A better day

Patient Husband and I took today to wander. We were headed to an outlet mall about an hour away (if you start and finish and don't get distracted) to buy my shoes for the year. There's an outlet store of the brand I like at this mall and every year I get two pair, one brown, one black. This year I bought three. We shopped a little for the babies, and had lunch, visited a winery and then went to Notre Dame's campus because we needed something at the bookstore. By the time we came home we had a wonderfully relaxing day. I wish I had my camera with me. When I have it, there are no pictures, when I don't there are dozens.

As we drove through the small towns that dotted the county roads we were on (stay OFF the interstate!!) we saw the cornstalks were yellowing and commented on the quiet country homes and I imagined normal quiet lives going on inside. Lives that only worried about what to fix for lunch or when to hang the laundry on the lines out back or how many m0re tomatoes would be picked from the vines turning scraggly next to the house.

We saw hawks and ducks and dogs and horses whiling away the day. A group of guys leaning against the back end of a pick up truck, talking. A man painting his porch, another mowing his lawn. We noticed an old tractor for sale in a driveway. Many, many produce stands selling melons and early squash and tomatoes. We bought white peaches at one but left the Mackintosh apples because I don't care for Mackintosh. We heard a flock of geese heading south.

We noticed the stands of sunflowers with heads bowed, altogether, as if in prayer, and I listened hoping to hear them.

The sky was so blue, the air so crisp, the shadows starting to tilt toward September. It almost took me away from my angst. Almost.

We met friends for dinner at a small country bar that serves a really good hamburger, we laughed and laughed and they took me away from myself for a few hours and for that I'm grateful.

I needed this good day.