He used to stop by occasionally, now and then. Sometimes I’d see him here and there. One time he spread his arms wide and asked ‘how do I look?’
“Great!” I responded. “Where you going?”
“Oh, nowhere I guess,” he answered.
Life can be like that. All dressed up and nowhere to go.
It was W. Somerset Maugham who bemoaned, of humanity in general that “life slipped through their fingers unlived.”
Not so the guy who rented a fishing boat from us early this morning.
He’s living life.
“Nobody going with you today?” I asked.
“No, they didn’t want to get up this early. Do you think I could come even earlier tomorrow?”
The sun was just rising above the horizon. The lake was as still and as smooth as a sheet of glass. Not a breath of air stirred the water or the leaves of the trees along the shore.
Nothing moved out on the water.
Above, a pair of eagles soared into the streaks of the sun, as the very tops of the evergreens on the far shore were highlighted against the slowly brightening sky.
After I had prepared the boat, we stood there together for a moment on the dock.
“It sure is a beautiful day,” he said, in a whisper, as if even that might somehow disturb the unearthly quiet.
“It is that for sure,” I responded.
From the flower garden above I watched him then as he gently motored his way out of the marina.
There I waited until the sun peeked its way through the roses that likewise seemed so happy to be alive.
