Wind

At 5:30 in the morning I wait for my computer to power up, in the darkness, watching the hourglass twirl, anticipating what communication might have landed in my inbox in the course of the night.

Outside a low wind passes through the trees. Low and gentle. Low and gentle. Out there in the darkness, my mother, her thin and elegant form, is winding slowly through the dense tree trunks, fanning through the clusters of needles in the tree tops, bringing down upon me this low and gentle wind.

Baubles, bangles & beads

A selection of reasons why I live here.
All rights for specific photos reserved by their owners. Special thanks to Buff & Jerry Corsi for use of their photos and Nina Simon for her song.

Unicorns among the pines

They're small and nondescript, California Tortoiseshell butterflies. Like the unicorn, they are usually unseen -- until the mind perceives them.

Then they are everywhere, flitting like small Halloween hankies through the forests of northern California. What their business is, in the snappish cool weather of October, I don’t know. My guidebook says the species is noted for wild fluctuations in population. Some years none are seen in Lassen Park. Other years they actually cause hazardous driving conditions "because of plastered windshields and slickened pavement.”*

But these butterflies please me. They please me, not the least because I can see them, small unicorns of the forest. They peep from behind the massive, corrogated trunks of old cedar trees, they flap and veer through dry grasses. Perception is all. They tickle my soul.

*“Discovering the Butterflies of Lassen Volcanic National Park,” by Laurence L. Crabtree, 1998

Four Seasons at Lake Almanor

Music by Lerner & Lowe, arranged by Jackie Terrasson, sung by Cassandra Wilson

Free Fall

Disturbed by some uneasiness I awake to the view of the lake from the deck. The moon brands the moving waters in quicksilver. Beyond the idle chaise lounge, beyond the spiral of shadows created by the deck railing, the light pours down into the shining abyss.

My mother must have seen this view. When she was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, we came to this house in the mountains that dad had built with his bear paws twenty years ago. At 83, my mother spent the days laboring at the foot of the deck, gathering up the pine needles and duff thrown down in the annual cycle of the trees. Work as salvation. Dad was already gone.

I turn my back to the scene and curl into the dark embryo of the warm bed. But the moonlight is there, shining at the edge of my consciousness, a trickle, and I know I will not sleep.

Count the increments of time as the moon continues its steady arc over the sky. Parent-child time magnifies even as it disappears. It’s alright. Everything will be alright. In the kingdom of the living and in the kingdom of the dead. Knowing more, knowing less, it is what it is.

First Rain

Evening Grosbeak from Audubon's Birds of America

In between the squalls, the evening grosbeaks, blackbirds, and Audubon warblers gather in the trees, facing the wind, feathers ruffling, to comment on their travel plans.

Clouds hurtle by like movie film. The strong white sun breaks through and, in the dazzling light, the tips of the deep green pines twinkle with a thousand prisms of dew. The breeze shakes the branches and angled sheets of pinpoints fall to the ground in waves of soft sound. Two birds launch themselves toward the morning sun while a dozen of their mates veer south.

Open the door and the sublime scent of the pines and firs rushes in like a boisterous child full of news.

As I write this scrap, looking down from my loft window, I see this year’s yellow grasses offer up their harvest of seeds and fruits. Ah, like these grasses, I have fruits to offer but will never be green again…

But, here is this burst of glory, the first rain in more than three months, connecting us all, heaven and earth, the yet-to-be born and the dying, once again.

October 4, 2008
Lake Almanor, CA