Nature Moments, where I share photography + stories about moments of connection in nature, is currently on pause. I’ve returned to full-time work, and there’s overtime, so I write when I can :) In the meantime, please enjoy the archives.
I’m not a person who is consumed by the news cycle because I’m personally fascinated by domestic and international politics. I am reluctantly trapped in an abusive relationship with my government, and so am compelled to check in on current events in case I need to take some action to protect myself and my family.
I moved out to the ragged edge of Maine because it’s beautiful here, and you can still find a patch of land that you can live on and grow with. I’ve spent happy years getting to know the wild birds and the singing frogs and the shy salamanders and the feisty squirrels and the lumbering porcupines who are my nearest neighbors.
These days, I spend more time than I would like trying to prep and safeguard our family and chart a path towards a future where we can keep our heads above water.
Hours filing college financial aid and scholarship applications and appeals. We pulled money out of retirement savings to, you know, live, and that impacts your financial aid standing. You have to submit an appeal to describe why your IRA distributions don’t reflect your normal income.
Hours scouring websites and used car dealerships for something affordable (spoiler alert: nothing’s actually affordable) so both of my boys can get back and forth to their summer jobs. Used cars start at $15K around here. With well over 100K miles on them.
Hours trying to find providers for healthcare and dental care, hours never finding providers for mental health care. Stocking extra supplies in the pantry for that day when the bottom falls out. A lot of hours doing things that used to be easier, that should have at least been feasible, if not for a small group of greedy sociopaths sucking all the crumbs out of the pantry and all the oxygen out of the future.
Hey, it all needs doing, and we just keep after it day by day like everyone else. But sometimes I just have to step outside and breathe.
I walk into our garden plot, newly fenced from munchy deer. I spend a little time each sunny day pulling out weeds and scattering seeds. Every planted seed is an investment in hope, an act of faith in an unknowable future, a show of rebellious optimism pushing back against a system that would like you to believe resistance is futile.
I walk out into the rain, and watch the ponds resonate with droplets cycled through the atmosphere, coming home to their terrestrial origins. I watch the new life growing around the margins. So, so much new life, actually. Froggies and salamanders and newts, oh my.
Last night, my husband and I were walking-and-strategizing, as we often do. It was after dinner, early twilight, and we made loops around our gravel driveway, which transitions into the forest path that follows our property line out to the ATV trail.
I stopped at the intersection. What was that enormous rustling in the shrubby grove of young balsams? The evergreens were so thick it was impossible to see anything but movement. The rustling was constant. Loud. It was coming from at least five different spots amongst the boughs.
If it had been a squirrel, he would have pounced onto a tree trunk already to scold us. A chipmunk? But they don’t usually gather in groups. It had to be birds.
We settled down for long minutes of peering into the shadowy undergrowth. A bird-form darted across an opening. A quiet, flutey song fragment gave the game away. It was a social group of White-throated Sparrows. There must have been a dozen, in a tiny feathered feeding frenzy among the leaf litter beneath the sprouting firs.
White-throated Sparrows forage using a sort of hop-scratch method that’s especially endearing. See those two little guys in the center? Those are White-throated Sparrows, hop-scratching away and stirring up all sorts of tasty seeds, insects and invertebrates. (That fabulous diva who enters from the left is a female Evening Grosbeak.)
Today, drippy and chilly, I watch them out my window and think about what funny, noisy little mystery-monsters they were in the dusky forest just last night.
And that’s the thing about nature. Even when you’re in the middle of puzzling out your lifelines and your safe spaces and your possible next steps - when those leaves start rustling, you have to stop and figure out what all the fuss is about. Because nature is always inviting you to be curious. Chances are, there’s something delightful waiting there to amaze you. And that will feed your spirit to go out and do it again!
Be Curious.
Be Amazed.
Do It Again!
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