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Old 06-10-2009, 06:54 PM   #2
DaveA
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Oviedo, Florida
Posts: 115
5 yr Member
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Here's a note I wrote to my daughter a couple of weeks ago:
Quote:
I rise from a short noon nap, jump on the seg and scoot down the road, headed back to work. The sun is high overhead, mid-80s, and our subdivision is
deserted -- the kiddies haven't arrived yet from school.

Sucking on one of those strawberry Hall's thingamabobs, I approach the corner liquor store where a couple of birds are raising merry hell in the field to my left. I look to see a hawk come swooping down over the water, scattering two other little ones who were getting a drink.

(The field formerly occupied by the Christmas tree guys has become a lake in the last ten days. Boy have we had a lot of rain here.)

The hawk lands on the shore on my side of the "lake", fairly close by, so I detour into the parking lot and drive back to admire the hawk. It pays me no mind, and stands there about 20 feet away staring at me while I stare at it. The bird presently scratches behind its ear, and fluffs itself up, and I smile -- I like birds. Then it stretches its wings and gives one great lazy stroke, which takes it a hop of barely three feet.

But it's in the water now, its talons completely immersed. It bends over several times and thrusts its face into the lake, stretches up and swallows great gulps of water, again paying me no mind. Then it unhurriedly flies off, heading thataway, scattering the small birds again.

I continue on my own way, crossing the street at the Mobil station, then wait on the light to cross Mitchell Hammock. While standing there I feel the sun warm on my face. A grasshopper buzzes by, making an audible <tick> when it crash-lands on the concrete island. I can hear a lawn mower operating somewhere out of sight.

The slight breeze shifts and for a second I can smell the cut grass that the mower was producing.

A stream of cars passes by, each of them hermetically sealed against the environment, windows shut tight, playing their radios at sufficient volume to tune out the world. I might as well be the only person here.

The world is mine. The sun is mine. The hawk, the grasshopper, the smell of the grass -- all mine. The light changes to green, I head up the street toward my employer's office, and turning into the parking lot is hard, very hard.
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