Out My Window

It's late Sunday; yes, a tad late for making a Sunday post but so be it. 6 PM Pacific time. I am listening to the soundtrack to the movie 300, by Tyler Bates. Excellent cut: Returns A King.

Next up, the soundtrack to 2001: a space odyssey. My favorites? Of course, it's Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, interpreted by the Vienna Philharmonic, and The Blue Danube, by Johann Strauss, interpreted by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I am still looking for the complete soundtrack from Dr. Strangelove, but not finding it.

Out my window at home, where I am now, I have this wonderful succession of trees that do their best to reflect the seasons. Now, in Spring, they are spouting greenery (as you can clearly see above!) in a myriad of colors and shades. The setting sun has placed some leaves in shadow, some in startling and limned light.

I am so lucky when I blog from home. My "office," where I write, is on the second floor of my cabin, with a single large window facing south. From here I can see and record the seasons as they occur. There are two cherry trees directly adjacent this window; already they have dropped their white blossoms. The hard, slanting rain washed their delicate petals completely away yesterday. They lay plastered to my porch today. Beyond them there are pines and firs of all types. Though I am 20' up, I feel I can reach out and touch their vibrating leaves. It is very windy today. I can hear the wind coursing through the trees like a Hollywood soundtrack. I can see the firs bending in this wind. The limbs are nodding up and down; their deciduous leaves flutter and tremble with each gust.

I have seen 14 years of growth and change, since I moved up here on July 4th of 1993. I can remember that day clearly, as if it were only yesterday. I was so sick of where I was living in Sacramento, Fornicalia. The house was older but very nice, built in 1947. I became sick of people, noise, barking dogs, orbiting cop helicopters, murders, my job, wailing sirens in the night, the press of flesh and traffic and the homeles and the crush of nonsensical civilization. I was a cop in Patrol then and my house fell into my own district. I felt trapped, choked. I had to get away.

One very early morning, after my swing shift, my phone rang. I recognized a SWAT sergeant. He asked my name; I confirmed. He said: can you come out and identify your next door neighbor? Groggy, I said sure, I can. Proned out on my neighbor's driveway was Brian Frye, murderer. I identified him. He subsequently went to prison for shooting and killing a friend of his over money owed for meth. Using a stolen .357 he shot his friend's girlfriend, who lived, and killed his friend. In the process he shot a finger from his hand. He later told his father, that night, that he had been playing with an M80. The murder weapon was later found above his mother's carport in an attic space.

I'd had enough. I'd had enough with reality in my job and in my face. I'd had enough with gangbangers from the south area showing up across the street in their thump trucks and thump cars, playing basketball all night. I'd had enough of pursuits in my district. I'd had enough of burglaries in my neighborhood. I'd had enough of people and cars and crap and so-called civilization.

I moved 79 miles away, at the 4,200-foot level in the Sierra Nevada mountains, into a cabin that had less square footage than my prior home. It was the best thing I ever did. I pay less per month for this house than many people pay for their automobiles. And when I come home at the end of a stressful day or week, the trees, the wind, the mountains, the community embraces me. I know my postmaster. I know the people who own the single hotel. I know the people in the grocery store. They all call me by name. I wave at everyone and everyone waves at me -- and they use all their fingers.

I look out the window and realize how blessed I am to live here. I can hear train horns in the night. I can tell if they are heading uphill or downhill. A family just above me owns two horses. I can hear them whinny occasionally.

I lost my own cat, Mose, recently. But with each loss sometimes come a gain: two local feral cats seem to have adopted me. I can touch them and pet them now. They make me smile, as does the one here.

Life, on a Sunday, at my house, a house I own, is good.

BZ