Cardinal Rules and Character Flaws

318.

We decide, I holding the tie-braking vote of two, to hire a limo for the two-hour drive South. My right leg in no condition to pilot Ruby and her super-sport-five-speed manual tranny,  and Mustang game to the idea of napping along the way. The fact that she seems one hundred percent sincere about the whole idea, a 'working, therapeutic, structured' two days at my humble hideaway, is a magnanimous gesture with which I struggle to accept at face value. I realize as I consider this, watching the Beltway fade in the mirror, that I am, true to popular myth, a deeply flawed individual.

I am a bit unnerved when I hear a seconding, 'Amen to that brother,' realizing too late, that I had spoken the final character judgement aloud.

The trip uneventful, we arrive to the jarring silence of the forest. The dichotomy between the relentless din of the city and the solitude of this heavily wooded retreat is something one must witness to  fully appreciate the lure of its power and profundity. For reasons unknown to me, the radical silence always causes me to take a deep breath as if in reminder that all our sensory facilities are connected and that sounds, or lack of them, can trigger equal, opposite or compensatory emotional responses. In this case, today, here and now, the wail of a single Northern Cardinal sets the compass of my soul towards the ascetic of peace and gratitude. I look to my companion for validation - and am not disappointed.

Mustang is an anomaly. I consider briefly whether she has found us or we her. As we unpack our light baggage, mine onto the Navajo blanket covered, pine four-poster bed in the master room and she into the guest bedroom's closet and dresser, I consider our brief history. From the moment I opened my eyes in the clinic after the six-month induced coma, a severe medical counter for the gunshot wounds that nearly severed my spine and caused the current paralysis, until this very moment, she has displayed the qualities and character traits I find admirable, impressive and indicative of a larger warrior spirit. Admitting again to my cache of character flaws, I also accept that if these enviable talents and purity of character weren't enough, her robust athletic physique and simple radiant beauty surely would interest any able bodied man. It temporarily saddens me to weigh the prospect that I no longer pay property taxes in that neighborhood; the demographic of the young and complete. Still, I can feel the fire, once a raging, out-of-control inferno, smoldering somewhere inside waiting for ignition by a magical paring of air and fuel.

Knowing the drill, we had made the obligatory pit stop at the local store for the main entree, my pantry holding an abundance of the basics, from canned potatoes to cases of Bordeaux.

Mustang is showering as I prep for dinner. As much as I appreciate the earthy sounds and the powerful silence, this moment, as the Northern Cardinal suggested earlier, calls for appropriate musical accompaniment.

I open the locked cabinet that houses my stereo. The old Marantz springs to attention with the pressing of its single power button and I hear the familiar click from the pair of vintage Pioneer CS99A speakers. I flip through the vinyl the same way we once browsed through collections in used record shops from Berkeley to Boston, fingers tasked with the speed of display, waiting for the right synergetic potential of sight and sound, hope and dream, light and life.

Tossing a dart at her tastes in music, I drop the needle on an old favorite, hoping that the test of time will ace tonight's pop quiz. As I turn to hobble back to my sous chores to the opening riffs of a Louie Prima and Keely Smith classic, she stands watching me with a knowing grin.