Jesus God, she fell down the stairs today.
We’re visiting at her sister’s house, right, and she just bought new shoes. Shiny hard smooth bottoms only a girl could love, slipped right out from under her on the thickly carpeted stairs. She’s okay, except for a pulled muscle in her lower back, but it hit me pretty hard. For all my claim to having a few more psychic ducks in a row, I’d had a rough day after a rough night, partly a result of this:
[Me telling a humorous anecdote in the company of five Iowans, beautiful dear people all of them, after for some reason the subject of bikers was raised...] “There’s this motorcycle shop in Taos, Dave’s Cycles, where they sell all kinds of biker gear and stuff, and a couple of Christmases ago they had this big banner out front that read: ‘Leather Jackets, only $75 — NO SHIT!’”
[silence...]
Okay, nobody hated me, but one might have expected at least a snicker or two. So I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with all the old beatings fresh and sore. Took me 90 percent of breakfast to get to where I could look people in the eye with a soft face, and when the goddess fell down the stairs, the first thing I was was mad. You may know how that is, because it scares you. I let go of that quickly enough, but later, when I saw how much she hurt, I really felt like crap. This is some kinda game we’re in, here in this world, all tied up together, blaming what we think we see on others. But if the self-love is strong enough, it doesn’t matter what others do or say (or don’t say). That doesn’t mean much unless you feel it happening, and to reach that point you may have to take a goddamn whipping for most of your life. What’s the point of it all?
Oh yeah, the pelicans…
River left, pelicans (believe it or not) right
Well, before I told the Dave’s Cycles story, we were at a scenic overlook just north of Balltown, a couple of miles from the Mississippi. All of a sudden, way off in the distance, I saw a flock of maybe three dozen large white birds with black wingtips and black feathers on the trailing edge of the undersides of their wings. They were spiraling round and round, fabulous flyers, catching a lift from the updraft of the wind hitting the bluffs, and when they came closer, we could see that they were pelicans. Pelicans in Iowa? Yep. They migrate from the Gulf Coast to wetlands in the northern plains, and these were on their way along the Mississippi flyway. A very surprising and beautiful sight.
And the blood? The stuff that wasn’t spilled today. The blood that pumps oxygen to wounded muscle and courses innocently through my own worthless veins, no matter what. That’s the thing: no matter what. Can you imagine? NO MATTER WHAT, at least as far as sin’s concerned.
We drive halfway through Nebraska this Easter Sunday. More blood, I guess. My incision’s been sore all day today, and there’s another reference.
Update: The lady is okay, BTW. I think she pulled a muscle, but she’ll live.
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