Member-only story
God’s Country
“I call it God’s country,” the woman said.
In her sturdy walking boots, light blue shorts to the knee and grey checked Rohan shirt, I took her for a Rambler. She was about the same age as me. Sixty-ish, with pewter and silver hair cut in a short bob, where mine was more ash blond with glints of the red that used to be, and rested long and loose around my shoulders. Her border terrier sniffed around in the undergrowth. I stood at the edge of my favourite spot on the walk, just ten minutes from the gate at the bottom of my garden. Trees way older than I, stood aside of the stream that had forged its way through the roots and around huge rocks that had stood their ground for centuries. The same rocks I’d just watched the woman pick her way over before she noticed I was there. The leaves of the trees had such presence, I felt I could reach out and touch life itself. The sun a gentle backdrop for each and every one. Everything was duplicated, mirrored on the water’s surface.
“It sure is,” I said.
What I do in the world when I’m not walking: https://linktr.ee/iliffewood
