. . . and sometimes, under the house.
It is in the garden that life and death arrive on the regular. I witness living and dying primarily in the plants, grasses and weeds that come and go. I’m ever aware that when I pay attention, the garden is a valuable teacher.
As a small child, living with my grandmother and near two aunts, I learned to talk with the plants. They were my friends and I still find comfort in knowing that when one of my plants succumbs to the hotter than average Riverside summers, that my crispy friend will be a part of the life-death-life process of planet earth. It returns to the earth as mulch, or to the recycle bin to be major-mulch, when its life-force wanes.
My yard, about two miles from the downtown area, is not considered rural at all. Yet, living in Riverside for the past 16 years, I’ve done many a double-take when seeing wild foxes, coyotes, racoons, and opossums. In Riverside?
It shouldn’t really surprise me, since the Santa Ana River flows through our town. The largest river that is completely in California finds its source in San Bernardino and continues into Orange County, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Most of the year it’s a trickle, but it’s prone to fierce flash floods during the rainy season.
For the first time in sixteen years one of the creatures decided to nest in the space under my house.
Was it an opossum? From what I could hear below the floor in my living room, it sounded like a large animal. One year, on a holiday, we found a giant opossum in the garage and the Human Society came and picked it up by the tail and saved the day. Might it be another opossum?
After some time of guessing I learned the truth.
She showed herself.
A smallish racoon passed by me at dusk while I was working on the patio. She barely noticed me. Walking on the grass, near the fence, she proceeded to climb a small chain link fence in the corner, presumably to hunt for the evening meal.
Now we get to the widowed part.
While in charge of “all the things” since my husband passed, how do you expect I might react to wild homesteaders beneath the floor?
Can my nervous system handle one-more-thing??
And the life-death part.
Being all too familiar for the past three years with death, there is something in me that is:
- constantly expecting it — again
- all too good at imagining it
- tending to project its arrival at any moment and in many forms — in technicolor! 🙁
Yes, I called the human society who are no longer providing the service we used previously.
Yes, I called the wildlife line (repeatedly) who must be vacationing in vast jungles of New Zealand since no one called me back.
Then there’s my very own bestie-beastie.
I wish I had a picture of my son’s solution. A remote control car with a spare phone set to video. Beyond my fears about alarming what I presumed were babies, it seemed important to have the intel.
Barely able to conceal his delight, he activated the rover to scan the underbelly of the house.
My anxiety did not allow me to look.
It took very little time for the verdict to come in.
“Three babies almost the size of their mama,” he said.
(giant sigh . . . )
And here, on Wednesday, May 29th, I leave you on this cliff.
To be continued . . .
