The hot weather has encouraged me to take my daily walks in the cool of the very early mornings. I love the light at that time of day, bright and sharp with a silver edge, and I love that the streets are almost empty. I can feel like an explorer of my own neighbourhood, discovering new things in the long-familiar scenery.
Because there are so few of them, I tend to take more notice of the people around me at that time of day, like the silver-haired lady who cycles by me most mornings, lunch box in her bicycle basket, on her way to work, or the couple in my photograph, who walk the same route daily, rain or shine.
I can look at this couple and imagine they've been together for more than half a century. They might have been school yard friends, and high school sweethearts who married in the heady years just after the second world war. They might have built their little house down the road when their first child was a toddler and have lived there ever since. They might have raised their family there, and had their grandchildren to stay for two weeks every summer, and now might travel to Vancouver every Christmas to see their great-grandchildren.
Nice to think of it but, of course, I may be entirely wrong.
Perhaps they are new sweethearts who met just a few months ago. Perhaps this is a new romance between two people who, having lived long family lives with others, found themselves alone before finding one another. Perhaps this is the season of their honeymoon.
Perhaps they're not a couple at all, just old friends who find comfort in the familiar conversations born of long acquaintance, or a brother and sister who meet for a short time each morning before returning to the routines of their day, or companionable neighbours who have discovered that they both enjoy an early morning ramble.
Life, like imagination, is filled with endless possibilities.
Approach today with a hopeful heart and make the most of the many possiblities it offers. They're like a pile of gifts at a birthday party. Enjoy their bright wrappers and their promises, then find joy in unwrapping each and every one of them. Have a wonder-full day.
