Good Timing

Slept a bit late, then slow to get started, but I needed to get to town. Library, then the courthouse to file papers on my tree farm, for the tax break. Then the pub for a conversation with Justin and Cory, talk about the prep for St. Patrick's Day. I don't need much from the store, some light bulbs (truly become a shopping nightmare), some steel-cut oats, batteries for one of the flashlights, a new rice, a bottle of single-malt. Stopped on the way home at the Quik Stop and got eight fried potato wedges. Got down Mackletree as the first drops started, got my mail and easily up the hill just as real rain started. It's not surprising that my timing has been very good on trips to town this winter, now that the necessary is removed, a job or any kind of collaboration, I can pick the best time to get in and out. So I have new books, I'm current on bills and paperwork. About five-thirty it started raining hard, supposed to change over to snow later, one trip out to the woodshed, before I get out of work-boots and into slippers, then settle in to read the history of lemons. The driveway is, surprisingly, in good shape, for this time of year. The added width and camber means the track can creep outside. Unless we get a deluge before the leaves start unfurling, I'm fairly confidant about access. This is a good thing. Not that I want to get in and out, but that I could. So much water, the creeks are running spate, and the napp at the spillway is a smooth sheet twelve inches thick. I hadn't walked over, this winter, to feel the percussive blow in my body. It's an amazing thing, and the noise, my god, it approaches the painful. And this isn't punk rock or whatever, it's what's happening down at the dam. Get home before the rain, nuke some leftovers, think about how nice a fresh pone of cornbread will be tomorrow. Dean Of Forgiven Future Mistakes. I've been cloistered, it's true, I don't pay attention to almost anything except the very next thing I see, or hear, or feel; after the fact, I might have an opinion, but I don't mention that. It's not worth the bother. I used to love to argue, anymore I just nod my head and stay silent. A friend of mine said to me recently that I was getting more abstract, that the more I got into things the less real they became. I know what she meant, it seems surreal to me. Hollow freezing rain, sleet, the phone has been out for twenty-four hours, so I have no idea when I'll be able to send again, and the sense of isolation is exacerbated. I have to turn off the radio, as the whole Super Tuesday, Trump, Clinton, brokered conventions, all becomes too much. I still have leftovers but I'm thinking ahead to a pot of Black Crowder peas, served on a bed of one of those new nutty Louisiana rice varieties. Sweet release, a long sleep and no bad dreams. Outside to pee and sniff the air, and it smells like snow. Go back inside and get dressed, start some coffee, carry in an armload of wood. I have what I need, so I settle in with a history of chickens. It starts snowing, and the quiet quotient, which was close to zero, fell even lower. A few drips of water off the upper roof in the afternoon and it's snowing harder, not actually in the forecast, "little accumulation" indeed, but it's a bad combination for an ice storm. Blessedly the phone makes a half-bleep, which means it's working, so I'll send this now.