May 6, 2024

Escaped

The morning started, as it always did, with a cup of hot coffee. My wife and I were in good spirits, but we were also a little sad at the same time. After she got ready for work, I helped her load the car. She kissed me goodbye and then rode off into the sunrise.

After my wife left, I made a second cup of coffee and then sat down to write. By the time work began, I felt drained. The excitement of having my partner home was such a high crescendo that having her leave felt like a deep valley. I felt exhausted right after she got home and right after she left. Such was life.

During my lunch break, I left to buy some groceries at the Piggly Wiggly in Bailey. When I arrived home, my wife texted me she had a prescription ready at the pharmacy in Bailey. I answered I would pick it up on the following day. Ten minutes later, she texted back asking if I could pick it up today. I got in my car, drove back to Bailey and took care of the errand. I didn’t hear from my wife, but I didn’t need to. There was only one reason she would ask me to run this errand today. She was coming home.

About a half hour later, my wife told me there was a problem with her bed-and-breakfast. The toilet had backed up, and the owner contacted my wife, letting her know the room would not be available. My wife could have found a hotel or another room, but she opted to come home and that was fine by me. While I didn’t want her to waste time and energy on a long commute, I was happy to have her home, especially in a month we thought we would spend apart.

When she pulled up in her SUV, we were both smiling and I was scratching my head. I wasn’t sure how I got so lucky in life. I helped my wife unload her things, and she told me she was going to commute the whole week. She planned to be home every evening and stay at the bed-and-breakfast next week when they had resolved their plumbing issues.

After work, I needed to get away from the computer, so I took a walk into the woods while my wife took a bath. The sun was already near the horizon, but I could still see small pockets of blue sky intermittently while looking up in the forest. There was a gentle wind and the pine tops were swaying, seemingly in slow motion. Inside the forest, it was dim. The ground was damp, and the air smelled musty, an aftereffect from all the rain we received.

As I was walking down the trail, I almost walked face first into an intricate web built by a small spider. I stopped, bent over to pick up a small branch, and was about to remove the web. Just then, however, a tiny insect flew into the web and the spider was working fast to prepare its dinner. I opted to let the small arachnid finish its meal. I tossed the stick aside and backtracked to a trail that carried me around the area.

I had been walking up to the creek as quietly as possible. Lately, there had been various wildlife in that area of the woods. Over the past few weeks, I had encountered a blue heron, two large turtles, a small flock of ducks, and several herds of deer. When I got within a hundred yards of the creek, I heard the loud flapping wings of the ducks as they flew off. They spooked so easily. I stood still at the water’s edge for about fifteen minutes, taking in the sounds of the stream trickling, and the sight of the soft light cast against the clouds by the setting sun.

After I left the creek area, I stopped because I thought I heard a noise. In the distance, probably a couple of hundred yards from me, but hidden from my view, I heard the faint gobbles of wild turkeys. While walking home, the frogs at the creek started up, taking charge of the airwaves. The loud volume of these small amphibians was astonishing.

It felt good to be back in the forest. I remembered walking through the woods during winter and how sparse everything looked. Now, the trees and other vegetation were lush and so green they seemed to glow. While I could see a hundred yards through the winter forest, now I could only see about fifteen or twenty feet at a time. The place seemed rugged in the cold, and now, in spring, it was energetic and full of life.

When I arrived back at the house, my wife was done with her bath. I left the dining room to go take a shower while she sat studying. The night was quickly coming to a close. As I showered and prepared for bed, it made me giddy to know my wife was in the next room. When I was ready for bed, she was still awake, waiting for me. We climbed into bed together, chatting and laughing for a bit, before we said goodnight and closed our eyes. Life had its plans, but we had escaped them.