Vivid November

The major hit movie of summer 2020 was My Octopus Teacher … at least it was in this nerdy household. Watching that strange, beautiful docu-memoir, transported beneath the ocean, I learned that octopuses are colorblind—so how does their skin ecstatic-ly change color to match the hue of their environment? A paradox. A lesson to negotiate? Are we all not creatures blinded to what’s around us? And can we not look inward, toward intuition and unconventional wisdom, to show us the universe in its truest pale of light? 

In early November Mark and I drove out to our land in Three Rivers, where we’ll finally break ground on a homestead in the young days of 2021. It was a cold weekend, snow forecasted in the high desert. We were excited to see the new sand-filtration septic system we’d just cut a check to install. The place for our sewage—a low-key cause of celebration in this strange year. 

Arriving in the late afternoon, we nosed the truck into the driveway. Something was off—too much daylight. Our discovery was: the septic company had felled a handful of trees, much more than I expected. In the bleak pre-blizzard light, I wandered around what used to be grand forest but was now torn dirt. My arms dangled, mouth gaped. I didn’t know it would hit me like that. I believe I was suffering from a form of heartbreak. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon harvesting wispy blond desert grass from untouched corners of the lot and transplanting it onto the gouge of earth that held the septic tank. Mourning that grand old lodgepole grove. Whispering for forgiveness that to stay here, we have to disturb the land. Sending prayers up into the purpling clouds that a season of snow would regrow all this flora.  

As I coiled and tossed the last length of hose in the dirt, snowflakes began to fall and so did the darkness.