I am out in the sucking, squelching mud, surrounded by everything green, vibrating frog song and incandescent fungus. So much water meeting sun.

Today the world is breaking my heart.

My gaze pointed upward, I follow a single Canada goose, flockless and singular in the sky which is hard and grey like slate. Its honk is frantic and echoing, its body ungainly, its masked face, a marvel, a mystery. I call out, extending myself, wishing desperately to accompany it, but remain tethered, earthbound. Why do I not have wings?

It is late in the day and I am curled in my sun-faded hammock writing these words to you.

When the world threatens to consume you and your mind becomes a place cruel and cold, remember the day that you stood under the Douglas fir in the late afternoon, the way the light was saturated a deep amber so thick it had weight.

Do you remember that day: the long light and the shadows?

We squeezed juice from the sun and sipped it like nectar.