At Days End - stevegraywriter.com.au

A few days in a row I have been fraught with annoying challenges, internal politics and other rumblings. I seek some solace, focus on my breathing, a little deeper and slower. My mind drifts across starts, middles, and endings, pondering life, challenges, and half-formed ideas. Twilight is settling in. I’ve been home for quite a while and checked the mail, there’s nothing.

I browse the front yard then spot some weeds that I will get to in a few days time. The air is brisk, it’s late spring and a cold night is brewing. Other details come to mind as I scan across the yard; flowers blooming some small birds flitting about catching insects and plants that need trimming.

For some reason I look up. I like the way the late in the day light picks out the lamppost across the street. The light is on a triangular metal bracket and it casts a distinct shadow on the top part of the pole. Then another shadow shows up from something else. I’m not sure what, and frankly I don’t care. All of this is set off against a light blue sky with a few menacing clouds approaching from behind, ready to stack up and fill the looming night sky.

Where I live is not far from a train station so every now and then a train departs and sounds its horn. People clamour to get out of the station and head in all directions. A gent in casual corporate styling walks down my street in what seems to be a despondent slow gait. His brown leather satchel barely sways, his arm hanging stiffly at his side. Perhaps the bag is heavy with files to review and edit, or perhaps he’s simply worn out, lacking the aplomb he carried at the start of the day.

He was soon lost to the tyranny of distance down the street. One dreary step after the other, after the other. His journey, part of an endless train of steps that carry his soul into the darkness. A few small birds move about in the nearby branches and break my attention. My hands warm in my pockets as the air cools some more.

The light fades fast at this time of day. I turn to retreat to the verandah of the house, a weatherboard Californian bungalow with a verandah made of brick and rendered in a roughcast finish. The light on the post across the street soon flickers on and holds its stance as a dutiful servant to any who pass by it in the half-light, and the deep inky darkness to follow.

Two steps lead up to the worn timber decked verandah. I can see the fractured light from the kitchen through the stained glass section on the door and its sidelights. I turn to gather my thoughts as I sit on an old wicker chair. It was put out on the street a few years back and I claimed it as my own. I still recall walking it home balanced on my head, a thin pad offering barely enough buffer against the weave. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long walk.

In good condition it now has a more luxuriant set of cushions. At this time of the year I have an old doona draped across it ready for me to repose upon it if I wish, and this evening I wish to. I wrap my weary torso in it to keep the chilling breeze away. The warmth soon evolves as I sit and experience the fading light. Cars parked in the street take on a different hue from the artificial street light.

From my position seated in the chair, I can see above the edge of the verandah. I created a base to raise the chair for this very purpose, two old wooden pallets saw to that along with some handyman time one afternoon.

I’m warm and more relaxed. Earlier in the day I had jangled nerves, a few things needed sorting that threw out my usual routine. A creature of some simple habits I don’t enjoy terse disruptions. That tension was now relieved a little. The chill grew in its intensity as I pulled the doona up a little tighter.

A muffled train horn in the distance heralded the departure of another train, two weary commuters wandered by a few minutes later. I feel sure they were glad their day was wrapping up. One was on a phone, babbling words to someone. The other shuffled hurriedly by. I then watch various details, trees swaying, some small birds shuffling as the darkness creeps in.

I sat for a long while gently breathing, as more details emerged in my field of vision. A leaf dropped, caught in a casual drift to the ground in the street light. It flitted left and right, touching the edge of the verandah edge and then dropped out of sight into the garden below. I thought, would I be able to spot it the next day if I went looking? I look across the verandah and in the shadowed half light I spot some gardening items, ah, my secateurs. I wondered where they got to, now I know, they were left there after my last bout of gardening, the same with the tub of fertiliser nearby. The trees in the street sway some more, the wind is picking up, the temperature dropping further.

My thoughts float back to what I was contemplating. Ah yes, things live, things die. Here I was, comfortable, living, warm, snuggled up, lost in the minute details of daily life. Things come, things go. I am now resolute in my composure and breathing. Another train horn sounds in the distance, another person soon ambles by. Things start and things finish; things happen, and things don’t. As my mind wanders, comfort finally eases in. Tomorrow is another day, waiting either to envelop me in wonder or trample me with woe. Rising slowly from the chair, I fold the doona for my next sojourn and head indoors.

The screen door yields; the main door opens with the turn of the key. The sprung latch of the fly screen door snaps shut behind me.

There is warmth inside, the heating has discretely ‘kicked in’ a short while ago. I turn to close the main door and feel comfort in the way the lock clicks solidly. I retreat to the kitchen and have a sense that I am now a little more relaxed by my warm isolated, but brief respite. My mind shifts gently toward a new question: what’s for dinner? Reaching for utensils and ingredients, I decide that soul-warming sustenance is my next objective.