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A Spring Morning
By: slider

The morning is cool. The rain from the night before has left the garden damp and everything has a fresh coat of moisture clinging to it. A few stubborn clouds drift lazily off to the eastern sky and meet the rising sun. Grudgingly, they disappear into the horizon leaving the sun dominion in its azure kingdom. Slowly, mist begins to rise with the warmth of a new day, and Charles awakes with the sunlight creeping across the bedroom floor, up on the bed, and into his weathered face. He lies for a while, his eyes closed, and enjoys the warmth on his hollow cheeks. With the routine of a thousand mornings he rises and shuffles to the bathroom. A quick shower wets his almost grey hair. What was once a glorious mane is now a short bristle more for comfort than looks. He dries himself, looks in the mirror and decides that he doesn’t really need to shave today. The garden isn’t going to care about his looks anyway. He dresses methodically, pulling on jeans and struggling, pulls on his favorite twill shirt. It’s soft and faded with just a hint of the original blue that has almost disappeared in a hundred washings. Pulling on socks and shoes, he make’s a mental note to buy another pair of jeans. He is wearing the last pair without holes in the knees. His wife would never have let him out the door in this ratty-looking shirt and even though the jeans technically didn’t have holes in them, you could see this was their last trip. But that was years ago and his wife was no longer there to tell him what to wear. His daughter came by once a week to check on him, but he knew her schedule and always put on the khakis and a shirt from a couple of Christmases ago before she arrived. It had been almost a year and she still hadn’t noticed it was the same pants and same shirt every time she stopped at the house. Most times, he was back in his work clothes before she pulled away from the curb.

The cat strolls into the bedroom to see if breakfast is about to happen. It’s almost five minutes later than usual, and she sits and gives her best stare. Properly admonished, Charles gets up from the bed, finds a cap that doesn’t look too bad, and pulls it on as he walks to the kitchen. With the cat properly fed he turns to the refrigerator, opens the door and peers in. He knows he should eat something, but he isn’t really hungry. He grabs a little can of tomato juice - that’s food isn’t it? - and walks to the back door. Retracing his steps, he picks up his glasses off the nightstand and remembers to put his gloves in his back pocket. Sometimes it takes three trips just to get out the backdoor. He unlocks the door and opens it wide. The air is moist and sweet in his nostrils. He steps out and the iris next to the door greet him with a delicious pungency. He smiles, just happy to be outside, and then the frown. Damn it. He left the tomato juice on the nightstand. Once more, he trundles back to the bedroom and picks up the can of tomato juice. Back through the kitchen, he opens the refrigerator and puts the can on the shelf. Shutting the door he reminds himself that he had better eat something for lunch, even if he still isn’t hungry. He leaves the backdoor open for the cat. She’ll want to come out and find a perch on the deck to sun herself. He mutters to himself as he moves toward the garden shed that he’d better not have forgotten anything else ‘cause it could just damn well sit in the house till noon.

Charles’ garden is really his whole yard. He started many years ago taking out lawn and putting in piles of dirt that became sculpted islands with large rocks set into the work to provide a feel of nature and a foil for the specimen plants he dearly loved. The neighbors watched and smiled through the years and whispered among themselves as to the old man’s intentions, wondering if the value of their neatly trimmed white picket fenced lawns was going up or down as Charles tore out grass, brought in truckload after truckload of dirt and piled it here and there. Slowly, it all began to come together, small trees, bushes and understory plants began to appear and after about five years the neighbors were finally impressed enough to tell Charles what a wonderful job it was, and that he was really creative and talented and where did he learn landscaping.? The local garden club sent a delegation of pink haired judges out and they took pictures and gave Charles a certificate that stated more or less that he was a fine fellow and a credit to the neighborhood. Charles smiled and was as gracious as was possible for him under the circumstances. Yeah, he had a vision, but it was five years of damned hard work, every dime he could scrounge and the last two years the only thing creative was figuring out how to roll out of bed and get upright without falling down again. Those last two years saw a cup of coffee and a healthy splash of brandy for breakfast every day just to get out the door. Creative talented landscaper? Hell no. A “bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew bullheaded numbskull” was closer to the mark. And they kept calling him “Charlie”. He hated that. His name was Charles but they insisted on calling him Charlie. He really didn’t know why it bothered him, his friends called him Charlie, and everyone who had known him over a lifetime called him Charlie, but the neighbors? He didn’t even know half of them. The pink hairs? He only knew one of them, and he didn’t much care for her when they were in school together, and that was a long time ago. He wanted to get up in their faces and say, “ my name is Charles you damned fools.” ‘Oh well, too old for any dignity‘, he muttered to himself. ‘Let ‘em call me whatever they want.’

On the way to the shed he checks the bird feeder, he has special mix of various seeds for the finches and it’s almost empty. Lots of seed scattered on the ground. Stupid squirrels. He had fought with them for years, bribed them with nuts, and they still wouldn’t leave the bird feeder alone. He continues on to the shed to get bird feed, a pair of anvil hand shears, and the waste bucket. He notes to himself, need to get more plastic trash bags, almost out. Back to the bird feeder and he fills it only half way. Just enough to last till dark. When the squirrels are down for the night, he’ll fill it again and it’ll be good for the morning. Charles loves the finches. Sometimes, in the evening when he sits on the deck, the bushes around the feeder are sprinkled with black and yellow ornaments flitting back and forth, better than Christmas. He puts the bag of bird seed away and picks up the shears and the bucket. He has to shear the heads of the perfume roses before the sun dries them out and they lose their esters. About half way through, he hears the phone ringing. Let it ring. He has to get the petals into the drying racks and into the shade or they won’t be any good. A good picking this morning, almost a half bucket.

Now the story of the perfume roses is an odd one because Charles had never much cared to have roses on the place. They didn’t fit in with the natural plantings that was the dominant feature of the garden, and yet here they were. Every once in awhile, someone would ask Charles why roses? And he’d just shrug and walk off. No one knew why perfume roses, a few close friends knew that he had spent some pretty healthy money and had gathered them from all over the world, but they weren’t very pretty, they just smelled wonderful. A couple of his oldest friends thought it might have been because of a special woman, but it couldn’t have been his wife, who because of her severe allergies, wasn’t a flower person. Charles never said, but he tended the roses as if they were the most special thing in the garden. About twice during the growing season he would pack up the dried petals and ship them. When asked where, all he said was back east. No one but his daughter knew exactly where ‘back east‘, but when asked, she would just smile and change the subject. No one really knows the real story behind the roses - except Charles and maybe his daughter.

Mr. And Mrs. Whats-their-names from down the street slowly walk by. She fell and broke her hip about a year ago and has to use a walker, but they’re out every morning for a walk around the block, except when it’s icy in the winter. They say hello and tell Charles how nice the garden looks. He really doesn’t want to, but he picks a couple of rose buds and takes them over to the Mrs. and tells her she ought to leave the geezer and come live with him. Everybody laughs and they say their thanks and goodbyes . Charlie walks back into the yard. Funny how the old women like to hear that somebody wants them, even if they know it’s a lie, and the men get a kick out of it too. Big yucks. Sort of stupid, but Charles tries to be up for stupid if it looks needed.

Back in the yard, his legs begin shaking and he moves to the stone bench in the filtered shade of the honey locust. Sitting as still as he can, he focuses on breathing deeply and rhythmically. Nine days in the hospital with pneumonia last November leaves him without much energy. The cool bench gives him a little relief, and he watches a cloud of bees make love to a patch of lemon thyme. Another spring, another spring day. He hadn’t been sure he was going to have this spring day last November. Neither did anyone else. The daughter had called her brothers home just in case. One had to fly in from the east coast. Charles hadn’t know anything about that until a week had passed. The daughter had refused to let him go home and kept him at her house till the middle of January. He was glad to get back on his own. Everyone had been more than caring, but Charles was too independent to not want his own space again. He sits and thinks about this fine spring day. He smells the flower blooms, feels the soft breeze, watches the bees at work and wonders if there will be another spring for him. Probably not. So he had better enjoy this one a lot.

Feeling better, he slowly gets up from the bench and makes his way slowly to the house. He’d better see if that phone call was the daughter, because he’ll need to call back or she’ll have the son-in-law over here checking on him. He needs to think of something for lunch, but he still isn’t hungry. What he needs is a nap. He decides to nap first, and then maybe get something to eat. After the nap he’ll mow the little lawn in the back. The grass will be dry by then, and he’ll feel up to it most likely. He goes to the bedroom, sits on the edge of the bed and pulls off his shoes. He rolls into the pillow, pulls a comforter over his legs, and begins to drift off. It had been such a lovely spring morning.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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