today

Hiking 5th Water Canyon Fall 04

Today is a little strange; soft and heavy like breath under a blanket.  In the early autumn light the paper jack-o-lanterns taped to the window glow as if lit by invisible tea lights.  We snuggle as little family of 3 under down blankets and drink coffee while listening to politics.  BC begs me to vote Third party to save our country he states.  And it is funny how I know even if that was a true statement if voting against my chosen party which in the state I live is a ‘lost’ vote, I couldn’t do it.  He jokes about paying me off; I am a little shocked (okay totally blown over) to find that I won’t do either.  This is where the two of us started, drinking thick coffee, each thinking the other totally insane, and wanting more.

Beach is reaching for BC because at this point in her
life I was not her primary parent, he was.

I think about yesterday and the Nearly-Growns staggered appearances for Beach’s birthday.  The disheveled but sweet way it all went down.  Bacon for breakfast, a baked cake left to cool, a gym meet with Alex watching, cake, pizza with Conner, and a Panda movie (Thanks Mrs. K).  How I had marveled at Beach’s phone skills juggling calls from a Great Grandmother she doesn’t know and a call from Fisher, her other half brother in Idaho.  So polite and thoughtful so grown up amid the revolving door of siblings and relatives.

A little later in the morning as we talk about the list if to do’s for the birthday party BC enters the kitchen to let us know that the old rooster is on his death bed.  Fuzz Ball in his last hours has returned to the nursery coop where he is laying breathing shallow breaths.  Autumn is his breaking point.

Being followed faithfully by Moses,
the dog I never have learned to love.

I have begun again to have dreams with my sister in them.  Part of it is that once autumn was my breaking point too.  The other part is I have two women in my life now who remind me of her and if I’m not paying close attention I will think I actually see her in one of them.  It’s not a bad thing, it just is.  There is the ghost radio too, for weeks it went off at a predictable time during the day.  Now it has switched to 1:33 am it plays for about an hour then politely shuts itself back off.  I know it is nothing more than a preset somewhere in the mechanics of the thing but I still tie it to her...it was her radio after all.  One of the few surviving artifacts of us as sisters. 

A little after 9am the house became still in a way that makes it not feel like morning at all but like a late afternoon with a sleeping baby.  There is a slow melancholy peace here in the perfection of a simple day.  When I check in with Beach about the rooster she tells me BC couldn’t watch him struggle anymore and ended it for him.  A task he had avoided for a long time.

Beach & my sister who she doesn't remember

Tomorrow before the day wakes Beach and I will be on our way to Nevada for a week of Birthday Glam sponsored and hosted by my parents.  It is a way to give her a piece of the childhood my sister's and I had.  And when we return BC (along with Fisher if the X will cooperate) will leave on the hunt.  I would rather BC not go, even though the meat is already being banked on for the winter.  I would prefer to go back to Boulder Mt. on our first camping trip together.  Where I discovered BC had a sweet tooth.  And he discovered I wasn’t quite as tough as I pretended to be.

Yes, today is a little strange in its normalcy.  A birth.  A death.  A mosaic family.  A pull towards staying safe at home.  A push towards the calling mountains.  Today is an island of my real life surrounded by oceans of elsewhere.  Today is one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen.         

Beach playing in the leaf pile at my X's old house