samanthabryant: feeling purple (Default)
#smileaday Lots of sunshine.

I got two walks in the sunlit woods today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, one with my husband and one with one of my daughters (both with the dog). The water sparkled in the light and I felt lit from within. Some time in the outdoors is so important to my peace of mind.

Good light, good company, good places.

my daughter and dog by the river

samanthabryant: feeling purple (Default)
my shoe and the creek#smileaday Sitting by running water.

The thing I miss most about living in Alaska is wilderness. Being able to go someplace where there aren't any other people and all you can hear are the sounds of nature. It used to melt the stress off of me. I didn't know how much I craved it until I came back to the 48 and it got so much harder to get.

In my part of North Carolina, I can get out into the woods pretty easily, and I can usually even get to be alone or nearly alone there. But I can hear the highway everywhere, and that's a mood killer.

I've found one natural place in my town though, where I can't hear the highway. It's at the bottom of a woods loop, alongside a wide creek. If I go sit by the water there, the water itself is loud enough to mask the residual buzz of tires on asphalt.

I went there today and sat on a downed tree letting the water wash my troubled thoughts downstream. It was perfect.
samanthabryant: feeling purple (Default)
buttercups by the creek#smileaday My doggo's joy on a walk.

The doggo and I went to Riverwalk today. It's our favorite walk when it's been raining because it's paved, but still feels like a wooded path.

There are two paths you can walk: a loop that takes you alongside the river and towards a nearby park and a longer path that take you the other way alongside the river and eventually hooks up with other walking trails.

Generally, we take the loop because it's short enough to do on a time crunch, but today, when we got to the "choose your direction" moment, he stopped and looked back at me and tugged towards the longer path. I looked at those puppy eyes and instantly caved. I said, "Okay, bud-bud, take me to the river."

You never saw such a joyous dog! (no photographic evidence of joyous dog because a tail wagging that fast cannot be captured by a mere cellphone camera).
samanthabryant: feeling purple (Default)
#smileaday Spring flowers.

Spring makes my head hurt (allergies), but it makes my heart happy. The hyacinths in my garden bed are in full bloom today.
hyacinth

samanthabryant: feeling purple (Default)
 #smile a day False spring.
 
The dog and I made it out for a walk in daylight again today. That's getting easier to do, because daylight is lasting a bit longer. We saw daffodils today. I feel bad for the daffodils, because they're probably going to die quickly since they bloomed before it's really spring, but they also made me very happy with their burst of yellow in the winter-browned woods. 

daffodils in false spring
samanthabryant: feeling purple (Default)
 #smileaday Bamboo. 
 
I have always liked bamboo. It appeals to my eye and nose. I can remember seeing it at the Cincinnati Zoo when I was a kid, inside some of the animal enclosures. It seemed exotic to me, so very very jungly. 
 
When I moved to North Carolina, I was surprised to find small stands of it here and there. There's a lovely stand of it at Duke Gardens, not far from where my husband and I got married. That's where I found out that it feels nice, too, if you run your hands down the stalks. 
 
It's my understand that you're not allowed to plant it, because its an invasive species, but obviously some has made it into my little town, because here I am, on my walk today, standing among the shoots and trees. I felt so happy just being there. Maybe I'm secretly a panda. 

 
me standing beside bamboo

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Samantha J Bryant

March 2019

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