Here I Am

It's as dark as just-after-sunset here in Lloyd this morning, rain starting to come down, thunder rumbling in the distance, occasional flashes of lightening. Last night as I sat on the porch with my husband I said that today I would be going to town to buy flowering plants and groceries and it seemed like such a sweet, easy thing to do but I had not counted on this weather.

There are goldfinches at the feeder. They do not seem to mind the rain at all, nor do the cardinals who dine easily with the smaller birds. Elvis crows in the side yard and I imagine that soon he and the hens will be on the kitchen porch, protected from the rain and hoping for the door to open and food to magically appear. Those birds are bold. Yesterday Ozzie, who is the boldest of all, snatched a piece of cracker right from Gibson's hand and he looked amazed that such a thing could happen but he did not cry. Owen feeds Elvis by hand and Elvis politely and gently pecks the proffered food but never nips the  hand. The chickens are like humans in that some are shy and some are not. Elvis takes food and invariably drops it for the hens to come and eat, making his call to them. He is the best rooster in the world.

I just went into the kitchen for more coffee and to start oatmeal and here is what I found.

I know my chickens. 

Feed the husband, feed the chickens and feed the sourdough starter. I have let it go for two weeks and I hope it is not dead. I do not think it is. 

The rain is pouring now. The oatmeal is cooking, the chickens have moved on, probably under the porch where they will take shelter. I think of the grocery store, the plant nursery, they seem a million miles away. Everything seems a million miles away right now. The rain curtains my house and here, inside, it is light and safe. Out there- ah well, who knows? I wonder what in the world has happened to me to make me so loathe to leave home. I think about it and I honestly am not sure. I am not afraid and yet, I am not not-afraid either. 

The Bradford pears are starting to put out bloom which looks, from the distance, like cotton balls attached to bare limbs. My ashe magnolia seems to be about to bloom as well and I suddenly realize that the camellia nearest the bird feeder has shot up at least two feet in the last month. Do I make so much of each small thing which happens here from the turning of the finches from gray to golden to the blooming of each plant and tree into something big enough to keep me interested, curious, content enough to rationalize staying right here? 

I do not know. But the oatmeal is ready, the rain is slacking. I AM going to town. I want flowers to plant, we are out of apples and bananas. But first I will do the homey things of making the bread dough and setting it to rise, the making of the bed, the starting of the laundry. I WILL go away and it is not a million miles, only twenty or so, and I will come home and even in the short time I will have been gone, the blooms will be increased, the chickens will have laid their individual pastel eggs, the bread will have risen some, I hope. 

It is just a rainy Saturday morning on a tiny spot of land in North Florida and we are living a life here and somehow, I try to make myself believe it is enough, more than enough, and either it truly is or else I am delusional. 

Either one of those possibilities is the truth. 

Good morning.