URBANNA — Fortunate are those who live in a small town in rural Virginia. We are given the gifts of friendly folks, beauty, peace and safety wrapped up in one lovely package. And best of all — no traffic lights and no fast-food restaurants!
Awakening on Sunday morning in Urbanna is sublime. Some may not be aware of this, but on Sunday morning husbands make breakfast and it’s a wife’s turn to sit back and enjoy being served.
His Sunday morning special is ham, cheese and egg omelet, sesame bagel and a cup of English breakfast tea. Served up with a smile, if I’m lucky, and a view of the Rappahannock River across the street from our garden of knockout roses, zinnias and butterfly blossoms.
It’s time to take my morning bike ride downtown and back, because the summer sun is already out and blinding and hot as the horns of devils, but I know at my age exercise is important to health. The grim reality… you move or you lose the ability to move.
So, every morning I take off on my bike. I think how fortunate I am not to live in New York City, Chicago or “San Fran” with big city troubles that plague present day America.
Heading down Kent Street I am at once dazed by the beauty of the world around me — the early morning sunshine filtering through the leafy branches of trees along the Rappahannock River. Every morning I see a different pattern of light on the dark road as the sun weaves in and out of the intricate lattice of leaves.
Then, have you noticed how the sun plays against mere shrubbery? How the waxy leaved bushes like ligustrum and camellia are brushed in gold and the regular leaves left in matte? I think of the French impressionists that were deliriously happy in spreading their oils in the golden light.
Then the river, that exquisite blue ribbon that stretches out before me as I pedal east to West Avenue to turn on Cross Street. It’s either of satin with nary a ripple across its sheen on windless mornings as sailboats bob helplessly awaiting a puff of wind or as ridged as corduroy. The ripples play tag with the sun and the water changes color as rapidly as a teenager changes her dress.
But I love the big gales best when the river froths as if someone turned on an eggbeater. Or the next step up into serious waves that come crashing into shore. When hurricanes of the past came and tore away our front yard when we lived on the waterfront, like during Isabel, the waves rolled in as at Waikiki Beach and as I stood on the eroding shore, I imagined seeing surfers riding their surfboards on the crests as they broke against the bank.
I still remember the shock the morning after Isabel as I stood on the eroded banks and stared at the muddy roiling waters. Scott Krejci, priest at Christ Church at the time, came to say a prayer for us in that moment of despair.
Now I see the white crepe myrtles are in bloom. The blossoms fall like snow and form a pattern of lace on the grass. But I haven’t mentioned yet the sky. Every morning I look up to the sky for my first imprint of the day. I love the white fluffed clouds and I see ice cream sundaes, Santa Clauses and poodles with circus balls on their noses. Most of all I see dogs in every cloud, that constantly change their positions, some holding bones in their mouth, some smiling, some with long floppy ears like cockers or basset hounds, other with ears that stand straight up in the sky like pricked ears of terriers or German shepherds.
Then there are some cloudless days with an azure tarp overhead that never fails to stun me, a shade of blue mirrored by the river as if the two elements have fallen in love.
But best of all are the dark clouds racing down river to deliver storms — bowling balls, swirls of smoke, coils of licorice, faces of panthers and black witches riding on brooms.
Somehow when I was young, I didn’t notice the world as I do now. I was too busy and it is as though I expected beauty would always be mine to enjoy, as though I had a right to own it and had all the time in the world, which I now understand that I don’t, to take it in whenever I might someday have a moment to do so.
And now I do. (Perhaps age deadens distractions of youth and one is finally able to concentrate on the simple act of appreciation?)
How splendid to be 80, on my bike and living in Urbanna on Sunday morning!
© 2022.
(Editor’s note: Mary Wakefield Buxton’s weekly One Woman’s Opinion guest column is currently on its usual summertime hiatus. It will return to its regular weekly schedule after Labor Day. However, Buxton may turn in a column from time to time during the summer months.)
