2/19/24

 Monday, February 19, 2024

In bed at 9, awake and up at 3:30.  Let Lilly out.  22°, high of 38°, mostly cloudy day ahead, wind NW at 4 mph, 1-6/ 9.  Sunrise at 6:44, sunset at 5:27, 10+43/   

Treadmill; pain.   The usual shoulder, wrist/hand, pelvic pain on awakening.  It's painful to reach and lift the water bottle on the side table.   

I'm grateful for leaves.  I'm grateful for them in summer when they are green, red, yellow, or purple and attached to the trees that gave them birth.  I am grateful for them in autumn when they change color, lose their hydration, and are dropped to the ground by their parent tree to protect the tree's limbs, branches, and twigs during the upcoming winter months with their destructive winds and heavy snows.  I am grateful for them in mid-winder, like today, when I open the door to let Lilly out and find this lovely pin oak leaf, desiccated but in great shape, huddled up against our doorway, hoping perhaps I will bring it into my bedroom to join a few other oak and maple leaves that I have held onto for the last few years.  Why?  Because they are things of beauty, of symmetry and elegance, worthy of notice and appreciation notwithstanding that Nature provides them to us by the billions each year*.  “Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance! Nature will try anything once.” ― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  How did this little oak leaf, which probably dropped to the ground in October, survive in such pristine condition despite the inclemencies of Wisconsin's November, December, January, and most of February?

* I looked for the leaf after taking a morning nap but it had disappeared.  Alas!😭