Today I was making the mail run through Cooper Landing, heading to my last stop, which was Betty's house. Betty is in her eighties now, a fixture and a favorite in this settlement along the shores of Kenai Lake and Kenai River. Turns out she and my late husband were distantly related, but I keep forgetting exactly how. See, my husband didn't have a family tree so much as he had a family forest.
Every once in a while I would think I had it all straight--all the various cousins, aunts, etc.--and then it would all come crashing down around me in a geneological avalanche of halves, and steps, and seconds, and in-laws. It took Betty a while to figure it out, too, and she decided it must be through her late husband. Therefore it only makes sense to us that we are outlaws lately related through in laws.
After I dropped off Betty's mail--I take it right into her house, picking up the puppy poodle that comes out to greet me--I didn't stay long to visit today. The masseuse was arriving to give Betty a massage, and I was anxious to get back out on the highway. I had spotted something that looked like it would make a good photo, so off I went.
Across the highway from Betty's I saw this:
There's no snow on the ground yet, and the sky is clear, which means it's cold. It was five above when I started the mail this morning at 8:30, and now, at one o'clock, it was probably in the twenties. I couldn't get quite the shot I wanted at that spot across from Betty's, so I drove a couple hundred yards up the highway.
The sun had just peeked around the side of the mountain and set the hoar frost on the trees a-glistening. A breath of air so light it couldn't be felt lifted the frost into the air, casting sparkles across the river and a galaxy of miniaturized stars all around me. Vapor from the aqua river billowed up to meet them.
Then, in a few minutes, the magic was gone, and it was just another beautiful day along the river.
But, for an enchanted few minutes, I was in the right place at the right time...
No comments:
Post a Comment