Yesterday I couldn’t take the heat anymore, the feeling of being trapped in my house. I thought for a hot second about hiking Mount Si, but with fuel prices astronomical and my car being a diesel, a long drive seemed unwise. Besides, my shocks are shot. Not a metaphor. So I went to our glorious city park early in the day while it was still cool.
I have a standard route, four miles, beginning in the woods and walking the spine of the park, then down to the beach and back up.
Oh, gosh. The sunlight through the trees! Cool breezes, too.
As I approached the water, I heard a scream, almost-but-not-quite an eagle.
A few moments later I heard a sing-song voice: “Where’s Alma? Alma! Where are you?”
*scream*
“There she is!”
I smiled at Alma’s presumptive mother just as daddy elicited another screech. She did not smile back, but widened her eyes in the universal “get me outta here” look. I raised my eyebrows in sympathy.
There were actual eagles on the cliffs making a fuss, and after I clambered down to the beach I looked for them.
Three women were walking with a toddler.
“Have you seen the eagles?” I asked.
“Eagles?”
I was mildly astonished that they had not even heard the racket.
“Those are eagles making that sound.” I finally spotted a baldy and pointed.
The women dutifully looked up but seemed confused. They were not interested. By then it was in the 80s, and perhaps they were too hot to care.
(Once my beloved-the-younger as a surly teen told me, “Not everyone shares your interests, Mother.” Apparently not.)
It was only about nine, but already there was lots of activity. Paddlers and boaters and seals and the flusterpated eagles.
This past week I’ve been taking inventory, as we sometimes need to do, usually at a most inopportune moment. Like during a heatwave. I’ve been pondering my writing life (shit), my house (needs paint—$$$), my job (terrific, but part-time), and my future (opaque). It’s hard to sort your priorities when there’s a lot going on. Walking helps. Getting out of the house does, too.
And so does clearing a whole lotta crap from your home.
On Saturday I could have been writing, but it was too hot to think. So I set up the fan in the junk room and assessed what was sparking joy. Precious little. Took eleventy million pounds of whatnots to Goodwill. Also moved a dozen or so linear feet of stacked books into my office, thinking I’d attempt a bookish Tetris with the already full shelves.
Before bed that night I finished reading a book about addiction and intimacy, and the whole way through I was like… I don’t get it. And by morning, the addiction dealio was clean out of my head. Didn’t give it a single thought on my walk.
Then I got home from my walk, looked at the piles, and laughed.
Oh.
(I mean, seriously, my book problem is not causing me to harm myself or others, so likely not an actual addiction. But the stacks and stacks and stacks of books on the floor gave me pause.)
My house has several Frankenstein-ed additions, and all the newer bits have the same issue—openings on every wall, a door or window. This is surprisingly problematic. I decided to move one of my bookshelves in front of an unused door, creating a wall of books, no hole in the wall.
And now I’m down to just one precarious pile of books instead of five. This room is still tiny, but somehow covering that door, closing the hole—it works.
Unlike my car’s shocks, the closing is a metaphor, albeit cliché and clunky and woo-woo. Fact is, though, my summer has been full of holes, too many distractions, potential pathways. So marching into August, with a cool morning, I am setting some boundaries and giving myself protected space for focusing on what is good and true and beautiful.
And I’m thinking about whoever wrote this note, propped up on the root mass of a fallen tree.
I would have loved to see the eagles with you!