Going Down, Coming Up, Looking Down

Driving down in spitting rain this morning, I took the fast route, along the busy Interstate. But coming home, I took the slow drive up the old highway, a two-lane affair bordered by farms, modest white homes with imaginative and well-tended gardens, mobile homes in varied states of repair, a tree nursery, and tiny unincorporated areas. Then I skirted across the interstate on a fast four-lane highway just so I could come up the most scenic route through Alto (a colon between Here:and:There) and up the mountain, switching and turning all the way. Something made me take one more detour at Running Knob Hollow to look down from Green's View to the land I had passed through. For a moment, mist and cloud still hanging, sunlight snaked like a developing idea, lighting this field, that roof.

At the clang of a door and clatter of girls' voices, I turned toward my car. "Have a good walk," I said to the three coeds. "Oh, we will!" they said. "If it rains, we'll cool down!" And then they headed down the slowest way of all -- on their feet through Shakerag Hollow.

I like the going down.

I like the coming up.

I like the looking down.

But I love the chance encounters.