Loft

Alex and I were in the car, driving down the farm road. The air outside held just a hint of the coming Fall. That hint drifting through the late summer heat, cool and wispy, quietly insistent that it is on its way. Days of early dusk, smoke, comfort foods, blazing colors, and whispers of scary things are just a calendar page away. We crave these things, these changes. Summer has been to long, to stifling, it has been to much of a good thing.

We were both in that lovely quiet stage that occurs when you know you are all most home, but there is still time to relax and be lulled by the drive. The sunlight was crystal clear and golden, the evening still had a couple hours of light and heat. Still so many minutes to be savored and enjoyed before bed wrapped us up tight waiting for another day. Then off to the right a loud smack and pop. A pigeon had hit our windshield, its force colliding with our forward motion. The glass held a perfect dust smudge of a wing, body and head. Feathers and gore fluttered and blew in the wind. Looking behind us in the rear view mirror, a feathered body tumbled and rolled on the ground. She was lost to this world as quickly as could be.

I have been feeling like that image I have of the tumbled feather body rolling on the ground. I feel like I am low to the ground, pressed into the soil, without a wind to guide me up. I feel flustered and ruffled and with an ugly smear on my life. I have been struggling trying to get up, lifted, and out of the road. I crave a breeze to change my direction. I want a North wind to blow into my life and clear the dust and webs. I keep looking, searching, praying for a golden wind to follow. Anything to get me where I need to be.