The Queen of the Night holds court in our garden
Our hacienda still loves us
It’s been a tough time for this desert dweller here at our hacienda lately.
But it’s getting better sunrise by sunrise. Our air conditioning is back thanks to a new purring compressor. Our busted sewer line flows once again. Our asbestos-riddled sheet rock in both water damaged bathrooms is about to be replaced and soon our toilets and sinks will return from exile on our back porch. Our beloved cat, Professor Tubbles, who I mercifully had to have put down in the middle of our calamity, now rests besides her mother in our backyard pet cemetery.
The desert dust is settling. And our temporary refuge, our hotel room, is cozy. And back home life goes on out in our desert Eden, undisturbed by the chaos inside our hacienda. Late summer blooms keep blooming, buds keep budding and mourning dove hatchlings continue to hatch. Without any help from me or any subcontractors.
I learned something about myself these past weeks. I always thought of myself as a “centered” mature Boomer, a pseudo-Buddhist, a quasi-Zen master. What a load of coyote scat. I was sunny and cheerful with every wonderful rescuer, repairman, comforter and laborer who came into our home throughout our modest first world travails while at the same time in private I was petty, cranky, surly, sniping, short-tempered and self-pitying. Other than that, I was a Saint throughout this ordeal. Poor Ellen. Every morning I asked Ellen to forgive me, and she did. Ellen’s the Saint.
Has old age devoured my resilience? More than once during these three weeks of money pit mayhem I retreated to the desert behind our beleaguered abode with an old aluminum baseball bat to beat sand and curse until my infantile anger over our minor passing misfortunes was spent. Whump. Whump. Whump. &%$@!!
Deep breath. So childish. I hoped no neighbor heard me. Or sons. Or wife.
“Work it off. Go run around the block. Go pound sand.”
-The Master Sergeant
Wednesday I was online paying the $19,000 plumbing tab, chatting with my home insurance agent about covering the bathroom remodel, sending another chunk of change to our HVAC saviors and posting a sunny review of their service when I got a text telling me my five prescription refills for the month were ready. Instead of the usual low price (Thanks, Medicare Supplemental) I saw the total cost would be a bit higher, roughly $2,500.00.
It wasn’t enough that I was living like a third world refugee for weeks in the middle of a Tucson summer without A/C but now the medical roof was collapsing on me. What the Hell? Suddenly my life saving pharmaceutical innovations were going to cost me nearly three grand a month.
I envisioned myself living in an arroyo as I raced to the drugstore to remind the overworked pharmacist I possessed insurance.
Oops, Mr.Fitzsimmons. Sorry.
I smiled. Not to worry, my sister. These things happen.
We swapped smiles. I picked my heart up off the floor. I picked my discounted drugs up off the counter. Can I add these sugar-free lifesavers to my purchase? They’re only $4,957.39 a roll.
Laughter. I wished her “a painless day.”
In the car I cursed all the way back home to our hotel until I realized another column had landed in my lap. I discovered my $131.00 Januvia, a drug that lowers my blood sugar, sells for a pancreas popping $2,078.89 for 90 tablets. Merck, my savior, you’re a thieving mobster.
My $0.00 statin retails for $371.29 for 90 tablets. Mylan, my cholesterol killer, you are a profiteering pickpocket sacking the people’s treasuries like veritable Sacklers.
My raging reverie was interrupted when Ellen texted me our friends Trudy and Steve had invited us to dinner. I headed downtown to join Ellen at their lovely home. It was a wonderful mini vacation from our trivial tribulations. A little laughter and a little Cabernet can go a long way.
On my way back to the hotel under a crescent moon I stopped off at our hacienda and saw them. Something extraordinary had happened.
Our Night Blooming Cereus had always been an easy to overlook spray of scrawny grey limbs under an olive tree near our back porch. Tonight after 5-years under our botanical faith and protection our Queen of the Night rewarded me with an extraordinary bouquet of blossoms.
I texted my wife, two sons, and all our neighbors with the news. Come see!
Three large white flowers that looked like exploding stars reminded me of what can’t be bought, of what matters in existence, of how fleeting all of life is, of the rare beauty that persists in this merciless desert.
How insignificant in the ebb and flow of this magnificent cosmos are the trivial things I had been wringing my hands over. My sore heart had been filled with healing awe by a life form simply yearning for a pollinator like its ancestors had been doing for eons. I thought of my old man’s favorite scripture, a bit of 2,000-year-old Judean prose this heathen son never forgot. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
Consider how the lilies of the field grow: they do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these.
Was it true about the Queen of the Night? I bent down close to one of the blossoms and smelled the exquisite fragrance I’d only read about. Like a rose. In this harsh place. An intoxicating desert rose.
Sometimes a cliche is an enduring cliche because it’s profoundly true.
“You’re running around like a damned chicken with his head cut off. You got to stop and smell the roses, boy.”
-The Master Sergeant
Ever onward. It’s my variation of another one of the Master Sergeant’s sayings. Keep moving forward, boy. Never retreat. Ever onward into summer. It’s time to get ready for my comedy standup at the Hotel Congress on the 4th of July, time to get ready for our 10-day excursion to Manhattan, time to shop for paint and new vanities and time to start producing the Old Pueblo Holiday Radio Show.
And most importantly it’s time to stop and savor life’s garden every waking hour of this beautiful life. Ever onward.
Wow! Love how you roll--thank you for so vividly portraying our comic but oh so precious lives
Nice piece, David. Sorry about all that shiaaat that's been happening to you. Keep up the attitude. It's all about attitude.