Halloween

          I was feeling very sorry for myself after I wrote my last blog about missing Quartz Mountain. I laid on the couch, intending to read but a flood of sorrow washed over me thinking about “our” hummingbirds.

          So I decided to sit outside and read the New Yorker.  It was too hot in the sun but okay in the shade. I started on an article about leaf blowers in Orinda – there’s an initiative on the ballot to outlaw them. I closed my eyes and listened but could not hear much, except for an occasional swish of a car.  When I opened my eyes I looked straight up at the vibrant blue sky and the bright stucco of the house and saw something small and white wafting down toward me. A petal?  As I watched, it descended in a sort of spiral as if were taking its time, not wanting to land.  When finally it came to rest a few feet in front of me, I saw that it was a feather, actually a bit of fluffy down. I picked it up. I raised my head to look up again. The sky was striped with lines of white clouds that looked just like feathers! A flood of gratitude washed over me. I felt like a dying man given a sip of water.

          Then the phone rang: a California girlfriend. Just the sound of her voice made me happy. She asked lots of questions about this house and town. As I answered her questions I saw that I really had done quite a lot to make a home here and that the house – for all its faults – isn’t bad.

          She, like many of my friends, has been facing a painful challenge. It seems like almost everyone I know is going through big changes now -  illness, death of a beloved pet, divorce.  Lots of loss. Jenny once told me (and it really helped) “Don’t focus on what you’re losing, but on what you’re getting.”

          The problem is that it’s not necessarily an even exchange – something lost, something gained. There are periods when it’s just all loss. Slowly other things come in to replace what we’ve lost, but we never get back what we once had.  Loss is like an injury that heals but leaves a scar or dull ache when it rains.

          After we hung up I got back to what I’d started the day before: carving a pumpkin. I thought about making a scary face, or a startled face, but settled for my usual - cat-like smiling face.

          As night fell, I put a candle in it, and banished Walter to the patio. Sure enough, at dusk, just as a neighbor had warned, lines and lines of cars showed up, cruising the neighborhood: fathers behind the wheel with mothers accompanying little ones to our door. I didn’t mind.  It had been years since I’d seen kids on Halloween and I welcomed the little candy hounds.

          Walter had a great time barking his head off. When all the kids had gone, I let him back inside. He sprawled out on his bed, pleased that he had fulfilled an important canine duty, and fell into the deep sleep of  weary contentment.