there’s been a shift in me, in how i perceive this beautiful world, despite the times when i fall into a pit (yes, again and again). despite it all i no longer feel hopeless, useless, full of failures. that cloud has lifted some, like a tiny miracle or the fresh scent of newly bared spring soil. or the lingering musk of red fox who moved through. perhaps i need less from the world, and that maybe i have something to give after all. i’ve been like an open wound, sensitive to pandemic, to politics, to horridness of white fucking supremacy.

this week i watched two squirrels acrobating in the woods behind the house, noticing when a third joined in, a black gray squirrel. they’re around here, some, the recessive gene a bit more common across the st lawrence river, but here, too. well this one was a circus star, the three seeming like joy embodied. reminding me, chiding me, pushing me to let this place do her work and heal and nurture and care. for me. for squirrels. for field mice, for stinky old red fox, and for the river, who may become another beast altogether once the ice goes out sometime in march or April. anyway, joy has returned, a deeper kind than i’ve felt before. joy in tiny wasps nests, the winter gathering ladybugs littering the windowsills, in the idea of a couple books waiting to be worked on, and a tiny article to write, and of course class to prep for.

screen shot of the mjolk folks’ home, and on that sideboard in the center of the photo…

a joyful thing happened, quite by chance. i’ve been to toronto visiting my dear friend wendy several times in the past few years, and she took me to this place, called mjolk, pronounced milk. mjolk is a design store and more, the young family who owns this place are just lovely. john and juli inspired me to contemplate design once again, something i’d ignored for years. john bought one of my rock books and in a few photo shots juli posted lately it’s turned up. i contacted juli and it turns out john gifted it to her. this made me deeply happy. i found that split rock and four others and they sat on my porch stoop through several seasons before i made the paper as shaped folios and bound them. i sat in mjolk, telling John abouthtis work, and he asked to purchase one. for me to find a while later that it was a gift, and is living in a house full of beautiful and useful objects and the laughter and squabbling of children delights me and my made object chosen and living in a home.

this Etsy purchase, found totally by chance, was hugely informative, teaching me about the relatedness and differences between my wild harvested silk cocoons, and peggy truett’s home-raised and carefully tended bombyx mori, and makes into thread and beautifully crafted items. we think we know things, and our hands do, if we keep them working. they learn and make.

this winter there has been so much loss: barry lopez, who wrote winter count, arctic dreams, of wolves and men, and much more passed at christmas. his writing instructed, indeed helped me see the world better. at a small reading in the adirondacks we spoke of our children, who were attending the same school. the quality of his attention to our conversation moved me. he remembered hiking with my son ian in the colorado mountains, remembered the tone of the conversation, the day, the land itself.

the newness i feel in my heart, and the lightening around the politics, the pandemic, the culture of fear and ugliness i feel shifting. the world is still in trouble, but i’m feeling like hope maybe isn’t quite here, but is possible and perhaps thresholding just beyond ken. there’s a shift and am for the first time in a few years feeling hope and a kind pf peace. i saw a nuthatch here yesterday, going up the tree and thought, yes. that’s right. you’ll be upside-down soon, and no longer hungry.