All honor and reverence to the divine beauty of form! But let us love the other beauty too ... in the secret of deep human sympathy. 

Narrator, Adam Bede, George Eliot

Suzi stayed home, and Charlie and I hurried through the woods to the meadow to meet my friend and her dogs. Oh, but wasn’t Charlie disappointed when we met our friend and without her dogs? Poor Charlie, no play date, but at least a brisk walk with us in the woods and wetlands. On the way home I felt I really tuned into the spirit of being in the landscape, in the present moment, step by step, humming into such a sense of curiosity and wonder. Touching the trees and the leaves and dried grass and all the little somethings that are there in the woods for a big reason. It’s lovely to feel that present, and that presence. I walked home feeling very happy. I am so grateful, too, for Audible, and this wonderful recording of George Eliot’s Adam Bede, and I stay up late at night listening. What a storyteller she is. And I will return, I think, to re-read (listen to) Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch again soon. No yard work today as it was cooler and gray, and even poured in the afternoon and I lit a fire. And looked out to see the newly potted cheerful pansies having a wholesome drink.