by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
URBANNA — Oh, what a beautiful Sunday morning it was! You know, the one following the big storm the other night that rumbled by Urbanna so close the lights flickered.
Fortunately, we didn’t lose power. Not much rain but I noticed the limbs were cast all over town this morning as if Thor had been tossing chopsticks on us from his mighty perch.
I love riding my bike around town in the early spring mornings, but today’s ride was more glorious than usual. It was windy and I had to worry about losing my straw hat and the sun was out after the storm and the big fluffs of clouds were racing by in the blue sky as if running to catch a train.
My favorite dogs were in sight along the way, “Kingston,” Vickie’s new Bernese Mountain dog, “Lincoln,” “Bullet” and “Smokey.” The Jubal band formed by “Bunny” Dunlevy was warming up outside of the Urbanna United Methodist Church for the outdoor service soon to start.
Whenever I bike by the Sunday service, I am reminded of a hope for the presence of God in our society which seems at times to be sorely lacking and to love one’s neighbor and be a forgiving soul, not the sort to hold grudges and go through life licking the wounds of yesterday.
When I reached downtown Urbanna, a few people were parking their cars and heading to Virginia Street Café for their Sunday morning breakfast. I can tell when people are tourists because they are always so surprised when a lady on a bike greets them with a cheery hello. Perhaps they come from the city and may walk with their heads down, avoiding eye contact and not daring to speak to a stranger? Unheard of in a small town.
Or maybe they are so surprised to see a senior citizen biking around town like a teeny bopper that they can’t speak? Who knows? All I can say is even at an advanced age I still feel the same thrill I felt as a girl growing up in Vermilion, Ohio, when I jumped on my bike and headed downtown on West Lake Road, stopping first to snitch a dime from Mother’s purse for a Hostess Ho Ho treat at the little store on the corner.
The American flags were up at every lamppost in town and snapping smartly in the breeze reminding me of our cherished ideals of which half the world’s population is so deprived — individual freedom, freedom of expression, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, equal opportunity, and most important of all — protection from government abuses.
Yes, no one can be hauled away in the dead of the night after expressing an opinion never to be seen or heard from again or left to rot in some rat-infested cell by a tyrannical government. Such thoughts filled me with appreciation that I was an American citizen, a blessing I didn’t have to work for, or make any sacrifice for, it was just given to me at birth.
On my way home to Kent Street pedaling back on Rappahannock Avenue, a straight shot to the river, I reflected on the nature of happiness. Interesting to me is how happiness seems a sudden sensation that flits through one’s brain as if a butterfly, as if stopping briefly to test the pollen before moving on. I realized I was in this exquisite state which can come on so suddenly in life and yet mysteriously move on. One can’t hold onto happiness as if it were a golden nugget, one just lives life and then, occasionally, one becomes aware of it.
A joyous sight awaited me at the corner of Rappahannock and Colorado avenues. “Pepper,” the feral cat we saved as a found kitten left on the street and had fixed and who loves freedom so much she chooses to live in the storm drain where she can come and go as she likes, popped out of her dark domain. Pepper was alive!
I had heard from Vickie (who cares for Pepper along with many other friends in our neighborhood) that the cat was near death and was laboring so hard to breathe that Vickie could barely hear her from deep inside her storm drain home, where she lay and refused to come out.
“I don’t think she can make it,” Vickie had told us, grieving that she could not reach her to take the cat to the vet. Vickie went to the storm drain every day leaving Pepper food, hoping she would come out, never ceasing trying to coax her out. And now, there was Pepper before me, no sign of illness, bouncing along just as good as ever!
The perfect ending to a perfect bike ride around town!
© 2022
(Editor’s note: Mary Wakefield Buxton bids her readers to have a pleasant summer. Starting next week, her weekly One Woman’s Opinion guest column will take its usual summertime hiatus. It will return to its regular weekly schedule after Labor Day — though she may turn in a column from time to time during the summer months.)
