Shooting the Evening

As promised, if later than I had planned, due to technical problems, a whole new post.

I’ve always enjoyed spending quiet time just soaking in a good evening. Watching a brilliant sunset, picking out the first stars, listening to the sounds of frogs, crickets, cicadas calling. My perch usually takes the shape of porch swing but I once spent a fantastic evening at a picnic table in the Midwest that rivals the best of them.

We drove miles down a dirt road to a small patch of rolling farm country and pasture land in the middle of Kansas. It had been hot that day, over 100`F, and we had covered many, many miles on a trip headed West in a car with no air conditioning. We stopped not long before sunset, seeking refuge in the shade of a group of small trees near a picnic table. A light breeze drew across the hillside and shallow valley below and I thought perhaps we had stumbled on a small piece of Heaven.

We moved the picnic table into the shade and ate a bite while birds stalked tiny prey in the grass and flew in looping patterns over the grassy field a few hundred feet away. Backlit by the sinking sun, they snapped insects out of the air and sang their successes. The tall grass below them and the bugs they sought burned golden in the sunset light, gilded brightly against a dark line of trees bounding the far side of the field. The breeze was cool, the air dry, and we sat in perfect comfort watching the show.

Just up the road, an old windmill creaked and bumped through its slow and deliberate revolutions. Cattle grazed in the surrounding pasture. From time to time they bawled and lowed and wandered to the tank below the windmill for a drink of water, water delivered from somewhere underground to a quiet Kansas pasture by workings that had weathered there for more years than I and my traveling companion had been alive. Its steady sound was as natural as a creek gurgling over cobbles. I found it unspeakably comforting.

As evening drew the shades and the birds and bugs found their homes for the night, we sat reversed on the seats, our backs propped against the tabletop, and trained our eyes farther upward. Constellations materialized in the clear evening sky. Bugs called in a low chorus from the grass and trees. The windmill creaked reassuringly. And we stayed up until after midnight talking about the world, our lives, and counting shooting stars.

We left early the next morning, dawn still caught in the dewey grasses. We had miles to turn. But I left a piece of my heart on that hillside, and I took a piece of Kansas with me when we went.

It’s the reason I love to travel. It’s a cornerstone of the hope I hold for myself and this world. It’s something pure and simple and beautiful, and I saw it. I didn’t just look at it with open eyes, I saw it. And every time I see a place, a person, an object, I am forever changed … usually for the better.

God’s Thumbnail

That’s what some call a crescent moon, the thumbnail of God. Kind of goes along with the idea that “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” Whatever your beliefs, it is a beautiful sight.

Last night I stayed up late, until 3 AM today actually. Time flies when you’re having fun, as they say. I hadn’t intended to, had made no plans to do so, but I got in a groove and rode it as far as I dared, which happened to be three hours into the next day. See, I love to write. You’d never know it, coming to this blog – my organizational skills sometimes leave much to be desired and I’ve been unexpectedly busy since last October – but I write in some form nearly every day.

Last night I got on a roll and didn’t want to stop. See, it’s been a long time since I felt like I really connected with the old muse and had more to jot down than just a line or two. It’s been years. It’s tantamount to a chocoholic being limited to one Hershey’s kiss every day for two and a half years, then suddenly one night finding a great stash with case upon case of kisses and all other manner of chocolatey goodness. When I found my word stash, I wasn’t about to close the door and walk away after just one treat.

Which is how we return to God’s thumbnail. About 2:00 AM or so, I noticed an orange glow in the trees to the East and dismissed it as a neighbor’s polelight. I kept writing. In the vicinity of 2:30 AM I realized it was a low crescent moon, tinted by the atmosphere and just beginning to rise. I watched it for a while, still half-obscured by treetops, and then went back to my words.

Beauty is such a simple thing. At 3:00 AM I left one thing of beauty for another, walking outside and standing in the yard under a hot, silent sky to stare at a sliver of dusty planetary satellite in its slowly fading orbit. And I was awed.

I can see why some call it the thumbnail of God.

Of Beauty and Butterflies

I went hiking the other day. It was breezy but warm and the nicest day we’d had for a stretch, and I wanted to get out and enjoy it. So I went to a bit of national woods not far away and walked a trail I’ve been through several times but had not visited in years. Much was the same, of course, and much was different.

An ice storm this winter hit the area hard. The trail often diverted from its original route to bypass tangles of downed trees and even where it did not divert there were colonies of stumps wearing skirts of sawdust. Some of the oldest trees in the area lay on the ground in cross-crossing lines with their roots in the air. It was almost painful to walk through. But there were protected areas, pristine little pockets behind hillsides and sweeping ridgelines, sheltered from the wind that accompanied the ice and caused most of the damage. In one of these pockets I stopped to rest.

A large shelf of rock spotted with mosses and lichens ran exposed through a narrow meadow-like opening on the steep hillside. It made an excellent seat. Surrounded by oak and pine, cedar and hickory, it was perfectly calm and flooded with warm mid-day sunshine. A small bronze-colored lizard with long dark stripes peeked out from under a tiny overhang in the rock that I hadn’t even noticed beforehand but vanished when I finally had to shift on my stone seat. A large patch of wildflowers swarmed the lower end of the clearing where the shelf of rock melted back into dark earth, violets and sheep shire, buttercups and phlox, false garlic and bluets scattered on the ground like confetti. Among their bright blooms, which drifted into the woods amid lazy sunbeams like something straight out of a Thomas Kincade painting, a few little butterflies hovered and flitted. Some were solid yellow, others colorfully spotted, and the smallest of them were white with orange piping at the edges of their wings. They tasted this blossom, then that one, seemingly unable to choose a favorite, dancing from one spring buffet to the next.

“They get to live their whole lives here,” I mused. “All they will ever know is this tiny paradise.”

I envied them. Beautiful and perfect, they danced on air. Their lives were short but enchanted, if only for one untainted afternoon. But, then, so was mine. I sighed and moved on, climbing farther and farther up the hilll until the trail broke out of the woods and wound the narrow edge of a bluff high above the crystal clear creek I had left just below the parking area. It was a lovely vista, a wide panorama of the creek valley and hills beyond, all broken ranges and steep hollows just beginning to don the golden-green cloak of spring. Redbuds flamed in purple brilliance and dogwoods floated like drifts of snow in the trees. I tried to soak it in, memorize every wrinkle of the hills, every sharp edge of rimrock, every curve of the creek so I could pull the memory out for later use and relive the simple glory of stillness and spring on a rocky bluff outcrop. I think I managed pretty well.

So now, even on long dark days when the sun does not shine for me, I can recall these memories and cling to the knowledge that it is not only butterflies who dance in the air and lead lives full of beauty.

Lessons From Sam

Several years ago I made a big move, started a new job, and met people who would forever change me. It’s funny sometimes how the people around you can effect your life so quietly, so subtly that you don’t even notice it, perhaps for years. For me, no one changed my life like Sam.

I was fresh off a small college campus, still wet behind the ears and, truth be told, a little green around the gills at the chance I was taking. Eighteen hundred miles from home, fourteen hundred miles from the nearest person I knew, I had an old car, a new job, and one big wild hope. My first week on the job I met Sam.

I worked for a small outfit owned by a sweet, aging couple who knew the value of a dollar and frugally kept as many as they could. To that end, they hired Sam to mow the business’s grounds and do odd jobs as needed. “He’s a little slow,” the owner told me in preparation. “And he doesn’t mean any harm, but he’s a big guy. Sometimes he doesn’t know his own strength.” I immediately thought of the character George in Of Mice and Men and was a bit afraid. I didn’t relish the thought of working around someone with reduced mental capacity and potentially dangerous machinery. All nerves and ugly imaginary scenarios, I waited for him to appear.

When he did, a large mop of dark hair towering above his companions, I watched him closely to see how he acted around the owner and other workers. And discovered my fears were completely unfounded. Instead of a menacing hulk I found a polite young man who was quick to smile and who wanted to help in any way if he could. In a few weeks time, I was looking forward to his visits. My co-workers were nice enough, good people, but seeing Sam walk in was like sunshine breaking through heavy clouds. Somehow he always brought a sense of joy with him. But some of my co-workers never quite got used to him, never got over their awkwardness with him, and all I can say is that the loss was completely theirs.

Sam had a hard time with names, especially of those he didn’t see on a regular basis, but he knew the people behind them. The owner equated his mind to that of an eight-year-old and he often stuttered, especially around strangers, but was surprisingly clever at times and had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a bit backward and shy but never spoke an ill word of anything and always did the best he could. I loved Sam. He was like a big little brother to me.

I worked with Sam for three years before a change in jobs moved me out of the area. Over the next few years I visited on occasion but then moved farther away and have not been back since. I often think of Sam and wonder how he is, if he has any friends in the workers there now. I miss him. I miss his smile and his innocence and the joy he carried. The way he said my name like we hadn’t seen each other in months and he was thrilled to see me, even if we’d worked side by side the day before. I miss the pure goodness of him. In a confused and ugly world, he was such a calm and beautiful island.

And Sam taught me a lot, like not judging people before I got to know them. He taught me that some people are worthy of your trust and that an open heart feels lighter than a closed one. And that friendship is not limited by age or social class or IQ or anything else. He gave me confidence by accepting me exactly as I was; showed me that it was perfectly okay to just be myself; reminded me that great things (like happiness) can be found in small acts (like picking berries with a friend). But more than anything I think he taught me to just be happy with what I’ve got. Period.

I’ve had a lot of friends over the years, some very good close friends, but nobody was ever quite like Sam. I got to missing him again and just thought I’d share that.