Twist Road
Friday.
We chase after the sun. I can see out the hatchback and in my side mirror the deep indigo of the sky towards the city we have left behind. The tires grind softly against the road and the engine mutters quietly to us as we speed to pass, slow to remerge. Ahead is the trailing edge of the sun, the sunset, the oranges and reds long absent but an odd dull yellow fading into an intense washed out blue. The sky is huge. I had forgotten the space of the midwest, the immensity of the sky. The lights make patterns more brightly on the asphalt and with every passing minute I worry more about the directions, lost in some fold of my bag, buried under food and clothing. Still, we find Rochelle, turn right at the stop sign, go on until the next one (at least ten miles) turn again, turn again, creep along until we find the right road. The gate is just how I remember it and Joe, scrambling out to unhook the chains, looks much happier than last time when it was closer to zero degrees and the ground was icy with refrozen snow. But we pile into the house just as happily and stow our precious cargo of eggs and cheese and spinach. There's nothing for it but a bottle of wine between friends.
Saturday
Inside I am fooled by the air conditioning which runs so silently I hardly notice. We step out into the screened porch, look at the thermometer and are surprised to find the red arrow unwavering at seventy-one. Cool but humid. Shoes on, we embark on the dirt worn from tires, let ourselves out of the gate, trot confidently down the road. I remember the first turn, remember my feet freezing in my lined boots and aching with the cold, my only concern to be inside but looking up to see horses across a fence just as curious back at me. It was best to walk in the drifts near the edge or right in the tire track - the grit bit into the ice enough for the rubber soles. Today, instead, there is dust and green leaves line the passage. This is not California forest, not the dry, earthy, open woods of my youth with squat bushes and pinched trees, where the sound of water was thrilling and rare. The green astonishes me with its fullness and unconcerned growing - seemingly without effort. You can't see more than ten feet into the trees before the undergrowth is too tall (or I am too short) and my vision is stopped. Soon I am tired enough to stop looking anywhere but shortly in front of my feet. I hear the voice of my coach in my hand telling me to run the tangents, to run from tree to tree, to stay on my toes uphill, to lean strongly from the hips downhill - let gravity do the work. I bring to mind repetitions by the Rose Bowl - the Flintridge hill, Yocum, Sierra Vista, Inverness. This is nothing like that but I am out of practice and my shirt is beginning to dampen from my exertion in the humidity. I am relieved at the end when we can pause and look at pack of alpacas with their dark hooded eyes, long noses, thick scraggly wool. They turn and look at us, evaluating. We wonder back. The owner steps out, tells us the far white is about to drop (what, I wonder for a moment) and when she steps towards us we can see her thickness far outstrips the others. Later, when the thunderstorm is thickening and we can hardly see through the dashboard she inside or at least out of view. I wonder if this is the weather for birthing, or for holding in until sunnier skies.
Sunday.
I am alone in my wakefulness. After sixty pages Ethan rolls over and we settle on the porch in the shade, looking over the pond shining in the heat. One hundred more and we stop for hot chocolate, french toast, scrabble. The menfolk head into the water with fish traps and ambitions; I dangle my feet of the pier into the water grasses and lose myself in Sabine's grief. It is hard to read but I have only a few more hours before this books is lost to me and I can't leave until I know how she manages, how she finds her joy again after Parsifal is gone. On the porch I reach for Ethan's hand as he reads his mathematics, take it and rub my thumb against the hollow where his joins the back of his hand. Something rhythmic, quiet, close to remind me we are still here, together. On the pier the water swishing against my ankles holds that promise, the distant laughter of the fishermen slipping on algae-covered clay. Later I push off towards the depths but the cold drives me back and even past that we are suddenly, almost abruptly, packed and waiting for Joe to reset the alarm and come from the side door. The eggplant, the bread, the polenta is gone and the mill closed for the day. I jump out and fix the chains - open, closed. Ethan remembers the way home.
We chase after the sun. I can see out the hatchback and in my side mirror the deep indigo of the sky towards the city we have left behind. The tires grind softly against the road and the engine mutters quietly to us as we speed to pass, slow to remerge. Ahead is the trailing edge of the sun, the sunset, the oranges and reds long absent but an odd dull yellow fading into an intense washed out blue. The sky is huge. I had forgotten the space of the midwest, the immensity of the sky. The lights make patterns more brightly on the asphalt and with every passing minute I worry more about the directions, lost in some fold of my bag, buried under food and clothing. Still, we find Rochelle, turn right at the stop sign, go on until the next one (at least ten miles) turn again, turn again, creep along until we find the right road. The gate is just how I remember it and Joe, scrambling out to unhook the chains, looks much happier than last time when it was closer to zero degrees and the ground was icy with refrozen snow. But we pile into the house just as happily and stow our precious cargo of eggs and cheese and spinach. There's nothing for it but a bottle of wine between friends.
Saturday
Inside I am fooled by the air conditioning which runs so silently I hardly notice. We step out into the screened porch, look at the thermometer and are surprised to find the red arrow unwavering at seventy-one. Cool but humid. Shoes on, we embark on the dirt worn from tires, let ourselves out of the gate, trot confidently down the road. I remember the first turn, remember my feet freezing in my lined boots and aching with the cold, my only concern to be inside but looking up to see horses across a fence just as curious back at me. It was best to walk in the drifts near the edge or right in the tire track - the grit bit into the ice enough for the rubber soles. Today, instead, there is dust and green leaves line the passage. This is not California forest, not the dry, earthy, open woods of my youth with squat bushes and pinched trees, where the sound of water was thrilling and rare. The green astonishes me with its fullness and unconcerned growing - seemingly without effort. You can't see more than ten feet into the trees before the undergrowth is too tall (or I am too short) and my vision is stopped. Soon I am tired enough to stop looking anywhere but shortly in front of my feet. I hear the voice of my coach in my hand telling me to run the tangents, to run from tree to tree, to stay on my toes uphill, to lean strongly from the hips downhill - let gravity do the work. I bring to mind repetitions by the Rose Bowl - the Flintridge hill, Yocum, Sierra Vista, Inverness. This is nothing like that but I am out of practice and my shirt is beginning to dampen from my exertion in the humidity. I am relieved at the end when we can pause and look at pack of alpacas with their dark hooded eyes, long noses, thick scraggly wool. They turn and look at us, evaluating. We wonder back. The owner steps out, tells us the far white is about to drop (what, I wonder for a moment) and when she steps towards us we can see her thickness far outstrips the others. Later, when the thunderstorm is thickening and we can hardly see through the dashboard she inside or at least out of view. I wonder if this is the weather for birthing, or for holding in until sunnier skies.
Sunday.
I am alone in my wakefulness. After sixty pages Ethan rolls over and we settle on the porch in the shade, looking over the pond shining in the heat. One hundred more and we stop for hot chocolate, french toast, scrabble. The menfolk head into the water with fish traps and ambitions; I dangle my feet of the pier into the water grasses and lose myself in Sabine's grief. It is hard to read but I have only a few more hours before this books is lost to me and I can't leave until I know how she manages, how she finds her joy again after Parsifal is gone. On the porch I reach for Ethan's hand as he reads his mathematics, take it and rub my thumb against the hollow where his joins the back of his hand. Something rhythmic, quiet, close to remind me we are still here, together. On the pier the water swishing against my ankles holds that promise, the distant laughter of the fishermen slipping on algae-covered clay. Later I push off towards the depths but the cold drives me back and even past that we are suddenly, almost abruptly, packed and waiting for Joe to reset the alarm and come from the side door. The eggplant, the bread, the polenta is gone and the mill closed for the day. I jump out and fix the chains - open, closed. Ethan remembers the way home.
posted by trophywife at 9:38 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home