There is so much scrambled in my brain about the geese and their eggs. About the plants and the woodland. Plants and the pond. About my family and its growing and its scattering. So much is squirreled away and I’m not hearing the voices, but I know I won’t lose it all now. So I can breathe. But breathing is the thing I struggle with most. I’ll hold my breath just this one more day, I tell myself: just today. I will breathe tomorrow.
Today was different. Breakfast was made and Silas was taken to school, but after that, me, Søren, and Walter chattered about taxes and budgeting — something Søren has been doing in his homeschool program which is amazing and boring and amazing.
When we finished, Walter and I waded into the pond which had become scary somehow, since last winter. Or, since Toots and Yedda’s return. The quantity of goose poop is disquieting. I’ve not jumped in since it warmed up. But ankle deep, we cleared algae tangled around plants and pulling them down with the current. We cleared leaves and debris gathered in the corners. And this clearing freed us and it freed the pond and it freed the plants and we can see that so much of last year’s efforts remain, and have new growth, and are happy to be alive, and in our pond at the Five Acre Wood.
And the fathead minnows we dumped in last year are plentiful and happy. And the American Green Frogs are boisterous. And the tadpoles are as innumerable as the stars.
I love ritual, but I have been feeling for a long time an ache to change. And this is a difficult thing, this change. Though I love change. The pond in the morning — especially these hot days — is utter, other, delight.
Some close-ups in the garden
I spy some tadpoles! Looks so lovely.
May I join you, please, in fucking off the world and fucking off politics and going in the woods with a stick?