The Long Weekend.

The sun had slid silently, without drama over to the other side of the house, casting the porch into lengthening shadows. Pine trees surrounded the house, the tips of their branches opening like candelabras reaching toward the heavens, standing straight, tall and green, like silent sentinels to the weather changes. Last week there was snow, this week there was sun.

A soft breeze flirted with the skirt that covered the white wicker furniture on the porch. The breeze, combined with the lengthening shadows encouraged the woman curled on the wicker couch reading a book, to pull the blanket closely about her. The book she was reading in peaceful solitude had distanced her to the passing of time.

Her back was to me, her aged white hair pulled up into a bun, the entire essence of her that I glimpsed in the 30 seconds it took us to pedal past her house, gave me the sense that she had enjoyed the sun and was enjoying the shade just as much, but the book she was reading took priority to her comfort.

I enjoyed that moment of imaginary and, despite a 5 hour journey (2 hours normally) to get to the mountains on Friday (due to this), then coming down with a nasty cold early Saturday morning and getting the first period since my miscarriage (a helluva doozy, if you’re curious), there were lots of good moments that more than made up for the pain and inconveniences.

We BBQed chicken skewers and spontaneously invited friends who happened to be up there to join us. We talked late into the evening and it was such good fellowship.

On one of our bike rides, we stopped and visited with the donkey who lives a couple streets over from our mountain cabin, and when we left I received a rather loud serenade of sad donkey hee-haws… “DON’T GO, DON’T GO!” He seemed to say.

Taking my coffee out on the back porch in the early morning hours and listening to the squirrels “chaw-chaw-chaw-chaw” at each other from the tree tops, while they performed a strange dance of hops and runs from one tree top to the next, fearless of heights, sounding for all the world like a strange bird.

We had breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, and one of the waitresses, hoping we would be up this weekend, brought me a dark chocolate candy bar with almonds. She was so excited to be able to give it to me, and I was so touched at her thoughtfulness.

The cook at our favorite breakfast place cooks two nights a week at a fancy restaurant. He’s always encouraged us to come by, with stories of deliciously prepared food. Sadly, we’ve never been up there on the nights he works there, but we were this trip, so we made a date of it.

On the way down the mountain this morning, for the first half of the drive, there was no one in front of, nor behind us. If you’ve ever driven a twisty mountain road and been stuck behind someone, you know what a blessing that is.

And the Sweet Broom is blooming — the fragrance is amazing. We rolled our windows down, things a-flying about in the car, the bird chirping away at the havoc of it all, but the fragrance, oh, the fragrance!

The snow has melted (this is one of my favorite views on the drive down, in case you hadn’t noticed).

It was one of those weekends that made you believe that if you could just blow a dandelion in one deep, long breath, that maybe, just maybe, you could have another weekend just like it. Starting now.