Once, when I lived in Asheville, North Carolina, my eleven-year-old son and I were leaving for our apartment for classes.
We lived in Montfort, an older neighborhood with eighty-year-old homes, enormous maples and oaks, and gardens that might have popped out of a painting by Monet. As we walked toward the car, one of Asheville’s many eccentrics was walking on the sidewalk near us, a bearded man with purple hair, tattoos, piercings, and an outfit that might have been put together by a blind clerk at a Goodwill Store. My son looked up at me and said, “Sometimes I feel like I am living in a dream.”
Today I feel the same way.
On the road, I stopped in the early morning at a coffee shop beside a river where two geese paraded by with their nine little ones. The sun was shining through the trees and bouncing off the water, and the subsequent day’s drive brought such treats as rolling hills, farms that looked like postcards, and enormous clouds spiraling into the heavens.
At a rest stop 300 miles from home, I entered the men’s room and stood in front of urinal. As I finished that business, I turned and saw myself being stared at by a man, hands on his hips, near the exit door. As I walked toward the sinks to wash up, the man said, “Mr. Minick?”
Assuming I was to be arrested for some crime unknown to me, I replied, “I’m Jeff Minick.”
“I’m Mr. Teo,” the man said, and stuck out his hand. Everything clicked, and I asked him about his two children whom I had once taught in Asheville. He filled me in on their accomplishments, and for ten minutes we talked in the men’s restroom. When he left, I washed my hands and went to my car, regretting I had not recognized him, for I had enjoyed teaching his children.
On coming into the town where I now live, I swung by the headquarters of one of my employers. Lately, I have worked for this company about five hours a week. Now they wanted me to triple those hours. I told them I would consider the offer. I could use the money, but am covered up right now with all sorts of projects.
When I arrived home—I live in my daughter’s basement—I had a call from the local Urgent Care where I had gone the previous week for some tick bites that had become worrisome. I will omit the gruesome details. The doctor there had given me some medication, and had run some tests, and the woman calling me wanted to inform me that I had tested positive for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This was a bit of a downer, an apprehension relieved, however, by holding my fifteen-month-old grandson throughout supper. Trying to hold a toddler in one arm while eating a bratwurst takes the mind off of one’s other troubles.
We took our meal in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. Lightning flashed, thunder sounded like distant cannon fire, and the rain poured down. “I’d better check the basement,” my son-in-law wisely said. He headed downstairs to my living quarters, and when he didn’t reappear, one of the other children went to reconnoiter. She came back reporting that the basement was flooded, which was indeed the case, with water up to an inch on parts of the floor.
This past week, I had resolved to do more physical exercise, declutter my apartment, and perhaps even wet-mop its concrete floor. So I got all three wishes: with my daughter and son-in-law, I worked about two hours using wet vacs and buckets to rid the place of water, I got to pitch a bunch of magazines and papers that were ruined in the flooding (many needed pitching anyway), and my floors and rugs look spic-and-span. I will need to do some more work tomorrow in terms of cleaning up after my Great Flood of 2018, but no matter.
Meanwhile, I had texted my physician in Asheville about the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This man, the best family doctor I can imagine, texted back that I was already taking the exact medication to fight that disease, and to save my money for some other occasion than paying more medical costs. Apparently, I will survive.
Now for the wonderful kicker: At exactly eight o’clock in the evening, taking out a last bucket of flood water, I stepped out into the yard behind my apartment and was so stunned by what I found that I called forth the others still awake in the house. There in the sky, still droopy and gray with clouds, was an enormous rainbow, but even more impressive was the light, one of those surreal explosions of sunshine, water, and clouds that transform the color of trees and grass to light, delicate greens. It is a light rarely seen on this earth, and I think that it is the light to the entrance of heaven.
“Sometimes I feel like I am living in a dream,” my son once said.
So do I.
At a rest stop 300 miles from home, I entered the men’s room and stood in front of urinal. As I finished that business, I turned and saw myself being stared at by a man, hands on his hips, near the exit door. As I walked toward the sinks to wash up, the man said, “Mr. Minick?”
Assuming I was to be arrested for some crime unknown to me, I replied, “I’m Jeff Minick.”
“I’m Mr. Teo,” the man said, and stuck out his hand. Everything clicked, and I asked him about his two children whom I had once taught in Asheville. He filled me in on their accomplishments, and for ten minutes we talked in the men’s restroom. When he left, I washed my hands and went to my car, regretting I had not recognized him, for I had enjoyed teaching his children.
On coming into the town where I now live, I swung by the headquarters of one of my employers. Lately, I have worked for this company about five hours a week. Now they wanted me to triple those hours. I told them I would consider the offer. I could use the money, but am covered up right now with all sorts of projects.
When I arrived home—I live in my daughter’s basement—I had a call from the local Urgent Care where I had gone the previous week for some tick bites that had become worrisome. I will omit the gruesome details. The doctor there had given me some medication, and had run some tests, and the woman calling me wanted to inform me that I had tested positive for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This was a bit of a downer, an apprehension relieved, however, by holding my fifteen-month-old grandson throughout supper. Trying to hold a toddler in one arm while eating a bratwurst takes the mind off of one’s other troubles.
We took our meal in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. Lightning flashed, thunder sounded like distant cannon fire, and the rain poured down. “I’d better check the basement,” my son-in-law wisely said. He headed downstairs to my living quarters, and when he didn’t reappear, one of the other children went to reconnoiter. She came back reporting that the basement was flooded, which was indeed the case, with water up to an inch on parts of the floor.
This past week, I had resolved to do more physical exercise, declutter my apartment, and perhaps even wet-mop its concrete floor. So I got all three wishes: with my daughter and son-in-law, I worked about two hours using wet vacs and buckets to rid the place of water, I got to pitch a bunch of magazines and papers that were ruined in the flooding (many needed pitching anyway), and my floors and rugs look spic-and-span. I will need to do some more work tomorrow in terms of cleaning up after my Great Flood of 2018, but no matter.
Meanwhile, I had texted my physician in Asheville about the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This man, the best family doctor I can imagine, texted back that I was already taking the exact medication to fight that disease, and to save my money for some other occasion than paying more medical costs. Apparently, I will survive.
Now for the wonderful kicker: At exactly eight o’clock in the evening, taking out a last bucket of flood water, I stepped out into the yard behind my apartment and was so stunned by what I found that I called forth the others still awake in the house. There in the sky, still droopy and gray with clouds, was an enormous rainbow, but even more impressive was the light, one of those surreal explosions of sunshine, water, and clouds that transform the color of trees and grass to light, delicate greens. It is a light rarely seen on this earth, and I think that it is the light to the entrance of heaven.
“Sometimes I feel like I am living in a dream,” my son once said.
So do I.
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