Raindrops keep falling not on my head but in the canopy above, a quiet beginning to a new day and season. 

Peace comes to the neighborhood in small, unexpected doses. This is the kind of morning I live for. On the outer edges of our habitat, sun chases shadows, and last night’s storms are long gone. But here by the pond, droplets still fall on the leaves above me. The tulip trees generate their own kind of rainfall even after the clouds have cleared.

From the bench, I watch butterflies waking up and drying their wings. A hummingbird flies toward me, we say hello, and she heads to the cardinal flowers, where a few minutes later the spicebush swallowtails sip nectar too. Cardinals chirp, a blue jay squawks, a Carolina wren dives furtively into her nest, and occasionally the green frogs—usually so chatty by this time—emit a quick blurt. It seems that everyone’s enjoying the rare quiet today. The only human voices I hear are those of children playing: a welcome sound of summer, of my own childhood and a world so different from the usual blend of semis grinding over interstate highway rumble strips, men slamming pickup truck doors and yelling to compete with the noise of their tree-cutting chainsaws, mowers racing across neighbor’s yards, and cars and delivery vehicles going twice the speed limit and sometimes crushing smaller beings in their hurry to get somewhere.

I’ll enjoy this while it lasts, this peace that is as short-lived as my wild friends. It’s the time of year when yellow Eastern tiger swallowtail and orange sulphur butterflies flutter on the flowers, and it can be hard to distinguish them from the first yellow leaves floating down from the walnuts. It’s the season to match our grief, a simultaneous celebration and mourning of the people my family has lost over the past year and a half: first my aunt, then my dad, and then, most unexpectedly of all, my 17-year-old nephew. It’s a time of transition, when all the life above ground starts getting back to its roots and its burrows, worrying over nut, pollen and sugar stores that will see them through the winter. There are undercurrents of uncertainty, when mornings are cool, afternoons are hot, and rain could come at any time (or not), weather forecasts be damned; when many of us, like the cuckoos and the wrens, are still busy making more life in the waning light, racing against the sense that we are running out of time. Over the past couple of weeks, the green frogs have felt this urgency, and several times after a long day of clucking and carrying on in the pond, they’ve left an egg mass that forms a shape resembling a heart—but with edges continuously fraying as the mass separates and sinks.

Transitions are never easy for me. Calendars are too boxy and rigid, and even as a little girl I found it hard to make the walk home from school, where homework and snacks and TV awaited. First I needed to rest my brain and sit with the leaves on the side of the road, sometimes for hours, or visit the dog chained in the yard behind the school. We only lived two blocks away, but sometimes I’d wander into unknown territory and get lost, and my mom would come looking for me.

I know where I am now, but my mind is still fundamentally the same as that child’s, wanting to explore during the in-between times. As I finish my new book, which is almost ready for the printer, I know there will always be more to say. But during a time of loss, words are either not enough or too much. Often they come and go before I can make sense of them, getting lost in the jumble of trying to help my family heal.

In the past, I’ve mostly posted meticulously researched articles and essays on this site, drawing on my background as a journalist. I’ve usually saved individual sightings or insights for my books, wrapped them into larger pieces to contextualize them, or posted them as quick snippets on social media. But I might mix in some of these smaller pieces and ideas here going forward, partly because I think readers find them useful but also because I’ve missed this community. Over the years, your own efforts, ideas and feedback have encouraged me to keep following this wild path. I don’t really know where to start again or where the path will lead next on my deacades-long rewilding journey. So I’ll just start with this: Thank you, and good morning. May your day be wildly peaceful too.