January 3, 2014 My 500 Words

I ran away from home today...I came back, though.  Periodically I need time away from my daily routine and responsibilities. I left a kitchen full of dirty dishes, an office needing organized and inventory for my in-home business begging to be counted.

I traveled only forty miles.  But crossing a state line gave me the illusion of being further away.  I opened the cover of my sun roof allowing the sunlight to stream in through the glass. Thinking I would enjoy some music, I turned the radio on...but after five seconds  I only wanted the comfort of silence.

 I found myself lost in thought, pondering what  to write today. I realized I was missing 'being in the moment'. I began to look in wonder at what was going on outside my car. Above me there was a white transparent cloud cover over the sky's usual color of vibrant light blue. The sheer white film of the clouds, like a torn remnant of cloth, allowed  the calming blue of the sky to peek through in patchwork fashion. The fields, pastures, and grass lands were matching shades of dull brownish gold.  The cornfields lay barren with stalks at all angles of broken, cattle grazing contentedly a midst the now harvested rows.

There were farm houses longing for better days.  Their paint now peeling, worn and tired against the starkness of bare trees and abandoned farm equipment.  Birds of prey were perched atop telephone poles and balanced on single wires like tightrope walkers. They sat patiently scouting their next meal from their top of the world vantage point.

Long sections of irrigation pivots were lined up inside fence rows like cold steel skeletons, their wheels rusted and tires caked with dried mud.  In but a few months they will come alive with movement and sprays of life giving water for the crops a farmer has poured his sweat and prayers into.

The winding creek bed lay empty and dry waiting for the fullness of the melting spring snow that will travel from the mountains a hundred miles away.

Scattered across the landscape were windbreaks, rows of evergreen trees, intertwining their branches to protect the homesteads and livestock hidden behind their dark green facades.  Kamikaze tumble weeds met their demise as they careened crazily in the path of my tires.

Giant mechanical windmills stood like sentries along miles of 250- foot- high chalk cliffs.  Their larger than life arms catching the wind and spinning in  mesmerizing rhythm.

I reached my desired destinations.  I wandered through the "world's foremost outfitter" searching for a pair of winter boots, only to leave empty handed.  I searched for old and new treasures in a favorite antique store.  I gathered half price Christmas ornaments to tuck away for another year and joyfully I discovered a watercolor picture of Venice, adding to my dreams of water filled canals, romantic gondola rides, and flower boxes of riotous blooms on rod-iron balconies.

On the road home I was gifted with the crown jewel of the day.  Perfectly, like a mirror, a pond reflected the shadowed sky of dark grey clouds contrasted with the gleam of the setting sun.  There, across the surface of water and patches of ice, were ribbons of gold and the gentle hues of a day at its end.