My Oxygen Tank

In a less than two weeks I’ll be forced to say goodbye to a community of friends who have been a huge comfort and inspiration to me for the past 5 1/2 years. Whenever they beckoned, I couldn’t resist their call, whatever the season, the temperature, the weather…my mood, my energy level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so I’d go to them. I’d stand humbly at their feet, or walk quietly among their young and old. I’d close my eyes and listen. Their whispers infused calmness throughout my entire body. I’ve inhaled their breath and better than any drug, it opened my mind and gave me clarity. I could breathe. My troubles and concerns got shoved into shadowed and deeper recesses of my brain…maybe for a minute, if lucky, for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the dogs were able to run amuck and do their own sort of visiting.

 

 

 

 

 

Birds sang and flitted overhead, adding their own special music to the chorus of the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

I was fortunate to witness, not once, but two years in a row, the phenomenal migration of Monarchs. That was a true gift.

 

 

 

 

 

I do my best thinking in the woods…always have. Even before writing became a serious endeavor. As a child and then young adult, I discovered that scars that ran deeper than my skin didn’t seem to hurt as badly. When I tell Linda, “I’m going to the woods,” she knows that I’m seeking my special kind of therapy in the healing touch of the trees.

 This family of trees, shrubs, undergrowth, birds and other wildlife, and I will soon part ways. I will always be grateful because it’s due to their influence that I will seek out another similar family to further guide me along.