1. Morning walks. Everything is so lush and green right now, which also means it’s tick season and the mosquitoes aren’t far behind. This week, there was an extra special walk for an extra special reason, so good that it deserves to be it’s own item on this week’s list.

2. FOXES!!! Eric and Ringo saw them first, or rather Ringo alerted to them and Eric was able to figure out there was something worth spending time looking for and after some searching was able to see two baby kits playing near the opening of their den. He told me where to look, so Ringo and I went back later in the week, and there they were!

We used to have a healthy fox population and one of my favorite things about spring was checking all the local dens to see the babies. Then disease decimated the entire population, slowly at first and then completely. In the years since, we’ve seen a fox occasionally, and one den with the potential for babies that was never realized, and seeing a fox became like spotting a unicorn.

Some babies from years past:

When Ringo and I saw them, the kits weren’t very active, rather resting in the deep grass enjoying the morning sun. I didn’t get very good pictures of the babies, but I was super happy to see them, to know they were there and seemed to be doing so well. We turned around and headed back up the trail towards the road. There’s a temporary pasture set up with a herd of sheep and their llama guardian to help “mow” the natural area, so we paused to watch them for a bit. While we were watching, the sheep started getting restless and the llama stood up and seemed concerned. I thought at first they didn’t like us being there, but then the llama turned and lunged at something and I realized the mama fox had gotten herself stuck behind the fencing. She had a fat red chicken held limp in her mouth, was trying to get back to her den to feed the kits breakfast. We stood and watched until she worked it out and was making her way back home.

I’m such a nerd for this sort of thing. Further down the trail before we turned around that morning, a woman with two dogs caught up with us so we pulled over to the side of the trail to let them pass. I excitedly told her about the fox den, but her response was not just underwhelmed but I got the sense she was thinking, “okay, weirdo.” And yes, I AM a weirdo. I get excited about the robin’s nest in our lilac bushes or the zebra jumper spider currently living in our kitchen or the snake in the compost pile. One time I even got super excited about baby grasshoppers, until they grew up and tried to eat our entire garden.

Eric is just as weird. He’s had different “pet” spiders in our compost pile and on a corner of the house. The other day, when he was trying to get a fly that had come in when we had the door open, he saw the zebra jumper in the kitchen stalking it, so watched as it caught the fly and took it behind the clock to drain dry, took a little movie of the event. Later Eric found the husk of the fly and saved it to show me. I can’t tell you how much I love that he gets excited about that sort of thing too. And also, nature can be brutal.

3. Therapy. I feel myself coming unstuck, waking back up, and I’m so grateful.

4. Practice. Yoga at Red Sage, my Friday morning writing sangha, sitting in my practice room in the morning, making art.

5. Chris, my brother, and Mom. I think I said this last week but our mom has entered the stage of dementia where she is sundowning. One of the things she currently does when she gets restless and agitated and confused in the evening that’s not so great is fiddle with her catheter tubing, sometimes even pulling it loose. The nursing staff noticed she liked to fold things, that it distracted her, so Chris has started to bring in washcloths and socks for her to sort and fold. It totally works. Too bad a hot iron is so dangerous because Mom always LOVED to iron, (I did NOT inherit that from her).

Chris visits her in the evening so he sees more of this behavior than anyone. It’s hard for him to watch. We both hoped somehow Mom might skip the worst parts of her condition, go peacefully, have an easy death that came quietly. I’m just so grateful that she is where she is, being cared for and kept comfortable by such compassionate and skilled humans, and that Chris keeps such a close eye on her but doesn’t have to do all the caretaking anymore. What he’s done for our family in the past two years kind of blows my mind, even though I always knew how great he was and how lucky I am to have him.

6. My tiny family, small house, little life. I told him one night this week as he was getting in bed that it takes him longer to get his blankets and pillow just how he wants them than it does for him to fall asleep — seriously, sometimes he gets in bed and by the time I am done brushing my teeth, he’s already asleep. I’ve always been jealous of that, his ability to fall asleep so fast and so easily. There was another time we were in the kitchen cracking each other up and I can’t remember now what we were saying but for me the joy of moments like that is one of the best things about our marriage.

Bonus joy: Liminal’s spicy sesame bowl, a day with both sunshine and rain, how soft new green grass can be, irises blooming, the smell of lilacs when there’s a breeze, other people’s dogs and kids and gardens, a massage with Dana, getting in the pool, sitting in the sauna, keeping the curtains closed, a warm shower, books, libraries and librarians, poets and poetry, comedy, true crime, satellite radio, streaming on demand content, clean sheets, naps, watercolor, comic books, graphic novels, science fiction, our neighbor’s honey locust tree, the ponds and the river, the light in the morning, dusk, the moon, down blankets and pillows, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep. 

1. Morning walks. I was thinking the other day as Eric and I were talking about geese — I’d seen two pairs on our walk and thought to myself “where are your babies?” because tis the season, and Eric told me about driving by the canal at City Park where the families with babies usually spend a lot of time and seeing five sets of parents and babies — that when you see something a lot, you start to take it for granted. Almost every morning we walk, if we go early enough, we will see deer because there is a small herd of whitetails who live along the river, so when we see them, it’s almost unremarkable, except for when there are babies or a buck with a huge rack. Canadian geese are the same, because there is a significant population who decided the climate and resources here are such that they don’t bother to migrate but rather stay here year round. Even a heron or a beaver is exciting but not that unusual to see. Owls always seem special but even those I see quite a bit. My point is, I feel so lucky to live somewhere that I cross paths with magic on the regular, that wonder and awe is a normal and consistent part of my mornings.

2. Spring. My window feeder was finally replaced and the chickadees and finches are back, the leaves of my maple tree are light green and droopy, my irises are blooming, my lilac blooms are fading but I can still smell them when the wind blows, the backyard is full of the yellow and poofs of dandelions, the grass is so green and soft, and there is a robin nesting in our lilac bushes.  

3. Mother’s Day. We lost Eric’s mom early this year and I still can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that I’ll never see her again. My mom is growing more confused and agitated, which has been really hard for my brother to watch. We’d so hoped she could maybe somehow skip the worst parts of dementia, and I still selfishly hope she is able to leave the suffering of her current body before she forgets us. I sent her flowers and a box of See’s candy along with a fidget blanket to see if that can help her with some of her agitation. I am so lucky to have had not one but two moms who loved me so much, even as losing them feels wholly unlucky. 

4. Practice. In particular, the way it helps me return home to myself.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I am looking forward to Eric being on summer break, for real. The past few years, he’s had extra work so even when he was technically “on break,” he was still working, even when we were at the coast. We are making a list of things we want to do together this summer and I’m just as excited about the nothing we’ll do together.

Bonus joy: being mostly over that dumb cold I had last week, yoga in the morning, big salads, books from the library on my Kindle and my hack that allows me to keep them as long as I need to (airplane mode!), libraries and librarians, poets and poetry, listening to podcasts, watching TV (home renovation shows on HGTV have always been my comfort TV and I just finished season two of Renovation Aloha and it was so good), comedy, true crime, onions, cabbage, other people’s dogs and kids and gardens, a song so good you play it on repeat (such as this from Teddy Swims, or this one and this one from Goldford, and just about any version of this song, which is one of my favorites), sunshine, sunrise, sunset, that particular limey green of early spring, bloopers and gag reels, the ocean, pine trees, an owl calling out in the dark of morning, down blankets and pillows, naps, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.