Simple Things

An odd thing happened the morning we all learned, what for many of us was, the unthinkable results of our presidential election. Interspersed with the anger, fear, and emotional chaos of a world that suddenly seems on the precipice of catastrophe, sparks, like fire flies on a Midwest summer night, appeared unexpected—blinking and disappearing, yet soothing and sublime.

During these few weeks…

In my tiny town, on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the shortest Main Street in America turns into Ark Row, named because its buildings were once houseboats. Draped by massive trees that raise the sidewalk and bend around buildings, the narrow street curves, offering little space for cars. A woman stepped off the curb to get into her parked car, then noticed on the windshield a pie pan sized leaf, blazing green and unblemished. She picked it up, glancing down, then up, furtively, just as I walked by. I smiled, she returned the smile. I said “a gift for you.” I was thinking about taking it home, she said. And she did.

Sitting with my morning coffee, facing the living room window, the sun streaming in backlit the steam rising from my coffee cup—a swirling white ring spinning along its rim, volcano-like as it rose and dispersed, twisting wisps, a lazy cyclone, billowing, tapering, fading away.

On December 21st, we listened to Windham Hill’s Winter Solstice Concert, acoustic guitar, piano, cello. At moments, I melted into the music, enfolded in beauty free of words, relaxed into a sense of being without edges, on the longest night of the year—the dividing line, when light will begin again.

It’s migration season and the air is so filled with birds that part of the bay is off limits to give them safe harbor. At times, hundreds fly so low, they seem to be skittering—running on water. Seals and sea lions break the surface, from a distance–the head of a dog, back undulating like an eel. I watch in reverie when suddenly, a porpoise bursts straight up, fully out of the water, arches and dives beneath the waves. My body tingles with delight. Then anticipation, of another leap.

The softness of my wife’s hand, silky, warm down; and my own, coarser—pressing the skin between my index finger and thumb. It doesn’t spring back immediately, like it used to—but it feels right.

Such simple things. They feed us, and bring light to the darkness. They’re there all the time, but at least for me, they stand out most clearly against the night.