night life.

SO, SOMETIMES I FORGET in my tiny little verdant corner of the world that i live in what is considered an utterly urban environment...within walking distance of downtown...[where i live is technically not even suburbia, where most city mice find themselves]...and its broken sidewalks and now-schwanky 'reclaimed' historic districts were so long ago laid over wagon trails, it has mercifully escaped the blight of condo associations and gated communities and yards and color schemes that must all look the same.

there, in my little pocket of the universe, i have set about planting and growing and nourishing and tending to my own ramshackle container garden, my vegetables and herbs, my orchids and water lillies and various 'adopted' and 'volunteer' plants...and the green, and the quiet, and the wind in the leaves, fills my heart with an inexplicable comfort of breathing deep the scent of sap rising, and the joy of getting my hands dirty, touching and living close to the earth.

somenights i look out my upstairs window through the branches of various trees at the great orange moon rising over rooftops. and most often these days, when the wind comes to visit, i will stand at the window listening to the birds sing, and the dogs barking, and some neighborhood kids playing somewhere in the distance...eeking out the last seconds of their fleeting summer days before they have to pack it all in for the night. and, in my reverie, it's not hard to imagine i live somewhere where life is simpler...where there is no familiarity with the fast-pace that is all-day around us. and as the city sounds begin to quiet, and the frogs in my water garden begin to sing their night chorus, i can almost believe, this loft i live in...which used to be a carriage house for the horses nearly a century ago...is on some hillside in the south of france...or at the end of some long dusty lane, where the hours pass by with the rhythm of land.

AND THEN THERE ARE THOSE NIGHTS, THAT CAUSE ME TO REMEMBER...like last night when i woke at 3, like i often do, to haunt the midnight hours...the dormant collective memory of my family's farmer stock encoded in my DNA, even now. and wide awake, i decided to wander outside in my pajamas...who at all could possibly see me at this hour? the streetsweeper had long passed and the newspaper man had hours yet to come. and so, barefoot and with my laptop in hand...i wandered out in my garden to my car where, inexplicably, my friend Christine's wi-fi internet signal is strongest...i figured i may as well blog about the things that were turning over and over and over in my wee-hour-of-the-morning head.

now, believe me, i know i was quite a sight...computer in hand...sitting in my car...turning on occasionally the light to see where the comma is when i continually lose my bearing on the keyboard in the inky dark. and it makes me feel like a thief, or i am up to no good, because i am obviously horking internet, even though Christine has given me her password...and regularly plies me for advice on setting up a website for her...i log on with her blessing, but still...there i am...in my pajamas...steaming up my own windows, trying to keep the mosquitoes at bay. this is why i much prefer to avoid the stares of my misunderstanding neighbors, and to make good use of my predilection to need just a few hours of sleep. here i can do my internet thing in peace, and be done, long before dawn.

so there i was...somewhere around 5, and i finally determined it was a good time to wander in and officially start my day. the air was cool...even though...still...in the middle of the night, the street was warm beneath my feet...like it is an alive thing, a temperate creature, living so close to the equator, are we. i was taking my sweet time a-wandering...and enjoying how lush and green everything is, when i was nearly to my door where, what else?, BUT THE CITY'S LARGEST RAT was scurrying there and was just as stunned as i to be interrupted in his nocturnal prowls.

now...here's where my predictament became utterly laughable...because when you are out haunting your neighborhood in pajamas by the light of the moon...you tend to feel even more helpless when the only path to your front door is now intransible due to a frightened rustling RAT OF UNBELIEVABLE SIZE. and i'm aware that i may have been delusional...having been up all night, and such...but the sound that he made conjured up all the worst imaginings...i mean, clearly...i was the one out of my element...because, of course, it's my sweet garden by light of day, but MR. RAT'S ABODE ENTIRELY at night. and so, i felt decidedly at his mercy...and i thought, if he feels cornered, will he charge?

after stomping my feet a few times as a warning...i decided what i would do...back to my car for the sweater i always keep in the trunk...[yes, it's the middle of summer...but for the most part, society lives in a state of artificial, ice cold AC winter indoors, all-year-long.] i decided since i clearly already looked insane...and truth be told, had crazily spent the better part of the whole night out-of-doors, i would seem even nuttier and play the matador to get to my front door. if THE RAT decided to charge...at the very least maybe i could keep his nibbly teeth away from my terribly vulnerable toes.

and so, it goes, that at 5 a.m. this morning, i was swinging my cape wildly at the underbrush...trying, desperately, to avoid a run-in with the nightlife in my bare feet. absurd? most definitely...i had to giggle at all my most dreadful thoughts: with teeth like he had...it took me awhile to convince myself that he wouldn't care to dare to chew his way through my front door. and so, i now know...i will share my night haunts with his kind...but it won't give me pause, even to step out in my pajamas...i have long wandered the world by streetlight...but, next time i go...i'll most certainly remember to slip on some shoes...and carry a broom...pretty witch-like and fitting for a redhead who's frequently out wandering the world in the middle of the night.

not webfeat exercise, but webbed-feet exercise. in other words: night sounds. and that one about a duck.

when i was a child, our family had a jet black duck named "Downy".
i'm not quite sure how, in a household with three small children, my single mother happened to acquiesce to a pet. i'm certain Downy was some kind of rescued stray, and also certain that the fact we could keep him required some kind of finagling from my older brother. but we had our duck and were determined to cherish our unique pet. thing is, i remember Downy as a small, li'l bit ... smacking his little duckling feet across the terrazzo kitchen like one of those old-timey wooden push toys we knew as toddlers. and toddle away he did. following first me, then my brother all. over. the house. i remember his rubbery beak, and the way he'd dip his whole face toward the water bowl just to throw his soft little head back for one tiny sip. but as all creatures are wont to do, Downy didn't stay soft or young forever and rather quickly grew into a troubled adolescent. considering his natural tendencies and realizing he had no duckling mother to show him the ropes, we each took turn out in the yard tossing little Downy into the air and watching him earn his wings on the way down ... there was a lot of down ... thus his nickname that stuck ... i don't even remember what he was called before he developed this humorous habit of pretending he didn't know how to fly. this business went on for nearly 2 full years as we would accompany our pet duck outside and he would appear wholly disinterested in the wide, blue world of sky that could easily belong to him in a way we could never know as earthbound humans. and then something happened. Downy fell in love. and as his charming lass of a suitor lingered around the yard, Downy answered the siren's call one day and flew away. now. of course we were worried. would he make it in a cruel, primitive world? how can you know your domestic duck has what it takes to mingle in the animal world? it's like being the late bloomer at a high school party. would he know what to say? what to do? how to act? could he fly just enough under the radar to survive? so we worried. and worried. and waited. for what? we were not sure. and sure enough, it came. one day, we went out to the back yard to hang laundry on the line, and there was Downy running along the line of the roof. feet smacking just like in his tiny bird days. smack, smack, smack, smack, quack, quack, smack. oh, he was a wild one, after all...and had blossomed into quite a strong little personality we soon discovered. this vocal chattiness would continue even when we'd go back inside...gone were the days when Downy would come in and join us...but he didn't want to leave us either. [a typical teenager, after all]. i suppose after all, we felt like home. he'd run back and forth all over the roof. a slightly more muffled clap, clap, clap, clap from the inside. all. night. long. all. season. long. and seasons came and went and Downy would be gone and return to pace the roof and fly down into the yard only to chase my mother and me around every. single. time we'd try to hang our sheets in the breeze. he'd be there...pecking at our feet [love pecks, no doubt]. then the year came when Downy did not come. i'd never thought i'd miss that sound...infernal clopping. all night long. but, i did. and we feared the worst for our fine, feathered friend. winter, and then spring...and Downy came home again...much to our relief...this cycle continued long enough for it to stick with me still...now, some 26 years later.

there are times, like this one, late at night...when alone in my loft on this city block far, far away from that childhood home that i hear that same clap, clapping on my roof. it's caused me to open wide my great moon-saucers of eyes staring deep into the black of night as if i could see through the beams of my ceiling to...what?? what kind of creature i've never seen? here in this place of old historic neighborhoods and alleyways far away from the more rural landscape of my youth, it's probably some behemoth possum running back and forth on my roof. but, late nights, like this one, i like to think past the probable...and imagine that, it's my little soft duck friend having found his way home.