Down to the Soft Grass
At the top of Windy Gap we
spread our lunch of cream cheese and crackers we’d bought at a little general
store in Villas. Barry and I were in our thirties and had been married for a
few years. I can see him now, long legs in jeans that fit like they were made
just for him, camera strap around his neck.
We found this place, Seven
Devils, and rented a rustic cabin that looked down on small towns and little
roads that wormed between mountains in the far north western part of North Carolina Appalachia ,
away from life’s reality back home, brings forth a smile. When I’m told to go
to a place I want to be where I feel comfortable and at peace, I go there. That
is the only way I can go back there. The place no longer exists having been
developed for condos and rental houses for the skiers who fill the slopes in
winter.
And Barry is no longer here
to go with me, so I’d not want to go there. But I can recapture that day, the
wind blowing in my face, the sweet fresh air tasting like a cool drink from a
mountain spring. Little did I know how quickly the years would pass and how
precious that day, that moment, would become to me, even now decades later.
I found this essay I wrote some years ago and decided to share it today on my blog. Savor every day, every moment because they are fleeting and one day will only be memories.
