While driving down Courthouse Road on my way to church, I thought of the changes 36 years have brought to this old country road. Once lovely farmland and forest, it is now completely developed with huge houses that I can’t imagine anyone can really afford. I remember the happy squeals of my children when we used to pass the last remaining farm with its half-a-dozen Holsteins each Sunday morning.

Today I drove alone, but the sun was bright and the blue sky a welcome relief from so many gray days. I dutifully stopped at the 4-way stop where Sutton crosses Old Courthouse and noticed a young family taking a morning walk.

I glanced up as I pulled forward. A squirrel had started across the electrical wires above the street. About halfway across, that squirrel went rogue and sailed through the air and landed right next to the little boy on the sidewalk. I laughed out loud and imagined his surprise, like mine, “What just happened?” It was as if time stretched for a moment; as if I had witnessed the miracle of flight for the first time.

I couldn’t help but think of Kate diCamillo’s Flora and Ulysses: “Holy unanticipated occurrences!”