Bye, Bye Hermann 

Outside my windows is a magnificent mountain. After six months of living here, I discovered that it is called Sunrise Mountain, quite a beautiful name in itself. But before I knew that, I christened him Hermann, named after a long-ago cat we had loved.  

We always called him Hermann. I was partial to his light and sharply defined shadows at dawn. Jim preferred the softer silhouette he presented at sunset.  

No matter what, we marveled at his magnificence several times a day. Now I realize that when I am gone, in the not-too-distant future, Hermann himself will be gone, Sunrise Mountain will still be there, sunrise and sunset, waxing and waning in the changing light. But there will no longer be a Hermann. He will die with us. 

Early in the morning, I sit and stare out the window as the sky gradually lightens and fingers of sunlight stretch across his face. I mourn the end of an era, the end of our mutual admiration of his existence. I suffer, and I weep, at dusk as he fades away into a generalized mound, disconnected from all that he meant to us.  

Fantasy Intimacy 

After so many years together, the loss of my beloved companion also means the loss of what we created together, our personal and private world of symbols and verbal triggers that only we knew and shared away from the pressing crowd.  

Lovers share not only a secret language but a whole universe of fantasy and mutually delightful creations. There are keywords and expressions that cement our intimacy. Sometimes a vision sends us into paroxysms of shared laughter, others catch at our throats, deepening our communication and making us eternally grateful that the other is there. Even after a strong disagreement or minor fight, we reach for our shared icons, or create new ones, that pull us back together in mutual support.  

I have a hand massager with 3 balls on the bottom that glow bright red when the unit is turned on. Jim named him the “Alien” and concocted wonderful stories about his partying life on Jupiter and his girlfriend who resented the time he spent with me. I always had trouble falling asleep but in the middle of restless tossing and turning, I would hear “the alien just called, he’s on final approach.” Before I knew it, he was massaging my back until I drifted off. Now I am alone without my sleep-inducing friend and wander the house, pacing from room to room, until my mind crashes and I finally fall into oblivion.  

Our Personal Bug 

I don’t remember when Foster joined the family. It must have been 40 years ago. A friendly bug, type unspecified, he just showed up one day and stayed, off and on, for years. Foster was very independent. He would take off for parts unknown, hitchhiking across the country, sending us bulletins of where he was, what he was doing, and occasionally showing up on the doorstep to crash for a while until wandering away on some new adventure. For an insect, he must be incredibly old by now, grizzled and gray. I have lost touch with him recently but hope that he’s well and has never lost his yearning to roam, knowing that he always has a home to return to when the world soured and life itself grew dreary and boring. 

The Beaver Clan 

It was our move to rural Central California that brought the Beavers into our orbit. A raucous group tended to take over and place they visited. There was Nadia, masculine and belligerent to had failed her sex tests for Olympic trials. :az;o, the Hungarian, with his oiled hair and moustache, exuded a certain vulgar charm that even Nadia failed to totally resist. Loud, usually drunk, they moved in without a by-your-leave and created a world of chaos – refreshing in the small town to which we tried, with difficulty, to adapt. They were our stress relief from the rural conservatism and excessive religiosity of neighbors and coworkers who had missionary backgrounds, steeped in a narrow-minded faith that had little in common with the Twentieth Century, never mind the Twenty-first.  

Beryl, our tree 

Each morning going to work, we passed an old orange grove in Irvine. There were some big and medium sized trees bearing some, shriveled, oranges. The whole grove seemed neglected and dying. But there was one tree, almost leafless, small, and brown. It was covered with oranges. We christened him Beryl, the tree that tried. Each morning, we bade a good day to the little tree that could. We waved to him and encouraged him to be himself, a mini tree among the undergrowth. 

One weekend, we were in Vegas. On Monday morning, we realized with alarm that the orchard had been demolished for putting up houses. We parked and walked through the mess that was left, hoping that Beryl had survived with the courage and fortitude we had seen previously. But he was gone. No more Beryl. If we had known, we would have rescued him before the back hoes cleared the lot. We mourned him forever. No tree with that will to grow and multiply should have fallen to the philistines with their destructive measures.  

We mourned Beryl for a long time, in awe of his courage in the face of destruction that was not as powerful as we would have hoped. Now, as then, I salute your embodiment of survival and fruitfulness in the face of destruction. 

Little Deeno 

I don’t remember any Sinclair gas stations in California in the 40+ years I lived there. When we moved to Las Vegas, we drove past a Sinclair station on Russell Road and saw a huge green plaster dinosaur in front of the station. I fell in love with it. What better symbolism could there be for fossil fuel? The dinosaurs and their steaming, volcanic world disappeared a hundred thousand years ago. A million years before then, organic matter decayed and falling subject to heat and pressure bequeathed us oil, the black tarry substance that may one day envelope the earth in strangling carbon dioxide and we will go the way our reptilian predecessors. 

Our new lifestyle involved little driving, so we started paying cash for our gas (lengthy Southern California commutes almost mandated credit cards). I was delighted that our closest station was a Sinclair. There was no large dinosaur outside but a small one appeared on the station’s marquee. We dubbed him “little deeno.” Every time we drove by, I’d wave “hello, little deeno.” The response from behind the wheel was a deep-voiced “hello, little lady.” Occasionally it admonished me to leave him alone. “I’m trying to sleep, last night was wild.” Other stations held cousin deenos and if there were unpleasant verbal remarks Jim would threaten to report it to big grandpa on Russell Road. 

I still get my gas from him and acknowledge him when I drive by but it is not the same. My heart, and his, are no longer in it. 

The Disappearance of Everything. 

Writing this, I remember so much I thought I’d forgotten. As long as I can think about our past quirks, they still exist. When I am gone, they will disappear into the ether like an abandoned website that never really ceases to exist but cannot ever be retrieved in this world that we inhabit. Perhaps copies of them exist in a parallel universe but, if so, I shall never know it. There is a Mexican saying that we die 3 times. Once is when the body stops functioning, again when we are buried and all know that we shall never be seen again on this earth and finally when we are forgotten by our living survivors. One day in the future, someone will think of me for the last time and the populous and joyful world of Jim, Ginny and friends will, like the dinosaurs, be no more.