July 5, 2025
Good morning!
It’s Saturday. After a good long think on the porch yesterday, I decided to suit up, douse myself in bug spray, and saddle up my faithful steed Gunther for a ride. Gunther being our mower.
Down through the field we went, past the lower garden and the leaf pile and the lupine patch, until we reached the trees. Here we turned and made a slow, curvy meander along the edge of the woods, tracing the contours of a land that’s otherwise left wild.
In the few years since I began mowing this path, it’s become a dear friend. It leads me forward, listening and nodding and smiling. It offers a crossroads where I have to decide which way I want to go. It gently interrupts my thoughts to make sure I’m paying attention. Did I see the fairy circle or the old stone wall? Why yes, yes I did.
Only after all these things have happened does it let me make the exhilarating huff and puff back uphill towards home.
“I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. When body and mind are out of gear (and those twin parts of me live at such close quarters that the one always catches melancholy from the other) I know that I have only to call in my doctors and I shall be well again.”
—George Macaulay Trevelyan
Onwards, step by step,
Clara
Oh, Clara, excellent quote! In the midst of my grief and anger, you are one of my Salvation Heroes.
May you walk in beauty.
That looks like a path to wellness of body and soul. There's nothing like a meander to give us strength and courage to move forward. And that quote is brilliant!