FEELING HAPPY IS - June 9, 2017

The smell of sun-warmed cedar,

The fishy odour of Lake Superior, 

Sun on my bare skin,

Breezes warm over my shoulders,

Cool wind whisking away the blackflies.

Sun sparkling on water,

The smell of fresh mown grass,

The lilac scent of flowering wild fruit trees,

The clean washed air after a rain,

Tangy scent of balsam poplar pitch .

The swathes of summer blue and spring green stretching away across Nipigon Bay from Kama Hill,

The blue-green water of Lake Superior lapping the bald outcrops of rosy feldspar at Rossport.

Soft winds soughing in new leaves,

Lapping of wavelets on the shore,

White noise of surf as it breaks on the beach,

Choruses of chirping frogs in evening.

The hum of tires as the miles fall away,

The steady heartbeat of the little dog tucked under my arm,

A boyish grin from my human traveling companion.

The waxy glow of a 3/4 moon on the water,

Waves of colored sheet lightning as it pulses across the western horizon.

A very young fawn darting across the road to stand splay-legged as its mother joins it,

The mink-brown coat and velvet covered antlers of a healthy bull moose,

A black bear foraging among the dandelions at the roadside.

A bald eagle soaring across the palisade cliffs near Schreiber,

The whir of tiny wings as a ruby-throated hummingbird darts past to a feeder.

Yellow and black winged zebra swallowtail butterflies gamboling about us in the dunes,

Our laughter as Manny leaps high to catch a butterfly only to somersault back to the sand in a flop,

Our relief to find in the aftermath of Manny's pounce on a group of butterflies drinking in a depression in the sand, that the one creature who didn't escape was only half buried in sand, not dead.

The chill of spring temperature water after walking on sun-warmed sand,

The freedom to wander barefoot through sawgrass, sand and surf,

A space in time where hunger and eating take a back seat to the rewards of all the other senses.

So happy!