Of Our Days

Good thing I remembered to wear sun glasses. And a wool hood, not just the head-warmer I've been wearing of late. There's a fresh, albeit slight layer of new overnight snow. The sky is as blue as can be, with no clouds anywhere. But the wind is a bitterly cruel one on this day; not el Nino, another wind has been blowing wildly all this winter. It's minus 10 and although yesterday's dampness exacerbated the feeling of cold, today's wind whipping through the ravine makes it seem even colder.

The tree tops sway in the wind; you could get dizzy observing their widely frantic sway. They clack against one another, cracking and creaking in protest. We note that the hornet's nest which had hung on for so long this winter atop a slender sapling has finally been dislodged. It lies alongside the trail in three neatly sliced pieces, the celled interior absent denizens. And we wonder what hungry little ravine creatures might have found the nascent winged warriors a treat.

And that's when we see a fair-sized hairy woodpecker further up the trail, busy at the side of a tree. They fluff their feathers for warmth in these frigid temperatures, trapping air between for additional warmth so that's likely why they appear larger now. Chickadees are busy too, flitting about the branches of trees as we advance in our quotidian circuit. A half-hour later as we crest another ascent we hear a cardinal trill, and soon spot its scarlet body top-mast a distant tree.

Earlier, after breakfast was cleared away and I was just putting the apple pie that I'd finished making in the oven, he walked into the kitchen with a smile pasted wide, and said "listen to this", putting on the radio. Took me a pause, then I recognized that voice; silky-smooth, gentle and overwhelmingly reminiscent of our youth. It was the inimitable, unforgettable Nat King Cole (but not that most famous of his songs; "Unforgettable") singing "Smile".

I pulled my arms behind to undo the strings of my apron and he said not to bother, it was just wasting time. He advanced, pulled me close and we danced while the song played out:
"Smile, what's the use of crying,
Smile though you feel like crying
You'll see the sun come smiling through
So Smile"

We were of an earlier time, and so was that music, when the world was a more innocent place. And so were we. When we were young and the future opened wide before us, although we hardly gave that much thought to the future as such. We were simply too busy living the present and the future more or less enveloped us and guided us as it advanced from the present.

We started out as children together, became a singular brace of young adults assuming responsibilities that our forebears and more recently our own parents had done. We had a young family and we struggled to achieve the material wherewithal all young families require. To live with a modicum of comfort, secure in the belief that our children would inherit a kind and gentle world.

Our children have long gone off on their own to inhabit their own worlds, somewhat like ours, but dissimilar in a good many instances. It's their world and they will do with it as they can manage. As we coped with finding our place in ours. So now we're back to where we started, he and I, alone together and living life as we find it.

We love without condition, unquestionably; there are no borders, there is only love. I may irritate others by my propensity to speak when I should listen although I like to think of myself as a sensitive listener. Yet I'm acutely aware that I speak too often, with an irritating authoritativeness.

Like the person who knows everything there is to know about everything; the very same person who knows nothing about anything. Yet he loves me, for he sees only the good in me.