#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Morning River Melting

It was pouring, and warming, and I felt stiff and achy. Will I go out? I wondered, as if I might actually choose to stay in. Come on, I said to the dogs, and we got in the car and drove the two miles to the other side of the river, The Charles Link Trail, and walked up the slippery trail in the rain. I spoke briefly on the phone with my husband, and he asked me something and I grumbled. Slushing along, under the drab trees, I was not in the mood to be accommodating. So, the call put me in a bad mood and I kept going until I could see the vista of the river. I skidded down the slope. I wanted to be near the river’s edge. And I thought of texting my husband and grumbling some more. But I stopped my impulse. A balmy wind blew at me and I opened my eyes. The river and the iced wetlands were coming apart under a gray sky, and everything glistened and warmed. My feet slid across wetlands in two inches of water, and I looked at the trees in the misty morning and thought: there might never be another day as beautiful as this wet and glorious one I’m standing in. I was so happy. Just me and the dogs, slopping along, and there was everything to fall in love with. The ice melting was silver and shiny clean. All the dead flowers, brown and skeletal lifted my spirits. Wind, warming, rippled the river free of the ice sheets and pockets. I started taking pictures, kneeling in the pooling water over the ice melt. And then all my grumbling was gone and I texted my husband: yes. It’s possible. Yes. Of course, yes.