Author: crdahlberg

Outdoorsman

Grandson Levi adores the outdoors. Camping lets him run and run and run. Cookie in mouth, he gladly and relentlessly traverses the same short path, back and forth. When he expresses excitement, he squeals with joy. It’s a delightful sound. He smiles a mile wide without warning. He has a passion for anything that is round—circles and the letter “O”. He craves being near and in water, flapping his hands in delight. I admire him because he is who he is without pretense. Through him, I, without autism, will learn to become more transparent.

Pertified Possum

She’s right there. Can you see her? I’m not sure if you can really make her out, head curled around her body, entombed beneath the floor joists of our 1930-built living room floor.

Her body was accidentally excavated today, upon replacing the floor.

She might be a 1930’s depression-era opossum. Or she might have perished while wartime soldiers set sail to Europe. Perhaps she passed away during Detroit’s 1960’s era of Cadillac fins. Has she lain here since Woodstock? Or might she have lost her way beneath our living room floor merely months ago while we, just above her, viewed the latest Netflix feature. We cannot know what generation she belongs to. But does it matter? In her withered carcass, the measure of generations are erased.

We are left with the passage of time, no matter how long, and to ponder what we have done to redeem it. Claremont, CA

Analog Smartphone

For many centuries before the advent of digital smartphones with their conversation-restricting this-is-my-private-world ambiance, there was another silence-inducing pastime—the analog world of card-play, where strategy is everything, and silence is to be respected. Apparently, at this breakfast table at least, the new gives way to the very old. But at least the silence is broken by an occasional, “It’s your turn,” instead of the jangle of The Lone Ranger-themed electronic ringtone. Ahhh.