Latest / Relatively Stable / A Time for Everything

Transcript

A Time for Everything · Relatively Stable

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: A time for everything,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: in which I acquire a carpet, lose a friend, and blame the horses.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time when people found solid proof that the earth was flat.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: When Pythagoras declared that the earth was round,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I imagine his Facebook friends dropped off like flies.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Humans have a history of building bunkers to keep the universe from blowing our minds.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Andrea Gibson.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: One, the morning room.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sweet gum leaves scatter like a damp carpet across the grass that flows from
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: the house to the barn.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We inherited a series of yard carpets when we moved into this place.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Actual carpets spread on the ground like exterior rooms without walls,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: which is how it should be.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: As I learned the movement of the mowers,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: my seat and legs shifting over the hills and humps in the same way they'd flow with
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: the rhythm of a horse.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I accidentally mow the edges of these carpets of woven plastic and my need
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: to chop just one more blade of grass and my desire to make all things smooth for
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: at least a day before the wildness creeps back in.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I pick the gnawed straws of the mowed carpets up piece by piece to keep them from the birds.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: We call the room my father died in the morning room.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The cats gather there and play in the boxes.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've barely touched the room since he passed.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It needs a couch, I think, or another armchair.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It needs a carpet.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Without a carpet, the room is nothing but high-walled storage, a depository of junk and loss.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: My first trip out to assess and appraise my father's own crowded house,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I plan to take his couch, blue plaid and small, barely long enough for two people.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But as I push the cobwebs back and enter his door, the couch is gone.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: In its place are two brown chairs.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have no memory of my father getting rid of his couch or where he acquired the chairs.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I gather a coffee table and the chairs,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: a side table, medical supplies, and my father's Smith and Wesson.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: The previously missing firearm is its own story.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher and I pile these things high in the truck.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when we arrive home to the farm, We stack them in the morning room.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I will do something about them when I purchase a carpet.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: The room has off-white carpet, a nightmare for a farm of dirty boots.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I scour the internet late at night for a rug that will suffice,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: a rug that will do,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: because I will leave these boxes stacked and unopened without some boundary to piece
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: the room into order I need something cheap and ornate.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Something that will hold up to animals and dirty shoes,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: making a quick pass through to grab supplies from the closet
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: that smells like history and mice beneath the old staircase.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: In between stealing my father's furniture and securing the rug,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I sit with my friend who is dying in the hospital.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: She asks for falafel and spiced carrots from the Middle Eastern restaurant
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: that only takes cash.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think about the rug sellers in Turkey and how my friend,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: like me,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: always moves to an asymmetrical beat,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: the notes sliding together and the melody lingering, never resolving.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think about how the horse's canter is hard to teach
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: because most people have never moved to an unfixed beat.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Riding is like belly dance,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: fluid, complicated, our core strength concentrated into a single focused action.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: My friend and I talk about the farm and how she will soon visit us and pet the horse's faces.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Her face lights up at the thought of a horse's face, their eyes, their noses, their smells.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Their smart mouths feeling the depth and contrast of things invisible to the human touch.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Later in the week,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: a new visitor at the farm,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: someone who has never stood beside a horse until this moment,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: reaches out and says, the horse is sacred.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: All that mystery contained in a face.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I asked my friend in the hospital,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: who is always sensitive like a horse's mouth,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: If she can see deeper beyond the horizon now that her body is tired from treatments
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: and recitations,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: her face again lights up as it does at the thought of a horse's face.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, I can see so far into the mystery now.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: On the night of my friend's final journey,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I unfurled a rug still creased from shipping in the morning room.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I began the process of clearing out my father's death to make way for new loss.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: As with all things, I don't know what I'm doing in this moment.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm moving forward and finally ticking things off my list.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: The rug is easy to clean in an ancient design.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I am dissatisfied with its cheapness and dull colors.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: But this will do, I think.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can live with this rug until I find a couch,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: until there is money to spare,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: until there is more time to take the curtains down and strip the white paint off
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: the old mantle.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Timing is only visible in hindsight.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can't know the hour of my friend's death.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I am convinced she will live forever.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I place my father's items,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: the things that were a part of his daily life, his boxed ashes in a cabinet.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I close the wooden door gently.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I flip through the framed art and photograph stacked against the wall
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: and consciously mark and pound the plaster with nails
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: until each picture finds its place, something to rest my eyes on.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I sit in the armchair and I consider the room, mostly for the first time.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I note how the new details change my perception,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: how the four same walls are imbued with a new meaning.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like going on a trip to clear one's head, we allocate through novel surroundings.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: The next morning,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I sit in the armchair of that changed room in the morning light,
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: As I read the text message about my friend passing,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was just messaging her the morning before.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about what Tamar Reno said as I held vigil for three weeks
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: during my father's slow, unconscious journey so protracted and long and drawn out.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paraphrasing here, but Tamar noted what a hospice nurse had once said to her.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Our journey from this world to the next takes as long as it needs to take for us
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: to sort through our unfinished business.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I take note of all the boxes still stacked against the wall in the morning room,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: and I pick one box, just one, to empty.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Two, a time for everything.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: While the rest of America fights over standard time versus daylight saving time,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher and I cross paths at odd hours as he covers varying shifts at work.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Rising at 5 a.m.,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I finally see him in the gray,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: foggy twilight of 9 p.m.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: as I throw last hay and he walks the fence lines around the farm.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher is a holy nocturnal bat.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: He finds phosphorescence with his UV flashlight and sends me photos
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: of glowing mushrooms and bugs.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: My vote is for daylight saving time.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher and I meet in the fluorescent hallway of the barn, blinking our eyes into focus.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: He tells me that he found Bentley lying down in the grass beside the cemetery,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: While he searched the field for Friday's reflective collar that
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: the bay gelding likes to roll off his neck when the gnats are bothering his eyes
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: and his skin is itchy.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher is amazed that Bentley would trust him enough to lie down and take a nap.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I start to panic because Bentley, like Christopher, is mostly nocturnal.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: He naps during the day and keeps watch at night.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Something isn't right.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: We find Bentley by the dull glow of the horse's reflective collars in the dark,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: and for the moment even Friday is wearing one.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley is upright and pacing, pinching his ears at Friday to move out of the way.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Friday likes to be bossed, so he moves without question.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley is not stretching down to graze grass like the other horses.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: His head hangs low, and his hooves dig ruts in the damp earth.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley is not showing the classic signs of colic, the up and down rolling to relieve pain.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley is no stranger to gas colic,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: but he has,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: fingers crossed,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: knock wood,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: and make the sign of the cross,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: thrived under the constant natural movement of 24-7 turnout in the fields.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: He paces past me and pauses to snuffle my hand.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I ghost his path for a while, flummoxed and curious as to what is bothering him.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: He seems annoyed that I'm still there,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: but desperate to tell me something through our interspecies language barrier.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's up, buddy?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I run my hand along the glossy black hair of his neck,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: and I call out to Christopher as I feel,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: instead, a topographical map of ridges and lines.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher runs across the field to grab Bentley's halter as I search causes
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: with trembling fingers on my phone.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've experienced a horse with hives before,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: but the skin felt softer,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: more tame, and what one would generally think of with hives.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley's skin is hard to the touch and rigid with waves like sand on
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: the smooth shore of an ocean.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I text the veterinarian and jump to conclusions as I wait for her to answer.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley must be dangerously dehydrated, I think, or he has muscle wasting disease.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: We move Bentley into the barn where there is light to see by and cold water to hose him off.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: The vet is convinced that he has hives from fire ants or ground wasps, which settles my mind.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I search our stash for dexamethasone or prednisone or 40 Benadryl tablets.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I syringe anti-inflammatory meds into his mouth.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I grind steroids into a mash of grains.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley thinks the prednisone tastes like trash, which is a positive sign.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I dissolve ten more tablets in water,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: and he politely takes it and swallows in increments of milliliters.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: What a good boy!
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: As Christopher holds his face.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We fluff the bedding in an empty stall and scrub and refill the water buckets.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bentley's head hangs low beneath the fan.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I watch him until he feels well enough to begin nibbling hay from the pile
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: of alfalfa leaves and stems in the corner.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think about how earlier in the day,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: before his skin showed signs of battle, Bentley had been acting spooky and troubled.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had dismissed him and fussed at him to be brave, to behave.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I blamed his emotions instead of listening to the language of his body.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: On an average night with a normal schedule,
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: we would have missed the taut ache of Bentley's night dark skin.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I send a thank you to my friend who passed over that morning.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finished pretending that we don't have invisible allies.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is too much in my life that I cannot explain.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm tired of trying to rationalize the mystery of I cleaned the cobwebs in corners
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: of the barn and set up a camera outside of Bentley's stall.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I text the veterinarian that she needs to keep us on retainer or
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: a monthly subscription for all the messages she returns in the middle of the night.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think about the conversation the vet and I had in the gravel driveway of
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: the old farm minutes after we had laid an old black pony to rest.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's been almost a year to the day.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the creatures and the people who had gone on before us
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: and how they work from a distance to give us wisdom in this life.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I am so lucky to live in the intersection of faith and science and to be surrounded
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: by so many helpers along the way.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I know for certain.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: After last hay, the horses gather still beneath the moonlight.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Their tails brush the thick air of midsummer.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Their heads bow in deep reverence to the night.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the rhythms and the cycles of the day, they know when to rest.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so do I.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so do all that came before me.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Love.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: P.S.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: The greatest gift you can give this farm is your prayers and encouragement.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to do more,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: every like, share,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: and comment on my weekly Stable Roots essays
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: and social posts helps more people discover our work.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't cost a thing.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can also subscribe to Stable Roots,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: free or paid, or support our ongoing restoration of Lavender Hill.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: However you choose to join us, I'm just grateful that you're here.