country life

Scavenger

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

My newlywed son and his bride are still settling into their home here in the countryside. Every day they savor the sunrise over the pond and the wildlife that takes their presence in stride. Red-shouldered hawks sail in and out of the trees. White-tailed deer creep to the edge of the yard at night, their eyes glowing in the firelight from the backyard pit.

One day, my son said: “I think we have a raccoon. Or a possum. Something is getting into our trash every night and scattering it all over the yard.”

“What will you do?” I asked.

“For now, just watch and see if we can figure out what it is.”

So it was that as my son and my daughter-in-law were sitting by the firepit one crisp evening, they heard the telletale rattle of plastic from the trashcan.

The creature had arrived.

My boy and his bride strained their eyes, trying to make it out.

Small. Not gray. Not a possum.

A bit of brown, a patch of white…not a raccoon.

They finally got a good look at the wild thing:

A dog.

A beagle, to be precise.

With a great deal of coaxing, the skittish scavenger finally crept over to them on its belly.

Covered in layers of greasy residue, wearing a monstrous shock collar that had left a bald place on its neck, the little dog slithered over and submitted himself to his new family, who loved him from that very first moment. They bathed him, fed him, cut away the collar and pitched it, took him to the vet, made every effort to find the owner (no chip). They give him meds to rid him of heartworms.

His name? Buddy. That’s what they called out to him, the night he was hiding in the brush, deciding if he could trust them or not.

“Come here, buddy,” they’d called. “It’s ok, buddy. We won’t hurt you.”

They have learned that they have to keep the dog food secured or he’ll bust into it when they’re gone…the scavenger days are too recent, plus, beagles are known to gorge themselves.

Buddy seems to have learned, though. that his days of insecurity are over.

He’s made himself at home:

He’s even made a new friend that he utterly adores:

Dennis the dachshund has been most gracious toward his new sibling…he just won’t be outdone for attention, as you can see.

I’ll say it for my husband, for my boy and his wife, for their two cats, two guinea pigs, and hammy little dachshund: There’s one more thing to love and cherish here in our neck of the woods.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge

Happy place

/ Fran Haley / 30 Comments

Sitting in the surgical room, waiting for a minor outpatient procedure, I try to redirect my sense of dread by listening to the nurses chatting:

“The knees, they’re the most unforgiving body part.”

“How about the uterus? The uterus is a vindictive organ. You mess with it and it’s going to fight back.”

Immediately I am looking all over the room for something to write with: The uterus is a vindictive organ –! That’s got to be one of the best lines I’ve heard in my entire life. Profound and very possibly inarguable . . . .

But pens apparently aren’t needed in the surgical room, as I can’t see one anywhere, and even if I did, I can’t get to it, I’m hooked to an IV, and besides, here comes a nurse, still talking: “The liver, now, it has a great sense of humor, but the uterus has absolutely none. —How ya doin’?”

She’s addressing me. “Oh!” I say, still etching the dialogue into my brain in a desperate attempt to preserve it. “I’m, um, good.”

—What does she mean, the liver has a great sense of humor? Because it’s able to regenerate? Or is there some other reason? What can that possibly be?

“So, you know you’ll get propofol, right, and this will all be over in a jif,” she says cheerily, busying herself with the tubes and such.

—Propofol. Isn’t that what killed Michael Jackson?

I am just about to ask when the anesthesiologist comes in and says, “All right, let’s do this.”

I want to say, Hang on a second, I really need to know about the liver’s sense of humor, when the anesthesiologist says in a low, silken voice:

“Do you have a happy place?”

I so know what THIS is. Get me talking about something happy so I’ll go under peacefully. A completely obvious ploy.

I don’t want to be put under, I don’t want to talk about my happy place, I want to know about the liver’s sense of humor before I wear myself out wondering about it.

But the moment’s upon me and suddenly this question about my happy place makes me want to cry.

See, I think my happy place is a little like Heaven, and if I start talking about it—will I wake up?

—No need to fight. Just embrace it, says my own voice in my own head. At least, I think it’s my own voice.

So I say, “Yes, I have one.”

“Tell me about it,” says the silken voice, as warm as a blanket.

I sigh. “My grandparents’ home.”

“Where’s that?” asks the liver-humor nurse.

“In Beaufort County, out in the country. Some people say at the end of the world.”

“Why were you happy there?” coos the anesthesiologist.

“Well, because they were there. My grandparents. I always wanted to be with them.”

And they always wanted me, I think, but I don’t say it aloud. I can see them, faintly, as I speak. Standing out in the yard, watching for my arrival. One or the other or both, every time they knew I was coming. Watching, waiting.

“What was it like there?”

I’m not sure who asked this.

I can see it as I speak, as if through a window in my mind. The blue sky, the trees. Grandma’s azaleas, the camellia bush, the orchard, Granddaddy’s garden, the old hen house. I am not sleepy, yet. Maybe I can fight this, a bit . . .

“I grew up in the city and in the summers I’d go stay with my grandparents. I loved the country. It was a little paradise . . .”

It was love personified, love-infused, love written in the veins of every leaf, in every blade of grass, in the black earth itself that gave back so abundantly of what was given,  love echoing in every birdsong, in the vibration of every cicada, love painted on the iridescent bodies of dragonflies in a place more alive than any other I have ever known.

“Time to wake up, now,” says a gentle voice in my ear.

—Grandma? Is it morning, already?

I’m so sleepy, still.

“Here you go. It’s all over, and everything is fine. You did great.”

It’s the liver-humor nurse.

I’m dressed, wheeled out to the car, buckled in beside my husband who’s driving, and well on my way home before I realize:

I STILL don’t know why the liver has a great sense of humor.

Around the bend

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

white-peacock

Rezervatia de zimbrii Dragos Voda. Cristian Bortes. CC-BY 2.0 

I live in the country.

Long before daybreak, a rooster crows for all he’s worth, a passionate, guttural cry signifying that the dark night is ending.

My kitchen bay window faces east, catching the first glimmers of pink in the sky.

A short drive on the winding road by my home carries me past weathered stables and tobacco barns, abandoned unpainted houses from a bygone era, and fields where farmers still make their living.

There’s a horse or two in the pastures, innumerable goats, and the occasional delightful donkey, silvery-gray and calm. I have learned that donkeys keep coyotes away – how extraordinary.

One day, along a bend in the road, beside an old gate overgrown with brambles, a peacock strutted, the morning light electrifying the brilliant blue of his body. I slowed down, wishing I could see the long green train of his feathers fan out, but the peacock was skittish and went back through the gate via some hidden hole. Surely he should not have been out by the road, although the sight of him made me grateful to be alive. From then on, I looked for him.

Until the day I rounded that same curve and there, in the middle of the road, stood a white peacock.

I could not believe my eyes – I never knew such a thing existed.

But there he was, gleaming like some divine messenger, standing right on the double yellow lines. I slowed to a stop. He looked at me through the windshield; I hardly dared to breathe. He took his time heading back to the lush bank by the brambly gate, as if he owned this road, maybe this entire world, his long white tail feathers dragging behind him like a bridal train or a king’s ermine robe.

I watched him go, oblivious of everything around me except the sheer splendor of his presence.

I have learned, then, that every day is new, that there are unexpected wonders waiting just around the bend. In the middle of the familiar and mundane might be something rare, glorious, breathtaking.

Be watching.

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