I awoke with the sun this morning. Jeremy just got up to have his morning pee. In the immortal words of my younger brother, “not everybody takes a shit every morning, but everybody in the world has to pee.” Indeed. Nearly as soon as he left my side the dog, which had been sleeping on the floor next to my side of the bed, stood up walked around the bed and without any introductions, jumped right onto the place Dan had just left warm with the heat of his slumber. Resisting the sun I moved closer to my new bed mate and attempted a few more minutes of rest. He was much smellier than I was used to sleeping next to, but then again I have refused to wear deodorant or perfume for years, a custom which has become so ingrained in our culture that to disregard that rule becomes almost as unspeakable as incest or parricide. It is hard to understand how wearing a substance that makes my underarms smell like rain became a necessary part of modern society, but that is where we’ve landed. Either way, the dog most certainly has slept next to people whose odor was sweeter than my au naturale scent I have been trying to promote, rather unsuccessfully, for years, but he has more than likely smelled worse, and he moved a little closer so as to absorb my heat more efficiently.
Virgil, our friend’s dog, is a nice companionable dog who is neither incredibly friendly nor incredibly unfriendly. He had never really noticed me before this week. I had met him several times during the summer and he never so much as looked in my direction, but he has recently decided that I would make a great partner in the crime of lazy weekends of which we are both huge fans.
I was invited to breakfast with Dan and Ryan, his best friend from the age of three,, before their hiking epic of the day. So I dressed, or dressed in a fashion by throwing on a pair of socks and ambling downstairs in my pajamas without saying much of anything to the man I share my bed and much of my life with. I waited for Jeremy to take Virgil out to pee, and hopefully poop as he had neglected to do so all day yesterday, until I realized that he was too caught up in packing and planning and did it myself.
Even though I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the cold and frozen parts of the country, I am always caught unawares by just how cold it is the morning after a cold night during the deepest depth of winter. My mind refuses to this day to believe that the sun does not always mean a warm day, and in the winter without the insulation of the clouds, a sunny day is usually even colder. Virgil didn’t like the cold winter air either judging by the fact that he didn’t want to stop moving long enough even to pee until we were nearly back to our house when he must have decided it would be better to be cold for thirty seconds than have to pee all day. It was sunny, so by noon when or if I was ready to hike it would be much warmer. We both shuffled back into the house frozen. Still no poop.
In our coastal town there are few establishments of any kind open year round. Most businesses just stay open for the summer and cut their losses and hole up in little houses with wood stoves, or if they’re lucky, they escape to warmer and more civilized locales during the winter. I prefer a lack of civilization myself, so I chose the former. This morning in particular I mildly regretted my decision. The three of us Ryan, Dan and myself, were looking forward to a delicious breakfast made at what I am convinced is the most underrated breakfast location in the country, Two Cats. They are open all year; use fresh and real ingredients and have a well lit and laid back dining area. They also have the most deliciously innovative recipes and new takes on your traditional favorites. And did I mention delicious yet? The first time I went there was the morning after the Fourth of July and I was so hung over that I threw up the carrot and water I had used to try to quiet my stomach until the food arrived. The wait staff, if they noticed, seemed not to be bothered by this, as if that sort of thing happens all the time, which I doubt. My vomit wasn’t repulsive being made of two benign ingredients and the food that arrived at our table shortly thereafter was so good as to entirely shadow the experience of throwing up carroty water behind a restaurant at ten in the morning. “It’s going to be so delicious it will be like four cats” Ryan kept repeating all morning. “It will be five cats it’ll be so good.” But when we arrived there were no cats. They were 'unexpectedly closed for the season and will reopen in April,' so we went to the only other place that was open, a crummy diner-like place attached to a convenience store, gas station, laundromat bonanza. The food was average and we all left full more of butter than of real food. “Well that was definitely Five Cats” Ryan remarked as we headed to separate cars. They went for their hike, and I headed back to my house and the dog.
I had planned on hiking all day with a friend who lived an hour North, but he never showed up, and I was able to enjoy the soul of a Sunday that can only be felt while doing nothing and basking in the glory of that nothingness for hours. He had visited me at work yesterday on my lunch break and mentioned something about his roommate finally deciding to move in tomorrow. He asked where we were hiking tomorrow. “Beech Mountain, it is the last mountain on the island that I haven’t hiked. The last that has trails on it at least.” Now that it was tomorrow, I can only assume that he either decided to help his roommate move in or he happened to go outside and realized that it was too cold for a short walk around his house not to mention a long hike which would be light and enjoyable during the summer or fall months, but made arduous by the wind, crusty snow, and freezing temperatures of January.
Sunday and January two such intimately related concepts that it is hard to think of a January without Sundays. Of all the January’s I remember during my childhood I can only remember Sundays. January Sundays are always cold and usually gray and windless. All of my January Sundays were at least, but this Sunday was the exception; unseasonably cold, sunny and beautiful and still all I wanted to do was cuddle with the smelly dog and read books until Dan came back so I could bake bread and drink beer. It’s no wonder that Sunday is a day most people reserve for God. As Virgil twitches from his dreams on the floor and I lay in a sunlit room on an overly large couch it is hard to see anything else but a profound spirituality in the still of a cold and sunny Sunday alone.
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