Day 351: The Walkabout and a Missing Pie

See, this is why I don’t bake the good stuff…I eat it. We polished off that whole apple pie in little more than twenty-four hours. It’s ridiculous….but OH SO GOOD. Life is short, right? Eat dessert first. Use the good dishes. Wear that hat. Don’t wait for a special occasion. TODAY is the special occasion!

Yeah, I know…I’ve worked in medicine long enough that I should be encouraging you all to eat right and exercise and stay fit and live forever. And, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure I’ll get back to that really soon. After all, mowing season is coming and I’ll be working my butt off again. But, I’m not going to beat myself up over a few pounds gained because, dang it…it was a pretty rough year. And, by golly, we made it through! There is something to celebrate there, I think.

Being good to yourself isn’t always about doing all the right things. Sometimes it’s about doing the right things for you…right now. The “right things” change with the season and the seasons of life are not defined by the elements or the months or the time the sun sets. The seasons of life are noted when you feel the paradigm shift and the earth moves under your feet. You feel it when your world shakes you and wakes you and you ride every wave till you’re spent. You feel it when your heart breaks open and spills on the ground. And, sometimes you feel it when you hear the water rushing in a full creek or peepers in the holler. This is what living close to the ground has given me. I feel my roots so deep in the West Virginia red clay mud.

I love when Mr. FixIt and I go out and walk the land we own. It changes every day. We’ve heard hawks screaming in the surrounding trees. We’re convinced they’ve been feeding on the moles and voles sticking their little heads up from the saturated ground because we see the holes in their tunnels. I love the way the fog starts rolling in as the sun sets. It rolls like a carpet, spreading out from the creeks and settling in the low places.

There are more and more migrating birds showing up. I haven’t taken time yet to sit and watch the feeders to identify them, but I hear their calls in the morning when I awaken. The window is always left open and the flowering quince and forsythia are just outside our bedroom. I love to hear the world wake up from its quiet slumber. We still haven’t had thunderstorms yet, but they’ll be coming before long. We have a stretch of sunny yet cool days coming, then warming up by next weekend. These are the days I love the best in West Virginia.