How is it that one day I can be so immersed in the soothing spirit of the Caribbean climate and culture, sea views and soft sky, and the next wake back into winter, this ice brittled river, this frigid air?

There is no denying - how I'm freezing for quite a ways of my early morning walk and even momentarily consider turning back. The cold is bitter, but not my mood. Because I remember now, how much I love to find pictures in ice. 

And there is a woodpecker knocking in a tree I can't see - almost the first sound I hear. 

And much further on there are so many bunches of ducks in small families who spring surprised from land to the river at the sound of my coming.

Then, honking boisterously, sweeping over my head, the wild geese.

Is it possible I really was, for weeks, on an island in the Caribbean? Or was it all a dream?

What matters, today, is making my home in a place of belonging by trusting the beauty and mystery of nature, wherever I am, here and now.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017