Mountain

I could hear the screech owl this morning and followed the temptation to step outside into the dark to just be with the night a little. The Big Dipper was up there and I followed its tail to the North Star, reassuringly where I expected it to be. That was about half an hour ago. I am back inside, and can still hear the owl, rhythmic and low.

I awoke to an email from last night, a neighbor saying that he was at the hospital with his aging wife. A “scary incident” had happened, he said, at the supermarket that afternoon. I feel for him. He is much younger than her. One can pretty much be sure that she will leave before he does and under the best of circumstances he panics  easily. I know he dreads this. I just saw him this afternoon, coming back from leaving at my front door a piece of mis-directed mail, and we were happy to see each other and exchange some silly little friendly words in the driveway. They are both like cousins to me, almost family, not quite, but much more than neighbors.

It is Christmas and I will make a one-layer very simple (the recipe promises) cake and cover it with raspberries and whipped cream. My close friend will bring the first course. I am wary in the kitchen. Too often things go awry. But I keep returning to try again. If someone is coming over. Alone, ’tis a different story. I am looking forward to seeing my friend. It’s been a couple of weeks and she and I have a comfortable closeness, though she does drive me crazy sometimes. Sometimes I even think that I will wander off and not come back. But then she comes by and that unique closeness is there again, natural, kind of astounding me.

Do I think of him? Yes. I have altered and tried even to dismantle our connection, but I guess you can never erase people like that. I just go moment by moment,. It’s when I think beyond this very moment that I get into trouble. For instance, I start thinking I should, or even that I want to, go see him. And the push-pull begins. And then I have to remember and ask myself, okay, does that mean you want to go now? When the answer is yes I will go. Before that I just have to be careful not to create a jungle-gym in my head of criss-crossing thoughts that get me into a painful confusing jumble.