Late for breakfast

January 26, 2023

Waking this morning, I am startled into alertness. Not the foggy anxiety of foreboding but a sense of panic that drifts around my forehead and gets into the dryness in my mouth. Then, as I glance at the clock and see the muted sky outside the window, I understand I am late. Not late for work, school, or a meeting but for the animals. The dog, the cats, and, particularly, the donkeys. And that what has pierced through my sleep is the foghorn coming from outside. The wind-up of the braying starts low and weighted, like a diesel engine in the cold, and then gains momentum and clarity as the length of the notes grows higher and then repeats, and then Iris joins in. It is Frida first. Always Frida, because for her, timing is essential. All donkeys like regularity. Not only for breakfast in the snow but for dinner, walks, and outings. And then Diego, small that he is, joins in with his melancholy, deep-pitched, train-like braying, louder now like the locomotive is approaching and terribly close now and really because they are just outside my window, in the field beyond my bedroom, not up at the barn where they sometimes are, when the nights are particularly frigid where there is the shelter in the dirt stalls with their small gates that remind me of schoolyard gates. Not the main gates of a school but the side gates that lead to side paths or little areas of grass or to the place we used to call the fairy walk, not that it was particularly fairy-like, littered with trash and dark and steep when you walked towards the school day--impossibly long and full of snide remarks from girls who alighted from Mercedes and BMWs and never walked or sweated or seemed to worry about money-- with a backpack full of history books, a hockey stick in one hand and a guitar in the other. But those days are gone, and here I am in a glorious place far away with a farm and donkeys and those sharply peaked mountains in the distance, holding the possibility of things to come.

Frida sees me now as I rise and pushes to the red metal square that I will throw the hay in once I am dressed. I am not terribly late. It is 7.07, but I am often outside dressed by 7. The seven minutes are an insult, and Frida wants the world to know; the neighbors and the one small magpie that sits on the tipi post, and my dog, Banjo, the loyal border collie, whose nails I hear now clicking nervously in the kitchen because she too is aware that breakfast is late. It could be the sort of day that I do not arise at all, but that never happens. That cannot occur on a farm. Someone that someone being me, the owner, the sole caregiver, the food distributor, the water filler, the weather watcher, the exerciser, the one in charge must always rise and feed everyone, or else chaos would ensue.

So as I fill the small percolator, the Italian style coffee maker, the sufficient for one strong coffee maker, there is no need for the fancy, grind the beans, clean all the parts espresso makers that take up so much counter space in all the Boulder homes and even in Australia, as I put the request three scoops of dark Lavazza coffee into the part that I actually do clean and fill the lower part that is shaped like an eight sided pavilion with water, and screw it all together and light the gas flame on low and then move to the small cupboard near the front door where I stand cold from the winter air coming from under the door and pull on my maroon-- the color of dried blood-- work pants on then my green, sage green, but lighter really than sage, Carhart coat and put the hood over my head, the dog prancing beside me as I shove the bagging blood colored pants into black shin high rubber boots and find my good gloves, the ones I am grateful for buying though I thought the price of $25 was ridiculous at the time but am now happy that I have them as they are the only ones I have found that really keep out the cold, and when I step outside and Iris see me she starts her staccato bray and it is erratic and syncopated as though the cold of the air makes it hard for her lungs to gain the full strength needed for a single note. And I shuffle the few steps to the hay bales. The hay sits on a pallet so the snow can not wet and mold it. And I count the steps in Spanish, ono, dos, tres, cuatro, Cinco, seis, because I am learning Spanish. The man says to use it daily in everything I do. By Ocho, I am gathering the four big flakes on my shoulder. Then I walk nuevo, dias, once, until I reach the gap beside the gate where I can fit because if I turn sideways, I am thin enough to slip through while hoisting the hay over the fence. Invariably there is Maitai, the dark bay horse, ready to grab a snatch of hay and unsettle my counting as I try to maneuver past her and get the entire lot into the feeder, which I do. The four of them, tres burros y ono Cabello, gather, push, and find their place with their heads into the feeder. I say, "Buenos dias," but nobody cares as they are munching already. Then through deeper snow, I trudge to the water trough, where I take the shovel that fits neatly into one of the hollow white plastic posts that stand near the trough. I break the ice with the shovel end. My gloves, worth the $25, hold the wood end as I chip away and make small glass jagged islands which I scoop from the trough and throw onto the snow so that eventually the water is water, not ice, and they can drink. Banjo is beside me. Banjo is beside herself, whatever that strange phrase means, but to me, it means she is very excited because she knows she is closer to getting fed. Only Olive and Nigel are left before her. And they are cats. The barn cats. Olive is fatter and friendlier, and Nigel is somewhat cautious and aloof, but both pad through the snow, through the big gate to the garden, and eventually to the shed where their food is kept in a metal trash can which I scoop with the white plastic scooper and drop into two bowls, never sure how much to give them but always enough. And then, leaving the shed, I remember to turn and look at the ancient rock formations where the sun is filtering through like a slow light. This morning the rocks are pink because of it. I am happy and remember to stand there, look, and be grateful that I see what I see. I remember a poem by Stephen Dunn, who I like because he is accessible as a poet and not writing dreary things with big words. However, he does know about heartache, which is comforting to me, because he knows how to say it, not the heartache itself. He says things like Lousie Gluck says though perhaps she says them better because she is female, things like "Interesting, how we fall in love: in my case, absolutely. Absolutely, and alas, often—" which I find true about myself and as I think this Banjo whimpers because I am not moving, not trudging in Spanish towards her dish and her food. So I move on, caminando, which seems I would be in command in my mind but is not true as my legs are not my own in their dried blood-colored pants but of another person's who would be more in command and not late and not worried about things that will come creeping back after I fill Banjo's bowl and say to her "comes" which is you can eat which needs to be said before she begins because somewhere in her past, in her puppy life of scrapping in the streets of New Mexico, before the pet rescue picked her up nobody told her she could eat and this and other atrocities that might have occurred make her edgy and the opposite of complacent and I think that is why we understand each other. And as I return the work pants and the sage green coat to their hooks in the cupboard and stand once again in my blue baggy pajama shorts and grey t-shirt, I smell the coffee, remember the worries, and then switch the thoughts to one of planning as this is best. And finding the small grey mug I like for coffee, though there are many to choose from; I recall how it came up on Instagram once that the mug you drink your coffee from is important even though we do not know why, and I am happy to say that this is part of it. The good mug, the good coffee, the strength of it, the blackness, no milk, no sugar, just the purity of coffee, all of this plus this line from Richard Wilbur," I felt myself alone, In a life too much my own."

Frida’s story