Taking Time

Today I never even walked outside.  I opened and closed the door fifty times to let the dogs in and out and each time I inhaled the air, looked at the river deck with the flowers I'd planted, admired the newly mowed lawn and how the green took my eyes to the rose bushes and beyond to the river running through the ranch.  It's high from recent rains.  It's looking bluer than brown though.  And I'm reminded that this is still an amazing place to have put down those "luminous fibers" that Barry Lopez speaks of in Arctic Dreams where he says some of us are not finished at the skin and send out fibers to a soil we've allowed to become a part of us.  I don't have to walk outside to feel the dirt beneath my feet to know I'm connected here.  And yet, all things change.  Even the river.  And our relationships to place.  In the months ahead, there may be new changes to our relationship to this land.  But no matter what happens, we will take with us a few of those luminous fibers with us.  For today, I will let the fibers be my eyes taking in the blessing of a place.