Love, you have been vertigo, a whirlwind of relentless wanting, an insatiable thirst, tick-tock of time. Groping, reaching for the other’s body, soothing the craving.
At times, when the fever becomes a warm breeze, and desire sits down to watch the sunset, we learn to breathe deeply.
We give ourselves permission not to arrive before the sigh, not to demand from the soul what the chest still cannot give.
We discover, sometimes, that the now is also home. To entertain oneself is to smile at the moment. To celebrate oneself is to laugh without witnesses. To care is to rest in the calm of a shared siesta.
Between slow exhalations, with no urgencies or conquests, we find each other.
Not like a flame that devours, but like a hand that holds, with a gaze that kisses.
We breathe together. We perspire, melting, side by side, not rupturing with ego, not suffocating the space, Silence. Pause.
It’s Springtime and I’m springing into action trying to get our homestead, affectionately known as the Fernmire, ready for the warm seasons. Why do we call it Fernmire? Because we have lots of ferns and it can become quite the mire through the rainy season, roughly October through May. I also just really like the name; it goes with my whole “Bog Lady Witch” aesthetic that I’ve been dreaming up in my brain. Strictly for my own entertainment purposes. My rituals are very mundane (like making coffee in the morning) and my curses are basic (like calling bad drivers “a dirty biscuit eater” because it’s better to be annoyed and amused than all about road rage.)
Humans aren’t the only ones who get annoyed about near misses. The birds are going crazy right now! They harken the early morning dawn at 6am now. The Juncos, in particular, are bad drivers flyers and the chickadees aren’t having it! I nearly got hit by a Junco the other day! Did it mistake me for a moving tree? It narrowly missed my face, which would have been unpleasant for both of us! There are of course some rivalries going on as the birds vie for mates making them bolder and maybe not so smart in the throes of passion.
This is the time of year when we see an increase in birds hitting the windows. I’d always hoped if we kept our windows dirty enough the birds wouldn’t hit them, but there’s always a few that seem to hit the windows in the dining room despite the dirty windows. So, this was the year I put forth the effort to clean the windows and put window clings on them that should hopefully stop unnecessary death. There is enough drama going on with the Avian Flu right now, affecting birds and mammals alike. While I don’t want to get into it, I’ve heard several heartbreaking first-hand accounts from Wildlife Enthusiasts/Birders and Wildlife Rehabbers alike of Great Blue Herons, Raccoons and Foxes dying or being humanely euthanized due to complications from HPAI H5N1.
Anti-strike Window Clings Photo By Melanie Reynolds
This is the year we were also on time for making a plethora of new birdhouses! You can make four birdhouses from one piece of cedar wood fence plank; the fifth one was made out of spare wood we had as the initial prototype. If you would also like to make birdhouses this is the website we used for instructions and cut sheet. It’s hosted by the Cornell School of Ornithology, which also hosts the wonderful website All About Birds.
I hope you are well and have the chance to get outside! If you’re doing anything special to support your wild neighbors this year let me know in the comments below!
Flowering Begonia 2025 By Melanie Reynolds
Additional Links:
For more information about Avian Flu impacts visit the page of the Native American Fish & Wildlife Society below:
I’m back from my annual visit to the In-laws in South Florida. There are no direct flights from our home airport to our destination airport, so when booking our two-leg journey my preferred connecting airport is Charlotte, NC. I like Charlotte (CLT) because it’s a smaller airport, breaks up our in-air time better and has a really good restaurant called “Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar.” If you’re lucky, you might even get a chance to sit in one of their white “Southern Charm” rocking chairs along a long bank of windows! (Read an interesting story about how they got there. Link below.) Allowing an extra-long layover allows us to enjoy our food and walk casually between our arrival and departure gates. It’s always stressful when you have to run a marathon through an airport with your bags, especially when the airport involves a labyrinth of escalators and trams between gates which inevitable makes me feel like someone stuck me in this famous lithograph by M.C. Escher. I’m looking at you Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport (ATL) in Georgia!
Lithograph by M.C. Escher, “Relativity” First print Dec. 1953
We fly once a year to visit family and I’ll not be shy about it; I need anti-anxiety medicine to get on a plane. A series of incidences over several years has made it hard for me to get on a plane. I’ll always remember my last conversation with a boy who loved soccer and will never grow old. This January marked the 25th year all passengers and crew lost their lives aboard Alaska Air Flight 261.
My last international trip was to Japan in 2007. The trip was great, and my friends there always make me feel like a rockstar when I’ve had the chance to visit. Unfortunately, on the flight home out of Tokyo’s Narita airport the plane suddenly hit “dead air” during takeoff just before reach cruising altitude. No air, no lift. The plane suddenly dropped several thousand feet! It was all I could do not to scream, because I knew there were young children sitting behind me. The plane found lift and was able to regain altitude and resume a normal flight. I waited the whole eleven-hour flight for deboarding just to have the opportunity to see the pilots and say, “That drop scared the crap out of me!” And the Captain said, “Me too!” I shook my head and said, “No, no, no, you’re supposed to tell me you had it under complete control the entire time!” I don’t feel better knowing the pilots were also scared.
I’m terribly sorry if this post unlocks a new fear of flying for you, but I assure you as I assure myself every time, I have to fly that these incidences are incredibly rare! My logical brain knows this and yet, I feel as if I can feel the world too much. In these circumstances having a long memory is more of a curse. Don’t think I haven’t been telling myself that I wish I were a bit dumber! “Ignorance is bliss” is a common saying in the U.S. and I sure would like to experience that bliss because the weight of the world is quite heavy indeed. I’m striving to encompass the idiom; “let it all roll off of your back like water off a duck” and less of “an elephant never forgets.” The more I pretend not to care, the more my face betrays me.
So why am I telling you all this? Because climate change is real, despite what the Trump Administration says while it quietly scrubs climate data from U.S. government websites. Remember back in the day when people used to talk about “Global Warming” and there would always be some person in the back that would be like, “What are you talking about? We just had the coldest winter on record?!?!” And then Scientists were like, “Yeah, but the world itself is still incrementally increasing in global temperature year after year.” Then the naysayer is all like, “What do I care about the price of dirt in China?” (I’m sorry, that’s an American idiom used when someone expresses that they don’t care about what happens in the rest of world.) That kind of thinking is short-sighted and sometimes intentionally so because life is easier when the only world you care about is the one you make up in your head.
In an effort to use better language Scientists and people who give a damn about the planet and the lives upon it now say, climate change for better accuracy. The climate would still be warming and changing with no human interaction because weather is a cyclical system, but humans are rapidly accelerating it with unknown consequences. This is why I think we need to focus on adaptation and resilience. Climate change is already starting to affect how we vacation.
Bathtub Beach before the start of a reclamation project in Stuart, Florida.
On this recent trip I was hoping to find a new swimming beach that might have a reef close enough to shore that we could swim to and explore. Both places ended up being closed due to reclamation programs in progress. The ocean is washing away Florida’s beaches. Expensive projects are being undertaken to return sand and berms to Florida’s beaches. It is a vacation destination for many people, because of the beaches. Everyone wants a view of white, sandy beaches but without mangroves and sea grapes there isn’t a whole lot to help keep the soil and sand in place.
The other place is Peanut Island in Riveira Beach. There’s no indication that the island or ferry to it is closed on the website. We drove there to find no one else there and cranes and big piles of sand spotted on the island. I wish I had taken a picture. I have looked at the website again right now (March 9th, 2025) and there is no change to the website indicating whether the island is open or closed to the public.
A couple of places we did get to visit was the Juno Beach pier. They now have an entrance fee onto the pier at $2/ a person. I don’t mind though. I think it’s fair to ask for reasonable funds to help keep something open for community members and tourists alike.
Juno Beach Pier 2025 By Melanie ReynoldsBoat-tailedGrackles at Juno Beach Pier By Melanie Reynolds
We also visited one of our favorite places called Loggerhead Marinelife Center. I didn’t take any pictures this time around but it’s a great place to visit if you find yourself in Juno, Florida, U.S. The Marinelife center is a one mile walk from Juno Beach Pier.
Has climate change affected any of your favorite vacation or holiday places?
The Nature-led Life 