December Trails

If not for reverence, if not for wonder, if not for love, why have we come here?

Raffi

Through the looking glass

A symmetry of turtles

(Tyler State Park, Texas)

a long dock leads

to an imaginary lake

Giants in ballroom dresses

Loom over the park

Lake Bistineau, Louisiana

Blue hour on the bayou

a great beauty in the distance

a small one close at hand

stillness reigns

(Davis Bayou Region, Gulf Islands National Seashore)

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.

Matsuo Basho

I hope you all had wonderful holidays! I’ll keep this short so you (and I) can get back to your year end celebrations.

Thank you so much for being here. See you again soon!

seagulls and pelicans reclaim a hurricane battered pier

Summer's Ghost

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer’s wreckage. We will welcome summer’s ghost.

Henry Rollins

It comes

Floating,

Flying,

Fading,

Furling:

flowering.

It comes.

September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.

Alexander Theroux

This September so sweet and summery, is nature’s sleight of hand - but fall is still showing signs.

I got a little off-schedule with this, preparing for my first book binding workshop, which was yesterday (Saturday, September 28).

I will be back twice in October. That may become my normal schedule- 2 Fridays a month.

Thank you so much for being here!

Harvest Super Moon

Camping in the Rain

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A view of the start of Appalachia at sunset

The thing about

camping in the rain

is that when the rain stops

you go outside-

and you are lighter,

the world is lighter,

the birds are singing again

and a little joy creeps back

into your heart

and you walk the muddy path

splashing just a little bit more

than strictly necessary

smiling like you never saw the sun

until just today

when it pushed its way

past the heavy clouds

and shined.

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Rain-soaked White Cave Path at Mammoth Cave National Park, where my boots got muddy, and I smiled to be back outside.

Tall grass flattened by rushing rainwater on the hillside next to the path to the historic cave entrance at Mammoth Cave

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

John Steinbeck

This trip was not what I expected. I expected quiet and peace and trails and warm nights reading by a campfire. What I got was a lot of rain. Thunder. Tornado and hail warnings. More rain. Flooded campgrounds. Then, periodically, the sun would come out and I would get out and go. It made every moment I spent outside really special. In Arkansas, I got to experience the warm steam rising from the ground at Hot Springs National Park on a cold day. In Tennessee, I got to run along the Mississippi River. In Alabama, I got to hike with my sister, Rita at a beautiful little trail system near her home. In Kentucky, I ventured into a deep cave (see last week’s post here) and came out with a resolution to face my fears instead of avoiding them, and I’m excited about that shift in my attitude. The trip wasn’t what I expected at all; but on reflection, I think it was exactly what I needed it to be.

Now I am home in Michigan, where all the spring flowers are blooming early. The air is cool and crisp in the morning, and the neighborhood animals (and the neighbors!) are making me feel welcome. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for being here with me. See you next week.

a mass of lilies of the valley cover the ground in the woods near my home