It's gone. Not slowly faded, but there every morning. And then never.
Where I live, I can gaze north, all the way to the King Range on Mendocino's Lost Coast. Just over the nearby cove lies tiny Caspar; A few houses and a Christmas card church, left over from the lumber rush of the early 1900s. Lovely to look at, kind of Currier in need of both Ives, and a little paint. This I watch over, with first cup of coffee in hand.
I never knew it as my ritual, until a small piece of it went missing. “It” is that familiar grey spiral of chimney smoke, from the white clapboard cabin just seaward of the sharp-steepled church. The smoke floats up around 7 each weekday. I imagine someone in stocking feet, stoking the fire in a little stove, maybe for heat, or breakfast bacon, maybe both. I must wait until the rising sun shortens the church steeple's shadow, to then shine where the smoke curls up from the chimney. Just a few minutes more. Ah, there it is. Or was.
I never wondered who lit that little fire, or how many people depended upon it. It was just that familiar smoke, an unfurled flag, for the new day.
I miss it every morning, now that it's gone. I mean, I'm doing my routine, but you are not. I discover I am quite selfish about this: Dammit, I need your ribbon of smoke to wrap up my little scene here. So get moving, why don't you?
Maybe whomever did move away, or got a plug-in Keurig coffee thing for a birthday. But that would so lack drama, here where waves growl, osprey soar, and smoke swirls. So what happened?
In my version, the person doesn't move, nor disappear. It's a she, a writer. Like some of us, her words don't come until nightfall, and then they run over the keyboard, jostling for position on the page, some settling into an orderly (Keep calm, carry on) file, and some not. She writes, and writes, while the cove's tide moves in unseen by her, slow below on the moonlit beach. There's a rhythm, but is it good enough to share? Alas, not all. Some are good, really good. Some can be saved, but need another twist.
Each night around one, the stack of printed out good pages slowly grows, and the tale glows coherent, interesting. The pages touch, in theme, texture, and tone. She puts them in the long-worn file folder, and turns out her light. Darkened Caspar sleeps then, with just the lighthouse ray sweeping the waves. When morning light again falls west over the steeple onto the little house, there's that faithful faint gray smoke, from paper sheets blackening in the heat. These are the nightly pages that don't make the cut. Finally, one morning, there is no smoke. The best, the kept, pages are all stacked neatly, and digital copies made. The words start their own journey, entrusted to the postman. She waits.
Meanwhile, I wait, too. She'll write again, I'm thinking.
