We haven’t been in the woods for many days, Lily and I. I soon saw the wisdom of that absence in the downed limbs and needled branches littering the fresh snow.
At that moment, as in a trite story where too many coincidences make a story a fairy tale, three deer crunched up in a copse some 30 yards away, heads high and alert, nervous tails quickly twitching.
So Lily and I left the tree and went to my favorite spot, a rock beside Yokum Brook where the water tumbles beneath my feet, and I reflect on the various complexities of life.
Once home, chagrinned, I glanced at my insect-shield clothing lying unworn in its basket and my bug spray unsprayed on the mudroom windowsill. I had been tromping full-tilt through a New England forest in the height of tick season with no protection whatsoever.
