a couple of years ago, not long before I moved to the northeast, my dad came home from a secondhand shop with a book for me:
I spent much of my childhood wanting to be a naturalist-of-sorts, and my dad and I often visited local parks and ponds as “safaris.” on other days, we tended to read and prattle over British literature together. my copy of The British Nature Book became a little capsule between us, a grounds for those memories. and that’s what it seems to have been for its first keeper, as well.
Harold’s birthday well-wishes are nudged forward with this, taped inside the front cover:
he prayeth best who loveth best all things, both great and small.
by the time Harold received this book, Britain was already involved in the Second World War. subheadings on beetles and wrens might not have seemed particularly urgent. but the note, and the book, establish that there is always something to love—even when the world seems frayed. “to look on something hard enough, that hard,” Charles Wright says, “is to change it.” and perhaps that change goes both ways.
lately I feel very drawn and wrung-out with worry. and, perhaps selfishly, I miss the freedom to grab my jacket and my duck boots and go out for an exploration of all the rocks and wooded things outside. if you need the reminder, as I do these days: the things you love will be waiting for you when all this is over. there’s still a lot to cherish in the world. (and when I can make it back to see my family, I’m going to dust off his walking stick and take my dad on an adventure.)
