Steve West - Held by a thread

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Here’s WORLD commentator Steve West, how to describe this? Just taking a moment to observe.

REICHARD: The King of Whimsy.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: Today I awoke with a scratchy throat and late in the day told my wife I would take some hot tea on the veranda. We don’t actually have a veranda, but I liked the sound of that word. Besides, to call the square slab out back a piazza is a stretch; a patio, just too pedestrian.

She brightened at the thought that I would be drinking hot tea, as she knows I only like iced tea. She began to educate me on the finer things involving tea, showing me the cupboard with its many kinds of tea.

“I’ll just have this,” I said, reaching for the English Tea. I need to start somewhere. On the blue packaging it said “good anytime of the day.” I don’t believe it, yet I pull it from the shelf anyway.

“This is a big lemon slice, so we can share it,” she says. “If you like lemon in iced tea, you’ll probably like it in hot tea.”

I watch the teapot. The cat watches me. I try not to look at her. I know what is on her mind.

“I think I’ll have it without sugar,” I say bravely.

“You won’t like it,” she says. “Try some honey.”

The honey is reluctant. I tip the bottle up and squeeze. A drop appears, stretching slowly toward my waiting spoon. I fill two teaspoons, dive them under the tan-colored liquid, and stir. Turning towards my wife, I tell her I am going out on the veranda. To write, I say. Something will come to me.

She reminds me to put the honey back in the ziplock plastic bag, and I do, cautioning me that “if even a tiny corner is left unsealed, an ant will find it.” And I imagine a scout ant not believing his good fortune when he sniffs the honey-sweet smell wafting from that corner, the message he will bear for his queen. Yet not this time.

The cat is still watching me, trying to catch my eye. I see what she’s about. It’s all she ever thinks about.

Out on the veranda, the sun just dropped below a cloud, rooflines outlined against a graying sky. There’s a chill in the early November air. A single leaf just sashayed its way from twig to earth. The backyard is like a brilliantly trashed urban back alley, overflowing in color.

The second floor window opens, and my wife’s head pops out.

“Are you praying?” she asks.

“No,” I say, but maybe I should be, I think.

I crane my neck up to meet her smiling face. We talk.

The sky darkens. I think of all that lies in front of me this week and all that drags behind me, and I begin to feel the weight of things left undone and still to come.

Someone is blowing leaves, with no regard for their kaleidoscopic display. The cicadas have begun. The temperature drops. The gossamer hammock invites. So, here at dusk, I give in, and leaving tea, rock in its grip, held by a heavenward thread that will not break.

I’m Steve West.

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