““Beware the fury of a patient man” John Dryden. A quote does sometimes stop you in your tracks. You rewind. You think: who said that? My body rings with the indignity of a thousand small cuts. Alone with my shovel fixing a roadside fence line shrub bed, the cars & trucks kick up dust onto me, as if there wasn’t enough already to make me want to quit. Crawling a foot from an electrified wire, wielding metal tools, dismayed to find old landscaping fabric strangling the bushes, as well as impeding proper maintenance, I think: “This is the story of my life”. Enter, stage left, the ex-husband, driving by in his brand new truck, with our dog he refused to share. That’s all you need to know, until I write the novel. Some days you’re the windshield; some days you’re the bug. I sort of dragged myself to finish the job. Thank god for Duane, ex-dairy farmer, now mowing the crooked fields to the east, who stopped by to chat on his way back to the barn. A whole job can hinge on someone being nice, as far as I’m concerned. We talk about how a life well lived doesn’t always guarantee an easy transition into retirement. You might get thrown out on the streets, it can happen. And after working six hours straight, I don’t know how to hold myself, crossing my arms across my chest, or tucking my thumbs into my blue jean pockets. But either way, I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s the best break of the day, to chat pretty much in the middle of a road that doesn’t see all that much traffic. I see it more and more clearly, that I belong wherever the good lord puts me, and you can take that however you like. I can still catch a whiff of what autumn used to mean to me. The dream of sharing something undeniably magical with a loving partner, shuffling thru the fallen leaves of our homestead. Might still have a crack at it. My understanding of September grass, how it urgently bolsters its green to gird against the cold, how dead things long for the compost pile, to just be folded under. How I love to drive a four wheeler with a dump body, up, then down the dying meadow. The chill is thrilling and the prospect of finding what others have discarded, what others may have abused, what others may have totally misunderstood, fills me with feeling. I want to connect on the wavelength of somber tones, things brilliant, but dying, things vibrant, but ready to defy dimensional reality. That’s where I’m at. I don’t believe anything you’re saying, because you never took the time to step outside your well sculpted utopia. Bravo, my insulated ones. I’m out on the bowsprit, facing things, in part, for you. xo”
