We stood outside in the first late-night dusk of a new spring last night, one couple long into their adventure with two grey-whiskered brindle hounds wobbling like bumblebees on string at the ends of their leashes. One half of another couple newly shacked up across the street, with a recently lost dog locked inside. Then us, a couple just a couple of years into the second half of our 28 year adventure, and less time than that into our yellow dog. We stand outside under the early-blooming azaleas chit-chatting about hot water heaters, home insurance, and the place to be come next winter solstice. I can’t speak for them, but I feel certain we are all getting the snot knocked out of us in between pleasant visitations during dog walks in the night. Placed within the vise of expectation, disappointment, and hope. Still, we are the lucky ones right? The lovers and the loved, the homesteaded pet-owners of America?
Lucky indeed, but also under siege with so much to lose. Always better to be lurking in the woods, attacking the fortified position than the open target.
Throw open the castle doors and invite the blackguards in to pick through all your treasure! Count your riches instead by kisses goodnight, warm sun and fox squirrels heard as they rustle around the trunk of a pine tree, pivoting as you roll by. Memories are poor investments as they seem to fade away, but it’s currency you spend a thousand times before it’s gone. Why, just that one moment alone, waking in that alpine couloir, staring into the yellow eyes of a mountain goat not 6 feet away? I remember the wind vibrating amperes of energy into the crackling super-cell bearing down from over the ridge. I literally rubbed me eyes and looked again. There it stood. I will never forget this, I thought to myself, and thus far I have not.
I always know when I have had too much to drink because I tell stories only for myself, an act as obnoxious as counting a wallet filled with bills in front of a hungry man. But ahhh, I don’t care! I think, I have stories to burn! I will make it rain stories until the wood is all burned and the guests long gone.
Juancho
Ah, so, ah, so. I wonder if the memories become better than the dreams once we get busy defending the castle instead of laying seige?
Thank you for writing. Always.
Good question Lopo, let’s boil some more oil while we think about it.
Somehow I missed this until now. Somehow it has made fat, hot tears roll down my cheeks. Somehow I feel lost without stories to tell. Thank you for carrying on the tradition in your inimitable way.I love you.