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Interlude: Foggy Morning
Thick low cloud hushes the summer morning, and keeps it chilled. Crows made a racket earlier, when I was rolling over in bed; right now a lone bird keeps repeating a set of notes I’m sure I ought to recognize, but my birding is haphazard — I can tell you a dozen birds that this call doesn’t come from, and make a seasoned guess that the caller is small and brown and hiding in the brush across the road. Large birds seem willing to perch where I can see them, like the crows of course, but also robins. It’s been a while since I’ve seen or heard a jay; they’ll take over the scene when hints of autumn give us much colder mornings.
It’s the sort of morning DK and I would have stayed in bed a bit longer, sleepy smiles, not rushing. He could only tolerate such sappy moments for a little while; then, with a devilish grin, he’d say “pull my finger,” and even though I knew his grandfather’s joke from hundreds of repeats, I’d play along, grasp his warm hand, tug at his pointer finger. In loud triumph, he’d cut a long fart. “Potent! Oh babes!” He got a kick out of my adjective and would repeat it, just the way I’d pulled his finger once again. Using the fart for an excuse, I’d roll off my side of the bed and rush for the bathroom, knowing I had about five minutes before he’d claim it.
More than four years since his death by long illness, I’m developing my own ways of slower mornings. Most…
