The Caregiver’s Tales
Tiny essays on life, nature, grief and other things that catch my fancy in the Texas Hill Country. Here’s how it all got started.
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Seeing Beauty
Well, the prize went to the early morning riser today in my neck of the woods. There’s a nice cloud cover with just enough space for the morning sun to peek out beneath it and light things up. Golds, purples, reds, blues. You name ’em. The colors were there on the clouds, shifting and changing as the morning progressed, and I got tired of taking pictures.
In Pursuit
At some point in my life, I became nearly obsessed with knowing what I see. I suspect it started with birds, and I can pinpoint that date to 1983. Then it was plants. Followed by rocks and mountains, much later in life. That semi-obsession accounts for my bird, plant, and geology books. I’m no ornithologist, botanist, or geologist by any stretch, but I’ve got just enough info banging around in my head that I stand a fairly good chance these days of knowing what I see.
Saving the Day
We all like a story, and that’s why we make up so many of them. And we particularly like stories that make sense of seemingly inexplicable things. The big one for me, recently, was how did a county like Kerr, with a river running through it, manage to miss what happened to another county, Hays, which experienced a catastrophic flood in 2015 with its river? The latter, Hays, installed a warning system. The former, Kerr, didn’t.
Making News
I was speaking with a friend recently about the flooding in Kerr County along the Guadalupe, specifically about the county's inability to get an early warning system installed and why. My story was answered with, "I didn't know that." It stopped the discussion and got me thinking about how we get our news these days.
Seeing Things
A Painted Bunting came to visit yesterday. Out of pure serendipity, I happened to look out my window at just the right time. There he was, perched on the fence, leisurely eating seeds from the signalgrass that sprouted in the low ground by the south fence. He spent a fair amount of time there, too, and I watched as long as I could. Eventually, he hopped into the grapevines and disappeared.
Taking a Breath
There’s a scene in the movie Bridge of Spies when the attorney James Donovan, played by Tom Hanks, says during a prison interview to the spy, Rudolf Abel (played by Mark Rylance), that Abel doesn’t seem very upset or concerned that he’s facing the death penalty. Rylance looks at Hanks and says softly, “Would it help?” Since seeing that, I've asked myself that question whenever faced with what otherwise might seem to be an upsetting situation. Getting upset. Would it help?
New Days
I think you’re supposed to write like no one is looking. And that worked for a long while, until I realized people were looking. And that was okay, until I started to meet the people who were looking. Then I came to understand that while they were my audience, I knew they had opinions about other things, and I began to worry I might say something to offend them, because every once in a while, I wanted to write about something other than my yard.
New Thoughts
The new garden along the north fence is rounding into form. The mist flowers I planted this spring have taken root and are expanding their footprint. The sage is in bloom. The chinquapin oak is flush with leaves. The yellow bells is getting ready for fall. I’ve decided to let the bindweed have the fence, but I’ve planted morning glory and alamo vine as alternatives. The latter came from seeds I potted on the porch.
Finding the Future
It’s hard to believe I could take a vacation while in retirement, but that’s exactly how my most recent trip felt, like a vacation. It was getting away from the mundane, the pattern of an ordinary life. While I’m at home, basically, I’m a maintenance man. I clean. I cook. I tend the yard. I tend the pool. I tend my car. I keep things going. It’s pretty much the life I’ve always led. There’s not as many plates to spin, but that’s still my job.
Teamwork
Well, the long trip is over and it was fun. But it’s nice being home in the comfort of one's own bed. I had a long day yesterday. My flight was at 5:30, so I was up at three a.m. to get to the airport on time. But the beauty of early morning travel is the lightness of the crowds. Combine that with a small regional airport and it was smooth sailing. Of course, I flew east to west which meant by 8:30 last night I was exhausted and fell into bed without any qualms.
Home and Away
The house is quiet. The woods are quiet. Everyone is asleep and there’s a heavy fog on the lake. All will be gone with the sun. The quiet and the fog. The woods will stir, the house will stir and the day which has already begun will truly come to life. Bird song, kid song, wind in the leaves. It’s a nice final morning for my week in the woods.
Stories
The far shore of the lake is shrouded in a dense fog this morning, and there’s no birdsong to speak of, eerie. But fitting, given that we visited the home of Stephen King yesterday in Bangor, Maine. We must have stopped by just long enough for his spirit to catch our scent and hear that I’ve never read one of his books. I promised my traveling companions I’d remedy that oversight, so this morning’s fog is probably only a reminder.
Morning Song
When you sleep with the windows open and no shades drawn, morning comes right into the room as soon as it’s ready. The day starts with little regard for a clock. It’s light and time to get busy. The crows seem to wake up first then come the little songbirds followed by me, one of the people. The kids, of course, have no idea what’s going on, partly because they stayed up half the night and partly because they’re kids and more a part of nature than any adult, and like little bears, they’re going to sleep.