Once I was walking on the path in Hudson and I found a frozen pond. I went around to take photos, unaware yet of the story of the man who had drowned there one morning while swimming.
In the distance a big black dog began to bark and run in my direction. I left the pond and hurried toward the house, toward the children playing on a tree trunk and asked them if the dog running toward me was going to bite me. And they shrugged and said, maybe and then the dog was upon me and it was licking my face like in the movies.
The children; boy and girl, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked, perfectly American were playing and they asked me if I wanted to join and I said yes, I would like to and they took me to the back and showed me their chickens and the eggs they had laid and then they showed me the spot in the woods where the bobcat had killed a chicken. Then they rode their bikes down the driveway and showed me their mountain and the place where the new tulips were coming through the ground. They threw dead leaves in the air and took out their shoes even though it was wet and cold.
Later when their mother came out to talk to me, they tried to push her away, make her go inside, because to them, I was their friend, not her’s, even though we were probably the same age.
I think, even if I am forever the one with only the company of children and old people, I am always the lucky one.
