Buddy, Ella, and Morning Gratefuls
On quiet
“But how can silence teach me anything?” asked squirrel.
When fox didn’t respond, simply breathing softly, squirrel knew this was one of *those* lessons.
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Big or small, what is one thing you are grateful for today?
I don’t know her name. We can call her Ella. I don’t know where she lives, but she visits me each morning.
When Buddy, my cat, was alive, he would sit on the credenza in my living room.
Every morning, I’d wake to find him looking out the big front window.
He’d stretch as I wished him good morning with a kiss and scritch along his back. Then, return to his watching of the world.
She’s small and curious. And never stays in one place very long.
She often stands on her hind legs and looks up at me through the split in the curtains.
I wonder what she’s thinking as she hops from place to place, a long tail dancing above the early morn dew.
I have an image of my Mom, in the morning, wrapped in her heavy turquoise robe, tea in a stoneware mug, pressed against her cheek, for warmth, for comfort, writing silently in her journal at the top of the stairs.
Dad, tie and briefcase, smelling of soap and the day ahead, moving quickly, dress shoes clattering on tile and wood.
It’s quiet here on 79th Avenue this morning.
House lights, pinpricks of hope, keeping dark at bay. A black sky turning gray.
In the predawn hours, I’ve taken to pulling my chair up to the front window.
Coffee steam and silence, searching to find what Buddy saw.
Silent night.
Ella’s gone off now, her little squirrel feet soundless as she darted out of sight.
Holy night.
A crow squawks from above, before swooping down to pick at the grass, her obsidian eyes seeming to have seen all things.
All is calm.
The first dog, wrapped in a red-checked jacket in, ambles by, his human bundled up behind.
All is bright.
An inky sky lightening, giving definition to shadow, another cycle completed, another begun.
Ella, my squirrel friend, will visit throughout the day. And I’m grateful for it, for her.
Big or small, what's one thing you are grateful for today?