Reading. Sunday afternoon. On my private porch. Beech trees waving from behind the roof. Simple place. I asked for the end unit this time. No one here.

I put the book down. A highway runs through behind the trees, less than a mile away. I can hear waves of cars and I ask myself, “Why would I love such an unlikely retreat, so close to the noise of traffic?” I instantly know why. It reminds me of the year and a half Roderick and I traveled in the old RV, staying at roadside campsites at the end of each day. That background noise carries memories of our journey, and of being free, and safe with him.

Later, this small motel was our home when attending the Highland Games. And now I feel grateful as I realize that this place has even deeper meaning than I thought. The sound of the highway is like a veil to another dimension. It’s my connection to a presence that has never left me. It is a greeting to me, like my trees who wave from above the roof-line. All of this is reaching
out to me.

I pick up the book again and the words I was just about to read moments ago jump from the page at what is now the appropriate time to seal my thoughts: “…once in a while there is the suggestion of purpose, meaning, direction, the suggestion of plot, the suggestion that, however clumsily, your life is trying to tell you something, take you somewhere.” (The Alphabet of Grace, Frederick Buechner).

Another May on the horizon. What books shall I devour this time?