March 21, 2020

The flag could find no breeze. Whippoorwill Bill calls for his mate, and birds are awake before the sun rises over the pine trees. Vulgar geese invade all our solitude when they pass through. As I sit on my porch and track the tree where the sun will ascend, I note the time and place. It's the end of March when the sun climbs the pine trees. As the months pass by, the sun will shift to the left and find a new avenue to come into my life. When the day of the summer solstices is here, the bright light will shift to the right. And, the morning dance will continue until it ends to the right of the pine trees. Only in peace can you observe the simple things, and they become essential to life.

From my vantage point on my porch as I wait for the sun's warm embrace, I marvel at the stillness of the air, and the faithfulness of my dog Biscuit. She’s old like me, and we're waiting out our years together. Biscuit has one ear up and one ear down, one eye blue, and one eye brown. She is of an unknown pedigree. The most dominant is Huskey and Australian Sheppard. She likes to lie near me as I wait for the sun to climb the pine tree. Of course, Biscuit has to be fed before I can enjoy my coffee and solitude as I watch the shifting colors of the morning sky.

I need a woman to identify the colors of the sky, as it transitions from diminished light to bright. Women seem to know how to recognize the subtle shades of color. I swear they make up the names of the different shades. I'm satisfied that fuchsia is a made-up name. And, a secret joke on men that all women are in on, and they've agreed to never reveal it doesn't exist in nature. But as I watch the early Monet sky, the transition from a pinkish purple to a dull blue with the introduction of the sun – I remember. I remember a woman who knew the colors of the sky, and it was she who called it a Monet sky. She was the woman I joked with about a conspiracy of women to confuse men regarding color. I told this woman fuchsia was invented by women to secretly baffle men with a color that doesn’t exist.

When I watch her Monet sky, I miss my source of knowledge about colors and her song she sang; the woman who loved birds - especially whippoorwill Bill. When we watched the sun climb the pine tree from the front porch of our country home – where I now live alone – we enjoyed the peace and the simple things.