Graveside

Yesterday I was shaving some Parmesan cheese on a new grater and sliced part of a finger off. Fingers bleed like mad and I put a piece of finger flesh in the organic garbage. Typing was out of the question.

The sunlight was pale yellow Tuesday morning, not orange. The sky was lighter, too, not as dark and thick with smoke as it had been all day Monday. Today, a front moving in may finally clear the air and there’s a chance of rain showers on Thursday and Friday. Although I dread the arrival of the rainy season, some rain would be very welcome.

The whole island is bone dry. I watered the gardens thoroughly yesterday morning and yet in the afternoon several plants were wilting in the heat so I had to water again.

However, I’m blessed with idleness. I’m falling into a pleasant routine: I have a couple of hours to myself first thing after I wake up; Sheba is slow to become the perpetual motion machine she becomes for the rest of the day. While she sleeps I can do some writing and read my online news sources. 

Then, after I water the garden I go to a park or a new trail for a long walk with her. After that, she rests again and I go into the village to do my errands. When I come home, it’s lunch, a spa and some reading or housework. Then I go on another walk with Her Highness; this time on our local trail. Then it’s time for dinner and afterwards, TV.

I’ve come to love watching movies on Netflix  or Fixtorwith Sheba. She loves to lie across me and it gives me a chance to pull all the seeds, burrs and fir needles out of her hair. Then come the night wars; I have to fight for space on my own bed because Her Highness is a bed hog.

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Tuesday morning my cats found a mouse nest; there were four carcasses on the floor on the floor. It breaks my heart, to be honest; the mice are so cute. But I prefer living mouse-free; at least it’s not birds my cats are killing.

And last night, as if living in this apocalypse of heat and smoke isn’t odd enough, a dog was baying in the distance this morning at roughly three am while, at the same time, an owl, perhaps responding to the dog’s plaintive howls, hooed back. It was the perfect soundtrack for a Fright Night.

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When my libido died I felt happy to be free of its relentless drive. In the same way, my friend Bill’s frank slaughter of my script has also freed me—lessened my load. I feel lighter, freed of a desire to achieve. Ambition, like my libido, has become vestigial like my appendix and my nipples.

I’ve no desire to travel. And although I will never stop writing, I’ve no desire for validation. My only remaining ambitions, really, are to nurture my friendships and maintain my body, my pets and my property.

My ego is dying one piece at a time; added to my intangible losses is the decay of my voice. 

Dingo, a man of undetermined origin, unshaven, usually in sweatpants and with drawstrings dripping below a bulging soiled t-shirt has replaced Chris, a slender man who bathed and shaved every day and who chose all his clothes carefully. And Dingo sleeps twice as much as Chris did. I never “saw” any of this coming. It all makes me wonder what else is pending—and grateful, that so far, my sense of joy for life thrives.