Milking The Virtual Cows

I'm awake too early again. I've always been an early riser. So has everyone in my family. Lately, I have a lot on my mind. And once the eyes open, I can't seem to stop thinking about all my supposed problems. All at once. So I give in to the dawn, go upstairs into a big open living room, and join the sun as it rises. Everybody else, my fellow travelers, are snoozing downstairs in the dark. Lucky them. It's a windy, gray morning here in Dublin. I just watched a flock of birds through the skylight, fly by me with a destination in mind. The trees outside are bending and scraping against the old red brick walls. I don't think anyone else is awake in the world.

Someone once told me that I woke up early enough to "milk the virtual cows." Well...hand over them udders, girlie. Because I'm awake and there's no stopping this brain from careening wildly down multiple bumpy paths, all ending in long screaming sudden drops into echoing, rock-strewn canyons. I get to listen to the aftermath of the accident, as the bumper of the car of my life falls to the ground with a final clang. Then there's just silence.

Nothing can stop that wild mind, except a deep and strong virtual milking experience.

My head is nuzzled into the hot and heaving, short haired Guernseyesque side of a big girl cow. My nostrils are full of the scent of early morning barn and dung and animal hide. My wellington-shod feet, slicked with muck and hay, are placed solidly on either side of the three-legged milking stool. I put my hand in between my legs and pull the stool a little closer. My eyes are closed, as I reach for that warm, familiar place. Those pink, slightly freckled teats, engorged with foaming milk. I pull on the soft velvety bags, tentatively, with my left hand, then with my right. And I hear the first steamy squirt as it makes a hard tsszzzz! at the bottom of my empty bucket. My cow, she chews cud slowly, deliberately, without a thought in her head. (What were you expecting, Aristophanes?) I hear her tail slap a fly off of her hind quarters. I get a rhythm established. Pull left, pull right, tssszzz! tssszzzz!

I've never milked a cow in my life, but it doesn't matter. I can imagine. When I'm finished, I'll hand the bucket to my virtual grandmother, so she can skim the cream off the top and whip it up later to top our warm strawberry pie. I'll help put more sticks in the wood-burning stove so she can bake her hand-made crust, and I'll sit down in the rocking chair nearby, and lose myself in another Nancy Drew adventure. I'm wearing knee socks and penny loafers and orange stovepipe pants. My Catholic schoolgirl white button down cotton shirt is untucked and wrinkled. My hair is scratched together into a long ponytail, with thin blond strays sticking out here and there, and my bangs are cut way too short. It's 1965.

There's nobody else in the big farm house in Perth, Ontario, Canada that day, with me and my virtual grandmother. No parents to nag me, no brothers and sisters to tease me. Just me, and my grandmother, in her 4-leaf-clover dress, tied at the waste. In her sling-back, open-toe pumps and those legs that stayed gorgeous 'til she died. She's busy making wine or jam. In between stirring, she comes to sit by me and do crossword puzzles, peering down at them through her cat's eye glasses.

That never happened, me being wonderfully alone at the farm with my grandmother, Elsie McIntyre Mitchell. Me being that special. But I can imagine.