Nature Soothes

It's been rough on us not being able to go to the Gulf and swim in the normally healing waters of ocean and  sound.  I have been so grateful for the pool over at my father's condominium.  Two grandkids have learned to swim in that pool.  The landscape around the pool has changed with past hurricanes.  It used to have so many tall pine trees that there was barely space to walk between them.  Now, they are far and few between but still offer an ample canopy surrounding the pool.  Liberty loves to go fairly often and I have taken to floating on my back in the pool, my neck anchoring me to the side while I gaze up into the azure sky.  How often do we lie on our backs and look at the sky anymore?  Probably rarely.  Well, I have been practicing this sky gazing more and more and I cannot tell you the joy it has brought to me.  The tops of the trees, rich with squirrel nests and large, fat crows frame the view.   The overwhelming vastness of the sky with the almost blindingly-white passing clouds reminds me of the magnificence of my planet on which I ride.  Sometimes you can spy the outline of a tiny jet liner way up tracking silently across the sky.  When it's quiet (in other words, no one comes out with their obnoxious radio), you can hear the knocking of woodpeckers, the cawing of the crows, and the faint rustling of leaves.  Since Liberty learned to swim, it has been like heaven for me.  I can relax in the water now.  I can sit in a chair if I feel like it while he rides his purple noodle like a sea  horse around the pool and regularly rearranges the buoys at the deep water line.  But I am grateful mostly I believe for just the opportunity to be outside every day if we like, to swim in the water if we choose, especially in this heat wave, and to be nurtured by the natural world.  Now, that is a healing balm.