The Mighty Viking

Conquering those things we must, one story at a time

The Joy of Life

Saturday night here in PineHelm, on a Labor Day Weekend.

Its easy to forget how many neighbors – those living close enough to be able to disturb me if they crank up their Hi-Fi – we have here. Naturally, equipment selection adds a dynamic to my “Neighborhood”, thus defined. In other places I’ve lived, I’ve had “neighbors” three quarters of a mile away, and I‘m absolutely positive we could have doubled that distance. But here, in the midst of The Pines, the forest filters its domain to its own purposes. People are not yet that big here. And I like it that way. I like my quiet.

And so here tonight, I hear the strains of some music, some distance off, and realize that this is the weekend for all the visitors – filling all the rental cabins that take up much of what is usually quiet woodland. The music is garbled, vaguely familiar, but at home in the woods. Children run rampant in another direction, squealing in distant, freshly unbridled delight at the sounds of their own car doors slamming shut! without them inside. Mothers bark instructions. Dogs bark, just to help. people call out here and there, a coyote calls out, and both people and coyotes reply immediately. It is a delicious cacophony of release.

And the wind sighs like a contented mother through the trees in the background, unheard by most, I expect. There is a Campground atmosphere to the neighborhood this night. The usual barriers of silence and distance are checkered cloths laid upon the ground softening the hard edges of existence with something greater than safety and security. Something in the air has called us out of ourselves.

And I, sitting here by the Back Gate with the dogs? Uncharacteristically, I don’t mind.

Celebration is in the air. No, that‘s not quite right. Life is in the air. I don’t know why, but it’s there. It is here. It is good, on this day, to hear joy in humanity.

It is most welcome to hear Joy in the air.

 

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