#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

I kind of exploded inside,
and joy shot out of me.
I began my roll down the grassy hill.
I bent my knees up small, took a deep breath
and I was off.
My arms shot out sideways.
I gathered speed.
My eyes squinted.
Sky and grass, dazzle and dark.
I went on forever. . .

HILL ROLLING BY ANDREW TAYLOR

In the afternoon, I walked to the river for the first time since Thursday, and the leaves framing the landing where I always stop first have turned to rust. Perhaps the leaves are past their peak. I am so happy to be home and in my woods, free to walk for as long as I want in the fresh bright air. The dogs are happy too. We take our time. I pass the brook and it’s running! Red, yellow, green, rust leaves of all shapes and sizes float on the surface and will sink soon. We have had our needed rain. My son and his special one come, after my walk, to the deck for a family visit. We are masked, and physically distant, but emotionally present. All my children home, the sweetest hour. I am exploding inside, giddy with gratitude. It is, as Andrew Taylor writes, a rolling down the hill joy. The granite steps off our deck land at the top of a very gentle slope down the lawn. And yet, it is a slope. For a child, like a hill. When my nephew Lucas came and visited one afternoon a couple of months ago, we played outdoors and he repeatedly, giddily, hollered with joy and rolled and rolled down the hill. He will come to our house some day when he is older and the scope of his vision changed he will be startled to find the hill he remembered rolling down with such glee is really no bigger than a mild slope. Still, it doesn’t matter. It’s a hill for now, a hill for rolling, a hill for hollering.