Well, how do you like that? I’m smiling again.

This morning, after sending the children off to school, I decided to venture outside, to take a walk, to shake off the sadness, to breathe. It was one of those moments where in spite of the lingering melancholy I had been feeling for days, I felt hopeful that my mood was shifting, that my thoughts were crawling out of the vague wooliness of my mind and into focus. I hurried to the door.

The air was fresh and cool when I burst outside, slightly chilly, perhaps, but not cold.  There was a clear, sharp look about the sky and the sun was beginning to cast warm bursts of light over the tops of the trees lining my street. As I crossed the road I could hear the vrooming of the steady stream of cars crawling past my house, as they did every morning. People on their way to work, fighting for a place in the turning lane, hoping to make it to the corner before the green arrow disappeared and they had to sit impatiently for another five minutes. Seeing this line of traffic reminded me that today was my day to enjoy the luxury of being homebound, of not needing to drive anywhere– anywhere at all– not if I didn’t want to, and I smiled.

As I made my way into the neighborhoods behind my street, I began to experience the most peculiar feelings. Colors, sounds, smells, all of these seemed more intense, more dazzling, than usual. When the occasional car passed me, I discovered that the car seemed noisier and the headlights more brilliant. Everything seemed so clear, so very gentle and golden.

I had a sudden urge to be a child walking to a friend’s house to climb trees or make mud-pies or build a fort ‘o fun in her backyard, with a day of playing and laughing and running in front of me– though, to be honest, at the same time I realized I wouldn’t have changed places with anyone at that moment for the world.

Because the air was crisp. The kind of crisp that you breathe in deeply, that you can feel filling your lungs almost to the point of bursting, full, like your heart at that exact moment when you first hear “I love you,” or that moment when you catch a glimpse of a hazy water meadow at the end of a grueling hike through the forest, or that exact moment when your doctor places a tiny, wrinkly, squirmy baby in your arms for the first time. The kind of crisp that calls to mind the thrill of homecoming night and cheerleading to the crowds in the frigid night air of fall, even though you haven’t been in high school since 1989. The kind of crisp that means pumpkins and trick-or-treat and children in hard-to-make, I am never sewing again and I mean NEVER costumes. The kind of crisp that means fall is coming, and with it the mysterious, dank, earthy smell of thunder-rain soaking the leaf-strewn earth on a chilly autumn evening.

Suddenly something brownish grey burst up from the ground in front of me and there was a cry and a beating of wings–  not paying attention to where I was walking I had nearly collided with a flock of birds that had been pecking around a half-eaten bag of chips someone had abandoned on the sidewalk. I stopped short as my surprised heart drummed out a staccato rhythm I seemed to be able to feel in every inch of my body. But the birds just got out of my way and flapped into the sky, leaving me with my racing heart and my thoughts. I watched them fly until they were just a speck in the golden morning sky.

And I suddenly wondered if I could write about this, if I could get the truth and the beauty of the cool, crisp morning to flow out of me as exquisitely as I had experienced it. But I knew that words are very inadequate, or my words often are, and that even if I put all my imagination into my words, it is still nothing like living it. But I decided to try, because really… what could it hurt?

As I hurried home to fire up my computer, the sadness dimmed, hazy in my mind’s eye, overcome by the full brightness of morning. And I smiled again.

And I’m smiling now.

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