Things We Didn't Miss

I was told we missed a lunar eclipse that was clearly visible above the eastern ridge at the ranch, and as I looked out the window here onto gray slate rooftops, brick walls, and the cloudy wet skies of this new Monday, I admit I felt a pang. Our California home is hard to leave, impossible to forget, a place that has hollowed us out and filled us up with a certain kind of wildness and wonder…and  we are forever strangers elsewhere. We should have been there to witness the eclipse.

But it was just a momentary pang. Being here is its own kind of miracle, and I’m grateful indeed. The house of “the kids” is familiar to us, with its friendly chaos and beloved inhabitants, a short walk away on puddled streets infused with aromas of spice and coffee and blossoms and rain. We went to the Botanic Garden yesterday, where leaves and petals held droplets of rain, and all the colors were very bright beneath the flat white sky and I thought of e.e. Cummings: Be unto love as rain is unto color. By which I suppose he meant amplified, emboldened, extravagant. I’m feeling it.

Meanwhile, the reign of Prince Felix is a happy one, but he keeps us on our toes, for we must be appropriately attentive and exuberant at all times regarding diggers, cranes, water hoses, and other remarkable spectacles, or of burgeoning desires that in order to be met may require our assistance.

In the course of a short walk, tree trimming, bin emptying, or wood sanding might be taking place, and we must pause to watch. It may be possible to tinkle a few keys in the piano store, or look at the fish in the goldfish bowl shop, or climb and walk on various walls and steps and detours along the way to wherever we are headed. The playground might be our destination, but the world is itself a playground. And that’s the proper frame of mind. 

Don’t think for a minute the sadness hasn’t reached us. We know very well what’s happening out there, to our country and the world. But we’ve traveled so far to have this time with Felix, and I’m tired, and all my fretting has generally proven futile. On the other hand, there are good certainties too, like the broad white light of the sky at 9 p.m., and a scoop of ice cream, and a cuddle on a doorstep, even in the rain.