Field Notes: Fall 2021

Second annual Gentian Day

While searching for a stick to throw for Asha, I came upon some purple flowers. They looked like a cluster of buds about to open and I made a mental note to return in a few days to see what they looked like once they opened. Then I learned that these flowers – Closed Gentian (Gentiana clausa) – weren’t buds about to open, but rather flowers in full bloom.

That was two years ago on the fall equinox.

Each September we return to visit the flowers-that-looked-like-buds to celebrate our private Gentian Day. A day to rejoice that blooming takes many forms – and happens right on time.

Sitting with tea and Tang

I carry binoculars and a thermos of tea on an afternoon walk with Asha to the serene beaver pond. The October sun has already dropped behind the trees, casting the bridge and pond in shade. A few brown birds flit among the cattails. Water trickles through the abandoned beaver dam.

I sip the tea and my thoughts drift back 40+ years, across 7000 miles and an ocean.

As a child, I often sat down on a rock about halfway up the hill on my walk home from school and enjoyed the snack and Tang I’d saved from lunch. Then I closed my lunchbox, picked up my shoulder bag, heavy with homework and good-girl-ness, and continued home.

I want to ask my 10-year-old self what prompted this ritual, why she chose this particular spot, whether the refreshments were an excuse to sit alone awhile, what she thought about while sitting there. What thoughts drifted through her young mind.

I want to thank her for tending her soul in this way.

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Fall 2020 – On a path; Treasure; November

Winter 2020/2021 – Circle in the snow; Returning

Spring 2021 – A change within; How I spent the morning; Glide; The time it takes; A glimpse

Summer 2021 – Stretching lessons; No stepping stones