Nature Lost, and Found

       How did it happen? How had I become such a "city-slicker" that I had come to hardly notice nature anymore? How had it become so extreme that a number of friends expressed shock at this month's resolution and asked if I even had a pair of real shoes to wear outdoors? How is it that when I took possession of the giant ficus for my living room, a neighbor felt I would be such an inept tree parent that he sent over his "plant guy" to advise me? How did it happen that in six years, I had hardly used the lovely courtyard that is a central part of my condominium complex? 

       It seems that for years, perhaps decades even, I had lost touch with nature entirely.

       Only one month later, it now feels so different.  I sit in the courtyard with Olympia nearly every day, watching the leaves move in the breeze. I visit the herb garden I planted, and note with satisfaction how healthy and green everything looks. I frequently sit on my deck, to drink a cup of coffee or read a few chapters of a book, or sometimes just to watch the sun set.  

       I am noticing things, too, that I had failed to notice before:  the softer green on the underside of leaves, the calls and colors of birds, the magnificent orange poppies growing in a nearby park. I find myself literally gasping with surprise as I see these things that had been there all along, but somehow had passed beyond my notice. 

       And every time I do, I stop...and I listen or gaze with wonder. It feels like something precious I had lost has somehow been found again.  And I am determined now never to let it slip away again.