The Battenkill River, NY
So finally I found the small town my son Michael knows of only in dreams...Cambridge, NY. There is a grocery store, a hardware store, a gallery, eateries, a library, a doctor, a cafe, a coffee shop, a bakery, a bookstore (sorry you know I love you Amazon, but there still is nothing like spacing out in a bookstore for an hour or so!) And every inch of if can be had on a bike or on foot!
Railroad tracks waiting to be brought back to life at full capacity. Strange warehouse/factory like structures silently wait their turn...again. I'm telling you if global economy and Life As We Know it tanks, the infrastructure of the small town shall reign supreme once more! And I think we may all be human again.
The height of this afternoon rang in at a balmy 91 degrees, very warm in these parts for the last page before June. I walked through a covered bridge and smelled the wood. I grabbed once icy cold beer and footed a path...
The ferns were HUGE! Sorry I missed out on the frying of the fiddleheads...maybe next year? I followed it a bit and passed on some turns, finally tho I settled on a small eddy where the water rested as did I.
The water proved as cold as my beer and just as invigorating. I sat in silence. I became swept in the movement of the life flow that meandered before me. The rocks had stolen some heat from the sun. Occasionally a kayak or a pontoon barge (yes hand made) floated by. The people were joyful for who doesn't recognize water as a birth right, a life-giver, a star fixer?
If the ocean is the earth breathing, a river is surely a child being. Only freshwater can dance in ribbons on the stones made round from caresses over time. It is bathe-able, drinkable, and healing. My heart may be in turmoil, but the river washes the soul clean.
And all at once I breathed in the Universe...for I had missed her and she had missed me.
Namaste
