Backyard Bemused
I’m sitting out on our back patio in front of the little black metal fire pit, trying to decide if the alternating blasts of woodsmoke and cold breeze are worth the effort of putting another log on the fire. In the distance, I can hear irrigation sprinklers (even though this is our fifth day of unseasonably cool and somewhat wet weather) and the occasional dog-bark conversation between yards. Every once in a while a peacock cries. I’m not sure who has a peacock in our neighborhood, but it’s somewhere in the block or so behind our house, near the hill. Brief bits of conjunto waft across the horse fields from another neighbor’s house. Earlier it was a local garage band, playing a sort of “adult” punk which merged bad 90s SoCal Epitaph styles with the equally bad 90s alternarock of Collective Soul and Live. Ugh.
Cars are still driving up and down our street, even though it’s 10:30 on a Sunday night, which would normally be a pretty quiet time. It must be because so many people are off work tomorrow for the Memorial Day holiday. The cemetery here in our quiet Utah farm town has been full of flowers and minivans all weekend, and I expect tomorrow will be even busier. Maybe I’ll take Tenzin up Blacksmith Fork Canyon for a little hike, or maybe we’ll just play in the yard in hoodies and flip-flops.
I know I should be completely jaded about my ability to sit out here in my backyard in a ragged sweater and sneakers, updating my blog and downloading a few new records, with chilly fingertips and my laptop keyboard illuminated by a little gooseneck USB lamp and a dying campfire. But I’m still surprised, and bewildered, and definitely awestruck by this technological transformation. What wizards we’ve become, mowing our lawns to an apocalyptic metal soundtrack buzzing from tiny white earbuds! What shapeshifters, what alchemists!
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