Feathers in the wind

She toddled and got lost in the crispness, newness that was spring.  Cottonwood trees bloomed and fluttered as the wind pushed them through the sky like snow.  She laughed and tried to catch them calling them feathers.  She said it looked like Mother Nature and Old Man Winter had had a pillow fight over what season was really ending or beginning.    It also meant more time at the lake.  Her favorite place where she could play in the creek, chase frogs and newts or float in the sun as the water softly clapped against the shore for her arrival or cried tiny white caps when she left.  Crawdads were safe and turtles could rest on their logs undisturbed.  Her young years were spent laughing, squealing and loving everything shown to her. "But where do you go?" she asked the billowing cottonwood ~ there was a breezy laugh and that was all..

When her teen years arrived, feelings were very different.  Dread.  Boredom. There was no internet and she felt alone.  She missed her friends and hated getting muddy or hauling wood for the bonfires with a family that didn't know anything about her.  She jealously despised that her friends were out partying or dating or sneaking out and she was stuck on this porch while the cottonwood trees bloomed and blew all over, getting in her hair or coating the table and chairs, giving her ANOTHER thing to have to wipe down.  It was Hell on Earth. The lake retreated and sat quietly not understanding why her heart was so closed to it.  It wanted to play as before.  "How can I get out of here?" she begged the tiny feathers.  The lake sighed in the night, waiting and hoping for better days

And they came as she returned a young woman bringing a daughter of her own to share the "spring snow" and marvel over how things had changed yet remained the same.  She once again rolled up her jeans and caught frogs and newts, chased minnows or laid quietly while the feathers drifted lazily by, welcoming her back in more than one sense. Her daughter slept peacefully in the sun. She remembered how good life was ~ simply.

Slowly she moved, her old bones complaining for the car ride and the age that she couldn't outrun.  She no longer got in the lake but stayed on the porch and watched as her children and grandchildren swam, floated along in the boats or stirred the bonfire.  She laughed to hear the squealing after actually capturing a frog or a turtle that nipped a toe and had gotten away.  She blinked up into the sun as the cottonwood tickled her wrinkled face and whispered to her to come along.

Grey clouds.  Wet and raw.  The trees sagged sadly and the cottonwood seemed only to drop in messy globs.  The lake was like glass as if it were in shock.  She would no longer come.

Her soul had become like the cottonwood she loved ~ a feather in the wind.



Hello my friends.  This is a quickie but one I loved dashing out.  Growing up we had cottonwood trees on our property and I loved it when they bloomed and littered the grass.  Combined with my favorite place ~ Promises? ahhhh how could I not.... I hope you enjoyed our time, no matter how brief.  Come back again and sit a spell.  We get along so nicely.

until next time...