Puppy Rule #3: “Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.”

I was standing out on the deck this morning feeling the wind on my face. I could hear it in the trees before I could feel it. I remember what an old sailor said to me last summer. “If you want to learn to sail, you have to learn to feel which direction the wind is coming from all the time.” Today it’s coming from the North. I think about all the land the wind has passed over before it came to mine—Canadian pine and moose, then cities and flatlands and highways and rivers. It’s bringing a change to us. Our brief few days of spring temperatures are being chased away today by the north wind. I took a walk early this morning while it was still warm in the back fields and woods down to a cold stream. Some crows warned everything else that I was invading their territory. A hawk called out as it sailed overhead and settled in a tall tree. I scared out a rabbit and it scared me. I walked on carpets of moss and pine needle. I explored little trails made by deer, probably, and paths cleared by my husband. When I finally returned home I cut more pussy willow and took a picture of the purple crocus that just opened up today. Then I went back out just to feel the wind.