Category: Vignette

Seasons of Snow and Rain

It’s funny, the circles life makes. At exactly this time last year, I was longing for snow. I remember that feeling, how I watched the weather forecast and the sky, hoping.

This winter, without hoping, without bone-deep longing, snow fell all over the place. Our first snow came before Christmas. A most inconvenient time, it didn’t even slow us down. We still had shopping to do, parties to plan and attend. That snow came and went with just a whisper of its passing left on my psyche.

It snowed again. That time, I got out, left my house and walked amid the scent and silence of freshly fallen snow. I loved it.

Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out why.

Last winter, we slipped off the barest minimum of ice and hit a tree head-on. In the wake of that event, I had whiplash—which I still deal with—and a biting fear of slick and icy roads. Anytime our vehicle seemed to skid sideways, my hands gripped the seat, my heart began to pound.

This winter, I have experienced a lot of seat-gripping, heart-pounding while riding and driving. This winter, we’ve had more snow that I can ever recall. I’ve been forced to traverse roads once determined impassable. I’ve driven on ice, snow, and inches of deep slush. I’ve slipped over road-ways to get to the store, to work, and to the gas station for fuel for the generator. I’ve shoveled, pushed and prayed more than one vehicle out onto the roads then shook in my boots to drive on them.

For a while, anyway.

Desensitization does appear to be a genuine and effective way of overcoming one’s fear. As the days wore on and the snow became a permanent VA fixture, I got used to the terror of driving. I got so now I don’t even blink at an icy patch, don’t even flinch if I slip-skid off to the left or veer completely side-ways. I’ve adjusted to my new, snowy landscape and Eskimo style of living.

You may imagine, then—as the old saying goes—the familiarity of the snow would breed contempt, that I like nearly everyone I know would grow tired of sloshing through snow drifts and dealing with all those unpleasant side-effects of this weather: no electricity, no phone, every day a long hike up a steep drive. You would imagine these would mar or at least somewhat diminish my affection for snow.

I remain enamored, delightfully enchanted whenever it begins to fall. I wrap up in running pants, under armor, long sleeved knitted shirt, wool socks pulled over my pants, carhart overalls, a long-sleeved wool top, my coat, my hat, then my boots and out I go into the crisp, cold air. I breathe deeply, drinking it in and stand amazed by the fairy world I behold. I can’t help that my eyes love to look on a snow-coated landscape. I can’t help that my lungs love to breathe cold air. Every single thing about snow makes me happy: crystallized tree-tops, the crunch of my boots in the diamond strewn fields, the stillness with just the occasional bird chirping and flitting from limb to limb, the dark of the trees, stark against this white backdrop, the contrast of color, the bright scent of pine, and the rattling of frozen things clanking together, the impossible brightness of the sunlight reflected. I feel alive when I’m out there. My heart hums to this landscape and I spin and let the snowflakes fall, cold kisses on my unturned face.

No matter the hardships—this year there were plenty—no matter the early terror of driving or the lingering environmental burden brought on by this weather, I have found, as much as I ever did before, that I completely love the snow.

Today, with the pitter-pattering of rain, that early herald of Spring, the snow I love, that I once prayed and longed for, washes all away.

That is way of the seasons: nothing remains forever, no matter how much we may love it, everything goes when it’s time.

Grateful

It’s easy to be grateful this year, even for the simple things like being able to inhale an easy breath. Nothing quite like asthma to give you a healthy appreciation of the inhalation. Last night, in the pleasant cool of the November evening, I felt how good the air was in my lungs, how cool and clean. I felt how easy it was to draw breath and I could detect each scent all tangled up within the air; wood smoke, and the rich, slightly acrid scent of dead leaves, faint pine, and trailings of the dinner I had fed to the puppies earlier. I inhaled DEEPLY and pulled all that darkness and starlight, leaves and wood smoke into my lungs. It’s a simple joy, breathing–one too often overlooked.

I have more complicated things to be grateful for. I am happy my husband and children are alive and well. Some of us might not have been after the accident last year. It still gives me joy just to look at them and every action I have taken throughout this year was colored by the uncertainty of life. We never know when our moment will come due. This is why today is so important.

I am grateful for my writer-friends, who gave me a piece of myself I had overlooked–one of the best parts of me as it turns out. I spent months, cocooned in a lovely cabin and then packed my things and branched out on my own, setting out to see if that high mountain pass is, indeed, traversable. I’ll be back, though, so keep the coffee hot for me. I wouldn’t mind a scone, while we’re at it.

I am grateful for my health–which started out bad this year and went down hill! I was diagnosed with hideous allergies, then undiagnosed–sort of. I don’t feel much differently than I used to–less itchy, I guess, thanks to the antihistamines, but the doctors still don’t really know what’s go awry in my system. I don’t care to dwell on it anymore, I am alive and well (mostly) today–what else matters?

I am grateful for my extended family members–of which there are many–my close community and my extended community that I am coming to cherish more and more each day. I am even grateful for my job. I guess anyone employed would say this at the moment, but even without the recession-induced threat of termination lurking in the back of any mind–I would still be grateful to work where I do with the people who are like a new family to me now.

Life is not perfect. It never is. It is wild and changing, full of heartbreak, joy, passion, and love. At least my life has always been. A crazy ride, being me. But I like it and so it is easy to be grateful tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving. I wish you love and passion, gratitude, joy and peace.
❤ and Blessings,
La

I Love the Rain

Which is not a popular viewpoint.

Most people like bright, sunny, blue skies with only the occasional cloud floating overhead like a lost sheep. I like low, lowering skies, full of electrical currents and the threat of a sure drenching. I like all kinds of rain, the heavy summer downpours, the fine fall misting, the steady drizzle of a spring shower. I like to be out in it whenever I can. Nothing is finer than to walk through the woods listening to the sound of rain pattering and dropping through the leaves, or to stand on a hillside and turn my face up to the stinging cold droplets, or to lie cozed up in bed, drifting to the sound of it drumming on the roof.

I wonder if perhpas my love of rain came from my early years living in a dry, hard–baked climate. The Colorado dust would coat you over during the course of the day so your skin felt tight and drawn. Any rain we got then was a minimal, stingy sort. Just enough to make the scent of the dirt rise into the air, but not enough to quench any kind of rain-longing. Late in the evenings on the Ranch where we lived, Mom would send us straight into the shower when we finally came inside. Under that warm downpour I watched the water pooling at my feet turn a pale brown as the dust from the day was washed away. I loved feeling the water run over me, loved how it made a thrumming sound in my head.

I wonder if that’s the origin for my rain-lust; a combo of dry climate and warm showers at the end of the day.

Wherever it arose, however it came to be, rain-love is always with me now and anytime the weather turns to storming I can feel a restless longing because I want to be out in the rain.

The Lake

The Lake

I stand with a vast lake behind me, my feet at the shore, facing away into the dawn. It is wide and deep, with a surface smooth as glass. The light falls just so, you can’t see into the depths but you know the vast waters are waiting. Sunlight slicks the surface and casts the world back into itself.

There are things dwelling in the depths; sometimes the surface rolls as a heavy mass moves beneath it and ripples reach far and wide.

This lake also holds knowledge and tells me much about myself, about the ones around me, about this world in which I live. I do swim in this lake, immersing myself completely in the cold, cold water, loosing sight and sound as I sink into myself.

When I emerge, it is as if every pore, every tender nerve point on my skin, is vibrantly alive, pulsing. I bring with me the sheen of dark waters, dripping from my skin.

I stand to face a new day, more alive.

But I know, there are demons in the depths. They can wrap their tentacles around me. If I am not careful, I could never reemerge.

Yesterday, I Wanted Not to be Me

Yesterday, I wanted not to be myself, I wanted to escape from me for the afternoon or even just a few hours. The intensity of me was too great, the weird, oddness of who I am too convoluted. I couldn’t make it out and was left with the bright burning of what I feel and nothing else. I wanted to escape, step out of my own experience for a time.

I often feel as if I am standing at the edge of a fire, a deep red-gold burning within me. I press myself closer and closer to the flame to see how long I can stand the heat before it starts to burn. It is a strange kind of game, to see how far into that brightness I will allow myself to fall.

I know I am not alone in my way. All over the world and throughout the history of humankind, there has been this cusp group of people like me: writers, musicians, actors, dancers, painters, composers. We have always existed on the outskirts, the ones for whom a ‘normal’ life is an intolerable one. The sports stars, the inventors, the religious zealots and the explorers who wander the globe, even those bizarre men who fish the bearing sea, we are the ones who left the crowd, broke away from the social norm, went our own way for no other reason than that we feel this hungry longing. At times, on the edge of the fire-pit, I wish I could lose myself completely, be burned to ash so only the cinders remain. I imagine then, I would have peace.

Instead, I stand with a great black lake behind me, that whispers things I could never know, and the bright, bright burning within. Poised between two poles, I navigate each moment, never knowing will it be the bright burning, or the deep of the lake that will eventually consume me.

Me and 54, 999 other peeps


U2 have long been one of my favorite bands, belonging in that treasured top-ten who have a song for my every mood. Mostly, I like to play them as loud as I can, so when I sing till my throat aches no one can hear how off-key I am. I have cried to U2 songs, felt my heart crack down the middle and dump tears out like a late summer rain. I have danced till I was dizzy, “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, she moves in mysterious ways.” Before I knew U2 was anything more than an Irish band I was destined to love, I was already loving their music completely. When I heard they were coming to a Stadium near me, of course I wanted to go.

These days, times are hard and tickets aren’t cheap. This is where the i-pods come in. Last June I finally joined the ranks of the technologically blessed and got myself an i-pod. My kids had had theirs for years, which is one reason I didn’t have mine. I kept buying them, but somehow I never got to keep one for myself. Last June, I finally did. Sleek and slim, it’s bright orange so no one can mistake Mom’s i-pod for their own. We have one desk-top in the living room dedicated to our i-tunes. It knows who you are when you link-up and brings you your music. We all put our music onto this one machine and, occasionally, we share. For me, this means I have techno and William Control interspersed between the Chieftains, UB40, Sade, and, of course U2. For my girls, this has meant that I wasn’t the only one who became smitten with the energetic Irish band. Unbeknownst to me, they downloaded my music and next thing you know, we were all Bono-crazy. When they heard U2 were heading our way, they scraped together their pocket money and bamboozled their father into buying four tickets. We were going to the concert!!!!!

That Thursday dawned bright and clear–I think. I was actually too excited about the evening to even notice the day. I worked at a frantic pace, planning to get out of there early, snatch up the girls from school, rush home, get changed, and rush back to Charlottesville, VA–almost one hour away. I wasn’t the only one heading to the concert and I caught snatches of my favorite songs drifting from neighboring offices all day. I left work mere minutes behind schedule. I got home in record time. The girls and I had 15 minutes to shed our ordinary human clothes and turn into beautiful, concert-going divas.

In deciding what to put on, we had a few tricky moments. The best-looking garb is not always the best thing to actually wear. Short skirts can literally freeze your tail off in a brisk wind and heals can become objects of torture by the end of five hours. Going to a concert and screaming and cheering and dancing like crazy is fun. Going to a concert to be cold and in pain is not. In the end, we all wore walking shoes, jeans, and nicely tailored tops. We carried jackets and our bags with refresher make-up and left the real exotica to our choice of eye liner and shadow. We got out of the house in a record 25 minutes.

Charlottesville is a lovely, winding 55 minutes drive from our house. It was a bright, lazy afternoon. I remember that because we were listening to “Beautiful Day” on the way in and I thought, “How perfect.” We got to interstate with no trouble, then funneled along with perhaps two thousand other people into the single exit lane and were bumper to bumper for thirty minutes. From living in the country, my girls idea of a traffic jam is three cars lined up at a stop-sign, so this was a big deal. They had all kinds of bad ideas, such as running down the highway beside the truck or climbing into the bed and dancing. Their worst idea was to ram into the back-side of that flashy Beamer who opted to cut in front of us coming into the turn. We did none of these. Instead, they re-applied lipstick and eyeliner and chatted about what kind of damage our F350 Diesel extended cab could do to that Beamer. I confess, I might have participated just a tiny bit in that last discussion.

Eventually, we passed the TV crews coming on live to show the traffic back-up. We leaned out the windows and screamed like idiots. We hopeed they got us on camera.
My son called;
Son: “Mom, have you seen the traffic? There are supposed to be 55,000 people there tonight.”
Me: “Yes, I see it, we’re stuck right in it.”
Girls (shouting in background): “Did you see us on TV?”
Son: “I think you’re nuts for going.”
Me: “No way! I love U2”
Son: “He he”
Me: “Hey, you’re supposed to say, ‘I love you, too, Mom.'”
Son: “You did not just say that.”

After that, the traffic cleared and we were on our way. We found my husband at the car-wash he’s building. He moved the orange traffic cones and we backed into this private, no-pay parking lot. We were so pleased with ourselves for getting free parking; not so much twenty minutes later when we were still hiking though the picturesque residential area on our way to Scott Stadium. At this point, we girls were truly grateful for easy walking shoes.

Concert-going Tip # 1 : Even if your kids are vegan, do not try to bring food into the Stadium, they will make you throw it out. Unless the one checking your bag happens to be a man, and he, apparently, likes your eye make-up, then you will be allowed to bring in a big bar of chocolate, some lollipops, two kinds of breath mints, half a fruit leather, and chewing gum. My girls wondered how I did it. If I had a clue, I would tell them.

Concert going Tip # 2: If you can, get them to book three of your seats inside a concrete block. We spent ten minutes with the help of two ushers looking for seats PP 9, 10, 11, and 12. We did find 12, but the other three disappeared into solid concrete. We were pretty sure no one could sit inside a concrete block and the ushers did, eventually, agree with us. We traipsed half-way around the Stadium. Beside me, my middle daughter was sputtering under her breath, fuming,

“If our new seats aren’t better, I’m going to go off!” she said.

She is her father’s daughter; I fear for the person standing at the receiving end of her eventual ire. My eldest daughter and I followed in the wake of the fuming two, feeling completely assured that something eventful was likely to happen. We came to a window where a woman was waiting. I’m sure this woman was hired simply for her peaceful, easy expression and her uncharacteristic beauty. It’s hard to be properly irate when someone looks like that. We needn’t have worried. She reassigned our seats.

“Are they better?” my husband asked.
“Oh, yes,” she smiled, a bright sun breaking through clouds, ” they are much better.”

We sat three rows from the edge of the stadium wall, close enough that Bono and the rest of the band looked like actual people, instead of dancing, singing miniatures of the real thing. Better seats, for sure.

Concert going Tip # 3: The people in front of you can hear every single word of your conversation, so it might not be the best place in the world to tell a graffic story of your vasectomy gone wrong. Whoever you were, I, too, am glad you made it out of there intact.

Sitting three seats from the edge, we were still not in the best seats in the house. The stage wrapped around all sides and the performers did walk down to our end a few times during the course of the show. It didn’t matter. It was loud, and they were LIVE! I jumped, I danced, I screamed with my girls. I felt the drum-beat echoing in the hollow of my chest, that airy cavity made by my lungs. I felt the cells in my bones bend to the music, my heart lilt with the beat. Around me, 54, 999 other people were feeling the same.

With a twenty-minute walk ahead of us, we left before the encore. We stood up to go, the crowd surged to their feet and lit up like the Vermont night sky in the blues, reds, and yellows of a perfect miniature milky-way made by their cell-phones. My comrades stayed behind and heard the last beat of the drum, the fading ring of the guitar. I drove home through a long and rolling night, perfectly content.

“It’s all right, its all right, it’s all right, she moves in mysterious ways….”

The Beauty of My Tomatoes

Last year, my garden died. This sad demise came from a combination of sparse rainfall resulting in near drought conditions and a busy life that gave me no time for weeding or watering. I didn’t get a single thing from my early spring planting, a situation I was determined not to repeat this year. My favorites plants to grow and the things I just can’t live without are tomatoes and basil. Utilizing reason, I decided to hedge my bets and plant even more of these than I had last year—thinking this way I could manage to keep one or two alive.

We had a banner rain year.

We had uncommonly cool, often overcast conditions.

I’m sure all that organic compost also had an effect.

We grew a tomato hedge. It is 20 feet long, nearly five feet tall and practically throws tomatoes at you when you walk by. We have been eating buckets of tomatoes for six weeks, now, and there is no sign of slow-down in tomato growth on the vines. We’ve had fresh salsa, fresh pasta sauce, tomato and bean salad, we have roasted them, braised them and finally—when I realize we were never going to be able to eat them—I blanched and froze them. The lower foliage of this hedge is made up of my sixteen basil plants. Recently, I picked and processed an entire trash-bag full of basil! In addition to the many bags of frozen tomatoes that will lend themselves to sauces, soups, and pots of chili, we will be eating pesto all winter long!

I never expected such an explosion. It has occasionally been alarming to watch this hedge grow. But picking them and popping them into my mouth fresh off the vine is one of my favorite summer pleasures. In honor of my tomatoes, I wrote the following poem. I hope you enjoy this journey into my garden life and kitchen. I would love to hear about yours.

The Beauty of My Tomatoes

I wish I could describe the beauty
of my tomatoes
adequately
so you could see them
sitting

In the bamboo steaming basket
above
my black granite counter-top

Oblong and bright red or
pale orange with streaks of green or
yellow ones
perfectly round and tiny as a dime

Light from the window
falls over them
brushes their skins
with gold

Were I a photographer
I would not have to
struggle
to explain

That these are not my big tomatoes
those beef-steaks sit
in round legions
like bright buns rising
on a lime-green dish towel

These are my other tomatoes
my cherrys and romas
tumbled together
in the straw-colored basket

I pick one to eat
the still-life altered
by my desire
for sweetness and
the taste the summer on my tongue

They are humble in size
but not in brilliance
they sit boldly in the fading light
urging me to eat

I wish I could bring
you
here

Into this moment

Where a tomato bursts
ripe and fresh
between my teeth

So you could see
with your two eyes
and taste
with your own lips
the beauty of my tomatoes

HOT Virginia

Virginia in August is like stepping into a steam room. With 95% humidity or above being common and a blazing sun shining regularly, the water molecules themselves heat up. They cling, a slick coating over your skin. Sweat drips from your body if you spend even a few minutes out of doors—say—in walking to your car.

My way of surviving such heat is to minimize all time spent outside. Of necessity, I walk from my air-conditioned house to my air-conditioned car, then from my air-conditioned car to my air-conditioned office. This would be a perfect system if my office wouldn’t keep changing temperatures.

I work in a rambling building that had rooms added out of necessity as the family-owned company grew through generations. Thinking more of useable space, and less of aesthetics or climate control, additions were tacked-on as needed. The problem with tacking things on is you end up with some interesting heat/cooling situations. For instance, I share a thermostat with my boss’s office which is located directly over-head.

He and I both have rooms with a lovely window view overlooking the south side of the building. I look out over the trash cans, he looks out onto the roof of the Annex, but they do let in that well-loved natural light and, by consequence, the broiling summer heat.

It is a well-known scientific fact that heat accumulates in higher elevations. When my boss’s office gets unbearably hot, he comes downstairs to where the thermostat is located and adjusts the air. He doesn’t do this often, just when things get overly toasty in the rooms above. The problem is, in order for it to be bearable upstairs, it has to be near artic conditions down here, effectively freezing the basement dwellers. The only way to balance it out is to open the back door and let all that natural heat wash in.

All in all, this wouldn’t be a bad system except for two things. First, due to the private nature of what I do, I often have my office door shut. This keeps private conversations private, but also allows for window-heated air to accumulate in my room. To solve this problem, I occasionally open the door and skim some cool air from the hallway or the office next door. This leads to the second problem. If my office is hot from the south-heating sun, you can bet the upstairs office is hotter. By the time I open my door, the whole cycle has started and finished; the boss has become too hot, the thermostat has been lowered, my co-workers teeth have started chattering and they have thrown open the back door. When I finally get around to opening my door, hoping for relief from my baking office, the sweltering, clinging, moisture-thick outside heat comes pouring in!

It makes me wonder, why, exactly do I live in Virginia?

Bats, bats, and more bats

These days I always check my office first thing for bats. There was the one on Monday hanging over my door jamb. Sound asleep and tiny as a field mouse, he was sleeping off whatever fun he’d had the night before. On Tuesday there was one in the hall, nestled in a corner of the slate, nose to the crack. I would guess, like some of the humans in this building, he was pretending he wasn’t there. On Wednesday, I was bat-free, but there were three in the office down the hall and on Thursday, I spun in my chair and almost stepped on the fallen rodent, who was looking at me with baleful, sleepy eyes—like tiny black beads—as if I was at fault for disturbing his sleep.

Our Purchaser called the exterminator, who came out to investigate the problem. They poked about in rafters and ceilings and discovered there is an inch of guano (odorous bat-poo) adding extra insulation to our ceiling. Based on this, it was decided we have a bat-infestation.

You can’t kill bats in Virginia, they are a protected form of wildlife. I personally have nothing against them. They eat mosquitoes and other nasty flying bugs, of which we are abundant, and dart and dive through the dusk-hued sky. I love to watch them as they send out their radar beams and pick up the trail of bugs through sound. Their flight is so erratic, you’re often sure they are going to fly right into your face, but they swoop off at the last moment, lifting the hair from your brow with the wind of their wings.

On Friday I got the best bat yet. He was nestled in my coffee-cup, little fingers latched onto the edge. I wondered if he was trying to wrest one more flight from the evening by sucking up the last drips from my mug. All in all, he was the easiest to take outside. I placed a request for employment verification over the top, pressed gently with my hand, and carried him out the door.

I always wish them well as they look groggily up at me when I tip them into the bushes. Their six-inch wing-span has a fine-meshed, lacy pattern. They hobble and hop away, screeching quietly. I can tell from their complaints they don’t like me very much.

Toward the end of the week, our expert had hatched a plan. As it would happen, we’re in the middle of breeding season. Those bats in my office, including the coffee-drinker, weren’t boy bats at all. They were the female bats, apparently worn out from breeding, they were too tired to search for a proper place to sleep. During this most exciting time of the year, they get a little nutty. They squeeze into our halls at night through an opening as small as a ¾ inch gap and have free-breeding parties. The Purchaser is not amused. He is the one the local sheriff’s office calls when the breeding-bats set off the alarm system. He’s shown up dozens of times, riffle and flash-light in hand but, the bats? They’re not impressed.

We can do nothing until the season is over. With breeding comes babies which are now inhabiting our attic in tiny, squeaking droves. Our eventual solution will be to clean out the guano and board up all the holes to keep all future bats from nesting in our building. We can’t do that until the young ones have grown and gone. For the time-being all we are left with is coming in each morning knowing for certain there will be bats both above and below.

Getting the Hay In (written May 20th)

It’s that bright kind of sunny day where you squint even in the shade and the entire country-side looks dipped in light. The blue sky harbors lazy white clouds and the bushy green trees harbor warbling birds. They never give me any advance warning, but there’s something in the air on a hay-day (maybe that fresh-cut hay smell) that let’s me know haying is just a phone-call away.

This time we’re shooting to get 150 bales to feed our livestock of two: one fat young painted Saddlebred, and one bony old Thoroughbred. Mostly, they’re pasture-pals, friends I can go to whenever I need a listening ear. I can depend on them to stand quietly while I complain and never argue or tell me the situation is my own fault. They’re just there, quietly crunching, swishing tails at the flies while the warmth of their hides permeates the air. I can lean back against that solid, living mass, and let all my problems slide away.

I can’t haul hay, anymore. After years of gloving up and tossing 60 pound bales onto trucks–as quick and tough as any of the men–now, my allergies won’t let me. I always did come away from a haying session pocked-marked with raised red welts on my arms, and a voice grown hoarse and (I thought) sexy from coughing. Really, it was hives from my allergic reaction to those lovely Northern Grasses. I can’t haul it, but I can still drive and fortunately for me, I managed to birth a strong, healthy, wonderfully helpful young man who came with me to hay today.

We drove to the field on dry, dusty roads, past where they were laying another field down. That deep green blanket would fade in the sun and be ready to tedder tomorrow, ready to bale the next day. Farther on, we wove past cows, stomping lazily in a lean-to, up over a knoll to where the hay field stretched out. Long rows were piled neat and the baler was churning away, rumbling and plunking as square bales popped out the back. They had three lines baled already, about fifty ready to haul. But, this was my son’s first go at driving a hay-laden truck; I wasn’t willing to push it. We’d load thirty-five bales, forty tops.

I drove down the lanes, he ran along beside me, as graceful as a gazelle, despite the fifteen pounds of muscle he has recently packed on through his weight-training sessions—pounds he’d be thanking God he’d worked hard to earn by the end of today. He loped along bare-foot because he’d been wearing sandals when we’d gotten the call. He had gloves in his truck, so at least his hands were safe. His feet, it seemed, would have to fend for themselves. He was faster than I had ever been and moved in smooth motion. He caught each bale, lifted it as I chugged slowly up in my diesel F350. Then, in one easy movement I could never have mastered, he tossed them into the truck bed. In moments like these you realize you have been kidding yourself; I never could load hay like any man, that was a dream born from a wanna-be.

I find I’m still a wanna-be. Only the strong memory of struggling for each asthmatic breath keeps me locked in the cab with the air-conditioner blowing. It’s hard to give up something you love so that you can stay alive and breathing. But, even without the exhausted, itching, back-rending, muscle defeating, exhilarating effort of actually loading the hay–I still love it.

He looks hot as he pulls off his T-shirt, climbs into the driver’s side of my truck, pops in his ears buds, cranks his i-pod, and drives my away. He’ll be back in an hour or two, after he’s unloaded into the barn and I’ll head back out to the field as a driver, a blessed break from the office-job where I’ll be working late, waiting in comfort for him to deliver each load to home. We’ll do this four times, and by the end of the night, he’ll be worn to the bone, sweating and itching, and too tired to lift his fork to eat and I’ll envy him for his youth, his strength, his health that all give him this ability to load the hay.

More than that, I’ll be grateful. I’ll remember this day forever as I know he will. He’ll remember it as the time he loaded one hundred and sixty-two bales of hay from the truck to the barn all on his own. I’ll remember it as the first time ever I didn’t lift a single bale while getting the hay in.