September 20

This year our television is bigger than we are. Today is September tentieth. Twelve years ago Tony and I left in the Frieghtliner together. Tony was in his last month of being fortynine.

Once upon a time, when I was a girl, I'd tremble waiting for my boyfriend. It was a miracle when we could finally spend the entire night together. No going home. Devastation felt like a fist in the belly that woke me up sweating night after night. And then the years, crashing into the world, into life, like falling down a flight of crowded stairs, slamming your elbow, the back of your skull, your bones, not being able to reach out, to catch on.

Tony and Penny: there are parts of ourselves that complement the quirks, the eccentricities. I have the horses, the goats, the dogs, the cat. I can not stop building the future. Tony knows how to sit still. I speak the words, the grammar, know the spelling, write the page, the next page and the next. Tony doesn't realize he hasn't answered.

Tony and I park the yellow Focus, the red pickup, so that when we wake up we can see the barn from our bed. We say it is a painting. It is our own painting.

The hike yesterday to Cathedral Rock took the entire day. Fifty miles from our house to the end of the road at Salmon La Sac. Potholes and washboard. But the new trekking poles took ten years off our steps. Nothing but up. Half way, Squaw Lake, clear as glass, green reeds at one end. A fish. A duck. Sandwiches, homemade sourkraut, fermented not the vinegar kind. Then up and up and finally Spinola meadows and the ponds with Cathedral Rock image on the surface. The dogs splashing and the reflection wobbles. We sit in the short grass behind a white rock blocking the wind. Dogs roll. Eyes close in the sun, our last hike of the year.

Going down takes forever. I stop to take a photo of Mount Stuart. I set it off center but when I push the button my hands shift to symmetry. This picture is dead center.

By the time we get to the gas station it's already dark. Up the driveway in the dark, the goats bellowing. My white mare is standing alone outside the fence. The gelding waits smug in his turnout. I say I'll get Kansas and close the gate. You'll feed the grain.

Kansas isn't scared like she was last winter when she found herself on the outside in the dark. She knows her home.

Will you help me in the morning? Eight o'clock, I'll load the pickup with my tack. Will you hitch the trailer? I'll brush Kansas and lead her up. Of course you say, of course you will.