Cake Eaters

     She leapt up at the sound of the timer, the insistent buzz of the damn timer that came with the stove, with the apartment, with the cheap rent for a cramped efficiency in a "good" neighborhood. Well, her dad was happy about that--a safe place for his little girl, he'd bragged, probably was still bragging about how he had found the perfect flat for his baby girl, et., etc. Well, at least she couldn't see or hear him.

    Not yet, at least.

    He was the reason for the timer, the cake in the oven, the probably bad-idea cake in the oven. What was she thinking? She could have bought a cake, an already baked and frosted cake, or a pie--he loved pie--but there were no pies or pie mixes at the corner store, just Betty Crocker's Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix. And, of course, who remembered frosting? She had nothing to decorate it with . . . and no candles either.

    Well, she'd say, "It's the latest thing----better for you, purer, stripped to the essential . . ." and here she'd practice the dramatic pause . . ."chocolate cake baked just for you!"

    He valued (1) efficiency and (2) bare essentials. "Strip to the bare essentials," was his favorite phrase, repeated ad nauseam, so that was the welcome she was preparing, a bare essentials cake that merged perfectly with her favorite phrase, Let them eat cake.

    She was her father's daughter, after all.

Touch

     The old dog was sick. Obviously. He--it--was walking too slowly, too tentatively, as if it were ill or lost or depressed. She smiled at the thought. Depressed? Can dogs be depressed? Sad? Do they have feelings?

    Of course they do. She remembered King, her brother's dog, and the way it mourned when their old cat died. A cat! The rival pet in the household, the animal King had stalked, barked at, pushed out of the way at the water bowl. Well, King didn't really push that old cat, but cozied up uncomfortably close, a tease rather than an assault.

    So maybe this old dog, mutt of some kind, was recovering from something rather than being actively ill . . . or rabid. Funny how the threat of rabies sprang up so quickly--her mother's fear still embedded fifty years later.

    Well, the dog slouching up the sidewalk was not rabid: no foam oozing from its jaw, no swaying hips, just a sad, slow one paw in front of the other progression. She'd never seen a dog, or any animal for that matter, move so slowly, so deliberately.

    So, she should do something, go to it, offer some comfort. She knew the power of touch, the power of welcome as well as anybody, probably better than most, so she popped the brake on her chair, and wheeled down the ramp to the sidewalk.

    The dog heard her coming, stopped, lifted his head to look. She waved, then laughed at herself--who waved to a dog?

    Well, the dog saw her. He had stopped, was waiting, obviously waiting, for her, and when she got to him, he lifted his great head for her touch.

    Just what they needed, both of them.

Gift

We were sitting there, at the window, facing east, as the sun rose, slowly, but without hesitation. First the stripe of red light, a promise that expanded, widened, faded to pink, then pale blue, but still slowly, so slowly. . . then faster than you'd expect, clear evidence of the earth spinning, moving, making the morning, making a new day.

"Here comes the sun," somebody says. You say, because it is true, the only thing that is happening, the only thing that matters. Here comes the sun, on time, on schedule, steady and faster than you knew, a line of light expanding to an arc, half-circle, rounding, nearly complete, then, there it is! 

The sun!

The sun rose again and still rises as the earth spins, with movement barely visible, until it  becomes a child's drawing, a round yellow ball above the tree tops--and, it's all right, it's all right. It's just a day, a new day, an ordinary day.

A gift every day.

A Modern Tragedy

     "There's no internet today."

    "What! No internet?" She claps her hand to her face. "Oh, no, whatever shall we do?"

    "Well, really. Come on. This is serious."

    "We could go for a walk . . . "

    "At 5 below?"

    "Read a book . . . "

    "I just told you, there's no internet today."

    "We have a bookcase full of books. Also magazines. You know, the printed word on paper still exists."

    "Well, not the original printed word. That was probably a line drawn in the sand."

    "Or in clay soil, so it would last, so it could be read by others."

    "But who would read it? Who would know how to read it?" He paused, thinking. 

    She waited, silently of course, to see what would come from this ridiculous conversation. He had once admitted that the pointless conversation was his favorite form of sparring, the contest was to see how long you could keep an almost rational conversation about nothing alive. She had liked that thought, that idea, liked it then anyway, when they were just getting to know each other, but 30 years later she did not want to encourage the aimless supposition and inevitable word play that emerged effortlessly from him.

    "But," he was saying, "if no one could read it . . . no problem! The fact that it existed, that somebody was caught up in the possibility, of saving, of recording, real words, thoughts, phrases, ideas, the beginning of literacy. It would be another sign of the superiority of the human animal . . . " and he was off, rhapsodizing on the brilliance of the written word, the ability to record, to document, to preserve, preserve (a word he shouted twice).

    She smiled and let him go on. And on. And on. By the time he wound down, the internet would have rebooted itself, or whatever it needed to do, she would thank him for the diversion, and get on with her day.

Celestial Gift

     "Turn off the light."

    She didn't move.

    "You've got to see this! Really! Turn off the light! The stars are out--diamonds in the sky."

    "I can't see to read if I turn off the light." She held up the book as evidence of some kind, dramatically turned a page, and went back to The Evil Wind in the Northwest Corner of Somewhere or some such thing. Probably a mystery, or, worse, a psycho-babble-thriller, not that he would ever offer an opinion of her literary tastes.

    But the night sky was especially clear and star-filled. If she would just turn off the light for a minute or two . . . or thirty, she--they--could see it. He knew she was stubborn, had never liked being told what to do, but the night sky was especially clear and star-filled. If she would just turn off the damn light for a minute or two . . . or thirty, she--they--could see it. But she'd never liked being told what to do, and now made a predictable show of turning the page of The Gale of Death, and appeared to be reading.

    So he did it for her--leapt up like Gabriel himself, grabbed the book, flung it across the room, turned off the lamp, pulled her up by the hand, as she resisted, protested . . . and laughed, he noted . . . danced her across the room, through the kitchen, and right out the back door.

    "I'm freezing!" 

    A clear invitation to wrap his arms around her.

    "Now, look up, up and out," he whispered in her ear. "Look up," which she did, eventually, overcoming her instinctive aversion to being told what to do. She looked up and her gasp of wonder, of joy, of delight, of surrender told him he'd done the right thing . . . again . . . and with the added bonus of holding his beloved tightly, probably too tightly, in his arms, on a glorious, star-filled night.

The View

    She saw him from her window on the sixth floor, not that high up, but high enough to call her view a view of more than the back side of other condos, but, still, not impressively high.

    I love living in the trees," she often said, almost apologetically, but it was true. She was at the height of bird's nests, nesting squirrels, in the leaves, almost shielded from the street below, but still she could watch people hurrying past, cloaked against the cold in winter, scantily dressed in summer, her too high to be noticed and the people below, paper dolls, as if she were the giant on the hill that she'd once pretended to be, the giant who could reach down and rearrange them at will.

    Which made her laugh to think about and that, in her wisdom, or should we say, sanity, she never tried to do.

    So, she was a watcher, an observer, a person who noticed things, and what she noticed now, what she was watching, was a man walking slowly . . . well, at least slower than most . . . walking with a slight limp as if something were broken--a toe, twisted ankle, maybe a congenital limp, too far away to know, but noticeable.

    Then he fell. Just walking along normally, well, semi-normally, with a limp, but walking and then he was lying on the ground, not moving, alone, nobody near enough to help.

    She called out, "Are you alright?"

    Too far away to be heard.

    Panic! What should she do?

    Call 911? Was that necessary? Maybe he'd get up, but he wasn't getting up. "Don't overthink it," she yelled, "Find the phone!"

    By the time she was back at the window, hands shaking, mis-dialing 911, there was a crowd gathered around the man, who now appeared to be sitting up--or propped up--supported by two people--men? women? strangers? She couldn't tell, but the goodness of the world, the blessed instinct of the stranger was unfolding right there in her view from the sixth floor.

    She had done nothing, but somebody did. Somebody did, and that was all that mattered.

The Quiet Man

         She couldn't stop thinking about him, the quiet man in the black sweater, the image of calm, perseverance, and intelligence in the face of lies and unprovoked accusations. 

    He didn't shout.

    He didn't insult or accuse.

    He didn't back down.

    He was calm and assertive during the attack, resolute and clear.

    They didn't hear him because they weren't listening. They were cloaked as mafioso,  performing for the media, unafraid and self-righteous because they believed they held all the power--and the cameras were rolling. They'd show the quiet man . . . they'd show the world . . . who had power, who was right by golly, and they were undeterred by their unfounded accusations.

    "You never said 'thank you!'" the Consigliere shouted, a phrase dredged up from playground fights (a time when memory was short, self-serving, vocabulary was limited, and facts irrelevant).

    "How dare you disrespect the Oval Office," the Capo shouted to the man who sat quietly and composed.

    The quiet man did speak--or tried to. He defended himself and his country, refuted the accusations, and, again, showed the power of calm and self-control in the face of unprovoked assault.

    The score? Depends on whose counting, but she'd vote for the quiet man every time.

 

Attraction

     "Mosquitos love me," she said. "I can't get out of the car."

    "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "We drove all this way. It's a short walk."

    They had driven miles out of the way so she could see something special, a mythical lake in the deep woods, a lake which now looked more like a pond-- even he would have to admit that--a pond, in the woods, miles from civilization, a pond--lake that she'd expected to see from the window of the car, the moving car, but now they were there.

    The pond teamed with life, with a buzz of energy, a buzz she recognized all too well, a mosquito buzz of want, of need, of hunger for a taste of blood, for her blood. Yes, of course, birds in the trees, singing; there was a duck . . . or was it a goose? with an insistent clack or click or whatever you call it, a dog barking somewhere, probably scaring the goose/duck, a hawk circling above, and, no doubt, a bear somewhere, waiting just for them. The great outdoors.

    "Mosquitos love me," she said again.

    "Easy to understand," he said, as if it were a compliment. "Glad they're not bees or wasps."

    So, yes, they were there, in the woods, in the Lost Forty, the uninhabited Lost Forty, forty acres lost to civilization, so he could show her his boyhood haunts, the scenes of his tales: swinging on a vine in the woods (his Tarzan imitation) when the vine broke, and he fell 50 feet; the place where he'd surprised a bear, a mother bear with cubs, who came after him,--an example of his youthful exploits, and, if she was honest, that was part of the attraction: the light in his eye, the glow when he began a tale of teenage daring do. And so, he had somehow talked her into this excursion in the woods, to the deep woods. "To know me better" he had said and, she had to admit, even now, that she did want to know him better. 

    "Are we really going into the forest?" she asked. 

    He grinned. "Of course." So, yes, they were going to the woods, the deep woods. It all happened in the forest, he'd said, in the virgin woods of the north, the forests of his now mythical youth. Which is why they were now at the Lost Forty in northern Minnesota, home of mosquitos the size of baby robins, she pointed out as soon as she realized how far from civilization they were.

    He laughed at that. "An exaggeration," he'd said. But now they were there, actually there, the car parked, him out of the car, waiting for her to get out.

    "Mosquitos love me," she shouted through the closed window. 

    "Easy to understand," he shouted back, blew her a kiss, bowed, opened the car door, and offered his hand. "But there probably isn't a mosquito for miles. Nothing flying around. Nothing in sight."

    Which was true until she got out, took three steps and, even he had to admit, she was swarmed by . . . mosquitos.

    "Everything is attracted to you," he said, in the tone of somebody offering a compliment. "I understand that!"

    He droned on a bit longer, stringing together compliments as she ran around to the driver's side, swatting and cursing all the while, yanked open the door of his car, slid into the driver's seat, revved the engine, and, steering with one hand, swatting mosquitos with the other, careened out of the Lost Forty.

    Hitchhiking was also prominent in his mythical youth. . . he'd get home all right.    

  

Teacher

     "I want to tell you about my cat, my Buddhist cat."

    I nodded, and tried not to smile, or, rather only smile and look receptive. She was old, quirky old, and Mother had told me--ordered me--to be patient with her which, in those days, I interpreted as "Keep your mouth shut."

    "He practices walking meditation," Nanny was saying. "First thing in the morning, he rises, stretches, walks the perimeter of the bed, then the room, slowly now because he's old, like me, but he is mindful."

    "Mindful?" I had to ask--mindful must mean full of mind, or something like that.

    "Yes," Nanny said. "That old cat is mindful--first thing I noticed about him when he showed up at my door. He was slow, took everything in, step by step. He smelled, he touched, he stopped for a second before moving on, the most Buddhist feline I've ever known."

    I remember now that I almost laughed at that. Buddhist feline!? Luckily, I held it in, and said just the right thing. "Tell me more."

    So she did, this grandmother of mine, my oldest relative, a woman with an occasional crack in her voice but, in my memory, a gift for eloquence, patience, and love.

    The cat, her cat, the cat she named Teacher, knew himself, she said, accepted himself, accepted himself as a cat with the power of smell and consciousness. "I know Teacher would like to be outside, in the fresh air, but I can't let him out because of the birds. His feline instinct would take over."

    "Feline instinct?"

    "The hunter in him. Birds are food, so he sits at the window . . ." she pointed to the window next to her chair, "and watches, is mindful of his ancient instincts. He watches, and I watch. We are mindful together.

    "That's it?" I said, I hope without showing my incredulity at her romantic account of an old cat.

    "Yes," she said. "It's enough."

~

    That was more than 60 years ago, but the memory still soothes me, slows me down, calms me every morning, and makes me grateful for two of the best teachers in my life, Nanny and her cat.

    

House of Cards

    The new guy fired everybody. He swirled in, looked around, and fired them all because he thought, no he knew that he was smarter than everybody, especially the people entrenched, (one of his favorite words, entrench), the people entrenched in their bureaucratic cubicles, doing what they did the way they had always done it, following the law, without . . . without . . . without what? Without considering how the smartest man in the world would do it?

    "I'm smart," he explained, more than once. "I'm smart and, from now on, we will be the greatest . . . " The predicate of the statement never mattered. It was the seductive assurance, the outrageous proclamations, statements that sounded like promises, guarantees if you didn't look too closely, statements that encouraged, even reassured, many of us.

    Oh, there was muttering at the water cooler, even a bit of laughter, muffled laughter--what's going to happen if he does what he says, takes over every business on the block, in the neighborhood, on the other side of town, in the next state? Then what?

    Well, the new people weren't worried. They put on their jackets, their matching outfits, sat at the desks, shuffled the papers, turned up the sound, and proceeded to do whatever could catch his attention. It was a blitz he bragged, a purge. Singlehandedly, he was making the company powerful again, great again, the greatest.

    Yes, it was a seductive swirl of action. The company rose and fell, rose and fell, until the last bold assault, aided, he had bragged by AI, AI who was never hampered by stale protocols, practices, guidelines, or laws.

    "It's the wild, wild west," one complainer said, a complainer who was quickly eliminated and, thus missed the satisfaction of watching it from the inside, the whole tower of cards slide, fold, crumple, then collapse--a collapse, well, yes, a collapse, but, as he pointed out, it was the greatest collapse ever.