 “FLANNEL PAJAMAS IN THE MOONLIGHT”© Copyright 3-16-2006 By Dana Shino, The Purple Phoenix, LLC www.thepurplephoenix.com This article was written during my reprieve in the San Luis Valley in south central Colorado. I lived in an apartment over a barn some thirteen miles south of Alamosa, Colorado. I helped the landlord sometimes with the horses. The day prior to leaving for Greeley, Colorado for the 2005 Christmas holidays, as well as spending a month away from the Valley, was a flurry of errands, laundry, packing and phone calls. You know the drill... try to cram completion of a three days worth of activities into one day. At least this is my insane ‘Type A’ habit. So, by the time I reach my travel destination, I have thoroughly accomplished my goal of total exhaustion before a trip even begins. Anyway, the evening before I left, I arrived back at the apartment in a huff from several hours of errands in Alamosa. Since multi-tasking was a high priority at that moment, I decided watering the horses and emptying my truck were things I could do simultaneously. Granted, I was careful not to set the watering hose in the tuck crab, er, rather the truck cab. I made sure the watering hose was securely in the horse trough (because God knows it had flipped out enough times and sprayed me and Ruby, the draft horse, with water. Ruby always looked like she could squash me). I efficiently turned the water on, emptied the truck, went inside and promptly forgot about the water reaching the upper levels of the horse trough... Five hours later, when I was lying in bed, my mind running at warp speed through everything I needed to do the following morning, I realized something didn’t feel right. Something was amiss. I went through my mental checklist and everything seemed in order. But I had a nagging feeling I had forgotten a minor detail that had become really important. “What could it be?” I wondered. And in the space where I finally let my brain fall silent, the ultimate knowing rose. Oh, shit! I left the damned water on. I switched on my light, groped for my glasses (because I am nearly blind without them) and was out of bed in a flash. I knew it would be really cold outside (we’d been averaging ten to twenty below) and I was afraid of the dark. Blindness, fear of the dark and cold are not wonderful combinations at nearly midnight. But none of these things registered as I jammed my boots on bare feet, flung my coat on over my flannel pajamas, grabbed my flashlight and a pair of gloves and flew out the door. I was down the steps in a flash. It seemed it only took me a few paces to get to the shut off valve. I wrenched the water off, looked up, and there, in the moonlight, stood Ruby, water peacefully dripping from her fuzzy muzzle, standing in a beautiful river of water. She looked at me like, “What is ALL this fuss about?!” She lowered her head and kept drinking. As I stood there catching my breath, the barn cats trickled out from their warm bed in the tack room and hopped up on the fence to run the top railing and join me. Then I noticed how bright and wonderful the moon truly was and I clicked off my flashlight. I forgot I was afraid of the dark and took in the moonlit landscape and light reflecting off my self made watery lake. And then I started to giggle. And then I started to belly laugh— here I was, half blind, stumbling around outside in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, in my flannel pajamas and my bare toes wriggling in the fuzzy lining of my boots. What unadulterated glory! Ruby finished drinking her water and gave me one last sobering look that said, “Humans. Humph.” She turned and ambled off to join the other three horses out in the field. I stood there for a little while longer and reveled in the mist of my breath rising to the bright moon and the cats on my shoulders purring in my ears.  Your contributions help support The Purple Phoenix Press.
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