fall day

A cool morning, a Rosie ride, a pause to admire and to breathe in, breathe in, so deeply, no yoga necessary, deeply, the beautiful early autumn air. I remember a day just like this slightly more than a decade ago.

Corn husks are turning yellow, soy, too, is golden now. The warm and blustery air makes me want to stay all day on the rural roads.  I look around me and think -- nothing should change, nothing should be repositioned. 

But, on this day (and on some other days too)  I have three and a half hours of lectures and believe me, there isn’t much that I can give to this world after I’m done with my time behind a podium.

I take Rosie to Paul’s for an iced tea and meet Ed there just before Paul's closes for the day. It’s funny that there, Ed should sleep and I should do more work for tomorrow, but we are in this pattern of odd cycles and it often comes to be that we aren’t in sync. As in so many small details, in matters of when to sleep or not sleep, we do not automatically key into the same patterns.

Later in the evening we play tennis. I'm hardly dressed for it but we play anyway and the game is good which only goes to show that being good is not an altogether predictable thing.

At home I scramble eggs and grill a few remaining chicken brats and toss a salad – one with many, many tomatoes –  and I say:  that’s it, I can do no more.

And then Isis starts his meowing routine again.

Cat issues. We surely have our share of them. Isis is no dummy – he’s figured out that if he meows loud and strong, he’ll get Ed to pay attention. What Isis wants is for Ed (or me, but he targets Ed) to follow him to the sheep shed and stay with him there.

I do get it. The sheep shed (not the farmhouse) is his real home. He has his food, his in and out door, his litterbox and, most importantly, he has Ed’s messy desk which abuts the corner windows and there Isis likes to recline and watch the world go by.

Yes, I get it. But it means now that not only nights but evenings, too, are interrupted by the great meowing routine. Until Ed gives in. And Ed always give in. (To Isis, not to me. We’re still “talking” about his involvement in my girl's wedding.)

Isis has considered and rejected most anything that we offer him. He leaves, the room grows still. I like still. And, for this hour at least, quiet. Farmhouse quiet.