A Different Light

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

I’ve always loved the woods. Shaded and cool, quiet, and perfumed with nature, I breathe in a welcome retreat from the glare of daily life. Sunshine is great, mind you, but the lush, comforting enclave of the forest wraps its soul around you as a hug from Mother Nature herself.

My early years were spent in the north. The scents of rich, black earth or crispness of snow, studded with large rocks and thickly covered by a hardwood canopy was my definition of woodland perfection. Like an impressionist painting, the edges were feathered into a calming softness with dappled light.

My teen years were spent in southwest Florida. Seemingly seasonless, the sawgrass, cypress knees and Spanish moss changed little and didn’t offer the same respite. Dry, crackly, sharp and knobby were just not part of the textures of my beloved forest vibe.

My husband, a Florida native, fully embraced this different world as his utopia. Hot, dried prairies of grass, cabbage palm and “lighter pine” were his boyhood playground complete with the occasional rattlesnake. Not to mention swamps with mosquitoes and alligators. With jobs eventually transferring us north, he willingly embraced my forests though I had only grudgingly thought about accepting his.

Fast forward many years into a new season of life. On a trip to southwest Florida, my brother-in-law suggested an evening boardwalk stroll in the nearby Everglades. Certain of being devoured by mosquitoes while sweating profusely (but not wanting to prejudice my kids), I put on my best dolphin smile and prepared for major discomfort.

As we walked deeper into the swamp, my apprehensions soon melted into surprise, then delight. The magical light of near-dusk had softened the sharp edges and knobby knees. The air was temperate (thank God) and the place, mystical.

As bullfrogs croaked, birds talked, and the water burbled with feeding fish, I finally conceded to the captivating intricacy before me. While the perfume was different, this forest had the same cool, protective lushness of its northern cousins. It’s perfectly balanced ecosystem offered few, if any, biting insects. Teeming with life both visible and covert, this was the friendly, alluring world my husband was fortunate, I now realized, to have grown up with.

In contrast to the misconceptions of my youth, this place nudged at all my senses, now fulfilled. For the very first time I “saw” this place. This is the Florida few tourists seek out, but locals are privileged to savor. Beauty had now joined my swamp vocabulary as it had always been in my husband’s.

That sunset saunter forever changed me. All it took … was a different light.