“Mom, sometimes I feel like I’m not even alive!”

“Oh! What does that feel like?”

“Like I’m not even there. Like there’s a big black blank in my head, almost like I’m blind. I try not to go to my non-real life when I’m at school.

“It’s just weird,” Barney goes on. “It’s like I’m not even paying attention to anything, either, like I’m dead.”

I said “Maybe that’s what’s happening when your teacher is talking to you and you don’t seem to hear her.”

“No, I always make sure I stay focused when I’m at school, so I don’t go to my non-real life. It just happens on the bus and when I’m in bed and when I’m listening to music.

“Also, I can never tell when I’m asleep.”

I can’t explain this to him, so I react in a casual way, and haven’t heard any more about it. Maybe I should teach him to meditate.

His teacher (Barney’s in Grade 5) had been complaining that he doesn’t pay attention, that he seemed zoned-out, that he looked right through her, didn’t hear instructions, didn’t turn in his homework and projects, and so on and so forth. This was in spite of my making him do his homework each day; he wouldn’t seem to know that there was any homework or assignment expected, and I’d find out about it later. No amount of urging could get him to be “on top of it.”

So I said well, this can’t continue. From now on, if your homework and projects aren’t done, you won’t be permitted to play your Playstation games on the weekends. And if your teacher sends me a note on Wednesdays, stating that your assignments are up to date, I will let you play your games for an hour on that day as well as on the weekends.

It worked like magic. It was too easy.

xoxo
etc

In the late morning I step out the door and walk over to the woodpile Loverboy has stacked up a few feet away. After loading up my left arm, I turn to come back in and the smell of sawdust and woodsmoke together creates a sensation of luxury and depth. I breathe it in deeply as I walk back to the house.

After feeding the fire, I add black ski pants to my winter ensemble and put the camera in a jacket pocket. In the middle of the driveway I stand, trying to decide which way to go. Should I strike out on the road and risk leaving the wind-sheltered safety of the yard? Should I head down the path I took yesterday, where my feet will poke through the hard crust of foot-deep snow and then I'll have to crawl through a barbwire fence? Or would I rather stroll over to the three horses I see in the pasture right now, their necks stretched down to eat the hay they’ve been given? Yes, that’s where I’ll go.

No, no I won’t. Out there I can be seen. Pa said he noticed “some lost soul” (that was me) wandering down the road the other day, so I know if I go in that direction I’m visible. I don’t want to be. So I change my mind and walk west, down the path that leads to the garden and beyond.

When I get to the garden, I notice the giant footprints that someone, probably L, left there; the ones I walked in yesterday. Today I see that some creature has left turds in a couple of the footprints. Gross, I think, and walk on by. Once I turn to look back, and see Pumpkin Cat squatting in one of the footprints. Ah ha.

Safely through the barbwire fence -- I got caught for a moment yesterday -- I see the other six horses grazing in the west pasture. As I amble toward them, the mildness of the air pleases me. It is so warm today, though not sunny and there is no water running from the eavestrough by our front step. It is a gorgeous day and I’m glad I’ve come outside.

Past the long stacks of rolled hay bales I go, and stand at another barbwire fence. The horses are spread out, heads down, and I don’t call them but right away one starts toward me. He comes to the fence, pretty as you please, and the others follow. Beside him two others line up to greet me, and I reach out tentatively to stroke their faces. The big Belgian is the third horse to reach me, and before long she steps sideways in front of the others, positioning herself so as to block them from me. Greedy girl wants all the attention for herself.

I talk to them. I ask them if they’re getting enough to eat out here. I ask them if I make them a bit nervous, as there is one who is shy of my hand when I try to touch him. I tell them I’m more nervous than they are, because they’re so big.

I say to the Belgian, “Jesus, you’re huge! Your face is twice the size of theirs! Your hooves too!”

Then I ask them if they’d like to see my camera. They don’t say anything, but I fish it out of my pocket and snap a few photographs. After that, I rub a few more faces, pat a few more sleek jaws, and start north to make a loop around the farmyard. Pumpkin is curled up in some loose hay at the foot of a stack of bales, but he jumps up to accompany me as I pass by.

By the time I’ve reached the dirt road that cuts behind the north end of the yard, I’ve lost Pumpkin. Ahead of me I see L’s brother out in the pigpen, and go over to see what he’s doing. He’s chopping the ice off the top of the water in the trough; I take out my camera and get a couple pictures of him, axe in midair.

Pa comes with the tractor and a big round bale lifted high on the fork in front. I stand grinning while he drives up and stops, until with a start I realize the fence needs to be opened so he can get through. I sprint over to the post and try to lift the wire loop over it so I can swing the gate aside, but the loop won’t budge and before I can try a different tack, L’s brother is there, saying “You have to put your shoulder into it, like this” and loosening the wire loop with relative ease. “Dad likes tight fences,” he says to me.

Pa drives through, stops beside me, leans over and opens the tractor window to say “Your newspaper is in the house” and then, smiling and pointing at the fencepost, “Don’t get caught on those nails.” The tractor putzes off to deposit the bale in the middle of the pasture, and I walk beside L’s brother over to a manure pile, which he climbs up on top of and says “Checking for heat. Gotta get some heat going here.”

We talk about recycling a little bit; he runs the depot in town. We talk about playing guitar and singing at the same time and how hard it is, and about how we don’t play our guitars -- he doesn’t play his at home although he plays bass and sings with a dance band, and I haven’t played mine (I have an acoustic bass; no it isn't an upright) in months and months and months.

We walk over to another pigpen, smaller pigs this time, and he tells me he has to do some shit-moving work in there. I’m glad it’s him, not me, who has animals to look after.

I leave him and go to the big house, where Ma’s sister is on the phone and Ma is listening on the extension. They had a course they were teaching at the First Nations reserve fall through and they are trying to sort things out because they’ve already been paid. Ma puts the phone down while I’m there and asks me if I want eggs: I can take four dozen right now, or I can get fresh ones every day. It’s up to me. I take two dozen and my newspaper, and L’s aunt gets off the phone. I ask them to move together so I can take a picture of them. Ma pats her hair and says “What for?” but goes over to her sister anyway and I snap one.

Then I get out of their hair and come home. A relaxing morning.

Just now I heard a loud bang and went running downstairs to see what it was, in case it was something to do with the woodstove. It wasn’t, and I see nothing else amiss. I hope it was ice or snow falling off the roof. That can make a loud noise sometimes. If it wasn’t that, I don’t know what it was and I don’t want to think about it -- I get the heebie jeebies if I do.