Today begins, goodbye. Sunday we fly off for home. My final morning walk on my forest nature trail in Le Robert. I make it a long one - my longest yet. It's overcast, not hot, and not too wet from early morning rain. I have my pair of walking sticks, no slipping. Here is a seabird in flight from the sugar cane. Here is a bird of paradise, a flower. Here is a heart shaped leave and a dried pod. Here, the cloud covered mountains above the sea. Here, a pretty little goat in someone's yard.A passion flower busting open. The red pod, without it's seeds like bright white knocked out teeth (still have not learned this plant's name!) I will miss this remote and rugged solitary walk.

Talking is not writing, of course. But my husband, on the long car ride to our special beach, wants me, invited me to talk about my book, and this is a part of the writing process. I'm excited, inspired, to hear everything I have to say about what I have done, and what I'm doing, and what I want to do, and he's excited too, because he's an ideal listener: he lets me talk, he doesn't judge, he hears what I'm saying and he is storing it up for me and he will feed me the good food of this support in the moment I exactly need it, because he wants me to succeed and he believes in me and he is a support who will never let me stray from the course I've set, and he will always clear the path in every way he can so I can get there. 

How grateful, how luck I am, we flew here together, will fly home together, to our children, our dogs, our river, our woods. 

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2018