I’m sitting in the rocking chair out back as I write. I spend a good deal of my time here. There’s a small table for eating breakfast and dinner and a small buzzing fluorescent to read by in the evening.
There’s something peaceful about dirt floors. Rocks, straw and old ceramic tiles gather and crack and slowly start to blend into soil.
There’s also something strangely peaceful about the racket of animals: cocks yodeling, dogs barking, cicadas, insects humming, and the chorus of peeping chicks that converges into a constant shimmer. The noises rise and fall throughout the day. For instance, right now everything’s died down except for the crickets and the month-old puppy murmuring about a dream asleep on my lap.
In the morning the chickens will be in full crescendo supplementing the perk from a rich cup of coffee just boiled up on the stove.
On my first evening, my father led me into the backyard and through the chicken wire fence. He snapped two fruits off a tree and handed me one. Then he pointed to the back corner where I suddenly noticed a small deer. He’d found it when it was the size of a notebook abandoned by its mother in the mountains of Chiriquí. He named it Bambi.
I’d never pet a deer before.
Bambi stares at me every meal. He’s learned to act like a dog licking the tops of the pups’ heads. The only animal that doesn’t make a sound.
— Patrick Miller-Gamble