April 3, 2024
Old And Hungry
I woke up to a beautiful spring morning. The red maple tree in the backyard was full of bright red leaves while the mimosa’s small buds had stretched to three-inch stems in a matter of days. The wind blew softly with warm air, moving the chimes just enough to sound out, their mellow tones echoing through the yard. I looked up at the dark sky but saw no stars. It was cloudy, and the forecast called for rain in the morning and high winds in the afternoon.
After the dogs were done with their outside business, we came inside the house. I felt focused and ready for the day, but first coffee with my wife on the couch. We sipped the frothy foam off the top of our cups, looking out the window. It was drizzling. This morning, I skipped my writing session to help my wife prepare an email that needed to be wordsmithed. We worked on it together, both making edits before she fired it off.
After my wife left, I took a walk into the woods without my camera because of the rain. It felt odd not having the tool in my hand, reminding me of when I stopped working as a tactical operator for a state police agency. The day I stopped carrying my rifle, pistol, and back up pistol made me feel like I was naked. The notion that having a camera in my hands replaced the gun I carried crossed my mind several times over the years. A quality firearm and camera shared many characteristics. They were both black and weighty. Both felt like a marvel of modern engineering. Having the weight in my hand or strapped around me just felt natural. Oh, and although I thought my custom assault rifle was expensive, I had to bashfully admit that photography made firearms seem cheap. Yikes.
Once I arrived at the pine grove, it started raining harder. The tall grid of trees always looked more beautiful after the rain soaked them. I knew I mentioned this every journal entry it rained, but the contrast between a wet and dry forest was remarkable. From the darker colors of tree bark, to their more prominent patterns, to the greens brightened to where they looked like they were glowing, a well-watered forest looked ethereal, and evoked different emotions that merited noting down. These days, when I saw it was raining outside, I couldn’t wait to get into the woods to see what it looked like. A swollen creek, with its rushing streams and spouts, was the icing on the cake.
I walked the trails to Beaver Tooth Rock, and then alongside the creek to a trail that leads back to the grove. When I approached the grove, I spotted a herd of deer I had not previously seen on the northeast corner of the property. When they caught my scent, a doe barked, and they sprinted across the empty field, disappearing into the opposite tree line. I waited for a few minutes to see if they would circle back, but they did not. Deer have a peculiar way of running, looking like they are jumping up in the air, only with a stride that covers more distance than expected. While a deer standing or feeding looked docile or prey-like, a running deer, to me, exuded power and grace. They might run away from a predator, but they ran aggressively.
When I arrived home, I jumped into the shower and got ready for work. As I sat at my desk reading through work reports, the sky turned dark and the wind whistled through the house. I enjoyed hearing the wind this way. It always felt mysterious, moody, and a little spooky. The noise had probably become a deeply ingrained warning to humans that they needed to stay sheltered and pay attention to the weather. A few hours later, the rain poured down in a wild torrent, while the wind blew it nearly sideways. I continued reading, peeking out the window periodically.
My wife arrived home about the time I was finishing work. We had plans to eat dinner at Cracker Barrel, and honestly, I had looked forward to it all day. Brinner was something we both enjoyed, and this evening I was going to pressure the server into letting me substitute the bacon and ham for two extra pieces of sausage on my Grandma’s Sampler. Wow. So much to unpack here. First, why they titled a meal with two eggs, a piece of ham, bacon, sausage patty, hash browns, pancakes, and biscuits, the Grandma’s Sampler was inconceivable to me and a little demeaning to said grandmother. Whose grandmother was this? And why was she so damned hungry? And why was I forced to order a lady’s meal? Should I have gone to the restaurant with my hair in pigtails and curtsied after ordering? My hair was not long enough and my hips were not wide enough. Let’s all agree not to genderize our meals. Tenderize, Don’t Genderize came to mind for my campaign slogan. My wife gave me her sausage, too. It was one of the best nights of my life.
We arrived home, me still raving about the sausage, threw the leftovers into the fridge because Bodhi, slipped on our boots, and headed into the woods, trying to beat the sun to the horizon. It was never too late, in my book, to head out into nature.
That sausage, though.