On my way to where I was going

I left my house early this morning, headed toward Gerrie's where the Oregon Fiber Artists' Critique group was meeting today. I had to get gas, buy something to take for my lunch and mail a letter along the way, so I allowed plenty of time. Gerrie lives quite a ways from me. My route is slow and indirect, but the only way to get there. Saturday morning, chilly and quiet. I was nearly to Gerrie's, quite a bit early, when I saw, ahead of me, Westmoreland Park with a layer of mist spreading out from the little lake and creeping into the surrounding neighborhood, creating ghostly silhouettes of trees, people, ducks . . .

I parked my car, and with my camera and my Starbucks, I walked for a ways along the lake.

I watched a runner emerge from the mist and disappear again, then a boy on stilts.

Down toward the end of the lake a man was flinging some kind of grain into the air as ducks and geese dove and flapped around him, honking and squawking. When his bag was empty, he too disappeared into the mist, leaving the birds to fight over the food.

It seems like I am so often running late to wherever I'm going. I am tense and anxious, creeping through traffic or frantically searching for a better, faster route. How many beautiful sights and lovely moments have I missed in my distracted hurry? How many times have I arrived breathless and flustered? Not today. I got to enjoy a few minutes of misty morning in Westmoreland Park.

And I arrived at Gerrie's right on time.