Val’s Morning Meander
The Meeting Place. TWENTY-SIX.
Val had discovered the gentler path to the gulch after a tumble down the steep hill in her socks and sandals back when living in the country was a la-di-da of self-expression not a set of rules that kept bones from breaking. On a practical whim, she had taken the newfound circuitous route back to the cabin. Life is a circle not a straight line, she had drawn in green ink in her journal the next day in a word spiral that impersonated the declaration. Over the years, she and the dogs had traveled the more grated path hundreds if not thousands of times.
When she was younger, nothing intimidated her ankles, knees, wrists, and elbows. Now she knew the underbrush hid loose rocks, barbed wire, broken branches. If she fell, what then? Whom would she call? And would they come eventually or not at all? Symptoms of her social isolation included the fact that she left her cell on the counter by the notepad as if it were the rotary dial from childhood. Her most practical and only neighbor, a mile down the road, had suggested venturing about with a stout stick wearing a fishing vest outfitted with everything from a tourniquet to a whistle. Val appreciated the advice but had dismissed it after a mind-numbing phone search for the perfect apparel. Women’s or men’s? Camo or khaki? Puffed or limp? The incessant scroll offered nothing. Infinite choice was a prison all its own. Besides, why be burdened with one more set of pockets. Her stubbornness was born of faith or foolishness depending on the day.
The path sloped to a rock landing above a crescent of green earth where the river lapped in flirty syncopation on that June morning. Val had leaned her fishing pole alongside a ponderosa pine and dug into her apron pocket, a compromise, for the bait she had scooped up from the compost pile. She unwound the worm from the whistle. More than anything, she was glad life had become less complicated — fewer things to unpack. She wedged the pole between two loosely-engineered rocks and left the line to drag in the drift.
As she praised the spice flower’s blooms and the purple sweet peas volunteering alongside it, either a current or a fish yanked the pole into the flow. She watched it almost make the bend, get caught in a rick of boulders, and then spied remnants of the half dozen others she had lost in the morning trances of other seasons. Better to make a walking stick than another pole, she reasoned. Fishing hadn’t fed her stomach or her soul, even when the gettin’ was good.
Gypsy and Lucille pawed a pile of leaves under a canyon oak until a black lizard raced up the bark, a clatter of paws scratching toward it. Val had trained the mutts against yelping. That was reserved for the appearance of humans and only when she threw the signal. “What IS it?” she’d query in a high pitched voice, and then they’d go at it like carnies on the midway. “It’s okay now. Stop.” She’d hold up her hand in a halt motion, and they’d take to their haunches beside her, patient for the habitual treat.
Rising into the clearing at the far side of the meadow as the sun burst over the treetops, Val wondered about the morning’s lesson. The lost pole? The blossoms? The lizard? Did there have to be a lesson at all? Only if she wanted there to be. Today getting home with the whistle still in her pocket was enough.
The Meeting Place note: Val’s story appears non-linearly. Check out earlier companion posts to this one. The Meeting Place is a jigsaw of fictional vignettes hosting several female characters destined to cross paths. The series began with The Meeting Place. ONE. (May 12, 2022).
