The Girl in the Garden

For a few minutes tonight, I was 8 years old again.

After dinner, I stayed outside playing in the back yard until I suddenly realized the sun was long gone and it was getting too dark to see clearly. The lights in the house were bright through the windows.

Still unwilling to go inside and let the day fade away completely, I sat on the back step listening to the birds sing out in the dark as they called it a day. Something must have dropped down my collar while I was digging around under the rose bushes and I wriggled as I tried to find whatever was tickling me. My hair was tangled with leaves and petals.

The air was cool and soft and smelled like flowers and dirt. My cats stalked imaginary prey in the grass. I was tired and dirty and perfectly content to be exactly where I was at that moment.

When I finally opened the back door and stepped inside, I didn't feel at all like a grandmother. I felt like a girl who'd made the most of a long summer afternoon.

That's the beauty of this stage I call my third life. Sometimes, when I least expect it, I turn a corner and find myself.