this moment: walking to the bus stop

[Because sometimes I need to use words to remember a particular moment]

Breaths of cool morning air fill my nostrils with the scent of summer's end. It smells bittersweet--green leaves and cut grass mix with the exhaust from yellow school buses, scrubbed clean like the kids on it, ready for the first days of a new school year. 

Acorns lay scattered on the sidewalk, still green. Gray squirrels shake a new shower of them down every few minutes. I dodge the storm and quicken my pace.

The light and shadows keep my attention. My eyes follow the changes in the dappled gray and gold; leafy shadows cross my path with the breeze. The iron fence casts a railroad track onto the concrete in front of me. I walk the tracks, a morning adventure that reminds me of the childhood magic of placing a coin on a hot rail, then returning hours later to find a flat oval slick of metal, an old President's head just barely discernable. I think of high school days spent with my nose buried in books about tramping across the country, my mind filled with dreams of traveling light, train-hopping, and living simply. 

The tracks end abruptly in the shade of a tall beech tree. The contrasting layers of its bark, swirls and rounds of gray, white, and green, look like a topographic map. The world on a tree. It feels rough beneath my trolling fingers. I keep moving.

At the corner I stop. I like the certainty of the bus stop. Stand here, sooner or later, something will happen. I wait, taking in the stillness after my brisk walk. The bus with its fumes, its crowded passengers, and its old driver will soon arrive, and though I am anxious to start the day, this pause at the bus stop feels right. It's funny, but even though I know the passing traffic is filling the intersection with honks and humming, what I hear is quiet. 

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