two creaking chairs

After excitedly noting there was a light on in the house as he parked his truck, bear strode into his home, greeted by four rustling, wagging mountain-dogs, one of which is “his.” At the realization that no room-mates were home a sensation begins to wash through the man. With knowledge of this sensation, the windows are opened and the back-door is propped to allow the evening spring air to wash through the wood-floored house. The dogs fly excitedly outside to romp and wrestle with one another, only to return seconds later for additional greeting of the man.

Moving to the his room in the house, he removes the stethoscope, still switched to the pediatric mode, BDU pants and the off-white, button-down shirt that today are relatively clean, having been only beseeched with the voracious sneezes of a seven month old, a pleasing option out of the range of possibilities the shirt and pants have been victims of in the past. In place of the uniform his favorite, and only, pair of Levi’s are donned, as well as a clean, but tattered tee shirt from the doorless closet. Bear picked the smallest room in the house upon moving in, the one without a closet door, as he thought, correctly. the requirement of seeing all the items in the closet every time he was in his room would promote simplicity in his life. Perhaps everyone should have no door on their closets.

Walking upstairs to the kitchen he  spills the contents of the grocery bag on the counter: the softest of  tortillas he has ever found, a small tub of sour cream, a box of fresh spinach leaves. From the shelf in the refrigerator, with the raccoon sticker used to delineate his shelf from the other room-mates, he removes a yellow pepper, salsa and cheese, as well as a can of beans from the cabinet. A pause to turn music on breaks the flow he has begun to acquire in the kitchen. The six foot tall speakers he inherited from his father upon his death bring a smile to his face each time they are powered-up. The clarity and quality of the enormous towers captivates him. Returning to the kitchen, the aforementioned sensation becomes more palpable as he sets to chopping, sautéing and mixing.

As he sits gently onto one of two remaining dining room chairs with his simple meal he hears the chair creak. A measure of fright is the first instinct, but as he stills, so does the chair. The episodes of the demise of the two previous chairs causes an episode of internal, silent laughter, if silent laughter can be called laughter at all. The first chair lost it’s status as a chair while he was hanging a picture, catastrophically failing under his feet before he had time to realize what was happening. So quickly and perfectly that he landed on his feet, with glass of wine unspilled in one hand and the drill in the other. The second failure did not create such a simple effect, but rather a long, drawn-out, slow-motion fall to the ground, and down the stairs only the night before. As he arose last night, cursing, laughing and palpating his thorax his room-mates had immersed to share in the laughter of the long-contemplated scenario of someone falling down the unprotected staircase while sitting in the dining room.

As he begins to indulge in the burrito something feels familiar, which he notes to be the familiarity of eating a simple meal alone, with spring air awash. Last year such meals were often permeated with tears, but today there is peace, even a warm-hearted sense of familiarity that brings wonder to the heart. He contemplates why he did not have this sensation during the winter months, and concludes that he often surrounded himself with many things. Perhaps the immersion, the surrounding himself with friends, activities and general busy-ness was a closet door of sorts, where his soul was being occasionally placed, out-of-sight.

bear contemplates as he dines on the reality that there is such a delicate balance between being surrounded by friends and alone time, God and world, busy-ness and silence, activity and rest…

~ by bear on 2009/05/15.