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.

Un-Hooked

Un-Hooked

The coffee was cold, the toast was cold, stiff and cold, and she was out of jam. Peanut butter was not the answer even though her brother once proclaimed that pb (as he called it) was the solution to everything, especially minor discomforts such as boredom and hunger, which he equated despite her arguments to the contrary.

She was not that hungry, but eating, especially first thing in the morning, was a habit, one that kept her stable (relatively speaking) and ready for the day. The coffee that same brother, speaking authoritatively (because of his appearance on earth 13 months before hers) pointed out that coffee has no nutritional value, so, of course, he didn't drink it.

She did, probably in reaction to his disdain and now a habit. She was hooked, as he would say, hooked, one of his favorite words.

She stood up, poured the coffee back in the pot to warm it up, changed her mind, poured it in the sink, threw away the stiff toast even though it was already buttered, opened the freezer, took out the pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz and ate it right out of the carton, sparing herself another dirty dish and proving again that she was an independent spirit, well able to take care of herself, thank you very much. 

Dreamer

     There in his back yard the boy swung the bat like a pro. Nobody pitching a ball to him. No ball at all that I could see, just a boy with a bat, swinging it like a star, like Joe Mauer, Kirby Puckett, Rod Carew, long gone heroes he's never seen or heard of, but practicing the swing, the stance without the ballet of a ball heading his way, getting the swing right before he encounters a ball.

    Practicing.

    And dreaming. 

    Another form of practice, of getting ready for the moment, the opportunity, the hurtled orb of possibility arriving when you are ready, when you most expect it: proper stance, eyes wide open and on the ball, ready to swing at the right moment, prepared for the crack of bat on ball, the slight thrust backward as ball meets bat, then rises in a perfect arc as you circle the bases, one, two, three, and home.

    That's how he'll get there, to ahs and cheers, and his mother, father, brother rising in the stands, shrieking "Go, go, go Boy!" and he does because he practiced in that narrow back yard, because he dreamed, because he believed in himself, in himself and the dream.

    He knows you never let go of the dream.

Ritual

The old dog is asleep, noisily asleep, twitching in a dream, breathing too heavily, audibly recording her dream so that when she wakes up, smells my coffee brewing, stretches, asks in that polite way she has--not looking at me, not directly, warm snout on my leg, waiting with uncommon patience for me to realize she is there, waiting for me to open the box of milk bones, the only doggy treat she deigns to eat, take out two, put one in her open mouth, put the other on the floor next to her water, not in her dish, open the back door to let her out to make water (as I say so as not to embarrass her), but stay by the door so she can quickly come back in for the second treat which she will wolf down (in a nod to her lineage), have another lap of water before going to her place by my chair where she expects me to be as soon as the coffee is perked, one spoon of sugar, a scant spoon, and a drop of skim milk stirred in, and both of us sitting near the window, up, awake, happy, even content, ready to begin a new day together which is as it should be and, actually, is how it is.

Over Easy

    "Isn't the world wonderful?"

    I wait, wait for the explanation, the qualifier or, more likely, the litany of wonders he has just unearthed, discovered, thought of, puzzled over, read about, or, more likely, most likely, made up. I am waiting, a bit impatiently, I admit--well, quite impatiently--waiting, spatula in hand, ready to flip the eggs, but waiting.

    "Well," he finally says, "consider the egg."

    I chortle at that, nearly choke, and scoop the eggs up and over before they harden, all the flavor dried out, no yolk to dip the toast in.

    The toast! "Did you put the toast down?" I shout just as it pops up. "Oh, good! No butter on mine." Which he knows, but sometimes forgets.

    And within a minute . . . well, 3 minutes...there we are, sitting at the round table his grandfather made, each of us eating our eggs--two each, over easy, perfectly cooked--toast with butter--his; homemade blackberry jam--mine.

    He doesn't say it again, because I hurry to get the words out first. "Yes," I say, "You are right. This truly is wonderful, quite wonderful, all of it."

    "Eat your eggs, Pollyanna," he says, and I do, we both do, pleased and, yes, full of wonder.

Witness Tree

First day of fall, of autumn, and it was dark out. Which must mean she was up too early. Dark meant night meant sleep, and she was awake. Awake and drinking coffee, as if....as if? As if she were glad to be up, looking at the silent trees. Well, tree, the one tree, the old pine he'd planted so long ago, when they were giddy new home owners.

He'd insisted on that tree, that specific tree, at the nursery, against her concerns, her comments, well, really her criticisms. "It's squat," she had said, "branches too low to the ground, nothing...nothing...truly majestic."

"Majestic!" he'd laughed. "Majestic? Well, it will grow, and we'll grow with it, have babies who will become children, who will climb that tree, easily, first branch low to the ground, and. .."

"Like an invitation?" she'd said, meaning it as a problem, a warning, a preventable danger to their precious unborn children.

"Yes!" he'd shouted, as he always did when he was happy, excited and happy. "Yes--it's perfect!"

So they...he...bought the tree, planted it in the scraggly yard of the house, that house, their house. And the children came, climbed the tree, nobody fell, no bones broken, and now, they were gone too, one to each coast, and she was left with the old tree, branches still too low, grazing the ground, bent with age, but low enough she saw, as if for the first time, branches low enough for her to walk between the them, to breathe in the earthy smell of plant and to be embraced by tree.

The branches brushed against her as she entered, surrounded her, and hugged her when she made it to the trunk, the bark rough and familiar on her cheek.

"Still here," she said. "Still here. Both of us, still here."

Look

It was a gift. The day, this day, was a gift that came unbidden, without conscious thought. The world turned, the sun appeared, then light! light! That revelation of what was there, still there, always there.

She started to say something, hesitated, then said it anyway, "We're still here! Look! The sun has risen, again...a miracle in itself, without prompts or reminders or bells going off."

"Yep," he said...which surprised her. 

         He was interested! Well, who wouldn't be, but still, she was surprised. "And it happens every day," she said.

 

He was sitting up now, one leg over the edge of the bed, moving slowly for a guy who usually leapt out of bed and body-blocked her to get to the bathroom first. So she waited. She could have beat him, but she waited, for some disclaimer--or joke--at the blessings of the new day.

"Which," she said, "which makes it . . . "

"Even more amazing!" he said. "And our job is to make the most of it, to make it wonderful, to celebrate this day, this dawn, this dawning day."

She nearly choked at his response, or, worse, laughed, but, luckily, she held it in, and waited for the clever remark, the name-calling, Ms. Pollyanna or She-Whose-Head-is-in-the-Clouds....something clever or sarcastic or, more likely, acerbic.

But nothing came. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to her, looking out the window, which now, miraculously, had a rosy hue.

"Look to this day..." he said, almost meditatively. "That's what my dad always said, his first words to me...to all of us...every morning. 'Look to this day.'"

"You never told me that," she said.

"'Look to this day/for it is life,'" he said, almost in a whisper, a seductive whisper. "'...the very life of life.'"

"Who said that?" she asked.

"I did!" he said in that don't fool around voice she was used to. "Let's get about it, Fairy Princess. You know, 'The bliss of growth/the glory of action...'" And he was up, but she swiveled just in time to catch the pillow, hurl it back, and make it to the bathroom first.

Look To This Day

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Kalidasa (5th century CE Sanskrit poet and dramatist)