How are you?

How are you?  We get asked this question so often each day - at the supermarket checkout, the shops, on the phone, when we see a familiar face in the street.  Usually we give an automatic reply without really thinking about it.  But today someone asked me the very same question but there was something in her voice that caught me off guard.  It wasn't a D&M "So! How are you?" voice.  Just a friendly and (now this is what made it different) genuine question.  How was I? 
WELL!!!   Twenty minutes earlier, I had been chasing the dog around our backyard which is sodden and muddy from two days of almost constant rain.  He, in turn, was chasing one of our chickens who was clucking and squawking for all she was worth.  He cornered her behind a pile of boxes in the fernery and, by the sound of her, I thought she was a goner.  What to do?  What to do?  I couldn't get to either of them.  With little hope I called to the dog to come.  Was I kidding????  This dog was lining up for a chicken dinner.  But guess what?  He came!!!  Good dog!!!!  So, dog tied up, chicken checked and returned to the chook yard, four children loaded into the car (after having to fit three car seats which had been taken out a couple of days ago), we were away.
And then we call in to pick up some things from a woman I have met briefly a couple of times and she asks me "How are you?"  In that moment, the tension from my shoulders dropped, I took a breath and said "I'm good.".  And in that moment, I was.   Thanks Shaz.