Naychah

Accepting that I am a city-dweller now is really hard for me -- I have been putting off getting new plates for my car or changing my address even though I've been here since February because part of me is so tied to the woods. I feel like the city is my temporary home -- even if temporary means I'll be here for at least a few years. My heart is elsewhere I suppose -- back at my parents' house where the wild roses and raspberries were out this weekend and everything was green and warm and clean and so alive. This may overly romantic in an Anne-of-Green-Gables sort of way, and quite possibly in a pukey sort of way, but there it is. I love Nature. I am a Nature dork.

There is a bit of Nature to be found in the city even beyond the scraggly trees that grow up from the sidewalks. I noticed these little depressions in the 2 foot dirt border that surrounds a neighbor's lawn while walking home from work last week. It reminded me of the time my father brought me to see a colony of ant lions that had appeared in the earthen floor of one of the outbuildings at my grandparents house -- just a mass of little holes, everywhere. I couldn't figure out what they were for -- until a couple of days ago, when a little brown sparrow dropped himself into one, wiggled his bum, and used his wings to shower himself with dirt. Tonight when I was walked by there were six little birdies in a row, all washing.