Well, that was an experience. Managed at my Dad’s to fix a clock, a microwave oven, decide where I can drill into the den wall upstairs from the downstairs family room to snake through a cable for the TV, rewire a light fixture so that it still won’t work, but at least there’s no danger of crossing the wires, and shovelled the rest of his driveway.
Stopped by and saw my mother too. Had anyone seen me standing on the snowy hillside they would have thought me praying, and maybe wondered at my smile. I smiled at deer tracks in the snow, pausing for a while at the dark granite that bears her name. Wondering as well, why the snow seemed so much deeper in this spot, not of grave concern as this past summer, despite a 5-lb. bag of grass seed, her small patch of allotted earth refused to grow lush and green like that of her neighbors. But you’d have to have known my mother to understand. It took maybe five full minutes before I realized that the deer that would have pleased her so if she could see them, had munched upon the greenery of a Christmas basket that I’d made and left her, leveling it down except for bitter juniper and a rather now-bedraggled golden bow.
Discovered again the real need for a car-computer. I brought back with me and am now typing from notes scribbled while I was driving to and from my dad’s. I also took my time to write them as legibly as possible, since half my shining moments of inspiration are lost in undecipherable “key” words that search as I might, cannot find the original meaning or idea contained within. However, I do understand this one that says “retortrer” which is Susanese for “recorder” and has already prompted me to find my mini-cassette recorder and thrown that in my car.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology