This Morning

Walking Riley this morning at 6:15 down Bliss Road, something caught my eye. Bliss Road is a 2 mile long dirt road very near our house. It is completely wooded, though there are plenty of houses and good neighbors who live on Bliss. But in the mornings, it is completely deserted - no traffic, no people – and it is basically a lonely walk in the woods on a wide trail. I take a cup of coffee with me and Riley and I head out every day for 20 minutes.

We had barely turned down the road when we startled a huge bird that flew across the road not 10 feet in front of us. I watched as it swooped down out of a tree, flapped its wide wings a few times, and then carved back up as it went into a tree just on the other side of the road. It was huge. I wondered if it could be an owl but it went so fast, I couldn’t really tell. I’ve never seen an owl in the wild. We slowly continued our walk and I actually hooted a few time to see if I could get a response (thinking of my very favorite book to read the kids, Owl Moon). No response. So we walked another few feet. I was still scanning the tree where I thought the bird might have landed and just like in a movie (or a book) there it was…a big, beautiful owl perched on a thick branch staring down at me and Riles. Probably wondering what my hoots were all about. We stared at each other for a long minute before it turned and swooped off again, disappearing deeper into the woods. It was beautiful and I was so excited to see it.

As I was telling the kids about it at breakfast, I heard the unmistakable harmonica from Springsteen’s live cover of “This Land is Your Land” coming through the radio from WNCS. The whole family stopped eating and we all sang along (Tegan and Finn know the words). It was fantastic and gave me chills.

Then before work and school, we took the kids to the polls at the elementary school and did our part. Finn was with Cristin, Tegan with me and both kids were not-so-quietly asking us if we were voting for Barack Obama. Tegan told me last night she thought 3 people would vote for John McCain and 20 will vote for Barack. I asked her why she wanted Barack to win and she said…honestly, her words… “Because I think people are tired of fighting.” Right on, Tegs.

An owl in the woods, the family doing a Springsteen/Guthrie sing-a-long at breakfast and then rocking the vote for Change. What a way to start the day. Good signs of things to come if you ask me.