Looking Up

As a person who is vertically challenged. I rarely walk with my head in the clouds.

My first string of stitches was as a crawler, slitting my chin open tripping over my overalls. From that moment on I have spent a good deal of time scraping my knees, icing fat lips, bending my tailbone, and wiping my nose on plate glass windows.

When I am in antique and charity shops, I often fail to look up. I miss the chandeliers and hanging kettles, the yokes and the halters – but, I don’t crash into the Havilland soup bowls or Royal Doulton teapots.

When I roam the acreage here on the Cutoff it is to the earth I look. The ground is uneven with traveling tree roots seeking ankles to grab. It is strewn with pick up sticks of windblown matter. Our lawn has more potholes than a Chicago city street in winter. There is, I shutter to say, even a kill zone where birds and deer and bones and feathers are often found; remains of the night one does not want to step into.

Mid-winter, after a January thaw, there are pockets of slush and snow that have not yet drained; potential pools for a nasty spill, especially for the likes of someone like me. I tread delicately and watch where my feet are going in our little neck of the woods.

Lest you wonder what manner of mishap I may have endured, rest assured, I have not.

I am vertical, in one piece, and without any bruises, bumps, or breaks. In fact, I would say that I had my head in the clouds, except that my recent wanderings were on a rare and wondrously mild wintry day, with nary a cloud in the sky, unlike today, a weepy, cloudy, greige sort of day.

I walked about, on that sunnier day, the local herd watching my every move as they grazed in the brush nearby. A cardinal sang somewhere overhead, his song a calling card. I walked about, the sun warming my back, heading toward the house, and I dreamed a dream of the daydreaming sort;  of someday soon lounging in Penny’s Arbor House, sipping tea, following those shadows and circles of life, and counting my many blessings.

I stood still to take the photo.

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