25 July 21010
Deferral
(Refuge Farm, heat index 109 degrees. Imaginary pool to left. Photo Socotra)
Maybe it is the lingering effect of the fine bottle of red that Rocky and J.P. brought last night from his stop at New Market on the trail north through the Shenandoah. Maybe it is the heat that has me hanging between the worlds, my brain slowly sauteed through the long humid blazing day.
I dunno. The Times had a surreal fevered aspect to it this morning when it bounced down off the Hughes satellite to the laptop. Sissy Bounce in N’Awleans; the President not Black enough, according to Maureen Dowd; oyster dreams from the oily Gulf. I deferred judgment on any of it.
Too hot. I looked for the cats and found they are on vacation. They say that cats are just tiny women in cheap fur coats, or at least that is what it says on the tin sign that Janet left behind over the back door. If that is true, I would be hiding out someplace with air cronditioning.
I finished off the last of the coffee and thought about the things I would not do today. J.P. is well on the road by now, twenty-something miles to go on his route, which I still do not understand, but appreciate. He is an elongated fellow, with gentle blue eyes and salt and pepper hair gathered back in a ponytail, 6 foot five and lean.
He is not racing but riding, and if I wore a hat I would take it off to him. It was 109 degrees on the heat index yesterday and threatening to stay in triple digits today. The swath of the scorch burns from New England to the midsection of the nation again.
My cousin Rocky is the daughter of Dick the Famous Bomber Pilot. He was here at the farm, in her eyes, anyway, and we talked about the missions over German-occupied Europe that shaped his life, and hers.
J.P. is used to his presence, and listened with forbearance as we discussed the spirit of a hero on the back deck. We told the stories that he related late in his life, when he had deferred the memories as long as necessary to come to a place where he could bear to bring them out. We thought the accounts of tortured steel-filled skies were somehow romantic, but only Dick knew what it was: a colossal serial meat grinder designed to turn young men into brightly colored blossoms red fire.
I showed them the restoration job I have done on his pick-up truck where it sleeps in the garage, and we walked the property. Refuge Farm is a horse property, and Rocky is a committed horse lady. Four ponies worth of commitment, to be precise, and that ties them to horse-board and rescue projects for aging racers- something I never understood before but have a glimmer about now.
She had praise for Janet, who willed the construction of this farm from the rocks and scrub pines on the odd-shaped lot, cradled by the two branches of the streams that bound it.
We talked about what sort of ponies might go on the property, and the thoughtful way that chicken wire was wrapped around the uprights of the run-in shed to keep the horses from gnawing at the wood for the hint of salt in the preservative stain.
(A little behind on the garden this year. Photo Socotra)
I identified several more projects I doubt that I will do, and eventually we dined on a meal with sufficient carbs to get J.P. down the narrow valley roads in the morning, and sat on the back deck as the light faded.
I cleaned up after they left and ran the dishwasher.
(Moonrise over Culpeper. Board fence that needs work to left. Photo Socotra.)
I wandered around the property as the moon rose, the bright silver disk coming up over the trees that will someday fall down over the pasture fences and identified a perfect place for the pool I will not install, one that would provide a perfect place to bask in the sun that will return soon enough in the shimmering sky with air that has actual weight against the skin.
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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