In between

I sit on my patio circa 6:00 a.m., listening to the birds chirp themselves silly.  The coffee scalds, just the way I like. A spiderweb stretches between the jade and the pitcher plant, its builder plucking the edges of the silk like a fine classical guitarist. Matt finds my toes with his.

My daily dose of miracle.

This interlude arrives about the same time as the newspaper. Night fears have crawled back to their corners, and the day's worries are still tucked in.

Calm, calm, calm.

A female cardinal hovers above the feeder. I prefer the soft teak of her feathers, tinged with rose visible only when she flies, to her mate's allover lipstick red.

I wonder.

Does she wake in the night and catalog the previous day's mis-steps? Where does she store her recriminations? Is she worried she can't be, say, and do enough?

She belts out a tune and clasps the edge of the feeder, and I know the answer to my questions. She doesn't have a sock drawer or a 401k or an appointment at the radiologist. But she has work to do. And she does it while singing.

If I could, I would pour this time of day into my pockets. When my friends call and want to talk about their crumbling marriages, the shame of sexual abuse, the overdue car insurance bill, the 3,000 mile journey away from all that that feels like home -- or when I'm absolutely 100% sure there is no way in hell I am ever going to finish my work well, much less scrub the black ring off the inside of the toilet bowl -- or I think on tomorrow's appointment to peer as closely as possible into my right breast without actually laying it open with a scalpel -- perhaps then I could dig a little of this peace out of my pocket, hold it up to my nose, and inhale it.

Maybe I could scoop it into my backpack, too, and sprinkle it on my salad. Or put a jar of it on my desk, right between the pens and the stapler, and label it, "For emergency use, both real and imagined."

The song of my cardinal friend, the voice of peace -- they are the same. Wondrously real, necessarily imagined.

Bottomless.

Mine.