I feel like the lake is actively welcoming me back. I walked halfway around it this evening, making some zen moments videos like this one.
I kept finding wishing stones. One after another, after another. I ended up with six. Normal is finding one per walk around the whole lake.
I’d take them down to the lake edge to rinse them, and I’d find something else, like three perfect shells under a bush halfway up the bank. I never find shells here.
Or I’d find a recently dropped corvid feather. I tried to find one for a year and a half before I found one here. (This was before all the Steller’s Jay feathers last summer.)
I felt drawn to a stand of pine trees, near my chosen turnaround point. I walked up the hill to them, touched the bark and soft new growth, and said, “I’m here. I’ve needed to be here, and now I’m here.” And then just started sobbing with my face against this giant pine.
I didn’t know I needed to cry. I didn’t expect it at all, and I certainly didn’t expect a pine tree to be the instrument of catharsis. But it helped.
I went back to the lodge with feathers tied on my bag full of wishing stones, and a handful of shells. I heard something strange behind me, and turned around to four deer crossing the road I’d just walked.
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.