Simple love

Sometimes I rise as the light starts overtaking the darkness, donning sneakers and tights against the early morning cold. It isn't shorts weather yet.

Sometimes I get up a bit later after a sleep that is often fitful, worries suppressed during the workday that arise like vampires out of their tombs during the night hours.

I am not at my sprightly best in the early morning. I have to command my body to move, and sometimes it rebels. I leave running, and other activities that require thought, for later, when I will be propelled out the door by a need to shake off concerns that sneak in and eat away at my pioneer spirit.

But in the morning, eventually, my body catches up with my mind, and the stride kicks in, down my street where the neighbors ready themselves for the morning, across the road to the school, avoiding the barking dogs and finally to the "Mustang Mile," where runners and dog-walkers share the path.

Very quickly, almost thoughtlessly, I am on the road again, downhill, gravity impelling me past the white-washed farm houses, the developments set back from the road, the ponds, and the farms. A cluster of daffodils volunteer on the side of the road, two other dogs eyeball me from across the street, and horses stand meekly in the grass by the fence.

I take it all in. At home there are medical worries waiting for me, children with problems, food that sits uneaten in the refrigerator because it's too much trouble right now to cook, or even, often, to eat. I haven't been this thin since...I can't recall. I want my appetite back. I want contentment. I want tranquility.

So many wants.

Yet out here, for an hour or more, I am powerful. Out here, I am receptive to the buds and flowers, the life awakening and stretching in our lovely corner of Chester County -- out here, right now, I am blessed.

What shall I call this feeling? Why, it's love. A love for the unfurling universe around us -- for the specifics of this time and place. Knowing that, as I have known for a while, in moving here, I am at home.

And for now, in absence of certainty, or promises, or healing, I must allow that love to fill those broken, empty places.

Which is why I walk often, eyes wide open, lest I miss something wonderful.