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The Jolt (15)

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Friday I mean to run errands, to return a book to the library, get toner at Rite Aid so I can print the flyer for our writing circle, buy groceries at Ralph’s. But after my morning chores are done I end up spending the long afternoon reading in the courtyard garden instead. It is hot, warm even under the umbrella. My goldfinch have returned in force, chattering at the tube feeders and from their perches in our neighbor’s tree. I have a full belly, too, and find myself nodding off a time or two over my book. I think about taking a nap, but I don’t want to miss any part of the day, this second in my four-day holiday. My body is heavy and relaxed, just this side of sleep, when I am startled awake. I’ve forgotten to check the login tickets! I picture the support page in my mind, people waiting for help, untended. The thought runs straight through me, an electric shock, my body stiff with panic. I had lost myself in rest. I’d forgotten to do my job. I remember right away, of course. I am having a day off. But the thoroughness with which the shock infused me lingers. I shake my head and mutter to myself. I am surprised and annoyed by my reaction to this deeper rest. I push the thought of work away, resettle myself in the chair, go back to my book. But I notice the feeling that creeps in over the ferocity of that reflexive response. It weaves itself between the pages of my book, this small sadness, as I sink back into the story. Even so, I wrap my pleasure around me like a soft sheet on a summer day and let the sounds of the birds and the afternoon sunlight lull me once again.

Living on the Edge (14)

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Sunday morning my fingers do their weird, anxious thing. I am lying in bed. I’ve been dozing off and on, aware once at dawn and then again at seven, but I don’t surface until late, maybe eight o’clock. I stretch, the epitome of luxurious awakening, and my arms are over my head when I hear this odd sound and stop to listen. It is my fingers moving, making little scratchy sounds, fingernails against the sheet. This is my fourth weekend off, I calculate, make a point of emphasizing to myself. And so my fourth cherished Sunday when I can sink into the quiet of my neighborhood later in the day. I sit on the patio and let myself write. But it is not yet enough, not yet perhaps a long enough string of days, not enough to stop the restless circling of my fingertips. I am too quick to run out of patience with the cats, too quick to snap or yell at them. I do it with humans, too, but I am more subtle. I am not wild and loud like when I was young–sometimes people don’t even know I’ve snapped at them by my reckoning. But I feel it inside, this stingy tightness, this prickly impatience that has no true base in the moment but screams instead to that other angry person years ago who stole things from me. I am a person wound too tight. It is not the first time. Some days I am afraid I won’t know how to fix it, won’t find a way to be less anxious again. It wasn’t that long ago, I think.

Even as I write a part of me knows I will figure it out. I will find a way back to who I want to be. I wrote about this before and laughed when I read it later. I guess it was a kind of Freudian slip. “I want to find my way back,” I wrote, “to the woman who would drink her first cup of teach in the courtyard garden,” and let herself lean back in the chair, warm ceramic cup cradled in both hands, solid heat nestled against her sternum. The first cup of “teach,” indeed. How funny. I want to find my way back to the woman who knew how to stop like that every morning, the woman that knew how to drop down into her peace. I don’t want to be the woman whose mind in wrestling with work, teaching or otherwise, thoughts that assault that first hour of the day. Worse yet, sometimes I am the person whose first cup of tea sits forgotten beside me on the table, cold because I am too focused on the computer in my lap.  I want to find my way back to that other woman who knew how to stop or at least pause every morning.  And then a kinder voice emerges–a small miracle–and I remind myself I have already come a long way. “Voy a llegar,” I say, and I laugh in the now dark. I am going to arrive.

Speaking Hawk (12)

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The doves scatter, twenty or more of them fanning out from the large tray feeder before me. I duck without meaning to, frantic flapping lives darting in all directions. I’m sitting in the courtyard answering questions from faculty in the Users Group on my laptop, feet propped up before me, misters cooling the air beneath the umbrella. And then the Cooper’s Hawk dips and banks before me, and I pull my knees up with a jerk. For one moment it looks like he will land on my footstool, and I’m breathless with his nearness. But he sees me, or maybe I gasp, and he veers toward our Palo Verde instead. He sits in Serena on a low green branch, and I strain to see him, to take in every bit of him with nearsighted eyes. I remember a friend of mine talking decades ago about how she was navigating a relationship with her new lover. “I keep reminding myself to just sit back and stay open,” she said. I do this now while the hawk studies me, beaming love while trying not to put too intense a focus on him. He stays for quite a while, making those wonderful quiet vocalizations I adore. If only I spoke hawk. I stay silent, not wanting to send him away. When he goes, I watch him dive between the fence and my neighbor’s carport and swoop north. A half dozen doves are startled out of a tree and fly east. I hear the water from the mister and the high-pitched sounds of dove wings flying away. I watch and listen, but I don’t see the hawk again.

To Kiss a Hummingbird (11)

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I want to kiss a hummingbird. Yesterday morning after I put birdseed in the tray feeders I had my hand stretched out to reach for the hummingbird feeder (I like to shake the sugar water up each day) when a little one arrived to drink. My face was a foot away from her, no more. Or maybe her, maybe him. I think she was an adolescent. She drank again and again, tilting her head from time to time as though she was studying me, this large, looming presence. Or maybe I was only splashes of color to her. She wasn’t afraid. She stayed for a long time, resting on the rung of the feeder, sipping more pretend nectar now and again. I wanted to kiss her dear, soft little head. I wanted to stroke the edge of my index finger across her smooth back. Instead, I stood still, all admiration and awe. I kissed her in my mind.

Fire (10)

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It happened in the middle of the night. I was asleep, then half aware of too many sounds. Popping noises. Firecrackers? Drunks breaking bottles? I pulled myself out of sleep, turning in the room to orient myself, my ears and brain trying to make sense of things. The adrenaline rush left me trembling almost before I knew what I was looking at. There was a wall of fire to the east, trees gobbled up as I watched. There were snaps and pops and people, not voices I don’t think but the sense of movement, of activity, maybe a shout here and there without words. Now I wonder if really what I heard was mostly just the hiss of the fire, the roaring of the beast. I couldn’t tell how close it was, somehow managed to function in spite of the adrenaline flooding my brain with stupid. Passport, cat carriers, shoes. I cried when I found George, knew he and Bentley were okay. The fire department was fast. No one was hurt. Not physically. Emotions, minds, psyches must be a different story. I was at a distance, one short crow-flying block away, my home kept safe. But I can still see that tower of flame and smoke out the living room window. For days the image was painted inside me, a movie streaming across the horizon at an old drive-in theater, lighting up the sky.

More Night Music (8)

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When I was walking home along the creek path the other evening, I heard a mockingbird. I stopped to listen, arms limp at my sides, my back to the creek bed. I could hear him singing behind the row of houses there. I was surprised to hear another bird pick up when he stopped, singing now from a little further away, and then a third one, quieter yet. Last night I heard this happen nearer our home. I have always thought of one mockingbird, a lone voice in the middle of the night or in the early dawn. But these birds were in this together. Their songs sounded joyful, musicians playing, improvising, meeting in that place where music goes, where music takes us, each connecting in those spaces. I think of that unexpected bird symphony now when I get ready to head out into the early dusk hoping for a little more night music.

Writing Prompt (7)

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Write about what stirs you. What stirs me? I like making big pots of soup. I stir them with a wooden spoon. But when I want to taste them I dig a big metal soupspoon out of the drawer. The texture and the flavor of the wood interfere. I like stirring soup. It stirs me to smell it, to imagine sitting down to a big bowl of it, the hot ceramic cradled against my belly when I lean back on the couch or the bed, my kitchen towel napkin draped across my torso as though I’m preparing to eat lobster. What stirs me? Taste, color, texture, the exquisite beauty of our natural world, the craggy rocks on our mountains on a clear day that make you want to rub your hand across them, feel the ragged edges of the ridge. I am stirred by little things. My father gave me this, I think. I can be stirred to awe, stirred to pity, stirred to anger, excitement, gratitude. I am stirred when people take the time to reassure me, stirred by their kindness in that act, their generosity. I am stirred by injustice, by empathy. I’ve always rooted for the underdog. I hated the roadrunner cartoons when I was a little girl. I always felt bad for the coyote.