With enough scrubbing and scouring powder I was able to get the nasty stains out of the bottom of the Dutch oven. It was a funny plum color. I’d had it for many years and hadn’t treated it well. Returning it to almost white felt good on a deeper, soul level. Like you could restore something to its original condition.
I’ve always been an optimist though I’m self conscious about it, vaguely embarrassed in certain settings like work, where it’s easy to be cynical. I’d rather be wrong and hope for the best.
When I was at my lowest in a job I’d been in for many years and near being let go I remember a day I was about to scan my badge and exit the parking garage for the elevator and I thought to myself maybe it will be just fine. I’d been stewing in worry for weeks and losing sleep over my performance. But before I got on the elevator I gave myself a pep talk and surprisingly it was just fine: they offered to pay me to leave, right before Christmas. A win-win. About two years later I was making the same amount and working half the time, from home. Sometimes it pays to be an optimist.
How quiet in the early morning dark walking, maybe that’s what I like best. Just the storm water drains drinking, and that distant thrum of the freeway. It builds and does not abate, a cocoon of sound.
Knowing now each day we’re inching our way closer to spring. A rooster’s crowing, the country’s cadence. How it builds and drops off, stones skipping down a quarry’s walls. In the distance the day’s first light is a slurry of pink and gray. The cutouts of the tall pines a diorama etched in soft wood. A star that could be a planet. The light inside the stables and two horses with their heads cocked toward me, watchful. The pale sky reflects patches of frozen pools in the mud. A worker pushes a wheelbarrow and pauses to watch me, a figure in the dark with my phone. Inside the stables you can see the exposed frames and imagine it’s a nativity scene with fake straw and hand-carved statues of the ox and lamb, three Moorish-looking kings. No wonder a distant star would be such a big deal in an otherwise black winter’s sky.
The day’s first light is aquamarine, teal, turquoise and pink: a mashup like the insides of an abalone shell. Some clouds below are so knotted and dark they could be volcano plumes. And all about the scents of wet earth and farm. The ground about to freeze, soggy and cold. Ranch-style fencing and evenly spaced trees.
Every day is really like that, a chance to start anew. Same as when the calendar flips over to a new year. But you can feel that way every day if you want.
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Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir
Bill Pearse 
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