my endless numbered days

I pulled out of the parking lot fast today. Peeled out, really. I turned up the truck's stereo as loud as it would go and let Radiohead's Ok Computer carry me home. Karma Police came on and I smiled coyly. The song, all their songs, are wonderful but tonight the ending bars of the last chorus were absolutely perfect. I left the office's driveway singing with Mr. Yorke like we were in the same booth of a bar and each owed the other something important but forgot it four drinks ago. The truck had been sitting in the driveway all weekend, and had accumulated a large collection of leaves that were too wet to fly out this morning. As I sped down the highway they burst out from the bed in a fury just as the music hit its peak. You can't construct moments like that. I was a fall machine and I knew the evening would be beautiful.

I got home and almost ran to the front door. I opened it and Annie leapt up into my arms, whining, begging for what was left of the sunlight. I told my fine dogs we were going for a walk and they howled and stomped their paws as we leashed up. We ran off and up the the dirt roads. The dogs love the dead leaves by the the edges and wade through them like creek water. With the dead children of oaks and maples up to their elbows, they'd stride like the grandest brace of horses. Thrush WOOooosh Thrish THRASH was the joyful noise their pace would echo. We walked fast, west, downhill. Into the sunset, racing it to the old cemetery where men who plowed these hills before the Civil War lie dead. We ran up over the grass that covered the brave that came before us, and looked over all of West Sandgate, like kings.

A girl. Her dogs. Her Fall.

We came home and I let the dogs lap water and eat their dinners. Then I went outside to feed the sheep. I was so happy this morning when I walked out in the 28 degree cold and watched all three emerge from their small shed in a pile. I had filled it with heavy clean straw the night before and knew they woke up safe and warm. Joseph, the black lamb, was welcomed in the barn with the others. He was last to come out, groggy, a baby.

I took Finn out too, to play and headbutt and run around the yard following me like the dog he always knew he was. I collected five perfect brown eggs and fed the rabbits. I stacked wood and felt my body get hot as the night grew chill. I felt lucky. I felt alive.

Indoors again—I immediately turned on the record player. Our Endless Numbered Days was on the turntable and I let side one play as I started a loaf of bread in the kitchen. The song On Your Wings came on and played with the hollow distance that only an old record player can really growl. I know nearly every Iron and Wine song by heart and sang along as I kneaded.

"How we rise when we're born like the ravens in the corn...On their wings, on our knees, crawling careless from the seas. God, give us love in the time that we have..."

I sing those words like my mouth isn't a human mouth at all. Like some wild dog with the ability to move its jowls in elegant ways could sing. I sing like the fox I want dead and as I sing I am happy he's not. Because if he could sing, he would sing those words too. This may sound odd but that song is like that—specially as it cracks on the record player—which is older than I am.

Dinner tonight will be a simple, favorite, meal. A small loaf of bread pulled out of the oven and sliced open like a baked potato. I'll sprinkle in a little seasoning and cheddar and eat it with slow and grateful bites washed down with iced apple cider from a mason jar. But that will be hours from now. First I have a couple thousand words to write for a publisher and hopefully I'll award myself every five hundred or so with a guitar break. I want to work on that song I wrote. I'll sway between projects as I stoke the fireplace. I may not be asleep until late.

But that's okay because tonight, darling, is all about Autumn. It's about being happy I'm not dead yet. Pretty simple. Which is what this month is all about to me. It's Thanksgiving in Canada today and Thanksgiving at a cabin at the end of the world. Tucked in a hidden hollow in a mountain in Vermont one girl, two dogs, a flock of sheep, a goat, some chickens, rabbits and music are all humming with October. Which I honestly think was born right here in Bennington County. We are blessed in ways we do not have the ability to understand. Nights like these really are my endless numbered days.

I didn't spend any money tonight. I didn't get drunk, or make love, or do any drugs. I didn't have a party, or plan a vacation, or even get kissed on the forehead. I just spent a day experiencing this holy season the best ways I know how: with sweat and animals and woodsmoke and good food. And because of that I feel like I did all those things in which I did not. Which in a way, just might, be better. At least tonight anyway.

At least tonight.