PLAYING POSSUM

One of the earliest entries posted here concerned our backyard opossum Eduardo (Link), who used to visit us most nights in Tuxedo Park, partaking of the food we would place on the back terrace for the feral cats whom we could not persuade to join us indoors.  Light-shy but confident of his place in the world and his right to be fed, Eduardo was a beloved semi-companion. 

When we moved full-time to Pennsylvania seven years ago, we mostly lost contact with Eduardo.  A friend continued to leave food for the animals in Tuxedo Park, but we were here in Berwyn, beginning our long era of semi-confusion. 

Two days ago, the Saturday before Easter, we decided to have a drink on our back terrace before preparing dinner.  It was warm-chilly and we wanted to see the sky turn purple from the top of Signal Hill.  Caroline was getting deep into Chinese Astrology by Paul Carus and I was reading The Ivan Moffat File when I felt a presence.

On the flat below the terrace, beyond and through the iron rail I saw Edouardo walking very slowly, deliberately and confidently across the property in the direction of the covered-over swimming pool, which has now become a tadpole farm, birdbath and animal reservoir. Now an adult and much larger, he has retained his highly intelligent face and serious, committed countenance.  If you placed a pair of spectacles on him, he would look exactly like a children’s story-book character. 

Caroline is usually the one pointing out these marvels to me and  I often fail to appreciate them, tending to be annoyed by the interruptions and annoying in my inconsiderate, incurious responses.  This time I was the one breaking into her thoughts, but she understood the imperative and the miracle.

A few minutes later, sated and quenched, Eduardo walked seriously past again on his way to wherever it is he calls home on our land.  I don’t know when he rejoined our family or whether  he ever left us.  As I said, we’ve been semi-confused.

George Jones: Playing Possum (Link)

Dedicated to Tom Clark, the first person outside our family who appreciated Edouardo.

SHADOW

My house would look a lot like this right now if there were more moonlight.  This isn’t  a moonshadow house like the one in Tuxedo (that’s what the realtors should have called it in their brochure, instead of the idiotic Italianate name they picked, Tramonto), but it can be wondrous at the apex of Chester County. You can’t help thinking about the Valley Forge regiments and the tree-houses they built for observation and surveillance.

7:30 pm last night, when the snow began falling heavily and steadily, mine was the only car on Sugartown Road.  Proceeding carefully east and returning two miles west, there wasn’t too much slipping and sliding, and no one would have noticed anyway.  Except for some mild arguing, silence then, and nothing until a just few minutes ago when grasping the stair rail and descending, the bells on the floor around the Christmas tree rang out on their own.  Pansy varies her activities, but she checks in every single day.   

Three photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn:  Top – Shadows, 1903; Center, Hyde Park Corner, 1911;  Bottom: Winter, 1901.

John Cage: In A Landscape (Link)