Twelve Years Ago Today

12 years ago today I graduated from college, went out to lunch with my family and then they departerd. An hour or so late I climbed into the back-seat of my friend Dan's Cheve Corsica and settled in for the short drive down to Asheville in the company of a beautiful young thing who I wowed with my mastery of 80's music lyrics. We ended up at the JCC contra dance in Asheville with a sizeable Boone contingent and had a blast dancing through the night. Post dance we grabbed a beer at Barleys before heading down to a friend's lake house in Brevard. The rest is history. Amy and I met and life has never been the same. Two beautiful reminders of our love rule most of our lives these days and neither one of us would have it any other way.

A sound of summer

I was sitting on the front porch last week in that peaceful hour between putting the kids down for bed and complete darkness. I was looking out over a pasture fairly glowing with green and the hints of leaves budded and almost ready to unfurl in the woods at the edge of the yard. A few juncos were at the feeders and a beautiful indigo bunting was nervously flitting back and forth between the farthest feeder on the porch and a few trees that gave him a good vantage point on the whole scene. There was a small amount of background noise from the creek across the way and some distant chirping when I heard it. A ghostly spiralling etherial call floated through the dusky air signalling for me an early beginning to Summer thoughts. It was the call of a lone veery sung out from the shelter of the deep woods. Amy and I call it "our bird". A playful reminder of when we both seemed to become aware of its haunting call during our first summer together twelve years ago. Its song seemed to follow us nearly everywhere we went that fine Summer (perhaps a testament to how much time we spent outside together during our courtship) Since that time we always seem to hear this call distinctly during our Summers in the high country. It is a seasonal song usually heard from the deep shaded green darkness of the trees. I have never actually seen the bird itself. Perhaps I have heard it this early before but with the leaves still yet to fully burst forth up here it seems a little early. Nonetheless, I am always glad to hear it and it never fails to make me smile.