Violets on Earth

I have not much to say today that springtime can't say for me. First, April has had numerous sunless days. After several sunless days, turning into weeks, of no visitors and no visiting, fewer phone calls because we're all in shock and can barely mumble, and all aware we are all in the same waterlogged boat, and this is real life -- a sunny day and noticing violets at my feet felt like spiritual sustenance. I don't grow these. They're 100 percent free random grace.

Happy Earth Day!

Stranded in Paradise

The creek rose and I saw I might be trapped at home for days by flooded roads, as in December 2015, if I didn't leave right now. I threw together electronics and chargers, boxed up the coffee machine and fled to a Fenton hotel where I have lived since Saturday night, waiting for the flooding here west and south of St. Louis to crest and recede. Tomorrow I will attempt to drive home.

I'd have stayed there if I didn't have important business in town Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday, worth paying the hotel bill for, and a hundred things to do online. As I've told you, during stormy weather the Internet satellite won't work, and there was no point in staying home without the Internet because that's how I do my jobs--except that there were hummingbirds who should be nectar-fed and baby bluebirds in the bluebird box.

Today I'm lounging in the room with its spiffy king-sized bed, a couch, microwave and fridge, an impressive TV, free breakfast and working with no distractions except maids knocking at the door to ask if I need something. (Yes, a martini and Cheetos. Unfortunately not available here.) I bought coral-colored roses to lighten it up a bit, and then received roses for doing a writing task. It does get a little bit solitary and the roses help.

This windy and rainy morning I woke lonely but went down to the breakfast area to find it packed with sweet-looking young people who ate like locusts. Curious, I asked one if they were athletes or a debate team, whether they were stranded here because of flooding. This was the Oklahoma Christian University Choir heading home from a concert in Illinois or somewhere like that.

A nice place to stay while the flood decides whether it will allow I-44, Highways 30, W, FF, F, O, and 109 to open a way for me to get home.

A "hundred-year flood" every two years? We know the culprit: development and paving. Pave paradise and it will flood. Yes, the hotel sign stares into my window at night.

Good Morning

Because daytime heat mounts quickly now, I hike the woods and meadows in the early morning, thinking I'm alone and apart from society, like Thoreau, but the fact is that company is everywhere. I politely said "Good morning" to this young and beautiful Three-toed Box Turtle at the woods' edge. Young, I guessed, because of its moist shiny shell, clear markings, and the fact that it wasn't scared of me.

Talk to the Animals

Aloud, to the the baby bunny I saw today: "Hello, sweet little itty-bitty baby bunny. Don't be scared of me. I'd never want to hurt you."

Aloud, to the grasshopper I just saw on the shower curtain: "You know you don't belong in here. You know what's going to happen to your ass."

Sole Picnic

On my screened porch, on a brawny picnic table built on the spot because assembled it wouldn't fit through either door, is where I serve most summer meals, but another picnic table, much older, waits patiently in the shade beneath the twin giant oaks, its paint pummeled off by at least 15 years of rain and snow, its joints rotting. About every other year I nail, C-clamp, or wood-screw its raggedy pieces together, hoping it will last one more year as a buffet table or a stand for my cast-iron grill. But this summer I hadn't hosted a buffet nor had I grilled. Patient as ever, the shabby eyesore looked appealingly toward me each day while I refused to consider risking splinters, wasps, or the ticks and chiggers teeming in the taller grass around it, but most of the time it was beneath my notice.

Today was the day, a perfect September day, about 78 degrees, sunny, with cotton-ball clouds in a vivid sky, the grass recently cut; and almost everything is still so intensely green I thought, "The earth is covered with plants."(A marvelous fact.) As I gazed at the decrepit picnic table I suddenly understood it, and loved it, and set my dinner out there: a bowl of jambalaya, a flaxseed wrap, and a beer.

Usually I picnic in the open air away from home, doing it a pleasant number of times during this mild summer, but today I woke again to how amazing it is that I can cross the lane, sit down, picnic in my own Missouri yard right in the mainstream flow of life, "bugged" only by a very small wasp which drowned in the jambalaya.

The planks in the grass are the last surviving pieces of a cold frame Demetrius built in 2002.

The End of Solitude

For many reasons I've spent most of my time alone, and I don't mean "unmarried"; I mean in solitude. As an over-50 solo hiker I began limiting myself, because what if I got lost on 4000 acres, or slipped and fell? And always I wished to share my delight in migrating birds or puffball mushrooms or other things I saw on hikes. One year ago I discovered and joined Meetup.com. You can find in your locale people coming together to enjoy an shared interest or event they might not attend or enjoy alone. These include wine tasters, paleo-foods enthusiasts, ballroom dancers, history buffs, kayakers, stargazers, playgoers, creative writers, you name it. Joining and meeting are free. My favorite group "Let's Hike" hosts every weekend at least four hiking events to choose from, anywhere between 4 and 35 people on each hike.

"Let's Hike" led me to Missouri conservation areas and parks and trails I didn't know existed; on hikes too rocky, lengthy, or distant or spooky, like Howell Island, to hike alone--and awesome sights such as the Pink Rocks near Fredericktown. Some people are out for exercise, others to see nature; we all chat. November offers perfect hiking: no snow, bugs, heatstroke or below-zero temps, and yes to gorgeous autumn scenery. It's only because of Let's Hike that a photo exists of me the hiker with hiking poles--great for ascents, descents, and rocky paths. Fellow hikers recommended them. Solitude is fine, but I sure do learn a lot from other people.