There was the sweetest deer and her fawn that had been coming around the yard. But I didn’t want them munching on Dawn’s lace tree so I sprayed it with coyote urine. I used a lot more than I needed to so it really smelled like coyote urine. The fawn had a joyful look to her the way she skipped behind her mom, exploring the wonders of our yard. The fawn looked like she was smiling even. An early summer morning in June, to be young and innocent like that. Glad it wasn’t legal to shoot them.

I had family who hunted and admired them for the skill involved. I could imagine it being something to learn with your dad and teach your kids. I lacked the balls to kill a fish even, or put a suffering animal down. People decapitated chickens, bent their necks. I’d go out of my way to save a worm.

With our outdoor cat Roxy gone a year now it seemed like the local birds and rabbits had multiplied, finding it safe to cross inside our yard’s perimeter again and gather there like a scene out of a children’s book. I loved watching them nibble about, twitching and hopping. The dragon flies and butterflies too. The cat was especially hard on them, and that was difficult to watch.

Our cat Timmy is good at killing flies but I don’t grieve over their loss. We celebrated his one-year birthday on Juneteenth with some turkey pate from the grocery store. He gums the gel/liquid, but leaves the rest—kind of like cats in the wild.

Timmy being one, he’d never seen us clean the house before (we recently laid off our cleaners). And so he got into everything as I was scrubbing the range or vacuuming the steps. It was all a game. But the poor guy didn’t know we’d be leaving soon for a while, headed back east, and I hoped Charlotte’s friend Gabe would keep him company while we were gone.

Lily was learning to play the guitar and I liked hearing it. I imagined it helped dispel whatever bad energy lingered in her room. Like the way bringing fresh flowers into a house can transform the vibe; that’s what it was like hearing her play.

I’d cut back listening to music on account of the tinnitus and the fact I was making it worse by playing Fortnite with my headphones on and all that gunfire. But also to tune into the music in our yard from the birds and squirrels, the buzzing bees and bugs. You could really trip out on it sober and I often did. Especially on a Sunday when people were less inclined to use power tools.

During the pandemic I sometimes fantasized we were living in a sci-fi film, the last people on earth. It felt that way outside sometimes, an uncanny quiet. Now it just feels peaceful.

I can trip out to the sounds and the clouds on a day like this, with the recent rain giving way to sun. The light going in and out, the traffic on our nearby road no more than the sound of the tides.

My wilderness fantasies are coming back as I messaged Brad and Black Diamond Bill about meeting up next month. Black Diamond Bill is a tall, lanky southerner I met on Rainier last year who lives in Laguna Beach but has grandkids near us so he bought a second home in the town of Black Diamond, just an hour from the gates of Mt. Rainier. Like Brad, he’s in his 60s but looks like he could go forever.

As we were cleaning the house yesterday Dawn found a couple little notes she’d saved, written to me by Charlotte. Sweet one or two line notes with misspellings and doodles. With it Father’s Day recently both girls wrote me notes too. I pin them to the wall by my computer like I did when I used to work at an office and decorate my cubicle with pictures and remnants of home. Now my home has remnants of work.

“The Fawn” is the name of my friend Loren’s favorite album by The Sea and Cake, a name the band took after mishearing the title of a song called “The C in Cake.”

The first song on that album is called “Sporting Life” but I can’t understand the lyrics and don’t want to ruin it by looking them up. It is middle-aged white guy music Loren says, and I used to play it every Sunday.

The drums at the start of the second song sound like a manual typewriter and remind me of my old Smith-Corona.

Dawn gave me a dozen roses for Father’s Day and I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever given me flowers. They still look good and it feels nice every time I notice them in the morning before coffee, I can remember how she smiled that day and it feels like the sun just came out.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir

Tags: aging, Creative Nonfiction, journal writing, Memoir, pacific northwest