Talk Derby To Me (Part One)

We crossed the Ohio border into Indiana around 8 pm last Friday evening. We were driving now on a state route road, which made for a pleasant change from the highway congestion of the previous ten hours. Instead of billboards and shopping plazas, I was looking at railroad tracks. I was looking at utility poles that we so old they still used ceramic conductors, wires droopy, and the poles themselves pockmarked and leaning too far left or right under all the years. At home, it had snowed just two days previous, but Indiana was far enough south that flowers had already blossomed. And then it hit me all at once -- the most wonderful scent. I was breathing in spring. As the van came around a curve, I became aware of the sunset -- brilliant pink being absorbed into dark blue at the horizon. I had the desire to ask J-- to pull the van over so I could just lay down in the grass. I spend too much time dwelling on mistakes of the past and worrying about the future. So I consider it a gift when nature bursts in like this and causes me to live wholly in the moment. Sometimes it's wonderful to be alive.