Flashback: Secret Messages in the Woods

In celebration of alpha // whiskey // foxtrot’s one-year anniversary, I’ll be posting some old favorites — both yours and mine — every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  The fun lasts from now until New Year’s Day.

Whether you’re a longtime follower or discovering these posts for the first time  … enjoy! 

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Originally published on October 22, 2014, as part of the project Star City, Second Chance:

If you follow my street to its very end, the asphalt runs out just before the woods, and the sidewalk disappears into a tunnel of green.  Except this time of year, it’s not just green, but also burnt umber and raw sienna, wine-dark shadow and light.

All that loveliness would be the Murray Run Greenway, and of all the things I enjoy on a daily basis in Roanoke, the greenway would be at the top of my list.  Because on any given day when I go shambling around in there, I find something I like to call a Small Wonder.  Like today’s satin-slick gray feather, tucked in among the leaves:

Or this giant beauty of a leaf, which rested right in the middle of the path today as if it were waiting for me:

Every once in awhile, though, I stumble over a Small Wonder that isn’t just a Small Wonder — it’s a Sign.  Which is exactly what happened today.

There’s a place on the greenway where the path divides:  one spur straight ahead toward the Shenandoah Life building, the other angling back toward Patrick Henry High.  Right at the point of the divide is a kind of clearing, no bigger than ten feet in diameter, where sunlight knifes in and spills out over a fallen log.

Today, as I got close to that clearing, a noticed something white flashing through the trees.  Ghost-white; Light-white.  Whatever it was, it was too still to be a jogger or a dog or a doe.  As I got closer, I realized that I was looking at a set of two lawn chairs, resting side by side.

And I know it sounds flaky, but at that moment my heart seized in my chest, because the image was so provocative that I knew it meant something.  At least to me.  Those chairs could have been left there by a pair of drunken teenagers who stole them from their elderly next-door-neighbor’s sunporch, but still — for me, in that moment, they meant something. I circled the chairs, snapping photographs.  Got down on my knees and crept close.  The light sharpened and solidified around me, deepening the shadows, sketching the edges of everything with gold. When I had more than twenty shots, I turned to go… and suddenly stopped in my tracks.  I realized I’d come recklessly close to missing the invitation of the moment altogether.  Because here I was taking pictures of two empty seats in the middle of the woods, and I hadn’t yet sat down in one.

So I sat.

Looked.

Breathed.

The sun passed in and out of cloud.  The air filled with birdsong and leaf-rustle.  And my heart filled with some of what it’s been wanting lately…  Maybe not all, but some. I understood then that this is the kind of invitation I’m trying to accept here.  I don’t just want to *see* my city, but also sit down and breathe it in.  Experience it.

And another thing:  that second chair?  In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, that’s for you. Have a seat and enjoy this day with me.  It’s good, and oh God, I’m so grateful.  ❤