Catching Myself: when I fall
View from the top. On a recent hike/run in northern California.
Poetry
Here’s Adrienne Rich’s “From an Atlas of the Difficult World.”
Journeying
I fly to California for an annual board retreat. For the first few days, I stay at my friend’s house and care for her animals, while she’s at a music festival in the mountains. I miss my friend, who I met at another retreat almost ten years ago, but her house holds me in her stead. My friend has three chickens, two ducks, an elderly dog, several fish, and five beehives. She used to have more chickens and ducks, but their numbers are down due to a bobcat. This means that that the birds aren’t as free-range as they or my friend would like. The dog has some arthritis and, lately, some vertigo, which doesn’t allow her to fetch sticks as she would like.
I read my friend’s detailed notes about chicken food and dog supplements. The greens for the chickens must be very finely chopped; they don’t have teeth. The dog gets one scoop of butternut squash puree with her meals. I get some extra help from the woman who rents the tiny lighthouse-shaped home on my friend’s property. She shows me that a pinch of fish food really is just a pinch. On the second morning of my caretaking duties, I make myself a cup of tea before opening the sliding glass door onto the deck and calling the dog for a trip outside. My friend’s dog is big, a fluffy black shepherd/collie mix with a sweet disposition. She wears a harness with a strap on the top. If she wobbles, I grab the strap to steady her. We make our way across the deck to the two sets of stairs, four stairs each, that lead to the backyard. We both negotiate the first set with minimal wobbles. The renter leaves her lighthouse for work. She walks across the backyard toward her car. I wave. Then everything comes apart. The dog loses her balance. I grab for the strap and spill my tea. I miss the harness and the dog tumbles head over tail down the second set of stairs. She lands two steps from the bottom, belly on the steps, hind legs hanging. The renter says, “she really cannot go down any stairs at all.”
“The notes said she could go down but not up,” I blurt out, while trying to free the dog. “Yes, but only like three steps. I always take her down the front steps,” says the renter, who is carrying her own cup of coffee or tea. I extricate the dog, who hops down the last couple of steps then pauses, trying to remember which way is up. The renter needs to go to work. I need to walk the dog and feed the birds. We give the dog a reassuring pat and part ways.
I leash up the dog, whose arthritic joints need persuasion to move, and head for the vineyard next door. As I unlock the gate, I begin a silent argument with the renter, “the directions didn’t say she couldn’t go down the back stairs! How was I supposed to know?!” Back inside, I text my friend to let her know what happened. Later, she calls me. She doesn’t seem nearly as upset as I am. She’s not angry with me. She ends the call with, “if I didn’t’ say so before, thank you so much for taking care of the animals. It’s such a big relief.” I am confused.
I call my husband. He says, “just because something bad happens doesn’t mean it’s your fault.” I argue with him, audibly this time, “what do you mean? I should have known she couldn’t go down that many stairs; I should have grabbed her collar quicker!”
The dog and I spend the next couple of days successfully negotiating the three front steps. We enjoy or slow walks in the vineyard and our rest afterward, me in a lawn chair and her on the ground. She eats all her food and takes her medicine. On my last afternoon at my friend’s house, I visit a local park to hike and run. The trail name has the word “mountain” in it. I hike up the mountain and run down. On the descent, I’m all over the trail, dodging rocks. I trip and leap forward to catch myself. A water bottle is clutched in my left hand. When I’m running or hiking, I keep an object in my left hand in case I fall. I reason that if I do fall, I’m more likely to put out my empty right hand to break the fall than the full left one, thus avoiding breaking that wrist a fourth time.
The rocks are a threat to my bones; I move to avoid them. Dehydration is a threat to my stamina; I carry water. The renter’s admonition to take the dog down the front steps is not a threat. It’s information. The dog falling down the stairs is not my fault; it’s an accident. I’ve been fighting imaginary combatants, manufactured threats.
Near the bottom of the trail, I pass an older man in a baseball cap and bright green sneakers. He’s running up. A silver transistor radio hangs around his neck. It’s a new model, made to look like the older ones from fifty years ago. I decide it’s probably easier to wear that albatross than the original, heavier model. He’s listening to sports. The muffled sharp static of the announcers’ voices reaches me as I run past.
Gardening and Making/Mending
Spent sunflower in the bird feeder
Travel, first to California, and then to Minnesota for my daughter’s eighteenth birthday, hasn’t allowed for much gardening. I did come home this week and water all the indoor plants. I also managed to cut down all the dead sunflowers in the front and back yards. I did not manage to mow the grass, and I haven’t refilled the bird feeders in a month. I would like to begin performing that last task again, but I need to confront the pantry moths first. I store my birdseed in plastic bins on the basement steps’ landing. These bins are no match for moths, and they love birdseed. Every time I open the basement door a flurry of moths greets me. I suck them up using the tube attachment on my vacuum before I descend to do my laundry. But this is not a long-term solution. I need to replace the plastic bins with a galvanized steel trash can. I’ll do that just as soon as I’m home long enough to visit the hardware store, or when killing moths becomes too heavy an emotional burden.
As you can see here, I have knit a sleeve and a half of my sweater. As you cannot see here, I also have a very long torso and, therefore, much knitting left to do. However, I do think I’ll be able to wear the finished sweater this winter. The present mix of desire and commitment that occasionally overcomes me during a project will see it to completion sooner rather than later.
The second A Thin Space Handmade Item Raffle is upon us. Expect the results of the raffle and the winner’s name in my October 24th newsletter. A quick reminder that all paid subscribers to this newsletter are eligible to win a handmade-by-me item each quarter. I love doing this for my subscribers!
