Today is an exciting day because I am producing my annual Our Voices Festival of women playwrights, and I start my walk with butterflies. Butterflies in my stomach mean I'm feeling excited (as opposed to flying squirrels in my stomach which means I'm anxious and full of dread.) And so I walk and I breathe, breathe deeply, move my limbs, right, left, right left, look at the mushrooms sprouting everywhere and the all kinds of berries and the goldenrod and the cattails and the dogs are meeting a new friend but they follow me when I call here's a cookie, Charlie and Suzi, and I keep breathing, deeply, and halfway across the trestle to catch a sunbeam through the trees lighting the river under the low clouds. Breathing into my belly settles the butterflies. They rest. My worry mind rests. Steady as she goes. I'm going to have a great festival, the best ever.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017