It may be just me, but as I’m out walking today in my retirement community, I see love everywhere I look.
It’s in the old man patiently trailing behind a large dog who stumbles along, probably older (in dog years) than the man on the other end of the leash.
It’s in the goose couple nearby who round up their fluffy goslings and bookend them protectively as the dog passes.
Love is on the dock on our pond, where a gentle aide murmurs in an older woman’s ear as she turns the woman’s wheelchair so she can feel the sun’s warmth on her back.
Below the dock, the enormous, armored backs of several snapping turtles surface, ancient heads tipped up expectantly, waiting to love the turtle food that showers from the dock once a day, provided by my retirement community, where these turtles may be the oldest residents of all.
A great blue heron explodes into the air, swoops across the pond and lands again at the edge of the water. It’s been here for days. I’m sure it loves the pond for its sheltering trees and bounty of darting catfish—promises of safety and a full belly.
I feel a flush of love for the resident who stops to talk with me about the goose family, the heron and the red-winged blackbird we both saw yesterday, hopping along the fence that wraps its split-rail arms around the pond.
In a few minutes, I’ll go home to my small, black cat, who will curl up in my lap and give me even more love. But not before I’m done loving the pond and what it’s like to live in this peaceful place during the last years of my life.
Flora Davis has written scores of magazine articles and is the author of five nonfiction books, including the award-winning Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America Since 1960 (1991, 1999). She currently lives in a retirement community and continues to work as a writer.
