As dusk settled in\nover the park, Daisy smoked a cigarette outside the Vixen and beheld\nher Christmas display. Behind her, a fire in the fire pit crackled\nand sparked and Daisy loved smelling the woodsmoke. It smelled like\ncomfort. In the distance, she her the saxophone lilting through the\ntrees, another Christmas song, \u201cGod Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She had strewn\nlights all over the rig and stood the Santas in front. The nativity\nscene was set up between the Santas on a TV tray Daisy found in the\nlaundry room. A mishmash of other decorations were weaved into the\nRV’s grille, mirrors, bumper and aerial, Pretty funky<\/em>, thought\nDaisy, but funky is good, especially at Christmas. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she decorated,\nDaisy met several residents of the park and their dogs. She struck up\nconversations with them and they learned she’d bought Lorna’s rig and\nwas staying indefinitely. \u201cTime for a new start,\u201d was how Daisy\nsuccinctly described it. They all seemed satisfied with that\nexplanation, and each one gave her an inside tip on park living. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was closing in\non 8:00 p.m. and Daisy sat at the picnic table, poking the fire with\na stick, drinking a stout, and wondering what the next day would\nbring. She checked her phone again for messages and found fifteen\nmore. She didn’t respond. She probably never would. For a brief\nmoment, Daisy thought she might have to drive to Charleston to clean\nout her apartment, but then rejected the idea. She’d call the manager\nand say she wasn’t coming back\u2014family emergency\u2014and was sorry for\nthe hassle, but the security deposit should cover it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n There wasn’t a\nsingle thing of value in that apartment. Why return? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daisy finished the\nstout and went to bed. She watched the A Muppet Family Christmas<\/em>\non VHS and bawled the whole way through. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the next few\ndays, with Christmas fast approaching, Daisy developed a routine, get\nup early, smoke, walk and jog the beach, get washed up, head into\ntown for supplies, hike a nearby mountain or beach trail, explore\nmore of the town, and perhaps take coffee inside a bookstore or drink\nporter at one of the dive bars along Highway 101. She also perused\nthe local job market and discovered there were lots of nursing and\nother health care positions that needed filling. But was that what\nshe really wanted to do? No. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was also over\nthese next few days, that Daisy met more residents of the park,\nlearned their names, and noticed their living habits, some of them\nquite peculiar. She also began helping some of them out, because,\nwell, they needed help and there wasn’t anyone else around to help\nthem. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As dusk settled in over the park, Daisy smoked a cigarette outside the Vixen and beheld her Christmas display. Behind her, a fire in the fire pit crackled and sparked and Daisy loved smelling the woodsmoke. It smelled like comfort. In the distance, she her the saxophone lilting through the trees, another Christmas song, \u201cGod […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5660,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions\/5660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}