I’ve alluded elsewhere in this blog to Frost’s “Reluctance” and in particular the lines, “When was it ever less than a treason / to go with the drift of things / and bow and accept / the end of a love or a season?”

Today, at seeing the beautiful moment of guarded red-pink in the unfurling devil’s club leaves, I have an answer for the old New England codgers (Frost and the one in me): Right now. 

The devil’s club transformation is a lovely and powerful mini-season in our woods, following the varied thrush, the skunk cabbage emergence, the pacific wren (and elswewhere the kingfisher), woodpecker, grouse, the early blueberry-pinkwhite-blossom-extravaganza, and fiddleheads. Next up: twisted stalk. In this moment–right now–as its leaves just begin to unfurl, the devil’s club offers the most amazing hue of red-pink, a flash of human-lip-like tenderness, before it unwraps to the sun-greedy summer green of the dominant forest floor foliage. Unfurling is the name of the game right now for the other big source of green at our level–ferns. 

The other night some friends circled up to show some love. I’ve been having trouble sleeping and am coping with some change in life which in turn, I think, opened me up to the past decades of… stuff. (Never good at timing, I seem to be a little late for a mid-life crisis.) But Tim B., one of my favorite optimists, opined, “No one is unscathed in this life.” We sat quietly on his beautiful observation deck, overlooking the Mendenhall Wetlands, and I think each in our own way found connection to one another through this simple end-of-day yield.

In the lead-up to the deck gathering, Merry was distracted by the possibility of losing dog Elsa, her 12-year companion to a tumor. When I stopped by to borrow some skis, I could smell the acrid aftermath of her forgetting her cast iron pan on heat. Later, we walked together and talked about the challenges of acceptance.

Our little backyard woods lessons are suggesting to me that it may be “less than a treason,” Robert, when we take the opposite tack of reluctance, and try to hold our hearts open to the speed of seasonal change in the north. We don’t so much “bow and accept” as hold on (or let go!) for dear life when we attend to the many mini-seasons that make up spring, grief, love, connection. I’m never ready for the speed of spring. Nor am I ever ready for a love to end, if that’s what actually happens. But somehow tuning into the micro-seasons makes acceptance more active for me, with lots of places to try and fail, and try again, at least. Ready or not, the red-pink will explode into green, the twisted stalk will untwist and yield perfect translucent berries.

When I circled back to ask Merry about Elsa, the news was good. The vet thinks he excised all of the cancer. About her pan, she replied, “I think we need to season and season for a few seasons.”

Don’t we all?

Morning’s silent snow
Reveals last night's spider plan
Hope comes too soon. 

Early blueberry
Tender stars of earth-fired hope
Blossom us awake.

There is news in the neighborhood. Spring again. Early blueberry is blossoming. Skunk cabbage is poking up for a peek. It won’t be long before devil’s club blossoms unfold their guarded pink. I’m trying to get my heart and spirits to rise to the occasion. That is never a problem for the heroine of our little lack of a story here.

(Above…climbing gear in the geocache tree [left], and our intrepid climber [right].)

The first part of the news was a little bit funny. A neighbor, Michelle, discovered climbing gear set in the trunk of Tim’s geocache tree… maybe the largest of the trees on our trail route. Kurt, who keeps the trail passable for all of us with chainsaw and endless energy, set up a game cam to try to identify the “climber.” The image he got was of an older man with a beer belly, gray hair, and stubble — a doctor known to many in town. He was chastened by the neighborly concern and removed the gear voluntarily, but not before Michelle reached out to Richard Cartsensen, local genius, and Landmark Tree project coordinator.

Carstensen sent some communication suggesting that a stand of trees (based on LDIR imagery, whatever that is) up the hill from the Big Tree Trail may in fact be the most massive in Southeast Alaska. What this means for the safety or notoriety of our little center of the universe remains to be seen.

Note the “extraordinarily dense stand of spruces more than 200′ high (in red).” (Carstensen.)

Meanwhile, though, the conversation has reinforced how precious our backyard forest is to many of us. And so, I’m inspired by this special place to reopen the blog for occasional offloading of words and thoughts and hopes, I guess. Cedar sighs a big “whatever” and begins to settle in until the next walk.