Breathe out

Finally, an exhale

Today’s accompanying tune:

I watched the osprey overhead, circling over the relatively calm waters of Puget Sound in search of lunch. In the time it took me to pull my phone out of my pocket to snap a photo, it had decided. It plunged into the water, wings angled, and emerged with an unlucky fish gripped in its talons. It swung around the beach, eager to find a comfortable spot away from the gawking tourists to enjoy its feast. The small radio tower eventually sufficed, and the osprey forgot its audience as it picked apart its winnings.

Another woman and I stood there, transfixed on the very routine rhythms of nature playing out in a corner of major urban area. Isn’t it fun, she asked, to nerd out about stuff like this? Indeed, it is.

I never regret the time I spend walking, watching, listening, noticing. It hardly feels wasteful to slow down and inspect the plants off the side of the trail or watch a hummingbird flit from bloom to bloom, bringing life with its unending search for nectar. It is how I spotted the small garter snake making a run for the tall grass after I’d disturbed its afternoon sunning session on the trail. For every mile measured and tracked, several accumulate without intent or goal. It is then that I can rest, that I can breathe. When the noise of the traffic and the din of the city fade away, muted by the ferns and the alder and the maple.

It was an exhalation at the end of another tedious week. One spent in traffic and in front of screens, fully immersed in the mundanity of this life. As the calendar ticks over into July, lights at the end of this long tunnel have appeared. We will likely move into our house this month, if all goes well. The dogs will calm, hopefully, once they’re in a place that feels more settled, full of recognizable furniture and familiar smells. Pieces of our lives that have remained packed away can again emerge and resume their rightful places.

I am ready for a season of steadiness after so much tumult. Days quiet and slow, dictated by rhythms I don’t yet know. I’m so excited to meet them, to know them, to live with them. To know the morning light, the soft dampness of dawn, the verbose calls of the robin. To spend most of the day tracking the swifts’ acrobatics against the brightening skies. To find respite in the sweet dampness of the forest, to know the kin of the long-gone old growth. I am ready to live this life, one that’s colored my daydreams and anxious nights for the better part of a year. Thankfully, it is almost here, though the closeness makes the wait that much more agonizing.

Because though I am prone to walking, watching, listening, and noticing, I am not someone you’d describe as overly patient. I tend towards anxiety when life begins to feel stagnant, and so I often cope with movement. If I can outrun, outwalk, or even out-stroll the anxiety, life feels a bit more manageable. Easier to enjoy, exhales easier to come.

And so I remind myself to move, to stroll, to notice. To take an afternoon and spend it wandering the trails of a park, watching for birds of prey and small reptiles, even if it means putting off other urgent responsibilities. Because there are always more responsibilities, always more urgent requests. Always more I could be doing, more that needs to be done. But that’s where the anxiety hides, waiting for the moment to pounce and establish itself in my world. I can see it, just below the surface, as I circle it. I need only to dive, to rip it from the water, with movements barely discernible but powerful nonetheless. It is all I can do, to keep moving.

Nurtured by Nature will be off through the end of July as we prepare for and — hopefully! — pull off the move to the little blue house tucked deep within the trees. I am so excited for you all to meet her, to get to know her as I do. Thank you so much for joining me on this small detour in the city, one I very much cherish for time spent in a lovely, vibrant place with some of my most favorite people. I am grateful for your continued support. I will see you on the other side.

Here’s to a new season.

- Megan