/ Chains and links

I did eventually finish my taxes. Even took a bit of time to submit my article just before the deadline struck 9, kept my cogs nice and toothy. Said what the hell and threw out my resume a bit, tied it to the end of a line with a nice, fat piece of bacon, but avoided meat otherwise. I ate a pound and a half of asparagus, and still don't regret it, in spite of all the world's starvation.

I wound up running, 13 miles on Saturday, another 5 today. I did my best not to stop, and when I did stop, I did my best not to tie my shoes if they didn't need tying. Don't need to add any shame to my suffering. Halfway around the lake, I noticed it had never been this bright before, the way you notice minor changes when you haven't changed your route and routine in the length of fingertip to fingertip, arms outstretched for emphasis, this long. I looked down the bank, knowing what to expect, and there was the better part of 70 years worth of hemlock, lying in the water on top of god knows how many of her babies.

I told her about this tree, how it reminded me of her, because in spite of the windiest season any of us could remember, it waited for the calm to return, stood another day, then said now.

“You are comparing me to some old tree that fell into the lake?” she laughed.

“Yes, but it was a tree that stood still when pushed.”

We had one of those old hemlocks in our yard once. They don't like to grow old and die where they stand, give themselves up to sapsuckers and wood ducks. When they are ready, they break right near their base and come crashing back to earth. The wood is damn near worthless. When I put my fence up, I used hemlock for the rails, and I spend the better part of my summers replacing them. It is hard to describe why I am so fond of this old fence, for this very reason. As a kid in Texas, everything was chain link and indestructible. You could put one up and never need to touch it for 35 years.

“Wait, now you're comparing me to some old fence that's always falling down?”

“Yes, but in the sense that you make me feel needed and useful.”

Those chain link fences were a big part of our lives as kids, though. If you told me that I didn't go a single day during the 12th year of my life without finding my toehold halfway up and bounding over the metal bar of one of those fences, I'd believe you. If you came up to me and said, 'I lived up the street from you in McGregor and still don't appreciate you tormenting my dogs through my chain link fence 25 years ago', I'd apologize without so much as a reference check. And whenever I am wearing a favorite t-shirt, I will give a wide birth to any chain link fence I see, because they don't give a damn about fashion. It is hard to replace a favorite t-shirt, and I have even tried to stem the inevitable loss by occasionally returning to the store to pick up a spare, after I know, just know that I am wearing a soon-to-be favorite. But there is something you can't replicate in favoritism, not even when the materials are the exact same, and I have been stunned to throw away the old and put on the exact same new only to feel the fresh pain of loss once more.

“Ugh. So now you are comparing me to a t-shirt?”

My favorite one of all.