Escaping

I'm planning to run away from home Wednesday morning. Well, what I call running away. Work is caught up and while some others in the area have already started making hay, I'm in need of and taking a brief vacation.

Getting away from what is in my eyes daily and hopefully letting my mind refresh itself. Meeting someone new and exciting and getting to know them on a more personal basis. Seeing their world and seeing their sights. Enjoying the things that makes them smile. Enjoying in a closer way the smiles they have shared with me daily for a while now.

There are still responsibilities. Things that need done. Like the lawn and garden need cared for.

Friday evening the weatherman left me know that it would start raining Sunday and would be raining until Tuesday off and on.

It's already that time of year that the lawn needs mowed once a week. So I spent all day Saturday catching up on the mowing. I did get a chance to discuss with a neighbor about an open ditch that gets in both of our ways. It was left before either of us were born by the township when they put a culvert pipe beneath the road. I've complained before to the deaf ears of elected officials.

Not only is it in our way, it is no more than ten inches from the edge of the pavement of the road. Now if someone would slightly run off the pavement they surely could hit that ditch and be in a really bad accident.

So we made the decision and came to an agreement that we will extend the culvert pipe. All at no cost to the township and we're not asking or telling them either.

Also when mowing along the road to keep it looking nice and neat I stopped and chatted with the son in law and my grandson at their house. They were planting their garden. My daughter and youngest grand daughter came out to say hello too.

Then Sunday my son and I went and did some shopping and stopped in for a breakfast buffet. Then I came home and tended to the garden. Tilled the paths between the rows and pulled some young weeds. Planted a few remaining flowers from the flats I'd gotten earlier and tended to the flower gardens along the house.

So I managed to kick the weekend in the rump, but get the mowing out of the way for at least a week. I will be home next Tuesday to do it all over again. Maybe...

I'm free, I'm single. My parenting days are done. I can come and go as I please. If I should want to spend a few more days away and enjoying what the world has to offer I can. I've busted my rear getting ahead of schedule just so I could have some time to myself and get away.

I had just planned to run away and do some fishing and exploring locally. But someone snuck up on me and caught the attention of my heart. Instead of the normal run and hide reflex I usually get, I have felt totally comfortable talking to her. Our major interests in life are so close to the same there is almost no difference at all. Our outlooks of smiling and laughing and seeing work as play are very similar. While discussing things and events from our pasts I realized we could both write the same book. Some details would be different, but the same lessons would be passed along.

We have a way of constantly making each other smile and laugh. We have come to looking forward to the hour or so we spend together chatting in the mornings and evenings before getting started on our days. Might even say we need and feed off of each others company.

Where will it go? Who knows. In the least we will spend time laughing and playing. Enjoying her part of the world and getting to know each other face to face.

I will have the opportunity to fish in a river I had always wanted to fish but never yet did. A river that has some of it's beginnings right here in my back yard. A creek that starts from a spring on a friends farm withing walking distance from me.

My childhood dreams while making hay under the heat of a scorching sun on a hot summers day of putting a canoe on that creek and making my way from here to the Mississippi river and on to the gulf may never get fulfilled because of age and a tired old body. But I can drive along and fish it. I can still follow the waters to whatever adventure they may hold and give me.

I've worked and done what I could to make it possible to take sometime away. I've faced the responsibilities and gotten them out of my way. I've saved little by little to have the finances for a trip and vacation.

If I can do it, anyone can.

I will return with a renewed attitude and a refreshed, rested mind. I will create even more memories to give cause for more smiles.

And by the sounds of it I might even return with a few more extra pounds. Sounds like she might be planning on capturing my heart through my stomach... : )