#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

. . . it’s terrifying to realize

anything all at once,

as the first drop of rain to touch you

makes you realize it is raining.

~ Excerpt from “Field,” by Chessie Normile

Frank is, once again, the hero of this story. Though I am a hero too sometimes, I must practice humility here. Because when I finally got out of bed today, and I didn’t want to, really, I was so Decembered, I stayed in bed and forced myself to be still. And maybe that’s what happened to my phone. It wouldn’t light up, it wouldn’t turn on. My phone was rebelling against December too. And it’s pretty new to this world. A first December for this phone, an I-phone 14, born in October of this year, and already it says, enough December! I’m out! But, I felt the phone owed me a better return on my investment. I tried so many things to get it to light up. All the fixes. Nothing fixed. I asked everyone younger than me in the house: can you fix this? What a perplexing phone. I resolved to go to the Apple Store and try not to shout at anyone. Then, Frank came home, and he tried to fix it again. I insisted we go to the Apple Store. So, he tried making me an appointment for tomorrow, but I wanted my phone to light up today. Then he called Apple support and handed the phone to me and I said, no, I don’t want to talk to them, I want someone to fix it in person. I handed the phone back and left the room, but he didn’t give up, because he didn’t want to go to the Apple Store with me. The next thing I knew he was talking to an actual Apple Genius on the phone, and then this genius was giving him ideas and walking him through the fix of my phone. And, pretty much a few minutes later my phone lit up.

I think Frank was kind of the hero of another story today. My daughter and the special one and I walked to the river before Frank got home and we saw a gaggle of geese on the other side of the river, and before that, I spotted a pileated woodpecker and my daughter was thrilled! After the geese counting on the other side of the river, we came to a patch of fur on our path. And then, well, I won’t go into all the details here. An animal had been killed on our property. Near the wetlands. It was pretty graphic. My daughter, my youngest, was quite enthralled and went toward this issue while I shrunk away. This animal had antlers. It was a buck. Coyotes have been here. She said, it’s the cycle of life! And she said she would come back with her boyfriend. Well, after my phone was fixed by Frank I went for a swim with my other daughter and when we got home there was a pair of antlers in a pot on the stove. She had gone with her father to survey the scene, draw conclusions, clear up the site, and take the antlers. Well, I was kind of shocked and bothered, but I tried to be a good sport as my daughter was so in love with the antlers. Turns out her boyfriend didn’t want to be involved, but of course her father was game with his hand saw. No hunters in this crowd at all. Tonight, the antlers have found a home on our new mantlepiece over the fireplace, my daughter’s idea. And I like them there after all. They are so solid, so heavy, so gorgeous! Bless the buck who grew them. My daughter and her boyfriend solved the mystery of how this buck perished. Probably a hunter from the field across the river (legal to hunt there) took a shot at the deer and didn’t kill it. And it swam across the river to our land and found a place to lie down. But it was bleeding from the wound. And the coyotes that roam at night must have smelled that blood. And they made the most of it, as they would. I think they are right. There has been so much talk in this home over the past week about reindeer. And a reindeer with white lights and a bow stands in the yard by the stone wall and we glance out at him with pleasure in the dark. And we have been talking so much about reindeer that the special one from his seat in the back of the car, on his way home from school, sees them everywhere. “Are they walking or flying?” I ask. And always they are flying. Soon enough their feet will land on our roof.