The Mountain That Wasn't

Last month I was sitting in bed reading. I don't sit in bed during the day often, but on this day I was. I looked out the window and saw for the first time ever a large mountain n the distance. Majestic and capped, not unlike a Paramount intro. It centered me, slowed my heart rate. How beautiful and how somehow new. But the longer I looked at it, the more suspicion I had. It was a house. A house on a hill. It really did look like a mountain. But no, it must be a house. Actually. I liked it less.

Puhg came in to get a pair of socks. I asked him, "What's that? Is that a mountain?" He followed my finger through the glass. Way way too the left? No. No, right there. "Is that a mountain or a house?" Like the houses over to the right? Wedged in the hill? No, no, not those. "I'm not wearing my glasses," I explained. He looked a while longer. "You mean the tree?" he asked. And so I squinted and readjusted and, in fact, it was a treetop. Oranged and fluffy, with a particular cloud puff hovering over. Now it's all I could see.

Fall is delayed in the west. In January there will be a woodsy smoke that comes or a wet gutter or bare branches. Today I noticed the tree lost all its leaves. Nothing in it's place. Certainly not a possible mountain or even a house. And so one goodbye became three.