An Every-day Life

The Inquisitor this time, pony-tailed, in knee-length shorts and t-shirt, barefooted, and pacing. She turns, grips the chain link fence, and with all the steeliness a 7-year-old can muster, puts it to me. “What is your every-day like?”

“Well, well you know I get up pretty early, before the sun, every day.”

She rests her head on her shoulder, still clinging to the fence.

“I let Max out. Make some coffee. Uh, turn on the laptop. Read some news, check email and Facebook, watch YouTube videos, walk Max, fix breakfast and sit outside. Maybe not every day.

“Brush my teeth, get cleaned up, maybe work outside, then read, do some housework.”

She straightens up. “You do housework?”

“You think Max is doing it? Then lunch, maybe a nap, not every day every day. Walk Max, do some more reading, supper, outside, talk to you. Read some more. Watch more YouTube videos. Go to bed.”

She’s scampers back to her trampoline. Judgement rendered by way of silence, I suppose.

Boring, escapist, lackadaisical? Admittedly not a lot of meat on those bones when merely a listing.

For me—I hesitate to use the word idyllic. But.

My mornings every day bring something of note. Two Red-shouldered hawks sharing a branch. The first Black swallowtail butterfly of the season. This year, a day before the first Eastern tiger swallowtail—now I see them every day.

The first leaf, on an elm, a poplar, a crape myrtle, the Bloodgood Japanese maple. The first leaf of a tomato grown from seed, the first flower on one of the Bragger cucumber vines. A tiny bell pepper forming.

Honeybees in the Natchez crapes overhead. Baby geese feeding on the neighbor’s grassy knoll. First Passion butterfly.

The morning half a dozen Carolina wrens showed up, picking through container plants and raised beds.

The first Knockout bloom, the first Japanese beetle. The first cherry tomato eaten right off the vine, the first tomato hornworm. Hey, it’s a jungle out there.

But, I ramble—and that is just part of the morning inventory—not every day every day, but something special, every day.

A final verdict? A cruel one.

Je suis à la retraite.