One of Those "I Love My Life" Moments

el chorro

If friends invite you for an early morning hike on a historical cattle ranch in the hills along Highway 1,  set the clock if you must, and don't let the chill air daunt you. Wrap a purple scarf around your neck, get going. If farmhouse windows are etched with ice and the dry brown grass is tinged with frost, perceive the wintry beauty in that.

Detour to the barn with Katie to bottle feed the orphaned calf, walk briskly up a steep hill to the meadow, remember poems and other times you have been here, and savor this more than adequate now. If Sally comes by with a flatbed truck heaped with hay, stop to chat, wish fervently for rain, know you will return one day to green. Walk through the oak grove, look out onto the hills above San Julian, and descend, laughing and talking and knowing how lucky you are.