March 9, 2026

This piece is meant to be displayed to take up exactly one page, with margins cut down to four inches. (It may not display properly depending on how you’re viewing it, alas!) I worked to fit my thoughts into just that space for the visual effect, ending the lines with the appropriate words that happen to fall at the line breaks with these margins.

First flush of warmth since that cold stretch, a month
running it was, bitter, too cold to dissipate the ice encasing
cars and sidewalks. We worked so hard to clear a path with
pickaxes, not shovels. One month later, no transition time,
no chance to wear cardigans, we go straight to short sleeve
tees as summer descends, briefly parachuting in. The gentle
sun, not beating like in August, not wan like January, strong
light, casting stark shadows, high contrast, echoes of
branches dancing on walls, the wooden planks of stairs
embedded in the hill in sharp relief, like an Instagram filter
cast across the whole of the woods. You wouldn’t call it
beautiful, not yet, still mostly monochrome: bleached leaves,
pale trunks, the holly’s lost its gloss, the only real green a
snaking ivy, threatening to choke a dying tree. Yet there are
sparks, like a retouched image with a color splash: bright
dots of snowdrops cascade down the sunlit hill. Wild
daffodils, enclosed still, grow fat, hinting at yellow blooms.
The glint of sun on cheery bronze of robin breast. A faint
knocking on a distant tree trunk pauses me. I look up but
cannot spy the woodpecker, only the battalion of robins,
newly appearing. They fan out across a fallen log, hopping
forward in search of food. A flash of movement on the hill,
sun luminous through the bushy tails of squirrels. The first
sun on my bare arms in months. Could I feel more delight
than in that moment, walking down that simple forest path,
populated with such common creatures? Who says they’re
common? Tears well up not because it is so perfect, but still
so good—all must be right with the world, all is certainly not
right with the world, the world is torn and sad and yet and
yet there is so much joy to be had in it, sadness and all, and I
will grab hold of joy, take it in and relish it even before the
world is made perfect. Would you like to take some too?