January 1, 2017 (January 16, 2017)

The first time I typed the new year. Happiness and Blessings in this year to you all….

Running down the hill was more like falling on my feet, lucky for some unknown miracle to land one foot ahead.. I would like to imagine that I had a plan or had taken care.  My mind wrestled with the notion that I was truly in G~ds hands:  He must have wanted me to survive the hill because I did.  Hmm.  While a piece of that may be true and satisfies my mind to think that I was not as careless as chancing what I just chanced.

Truthfully, I began the descent with a plan.  So carefully so that I preserved my fifty-one year old knees, I began downhill sideways.  Proud.  Bold.  With each step I rejoiced that I had not fallen.  Why on earth did I decide halfway down to run?  It made no sense and was careless.  But even so, as I scolded myself and that wonderful gut instinct upon which I pride myself, I ran.  I turned to face the bottom and I ran towards it.

With each step, I laughed a bit at the pain in my left knee when my body’s weight collapsed, the thud of thigh bone’s end against the deteriorating cushion of lower leg bone (or so my doctor tells me).  “Fall..you could fall…Twist..your ankles…”  The warnings in my head lit like unanswered calls that remain unacknowledged. Tears sprang as each step thudded bone against bone, all the while I laughed.

I was wrapped up, I hadn’t noticed I was at the bottom, until hysterics held my breath.  I was face to face with the six foot tall oaks, all lined as if planted orchard-style, row by column, waiting for inspection and gleaning of their acorn fruits.  No, this is the way they had grown and I had interrupted their party, here in the bluest black of midnight moonlight.

They stood and I could imagine them turning to me in disdain as I, barging into their banquet, had no right to be there, but they would put up with me anyway.  Their regal silence hushed my teary laughter.  Out of reverence I obeyed.  So striking was their stature I wondered why from a distance I did not notice.  From atop the hill how could it have been that I did not see what I now see?

Their outermost branches reached to their neighbors’.  It was upon those arms that the early frost had lain diamonds upon their finery, either of midnight uniforms or of long silken ballgown gloves.  They reached for one another, extending to their neighbors’ an invitation for the next dance… And the wind played on and on.

Why had i not fallen?  I should have.  Statistically speaking and given my luck or lack thereof. I should have fallen.  I played that game in my mind for longer than necessary – the game of should have and why did I and how did I not, knowing full well that only another time and place could ever reveal those answers.

I only missed what seemed like the time of three dances before it occurred to me that these dancers cared not if I was there or not.  Three dances before I recognized my own desire to join them, there in the moonlight.  These trees that looked like a grove of oaks planted thirty years ago by chance of wind direction and casting of seeds, now caused me to wonder if I had enough of my own finery to carry me among them.

I would never know unless I danced with them…

Happy New Year.

Love to you,

S

#thebrickdandelion #anewdanceonthebeautifuljourney #imjustme #2017thebluedance