Daily Archives: March 21, 2019

Shadows of Spring

shadows of oak tree on path

“Bald Hill Shadows”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

Oregon doesn’t have a lot of bright sunshiny days when the trees are bare, so it took me a while to realize why I was so fascinated by these shadows: the old oak trees produce some rather startling shapes, shapes we rarely see on the ground because it’s usually cloudy for months as soon as the leaves fall!  When the sun does make its rare presence known, it looks as if the tree and its ‘shadow roots’ are mirror images of each other.  With any wind at all, it becomes a giant undulating octopus-like creature, or a winking many-eyed presence reminding us that we are not alone in this meadow.

Vernal equinox, here at last.  It’s been a long, difficult winter, a winter of slow healing.  Now every day brings another small flower, another reason to be glad, another promise of strawberries.  Right now I’m celebrating small victories, like no more daily hyperbaric oxygen therapy, no more awkward vacuum bandages on the surgical wound, maybe just one more surgery will finally close the radiation-damaged chest wall.  Onward and upward!