This Week

Last night a coyote stood directly below the window, so near that I heard the catch in his throat, the little grab for air, in the pauses between yelps. He lingered for a long time, and I hoped he was flushing out rabbits. Sometimes he barked like an ordinary dog, and other times he summoned up a more traditional howl, and it went like this for quite some time. I grabbed a flashlight and tried for a glimpse, but by that point he had scampered up a hill and into the orchard, and all I could see were the shadowy silhouettes of trees and everyday objects rendered strange and supernatural by the night. I stepped outside onto the deck and was startled by stars. Was Mars the one with the orange hue? It was a warm night, and it was very still. It was nice to be standing out there, and although it was becoming less and less likely that I would ever get back to sleep, that doesn’t matter much when you can sleep in the next day.

This is the time of summer when I used to be braced for back-to-school. Maybe the frantic flurry of meetings and preparation would have already begun by now, andI certainly don’t miss it. It feels very indulgent to be able to watch the edge of summer and have a sense that it belongs to me, or that I belong to it. The days are a seamless space, not the background for a dance already choreographed. And this week I got to stay at home and pay attention to my own life.

I’m paying attention, of course, to the larger world as well, although in a manner not unlik ethe way I sought a glimpse of that coyote. I am standing behind a screened window, watching, scanning the horizon, seeing mostly shadows and occasionally looking up to discover there is miracle still happening.

I suppose I seem like a liberal stereotype sometimes, but I was saddened by the death of Senator Kennedy this week. My favorite stories, you see, have as their themes redemption, transformation, and transcendence, and Ted Kennedy epitomized all of those. I actually met him at some kind of Democratic fundraiser back in the 1980s. He was not exactly a hero in those days, still known mostly for his appetites and mistakes, but he did have a certain charisma and an amazing ability to make you feel significant and noticed, even in the course of a momentary handshake and three-word exchange. As the years went by I began to observe that he was always there: the Senator that we could count on: old reliable, consistently fighting the good fight, earning respect and efficacy along with his white hair.

AndI know I personalize things too much, but I have lost a brother and a sister, good people unknown to most, who died quietly and left a hole in my heart, and it occurred to me that somewhere beyond the epic tragedy of Ted Kennedy’s losses, there was also the peculiar private sadness of siblings dearly loved who died young. I can also relate all too well to the sense of having disappointed people or of having had a mantle of expectations thrust upon me that did not necessarily fit, and I certainly understand what it feels like to have made a terrible mistake, or to have neglected to do something that you will spend the rest of your life wishing you had. Ted Kennedy endured these things and moved on and in time forged his own kind of greatness. 

So for personal reasons as well as his remarkable contributions as a legislator, I had a special fondness for him. I almost wrote a letter to him once, and then I thought that if it ever even got to him, he would probably think it weird or presumptuous.  Maybe not. I think we should all get in the habit of writing letters when we have something human to say.

Anyway, I guess my blog is my letter, and my writing is my way of looking more closely at the bumpy experience of being human, and I know I’m silly and sentimental, but here we are, a part of this great saga, and we need to pay attention and talkto each other and get up in the night and look up.