The Peaceful End of Day

The Peaceful End of Day

It has very suddenly become summer here on this hilltop this week. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt a season come on me so quickly and assuredly. One day it was cold, too cold for shorts, too cold to dine on the patio, too cold to see buds on plants. In the last two days that has all changed. I am wearing shorts every day, probably not to do otherwise until October or November (except in polite company, of course). We ate on the patio last night and spoke about how pleasant it was in the evening with the tower fire pit on for effect and to take whatever normal night air chill there was. And today, while I was watering the garden (something I choose to do to force myself to check on all my plants every day or so, not necessarily because the irrigation system isn’t doing its job) I noted that almost all of my bonsai are budding. The maples, the redwoods, the willow, the Chinese elm, the boxtree all have new growth. The asparagus fern never looked any different all winter long, nor did the Mugo Pine and the Juniper, both evergreen. The only one that has yet to bud is the pyracantha, but I do not know it’s expected schedule. It’s like my lame Crepe Myrtle down by the entrance, I will assume the worst until the end of April and if there are no buds/leaves by then, I will declare them dead and move on. I’ve managed to kill several bonsai outside and Kim has done likewise with several inside. It turns out that this gardening thing is not all plug and play. There is actually some skill involved in the care and feeding of unusual plants.

I know that it is best to water plants after the heat of the day has passed, but this week it is so pleasant out (mid-seventies to low-eighties with a pleasant cooling breeze) that I have been doing my watering in what can only be called the late afternoon. I’ve convinced myself that this is not bad for them since it’s not as though it’s getting scorching hot and that I’ll be blanching the plants. And watering the gardens in the afternoon just feels good to me. I love my hilltop and I love to stand and appreciate it for the time it takes me to water the Cecil Garden and the patio garden. And now it is the late afternoon, with the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean and the yellowing part of the day coming in through every westward window in the house except where the deck palapa blocks it from parts of the living room. I sit and languish in in what Kazuo Ishiguro, the British Nobel-laureate, would call the remains of the day.

It is a peaceful time and I am at peace with myself and my situation. My transition from CEO to Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the little hydrogen company happened today (or at least it was agreed and my resignation letter sent effective today since it is the end of March). I have expert witness testimony to do on Friday on a case with which I am completely comfortable. I have been added to the roster of University of San Diego ethics teachers for next Spring semester (my Fall course will once again be on project financing). My deck project is quickly drawing to a close with only a few more days of work to do as the clean-up has already begun. My gardener comes on Friday to put ten yards of bark mulch under the deck and lay down two of my planned wildflower meadows. I feel good about all of this.

I have only a few vestigial responsibilities and one of them is at 6pm for a call with Hong Kong. My plan was to have the call and then inform the Counterparty that I was retiring and they should deal with the Chairman, who would be on the call. Then, the biggest thing I have to worry about is one last board call and the next three months of planned travel. So, imagine my surprise when at 5:55pm I get an urgent cell phone call from Kim telling me that she has fallen about a half mile from the house while walking Betty and she cannot get up and needs help. Of course I dropped everything, talked to my colleague and said he would have to handle the call.

I jumped in the car and drove to where she said she had fallen and there she was, on the ground next to Betty. Now Kim has two artificial knees that have been a Godsend for her over the past five years and this is the first time she has traumatized one of them. She feels her right knee is not right and needs to be iced fast. I get her and Betty home and situated with ice packs and then go back to reflecting on the day.

All the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. It is funny that the saying coined by Rabbie Burns, the National Bard of Scotland (where all our hydrogen research takes place) in the late Eighteenth Century in his poem To A Mouse should fit my circumstances so aptly. Just when you think everything is set for your plan and its time to relax the way you intended, life decides otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, I hope a little bit of ice on the knee and Kim will be back in business, and yet even if we are lucky and that is the case, it is good to be reminded that you need to stay flexible.

Kim is younger than me by five years, but we are both people of a certain age and whether it is my health or her health or my state of mind or her state of mind or my family or her family, shit can and often does happen. The trick may be to not necessarily expect that it will (that would be too pessimistic), but at least not be surprised by it if it does and know how to take it in its stride.

To begin with, nothing is as important as each other and our families. Everything else takes a way way back seat. And, of course, that is far easier to say than to do, but it must be so. I dropped everything tonight for Kim and she would certainly do the same for me. And the impact that this prioritization has on anything else that really matters in my life is nil. The truth is that Kim’s knee has suddenly become the most import thing in our lives. It will determine our short and medium term priorities at very least. I may be walking Betty for a living in the near term.

So the peaceful end of day that I saw before me this afternoon when I started this story suddenly took an unanticipated twist. My day is a little less peaceful than I thought it would be, but all is still well because the home front is all that matters at this point.