1/21/26

The sound of the cock crowing in the morning is doleful the way it peaks and trails off. It’s so cold when the headlights hit the road it is all diamonds, the frost. Up ahead it’s the old guy and his dog, and today our old dog turns 14, well into her 80s in human years. Will later buy her a bone or pig’s ear she can chew on. And it’s also the birthday of my father-in-law who would have been deep into his 80s by now too.

The cold has a smell you can imagine, combined with the pines and earth. And by the horse farms it’s the smell of the horses and stables, which they’re out tending to before sunrise. I walk fast to keep warm, finish my coffee beforehand. The cold makes my cheeks numb and reminds me of winters on the east coast, living in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, walking to work or catching the bus before I had a car. Now I’ve got it all, it seems.

The pavement markings with arrows or bicycle drawings, urban hieroglyphics. The tops of the well-manicured shrubs look iced. We creep through winter day by day. The sky gets a little brighter and one day the earth softens up once more.

There’s a line where the tops of the mountains meet the sky and it’s a mountain I’ve been to before so I can picture myself up there looking down at where I am now. And the last of the stars in the distance twinkling, goodnight. I caught the titles to some children’s books in a crate by my gear in the garage and got wistful, kicked to the side. We’re always quick to move on to what’s next, adulthood. There is much to be said for Peter Pan and the tragic look of Captain Hook, tormented by a ticking clock.

In the meadows it is all encased in frost. And the storm drains still trickle though we’ve not had rain in many days. Fog, frost, and plumes of white smoke from a chimney like some kid’s wooden choo-choo.

There was one last bit of Christmas we had in our house, a short string of bright green pine cones that lit up on a timer and looked good by the antique light-up turtle we had on the bookshelf, a dull orange. The turtle had come from my mom’s house and she kept it in the corner of the guest bathroom upstairs, which was mine when I lived there. Now we were starting to pass down lamps and paintings ourselves.

Coming back around to the last turn the light was getting peach-pink on the bottoms of the sky and I thought of him, I said Richard, you old sod. Happy birthday.

Inside the old man’s house, the guy I always see early with his dog, you can make out some of the paintings and light fixtures on his walls. I’ve never seen anyone else in there but him and his dog. The yard is perfect.

Almost home, the skin on my hands is numb and pink as salmon. All the roofs are capped in white. It’s just another day. I’ll give the dog the last of our fish and roast potatoes for dinner.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, existentialism, journal writing, Memoir, pacific northwest, prose