Country Life

Ah, the idle existence of the rural squire!

Having successfully trundled our worldly possessions to the new country estate via donkey cart and native porter, we reversed polarity and began extracting the juice from the mass of boxes in the garage.

Gather your life up and compress it into the smallest possible volume, then shoot forward, expanding outward at the next leg of the journey like an octopus darting between reefs.

That's moving.

The new bed arrived this morning, annoyingly.
We moved our old bed and wrestled it upstairs despite looming obsolescence.
I'd have happily slept on the floor for a few days, but babies impose their perspective on events.

We've been welcomed to the neighborhood by a new cast of bird friends.
An owl landed outside the bedroom window on our first full night, and the trees framing the back yard showcase several competing flocks. The idea of seeding the expanse of the backyard with bird and bee friendly foliage is remarkably pleasant.

We've adopted the habit of a daily walk to the bay around sunset.
The little nature preserve at the end of the block clones the milieu of my youth, before houses conquered all.
It's an eerie feeling, persistent deja vu.

When I was seven or eight I ran through an identical landscape on a much grander scale with my dog.
Mom worked full time and the single channel on the teevee was no match for the sprawl of nature (although I always found time for Match Game & Joker's Wild).

I started finding pointed stakes with cool colored ribbons tied to them stuck in the ground, spoor left by surveyors parceling out the fields.
They were great spears for rabbit hunting.
I made a game of collecting as many as I could carry, dragging bundles to my hideout in a sprawling stand of dwarf oaks surrounded by a moat of poison oak.

By the end of the day they were stacked head-high in the main 'room' of my little cathedral.

I'm sure that drove someone crazy.

In the movie of my life we can frame this scene like the natives first glimpse of British ships through the trees in The New World, innocent in the face of absolute transformation.