I zoomed around running errands for work. My return-borrowed-items frenzy brought me to the opposite corners of the network of towns that make up this part of the state and forced me down some of the most congested (and my least favorite) roads in Vermont.

I was tired. I’d been studying and working extra to finish everything on my plate. It was another sunny, gorgeous fall day…another one I was missing as I toiled.

I crested the hill just past where the road was lined by strip malls—probably once farms. I felt like I’d climbed the hill myself (rather than my little car). At the edge of my vision, the largest smile caught my attention.

There in the beautiful golden sun under a tree that wore canary yellow leaves, its autumn coat, sat an elderly woman. She was laughing. Her face creased where laughs had wrinkled her face for decades. She bent forward slightly. I looked again, trying not to swerve or slow too suddenly as I drove in traffic.

Beside the woman was an elderly man. Both of their mouths were wide with joy. The fall breeze made their tufts of white hair flutter.

What were they laughing about? My face relaxed and the corners of my mouth rose, breaking line formation for the first time that day. The day wasn’t so bad—I’d just needed to look past my personal storm cloud.