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.