Interruptions

As I sit in my old yard this morning, watching the tips of the evergreens grow bright in the rising sun while all around the morning songs of various birds and frogs fill the air—there is even, my ears tell me, a woodpecker somewhere rattling his head against a tree—I find myself content. I meant to stop by my parents’ home for one night and drive back home the next day. I had a wonderful time back home; went to my favorite restaurant and ate way too much, got to spend time with a dear friend instead of just inundating his inbox with memes from Deep Space Nine, which is my way of bullying him into watching it, and as a sort of crowning achievement of the sort G. K. Chesterton outlines in his short story, The Sins of Prince Saradine,

“Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true philosopher, he had an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which he took just so seriously that its success would crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its failure would not spoil it.”

I took my life in my hands and drove into downtown Portland. It is about as bad as I remember it, but I had a reason to brave this apocalypse.

You may recall, if you follow my blog’s continual posting, that this last October I was able to get some of my short stories published on a fellow’s blog, Cairo Smith. Forgive the interruption, but there are just smells here, in my old backyard, which aren’t anywhere else, smells I have no name for besides home. Well, this fellow warned me when he bought the stories, and he’s proved good on the threat, that he might publish some of them in a physical compendium which you can easily find on Amazon.

However, you can also, less conveniently, visit one store in downtown Portland to buy this physical book with my short story in it. It has been a lifelong dream of mine, to find one of my own stories in a bookstore.

Some squirrel hidden in the branches above me is upset, but there really is room for the both of us here. Do you know that the world right now is gilded in the light of heaven, and how much more precious is that light than gold?

Well, it was a perfect day, full of blessings, and I hugged my mom and dad and headed down the freeway back to my job whose unforeseen shutdown had freed me to make this trip. About half an hour later, my car broke down.

It took me most of yesterday to fix my car, a frustrating ordeal made much easier by an old mechanic, friend of my father, who was happy to guide my hand as I made the repairs. It would have taken me days, probably, without his knowhow.

Anyway, I’m trying to soak in the beauty of my old home just a little bit longer now before I have to get back on the road. I have missed most of this week of work, and I know I have responsibilities to return to, but, by God, all I want to do is sit here and stare at the trees as the sun lifts itself into the sky.