View

I sit in the back bedroom of my grandparents’ house as I did over 22 years ago.  The view from my window is static, water tank with a liner twice removed, a chain link fence that slopes like the worn back of mule, rusted too, but sturdy somehow.  Everything here, despite its age, is sturdy somehow.

The word processor took my little finger beats and a story of two people talking, talking about something a five year-old would find important, something I’ve since forgotten, though I’m sure it was probably important.

The light, as it comes across this window in the back bedroom of my grandparents’ house is not static.  Every morning there is a new cadence, wild orchids born in the night, project into the sky and scoop up the rising sun in the cups of their pedals.  Solar energy.

The cat, Valentina, with freshly licked fur, balances on the rim of the water tank facing the rising sun.  She closes her eyes and warms her pink nose in the sun.  Right paw slips and dips into the water, she shakes it feverishly. 

“Someday I will write a book,” I think.  “Someday, Valentina, in all her fluffy glory will be world-renown, preserved in my pages, sunbathing beauty, little feline muse.”