Around the Bend

Dear Maria,

Thanks for the photos. Perhaps email will do just fine. Still not as satisfying as unwrapping a letter, so to speak, but the words mean the same and that is all that matters in the end.

I do understand what you are saying about the desert, the quiet. Coincidentally—and nothing more than that—I thought about the desert in January. We had a couple of unseasonable shorts and t-shirt days, and as I sat out back and looked at the winter woods, I thought how noisy the visual. How a desert landscape would be so much quieter, so less busy.

I am sending along one picture. You will laugh. Just days after I wrote in Miscellany about leaving the area around the lake untended by my hand, the beavers decided to execute a major water release. One day-long flush, and then a shorter one the next. Lake at the lowest level since 2009 according to a neighbor.

Have no idea how long to full bowl, if ever. The local engineers will manage that issue. Along with the rains.

By the way, 3 baby herons and a set of 6 and a set of 10 goslings this spring. Gaggle right there.

And I do understand what you are saying about knowing what the future holds. Timetables like 3 to 6 months, or maybe a year, hardly seem meaningful guidance. Especially when you try to consider the needs of your family and your role at work.

Let me go with the obvious—too obvious, I guess, but. You need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.

I suspect on that front—what waits ahead—there are two types of people. Those who want to see around the bend and the others, not so much. Of course, if you knew how your storyline would go, you would rethink some decisions. But the not knowing is the great democratic equalizer, and so we all do the best we can with what we can know in the here and now.

We shall see when we shall see. Trite, but true.

I saw the other day the temperature was scorching hot out there. Good grief!  Summer will be an inferno I reckon.

Stay cool, be well.

Yours,

srk