June 9, 2007

Today I hiked in the forest in the rain, and saw a deer, and some teeny birds, and some spiderwebs that mimicked the fungus shapes that they were built among, and even though the rain got heavy at times the trail was mostly under very dense forest so it didn't matter. Discovered a new side trail not yet marked, that connects the main loop trail with a nearby neighborhood on the far side of the woods. Enjoyed the Pond loop trail again. It's all very pretty, so green this time of year it almost glows. Some of the tree leaves reminded me of the patterns of exploding fireworks, frozen in time, Vine Maple I think. While hiking I thought about seasons, and how they're pretty subtle in Arizona, in the low desert anyway, that you have to pay attention to notice them there. It's analogous to discovering the personality of a cat, you have to really observe, pay close attention. [Or have a vivid imagination, or project your own personality onto them, or interpret their selfish behavior as something fancifully creative. They're beautiful creatures, and maybe smarter than us (I suspect most other living beings are) but I find them very dirty disease carriers and so I have lost my ability to be much charmed by them, except to watch them hunting. Some of them are very good at that. There's one hunter cat in the neighborhood that is fascinating to watch, and I take every opportunity to watch it when it's hunting. As long as they all stay out of my vegetable garden!]

So anyway, I'm sometimes overwhelmed by the seasonal changes here in the far northwest. Even though I grew up and spent my first two dozen years in New England, with seasons aplenty, during the 22 years in Arizona I got out of practice in witnessing the extremes. It sometimes snowed in town, but it usually melted the same day, and of course the summers were intense and very long. Not much spring or fall. Lots of little sub-seasons, very localized, but it's spring that I have always really liked. The forest was the best place to experience spring, but down there I had to drive more than an hour into the mountains to get there, which I did as often as I could, until most of it burned away, just before I moved up here.
Meanwhile, it's still spring here, which I think started back in February, and now it's the second week of June. We had a few days of "summer" last week, but it didn't last long. I shut the furnace off the middle of last month, and have been using solar heat since then (the enclosed south facing porch gets toasty by midday.)
It's almost 9:30 pm, after a day of mostly solid rain, and there's the most richly colored coral and lavender sunset out there right now! What a lovely place!