I walked out onto the ridge. Just me, my camera,
and my walking companions.
They don't walk with me, but rather around me. Protectively.
Because we aren't the only ones out walking.
In the absence of conversation, the ridge is a wonderous place, falling away to the shadowy woods on either side. The only sounds are the birds and the crunching of my feet on the shorn path.
Suddenly, I hear a huffing and puffing, and I see the white of her tail as she bounds, crashing into the woods.
I've disturbed her vigil over her newly born fawn. She stomps and snorts in the valley trying to draw me, the predator, away from her babe.
My quest, however, is to satiate the spirit, not the belly.
He sits patiently for his portrait, the wide angle lens almost touching him.
I passed a thicket, covered in the most beautiful butterflies of which I had never seen before. I counted at least thirty. As I stepped closer to capture their image, they flitted into the sky in thirty different directions. Red confetti. Floating up instead of down.
Pondering all that is, lost in my thoughts of the Peeps overhead. I came upon the pond which erupted at my passing. I think I may have jumped as hard as the frogs who were now safely nestled in the plant growth under the water, leaving no trace but the occasional ripple of an airbubble.
I am by no means the first person to love this place, nor am I close to being the last.
There is an ancient magic here that draws you in and tethers your heart.
But the sun grows heavy in the sky.
And so I find the road that will take me home.
