Lizard, Cat, Cold Porch

Blog Sunday 10 Feb 2008

I believe this is Sceloporus undulatus, an Eastern Fence Lizard, this fellow Thomas has brought in. Thomas, of course, doesn’t know “lizard” and thinks this is a toy, his own toy. I praise Thomas for his amazing lizard catching skills and, while his eyes adore mine, I snatch the lizard and hide him behind my back. Out on the stairs, I place Sir Lizard on the top of the stair’s banister: dark brown stripes on his sides, neon blue on belly and throat, a really astounding blue.

Mr. Sceloporus isn’t moving and may have internal injuries, so I set him down in bannister sunshine. Ten minutes later, I open the door and he looks exactly the same, a miniature dragon, toes splayed, but unmoving. When I step toward him, he comes alive, scurries along the banister, and pauses at the edge of the upstairs entrance as though considering a jump. I pull the door closed behind me, lock the cat door so Thomas can’t get out, and give Mr. S. some time.

This day is why people move to Florida: full sun, slight breeze, 70 degrees at 2:00 p.m. It doesn’t get any better than this which is why, last night, I undressed for bed on the dark, screened porch. I wanted to feel the cold and remember it in summer when even the screened porch is almost too hot for stepping out on though, not, I suppose, too hot for shucking one’s clothes.

When I built and moved into the house in 2002, I resolved to live without ac, a notion I endured for less than two months, during which I remember wearing nothing but bathing suits and large scarves. So now there is ac and, as with every other comfort I can think of, something has been gained and something lost, which is why I take outdoor showers in the summer and sometimes sleep with the porch doors open on our coldest nights.

A certain measure of discomfort is invigorating. In fact, I know of a man who has for many years taken all his baths outside, cooks outside, and eats from his own garden. He does have a phone and a TV, though, so he is only a partial Spartan. If you think on this for about five seconds, you will realize that, in attempting to keep things simple, this modern Thoreau stands a little closer to hundreds of thousands of people he’ll never see anywhere but on his tv screen, folks for whom a drink of water is a gift and a bath, unimagined. When I was undressing on the cold porch, it seemed to me that in the night sky each star grew whiter and more distinct and, in embracing dark and cold, I had joined myself more surely to many things I could not name or even see.

Mr. S. is gone, invisible, has left us, but in the feeder below three pine warblers with yellow wash across their backs peck out a beat, small, feathered drummers, keeping time.