jendidy

Every time it snows I still thrill at the “scrunch scrunch” sound my boots make on the freshly fallen snow. When I’m absolutely positively sure nobody is looking, I can’t help sticking my toungue out to feel the snow as it falls.

In the spring, after the naked trees have shiny new leaves, I drive the twisty country road that takes me from my ramshackle cottage to work, and inevitably, my eyes will fill with tears, overcome with the joy of the beautiful place I live. Occationally there are foxes hiding in the underbrush waiting for me to pass by before continuing on their way.

It’s all about lazy indolence and conservation of movement in the summer. (Growing up in southern California I never learned how to be comfortable while sweating from the humidity.) On the weekends I sit out on the back porch and read in the dappled sunshine.

In the fall, I’m constantly shocked as nature takes on reds and yellows as bright as punk hair do’s. I come home from work at night and it smells like the places I went camping as a child. There is that same quality of sound that feels like a muffled echo. It feels as if I’m deep in the woods hearing the faint sound, captured and passed along by mischievious trees, of the exuberant cries of kids splashing in a river.

Despite the constant battle with controlling indoor mold and mildew, despite having a not-really-fulfilling job, despite the traffic and noise that summer visitors bring, despite the feeling that you never can escape bumping into a co-worker or ex-boyfriend at just the wrong time as you run errands in town, and despite missing having sidewalks where I can clear my head or get some excercise just by walking around the block a couple times without getting creamed by cars, I find myself saying, “I love it here!”