A Gorgeous Almost Fall Morning…
09/16/2007
Here I sit in my favorite chair in my favorite room in this big old house. Seems to me I have jotted down a couple of these little stories sitting in this exact same spot with this damn contraption neatly situated in my ever growing abdominal region. I suppose I do some of my best thinking when my butt is planted in this location.
It is a gorgeous morning here in West Virginia with a very clear blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds and streaked with an occasional jet contrail. The little thermometer on my front porch indicated a crisp forty-eight degrees a little earlier this morning. From this vantage point I get to gaze outside through one of three picture windows in this room - one faces south, one west and one north. Each view to me is breathtaking. I love this place.
Just about six weeks ago our lawn, almost three acres of grass, was totally brown and devoid of any measurable growth. Today, everything is brilliantly verdant – the lawn and the trees, even the undergrowth in the woods is showing many hues of green. Cacapon Mountain, to our west, was typically shrouded in a summer haze most of June and July and part of August. Today there is no haze and nothing to obscure a clearly defined view of the ridge. God is a showing off today. I needed a day such as this.
A week ago this past Thursday I had a little surgery. Last Friday and up until this Friday I felt really good considering some guy cut into my belly and sewed it back together. Yesterday and this morning I have not felt so great, and I cannot put my finger on it. The area around the incision is very tender and I am dealing with a bit of nausea plus some indigestion and an ever so slight pain just to the right of my navel. Like most humans, my immediate thought is that something is wrong, and I wonder why I feel this way, mainly because I had myself going back to work this week feeling tip-top, very much at the top of my game. I am not prone to self pity, my glass is always full. Hell, I’m the guy who enjoys a cold and a headache, mainly because I so rarely get them. I guess I just didn’t think I should feel this way a week after the surgery, so this is new ground for me. It is time to make a shift and this is how it is done.
It is a beautiful West Virginia morning. The sky is clear, the sun is bright, the world is good and so am I. I thank God for this day and for my opportunity to enjoy it. In between that last sentence and this one, I took a walk outside…up and around the barn and back to the house solely to bathe in the glory of this day: I took deep breaths and smelled the crisp pre-fall air. My pain is nearly gone now, the nausea nothing more than a signal for me to get up and do something constructive. I am a lucky guy. So, here I am writing this boring little story of a gorgeous day in the Mountain State and the shift I made on this magnificent day. Not bad, eh? I am such a lucky guy.
And that is all I have to say about that…