Monday, July 9, 2012

Retirement community adventures


The paved walkway weaved through and around the retirement community. I strolled idly along it in my husband’s oversized hoodie, feeling lighter with each breath of fresh sea air that washed through me.  The breeze and the sun played a bantering game with my senses, both cooling me and kissing my exposed skin with warmth and light.

Retirees sat in their well-kept houses and watched me warily as I strolled past their back doors.  I admired their perfect lawns and blossoming flowers, but resisted the urge to scoop them up and smell them.  Retiree lawn flowers are not for touching.

After some time the pavement ended and the groomed landscape stopped. I bent beneath some low-hanging branches and stepped onto a muddy, primitive pathway, perhaps once blazed by deer or an early modern explorer, or both.  I imagined the spirit of the deer and the noble trail blazer walking with me, encouraging me to pick all the wild viney flowers I saw and hold them to my nose.  So I did.  Fallen logs, red with rain, replaced well-kept lawns. The music of bumblebees drowned out distant stereos.  

The world of the retirement community was far behind me, or was it far ahead, in the unimaginable 21st century?  And me and my deer ghost and ancient explorer discovered a clearing at the end of our trail where the sun illuminated patches of long grass and scattered raspberry bushes.  I took some berries for myself and left some for the bumblebees, then left my forest glen and explorer friend and deer ghost and stepped back on to the pavement.

The retirees with their coffee and TVs eyed me skeptically again as I walked back past each of their homes, and I smiled at them through their screen doors and popped raspberries in my mouth.  I was giddy with adventure. And I vowed to never grow so used to any place that I don’t see the magic in my own backyard.



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