The long way home

The road doesn't go anywhere I need to be. It ends at the barn, or maybe just past it, hard to tell from here, with the fog still holding the middle distance. Either way, no one is waiting. There's nothing to deliver. I came out because the dog needed to come out, and because the light was doing what it does for about eleven minutes a day this time of year.

Two contrails sit overhead, parallel and slightly off-kilter. Someone is going somewhere, fast. I find I don't envy them.

It's a strange thing, to walk a road on purpose. Most roads exist to be gotten through. You drive them, you cross them, you measure them in minutes. But a road on foot, before anyone is up, becomes its own destination. The fence posts tick by. The barn refuses to get any closer for a long time, and then suddenly is closer. The dog finds something in the grass and forgets it.

This is the kind of morning I keep showing up for. Not because anything happens. Because nothing has to.