The Underside of Joy

magazine features have followed over the past five years. Time even did a short article. The story of the Italian internment during World War II caught the public’s attention, and many descendants of the interned – Italian, but also Japanese and German – have found their way to Elbow, and to the store, to enter the name of their relative in the book we keep open, to see the display Marcella and Joe Sr helped us arrange on the back wall – of Sergio’s and others’ Enemy Alien IDs and photos, the popular posters of the time with specific directions not to speak the enemy language, along with other memorabilia people have contributed.
    There are also the hordes of foodies and wine connoisseurs that flock here because of the other, purely decadent write-ups in Bon Appétit, Travel + Leisure, Gourmet. David is making quite a name for himself as a chef, and I am making a name for myself as the person who does all the other stuff. Which is just fine with me.
    As a way of singing the praises of the natural beauty of the area without having to actually sing, I work as a guide for Fish and Wild-life a few times a month. The other day, as I led a hike along the river, someone complained about the squawking crows. I gave my spiel about how smart they are, how adaptable. I told the story about how they drop nuts at a busy intersection in China, then wait for the cars to run over and crack them, then stand patiently on the corner, until the light changes, so they can eat the cracked nuts without getting crushed by traffic. Usually, that gets people smiling. But this one woman was an exceptionally tough nut to crack, so to speak. ‘I still don’t like them,’ she huffed. ‘They remind me of death.’
    ‘The Corvus brachyrhynchos are so smart and adaptable,’ I went on, ‘that they partake in cooperative breeding. In other words, they share in mothering, in all aspects of raising each other’s babies. They didn’t need anyone to tell them that it takes a village.’
    Paige and I have found our own way to share in raising Annie and Zach, and though it’s not perfect, it is what you might call cooperative. She lives in the next town, and we brag to each other about everything from Zach’s soccer game to his reading abilities and his latest math - test grade. We know that other people don’t want to hear it. We know not to bombard the kid with our relief that he is okay. (He is eight now, and starting to roll his eyes sometimes when I cover his forehead with kisses. But only sometimes.) Depending on whose turn it is to have them spend the night, one of us will call the other, unable to wait another day to report, ‘Well, the guy aced his project. He seems to know his stuff.’ It is our way of saying, Yes, we have made mistakes, mistakes that have hurt our children, but there is grace in this life of ours. Sometimes we still disagree. Sometimes we have misunderstandings. We are still finding our way. But I am bound to you by Annie and Zach; there is no one else on this planet who cares about them as much as you and I do.
    Annie is eleven now, and the other day she told me that she is seriously considering medical school. ‘What kind of doctor do you want to be?’ I asked her.
    ‘The kind that saves people,’ she said. Annie still talks about when her daddy died and Zach almost died. ‘Or, perhaps, a trombonist.’
    ‘You could be a trombonist that saves people.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    What I want to tell her, but what she will have to discover on her own, is that no matter what she chooses to do for her profession, she will save people, and she will also do people grave harm – and they will be the same people, the ones she loves.
    Sometimes when she and Zach are with Paige, and I have the day off, after I’ve played for hours in the garden, the knees of my jeans damp with that wondrous soil, I follow Callie down to the redwood grove, our sacred arboreal cathedral. Often, my arms and hair are still warm from the sun, but the air under the trees is always cool and dim. I lie on my back and look up through heavy branches, up at unknown particles drifting in the shadowed light. I whisper, ‘My man of the Sequoia sempervirens. Peace be with you.’ I whisper, ‘I love you.’ I whisper, ‘I miss you.’
    And so it has been for me in this place called Elbow, where the river bends and gives before it leads out to the Pacific, where years ago I stumbled upon a certain kind of happiness. I know now that the most