April 6, 2024

Leisure’s End

Saturday mornings. Was there ever a better day? While Friday nights brought the excitement of the upcoming weekend, we usually felt tired from the week. After a good night’s sleep, however, we were ready to enjoy the weekend more fully. We woke up a little before seven, finding a beautiful morning already immersed in the sun’s light. After drinking down a hot coffee, my wife and I got dressed and went into town to get our errands done early.

We made our first stop at Lowe’s in Wilson, where we bought two rakes with short, stiff teeth. We planned to use them to clear the trails on the property. You know you have some hard work to do when you buy two identical tools. This was definitely going to be a two-person job. I picked up some new work gloves after wearing holes in my last pair. We looked at the outdoor furniture and found a nice table with chairs and ordered it online. We were serious about getting ready for spring time outdoors.

After, we made a stop at Target, where we picked up water, water buffalo horns for the dogs to chew on, and two outdoor rocking chairs that, although inexpensive, were remarkably comfortable. The shopping made us hungry, so we made a quick stop at Cracker Barrel, where I ordered my regular sausage breakfast, whose name I refuse to say. My wife ordered the Grandma’s Sampler, too.

After breakfast, we stopped by Lidl for groceries and then headed home, happy the weekend’s errands were out of the way. My wife and I were looking forward to spending time together, and we arrived home in good spirits. We had full bellies, and the property was looking amazing in its new spring wardrobe. We handed out the water buffalo horns to the dogs, and they got mixed reviews. 

A little later, we moved outside to the picnic table in the pasture where my wife studied as I wrote. We took occasional breaks, listening to the birds, trying to identify them by their songs. One seasonal bird eluded us, even though we have researched its song without success. The song was a funny Scandinavian-like sound, so we named the bird Sven. We’ll identify it one day.

We walked back to the house to take a break, sitting outside on the back porch in our new rocking chairs. The weather was perfect, and it felt good to sit down and take in nature’s beauty. When we first moved here, we put a lot of effort into cleaning up the backyard, as it was filled with junk. Today, however, the view couldn’t have been more different. I always thanked my wife for helping bring everything together to make our home so nice and comfortable. After our break, my wife did another study session, this time inside the house on the dining room table. When she finished, my wife slipped on her gloves and work boots, grabbed one of the new rakes, and headed into the pine grove. I followed suit, arriving about a half hour later.

We used the sturdy, short-toothed rakes to clear the trail. It had probably been a few decades since anyone raked the trail clean of pine needles in the grove. In some places, the needles were six inches deep. The work was hard, but rewarding. After about an hour and a half, we had cleared the trail head that started at our house all the way to the crop field. We also cleared a piece of the trail that went north into the old woodland. The work transformed the place, and the results pleased us.

Exhausted but in good spirits, we made our way back to the house and grabbed a single can of beer, splitting it, celebrating our victory over the forest floor. There were still a lot of trails to be cleared, but today’s work proved to move faster than expected. My wife started a fire in Solo Stove while I cut wood. Today’s work was done, and it was time to relax. We sat outside talking about life and my wife’s approaching graduation, which was about four months away. She had already scheduled her post school national PA exam and this weekend; she decided on invites, ceremony tickets, and the likes. We also brainstormed a party at the house and planned to invite several of the neighbors. It was the southern thing to do.

Before the night was through, my wife and I shared a second beer and grabbed some chips and smoked salsa. I crushed two avocados, adding in some salsa to make some guacamole. That ended up being our dinner. The temperature dropped and my wife went inside to take a hot bath while I stayed outside in front of the fire. I threw on a few more pieces of wood while I got lost in the comforting feeling of staring into the flames. This fire pit had kept me company during the month my wife was gone, and tonight, it brought back those warm, familiar feelings.

Dusk had set in, and the birdcalls had settled. The fire’s flames, burning bright orange and blue, made the new wood pop, shooting embers into the sky. An occasional breeze blew, swirling up white ash from the pit, making it look like a large snow globe. Although I wanted to stay out longer, it was time to go inside the house. I grabbed the large metal fire poker, breaking the logs and coals into small pieces so the fire would dissipate more quickly. This act seemed significant to me.

I loved sitting out in front of the pit, looking up at the stars. Honestly, I could stay there all night, but there was a time when we had to cut off the things we liked to do, when leisure turned into a lack of discipline. Using the poker to kill the fire felt like I was playing an active role in ending what I wanted to last. The decision and act of ending the fire was a way of exercising fortitude and staying sober to the passing of time. Instead of staying out longer or walking into the house, looking out the window regrettably at the burning fire, I made the situation a non-issue, a type of burning my ships. With the fire, this had become my practice, but this concept was at the front of my mind when dealing with other pleasurable things in life. This was a practice of being resolute.