On Sundays we take a drive, that’s our Sunday thing. Sometimes it’s just me and Dawn or one of the kids but rarely all four of us, it’s not mandatory. I take the same loop, down the back roads to Fall City and Carnation, through the river valley that always floods past the farms where we get our pumpkins and Christmas trees, with views of the foothills and flower stands with handmade signs, most of them unattended. We take the hour-long drive and come back feeling refreshed, returning to the loop of our home, to chores and weeding or lying about, diddling our phones. Me checking the weather again even though it doesn’t update throughout the day, I just forget what it said the first time.

How gentle that rain came down, then quickened at times. Would the neighbors see me feeding the crows? I gave them what the kids wouldn’t eat which was a lot. The rain fell so hard I stood in the doorway watching it, letting in the cool, clean air. I finally dealt with those two huge rounds of firewood that were too knobby and misshapen to split. Rolled both with a dolly to the fire pit area, propping one up as a stool and the other as a side table by the chaise lounge and grill. I could drill holes in the side of that round and hang barbecue implements from it, maybe scour out an ash tray in the top even though I don’t smoke. I bought dumb shit off the internet. Somehow I get more ads on my phone now targeted at dumb things I’m inclined to buy, like solar-powered tree lights and home workout equipment. It’s probably my imagination, but it seems like there’s a million birds now. Birds and frogs and bats, no bugs. It blew so hard I had to cover my glass, wafts of pollen blowing off the pine trees like snow drifting, a green-yellow snow. Lily wanted to hang out in the garage so we put on the Christmas lights and portable heater, flipped over a box for a table and lit a few candles, played some old jazz records, stayed up late.

All of this is for free, with limited value. Like a stand of baubles along a country road with no one attending it, you’re doing me a favor by please taking some of it away.

Categories: inspiration, Memoir, prose, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, journal writing, Memoir, pacific northwest, prose, stream-of-consciousness, William Pearse writer