I walked this morning along the newly frozen pond at Newtown Hill in Littleton, where the path is strewn with brambles and sunken with thick, half-frozen mud. I tried to jump across one particularly large expanse, but my down coat became ensnared by a thorny embrace and ripped in five different little spots. And as I sought to extricate myself, my new hiking boots sank, well-spattered, into the mud. Thankfully, Pumpy was there, and she banished my chagrin, as she often does, by channeling Mary Oliver wordlessly. I interpreted for her --
-- we're walking here, in the mornings, to be encumbered by beauty.
And I suddenly didn't mind at all. Shoes and coats are meant to be well-used, anyhow. On a somewhat related note, there's nothing quite so lovely as lying in the snow in the dark, watching the halo shimmering round the moon, as I did the night before last. After a day on my feet in the lab, I felt completely supported by the earth.
Why I Wake Early
―Mary Oliver
"Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”
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