The Right Consistency

The grass is covered with frost, stiff and crackling underfoot, and the skies are tinted gray with little sunlight getting through. Christmas is just over a week away and all along the bayou the trees are silhouetted against the horizon, their branches stark and sharply focused against the cloudy sky. A flock of blackbirds passes overhead and a lone heron sits statuesquely on a half submerged mix of debris and water weeds. It's a cold day and there's a suggestion of sadness in the air - even the sparrows scattered along the telephone wires seem to shiver and cluster together. It's winter, an unforgiving season despite the holidays and the holiness.

The mailbox overflows with unwanted bills and unsolicited catalogs, one time only special holiday offers, and a handful of Christmas cards - a very few friends and relations still take the time and trouble to handwrite them. One cousin carefully types several pages to encompass the entire year, makes copies and then uses bulk mail to send them out - this is the only time of year I hear from her and I suppose I should be honored by this annual missive. Instead, I generally find her superficial, cheerful and rambling prose annoying and the attached list of GOALS ATTAINED and THIS YEAR'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS slightly and self righteously obnoxious. I usually don't finish card or contents and have no trouble in transitioning them from mailbox to trash. Not exactly charitable, I know, but we aren't close, haven't seen each other in thirty plus years, and have precious little left in common. The cards from the bank, the real estate agent and the Chrysler dealer follow immediately afterward - we have even less in common.

By noon, the sun has fought its way through, the cold morning wind has become a sticky warm breeze and the lone heron has joined a dozen or so of his kind of the banks of the bayou. They are motionless to slow moving and remind me of a country cemetery, not sparing as much as a glance for the passing traffic or each other. The old gray and white cat that prowls our neighborhood and who had begun his day curled atop a heating unit was now sunning himself in the driveway next door. He watches the squirrels at the feeder, curiously passive and not interested in initiating a chase.

Even if you're a squirrel, uncertainty is the only constant you can count on.