On the front porch of the Johnny Gunter place, I ride the incoming swell of nightfall. The last logging rigs rumbled out of the valley two hours ago. A single robin chirrups from the meadow growing April green before me. Wind from the west draws an iron overcast across the evening sky.
There sure is a lot of sex at the end of the world as I thought I knew it. After a socially distant run on the chip trail, I finish with a sweaty stroll through the neighborhood park, pausing on a footbridge across the small creek. The air has become a breathing thing, ribs of willow and cottonwood exhaling …
When I don’t feel like writing, I go for a run. But too much running makes my knee swell.
When I don’t feel like running, I have developed an ingenious strategy: I don’t run. I don’t write either.
When I don’t feel like writing or running, I split firewood.
At the edge of certainty at the edge of vision at the edge of a squishy two-track tunneling into shade, they appear when the I most need them. With thumb and forefinger I tip one face toward mine. Five petals flare like petite fingers above a mottled pouch that looks for all the world at the end of the world like a tiny heart about to throb. Calypso orchid, aka Calypso bulbosa, aka thumb-size goblet of orchid sex nodding yes.
It figures that a wet cold Spring would be waiting at the edge of time. Morning overcast is locked against Sun like an iron door. I try to meditate, wishing the drizzle would dampen those whirling sparks that pass for thinking. I enforce ten long breaths, then give it up. Some of us ended up wired for motion.