Night Noises

Could have been anything. It's the breeding season, and there's competition. Pretty sure there're bobcats involved. It's been so warm I'm sure the bear's out of hibernation. Two dogs out of the eight made it through the winter. One problem, always at this time of year, there isn't much to eat. Roadkill is a big deal, and, of course, my compost pile. I keep firecrackers and matches by the back door. The power co-op called just before five, to ask if I had electricity; technically B is now the end of the line, but they still call me because they know where I live. Called, is another thing. The phone is restored. I'd thought about going to town and getting a motel room, take a bath and watch TV, but it was St. Patrick's Day and the pub would be impossible, so I read and made a few notes that I'll never make sense of. I'm charting Sir Francis's sail around the world on my inflatable globe. A great thing about an inflatable globe is that it's almost weightless; if you lay on your back, on the sofa, with your knees up, you can balance both a book and the world. I log on and send, without reading over what I'd written. Raw text. I hadn't cleaned up the commas, which usually allows me to drop some words, so I apologize for being sloppy. I hate actually having to throw a firecracker out the door, even though I turn my face away and close my eyes, because the sonic blast is so disruptive. It's always an act of the moment and I never have time to remember ear-plugs. But it does serve as a method of time-factoring, before and after the explosion. Two wild dogs and a rabid coon fighting over my scant left-overs. I run them off, I hope they don't take it personally, but I don't even feed humming birds anymore, because I hate the way they spat. I'd rather be alone forever, than to ever argue again. Most Likely To Secede. A tangled blanket and one sock might not be the path to victory. A good day, nice weather, but snow flurries tomorrow, so I run into town for a few things; a book in the mail , on the Beaufort Scale; sushi. Honeysuckle and blackberry leafing out. A greening along the river. The Scioto is well out of its banks and flooding is extensive in the bottom fields. I haven't had a fire in the stove for a week, but I still have quite a bit of firewood if we do have another week of winter. At this point, it can't be all that bad. I was thinking about my daughters and Samara called; we caught up, laughed, and made up stories about people we knew in common. They want me to visit, I wouldn't mind a trip to Colorado, a road trip generally, so I get out the atlas. There's no 'getting out' involved, as I keep a atlas on the dictionary table, at hand, because I love maps, and I spend a while figuring out how to avoid a couple of large cities, Indianapolis, Des Moines. The pork fried rice is very good, and I'd gotten my dozen (16) oysters, so I actually have too much food. Oyster stew seems extravagate, but it's not, and it's so fast and easy. It feels strange to eat a two course meal, after a winter of eating one thing, out of the pan. Table manners notwithstanding. I was thinking about that today, and about how the survival mode kicks in. Winter camping is an example, down bag, parka, heat packs for your feet; ear-muffs, full face mask, a yak under-fur scarf. You build a fire, you balance a pot on a couple of rocks, eat hot gruel, and fetal yourself into quasi-hibernation. Then you wake up, and if you positioned yourself correctly, you can restart the fire, without getting out of your bag, and boil water for instant coffee. This can actually be fun, with the right people, in the right circumstance. Even a horrible experience, if you survive, can make a good story. I've always tended to do a lot things alone, long hikes, over-nights in caves, setting off from Key West in a rubber raft and being rescued by the Coast Guard. I was writing and or editing for several hours yesterday, in a cone of comfortable attention, when I snapped back to the outside world it was dark, and I was tired, mentally exhausted, so I took a nap. Hours later I woke up hungry, three in the morning, turned on the kitchen light, put on some Skip James, and made an omelet with cheese and peppers, toast with a tangy Seville Orange marmalade. I'd only bought the jam because it was remaindered, half-price (I have to stop and think about hyphens), and I don't ever buy Crosse & Blackwell because it's so damned expensive. It's very good, I had a second piece of toast; and I was holding the jar, reading the label, and the light hit it just so, there seemed to be a hint of green. The word hazel came to mind. I've been on this hazel kick for about forty years. I just ask people, after we might have talked about the weather, or whether or not the soprano was any good, what color they thought hazel was. This falls under the category of usage change, or whatever they call it, but hazel was never green until fairly recently. It was chestnut, tan, a light brown. Brown includes green, or brown precludes green, or the other way around. Colors are at least as confusing as smell and sound. I don't know how we make sense of anything. Snow clouds moving in, I can sense that as a measure of moisture and a look at the thermometer, and those large flakes falling, nothing, though, would keep me from my appointed rounds. Under a thin layer of ice I watch embryonic tadpoles struggle to stay alive, not to mention certain bottle-neck flies, banging against a window, that I can easily catch with my bare hand. Life goes on. A stutter-step, but movement, in whatever direction. Something had been nagging at me, and I didn't know exactly what it was. The power was out again, briefly, twice, and it was enough to make me lose my train of thought, and I'd gone over to the island, to get a drink. I'd laughed at some stupid thought, politically incorrect and vicious, talking back at the radio, and I realized that I was actually quite content in my circumstance. And that was it, what had been bothering me, why anyone would satisfy for less. Not that anyone else would consider wandering aimlessly in the woods to be a desirable thing, or almost freezing to death, or eating cold beans from the can.

I don't have to tell
but the small iris are budded
and ready to bloom

One of the great things about being disconnected is not being connected. I always pull for Gonzaga, in the tournament, because there's a z in the name. Z, really, after all. The very last thing you'd think about.