Great Big Pile

 

“Years are just moments in a great big pile”


I tugged that lyric out of a Zach Bryan song on this sentimental snowy morning. Wood stove fires do that to me; watching the sky brighten from gunmetal to blonde and back to silver, listening to a random mix of morning songs, a toasted English muffin with peanut butter molten on top, a quart of orange juice and the dogs claiming as much of the couch as their furry bodies can cover, paws outstretched towards the crack of the caboose stove. Sentimental indeed. 

Not all things are good. The Check engine light is on in the car. Snow on the roads means an extra hour of driving. Power company wants to replace a couple poles and I am worried they are going to tear up the not yet frozen ground of my driveway with their trucks. My wrist is bothering me again, lumps of scar tissue don’t want to stretch. The tile project at work was not my best work; I was impatient and the walls were out of square. 

But most things are good. Warm house, a truck that runs, tools that work in the cold, monthly bills paid from a two month paycheck that finally arrived Monday. I think about that lyric about years and moments. I think back on some of the moments from this past year. Even in a relatively unexciting year, the pile of moments is pretty darn big. 

Cleaning the chimney with my neighbor on a gorgeous January thaw day then sitting out on the windswept lawn and watching the coal smoke rise from the shop down the hill. Racing home to catch the end of the Chiefs and Bills playoff game and thinking I missed it because there are only 13 seconds left only to be treated to a magnificent ending that makes me loathe the Chiefs even more. Trying to pull my old barn down with a couple tow straps while wearing a bicycle helmet because I am not sure if pieces are going to fly off when it pancakes. Turns out I am not strong enough, so I call Charlie and we make short work of it with the help of gravity, then drink one too many in celebration. Running with the wind across a sagebrush prairie in the Lost River valley in Idaho as the dogs sprint to catch up, fur blown flat by the spring gale. Finding ourselves in Arco in a dust storm brown-out as the wind whips all the plowed soil. Setting up camp in the Harlowton Rodeo grounds at two in the morning, after a wild night at the Moose Club with the band. Watching what we now know to be Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, recently launched into low orbit, trailing across the sky and seriously pondering the existence of UFO’s. Playing darts on our front porch as the August sun goes down and realizing that we have an honest-to-God home of our own for the first time ever. And realizing that we have friends that we can invite over! We can be hosts to visitors and can offer them plumbing and cold beverages and not have to cook on a Coleman stove. Pulling into the driveway after work, letting the dog out to run the deer off the lawn and then sitting in the truck as the latest Zach Bryan song plays through the speakers. Watching a plume of smoke in the distance and wondering. 

And that’s just a few memories from the past year. The pile is big and getting bigger. Not all of them are fond, but this morning by the fire, even the sad memories get tossed on the pile. 

And now, it is time to go back to work making a few more memories to throw on the pile…


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