jumpingfish

1.

We stood on the crushed granite trail on the hilltop gazing beyond the grass waving in the wind. Beyond the faded Bluebonnets. Beyond the explosion of orange and yellow Indian Blankets growing among the grasses. Beyond the clusters of Oaks. 

Clouds floated by. The sun shined. The sky was blue.

Trudy held her face into the breeze and sighed. “We don’t get days like this very often.”

2.

The field of Indian Blankets rippled. A butterfly alighted on the lavender blossom of a thistle. She looked over at me.

“Are there tears in your eyes?”

3.

The ground was soft under the canopy of the massive Live Oak tree. As we stepped off the trail, the ground invited our footsteps.

We walked around the massive trunk and then sat down, leaning out backs against it, closing our eyes, listening to the birds in the canopy.

4.

A Scissortail was sitting on a protective fence surrounding a young tree some distance from the trail. I pointed at it. As Trudy turned and looked, it leaped into the breeze, its scissor-tail splitting and turning as it darted out across the prairie grabbing something out of the air and flying back to its perch.

5.

It’s dark outside. The wind chimes are ringing in the back. A cool breeze is blowing in thru the window over my hands on the keyboard. It’s May. That cool breeze won’t be hanging around here for long. It feels luxurious.

It is late. I stand up to crank the window shut and pull down the blind.

Trudy was right. We don’t get days like today very often.

She toddled around a bit at the base of the playscape, looking up at her father who was looking down at her. It didn’t seem as if she had been there before.

Other older kids were running and biking and laughing and screaming all around her. She turned away from her father to watch them. Her mom came walking slowly up to her and grabbed her gently under her arms and handed her up to her dad who reached down from the top of the playscape.

He had a wide smile on her face. Her face was uncertain. He held her hands and had her walk over to the top of the slide. She had other ideas. He had to coax her along. 

An older girl was sitting at the top of the slide waiting her turn. Then in an instant she was gone, into the plastic tunnel, down the spiraling slide.

The dad coaxed his little girl to the slide, picking her up slightly so he could swing her into a sitting position. And then he let go of her.

They were far enough away and the general din of the playground was sufficient to drown out whatever it was that he said to her. He patted her on the back. He pushed her a little bit closer to the edge. He whispered in her ear. He pushed her once more. And then she too was gone, into the plastic tunnel, and … and … and there she was coming out of the tunnel, rounding a turn lying on her back with her hands and legs waving a little bit hither and yon.

She came to a stop before she reached the bottom.

She sat up with a startled look on her face. Her mom kept her distance. And the little girl looked back around the spiraling turn and into the tunnel and then she looked out at the kids around her and then back again into the tunnel. And then beaming smile exploded across her face, and her eyes lit up. She waved her arms in the air, and she kicked her feet.

And at that moment, in spite the general din of the playground I could clearly hear her scream with glee ready … so ready … to try it for the second time.

1.

“Can I look in?” I asked.

He couldn’t hear me over the sound of the dump truck and started to climb out of the hole.

I walked closer.

“I was wondering if I could look in,” I said loudly.

“Sure,” he said. “Here’s the water main.”

He was standing in a pit about four feet deep on the east side of the street. His boots were a foot-deep in brown clay-y, ooze-y mud. He poked his shovel in the corner of the pit to show me the water main. I saw nothing but ooze-y, clay-y slop.

2.

He pointed toward the middle of the street near where last night a guy named Derrick had sprayed bright yellow one-call marks locating the gas lines. 

“The water main might be leaking somewhere up there.” he said.

“A bit more street to dig up,” I said.

“Yep,” he said. “Not sure how far.” And then he glanced quickly up.

“I hope you weren’t planning to go to sleep until about 2 or 3am. We’ll be banging out here until then. And we just called in the big trucks.”

I laughed.

3.

It’s 9:40pm now. There has been no crashing. No smashing. No banging. No big trucks.

And the fair and industrious Trudy just announced that the water is back on. 

“Oh,” I groan as I shut my laptop. “I can’t keep doing this.” It’s long since been dark outside. It’s getting late. I can barely keep my eyes open. 

Trudy laughs from the other room.

“What are you chuckling at?” I ask as I wander that way.

“I was wondering when you’d figure that out,” she says. 

“I had to write some unit tests,” I say.

The fair and industrious Trudy comes walking out of the bedroom carrying a colorful pile of something in her hands. 

“I had some dish towels I had to fold.”

They say it’s not as bad as it was yesterday. On the first day of the tournament, the sky was black and rain fell in torrents. The university close the intramural fields, so their games got moved to San Marcos, where I guess they don’t care as much. And the girls say that these fields (just north of San Antonio, where they also evidently don’t care) aren’t nearly as bad as yesterday, although to my eyes, the mud’s pretty bad.

Twenty-two teams or so of women playing ultimate just off the freeway in fields that surely were lush and green this morning after yesterday’s storms. Surely were lush but now are brown and wet.

They throw themselves into this sport. Tumbling over each other. Slamming into the ground. Sliding in the mud. Covered from head to toe, some of them. Some of them wear rubber boots. Some where flip-flops. Those are the sidelined ones. The ones who played too hard yesterday. Or got hurt. Or got food poisoning last night. But most are in shorts and jerseys and cleats caked with mud. When they have a chance, they claw at the mud with their fingers, trying to get some of it off. Trying to expose their cleats for a better grip. To let them run back out there and throw themselves back into it.

But aside from the mud, today’s sky is blue. And the air is warm. And there is a breeze blowing across the fields from the southwest.

Lexi walks up. She looks down at me and up at the blue sky and squints at the sun. And then she smiles and says, “It’s amazing what a little sunshine can do.”