The View from Mattie’s Pillow

March 24, 2010

Now that we’re past the equinox and into official spring, everything—light, temperatures, wind, the ground, animals, us—is changeable.  Each morning more and more light seeps into the tail end of our dreams, and light lingers on into the evening.  At mid day, the air sparkles with light and flickers with the shadows of birds flitting to the willows, birches, fireweed, brittle from last summer, rustling with last year’s seed.

At night, the temperature slips below zero, with wind, something we’re not used to after the long still nights of winter.  During the day, the sun warms the south-facing slopes and melts the crystalline structure of snow piled in the yard so that it becomes crunchy, brittle, dense from thawing and re-freezing.  The sidewalks on campus run with water in the afternoon, which freezes into thick sheets by morning, making walking precarious.

Mattie gets nervous in spring and fall.  In my narrative of her life, the spring was when she went to work as a pack mare and fell into the defensive patterns she sometimes still displays. I imagine someone sometime treated her badly, thus her ears-back attitude about anything new or unfamiliar.  In the fall, once, she was left out to fend for herself over winter, gaining a taste for wood as she survived in the wilderness south of the Alaska Range.  All this happened when she was between three and five years old—still an adolescent in horse years and very impressionable.  When the seasons change, she goes through a period when no trust we’ve established between us is certain.  She’s edgy, touchy, and would just as soon be left alone.  And in spring, after a winter of eating, sleeping, and standing looking at the valley or the road below her fence, she goes into heat again.

So, yesterday, I should have read her cues better.  I was grooming her, trying to desensitize her to some touchy spots, especially the area where the girth goes, under her chest.  Things were going peaceably until she started stamping her foot, and I left my hand under her chest, asking her to put her ears up.  Instead she reached over and grabbed the sleeve of my coat in her teeth—inexcusably bad behavior, and dangerous.

I have to admit I was frightened—whole scenarios flashed through my head—but, as far as I know, I kept my cool.  I yelled and she pulled her head away.  I untied her from the fence and backed her up, flinging the end of the rope at her till she skittered across the snow backward.  She still put her ears back and rolled her eyes at me as if she thought she was intimidating me.  I didn’t let on that she was, a little.   I unclipped the lead rope from her halter and walked away.  She stood there till I came back with the longe whip, with its long popper cord.  I snapped the whip in the air behind her, and she trotted away.  I followed and snapped it again to turn her in a new direction.  She trotted and cantered around the corral away from the snap of the whip so that I was driving her in front of me and not letting her rest.  Finally she stopped and turned to me, standing stock still, ears clearly up and pointed towards me, as if to say, “Enough.  Can we make up?”  I tucked the whip under my arm and said, “Step up,” and made a come-here gesture with my hand, a cue she knows.  She came up to me, and I took her halter.  She was a little trembly, and so was I.  Then we went on to work on the longe line, as we’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks.

I don’t have a round pen, the tool some horse trainers recommend for training young horses or for corrections like the one I was trying to give her.  Because she had transgressed on one of the cardinal rules of horse manners—don’t threaten or damage the handler—I had to respond immediately, dramatically, and fairly.  The last one is the hard part.  She was challenging my leadership in our partnership, and I needed to make clear to her that that was unacceptable.  The hard part, given how vulnerable I actually am as a human working with a thousand pound horse, is not to give in to or act out of fear, for that could lead me to act unfairly and could make the situation worse. So, while I was backing her up and making myself big and scary to her with the rope end and the popper on the longe whip, I couldn’t do anything that would hurt her or make her feel truly threatened, though I did want her to feel bossed around.  It’s a kind of acting, with serious intent.  I had to keep my wits about me not to push her over the line again while I was keeping her moving, and to, at the right moment, see when she had given up the “debate” over leadership and was ready to do what I wanted, signaled by her standing with ears up.

Coming back to horses when I did, after thirty plus years away, I have relied on reading all I can read—especially newer trends in positive horse training and horse psychology, and on listening and watching any horse person with experience that I can.  What I did with Mattie was based on reading Gincy Self Bucklin, John Lyons, Cherry Hill, Bruce Nock and others.   Yet, with a rescue horse like Mattie—and during the first heat of spring—I have to keep reminding myself never to take anything for granted.

By feeding time and then by morning, Mattie was back to her sweetest self, letting me rub the itchy spots on her face and neck.  All day, the wind gusted, and, when I came home this afternoon, she was standing by the gate, her black coat spiky where she had rolled in melting snow and dotted with pale spruce shavings.   She had her ears up.  I had my good sturdy Carhartt’s jacket on.

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Poetry Challenge 42

March 16, 2010

Daylight savings time has warped the day–suddenly it seems lighter all around because here in the interior the mornings and afternoons are getting lighter fast as we add 7 minutes of light a day–an extra hour of daylight each ten days or so.   How has the returning light affected you?  What disjointedness do you notice in your day?

Write a poem in which light behaves in ways it shouldn’t or surprises you in some way.

———————-

Here’s a response from KD at KD’s Bookblog:

“Always an early riser, I still have hours of darkness as I do my first work, despite the change in the clocks. This came this morning.”

Circle of Light

The green glow of a patio lantern,
still lit but weak just before dawn,
draws no useful circle of light,
is so little that it could be
a green freckle on the skin of night,
a chink in dark armor; it could be
the wrecking light on a rocky shore
luring Thursday into the backyard,

the beacon feeding its solar self but
seeming, come full daylight, a seed,
a green sprig that will bloom again in the dark,
a gem of sunshine to last me
until Friday sails over the horizon.

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The View from Mattie’s Pillow

March 10, 2010

Spring Break

A week’s respite from the intensity of spring semester; I am getting time for real life.

This morning, as I write, the sun is warm on my back through the glass door to the deck.  Recently, it’s been high enough in the sky to clear the ridgeline behind us, so the corral is in sun till late afternoon, and it’s light enough to work outside till nearly seven and later each day.  This time of year sneaks up on us—but all seasons do in the north; they’re so extreme and transition so quickly.  Now, during this fallow week, I planned to get out every day to work with Mattie and Sam, but it’s Wednesday already, and I’ve only been out with them twice, and I can already feel the week slipping away.

On the shelf by the south-facing window are this year’s seeds, sorted by planting date, and stored in those clear plastic shells that cinnamon rolls from Lulu’s come home in.  Yesterday, I washed the old flats from the greenhouse, and today I will plant the first seeds of the year: Chianti Rose, Pompeii Roma, Sungold, and Camp Joy tomatoes.  Later in the week, I’ll plant the Little Prince eggplant—trying over on an unsuccessful experiment from last year.  Although the ground will be covered with snow till well into April or, if we get a few good March snowstorms, May, my mind is full of the joy of green things to come.

I imagine lettuce—I plant a cutting mix and a red and green romaine mix—the speckled leaves, the russet leaves, the frilled and smooth leaves, glowing as the sun slants through them in the evening. I imagine pulling carrots—I’m trying King Midas this year, a long variety, with the horses in mind.  I miss the taste of them, sweet, with just a hint of garden grit with the crunch of the root.

Mattie and Sam still stand in the sun each morning to warm their coats—it was fifteen below this morning.  In the afternoon, it will warm above zero and I’ll head out to groom them and do some longeing and groundwork.  I imagine I’m working them towards fitness for summer, but know that the weather, the cold, the packed snow melting in April to a dangerous slickness, the work ahead to finish the semester will all compete with my intentions toward them.  We have an ambitious lesson and clinic schedule set up for summer, including a three day Centered Riding clinic.  Between now and May, they need to be fit enough to take hour long lessons and the trail rides I hope to go on.  And so do I.

So, now, I’m on the couch, Jeter the poodle curled on his end, writing this instead of grooming, longeing, planting, dancing.  The sun has moved farther along the window now.  On NPR, there’s a discussion on the role of poetry in our lives in the 21st century.  There’s more coffee to drink.  Spring is still a dream, but a lovely dream.  We gather our energy now for the work ahead.

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Poetry Challenge 41

March 2, 2010

Thinking about the public act of writing–publishing, reading aloud, blogging, handing a poem to a friend.  Today, I was lucky enough to attend a panel where one of my favorite bloggers, AKMuckraker of Mudflats, was speaking.  At one point, she talked about the first time she realized that her writing, her blog entries, had hit a nerve–and how that changed her approach to writing and, ultimately, her life.

Many writers I know hesitate to publish–or find the process painful or complicated.  I procrastinate–it’s too much trouble to buy all those stamps and walk in the front door of the post office and send things off or even to hit “send” on the computer.  But when someone reads or hears something I write–you, right now, for instance–it feels like the impulse that led me to write in the first place has come full circle and is fulfilled by landing in the reader’s mind and by the thoughts it sparks there.

So, write about something you hesitated to communicate.  What stopped you?  What egged you on?  What was the sky like that day?

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Poetry Challenge 40

February 21, 2010

The Thaw

Here in the Interior, temperatures are sneaking above freezing at mid-day.  The snow is melting away on south-facing hills, birds are darting wildly through the air as if they think they missed the beginning of mating season, and the roads are slick and treacherous from the melting ice over still-frozen pavement.   People are shedding coats, eyeing the greenhouse, ordering seeds, walking out in the sun and thinking of summer plans.  All the while, we know our folly, for we are not yet out of February and not yet into March.  At the back of our minds, we hear the old song, “When It’s Springtime in Alaska, It’s Forty Below.”  Really.  We’re restless, joyful, yet preparing for this respite from winter to be snatched away from us by deep cold and more snow.

So, here’s the challenge–write about a thaw of some kind: an old grudge melts away, an intractable animal becomes gentle, a place that seemed ugly suddenly looks beautiful, or an actual thaw complete with mud, green things, dripping water.   Post it in the comments section and I’ll add it here.  All of us in the Interior are waiting.

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The View from Mattie’s Pillow

February 13, 2010

Warmer days here—up around zero. For those of you reading this in the Lower 48, that may not seem warm, but with the increasing sunlight, dry air, and low snow cover, it feels like spring is on its way. On campus, walking between buildings at lunch or between classes, people seem animated, smiling, holding doors open for each other in order to have a chance to say, ”Isn’t the weather great today? Isn’t the light amazing?”

In the corral, Mattie and Sam position themselves in the sun, dozing. This morning, Mattie stood with her head half lowered, while Sam curled up on the packed snow of his favorite rolling spot. Some birds, perhaps juncos, swooped long arcs in the air above us. The light spread across the snow, up the hill to the trunks of the spruce trees, and tangled in the red-gray twigs at the end of the birch branches, delicate looking, but waiting for the right mix of light and warmth to start sucking sap out to the buds like sugar water through a soda straw. Astonishingly fragile pale green leaves will unfurl from those dry-looking sticks one day in May, and we’ll be into the mad rush of summer.

But I get ahead of myself. Today, I’m heading out with brushes, mane and tail detangler, and a “waterless” shampoo to get their coats ready for shedding season. They look like long-legged bears, their coats are so long and thick. And I’ve been so caught up with work that I come home too tired and the late afternoon is still too dark to spend much time with them daily, except for the usual scratch on the neck and good visual once-over.

Today, too, I’ll go back to the seed catalog on line to look at the gorgeous photos of carrots, lettuce, tomatoes and the difficult things: eggplant, peppers, melons, and try to finalize my seed order so that I can start indoor planting soon. I remember that, last year as I started this blog, I was in the midst of my sabbatical and that my personal goal (as opposed to the professional) was to get a sense of how else I could spend my life other than the way I do at work. Here’s what I’m concluding: fewer meetings, fewer obligations other than ones I can concentrate my energies on to do well, more horse time, more time with my hands in dirt, more writing. The question is how to do this in a self-sustaining way, without fully “retiring.” I watch friends of mine who’ve retired in disgust at the intensity of their work life, but haven’t substituted anything else for it. This works out badly for them.

For now, I’ll juggle both, knowing that the academic calendar gives me freedom when I need it most for my “real” life—the months of May-August. And as the light grows stronger and lingers longer in the evening, I’ll have more time and energy (light equals energy after all) to prepare my semi-feral critters for all that I have planned for them this summer.

If you are on the East Coast—enjoy the snow before it melts. Send us some for our dog races and to shelter the roots of our plants as the frost line works its way down through our soil in the spring. When spring actually comes for you—crocuses and daffodils—we’ll still be basking in the dazzle of light reflecting back off snow. Send photos and poems!

Update:  I spent an hour with Sam, detangling his mane and tail.  The sun gleamed off the long hairs of his coat and he stood dozing while I worked.  After that, we did a little clicker work, training him to touch his red ball to the word “touch”.  We had done this with other objects before, so he picked it up quickly.  I wish I knew how to cue all the tricks he already knows, but I’m guessing the cues are rather confused for him at this point.  Sometimes I’m sure what looks at first like bad behavior is a trick he’s been cued to–but I may never know his history.

One more thing.  When I got out to the corral, I checked the water tank to see if it was low enough to clean out the scuzz that accumulates at the bottom: shavings, hay, a feather or two.  When I looked in the tank, there was a whole bird, a chickadee, perched nervously on the red plastic that joins the heating element to the cord on the outside of the tank.  He was just above the water line and he eyed me suspiciously as I peered over the edge. I could see that his tail feathers were wet and scraggly; he must have tried to drink and gotten wet and was now too heavy to fly up out of the high-sided tank.  I put the grooming tools down on the fence rail and reached in gently with my gloved hand to give him a boost.  He flew up high enough to get over the tank rim then perched on the stall divider on Mattie’s side.  She walked over with her nose down, sniffing him cautiously.  He flew up again, over  tank to Sam’s side, where he perched on the salt block and ruffled his feathers.  As I worked with Sam, I checked back on him from time to time, sitting there on the rust-colored salt in the sun.  The run-in shed faces south, so he was in sun with no breeze–the perfect place to dry out.  From time to time he would call out “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee” a hoarse call, perhaps warning other birds away from the treacherous water tank.  Finally, when I went to check again, he was gone, feathers dried, dignity restored.

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Poetry Challenge 39

February 3, 2010

This week, Emily Dickinson.   One of the questions that always comes up when we read Dickinson is what she meant by all the dashes.  Were they imitations of her speech rhythms?   Ellipses, where more was left unsaid than was said?  A habit, a quirk?

I like dashes–the way they spread out a sentence–the way they give the reader a pause to let the words resonate.

So write a poem with dashes–in odd–places.  See what it does to the line and to the words around it.

And in honor of Dickinson, have a bird fly through the poem.

———————————————–

OK.  So here’s my attempt in three phases.  First,  a poem as I might phrase it, from a random observation of a night time window,  thinking about the time spent outside earlier today.   I’ve added the dashes randomly to this one, but left it as I “dashed” it off in first draft.  Oh, and I forgot to add the bird.

.

There–is nothing–in my mind—

but snow–and tracks

a dog–makes

crescents–of horses’–hooves

pocked–across flat–white

floor–and you–and dark

and–the trail

smoke—makes–dusk spiral

gray on gray–blue

and how–the cold sits

on its side–of glass–blackly

flat—pressing–that one square–

I can—see–from here.

———

Now, a second version, adding her most familiar metric form, which can be sung to “The Yellow Rose of Texas” or “Amazing Grace”:

.

There–is nothing–in my mind—

but snow–and tracks a dog

.

makes. Crescents–of the horses’—hooves

pocked–across flat—white floor

.

and you–and dark and–the trail smoke—makes

dusk spiral–gray on gray—

.

blue–and how–the cold sits–on its side

of glass—blackly flat

.

pressing–that one square–I can—see—

from here.

.

(The poem kind of peters out here–breaking the rhythmic scheme.  It gets tougher!)

———-

Now attempting a rhyme scheme with a few slant rhymes:

.

There—is nothing—in my mind

but snow—tracks—of dog paws

.

then crescents—hooves—pocked like rinds

across the flat—white floor

.

and you—and dark—the trail smoke—makes

dusk spiral—gray on gray—

.

blue—and how—cold its side—takes

flat, black—against the glass—

.

No birds—fly now—no moon’s light—flakes

snow—to shadowed—waste.

———

OK.  So I snuck a bird in the last version–or the absence of a bird.  And the rhythm is still not quite Emily’s and the subject matter is too straightforward, and there’s an extra stanza.  But I like the way it opens up the lines, allowing each group of words to hang suspended in the silence around them for a beat as the poem moves along.  And I like the idea of dividing phrases and letting alternate meanings leak out.  And I just plain like dashes–so–there!

OK.  You try one!

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Poetry Challenge 38

January 28, 2010

We’re reading Walt Whitman in class this week.  Students encountering him for the first time are blown away by all the words on the page until they realize that each line is a breath–some more long-winded than others.  When I read Whitman, I’m on the streets of 19th century Manhattan–the horses and carriages, the opera singers, the street vendors, the sights, the smells, the sounds.  His poems embrace all of life.

So, write a breathless poem–use ordinary speech, your own or something you’ve overheard, and let the lines ramble and fill with the details of your everyday life.  Don’t worry about a grand vision–just take pleasure in the life you see all around you.

Post a poem as a response, and I’ll post it here.

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The Post of Don Sam Incognito

January 24, 2010

Every day the sun moves a bit higher in its trajectory across the southern sky.  For weeks past solstice and the New Year, it would blip up over the horizon, then slip behind the spine of the ridge that slopes down to Rosie Creek to the southwest of us, so that the newly lingering light of afternoon would be slightly muted and colder than it might otherwise be.  But today, the sun hung high enough above the ridge that it seemed to be climbing an eddy along the ridgeline and light bleached the sky and gleamed off the snow and off Sam’s white coat.

Sam hasn’t had a post here in a while, partly because he and Mattie have been on their long winter break. Since Thanksgiving, it seemed that I never saw them in daylight except for weekends, and then it would be too cold to do much besides clean the corral and chat with them while throwing in an extra flake of hay.  But today the temperatures rose to nearly zero—warm enough that I could take my gloves off to groom or to do some clicker reinforcement with Sam, who really needs it.

The horses get a bit feral during their winter break.  They hesitate when I come out with a halter, thinking it over, even though they know I have beet pellets in my hand.  Once, this fall, when the temperatures were headed to thirty below and I wanted to blanket them while it was warm enough (twenty below) to move my fingers on the metal blanket hooks, Sam took one look at me and walked away, swishing his tail.  Today, though, he came up to me and let me halter him.  He seemed glad for the attention, though he wasn’t entirely cooperative.

We worked on basic stuff—things he’s known how to do his whole life: stand in place, take a treat graciously without tooth-to-hand contact, back up, come to me (I use the command, “step up”), keep his head out of my space (the hardest for him).  With Sam, because he’s so clever and has gotten away with such mischief before, it’s always good to review the basic groundwork before getting him back in shape for summer, oh so long away.

Sam has never been and will never be a sleepy cuddly gelding, like the ones I’ve been riding at a local facility.  A group of us in Horsemasters have rented an indoor arena and lesson horses from a local camp and we’ve started riding every Saturday night.  It’s good to work with Stormy, the reliable Quarter horse gelding I’ve been riding.  He stops if there’s any trouble in the arena; he’s never pushy; he seems resigned to a life where lots of people of varying abilities ride him; and he seems grateful for the attention I give him, grooming, talking to him in my horse voice—a kind of soft banter I learned from my riding instructor when I was a kid—mostly “Good boy, good boy.”  After working with Stormy, I feel ready for Sam.  For one thing, it’s clear that it’s not unreasonable to ask Sam to develop good horse manners, no matter what he thinks.  For another, it’s clear that I do know how to handle a reasonable horse.  Sam just has his own ideas about things.

It was still too cold to use the clicker today, so I did what I’ve read that others do—a soft ticking sound with my tongue, not to be confused with the cluck or “kissy” sound of encouragement.  He got that it was the same deal as the clicker, and after a few review tries, he stood when I said “stand,” with his face straight ahead.  Because he turns his head away when I say “wait,” something we developed early as an alternative gesture to diving at hay at feeding time, I’ve defined “stand” as with his head straight forward.  This also counteracts his tendency to want to mouth or nose-butt me while I’m grooming him.

After we worked on “stand” I had him stand while I moved to the end of the line, and we practiced “step up”—easy—from the front and both sides.  And always, we worked on “gentle” or taking a treat with no teeth, something he’s motivated to learn, since the treat goes away when he applies teeth.  Strangely, though, he doesn’t seem as talented as Mattie is at picking things up with his lips and drops the beet pellets sometimes.

Mattie and I worked some today, too, though not with the clicker.  With Mattie, it’s always a matter of reminding her once again that nothing I do will hurt her, a slow desensitization every spring.  I groomed her, picked the ice balls out of her feet with the ice hammer, and worked on small circles on the longe line.  She doesn’t like to work far from me, though she was doing better by the end of last summer.  After a few circles in both directions a couple of times and some “stand” and “step up,” we were done.   A good first day of preparation for spring.

It’s dark now.  In a few minutes, I’ll make up their dinner dishes: beet pellets, supplements, and a small scoop of flax seeds for their coats.  We’ll haul a few buckets of water out to the water tank while they’re munching the hay.  Jeter, who looks like a café au lait cub with his coat all grown out and flopping as he runs, will come with us, bounding around, picking up frozen horse “balls” and running with them, pulling up in front of me with a sliding sit for treats.

We’ve made it through the darkest time.  All’s well.

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The View from Mattie’s Pillow

January 18, 2010

I’m sitting in Ed’s chair by the woodstove, listening to it ticking as the fire dies down; the Christmas tree is lit again.  The little spruce with the twist in the trunk that we cut from behind the run-in shed on Christmas Eve is still green and drawing water in its five gallon bucket filled with rocks.  I’m glad, for I cut my holiday season short for the trip to New Jersey.   Now, with just five days to go before the first class of spring semester, I’m grateful for the tree, the ornaments, the lights, for they’re letting me feel celebratory for a few days more.  Besides, in my family, growing up, we had a tradition that the tree stayed up till my mother’s birthday, January 18.

The time in New Jersey gave me lots to think about.  At first, the situation seemed desperate—my brave and stoic brother needed someone there throughout the day while he was/is on bedrest.  If he dropped the phone, he wouldn’t be able to call out in an emergency; if he dropped the remote—as he did when I visited in the summer—he could fall asleep watching soccer and wake up watching a telenovella.  And, worse, if no one were set up to come in during the day after I left,  how would he eat, stay hydrated, deal with the personal but essential tasks that take up a good part of his caregiving.  But, day by day, there was good news until I was able to leave knowing that he has care and will soon be in rehab to get back in shape to be in his chair—back to normal for him.

My brother has been a quadriplegic for more than twenty years.  If his accident happened now, he might have more use of his arms than he does.  With stem cell research and other newer procedures, young people facing a C-5/C-6 injury can retain more function than he was able to at the time.  But he’s done well, stayed independent, gotten a law degree, played Quad Rugby (Murderball)—in short, I didn’t worry about him until this pressure sore developed.   But this has been a wake-up call for all of us.

He could be anyone—we are all vulnerable, as scenes of devastation in Haiti and other places in the world remind us.  His vulnerability is part of his life’s normalcy—in his chair he can cook, drive, bathe, go to restaurants and malls—do most of the things anyone else can do, except get himself into and out of bed.  Being around him has reminded me not only of how much I love him, my baby brother who I cared for as a child, but of how valuable each of our lives is and what we can mean to each other.

Remarkable things happened.  I met caregivers and social workers who made extra efforts to help his situation get resolved.  I met a woman online who advocates for those in the quad community, and who called my brother just to chat—and I heard him laugh and knew that his spirits were lifting and that he would heal.  I met a remarkable group of Quakers at Cropwell Friends Meeting, who felt led to form a group to come visit my brother and just chat and check in.  There was the woman in the coffee shop who remembered me when I came in for a break from the apartment, the lady at Smoothie King who kept my debit card for three days when I absent-mindedly left it on the counter, the cousin of a friend who called and gave advice even though she didn’t live near enough to come by.  It seems like community can happen anywhere, I now see.

But here’s the thing—while my brother’s is an extreme case, it’s an example of how much the system that seems to be in place—health care and beyond—is  broken and stretched to the point of dysfunction, underfunded and understaffed.  When my brother knew the woman living with him would be moving out and that I could come for a couple of weeks to help out, it was Thanksgiving. He began calling and filling out paperwork and getting visits from social workers.  But by two days after Christmas, he was still being told he would have a 4-6 week wait.  Those who told him that were polite, but clearly overworked and could offer no suggestions to help.  They would see me there and assume that I would fill in.

All this while the “debate” on health care rolls on in DC.  But what is there to debate?  To me, now, the question is simple—how do we care for those among us who are least able to care for themselves?   And how do we care for each other and provide for the well-being of all in our community or nation, knowing that any of us could suddenly have the level of need my brother has or more?

I’m slowly recovering from jet lag and the emotional stress of the trip.   Morning and night, I’m out in the corral while Mattie and Sam are chewing hay, leaning against their shaggy shoulders, breathing in their earthy smell.   I’m glad to breathe the sharp cold air and see the orange light in the southern sky spread into day.

I tend to be an optimist.  I believe that it’s worth the effort it took to bring some things together for my brother in order to restore him to a normal, engaged life.  I’ll continue to work with him on this.  I also believe that in a good society, we would all want this for all of us.

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