What I didn’t notice…
On Friday, I went on a bike ride.
It was just me riding on a long country road. It winds and has some pretty steep climbs, but it is beautiful and worth the steady climb. The reward on the way back, with its long, swooping downhills, is breathtaking.
It was a gorgeous, early fall day, and I couldn’t sit inside and work anymore.
I needed to be free.
It is a road that I travel often, but I am guilty.
I drive too fast around the curves and am too direct on the straightaways. Unfortunately, I always seem to be in a hurry while driving on it.
But when am I not?
What I usually miss, or wouldn’t see at all in a car, I got to see on Friday when I rode my bike instead.
I spied the extensive flower beds around the house, stone wall, and borders at Erika’s. The blooms were still going strong, but had that settled in, “my days are numbered” look that fall always ushers in. Yellow, orange, and deep red colors desperately hang on to their last days of vibrant color before the cold sets in.
I usually miss the long row of grape vines at Mary Ellen’s place. They sit on the knoll before her house. The deep dark purple grapes smelled so sweet and ripe. I wondered if she makes jelly with those grapes. I did that once. And as I pedaled past, I couldn’t help but remember all those years ago when I was first married and made grape jelly. I wish I had the grapevine still…
I usually miss the earthy smell of the two horses that live in the field across from Mary Ellen’s house every summer. They knickered to me as I rode past. If they were closer to the fence line, I would have stopped and visited them. I love animals.
I usually miss the peepers and late summer cicadas that loudly sang to me as I came down the hill with the big bend in the road that goes to the right and then climbs again. (That’s the one I always drive too fast around.)
I took the time to wonder about the big red barn sitting on the corner of Derby and North roads. What used to be in there? Was the back barnyard ever mowed, and how long has it been since that fence was painted? Sigh…I would love to own that someday, with the little white house across the street from it. Flowers would look great there.
I felt sorry, looking down at a few snakes and salamanders that didn’t make it across the road. The tar was like a battlefield after the battle; littered with casualties that didn’t make it. It’s really sad to think about the number of critters that are sacrificed, unknowingly by the cars that travel regularly over the road. Definitely something I usually miss...
I felt the warm sunshine on my back as I climbed and stared into the glint of the sun as it started to sink in the western sky on my return.
The details I don’t notice when I drive the road in my car made my senses come alive, my mind go to different corners, and my heart swell.
When I am running through my life every day…it’s the simple little things.
That’s what I usually miss.
With love,
Kate
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