Another door opened, one more. Do I invite you in? Here I am, with husband & son & dogs & cats, in a tiny cabin in the hills, deep in an oak forest glade. I look out the window & see prominent rocks rounded by weather & formed, some of them, by human hands a hundred or a thousand years ago. There are enormous oaks, and a few cedars, creating a wonderfully secluded hilltop retreat. If I look up into the birdsong I can follow the almost-touching silhouettes of graceful tree branches, glimpse the blue sky beyond. I can also see my little lush garden, peas & lettuce & corn, carrots D. tears out with his hands to eat the sweet orange meat, & beets, peppers, chard, beans, squash, potatoes, basil, parsley. We found toads under some logs, burrowed deep & waiting for the night to begin their creeping prowls through the grass, and put two as big as my fist into the deep lush green tangle of peas inside the garden fence. The liquid calls of quail, meadowlarks, grosbeaks, robins, the burr of hummingbirds and blackbirds, the screech of hawks and the rocking rough notes of the ravens, these sounds thrill my ears.

I love living in a wilder place, 4 miles from a small town, back & in on a dusty dirt road. It is hot here in the California foothills, but not as hot as it is in the San Juaquin Valley just west of us. I can hear the click of the hot-bugs over the sound of the swamp cooler. Robins are patrolling the grass where I dumped out the water from D's little pool. It is a hot-day drowsy naptime.

There is so much to write I'm not sure where to start. But this is a start, better than some. I've only grumped out loud thrice. These days are worth remembering, and so I see it as my duty to record them as best as possible. The trees listen, kindly sighing, but the memory goes drifting into the wind like their seeds. The rocks remember but will never tell. And the earth is intent only upon bringing forth life, a sweet companion but single-minded as a new mother. So here I sit, listening to the goldfinches and locusts, and consider the quiet of mid-afternoon in a place I think might be close to Paradise.