Retirement, day no. 59

Sunrise, San Jacinto

One slowly settles into the rhythm of the days, and I’m reminded of a Laurie Anderson piece called “White Lily” that goes:

What Fassbinder film is it?
The one-armed man walks into a flower shop
And says: What flower expresses
Days go by
And they just keep going by endlessly
Pulling you

Into the future
Days go by
Endlessly
Endlessly pulling you
Into the future?
And the florist says: White Lily.

I’m a ways from reaching that point, for it will be a month or more before it fully sinks in that this is not just another summer vacation from the classroom. But there are occasional glimpses of it on the horizon.

Desert trail, in morning shadow

The days begin at 5:00 when I get up to take the dog for a walk in the desert before the sun comes up over the eastern hills. The sky is clear and brightening overhead, and the peak of the San Jacinto mountain ridge across the valley begins to catch the sunlight. The air is alive with birdsong.

Out in the desert, there’s usually some wildlife, a flock of quail, a roadrunner, jackrabbits and cottontail rabbits. This week the dog and I discovered a pair of burrowing owls with a young one or two in a ground nest overlooking a ravine. We might meet somebody else out with their dogs. We also keep an eye peeled for coyote since one attacked a woman recently in another part of the valley.

The desert air at that hour is usually still, with currents that stir softly around you, some cool, some already sun-warmed and arriving from somewhere else. There is a labyrinth of trails, and if you want a workout, you can do some hill climbing. Normally there is a low hum of traffic from the valley and the interstate that passes through it about eight miles away. On mornings with a breeze from the east, there is silence instead, and you can watch the distant big rigs crawling along the highway without a sound.

San Gorgonio

Down the slopes of San Jacinto, you watch the light gradually descend into the valley and then cross it, moving toward you. In the west, the light catches the contours of distant San Gorgonio, often in shades of blue, and the shadows cast along its flanks have the dark and light contrast you see in Maynard Dixon paintings.

Returning to the neighborhood, we’re seeing neighbors in their cars and trucks heading for another day at work. Back inside the house, the sunlight pouring through the eastern windows, we start the coffee. And we open doors to let the desert air refresh the house after being closed up since the previous day when the air conditioning was turned on.

The patio in back stays in shade during the morning hours, and you can sit there with coffee and a book, the fountain burbling beside you. In the flowering plants in the backyard, hummingbirds will be at work.

Zoe, the Desert Detective

By mid-morning you’re driven indoors by the heat and/or the wind, which is pretty much a fact of life in the summer. The AC comes on, and you work indoors in a room with the blinds drawn, writing, reading, researching online, checking blogs and Facebook.

And so the day passes until evening when sometimes it’s my turn to prepare a little supper, and the three of us (counting the dog) spend a couple hours on the couch with Roku or DVDs from netflix. These days we’re watching old TV cop shows: Hack, Homicide. The day ends early when you’re up at 5:00. There’s some light reading—short stories or a friend’s novel—and before long lights out.

And so the days go by, endlessly into the future.

Here’s another version, animated. 

Coming up: Brian Donlevy, Broderick Crawford, When the Daltons Rode (1940)