Dear Woods,
I left behind your quiet shades of winter to visit family in a city where winter is so different — so full of color, sound, fragrance and texture.
On a walk around the urban neighborhood this afternoon, I stopped to listen to Northern Mockingbird whistle, trill and scold from the top of a Tulip Poplar. I wondered, Does this song indicate a shift in the seasons? Has anyone been eagerly anticipating this sound? And then I thought about my joy when I first hear Red-winged Blackbirds singing their return to your beaver ponds.
My thoughts kept circling back to seasons as I continued my walk, looking at tiny yellow and maroon flowers and feeling narrow spikes of Dwarf Mat Rush, smelling pungent leaves of sage and watching Bushtits flying from shrub to shrub as though accompanying me down the street.
You have taught me a nuanced way of telling time. Not by the Gregorian calendar or even temperature or length of day, but by the quality of light and birdsong and mosquitoes and flowers and seeds and tree buds.
I tell you this because I want you to know that wherever I travel, I now carry my woods-attention with me.
Hugs of gratitude,
Marilyn
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