Quote of the day...er...week...umm...hey, look, a quote!!

"...besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child." - Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

For old quotes, look here.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Happy Wind

Today is blustery. What a fun word to say, blustery. Blustery, blustery, blustery.

Ahem.

We haven't had the usual color change, this year. Granted it is subtler than a New England Autumn, even on a bright year, but it seems like most of the trees have gone from green to nude without any of the usual changing-of-the-gowns.

As bird and I made our way to the chiropractors, we felt the wind shove Rosie (our van), but she held steady in her traces and didn't mind the blow. Leaves skittered across the road - first one, then another, and then entire clans of leafy wanderers dashed across the pavement in search of new places to rest themselves in loamy contentment.

We drive across Buford Dam to get where we need to go - that's the dam that spans the Chattahoochee River, creating Lake Lanier and Atlanta's reservoir. On the lake side, the water is well below full pool (some twenty feet or so) but is still lovely for a lake that shouldn't be there in the first place. Around the lake, trees danced, bobbed, and bowed to the water. There were whitecaps on the surface, and choppy little wavelettes. I miss the sea, I thought, but the lake is lovely.

Once we were home, I let Bird play outside while I cleaned out the back of the van - Rosie was hauling a little extra weight back there and I need the room (I hope) for pumpkins, cider, firewood, and whatever else I find to bring back from Mum's neck of the woods this weekend.

He discovered the joy of crunchy leaves, of shuffling through the autumn grass and kicking up the brown confetti shed by the poplar at the foot of the drive. He brought one to me "Look mommy, a flag!", and it did, indeed, look like a flag. He chose one for himself, his "leaf shield". His old, beat up Tonka truck front-end loader became a mower to mow the leaves.

We both stopped to watch a whirlwind stirring the cauldron of our cul-de-sac, lifting and churning leaves and dust - a happy wind, twirling her skirts around and around, eyes shining, head tilted back, laughing at the brilliant blue October sky, merriment in her every swing and sway.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was beautiful. and so visual- without a photo even.

And I KNOW why you call your van Rosie I bet. I call my SUV that too.... ;)

Anonymous said...

I love that you call your van Rosie, but that's not why I stopped to comment. I just wanted to say that your little boy is exceedingly lucky to have you.

Cheryl Lage said...

You make very pretty prose, Kyddryn. You had me at "blustery" and are keeping me with "merriment."

Adding you to my regular reads roll. Beautiful

Kyddryn said...

Mizz Glamor, thank you. It would be difficult to photograph the wind...but what fun to try! Rosie is Rosie because she is Rosie. Sometimes I call he my mule, though, because she works hard, I can feed her on thistles, and she rarely complains.

Writer Dad, thank you - I feel it is I who am lucky to have HIM.

Cheryl, thank you...it's an honor to be rolled. Umm. Yeah, unless we're in Central Park, and then all bets are off! I am happy to have you...or be had...whatever...