Quiet time

It has been almost a month since my husband and I have spoken. He has been in the hospital, unconscious mostly (not comatose) after a fall and head injury on Dec. 1.

I can't imagine what the experience is like for him, what is going on in his brain. For me, it has been three weeks of frustration, confusion and tears. Of trying to keep track of tests, results, infections, prognoses, drug dosages and more tests.

Coworkers and friends have been tremendously supportive with offers of help, food and expressions of concern. I am beginning to dread, though, each day, seeing someone approach with the look in their eye of "I wonder how she is doing. I should ask." I am exhausted with answering questions about his progress and mine, yet how can I not? They are all well-meant and heart-felt.

Several people have offered to walk the dogs for me, but that is my therapy. A little bit of routine to keep things seeming normal.

And the dogs are happy to oblige.

Blue sky and night rain

The night rain pattering on my window heralds, according to the weather report, some wintry weather with its attendant traffic jams, school closings, panicked grocery store crowds, etc.

I'm not thinking or worrying about any of that. I am just enjoying the soothing sound that will very shortly lull me to sleep.

The day began with clear skies; as the dogs and I walked out of the house I looked up to see dissolving pale white contrails from the day's earliest flights.

A crow flapped into my line of sight and landed in a neighbor's big honey locust, gripping a piece of food in its talons. It pecked away for a few moments before a brother crow -- showing off the species' thieving DNA -- swooped in and stole the morsel. I think it was a pizza crust. Victim crow clucked harshly and hopped to another branch and I watched their black shapes bob against that pale, but still saturated, December-blue sky.

We walked on and I noticed in a protected area by a neighbor's house, right at the entrance to the park, a forsythia bush that had been fooled by the warm fall weather into pushing out a few bright yellow flowers. They were frozen, but even in their limp shape their color stood out against the red brick wall behind them. I have seen this before. A few years ago, in the street level parking lot behind the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland, some ornamental cherry trees lining a sidewalk had decided it was time to bloom, although it was only February. I couldn't resist. I snipped a few branches on our way out and took them home to enjoy in a vase. It was such a tiny thrill to find them there, warm rose centers and pink-white petals, blooming in the February gray.

We pushed on through the park, dogs sniffing, me listening and watching. As we headed down the slope that leads over a little bridge, one of my neighbors' kids was walking up, headed to the middle school on the other side.

He is so cute, I don't know his name but he is very serious, very earnest and quite intelligent. He was wearing a jacket covered by the ubiquitous kid backpack and a cap with the earflaps pulled down and carrying a banjo in a black case.

Holli and Twist pulled toward him and he asked if we were members of the greyhound society. He has asked me this before, so to make things easy, I just said yes. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of braces and said: "Apparently they are enticed by the alluring scent of my banjo. I have to bring it today for a sound project." And, I didn't quiet get this part, but then he added, "and to prove to some doctors (?) that, yes, there are still people who play the banjo."

I wanted to tell him about Steve Martin, but figured there would be too much explanation involved, for which I did not have time. So I just smiled and then he said: "Well! Enjoy the rest of your walk!" And turned to head up to school.

I had to smile, a big smile. I wonder what it is like to be so young and so smart? So.... almost grownup. He can't be in more than fourth grade or so, but so droll and composed!

Thanks for the smile, sweetheart. You topped off a lovely morning walk that engaged nearly all of my senses. And the memory of you has me smiling again as I listen to the rain against my window.

Keeping normal

My husband and I have often asked each other, since August 2001, when we adopted our first greyhound, Anni, how we ever lived without dogs.

Without, for example, the lovely yellow dog, Holli.

Well, for one thing, there was a bit more

sleep. And a bit more money. We also didn't know the fun, pleasure and joy we were missing. And the new rhythms they would bring to our lives.

I can't say I get a lot of exercise walking my dogs. I'm often a scarecrow, arms spread and lengthened by leashes, with one dog sniffing in one direction, one in another. We stop, go, stop, go. I sometimes try to imagine the worlds they bring into their brains through their noses. But I like focusing on them, on what fascinating things they see, smell and hear. I've learned to go at their pace (Cesar Millan would not approve) and as they investigate their world, I take the opportunity to ponder and observe mine.

My husband has been in the hospital this week. Family, friends and coworkers have been tremendously supportive, offering comfort, coffee dates, dinner, prayers and pet care.

I've turned down the generous offers of dog-walking because it's one thing I can do that is normal and routine.

Tonight I came home late after being at the hospital. It was dark and I made a phone call to my sister Elizabeth before bundling up and heading out with Twist and Holli.

Finally night has become cold -- my finger tips were chilled even through my thick gloves. The moon was a watery white disk faded among slate black clouds streaked with silver. There was a sharp scent of chimney smoke in the air, and, for a change, no owl could be heard hooting.

I like listening to the dogs as much as I enjoy their company. Twist likes to make the occasional snort into a pile of leaves. Holli has a deep-into-her-chest pant. As we walk, their toenails click click along the asphalt of the street.

Home again, both expectantly wait for their post-walk, pre-dinner treat. Inside, we all still wear, ever-so-briefly, the pungent drift of smoke from the cold night air.

Hawk with squirrel

I can't imagine what it was like to live without dogs and without a park just steps from my door.

If I did not live by a park, I never would have learned to recognize the beautiful shagbark hickory, or the gorgeous flowers of the tulip poplar.

In the winter, Carl and I love to sit in the living room and look out over the dense black spread of tree canopy across the street, sometimes covered with snow, sometimes so black against a deep, deep sapphire gray evening sky, sometimes lit by lightning.

I love that the dogs and I can wander in and kick dry leaves, listen to the sounds of jays, nuthatches, thrushes, owls, woodpeckers and yes, crows, because the even the raucous caws of crows tell a story.

I love that water from somewhere deep underground makes a permanent, tiny little stream at one end of the park, just a drizzle really, from the top of one treed slope down to the bottom. It's barely there, now, because it is so covered in leaves, but the flow still ripples, creating a tiny pool that the dogs like to lap from.

I love the contrast between the traffic that zips along the street, always rushing, oblivious and too fast to a destination, and the life in the park, equally oblivious but somehow more ... purposeful?

On Thursday, the dogs and I walked down into the park and immediately off to my left a motion caught my attention. I turned and into my full field of vision a hawk lifted up, a small creature in its talons. Off it flapped, but not too far and I thought if we walked quietly enough we might get close enough to see what it had caught.

Then I heard what sounded like, very far away, a baby crying. It wasn't though, of course not.

Also to my left, in a bare tree, was a squirrel, looking down at us and quietly making that chattering sound that angry squirrels make. Except it was not a rat-a-tat chatter, it was more like the single notes, repeated slowly, over and over.

The squirrel saw us, flipped head up quickly and dived into a hole in the tree. The head poked out and watched us, now silent.

I had to wonder if the small creature had seen its companion taken by the hawk, which we saw, again, lift up from the leaf litter with a lifeless shape in its grip, and flap away to another end of the park.

Another hawk glided behind it.

I though about how days start and end, with the expectation that life will continue on as normal, uneventful. Thankfully, most days, it does.

We continued on our way, kicking the dry leaves and smelling the cinnamon scent of fall.

Short

As in, the weekend is too... short.

A Saturday morning wasted was balanced by a lovely Sunday morning breakfast with friends in Fineview, high about Heinz Field.

The neighborhood's name is utterly self-descriptive.

Good girlfriend Ellen lives there and invited a bunch up for pancakes. We all supplied the rest: Mimosas, quiche, turkey bacon, salad and company. Ellen's house is a couple doors up from this charming cottage.

The day was gorgeous initially, then turned cloudy, but we all had a fine time chatting and noshing.

My friend Maria picked me up with another friend, Margi, in tow and as we drove in we started complaining about Steelers traffic and how getting up early had caused us to miss our morning ritual of coffee and the Sunday newspaper.

Maria told a funny story about her mom, who disliked a particular sister-in-law. Said sister-in-law once invited Maria's family for a weekend visit. Maria's mom, not shy abaout stating her opinions, said "She wants us to come up? Well she can go to hell!"

We had a laugh over that and then as soon as the complaints about Ellen making us miss the Sunday paper bubbled up, immediately we all said, "Well, she can go to hell!"

;)

Looking forward to snow

Yes, it's true. I want snow.

I have been coming around to fall as my life heads in that direction itself. There is nothing more deeply, brilliantly azure than the afternoon sky of a fall day in Western Pennsylvania.

The reds and golds of dying leaves are even more vivid for having, as they assemble in a flyaway carpet on the ground, the rich smell of cinnamon and nutmeg.

The slanting light of a low sun warms less powerfully than the rays of mid July, yet the light feels just as good on your skin.

All that said, I am lookig forward to the quiet of snow. I want how it muffles sound and sparkles in the sunlight. I want it because the noise of the snowplows is a background hum, like the buzz of a lawnmower on a summer afternoon.

Right now, now, my back yard is decorated with leaves. The pin oak on the slope likes to hold to a few, even, through the winter, and sprinkle them down in the spring. They get raked up a few times in the fall and dumped under the rhododendrons. In the spring, they get raked into the garden beds and blanketed with mulch.

I like the contrast of the gold and brown leaves against the grass, still green. And I enjoy kicking my feet through piles of leaves, listening to them rustle. Twist has been known to fearlessly wade into a pile of leaves and jump five feet in the air because something in said pile startled her greyhound brain. Snow never startles her though. She loves it an dives right in.

The leaf-filled picture is from the park by my house.

And yes, shortly after first snow, I will be looking forward to spring.

Time

There is, among many, a great scene in the movie "Blade Runner," toward the end. Rutger Hauer's character is dying as Harrison Ford's character watches. Its in a deep, depressingly rainy, decaying and dark city. Hauer's character, as a replicant who has developed human emotions, aches to think that all he has felt, learned, touched, loved and experienced, will be lost "as tears, in the rain."

It's hard to describe what those words mean to me. They mean everything.

Today, the day broke to a turquoise sky, to carpets of gold and bronze, to the sounds of .... leaf blowers. (We interrupt this reverie! Attention: Please put on your noise-cancelling headphones!)

Yet, it was all my morning, my day. I watched the dogs put their noses to piles of leaves, I listened to leaf blowers and to football games on TV. I sat outside in the slanting afternoon sun and picked a November bouquet out of herbs and flowers luckily untouched by frost.

A tear to remember. Holli, evening walk in the park. She wades into the stream, into a small pool, dips her needle nose down and drinks.

She finishes and a few drops fall from her nose. The pond's surface ripples and I see dark shapes, linear and uneven. The ripples lose energy and the surface becomes still, the reflected images clearer. The still mirror becomes a canvas for the bare trees.

I think this is the meaning of tears in the rain. To notice, and to remember, the beauty of the most ordinary of moments.