Night Sounds

Another ruckus at the compost pile. The feral dogs are no match for a large male coon. I run them all off because I can't stand their bickering. I was having such a good sleep, feeling contented; while I was up I took off my long underwear and went out on the back porch in boxers and a tee-shirt. It's cool, maybe 50 degrees, but it feels wonderful to be in contact with the air. The frogs are loud tonight, courting, and they've attracted an owl. I saw it when I came in this afternoon, perched on the bottom branch of a chestnut oak, right next to the trunk. Noticed it because the outline was wrong and I know the trees on the very top of the ridge quite well. It did that owl thing, as I drove slowly past, where they keep their body perfectly still and just rotate their head. We used to see them quite often when we were fishing in Florida. Drifting down those creeks, tributaries of the St. Johns, fly-fishing for bass or bluegills, we'd be 25 or 30 feet out, fishing in toward the bank and it was a study in natural history. Otters, beavers, and bears, alligators and snakes. Otters are the absolute coolest thing in the world to watch in the wild. Sufi dervishes. Water lilies and manatees. That part of Florida then was still virgin, you could buy a one acre lot on one of those tributaries for $100. I thought I might end up there, a river rat, pulling crab traps, and guiding fat cats to special places where they might hook into a fish they could mount. I could have been fine being that person. I've even designed the house I would have built, had I been that person. Instead, I got involved in theater, one thing led to another. I'd never eaten squid. Got into cooking. Built a few staircases. First thing you know you expect strawberries dipped in chocolate, a free pass back-stage, or a special carriage that keeps your feet out of the snow. No such animal. Not going to happen. Rain, but most of the frost is out of the ground, so flooding is fairly extensive. In Siberia the mud season is called Rasputitsa, when transport of any kind is difficult. Glad I got things done yesterday, because I'd hate to be out in this weather. Spent most of the morning jumping from one dictionary to another, testing the fine points of distinction. I had ended up with a goodly list of words, reading in new areas. A donga in South Africa, is a wadi, a dry watercourse. A fetch is the length of open water across which a wind is blowing and largely determines the height of waves. Backing, veering, scud; you can spend quite a lot of time looking at nuance. When the rain backs off, reduced to a rhythmic patter, it puts me right to sleep. Just a nap. Bacon, fried potatoes, a cheese omelet, toast. I finish up some books and stack them on the stairs, to put away tomorrow. A phone call from a friend of a friend, I had agreed to it ahead of time, an MFA student, older, and we talked about the nature of remembering. She had been intrigued by my life-style, and it was easy enough, this time of year, to stress the unromantic aspects. She wants to interview me; come to town, rent a motel room (with running water) and spend a couple of days. I tell her she can do that but that I actually live a very mundane life. The high point of my day might be micro-waving a mouse for the crows. Or mumbling some rude imprecation when I realize, in fact, that the definition of a certain word has completely reversed in 100 years. I'll never win the metal, but I did spend several hours today examining maybe a dozen comma situations. In a couple of them, the comma was the key player. My dedication to transparency actually makes me fairly opaque, an inverse thing happens, where when I explain further the subject becomes more confusing. Sand is coarser than silt, silt is coarser than clay. Things held in suspension. An eight grade science experiment. In truth though, it was probably that flash of Maria's underpants that held my attention. I knew.