Dearest Rose and Wayne,

I had to put my hands in the earth to center me, to still me after reading of your transitions. I went outside to this strip of wildness just beside the orchard. It had no real purpose — just a place for the wildflowers to grow and for butterflies to slip nectar in peace. Until today it had no purpose. Today I went again to this strip to feel your presence and found these words and images to celebrate and to mourn and to heal.

A Rufous-sided Towhee scolded me, no doubt because I came too close to her nest, imprudently made I think, on the ground in the grass. But she knows her truth and would not make a nest in the trees, safe from predators, even if the survival of her species depended on it. The eggs have only recently hatched. They are as fragile as life itself.

The Blue Flax that grows there, a survivor of the winter, led me to Bartholomew, the medieval herbalist, who described how linen was made. The flax was soaked in water, dried in the sun, then bound in "praty bundels" and afterward "knockyd, beten and brayd and carflyd, rodded and gnodded; ribbyd and heklyd, and at the last sponne." Sounds pretty much how I would imagine these past days have been for you both. Sounds pretty much like we're all flax at some point in this life.