House-sitting, restless

As the neighborhood wakes, I walk, an aimless, protracted, lumpish figure-eight through quiet streets on a late-September Saturday, an anniversary, in fact, that I can neither celebrate nor ignore. Steady pacing pulls me into connection with the earth, seeking ground through gentle movement, rooting into the rhythm of steps and expanding breath beyond the body to the open sky, the dawn-driven fauna, the exuberance of summer's late festivities as nature turns attention to autumn.

At the first curve, a crumbling wall consumed in vines of morning glory buzzes with hummingbirds so tiny one might mistake them for bees if not for the density of their sound and the determined directness with which they visit one flower, the next, the next, pausing for half-second sips of sugared dew that fuels their frantic flights seeking more, more, more. I wonder if they ever rest. They flit in seemingly controlled chaos from white to pink to lavender to white to a purple so deep and saturate it feels less like a color than a slow vibration in the brain. I watch for some minutes, then move on.

The edges of these streets, just off their sidewalks and right-of-ways, are bursting with flowers both willful and wild. Yards with proud placards proclaim "Garden of the Month" and "Certified Pollinator Habitat" and speak for a community cultivating joy in beauty and sacred synergy with the world outside their walls, knowing their place in a much bigger picture, believing that small actions add up to salvation. I find comfort in the insistence, a flicker of faith in my species. We sow hope in heart soil stripped by loss, exhaustion, and anger. Hope like small stitches on a gaping wound, but perhaps it will hold me for today.

As the road veers left and careens downhill, I slow steps in deference to my age-abused knees, deepen breaths to draw me back into this body that of late demands so much gentleness. Roadside parked cars exhale overnight air as the sun begins to warm their windshields. One is new, well-kept within the past year. One carries dogs, another, children. A hard-worn hatchback tucked off-street tells of a driver who still smokes cigarettes. Their yard, mown just yesterday, brightens the air with sharp onion grass and the robustness of a lush green lawn. Their sun-baked mulch, freshly soaked from last night's rain, exudes a damp spice of decay.

Where the downhill levels out, a culvert, also new within the past year, contains in banks of rock and clay a small valley creek that burbles through backyards of also-new houses. We humans are always building, and rebuilding, containers.

I shift my gait again, resuming to rise. Ahead, a man walks a pair of inquisitive corgis, their distinctive round rumps bobbing side to side as they waddle along with frequent stops for sniffery. Enormous ears and paired pointy snouts clock my presence, but they are far more concerned with the smells of wet dirt and chirrups of chipmunks. I quicken my steps to approach them but resist the urge to follow as they turn at a nearby side street onto the block where I once stayed. Momentum carries me past, over the crest, where the soft cloud of quietude dissipates.

On this side of the hill, at this time of the morning, the neighborhood is long since awake. Different men walk different dogs and we pass with thin smiles and soft muttered greetings. The roar of traffic below, already aggressive at 7am on a Saturday, reminds me why I never cared for living here. Still, even overlooking this strip of nonstop commerce, more houses have been dug into the mountainside, more walls to retain earth they can never own or control, more plots marked for development, the growth of a town fast surpassing what millennia grew here before.

I pass my old house, the yard where my found family's now long-since-passed cats once stalked each other from the front porch and eaves, where banana-yellow cherry tomatoes burst with sweetness in the southern sun, chickens roosted under the back deck and hid their eggs in encroaching vines at our faltering fence-line, we made bricolage art and d-i-y home repairs out of history and longing, and drank heavily to numb the unceasing assault of civilization.

The corgis appear again on the back side of the block, walking the reverse of the loop I am on. This time their eyes sparkle at me with curiosity, and I greet their handler with a "good morning" and compliment his excellent choice of dogs. We exchange smiles and continue on our ways with slightly lightened steps and rhythmically bouncing butts.

Back through the belted waist of the figure-eight, the elevation dips and ascends again on the long, shaded lane that marks the final climb to my strangers' home. Oak trees drop acorns abundant in the faintest of breeze and stronger stirrings send ripe black walnuts hurtling earthward where they land with heavy and dangerous-sounding thuds. A squirrel pules on a fencepost at my approach, its cry less alarm than gentle admonishment to remain on the ground where I belong. At the final corner, another squirrel strips walnut meat in the street until it spots me, then scurries up a nearby tree to warily watch as I pass.

People are awake on this street now, too, walking, somehow rested and weary at once. It is still early for cellphone conversations on bluetooth headsets and besides, the weight of this anniversary is breath-taking. The weight of surviving is unspeakable. And the suffocating weight of the larger world's crashing chaos against this infinitesimal moment presses everyone's eyes downward.

Quick glances of acknowledgement between us passing seem to say, "Hello. I know I do not know you, but I know we are one, and the same. I am glad we both are here. I see you. I feel your exhaustion. Please, continue to survive."

Back in this home that is not mine, sitting on the deck, writing as the once-slumbering sound of the outside world begins to rise and expand to a distracting and deafening noise, I pause from staring at this screen, fumbling for elusive words. I take a deep breath, stretch my arms overhead, plant my feet on the boards.

A rabbit nibbles long blades of grass on the lawn below. Her summer reds give way to rich browns as tufts of autumn coat build warmth against the coming winter. With energy grown of the earth and ears ever-pricked for danger, she relishes the last moments of early quiet before bolting underground. She, too, will continue to survive.