the outside world

I always learned it was our scent that gave us away. When we looked in on baby birds in the low bushes by our house in Tennessee, we wore gardening gloves so we didn't frighten away the mama. The idea of abandonment frightened me, and I never wanted to be the cause. I tried to leave no evidence.



I am quick to fantasize about the natural world, but I am the first to admit I don't spend nearly enough time in the dirt and loam, which is ridiculous because my soul floats when I return from long walks, from hiking the bluffs.

Last year, we went camping at Frontenac the day I finished packing up my classroom. I'm hoping a repeat of this adventure, this escape, this release from the sorrow that is saying good-bye to a whole year's worth of work, of the four walls that held you for so long. Instead, a celebration of what is to come, leaping into the unknown. I'm hoping to sleep on the ground the night after my classroom is mutating itself back into the previous teacher's, and I hope this ground is a new place for me too. Frontenac was gorgeous; Minnesota is full of gorgeous parks.

But for now, as the seven and a half weeks slowly slip away, the sound of chickadees on our afternoon walks.



** Edited to add: These videos aren't mine; they're ones I found on YouTube. I haven't uploaded anything on YouTube... not a video kind of gal just yet.