Day 118

In the morning there is a dead crow, its feet the saddest part. 

It is windy with intermittent rain, very cold.  There is a thin crust of ice on the birdbath.  The woman takes the crazy black dog for her walk.  While the dog chases the ball, the woman hears a northern cardinal, then sees him, and nearby, as usual, his wife.  They remind her of her parents, how they had been when they were alive.  The cardinal couple are constantly busy, but every now and then they come together to kiss (it looks like kissing, but is probably a feeding ritual of the courtship).

Near the beehives, she notices leaves stitched together with water and light.

When she gets back, the woman talks to her brother in England on skype.  He insists on the video and she sees herself with her old granny glasses on, looking like an old granny!  So she takes them off, vanity getting the better of her, and can see him alright, except when he shows her some detail of his office. 

It is raining softly when she goes for her run.  She flings her eager spirit through the air, but her legs are heavy and struggle to keep up.  She still manages 2.93 miles (4.7km), within about 35 minutes.  Halfway, she comes across a bird half hidden in a dense tree, and is overjoyed to discover that it is a mockingbird, a bird she hasn't seen for a couple of years in this area.  And she thinks it is building a nest, or searching for a good spot.  It sits on a branch and contemplates her, where she has stopped short.  She is suddenly aware of the curve of her own brow above her eyes crinkled against the glare, how the brow protects the eye from light and rain, and how her view is like the curve of the earth.

Later she sees crows diving and screaming at a swift merlin or sharp-shinned hawk, in a mad dash across the sky, just above the forest.  The hawk dives down and escapes, flying expertly through the trees.  Perhaps this is what happened to the dead crow?

She fetches her tall son for an orthodontist appointment, dismissing him early from school, where he has to leave his art class, which he was enjoying.  Driving away after dropping him off, she suddenly remembers that the orthodontist is closed between 1 and 2pm, and the date written up on the calendar was for another appointment which had been cancelled a few days ago.  She turns the car around to pick him up, finds him standing in the lobby outside the locked door of the offices.  She feels like a twit.  He is surprisingly gracious.

Driving back from the Y later, there is the most wonderful light show.  Sunlight struggles out of the west, illuminating spring-green trees against the dark ominous clouds which loom out of  the eastern half of the sky.   So many birds are soaring on the thermals and gusts, weaving invisible ribbons of movement, ecstatic in their mastery of this element that gives us breath.

Later the woman makes supper for her family, who eat it up happily and with gusto, their beautiful hands holding the implements which bring the food to and from their mouths, talking companionably when they are not chewing.  She sits there watching, content, but wishing that her two daughters were there as well, to fill the two empty places at the table, the two empty spaces in her heart.