Bob and I had been gone all week visiting my brother, James, in Massachusetts for his birthday. I had just turned 70 and Jamie was turning 59.

The three of us spent two nights on South Yarmouth in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. We enjoyed some refreshing barefoot beach time and James went for a short swim.

And then James drove us inland to celebrate his birthday with pizza, cake, and ice cream at his new home outside of Boston where we were joined by his stepdaughter and her family.

Christina and Lou’s seven kids bounced around Jamie’s lush lawn, taking turns on the swing between bites of pizza at the picnic table. No one threw up.

This was the best pizza I’d eaten in years. It had a thin, slightly salty, crispy, yet foldable crust, with blackened dough blisters, a spicy sauce, and not too much cheese. In other words, it was New York style pizza like we used to get on our birthdays from Freddie’s in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

No birthday is complete without cake and ice cream, so we did that, too.

~*~

Bob and I returned home to discover deer tracks in the garden. They had taken out a pepper plant and decimated the edamame. I tightened the clothesline I’d strung above the four-foot livestock fence in a lame attempt to fend off another garden attack, made dinner, and we went to bed and fell asleep wondering how we were going to solve our deer problem.

Bob found her the next morning, a lactating doe that had been hit by a Ford truck during the night. Problem solved. We didn’t take her picture out of respect for the dead. After picking the big plastic “R” and other truck parts out of the grass, we went inside and waited for the clean up crew.

Soon enough the vultures began to arrive. Lyle and Carrie had watched a breeding pair of Black vultures raise two chicks at their place half a mile away and we were pretty sure a group of four who were nearly always together were the same family. We were thrilled to have them at our place and be able to share our friends’ experience.

About three days in, the intermittent whiff of rot began spoiling our summer afternoon spa time. But it was short-lived—in this heat, roadkill decomposes at an accelerated pace—and a couple of days later we resumed our refreshing cold water (88°) soaks.

Although the family of four birds were the same size, we could tell the youngsters from their parents by the baby fluff around their heads and necks.

I confess that Black vultures are among my top three favorite birds along with Great blue herons and Carolina wrens.

Unlike other birds, vultures spend a lot of time standing around. They don’t have to flit about chasing bugs or searching for seeds, worrying about getting picked off by cats and hawks. Vultures are so big, they don’t worry about much of anything. They waddled up near the garden to watch Bob work, as interested in us as we were in them.

We learned that when vultures blink, they look like sharks.

Bob and I were struck by their affection towards each other and were reminded of our time in Massachusetts with Jamie and family.

Family is where you find it. Sometimes you might have to board an airplane to see them. Sometimes family comes to you after a deer gets hit on the Moncure Pittsboro Road. Either way, families make life more interesting by reminding us that we were all young once and that we are all hurtling through space on the same planet, doing our best to stay happy and fed.

PORCH TIME

We opened our doors at 4:30 with the sun still high above, and two hours later when we began eating, it was still pretty and bright.

When Arlo and five of his friends emerged from the woods in their work boots with food and a couple of guitars, I felt as if I were watching a movie. They looked like the rescuers striding through smoking rubble after an apocalyptic disaster. I’m not exaggerating, my vision grew blurry with emotion for an instant before I remembered my manners and waved cheerily.

In retrospect, having just turned seventy and finding myself uncharacteristically exhausted by 2:00 PM on some days, the sheer vigor of this next generation brings me great comfort. I feel as if they’ve got our backs, us older folks, and that it’s okay for us to slow down.

SPOT PICS

Spot, our greeter, had his work cut out for him and kept Bob busy snapping “first time to Trouts Farm” pictures of the newcomers.

TIME TO EAT

There was so much food! Salads, fruit, bread, casseroles, tempeh, meat, and beans.

I cannot say how many friends have eaten with us in our little dining room but it has been years since we had more than eight people at the table.

Lyle’s Potluck Podcast captures my joy above the roar of 27 people having a good time:

MAY AND JUNE BIRTHDAYS

Bob bought a unforgettable triple-layer, gluten-free Lemon Lavender Cake to help us celebrate six May and June birthdays.

Shelley, Camille, Kersten, Arlo, Zach, and Hannah made birthday wishes and blew out the candles.

All animals share food to show each other that they are friends. A horse new to the herd, for example, gets run around by the lead mare until she decides they belong, and then she lowers her head to eat. New acquaintances say, “How ’bout a cup of coffee?” The alpha wolf brings food to the den and shares it. Eating together is the most powerful way to signal friendship and the easiest way to build community.

After everyone left, Bob and I tidied up, savoring bits of stray conversation and getting one more taste of cake before tucking into bed, spent and happy.

ARTE DE PLUMAS

Here we have baskets of plantain, mango, pineapple, carrots, chayote, peppers, sweet potatoes, and onions at Arte de Plumas, awaiting Daisy and Carol’s magic touch.

After an hour of birdwatching our first morning, Andre led us to the open-air dining pavilion for a breakfast of fruit, beans and rice, fried eggs, plantain, and toast. Refueled, we continued birding.

AFTER-RIDE LUNCH AT RANCHO JSM

Bob drove the four of us an hour north to Finca Tres Equis where Carrie and Lyle went for a birdwatching hike while Bob and I rode the Farm and Forest Trail (see Caballos de Costa Rica). Half an hour from home we stopped at the junction for lunch at Rancho JSM.

Andre had suggested we test drive JSM’s patacones, plantain coins, smashed and fried, with toppings such as refried beans, guacamole, and pico de gallo. They were immensely satisfying, a bit like pizza in their versatility, and very filling.

Bob asked me to pose next to a large, carved horse head that appeared to be taking a drink.

We asked Daisy to make us lunch when we weren’t out day tripping. On this day, she made us a delicious white bean stew with salad, a potato/chayote hash, tortillas, and pico de gallo. They were happy to accommodate our meat-free diet and—worried about our protein intake—made sure to supplement each meal with eggs.

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

Lyle and Carrie’s birthdays fell a day apart while we were upcountry, so I asked Andre if they could do something special to help us celebrate. Over the next three days, he, Carol, and Daisy’s twinkled with the mystery of the surprise.

On Carrie’s birthday, our last day at the lodge, Daisy beckoned me into the kitchen and showed me what she and Carol had done. I gasped at the heart-shaped cake. They had frosted it in pink and white, topped it with raspberry jam ringed by grape halves and strawberries and, at its base, surrounded it with peach slices, and more grapes, and strawberries.

Carol, beaming, presented the cake and Carrie showed her delight which made all of us extremely happy. I always say, a birthday is not complete without a cake with lit candles. It just isn’t.

Naturally, we urged Carrie to make a wish and naturally, she complied.

FRUTA DE PAN

I was determined to have breadfruit if breadfruit could be had, and although it wasn’t technically breadfruit season, we had seen the occasional fruit hanging from those gorgeous trees, full and dripping with white sap.

So we all began scanning the produce stands for what Andre called Fruta de Pan, until finally, on our way out of town I saw one! Bob stopped the car and ran across the street to make the purchase, and I vowed to find a restaurant willing to cook it down in Cahuita.

Each day, I unwrapped my Fruita de Pan and squeezed it, and each day it grew a bit softer and a little sweeter. And each day, I worried a little more about who I was going to find to cook up my beloved breadfruit until Lyle helped me get the courage to speak with Giuseppe.

At first, Giuseppe said, “No,” explaining that they cooked Italian food and that was what they did. “Oh my god, it is so good,” I said, complimenting their home made pasta and the flavorful sauces. I asked him which part of Italy he and his wife were from, told him that my brother, Joseph, was named after Sicilian immigrants, and that my name, too, came from our Italian side.

Perhaps there was a restaurant in town that served breadfruit? I asked, because I had brought one down from Turrialba and would happily give it to any kitchen that might use it. “You have one here?” he said, and that’s when I knew he was about to make my dream come true.

I ran to fetch my baby fruta and before long, we were eating fried breadfruit, sweet and doughy, just the way I love it! I ate until I couldn’t handle another piece, then took the rest back to our room for another day.

POTTY BREAK AT THE COFFE PLACE

Halfway through an early-morning bird tour with our guide Manuel, we circled back through Cahuita and stopped for coffee. I ordered a fruit drink and, thinking it prudent to make a pit stop, saw some wonderful cat graffiti on the rest room wall.

On another day, Bob drove us south to Puerto Viejo (home of many retired expats) and discovered DaLime Beach Club Restaurant & Bar, tucked among the trees, well off the main road.

We put in our food order and sat on the deck, sipping tropical drinks and listening to the calls of the Great Green Macaw.

Every tree a work of art, I thought, bathing in the many patterns and colors surrounding the restaurant.

The food was delightful, too. Fresh and beautifully presented. Bob and I ordered the tacos and mine came with guacamole, grilled vegetables, and pickled radish with sides of pico de gallo and a red pepper sauce.

Lyle and Carrie went looking for the Great Green Macaw while Bob settled our tab. While I waited for Bob, I stared out into the trees and was surprised to see one of those big, green birds fly across an open area!

Our culinary adventure was very fulfilling in every sense of the word and we returned home determined to eat as fresh and light as we did in Costa Rica.

So far, we’ve done pretty well, but I now realize how highly processed our favorite vegetarian meat analogs are and will be phasing those out in favor of lentils, beans, and tofu.

Tonight, for example, I have made a bean stew which I am serving with Amy Armantrout’s hand-harvested wild rice and collard greens from our garden. We’ll spike it up with artisanal vinegar and orange jalapeno peppers that I pickled last fall. Bon Appétit and Pura Vida!

A friend of hers, she tells me, a woman in her seventies who remembers the past clearly, calls them “occasional tables,” because as her mother used to say, “Occasionally, you need a table.”

I explain my motives for the interview—a peri-pandemic interest in self-sufficiency and isolation survival techniques—and toss out my first question.

What are you growing in your garden?

She puts down her glass and covers it with a sour cream container lid. “Let’s go look!” she calls from the bottom of the ladder. “You can bring your lemonade if you want. Here, hand it to me.”

~*~

We leave the shade and walk the perimeter of an old swimming pool. “My husband named this ‘The Sunken Gardens of Moncure,’” she says

I chuckle. “Your husband has a good sense of humor.”

“Indeed he does. And a formidable education.”

She points out the potatoes, already three feet tall. “The ones with the white blooms are German Butterballs, the pinks are Red Thumbs, and the purples are Huckleberry Golds.”

She shows me the lettuce, the peppers, the tomatoes, the asparagus, the beets, and tiny, fat-leafed seedlings: okra, peanuts, and edamame.

“We’ve got fifteen totes outside the pool,” she says and shows me more Huckleberries and some Yukon Golds. We also look at her garlic, onions, carrots, leeks, tomatillos, and a fava beans. A frog chirps, and we hear a rooster howl through the woods. She takes my glass and climbs back up to the treehouse using one hand.

I’m a sweaty mess, but she seems oddly refreshed. She hesitates before taking a seat. “Sitting isn’t my thing,” she says, apologetically. A mosquito buzzes my left ear but does not land. I’ll have to shower as soon as I get home.

I noticed leaves on your empty plots.

“Yes. I rake them in the fall and dump them on the pool beds. They don’t affect the plants, but they keep the weeds away.”

Indeed, I did not see any weeds.

How much of what you eat comes from your garden?

“Oh gosh. Five to ten percent? We also subscribe to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and shop the Farmers’ Markets, so local produce accounts for nearly all our vegetable intake. And soon, we’ll be pulling up potatoes, so there’ll be some carbs.

“But protein, no. We don’t grow wheat or beans —except for favas and edamame—and Bob has started eating fish. Our neighbors often give us eggs, and I bake bread. And, we buy far-away grapes, apples, citrus, cheese, tortillas, chocolate, and coffee.”

Hmmm. Hardly seems worth the trouble. How many hours a week would you say you work in the Sunken Gardens?

She laughs. “I think this all the time. So yeah, I probably average seven hours a week in the garden per se, and roughly equal time at the kitchen counter, turning produce into food. But hey, I’m retired, it gets me outside, and I don’t have to go to a therapist or supplement with Vitamin D.”

Do you also manage the flower beds? I say without thinking, and when she stands up, I say, “But let’s look at those on my way out.”

Tell me more about the emotional benefits of growing some of your food.

”Oh gosh. Well, as I mentioned—no therapy bills. I believe that outside time with a purpose satisfies an innate need. As civilized people, we spend far too much time indoors surrounded by the hum of our appliances—entertaining our brains with our screens—and way too close to the refrigerator.

“Out here, I am forced to sync with natural rhythms. I tune in to the neighborhood sounds: the bird song, the weather patterns. I think random thoughts that build like clouds until they burst into a storm of ideas. It’s cathartic.”

She is gushing now.

“I like how hard my body gets in the summer. I feel lean and bronzed. I can shovel compost and fork mulch for hours. And the food! Every mouthful bursting with just-picked enzymes. Not to mention the bragging rights, the immense sense of self-sufficiency, that I-can-do-anything feeling.”

Her face reddens beneath her tan.

Can I see your kitchen? I say, angling for some air conditioning.

“Of course!” She moves our empty glasses to the edge of the deck, climbs down, and reaches up for them. Inside the house, I see she has pulled a bag of last year’s edamame from the freezer. She had meant to bring me in here all along, just wanted me to get warm enough to fully appreciate the cool air.

She picks up the blue-handled knife and hesitates before slicing this perfect orb in half. It feels like a beheading, or the end of an era. She quarters it and cuts a notch away from each piece at the stem end.

Pulling down two monkey dishes, she fills them with slices. She puts a wedge into her mouth, and using her tongue to trap it between her molars, begins to mash it up. The flavor is magnificent.

She goes to the window and looks out at the tree that bore this perfect fruit, golden leaves at its feet, branches naked and sprawling. Exposed. She looks away in embarrassment. Didn’t those branches have leaves a few weeks ago? How we change from one season to the next.

Searching her memory, she finds images from the day her husband — the man who promised to grow old with her when their hair was still thick and dark — planted this tree. She finds an impression of him digging the hole, and tries to remember helping him place the sapling, gently, into that hole.

It occurs to her that humans have only one spring, one summer, one fall, and if they’re lucky — or not, depending on your perspective — one winter. Unlike the trees, humans do not drop their leaves and grow back new ones. Instead, they continue down the same linear path from cradle to grave.

She sets the other dish next to her partner and watches him reach for this last slice of summer. “Is it spring yet?” he asks on cold mornings. “I hate winter,” she says, tugging on a pair of black fleece loungers.

I could hear her movements behind me, the snag of fabric as her hem caught on the desks, and the rattle of her book cart as she inched around the classroom. We first-graders sat, hands clasped in front of us as instructed, anticipation bubbling behind our compressed lips, awaiting the distribution of our first school primer.

I coveted books in all their forms: from the comic books Mom bought when I was laid up with the flu, to the shelves of Childcraft and World Book Encyclopedias at my grandmother’s house, to the leather-bound treasures in my dad’s study.  I loved their hidden secrets and their dry, inky smell.

I sensed Sister Maria’s hawkish eyes drawing near but stared straight ahead in what I hoped would impress her as a show of extreme self-discipline, remembering how it felt when she had slapped me out of my chair for disobeying one of her first directives. I pressed my fingers together, not hard enough to expose my nervousness by turning my knuckles white.

She slapped a book onto each desk with a sharp clap followed by a pause as she scanned the room for signs of insubordination. I held my breath and “Bam!” there it was: a paper-bound catechism with everything I needed to know to earn my way into heaven.

My father was a learned man, a man of letters wrapped in a cocoon of books. They calmed him in a way we kids and his frazzled wife did not. I would watch him disappear into his world of knowledge, emerging hours later with the assured gait of the enlightened. Now I had a book that would help me catch up, a book I could carry home in my patent-leather book bag with the gold-colored clasp.

Fun with Dick and Jane followed: a secular version of worldly wisdom with pages splashed in pictures of apple-cheeked children under blue skies. I devoured my lessons, turning them over in my mind before I fell asleep at night, wondering which ones held the key to family harmony.

Dinner time was especially hairy, all of us worn from the day, slavering over a central pot of beef stew, my mother beatifically composed at one end of the table, my father simmering at the other end, and me across the narrow side from my two younger brothers warning them with eye daggers not to spill their milk or erupt in childish giggles.

Mom served Dad a generous bowl before scooping out a ladle each for me, for my brothers, and for herself. My bowl was usually the first one to sit empty, a testament to my lack of restraint. To my credit, I resisted the urge to lick it clean, using my brothers as a diversion, watching them idle through their stew, kicking each other under the table, their eyes dangerously aglow. After five minutes, I reached for the ladle, but looking sideways to read my father’s face, withdrew my hand.

A lightbulb had gone off! One of my school lessons came to me with such clarity that I could see the drawing of a little girl in a cute, blue dress, holding two apples and offering the slightly larger to her friend. The caption read: “Always give more than you take for yourself.”

I rested my hands on my lap, swallowed, and waited. When everyone had served themselves a second scoop of stew, I helped myself to more, being careful to fill the ladle slightly less than full. And while I ate, I watched to see who would take a third, biding my time.

Bob and I are into our fourth month of social distancing. During the week he holes up in his office while I play the entitled retired housewife. I don’t identify as an extrovert, but social isolation is wearing me down. Most days I keep myself too busy to notice, but on some days I wonder what’s the point and have a hard time making myself move around.

So, it’s a treat when Bob joins me in my little play world on the weekends. On Saturday mornings Bob goes to town to pick up our Red Roots Farm CSA share at Chatham Mills Farmer’s Market while I dust and vacuum. We had gotten a Friday evening thundershower and thought we’d go shopping for mushrooms after he got home. (Thank you, Tami and Lyle, for access to your woodland acres and trails.)

When we got to the second little stream, Bob paused.

“The birds have a lot to say,”

“That’s because it’s early.”

A little further on we spotted some red chanterelles (Cantharellus cinnabarinus) on the trail. While I was busy picking the tiny mushrooms Bob followed their trail into the undergrowth and was surprised to discover that they fizzled out about 150 feet from the trail even though the habitat was the same. We concluded that they must like being trampled.

We moved on to the next patch, me swinging my spider stick and occasionally backing out of a web I’d caught with my head, both of us sweating and swatting mosquitoes. We’d been smart to go before breakfast. Bob’s shirt was soaked, but we were forest bathing and bonding which doesn’t happen every day so I was happy.

Back home we peeled off our wet clothes. We ate breakfast. I cleaned up the mushrooms while listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. It took me more than an hour using a soft brush. I put them on the scale and saw that we’d picked 250 grams, a little over half a pound. They’ll go well with that “chicken” vegetable soup I’m making for dinner. Fried on the side in salted margarine. Yum!

This is how to kill a hot summer day in good company, I thought. Every day should be like this. Every day will be like this after Bob retires.

Like many, Shelley has been sidelined by the virus. Her grade school music students sent home, private lessons suspended, and the classes at Joy of Movement on hiatus. Yet her protein quotient remains stable, and chickens are a great way to bridge that gap.

For a long time, her coop stayed empty. She’d had chickens in previous years — big laying hens and roosters she’d gotten as chicks — but like most backyard flocks they came and they went. When that happens a couple of years in a row, it sorta takes the wind out of your sails.

There is no need for a rooster if all you want is eggs, and especially if you value quiet. Hens lay eggs with regularity whether they have been fertilized or not. Some find the idea of consuming a little embryo a little hard to stomach.

Others insist the roosters provide essential protection, but I have seen some very scrappy hens as well as timid cocks. But Shelley wasn’t taking sides in any of these arguments and so she ended up with two impressive roosters a couple of years ago.

I enjoyed my role as the chicken aunt in those days. When Shelley was out of town, I crawled through the hen house door and gave the water and feed dispensers a good shake. The birds were friendly and unafraid and sometimes touched my hands with inquisitive pecks. I peeked in the nesting boxes and harvested the eggs. “Keep as many as you want,” Shelley said, and I did, putting the rest in her refrigerator for her to eat and give away.

Shelley’s tuxedo cat, Lucy, kept me company. It has been a long time since I had either livestock or pets and I reveled in the purposeful routine of animal care.

Shelley’s boyfriend Eric had been house sitting when those birds perished. Every last one shredded by what must have been a fox. Mercifully, he was able to remove the carnage before her return, but the episode stunned Shelley and she went a long time without birding back up.

A couple of months ago, when Eric saw a shipment of chicks arrive at the Pittsboro Post Office, he seized the moment and put a reserve on half a dozen pullets.

Covid-19 has put so many out of work and turned grocery shopping into such an ordeal, that chickens have become quite trendy. Our two local feed stores can barely meet demand. The chicks come in and fly out the door. Eric was not taking any chances. If she didn’t want them, he could rescind the hold.

Eric enjoys tinkering with cars and homesteading infrastructure. For example, he turned this blue barrel into a lettuce planter for Shelley’s birthday last year.

But of course, Shelley did want the chicks. She already had the setup and even a little feed leftover. Plus, she was home where she could keep an eye on them. And now she had a rooster to help fend off the predators.

“Look at this comb, and these wattles. I’ve been wondering why they were growing so fast, and now I think I know.” She cradles her little guy and beams. “They’re supposed to all be hens, but this breed is hard to sex.”

Shelley puts the little black cockerel back and reaches for a Barred Rock pullet. It’s obvious she is smitten with the backyard chicken bug and they seem to enjoy being fussed over.

It’ll be a couple of months until her babies begin laying, but she’ll still be ahead of the game. With store-bought eggs approaching $5 a dozen, she will have a steady supply for only $1.50 a dozen.

The virus is not done with us yet and nobody knows what will happen when the weather gets cold and forces us inside. Best to be as self-sufficient as possible.

I picture five strangers in a floating prison with four gallons of water and three weeks of rations, stonily regarding the infinite, blue seascape. Conversation long ago exhausted, their eyes shift from the tarp covering their meager supply to the deepening lines in each other’s faces, and back to the sea of undrinkable water.

My browser feeds me news of asymptomatic ballplayers and senators testing positive for Covid-19 while the untested hoi polloi hover in limbo, staring at their kitchen cupboards. A family in Freehold, New Jersey, my childhood stomping grounds, is paying the ultimate price for honoring their Sunday dinner tradition. The matriarch and three of her eleven children have died, while others wait out their infection.

In the absence of community testing, we assume that we and everyone around us are carrying the virus. All are guilty until proven innocent. And, should we test negative, that status evaporates when we touch the next community-accessible hard surface, or pass downwind from someone with a dry cough.

The only rational response is to distance ourselves. Bob and I bang around our little dingy, embracing each time we cross paths. We’ve shrunk our world to house and yard, meandering from our news feeds to the garden, to the refrigerator. We subscribe to a spring CSA and start planting potatoes.

This morning I wake from a dream where I am hugging an older woman in a red dress, a familiar stranger with whom I’ve formed an instant bond. What I wouldn’t do for a hug from an outsider.

The United States took action too late. Our curve will look like most other countries, a hockey stick of terrible decisions, drastic action, overwhelmed health care, and triage. I click on a satellite image of two limed trenches in an Iranian graveyard, while our hospitals draft guidelines for who to turn away. The governor extends North Carolina school closures to mid-May. Many of our friends are now sidelined from work, while friends and family in healthcare, food service, and delivery scramble to keep up.

As the sun bears down, the water lures you from your rubber seat. The cooling relief quickly turns to panic when you feel the first bump of a fish against your dangling legs. You claw your way back into your life raft and watch the salt crust bloom across your arms. The fins appear, and you try not to lick your lips.

~*~

On the weekends, we break our quarantine for a walk at the dam. We’ve altered our route as more people take advantage of the park. We test the breeze, doing our best to stay upwind of other strollers. Like us, many take calculated risks: the occasional trip to town for supplies, dinner with the folks, or a walk beyond the confines of home.

I’ve given up my Tuesday walk with Shelley and Amy. Instead, we text and talk on the phone. I compensate by walking out our back gate and disappearing down the trail into Tami’s woods. At my destination, I stand on the big rocks and regard Stinking Creek, hoping to see a deer come down to drink, or perhaps another human being. On the way home, I stop and sit on Carl’s bench, beneath that stately beech. Sometimes I lie back, staring up at the beyond, thinking about what I’ll do with those peppers when I get home.

On most mornings, I write in my royal blue Challenge Manuscript Book, number five in a series of six. I filled the first one with stories of daily life in Belize in 1997, writing with the help of a kerosene lamp. Some mornings I download flotsam, dream captures, and mental purges to a small paperback notebook that I bought for a dollar.

Caught between thoughts, my pen in mid-air, I look around the room. Although our mattress and underwear are new, very little else in our bedroom is. The bed tables, dressers, even the towering corn plant are opportunistic finds or rescues. A worn Nepalese carpet lies at the foot of our bed, a gift from Bob’s high school friend, Fran Yarbro. I try in vain to picture the silk threads when they were new. I get down on my knees and count five saber-wielding huntsmen leaning forward on their rearing steeds, nine scrambling forest creatures, and one open-mouthed tiger.

Bob and I walk pad across this carpet many times each day without giving much thought to Fran. Sitting here I take the opportunity to picture them, she and her husband Sergei, sitting across the table from us, wine glasses in hand, animated, so obviously in love. It wasn’t long after that day that they perished on the slopes of Mt. Everest doing what they loved most.

I can almost remember helping Bob assemble our bookshelf many years ago. We bought most of the Kurt Vonnegut novels new, but they are well worn now from repeated readings. Ditto for Daniel Quinn. The other books are thrift store finds and gifts. There is a copy of Dead Eye Dick, signed by the author that Nick Meyers gave us before he died. A few books away from it is a 1956 printing of Rob Roy that Bob’s mother was reading when he was born and which inspired his name. And we have a 1951 copy of Marguerite Henry’s Album of Horses, my name penciled on the flyleaf in loopy grade school sprawl.

Our sheets, line-dried in yesterday’s perfect sun, were also previously owned. I stalk the sheet rack at Pittsboro’s PTA Thrift Store for 100% cotton, Pima or Egyptian. When I discover one with the right degree of softness, I drape it over my arm and walk to the counter and, gushing with pride, and invite the clerk to run her hand over the sturdy fabric.

When I learned that my brother John, and his wife, Darla, were coming to visit, I stripped the guest room bed and hung everything in the sun. And then I made a loaf of bread, the dough so irresistibly plump I could not stop kneading. I harvested okra, figs, cherry tomatoes, squash, and peppers, thinking with each pluck how wonderful it would be to have my family here. About the walks we would take, and about how, together, we would roast chestnuts and make them into soup with sherry, onions, and squash.

Later, after putting the bed back together, I entered the guest room to place a few pieces of dark chocolate on a scuffed night table and noticed how the whole room smelled of crisp fall sunlight and golden breezes.

I don’t think you have to sit still underneath a fig tree for forty-nine days to reach nirvana. I also don’t think you can buy it. Enlightenment, for me at least, is about manifesting my values, and I am fortunate that I can do that. My nirvana is time to think my thoughts, family visits, home-grown food, thrift store scores, heirlooms, treasured books, and line-dried sheets.