) Once we nearly collided, both of us sprinting to the other's door--then fell on the ground laughing at our near collision, at the synchronicity, at the unspoken competition to be first up, out, and at the other's door.

    That's how we became friends, best friends, best friends forever, even though she moved, then I did, both of us living somewhere else, but the old threads that bound us were strong, never broken, and kept us connected.

                                                               ~

    Well, now she's gone. It is so like her, to go first, to be the independent one, to open the door and, head held high, step through, final destination unknown.

    But her light still shines, and I now believe, no, I know, we will meet again. She will be glad to see me, as she always is, and will take particular delight in showing me around. I'll nod, follow her, and, eventually, forgive her for going first.

Venus

    There was one star visible in the sky, one star only. The morning star, no doubt, although he wasn't a scholar of the sky, or the natural world at all. Books were his salvation, his refuge.

    But on this morning, today, he happened to step outside at the ungodly hour of 5:42 am and there it was, the smooth blue sky and the single point of light--a star--in the sky.

    Or a planet?

    What had he read? What did he know? Was it really Venus staying awake and illuminated by reflected light to greet him, just him, this morning? To send him to his books, to his dim library lined with books, his papers, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and old National Geographics, (in chronological order), with answers to every question ever posed or examined by man...or woman.

    He had learned to include women in his every utterance and, now, thanks to Magna's infernal preaching, in his every thought.

    What was wrong with her? But he had tried, had really tried to be inclusive in his talks, in his speeches, his lectures and his writings to keep the peace.

    Which the star, that Venus of the morning sky, offered him now. Peace. But, when he looked up again, it was gone.

    Just like Magna.

Magical Thinking

     It was quiet. Too quiet. Too still. Not a leaf moving in the old maple on the boulevard and across the street, the neighbor's flag hung limply over the TRUMP sign, was plastered over the sign. The thunderstorm that had swept through overnight had cleaned the sidewalks, filled the gutters, and, now she saw, covered the offensive sign, the American flag itself covering what needed to be covered.

    She thought of taking a picture and sending it to...to somebody...the New York Times? the local Trump campaign office? the Harris-Walz campaign? with an appropriate title, "At Last" or "Democracy Saved." Well, she'd have to think about that.

    Was that too bitter, too mean, or obvious? What was the word? She wasn't used to these emotions, to the disdain, or was it the fear that rose immediately the day she saw Henry, the perfectly nice, friendly dad across the street, hammer that sign into his front yard and plant the flag next to it.

    Well, it is a lesson, she'd thought that day. You never really know a person until . . .until . . . She'd strained for a word or insight, something ...until they disagree with you, find a different answer to a question, a problem, a situation...an opportunity?

    "But this!" she said to the empty room, "this may be a sign, a good sign..." She couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't come up with what it meant, knowing that, actually, it meant nothing, the nation's flag covering the offending sign meant nothing, it was just a sign, a sign that represented the greatest threat to democracy in her lifetime.

    But, on the other hand, maybe the gods had spoken, and it was going to be all right.

    Magical thinking? Perhaps, but she felt better already.

Morning Exercise

  What's your opinion of the purple sandpiper?"

    "I have no opinion, especially not of a bird I have never seen, barely heard of, and that, quite possibly, doesn't exist except in the minds of certain people I know who will remain anonymous for the duration of this conversation."

    She smiles in acknowledgement of his ability to craft a run-on sentence with a predictable tone of authority on a topic he knows virtually nothing about. "So, you have no opinion?" she says.

    "That's what I just said. But, as you probably know, when considering sandpipers, I do prefer the Least with its small size and the characteristic downward curve to the bill."

    "Small size?"

    He nods. "As the name implies the Least Sandpiper barely weighs half a pound, yet it manages to cover most of North America, the far north and the deep south."

    "I see," she says. "Because it's the least it can do."

    "Exactly. The range of the purple sandpiper is probably so narrow that. . ."

    ". . . that it's hard for an avian expert like yourself to . . ."

    ". . . develop a sufficiently informed opinion." He pauses, raises his eyebrows and says, "Now, if you don't mind . . ."

    "Of course," she says, and they both bend to their phones, relieved to be back to the real world of more information than anybody ever needed to know.

During the Hurricane

    They are all there, the Fowl Family, on the wall, in formal portraiture, arranged by the patriarch Rusty Rooster who placed himself in the middle, where he could keep an eye on everybody. He claimed that roosters, aka adult chickens of his size and prominence had eyes in the back of their heads and the Little Red Hen, for one, believed everything he said. For that matter, so did Chicken Little who had shamed the whole family just a week earlier, by yelling "The sky is falling!" in his shrill Chicken Little voice. "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

    Well, as we all know, it was just a hurricane, the sky was not falling, showed no signs of falling, but because of C.L.'s shrill warnings, most of the fowl fled.  Chicken Big and the Wise Little Hen made a strategic retreat early during the so-called emergency and are now living, safely and happily, on a farm in Idaho. Henny Penny and Cocky Locky stayed put, determined to weather the storm, staring deep into each other's eyes, soul to soul. Nobody has seen them since the storm, so they are probably at the Pearly Gates, the first to arrive which will please the always competitive C. Locky.

    Goldie Hen, of course, kept her cool during the storm and emerged picture perfect, every feather and comb in place. . . which could not be said of Brewster Rooster, who was so unsettled by Chicken Little's shrill warnings that he simply froze, depended on his sharp beak to keep danger away, and still hasn't moved as far as anybody can tell.

    It is true that Chicken Licken kept her eyes closed during the entire storm, then, when the wind and rain finally died down, opened both eyes, ruffled her feathers, and clucked, "What's for dinner?"

    "I hope it's not one of us," the Wise Little Hen said, which lightened the mood (one of her gifts), produced a few nervous squawks,  and most went back to clucking, cawing, and scratching in the dirt.

    Not Brewster, the Rooster. He kept his sharp eye and pointed beak ready to deter intruders ... and, of course, nobody could stop Chicken Little from continuing to race around, hither and yon, shouting, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

Some chickens just don't know when enough is enough.