Satisfied Mind

The crackle of a fire. Distant sounds: a train in Kentucky, a barge on the river. No animal noises, the dark is heavy and thick. I wanted to just stay asleep, but I had to get up and pee, and I knew that would wake me. Bowed to the inevitable, put a log on the fire, got a wee dram, rolled a smoke. Sat in my pool of light. Usually I read, in these intervals, but sometimes I just stare into space. All that stuff that rolls around. Could you, should you, the conditional comes to bear. I'm good with this, I've talked people off ledges. In my experience you just need a narrative. Oh, hey, did I mention that my phone was out again? White sand and scrub pine. Scraping by, two crab traps and a trot-line, grits in a crock-pot. Finally, a beautiful cool day, Sara calls to postpone lunch until tomorrow, because she got a last-minute hair appointment for the gala fund-raiser; fine with me. I clipped brambles to the back and front of the woodshed, split the last rounds, and got out the wheelbarrow. Mindless work is sometimes a good thing, on this occasion it buoyed my spirits, hauling wood I felt like a real person, in the actual world. I knocked off mid-afternoon, because I had a book of B's that was inter-library loan (I was tired), and a card that had arrived in my mail saying that his driver's license needed to be renewed. I drank a beer and gave him a report on the book he had loaned me. His former wife, Dawn, was dropping off the twin grandchildren, Owen and Harrison, and left. We watched the boys, playing on the hillside. Frankly, I'm amazed. I told B early that I'd surprised if the Hot Cars even made it to the bottom. But they did. Both boys cheated, Owen always jumped the gun, and Harrison always pushed his car, to give it a good start.That's just the way I remember it. Fact and fiction, don't get me started.