jumpingfish

So I’m standing out there. Standing in the yard. In the warm sun. Walking around. Looking at the hidden places back there. I’m standing next to Izzy who has let drop her Bison bone and is trotting to the fence to find the Texas walnut that I just tossed in the leaves. 

I’m standing there, and this tiny white butterfly alights on a tuft of grass at my feet. It has intricate markings on its wings, but I can’t quite see them. I walk a bit nearer to see, but with my first step the butterfly flutters off.

At first I think I startled it, but it couldn’t have cared less about me. The butterfly was on a mission. It took to the air and flew straight across the yard to the sunny spot in the corner where the fair and industrious Trudy’s native salvias still bloom.

Ten yards.

From that spot on the grass where is landed at my feet, that tiny butterfly with the markings on its wings spotted the purple blossoms ten yards away. And it flew a beeline directly to them.

“That’s a lot of laps,” he said.

He was talking about my story about the pond and the things I saw as I ran around four times. He was supporting his brother, trying to encourage him. He’s been trying for so long, and all his brother has to offer as evidence is four laps around a little pond.

“No,” I wanted to say. “Those four laps were not a lot.”

Not so long ago, just a few years or maybe a bit more, I worked near this pond where I was running yesterday. The building was just down the street from where I work now, as a matter of fact. And back then, a friend and I would sometimes run around the pond after work and marvel at the stones on the path in the woods and gawk at the ducks. We would run five or six laps at great speed, sometimes tripping on the rocks, sometimes stopping early because we were winded, sometimes heading down the dike following a winding path into the woods that went who knows where.

Now those laps were a lot of laps. 

Of course I love my brother, and his words of encouragement were sunshine on my heart. But let’s be honest: yesterday’s laps were not a lot. Those four times past the old Indian men walking and sitting on the bench were not a lot. The four times over the little wooden footbridge. The four times past the playscape with the toddlers screaming with glee. No, those laps were not a lot.

But they were something. And that something was something enough.

So why is it? Why is it that pieces like Take Five are so compelling?

4/4 time. 3/4 time. That’s fine, but it just goes around and around and in some sense sounds like an infinite loop around just a tiny bit of something.

But 5/4 and 7/4, well now we’re talking. Looping still, of course. But each iteration holds a tiny universe. A world full of complexities and maybe unexpected syncopations. And can you even count along?

So there’s Brubeck’s Take Five in 5/4. And there’s Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past in 5/4. And of course, there’s Pink Floyd’s Money in 7/4.

So much happens in each measure.

That’s why, isn’t it?

1. Noticing the Music

There was music in the grocery store.

How great is that, live music at the grocery store?

We walk in thru the sliding doors, and as the smell of the produce surrounds us, there’s guitar music coming from the lobby where a guy is sitting on a stool playing and singing while people sit at tables eating and listening.

I know. The prices are high. Still, the food is good. There are many organic choices. … And now there’s music.

2. Scowling at the Music

We wandered around, starting in the produce section, working our way thru the meats and cheese, getting some eggs and soup. And then we were back in meats again. 

I was picking out some hot, cooked chicken to eat for dinner (because we had met after work, and I was fading fast) when I noticed the music again. It was coming from the other side of the store. It was loud.

The guy was belting it out at the top of his lungs. And it was really bad.

3. Dining with the Music

After we checked out, we pushed the cart up to a table just beyond the cash registers, and we sat down to eat.

The guy was still there howling into the microphone. There were very few people left at the tables listening to him. The music had been deteriorating steadily, and it frankly wasn’t pleasant sitting there. I chose a table as far from him as we could get.

“Do you want to sit outside?” asked the Fair and Industrious Trudy as she put her wallet back into her purse.

It was cold outside, and I was really hungry by now.

“No,” I said as I bit into a drumstick.

4. Stopping the Music

And now the songs turned raunchy. Not only was he too loud. Not only was he out of tune. But now he was singing some song about sex.

The manager walked up and quietly whispered something to him. They spoke for a few minutes, and then she walked away.

“Well that’s fine,” he said into the microphone. “We won’t sing about SEX. We don’t talk about SEX. Anything but SEX.”

The manager came back and quietly whispered a few more things to him. She still had a pleasant look on her face, but it was pretty obvious by now that things we going majorly downhill.

Mark mumbled some words into the microphone as he shuffled thru his sheet music looking for a different song.

“Here’s something,” he said. “It’s about a grocery store!”

This time, the song was about blood, warm blood flowing out of her head. Each time he got to the word “blood”, he belted it out as loudly as he possibly could.

The manager returned. I heard her quietly say, “Ok, we’re done.”

And that was the end of the music.

The sun is overtopping the house, golden light spilling into the front, lighting the Salvia blossoms that remain and that one blooming Cowpen Daisy by the curb. 

The oak leaves are bright green and swaying in a gentle breeze.

There is a pie in the house: apple/pear/cranberry. Attention! There is pie.

We returned to the aroma of baking last night as the pie cooled, having filled ourselves downtown amid the lights of the city and the buzz of the hipsters laughing, drinking and checking their phones. We ate chicken and meatloaf and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and corn fritters and deviled eggs.

And today there will be another feast. Turkey. Sweet potatoes again. Green beans. Stuffing. And attention! There will be another pie.

My grandfather would have been delighted.

The three of us (Trudy, mom and I) will sit down, a smaller thing perhaps than those Thanksgivings of old with all of us gathered under the glowing light of my grandparents’ magical dining room, but a fine thing nevertheless. A fine thing. We three will sit at the table with a spread before us, such as it will be, and think of our gifts. 

I am thankful for so many things. 

I am thankful for blankets I can pull about me at night. For arms intertwined with Trudy’s. For happy dogs in the morning. For happy dogs at night. For a boy about to graduate from college.

I am thankful for lights we read by in the evening and for farmer’s market eggs in the morning.

I am thankful for butterflies and bees buzzing in the yard. For lizards hiding in the rocks. For beetles scurrying in the leaf litter. For the snakes that we rarely see but know are there. For wrens and mockingbirds and cardinals and bluejays and titmice and doves and owls and hawks. And even for vultures soaring just above the treetops.

I am thankful for the dirt that we plant in. For the warm, rich compost pile in the back. For the cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers and greens that grow out of the ground by some magic that I still cannot quite believe. 

With all of this, I am blessed. By all of this, I am humbled. For all of this, I give grateful thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.